And in this sense that of St. Ambrose with whose Expressions of this Mysterie many in our times have been altogether causelesly much offended when thou hadest overcome the sharpness of death thou didest open the kingdom of heaven to all Believers ought to be taken Nothing can be more plain or more Concludently proved from our Saviours own words and his Apostles Comments on them than this That The Kingdom of Heaven it self was not Erected was not established untill that Jesus whom the Jews had Crucifyed was made both Lord and Christ and placed as Man at the Right Hand of his Father 3. To dilate further upon this Point for this Present I dare not lest I should lose my way or forget to return to the other Parallel proposed to wit What heavenly Mansion or Sanctuary the first Part of the earthly Tabernacle or Court whereinto the ordinary Priests went every day did represent or foreshaddow I shall not trespass against any Article of Faith or Rule of interpreting Scriptures nor I hope offend any ingenuous Conscience by delivering my Opinion in a Point wherein the Scripture as I conceive is silent or which can neither be enforced upon Us as any part of Christian Belief nor be refuted by any Rule of Faith To my apprehension of our Apostles meaning Heb. 8. ver 5. That place or Mansion in the heavenly Tabernacle wherein Abraham Lazarus c. did rest before The Kingdom of heaven was set open to all Beleivers was That Place or Court which Atrium Sacerdotum the Court of the Priests in the first Tabernacle or in Salomons Temple did Picture out unto us Or if the soules of the Faithful were not admitted into That Place before Christs death we cannot allot a Lower or Outermer Mansion in heaven it self than that which Atrium Congregation is that is the Court of the Congregation in Salomons Temple whereinto the Congregation of Israel which were no Priests were admitted and taught by the Priests did represent However it be That heavenly Mansion or Sanctuary which in proportion truly answered to the Sanctuary or Court of Priests in the material Temple was no such happy Seat of Bliss before Christs Death as it was made by it For by his Bloud it was finally Consecrated or dedicated to be what now it is a True Temple which was the Second Parallel proposed CHAP. XLVI A Parallel betwixt the Rites of Dedicating the Tabernacle the Vessels c. with Bloud of Beasts And of Consecrating the Heavenly Places with the most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ 1. THe Place or Station for drawing this Parallel aright is Hebr. 9. Neither was the first Testament dedicated without Bloud For when Moses had spoken every Praecept to all the People according to the Law he took the bloud of Calves and of Goates with water and Scarlet wooll and Hyssop and sprinkled both the Book and all the people saying This is the bloud of the Testament which God hath enjoined unto you Moreover he sprinkled with bloud both the Tabernacâ— and all the vessels of the Ministerie And almost all things are by the Law purged with Bloud and without shedding of bloud is no Remission Ver. 18 19 20 21 22. All this he speakes according to the plain Litteral Sense of the Law concerning the Purifying or Consecrating of the Earthly Tabernacle with its Vessels or Implements The Mystical Sense or meaning of the Matters of Fact or Practises performed by Moses and Aaron when they consecrated the first Tabernacle with the bloud of Bullocks and Goates c. is litterally explained unto us by this our Apostle in the verses following It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purifyed with these but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these ver 23. These words admit no Metaphors or Tropes but have their proper and Real Logical Sense The Argument is most punctually Concludent The Similitude or paterns of heavenly things were purified with bloud therefore the heavenly things themselves that is the Caelestial Tabernacles were to be purged and consecrated with the bloud of Christ our high Priest which is now entred into them for our Sanctification and final Redemption To inquire what should become of all our Saviours bloud whether shed in his Agonie or upon the Cross will seem I know A Curious Question specially to slothful Students in Divinitie On the otherside it would argue a drowsie Fancie either voluntarily to imagine or to be by others perswaded That his most Precious bloud being shed in such abundance should be like water spilt upon the ground either swallowed up by the dry earth or mingled with dust or dispersed by the heat of the Sun and resolved into vapours Seeing every drop of it was truly The bloud of God It can be no Sin to suppose nay to believe that All of it was by his death made as his Body now is Immortal that All of it was preserved entire and sincere and brought either by his own immediate power or by the Ministery of his holy Angels into those heavenly Sanctuaries which were to be CONSECRATED by it to be the Seats or Mansions of everlasting bliss unto all true Believers and thus brought in at the time of his Entrance into Paradise in soule though not in Body which was immediately after he had commended his Spirit unto his heavenly Father 2. If unto all that hath been said in this Argument I should further adde That the most precious bloud of the Son of God which was shed for the Ransom of our Sins in the Garden or upon the Cross and brought into the Celestial Tabernacle upon his death whether reunited to his Glorified Body or glorified in it self and preserved apart from his body doth still retain an everlasting Efficacy for the daily Purifying of our hearts and working Sanctification in us I presume the Intelligent or ingenuous Reader will interpret this Assertion rather for a Point of speculation not much thought upon by others than any Paradox or Heterodoxal Doctrine of my own Invention But of the true Vertual presence or Real Operation of the Body and Bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ upon our Soules in so great distance as is between the most high and most holy Celestial Sanctuary and these material Temples here on earth wherein we Celebrate and Solemnize the memorie of his Death and passion more punctually and more fully if God shall be pleased to give leave In the 11. Book hereafter All which I have here affirmed or intimated will uncontrollably follow from our Apostles Doctrine in this Epistle and from other Passages of his Fellow Apostles To begin with that of Heb. 9. 11 c. Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle not made with hands that is to say not of this building neither by the bloud of Goates and Calves but by his own bloud he entred in once into the holy place
Means much available for strengthening of Faith or for repairing those decayes or ruines which the subtiltie of Satan works in our soules yet the Reiteration of the Sacrament of Baptism is neither Necessary nor allowable much lesse Commendable for such purposes And the Raritie or rather Singularitie of It was to my apprehension Emblematically prefigured by the Sacrifice of the Red Heifer or the Water of sprinkling which was Legally sanctified or consecrated by her Ashes The Law concerning this kind of Purification is not to be found I take it in Leviticus at least not in that sixteenth Chapter wherein the Law of the Sacrifice of attonement is punctually set down However the forementioned Glossarie upon the Romish Canon for consecrating Holy Water either through negligence See Chapt. 48 Num. 6. or ignorance or both avouch that place for it If the sacrifice of the Red Heifer had belonged unto the Feast of attonement it must have been reiterated once every year whereas the Hebrew Antiquaries affirm that this solemnitie was not used above tea times during all the time of the Law of the Tabernacle or Temple And whether it were so often used may be questioned because there is no Law or Precept for the Continuation of it but only for the use of the water of sprinkling being once consecrated by it so often as the occasion specified in the Law did require 2. But unlesse the frequent use of the water so mingled with the ashes did wast or exhaust the ashes of that one sacrifice which Eleazar not Aaron was commanded to offer These might have been preserved without putrifaction for a longer time then the Law of Ceremonies was to endure For Ashes as good Naturalists tell us being well kept are immortal or an Emblem of Immortalitie But it may be that as soon or as often as the Ashes of any such sacrifice were by frequent use of the water of sprinkling exhausted or wasted the Legal Priests were bound by the Law mentioned to offer another for consecrating the water of sprinkling whose use was to continue as long as the reason mentioned in the Law did indure 3. The chief use or End of the water of sprinkling mingled with the Ashes of this sacrifice was to purifie such as had made themselves Legally unclean or had casually fallen into such uncleanness One branch of this uncleanness was the touching or being touched by any Dead Corps And unto this use of the water of sprinkling mentioned Numb 19. 11. that of our Apostle Heb. 9. 