submission and patience of his Sonne on the Crosse. More then this if you will vrge on the person of Christ as needefull for our Redemption first proue it and then professe it at your pleasure otherwise if you boldly and vainely presume it your addle and idle wordes can not preiudice the setled and vndoubted principles of the Christian faith warranted by the word of God and fully receaued by the Church of Christ euen from the beginning To your maimed and ruinous foundation that Christ must suffer all and the very same punishment wages and vengeance of sinne which the damned doe suffer and we should haue suffered had we not beene excused by his suffering it for vs I haue plainly and sadly answered I know not how often it is a false and lewd imagination and so impious that your selfe dare not in your late Defence offer it to vew without many bridles to holde it from horrible blasphemie But Sir discourser why coyne you conclusions in christian Religion that must haue three or foure exceptions to saue them from open impietie and why see you not that your speciall reseruations ouerthrow the truth of your owne assertion for where the true and proper punishment wages and vengeance of sinne in all the wicked is spirituall corporall and eternall death in your limitations at last which you forgate at first you except Christ from spirituall death which is sinne and from eternall death which is damnation of body and soule to hell fier yet you still affirme that Christ suffered the full proper punishment wages and vengeance of sinne as though these two spirituall and eternall death were no parts of the punishment vengeance due to sin or these being excepted as vnfit for Christ to suffer you could truely say Christ suffered the full and proper punishment and vengeance of sinne which consisteth of these three kinds of death And who but you would send vs such headlesse and senselesse resolutions in Diuinitie as these are I affirme that Christ suffered all gods proper wrath and vengeance for sinne I say all that the very damned do suffer namely so described and limited as is aboue said And againe He suffered from Gods hand euen as the damned doe namely in these points which are both possible and reasonable Were you some new Euangelist or vpstart Apostle it were euen enough for you to referre Christs sufferings to your description and your limitation without any farther authority but when you take vpon you with your bare word to broch so many nouelties in Christian religion without one line or letter of holy writ to vpholde your dreames and deuices who can chuse but deride your follie You pinne mens faiths for the ground of their saluation to your descriptions and your limitations to possibilitie and reason measured by your rule without any text or title of Scripture to warrant your words and then you thinke the maine question is profoundly and fully handled but your sober and wise Reader will presently finde the lamenesse or leudnesse of your grand conclusion For if Christs person not only by your possibilitie and reason but by the soundnesse of trueth and sincerenesse of faith must be exempted from sinne which is the death of the soule and from damnation which is euerlasting death why write you so boldly that Christ must suffer all Gods proper wrath euen all that the damned do suffer whereas apparently those two being excepted Christ could suffer no kinde of death but only a corporall And if by your so describing and so limiting the matter you draw Christ within the staine or guilt of sinne or within the compasse or danger of damnation hope you to finde any Christian eares so patient that will endure that monstrous and sacrilegious indignitie But you will inuent a new hell for Christ which shall haue the substance but not the circumstance of damnation and shal be inflicted by Gods immediate hand properly ye a only in the verie soule of Christ which Gods owne infinite wrathfull power and iustice can inflict for satisfaction where and how it pleaseth him The question good Sir is not of Gods power what he can do but of his will reuealed in his Word and of his promise performed in the person of his sonne for our saluation and testified by the mouthes and pennes of the Prophets and Apostles that were guided by his holy spirit to speake and write the trueth I make no doubt but God can create another heauen another earth and another hell as quickly and as easily as he did these that now are yet if any man affirme that God will so do or hath so done I must holde him for an Infidell because he gainsayth Gods trueth and belieth Gods will by pretending Gods power Talke not therefore what God can doe shew rather by the word and witnesse of trueth what God hath done to that must we trust to that are you bound and from that are you slipt You haue not so much as any colour of Scripture for these desperate nouelties and vanities I will giue them no woorse words lest you complaine of my bitternesse and if any man be but so wise as to let your proue these things before he beleeue them he is safe enough for euer admitting them I may spare my paines in refuting them yet because destitute of all other helpe you appeale to possibilitie and reason to fourbish your new inuention of another hell let vs see how handsomely you hale it onward By the law of our creation as we are men hauing a soule besides our bodie so our soule hath in it a threefolde facultie of suffering paines First that which is proper and immediate iustly so called proper because it is proper only to reasonable and immortall spirits Immediate two wayes First because it can and doth receiue an impression of sorrow and paines made from God only by and in it selfe without any outward bodily meanes thereunto Secondly it is also an immediate punishment or els correction of sinne it commeth not for any other cause at all So that thus we meane when we speake of the soules proper and immediate suffering The soules second facultie of suffering paines is not proper but common to vs with beasts namely that which is by sympathie and communion with and from the body A third kinde of painfull suffering the soule hath namely her vehement and strong affections are painfull whether they be good or euill as zeale loue compassion pitie care c. neither are these immediatly for sinne whether punishments or corrections neither are they punishments or corrections at all properly in themselues accidentally they may be when they grow so strong that they paine and grieue the soule If the walles and roofe of your new hell rise no fairer nor stand no faster then your foundation doth a weake puffe of winde will blow all away If a man should shortly answer you That the soule of man hath but one
necessarily by Gods power and ordinance adioyned vnto it For no man can reioyce in the cause but he must likewise reioyce in the effects and where the Antecedent is expressed the consequent is therewithall intended Now the crosse of Christ in it selfe without the effects was and is most odious and scandalous to men as appeareth by the Iewes and Gentiles ignorant thereof and offended therewith So that when the godly professe they reioyce in the crosse of Christ they meane in the loue of Christ who willinglie endured the paine and shame of the crosse to purchase them euerlasting blisse and therewith procured and established all the meanes and parts of their Redemption iustification and sanctification in this liâ—…e and saluation in the life to come and but in respect of Christs loue submitting himselfe to the crosse and of those effects merited and obtained by the crosse of Christ they take no pleasure much lesse ioy in his griefes and torments as the wicked did that put him to death Wherefore it was an easie thing for euery childe to see that when the Apostle reioyced in the death of Christ suffered for vs and for our saluation he also reioyced in the consequents of Christs death as his Resurrection ascension sitting at the right hand of God and promised returne to Iudgement by which as by certaine degrees and steps our iustification mortification sanctification and saluation are assured and performed Now a consequent to Christs death if not a part or preamble to his Resurrection from the dead is the destruction of the diuell and of hell which is the chiefe place of Satans power as I thinke and as the Church of Christ before me hath thought notwithstanding all that you haue said or can say to the contrarie Thus standeth my Text neither forced nor misapplied as by your ioynt mysticall imagination of a new crosse you supposed but rightly both conceiued and referred to the painfull sufferings and powerfull effects of Christ on the crosse in which the Apostle so reioyced that he detested all things different from it or derogatorie to it and the iarres which so much offended your eares were but your owne iests and iefallies not truely reporting but grosly mistaking the sense and sequels of my positions Proceeding forward I still shew a badde minde towards you seeking foorthwith euen in the entrance to draw you without cause into hatred for disdaining the Fathers What then is your contempt and disdaine of the Fathers which I so often report in sundry places and as odiously as is possible Surely you beleeue I can not tell happily it is because you follow not their authorities in some opinions of religion nor in diuers expositions of Scripture What need you seeke so busily for that which I so plainly haue exemplified vnto you you affourd the Fathers when pleaseth you neither true knowledge of the first principles of their faith nor the right vnderstanding of words familiar in their natiue tongue nor so much as reasonable or likely expositions of the Scriptures but fond and absurd as you terme them and yet you aske What is your insolent dealing against the Fathers With one consent they teach that for our redemption Christ died the death of the body only and by no meanes the death of the soule You teach that Christ must die the death of the soule before he could redeeme vs and that his bodily sufferings properly did not make to our redemption And though Austen aske Who dare auouch that Christ died in soule or in his humane spirit you not only dare and doe it but you make it the maine ground of our redemption wherein you condemne him and the rest of the ancient and learned Fathers as ignorant of the very way and meane of our redemption So likewise that Christ receiued vpon him the punishment but not the guilt of our sinne that the second death in the Scriptures is the eternall punishment of bodie and soule and that the death of the bodie was inflicted on Adam and all his posteritie as a punishment of sinne in these and many such which are deliuered as sound conclusions of Christian religion you oppose your selfe against S. Austen and the rest and reiect their iudgements as false and erroneous And for the sense and signification of words vsed in the Scriptures you lustily controle them in their natiue speech and leaue them not so much as the true vnderstanding of the Greeke or Latine tongue This I affirme say you it is only the Fathers abusiue speaking and altering the vsuall and ancient sense of Hades that bredde this error of Christs descending into hell their vnapt and perillous translating into Latine Inferi And note heere first it is a thing too rife with the Fathers yea with some of the ancientest of them to alter and change the authentike vse of words whereby consequently it is easie for errours and grosse mistakings to creepe in This challenge of yours against the credits and consciences of so many learned and worthy Fathers as haue vsed the word hades to signifie the place of hell how insolent it is I leaue to the wise Reader to iudge when he shall see that indeed they concurre with the writers of the new Testament and with the ancient and vulgar vnderstanding of their owne tongue How you entertaine their expositions of the Scripture your owne words doe witnesse when you replie to interpretations alledged out of them this sense is most absurd this is no lesse absurd than the former there is no reason nor likelihood for it This is more fond and absurd than the other This is the reuerence and louing regard you beare towards their opinions and iudgements for the manifolde graces of God that were otherwise in them and this you thinke is no contempt nor disdaine of the Fathers I call the Fathers iudgements many times AVTHORITIES that the world might conceiue their words to be warrants vnto vs and good authorities to rest on in matters of Religion If I had not this drift in my minde why giue I them such a title which to you seemeth somewhat insolent indeed What difference there is betwixt the authoritie of God and man in matters of religion I need not to learne nor you to teach there is no such thing in question betwixt vs S. Austen hath long since in sundrie places of his works humbly truely and fully confessed and professed the eminence of the Canonicall Scriptures aboue and against all the writings of others whosoeuer they be with him I wholly ioyne in iudgement This therefore is an idle shift of yours to guesse what drifts I haue in my minde and that I goe about to impaire the soueraigntie and certaintie of the Scriptures by giuing such a title to the expositions and opinions of the Fathers as to call them Authorities As though the best learned Diuines both new and olde did not vse the same word in the same
Prophets not as wanting soueraigntie and sufficiencie in himselfe aboue all Prophets but leading them that knew him not to consider better of those Scriptures which they knew It is as true of Pauls writings as of the rest of the Apostles and Prophets which S. Augustine affirmeth De quorum scriptis quòd omni errore careant dubitare nefarium est Of whose writings to doubt whether they be free from all error is plaine wickednesse Neuerthelesse I well perceiue that all this great shew of cleauing to the Fathers iudgements is but coloured in you For in other points againe we see when they speake not to yoúr liking the case is altered I see in this booke where you forsake the ancient and learned Fathers that is as you speake in my case you conâ—…mne despise them The more vniust then and iniurious was your slander that I went about by the vse of one word which olde and new Diuines vsed in like sort before me to make the Fathers of equall authoritie with the Scriptures since now you can both obserue and obiect that euen in this booke which you impugne I say and do the contrarie And though I be farre from repenting or misliking any thing that I sayd touching the prerogatiue of the sacred Scriptures and their irrefragable authoritie against all the words and wits of men yet can I not chuse but note your negligence that marke neither what nor of whom I speake Had I brought Fathers in matters of faith against or without the Scriptures you had some colour to choake me with mine owne words but taking care as I did that in cases of faith the Scriptures should be plaine and perspicuous for my purpose before I cited them and the testimonies of the Fathers euident and concurrent with the Scriptures how doe I crosse any of those places which you quote out of my writings touching the authoritie and sufficiencie of the Scriptures in points of faith or what agreement hath your dissenting from the Scriptures and Fathers in the chiefest keyes of Christian religion with my leauing them in some expositions and positions not pertinent to the faith nor generally receiued of them all It is vanitie enough to dreame of contradictions where none are and as great infirmitie not to see that which lieth before your eyes but to pronounce that you know how wauering and slipperie I am for the most part therein when you neither consider nor conceiue what I say that is more than childish temeritie As I sayd so I say againe In Gods causes Gods booke must teach vs what to beleeue and what to professe and therefore what I reade in the word of God that I beleeue what I reade not that I doe not beleeue Yea I adde thereto S. Basils conclusion If all that is not of faith be sinne as the Apostle sayth and faith commeth by hearing and hearing by the word of God all that is without the Scripture inspired from God as not being of faith is sinne This confession I constantly holde and as in the first booke which you quote I directly and expresly defend that no point of faith should be beleeued without Scripture so in my Sermons I no where varie from it how slipperie soeuer your tongue be to tell a tale in stead of a trueth I doe reiect Austens opinion in three speciall points and diuers Fathers in two other cases and some of those things I affirme against all the Fathers and almost against all the Church and yet I bitterly reproue you for vsing the like libertie Doe I any where reiect S. Augustine or all the Fathers in any point of doctrine necessarie to our saluation as you do in the chiefest grounds of our redemption And when I let the Reader vnderstand that the reasons which some Fathers bring to fortifie their priuate opinions are not sufficient for to force consent to be giuen vnto them doe I call them fond absurd without reason or likelihood and paradoxes in nature as you do These two things I iustly reproue in you which I my selfe doe not fall into for all your fitning In the maine principles of Christian religion and our redemption you make the best learned Fathers ignorant of their Creed and Catechisme and when their expositions of the Scripture crosse your imaginations you Reuell against their Iudgements as void of sense and reason This doâ—… I not In the rule of faith I renounce not their maine consent nor vndoubted maximes least I conclude them or my selfe to erre in faith In other questions of lesâ—…e importance wherein they differ sometimes from ech other sometimes euen from themselues I let the Reader see their reasons and leaue him free to follow what he liketh or to suspend his iudgement if he find cause therefore This libertie I neuer take from you nor mislike it in you but when you pronounce all to be absurd fond and foolish that yeeld not to your fansie wherein you doe not onely proudly aduance your owne dreames as necessary Doctrines but reprochfully preiudice the freedome of others This difference is not my deuise the auncient consent of Godly Fathers saith Vincentius is with great care to be searched and followed of vs not in all the questions of the Diuine Law but onely or chiefly in the Rule of Faith Whether therefore the bodies of such as arose and came out of their graues after Christs resurrection returned againe to corruption or still kept the honor of immortalitie which was bestowed on them as also when Christ said to the theefe on the Crosse this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise whether Christ ment the presence of his humane soule or of his Diuine glory should be that day in Paradise and so whether the soules of the faithfull dâ—…parting this life goe straight to heauen or stay in a place appointed them of God till the day of iudgement and likewise whether Abrahams bosome were a receptacle for soules within the earth and neere to hell or far aboue the earth and lastly whether the loosing of Adam from hell by Christs descent thither which the whole Church almost seemed to hold by tradition freed onely the person of Adam from the place of hell or both him and his posteritie from all feare and danger of hell These be things that may be liked disliked or suspended without any manifest breach of faith and wherein Saint Austen probablely disputeth but determineth nothing for certaintie to be beleeued alwaies tempering his words in these cases with Ego quidem non video explicent qui possunt nondum intelligo nulla causa occurrit nondum muâ—… I see not how let them declare it that can as yet I vnderstand it not I conceaue presently no cause as yet I find it not cleere If I then laboured with respectiue words and other places of the same Fathers to shew wherein they doubted or dissented who but a light head and slipper tongue would call this
