nought else but the Port of Salvation which whether it were formerly in the heavens above an apud Inferos or in the places under the earth I determine not Yea I had rather be still ignorant of it then rashly to pronounce of that which I finde not expressed in the Scripture In these things as I will not be too curious so neither will I define any thing therein nor will I contend with any man about this matter It shall suffice me to understand and confess that the godly of the Old Testament were in a certain place of rest and not in torments before the Ascension of Christ although I know not what nor where it was So he with great both piety and Christian modesty and with him I shut up this dispute CHAP. IX The Doctrine of the Church of England touching Christs descent into Hell asserted from all contrary opinions which are here examined and disproved THus have we seen the doctrine of the Primitive Church touching the Article of Christs descent into hell so much disputed or indeed rather quarrelled in these later times Let us next look upon the Doctrine of of this Church of England which in this point as in all the rest which are in controversie doth tread exactly in the steps of most pure Antiquity And if we search into the publick monuments and records thereof we shall finde this doctrine of Christs local descent into hell to have been retained and established amongst many other Catholick verities ever since the first beginning of her Reformation For in the Synod of the year 1552. being the fourth year of King Edward the sixt it was declared and averred for the publick doctrine of this Church to be embraced by all the members of the same that the body of Christ until his Resurrection lay in the grave but that his soul being breathed out was with the spirits in prison or hell and preached to them as the place of Peter doth witness saying For Christ also hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but quickned by the Spirit By which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison c. 1 Pet. 3.18 19. But being the Articles of that year were set out in Latine take them according as they stand in the Original Nam corpus usque ad Resurrectionem in sepulchro jacuit Spiritus ab illo emissus cum spiritibus qui in Carcere sive in Inferno detinebantur fuit illisque praedicavit ut testatur Petri locus c. So also in the year 1562. When Q. Elizabeth was somewhat setled in her state she caused her Clergy to be called together in a Synodical way to the intent they might agree upon a Body or Book of Articles for the avoiding of diversities of opinions and for the establishing of consent touching true Religion Who being met and having agreed upon the two first Articles touching Faith in the holy Trinity and the Word or Son of God which was made very man and having declared in this second that Christ who is very God and very man did truly suffer and was crucified dead and buryed to reconcile us to his Father addes for the title of the third of the going down of Christ into hell Which being an entire Article of it self runs thus in terminis viz. As Christ dyed for us and was buried so also it is to be believed that he went down into hell Which Article with the rest being publickly agreed upon and passed in the Convocations of both Provinces and confirmed under the broad Seal as the law required became the publick authorized Doctrine of this Church of England and afterwards received such countenance in the high Court of Parliament that there was a statute made unto this purpose that all who were to be admitted unto any Benefice with cure of souls or unto any holy Orders should publickly subscribe the same in the presence of the Bishop or Ordinary The like care was also taken after for subscribing to it by all such who were matriculated in either of the Universities or admitted into any Colledge or Hall or to any Academical degree whatsoever and so it stands unto this day confirmed and countenanced by as high and great authority aâ— the power of the Prince the Canons of the Church and the Sanctions of the Civil State can give it Nor stands it only on Record in the Book of Articles but is thus touched in the Book of Homilies specified and approved of for godly and wholesome Doctrine by those Articles and ratified and confirmed together with them Thus hath his Resurrection saith the Homilie wrought for us life and and righteousness He passed through death and hell to the intent to put us in good hope that by his strength we shall do the same He paid the ransome of sin that it should not be laid to our charge He destroyed the Devil and all his tyranny and openly triumphed over him and took away from him all his captives and hath raised and set them with himself among the heavenly Citizens above So far the Homily There was also published in the beginning of the said Queens Reign a Catechisme writ in Latine by Mr. Alexander Nowel Dean of Pauls and publickly authorized to be taught in all the Grammar Schooles of this kingdome though not by such a sacred and supreme authority as the books of Articles and Homilies had been before in which the doctrine of Christs descent into hell is thus delivered viz. That as Christs body was laid in the Bowels of the earth so his soul separated from his body descended ad inferos to hell and with all the force and efficacie of his death so pierced unto the dead atque inferos adeo ipsos and even to the spirits in hell that the souls of the unfaithful perceived the condemnation of their infidelity to be most sharp and just ipseque inferorum Princeps Satan and Satan himself the Prince of hell saw all the power of his tyranny and of darknesse to be weakned broken and destroyed and contrariwise the dead who whilest they lived believed in Christ understood the work of their Redemption to be performed and felt the fruit and force thereof with a most sweet and certain comfort So that the doctrine of Christs descent into hell being thus positively delivered in the Articles and Homilies and Catechisme publickly authorized to be taught in Schools and being thus solemnly confirmed and countenanced both by Laws and Canons and by the subscriptions of all the Clergie and other learned men of this Realm of England how great must we conceive the impudence to be of the Romish Gagger who charged this upon this Church that we denie the descent of Christ into hell Nor do I wonder lesse at the improvidence of those who were then in authority in licensing Mr. Rogers comment on this Book
all them that are sanctified Blotting out the hand-writing of Ordinances which was against us and nailed it to his cross for ever to the end that being mindful of the price wherewith we were bought and of the enemies from whom we were delivered by him We might glorifie God both in our bodies and our souls and serve the Lord in righteousness and holiness all the days of our lives For if the blood of Bulls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctified to the purifying of the flesh in the time of the Mosaical Ordinances How much more shall the Blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God in the time of the Gospel This is the constant tenor of the Word of God touching remission of our sins by the Blood of Christ. And unto this we might here adde the consonant suffrages and consent of the antient Fathers If the addition of their Testimonies where the authority of the Scripture is so clear and evident might not be thought a thing unnecessary Suffice it that all of them from the first to the last ascribe the forgiveness of our sins to the death of Christ as to the meritorious cause thereof though unto God the Father as the principal Agent who challengeth to himself the power of forgiving sins as his own peculiar and prerogative Isai. 43.25 Peculiar to himself as his own prerogative in direct power essential and connatural to him but yet communicated by him to his Son CHRIST IESUS whilest he was conversant here on Earth who took upon himself the power of forgiving sins as part of that power which was given him both in Heaven and Earth Which as he exercised himself when he lived amongst us so at his going hence he left it as a standing Treasury to his holy Church to be distributed and dispensed by the Ministers of it according to the exigencies and necessities of particular persons For this we finde done by him as a matter of fact and after challenged by the Apostles as a matter of right belonging to them and to their successors in the Ministration First For the matter of fact it is plain and evident not onely by giving to St. Peter for himself and them the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven annexing thereunto this promise That whatsoever he did binde on Earth should be bound in Heaven and whatsoever he did loose on Earth should be loosed in Heaven But saying to them all expresly Receive the Holy Ghost Whose sins soever ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained And as it was thus given them in the way of fact so was it after challenged by them in the way of right St. Paul affirming in plain terms That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself by not imputing their trespasses unto them but that the Ministery of this reconciliation was committed unto him and others whom Christ had honored with the title of his Ambassadors and Legates here upon the Earth Now as the state of man is twofold in regard of sin so is the Ministery of reconciliation twofold also in regard of man As he is tainted with the guilt of original sinfulness the Sacrament of Baptism is to be applied the Laver of Regeneration by which a man is born again of water and the Holy Ghost Iohn 3.5 As he lies under the burden of his actual sins the Preaching of the Word is the proper Physick to work him to repentance and newness of life that on confession of his sins he may receive the benefit of absolution Be it known unto you saith St. Paul that through this man CHRIST IESUS is preached unto you remission of sins and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses And first for Baptism It is not onely a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christian men are discerned from others which be not Christned as some Anabaptists falsly taught but it is also a sign of regeneration or new birth whereby as by an instrument they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church the promises of the forgiveness of sin and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed Faith is confirmed and Grace increased by vertue of Prayer unto God This is the publick Doctrine of the Church of England delivered in the authorised Book of Articles Anno 1562. In which lest any should object as Dr. Harding did against Bishop Iewel That we make Baptism to be nothing but a sign of regeneration and that we dare not say as the Catholick Church teacheth according to the holy Scriptures That in and by Baptism sins are fully and truly remitted and put away We will reply with the said most Reverend and Learned Prelate a man who very well understood the Churches meaning That we confess and have ever taught that in the Sacrament of Baptism by the death and Blood of Christ is given remission of all manner of sins and that not in half or in part or by way of imagination and fancy but full whole and perfect of all together and that if any man affirm that Baptism giveth not full remission of sins it is no part nor portion of our Doctrine To the same effect also saith judicious Hooker Baptism is a Sacrament which God hath instituted in his Church to the end That they which receive the same might thereby be incorporated into Christ and so through his most precious merit obtain as well that saving grace of imputation which taketh away all former guiltiness and also that infused divine vertue of the Holy Ghost which giveth to the powers of the soul the first dispositions towards future newness of life But because these were private men neither of which for ought appears had any hand in the first setting out of the Book of Articles which was in the reign of King Edward the Sixth though Bishop Iewel had in the second Edition when they were reviewed and published in Queen Elizabeths time let us consult the Book of Homilies made and set out by those who composed the Articles And there we finde that by Gods mercy and the vertue of that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour CHRIST IESUS the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross we do obtain Gods grace and remission as well of our original sin in Baptism as of all actual sin committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly unto him again Which doctrine of the Church of England as it is consonant to the Word of God in holy Scripture so is it also most agreeable to the common and received judgment of pure Antiquity For in the Scripture it is said
this blessed Spirit on the particular Members of his Congregation that is to say the joyning of the Saints together in an holy Communion the free remission of our sins in this present life resurrection of the body after death and the uniting again of Soul and Body unto life eternal This is the sum and method of the following Articles and these we shall pursue in their order beginning first with that of the Holy Ghost Whose gracious assistance I implore to guide me in the waies of Truth that so the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart may be alwayes acceptable in the sight of God the Lord my strength and my Redeemer But because the word or notion of the Holy Ghost is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word of various signification in the Book of God we will first look upon it in those significations and then conclude on that which is chiefly pertinent to the intent and purpose of the present Article For certainly the Orators Rule is both good and useful viz. Prius dividenda antequam definienda sit oratio That we must first distinguish of the Termes in all Propositions before we come unto a positive definition of them According to which Rule if we search the Scripture we shall there find that the Holy Ghost is first taken personaliter or essentialiter for the third person in the Oeconomie of the glorious Trinity We find him in this sense in the incarnation of our Lord and Saviour as the principal Agent in that Work The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee Luk. 1.35 And in his Baptism descending on him like a Dove to fit him and prepare him for the Prophetical Office he was then to exercise And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a Dove upon him Luk. 3.22 From which descent St. Peter telleth us that he was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power and that from thenceforth he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed with the Devil In the next place the Holy Ghost is used in Scripture to signifie the Gifts and Graces of the holy Spirit as in Act. 2. where it is said of the Apostles that they were all filled with the holy Ghost ver 4. not with his essence or his person but with the impressions of the Spirit the Gifts and Graces of the Holy Ghost such as the Gift of Tongues mentioned in the following words The Gift of the Holy Ghost as it is called expresly Ver. 38. Thus read we also that the holy Ghost was given by the hands of Peter Act. 8.17 18. And by the hands of Paul Act. 19.6 In which we read that when Paul had laid his hands upon them the Holy Ghost came on them and they spoke with tongues and Prophesied which last words are a commentary upon those before and shew that by the holy Ghost which did come upon them is meant the Gift of Tongues and the power of Prophecying both which the holy Ghost then conferred upon them And lastly it is taken not onely for the ability of doing Miracles as speaking with strange Tongues Prophecying curing of Diseases and the like to these but for the Authority and Power which in the Church is given to some certain men to be Ministers of holy things to the rest of the people As when Christ breathed on his Apostles and said unto them Receive the holy Ghost that is to say Receive ye an holy and spiritual power over the soules of men a part whereof consisteth in the remitting and retaining of sins mentioned in the words next following and serving as a Comment to explaine the former In which respect the Holy Ghost said unto certain of the Elders in the Church of Antioch Segregate mihi Barnabam Saulum Separate unto me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them Act. 13.2 It is the Holy Ghost which cals it is his work to which they were called and therefore separate mihi separate to me may not unfitly be expounded to my Work and Ministery and consequently to the authority and power which belongs unto it Which being premised the meaning of the Article will in briefe be this That we beleeve not onely that there is such a person as the Holy Ghost in the Oeconomy of the blessed Trinity though that be principally intended but that he doth so distribute and dispose of his Gifts and Graces as most conduceth to the edification of the Church of Christ. But this I cannot couch in a clearer way as to the sense and doctrine of the Church of England than in the words of Bishop Iewel who doth thus expresse it Credimus spiritum sanctum qui est tertia persona in sacra Triadi illum verum esse Deum c. i. e. we beleeve that the Holy Ghost who is the Third Person in the holy Trinity is very God not made nor created nor begotten but proceeding both from the Father and the Son by an unspeakable means and unknowne to man and that it is his property to mollifie and soften mans heart when he is once received thereinto either by the wholesome Preaching of the Gospel or by any other way that he doth give men light and guide them to the knowledge of God to the wayes of truth to newnesse of life and to everlasting hope of salvation This being the sum of that which is to be beleeved of the Holy Ghost both for his Person and his Office we will first look upon his Person on his Property or Office afterwards And yet before we come unto his Person I mean his Nature and his Essence We will first look a little on the quid Nominis the name by which he is expressed in the Book of God In the Original he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a double Article as Luk. 3.22 in Latine Spiritus sanctus or the Holy Spirit but generally in our English Idiom the Holy Ghost The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to breath and is the same with the Latine Spiro from whence comes Spiritus or the Spirit a name not given as I suppose because he doth proceed from the Father or the Son or both in the way of breathing though Christ be said to breath upon his Apostles when he said receive the Holy Ghost but because the breath being in it selfe an incorporeal substance and that which is the great preservative of all living creatures it got the name first of Spiritus vitae we read it in our English the breath of life Gen. 11.7 and afterwards came to be the name of all unbodyed incorporeal essences For thus is God said to be a Spirit God is a Spirit Ioh. 4.24 The Angels are called Ministring Spirits Heb. 1.14 the Soule of man is called his Spirit let us cleanse our selves saith the Apostle from all filthiness both of flesh and Spirit that is of the body and
did eat drink and sit down together at the self-same Table And therefore unto these and such Texts as these which speak of eating and drinking or sitting down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of Heaven there cannot be given a better answer than that which Christ returned to the captious Saduces viz. That in the Kingdom of Heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the Angels of God And if they are as the Angels of God there shall be neither eating nor drinking then we are sure of that Nor is it like that glorified and immortal Bodies alimoniis terrenis sustentanda sint can be sustained with corruptible and earthly food For as Ierom very well inferreth Vbi cibus sequuntur morbi c. Where there is meat there will be sickness where there is sickness death will follow and after that another Resurrection is to be expected and then another thousand years to be added to that Et sic de coeteris As for those passages alleged from the Revelation if they be literally understood they seem to be expresly for the Millenarians but then withal it draweth after it such inconsequences as plainly overthrow their whole foundation For I hope they will provide themselves of a better Supper Than to eat the flesh of Kings and the flesh of Captains and the flesh of Mighty-men and the flesh of Horses and of them that sit on them and the flesh of all men both bond and free and small and great Such chear and such an earthly paradise as they seem to dream of will agree but ill I must desire to be excused for calling it a Dream of an earthly paradise for I am verily perswaded that it is no other It hangs upon such doubtful proofs and is so differently reported by the Patrons of it that never sick-mans dream was more incoherent Which that we may the better see and see withal how every one added somewhat of his own unto it according as the strength or weakness of his fancy led him I shall put down a memorable passage of Gennadius which most fully speaks it In divinis repromissionibus nihil terrenum vel transitorium expectamus sicut Melitani sperant Non nuptiarum copulam sicut Cerinthus Marcus delirant Non quod ad cibum vel ad potum pertinet sicut Papiae Autori Irenaeus Tertullianus Lactantius acquiescunt Neque per mille Annos Resurrectionem regnum Christi in terra futurum Sanctos cum illo in deliciis regnaturos speramus sicut Nepos docuit qui primam justorum Resurrectionem secundam impiorum confinxit By which we see that Melito did fancy onely a transitory and earthly Kingdom Cerinthus and Marcus introduced the use of the marriage-bed Papias seemed to be content with eating and drinking and Nepos found out the distinction to make all compleat between the first and second Resurrection making the first to be onely of the just and righteous the second of the wicked and impenitent sinner after the end or expiration of the thousand years This is the Genealogie or Pedigree of this Opinion which hath of late begun to revive among us and findes not onely many followers but some Champions also Whom I desire more seriously to consider in their better thoughts whether this their supposed Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour commended to the world by some Antient Writers gave not the first hint unto Mahomets Paradise In which he promiseth to those who observe his Law most delicious dwellings adorned with flowery Fields watered with Chrystalline Rivers and beautified with Trees of Gold under whose comfortable shade they shall spend their time with amorous Virgins and be possessed of all voluptuous delights which to a sensual minded-man are the greatest happiness I know that some of late times and of eminent note have given us this opinion in a better dress delivering upon probable grounds That before the end of the world there shall be a time in which the Church of Christ shall flourish for a thousand years in greater purity and power both for faith and manners and in more outward lustre and external glory than hitherto it hath done in all former ages Coelius Secundus Curio in his Book De Amplitudine Regni Dei P. Cunaeus in that De Repub. Iudaeorum Du Moulin in his Christian Combat Piscator in his Comment on the Revelation Alstedius in a Tract of his called Diatribe de mille Annis Apocalypticis and divers others not inferior unto them for parts and learning have declared for it And for my part I see no danger in assenting to it If this will satisfie the Millenarians they shall take me with them but if they stand too stifly to their former tendries and look not for this flourishing time of the Gospel till the Resurrection of the just be first accomplished and then expect to have their part and portion in the pleasures of it I must then leave them to themselves The method of my Creed doth perswade me otherwise which from the Resurrection of the Body leads me on immediately unto the joys and glories of eternal everlasting life to which now I hasten I know it doth much trouble many pious and sober men to finde the force and efficacy of our Saviours Argument in the place foregoing which seems more plainly to assert the Immortality of the Soul than the Resurrection of the Body the bodies of Abraham Isaac and Iacob being dissolved into dust in the time of Moses though their souls were living with their God Concerning which we are to know 1. That the Sadduces by whom this Question was propounded did not alone deny the Resurrection of the dead but so as to affirm withal Animas cum corporibus extingui That the Soul it self did also perish with the body as Iosephus tells us They said that there was neither Angel nor Spirit as St. Luke says of them 2. That though the Pharisees who were their opposite faction in the latter end of the Iewish state did grant a Resurrection or Reviviscency from the dead yet was it after such an Animal and Carnal sense in eating drinking and conversing with women In qua cibo potu opus esset conjugia rursum jungerentur c. saith my Author of them as the Mahometans now dream of in their sensual paradise And against this absurd opinion as indeed it was the Sadduces had found out that Argument about a woman which had or might have had seven Husbands by the Law of Moses whose writings onely they received as Canonical Scripture desiring to be satisfied in their curiosity to which of the seven she should be wife at the Resurrection Which when the Pharisees could not answer as keeping to those principles indeed they could not they thought to put our Saviour to it at the self-same weapon But they found there another manner of Spirit than what had spoken to them by and