14. hath special Reference more then Allusion How much more shall the bloud of Christ purge our Consciences from DEAD works That this Legal Sacrifice for sinne was an Exquisite Type of Christs Bloudy Death and sufferings or an exact picture of his bloud wherewith the heavenly Sanctuary or Holy places were purified although the bloud of this Legal sacrifice were not brought into the Earthly Sanctuary no good Writers which I have read either deny or question That the Water of sprinkling consecrated by the aspersion of the Ashes of this Legal Sacrifice did truely resemble the water of Baptism by which we are washed from sin and consecrated unto God as clean persons that is made members of his Church here on earth is so evident in it self that it needs no Paraphrase or Laborious Comment upon the fore-cited Law Yet to this purpose the learned Reader may find much pertinent matter in Chytraeus his Comments upon the Book of Numbers and in many others It will be more needful or better suiting with my intentions in this place to prevent the captious exceptions which some Anti-Papists have heretofore taken and now resume against the expressions of our Publick Liturgie in that Part of it which concerns the Administration of Baptism Almighty and everlasting God which of thy great mercie diddest save Noah and his Familie in the Ark from perishing by water and also diddest safely lead the children of Israel through the red sea figuring thereby thy holy Baptism and by the Baptism of thy wel-beloved Son Iesus Christ diddest sanctifie the floud Iordan and all other waters to the mystical washing away of sin We beseech thee for thine infinite mercies that thou wilt mercifully look upon these Children Sanctifie them and wash them with the holy Ghost that they being delivered from thy wrath may be received into the Ark of Christs Church and being stedfast in faith joyful through hope and rooted in charity may so passe the waves of this troublesome world that finally they may come to the land of everlasting life there to reign with thee world Without end through Iesus Christ our Lord Amen Seeing now dearly beloved Brethren that these Children be regenerate and grafted into the body of Christs Congregation let us give thanks unto God for these Benefits and with one accord make our prayers unto Almightie God that they may lead the rest of their life according to this beginning We yeild thee heartie thanks most merciful Father that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this Infant with thy holy Spirit to receive him for thine own Child by adoption and to incorporate him into thy holy Congregation and humbly we beseech thee to grant that he being dead unto sin and living unto righteousness and being buried with Christ in his death may crucifie the old man and utterly abolish the whole body of sin that as he is made partaker of the death of thy Son so he may be partaker of his resurrection so that finally with the residue of thy holy congregation he may be Inheritor of thine everlasting Kingdom through Christ our Lord. Amen 4. It is no part of our Churches Doctrin or meaning that the washing or sprinkling infants bodyes with Consecrated water should take away sinnes by it's own immediate Vertue To affirm thus much implies as I conceive a Contradiction to that Apostolical doctrin The like figure whereunto even Baptism doth also now save us not the putting away the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good Conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ who is gone into heaven c. 1. Pet. 3. 21. The meaning of our Church intends no further then thus That if this Sacrament of Baptism be duely administred the blood or bloody Sacrifice of Christ or which is all one the Influence of his spirit doth alwaies accompany or is Concurrent to this solemn Act. But whether this Influence of his spirit or Vertual presence of his body and blood be either immediatly or only terminated to the soul and spirit of the party Baptized or have some vertual influence upon the water of Baptism as a mean to convey the Grace of Regeneration unto the soule of the partie Baptized whilest the water is poured upon him is Too Nice and curious a Question in this Age for sober Christians to debate or contend about It may suffice to beleive that this Sacramental pledge hath a Vertual Presence of Christs Blood or some Real
reason then why the Body of Christ is not or ought not to be often offered is not because all our sinnes were actually remitted by the once offering of it or remitted before they were committed but because the substance or matter of the sacrifice is of the same force at this day to remit sinnes that it was of whilest it was offered For his humane nature was consecrated by death and by his bloody Passion to be a sacrifice of everlasting Vertue to be the continual propitiation for our sinnes 7 If either the actual sinnes of all men Christs Resurrection our baptism needless if sinnes be remitted before they be committed or the sinnes of the Elect in speciall had been so remitted by Christs death as some conceive they were that is absolutely pardoned before they were committed there had been no end or use of Christs Resurrection in respect of us no need of Baptism yet was Baptism from the hour of his resurrection necessarie unto all that did beleive in his death and resurrection The urgent and indispensable necessitie of Baptism especially in respect of actual beleivers is not any where more Emphatically intimated than in St. Peters Answer to the Jewes Whose hearts were pierc't with sorrow that they had been the causes of Christs death They in this stound or sting of Conscience demand Men and brethren what shall we do and Peter answered them Repent and be Baptized Every one of you In the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sinnes And they that gladly received the word were Baptized the same day Acts 2. 37 38 41. These men had been deeply tainted with sin not original onely but with sinnes actual of the worst kind guiltie they were in a high degree of the death of the Son of God yet had they as well their actual as their original sinnes remitted by Baptism It is then an unsound and imperfect Doctrin that sin original onely is taken away or remitted by Baptism for whatsoever sinnes are remitted or taken away by Christs death the same sins are in the same manner remitted and taken away by Baptism into his death actual sinnes are remitted in such as are guiltie of actual sinnes when they are baptized though onely sin Original be actually remitted in those which are not guiltie of actual sinnes as in Infants No mans sinnes are actually remitted before he be actually guilty of them 8. The Question is how either sin original is remitted or how any work of Satan is dissolved by Baptism And this Question in the General is righly resolved by saying They are remitted by faith But this general Resolytion sufficeth not unless we know the Object of our Faith in this particular Now the particular Object of our Faith of that faith by which sinnes whether by Baptism or otherwise are remitted is not our general Belief in Christ even our belief of Christ dying for us in particular will not suffice unlesse it include our Belief of the Everlasting Vertue of his bloudie Sacrifice and of his everlasting Priest-hood for purifying and cleansing our soules No sinnes be truly remitted unless they be remitted by the Office or exercise of his Priest-hood and whilest so remitted they are not remitted by any other Sacrifice then by the sole vertue of his body and bloud which he once offered for all for the sinnes of all It is not the Vertue or Efficacie of the consecrated water in which we were washed but the vertue of his Bloud which was once shed for us and which by Baptism is sprinkled upon us or communicated unto us which immediately cleanseth us from all our sinnes From this everlasting Vertue of this his bloudy Sacrifice Faith by the ministerie of baptism is immediatly gotten in such as had it not before And in such as have Faith before they be baptized the guilt of Actual sinns is remitted by the exercise or Act of Faith as it apprehends the everlasting Efficacy of this sacrifice and by the prayer of faith and supplication unto our High Priest Faith then is as the mouth or appetite by which were receive this food of Life and is a good sign of health but it is the food itself received which must continue health and strengthen spiritual life in us and the food of life is no other then Christs Body and Bloud and it is our High Priest himself which must give us this food Baptism saith St. Peter 1 Pet. 3. 20. doth save us what Baptism doth save us not the putting away the filth of the flesh yet this is the immediate effect of the water in baptism but the answer or stipulation of a good conscience towards God But how doth this kind of Baptism or this concomitant of Baptism save us The Apostle in the same place tells us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ The answer or stipulation of a good conscience includes an illumination of our spirits by the Spirit of God a qualification by which we are made sonnes of Light being before the sonnes of darkness But That by this qualification we become the sonnes of Light That this qualification is by baptism wrought in us That by this qualification however wrought in us we are saved from our sinnes All this is immediately from the vertue of Christs Resurrection That is as you have heard before he was consecrated by the sufferings of death to be an everlasting Priest and by his resurrection from death his body and bloud became an everlasting Propitiation for sinnes an inexhaustible Fountain of Grace by which we are purifyed from the dead works of sinne 9. It is true again that in the Sacrament of Christs Body and Bloud there is a propitiation for our sinnes because He is really present in it who is the propitiation for our sinnes But it no way hence followes that there is any propitiatorie sacrifice for sin in this Sacrament He becomes the propitiation for our sinnes he actually remits our sinnes not directly and immediately by the Elements of Bread and Wine nor by any other kind of Local Presence or Compresence with these Elements than is in Baptism The Orthodoxal Antients use the same Language for expressing his Presence in Baptism and in the Eucharist they stick not to say that Christ is present or Latent in the water as well as in the Elements of Bread and Wine Their meaning is that neither of these Elements or sensible substances can directly cleanse us from our sinnes by any vertue communicated unto them or inherent in them but only as they are pledges or assurances of Christs peculiar presence in them and of our true investiture in Christ by them We are not then to receive the Elements of bread and wine only in remembrance that Christ dyed for us but in remembrance or assurance likewise that his body which was once given for us doth by its everlasting Vertue preserve our bodies and souls unto everlasting Life and that his bloud which was but once shed for us doth