that meanes further remoued from the dignitie and maiestie of the Sonne of God herefore the Scriptures more carefully expresse that he tooke our flesh and euen therein suffered death sor the ransome of our sinnes though he wanted not a soule when he became man nor any part in him did or could feele and discerne the paine and affliction of his bodie but onely his soule The respects of Christs comming into the world and suffering sor vs if we will learne we need not your termes of directly and primarily the holy Ghost hath taught vs this to be a faithfull saying and worthy of all admittaâ—… that Christ Iesus came into the world to saue sinners Himselfe is a witnesse without all exception that he came to serue and to giue his life a ransome for manie Yea his flâ—…sh which he gaue for the life of the world is the breâ—…d that came downe from heauen If then things in earth and things in heauen were pacified by the blood of his Crosse and we reconciled through death in the bodie of his flesh in which he bare our siâ—…es on the tree It is certaine that Christes bodie blood and death on the Crosse and consequently his sufferings from these and by these were directly and primarily intended as the meanes of our redemption and reconciliation and your vaine imagination of the soules most principall disposition in comparison whereof Christ say you did not respect this sensitiue suffering by Sympathie with and from the bodie which is common to vs with beastes is a lewde and irreligious reproch to the death and Crosse of Christ Iesus For what if the bodie of a beast may be crucified and his blood shed by piercing and wounding as Christs was shall wee therefore say that Christs death and passion were common to brute beastes Would any maâ—… frame his heart thus to think or his tongue thus to speake but he that is bruter then a beast Of your hell paines may it not more truly be said that as you would cast them on Christes soule they should be common to him with deuils who I troe are worse then beastes But these bee meete matters for such a master in Israel as you are You vntruely and vnlearnedly suppose the corporall afflictions of the Saints and of Christ himselfe to pierce no further then into the externall sensitiue part which you make common to them with beasts and sufferings proper to reasonable creatures you admit none but your hell paines which are common to them with deuils So that by your profound diuinitie all Christian men suffer either as beasts or as deuils Which errour of yours I haue sufficiently refuted before and by that enformed the Reader that the chastening and afflicting the soule of man by temporall and externall meanes and paines from the bodie is proper to men and not common to beasts who haue no soules nor to deuils who haue no bodies and that God doth thus chasten and correct his children whose patience is precious in his sight thereby to trie encrease and quicken his graces in them which is blasphemie to affirme either of beasts or deuils And from what spirit this can proceede to yeelde Christ no more sense taste nor thought of his bodily sufferings then you doe to a beast let the Reader iudge for my part I abhorre such heathenish if not hellish comparisons But sense you will say is common to man and beast I haue no doubt that beasts doe heare and see smell taste and feele as well as men but euen in all these fiue and specially in hearing seeing and feeling the soule of man sheweth difference sufficient betwixt a man and a beast For man by his immortall and reasonable spirit discerneth and vnderstandeth what he heareth seeth or feeleth which beasts cannot doe and he conceaueth not onely the things which affect his senses but the causes effects adiuncts consequents and remedies thereof and thereby frameth himselfe if he be religious to behold therein the worke and will of God which is as farre from beasts as reason and grace Though then eares eyes and sinewes be common to men with beastes yet in them and by them the soule of man worketh and suffereth which because beasts haue not it is a verie grosse ouersight of yours Sir Discourser to make the bodily sufferings of Christ common to him with beastes in which the soule of Christ shewed so much obedience pacience submission deuotion and loue that God accepted those sufferings violently and iniuriously inflicted on Christs bodie but humbly religiously and willingly receiued in his soule as the full satisfaction for our sinnes There is no reason in the world nor likelyhood that the naturall facultie in Christs soule of proper and immediate suffering for our sinnes should haue no vse and a suffering of paines onely from and by the bodie should be sufficient when as in his doing of righteousnesse for vs his soules ioynt obedience and mutually knit together in and with his body was not alone sufficient This must needes be a perfect reason for vs against you except you could by expresse Scripture disprooue this proportion of like necessitie betweene the operation of the proper faculties of Christs humane soule that is betweene his doing and his suffering for vs which you shall neuer be able to doe When and how came you by this authoritie or libertie that you may say what you will in matters of faith without all warrant of holy Scripture and your fansies must stand for authentike except I can disproue them by expresse Scripture Nay first proue them before we receiue them as you and all other Christians ought to doe if you will haue them passe for grounds of religion and then if I can not disproue them by the same Scriptures they shall go for good An answer to this perfect reason of yours if you would haue I answere you with Tertullian Non recipio quod extra Scripturam de tuo infers I receiue not this which you bring of your owne without the Scripture And with Athanasius If you will babble other things besides those which are written why striue you with vs that are persuaded neither to heare nor to speake any thing besides the Scriptures Shew vs this proper and immediate suffering for sinnes in the soule of Christ which you so much talke of by the Scriptures and we wil thinke our selues bound to answer it otherwise it is as easily reiected as it is offered But there is no reason in the world nor likelyhood it should bee otherwise Indeede there is no reason in the world nor likelyhood it should be so as you haue said For in Christes doings and sufferings there was obserued and must bee confessed a cleane contrarie course His doings were all iust and holy as hee himselfe was and proceeded first from his own mind and will by the immediate power and grace of Gods spirit in him whencesoeuer the outward occasions were offered him
so grieuous feare trouble and sorow of mind or soule that he cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me I make good difference betwixt the Booke of Homilies confirmed as well by the publicke authority of Prince and Parliament Anno Reginae 13. ca 12 as by the generall subscription of the vpper and neather house in the conuocation Anno 1571 to a In the 35. article of Homilies containe godlie wholesome and necessarie doctrine and the Catechisme then licenced to be taught in Schooles to yong scholers but without any such autoritie as the former is Shew the like approbation and you shall freely call it the publike autorized doctrine of England till you doe so giue me leaue to tell you that the one is indeede by publicke authority receaued and ratified euen as the articles are the other was by priuate discretion permitted and tolerated to be taught in Grammar schooles but publicke authority of the whole Realme you may chalenge none vnto it And therefore I take my selfe in matters of faith not bound vnto it farder then it accordeth with the manifest trueth deliuered in the â—…acred Scriptures Againe your selfe doâ—… more impugne the Catechisme then I doe For if your owne wordes be true that Christ when he vttered those b Defenc. pag. 110. li. 28. 34. words spake in his mind of his constant and continuall ioy in God and was in exceeding generall and constant ioy What place leaue you for any of those wordes which you cite out of the Catechisme to haue any trueth in them since they speake of exceeding and horrible feares and sorrows which I thinke are contrarie to your triumphant generall and constant ioy And although I thinke it no reason that a thing priuatly permitted should abrogate the full and maine consent of the learned and auntient Fathers as you would haue it to doe and therefore make it free when the Carechisme swatueth from their sense and interpretation to be of another mind yet I condemne nothing in it as wicked but wish that soâ—…e few places had been more cleerly and more particularlâ—…e deliuered and expressed to auoid such cauillers as you and some others are But you with open mouth reiâ—…ct euen those places which now you produce as passing strange doctrine and simply impossible For where the Catechisme here in these words which you alleage saith Christ was Aeternae mortis horrore perfusus perfused or wholy touched with an horror which is a trembling feare of eternall death you not only reason against it that c Defenc. pag. 9â—… li. 13. Christ could not feare that which he perfectly knew concerned him not at all and by no meanes could euer possibly come neere him but you make it d li. 12. passing strange doctrine and simply impossible that Christ should feare or pray against the whole and intire cup of eternall death And yet the Catechisme saith he trembled and was ouercast with the horror of it You misâ—…ike that the Catechisme saith except you may peruert it to your pleasure and in steed of fearing eternall death you say Christ suffered the second death which is die death of the damned and so refusing the Catechisme for saying so much you say more and thinke the Catechisme is of your mind But sir tell vs how Christ could be stroken with the HORROR OF ETERNALL DEATH for those aâ—…e the wordes of the Catechisme and not how he suffered your new made hell which the Catechisme neuer speaketh of I haue deliuered two senses to salue the Catechisme which you impugne The first that Christ in respect of his members to whom that death was due might in loue and pietie towards them inwardly tremble at the punishment deserued by them since mercie maketh vs truely feele the very smart of other mens harmes and dangers and where we hartily loue no lesse then if they were imminent ouer our owne heads The second that Christ fearing the power of Gods wrath against sinne which is infinite may in a sort be sayd to tremble at the effects thereof by reason he trembled at the cause thereof And in this sense the consideration and apprehension of Gods infinite power and displeasure against sinne might brâ—…ede those horrible feares and sorrowes which the Catcchisme talketh of Otherwise I must be plaine the Catechisme sayth more then can be prooued by any Scripture or any learned and auncient Father and more then you your selfe allow or like saue that you would out of his vehement speaches make some aduantage to your cause though in substance you wholy dissent from the maker thereof For he speaketh of feare and sorrow you of re 〈◊〉 al solute suffering he of eternall death due to sin you of a new found hell from the immediate hand of God which is no part of the Catcchisers meaning since he plainely nameth future and euerlasting death due to sinners and not a present and temporall hell which is not the full wages of sinne nor of the damned The like I say for the notes added by the Printer or correctour to the great Bible whose text is authorized to be read in the Church but not the notes to be of equall credit or authoritie with the text And if you may turne of the whole aâ—…ay of auncient and Catholike Fathers because they diflent from your conceits how much lesse am I bound to correctours or Printers adding often times to other mens workes and labours what pleaseth themselues Though the note be not such but that it may receiue the former construction and be tolerated welâ—… enough Wherefore I meane euen the same giddy spirit which before I did buzzing in the eares of the people his owne fancies against the Scriptures against the Fathers and against the doctrine of this Realme confirmed by publike authoritie of Prince and Parliament The recollecting of your former reason so lately and largely answered I omit as tedious trifling and since you say no more then is before refuted what should I trouble my selfe and the Reader with repeating the same things so often iterated e Defenc pag. 118. li. 10. You haue yet heere and there some exceptions against this our doctrine which are not to be cleane neglected First you say I extend Christs agonie to farre because I will haue is proceede from the intolerable sorrowes and horrors of Gods siery wrath equall to â—…ell I shew not there the cause of Christs agonie and feare I shewed it of purpose in the beginning Why did you not refuse that You extend it so farre according to my wordes yea your maine purpose is to make that the cause of Christs agonie in the garden and on the crosse onely you would vse some cunning in the carriage of it first to make sorrowes and feares the cause thereof and at the next step to aske what sorrowes and feares could those be but the intolerable sorowes and horrors of Gods fierie wrath equall to hell And to this end you quote both the
mouth of this most insolent prater that I professe I mislike nothing the writings and resolutions of all these learned Protestants for as much as I haue seene and read of them which is as much as I could get touching our redemption by the death of Christ but teach the same that they taught and in my priuate moderation could beare the words of many others those onely excepted who elude the plainenesse of the Scriptures with the finenesse of their new deuices were it not that such hoblers as this is vpon such occasions will neuer leaue their fresh inuenting new meanes and causes of our redemption till they be they know not where Taking it therefore to be no euill way when men of great wits and gifts begin to turne to their owne deuices to see what the learned and auncient lights of Christes Church beleeued and deriued from the sacred Scriptures in those very points of trueth and our saluation I haue chosen rather to shew thee Christian Reader the generall and continuall consent of religious and reuerend antiquitie then to muster mens names of latter times and by disgracing or comparing their labours or learnings to set any man or Church in fire If so many learned and auncient fathers displease happilie some in respect of their priuate contrarie conceits I haue done my duety to declare the trueth and shewed my desire of peace whiles I neuer ment nor can yet bee drawen to impeach any mans name or credit howsoeuer I thinke that some of them swarue from the exact rule and sense of holy Scriptures in some few points as well of doctrine as of discipline THE SECOND PART WHAT IS MEANT BY THIS IN THE CREED THAT Christ descended to HADES or Hell I Shall not need good Christian Reader to spend much time or paines in this question An article of the Creed since it is That Christ descended into Hell and the same deriued from the Scriptures confessed by all Antiquitie and confirmed by authoritie of this whole Realme as well in the booke of Common prayer as in the Articles of Religion ratified by Prince and Parliament it is not for an English man directly to dispute against it howsoeuer retaining the words many doubt or denie the sense thereof I may be the shorter for that the Refuter insisteth onely on foure reasons against the descent of Christ to the place of the damned which our English Creed calleth Hell and the rest which he bringeth is like his former labor that is is nothing but a bolde pronouncing of his owne conceits and a false misconstruing of other mens sayings His first reason is If there be a good and sound generall reason in Christian faith that Christes soule leauing his bodie ascended vp to heauen and there remained till his resurrection and if there be no speciall reason of authoritie to the contrariè that his soule now descended thâ—…n surely euerie good Christian ought to beleeue that his soule ascended to heauen and descended not locally into hell But both these former parts are most true Not one of these parts is true and were they as they are not most true yet conclude they not your purpose That Christes soule leauing his bodie ascended vp to heauen is more than any Scripture expresly auoucheth The order of our Creed leadeth vs to beleeue that Christ rose the third day from the dead before he ascended to heauen That he was in Paradise the same day that he died his owne words to the penitent thiefe This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise may proue if we admit them to be spoken of Christes soule and not of his Deitie as Saint Austen and others expound them but that Christes soule departing from his bodie and returning to the same againe diuerted no whither nor spoiled powers and principalities nor made an open shew of them triumphing ouer them for this there is neither good reason in the Christian faith nor warrant in the word of God but onely your couragious assuming any thing that may seeme to support your cause On the other side what reasons there are generall or speciall for Christes descent to hell though you make light of them the Church of Christ from the beginning hath receiued and professed them not from the mouthes of men but from the witnesse of holy Scripture howsoeuer you turne and winde the words of the Holie Ghost to fit them to your appetite And what so great need is there of speciall reasons of authoritie to the contrarie Will not generall testimonies of the Scriptures serue to proue a trueth except the speciall circumstances of time and place and maner be therewithall expressed The analogie of faith requireth that the head should be there where the members were and where they remaine till their resurrection that there he tarie till his resurrection It seemeth also these texts will prooue it Where I am there also shall my seruant be I will that where I am there they also shall be with me Did you speake of the perpetuall abode of the head and members in one and the same place of ioy and blisse at Gods appointed time Your words had some dependance on Christes promise saying Where I am there also shall my seruants be but this speech of Christes is restrained to a certaine time in which it shall be verified as appeareth by that he sayd I goe to prepare you a place I will come againe and receiue you vnto my selfe that where I am there also you may be At his next comming he will take vs vnto himselfe and then shall we be euer with the Lord. This is the time when his promise shall be performed And though the Saints dissolued are now with Christ that is not only receiued to rest and ioy in Christ but also where the glory of Christ sitting at the right hand of his Father continually shineth to them and on them with full assurance of euerlasting glory prepared for them yet no analogie of faith nor any words by you brought do proue all the Saints to haue their bodies now in heauen because Christ hath his there or that the soules of the iust were after the speaking of these words alwayes here on earth where Christ was or that all the Saints rose with him as some did or that when and where Christ appeared after his resurrection all his Saints must or did appeare with him Much lesse is there any sequele from either that all the soules of the righteous must or did accompanie Christes soule going to Paradise and comming thence so that he could not descend to Hell to triumph ouer Satan and all the power of darkenesse but the spirits of the iust deceased must leaue Paradise and go thither with him I see not but that he promiseth heere his seruants euen a locall accompanying of him after this life and that also generally whither soeuer he went Then was Peter a slender Diuine who hearing these words from his Masters mouth did
vs though against the opinion of the Fathers that the soules of the holie Patriarks dead before Christ were not beneath but aboue Not in Limbo but with God in peace ioy and blisse euen in Paradise that is heauen Your certainties be your owne ouerhastie coniectures neither well vnderstanding your selfe nor others In the places which you quote out of my Sermons I say as Christ himselfe deliuered that the iust deceased were in Abrahams bosome which the wise man calleth the hand of God And that Abrahams bosome was vpward farre aboue hell as appeareth by the wordes of our Sauiour more I durst not determine Neither did I make Abrahams bosome to be Paradise or Heauen I had no warrant so to doe but the place whither the soule of the thiefe was caried the day of his death Christ calleth Paradise which the Apostle seemeth to make a part of the third heauen And heere were the soules of the righteous after Christes death except you thinke that Paradise was prouided only for the penitent thiefe which S. Austen counteth a great absurditie Thus much I said and still say as also that the faithfull departing this life rest from their labours and dwell with the Lord in places prepasred and appointed for them though as yet they haue not their house which is eternall in the heauens nor are clothed with life swallowing vp mortalitie But that the soules of the Patriarks were in heauen that is in the glorie of gods kingdome before the death and comming of Christ I haue no such wordes in any of the pages which you produce I vse not of things vnknowen to giue hastie iudgement I leaue it to God who hath many places of abode in his house and desire not to search into his secrets vnreuealed in this life Hence I conclude that Christes soule after his death ascended indeed and descended not downward beneath vs heere I heare your conclusion but I see no premises from which you may iustly inferre so much For though the soule of Christ might ascend after death if we respect situation of place in comparison of the earth yet because the Scriptures reckon no ascending but into the glorie of heauen otherwise the diuels that rule in the aire should ascend and the damned that come to iudgement shall ascend the Christian faith doth not say that Christ ascended before he descended And the apostle exactly obseruing the relation and application of those two wordes vnto Christ saith his descending was the first of the twaine that was performed This saith he that Christ ascended what is it but that he first descended into the lower parts of the earth Otherwise if you be disposed to play with the ascending and descending of Christes person bodie or soule before or after death you may finde vs many descents and ascents besides the two that are mentioned in our Creed The Nicene Creed saith of his person that for vs and our saluation he descended from heauen and was incarnate by the holy Ghost of the virgine Marie and of himselfe he saith I am the liuing bread which descended from heauen Then after his death his soule ascended as you say and so must descend againe before his body could be restored to life Now the apostle saith Christ descended into the lower parts of the earth and likewise must thence ascend before his resurrection And lastly after forty daies he ascended body and soule aboue all the heauens Heere are sixe descents and ascents if you list to controle the Creed but the Christian faith following the apostle noteth onely two his descending to hell or to the lower parts of the earth and his ascending aboue all heauens which were two materiall parts of our saluation after he tooke flesh and profitable for vs to know And though you stifly stand on this that Christes soule descended not downeward beneath vs heere Yet against the Creed and the apostles wordes that Christ descended to hell and to the lower parts of the earth no wise man will admit either your opinion or assertion howsoeuer you thinke you can make a florish with Dauids words who saith he was fashioned beneath in the earth of which we will speake when we come to examine the force of the apostles wordes Only except there be some speciall reason of good authoritie to the contrary which is the second point of importance heere to be considered Touching which thus I say without expresse and euident Scripture there is in the world no sound nor meet authoritie to disprooue our former reason or conclusion Your reasons raked out of the Scripture are such that no man need to regard they are miserable mistakings and palpable misapplyings of the Scriptures intending no such thing as you imagine and for the contrarie they are plaine enough and such as haue been receaued and reuerenced by all Christendom without exception till you and some others in our age started vp with figures and phrases to mince and manage the Scriptures to your pleasure They are â—…eely diuines that doe not know the names of heauon and hell of life and death of flesh and spâ—…it of Christ and of God may be diuersly taken and diuersly vsed euen by example of holy Scriptures but it is the high way to all heresie and infidelity to turne and wind euery word occurrent in the Scriptures after euery signification that may be found thereof in the old or new Testament without respect to the maine grounds of the Christian faith and to make Rabbins and Pagans to be the best interpreters of words vsed by the holy Ghost to expresse the mysteries of Christs kingdome And how come you now to be so strickt in this second question that without expresse and euident Scripture against which you cannot so much wrangle you will yeeld to nothing who were so licentious in the former that without all Scripture and against the Scripture you maintained a new kind of redemption by the death of Christs soule and his suâ—…ering the second death which if you stand to the word of God is eternall damnation of body and soule in hell fire you shew your selfe more then a Patriarke in the Church thus to coine new articles of the Creed without all warrant of the word and to cast out the old though confessed and continued since Christs time because you find some words to haue diuers senses at least with Iewish and heathen writers though not with Christians Austen himselfe auoucheth well and faithfully supposing there were no expresse nor plaine Scripture for Christes descending theâ—… sayth he it were maruellous boldnesse that any should dare say he went downe to hell But the same Austen in the same place telleth you that euidentia testimonia infernum commemorant dolores euident testimones of Scriptures mention both hell and the sorowes thereof to which Christ came And for full proofe heereof he sayth euâ—…n in the same Epistle We can not contradict