also as before was shown Which if it may not be admitted in the Articles of the Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints with the rest that follow I see no cause why it should be admitted in the front of all which was to be the leading Case unto all the rest But other men of higher mark have seen this before me who give no other sense theâ—eof in this place of the Creed then to believe that there is one only eternal God the Maker of all things For thus the Book entituled Pastor and commonly ascribed to Hermes St. Pauls scholar Ante omnia unum credere Deum esse qui condidit omnia i. e. Before all other things believe that there is one God who made all things Origen thus Primum credendus est Deus qui omnia creavit i. e. In the first place we must believe that there is a God by whom all things were created S. Hilary of Poyctiers thus In absoluto nobis facilis est aeternitas Iesum Christum a mortuis suscitatum credere i.e. Eternity is prepared for us and made easie to us if we believe that Christ is risen from the dead And finally thus Charles the Great in the Creed published in his name but made by the most learned men which those times afforded Praedicandum est omnibus ut credant Patrem Filium Spiritum sanctum unum esse Deum omnipotentem i. e. the Gospel must be preached to all men that they may know that the Father Son and holy Ghost is one God Almighty Which resolution and authority of the antient Fathers is built no doubt upon the dictate and determination of S Paul himself who did thus lead the way unto them viz. He that câ—meth to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Where the first Article of the Creed I believe in God is thus expounded and no otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I believe that God is that there is a God According to which Exposition of the blessed Apostle our Reverend Iewell publishing the Apology and Confession of the Church of England did declare it thus We believe that there is one certain Nature and Divine power which we call GOD c. and that the same one God hath created Heaven and Earth and all things contained under Heaven We believe that Iesus Christ the only Son of the Eternal Father when the fulness of time was come did take of that blessed and pure Virgin both flesh and all the nature of man c. that for our sakes he died and was buried descended into Hell c. We believe that the holy Ghost is very God c. and that it is his property to mollifie and soften the hardness of mens hearts when he is once received thereunto c. We believe that there is one Church of God and that the same is not shut up as in times past amongst the Iews into some one corner or Kingdom but that it is Catholick and Universal and dispersed throughout the whole world c. and that this Church is the Kingdom the Body and the Spouse of CHRIST c. To conclude we believe that this our self same flesh wherein we live although it dye and come to dust yet at the last shall return again to life by the means of Christs Spirit which dwelleth in us c. and that we through him shall enjoy everlasting life and shall for ever be with him in glory Which consonancy of expression being so agreeable to that observed before by the antient Fathers and that observed before by the antient Fathers so consonant unto the expression of S. Paul the Apostle is the last reason which I have for this resolution that the so much applauded explication of the phrase in Deum credere is not to be admitted in this place of the Creâ—d And this shall also serve for a justification of that gloss or Commentary which I have given on this first Article viz. that to believe in God the Father Almighty is only to believe that there is one Immortal and Eternal Spirit of great both Majesty and Power which we call GOD and that this God is the Father Almighty the Father both of IESVS CHRIST and of all mankinde who as a Father hath not only brought us into the world but hath provided us of all things necessary both for body and soul protecting us by his mighty power and governing us and our affairs by his infinite wisdome But against this there may be some objections made which must first be answered before we come unto the further explication of this Article For if Faith be no other then a firm assent to supernatural truths revealed the Reprobate as they call them may be said to have faith which yet is reckoned in the Scripture as a peculiar gift of God unto his Elect which is therefore called Fides electorum or the Faith of the Elect Tit. 1.1 2. If to believe in God the Father Almighty and in IESVS CHRIST his only Son c. be only to believe that there is a God and that all those things are most undoubtedly true and certain which be affirmed of IESVS CHRIST in the holy Scripture the Devil may be reckoned for a true believer S. Iames assuring us of this that the Devils do believe and tremble Iam. 2.19 And 3. if the definition and the explication before delivered be allowed for currant it will quite overthrow the received distinction of Faith into Historical temporary saving or justifying faith and the faith of Miracles so generally embraced in the Protestant Schools This is the sum of those objections which I conceive most likely to be made against me but such as may be answered without very great difficulty For that the Reprobate as they call them may have Faith in CHRIST is evident by many instances and texts of Scripture Of Simon Magus it is written in the Book of the Acts that he believed and was baptized and continued with Philip the Evangelist Adhaerebat Philippo saith the Vulgar he stuck so fast unto him that he would not leave him Ask Calvin what he thinks of this faith of Simons and he will tell you Majestate Evangelii victum vitae salutis authorem Christum agnovisse ita ut libenter illi nomen daret that being vanquished by the power and Majesty of the Gospel of Christ he did acknowledge him to be the Author of salvation and eternal life and gladly was inrolled amongst his Disciples And whereas some had taught and published amongst other things that Simon never did believe but counterfeited a belief for his private ends Calvin doth readily declare his dislike thereof acknowledging this faith of Simons to be true and real though but only temporarie Non tamen multis assentior qui simulasse duntaxat fidem putant quum minime credâ—ret I cannot yeild to them saith he which think
created till iniquity was found in thee Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty thou hast corrupted thy wisdome by reason of thy brightness I will cast thee to the ground I will lay thee before Kings that they may behold thee S. Hierom hereupon gives this note or descant Quo sermone demonstrat nequaquam hominem esse de quo scribitur sed contrariam fortitudinem quae quondam in Paradiso Dei commorata sit By which saith he the Prophet doth demonstrate plainly that he means not this of any man but of that opposite power the Devil which had heretofore his abode in Paradise And as for the iniquity which was found in him it was that saith he quae per superbiam abusionem potestatis quam acceperat which lying hidden in his heart had at the last discovered it self by pride and the abuse of that power which he had received These texts not only Cassianus and others of the Antient writers sed aliorum fere omnium Commentarii de Principe Daemonum exponunt but generally all Commentators as Estius telleth us expound it of Lucifer or Beelzebub the Prince of Devils I know indeed that in the literal sense of Scripture those Prophecies were intended of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon and the then King of Tyre whosoever he was But then I do observe withall that many things are spoken in the course of those Prophesies especially the words which I have selected that cannot possibly be applyed in a literal sense to either of the Princes before remembred And it is a good rule which St. Augustine and others of the Fathers give us in expounding Scrippture that those places which cannot piously and congruously be understood in the literal or historical sense ea ad sublimiorem intelligentiam referantur are to be understood in a mystical meaning and so the places must be here But that it was an ambitious pride which first brought sin into the world besides these two Prophetical Scriptures and the general consent of Writers which do so expound them there are other reasons to evince For first the Devil being still tainted with this plague of pride went the same way to work in seducing Adam To tempt him with the beauty of a glorious Apple had been a bait too much below those most rare endowments wherewith God had invested him at his first Creation But to inflame him with an hope of being like unto God to tell him Eritis sicut Dii that there should be no difference between God and him that was the way most like to take and that way he went By that sin which occasioned his own just damnation was he resolved to draw all mankinde into the same perdition with him And next it is a good rule in Physick Contraria contrariis expelluntur that one contrary doth expel and remove another And this I take to be one chief reason why our most blessed Lord and Saviour being God of God and the very brightness of his Father did take upon himself the form of a servant and conversed here with man in so great humility that he might make amends for the sin of pride by which the Angels who by nature were created Servants for what else is a Minister or a Ministring Spirit aspired unto the greatness of Almighty God And unto these I adde by way of surplusage the saying of the son of Syrach initium peccati omnis superbiam esse that pride was the beginning of all sin And this S. Augustine cals perversam Celsitudinem a perverse ambition by which forsaking God whom they ought to have loved above all things they would needs be their own Creators as it were out of a self-love to themselves If it be asked how Lucifer and the rest of the Apostate Angels being of such cleer and excellent understandings could possibly affect a matter which they knew impossible Aquinas makes this ready and Scholastical answer Hujusmodi peccatum non praeexigere ignorantiam c. That pride for of that sin he speaketh doth not so much presuppose ignorance as inconsideration Et hoc modo peccavit Angelus convertendo sâ— ad proprium bonum c. And in this wise saith he did the Angels sin turning themselves by the abuse of their free will to their own proper good without consideration of the will of Almighty God And here I should conclude this point of the sin of the Angels but that there cometh into my minde the Poetical fiction of the aspiring of the Giants to the Kingdom of God which certainly was raised on those grounds of Scripture or the tradition of the Iews which was built upon it wherein these Angels stand accused of the like ambition Of which Gigantine folly thus we read in Ovid Neveâ— foret terris securior arduus Aether Affectasse ferunt Regnum coeleste Gigantes Altaque congestos struxisse ad sydera montes Which may be Englished in these words And that the Gods their safety might suspect The Giants did the Heavenly Throne affect Who to attain the height of their designe Heap hils on hils and so to Heaven they clime Next for the punishment of these Angels though fully denounced against them on the first offence and in part inflicted at the present yet the full execution of it was by God deferred until the general day of judgement that CHRIST might have the honour of their condemnation and his humility triumph over their ambition That which was presently inflicted besides the grief terror and torment of that inward confusion which they shall always bear about them it consisteth first in the diminution of those excellent abilities with which they were by God endowed in the day of their Creation the clearness of their understanding being dulled with such clowds of darkness that though they still exceed in knowledge all the sons of men yet they fall very short of that which before they had the Devils not knowing any thing of Christs incarnation untill it was proclaimed by a voyce from Heaven whereas the good Angels knew him at the very time of his birth and did not only know him but adore him also And as their understanding hath lost its brightness so for their wils they have not only lost that primitive integrity which at first they had but are so obstinated in mischief so setled in their hatred against God and his CHRIST that they neither can nor will repent and are therefore called perverse spirits in the holy Scriptures And for the other part of their punishment which is poena sensus they are under an arrest already reserved in chains like prisoners to the day of judgement and in some part of Hell as their Iayl or Prison though many times by the patience and wisdome of God they are permitted to wander in the ayr and compass the earth that they might tempt the wicked and try the godly express their power upon the creatures and exercise their malice
against Gods Elect. That they do compass the earth to seduce poor man we have it in the book of Iob where he is said to go to and fro in the earth to walk up and down in it and that he wandereth in the ayr we are told by St. Paul by whom he is called the Prince of the power of the ayr But that he was cast down into Hell besides those places of the Old Testament produced before we are assured by St. Peter and that they are reserved there in chains like prisoners is affirmed expressely by St. Iude Not in material chains we conceive not so but that they are restrained by the power of God and are so bridled and tyed up by his mighty hand that they are neither masters of their own abilities nor have the liberty of acting what they would themselves but only so far forth as he shall permit as is most clear and manifest in the case of Iob. And from thence came no doubt this Proverbial speech that the Devil cannot go beyond his chain And though they feel some part of that dreadful torment to which they are reserved in the house of darkness yet is it but initium dolorum or the beginning of sorrows compared with those they are to suffer in the world to come In this regard the Devils did not only cry out against Christ our Saviour that he was come to torment them before their â—ime Mat. 8.29 but they did so abominate the conceit of the bottomeless Pit that they most earnestly besought him Ne imperaret ut in Abyssum irent not to command them down to that deep Abysse Luk. 8.31 Praesentia Salvatoris est tormentum Daemonum Our Saviours presence saith St. Hierom was the Devils torment who seeing him upon the earth when they looked not for him ad judicandos se venisse crederent conceived that he was come to bring them to judgement And to say truth it is no marvel that they were so afflicted at the sight of our Saviour considering that they knew full well that howsoever he might bring Salvation to the sons of men yet for themselves they were uncapable of that mercy and were to have no part in the Worlds Redemption The reasons of which so great difference as the Schoolmen think are these especially First because the Angels fell of themselves but man at the suggestion or perswasion of others Et levius est alienamente peccaffe quam propria as S. Augustine hath it 2. The Angels in the height of their pride fought to be like God in Omnipotencie which is an incommunicable property of the Divine Nature and cannot be imparted unto any other but man desired to be like him only in Omniscience or in the general knowledge of things created which may be communicated to a creature as to the humane â—oul of Christ. Thirdly the Angels were immaterial intellectual Spirits inhabiting in the presence of God and the light of his countenance and therefore could not sin by errour or misperswasion but with an high hand and affected malice which comes neerest to the sin against the holy Ghost and so irremissible but man was placed by God in a place remote left to the frailty of his own will and wanted many of those opportunities for persisting in Grace which the others had Fourthly because the Angels are not by propagation from one another but were created all at once so that of Angels some might fall and others might stand and that though many did apostate yet still innumerable of them held their first estate but men descend by generation from one stock or root and therefore the first man falling and corrupting his nature derived the same corruption upon all his race so that if God had not appointed a Redemption for man he had utterly lost one of the most excellent creatures that ever he made Fiftly the Angels have the fulness of intellectual light and when they take view of any thing they see all which doth pertain unto it and thereupon go on with such resolution that they neither alter nor repent but man who findeth one thing after another and one thing out of another dislikes upon consideration what before he liked and so repents him of the evil which he had committed Sixthly because there is a time prefixt both to men and Angels after which there is no possibility of bettering their estate and altering their condition whether good or bad which is the hour of death in man and unto Angels was the first deliberate action either good or evil after which declaration of themselves unto them that fell there was no hope of grace or of restitution For hoc est Angelis Casus quod hominibus mors that which in man is death was this fall to the Angels as most truly Damascene Finally the Angels had all advantages of nature condition place abilities and were most readily prepared and fitted for their immediate and everlasting glorification whereas man was to pass through many uncertainties to tarry a long life here in this present World and after to expect till the general Judgement before he was to be admitted to eternal Glories In some or all of these respects Christ did not take upon him the nature of Angels nor effect any thing at all towards their Redemption but he took on him the seed of Abraham that so the heirs of Abrahams faith might be made heirs also of the Promises of eternal life So that these Angels being desperate of their own Salvation and stomaching that a creature made of dust and ashes should be adopted to those glories from which they fell have laboured ever since to seduce poor man to the like apostasie and plunge him in the gulf of the same perdition Et solatium perditionis suae perdendis Hominibus operantur saith Lactantius truly This to effect as the same Lactantius there affirmeth per totam terram vagantur they have dispersed themselves over all the World and as mankinde did increase and propagate so had they still their Instruments and Emissaries to work upon the frailty of that perishing creature by all means imaginable The principal and proper Ministery of these evil Angels whom we will hereafter call by the name of Devils is to tempt men to sin and to this end they improve all their power and those opportunities which sinful man is apt to give them And to this trade they fell assoon as the World began working upon the frailty of Eve by a beautiful fruit but more by feeding her with a possibility of being made like to God himself and by her means corrupting the pure soul of Adam to the like transgression In this regard from this foul murder perpetrated on the soul of Adam which he made subject by this means to the death of sin and consequently to the death of the body also our Saviour calleth him Homicidam ab initio a murderer from the beginning Ioh. 8.34 And as he
towards heaven Desierunt homines vultus suos in coelum tollere And thereupon it followed as perhaps it did that being once besotted with earthly pleasures they came in time to be infected with gross and earthly superstitions And no less sure I am that on this Contemplation Anaxagoras a wise man amongst the Gentiles being demanded for what cause he thought he was born made an answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to behold the Firmament So right a use did the Philosopher make of his bodily structure as to conceive the World and the pleasures of it to be so unfit an Object for his minde that it was not worthy of his eye Next for the form or soul of man it differeth more from that of all living Creatures then he doth differ from them in his bodily figure For whereas the soul of all other living creatures did rise out of the matter out of which they were made the soul of man had a more excellent sublime and divine original and was not either made with the bodie or out of the same dust whereof the body was made but infused immediately by God after the body was first framed and organized in every part to receive the same Of other animals it is said that God made the beast after his kind and the cattel after their kind that is to say matter and form at once without any distinction But when he cometh to the creation of man it is first said that God formed man of the dust of the ground and after that he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life whereby he became a living soul. And though I will not enter here upon that dispute whether the rational soul of man be a thing ex traduce whether begotten by his Parents or infused by God yet I confesse that the very order which God used in mans creation is of it self sufficient to make clear that point and to evince thus much that the soul of man is of a more noble extraction then the souls of beasts and not as theirs potentially in the seed of their generation Or if this be not sufficient to evince it then I conceive that he that was the best Divine and the greatest Philosopher of any of the sons of men even Solomon and all his wisdome hath so determined of the point as to make all sure affirming that the bodies of men being generated of grosse and earthly matter are in the end dissolved into that dust out of which they were primitively made but that the soul returneth into the hands of God by whom at first it was inspired Then saith he i. e. at the time of our death the dust shall return to the earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to him that gave it A Text so clear and evident to the point in hand that he who writ the Pamphlet called Mans mortality printed 1643. did very well and wisely to passe it over and not to put it in the number of those Objections which might be made against him from the word of God as being utterly destructive of that monstrous Paradox which he takes upon him to defend for true Catholick doctrine And if the Fathers may be suffered to come in for seconds where the authority of Scripture is so plain and pregnant we have a cloud of witnesses of unquestionable credit to confirme the same For the Greek writers first it is said by Clemens Alexandrinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the principal faculties of the soul by which we have rational discourse is not engendred by projection of humane seed Theodoret doth not only say as much as he but brings good proof for it from the word of God The Church saith he believing the divine Scriptures teacheth us that the soul was and is created as well as the body not having any cause of its creation from natural seed but from the will of the Creatour after the body of man had been perfectly made For the divine Moses writeth that Adams body was first made and afterwards his soul was inspired into him and also telleth us in the Law that the body was first made then the soul infused The same he also proveth from a text in Iob and so concludeth that this confession touching the soul and body of man the Church had learnt from holy Scripture Next for the Latine Fathers it is said by Hilarie Animam nunquam ab homine gignentium originibus praeberi that the soul never cometh from the generation of men by Ambrose Ex nullo homine generantur Animae that the souls are not generated by the seed of man by Leo that the Catholick Church doth truly teach that the souls of men were not or had not any being at all before they were inspired into their bodies Nec ab alio incorporentur nisi ab opifice Deo neither are incorporated with the body but by God alone St. Hierome glossing on those words of Solomon before produced thus declareth himself Ex quo satis ridâ—ndi sunt qui putant animas a corporibus seri et non a Deo sed a Corporum parentibus generari Cum enim caro revertatur in terram et Spiritus redeat ad Deum qui dedit illum manifâ—stum est Deum patrem Animarum esse non homines I have laid down his words at large because they are a full and perfect exposition of that Text of Solomons on which I principally ground my self for Catholick doctrine though there be diverse other places one might build upon But for S. Hieromes words they are thus in English How worthily saith he are they to be derided who think the soul to be sown together with the body in the Mothers wombe and to be generated by our Parents not to come from God For being it is said by Solomon that the flesh returneth to the earth and the Spirit unto him that gave it it is most manifest that God is the Father of our souls not man T is true Ruffinus made some scruple whether the soul did come by propagation from Man or infusion from God by which as he gave very great scandall to all Christian people so was he very sufficiently scorned and confuted by S. Hierome for it T is true Tertullian sometime thought as this Pamphetler doth that the soul either was a kind of body or was ex traduce that is to say derived and propagated by traduction of humane seed but then it is as true withall that for this and other of his Heterodox tenets he is put into the Catalogue of Hereticks composed by Augustine And for S. Augustine himself though to avoid the difficulty which lay hard upon him touching the manner how the soul cometh to be infected with original sin made question whether the soul were infused by God or derived he knew not how from the soul of the Parent yet he rejected the opinion as absurd and grosse that is should be