still cleanse us from all our sinnes from which in this life we are cleansed or can hope to be cleansed If we then receive remission of sinnes or purification from our sinnes in the Sacrament of the Eucharist as we alwaies doe when we receive it worthily we receive it not immediately by the sole serious remembrance of his death but by the present Efficacie or operation of his body which was given for us and of his Bloud which was shed for us 10. The reason why the bloud of Bulls and of Goats had no longer force or efficacie to cleanse men though but from sinnes against the Law of Ceremonies then whilest they were offered was because their bloud was corruptible bloud and did perish with the using But we are not redeemed saith S. Peter 1 Pet. 1. 18. with corruptible things as silver and Gold but with the pretious bloud of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish or without spot One part of the pretiousness of his bloud is that it is farr more incorruptible then silver gold or other pretious metall and the less corruptible any metall is the more pretious it is and the more pretious it is the more uncorruptible Though Christ then was truly mortal when he dyed for us yet the bloud that he shed forth for us at his death did not become like water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered again it did not vanish or consume as the bloud of Legal Sacrifices did as his Body so his Bloud was not to see or feel corruption not a drop of Bloud which was shed for us whether in the Garden or upon the Crosse but was the bloud of the Son of God but was shed by him as willing at this price to become the everlasting High Priest of our soules and not a drop of Bloud which was so shed did cease or shall ever cease to be the bloud of the Son of God His soule and body we know were disunited by death yet were neither of them disunited from his Godhead or Divine Person His Body whilest laid in the grave was still the Body of the Son of God as still retaining Personal Vnion with his Godhead So was his soule so was his Bloud the soule and Bloud of the Son of God as being indissolubly united to his Divine Person Though his bloud whilest it was shed or powred out did lose its Physical or Local Union with his body though one portion of it were divided from another yet no drop of it was divided from his infinite Person And that which the Romish Church would transferre unto each several crum of bread or drop of Wine in the Eucharist is Originally and properly true of the several drops or divisibilities of Christs Bloud which was shed for us whole Christ was in every one of them indivisibly in every one of them God was the Godhead was and is personally united to all of them 11. Whether all and every portion of his bloud which was then shed were by the power of the Godhead recollected and re-united to his Body as his Body was to his Soule at the resurrection See Chap 46. Numb 2. we cannot tell God knowes But this we know and believe that the self same bloud which was then shed whether it were gathered together again or remained dispersed whether it were re-united to his Glorifyed Body or divided from it is still united to the Fountain of Life to the Godhead in the Person of the Son And being united to this Fountain of Life who dwelleth in it as light within the body of the Sun it is of Efficacie everlasting it hath an immortal power or force to dissolve the Works of Satan in us as well those which he worketh in us after Baptism as before The Vertue of it to cleanse and purge us from our sinnes of what kind soever is at this day as soveraign as if it had been sprinkled upon our soules whilest it issued out of his body It is impossible it should lose its Vertue in or upon our soules unless vve first lose our Interest in it vvhich vve cannot lose but by abandoning the vvaies of light and polluting our soules vvith the Works of darkness For so long as we walk in the light the bloud of Jesus Christ the Son of God doth cleanse us from all our sins 12. 1 John 1. 7. This present Efficacie of Christs body and Bloud upon our soules or reall Communication of both I find as a truth unquestionable amongst the Antient Fathers and as a Catholick Confession The Modern Lutheran and the modern Romanist have fallen into their several Errors concerning Christs presence in the Sacrament from a common ignorance neither of them conceive nor are they vvilling to conceive hovv Christs body and bloud should have any Real Operation upon our soules unlesse they were so Locally present as they might Agere per contactum that is either so purge our soules by Oral Manducation as Physical Medicines do our bodies vvhich is the pretended use of Transubstantiation or so quicken our souls as svveet odours do the Animal spirits which were the most probable use of the Lutheran Consubstantiation Both the Lutheran and Papists avouch the Authoritie of the Ancient Church for their opinions but most injuriously For more then we have said or more than Calvin doth stiffely maintain against Zuinglius and other Sacramentaries cannot be inferred from any speeches of the truely Orthodoxal or Ancient Fathers They all agree that we are immediately cleansed and purifyed from our sinnes by the bloud of Christ That his humane Nature by the inhabitation of the Deitie is made to us the inexhaustible Fountain of life But about the particular manner how life is derived to us from his humane Nature as whether it sends its sweet influence upon our soules only from the heavenly Sanctuary wherein it dwells as in its Sphere or vvhether his bloud vvhich vvas shed for us may have more immediate Local presence vvith us they no way disagree because they in this kind abhorred curiositie of dispute As for Vbiquitie and Transubstantiation they are the two Monsters of modern times brought forth by ignorance and maintained only by Faction And thus much of the infinite value and everlasting Vertue of Christs Sacrifiâ—e in comparison of Legal Sacrifices The next Querie is How the everlasting Efficacie of his Sacrifice or of his Priesthood was prefigured by Legal Sacrifices or purifications for sin 13. The Legal sacrifices as all agree did generally foreshaddow Christs Onely and All-sufficient Sacrifice But in as much as they were corruptible and their vertue transient and by reason of their corruption and transient vertue were often to be reiterated they could not be so much as true shaddowes either of his offering of Himself once for all or of the everlasting vertue of his Onely Sacrifice once offered Their imperfection corruption or transient vertue did serve as foyles to set forth the glorie and splendor of his everlasting
Propositions are as we say Hypothetical or Conditional and if either should be denyed or questioned the only Course which the Schools which are the high Courts of Reason for Judging of Arguments afford would be to plead these Categorical or absolute Propositions Whosoever lives after the flesh shall die Whosoever mortifies the Deeds of the body through the Spirit shall live And our Apostle himself ver 6. had premised Two absolute Categoricall Propositions to inferre or prove these two Conditional Propositions in the Text. For so he saith To be Carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace Now albeit he hath added no Quantitie to these Two Categorical Propositions yet in that he saith To be carnally minded is death and To be spiritually minded is life This Infers That Death is the Necessary Consequent of Carnal Living and Life likewise the Infallible Consequent of being spiritually minded All must mortifie though not totally And it is an Infallible Rule of Reason That Any Proposition betwixt whose Parts the Connexion is Necessary is Equivalent to an Universal although it be delivered in Terms Indefinite or without addition of any Quantity So that when our Apostle saith To be carnally minded is death To be spiritually minded is life his Speech is altogether as ful and more Emphatical then if he had said Whosoever lives after the flesh shall die Whosoever through the Spirit mortifies the deeds of the body shall live Howbeit These Two Propositions in the Text thus Reduced to Categoricals and Rendred Vniversal by a Note or Sign of such Quantitie are Vniversal only in Respect of the Persons whom this duty of Mortification concerns Vniversal they are not but Indefinite in Respect of the Duty enjoyned or Matter proposed 2. To find out some more distinct limit or Limitation of them in respect of the Matter proposed The Limitation set out in Three Negatives we are to begin as in the like Cases the Method requires from Negatives The First Negative is this Though all men after they come to years of discretion be necessarily tyed to Mortify the Flesh yet no man is tyed under pain of damnation to an absolute or Total Mortification of it This is Impossible in this life Though sin as the Apostle speaks be the Sting of death and Carnal Intentions be the Arrows or darts of Sathan yet is not every Carnal thought or every degree of minding the flesh so deadly in the issue unto the Soul as the Parthian Arrows were to mens Bodies for they carried death upon their points and gave it possession of every body whose skin they brake Fatumque in sanguine summo est They let Death in at the least breach whereat Bloud could come out But every moment of life led after the flesh doth not thus Necessarily bring forth the death here meant The second Negative is this It is not every Degree or Part of Mortification that will suffice to bring forth the Life here meant For he doth not say if ye have Mortified the deeds of the body but if ye do mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live These Two Negatives are as the Two Tropicks betwixt which the Limitation of the former Proposition in respect of the Matter proposed or Duty enjoyned is wholly Situate It is a Positive Mean between them somewhat Lesse then any Absolute or Total Mortification Somewhat More then every Degree or Practise of Mortification yet all this is but Indefinite This Positive Mean betwixt the former Negatives must of necessitie be either some kind of Mortification for Quality more Precious then the Mortification which most men ordinarily affect or practise or some Greater Measure of the same Mortification whereof most men are partakers at some times 3. As Great mens quick Goods are presumed to be of a better kind or breed then the like goods of their poor neighbours for Noble-mens Geese as the Proverb is are Swans So there be some who will have all Qualifications whether of Life or Practise all Acts of Duty or Performances to be of a better kind or rank in the Elect then they are in Others And in these mens Dialect or Divinity the Answer to the proposed Querie were easy and would be This. They which