ouer to Christ by God and all things subiected vnder his feet because he hâ—…bled himselfe and was obedient to his father vnto death euen the death of the Crosse. Was it then wrath in God without loue that brought Christ to his death or rather vnspeakable loue in God towards his sonne which ouerruled his iustice prouoked by our sinnes and so highly accepted and plentifully rewarded the death of Christ that he made him LORD ouer all things and persons in heauen earth and hell to giue grace and peace mercie and glory to Gods elect by his meanes and merites and to inflict excecation destruction and damnation on the wicked both men and diuels by his iudgement and sentence If it were admirable loue and fauour in God towards Christs humane nature to ioyne mans flesh and spirit into the vnitie and societie of his Sonnes Diuine maiestie what inestimable honor and glory was it to put the whole gouernment of Gods kingdome in heauen and earth into Christs hands which is the reward that God hath allotted to Christs obedience patience shewed on the Altar of the Crosse So that the learned may soone perceiue I worke no deceit nor mistaking to the Reader through the ambiguitie of this word THE VVRATH OF GOD as you pretend but you wandring in the desart of your owne deuises haue fashioned to your selfe a fardle of phrases as Gods proper and improper wrath 〈◊〉 meere iustice and such like and vnder the generalitie and vncertaintie of these words you hide your head and when you are required to make some proofe and shew some parts of Gods wrath out of the Scripture which Christ suffered besides the death of the Crosse and paines thereof you answere to particularize or to specifie the parts of Gods wrath which Christ felt as I will you to doe what madnesse were it in men to attempt and what folly is it in any to require Indeede it would be madnesse in you to attempt it for thereby you should plainly disclose that absurditie and impietie which now is cloaked vnder generall and doubtfull termes but those that be godly will neuer suffer their faith to be framed by your phrases except you shew warrant of Gods word both whence you collect them and what you meane by them neither of which you doe nor can doe with any truth in these points now in question For first by what Scripture proue you that Christ did or must suffer the proper wrath of God or the punishment and vengeance of sinne I following the sense and words of the Scriptures and of Diuines both olde new which make shame sorrow paine and death in this life the effects of Gods wrath punishing sinne in Adam and his of-spring at his fall did by consequent a specie ad genus affirmatiue gather and in that respect confesse that Christ suffering those things on the Crosse suffered the wrath of God and due punishment of sinne in this life but you tell vs now the Scriptures in that point speake most improperly you haue found out that Gods wrath signifieth properly the paines of the damned and those Christ suffered for our sinnes True it is and long since by me auouched that Gods wrath against sinne extendeth to all the paines and punishments of Soule and body as well in hell as on earth and in comparison of the terrible torments of hell fier the paines and punishments of the faithfull in this life may be called and accounted rather the chastisements of a Father then the rigour of a Iudge but since you refuse that sense of Gods wrath which I collected from the Scriptures as very improper take no aduantage of my confession and let Gods wrath stand in your sense either for Gods displeasure against the person offending or for the vengeance of sinne executed on the wicked and damned I aske you now by what authoritie of holy Scripture can you prooue that Christ suffered Gods proper wrath or his wrath at all I recall not my former Resolution which I take to be sober and sound but you reiecting it as improper and deceitfull let vs see how you prooue by the Scriptures that Christ suffered Gods wrath which you so much presume and make the chiefe pillour of all your procedings In your late defence with shame enough you yeeld at last that this word HELL is not literally and expresly applyed to Christs sufferings in the Scriptures you must likewise yeeld by your leaue that this speech the wrath of God is not literally nor expresly affirmed of Christs sufferings in all the Scriptures That he was wounded for our transgressions and torne or trodden vnder feete for our iniquities and we healed by his stripes as also that he was afflicted and oppressed and bare our iniquities and poured out his soule vnto death the Prophet Esay witnesseth that he dranke of the Cup which his Father gaue him the Euangelists mention and the Apostle saith he was deliuered and died for our sinnes according to the Scriptures but none of these expresse or inferre that he suffered the proper wrath of God or full punishment and vengeance of sinne which are the phrases placed for the ground-worke of all your discourse though no way prooued by any shew of Scripture The words vsed generally by the holy Ghost to expresse Christs sufferings besides the former import that he gaue himselfe for vs to be the sacrifice the price and the ransome of our deliuerance All which wordes note no wrath conceiued against him nor vengeance executed on him but rather the exceeding loue and fauour of God towards him as the onely Sacrifice that God would accept the onely price that God did esteeme the onely ransome that God would receaue for the sinne of the world This Sacrifice was his body this price was his bloud this ransome was his death We are sanctified by the offering of the body of Iesus once ‖ made ‖ priceâ—…th â—…th Paule that is yee were redcemed with the precious blood of Christ saith Peter For we haue redemption in him by his blood And he is the mediatour of the new testament through death for the ransome of the transgressions in the former testament So that by the sacrifice of his bodie price of his blood and ransome of his death he hath made a most full recompence satisfaction and redemption for the sinnes of the world and consequently the punishment which he sustained when he bare our sinnes in his body on the tree was the full perfect purgation and propitiation of our sinnes full not in the degrees and parts of condemnation and vengeance due to sinne which the damned doe suffer as you falsely and absurdly insinuate but full in price and force of Redemption and deliuerance from sinne for somuch as Gods holinesse is highly pleased with the obedience Gods glory greatly aduanced by the humilitie and Gods iustice fully satisfied with the
place in Christ by reason they proceede in 〈◊〉 from râ—…morle of sinne weaknesse of faith and doubt for the time of Gods fauour which we cannot ascribe to Christ without drawing him into the dregges of our sinne And therefore when we compare his suffering with ours we must alwayes except the rootes and branches of our corruption for that they be taintes of sinne and wants of gâ—…ace neither of which may be admitted in the soule of Christ. Now if I exclude the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and terrour of conscience from the person of Christ in the same sentence which you quote how should my words sound in your eares as if I admitted the true paines of hell to be suffered in the soule of Christ which I haue often said the wicked doe not suffer in this life muchlesse Christs members whence you fet your patâ—…e for Christs sufferings least of all Christ himselfe on whom that vengeance by no iustice could be inflicted The mortall bodies of men and their fraile life are by no meanes capable of those terrible iudgements of God against sinne reserued for another world and howsoeuer your errour leadeth you to aduenture the making of a new hell my resolution is euery where occurrent in my Sermons that no iustice of God could award against his owne Sonne the same paines which the damned in hell doe suffer if we measure their paines by the Scriptures and not by your fansies besides that the members of Christ are not subiected in this life to those torments of hell which the reprobate in an other place doe and shall endure There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus How then should the Lord Iesus himselfe not onely feare which I there denie but also suffer the same condemnation to hell paines which the wicked and accursed doe and shall suffer We say not Christ suffered simply all the paines of the damned he felt not such as are by their very nature sinnes as well as paines as indeede desperation is â—… When God offereth grace and mercie as in this world he doth to many to renounce or refuse is a damnable sinne but in hell where there is no promise nor possibilitie of either there to despaire is no sinne yea rather there to hope that Gods irreuocable iudgement shal be altered and his setled counsell changed were to hope that God will be false of his word and wauering in his will which indeede is a mightie sinne And therefore neither reiection confusion destruction desperation nor damnation are sinnes in hell but the iust and fearefull punishments of sinne ordained by Gods iustice and inflicted by Gods power who there requireth no obedience but onely executeth vengeance the suffering whereof is not sinnefull though it be neuer so painefull to the damned abiding for euer in the pollution and confusion of their sinnes here committed So that if my Lordship as you call it doe stand to my words and not clippe them nor renounce them your Patriark ship gaineth little by them for your purpose For I by no meanes acknowledge that the true paines of hell are inflicted on any in this life and by no iustice could the Sonne of God be damned to suffer hell paines either in substance or in circumstance as the Scriptures describe them And therefore your vaunting before the victorie depending onely on the foolish mistaking or peeuish peruerting of my words is as â—…idieulous as it is vaine-glorious All you can get is this that if you can be suffered to wrest my wordes from their coherence and sense without respecting what goeth in the same Section before them or what is ioyned in the same sentence with them and then interlace them with other wordes of your owne seruing your turne when mine doe not you can picke out two or three lines in the whole booke that thus abused and corrupted shall sound somewhat towards the secrets of your phantasticall hell By which arte of yours you make me say in one section that the iustice of God both temporally and eternally punisheth the soule ONLY by the bodie and in the next section you say I grant that Christ did beare punishment of sinne AS GREAT AS ANY IS proceeding from the iustice of God yet being no sinne and so with adding ONLY to my wordes in the first place and as GREAT AS ANY IS in the second you haue made some shew of contradiction in my positions or at least in your additions Thus much for the examination and refutation of those maine diuisions and positions which the Discourser hath laid for the foundation of his cause in his generall opening of the Question and likewise for the clearing of those contradictions which he falsely supposed to be in my writings Wherein if I would haue taken the trade which he doth I could with farre more breuitie and facilitie haue denied all that he affirmeth and ballanced my no to be euery way as good as his yea but for their sakes that cannot discusse those things themselues I haue not refused more largely and fully to expresse and proue the trueth in ech of those points which he catcheth hold of in defence of his errour and thereby haue giuen the Reader to vnderstand that this Discoursers new doctrine is as wide from the veritie as from the authoritie of holy Scripture There remain the particular challenges such as they are which this impugner maketh to many parts points of my Sermons and of my conclusion annexed to them as also his defence of those speciall reasons published in his first Treatise which I refuted as farre as needed in the conclusion afore mentioned In which I meane to spend no more time then necessitie forceth me but to referre the Reader to the places where the things are purposely handled except some new matter not fully debated be offered vnto me by reason whereof I may sometimes be drawen to make larger proofe of some things shortly but truely before vttered by me and ignorantly if not peruersely mistaken by him To the Discoursers chalenge that I forced my Text by mistaking the crosse of Christ for Christs personall sufferings on the Crosse where Paul meaneth the afflictions of Christes members in this world I made in the conclusion of my Sermons a tripartite answere 1. That the Crosse of Christ did alwayes in the Scriptures import the personall sufferings of Christ on the Crosse and neuer the afflictions of the godly 2. That the circumstances of the Text conuinced no lesse which were Pauls earnest renouncing of all ioy saue in the Crosse of Christ and his vehement opposing himselfe to those that ioyned circumcision to the Crosse of Christ least they should suffer persecution for it at the hands of the Iewes 3 That the best and most ancient Fathers Ierom Chrysostome Austen and others expounded these words precisely of Christs death on the Crosse. To this what replieth our Controuller The crosse of Christ here signifieth I grant Christ crucified not in his owne
sense and case that I do Peruse the labours of that learned Father Bishop Iewel and see how often in his Replie to Harding and his Defence of the Apologie he calleth the testimonies of the ancient Fathers and Councels Authorities We rest sayth he vpon the Scriptures of God vpon the Authoritie of the ancient Doctours and Councels And againe to reckon vp the authorities of ANTIQVITIE it would be infinite The halfe communion by the authoritie of Gelasuis may well be called open sacriledge In the conclusion of the same booke I grant you haue alledged authorities sundrie and many such as I knew long before Verely I neuer denied but you were able to bring vs the names and shadowes of m◅ny Fathers You haue defended the open abomination of your stewes by the name and AVTHORITIE of S. Augustine You haue sought vp a companie of new petite Doctors Authors void of Authoritie full of vanities In the conclusion of his defence of the Apologie my Authorities of Doctors and Councels as you haue vsed them are few enough What meant you in fauour of open Stewes to shew vs the name and AVTHORITIE of S. Augustine Peter Martyr against Smithes bookes of the singlenesse of Priests sayeth In iudging of things obscure we must haue two waies or meanes to direct vs one i◅ward which is the Spirit the other outward which is the word of God Tum si ad haec patrum etiam authoritas accesserit valebit plurimum to these if the authoritie of Fathers be ioyned it is of great force So Chemnitius in his examination of the Tridentine Councell Quod de patrum authoritate sentimus etiam ab ipsis Patribus didicimus That which we hold touching the authoritie of the Fathers we learned of the Fathers themselues Where also he teacheth you this Rule worth the noting for your new found Redemption and the rest of your nouelties Sentimus etiam nullum dogma in ecclesia no◅m cum t◅ta antiquitate pugnans recipiendum We also confesse that no point of Doctrine which is new to the Church and repugnant to all antiquitie is to be receiued If the Fathers themselues will better please you I want not their example for the vse of that word which so much offendeth you Ierome in his Epistle to Damasus in very earnest manner maketh this petition Vt ◅ihi epistolis tuis siue tacendarum siue dicendarū hypostase◅n detur authoritas That AVTHORITIF may be giuen me saith he by your letters to vse or refuse the word hypostases Vincentius in his book against heresies mooueth this question Here some perchaunce will aske where as the Canon of the Scripture is perfect and abundantly sufficient in it selfe for all things quid opus est vt ei ecclesiasticae intelligentiae iungatur authoritas what neede is there that the authoritie of the ecclesiasticall interpretation should be ioyned with it The effect of his answere which is good for you to obserue that claime such libertie for your selfe to expound the Scriptures at your pleasure is this least euery man should wrest the Scriptures to his fansie and sucke thence not the truth but the patronage of his error Saint Augustine that is euery where carefull to yeeld the Scriptures their due reuerence yet giueth the word Authoritie to the decrees of Councels and writings of godly Fathers before his time Speaking of generall Councels he saith Quorum est in ecclesia saluberrima authoritas Whose authoritie is most wholsome in the Church And alleaging the testimonies of Irenaeus Cyprian Hilarius Ambrose Gregorie Chrysostome Basil and others against Iulian the Pelagian he concludeth Hoc probauimus Catholicorum authoritate sanctorum this haue we prooued by the authoritie of Godly Catholike men vt vestra fragilis quasi argutula nouitas sola authoritate conteratur illorum that your weake and sleigh noueltie might be ouerwhelmed with their onely authoritie For your contumacie is first to be repressed by their authoritie With these testimonies and so great authoritie of holy men thou must either by Gods mercy be healed or else thou must accuse the egregious and holy Doctors of the Catholike truth against which miserable madnes I must so answere that their faith may be defended against thee euen as the Gospell it selfe is defended against the wicked and professed enimies of Christ. If then this word seeme insolent to you which is so frequent with the best Diuines of former and latter times let your Reader iudge whether it be ignorance or insolence in you to stumble at so plaine a word as if the religious and auncient Fathers and lights of Christs Church were not worthy with you to be counted learned Authors nor their testimonies to be named Authorities fit to guide and lead others to the knowledge of the truth I trust no aduised Christian will challenge more authoritie to the Fathers then was giuen by those of Beraea to the Apostle nor deny indeede to any priuate man much lesse to a Minister to iudge and discerne in themselues not onely the words of men but euen of the sense and meaning of the Scripture by the Scripture it selfe which thing the Beraeans did and are commended by the holy Ghost for it I trust you claime no power to iudge of the Scriptures you may discerne the truth there written but with necessitie to beleeue not with libertie to iudge And if by your freedome you fasten on falsehood it is no excuse for you but a condemnation vnto you Saint Austen speaking of the bookes of the Prophets and Apostles saith quos omnino indicare non audeamus which we may not dare at all to iudge And where you say the Ber◅ans are commended by the holy Ghost for not beleeuing that Paul spake touching Religion till they had examined by the Scriptures and seene whether the truth were so as he vttered You speake not one◅y vnwisely and vntruely but if you would haue Christians to follow that course you shew intolerable pride against the word of God for the Beraeans were commended when as yet they neither beleeued in Christ nor acknowledged Pauls Apostleship for their readinesse to heare and care to search whether Paul spake trueth or no. This if you now assume to your selfe ouer Pauls words or writings you incurre the crime of flat impietie Pauls words to vs that beleeue without further search or other credit are of equall authoritie with the rest of the Scriptures and not to beleeue him till we examine and see the trueth of his doctrine is meere infidelitie Behold I paul say vnto you must suffice all Christians and if an Angel from heauen preach otherwise than he preached we must hold him accursed For our comfort that beleeue and to perswade them which as yet beleeue not we may search and see the consent betwixt the Prophets and Apostles yea the sonne of God sent men to the writings of Moses and the
