doth directly inferre that either we were not begotten and conceiued in sinne which is an euident heresie repugnant to Dauids wordes or els the vntimely fruites and scapes of women haue reasonable soules at the very instant of their conception when sinne is found in them by Dauids words which is this grosse absurd and false conceite that now you would shunne If you flie for helpe to actuall sinne haue children actuall sinne in their mothers wombes or as soone as they haue reasonable soules Or is actuall sinne traduced and inherited from Adam or spake I of actuall sinne when I said we inherite pollution from Adams flesh before the soule commeth Will you sticke to it and say originall pollution is no sinne Dauid conuinceth you who saith he was begotten in sinnes and conceaued in iniquitie and Paul affirmeth that death went ouer all men infants not excepted for so much as all men haue sinned and euen ouer them also who sinned not after the likenesse of Adams transgression that is who did not commit sinne as Adam did actually and voluntarily but naturally inherited sinne from Adam which dwelleth in them from the houre of their conception to the time of their dissolution and worketh the euill in them that they would not leading them captiue to the law of sinne which is in their members But how could Dauid say he was conceiued in sinne when at the time of his conception he had neither bodie nor soule Howsoeuer mans reason iudge thereof which yet often giueth the name of the whole to a part and the titles of things represented to their images with God nothing is more frequent than to call those things which are not as though they were because he not only made all things of nothing but quickeneth the dead and hath things past and to come present before him Leui is sayd by the Scripture to haue payed tithes to Melchisedech by Abraham as being then in Abrahams loines when Leuies grandfather was not yet borne So God by his Prophet spake to Cyrus many yeeres before Cyrus was borne calling him his anointed and saying to him by name thou art my shepheard So certaine is the counsell of God and his purpose so immutable that he speaketh in the Scriptures of things to come as if they were past or present Out of this infallible decree of God Dauid and Iob call that seed which was prepared to be the matter of their bodies by the names of themselues because it could not be altered what God had appointed But the void conceptions of women which miscarie before the bodie be framed neuer had either life or soule and so neither name nor kinde but perish as other superfluous burdens and repletions of the bodie which God hath appointed to no vse saue to ease the bodie In satisfaction for sinne you runne the same course that you do in the rest for neither vnderstanding my words nor almost any mans els rightly you fight with your owne fansies as if they were parts of my faith I sayd the Scripture acknowledgeth no satisfaction for sinne but by death I did and do so say what then Still we must note that by death you meane onlie the bodilie death In Christes person I alwayes meane by the death which he suffered the death of the bodie though you would include the death of the soule which I do not In the wicked I take death for all kinds of death corporall spirituall and eternall What can you hence distill Then surely the wicked should satisfie easily for their sinnes Farre be it from me to vtter such a sentence Doe the wicked with any kinde of death satisfie for their sinnes or is their condemnation to hell paines therefore eternall because by no death they can satisfie for their sinnes Were the iustice of God once satisfied by any thing the wicked could suffer their torments should cease but their punishments euerlastingly continue for that no satisfaction can be made to God by them suffer they neuer so much or neuer so long Whose follie then is it to pronounce that the wicked may satisfie for their sinnes mine or yours I sayd no such word I directly auouched the contrary The paines of hell haue neither worth nor weight sufficient in themselues to satisfie the anger or to procure the fauor of God Satisfaction for sinne I ascribe to none but onlie to Christ and in him to no death but onlie to that of his body Will it thence follow the Scripture acknowledgeth no satisfaction but by some kind of death ergo the wicked may satisfie for their sinnes by the deaths which they suffer Be it farre from all wise men to make such consequents and from all Christian men to make such conclusions The antecedent in effect is confessed by your selfe The Scriptures you say do shew indeed that Christ should not satisfie without death I sayd the same By satisfaction I meant full satisfaction when no more could be exacted as the word importeth and not the concurrents or precedents to satisfaction when the chiefest is vnpayed Why then doth your absurd and leud conclusion folow more vpon my words than vpon your owne My proofs are not good with those you finde fault If yours were no worse they would go more currantly The Apostle sayth Christ is the Mediator of the new Testament that through death which was for the redemption of transgressions we might receiue the promise Heere death is auouched to be the redemption which is all one