said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called Abraham was ready to obey him upon this belief that God was able to raise him again from death to life and that Gods Word concerning him would not fall to ground What saith St. Iames to this great trial of the Patriarchs faith Abraham saith he believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness In all those Texts where the Apostles speak of his Iustification or where the principal acts of his Faith are recited severally there is no intimation of his Faith in Christ nothing that seems to look that way more then that Gods first promise which was made in general to the Womans seed may seem to be restrained unto his particularly Whether these several imputations of the faith of Abraham do necessarily infer such an access of Iustification as is defended and maintained in the Schools of Rome I will not meddle for the present But in my minde Origen never spake more pertinently then where he gives this resolution of that doubt though not then proposed Quum multae fides Abrahae praecesserint in hoc nunc universa fides ejus collecta esse videtur ita in justitiam ei reputatur Whereas saith he many faiths of Abraham that is to say may acts of Abrahams faith had gone before now all his faith was recollected and summed up together and so accounted unto him for righteousness And if no other faith but a faith in God without any explicite relation to the death of CHRIST concurred unto the justification of the faithful Abraham the like may be concluded of the house of Israel that they were only bound to believe in God the Father Almighty till by Christs coming in the flesh and suffering death upon the Cross for the sins of man all that concerns his death and passions with all the other specialties in the present Creed made up together with our faith in God the Father the full and entire object of a Christian faith For this is life eternal saith our Lord and Saviour to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Not God alone but God and Iesus Christ together are since the Preaching of the Gospel made the object of faith So that it is not now sufficient to believe in God unless we also do believe in the Son of God whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith in his bloud to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins as St. Paul hath told us But here perhaps it will be said that though we do not read expressely in the holy Scriptures that the Patriarchs before Moses and the Fathers afterwards did believe in Christ yet that the same may be inferred by good and undeniable consequence out of the frequent Sacrifices before the Law and the Mosaical offerings which continued after it all which together with the rest of the Levitical Ordinances were but shadows of the things to come the body being only CHRIST That God instructed our first father Adam in the duty of Sacrifice I shall easily grant there being such early mention of them in the Book of God in the several and respective offerings of Cain and Abel And I shall grant as easily that GOD proposed some other end of them in that institution then to receive them as a Quit-rent from the hands of men in testimony that they held their estates from him as the Supreme Land-lord though by Rupertus this be made the chief end thereof Dignum sane est ut donis suis honoretur ipse qui dedit as that Author hath it which possibly may hold well enough in those kinde of Sacrifices which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gratulatory Eucharistical that is the Sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving for those signal benefits which GOD had graciously vouchsafed to bestow upon them But then there was another sort which they tearmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expiatory or propitiatory ordained by God himself as the Types and figures of that one only real and propitiatory sacrifice which was to be performed in the death of CHRIST who through the eternal Spirit was to offer up himself once without spot to God for the redemption of the world yet were they not bare Types and figures and had no efficacy in themselves as to the taking away of the filth of sin for the Apostle doth acknowledge that the bloud of Buls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean did sanctifie as to the purifying of the flesh Heb. 9.13 but that such efficacy as they had was not natural to them but either in reference to the Sacrifice to be made of CHRIST or else extrinsecal and affixed by the divine Ordinance and institution of Almighty God And that they might be so in this last respect there want not very pregnant reasons in the Word of God For whereas God considered as the Supreme Law-giver had imposed a commandement on man under pain of death although it stood not with his wisdome to reverse the Law which with such infinite wisdome had been first ordained yet it seemed very sutable to his grace and goodness to commute the punishment and satisfie himself with the death of Beasts offered in sacrifice unto him by that sinful Creature Which kinde of Commutations are not rare in Scripture It pleased God to impose a command on Abraham to offer up his only son Isaac for a burnt offering to him upon one of the mountains and after to dispense with so great a rigour and in the stead of Isaac to send a Ram It pleased God to challenge to himself the first born of every creature both of man and beast but so that he was pleased in the way of exchange in stead of the first born of the sons of men to take a Lamb a pair of Turtle Doves or two young Pigeons Now that these commutations were allowed of also in the case of punishment is evident by many Texts of holy Writ And this not only in sins of ignorance the Expiation of the which is mentioned Levit. 5.17 18. but in those which were committed knowingly and with an high hand of presumptuous wickedness Lying and swearing falsely deceiving our neighbour and taking away his goods by violence are sins of high and dangerous nature against both Tables and therefore in themselves deserved no less punishment then eternal damnation yet was God pleased to accept of the bloud of Rams in commutation or exchange for the soul of man If a soul sin and commit a trespass against the Lord and lye unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep or in fellowship or in a thing taken away by violence or hath deceived his neighbour or hath found that which was lost and lyeth concerning it and sweareth falsely in all these he doth sin and that greatly too there 's no question of it And yet of these it is
how to comfort them with the joyfull news of his recovery Sorrow and grief and anguish and disconsolation our Saviour did begin to feel there 's no doubt of that though not in such a high degree as to make him fall into those extremities of passion as neither to know what he did nor for what he prayed He that could come to his Disciples in the middest of his anguish and reprove them for their sloth and sleepiness had neither lost the use of his speech nor senses And if his prayers were full of faith as no doubt they were for the Scriptures say that he was heard in that he prayed for which could not be without a perfect measure of faith assuredly however he was heavily oppressed under the burden of afflictions he knew full well both what he prayed for and to whom But this was only the beginning of his sorrowes as before was said It followeth in the text both in Matthew and Marke My soul is exceeding sorrowfull even unto the death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my soul is compassed round with sorrowes such as doe seem to threaten me with no lesse then death and yet no way to scape them as in both Evangelists And certainly it stood with reason that it should be so For as an eminent Prelate of our own doth observe right well The whole work and weight of our Redemption was now before Christs eyes and apprehension in a more exact and lively manner he now appearing before the judgment seat of God then we in this body can discern For as all things needfull shall be present and patent to us when we are brought to Gods tribunall so Christ presenting himself before the judgement of God to the end that man might be redeemed by the ransome which he was to pay for him and Satan ejected from prevailing against his members by his mediation did fully and perfectly behold the detestation which God had conceived against our sins and the power of his wrath provoked by our defection and rebellion as also the dreadfull vengeance prepared and ordained for sin and our dull and carelesse contempt of our own misery together with the watchfulnesse and eagernesse of the common adversary the brunt and burden of all which he was to bear and to avert them from us by by that satis â—action which the justice of God should then require at his hands as a just price and full recompence for the sins of men The due consideration and intuition whereof being in Christ more clear then we can conceive might worthily make the manhood of Christ both to fear and tremble and in his prayers to God to stir and inflame all the powers and parts both of soul and body as far as mans nature and spirit were able with all submission and deprecation possible to powre forth themselves before his God Here was full cause undoubtedly to make him sorrowful and sorrowful unto the death How could it otherwise be conceived when the just and full reward of our iniquities was thus presented to his sight when he beheld the greatnesse and the justnesse of Gods wrath against it and therewithall considered within himself how dear the price must be and how sharpe the pain which should free us of it And on the other side considered how precious his own person was how infinite his obedience how pure his life and yet how that most precious life must be taken from him that by one death and that death only of the body he might deliver us from the death both of body and soul. So then his soul was â—ull of sorrow there was good cause for it but not oppressed with any pains much lesse tormented and inflanted with the pains of hell as some would fain gather from the text for neither tristitia in Latine nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek either amongst divine or humane writers signifie any such impression of pain and torment but an affection only which afflicts the minde rising upon the apprehension of some evill either past or instant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek amongst the choycest humanitians is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Cicero translates opinio recens mali praesentis a fresh opinion of present or impendent evill And Austin telleth us for the Latines that grief and anguish when it is in the soul is called tristitia that is sorrow but when 't is in the body then 't is molestia pain or trouble Thus is the word taken also in the holy Scripture where St. Paul saith I would not come again unto you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in sorrow or heaviness for fear he should have sorrow of them of whom he did expect to be received with joy and where it is affirmed of the rest of the servants when they perceived how cruelly their fellow-servant which was pardoned so great a sum dealt with one of his debters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were very sorry And certainly they might be very sorry on so sad an accident out of a fellow-feeling of their Brothers miserie we have no reason to conceive them to be full of pain Hitherto we have met with such griefs and sorrows in our Saviour as never man endured before but yet they prove not to be such as either did confound all the powers of his soul or astonish all the senses of his body or brought him into such amazement that he considered neither what he said or did Some have endevoured to infer this as before was noted out of the texts and words foregoing but with ill successe and therefore they are fallen at last on an other Scripture which they think makes for them How is my soul troubled saith our Saviour and what shall I say Father save me from this hour but for this cause came I unto this houre Here they observe a contrariety or contradiction in our Saviours words which could not possibly proceed but from a soul distracted and a minde confounded and what could work so strange and sensible a confusion in him but the pains of hell which were within him But whatsoever they observe the most eminent men for parts and learning in the times before them could see no such matter Erasmus in his Paraphrases gives this glosse upon them which Bullinger a learned Protestant writer doth extol most highly and calleth an excellent explication I finde my soul troubled for the day of my death approaching and what shall I say For the love of mine own life shall I neglect the life of the world By no means I will apply my self to the will of my Father Mans weaknesse troubled with the fear of death may say unto him Father if it be possible save me from this hour from this danger of death which is now so near me But love desirous of mans salvation shall presently add Nay rather if it be expedient let death which is desired come for as much as wittingly and willingly by the
unto certain ends And of this kind saith he was the death of the Crosse with all the wofull torments concurring with it which simply Christ shunned and declined but respectively to the end proposed did embrace it cheerfully So far and to this purpose and effect the said Reverend and Learned Doctor This being declared and the point thus stated by the Schoolmen we will next see how this agreeth with the sense of all the antient and orthodox writers who have delivered us their conceptions of this prayer of Christs And first saith Origen CHRIST taking to him the nature of mans flesh retained all the properties thereof according to which he prayed in this place that the cup might passe from him It is the property of every faithfull man to be unwilling to suffer any pain especially that tendeth unto death because he is a man and hath flesh about him but if God so will then to be content even against that will of his own because he is faithful There is also another exposition of this place which is this If it be possible that all these good things may come to effect without my passion which otherwise shall come by my death then let this passion passe from me but not otherwise And Athanasius thus As by death Christ abolished death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and all humane miseries by suffering them as a man so by his fear he took away our fear and made men no longer to fear death But Cyril of Alexandria next Quando formidasse mortem videtur ut homo dicebat c. When Christ seemed to fear death he said as a man Father let this cup passe from me for though as a man he abhorred death yet as a man he refused not to performe the will of his Father and of himself being the word of God Then Beda thus agreeably to the sense of his Predecessors if death may die without my death in the flesh let this cup passe from me but because this will not otherwise be thy will be done not mine Then Damascen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These words saith he proceeded from a naturall fear for as a man CHRIST would have had the cup to passe Next him Euthymius Zigabenus thus As a man Christ said if it be possible i. e. so far as it is possible and in saying yet not as I will but as thou wilt he teacheth that we must follow the will of God though nature reclaime And in the close of all Theophylact 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is incident to the nature of man to fear death for death entred besides or against nature and therefore nature flyeth death And in another place The common fear of mans nature Christ cured 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consuming it in himself and making it obedient to the will of God In which concurrent testimonies of the antient writers we have not only the full grounds of that distinction of the Schoolmen touching the superior and inferior Reason and the severall and adequate acts of each but also of the observation of Hugo de Sancto Victore and of those severall respects and reasons in which Christ may be said both to decline death and to embrace it But being there is so much speech amongst them of a naturall fears or the fears incident to nature we will once more repair unto the Schoolmen and enquire of them both what his natural fear was and in what respect it was he feared as also how this fear of his may be reconciled both with the will of God and his knowledg of it First then they say that natural fear ariseth in these three respects that is to say first in respect of things that cannot be avoided neither by resistance and incounter nor by flying from them secondly in respect of such things as may be escaped or overcome with a kind of uncertainty of event and danger of the issue thirdly in respect of such as may be escaped or overcome without any uncertainty of the event or issue but not without great conflict and extremity of labour Then they declare what things they were which Christ did fear and in what sort he feared them For first say they he feared death and the stroke of the justice of God his Father sitting on his tribunal or judgment seat to punish the sins of men for which he stood forth that day to answer and secondly he feared also that everlasting destruction which was due to mankind for those sins And finally they resolve it thus that the former of these two he feared as things impossible to be escaped in respect of the resolution and purpose of his heavenly Father which was that by his satisfactory death and sufferings and no other way man should be ransomed and delivered from the power of Satan and that he feared the latter that is to say declined it as a thing he knew he should escape without all doubt or uncertainty of the event though not without conflicting with the temptations of the Devil and the enduring of many bitter and grievous pangs which in that conflict might befall him Which resolution of the Schoolmen not only shews the reasons of CHRISTS natural fear but addes withall another reason why he was so amazed and sorrowfull and also why he prayed so long and with so great fervencie that the cup which was prepared for him might have passed over him And to say truth it must be somewhat more then the consideration and apprehension of a bodily death which could so much work upon our Saviour considering with how much gallantrie so many of the primitive Martyrs have defyed their torments and mounted on the scaffold with so clear a confidence as if they had not been to have suffered death but behold a Triumph And therefore first it may be said that besides the natural fear of death which is incident to the Saints of God however gallantly resolved to contemn the force of it by the assistance and support of the holy Spirit which he could not avoid and the avoidable fear of everlasting destruction which might be for a season presented to him he was to undergoe the whole wrath of God for the sins of mankind A wrath so infinite and just so far exceeding the strength and reach of mans nature to endure that our earthly infirmity to which for our sakes he submitted himself cannot conceive nor comprehend the greatnesse of it nor think upon the power thereof without fear and horror CHRIST saith a reverend and learned Prelate of this Church was not only to suffer that which in his Person should be thought sufficient in the righteous judgment of God to appease his anger and purge our sins but he was further to see and behold from what he delivered us even from the wrath to come For how should the price and force of his death be known unto him if he were ignorant what dreadfull and terrible vengeance was prepared
which the voice from heaven proclaimed him openly to be But since that time there had been many bickerings between them in which the Devil always went away with the loss his Ministers disgraced and their crimes laid open even in the sight of all the people his Kingdome in the souls of men in danger to be lost for ever by the preaching of that Gospel which our Saviour taught and as a preparative thereunto himself ejected violently out of many of his strongest holds and fortresses I mean the bodies of those men which he had possessed And then why may we not conceive that either to revenge himself on his mortal enemy in a desperate hope to prevail against him he had now mustred all his forces for another onset and was resolved to put the whole fortune of his affairs upon the issue of this combat and by the issue and success thereof of so great a battel to decide the title which he pretended and laid claim to in the souls of mankinde Why may not this be thought the conflict in which our Saviour was ingaged or willingly had ingaged himself on the appearance of the Angel for the success whereof he prayed so earnestly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in the Greek with greater earnestness of minde and fervency of zeal then he did before For my part I can see no reason but it might be so Certain I am that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a race a wrastling or some such solemn publick exercise and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the plural number denote such things as appertain to those games and exercises Thus read we in the book of Maccabees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cum quinquennalis Agon Tyro celebraretur i. e. when the games of every fift year were kept at Tyre and in the first to the Corinthians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nam qui in Agone contendit c. i. e. Every man that striveth for the mastery as the English reads it And it is plain to any who is conversant in the Greek not only that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie to be solicitous and in anguish but also to contend or strive about the victory but also that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word here used by the Evangelists though it doth generally denote a dismaying sorrow yet is used sometimes to express Luctantis angustias difficillimas the straights which Wrastlers are reduced to in those publick exercises But whether this conjecture be approved or not for I leave it arbitrary there is no question to be made but that the bloudy sweat which the Scripture speaks of proceeded not from fear but fervency not from the anguish of his heart but from that heat of zeal and strong intension of minde which was then upon him It could not come from fear that 's certain for fear as Galen hath observed doth presently drive the bloud and spirits towards their Fountain and contracteth them together by cooling the uttermost parts of the body For on the apprehension of any imminent danger the bloud and spirits which are naturally diffused through all the parts of the body repair immmediately unto the heart as the principal fortress for the strength and preservation of the whole repercussis spiritibus atque in intimos cordis sinus receptis as we read in Scaliger So that the bloud and spirits being drawn back to the heart or towards their fountain as Galen saith as usually they are in the case of fear it cannot be that any extremity of fear should be the cause of such an unusual kinde of sweat as that which did befal our Saviour And on the other side it is no new thing that fervency of zeal and a vehement contention of the minde being they heat and thin the bloud and not cool and thicken it as we are told by Galen that fear doth most commonly should produce such a strange effect as a bloudy sweat For the Physitian whosoever he was who writ the Book De utilitate respirationis amongst Galens works doth affirm for certain Contingere poros ex multo aut fervido spiritu adeo dilatari ut etiam exeat sanguis per eos fiatque sudor sanguineus that is to say it sometimes hapneth that abundant or fervent spirits do so dilate the pores of the body that bloud issueth out by them and so the sweat may be bloudy Which observation being true as no doubt it is we may well think if we look to the order and sequence of the Gospel that the fervent zeal of our Redeemer extremely heating the whole body melting the spirits rarifying the bloud opening the pores and so colouring and thickning the sweat of Christ might in most likelyhood be the cause of that bloudy sweat Doth not the Gospel say expresly that being in an Agony or dangerous and dreadful conflict he prayed more earnestly and his sweat was as it were great drops of bloud falling down to the ground and was not then that bloudy sweat a natural and proper effect of that fervency and zeal of prayer of which it is made a consequent in the holy Gospel Certain I am that Zuinglius one of the first men that laboured in the present Reformation of the Church did conceive it so Non lacrymas modo oculis sed sanguinis guttas e corpore exprimit seria devota oratio c. Serious and fervent prayer saith he doth not only draw tears from the eyes but a bloudy sweat also from the body as we see in Christs agony And doth not Bernard say to the same effect that Christ falling into an agony and praying the third time seemed to weep not only with his eyes but with all the parts of his body Nor doth it hinder us at all that the drops are said to be great great drops of bloud as in the English such as the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latines Grumi but doth rather help us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed doth sometimes signifie the congealed parts of that which is liquid and the compacted peeces of that which is powdered But it stands very well with reason that Christs sweat might be thick by reason it issued from the inmost parts of his body and was mixed with bloud or might break out in great and eminent drops as coming from him violently and abundantly and being coloured with bloud and congealed with the coldness of the ayr might trickle down like strings or great drops of bloud to the very ground The greater those drops seemed to be the greater was that fervency of Spirit in which he prayed unto the Lord the greater the occasion he had to powre sorth those prayers He was now in his great incounter with the powers of darkness the safety and salvation of all mankinde depended on the issue and success thereof Angels and Archangels and all the hosts of heaven were gathered as