respect as they are bodily things represent the soule of Christ or any matter pertaining to it In that respect as they are bodily things without any sacred action or passion they figure neither bodie nor soule of Christ nor are indeed any figures at all But you speake of sacrifices of beasts which can not beare that name in the Scriptures without some sacred action and passion ordeined by God to praefigure the sacrifice of his Sonne And where euery thing which was appointed of God to foreshew the comming and dying of his Sonne was a figure of him not in respect of any bodily matter or forme for so all things of that kinde should naturally haue beene figures of Christ and not by gods appointment which is most absurd and false but in regard of some holie rare or beneficiall action passion or propertie authorized by God to represent the power and vertue of Christ appearing in our flesh you like a deepe Diuine seuer from those sacrifices all sacred actions and passions ordained by God to make them both sacrifices and figures and then tell vs that in respect of their earthly and bodily substance they were no figures of Christes soule When you sayd Sacrifices you included those sacred actions and passions which made them sacrifices and figures of Christes sacrifice and therefore to exclude them againe with an idle respect is a silly and emptie refuge If vnder bodily things you comprise externall and sensible actions and passions then is it euident that by sensible signes in those Sacrifices God did alwayes and altogether declare the ioynt sufferings of Christ for the sinnes of the world but not the paines of hell nor the death of the soule from which you alwayes and altogether slide vnder pretence of my grosse vttering it though I vtter it in the selfe-same words and parts which the Scripture doth But how considerate are you when you vouch that the Scape-goat representeth not Christes soule vnlesse onely in respect of the escaping of it when the other goat died yet not the body of the holocaust but the vtter consuming by sire of the whole signifieth the sufferings of whole Christ What agreement hath ESCAPING with VTTER CONSVMING and yet you make both these actions to be figures of the sufferings of Christes soule So that Christes soule by your refined figures did escape free from death and not escape free from death for you defend that Christ died the death of the soule and was vtterly consumed and could not be consumed but as it were escaped and yet escaped not and was at it were vtterly consumed and yet could no way be consumed but escaped free and vntouched as the Scape-goat did Such is your settlednesse that yea and no with you are as it were all one That fire did signifie the incorruption of Christes flesh after death is very hard and farre fetcht Sacrifices had their respect to Christes death not to any thing further or afterwards All things are farre fetcht with you that come not from the whirlepoole of your owne head It is the iudgement of S. Austen and other learned Fathers which you so lightly esteeme The same substance of the bodie shall be changed into an heauenly qualitie quod ignis in sacrificio significabat velut absorbens mortem in victoriam which fire in sacrifice signified as it were swallowing vp death in victorie Whom Bede disdaineth not to follow Ignis in sacrificio id significabat velut absorbens mortem in victoriam Fire in sacrifice did signifie victorie euen swallowing vp death Cyril is of the same minde Agreeably to the sacrifices did heauenly fire consume all things that were done by our Sauiour in the bodie and restored them all neerer to the nature of his Diuinitie for rising from the dead he ascended to heauen his passage to which place the nature of fire doth shew To farder sufferings after Christes death no sacrifice had respect because there neither were any nor needed any but to the efficacie and glorie consequent to Christes death the fire in sacrifices had respect as these Fathers affirme Against whom though you euery where oppose the worm-eaten warrant of your owne words I trust you will somewhat relent to the Apostles authoritie who telleth you that the high Priests going intâ—… the most holy place with the blood of the sacrifice once euery yeere signified Christes entring the heauens with his owne blood which I hope was after both his death and his resurrection As for an other sense out of Austen that it should signifie our perfection and burning charitie it can not be true for the holocaust-sacrifice out of question primarily signified the person of Christ not ours Also you both here do seeme to double vnderstanding by the holocaust both incorruption after death and a perfect burning loue in vs now in this life which things are farre distant and can not stand together You are so giddie that you dislike euerie thing and so hastie that you conceiue nothing right S. Austen sayth indeed that fire in the holocaust may note the feruent â—…esse of charitie and brightnesse of immortalitie which are all one with perfection and incorruption What fault finde you with this The holocaust you say signified primarily the person of Christ not ours Doth S. Austen denie that It suffâ—…ceth for the trueth of his wordes that those sacrifices did principally point out Christes sufferings grace and glorie and consequently ours For as we haue fellowship with his afflictions and are conformed vnto his death so shall we be partakers of his perfection and incorruption and be fashioned to his image 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If we suffer as he did sayth Paul that we may be glorified as he was not presuming an equalitie with him but promising a conformitie to him The Sacrifices then which as you grant primarily signified the person passion and perfection of Christ did secondly note and teach our dying to sinne our rising againe in glorie and appearing before him in perfect holinesse which in this life we endeuour but can not attaine to the full till by death we be freed from sinne The bearing of Christs Image is enough to iustifie Saint Austens speech For he neither saith that the holocaust did primarily signifie the members of Christ nor that men could haue perfection of charitie in this life but when Christ shall present vs righteous and glorious vnto his Father then shall he offer vs as holocausts vnto God And yet in the meane while what hindereth Saint Austen to exhort vs that the Diuine fire of Gods wisedome and grace may wholy inflame vs and euen consume vs Who but a moth of your mould would giue Saint Austen the lâ—…e twice in two lines for so speaking and in the third line after charge him with doubling as if Christs puritie in this life and glorie after this life could not stand together or the perfection of Gods Saints here such as
suffer then Christ did not so suffer If you flie to the purpose of the punisher which was different in Christ and his members and thinke there to succour your selfe you come to short the purpose of God in Christes afflictions as I haue shewed by the Scriptures was farre more fauourable and honourable in Christ then it can bee to any of the elect And therefore Gods purpose in Christes punishment will far der free him from hell paines then it will any of the faithfull The proportion of the pain which Christ suffered the inward peace of the sufferer will proue the same For where the paines of hell exceed the patience of men and Angels and are no way possible to bee suffered in the weaknesse of our mortall bodies the measure of Christes paine was so proportioned to the strength of his flesh that it neither ouerwhelmed his life nor his patience And though his sweate were like bloud in his earnest prayer and Agonie yet no Scripture decideth whether that were for paine feare or zeale and that dured but a while in the Garden where as after when his afflictions and paines were at sorest he shewed no signe of shrinking either at the torments of his body or at the affliction of his minde but as the Apostle saith For the ioy set before him endured the Crosse and despised the shame not wearied nor fainting in minde but with most perfect obedience and quiet patience persisting to the ende This conflict betweene paine and patience to serue Gods glorie and obey Gods will Christ proposeth to all his members on the same condition that it was offered to his humane nature To him that ouercommeth saith he will I giue to sit with me in my throne euen as I ouercame and â—…it with my Father in his throne As for the consequents of hell paines it is so brutish blasphemie to affirme them of Christ that I forbeare to obiect them I haue often named them and you say you abhorre such blasphemies as well as â—… doe that Christ so suffered hell paines But Sir you your friends must shew by the Scriptures that God hath seuered these consequents I meane reiection reprobation confusion malediction diction desperation and such like from the true paines of hell The Scripture proposeth them as necessarie and infallible consequents to the true paines of hell You will seuer them because otherwise Christ must either not suffer the true paines of hell which euerteth all your new Doctrine or he must also suffer these which the Scriptures annexe to the true paines of hell If you confesse the first that Christ did not suffer the true paines of hell the Question is well ended If you seuer these consequents from the true paines of hell shew by what authoritie of sacred Scriptures you doe it and then you may be excused from lewd and wicked presumption For if God by his word reuealed hath ioyned them together you doe or should know what sacriledge it is for your pleasure to pull them in sunder Let your Reader therefore iudge whether you can be quited from the one except you shew good warrant for the other which as yet you neither haue done nor offered to doe Your selfe graunt expresly that the wrath of God is hell indeede onely it causeth hell to be cruell yea you grant it to be sharper then hell So that we see hereby how vainely you say out of this proposition Christ suffered for vs the wrath of God for sinne I shall neuer conclude ergo he suffered the true paines of hell I haue here shewed you I trust that this followeth well seeing the wrath of God which Christ felâ—… in his spirit was his right and proper wrath albeit he suffered not all nor the whole wrath of God nor euery part thereof iust as the damned doe Here you see your full purpose is to conclude that Christ suffred for vs the true paines of hell though it hath beene your policie to conceale so much from the Reader all this while And indeede howsoeuer you dissemble it because you can no way prooueit The death of Christes soule and the true paines of hell or of the Damned are the maine markes which you shoote at though you closely carie it in other termes which are more generall and ambiguous as the wrath of God and the punishment of sinne to keepe your Reader from discouering your foolish reasons and reiecting your wicked deuices But cough vp your conceites freely and wander not thus about a wood of words to shew your contentious spirit or at least to hide your hatefull mysteries Here you haue shewed you trust that it followeth well seeing the wrath that Christ felt in his spirit was right and proper wrath You haue shewed vs what you intend but neither here nor else where doe you shew by what grounds of reason and trueth you can inferre it Christ suffered proper wrath and that in spirit you say You neuer went about to define or describe what proper wrath is much lesse haue you any way prooued that which Christ suffered to be proper wrath And now on the sudden you bend vp your bristles and boast you haue shewed that Christ suffered the true paines of hell But by what Scriptures I pray you haue you shewed it or by what Fathers Or if you haue neither of those to deriue your doctrine from what groundes of reason haue you produced for it You haue roued ignorantly confusedly and absurdly at the sufferings of mans soule you haue filled our eares with certaine new phrases of proper verie and right wrath and vengeance for sinne but first and last you haue proued nothing nay I see not so much as any offer of proofe but a bolde proiect of trifles and termes to support your errors But I grant expresly that the wrath of God is hell Hauing shewed by sundrie Fathers the verie page before that the wrath of God is often taken for the effects thereof and so for any punishment which God inflicteth for sinne I granted that hell and all the â—…orments there mightiustly be called the wrath of God because they are t the sharpest effects of Gods wrath against sinne What conclude you thence ergo euerie effect or degree of Gods wrath is hell If you clamper vs such conclusions you are fitter to ring a bell than to write a booke What shew of reason hath this illation of yours The wrath of God is applied to all the paines and punishments of sinne and so by consequent to hell as to the greatest vengeance that God taketh of men or diuels for sinne Will you hence inferre hell is the greatest punishment of sinne ergo hell is all the punishment that God inflicteth for sinne or whatsoeuer God inflicteth for sinne is hell By this Logike a rotten tooth a gowtie toe a broken head or a lame legge are the true paines of hell and all men liuing and dying are in the paines of hell But you will create vs
destruction of body and soule Wee must therefore know that God truely and iustly threatned Adam and in him all mankind to be guiltie of all soâ—…ts of death and to bee thereto subiected as to their due if they transgressed against him but this commination neither included execution of all sorts of death on all mankind nor excluded pardon where pleased God onely thence may rightly bee gathered fiâ—…st that all Adaâ—… of spring should bee condemned and subiected to the guilt of all as deseruing all the one no lesse then the other Secondly that some of Adams issue should effectuall feele the sting of all which God allotted to the reprobate Thirdly that euen the elect as well as the reprobate should beare in themselues the monuments of this transgression by the corruption dissolution of their nature though the one should in this life bee reformed by the working of Gods spirit in them and the other bee restored after this life by the Resurrection from the dead All these wee finde performed by God in the trueth of his iudgements and therefore we may be sure they were intended at the time of his threatning And consequently this collection is very true that God threating Adam with these words Thou shalt die the death purposed if Adam transgressed that none of his posteritie should escape the death of their bodies to which God foorthwith punishing sinne irreuocably subiected Adam and all his children as Gods owne words declare when he said to Adam and in him to all men Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou returne The iudges reuenge then for sinne which we deserued and to which we were iustly condemned was temporall eternall death of the body and soule heere and in hell But this was not executed on all because some were freed by the fauour of God in Iesus Christ though none excused from a corporall death which prooueth my position the truer that God neuer released sinne to any no not to his owne Sonne without some kind of death It must not be forgotten that here you renounce all satisfaction for sinne in respect of merite as from Christes soule vtterly If you meane I vtterly renounce all satisfaction for sinne as from the death of Christs soule I easily graunt it and would gladly heare what you can say against it because the soule of Christ as I beleeue could not die the death of spirits But if you conceiue that Christes soule had neither part sense nor merit in the death of his body by which satisfaction for sinne was fully made it is the weamishnesse of your wit to mistake so much and vnderstand so little I attributed all sense of paine as well in death as other wise to the soule of Christ and the death of his body I communicated to his soule by reason it is a separation of the soule from the body not thereby to bee depriued of sense or grace which Christes soule could not be but therein to feele the paine and sting which the death of the body brought with it I tolde you but the leafe before out of Austen that the paine which is called bodily belongeth rather to the soule and that the paine of the flesh is only the offending or afflicting the soule by the flesh Wherefore I made the soule of Christ to be the principall agent in all his meriting and patient in all his suffering and though the soule of Christ could not pay the satisfaction for our sinnes by her death because shee could not die yet that is no impediment but the soule of Christ might haue and had the chiefest paine sense and merit in the death of Christes bodie by which the whole person made full satisfaction for the sinnes of the world And this is so farre from renouncing all merit of satisfaction from the soule of Christ as you conceiue that it ascribeth the whole power and force thereof to the obedience and patience of Christes soule and maketh the bodie the instrument ordeined of God to conuey paine vnto the soule and to lie dead when the soule is departed from it As for Bernards words which I alledge if you did or could tell how they crosse mine I would take the paines to reconcile them now you say they sute not with mine but awake out of your wonted maze and you shall see that I giue the chiefe place and part in the meritorious sacrifice vnto the soule of Christ which you dreame I doe not as also that you neither like nor allow of Bernards words For he declaring the cause and maner why and how Christes minde was afflicted in his passion sayth it was with a double affection of most humane compassion on the one side for the vncomfortable griefe of the holy women on the other for the desperation and dispersion of his disciples These causes you reiect as fond and absurd and now you would seeme to ioyne with Bernards words But you must say of him as you doe of Ambrose and pray that mens authorities may be omitted in this case for all the Fathers of Christes church are vtter strangers or enemies to your new doctrine That nothing may satisfie for sinne but death is not sound the Scriptures doe shewe indeede that Christ should not satisfie without death but they denie not that there are other parts of Christs satisfaction which differ from his death as his bloodshedding his shame his reproches his apprehension his buffeting and besides that pouertie hunger and wearines These doubtlesse yea all other sufferings of Christ what soeuer small or great are satisfactorie and meritorious That all Christes actions and passions were meritorious with God I haue no doubt but that all his sufferings as well naturall as voluntarie did euery one small or great satisfie for sinne This is a speech of yours which except it be well qualified hath in it an whole heape of absurdities and contrarieties For if the least and the first thing that Christ suffered either naturally or voluntarily did satisfie for sinne superfluous were all the rest to our redemption when God was once satisfied And so by his birth or circumcision you graunt a Supersedeas to all his life and death as needelesse to our redemption Then the which what can be more repugnant to the word of God and faith of Christ and euen to your selfe who by this meanes make your hell paines of no importance to our saluation By satisfaction you meane not full satisfaction but that which any way tendeth to satisfaction or is requisite before satisfaction can be made It is easie and often with you to abuse words though you talke much of their proprietie What is Satis in Latine whence to satisfie commeth but enough and what is enough for sinne but after which more is not requisite If then Christ satisfied that is did or paide enough for sinne by the first of his sufferings then all that followed as I inferred were more then enough and consequently