with satisfaction for sinne for wherewith we are redeemed therewith God is satisfied Christes bodily death meerely and alone you say without any thing else together therewith which is my intent is not heere mentioned You will not tell where your shoo wringeth Death was for the redemption or satisfaction for sin sayth the Scripture Now the death of Christes bodie or of his soule or of both must here be contained The death of Christes soule you dare not openly professe and therefore all this while you carrie it couertly vnder the sufferings of Christes soule But you must come plainly to it for these assertions of the Apostle Death was the redemption of our transgressions and we are reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne will make this to be the question as I first set it whether the death of Christes soule or the death of the damned which is the true paines of hell be a necessary part of Christs satisfaction and our Redemption Other sufferings of the Soule are meere shifts to harbor your folly if you striue in words or your impietie if you striue indeede for the death of Christs Soule as requisite by the Scriptures to our Saluation That Christ did not die the death of the Soule I doe not prooue there is no cause I should it is your assertion that he did and must be prooued by you which you be so farre from comming neere that you purposely
ioyntedst me Lo here the conception and formation of mans bodie in his mothers wombe most excellently described It followeth now in Ieb touching the soule Life and mercie thou hast giuen me and thy visitation hath kept my spirit Beholde life that is the soule infused of God into the bodie alreadie framed Therefore rightly and according to the Scriptures do we holde that mens soules are created of God and infâ—…nded into their bodies perfectlie framed before in the wombe Caluine God is the Father as well of the soule as of the bodie and the only Father if we speake properly yet because in creating soules he vseth not the seruice or worke of man after a peculiar maner by a kinde of excellencie he is called the Father of spirits Beza I thinke not good to dissemble this that the doctrine of traducing the soule from the parents seemeth to me verie absurd because either the whole or a part must be traduced If the whole the fathers of force must presently dic hauing whollie lost their soules If a part how can a part be cut off from a simple and spirituall substance Vrsinus We grant the soules of all men are created of God when they beginne to liue for they at one time are created and vnited to the bodie Zanchius That the whole soule is created by God I beleeue confesse and teach with the whole Church and auouch it may be prooued by firme reasons His reasons are largely deliuered in the fift chapter of the same booke and all that can be sayd for generation and propagation of soules against their creation by the immediate worke of God without any humane meanes is there learnedly and sufficiently refuted So that in respect of Austens doubt whether God deriue the soule from the soules of the parents when he putteth it into the bodie being first finished or createth it of nothing as he did Adams soule I did relinquish that in question but as for the soules rising in and by generation from Adam which you now catch holde of I neuer meant to fauor that fansie so much as to make it any question in matters of faith since with one consent Philosophie Physicke euident experience and the Scriptures themselues conuince that to be an erroneous and manifest vntruth I haue shewed before at large that your Minor is nothing true for pollution that is sinne and reall iniquitie is not in our flesh without a soule You said so much in effect before in your Treatise and if your word bee a proofe you haue shewed it but other proofe you bring none saue that which inclineth rather to heresie then Christianitie if you speake to the purpose and stand to your words as they lie either in your Treatise or in your Defence In your Treatise you say Let vs not bee curious in this hard point holding this most euident trueth that sinne is a proper and vnseparable qualitie of the soule and can not be found being in any thing where a reasonable soule is wanting If you take the word sinne in his right sense as you ought to doe speaking of the propagation of sinne and so comprise in it as well originall as actuall sinne here are two grosse errors euen against the Christian faith For if sinne can not be found in any thing where a reasonable soule is wanting then can no sinne bee found in the deuils for they haue no soules Angels to haue soules I doe not remember that euer I read in the deuine and canonicall Scriptures saith Austen If Angels haue not soules then deuils haue none for they were holy and now are reprobate but still Angels as Christ calleth the deuill and his Angels Againe sinne being either actual or originall children in their mothers wombe haue not actuall sinne neither dispute we of actuall sinne when we talke of deriuing and inheriting sinne for actuall sinne is neither deriued nor inherited If then that which is conceiued haue no originall sinne so long as the soule wanteth since you content your selfe as you say with the opinion of the most at this present