to bury it the only means to weaken and unloose the bonds thereof that it should be no more a Prison but a place of rest wherein the bodies of Gods servants were to wait his pleasure in sure and certain hope of a Resurrection to eternal life But there was more in it yet then so The adding of these two words and buried seem unto me to have been done by the spirit of Prophecie for the preserving of a great part of the following Article which else had been in danger in these quarrel some times to be lost for ever Great pains is taken by some men and those of eminent parts and reputation to prove that nothing else is meant by Christs descent into hell but either his lying in the sepulchre or being made subject to the ignominy of the grave or his continuance for a while in the state of death as we shall see at large in the chapter following all which are fully comprehended in these words and buried What an advantage think we would these men have taken to put their own erroneous sense upon that Article had these words been wanting who have presumed to advance their own particular fancies above the Catholick Tradition of the Church of Christ notwithstanding these two words stand still to confute them in it But of this anon All I shall adde unto these Observations on Christs death and burial and his continuance in the grave is that in memory thereof the Church hath antiently appointed that Friday and Saturday should be fasted weekly the one in memory of the death and passion of our Lord CHRIST IESVS who on that day suffered for our sins the other in relation to the woful and disconsolate condition of the first followers of our Saviour who all that day distracted between hope and fear did seem to fit in darkness and the shadow of death And though the first Christians of the East did not fast the Saturday for fear of giving scandal to the Iews amongst whom they lived yet they made up the number of two days in the week by adding Wednesday to the Friday that being conceived to be the day on which he had been bought and sold by the Traytor Iudas But that concerns not us of the Western Churches in which the Friday and the Saturday fast are of such antiquity that it is generally believed by all moderate men to be derived from Apostolical Tradition Certain I am there is as much authority to keep those days fasting as the Canons of the Church can give them and the Statutes of this Realm can adde to those antient Canons and were accordingly observed by all Christian men till these wretched times in which the sons of the old Heretick Arius have turned all order out of dores and introduced a most unchristian or rather Antichristian licentiousnes under the colour and pretence of Christian liberty Thus have we brought our Saviour CHRIST unto the bottome of the grave the lowest step of his humiliation for the sons of men for lower then the grave he could hardly go And here we should conclude this Article but that as we began with some Observations touching Pontius Pilate under whom Christ suffered as also touching Annas and Caiaphas the High Priests two of the principal actors in this happy Tragedy so we will close this Article with the relation of that fearful and calamitous end which did most justly fall upon them and on the rest of their accomplices in this act of bloud But first we will begin with Iudas the Architect and chief contriver of the the plot of whom it is recorded in the holy Scriptures that being touched in conscience for so foul a treachery as the betraying of the innocent bloud of his Lord and Master he brought back his money to the Chief Priests and Elders and finding that they would not take it threw it down in the Temple went out and hanged himself S. Matthew there leavs off the story unto which Luke addes that falling headlong from the tree whether by the breaking of the rope or by some other way that the Scriptures say not he burst asunder in the midst and all his bowels gushed out And certainly it was but just that he should lose his bowels who had so long before lost his compassion If now a man should ask what death Iudas dyed St. Matthew would make answer that he hanged himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Greek abiens laqueo se suspendit as the Latine hath it Which words lest they should seem of a doubtful sense and not import as much as the English makes them we will see what is noted of them by the Antient Fathers And first St. Hierom is express for this that Iudas laid violent hands upon himself and was the Author of his own death adding self-murder to the heap of his former crimes Ad prius scelus proprii homicidii crimen addidit so that Father hath it St. Augustine goeth more particularly to work Et laqueo vitam finivit and tels us in plain tearms that he hanged himself The Translator of Chrysostom doth affirm the same saying Projecta in Templo pecunia abiit gulam laqueo fregit that throwing down the wages of his iniquity upon the pavement of the Temple he went out and broke his neck with an halter which is the same with that of Augustine though in other tearms And finally Theophylact though many others might be named who doubtless understood his own language well doth resolve it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that putting his neck into the noose which himself had made he fell violently from off the tree and so burst asunder in the midst The general tradition of the Church doth run this way also Nor had I took this pains in a case so clear but that I see the Fathers put to school again by our modern Criticks who will not have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie that he hanged himself but that he fell into such an extremity of grief with remorse of conscience that the anguish of it stopped his breath so that falling flat upon the ground he broke asunder in the middle A death so much too good for so vile a Traytor and so improbable if not impossible in the last part of it that he is fain to bring in the Devil Diabolo operante to pull out his bowels But of this new devise enough look we next on Pilate who having so unjustly condemned the Innocent and drawn upon himself the vengeance of a most just Judge was not long after outed of his Government by L. Vitellius Lord President of Syria and sent back to Rome Where being come so many grievous complaints were made against him to the Senate that he was banished to Vienna a City of France The Roman Legends do relate that he was prosecuted at Rome by Veronica of whom they fable that our
being typified in the Sanctum Sanctorum and by that entituled as before we saw unto which none might enter but the High Priest only From Types proceed we next unto the way of Prophecy and there we finde assured proof not only for the Substance of the Lords Ascension but for every Circumstance First for the substance thus saith the Prophet David Psal. 24. Lift up your heads O you gates and be you lift up you Everlasting doores and the King of Glory shall come in Who is the King of Glory the Lord strong and mighty the Lord mighty in battel Which Psalm as it was framed by that sweet singer of Israel on the reduction of the Ark to the City of David and literally meant of the Gates of the Tabernacle through which the Ark the glory of the Lord of Hosts was to have its entrance so was it mystically and Prophetically spoken of our Saviour Christ who in a mighty battel had subdued all the powers of hell and afterwards by his Ascension did set open the Gates of Heaven as all the Fathers generally down from Iustin Martyr do expound the place The Gates were lift up in the Psalm for the King of glory and opened in the Gospel for the Lord of glory as the Apostle with some reference to the Psalmist cals him Where by the way I think we need not go much further to resolve a doubt which hath been made by some in the Church of Rome that is to say whether the Heavens did open to make way to our Saviours passage an vero sine diversione eos penetravit or that he pierced or passed through the Coelestial bodies as they conceive he came unto his Disciples when the dores were shut The reason of this querie we know wel enough It is to help them at a pinch when they are put to it in maintenance of that monstrous Paradox of Transubstantiation which utterly destroys the being of Christs natural body But unto this the lifting up of the Gates gives a ready answer and such an answer as hath countenance from the Gospel also For if the Heavens were opened to make way for the Spirit of God to descend upon him at his Baptism as we know it was with how much greater reason must they then be opened when he ascended into Heaven not in Spirit only but also in his body in his humane nature Next for the circumstances which occur in the Lords Ascension we have the time thereof the fortieth day precisely from his Resurrection prefigured in the forty days of respit which God gave to Nineveh before he purposed to destroy it The correspondence or resemblance doth stand thus between them that as God gave the Ninivites forty days of Repentance after the miraculous deliverance of Ionah from the belly of the Whale had in all probability been made known unto them to confirm his Preaching so he gave forty days to the Iews also after Christs Resurrection to see if they would turn from their sins or not before he did withdraw the presence of their Saviour from them and lay them open to that desolation which he had denounced against them for their wickedness And this I am the more confirmed in by another passage of this kinde in the Book of Ezekiel where it is said Thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days I have appointed thee each day for an year Which Prophesie what ever it might aim at at that present time in which it was declared by the mouth of the Prophet was questionless most punctually fulfilled in those forty days which Christ continued on the earth untill his Ascension For having born those forty days the iniquities of the house of Iudah and kept off by his presence all those plagues and punishments which were due unto them for the same he left them unto that destruction which at the end of forty years reckoning each day for an year as the Prophet bids us befell both their Temple and their Nation For the place next we finde it on record in the Prophet Zachary in these words His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives which is before Hierusalem on the East and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof Which part of the Prophesie concerning the feet of God which were to stand on the Mount of Olives was never before so literally verified as in the day of oâ—r Saviours Ascension his sacred feet making such an impression on the ground where he took his rise if I may so say as seemed to cleave the ground in twain and there continued for the space of four hundred years if the Tradition of the Antients be of any credit Certain I am that so it is affirmed by Paulinus no fabulous Writer but of a very great esteem for piety in the best times of the Church and he tels it thus Mirum vero inter haec quod in Basilica Ascensionis locus ille tantum de quo in nube susceptus ascendit ita sacratus divinis vestigiis dicitur ut nunquam tegi marmore aut paviri receperit semper excussis se respuente quae manus adornandi studio tentavit apponere Itaque in toto Basilicae spacio solus in sui caespitis specie virens permanet impressam divinorum pedum venerationem calcati Deo pulveris perspicua simul irrigua venerantibus conservat I have put down the words at large on the Authors credit and so commit them to the censure of the learned Reader Then for the cloud in which our Saviour made his Ascent to Heaven we have it thus fore-signified by the Prophet Daniel Behold saith he one like unto the Son of man came in the Clouds of Heaven and approached unto the antient of days and they brought him before him And he gave him Dominion and honour and a Kingdome that all people Nations and languages should serve him his Dominion is an everlasting Dominion which shall never be taken away and his Kingdome shall never be destroyed Where by the way we have a full description of that power and honour which God conferred upon our Saviour and by St. Mark is intimated in that form of speech and sate down on the right hand of God But this I touch but on the by referring the full disquisition of it to the next branch of this Article to which it properly belongeth In the mean time let us behold the pomp and ceremonie of the Lords Ascension which David hath described in the words before that is to say When he ascended up on high he led captivity captive and received gifts for men He gave gifts to men saith the great Apostle which how they do agree was before delivered In which it seemes to me that the sacred Pen-men have made the course and order of the Lords Ascension like to the pomp and glory of the antient Triumphs It was we know the custome of the
the fowles of the Aire Next for the Nomothetical arts of Empire let us look on those and we shall finde that as he came not to destroy the Law of God but to fulfil it so hath he added more weight to it either by way of application or of explication then before it had They who consult our Saviours Sermon on the mount and look upon his Commentaries on the law of Moses which the chief Priests and Pharisees had perverted by adulterate glosses will quickly finde that he discharged us not from the Obligation which the moral law had laid upon us but only did become our surety and bound himself to see it faithfully performed by us in our severall places The burden was not made lesse heavy then it was before I speak still of the Moral Law not the Ceremonial but that he hath given more strength to bear it more grace to regulate our lives by Gods Commandements And somewhat he did adde of his own auhority which tended to a greater measure of perfection then possibly we could attain to by the Law of Moses and that not only in the way of Evangelical Counsels and that there are such Counsels I can easily grant but of positive precept For so far certainly we may joyn issue with the Council of Trent that IESVS CHRIST is to be honoured and observed Non tantum ut Redemptor cui omnâ—s fidant sedut Legislator cui obediant not only as a Saviour unto whom we may trust but as a Law-maker also whom we are to obey The same position is maintained also by the Arminian party but not the more unsound for either Veritas a quocunq est est a Spiritu sancto as St. Ambrose hath it And this is so agreeable to the Word of God that either we must deny the Scripture or else confess that it proceeded from the Spirit of God Nor are his laws indeered only to us and sugred over as it were by the promise of a great reward but enjoyned also under pain of grievous punishments punishment and reward being the square or measure of the heavenly government no otherwise then of the earthly Tribulation and anguish saith St. Paul shall come upon the soul of every man that doth evil but glory and honour and peace to every man that doth good to the Iew first and also to the Gentile for God is no respecter of persons By which two general motives set before our eyes and the co-operation of the holy Spirit working with his Word he doth illuminate our mindes and mollifie our hearts and quench our lusts instruct us in the faith confirm us in our hopes and strengthen us in Christian charity till in the end he bring us to the knowledge of his holy will then to obedience to his Laws and finally to a resemblance of his vertues also If after all this care and teaching either by frailty or infirmity we do break his laws or violate his sacred Statutes as we do too often he doth not presently take the forfeiture which the Law doth give him for then O Lord should no flesh living in thy sight be justified but in the midst of judgement he remembreth mercy We may affirm of him most truly as Lactantius did Vt erga pios indulgentissimus Pater ita adversus impios justissimus Iudex as terrible a Iudge he is to impenitent sinners as an indulgent Father to his towardly children as before was said Such is the nature and condition of our Saviours Kingdome which sitting at the right hand of Almighty God he doth direct and govern as seems best to his heavenly wisdome and so shall do untill his coming again to judge both the quick and the dead Although he hath withdrawn himself and his bodily presence yet is he present with it in his mighty power and by the influences and graces of his holy Spirit And in this sense it was that he said unto them Behold I am with you alwayes to the end of the world And that not only with you my Apostles unto whom he spake but cum vobis successoribus vestris with all you my Disciples and with your successors also in your several places till time be no more Though he be placed above in the heavenly glories and is not joyned unto his Church by any bodily connexion yet he is knit unto it in the bonds of love and out of that affection doth so guide and order it as the Head doth the members of the Body natural Habet ecclesia Caput positum in Coelestibus quod gubernat Corpus suum separatum quidem visione sed annectitur Charitate as St. Austin hath it Vice-roy there needeth none to supply his absence who is always with us Nor we the assistance of a Vicar General to supply his place whose Spirit bloweth where him listeth and who is linked unto us in so strong affections But for all this our Masters in the Church of Rome have determined positively that in regard our Saviour hath withdrawn himself from the Church in his Body secundum visibilem praesentiam for as much as doth concern his visible presence he needs must have some Deputy or Lieutenant General qui visibilem hanc Ecclesiam in unitate contineat to govern and direct the same in peace and unity It seemes they think our Saviour Christ to be reduced unto the same straights as Augustus was of whom it is reported in the Roman stories that he did therefore institute a Provost in the City of Rome because he could not always be there in person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and durst not leave it absolutely without a Governor And sure however others may complain of our Saviours absence and for that reason think it necessary to have some general Deputy to supply his place yet of all others those of Rome have least cause to do it who can command his presence at all times and on all occasions For as Cornelius a Lapide affirms expressely by saying only these words Hoc est Corpus meum the Bread is not only transubstiated into our Saviours Body but Christ anew begotten and born again upon the Altar And not his Body only that 's not half enough but as the Canon of Trent tels us there is totus Christus una cum anima Divinitate whole Christ both body and soul and the Godhead also personally and substantially on the blessed Sacrament That he is present every where in his power and Spirit there is none of us which denyeth If they can have his bodily presence also in so short a warning what use can they pretend for a Vicar General Adeo Argumenta ex falso petita ineptos habent exitus said Lactantius rightly Besides it is a Maxime in Ecclesiastical Polity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that the external Regiment of the Church of Christ is to be fitted to the frame and order of the