Mortifie the deeds of the body in such sort as the Elect do they certainly shall Live for the Elect do truly mortifie them albeit not in so full a Measure And as Belief so Mortification in Them especially how Little soever it be Points of Election c. are not to determine but to be determined by more general points so it be True will suffice unto salvation But in the Divinity which I have learned the points of Election and Reprobation are to be determined of if at all they may be determined of by the Resolution of other more General and more facile Queries They are preposterously brought to the Determination of any other Difficulties Alwayes the Resolutions of the Generals must be Introductions to the Resolution or clearing of more Special Difficulties Special Difficulties can be no Introduction to the Resotion of General Queries Now this duty of Mortification and the Transgression of it to wit Living after the flesh are far more General then the estate of Election or Reprobation Seeing as I am often forced to repeat it is but a litle Point of mankind a small Portion of men which are partakers of the Word or Sacraments which are for the Present contained under either part of This Division All are not Elect or Reprobate But all live after the flesh or after the Spîrit either in the State of Election or Reprobation But under this Division of Living after the flesh or after the spirit all are comprehended Again in as much as we our selves are all imployed in this Work of Mortification we may have more certain Experiments of our Progress in this Duty then we can have of our estate of Election which is meerly the work of God we have no finger no imployment in it The truth is Only they who have mortified the deeds of the Body in such a measure as our Apostle here requires are in the State of Election Only they who have made up such a measure of sin or Living after the Flesh as induceth the Sentence of death here mentioned are in the absolute State of Reprobation So that the Positive Mean between the two former Negatives must be taken from the measure not from the Specifical Quality or nature of mortification The very Phrase or Character of our Apostle If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if through the Spirit ye mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live Necessarily includes a Perseverance in either kind A Perseverance there must be in this Duty of Mortification before we can have full and perfect Interest in this Promise Without Perseverance or Continuance in this life of the Flesh none are inevitably sentenced unto the death here denounced
rightly believe in him specially against such as duly administer his holy Sacraments may with its improvement be concludently inferred by the Tenents and daily Practises of that Church both which are as punctually and as fully contradictory to the Doctrine of the Author of this Epistle Chap. 9. and 10. and to many other principal Maxims of Christian Religion as any Doctrine Tenent or Practise can be one to another For the Law having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things can never with those Sacrifices which they offered year by year continually to make the Comers thereunto perfect For then would they not have ceased to be offered because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of Sins But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sinnes every year For it is not possible that the bloud of Bulls and Goates should take away sins c. Heb. 10. 1 2 3 4. By the which we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ ONCE FOR ALL. And every Priest standeth daily ministring and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sinnes But this man or rather this Priest after he had offered ONE SACRIFICE for sinnes for ever sat doâ—n on the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified Whereof the holy Ghost also is a witness to us for after that he had said before this is the Covenant that will make with them after those dayes saith the Lord I will put my Laws into their hearts and in their minds will I write them and their sinnes and iniquities will I remember no more Now where Remission of these is there is no more offering for Sin ver 10. to 18. 4. The force of our Apostles Inference and the very Pith of his Discourse throughout these Passages presented to the Readers View doth more punctually refute the Doctrine of the Romish Masse then it did the Contradicting Jews or other Blasphemers of Christs Name and Office either before or since this Divine Epistle was written The Pith and Marrow of all his Arguments consists in This That even the best of Legal Sacrifices or services were they bloudy or unbloudy were altogether Unsufficient to Purifie the Conscience could never take away sin Because They were to be Reiterated the best and most solemn of them every Year and many of them every Day others as oft as Casual Occasions did require Now if this Argument be Concludent as no Christian can denie it to be against the Jews which pleaded for the Sufficiencie of Legal Sacrifices it will conclude a fortiori or with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb 9. 14. against the absolute Perfection or Sufficiencie of our Saviours Sacrifice of Himself supposing that it should be as the Romanists teach Thus much it will inevitably inferre according to the Peremptory Canons of the Roman Church which plainly teach and under pain of damnation injoyn all Christians to believe that Christs Body and Bloud That very same Body that very same bloud which were once offered by himself upon the Crosse are daily offered by the Masle-Priest Or as if this were not enough to out-vie the Jewish Synagogue in the Sin of Contradiction to Christ they adde that every such offering is a propitiatorie Sacrifice as well for some that be dead as for the living And I think such Oblations as they make do the one sort as little good or as little harm as they doe the other unlesse they sollicite the Priest to make this kind of Attonement for them But to such Sollicitors or Executors of such Sollicitations both Doctrine and Practise must needs create as great danger as any Heresie or Branch of Contradicting Infidelitie hath done or can do to the mainteiners of it This Branch of the Roman Churches Doctrine doth as punctually Contradict that Fundamental Doctrine Heb. 9. 13. If the bloud of Bullocks and Goats c. as it doth the forecited Passages Heb. 10. 5. But the authorized practise of consecrating their Holy water for remission of sinnes and Sanctification is most palpably Contradictory to our Apostles meaning or to the meaning of the holy Spirit in that other Instance of the Water of Sprinkling wherein the Ashes of the Red Cow were Special Ingredients and gave the vertue and Tincture unto it for purifying men from such Legal uncleannesse as the best Ceremonies of the Law and This Water in special was Consecrated for The Law for the Consecrating This water and the Use or Ends for which it was Consecrated we have Numb 19. The mistaking of which place and the gross misse-use of the like water solemnly consecrated by that Canonical Authoritie which the Romish Church doth challenge â—ver all other Churches is set down in such plain terms that no honest hearted Roman Catholick specially of the English Scotish Netherlandish or German Nation if he be able to read the New Testament in his own Native Language but he will be either heartily sorry for Alexander the fifth who made this Canon or at least ashamed that their Forefathers should approve it or that it should be practised by their Instructers if they would permit them to have the reason of the Canon or Decree rightly translated into a Language which they understand The Canon with the Glosse upon it is here transcribed in the same words wherein it was first conceived and published In Decreti 3. part de Consecrat distinct 3. c. 20. prout habetur in Corpore Juris Canonici Jussu Gregorii 13. Lugd. impressâ— Anno 1618. 6. Sic se habet Glossa in hunc locum Aquam Sale Haec est decima pars distinct Secundùm Jo. de Fant CASUS Quaeritur cur aqua cum sale benedicatur Et respondetur ut ea homines aspersi sanctificentur Cum enim in vetere Testamento cinis vitulae sanctificabat sal per manum Helisaei Prophetae sanavit sterilitatem aquae multò magis aqua cum sale benedicta omnia conspersa purificat Aquam sale u ¶ Aquam Sale Quia per aquam confessio per salem amaritudo signatur morsio unde haec est mistura unde geminus procedit partus divisio sc delictorum ortus virtutum bonorum operum 32. q. 1. c. Cum renuntiatur Haec designata est per mistionem Judae qui confessio dicitur Hu stands for Hugo Card. Arch. for Archidiaconus su for supra in for infra Thamar quae amaritudo dicitur unde Phares divisio Zaran ortus geminus sc partus provenit H U. conspersam populis benedicimus ut eâ cuncti aspersi sanctificentur x ¶ Sanctificentur Quaeritur quomodo aqua benedicta dicatur populum sanctificare vel mundare ADDITIO Ad hoc potest responderi secundum id quod no Su. ea dist 2. c. Signum in