that the soule doth not passe together with the seede of our generation and conception most euidently you denie original sinne till the soule come to quicken the body and so contradict the expresse words of Dauid who saith Hee was begotten in sinne and conceiued in iniquitie No maruell then you stumble at Ambroses words that wee are defiled before we hauâ—… life as repugnant to your purpose when you spare not Dauids words who saith as much if not more then Ambrose I pray omit mens Authorities in this case and prooue by sound reason that which you would For pollution that is sinne and reall iniquitie is not in our flesh without a soule We were best to omit all learning experience and trueth that onely your conceits may stand vpright It hath pleased God in things naturall by sight and experience to leade Philosophers and Physitians to the trueth of his workes as farre as mans wit can reach and with one consent they resolue that the reasonable soule of man neither riseth in the body nor commeth to the body presently with the conception Mothers and midwiues doe certainely distinguish the time of quickning from the time of conceiuing and hee that would perswade them that the child quickneth immediately vpon the conception might as easily bring them to beleeue that the moone is made of a greene cheese But sound reason you require As if trueth of experience were not the soundest reason men can giue till God doe speake That the body is not straight way framed vpon the conception many thousand scapes in all femals and namely in women doe perfectly prooue The Physitians and Philosophers interpose many monthes betweene the conception and perfection of the body Iob himselfe declareth that we were first as milke when we were in seede then condensed as curds when we turned to bloud and after that clothed with skinne and flesh and lastly compacted with bones and synewes before we receiued life and soule from God The new Testament noteth these three degrees in forming our bodies to wit seede bloud and flesh and calleth our parents the fathers of our bodies but not of our spirits which God alone is If then nothing can be defiled with sinne as by your doctrine you resolue except it haue a reasonable soule of necessitie wee either had reasonable soules at the instant of our conception which is a most famous falsehood repugnant to al learning experience and to the words of Iob or else we were not conceiued in sinne which is a flat heresie dissenting from the plaine words of the sacred Scriptures and from the Christian faith Choose which of these issues you will you either way shew your selfe to haue little sense and lesse trueth But I must adde the word onely or else I say nothing against you No good Sir that shall not need
matters as mans redemption and saluation after so sleight a manner besides a vaine ostentation of your contentious and curious humour I leaue it to the Readers censure Now to the returne of your termes According to the most vsuall and common sense of Gods wrath so in my whole Treatise I take it for Gods perfect holinesse iustice and power properly executing vengeance and punishment whether little or great due to them on whom sinne lieth Take from you your termes no where found in the Scriptures but inuented and authorized onely by your selfe and you can not steppe one foote further in this question You haue named I know not how often Gods PROPER VVRATH in the premises though you neuer tooke the care nor paines to describe or define it Now you come to the most vsuall common sense of Gods wrath which you say is Gods PROPER wrath Except that old starting hole of yours which here you call the proper executing of punishment and there is nothing more repugnant to your owne assertion then your owne description For all the afflictions of this life whatsoeuer they be come from Gods perfect holinesse iustice and power and are due to the children of Adam for sinne abiding or dwelling in them though God of his secret counsell may haue other purposes in sifting his Saints for their good and his glorie Your sense of Gods wrath you say is most vsuall but you shew not where nor with whom If you meane with your selues I can easily yeeld that if you meane in the Scriptures I greatly doubt whether the wrath of God in the Scriptures doe more vsually signifie his euerlasting iudgements against sinne after this life or his temporall plagues vpon sinners in this life Howbeit it is not greatly materiall which is most vsuall since either is vsuall in the word of God You quote but foure places for that purpose in your Margin and misse two of them For in the 2. Cor. 3. vers 17. and 9. I finde not the name of Gods wrath at all expressed in either of them But I so vse the phrase as signifying any punishment of sinne whatsoeuer The Scriptures so vse it before me and you can giue no reason why I should not so vse it after them It is altogether an improper speech you say So say you but the Scriptures say not so They make degrees and differences betwixt the wrath of God in this world and in the next and his displeasure against the sinnes of his own and his enemies but they take not wrath for fauour as you doe though Gods wrath against the wickednesse of his children be neuer executed without fauor to their