and Martyrs approving and applauding as before I said that most righteous judgement which CHRIST shall then pronounce against all the wicked saying Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels This dreadful sentence thus pronounced and the condemned persons being delivered over by the Angels of God to the Devil and his according to the sentence of that righteous Iudge CHRIST shall arise from his Tribunal and together with his elect Angels and most blessed Saints shall in an orderly and triumphant manner ascend into the Heaven of Heavens where unto every one of his glorious Saints he shall bestow the immarcessible Crown of glory and make them Kings and Priests unto God the Father When all the Princes of the Earth have laid down their Scepters at the feet of CHRIST God shall be still a King of Kings a King indeed of none but Kings Rex Regum Dominus Dominantium always but most amply them For then shall CHRIST deliver up the Kingdom unto God the Father which how it must be understood we have shewn before And the Saints laying down their Crowns at the feet of Christ shall worship and fall down before him saying Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever For thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy bloud out of every kindred and tongue and people and Nation and hast made us Kings and Priests to God to reign with thee in thy Kingdome for evermore Thus have I made a brief but a plain discovery so far forth as the light of Scripture could direct me in it both of the manner of our Saviours coming unto Judgement and of the Method he shall use in the act of judging That which comes after Iudgement whether life or death whether it be the joys of Heaven or the pains of Hell will fall more properly under the consideration of the last Article of the Creed that of Life Everlasting and there we mean to handle all those particulars which I think pertinent thereunto In the mean time a due and serious consideration of this day of Iudgement will be exceeding necessary to all sorts of people and be the strongest bridle to restrain them from the acts of sin that ever was put into the mouths of ungodly men For what a bridle think we must it be unto them to keep them from unlawful lusts nay from sinful purposes when they consider with themselves that in that day the hearts of all men shall be opened their desires made known and that no secrets shall be hid but all laid open as it were to the publick view What a strong bridle must it be to curb them and to hold them in when they are in the full careere and race of wickedness when they consider with themselves that there will be no way nor means to escape this Judgement Though they procure the Rocks to fall upon them and the Hils to hide them yet will Gods Angels finde them out and gather them from every corner of the World be they where they will Though they have flattered their poor souls and said Tush God will not see it or have disguised themselves with fig-leaves out of a silly hope to conceal their nakedness or wiped their lips so cunningly with the harlot in the Book of Proverbs that no man can discern a stollen kiss upon them yet all this will not serve the turn God will for all this bring them unto judgement and apprehend them by his Angels when they go a gathering There shall not one of them escape the hands of these diligent Sergeants Ne unus quidem no not one And finally what a bridle must it be unto them to hold them from exorbitant wickedness as either the crucifying again of the Lord of glory the persecuting of the Saints their mischievous plots against the Church in her peace and Patrimony when they consider with themselves that he whom thus they crucifie is to be their Iudge and that those poor souls whom they now contemn shall give a vote or suffrage on their condemnation and that the poor afflicted Church which they made truly militant by their foul oppressions malgre their tyranny and confederacies shall become Triumphant And on the other side what a great comfort must it be to the righteous man to think that Christ who all this while hath been his Mediator with Almighty God shall one day come to be his Iudge What a great consolation must it be unto him in the time of trouble to think that all his groans are registred his tears kept in a bottle and his sighs recorded and that there is a Iudge above who will wipe all the tears from his eyes and give him mirth in stead of mourning What an incouragement must it be unto him in the way of godliness when he considereth with himself that there is laid up for him a Crown of glory which the Lord the righteous Judge will give him at that day and give it him in the fight both of men and Angels Finally what strength and animation must it put into them to make them stand couragiously in the cause of Christ and to contemn what ever misery can be laid upon them in the defence of Christs and the Churches cause when they consider with themselves that there is no man who hath lost Father or Mother or wife or children or lands and possessions for the sake of Christ but shall receive much more in this present world and in the world to come life everlasting For behold he cometh quickly as himself hath told us and his reward is with him to give to every man according as his work shall be Even so Lord Jesus So be it Amen THE SUM Of Christian Theologie Positive Philological and Polemical Contained in the APOSTLES CREED or Reducible to it THE THIRD PART By Peter Heylyn 1 Cor. 12.13 For by one Spirit are we all Baptized into one Body whether we be Iews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free and have been all made to drink into one Spirit LONDON Printed for Henry Seyle 1654. ARTICLE IX Of the Ninth ARTICLE OF THE CREED Ascribed to St. IAMES the Son of ALPHEVS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Credo in Spiritum sanctum sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam i. e. I beleeve in the Holy Ghost the holy Catholick Church CHAP. I. Touching the Holy Ghost his divine Nature Power and Office the Controversie of his Procession laid down Historically Of Receiving the Holy Ghost and of the severall ministrations in the Church appointed by him WE are now come unto the third and last part of this Discourse containing in the first place the Article of the Holy Ghost and of the holy Catholick Church gathered together and preserved by the power thereof And in the rest those several Gifts and special Benefits which Christ conferreth by the operation of
Spirit in which we shall discern both his power and office These gifts and graces of the Spirit the School-men commonly divide into Gratis data such as being freely given by God are to be spent as freely for the good of others of which kinde are the gift of tongues curing diseases and the like and gratum facientia such as do make him good and gracious on whom it pleaseth God to bestow the same as Faith Iustice Charity The first are in the Scripture called by the name of gifts Now there are diversity of gifts saith the Apostle but the same Spirit For to one is given by the Spirit the word of Wisdom to another the word of Knowledge by the same Spirit to another Faith by the same Spirit to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit to another the working of miracles to another prophecy to another discerning of spirits to another divers kindes of tongues to another the interpretation of tongues The later are called Fruits by the same Apostle The Fruits of the Spirit saith he are love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance The Gifts are known most commonly by the name of Gratis data the Fruits pertain to Gratum facientia The Gratum facientia belong to every man for himself the Gratis data for the benefit of the Church in common That which God giveth us for the benefit and use of others must be so spent that they may be the better for it because not given unto us for own sakes onely nor to gain others to our selves but all to him In which respect Gods Servants are to be like Torches which freely wast themselves to give light to others like Powder on the day of some Publick Festival which freely spends it self to rejoyce the multitude That which he gives us for our selves must be so improved that we may thereby become fruitful unto all good works vessels prepared and sanctified for the Masters use In the first of these we may behold the power of the Holy Ghost in the last his office His power in giving tongues to unlearned men knowledge to the ignorant wisdom to the simple the gift of prophecy even unto very Babes and Sucklings I mean to men not studied in the Liberal Sciences A power so great that no disease is incurable to it no spirit so subtile and disguised but is easie discerned by it no tongue so difficult and hard which it cannot interpret no miracle of such seeming impossibility but it can effect it In which regard the Holy Ghost is called in Scripture The power of God The power of the most High shall over-shadow thee Luke 1.35 And Christ our Lord having received the ointing of the holy Spirit is said to be anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power Acts 10.38 Nor want I Reasons to induce me unto this opinion that when Simon Magus had effected by his sorceries and lying wonders to be called the great power of God but that his purpose was to make men believe that he was the Holy Ghost or the Spirit of God which title afterwards he bestowed on his strumpet Helena and took that of CHRIST unto himself as the more famed and fitting for his devilish purposes Next for his Office that consisteth in regenerating the carnal and sanctifying the regenerate man First In regenerating of the carnal For except a man be born of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God saith our Blessed Saviour of Water as the outward Element but of the holy Spirit as the inward Efficient which moving on the Waters of Baptism as once upon the face of the great Abyss doth make them quickning and effectual unto newness of life Then for the Work of Sanctification that is wrought wholly by the Spirit who therefore hath the name of the Holy Ghost not onely because holy in himself formaliter but because holy effective making them holy who are chosen unto life eternal So say St. Peter the first and St. Paul the last of the Apostles St. Peter first Elect according to the fore-knowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience 1 Pet. 1.2 And so St. Paul But ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the Name of our Lord Iesus and by the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 6.11 That is to say Iustified in the Name of our Lord Iesus through Faith in him and sanctified by the Spirit of God through the effusion of his Graces in the Soul of Man The work of Sanctification is not wrought but by many acts as namely By shedding abroad in our hearts that most excellent gift of charity filling our souls with righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost by teaching us to adde To our faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charity that we be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ. Though Christ be the Head yet is the Holy Ghost the Heart of the Church from whence the vital spirits of grace and godliness are issued out unto the quickning of the Body mystical And as the vital spirits in the body natural are sensibly perceived by the motion of the heart the breathing of the mouth and by the beating of the pulse so by the same means may we easily discern the motions of the Spirit of Grace First It beginneth in the heart by putting into us new hearts more sanctified desires than we had before A new heart will I also give you and a new spirit will I put within you saith the Lord by the Prophet Ezekiel And to what end That ye may walk in my Statutes and keep my Iudgments This new heart is like the new wine which our Saviour speaks of not possible to be contained in old bottles but will break out first in new desires For Novum supervenisse spiritum nova demonstrant desideria as St. Bernard hath it Nor will it break out onely in desires or wishes but we shall finde it on our tongues for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh And if the heart be throughly sanctified we may be sure that no corrupt communication will come out of our mouths but onely such as is good to the use of edifying and may minister grace unto the hearers The same breath in the natural body is Organon vitae vocis as experience telleth us The Instrument of life and voice it is the same we live by and the same we speak by And so it is also in the Body mystical as well the vocal as the vital breath proceeding both alike from the Holy Ghost Nor stayes it onely on the tongue but as the beating of the pulse is best found at the hand so if we would desire to know how the
first of the Evangelical Scriptures was the Epistle Decretory which we finde in the fifteenth of the Acts and that was countenanced by a visum est spiritui sancto i. e. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost And when St. Paul writ his Epistle unto those of Corinth for fear he might be thought by that factious people to injoyn any thing upon them without very good warrant he vouched the Spirit of God for his Author in it They preached the Gospel first to others as Christ did to them by word of mouth that being the more speedy way to promote the Work But being they could not live to the end of the world and that the purest waters will corrupt at last by passing through muddy or polluted Chanels they thought it best to leave so much thereof in writing as might serve in all succeeding Ages for the Rule of Faith Postea vero per voluntatem Dei in Scripturis nobis Evangelium tradiderunt firmamentum columnam fidei nostrae futuram as in Irenaeus A man might marvel why St. Iohn should give that testimony to the Gospel which was writ by him that it was written to the end That men might believe that JESUS is the CHRIST the Son of God and that believing they might have Faith through his Name considering that none of the rest of the Evangelists say the like of theirs or why he thundred at the end of his Revelation that most fearful curse against all those who should presume to adde anything to the words of that Book or take any thing from it being a course that none of all the sacred Pen-men had took but he But when I call to minde the Spirit by which Iohn was guided and the time in which those Books of his were first put in writing methinks the marvel is took off without more ado For seeing that his Gospel was writ after all the rest as is generally affirmed by all the Antients those words relate not as I guess to his own Book onely but to the whole Body of the Evangelical History now perfectly composed and finished for otherwise how impertinent had it been for him to say That IESVS did many other signs in the presence of his Disciples which were not written in that Book if he had spoken those words of his own Book onely Considering that he had neither written of the signs done in the way to Emaus mentioned by St. Luke or his appearing to the eleven in a Mountain of Galilee which St. Matthew speaks of or his Ascension into Heaven which St. Mark relateth which every vulgar Reader could not chuse but know The like I do conceive of those words of his in the Revelation viz. That they relate not to that Book alone but to the whole body of the Bible St. Iohn being the Survivor of that glorious company on whom the Holy Ghost descended in the Feast of Pentecost and the Apocalypse the last of those Sacred Volumes which were dictated by the Spirit of God for the use of his Church and now make up the Body of the holy Scriptures God had now said as much by the mouths and pens of the Prophets Evangelists and Apostles as he conceived sufficient for our salvation and so closed up the Canon of the Scriptures as St. Augustine telleth Deus quantum satis esse judicavit locutus Scripturam condidit as his own words are which certainly God had not done nor the Evangelist declared nor St. Augustine said had not the Scripture been a sufficient rule able to make us wise unto salvation and thoroughly furnished unto all good works Which being so it cannot but be a great dishonor to the Scripture and consequently to the Spirit of God who is Author of it to have it called as many of the Papists do Atramentariam Scripturam Plumbeam Regulam Literam Mortuam that is to say An Ink-horn Text a Leaden Rule and a Dead Letter Pighius for one as I remember gives it all these Titles or to affirm That it hath no authority in the Church of Christ but what it borroweth from the Pope without whose approbation it were scarce more estimable than the Fables of Aesop which was one of the blasphemous speeches of Wolf Hermannus or that is not a sufficient means to gain Souls to Christ or to instruct the Church in all duties necessary to salvation without the adding of Traditional Doctrines neither in terminis extant in the Book of God nor yet derived from thence by good Logical inference which is the general Tenet of the Church of Rome or that to make the Canon of the Scripture compleat and absolute the Church as it hath added to it already the Apocryphal Writings so may it adde and authorize for the Word of God the Decretals of the Antient Popes and their own Canon Law as some of the Professors of it have not sticked to say So strongly are they byassed with their private interess and a desire of carrying on their faction in the Church of Christ as to place the holy Spirit where he doth not move in their Traditions in Apochryphal and meer Humane writings and not to see and honor him where indeed he is in the holy Scriptures Of the Authority Sufficiency and Perspicuity of which holy Scriptures I do not purpose at the present any debate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a work more fit for another place and such as of it self would require a Volume onely I say that if the written Word be no rule at all but as it hath authority from the Church which it is to direct and then not an entire but a partial rule like a Noune Adjective in Grammar which cannot stand by it self but requireth somewhat else to be joyned with it in Construction and that too so obscure and difficult that men of ordinary wits cannot profit by it and therefore must not be permitted to consult the same the Holy Ghost might very well have spared his pains of speaking by the Prophets in the time of the Law or guiding the pens of the Apostles in the time of the Gospel and the great Body of the Scripture had been the most impertinent and imperfect peece the most unable to attain to the end it aims at that was ever writ in any Science since the world began Which what an horrid blasphemy it must needs be thought against the majesty and wisdom of the holy Spirit let any sober Christian judge And yet as horrid as those blasphemies may be thought to be some of the most profest enemies of the Church of Rome and such as think that the further they depart from Rome they are the nearer to Christ have faln upon the like if not worse extravagancies For to say nothing of the Anabaptists and that new brood of Sectaries which now swarms amongst us whom I look on onely as a company of Fanatical Spirits did not Cartwright and the rest of our new
Reformers in Queen Elizabeths time say as much as this The Scriptures say the Papists in their Council of Trent for I regard not the unsavory Speeches of particular men Is not sufficient to Salvation without Traditions that is to say without such unwritten Doctrinals as have from hand to hand been delivered to us Said not the Puritans the same when they affirmed That Preaching onely viva voce which is verbum traditum is able to convert the sinner That the Word sermonized not written is alone the food which nourisheth to life eternal that reading of the Word of God is of no greater power to bring men to Heaven than studying of the Book of Nature that the Word written was written to no other end but to afford some Texts and Topicks for the Preachers descant If so as so they say it is then is the written word no better than an Ink-horn Scripture a Dead Letter or a Leaden Rule and whatsoever else the Papists in the height of scorn have been pleased to call it Nay of the two these last have more detracted from the perfection and sufficiency of the holy Scripture than the others did They onely did decree in the Council of Trent That Traditions were to be received Paripietatis affectu with equal Reverence and Affection to the written Word and proceed no further These magnifie their verbum traditum so much above it that in comparison thereof the Scripture is Gods Word in name but not in efficacy They onely adde Traditions in the way of Supplement where they conceive the Scriptures to be defective These make the Scriptures every where deficient to the work intended unless the Preacher do inspire them with a better Spirit than that which they received from the Holy Ghost Good God that the same breath should blow so hot upon the Papists and yet so cold upon the Scriptures that the same men who so much blame the Church of Rome for derogating from the dignity and perfection of the Holy Scriptures should yet prefer their own indigested crudities in the way of Salvation before the most divine dictates of the Word of God But such are men when they leave off the conduct of the Holy Ghost to follow the delusions of a private Spirit Articuli IX Pars Secunda 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam i. e. The Holy Catholick Church CHAP. II. Of the name and definition of the Church Of the Title of Catholick The Church in what respects called Holy Touching the Head and Members of it The Government thereof Aristocratical IN the same Article in which we testifie our Faith in the Holy Ghost do we acknowledge That there is a Body or Society of faithful people which being animated by the power of that Blessed Spirit hath gained unto it self the name of the Church and with that name the attribute or title of Catholick in regard of the extent thereof over all the World of Holy in relation to that piety of life and manners which is or ought to be in each several Member And not unfitly are they joyned together in the self same Article the Holy Ghost being given to the Apostles for the use of the Church and the Church nothing but a dead and lifeless carcass without the powerful influence of the Holy Ghost As is the Soul in the Body of Man so is the Holy Ghost in the Church of Christ that which first gives it life that it may have a Being and afterward preserves it from the danger of putrefaction into which it would otherwise fall in small tract of time Having therefore spoken in the former Chapter of the Nature Property and Office of the Holy Ghost and therein also of the Volume of the Book of God dictated by that Blessed Spirit for that constant Rule by which the Church was to be guided both in Life and Doctrine We now proceed in order to the Church it self so guided and directed by it And first for the Quid nominis to begin with that it is a name not found in all the writings of the Old Testament in which the body of Gods people the Spiritual body is represented to us after a figurative manner of Speech in the names of Sion and Ierusalem as Pray for the peace of Jerusalem Psal. 121. And the Lord loveth the gates of Sion Psal. 87. The name of Church occurreth not till the time of the Gospel and then it was imposed by him who had power to call it what he pleased and to entitle it by a name which was fittest for it The Disciples gave themselves the name of Christians the name of Church was given them by our Saviour Christ. No sooner had St. Peter made this confession for himself and the rest of the Apostles Thou art Christ the Son of the living God but presently our Saviour added Upon this Rock that is to say The Rock of this Confession as most of the Antients and some Writers also of the darker times do expound the same will I build my Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Greek The word used by our Lord and Saviour is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence the Latines borrowed their Ecclesia the French their Eglise and signifieth Coetum evocatum a chosen or selected company a company chosen out of others derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as much as evocare to call out or segregate In that sense as the word is used to signifie a company of men called by the special Grace to the Faith in Christ and to the hopes of life eternal by his death and passion is the word Ecclesia taken in the writings of the holy Apostles and in most Christian Authors since the times they lived in though with some difference or variety rather in the application to their purposes But antiently it was of a larger extent by far and signified any Publick meeting of Citizens for the dispatch of business and affairs of State For so Thucidides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. That the Assembly being formed the different parties fell upon their disputes and so doth Aristophanes use it in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. That the people should now give the Thracians a Publick meeting in their Guild-hal or Common forum of the City St. Luke who understood the true propriety as well as the best Critick of them all gives it in this sense also Acts 19.32 where speaking of the tumult which was raised at Ephesus he telleth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Assembly was confused And in the 26. Psal. Ecclesia malignantium is used for the Congregation of ungodly men APPLICATION BUt after Christ had given this name unto the Body of the Faithful which confessed his Name and the Apostles in their writings had applied it so as to make it a word of Ecclesiastical use and notion the Fathers in the following Ages did so appropriate the same to the state of