of Christ on the Crosse. Now the relatiue following QVOD enim must either be referred to all that went before and so not to malediction apart from the rest or to that which went next before which is the chasticement of our peace And so either way you were ouer bold with your Author to referre his words whether pleased you And farder answere to Ierom there needed none For to no proofe needed no answere And yet what better answere could you haue then for Ieroms meaning since his words are not generall to haue Ieroms conclusion in that very place brought you which best serueth to shew Ieroms intent Of Christs hanging on the Crosse Ierom speaketh noting that to be a cursed kinde of death out of the Apostle which I am farre from denying So doth he of digging Christs hands and feete out of the Psalme and of the rest of Christs wounds and stripes by which we were healed out of the Prophet whom hee expoundeth All which Christ suffered for vs being in deed due to vs for our sinnes Leaue out your falsifying of Ieroms words and sense that whatsoeuer curse was due to vs for our sinnes Christ suffered for vs and I see no cause why Ieroms words should neede any answere That this place of Esaie and the whole Doctrine which I auouch touching these fufferings of Christ may be the better receaued let vs note that the publike Doctrine appointed by Authoritie to be taught throughout England expresseth the same Namely Nowels Catechisme Since the Scriptures which plentifully and plainly teach vs the true price and meanes of our saluation giue no warrant of your new found Doctrine and the whole Armie of Auncient and learned Fathers who could ill instruct the people committed to their charge if they themselues were ignorant of the true meaning of their Creed and Catechisme neuer heard nor thought of your late deuised Redemption by Christs suffering the very paines of hell and the same which the damned doe suffer without any dispensation or Qualification for so it liketh you to speake if you could produce moe new writers of your mind then you doe or can they must pardon me for not admitting any Doctrine touching our Redemption but what I see grounded on the plaine euidence of the Sacred Scriptures and so receaued in the Church of Christ before our Age. I list not to deuise or approue a new Saluation vnknowen till our time and if any man be otherwise minded he shall goe alone for me God grant me to be a member of that Church which hath reuerently receaued and faithfully beleeued the simplicitie of the Scriptures touching our Redemption by the death and bloud of Christ Iesus Howbeit I see many men speake diuersly that meane nothing lesse then your late found hell inflicted by the immediat hand of God on the Soule of Christ. Where then you dreampt in your Treatise as you still doe in your Defence that whosoeuer named the wrath of God in Christs sufferings or called his Crosse a cursed kinde of death was wholy of your side I did in few lines reprooue that folly of yours and since you quoted no speciall words neither out of Master Nowels Catechisme nor out of the Bible appointed publikely to be read in the Churches of this Realme nor out of the Booke of Homilies that were worth the standing on there was no cause why I should wast time to hunt after your meaning If you would haue an answere it was meete you made your Arguments and pressed your Authorities as well as you could and then you should soone see what I said vnto them But as I then foretold so you now performe Your buzzing head no where findeth the wrath of God or horror of Iudgement against our sinne to be apprehended by Christ but you straightway conclude all your conceits from the first to the last These words when I reade them in any man offend not me as they helpe not you except you wrest them after your manner to hide vnder them your new found hell and the rest of your presumptuous and irreligious humours Begin with the Catechisme and see what choise you haue made thence There it is thus taught He payd and suffered the paine due to vs and by this meanes deliuerd vs from the same With Christ as our suretie God dealt as it were with extremitie of law Christ therefore suffered and in suffering ouercame death the paine appointed by the euerliuing God for mans offence What of all this What one worde is here sounding towards the death of the soule or the death of the damned after this life The Catechisme in the very same sentence expressely speaketh of the painefull and reprochfull death which the Iewes inflicted on Christ the manner whereof is orderly described in the next answere before These things sayth the Catechisme the Iewes did vnto him cruelly maliciously and wickedly but Christ willingly of his owne accord suffered ALL THOSE THINGS from the Iewes to appease with this most sweete sacrifice his father offended with mankinde vtque paenas nobis debitas dependeret persolueret atque nos ex illis hoc modo eximeret and to pay and satisfie the punishments due to vs thereby to exempt vs from them Cum Christo quasi sponsore pro nobis sic passo Deus summo quasiiure egit God dealt after a sort seuerely with Christ as with a surety suffering thus for vs but to vs whose sinnes deserued punishments and due paines transtulit in Christum hee transferred on Christ God shewed singular mercie and clemencie All this is plainely referred to the punishments and paines which Christ suffered at the hands of the Iewes by the secret counsell and appointment of God that thereby he might pacifie the wrath of his Father and deliuer vs from the shame paine and death due to our sinnes which God transferred and remoued from vs to Christ that he might suffer them and we be freed both here and hereafter for them Wherein great fauour and mercie were shewed to vs and Christ as it were a Suretie subiected for vs after a sort to the rigour of the Lawe What hurt is there in these wordes if you leaue haling and pulling them from their right sense The Authour of the Catechisme warily forbeareth the generall which you seeke after so greedily and when hee commeth to the places that might seeme harsh he qualifieth them with quasi as it were not meaning to presse those phrases as you doe to the vttermost Wherefore he saith that Christ was quasi sponsor a kinde of suretie suffering for vs and that God dealt with him Quasi summo iure as it were with riger in respect of the lenitie shewed to vs. Which speeches if you poyson them not with your bitter conceits I mislike not so long as they be stretched no further then to SIC passo pro nobis Christ THVS suffering for vs at the hands of the Iewes to which the writer of the Catechisme wisely
place which thinketh that Paul led with a feruent This exposition may not simply be receiued loue and zeale to haue the Iewes partakers of Christ did not remember or respect either the Counsell or Iustice of God to be immutable which yet are but brake forth into a vehement affection as desiring to exchange his eternall damnation for their Saluation These leaue out all manner of Conditions not because there were not many and must be many before the wish can be religious and pleasing to God but for that the Apostle wholy defixed on his care for the Iewes did not in that Passion consider the rest But by their leaues that are the leaders to this exposition well this may be conceaued of some short and suddaine motion rising from mans infirmitie but this can neuer be imagined of the Apostle aduisedly and iudicially writing to the Romans and weighing all his words with the wisedome of Gods spirit which if they take from the Apostle in that part of this Epistle where he calleth Christ and the holy Ghost to witnesse that he speaketh the truth I see not why they may not derogate all Authoritie from the rest of his writings when after so great deliberation and vehement protestation they make him forget the chiefest grounds of Christian Religion earnestly vrged by himselfe in the selfe same Epistle and euen in the next wordes before written in the later ende of the eight Chapter It is therefore a dangerous position to say the Apostle was amazed or astonished in his writings or so caried away with his affections that he knew not what he wrote in those Scriptures which are Canonicall For it openeth a gap to all impieties and heresies to thinke that Paul led with Christs spirit did not remember nor respect that Gods eternall election could not be changed nor the chosen vessels of Christ be euerlastingly condemned for the loue and zeale which they bare to Christ nor any man or Angell admitted to be the Redeemer and deliuerer of the Reprobate from the iust and deserued wrath of God prouided for them All which pestilent errors are consequent to this supposition that the Apostles speech was absolutely without condition and must be graunted to be possible before his desire or wish could simply take place It is therefore resolued euen by them who first deuised this exposition that Pauls wish in this place was wholy impossible as well in respect of God who would not change his eternall counsels and decrees as of the Apostle who being a chosen vessell could not perish and likewise of the Iewes whose deserued destruction so often denounced by our Sauiour as where he said h Matth. 21. The kingdome of God shall be taken from you and to Ierusalem i Luke 19. They shall not leaue in thee a stone vpon a stone because thou knewest not the day of thy visitation and many such threats could not be auerted Only this Defender to shew his discretion out of these darke places which admit many senses collecteth that to be possible which by the verdict of the holy Scriptures and of all Interpreters new and old is auouched to be simply impossible and thence he maketh his notable obseruations which indeede are nothing else but grosse and palpable errors k Defenc. pag. 96. li. 25. From thence I obserue foure notable points First That if God omnipotent and onely soueraigne Lord will he may inflict damnation and the paines of hell vpon meere men not for themselues but for others nor for their owne sinnes but for the imputed sinnes of other men much rather then might he doe this to Christ whom God sent indeede and ordained for that purpose Flatly contrarie to your Assertion To make your Obseruation Note the nearer to the patterne which you follow you must say that God if he will may inflict eternall damnation for temporall damnation to hell the Scripture knoweth none on his elect so were Moses and Paul for their loue to Christ and their Foure notable errors falsely grounded on the facts of Moses Paul whereof 〈◊〉 the first bretheren for that was the cause of their wish And then you haue made a worthy Corollarie that indeede contrarieth my Assertion and not mine onely but also the expresse words of the holy Ghost the maine grounds of the Christian Faith and the resolution of all writers first and last that haue spoken of these places To Moses Petition Gods answere was that he would not wipe an Innocent out of his booke but l Exod. 32. verse 33. Whosoeuer hath sinned against me said God I will put him out of my booke So that God himselfe did not onely refuse Moses Prayer in that part but declared it to be repugnant to his Iustice to condemne the guiltlesse with the guiltie The Apostle the next words before these by which you would make it possible that he might perish for others professed that m Rom. 8. v. 38. neither death nor life nor Angels nor things present nor things to come nor heigth nor deapth nor any other creature was able to separate him from the loue of God in Christ. And therefore generally demandeth n Ibid. v. 35. Who shall separate vs from the loue of Christ No creature is able as he exactly auoucheth and as for the Creator o Verse 33. It is God that iustifieth and therefore cannot be contrarie to himselfe p Verse 34. who shall condemne where God in Christ doth acquite God you thinke may change his mind His eternall counsell decreed reuealed and assured in Christ God neither will correct because he is wise and before all worlds foresaw all that might mooue him to the contrarie neither can alter because he is truth and so can neither repent nor change as men doe The q Rom. 11. Gifts and calling of God are without repentance r 2. Tim. 2. The foundation of God standeth sure and hath this seale the Lord knoweth who are his s Iames. 1. With him is no varying nor turning And therefore our Sauiour excepteth it as a thing not possible that the elect should perish when he saith that false Prophets and great wonders in the later daies should deceaue t Matth. 24. If that were possible the very Elect. By his power you will say God may doe it though he will not Gods power was most absolute ouer all creatures to dispose them at his pleasure before he determined and setled his will in Christ Iesus what to doe with them since which the holy Ghost teacheth vs in plaine words it is impossible that God should lie hauing made his promise to all his elect in Christ and bound it with an Othe not because he is become weaker then he was but because he hath fastned his counsell and reuealed his truth in his Sonne which he neither will nor can change not for want of power but because of his truth which is constant and immutable u Heb. 6.
of these words professing to cite the text you say But still he was in his agonie And as for the words he prayed more earnestly which are The 〈◊〉 corrupteth S. â—…uke immediate before Christes sweating bloud you shutte them cleane out as not fitting your turne lest the Reader should thinke his vehement prayer after comfort receiued was the cause of this agonie for that the Euangelist placeth it next before in the text Your wordes then hee was in his agonie are no good translation and that which is added but still he was in his agonie is a violent corruption for genómenos there doeth not signifie his being or continuing that which he was before but his becomming that which he was not before For example z Gal. 4. v. 4. God sent his Sonne genómenon made of a woman and genómenon made vnder the law Doth the word genómenos heere signifie that Christ was man before he was conceiued of his mother or rather that he was made of his mother which before he was not and so made vnder the law doth not import that Christ was subiect to the law before he was man but that being altogether free from the law he would become subiect to the law which before he was not Likewise a Ioh. 1. v. 14. ho logos sarx egeneto the word was made flesh which before it was not This difference of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greeke Scholiast obserueth commenting vpon S. Pauls words I could wish to be separated from Christ for my brethren b Photius apud 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 9. Epist. aâ—… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Paul doth not say he could be content to become a curse which is NOVV PRESENTLY to be seuered from Christ but to be or haue beene a curse that is to haue yet continued seuered from Christ. So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be mâ—…de or to become is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the present time and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be is still to continue Wherefore genómâ—…nos enagonia is falling at that present vpon comfort receiued by the Angell into an agonie and not as you corruptly translate still he was in his agonie An agonie you will say you vse for all Christes affections and actions in the garden But so doth not S. Luke he referreth the word to Christes more ardent prayers and to his bloudie sweat If we speake abusiuely an agonie may be taken for feare as I haue formerly shewed or if defectiuely we name one part for the whole which How some vse the word Agonie some men vse to auoid length of speech and the number of particulars then Christs agonie may stand to note all his affections actions and supplications in the garden but if we speake properly as there is no cause nor proofe S. Luke should heere do otherwise then Christes agonie both by the proprietie of the Greeke word and by the circumstances of the text was that vehement contention of minde wherewith Christ prayed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more feruently than before being now strengthened or comforted by the Angels appearing and message and euen powred forth his spirit to God with so zealous affection that his sweat was like bloud This you would crosse by your corrupt translation in saying BVT STILL he was in his agonie though the words of the Euangelist doe not import that he continued still any former agonie but vpon the strength and comfort receiued by the Angell he fell into an agonie of most vehement desire to preuaile in the worke of our redemption and to remooue all impediments for which he vsed so strong cries and teares that his sweat was coloured like bloud All these things you venture to determine by your owne authoritie as if the Scriptures were vnder your command and little thinke that wise and godly Readers will censure your licentious intrusion on the Scriptures as it deserueth Neither can you cease for ought that I see for as you affirme that which our Sauiour assumed vpon the Angels message to haue possessed him before at his entrance into the garden so the words which he spake before any prayer in the garden and much more before the appearing of the Angel you make consequent to his bloudie sweat Your handsome and holie translation and exposition is c Defenc. pag. 107. li 3. but still hee was in his agonie and sweat like droppes of bloud trickling to the ground and presently sayth My soule is full of sorrowes to death Where you commit two notable falsifications euen of the Scripture it selfe The Dâ—…fender addeth to Saint Luke that which he neuer wrote and leaueth out that which he wrote For first these words My soule is full of sorrowes euen to death are not in S. Lukes Gospell whence you would seeme to cite them as presently sayd after Christes bloudie sweat Next you peruert both the other Euangelists in which these words are written for both Matthew and Marke which witnesse the speaking of those words precisely record that they were spoken to Christes three Disciples before he departed at first from them to pray in secret and before he began to expresse any desire that the cuppe might passe from him Reade the texts they keepe almost the same wordes When Christ had sayd to the rest of his Disciples d Mar. 14. v. 32 Sit you here till I haue prayed e 33. he tooke Peter and Iames and Iohn and he began to be afrayd and in great heauinesse f 34. and sayd vnto them My soule is very heauy vnto death tary here and watch g 35. So he went forward a little and fell downe on the ground and prayed that if it were possible that houre might passe from him You turne all vpside downward and tell vs out of S. Luke that still Christ was in his agonie and sweat like droppes of bloud and presently sayth My soule is full of sorrowes euen to death With such additions translations and corruptions against the circumstances described in the Scriptures some doubt may chance to creepe at a creuie into some mens consciences touching the cause of Christes agonie but your pains of the damned are not one iot the neerer for all your inuerting peruerting the Euangelists words to your will For what if Christ did sweat bloud at first which the Gospell referreth to the last doth that giue entrance to the second death and torments of the damned Are not the paines of this life able to make men sweat bloud but you must runne to hell for the lake that burneth there with fire and brimstone before mans body may colour his sweat with the shew of bloud Is it harder for Christ to resolue his bloud into sweat by zeale without paines or with bodilie paines whiles he was liuing than when he was dead to send out of his side first h Ioh. 13 v. 34. bloud and then water so distinctly and miraculously
not proue them to be either irreligious or vtterly comfortlesse since b Heb. 12. for the ioy that was set before him he endured the crosse and despised the shame and c Reuel 3. ouercomming sitteth with his Father in his throne By which confession of our Sauiours we must learne that he vsed no power to repell or rebate his paines but that he had as sensible and tender feeling of all his sufferings in the weaknesse of his flesh which he with obedience and patience subiected to that burden as any man could haue and rather more in that he willingly layd aside his strength whiles he suffered for sinne d Defenc. pag. 115. li. 21. You do very ill to make these parts of Christs holinesse proper parts of his satisfaction and the maine causes of his agonie and complaint And woorse you doe if you ascribe them not to any paines in him at all And what doe you to acknowledge no cause in Christ of his complaint or agonie neither religious nor naturall but only the paines of hell and to seuer the inward sacrifice of an afflicted spirit from the outward sacrifice of his bodie for the purgation of our sinnes since he wanted in no point that was required or accepted of God but yeelded that to him which was due from vs in farre more excellent and perfect maner than we can comprehend It is therefore voluntary blindnesse and deafenesse in you to shut eyes and eares at all sorts of religious sorowes and feares when you reade that Christ feared and sorowed in the Garden and so to pitch on the paines of the damned which haue no witnesse in holy writ that nothing can remoue you or content you but your owne conceit e Defenc. pag. 115. li. 25. Secondly the summe of these fore-noted texts must be considered namely that Christ expresly wished sundry times in his dreadfull astonishment suddenly euen against Gods knowen will in one respect and here are expressed with his strange astonishment his mightie sorowes and feare of them partly felt and partly further to come After a large promise of cleere proofs and expresse Scriptures for so great and weighty matters as these are you trole out your owne false and absurd conceits no way gathered from the Scriptures but violently vrged on them with more rage than reason and now so often refuted that a man would be wearic if not ashamed to spend so much time in these idle repetitions of the selfe-same misapprehensions and misconstructions of some words of the Euangelist The summe of all these fore-noted texts is that the Euangelists say Christ professed his soule was heauie vnto death that the Apostle addeth he was heard in that he feared that himselfe on the crosse sayd My God my God why hast thou forsaken me All these places are already handled and cleered and no paines of the damned or of the second death found any thing neere to any of these words What meaneth then this importunitie to obtrude them againe as fresh and new proofes without any farder paines bestowed on them then barâ—…ly the repâ—…ating of only two poisened rootes you haue added to them out of your owne store the one is the dreadfull and strange astonishment during all the time of Christs praier in the Garden the other is the sundry suddaine wishes of Christ in that astonishment euen against Gods knowen will which things as your maner is you proue by your owne authority painting them out with dreadfull strange and mighty words when your proofes be weake and childish That Christ praied suddainly and sundry times against the knowen will of God is a false and wicked position and as directly repugnant to the Scriptures as any thing may be Saint Luke saith his praier was f Luc. 22. v. 42 Father if thou wilt take away this cup from me And the Apostle saith he was heard in that he feared So that not only you auouch this thing against expresse Scripture but you bring the sonne of God within the compasse of vnaduised and faithlesse praiers which you excuse with as false and lewd a deuice because he was past sense and memory what he did whereas he well remembred mentioned and reserued his fathers will in his praiers and warned his Apostles to g Matth. 26. watch and pray that they entred not into temptation and constantly continued his praiers till he was h Luc. 22. comforted by an Angell from heauen and i Heb. 5. heard in that he â—…eared As for his astonishment neither doe the words vsed by the Euangelist Saint Mark import any such strange and dreadsull want of sense and memory as you imagine neither doe the consequents declare any such continuance as you pretend but in both these you prescribe your owne will ro be the rule of your faith First the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth either admiration alone or â—…ls a mixtion thereof with some feare vpon any suddaine or strange sight When the Creeple that lay at the beautyfull gate of the temple asking almes was healed by Peter and Iohn the people seeing him walking and leaping and praising God were filled with admiration and astonishment and flocked to Salomons porch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 euèn amazed This affection in them Peter expresseth in the next verse after this sort k Acts 3. v. 12. Ye men of Israell saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why wonder you at this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or why looke you so steadfastly on vs so that stedfast beholding and inward admiring are the force of this word in that place When Christ returned from the mountaine where he was transfigured to his nine Disciples that were disputing with the Scribes l Mar. 9. v. 15. All the people as soone as they saw him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were amazed and came to him and saluted him In neither of these places can we imagine the people were stroken with such great feare that should take their senses from them and in this last it is expressely written they ranne and saluted him which argueth that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 importeth a sudden admiration sometimes without feare and sometimes permixed with feare for the sight of some strange or vnknowen thing So the people when they saw him cast out vncleane spirits with his word m Mar. 1. v. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were all amazed and asked one of another What thing is this What new doctrine is this And the women that went earely to Christes sepulchre and n Mar. 16. v. 5. saw a yong man sitting clothed in a long white robe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were afrayd and he sayd to them o 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be not afraid In none of which places the word signifieth any hellish paine or confusion but either admiration or such sudden feare ioyned with some wondering as a strange or vnknowen sight breedeth though we feare no hurt towards our selues And of these very