persons which in the faithlesse is farre otherwise It is true all troubles paines and griefs in their first ordinance were the effects of Gods proper wrath but in their state and condition now they are not namely as the godly doe suffer them You are full of shifts but they are so slender that they doe but shame you After much wrangling you grant it to be true that all troubles paines and griefs in their first ordinance were the effects of Gods wrath you say of Gods PROPER VVRATH Which last I thinke to be vntrue though the former be verie true If by their first ordinance you meane the iudgement of God pronounced against Adam and all his ofspring for sinne and the punishment irreuocably inflicted on mankinde therefore it is in effect the same which I auouched against you and so true that you your selfe dare not contradict it For if you should you should openly gainsay the Scriptures which witnesse that man was created in all integritie of nature felicitie of state and perpetuitie of life and that by sinne this impuritie miserie and mortalitie which now we all feele entred into the world as the wages of Adams sinne and namely that paine sorrow and death were imposed on Adam and so on all his by Gods owne mouth as effects or degrees of his most iust displeasure against the sinne of our first parents If you start from this with any shift of words you start from a maine principle of the Christian faith but I suppose that you confesle it by this that you say they were effects of Gods wrath in their first ordinance that is when they were first inflicted on Adam and all his posteritie But NOVV you say they are NOT so specially to the godlie Since what time began your Now or when was their state or condition changed These things were generally and irreuocablely inflicted on all men as the punishment of sinne in the first man when as yet they were signes and tastes of Gods wrath not in words but in deeds notwithstanding we were then and long before euen before the foundation of the world elected and adopted in Christ Iesu to be heires of eternall saluation Wherefore God euen at the first when by your confession they were the effects of his wrath layd them on all euen on his owne children whom he meant euerlastingly to saue and so doth continue them to this day as monuments of his iust displeasure against sinne euen in his owne seruants and saints Yea before God would inflict them he made open promise of the womans seed that it should bruize the serpents head and then to teach his owne and not onlie the wicked for whom he reserued euerlasting destruction what it was by sinne to prouoke him he loaded the life of all the godlie with sorow paine and death to make them for euer by that grieuous but righteous punishment of sinne in themselues the more mindfull how offensiue sinne was vnto God and the more warie how to giue eare to the Serpent against the voice of God And therefore at the verie first inflicting of them if wee cast our eyes either on our owne deserts or on the lot of the wicked we shall find the wonderfull fauor of God not onlie in opening his purpose vnto vs for our euerlasting saluation in Christ but euen in so tempering the smart of his rod that by the punishment we did feele in our selues the weight of sinne in some sort yet by his mercie we should be strengthened eased and comforted vnder that burden in this life and after be receiued into euerlasting blisse Notwithstanding when we compare this mortall miserable condition here with our creation and with the abundance of Gods blessings richly powred on vs when he first made vs we should beholde what sinne had depriued vs of and subiected vs vnto though it did not exclude vs from Christ who loued vs so dearely that he would and did giue himselfe for vs rather than we should euerlastingly perish So that the sorow paine and death which the godly feele were euen at the first layd on them by the same mixture of Gods iustice and mercie with which they now continue neither did Christ die for vs presently to free vs from that sentence of
after Like sheepe in Sheol shall they be put is the occasion but no iustification of your error since the verbe they shall be laid or put hath no sense at all except you repeate Sheol with the preposition after it and say they shal be laid in Sheol like sheepe So that vnlesse you will bee more then like a sheepe you must leaue this kind of collecting Your quoting of the Prophet Abacuk and of the Prouerbes to shew that all things are in Hades because neither Hades nor death can bee satisfied is much like your sheepe in Sheol Doe proud men couet chaulke and chibols because in the same verse it is said they can be no more satisfied then death and Sheol I winne not but rather as death and Sheol cannot be satisfied with bodies and soules of men which are things by them desired and receiued no more can the proud oppressour be satisfied with the spoiles of many countries but seeketh to gather vnto him all nations and to heape vnto him all people euen as death and Sheol doe The place of the Prouerbes which you bring ioyneth with Sheol a barren wombe and the earth which cannot bee satisfied with water And thence you can no more conclude that all kind of creatures are in Sheol then that they are in a womans