glo 2. vers propter humilitatem c aliâs illa glossa ponitur ea d. c. instistutio ARCH purificentur Quod omnibus sacerdotibus faciendum esse mandamus Nam si cinis vitulae y ¶ Cinis vitulae Historia legitur in Levitico See Ch. 50. Num. 1. quòd decimâ die Septembris tollebat sacerdos de proprio vitulam rufam trimam immaculatam quae nondum portaverat Jugum immolabat eam pro peccato suae domus hircum quem sumebat ab universâ mulâ—â—tudine immolabat propeccato populi Pelles carnes fimum vitulae Hircum comburebat extrâ cinerem servabat inde per totum annum fiebat aspersio aquae quâ purificabantur immundi de quibusdam quae in lege immunditiae dicebantur ut putà si aliquis tetigisset cadaver hominis mortui vel Sepulchrum erat immundus usque ad diem septimam hâc aquâ mundabatur sanguine asper sus populum sanctificabat a ¶ Sanctificabat Tunc sanguis vitulae fuit remissio peccatorum ut 12. q. 2. c. Gloria atque mundabat b ¶ Mundabat A venialibus Su. distinct 50. c. in Capite jn dist 4. c. nequaquam Nam sacrificiis venialia delentur Su. d. 2. c. cum omne de poen dist 3. c. de quotianis Nam si qua tunc habebant mortalia erant de poen dist 6. ca. 1. Circa medium PER HELIS AEVM Historia legitur in lib. Reg. qd cum Helisaeus esset in eremo venerunt ad eum viri civitatis dixerunt Ecce habitatio hujus civitatis optima est sicuâ— tu ipse benè nosti sed aquae pessimae sunt steriles At ille ait Afferte mihi vas novum mittite in illud salem ait Dicit Dominus sanavi istas aquas non erit ultrà in eis mors neque sterilitas Sanatae ergo sunt aquae ille usque ad diem hunc juxta verbum Helisaei quod locutus est Dominus multo magis aqua sale aspersa divinisque precibus sacrata populum sanctificat atque mundat Et si sale asperso per Helisaeum c ¶ Per Helisaeum Inde est quod cum aqua exorcizatur dicit sacerdos Deus qui per Helisaeum Prophetam salem in aquam mitti jussisti c. Prophetam sterilitas aquae sanata est quanto magis divinis precibus sacratusâ— sal sterilitatem rerum auferâ— humanarum coinquinatos d ¶ Et Coinquinatos venialibus tantùm sanctificat mundat atque purgat caetera bona multiplicat insidias diaboli avertit à Phantasmatum versutiis homines defendit 7. But wherein did the Roman Church so grosly mistake the meaning of the Holy Ghost in that instance of the Red Heifer Heb. 9. ver 13. Or to what mischievous inconvenience doth her practise unto this day upon this mistake amount To no less inconvenience to no lower degree of Antichristian Impietie then this that the Legal Priests with their Ceremonies or Sacrifices should be truer Types of every Masse-Priest whether of higher or lower Rank and of their services then of Christ Jesus our high Priest or of his everlasting Sacrifice and perpetual Function Both which were and are performed by him in his own Person not by any Deputies or Vicars But to me it is no wonder if that Church do make Aaron Eleazar and their Successors rather Types of Masse-Priests then of Christ seeing as hath been observed before they make Melchizedeck himself according to whose Order the Son of God only was to be consecrated high-Priest a more lively Type of meanest Masse-Priests then any true adumbration or shadow of Christ Jesus and the Service of the Masse-Priests at the Altar to be the accomplishment of Melchizedecks Priesthood 8. Had then the Anniversarie sacrifices of Buls and Goats upon the Day of Attonement no Reference or relation to the Sacrament of Christs Bodie and Bloud Nor the water of sprinkling mingled with the ashes of the Red Heifer no semblance with the Sacramental water of Baptism Yes doubtlesse both these Ceremonies had special Reference unto and exact semblance with these two Blessed Sacraments And yet were both of them shadows or Types only of Christs Bloudy sacrifice upon the Crosse and of the perpetual Exercise of his Everlasting Priesthood since he ascended into his heavenly Tabernacle Christ Jesus only and his everlasting Priest-Hood is the very Body or solid substance of all Legal Rites or services And of this Body the Anniversarie sacrifices whether of Attonement or others were true Types or shadows And of the same Body or Substance the Sacraments of his body and bloud and of Baptism are somewhat more then Types True Representations of what is past assured Pledges of all the Blessings promised to the Fathers and Patriarchs in the Old Testament and actually Exhibited in a better manner then they were to them unto all Believers since his entrance into the most Holy Place CHAP. XLIX That The Forraigne mainteiners of the more then Fatal Irrespective Rigid Decree make Christ Iesus rather a meere Sacrifice Then a True Everlasting Priest acting for us and daily working out our Reconciliation to God So do such as teach That The Sinnes of some were Remitted before they were Committed Of the Super-Excellency of Christs Priesthood and one Sacrifice in comparison of The Aaronical Pr. and the many Services thereof 1. BUt here I must expect this or the like Reply from some Interimists or such peaceable men as desire a reconciliation betwixt Ours and the Romish Church If to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass that is So to offer up Christs body and Blood or whole Christ upon the Altar be a branch of Antichristianism or an implicit denyal of Christs Everlasting Priesthood will you undertake to acquit the reformed Churches as you term them from the like sin or Sacrilegious opinions or from robbing Christ of his Greatest Honours as He is Man which are to be King Priest and Judge For any intire Reformed Churches or Christian Soveraigntie whose Publick Confessions or authorized Catechismes it hath been my hap to Read I know not one that is this way faulty Nor do the bitterest adversaries of the Gallican Swizterland or German Churches lay Antichristianism to the charge of their autorized Canons or Constitutions Albeit they indict a great number of private writers Pastors or Teachers in Germanie France Switzerland many in England and more in Scotland for being devoted Members of the Eastern Antichrist the height of whose Haeresie or Infidelitie they place in the Maintenance of That more then Fatal irrespective Decree in respect of Which all things Christs death it self not excepted be said so to fall out as that they could not fall out otherwise or be prevented 2. For such private writers as have gone too far in the Poynts mentioned in what Christian Church soever they be I leave them to answer for themselves and for
the due Consideration of the Multiplicitie of the former sacrifices and the often Reiteration of them Of bloudie sacrifices some were reiterated Every day others Every year or in Sett Festivals or upon Special Occasions for private Persons And this last sort of sacrifices or Offerings were to be reiterated so often as Occasions or occurrences did interpose No one sacrifice could purifie the same party though peccant only against the Law of Ceremonies from his Legal Uncleannesse for any more Turns then One. Every Recidivation or Relapse into the same sin or error was to have a new Purification 6. Now if it were possible to calculate First The multitude of sinnes and of sinners against the Moral Law of God in comparison of such as did sinne against the Law of Ceremonies Secondly The excessive number of sinnes committed by every particular Christian man and bear this truth in mind that there needs no other sacrifice either for sinne or sinners besides That One of Christ himself upon the Cross the Influence of whose infinite value is daily and hourly communicated to all such as seek salvation by him The Superexcellencie of this our high Priest and of his sacrifice in respect of all Legal Priests and services will farre surmount the compasse of the Highest Heavens or Orbes imaginable in comparison of the least sensible part of the Earth 7. But some New-started Opinions there be which take away much matter of Admiration in this great Subject of Divine Meditation and dull the spirits of otherwise wel-minded men in the search after the virtue of Christs Everlasting Sacrifice and Priest-hood Of these new Opinions One special One is for I must not here touch upon the rest That the sinnes of some men of all the Elect were remitted before they could be comitted An Opinion voyd of all Reference to any pious use or practise A Speculation most untrue prodigiously absurd For no actual sin by whomsoever committed can be remitted to men living here on earth otherwise then by some new Influence from the Everlasting Sacrifice of Christ or as our Apostle speakes without the sprinkling of that bloud Which speaketh better things then that of Abel Heb. 12. 24. As much as I here intimate that passage of St. John if it be rightly scanned will clearely evince If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness we ly and do not the truth But if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin If we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us 1 Iohn 1. 6 7 8. 8. So then even such as walk in the light stand in need of Cleansing by the blood of Christ And with Reference to this place as I conceive that Maxim of S Austin well approved of by the best Reformed writers was first conceived by him Our Justification consists in the perpetual Remission of sin Justification Consists not in one indivisible Act. But an errour there is which I know not when it did first creep into the world but creep it did by the Incogitancie or indistinct Notions of some Late writers That Iustification is but one Act never to be resumed or reiterated This Assertion may be true in respect of That Justification Quâ Deus nos justificat or of Justification taken in the Active Sense as it concerns God For no act of his can be resumed or reiterated nor admitt any interpositions or Interims of time But if we speak of Justification in the Passive Sense or as it is an Effect wrought in our soules by the spirit of Christ there may be and are many Acts many Resumptions or Renovations of the same Act or Effect All being wrought in us by Interpositions or several Interims of time Our Natural bodyes do not require so many Refections of meat and drink for continuation of life of health and strength as the Faith by which the just do live and other spiritual Graces which accompanie Faith in the Purification of our soules do admitt yea require Refections spiritual Of these refections or refreshments of Faith or other Graces some are obtained by our dayly Prayers others being like extraordinary feasts or banquets are wrought in the participation Christs Body and Blood so often as we receive that blessed Sacrament as we ought to do But the most of us which enjoy the Libertie of Christian Lawes do not receives it so often as we ought Fewer as they ought And whosoever receives it unworthily receives it too often if he so receive but once Unto the worthy Receivers of the Sacramental pledges of Christs Body and Blood how often so ever and how many so ever receive them the Blood of Christ though but once shed becomes a Perennal unexhaustible Fountain of life everlasting But of the right interpretation of our Saviours Testament or Institution of this blessed Sacrament more at large by Gods assistance in the Article of the Holy Catholick Church In the mean time Two Prayers there be commanded by the Church our Mother to be used in the Uisitation of the Sick at the Administration of the Sacrament unto them Both which mutatis mutandis I would Commend to every piously minded Christan's Meditations or to every professed Christian that desires to be such both before and after he present himself at the Lords Table though he so present himself in perfect health of body and mind 1. O Lord look down from heaven behold visit and relieve this thy Servant Look upon him with the Eyes of thy mercie give him comfort and sure confidence in thee defend him from the danger of the Enemie and keep him in perpetual peace and safety through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen And 2. O Most Merciful God which according to the multitude of thy mercies dost so put away the sins of those which truely repent that thou remembrest them no more open thine Eye of mercie upon this thy servant who most earnestly desireth Pardon and forgivenesse Renew in him most loving Father whatsoever hath been decayed by the Fraud and malice of the Divel or by his own carnal will and frainess Preserve and continue this sick member in the unitie of the Church consider his contrition accept his teares asswage his pain as shall be seen to thee most expedient for him And forasmuch as he putteth his whole trust only in thy mercy impute not unto him his Former sins but take him unto thy Favour through the merits of thy most dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ Amen CHAP. L. The Rarity of that Rite of consecrating the Water of Sprinkling by the Ashes of the Red Heifer an Emblem of Baptism and the Singularity thereof Our Churches meaning in some expressions at the Administration of that Sacrament 1. BUt although the frequent Use of the Sacrament of Christs Body and Bloud be needful or necessary by Precept and a