in Scripture for this point yet our question is fully proued and confirmed by those other sufficient and pregnant proofs alleaged and iustified before Your palpable and pregnant follies are sufficiently seene before your proofs were none but bald and false presumptions conceiued by your selfe though otherwise voide of all reason and authoritie with such props you haue hitherto supported your Defence and now you be come to the maine issue whether the Scriptures or Fathers doe teach that Christ for our redemption died the death of the soule or the death of the damned which is the second death you would passe it ouer as a matter of no moment and here tell vs if you had no such proofe as indeed you haue none yet you haue played your part before which was to set a good face on an euill cause and to proue iust nothing d Defenc. pag 136. li. 13. For it is to be noted that no man setteth the question in these tearmes that Christ died in his soule neither doe we at all vse them very much in speaking of this matter The Scriptures themselues set that for the question First of all I e 1. Cor. 15. deliuered vnto you sayeth Paul that which I receiued how that Christ died for our sinnes according to the Scriptures Since then f Rom. 5. we were reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne and Christ is the g Hebr 9. Mediatour of the New Testament through death for the redemption of the transgressions in the former Testament and where a Testament is there must be the death of him that made the Testament The question riseth of it selfe what death the Sonne of God died for our sinnes by the witnesse of holy Scripture And hitherto for these fifteene hundred yeeres and vpward the Christian world both of learned and vnlearned hath beleeued that the Sonne of God by the death of his bodie on the tree ransomed our sinnes reconciled vs to God and vtterly destroyed the kingdome of Satan and that he neither did nor could suffer any other kinde of death as the death of the soule or the So that the reference of the Apostles words standeth thus he offered vp praiers and supplications with strong cries and teares to him that was able to saue him from all touch of death and was heard in that he prayed for and though he were the sonne and god was able to keepe him vntouched of death that is to make him the Sauiour of the world without tasting any kind of death yet such was Gods counsell and his owne liking that he learned or perfourmed the obedience of a sonne by the things which he suffered Whereby the Apostle teacheth vs it was neither want of power in God that Christ died for God was able to haue saued the world by him without his death neither was it lacke of fauour towards his sonne for God HEARD him in that he asked but to manifest in his person the perfect submission of a sonne to his father God would haue him obedient to death euen vnto the death of the crosse and so make him the author of eternall saluation to all that obey him As he obeied God his Father Those words then Christ offered praiers to him that was able to keep him from death prooue not death to be the cause of Christs feare nor the scaping therefrom to be the scope of Christes strong cries and teares but the Apostle thereby noteth that Christ neither doubted of his Fathers power nor loue when he praied so earnestly vnto him but was assured of both and enioyed both in such sort as might best stand with the honor and wisedome of God the father and of Christ his sonne And therefore all your collections and illations built on that false ground doâ—… fall of themselues as hauing nothing to support them but your idle and vaine supposals a Defenc. pag. 137. li. 6. Your owne selfe doe fully grant and affirme it with me yea you affirme farder then we doe or then the trueth is or possibly can be you say Christ heâ—…re thus feared eternall death and euerlasting damnation I must take no â—…corne to haue you wrest and wring my words to a contrary sense when you offer that course to the Apostles words The place which you quote for proofe of my meaning will conuince you to be a malitious falsifier My words a man would thinke are plaine enough and my exposition of that speach vsed by some men is such that no man of any intelligence or conscience would so grosly peruert it Thus I say pag 23. b Serm. pag. 23. li. 4. Distrust of his owne saluation or doubt of Gods displeasure against himselfe we cannot so much as imagine in Christ without euident want of grace and losse of faith which we may not attribute to Christs person no not for an instant And againe c Ibid. li. 17. I refraine to speake what wrong it is to put either doubtfulnâ—…sse or forgetfulnesse of these things in part of Christs humane nature And to the question thereon demanded d li. 20. Why then did he pray that the cup might passe from him I answere he had no need to pray for himselfe but only for vs who then suffered with him and in him What learning I cannot say but what lewdnesse is this to father that on me which I fully forsake and still to presse me with that which I so often preuent and repell I did not intend in my Sermons to note any by name nor sharply to censure their sayings but repeating as much as I saw I gaue the best construction or mittigation to their words that any trueth would endure Where then some men whom by your importunity you haue vrged me to name as the Catechisme of master Nowel which you would seeme so much to reuerence in plaine words auoucheth that Christ was e Pag. 280. 〈◊〉 mortis horrore perfusus perfused or plunged with the horror of etâ—…rnall death And master Caluin saith f Institutione li. 2. ca. 16. sect 10. Oportuit 〈◊〉 cum inferorum copijs 〈◊〉 mortis horrore quasi consertis manibus luctari Christ was to wrâ—…si â—…ith the powers of hell and with the horror of eternall death as it were hand to hand Their words suppressing their names I there taught might be tolerated if we tooke horror for a religious feare only trembling at the terror of hell and praying against it or did attribute that trembling and feare of eternall death to Christ in respect and compassion of vs that were his members and whom he ioined and reckened in his sufferings for vs as one person or body with him Which moderation of mine you euery where conceale and make your Reader beleeue that I fully grant and affirme that which I expressely denie And not content therewith you enterlace my words with your lewd additions as if I said Christ thus feared eternall death You meane with strong cries and teares and
with a bloudy sweat where I referred his earnest cries and teares to one purpose and his feare to another yeelding to Christ a religious feare to decline the force of hell and a carefull praier against the power of hell by the example of Dauid who describing the passion of Christ in the 22 Psalme saith expressely of his person and in his person g Psal. 22. They pearced mine hands and my feete they part my garments among them and cast lots on my vesture But be not thou farre of O Lord my strength hast thee to help me Deliuer my soule from the sword my desoâ—…ate soule from the power of the Dogge sauâ—… me from the Lions mouth and answere me or protect me from the hornes of the Vnicorne praying in this place not against any man but against Satan the author and vpholder of all mischiefe h Defenc. pag. 137. li. 10. Christ could not possibly feare in such wofull maner that which he perfectly knew should neuer come nere him but he perfectly knew that eternall death and the cup of Gods euerlasting malediction should neuer touch him Therefore he could not by any meanes pray in such sort against it You refute your selfe and not any thing which I affirmed That Christ praied against the power and rage of hell and Satan is plaine by Dauids words that he praied in such wofull maner are not my words but yours And yet this proposition that Christ praied for nothing which he perfectly knew was Gods almighty and vnchangeable decree is not true For Christ was most assured and most certainly knew of all thinges whatsoeuer were decreed and appointed by God for himselfe and yet he praied for many things not as doubting of them but as confessing whence he must and did receaue them He perfectly knew he should be glorified with the glory which he had with his Father before the world was and yet i Iohn 17. he praied for it In the former words of Dauid Christ perfectly knew that God would saue and deliuer his soule from the Lions mouth from the power of the Dogge and from the hornes of the Vnicorne and yet he earnestly praieth for it Christes praiers then doe not proue that he feared the contrary to his petition but that he was assured to obtaine and by praier professed whence it came whatsoeuer he had euen from his Father The next assertion which you make is a direct contradiction to your selfe and not to me For if Christ in those vehement praiers had such exact and perfect knowledge of Gods counsell and loue as heere you auouche then was Christ in no such confusion and forgetfulnesse as you put him in at the time of his agony to saue him from sinne And where not foure leaues before you made a shamefull shift to rescue your selfe from a plaine contradiction and bobbed your Reader with a manifest fitten that I did you wrong k Defenc. pag. 129. You did argue from my supposition that Christ was not astonished at the time of his praiers in the garden but in his perfect memory which I seemed to affirme and you denied a man may heere perceiue that you want witte to see what hangeth together in your owne tale or that your memory is very short to relapse so soone to the cleere crossing of your selfe againe For heere you positiuely frequently and earnestly affirme that in his praiers Christ m 11. perfectly knew and saw l Defenc. pag. 137. li. 18. what was ordeined by God for him and n 12. that the cup of Gods eternall malediction should neuer touch him So brickle are your braines that you egerly and openly say and vnsay in the space of foure leaues and reuerse your owne positions wherein the Reader if he be wise will see you more 13. constant before he credit you o Defenc. pag. 137. li. 17. Againe that which he feared and so pittifully praied against was that which he knew was by God ordeined for him Yea feare is alwaies of that which is to come but eternall death was not by God ordeâ—…ned for him that was not to come vpon him which Christ p In the margâ—…ne knew right well Therefore it was not eternall death which he so feared Your reasons be like rotten reâ—…ters that when you would push forward recuyle on your head Out of the Apostles text the 5. to the Hebrewes you draw a maior directly against the Apostles words For he saith Christ was heard in that he FEARED supposing that as yet to be the sense of the last word you say he was not heard but knew that which he feared to be ordeined of God for him and not to be auoided So skilfull you are that out of the Scriptures you frame asâ—…ertions expressely repugnant to the Scriptures and yet you fansie them to be inuincible arguments Wherefore the Apostle denieth your first proposition That what soeuer Christ praied against was ordeined of God for him And if his authority be not currant with you Christ himselfe assureth you it is false His owne words are against which I hope you will not open your mouth q 〈◊〉 11. Father I know thoâ—… he arest me alwaies If Christ were alwaies heard in his praiers then that which he praid against was not ordeined of God for him For God did not alter or innouate the thinges ordeined for his sonne neither would Christ haue so strongly praied against them if he had knowen them to be ordained of God for him So that heere you are as sound as in the rest broching still your owne fansies without any warrant besides your owne which is grounded on false and absurd positions you taking no care what you say noâ—… heede what you should prooue For who besides you would flaunt this out for a foundation of his cause r pag. 〈◊〉 7. li. 19. feare is alwâ—…ies of that which is to come Where if you meane certainly and infalliblely to come as you must otherwise it prooueth nothing the proposition is generally true neither in the wicked nor in the godlie and least of all in Christ himselfe The wicked doe feare manie things that fall not on them yea they often feare as Dauid saith s Psal. 53. where no feare is The godly by fearing before hand what may come do often preuent the comming of it Mary was t Luc. 1. afraid at the sight of the Angell that saluted her and yet brought he a greate blessing to her Peter walking on the water was u Mat. 14. afraid when he saw a mighty wind and began to sincke but Christ presently reached forth his hand and rebuked him for doubting The Disciples were x Luc. 24. abashed and afraid at the suddaine presence of there master in the middest of them and yet no euill was towards them So that feare may grow as well from appearance and opinion when no hurt is imminent as from the certainty of euil present or comming Christ taught
not that his soule should be subiect to any infernall power but that subduing the gates of hell he might deliuer our souls from that tyrannie Of the article of Christs descent to hel I am not ignorant how diuersly learned men doe thinke It is somewhat obscure indeed and subiect to many disputations but yet no godly man vpon that occasion will resist or offer force to the Apostles words thou wilt not leaue my soule in hell but will desire of God the vnderstanding therof and in the meane time with a single faith cleaue to the word of trueth although he can not cleerely perceaue the maner how that was performed Of this Article see Austâ—…n Epistle 99. Vrbanus Regius The Church deliuereth vs out of the Scriptures that Christ after he was dead on the crosse descended also to hell to suppresse Satan and hell to the which we were condemned by the iust iudgement of God and to spoile and destroy the kingdome of death Zacharias Scilterus The descent of Christ to hell whereof mention is made in the Apostles Creede after the death and buriall of Christ is to be vnderstood simply according to the letter and without allegorie of the ostension and declaration of Christes victorie no lesse glorious then terrible as Luther writeth to Philip Melancthon indeed made to the diuels in hell or in the place of the damned and of Christes expugning disarming spoyling and captiuating the power of Satan and of his destroying hell and euerting the whole kingdome of Satan and of his deliuering vs from the power of death and eternall damnation and out of the iawes of hell Dauid Chytreus The Article of the Creede let vs retaine simply as the words sound and let vs resolue that the Sonne of God truely descended to hell to deliuer vs from hell to which we were condemned for sinne in Adam and from the power and tyrannie of the diuell by which we were held captiue Of which effect and fruit of Christs descent the Fathers speake as Ierom Christ descended to hell that we might ascend to heauen And Fulgentius The man which God assumed descended thither whither man separated from God by defert of sinne fell that is to hell where the soule of a sinner vsed to be tormented And Augustine Dying for thee I descended to hell to bring thee to Paradise Tartara adij vt tu in caelo regnares I went to the place of the damned that thou mightest raigne in heauen Georgius Mylius in his explication of the Augustane confession The true and proper sense of this Article is that no metaphoricall but a reall descent of Christ to hell must be vnderstood whereby he descended to the lower parts of the earth Eph. 4. vers 9. Et ipsas Damnatorum sedes adijt and went to the very place of the damned The second point is that this Article is no part of his passion and humiliation but of his victorie and triumph I omit infinite others not onely priuate writers but Vniuersities Cities and Countries that haue publikely approoued the same doctrine admitting and allowing the Augustane confession exhibited by the States of Germanie to Charles the Emperour which thus they declare in their booke of Concord With one consent we aduise this matter not to be disputed but this Article of Christs descent to hell to be most simply beleeued and taught It ought to suffice vs if we know that Christ descended into hell destroied hell to all beleeuers and by him or his descent thither we were taken out of the power of death and Satan from euerlasting damnation and euen out of the iawes of hell The maner how this was done let vs not curiously search but referre the exact knowledge heereof to an other worlde where not onely this mysterie but many others simply beleeued of vs in this life shall be reuealed which passe the reach of our blinde reason And where some would so moderate this Article as if it ment no more but that the force and effect of Christes death was manifested as well to the damned to exclude them from all hope as to the faithfull to encrease their comfort Luther sharpely but truely thus refuteth that fansie Thou wilt not leaue my soule in hell The sense heereof is most plaine so plentifully and diligently deliuered by the Apostles But euen here haue men presuming all things of their wittes begun to dispute whether Christ were in hell as touching his soule and the substance thereof and what this meaneth that he was in hell And a great number haue dared to contradict the spirit of God that Christs soule was not in hell but by effect being for sooth handsome glozers of the word of God Thou wilt not leaue my soule that is the effect of my soule in hell Christ descended to hell that is he effected somewhat in hell but despising these friuolous and impious trifles let vs simply vnderstand the wordes of the Prophet as they are simply spoken and if we can not vnderstand them let vs faithfully beleeue them Greater is the authoritie of this Scripture then the capacitie of all mens wittes as Augustine saith For the soule of Christ according to her substance truely descended to hell To like purpose might exceeding many new writers be brought all confessing the descent of Christes soule to the very place of the damned and of the diuels that the trueth force and glory of his humane soule might appeere as well to the reprobate angels and spirits vnder earth as to the elect aboue the earth God making the humane nature of his Sonne this recompence that as he was despised and reproched by Satan in his instruments so he should be adored and feared euen of all the powers of darckenesse and wholy despose of them and their kingdome but these may suffice the sober Reader to let him see that I deliuer none other sense of that Article then hath beene formerly receaued in the church of Christ with full consent and to this day is continued in the same by many great and graue Diuines whose iudgements I need not be ashamed to follow though I confesse I depend not on their wordes farder then they conforme their writings to the word of God which in this case I take to be plaine enough howsoeuer some quarrell be made to the diuers significations of Sheol and Hades which is as easily done in other Articles of the Creed as in this if it were the part of a Christian to wrangle with euerie worde that hath sundry senses or vses in the holy Scriptures To my purpose other Scriptures doe make very much as where Christ saith Father into thine hands I commend my soule and to the thiefe that hung by him This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise You bring Scriptures rather for shew then substance since they inferre no such thing as you would enforce on them The soules of the Saints liuing and dead are in the hands of