Ecclesia malignantium as the Psalmist calls it Or if you will we may by these behold the Church in her chief ingredients which are the sanctimony of life and conversation it is an holy Church and the integrity of her doctrine free from all Heresie and Error in the title Catholick For the word Catholick is not onely used to signifie Universality of extent but purity of doctrine also The first in the natural the second in the borrowed sense of the word In the first sense the Church is called Catholick in respect of place Thou hast redeemed us by thy blood out of every kinred and tongue and people and nation To which accordeth that of an Antient writer saying Ab ortu solis ad occasum lex Christiana suscepta est That the Gospel of Christ had been admitted from the rising of the Sun to the setting of it that is to say In all parts of the world And it is called Catholick too in respect of persons who are promiscuously and indefinitely called to the knowledge of Christ In whom there is neither Iew nor Gentile bond nor free male nor female but all called alike And so Lactantius telleth us also Universos homines sine discrimine sexus vel aetatis Minutius addes Aut dignitatis ad coeleste pabulum convocamus Lastly it hath the name of Catholick in respect of times as comprehending all the faithful since our Saviours days unto the age in which we live and to continue from henceforth to the end of the world Of which duration or extent of the Church of Christ the Angel Gabriel did fore-signifie to his Virgin-mother that he should reign in the house of Jacob for ever and of his Kingdom there should be no end And in this sense it doth not onely include that part of the Church which is now Militant on the Earth but also that which is Triumphant in the Heaven of Glories Both they with us and we with them make but one Body Mystical whereof Christ is Head and all together together with the Antient Patriarcks and other holy men of God which lived under the Law shall make up that one glorious Church which is entituled in the Scriptures The general Assembly the Church of the first-born whose names are written in the Heavens For the better clearing of which Vnion or Concorporation which is between these different Members of the Body Mystical the Fathers of the Constantinopolitan Council added the word One unto the Article reading it thus And I believe one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church Catholick then the Church may be rightly called in regard to extent whether it do refer to time place or persons and it is called Catholick too in respect of Doctrine with reference to the same extensions that being the true Catholick Doctrine of the Church of Christ Quae semper quae ubique quae ab omnibus credita est which hath always and in every place been received as Orthodox and that too by all manner of men according to the Golden Rule of Lerinensis Catholick in this sense is the same with Orthodox a Catholick Christian just the same with a true Professor by which the Doctrine is distinguished from Heretical and the men from Hereticks Iustinian in the Code doth apply it so Omnes hanc legem sequentes Christianorum Catholicorum nomen jubemus amplecti That for the persons the Professors it followeth after for the Doctrine Is autem Nicenae adsertor fidei Catholicae Religionis verus cultor accipiendus est c. A National or Topical Church may be called Catholick in this sense and are often times entituled so in Ecclesiastical Authors For Constantine the Emperor writing to the Alexandrians superscribed his Letters in this form 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. To the Catholick Church of Alexandria And Gregory Nazianzen being then Bishop of Constantinople calls himself in his last Will and Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The Bishop of the Catholick Church in the City of Constantine Of this word Catholick in this sense there hath been different use made as the times have varied The Fathers of the purest times made use of it to distinguish themselves from Hereticks according to that so celebrated saying of Pacianus Christianus mihi nomen est Catholicus cognomen Christian saith he is my name and Catholick my sirname by the one I am known from Infidels by the other from Hereticks And so long as the main body of Christianity retained the form of wholesome words and kept the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace it served exceeding fitly for a mark distinctive to known an Orthodox Professor from those who followed after Heretical and Schismatical Factions But when the main Body of the Church was once torn in peeces and every leading faction would be thought the true Church of Christ they took unto themselves the names of Catholicks also as if the truth was not more Orthodoxly held by the soundest Christians than it was by them And this hath been a device so stale and common that the Nestorians in the East though antiently condemned for Hereticks in the Third General Council do call their Patriark by the name of Catholick that is to say The Catholick or Orthodox Bishop as Leunclavius telleth us very rightly not Iacelich as the Copies of Brochardus and Paulus Venetus do corruptly read it In the same Error are our great Masters in the Church of Rome who having appropriated to themselves the name of Catholicks and counting all men Hereticks but themselves alone First cast all others out of the Church by the name of Hereticks who do not hold communion with them in their sins and errors and then defend themselves by the name of Catholicks from having dealt unjustly with their Fellow-Christians men every way more Orthodox than they be themselves Just so the Collier justified himself for a true Believer because he believed as the Church believed though he knew not the doctrine of the Church and the Church believed as he believed though the Church troubled not it self about his opinions I know the great Cardinal presumes very much on the name of Catholick making it to be one of the signs of the true Church now because an adjunct of the true Church in the Primitive times And wonder it is that we are grown so prodigal of late as to give it to them A courtesie which they receive with a great deal of joy and turn the bare acknowledgement to their great advantage there being no Argument more convincing than that which is drawn from the confession of an adversary Upon this ground doth Barclay build his Triumph for the cause of Rome Adeo probanda est ecclesia nostra à nomine Catholicae quod extorquet etiam ab invitis hareticis as he brags it there For my part as I never gave it them in writing nor in common speech as thinking
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad vitam eternam so saith Scharp a Scotchman Ecclesia Catholica coetus est hominum sanctorum quos ab aeterno Deus in Christo elegit so saith Dr. Whitakers Ecclesia Catholica coetus est universus electorum so the famous Raynolds The like might be produced from others of the Doctors of the Reformation were not these few sufficient to speak out for all Names great enough I must confess but not to be preferred before Sacred Truth in the defence whereof it behoves a man not wedded to mens names and dictates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the words of Aristotle to sacrifice his private interesses and most dear Relations That the Elect are of the Church yea and the chief ingredients of the whole compositum it were impiety to deny And that it is for their sakes chiefly that the Word of God is preached the Sacraments of Christ administred the promises of life eternal offered to the Sons of Men is a thing which I shall easily grant And so I understand the words of Clemens of Alexandria saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Church of the first-born it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Text whence the Father had it whose names are written in the Heavens as St. Paul informs us But in a great house there are more people than the children though all they co-heirs and in a Royal Court there are many Retainers whose names are not registred in the Check Though the Elect are of the Church yet neither all they nor yet they alone Not all the Elect for when Saul breathed out slaughter against the Saints and Mary Magdalen was possessed with seven devils at once whether with so many wicked spirits or the seven deadly sins we dispute not now who can affirm them to be Members of the Church of Christ And yet who can or dare deny that they were vessels of election elect according to the fore-knowledge of Almighty God Secundum praescientiam praedestinationem quam multi oves foris quam multi lupi intus as St. Augustine hath it According to Gods prescience and predestination How many of the Sheep saith he are without the Church how many Wolves contained in it And in another place Electorum quidam in haeresibus aut Gentilium superstitionibus sunt tamen illic novit Dominus qui sunt ejus Many of the Elect. saith he are yet involved in Heresie or Heathenish Superstitions whom yet God knoweth to appertain unto the number of his people Nor they alone For there are Wolves within the fold as the Father telleth us and many which partake of the heavenly calling who by impurity of life and unfoundness of Doctrine exclude themselves from having place in the Heavenly Kingdom Out of the many which are called but few are chosen because they do not chearfully obey that calling and hearken not with due obedience to the voice of God which calls them in the Church unto newness of life Were it not so and that even wicked men and ungodly sinners did appertain unto the Church and that the Heretick and Schismatick were not members of it The Church had no authority to proceed against them or to endeavor their reclaim by Ecclesiastial censures Though God both may and will judge them when he sees his time yet the Church cannot do it For what have I to do to judge them also that are without saith the great Apostle And what were this but to make the Church of God which is pure and holy to be a stable of unclean beasts and a sink of filthiness To which all scandalous sinners would repair in swarms in confidence of enjoying there their desired impunity Gods field hath Tares as well as Wheat and both permitted to grow up till the general harvest when he shall give his Angels charge to sever the wicked from the just and righteous persons to binde the one in bundles for eternal fire but gather the other for his barn for the joyes of Heaven Now as these opposite parties have extreamly erred in the right constitution of the Members of the Church of Christ so have they failed as grosly in their Doctrine of the Churches Head Which the one side have made too great for that Sacred Body the other all Body in a manner but no Head at all I speak not here of Christ understand not so whom both sides do acknowledge for the Head of the Body Mystical but of the Supream Head on Earth to whom the Government of the Church is by him committed Our Masters in the Church of Rome first make the Government of the Church to be Monarchical and lay the burden on the shoulders of one man alone and then this more than man this Monarch to be the Pope of Rome and none else but he For the first part of this Assertion they pretend the Scriptures mustering up all the Privileges which Christ gave to Peter which were they such as are pretended were but personal onely no more annexed to his Successors in the Chair of Rome than in that of Antioch But for the second part thereof they confess ingenuously that there is no Scripture to be found For Bellarmine who had canvased this point as thoroughly as any man what ever of all that party is fain to shut it up with this close at last That though some Headship or Supremacy may seem to be conferred on Peter in the Book of God Tamen Pontificem Romanum Petro succedere expresse in Scripturis non haberi yet that the Pope succeeded Peter is not found in Scripture but grounded on Tradition onely as before was said And if it be not found in Scripture as he saith it is not we shall as little build our Faith upon their Traditions though now we see what makes them rank Traditions equal with the written Word as upon those similitudes and ill-grounded consequences which for want of better proof he is fain to flie to And yet this point thus weakly grounded is by them made an Article of the Catholick Faith and that not onely in the new Creed of Pope Pius the Fourth who might be partial in his own cause where it brings up the Rere but in the general esteem of the Court of Rome where it chargeth in the very Front For when the Princes of those times applauded the piety and courage of King Henry the Eighth in that without any alteration in Religion he had suppressed the Popes Authority in all his Dominions The Papal faction thought the censure to be very unjust Primo praecipuo Romanensium fidei Articulo de Pontificis Primatu immutato considering that the first and chiefest Article of the Faith that of the Popes Supremacy was so changed and abrogated But on what ground soever they have raised this building and placed the Headship of the Church on such rotten shoulders as are not able to support it yet is this Head
be Saints in the Church Triumphant But whether it be there or here a mutual communion there is always to be held between us between the Saints upon the Earth though Saints by outward calling onely united in the joynt participation of the Word and Sacraments and the external Profession of the Faith and Gospel but more conspicuously between those which are Saints indeed not onely nominally but really and truly such in that harmony of affections and reciprocal offices of love which makes them truly one Body of Christ though different Members And a communion there is too of this later kinde between the Saints upon the Earth and those which have their consummation in the Heaven of Glories who though they have in some part received the promise yet being fellow-members of the same one Body they pray for and await our ransom from this prison of flesh without which God hath so disposed it they should not be made perfect Which said we may now clearly see in what particulars the Communion of Saints intended in this Article doth consist especially which may be easily reduced unto three heads 1. A Communion in the Mysteries of our Salvation by which they are made members of one another and of Christ their Head 2. A Communion of Affections expressed in all the acts of love and charity even to the very communicating of their lives and fortunes And 3. A communion of entercourse between the Saints in Heaven and those here on Earth according to the different states in which God hath placed them All other kindes of Christian Communion are either contained in and under these or may be very easily reduced unto them And first for the Communion in the Mysteries of our Salvation and the benefits which redound thereby to the Church of Christ St. Paul hath told us That the Cup of blessing which is blessed in the holy Eucharist and the Bread there broken is the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ and that being made partakers of that one Bread we are thereby made though many to be one Bread also and one Body even the Body of Christ one Bread though made of many grains and one Body though composed of many members A better Paraphrase upon which place of the Apostle we can hardly finde in all the writings of the Fathers than that of Cyril Ut igitur inter nos Deum singulos uniret quamvis corpore simul anima distemus modum tamen adinvenit consilio patris sapientiae suae convenientem Suo enim corpore credentes per Communionem mysticam benedicens secum inter nos unum nos corpus efficit c That Christ might unite every one of us both with our selves and with God though we be distant from each other both in body and soul he hath devised a way agreeable to his own Wisdom and the Counsel of his Heavenly Father For in that he blesseth them that believe with his own Body by means of that Mystical Communion of it he maketh us one body with himself and with one another For who will think them not to be of this Natural union which be united in one Christ by the Union or Communion of that one holy Body For if we eat all of one Bread we are all made one Body in regard Christ may not be dis-joyned nor divided In which full passage of the Father we finde an union of the faithful with Christ their Head as well as a conjunction with one another effected by the Mystical communion of his Body and Blood A double union first with Christ and with each others next as the members of Christ. The union which we have with Christ is often times expressed in Scripture under the figure and resemblance of the Head and Members which as they make but one Natural Body so neither do they make but one Body Mystical Know you not saith the Apostle that your bodies are the members of Christ 1 Cor. 6.15 That ye are the body of Christ and members in particular 1 Cor. 12.27 That we are members of his body and of his flesh and of his bones Ephes. 5.30 And doth not the same Apostle tell us That God hath given Christ to be head over all things unto his Church Eph. 1.22 That Christ is the head of the Church Vers. 23. And that from this head all the body by joynts and bonds having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God Col. 2.19 Occumenius hereupon inferreth That neither Christ without the Church much less the Church without her Christ but both together so united make a perfect body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that Author hath it Others of more antiquity do affirm the same For thus St. Chrysostom Quidnaem significat panis Corpus Christi quid fiunt qui accipiunt Corpus Christi What signifieth the Bread The Body of Christ What are they made that do receive it The Body of Christ. St. Augustine thus Hunc cibum potum societatem vult intelligi corporis membrorum suorum i. e. He would have us understand that this meat and drink is the fellowship of his body and of his members What of the members onely with one another Not onely so but of the fellowship or communion which they have with him that is their head who though he be above in the heavenly places and is not fastned to his body with any corporal connexion yet he is joyned unto it by the bonds of love as the same Father hath it in another place Habet ecclesia caput positum in coelestibus quod gubernat corpus suum separatum quidem visione sed charitate annexum St. Cyprian speaks more home than either both to the matter and the manner of the union which we have with Christ. Nos ipsi corpus Christi effecti Sacramento re Sacramenti capiti nostro conjungineur unimur We are then made the Body of Christ both by the Sacrament and the grace represented by it when we are joyned or united unto Christ our Head Not that we are not made the members of Christs Mystical Body but onely by a participation of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood but that this Mystical union and communion which we have with Christ is most fitly represented by it For otherwise St. Paul hath told us That by one Spirit we are all baptized into that one Body and consequently made the members of Christ. According unto that of Divine St. Augustine Ad hoc baptisma valet ut baptizati Christo incorporentur membra ejus efficiantur To this saith he availeth Baptism that men being baptized may be incorporated unto Christ and made his Members But this supposeth a relation to the other Sacrament of which although they may not actually participate before they die yet they have either a desire to it if they be of age and a right or interess in it
if they die in their Baptism in which respect they may be said to communicate with the rest of the faithful Concerning which the same St. Augustine hath most excellently resolved it thus No man in any wise may doubt but that every faithful man is then made partaker of Christs Body and Blood when in Baptism he is made a member of Christ And that he is not deprived of the Communion of that Bread and that Cup although before he either eat of that Bread or drink of that Cup he depart this world being in the unity of Christs Body For he is not deprived from partaking of the benefit of that Sacrament so long as he findeth in himself the things or the res Sacramenti as St. Cyprian calls it which the Sacrament signifieth As for the Union or Communion which the faithful have with one another though that arise upon their first incorporation in Iesus Christ by holy Baptism yet is more compleatly signified and more fully effected by that communion which they have in his Body and Blood And so St. Cyprian and St. Augustine and the rest of the Fathers do declare most plainly St. Cyprian as more antient shall begin the evidence and be the foreman of the Inquest That Christian men are joyned together with the inseparable bonds of charity the Lords Supper doth saith he declare St. Augustine generally first of all outward Sacraments In nullum nomen Religionis seu verum seu falsum coagulari possunt homines nisi aliquo signaculorum vel sacramentorum visibilium consortio colligantur Men saith he cannot be united into any Religion be it true or false unless they be joyned together in the bond of some visible Sacraments What he affirmeth of this particularly we shall see anon first taking with us that of Dionysius an Antient Writer doubtless whosoever he was Sancta illa unius ejusdem panis poculi communis pacifica distributio unitatem illis divinam tanquam unà enutritis praescribit that is to say That holy and peaceable distribution of the same one Bread and that common Cup prescribeth to them which are so fed and nourished together a most heavenly union More elegantly in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which Pachymeres the Greek Paraphrast doth thus reason for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Because that common feeding together with such joynt consent bringeth to our remembrance the Lords Supper Nor doth the participation of this blessed Sacrament produce an union or communion between them alone who do receive the same together at one time and place but it doth joyn and knit together all the Saints of God how far soever they are distant and scattered far and near upon the face of the Earth For therein we profess that we are all servants in one House and resort all to one Table and feed all of one Spiritual Meat which is the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb of God The Prayers which are used in that holy action being so fitted and contrived in all Antient Liturgies that they extend not unto those onely which do then communicate but that they and the whole Church with them may by the death and merits of Iesus Christ and through Faith in his Blood obtain remission of their sins and all other the benefits of his passion as it is piously expressed in the Liturgy of the Church of England To this St. Ierom gives a clear and most ample testimony who being pressed by Iohn the then Bishop of Ierusalem with whom he had some personal quarrels to go to Rome and witness his integrity by communicating in the face of that Church A qua videmur communione separari from whose communion he had seemed to separate returns this Answer Non necesse esse ire tam longè that it was not needful for him to go so far How so Et hic in Palestina eodem modo ei jungimur In viculo enim Bethlehem Presbyteris ejus quantum in nobis est communion◠sociamur For here saith he in Palestine do we hold communion with that Church and I residing in this Village of Bethlehem am joyned in the communion with the Priests of Rome By which we see that whosoever doth worthily eat the Body of Christ and drink his Blood according to the Institution of our Lord and Saviour communicates thereby with all Christian men of all Countreys and Nations whatsoever and that by vertue and effect of the said Communion they be all knit and joyned together as members of the same one Body in the bonds of love And this is that which is affirmed by St. Augustine Non mirum si absentes adsumus nobis ignoti no smet novimus cum unius corporis membra simus unum habeamus caput una perfundamur gratia uno pane vivamus una incedamus via eadem habitemus is domo It is no wonder saith the Father that being absent we be present together and being not acquainted do know each other considering that we be the Members of one Body have the same one Head an endowment of the self-same Spirit and that we live by one bread go the same way and dwell together in one House To testifie this Communion which they had with each other by vertue of the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper it was a custom of the Primitive and Purest times to send some part of the consecrated Elements unto them which were absent and joyned not with them in that action And sometimes for one Bishop to send to another a Loaf of Bread as a token of consent in the point of Faith and in all brotherly love and concord which he that did receive it if he thought it fitting might consecrate and use at the Ministration Touching the first of these it was well observed by Irenaeus that when any of the Eastern Bishops came to Rome the Popes thereof which preceded Victor did use to send them some of the blessed Sacrament although they differed in the observation of the Feast of Easter whereby a mutual concord and communion was preserved between them Of which he writeth thus to the said Pope Victor Qui fuerunt ante te Presbyteri etiam cum non ita observarent Presbyteris Ecclesiarum of the East he meaneth cum Romam acciderent Eucharistiam mittebant And of the other it is said in those Epistles which Paulinus wrote unto St. Augustine Panem unum quem unanimitatis indicio misimus charitati tuae rogamus ut accipiendo benedicas i. e. The Loaf of Bread which I have sent unto you as a token of unity I beseech you to receive and consecrate See also to what purpose he sent those five Loaves which were designed for the said St. Augustine and Licinius of which he speaketh in the Six and thirtieth Epistle of that Fathers works and that other single Loaf in the Five and thirtieth where it appeareth That the Loaves so sent and consecrated