Influence from his Body Concomitant though not Consubstantiated to it which is prefigured or signified by the washing or sprinkling the body with water 5. But it will be or rather is Objected but only by privat or some sawcy spirits That if the Doctrin of our Church were true and sound then all that be rightly Baptized should be undoubtedly saved being once washed or cleansed from their sinnes The Objection were of some force if the Church of England did hold or maintain such Doctrin or Tenets as they do which make or favour it to wit That the sins of the Elect only are remitted by Baptism or by the Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood or That sins once remitted cannot be remitted afresh or that the Partie which is once pardoned for his sins before commited cannot afterwards be condemned The Orthodoxal Truth is That albeit the Original Sin of Children truly Baptized in the name of Christ or the Actual sins of young or elder men so Baptized and the sins of their forefathers so far as it concernes men of riper yeares to repent them of both be so truly remitted in Baptism that neither young men nor old may be Baptized again Yet the Astipulation of a good Conscience wherein the internal Baptism as St. Peter tells doth consist may and ought by the Law of God and of Christs Church to be reiterated And this Astipulation of every Christian male or femal though baptized after they have passed their Nonage for Civil contracts Though Baptisme may not be reiterated yet The Astipulation of a good Conscience or the Enquireing to God may dayly and must often be renewed ought to be resumed or re-acknowledged so often as they intend to receive the Sacramental pledges of Christs body and blood either privately or in the publick congregation But for all such as have been baptized in their Infancie the Personal Resumption or Ratification of that VOW which their Fathers and Mothers in God did make for them at the Sacred Laver is to be exacted of them Ore tenus in some publick Congregation before they can be lawfully admitted to be Publick Communicants of Christs Body and Blood 6. There is then no default or defect in the Church of England Doctrin or Lawes concerning Baptism No child or Infant Baptized may or ought to be admitted unto the Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood before he have in his own person ratified that VOW which his Sureties or spiritual Guardians did make for him at the Sacred Font where Chrîst is as â—ruly present as at the Sacrament of the Altar as some term it or Confirmation of such as have been babaptized in their infancie But I dare not avouch so much for justifying the men unto whom the Execution of these Lawes is especially commended whether they be of Lower of higher or of the highest Rank It hath not been my hap to peruse very many Presentments of Church-Wardens or Inferiour Priests in Visitations Yet of those few or any whereof I have had some Cognizance I have observed but a very few or scarce remember any tendred against the Parents or such as were Sureties for Infants at the sacred Font for not bringing them at convenient times to be Confirmed or blessed by the Bishop of the Diocese or against inferiour Ministers for not Preparing those the Cure of whose soules was immediatly committed to them to receive the Confirmation of their Faith by the Benediction of the Diocesane much lesse against Diocesanes themselves for not executing their office in this Great Service of the Church either in their own Persons or by their Suffraganes 7. Whether the solemn Baptizing of all Infants which are the children of presumed Christian Parents throughout this Kingdom without solemn Astipulation that they shall at years of discretion personally ratifie their Vow in baptism in publick in such manner as the Church requires be not rather more Lawful or more tolerable then Expedient I leave it with all submission to the consideration of Higher Powers In the mean time I shall every day blesse my Lord God as for all others so in particular for this Great Blessing bestowed upon me that I was in a Convenient Age in a happy time and place presented by my Sureties in Baptism to ratifie the VOW which they made for me and to receive the Benediction of the Bishop of the Diocese being first instructed in the Churches Catechism by the Curate of the Parish from whose Lips though but a meer Grammar Scholer and one that knew better how to read an Homilie or to understand Hemingius or other Latine Postills then to make a Sermon in English I learned more good Lessons then I did from many popular Sermons and to this day remember more then men at this time of greater years shall find in many late applauded Catechisms CHAP. LI. Inordinate Libertie of Prophesying brought Errours into the Church disgrac'd and hindred the Reformation 1. ALbeit the Reverend Fathers of our Church and their Suffraganes should use all possible care and diligence for performing of all that is on their parts required yet without some better conformitie of Catechismâ— and reformation of such as write them or preach Doctrines conformable to them there is small hope that in such plentie of Preachers as now there are this work of the Lord should prosper half so well as it did in those TIMES and in those Dioceses wherein there were scarce ten able Preachers besides the Prebendaries of the Cathedral Church under whose Tuition in a manner the rest of the Clergie were I well remember and I cannot but remember it with joy of heart that the Synods in that Diocesse wherein I was bred did constantly examine the Licenced Readers how they had profited in learning by their Exercises which they did as duly exhibit unto the Chancellor Archdeacon c as they did their Orders or their Fees Such as had profited well were Licenced to Preach once a moneth or once a quarter having certain Books appointed from whose doctrine they should not swarve but for the most part translate The Authors then in most esteem were Melancthon Bullinger Hemingius especially in Postâ—ls and other Opuscula of his or other Writers who were most conformable to the Book of Homilies which were weekly read upon severe penaltie 2. But since the Libertie of Prophesying was taken up which came but lately into the Northern Parts unlesse it were in the Towns of Newcastle and Barwick wherein Knox Mackbray and Vdal had sown their Tares all things have gone so cross backward in our Church that I cannot call the Historie for these fortie years or more to mind or express my observations upon it but with a bleeding heart The First Declination from the Ancient Church was Concerning the Death and Passion of our Saviour Christ of which the forward Zelots or rigid Reformers of Popish merits did make more malitious and scandalous Vse upon Vse then the Papists themselves or other Hereticks did
then at any time as hitherto at all times he hath done deferre the execution of Justice upon us which our adversarie dayly sollicites against us he defers it at the Plea or Intercession of this our Advocate not for our own sakes And it is worth the noteing that as the reason why the Psalmist will not have us ioyn issue with our adversary in point of Justice is because No flesh is righteous in Gods sight so our Apostle to shew that our Advocate though partaker with us of flesh blood is Exempted from this Vniversal Negative enstyles Him by the name of Jesus Christ the righteous If He were not righteous even in Gods sight He could be no fitt Advocate to stand betwixt us and Gods Justice to avert his Judgements from and draw down his mercy and blessing upon us But in respect of what sinnes is Jesus Christ the Righteous said to be our Advocate an Advocate even for the Elect and regenerate Is he their Advocate onely in respect of sinnes committed before their regeneration or before their Confirmation in Grace or an Advocate also for the remission of those sinnes which they have committed after their regeneration by Baptism or after the increase of Justifying or sanctifying Grace whether procured by receiving of Christs Body and Blood or by other meanes If our Advocate he were onely in respect of sinnes committed before Baptism or of sinnes inherent by nature the Apostle had not said If any man sin we have an Advocate but if any man hath sinned he hath an Advocate or Intercession is alreadie made for him by his Advocate The title which he bestowes upon his Disciples Little Children argues them to have been in his esteem men regenerate and more free as he hoped from ordinary sinnes than other men at the least he wrote unto them to the end that they should not sin after they had been cleansed from their sinnes but yet he addes if any man shall hereafter fall into any sin We He saith not YOU as takeing himself included in the number of those which stood in need of Advocation have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous This implyes that Christ doth not cease to execute the Office of an Advocate for the regenerate so long as they live here on earth For it is not the Office of any Advocate to plead for the remission of those sinnes which are alreadie remitted or from which he knowes his Clients to be cleare exempted before they have committed them If then the son of God make intercession for the sinnes of the Elect or regenerate whilest they live here on earth their sinnes are not remitted untill He have made intercession for them nor doth He intercede for actual sinnes till after they be committed 10. However if the Son of God be our Advocate onely unto God the Father It is the Advocate 's Office to plead for pardon The Iudge which hath Power whether in respect of sinnes past or now present He as Advocate doth onely plead our Pardon It is God the Father then which must grant the Pardon and if every sin be a work of Satan the pardoning of sin is the Dissolution or destruction of the work of Satan How then is it said that the Son of God doth destroy or dessolve the workes of Satan in us As the Almighty Father is said to have made the world for he spake the word and it was made yet he made it by the Eternal Word his Onely Son so albeit the Father likewise do give the Fiat or Warrant that our sinnes may be remitted or that the workes of Satan may be dissolved in us yet they must be dissolved by the Son as immediatly by the Son as the world was Created by the Son 1 Iob. 2. 