the holy Scriptures hath great weight with me There is as much difference betwixt this mans modestie and yours as there is betweene his learning and yours He durst not condemne the iudgement of the Fathers because it had probable grounds and was no way contrary to the Scriptures you auouch they had no shew of reason from any place of Scripture But your reward will be according for where he is with all and euen by your selfe reputed a sound and learned Writer no man will take you but for an vnsound and vnlearned Boaster I haue largely and plainly shewed Treat pag. 140. that this place speaketh not a whit neither of hell nor of Christes soule descending locally neither before his death nor after I◅ noteth only Christes sensible and apparent humiliation to the last and lowest point that is to the graue according to the Hebrew phrase which the Apostles frequented in their Greeke writings very much You haue shewed it as your maner is with your seeming saying that so you iudge but other proofs you offer none besides phrases and figures wherein you take vpon you to be very copious I say then Thus I say It seemes to me and Thus do I iudge these be your best demonstrations the rest is idle and vaine talke Three senses you make of these wordes but not one of them otherwise than by your owne authoritie Some thinke you say that this Greeke phrase to the lower parts of the earth is only a figure of speech a kinde of hypallage for the earth which is the lower part of the world If euery mans thoughts may stand for sound and true Expositions of the Scripture we shall haue many moe deuices than the world hath yet heard of but how proue you this in◅erting of the Apostles words by your supposed figures to be the true meaning of the holy Ghost Whatsoeuer pleaseth not your humour in the words of God if you may chop and change with figures of speech you will lea◅ little the◅e that shall not taste of your turnsall Others doe thank◅ that it may be taken as al◅ding to that metaphoricall Hebrew phrase tachtijoth erets the lower parts of the earth where Dauid meaneth his Mothers wombe And then wh◅re Dauid meaneth only Christs taking our flesh The Christian faith was neuer framed out of phrases or figures of speach vnknowen to the people and passing their vnderstanding neither did the Apostles so deliuer matters of doctrine as purposely ◅oluing them in euery darcke and doubtfull phrase that might be gathered out of Moses or of the Prophets this is the way to leaue nothing certaine in the booke of God though the wordes be neuer so plaine as long as any phrase or figure may peruert it If Dauid once by a metaphoricall kind of resemblance called the lowest part of his Mothers body where he was fashioned and framed tachijot◅ arets the bottom of the earth that is of his mother being earth or compared with the earth which is the common mother of vs all whence our bodies first came and whither they must returne or noted the strangenesse and secretnesse of his conception and formation in his mothers wombe by the bowels of the earth where mettals and minerals lie and grow in like manner What is this to the Apostles words who dallieth not heere with obscure phrases and metaphors as Dauid did for ciuilities sake calling his mothers wombe the bowels of the earth but expoundeth the words of Dauid cited immediately before that Christ ascending vp on hi◅ led captiuity captiue and gaue gifts vnto men That then which the apostle immediately addeth by way of a Parenthesis must tend wholy to the declaration and exposition of these words of Dauid that Christ ascending led captiuity captiue the later words that he gaue gifts to men he presently and largely sheweth how they were performed after Christs ascending to heauen And since Christs conception though it be an Article of our faith yet was wrought by the holy Ghost not as Dauids was neither was Christs body fashioned by degrees first in seed then in bloud after in flesh as Dauid confesseth his was but after a more strange and wonderfull manner as the Fathers both Greeke and Latin teach and during the time of his conception Christ did not lead captiuity captiue his mothers wombe can no way pertaine to the Apostles purpose in this place howsoeuer you or some others would faine shew their deuices in making the Apostle hunt after strange and obscure metaphors out of Dauids words once vsed for good manners sake It seemes to me a very plaine Hebraisme expressing tachijoth erets which words are no where found for hell for the graue they are found Like to this is erets tachtith Ezechiel 31 where the seuerall circumstances doe plainly teach that the graue only is there ment and the condition of death the same sense manifestly hath another Hebrew phrase very like to this Sheol tachijah psal 86 and Sheol tachath Esa 14 where though many thinke hell is signified yet surely the circumstances doe conuince that the graue only is there ment this do I iudge that the descēding of Christ to the lower parts of the earth may be taken truly plainly as is agreeable to the Hebrew phrase whence surely this Greeke phrase ariseth namely for Christs humiliation vnto the graue Heere is your third exposition of the Apostles words which you call a plaine demonstration that this place speaketh neuer a word of hell nor of Christs descending thither but only of his graue and if these proud and vaine bragges may goe for proofes you will prooue any thing but you must come backe for all this hast and learne that trueth is not so lightly put from her holdfast as you suppose For setting aside your hypallages and metaphors which are nothing to the meaning of the Apostle in this place the ground which heere you lay that erets tachtith the lowest earth and Sheol tachtijah the lower Sheol are no where vsed for hell but euery where for the graue is false and full of rash resolution directly repugnant to the trueth of the Scriptures and the circumstances of those places to which you appeale And least the Reader should thinke I speake altogether out of mine owne head peremptorily and presumptuously as you doe he shall heare the iudgement of some of the eldest Rabbins and others well learned in the Hebrew tongue touching these phrases and then we will examine the circumstanccs of the texts themselues And because I would make but one labour of manie and the meaning of Sheoltachtijah the lower sheol and erets tachtith the lower earth cannot well be discerned vntill we see what sheol naturally and truely signifieth I will fir◅t examine the signification of sheol at which you and others so much stumble and then grow to consider of the places where those words are vsed and their circumstances Sheol properly signifieth the pitts or places vnder earth where the bodies or
and specially the nether most Sheol to be below in the deepe of the earth to be opposite to heauen to be the place of punishment for the wicked after their deaths warrant in the sacred Scriptures to vphold these assertions For though Sheol extend to any place vnder earth that by Gods ordinance requireth or receaueth the bodies or soules of the dead in that respect to the godly it can be no more then the graue the losse of all things in this life consequent to the graue in that sense we must interprete Sheol when it is applied to the bodies or persons of the Saints whose soules are in rest and blisse with God not vnder the earth where Sheol is yet the ful force of that word wheÌ„ it is threatned to any or affirmed of the wicked noteth the pit of destructioÌ„ for their soules aswel as of corruption for their bodies the consequents of either the nethermost Sheol expressely designeth the place of torment appointed for sinners that die out of Gods fauour receaue the iust reward of their vnrighteousnesse The way of life saith Salomon is aboue to him that knoweth to decline from Sheol that is below Where first it is euident that as heauen is aboue in which is true and eternall life so Sheol which is the pit of death for bodie and soule is below vs which must needes be in the earth vnder vs. This partition of celestiall terrestriall and infernall persons and places the Apostle warranteth by this authoritie when he saith Euery knee of things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in heauen on the earth and vnder the earth should and shall bow at the name of Iesus And since the whole world is by the word of God in the creation conseruation and alteration thereof sufficiently deuided into heauen and earth the place of hell must of necessitie be either out of the whole world created by God and so no where or in heauen which is an impious absurditie and monstrous contrarieâ—…e or else it must be within the compasse of the earth and not being vpon the earth where men liue it must needes be vnder the earth whither the wicked descend when they die This distribution also Saint Iohn ratifieth when he saith None in heauen nor on earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor vnder the earth was able to open the booke Wherefore the booke of Iob to expresse the infinitenesse of Gods perfection and wisedome vseth these foure comparisons The heauens are high what canst thou doe there It is deeper then Sheol how canst thou know it the measure thereof is longer then the earth and broder then the sea Where if we bee not wilfully blâ—…nd wee cannot choose but see that Sheol is not onely deepe but the deepest place in the world euen as heauen is the highest To compare the wisedome of God with the graue which is sixe foote deepe or not so much were most ridiculous since we commonly digge to that depth and deeper vpon diuers occasions And therefore Sheol is the deepest place in the earth to which no man liuing euer pearced to make report of the deepenesse of it Moses confirmeth the same when he saith sire shall burne to the lower Sheol and shall eate through the earth and inflame the foundations of the hils As the situation of Sheol is below vnder the earth that is in the bottome of the earth so is it a place threatned to the soules not onely to the bodies of the wicked though at length it shall receaue both Dauid putting a difference betwixt himselfe and the wicked saith Like sheepe shall they be laid in Sheol but God will redâ—…eme my soule from the hand of Sheol Dauid neuer drempt that his soule should bee in the graue nor that the soules of the wicked should there be laid much lesse that his bodie should be freed from the graue more then the bodies of such as knew no God at all Sheol then here as in sundry other parts of Scripture signifieth somewhat from which the godly shal be saued and whereto the wicked shal be euerlastingly adiudged But that is not the graue which is common to all men good and bad It was therefore the Sheol of soules from which Dauid hoped to be deliuered and which the wicked shall not auoyd And so are his very words The Lord will deliuer my soule from the power of Sheol Againe the full reward of wickednesse is not the graue whereto the godly come as well as the godlesse But Sheol is threatned in the Scriptures as the full and finall wages of all impietie neither is there any other note or name sor hell except metaphoricall throughout the Old Testament Wherefore when Dauid saith sinners shall be turned to Sheol and all nations that forget God he doth not threaten them with that which is generall to all Gods children but with that which is peculiar to all Gods enemies which must needes be hell and not the graue And so much Caluine himselfe who otherwise ouermuch vrgeth the right sense of Sheol to be the graue confesleth to be the true meaning of this place The Hebrew word Sheôlah to Sheol which was ambiguous I doubted not to translate by the name of hell For though it displease me not that others translate it the graue yet it is certaine that somewhat heere is noted by the Prophet besides the common death Otherwise he should say nothing of the wicked that should not indifferently agree to all the faithfull Obserue this rule which indeed is true that when the Scriptures threaten the wicked with Sheol they meane not the graue which is common to all the godly but that Sheol which is appointed for the wicked from which the faithfull shall be freed and you may spare all your figures and phrases wherewith you loade both your selfe and your Reader in this place to no purpose For there is a Sheol as Salomon noteth that shall swallow men aliue and whole which cannot be the graue where there lyeth but one part of man and that after his death And since the Scripture in exact tearmes maketh a lower Sheol which cannot be but in comparison of an higher with what face can you elude the lower Sheol to be nothing but the graue whereas one and the same thing cannot bee by any meanes both lower and higher in respect of it selfe And therefore howsoeuer you could shuffle with the name of Sheol without addition against both learning and trueth yet to auouch the lower Sheol to be onely the graue is onely a point of your accustomed impudencie which regardeth neither reason nor sense so long as you may ourface all with your priuate and witlesse fansie Come now to the place of Esaie the fourteenth where you so premâ—…rily pronounce that whatsoeuer others thinke the circumstances doe conuince the graue onely is there ment and see your owne follie if pride haue not so closed your eyes
Saints they congratulate one another and reioyce ech at others rewards and honors Gualter The summe of all that shall be said by the Prophet is this that the Medes should kill the king of Babylon and his soule be cast downe to hell among other tyrants to suffer euerlasting torments This place hath an euident testimonie teaching vs that soules do not die with their bodies but are spirits immortall and gathered into a place appointed for them the wicked to hell where vtter darkenesse is and eternall weeping and gnashing of teeth Mollerus In these verses is described the state of the dead which depart this life in their sinnes without repentance as it is in the storie of the rich glutton Lucae 16. for as he was caried to hell so this tyrant and all others that die in their sinnes descend to hell Wigandus vpon these wordes Hell below is stirred to meete thee The Prophet saith that other Tyrants in hell meet the Babylonian tyrant and insult at him qui iam in imum Tartarum detractus sibi â—…iat similis who being brought downe to the deepest hell is now become like to them As these learned interpreters rightly obserue the circumstances of Esaies words so depart they not from the propriety of the Hebrew phrase which Munster confesseth generally to be this The wicked descend lishol tachtith to the lower sheol that is to Gehenna where their fire quencheth not for euer The words of Ezechiel 31 32 haue as many and the same circumstances to resute your follie as the wordes of Esay haue and make proofe sufficient that those words doe not import only the Graue as you falsely presume First Rabbi Iehosuas and Midras Tehilim of good authority amongst the Iews auouch as I haue shewed erets tachtith the lower carth to be the description and appellation of Hell in the Scriptures Next Mercer and Forster and other famous Hebricians obserue as also your selfe doe yeeld that erets tachtith hath manifestly the same sense and signification with Sheol Tachath in the foureteenth of Esay of which there is now no doubt but hell is thereby implied Thirdly Ezechiel purposely noteth and so nameth the same place where all the vncircumcised and wicked that from the beginning were barbarous and bloudie enemies to the people of God were gathered and receiued after this life whereof many thousand were drowned and otherwise depriued of their graues except the name of graue be figuratiuely taken for death when yet Ezechiel pointed out the place where they were at the time that he spake these words euen in the lower earth Fourthly Ezechiel giueth them sight speech and affections as Esay did in saying They are now ashamed of their strength by which they became terrors to the liuing and see and speake ech to others insulting and vpbraiding one another euen as Esay before described them Lastly the selfe same phrase is found in Dauid threatning this vengeance to those who sought his soule to destroy it that they should go betachtijotâ—… hâ—…arets to the lower parts of the earth and yet their carcasses be left as a portiâ—…n to the foxes that is to be deuoured of wild and raâ—…ening beasts What the Iewes conceaued by the lower earth appeareth by the prayer of King Manassâ—…s which though it be not canonicall yet it is of credit enough to expound that speach wherein he besought God not to be angrie with him for euer nor to condemne him into the lower parts of the earth And the Hebrue translation of S. Matthews Gospel which S. Ierom testifieth was long before his time expresseth the words of our Sauiour touching his Church the gates of hell shall not preuaile against it by shaâ—…re tachijoth the lower gates So that the same reasons serue to limit Ezechiels words that serued for Esaies and you haue none other obiections against them but the selfe same that were before which are very firuolous to inferre any such thing as you resolue that only the graue is ment by Ezechiels words Yea the name of graue or sepulchre which there is sometimes vsed though not alone inferreth as well eternall as corporall death in the wicked the one being alwaies consequent to the other in them And so much Mercerus a man of good iudgement admonisheth Spulâ—…hri nomine scriptura exitium mortem aeternam intelligit ex externa morte internam accipiens By the name of graue or sepulchre the Scripture vnderstandeth destruction and eternall death noting the inward death by the outward And as for interpreters new and old they likewise concurre in the exposition of Ezechiels words and of Dauids that hell is ment by crets tachtith the lower earch and tachtijoth arets the lower part of the earth no lesse then it was by Sheâ—…l tachath the lower sheol in Esaias speach Ierom. to the lower earth hoc est ad infernum that is to hell ad cos qui descâ—…ndunt in Lacum haud dubium quin inferna significet to those that descend to the lake it cannot be doubted but he meaneth hell Lyra. To the lowest earth that is to hell as touching the soule which the Doctors say is in the deepe of the earth Munster If thou aske where are the Assyrians buried Ezechiel answereth in the sides of the lake and in the lower parts of the earth by which the Prophet signifieth the damnation of body and soule Oecolampadius vpon Ezechiels words There is Asshur and all his multitude in Gehenna in the place of the damned amongst the vncircumcised Assyrians round about his graue or pit that is in the midst of hell For with this figure of speech the Prophets vse to describe the damnation of the wicked or accursed who together with their soules are punished with euerlasting death Pellican Ad terram vltimam hoc est ad infernum To the lowest earth that is to hell And they are sayd to be buried in pits round about them because they are gathcred in hell to the fellowship of their forefathers and such as were like them who by their â—…eenesse and crueltie against mankinde which they sought to oppresse deserued reproch with the liuing in all ages and in hell euerlasting punishment and fire Lauater non solum Rox â—…d Tartara prâ—…cipitatus fuit not only the king was cast downe to hell but his wicked counsellors souldiers and helpers By the vncircumcised he vnderstandeth the dâ—…ed meaning the king should perish body and soule Out of this place of the Prophet Ezechiel we vnderstand first that there is an hell or place appointed to punish the wicked next that it is beneâ—…h vs thirdly who shall be cast thither The like is obserued out of Dauids words by Ierom. They shall goe into the lower parts of the earth In inferno damnabuntur they shal be condemned to hell Haymo Into the lower parts of the earth that
doth the like He retaineth in the same verse the word hawwito twice saying as Iunius rendreth it God raised him vp and scattered the sorrowes of perditien because it was not possible that he should be coÌ„quered of perdition Where Iunius plainly yeeldeth that this word in Arabicke answereth the Greeke word f hadou not thanátou which appeareth also in the 6 verse of the same chap. Thou wilt not leaue my soule phâ—… hawwito in perdition Which Saint Luke calleth hades and in the 10 Christ was not left in perdition So that Austen had some reason more then you knew to follow the first translator concurring with many Greeke copies that then were and yet are extant and with the Syricke and Arabicke translations who followed the same copies with the Latin church This text is cited in Ireneus â—… whom God raised sâ—…lutis deloribus inferorum quia non erat possible teneri eum ab eis loosing the sorrowes of hell because it was not possible for him to be held of them Cyprian thus expresseth it Impossibile quippe erat sanctam illam animam teneri ab inferis It was impossible for that sacred soule to be held of hell Fulgentius citeth it Solutis inferni doloribus the sorrowes of hell being loosed Bede taketh both for one in this place k Solutosper Dominum dicit dolores inferni siue mortis Peter saith the sorows of hell or death were dissolued by Christ. Since then both are found in many Greeke copies and neither can be reiected as false the name of death if you retaine it must be so expounded as it may not impugne the force of hades and death hauing a double power place and subiect as the death of the body heere on earth and the death of the soule in hell heereafter this later death and hell doe rightly match together the sorrowes of which were losed by Christ because it was impossible for him to be taken or touched by them You quarrell also with the translation which Austen followed for saying in illis in them though that be the right intent of the text and you sticke not to straine Peters words to what higth you list So that you keepe the words and alter the sense and Austen keepeth the sense though he vary somewhat from the words For that was loosed of which it was impossible Christ should be held and euen therefore was it to be loosed because he could not be held therein But the sorrowes of death or hell were loosed It was therefore impossible Christ should be held of them I meane of the sorrowes of either The sense then is rightly and aptly taken though the plurall be put in stood of the singular and Caluin himselfe in respect of the sense retaineth that change though the words doe somewhat differ from the text In this sense Peter saith Christ rose the sorowes of death being loosed â—…a quibus impossibile erat ipsum tenert of which sorrowes it was impossible he should be held Now if you or any man els can find vs those sorrowes after Christs bodily death we are readie to heare you for they were loosed when Christ was raised but if you cannot as in vaine you haue profered to doe then must the words be expounded that though the soule of Christ after death were in hades euen in the place of torment where it was not left nor forsaken yet the sorowes thereof could not touch him but he loosed and scattered them when he was raised to immortality and heauenly power and glory persuaded of this point heare him againe in the same Epistle Quamobrem teneamus firmissimè quod fides habet fundatissima authoritate sirmata quia Christus mortuus est secundum Scripturas quia sepultus est quia resurrexit tertia die secundum Scripturas cetera quae de illo testatissima veritate conscripta sunt In quibus etiam hoc est quod apud inferos fuit solutis eorum doloribus quibus eum erat impossibile teneri Wherefore let vs most firmely hold that which our faith hath being confirmed by most grounded authority as that Christ died according to the Scriptures and was buried and rose the third day according to the Scriptures and the rest of those things which are written of him in trueth most cleerely testified Amongst which this is also one point that he was in hell and loosed the sorrowes thereof of which it was impossible he should be held This is such a resolution that if you were soberly minded and not phantastically conceited as well in doctrine as in Discipline you would beware how you crossed the faith of the whole Church without more pregnant and euident matter then you haue any and not thinke it enough to shift with Poeticall fansies metaphoricall senses and palpable contrarieties and falsities such as few men would fall into besides your selfe And as for the exposition of Peters wordes which Austen leaueth indifferent if it dislike any man that concerneth the place of Peters first Epistle the third Chapter beginning at the 18. verse How Christ in spirit went and preached vnto the spirits in prison who were disobedient in the daies of Noe Which was the question proposed to him by Euodius to whom he wrote his 99. Epistle And of that he saith Consider yet least happely all that which Peter speaketh of spirits closed in prison which beleeued not in the daies of Noe omnino ad inferos non pertineat sed ad illa potius tempora quorum formam ad haec tempora transtulit pertaine not at all to hell but to those times which Peter compareth with these times And after large discoursing how that comparison might stand he concludeth with your words This exposition of Peters words if it dislike any or doe not satisfie quaerat ea secundum Inferos intelligere let him seeke in Gods Name how to fit the things there written to them in hell So that his exposition subiected to other mens liking did not concerne hell at all nor Christs preaching there but the preaching of repentance in the daies of Noah by the spirit of Christ and if any man liked not that exposition of Peters words he might seeke how to make Peters words agree with things done in hell if he could tell how to performe it Moe circumstances of this text Acts 2. do make affirmatiuely for vs first Peter plainly graunteth all this matter of Dauid as wel as of Christ. But that I am well acquainted with your pertinacie I should muze at this insolencie Peter doth exactly proue that this prophesie was neuer verified in Dauid because Dauids flesh saw corruption as was euident by his Sepulchre remaining with them to that day Since then it was not true of Dauids person that he saw no corruption he spake this as a Prophet knowing that God had sworne to raise vp Christ concerning the flesh to set him vpon his throne You