entituled actual The nature of which Birth-sin or Original sin is by the Church of England in her publick Articles defined to be the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is ingendred of the Of-spring of Adam whereby man is very far gon from Original righteousness and inclined to evill In which description we may find the whole nature of it as first that it is a corruption of our nature and of the nature of every man descended from the Loyns of Adam Secondly That it is a departure from and even a loss or forfieture of that stock of Original Iustice wherewith the Lord enriched our first Father Adam and our selves in him And thirdly That it is an inclination unto evil to the works of wickedness by means whereof as afterwards the Article explains it self the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and both together do incur the indignation of God So that if we speak of Original sin formally it is the privation of those excellent gifts of divine Grace inabling us to know love serve honor and trust in God and to do the things that God delights in which Adam once had but did shortly lose If materially it is that habitual inclination which is found in men most averse from God carrying them to the inordinate love and desire of finite things of the creature more than the Creator which is so properly a sin that it makes guilty of condemnation the person whosoever it be in whom it is found And this habitual inclination to the inordinate love of the creature is named Concupiscence which being two-fold as Alensis notes it out of Hugo that is to say Concupiscentia spiritus a concupiscience of the spirit or superior and concupiscentia carnis a concupiscence of the flesh or inferior faculties the first of these is onely sin but the latter is both sin and punishment For what can be more consonant to the Rules of Iustice than that the Will refusing to be ordered by God and desiring what he would not have it should finde the inferior faculties rebellious against it self and inclinable to desire those things in a violent way which the Will would have to be declined Now that all of us from the womb are tainted with this original corruption and depravation of nature is manifest unto us by the Scriptures and by some Arguments derived from the practise of the Catholick Church countenanced and confirmed by the antient Doctors In Scripture first we find how passionately David makes complaint that he was shapen in wickedness and conceived in sin Where we may note in the Greek and Vulgar Latine it is in sins and wickednesses in the plural number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek in peccatis in iniquitatibus as the Latine hath it And that to shew us as Becanus hath right well observed Quod unum illud peccatum quasi fons sit aliorum that this one sin is as it were the Spring and Fountain from whence all others are derived Next St. Paul tels us in plain words that by the offence of one of this one man Adam Iudgement came upon all men to condemnation and Judgement could not come upon all or any were it not in regard of sin Not that all men in whom Original sin is found without the addition of Actual and Personal guiltiness are actually made subject unto condemnation and can expect no mercy at the hands of God but that they are all guilty of it should God deal extreamly and take the forfeiture of the Bond which we all entred into in our Father Adam Thus finde we in the same Apostle that we are by nature the children of wrath polluted and unclean from the very womb our very nature being so inclinable to the works of wickedness that it disposeth us to evil from the first conception and makes us subject to the wrath and displeasure of God Last of all we are told by the same Apostle for we will clog this point with no further evidence That the wages of sin is death that sin entred into the world and death by sin and that death passed upon all men for that all have sinned And thereupon we may conclude That wheresoever we behold a spectacle of death there was a receptacle of some sin Now we all know that death doth spare no more the Infant than the Elder man and that sometimes our children are deprived of life assoon almost as they enjoy it sometimes born dead and sometimes dead assoon as born Prima quae vitam dedit hora carpsit in the Poets language A wages no way due to Infants for their actual sins for actually as yet they have not offended and therefore there must needs be in them some original guilt some Birth-sin as the Article calls it which brings so quick a death upon them And this is further verified from the constant and continual practise of the Church of Christ which hath provided That the Sacrament of Baptism be conferred on Infants before they come unto the use of Speech or Reason yea and at some times and on some occasions as namely in cases of extremity and the danger of death to Christen them assoon as born For by so doing she did charitably and not unwarrantably conceive that they are received into the number of Gods children and in a state of good assurance which could not be so hopefully determined of them should they depart without the same And with this that of Origen doth agree exactly Si nihil esset in parvulis quod ad remissionem deberet indulgentiam pertinere gratia Baptismi superflua videretur Were there not something in an Infant which required forgiveness the Sacrament of Baptism were superfluously administred to him Upon which grounds the Church of England hath maintained the necessity of Baptism against the Sectaries of this age allowing it to be administred in private houses as oft as any danger or necessity doth require it of her A second thing we finde in the Churches practise and in the practise of particular persons of most note and evidence which serves exceeding fitly to confirm this point and that is That neither the Church in general doth celebrate the birth-day of the Saints departed but the day onely of their deaths nor any of the Saints themselves did solemnize the day of their own Nativity with Feasts and Triumphs First for the practise of the Church we may take this general rule once for all Non nativitatem sed mortem sanctorum ecclesia pretiosam judicat beatam That the Church reckoneth not the day of their birth but the death-day if I may so call it of the Saints to be blest and precious According unto that of the Royal Psalmist Right precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints Upon which grounds the word Natalis hath been used in the Martyrologies and other publick
Parents were infected from the very birth Nor doth it any way advantage us in this present case that our Parents were regenerate for so we may suppose when they did beget us and being washed themselves from Original sin by the laver of regeneration should therefore in congruity be inabled also to beget children like themselves free from that pollution For the Regenerate are never so absolutely cleared from this corruption but that there is a law in their members which doth still war against the Spirit and that which as the Scripture telleth us hath in it self such an unpleasingness to God as maketh it to have somewhat in it of the nature of sin It is true that by the Sacrament of regeneration the guilt thereof is washed away and man thereby acquitted from the punishment of it yet there remaineth in us still that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that wisdom or sensuality of the flesh as St. Paul entituleth it whereby we are inclined to resist at all times and sometimes actually do rebel against the Spirit Or were it so that in the state of grace and regeneration we were all cleansed throughout yet might our children be partakers of those corruptions which naturally and originally were inherent in us For let the Husbandman Wâ—ndow and Rie and Pick his Wheat with all care and industry till there be neâ—ther Chaff nor Tare nor ill Seed amongst it yet when that Wheat is sown and the stalk grown up into an Ear those Ears will be as full of Chaff as was the Seed it self out of which they came before such care and pains had been took about it And so St. Augustine hath resolved it saying Oleae semina non oleas generare sed oledstros That the wilde Olive springs from the true Olive Tree What then may any man complain as it seems too many did in the time of Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What reason is it that we should be punished and afflicted it is for him we suffer for Adams fault and not our own that we are thus scourged Assuredly there is no such matter and we may say to such complainers as that Father did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not so saith he it is no such thing we suffer not for his but our own transgressions The best man hath too many sins which he is to answer for besides that of Adam and therefore none to lay the blame of his guilt and punishment upon Adam onely as if he onely had offended and not we our selves There is not one who hath not wretchedly increased that stock of wickedness which his Father left him adding transgressions of his own many actual sins to that original corruption which he had from Adam And howsoever we are unthrifts on that stock of grace which God is pleased to give unto us and eiâ—her hide our Talents in a Napkin as we know who did or else mispend them like the Prodigal on our riotous lusts yet we are too good husbands on that stock of sin which is bequeathed us by our Parents There is not a man amongst us but improves that patrimony adding one sin unto another as Lust to Drunkenness Murder to Adultery Rebellion to Secret Treasons Lascivious speech to loose Affections and unchaste actions unto both Which though they are the necessary consequents of original sin unless exceedingly held in by the bridle of grace so are they daily multiplied and increased continually by giving way to our corrupt affections and following the example of that first Transgressor Sic instituere majores posteri imitantur as he in Tacitus The Fathers manner of life is the Sons example So that the followers of Pelagius when they imputed sin unto imitation had they intended it of actual not original sin they had not been much wanting of the mark they aimed at We are made guilty of original sin immediately from our own Parents as they from theirs ascending till they came to Adam in the way of Propagation and make their actual sins our own in the way of imitation Nor need we press this further than with that of Origen Parentes non solum generant filium sed imbuunt qui nascuntur non solum filis Parentibus sunt sed Discipuli in reference unto sin and wickedness we are the Scholars of our Parents not their Children onely But whether it be by Propagation or by Imitation or by transcending all examples which have been before us most sure it is that we are all corrupt and become abominable that there is none that doeth good no not one being filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness Maliciousness full of envy murther debate malignity insomuch as from the Crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is nothing but swellings and soars and putrifaction More sure it is that even our righteousness is but like to a menstruous cloth and that our justest actions are not able to endure the trial if they should come to be weighed in the sight of God by the severity of the Law and the exact ballance of the Sanctuary Vae enim laudabili hominum vitae si remotâ misericordiâ discutias eam Woe saith Augustine to the most commendable part of all our lives should not God look upon us with the eyes of mercy and through the Spectacles of the merits of our Lord CHRIST IESVS Not to insist longer on those curiosities which are and may be made by unquiet men about the Introduction Propagation and universal over-spreading of the body of sin we must resolve as he that fell into a pit did resolve the Passenger who was inquisitive to know how he came into it At ille obsecro inquit tecum cogita quomodo hinc me liberes c. My friend said the poor fellow take no care to learn how I fell into it but do the best you can to help me out of it That we are fallen into the pit not only of Original but of Actual filthiness we all know too well and we know too that we first fell into it by the fault of our Father Adam but have since plunged our selves more deeply in the mire of sin then Adam by his personal error could have brought upon us If we are yet unsatisfied with the manner how notwithstanding all that hath been formerly here delivered and may be elsewhere found in the Antient writers we may do well to take as much care as we can for our getting out and not molest our selves and others with those needless questions which have been made about the manner of our falling in And this is that which we are next to go in hand with For if there were no way to get out of this pit the knowledge which we have of our falling in and of the condition we lie under till we be delivered would so perplex us and afflict us that Christians of all men would be most miserable But so
it is that God of his great goodness and love to man hath so provided that no man can complain that he wants help to get out if he be not wanting to himself but will stretch out his hand and lay hold of such means as are by God prepared to that end and purpose If we sing Domine de profundis and call upon him out of the deeps of our sin and misery no doubt but he will hear our voyce and take pitty on us for with him there is mercy saith the Royal Psalmist with him is plentious redemption sufficient to deliver Israel from all his sins The pit of sin is deep that of mercy bottomless a kind of Puteus inexhaustus a Well which can never be drawn dry as the Pope said of England when at his devotion Though man sin grievously and unpardonably in the sight of others yet hath God mercie still in store for the greatest sinner Gods goodness being so transcendent as not to be exhausted by mans maliciousness Bonitas invicti non vincitur said Fulgentius rightly Those of the Church of Rome have made a difference of sins accounting some to be venial others mortal which terms we well enough approve of rightly understood but I approve not the distinction of some Protestant Doctors of remissible and irremissible of sins which may be pardoned and of sins that may not First We deny not the distinction of venial and mortal sins rightly understood but do think that some sins are fitly said to be mortal and some venial because some are forgiven some not according to the quality of the sin and the party sinning Not that we think that some are worthy in themselves of eternal punishment and others but of temporal onely whereof the first are counted mortal and the others venial as the Papists think but that some sins either in respect of the matter wherein men offend or ex imperfectione actus in that they are not committed with a full consent are not so inconsistent with the Spirit of Grace but that the Spirit of Grace still remaining in him which doth them and preserves him in the good opinion and esteem of God These we may call Peccata quotidianae incursionis sins of daily incursion vain thoughts and idle words and unseemly motions which the best men are subject to at some time or other And if God were extream in marking what is done amiss in these several waies no flesh were able to abide it He that is faulty in these kinds though he deserve punishment and eternal punishment at the hands of God if God should take advantage of the Law against him yet shall his punishment be lesse and his stripes far fewer than it shall be in those who transgress maliciously and sin with an high hand of presumptuous wickedness We have not so much of the Stoick as to make sins equal or to maintain peccata omnia sunt aequalia in the way of Paradox as once Tully did though the Papists falsly charge it on us For though we use not the distinction in their sense and meaning yet neither do we say that all sins are equal and of like deformity or in the same degree of contrariety with the grace of God or that they have the same effects and shall be punished at the last with the like extremity Onely we take it for a dangerous and presumptuous doctrine to teach that any sin if properly and truly sin is venial in and of it self without true repentance as that which doth include nothing offensive to God or is meritorious of his judgements For Almain one of their great Doctors doth affirm expresly that it is a question amongst the Schoolmen whether there be any such sin or not And himself concludeth out of Gerson that no sin is venial of it self but onely through the mercy of God it being a contradiction that God should forbid an act under a penalty and when he hath done that act should not be mortal in its own nature because being thus forbidden it is against the Law of God and that which is against Gods Law must needs be infinitely evil and by consequence mortal And so it is also in respect of the party sinning For as Cajetan hath well observed That which doth positively make sin venial or not venial is the state of the subject wherein it is found If therefore we respect the nature of sin as it is in it self without grace it will remain eternally in stain or guilt and so subject the sinner to eternal punishment But yet such is the nature of some sins either in regard of the matter wherein they are conversant or their not being done with full consent that they do not necessarily imply an exclusion of Grace out of the subject in which they are found and so do not necessarily put the doers of them into such a state which positively makes them not to be venial by removing grace which is the fountain of remission So that no sin is positively venial as having any thing in it self which may claim remission because it hath not any thing of Grace from whence all remission doth proceed though many sins ex genere or ex imperfectione actus as before was said that is to say in reference to the matter wherein man offendeth or to the manner as not done with a full consent may be said to be venial negative and per non ablationem principii remissionis in that it doth not necessarily imply the exclusion of grace by the exclusion of which grace from the souls of men sins are named mortal For being that Grace onely is the fountain whence remission springs nothing can make sin positively venial but to be in Grace nor nothing make it positively mortal but to be out of the state of Grace And so we see that some sins may be called venial according to the quality of the sin and the party sinning in that they bring not alwaies with them eternal punishment though possibly not repented of particularly and that all sins are venial ex eventu too though otherwise mortal in themselves in that there is no sin so great but by the blood of Christ and sincere repentance may â—e done away and freely pardoned by the merciful goodness of the Lord our God who desireth not the death of a sinner but rather that he should turn from sin and be saved For that there is no sin so great which is unpardonable or irremissible in respect of God the infinitness of his mercy over all his works his graciousness in pardoning Davids Murther Solomons Idolatries Pauls Persecuting of his Church Peters denying of his Master and thousands of the like examples do most clearly evidence If ever men had reason to despair of pardon none I am certain could have more than those we did so wilfully and maliciously imbrew their hands in the most innocent blood of our Lord and Saviour yet when their hearts were touched at St.
to the water but the institution nor to the Sacramental water of it self alone but to the holy Spirit which is active in it Et ipsi soli hujus efficienciae privilegium manet to which belongeth the prerogative in this great effect For as the Spirit of God moving upon the waters of the great Abyss did out of that imperfect matter produce the world so the same Spirit moving on the waters of Baptism doth by its mighty power produce a regenerate Creature From hence it is that in the setting forth of so great a work the water and the Spirit are oft joyned together as in St. Iohn Except a man be born again of Water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And in St. Paul accrrding to his mercy hath he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost And in St. Iohns Epistle also There be three that bear witness on the earth the Spirit and the Water and the Blood And if the Spirit go along with the Waters of Baptism as we see them joyned together in the holy Scripture no question but it will be made effectual to the work intended which is the washing away of sins whether smal or great whether Original or Actual of what sort soever For proof whereof besides what hath been said of this Point already let us behold the practise of the Primitive times when the Discipline of the Church was grown so severe that some were hardly admitted at all unto publick Penance others removed from the communion of the Church for three four or seven years together and sometimes as the quality of the sin appeared for the whole time of their lives A Discipline which the Church used onely towards those which had given up their names in baptism to be visible members of that body whereof Christ was Head and that made more unpleasing to most sort of men upon the growth and spreading of the Novatian Heresie who mistaking the Apostles meaning declared all those to be uncapable of mercy who sinned after Baptism and therefore neither would admit them unto publick penance nor otherwise restore them to the Churches peace of whom St. Cyprian thus complaineth Sic obstinatos esse quosdam ut dandam non putent lapsis poenitentiam And though the Orthodox party did abominate these Novatian rigors yet were they too strait-laced towards those who fell into any publick or notorious sin after they had received the Sacrament of Regeneration it being conceived that after Baptism major in sordibus delictorum reatus as it is in Augustine the smalest sins seemed greater than indeed they were Upon this ground and an assurance which they had that all their sins whatever were expunged in Baptism it was the custom of too many to defer their Baptism till the hour of their death or till they lay so far past hope on the bed of sickness that nothing but the stroke of death was to be expected Thus doth the Story tell us of the Emperor Constantine that in extremo vitae die when he was even brought to the point of death he was baptized in Nicomedia by the hands of Eusebius the like of Theodosius a most pious Prince upon these grounds St. Austine did defer his baptism a long time together that so he might more freely enjoy those pleasures to which he was addicted in his younger years On the like fear of such relapses as were censured so severely in those rigid times he put off the baptizing of Adeodatus his own natural Son till he came to thirteen years of age at what time the severity of the Church began to slaken or rather the good Fathers judgement was then changed to the better on the right understanding of the use and nature of that holy Sacrament A custom as ill taken up so as much condemned and subject to the Churches censures when occasion served those which were so baptized and escaped from death whom they called Clinici because they were baptized on the bed of sickness being disabled by the Canons from the holy Ministery But whether censured or not censured it comes all to one as to the point I have in hand which was to shew that in the practise and opinion of those elder times the Sacrament of Baptism was held to be the general plaster for all manner of sins and though sometimes deferred till the hour of death on the occasion and mistakes before remembred yet then most earnestly desired ad delenda erratu illa quae quoniam mortales erant admiserant as the Historian saith of the Emperor Constantine for expiating of those sins which they had committed But on the other side as some did purposely defer it till the time of their death out of too great a fear of the Church's censures and a desire to injoy the pleasures of sin yet a little longer so others and those the generality of the people of God out of a greater care of their childrens safety procured it to be administred unto them in their â—endrest infancy almost as soon as they were born And this they did on very pious and prudential considerations though there be no express command nor positive precept for it in the holy Scripture for when we read that we were shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin Psal. 51.5 that all men are by nature the children of wrath Ephes. 2.3 and that except a man be born again of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Joh. 3.5 What Parent can so far put off all natural affections as not to bring his child to baptism especially if there be any danger of death as soon as all things fitting can be had in readiness for that ministration And though there be no positive precept nor express command for Infant-baptism in the holy Scripture it is sufficient ground for the Church to go on if it be proved to be an Apostolical practise and that it is at least an Apostolical practise there will appear sufficient evidence to any man not prepossessed with prejudice and mis-perswasions For when we finde particular mention of the baptizing of whole housholds as of that of Lydia Act. 16.15 of the Gaoler vers 33. of the same Chapter and of Stephanus 2 Cor. 1.16 Either we must exclude children from being part of the houshold which were very absurd or else admit them with the rest to this holy Sacrament But because many exceptions have been made against these instances some thinking it possible enough that those housholds had no children in them as we see many families in great Towns and Cities where no Infants are others restraining the administration of Baptism unto such of the houshold as by giving testimony of their Faith and Repentance were made capable of it we must for further proof make use of a Rule in Law and back that Rule of Law by a practical Maxim delivered by the