1 2. For this reason the Apostle in the forecited place doth not content himself with the onely Title of Advocate but adds withall that he is the Propitiation for our sinnes and not for ours onely but for the sinnes of the whole world He saith not though that be most true He hath made the Propitiation for our sin lest haply any man should hence collect that all his sinnes were forgiven before they were committed because the Propitiation was made for them before they were committed For albeit the Propitiatorie Sacrifice was of value infinite and all-sufficient for the full ransom of the World yet is it not sufficient for us which believe that Christ dyed for us to look onely upon the Propitiation which he then Made for us for that is past but upon himself as he still continues the propitiation for our sinnes so saith the Apostle He is the propitiation for our sinnes not onely an Advocate to plead for us unto his Father that our sinnes may be remitted but this request being granted he is withall the High Priest which must remit them and not our high priest onely but the Propitiation by which Every work of Satan in us must immediately be dissolved Again though all unto whom St. John wrote this Epistle were not regenerate yet it is certaine that all such as walk in the light are regenerate yet saith St. John Chap. 1. 7. If we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son what hath it done Cleansed us from all our sinnes Though that be in a good sense most true yet our Apostle doth not So speak Lest haply such as had attained unto this Communion of Saints or participation with the Children of Light being thus farre cleansed by Christs bloud might take occasion to think that all their sinnes aswel those that are to come as those which were past were already pardoned by him or that they were as truly cleansed from the guilt of sinnes future as of sins already committed past But the Apostle making himself one of the number to whom he speaks says If WE walk in the light the bloud of Iesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin that is it never ceaseth to cleanse the Elect or regenerate from the sins which they never cease in some measure or other to committ or harbour in them And if there were not a perpetual Remission of our sinnes or if this cleansing us from our sinnes by the bloud of Christ were not as perpetual and continual as our Commission of sinne is our Case even the Case of men regenerate would be Lamentable So farre is it from truth that the sinnes of any man be forgiven before they be committed or that any man is by the bloud of Christ actually cleansed from those sinnes which as yet have not actually polluted his soul and conscience that as bad Diet casts men into a Relapse of those diseases from which they had been lately cured so the sinnes which we commit this hour will call our former sinnes to remembrance in Gods sight until these later as well as the former be actually forgiven or
Sacrifice and most perfect offering Of all the Legal Sacrifices which present themselves unto my former observation or present memory there is one kind only which can beare the true shaddow or serve as a Modell of the Everlasting Efficacie of his onely Sacrifice once offered for all And that was the sacrifice of the Red Heifer Numb 19. and the Legal Use which GODS People under the Law were to make of Her Ashes The correspondencie between the effects of the Ashes of this sacrifice and of the blood of Christ is gathered by our Apostle Heb. 9. ver 13 14. If the Ashes of an Heyfer sprinkling the unclean sanctifâ—eth to the purification of the flesh how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself to God purge your consciences from dead workes to serve the living God But wherein did this sacrifice picture out the Everlasting Efficacie of the Blood of the Son of God in more peculiar manner than other Legal sacrifices did 14. First in that all such as were legally unclean by touching a Corps or Grave by comming into a Tent wherein a Corps lay unburied or suffering the vessels in such a Tent to be uncovered were to be purified by the Water of Sprinkling which was qualified or consecrated to this purpose by the Ashes of the Red Cow or Heyfer and as often to be purified by this water as they should incurre this Legal uncleanness And yet the sacrifice of this beast was not to be offered so often as this people did incurre these Kinds of legal uncleanness Thus much is Evident from the practice of the Jewish Church during the time of the Law For this water of purification was often every year oft-times Every month to be sprinkled upon some one or other of this people oft-times upon one and the same man within one and the same year even as often as he should by chance or negligence incurre any of the former branches of uncleannesse Yet was not this sacrifice whose ashes were still to be mingled with the water of purification to be offered once Every year in every Age or in many Ages The Sacrifice of the Red Heyfer as the Jewes confesse was but nine times offered during the time of the Law Once by Eleazar Aarons Son in the wilderness And this sacrifice was not reiterated untill the destruction of Salomons Temple that is not during the space of a thousand yeares and more It was the Second Time offered by Ezra after this peoples Return from Captivitie and but seven times after unto the destruction of the second Temple And this Foolish Nation since that time hath not presumed to offer it but expects the offering of it the tenth time by their King Messias Thus is the faithless Synagogue by Gods providence the Keeper not of the Sacred Oracles onely written by Moses and the prophets but even of those Traditions which testifie the summe and truth of these Oracles to wit that this legal sacrifice amongst the rest was to be accomplished in their Messias He was indeed to set the Period to this legal Rite and to all the rest not by offering them after a Legal Rite or manner but by offering up himself instead of them all once for all in bloodie sacrifice in whose infinite Value and Everlasting Efficacie all other sacrifices or offerings for sin were so terminated or swallowed up as Land-rivers or currents of waters are in the sea But what circumstance have we from the written Text that this sacrifice was not to be so often offered as this people had occasion to use the water of sprinkling or the Ashes of this sacrifice to cleanse them from their former Legal pollutions Numb 19. It is said ver 9. that the Ashes should be laid up without the Camp in a cleane place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reserved or kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for the water of separation The Ashes were to be reserved not for this Generation onely present but for the use of Posteritie As Manna which was commanded in the same Character to be reserved in the Ark was the Type of Christ as he is the food of life or the bread which came down from heaven So were these Ashes as an Emblem of the Everlasting Efficacie or operative vertue of his sacrifice There is no Bodily substance under heaven which can be so true an Emblem or model of incorruption as Ashes are Being the Remainder of bodies perfectly dissolved or corrupted they are not capable of a second corruption And when it is said that the Ashes should be reserved for a water of separation the meaning is that one sacrifice might afford ashes enough to season or qualifie as many several vessels of water as this people for many generations should have occasion to use for Legal purification So it is said in the same ninth verse that the Reservation of these Ashes was a Purification for sin A purification not in Act onely or for one or two turnes but a Continual Purification or as a Treasurie or storehouse for making as many purifications or waters of sprinkling as this people had occasion to use And so Christ is said Heb. 1. 3. to have made a purification for our sinnes when he had by himself purged our sinnes saith our English he sate down on the right hand of the Majestie on high But the Translation under Correction comes somewhat short of the Original and the shorter it comes of it the more advantage it yeilds unto their opinion which think their sinnes were remitted and purged before they were actually committed The Apostles words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 haveing made a Purification for sin he hath ascended into heaven The word Purification is not to be restrained to One Act or operation but includes or implies the Perpetual qualitie of himself or substance of his sacrifice being by this one Act consecrated to be a perpetual Fountain of purification As he did not onely make one propitiation for our sinnes So neither did he once actually purge us from our sinnes by offering up himself but still remaines the purification of our sinnes that is he doth still purifie and cleanse us from our sinnes as often as we seek by Faith and true repentance to be cleansed and purified by him 15. So then the Blood of the Legal Sacrifice or Heyfer did consecrate the Ashes to be as a Storehouse or treasury of legal purification and the Ashes thus consecrated by this sacrifice did hallow or consecrate the Water which was put into them to make actual purification as often as occasion required So did our High Priest by the One Sacrifice of Himself consecrate his Blood to be an inexhaustible Fountain of purification Evangelical And his Blood and Body thus consecrated once for all do consecrate or sanctifie the Water of Baptism to cleanse or wash Infants from sin Original and such as are of yeares when they are baptized from sinnes Actual