wombe which is barren And but that I see men loose their wits aswell as their senses in Hades I should much maruaile what were become of yours all this while that speake not onely so impertinently and vntowardly but so absurdly and ridiculously that men will stoppe their eares for very shame if you will not stoppe your mouth Yet we must comeneerer You alleage two friuilous proofes of sheols signifying hell viz. when it hath opposition to beauen and situation as the lowest For the situation of hell it is a secret which Gods word hath not reuealed at all Neither ought we to determine as you very rashly doe if hell be any where there can be no doubt but it must be in the lower parts of the earth You that haue ranged so farre both from the trueth and from the matter in question had need at length come somewhat neerer The proofes produced by me that Sheol when it is opposed to heauen or described to be in the lowest parts of the earth importeth hell are not so friuolous as your follie maketh them they are grounded on better and surer rules of holy Scriptures then are your toyes of birds and beastes in Hades And first touching the place of hell below in the earth which you labour to crosse as much as you can though I before haue shewed the constant opinion of old and new writers yet can I be content to reason it farder with you because you and your friends are deuising new hels and heauens euen as you are hammering of a new Hades That hell is a place of torment the Gospel is euident Being a place it must be either in heauen aboue vs or in earth beneath vs except you will coyne vs a new Creede and say God is creator of heauen earth and of hell also which is neither in heauen nor in earth But you may not controle the Creede except you will also correct the Scriptures For that diuision of the created world into heauen and earth is witnessed in infinite places of holy Scripture to be most sufficient Hell then since it is somewhere must be within the earth vnder vs except you will make it a part of heauen ouer vs and then must men ascend to hell as they doe to heauen and no longer descend But the Scriptures are plaine that hell is beneath vs if they make mention at all of any hell which perhaps you will call in question as well as you doe the rest Those whom the Apostle calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which stoupe to the power of Christs kingdome and confesse him to be their Lord who are they but reprobate and condemned men and Angels and where is the place of the punishment but vnder the earth since dead bodies can neither yeeld subiection nor make confession vnto Christ you selfe graunt Abyssus in the Scripture doth signifie a vast and deepe gulfe in the earth and Abyssus is a place whither the Diuels feare to be sent where they are chained and bound when pleaseth God Now euidently by the Scriptures from this Abyssus to the earth is an ascent no descent And therefore the dungeon for diuels which is hell is vnder vs that are in earth not aboue vs. The very name of Gehenna vsed by our Sauior for hell confessed by you to be the most proper name of hell doth it not conuince hell to be Gehennam ignis a vale of fire and where are there vales but in earth hell is called Ge-hinnon saith Peter Martyr because a vale being a low and deepe place doth resemble hell quod infra terram esse creditur which is beleeued to be vnder the earth The pit lake also which are words vsed bythe holy Ghost to expresse hell as the pit of perdition and lake burning with fire and brimstone doe confirme the same since there are no pits nor lakes but in the earth By Moses God saith A fire is kindled in my wrath and shall burne to the lower Sheol and inflame the foundations of the Mountaines A man would thinke these wordes were plaine enough to prooue the lower Sheol to bee vnder the foundations of the hils and that there burneth the fire of Gods wrath with which the wicked are punished after this life Of the lower earth I haue spoken before and prooued it to be equiualent with hell in the iudgement of the best Hebraicians and Diuines of our times And if the lower earth be hell then is hell without question in the lower parts of the earth Bullingere saith As touching the place of punishment where the soules and bodies of the wicked are tormented the Scripture simply pronounceth saying the wicked descend to hell vnde constat inferos esse infra nos in terris constitutos whereby it is certaine that hell is beneath vs that abide heere on earth We must throughly maintaine against scoffing Epicures saith Gualtere that there is a certaine place prepared for the wicked into which their soules straight after death and their bodies after the resurrection are receiued Of which place Moses speaketh when he writeth that Core Dathan and Abiram were swallowed vp with the gaping of the earth and descended aliue with all theirs to hell But hauing treated thereof in sundrie places before I will end with a verse of Sibyllaes prophesie alleaged and allowed for a Christian trueth by Lactantius Austin and Prosper where speaking of the last iudgement and the signes and consequents of that day she saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The earth gaping or cleauing in sunder shall then shew or lay open