this present life And Lyra also saith the same though of later date Dixit Christus se derelictum a Deo Patre quia dimittebat eum in manibus occidentium i. e. Christ saith he was forsaken of God his Father because he was left in the hands of them that slew him And so Theodoret for the Greeks CHRIST saith he calleth that a dereliction or forsaking of God which was a permission of the Godhead that the humanity might suffer With these agree some Doctors of the Protestant Churches of great name and credit as Bucer and Bullinger in their Comments on the 27. of S. Matthew and Munster in his observations on the 21. Psalm Other forsaking other dereliction more then the leaving of him in the hands of his enemies they acknowledg none sure I am no withdrawing from him of the divine presence and assistance of God For so Tertullian doth affirm that God was said to have forsaken him in a sort dum hominem ejus tradidit in mortem whilest he delivered him in his humane nature to the hands of death but that he did not leave him altogether in that it was into the hands of his Father that he commended his Spirit Fulgentius saith as much or more saying that though in the death of Christ his soul was to forsake his dying body Divinitas tamen Christi nec ab anima nec a earne potest separari suscepta yet the Divinity could not be separated from his soul nor from the body neither which it had assumed And how far Christ was then from thinking that he had either lost the favour of Almighty God or his own interest in disposing of the heavenly glories doth evidently appear by that of Hilariâ— derelinqui se ad mortem questus est sed tunc Confessorem suum secum in regno Paradisi suscepit CHRIST saith he doth complain of his being forsaken or left unto the powers of death and yet even then he received the Theef that did confess him into the assured hopes of Paradise Where by the way all the forsaking which this Father doth take notice of was derelictio ad mortem a leaving of our Saviour to the hands of death The Schoolmen also say the same who make six kindes of dereliction or forsaking according as I finde them in our Reverend Field 1. By disunion of person 2. by loss of grace 3. by diminution or weakness of grace 4. by want of the assurance of future deliverance and present support 5. by denial of protection and 6. by withdrawing all solace and destituting the forsaken of all present comfort Then they declare that it is an impious thing to think that Christ was forsaken any of the four first ways in that the unity of his Person was never dissolved his graces neither taken away nor diminished no possibility that he should want assurance either of present support or future deliverance But for the two last ways he may be rightly said say they to have been forsaken in that his Father had denyed to protect and keep him out of the hands of his cruel bloudy and merciless enemies no way restraining them but suffering them to do the uttermost of that which their wicked malice could invent and that nothing might be wanting to make his sorrows beyond measure sorrowful had withdrawn from him also that accustomed solace which he was wont to find in God and removed from him all those things which might any way asswage the extremity of his pain and misery The Master of the Sentences gives it thus more briefly Separavit se divinitas quia substraxit protectionem separavit se foris ut non esset ad defensionem sed non intus defuit ad unionem All the forsaking then that the Lord complained of on the Cross was that he had been left to the hands of his enemies and that his heavenly Father had forborn all this while to shew any open sign of love or favour towards him in the sight of the Iews by whom he had been so afflicted and reproached and indeed blasphemed This is the most that can be said of this bitter and compassionte cemplaint which our Saviour made whether in reference to himself or to all mankinde or perhaps to both unless it may be further added that he desired in these words as some think he did that God would please to manifest by some publick sign what an esteem he had of that sacred Person whom both the Iews and Gentiles had so much oppressed and despised and of whom he had seemed all this while to make little reckoning And this is that which Athanasius hath observed in his fourth Oration or Discourse against the Arians who stood much upon it Loe saith he upon Christs speech why hast thou forsaken me the Father shewed himself to be even then in Christ as ever before For the earth knowing her Lord to speak did straightway tremble and the vail rent in twain and the Sun did hide himself and the rocks clave in sunder and the graves were opened and the dead men rose And that which was no less marvellous indeed the standers by which before denyed him confessed him to be the Son of God To proceed then this exclamation being made and gaining no more from the standers by but addition of scorn to misery and contempt to scorn the people mocking him as if he had called upon Elias to come and help him he cryed out I thirst and even the matter of that cry gives them another opportunity to put a scorn upon him and increase his griefs One of them saith the Scripture ran and took a spunge and filled it with vinegar and put it on a reed and gave it him to drink Matth. 27.48 Where mark the malice of the man if he may so be called which had no humanity Our Saviour called for drink to asswage his thirst the wicked fellow gives him vinegar not to accelerate his death or send him out of hand to the other world for fear Elias indeed should come to help him as Theophylact thinks but rather to continue him the longer in those terrible pains It is the quality of vinegar as we read in Pliny that it stancheth the effusion of bloud Sanguinis profluvium sistunt ex aceto as that Author hath it And therefore I concurre with them who think this vinegar was given him to no other end but out of a most barbarous purpose to prolong his torments for fear least otherwise he might bleed to death and put too speedy an end to their sports and triumphs But contrary to the expectation of this wicked man no sooner had our Saviour took a tast thereof but the work was finished He cryed out with a loud voice Matth. 27.50 It is finished Joh. 19.30 and presently he bowed his head and said Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit and having thus said he gave up the ghost In which it
is to be observed that Christ now seeing all was finished which God required at his hands to the satisfaction of his justice for the sins of man and having fulfilled all those things which were spoken of him by the Prophets did voluntarily of his own accord deliver up his soul into the hands of his Father He had before told us of himself that he was the good Shepheard which giveth his life for the sheep Ioh. 10.11 that no man had power to take it from him Si nemo utique nec mors and if none then not death as we read in Chrysostom but that he laid it down of himself vers 18. and that he gave his life as a ransome for many Matth. 20.28 And the event shewed that he was no braggard or had said more then he was able to perform For the Evangelists declare that he had sense and speech and voluntary motion to the last gasp of his breath all which do evidently fail in the sons of men before the soul parteth from the body Which breathing out of his soul so presently upon so strong a cry and so lowd a prayer seemed so miraculous to the Centurion who observed the same that without expecting any further Miracle he acknowledged presently that truly this was the Son of God And this St. Hierom noted rightly The Centurion hearing Christ say to his Father Into thy hands I commend my Spirit statim sponte dimisisse spiritum and presently of his own accord to give up the ghost moved with the greatness of the wonder said Truly this man was the Son of God The Fathers generally do affirm the same ascribing this last act of our Saviours Tragedy not to extremity of pain or loss of bloud to any outward violence or decay of spirits but as his own voluntary deed and that though God the Father had decreed he should die yet he did give him leave and power to lay down his life of his own accord that his obedience to the will and pleasure of his heavenly Father might appear more evidently and the oblation of himself be the more acceptable And to this purpose saith St. Ambrose Quasi arbiter exuendi suscipiendique corporis emisit spiritum non amisit i. e. he did not lose his soul though he breathed it forth as one that had it in his own power both to assume his body and to put it off Eusebius to the same purpose also When no man had power over Christs soul he himself of his own accord laid it down for man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so being free at his own disposing and not over-ruled by outward force he himself of himself made his departure from the body The judgement of the rest of the Fathers touching this particular he that list to see let him consult St. Augustine lib. 4 de Trinit c. 13. Victor Antiochen in Marc. c. 15. Leo de Passione Dom. serm 16. Fulgentius lib. 3. ad Thrasimundum Sedulius in Opere Paschali lib. 5. c. 17. Beda in Matth. c. 27. Bernard in Feria 4. Hebdom poenosae And for the Greeks Athanasius Orat. 4. contra Arianos Origen in Ioh. Hom. 19. Gregorie Nyssen in Orat. 1. de Christi Resurrectione Nazianzen in his Tragedy called Christus patiens Chrysostom in Matth. 27. Homil. 89. Theophylact on the 27. of Matth. and the 23. of Mark. and the 23. of Luke And for late Writers Erasmus on Luk. 23. and Mark 15. Musculus on the 27. of Matthew and Gualter Hom. 169. on Iohn all which attest most punctually to the truth of this that the death of Christ was not meerly natural proceeding either from any outward or inward causes but only from his own great power and his holy will And to what purpose note they this but first to shew the conquest which he had of death whom he thus swallowed up in victory as the Apostle doth express it and secondly to shew that whereas natural death was the wages of sin which could not be inflicted on him in whom no sin was he therefore did breath out his soul in another manner then is incident to the sons of men to make himself a free-will offering to the Lord his God and make himself a sacrifice for the sins of mankinde by yeelding willingly to that death which their sins deserved And to this death this voluntary but bodily death of the Lord CHRIST IESVS and to that alone the Scriptures do ascribe that great work of the worlds redemption For thus St. Paul unto the Romans When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Rom. 5.11 to the Hebrews thus For this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Heb. 9.15 if by Christs death it must be by his bodily death by effusion of his bloud and by no other death or kinde of death of what sort soever And to this truth the Scriptures witness very frequently For thus St. Paul we have redemption through his bloud Ephes. 1.7 By his own bloud hath he entred into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us Heb. 9.12 St. Peter thus Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as with silver and gold but with the precious bloud of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot 1 Pet. 1.18 19. Finally thus the Elders say unto the Lamb in the Revelation Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy bloud Apocal. 5 9. Which being so it is most certain that Christ abolished sin and Satan by suffering his body to be slain his bloud to be shed unto the death or the sins of the world and not by any other way or means co-ordinate with it as some lately fable Yet so it is that some men not content with that way of Redemption which is delivered in the Scriptures have fancyed to themselves another and more likely means for perfecting that great work of the death of Christ and teach us that the shedding of his bloud to the death of his body had not been sufficient for the remission of our sins if he had not also suffered the death of the soul and thereby wholly ransomed us from the wrath of God Calvin first led the dance in this affirming very desperately that I say no worse Nihil actum esse si corporea tantum morte defunctus fuisset that Christ had done nothing to the purpose if he had dyed no other then a bodâ—ly death He must then die the death of the soul seeing that his bodily death would not serve the turn and they who pretermit this part of our Redemption never known before and do insist so much externo carnis supplicio in the outward sacrifice of his flesh are insulsi nimis but silly fellows
the soule and by a metaphor the motions of the minde whether good or evill are called spirits also as the spirit of giddiness Isa. 19.14 the spirit of error 1 Tim. 4.1 the spirit of envie Iam. 4.5 which come all from the unclean spirit mentioned Luk. 11.24 And thus in general the pious motions in the mind are called Spirits too Quench not the spirit saith St. Paul i. e. those godly motions to the works of Faith and Piety which the Holy Spirit of God doth secretly kindle in thee For the word Ghost it is originally Saxon and signifieth properly the soul of a man as when we read of Christ that he gave up the Ghost Mark 15.37 and in the rest of the Evangelists also the meaning is that his soule departed from his body he yeelded up his soule to the hands of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Original Expiravit as the Latine reads it that is to say he breathed out his soul or he breathed his last Nor doth it signifie the soule onely though that most properly but generally also any spiritual substance as doth the word spiritus in the Latine a touch whereof we have still remaining in the Adjective Ghostly by which we mean that which is spiritual as our Ghostly Father Ghostly Counsel i. e. our Father in the spiritual matters counsel that savoreth of the spirit So then the Holy Ghost and the Holy Spirit are the same Person here though in different words and the word Holy which is added doth clearly difference him from all other spirits Not that God being a spirit is not holy also or that the Angelical spirits are not replenished with as much holinesse as a created nature can be capable of but because it is his Office to sanctifie or make holy all the elect Children of God therefore hath he the title or attribute of holy annexed unto him And yet the title of holy is not always added to denote this person though when we find mention of the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit it is meant and spoken of him onely For sometimes he is called the Spirit without any adjunct the Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by way of eminency but still with reference to those gifts which he doth bestow The manifestation of the spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Article demonstrative is given to every man to profit withall For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdome to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit Sometimes he is called the Spirit of the Father as Matth. 10.20 It is not yee that speak but the Spirit of the Father which speaketh in you sometimes the Spirit of the Son as Gal. 4.6 where it is said that God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying Abba Father Most generally he is called the Spirit of God as Gen 1.2 and Matth. 3.16 and infinite other places of the holy Scripture and more particularly the Spirit of Christ Rom. 8.9 in which place he is also called the Spirit of God Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if that the Spirit of God dwel in you there the Spirit of God if any have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his So the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit both of God and Christ and in one verse both So far we are onwards on our way for discoverie of the nature of this blessâ—d Spirit as to have found him out to be the Spirit of God the Father from whom he doth proceed by an unspeakable way of emanation and unknown to man for he proceedeth from the Father as our Saviour telleth us and to be also the Spirit of Christ the Son of God by whom he was breathed on the Apostles and so proceeding from the Son doth proceed from both Sent from the Father at the desire and prayer of the Son I will pray the Father and he shall send you another Comforter Iohn 14.16 Sent by the Son with the consent and approbation of the Father whom I will send unto you from the Father Iohn 15.26 and so sent of both And yet not therefore the less God because sent by either than IESUS CHRIST is God God for ever blessed as St. Paul calls him Rom. 9.5 because he was sent by God the Father He sent his Son made of a woman Gal. 4.4 saith the same Apostle If any doubt hereof as I know some do he may be sent for resolution of his doubt to the beginning of Genesis where he shall finde the Spirit of God moving on the waters Gen. 1.2 And to the Law where he shall read how the same Spirit came down on the Seventy Elders Numb 11.26 And to the Psalms Thou sendest forth thy Spirit and they are created Psal. 104.30 And to the Prophets The Spirit of God is upon me saith the Prophet Isaiah Chap. 61.1 which was Christs first Text And I will pour my Spirit upon all flesh saith the Prophet Ioel Chap. 1.28 which was Peters first Text The Spirit of God is God no question for in Deo non est nisi Deus say the Schoolmen rightly Not a created Spirit as the Angels were For in the beginning when God created the Heaven and the Earth and all things visible and invisible then the Spirit was and was not onely actually in a way of existence but was of such a powerful influence in the Creation of the World that on the moving of this Spirit on the face of the Waters the darkness was removed from the face of the deep and the Chaos of undigested matter made capable of Form and Beauty In the New Testament the evidence is far more clear than that of the Old by how much the Sun of Light did shine more brightly in the times of the Gospel than in those of the Law Saith not St. Peter in the Acts Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost and then addes presently Thou hast not lied unto men but unto God What saith St. Austin on this Text The Holy Ghost saith he is God Unde Petrus cum dixisset ausus eâ— mentiri Spiritui Sancto continuo secutus adjunxit quid esset Spiritus Sanctus ait non mentitus es hominibus sed Deo i. e. Therefore when Peter said unto Ananias thou hast dared to lie to the Holy Ghost he added presently to shew what was the Holy Ghost Thou hast not lied unto men but unto God Saith not St. Paul Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God How so Because the Spirit of God dwelleth in you What saith the Father unto this Ostendit Paulus deum esse Spiritum Sanctum ideo non esse Creaturam that is to say St. Paul by this sheweth That the Holy Ghost is God and so no Creature Doth not the same Apostle say in another place Know ye not that your bodies are the Temple of the Holy Ghost
Spirit beateth let us next take it by the hand or rather by his handy works For some there be who do confess Christ with their mouths but yet deny him in their works The Spirit of God is very active and wheresoever it is it will soon be working if it do not work it is no Spirit For usque adeo proprium est spiritui operari ut nisi operetur non sit as the Father hath it So natural it is for the Spirit to bring forth good works that if it do not so then it is no Spirit These Works St. Paul calls plainly The fruits of the Spirit Love joy peace gentleness goodness and the rest that follow Which as they are planted in the Soul may be called the Graces but as they are manifested in our actions the Fruits of the Spirit to shew us that it is a dead spirit which brings forth no fruits even as it is a dead faith in St. Iames his judgement which brings forth no works In a word as it was in the generation of our Saviour Christ so it is also in the regeneration of a Christian man both wrought by the effectual operation of the Holy Ghost But these being chiefly matters practical are beyond my purpose Proceed we then to such as are more Doctrinal which is the proper subject of my undertaking from this acception of the word in which the Holy Ghost is taken for those gifts and graces which out of his great bounty he bestoweth upon us to that wherein it signifieth The Power and Calling which in the Church is given to some certain men to be Ministers of holy things to the rest of the people That in this sense the word is taken we have shewn before and are now come to shew how it is performed by what authority and what gifts discharged and executed The office of teaching in the Church doth properly belong to Christ the Prophet of the New Testament of whom Moses prophecied Deut. 13.15 As both St. Peter and St. Stephen do affirm expresly A Prophet whom all the people were to hear in every thing which he was pleased to say unto them and that commanded under such a terrible commination that every Soul which would not hear the voice of that Prophet was to be destroyed from amongst the people Yet though it were an office proper to our Lord and Saviour so proper that he seemed to affect it more than either the Priesthood or the Kingdom He entred not upon the same until he had received some visible designation from the Holy Ghost That he took not on him to discharge his Prophetical Function till after he was baptized by Iohn in Iordan is evident by course and order of the Evangelical story Not that his Baptism could confer any power upon him or give him an authority which before he had not for without doubt the lesser is blessed of the greater as St. Paul affirmeth and Iohn confessed himself so much less than Christ as that he was not worthy to untie his shooe but that as man he did receive this power from the Holy Ghost descending on him at that time in a bodily shape and withal giving him that Sacred Vnction whereby he was inaugurated to so high an office And to this Unction of the Spirit doth he himself refer the power he had to Preach the Gospel and to discharge all other parts of that weighty Function and that too in the very first Sermon which he ever preached to give the people notice that he preached not without lawful calling or exercised a power which belonged not to him For entering into the Synagogue of Nazareth on the Sabbath day he took the Book and fell upon that place of the Prophet Isaiah where it is said The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering sight unto the blinde to set at liberty them that are bruised and to preach the acceptable yeer of the Lord Which having read he closed the Book and said unto them This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears That he did preach by vertue of some unction from the holy Spirit is evident by his own Application of the Text by which he gave his Auditors to understand That he did not undertake the office of his own head onely but by the motion and impulsion of the Holy Ghost by whom he was abundantly furnished with all requisite gifts which might prepare him thereunto Non meo proprio privatoque sed divino spiritu missus sum eo actus eo impulsus eo plenus ad praedicandum Evangelium venio as the learned Iesuite glosseth on it But if you ask where or at what time he received this unction we must send you for an Answer to St. Ieroms Commentary on those words of the Prophet where we shall finde Expletum esse hanc unctionem illo tempore quando baptizatus est in Jordane Spiritus sanctus in specie Columbae descendit super eum maenfit in illo That is to say This unction or anointing was performed or fulfilled at that time when he was baptized by Iohn in Iordan and the Holy Ghost descended on him in the shape of a Dove and remained with him Nor doth St. Ierom stand alone in this Exposition Irenaeus Athanasius â—uffinus Augustine and Prosper all of them Antient Writers and of great renown concurring with him in the same And to this unction or anointing at the time of his Baptism St. Peter questionless alludeth where preaching to Cornelius and his Family he lets them know how God anointed IESUS of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power who from that time forwards not before went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil In which place by the anointing with the Holy Ghost I understand the furnishing of the Man CHRIST JESUS Iuxta dispensationem carnis assumptae as St. Ierom hath it with those gifts and graces of the Spirit which were requisite and fit to qualifie him for the undertaking By power the Calling and Authority which that Unction gave him to preach the Gospel and do the rest of those good works which properly did pertain to his Ministration But that both gifts and power were conferred upon him by the descension of the Spirit at the time of his Baptism to which St. Peter doth allude I have Maldonate concurring in opinion with me saying Loquitur Petrus de Baptismo Johannis quem Christus susceperat postquam à Spiritu sancto unctum fuisse significat This Office as our Saviour was pleased to execute in his own Person as long as he sojourned with us here upon the Earth so being to withdraw himself from the sight of man he thought it requisit to make choice of some to be about him who might