it It is a plaine true rule in mine opinion that the Euangelists and Apostles euery where by Hades intended hell and none of your wandring or stragling fansies Besides the Greeke Fathers with one consent vse Hades after the direction of the Canonicall writers for a place of darknesse vnder the earth prouided to receaue and detaine the Soules of men And in this sense neither the Scriptures nor the Fathers departed much from the auncient and true vse of the word amongst heathen and prophane Authors sauing that the Pagans made it common to the Soules of iust and vniust which the Scriptures neuer doe and the Fathers vtterly refuse after Christs Resurrection whatsoeuer they doe before Since then Hades by the manifest exposition of Saint Luke in his Gospell is the place of torment where the wicked after death are punished and the same Euangelist expresseth Dauids meaning to be this that Christs Soule after death was not left or forsaken in Hades what cause or reason hath any man to denie that Christ dying descended to hell there to spoyle powers and principalities and thence to leade Captiuitie Captiue that as he ascended to the highest heauens there to sit superiour to all the Elect Angels so he first descended to the bottomlesse deepe there to subiect the Reprobate Angels vnto his humane nature and to dissolue the power and sorrowes of hell of which it was impossible he should be held Here we must consider a maine obiection of yours euen those words of our common Creed he descended into hell originally it is he descended into Hades and in truth this is all you haue to alleadge for your opinion but I answere two waies first admitting then denying the Authoritie of these words in our common Creede You haue seene by this time what I haue to alleadge for that which I defend may besafely conceiued of the Creed The words themselues he descended to Hades haue euident warrant in the holy Scriptures and Peter exactly concludeth out of Dauids words that Christs Soule was not left in Hades What Hades is with S. Luke the writer of the Acts we likewise haue seene It is euen the place where the wicked are tormented after death Put these together and tell me what they want of Christes descending into hell before he rose from the dead The words in English he descended into hell are confirmed by the publike authoritie of this Realme as well in the Booke of common praier as in the Articles of Religion agreed on by the Conuocation and ratified by Act of Parliament So that all your euasions elusions of the priuation condition and dominion of death to be ment thereby are vtterly reiected and condemned by generall and full consent of Prince Pastours people within this Realme and Christs descent to hell after death hath beene constantly and continually professed and beleeued in the Church of England euer since the Gospell was here established What you haue said against it I leaue to the Readers wise and indifferent iudgement who wil easily tell you you must bring better sluffe then either phrases or fansies before the common Creede may be thus reiected and despised You enioyne vs three Rules to be exactly and precisely kept in the expounding of these words Namely 1. distinction of Matter 2. consequence of order 3. proprietie of words Might not those godly men thinke you misse in some such circumstances although the Scripture cannot The first compilers of the Creede meaning shortly orderly and plainly to deliuer the summe of the Christian faith as touching the three persons in Trinitie and the chiefest blessings which God bestoweth on his Church in this life and the next by Iesus Christ our Lord might not with any discretion in so briefe and compendious assume of Christian Religon proposed to the simple and vulgar sort of all ages and sexes vse either any needlesse repetition disordered confusion or obscure inuolution of things requisite to our Saluation To these Rules agree all that haue expounded the Creede in the Church of Christ to this very day saue your selfe and such as haue opened you the gap to these innouations And these Rules allowed do cleane cast your exposition out of doores For where it is most plainly said that Christ died and was buried which words no plow-man woman nor child of reasonable yeeres can mistake you after Christs buriall come in with a darke and figuratiue phrase of descending to Hades which in effect you confesse is no more but what was said before in knowen and open speech that Christ died And this obscure and strange circumlocution of death you will haue to be an Article of your faith as if euery Christian creature were bound vpon danger of his saluation to vnderstand what Sheol or Hades doth signifie in the Greeke and Hebrew Tongues which is a position meete for such a Diuine as you are Your exposition therefore is repugnant to all three Rules For it is a superfluous vnorderly enigmaticall iteration of that which was before expressed in due place with as plaine and easie wordes as any might be spoken by the tongue of man Now with what Arguments you or any man liuing Hu. Bro. not excepted can prooue that Hebrew or Greeke phrases are Articles of Religion and must be conceaued and beleeued of all men before they can be saued as yet I doe not vnderstand And this is the miserie of your cause that not onely you haue no word in Latine English nor in any tongue else answerable to your Sheol or Hades but when you come to lay open your owne phrases the exposition is more ridiculous then the Translation For by Christs descending to Hades which you call the power dominion and kingdome of death you meane no more but that Christs Soule seuered from his Body went to heauen to the rest of the blessed Soules there And here I report me to him that will vouchsafe to read your 196. 197. pages whether you haue any thing there but store of phrases extending intending enlarging amplifying the name power and dominion of death which when all is done and said amounteth to this much that Christes soule seuered by death from his body submitted it selfe to the base and low condition of the dead by taking the paines to goe to heauen to the rest of the Saints there This is all in effect that your Periphrasis and Emphasis moriendi doe containe and the great fall or whole casting downe of Christes person which you so Rhetorically set out with termes of the broadest and longest size hath nothing in it but only this that his soule after death which dissolued his person ascended to the societie of the blessed soules in heauen The rest is your emphaticall and paraphrasticall vanitie swelling with wordes and shrinking in sense which needeth none other refutation but sober obseruation that when two sides are spent nothing is said but you are where you began For would you not varie so many phrases
THE SVRVEY OF CHRISTS SVFFERINGS FOR MANS redemption AND OF HIS DESCENT TO HADES OR HEL for our deliuerance By THOMAS BILSON Bishop of Winchester The Contents whereof may be seene in certaine Resolutions before the Booke in the Titles ouer the Pages and in a Table made to that end ROM 6. v. 10. In that Christ died he died to sinne ONCE ROM 10. v. 6. 7. Say not in thine heart Who shall descend to the bottomlesse deepe That is to bring Christ backe from the dead AVGVST Epist. 99. Quod fuerit anima mortificatus Iesus quis audeat dicere That Iesus was dead in soule who dare auouch Quis nisi Infidelis negauerit fuisse apud Inferos Christum Who but an Infidell will denie Christ was in Hell Perused and allowed by publike Authoritie LONDON Printed by Melchisedech Bradwood for Iohn Bill M. DC IIII. TO THE HIGH AND MIGHTY VVISE AND RELIGIOVS PRINCE IAMES by the grace of God King of Great Brittaine France and Ireland Defender of the true and Christian Faith c. MOst religious and renowned Prince if the Heathen reaching no farther than the light of Nature could leade them sawe those Common-weales would soone flourish whose Gouernors were giuen to the study of Philosophy how much rather must Christians ascribe that to heauenlie Wisdome which they did to earthly and confesse those Realms to be blessed indeed where the chiefe Rulers are carefull to seeke first the Kingdome of God to prefer the loue of true pietie before all respect of humane policie For since Gods purpose and promise is to honour them that honour him and no good thing can be wanting to those that rightly worship him according to his will how liberall benedictions mercifull protections may those Princes hope for at Gods hands who set their hearts wholly to seeke him and make all their wayes straight in his sight This fauour from heauen to be guided by good and godly Princes the Realme of England hath tasted a long time to their no small comfort whiles for these 45 yeeres by the Christian care of a most milde and gratious Queene now with God they haue beene directed to the trueth of the Gospell of Christ and defended in peace from the violence of all impeachers and impugners of either And after her decease though our vnthankfulnesse had prouoked the wrath of God and our vnfruitfulnesse well deserued the Kingdome of God should be taken from vs yet he that is rich in mercie towards all that call on him respecting more the glory of his name lest his enemies should blaspheme than any worthinesse of ours not onely continued but increased his accustomed goodnesse to vs and gaue your Maiestie being the lineall and rightfull heire to the Crowne of this Realme a present and peaceable entrance with the greatest applause of all states sorts and sides that hath beene seene these many ages and specially of the godlie who saw the happinesse of the former gouernment would be doubled by the manifolde gifts and graces of your Christian and Princely integrity clemency bounty wisdome and piety And surely their hope hath not deceiued them for who so hath rightly discerned and duely considered your beâ—…ignesse of nature your ripenesse of iudgement your deepnesse of wisdome your vprightnesse of iustice your readinesse to mercie your bounteousnesse to the best your euennesse to all your desire of peace your care of your people your fauour to your Cleargie and respect to your Church your promptnesse in professing and stedfastnesse in establishing the true seruice of God amongst vs which your Highnesse hath constantly shewed since you came to the Crowne can not but acknowledge that to be iustly applied to your Maiestie which was first sayd of Salomon Blessed be the Lord your God which loued you to set you on the Throne of all Britaine because the Lord loued this land made you King to doe equitie and iustice happie are those your seruants which stand euer before you and heare your wisdome Whereof because it pleased God and your Maiestie I should attend you aswell at your Table in your first Progresse into these Countries of Surrey and Hampshire as at your conference for matters of Religion and assemblie of States for the welfare of this Realme I can beare certaine and assured witnesse as likewise can the rest of your Nobles and Bishops then present who all with no lesse admiration than contentation heard with what sharpnesse of vnderstanding maturenesse of knowledge soundnesse of reason firmnesse of memorie and aptnesse of speech your Highnesse entred debated and resolued the greatest and hardest points of diuine and humane wisdome shewing in euery of them such dexteritie perspicuitie and sufficiencie as I professe before God without flattery I haue not obserued the like in any man liuing As therefore I iudge the whole Realme blessed and beloued of God for giuing them a Prince of such rare prudence intelligence and experience so doe I after the example of the Apostle thinke my selfe happy that I shall this day bring these matters in question before so learned religious and iudicious a King no lesse skilfull in the sacred Scriptures than carefull to continue the true Christian faith thorowout his Dominions without dissenting from the will of God reuealed in his Word or departing from the primitiue Church of Christ in her best and purest times May it then please your excellent Maiestie to be enformed that vpon some mens too much forwardnesse to innouate as well the doctrine as the discipline of the Church of England they thinking those deuices alwayes best which are newest it was rife in Pulpits and vsuall in Catechismes that the death of Christ Iesus on the Crosse and his bloudshed for the remission of our sinnes were the least cause and meane of our redemption but he did and must suffer the death of the soule and the very same paines which the damned doe in hell before we could be ransomed from the wrath of God and this was that descent of Christ to hell which we are taught by the Creed to beleeue This opinion began to preuaile so fast that children were trained to it and the people led to controle the Scriptures as not rightly deliuering the true cause of our redemption by Christ in that they mention no meane to ransome vs from death and hell but the bloud of his crosse and death admitted in the bodie of his flesh and therefore in all such places we must as they say by a kinde of Synecdoche conceiue the death of the damned to haue beene suffered for a season in the soule of Christ and that to be the full and perfect price of our redemption I was much grieued I confesse to your sacred Maiestie to finde this so often in Catechismes and frequent in Pulpits and without iust ground in the Word of God to be so confidently blazed whiles the doctrine of this Realme proposed by publike authoritie to the people in the Booke of Homilies
was neglected and loathed And vpon conference with the most reuerend Father the late Archbishop now with God was aduised in open audience to deliuer what the Scriptures teach touching our redemption by the death and bloudshedding of Iesus Christ the Sonne of God Which accordingly I did declaring by occasion of the Apostles words Be it far from me to reioyce but in the Crosse of Christ first the Contents and then the Effects of Christes crosse In the Contents of Christes crosse I shewed what Christ suffered by the witnes of holy Scripture and what he suffered not and there ioyned this issue That no Scripture doth teach the death of Christs soule or the paines of the damned to be requisite in the person of Christ before he could be the Ransomer of our sinnes and Sauiour of the world And because the proofs pretended for this point might be three Praedictions that Christ should suffer those paines Causes why he must suffer them and Signes that he did suffer them I likewise insisted on all three and shewed there were no such Praedictions Causes nor Signes of the true paines of hell to be suffered in the soule of Christ before he could saue vs. Wherein his Agonie in the Garden and Complaint on the Crosse were examined as well by the rules of holy Scripture as by the maine consent of all the Fathers And lest the death of Christ suffered in the bodie of his flesh on the altar of the Crosse as it is described in the Scriptures and the shedding of his precious bloud should be disabled or distrusted of any as no sufficient meanes or price of our redemption in the Effects of Christs crosse I prooued the merits of Christes suffering to be infinite in respect of his person who was God and of the perfection of his obedience vnto the death of the Crosse the maner of his offering to be bloudie foreshewed by the Sacrifices of the Law and sealed by the Sacraments of the Gospell the power of his death to be mightie as able to conquer Sinne Hell and Satan the comfort of his Crosse to be necessarie to which we must all be conformed to suffer with him before we can raigne with him the victorie thereof to be heauenly in that he rose the third day into a celestiall and eternall life hauing all his enemies vnder his feet Yet for peace sake I yeelded the name of hell-paines might in some sort be tolerated in the sufferings of Christ if we meant thereby great and intolerable paines as the word is sometimes metaphorically taken in the Scriptures at the least by our vulgar translation for the word indeed was Sheôl which is vsed aswell for the graue as for hell and so those speeches of Dauid That the paines of Sheol found him out or compassed him might import the paines of death which brought men to their graues And concerning that Article of our Faith Christ descended to Hell I taught it might not by the course of the Creed be referred to Christ liuing but to Christ dead and safely note the conquest which Christs manhood after death had ouer all the powers of darkenesse declared by his resurrection when he rose Lord ouer all his enemies in his owne person Death Hell and Satan not excepted and had the Keyes that is all power of death and hell deliuered him by God that those in heauen earth and hell should stoope vnto him and be subiect to the strength and glorie of his Kingdome These things were first vttered by speech and after committed to writing that aswell the parts as proofes of euery point might more plainly appeare to all that would examine them My care was in either of these to ioyne with the doctrine prescribed by the booke of Homilies to be taught in the Church of God to the people That there is none other thing that can be named vnder heauen to saue our soules but this only worke of Christes precious offering his bodie vpon the Altar of the Crosse. For so great was Gods wrath and displeasure towards sinne that he could be pacified by no other meanes but only by the sweet and precious bloud of his deere Sonne And so pleasant was this sacrifice and oblation of his Sonnes death which he so obediently and innocently suffered that God would take it for the onely and full amends for all the sinnes of the world As for Christs descent to hell I deliuered the same ends and intents which the booke of Homilies doth where it saith Christes death destroyed death and ouercame the Diuell His death destroyed hell with all the damnation thereof Christ passed thorow death and hell to the intent to put vs in good hope that by his strength we shall do the same He destroyed the Diuell and all his tyrannie and openly triumphed ouer him and tooke away from him all his Captiues meaning all the Elect and hath raised and set them with himselfe amongst the heauenly Citizens aboue These things thus preached and printed by me it may please your excellent Maiestie to vnderstand were first impugned by an hastie and humorous Treatise whiles my Sermons were yet vnder the Presse and after by a larger and warier Defence which is this that I now refute The Treatiser sliding from the things proposed by me wherein he could not open his mouth but with as many vntrueths as words did beare men in hand the question was Whether Christ suffered for vs the wrath of God or no whereas I mooued no such doubt but rather acknowledged That all which Christ suffered in soule or in bodie was the wrath of God against our sinnes if we speake as the Scriptures doe of punishments prouided â—…or this life where Christ did suffer and not of the wrath to come which is the vengeance prepared for the Diuell and the damned in another world And because in this Treatise I found moe distempered pangs of erroneous follie than aduised steppes of learning or religion I refelled the chiefe reasons thereof in a Conclusion added to my Sermons as they were in printing not thinking it worth my time or paines to make any longer resutation of him that remembred so little of that I had vttered and reasoned so loosely for that which he would establish No sooner were those Sermons and that Conclusion published but the curious Brethren seeing their kingdome of conceits impugned made their obseruations on both and sent their collections and reasons to the Treatiser that he might make a fresh Defence correcting in many things his former rashnesse and now leading him rather cunningly to cauill with the Fathers speeches than so proudly to disdaine their testimonies which maketh him not only to change his minde in many matters from that he sayd before but often to crosse himselâ—…e in the selfe same leafe whiles he doth not marke what he sayth out of his owne heart and what he bringeth out of other mens supplies and papers In this Defence for so they