against the moral Law of God So doth his Blood or operative Vertue of his Everlasting sacrifice consecrate or qualifie the Elements of Bread and Wine to purifie and cleanse our soules from such actual sinnes as after Baptism we have committed This perennal Efficacie or Operative Vertue of Christs Body and Blood consecrated once for all by the sacrifice of himself to be a perpetual purification for such as were to be consecrated Kings and Priests unto their God which was thus pictured by the former Legal or Mosaical Rites was more expressly foretold by the Prophet Zacharie For having in the twelfth Chap. ver 10. Prophesied of the piercing of the Son of Gods most pretious Body by the Jewes for which when God should open their eyes to see the truth they should lament and mourn he explicates the Use or End to which the Divine Providence had destinated this their malitious crueltie Chap. 13. 1. In that day there shall be a Fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness By this offering of himself Once for all by this opening of his pretious Side he hath consecrated all that are Sanctified and all that are sanctified are sanctified by it Yet not actually sanctified or actually consecrated by his Blood before it be sprinkled in our hearts by Faith And to instruct us that the Legal Water of separation or sprinkling did foreshadow the Blood of Christ the Apostle termes it The blood of sprinkling Heb. 12. 24. CHAP. LVI The Efficacie of Christs Sacrifice and the Use of his Priest-hood Two distinct several Things Wherein the Exercise of his Priest-hood doth consist How it was foreshaddowed Ordinaâ—ces effectual by vertue of Christs Presence Vertual Presence is a Real presence 1. SUch as deny the Everlasting Efficacie of Christs Sacrifice may be presumed likewise to deny the Vse of his Everlasting Priesthood Howbeit all such as grant the everlasting Efficacie of his Sacrifice cannot hence be concluded to admitt the everlasting use of his Priesthood For these be Two distinct Points of our Belief If Belief in Christs death or in the Everlasting Efficacie of his sacrifice were all that we are bound to believe we were not bound to acknowledge any other Act of his Priesthood besides the offering up of himself in Sacrifice But by this one Act of his Priesthood he was consecrated to be an Everlasting Priest And if he be an Everlasting Priest he still executes the Office or Function of an High Priest And it is our Dutie the Chief Point of our Religion to supplicate unto him as to The Onely High Priest of our Soules that he would make us partakers of his Everlasting Sacrifice as we say ex Officio by exercising the Office or Function of an High Priest The Question is Wherein the Function or exercise of his Priesthood doth consist To this we answer First Negatively That it doth not consist in the often offering up of himself by his Priests or Ministers here on Earth For if he were on Earth saith the Apostle Heb. 8. 4. he should not be a Priest This argues that he exerciseth his Priest-hood in the heavenly Sanctuary not in Temples made vvith hands So saith the Apostle more expresly Heb. 9. 24. Christ is not entred into the holy places made with hands which are the figures of the true but into heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us Nor yet that he should offer himself often as the High priest entreth into the holy place every year 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with bloud of others For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself The truth then is as you have heard before that Christ by his bloudy Sacrifice upon the Crosse was consecrated to be an Everlasting Priest And that this Consecration was not accomplished untill his Resurrection from the dead For it is not conceivable that he should be an Everlasting Priest before he became an Immortal man and by his rising c opened the Gate of Everlasting life After he was thus consecrated by death and by the resurrection from the dead to be an Everlasting Priest after the Order of Melchizedeck he was not to offer any sacrifice nor do we read that Melchizedeck offered any Wherein then did Melchizedecks Priesthood consist Only in the dignitie of Authoritative blessing See Book 9. Ch 9. and 11 He was saith Moses the Priest of the most high God and he blessed Abraham and said Blessed be Abraham of the most High God possessour of Heaven and Earth St. Cyril * See the note at the end of this Chapter in his Parallel betwixt Christ and Melchisedech speakes more expressly and reads the Text more punctually for the Opinion of Reformed Churches than we our selves for the most part doe 2. This exercise of Christs spiritual Priesthood in the heavenly Sanctuary was foreshaddowed by sundry services and sacrifices of the Law By that Solemn Attonement which the High Priest made in the most holy place and as we have often said by the sacrifice of the Red Heifer also Albeit that solemnitie did prefigure him likewise in the Act of his Consecration or designation to his heavenly Sanctuary This Heifer was slain by another without the Camp in Eleazars sight and yet Eleazar the Priest was to sprinkle the bloud of this sacrifice before the Tabernacle of the Congregation that is with his face towards the Sanctuary on which unless he did constantly look whilest he did sprinkle the bloud the service was frustrated as the Jews say This testifyed that the validity of this Act or the purification intended by it was to be expected from the Sanctuary Christ likewise was slain by the hands of sinful men without the City Heb. 9. 14. And yet though slain by them he offered himself by the eternal Spirit And whether by This eternal spirit or by his spirit as man or by both certain it is that by the Spirit he sprinkleth the bloud of the new Covenant upon us and prepareth a way for us to the heavenly Sanctuary As the people under the Law might not enter into the Congregation nor the Priests into the Sanctuary untill they had been purifyed from their uncleanness by the water of sprinkling so neither could we or any of Gods people have accesse unto the most holy Place or heavenly Sanctuary untill the way were prepared for us by the bloud of the Son of God nor untill we be sprinkled and purifyed with his Bloud Having therefore brethren boldnesse to enter into the holyest by the bloud of Jesus by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vaile that is to say his flesh And having an high Priest over the house of God Let us draw neer with a true heart in full assurance of faith having our
hearts sprinkled from an evill conscience and our bodies washed with pure water Heb. 10. 19 20 21 22. He consecrated the Way it self by his Bloudy sacrifice upon the Cross from the very moment in which the Vail did rend asunder the door was opened and the Way prepared But we must be qualifyed for walking in this way and for entring into this heavenly Sanctuary by the present exercise of his everlasting Priesthood which is a Priesthood of blessing not of sacrifice And yet he blesseth us by communicating the vertue and efficacie of his Everlasting Sacrifice unto our soules This participation and this Blessing by it the full expiation of our sinnes we are to expect from his heavenly Sanctuary 3. See Book 9. Chapt 19. God saith the Apostle Hebrews 6. 17. willing more abundantly to shew unto the heires of promise the immutabilitie of his Counsel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 interposed himself by an oath or word by word he mediated by an Oath The Tenor of this Oath as you have heard before was That he would requite Abraham as we say in kind * See Book 8. Chapt. 30. and Book 9. Chap. 17 That as Abraham was then willing to offer up his Son his only Son Isaac in bloudy sacrifice unto him So he would offer or give His Only Son for Abraham and for all such as should follow his Example of Faith and obedience It was in the same promise confirmed by oath implyed That This only Son of God should be the seed of Abraham that in this one seed of Abraham all the nations of the earth should be blessed That for the derivation of this Blessing upon all the Nations upon earth this seed of Abraham should be made a Priest after the order of Melchisedek The hope in this Promise thus confirmed by oath to Abraham is by the Apostle in the same 6. Chap. ver 19. termed an Anchor of the soule Both sure and stedfast But why an Anchor sure and stedfast Because it entreth into that within the vaile to wit into the Heavenly Sanctuary which was prefigured by the Most Holy Place within the material Tabernacle or earthly Sanctuary into which none might come besides the high priest nor he saveing once a year and then not without Blood For he was to purifie or sanctifie it by the blood of the sacrifices which were offered without the Camp or Congregation upon the day of the Attonement And thus The Son of God being crucified without the City of Jerusalem did by his blood then shed enter into the heavenly Sanctuary and even purifie it by his blood Heb. 19. 23 24. But what doth our hope apprehend within the vail The Apostle tells us Heb. 6. 20. Even Jesus made an high priest after the order of Melchisedek that is an high priest to blesse us in the Name of the Most High God to make us blessed even blessed as the Sonnes of God or such as he himself as man is that is Kings and Priests unto our God That this his Priesthood is a Priesthood of Blessing and offereth the Blessing promised unto Abraham to all the Nations of the Earth aswell unto the Gentile as unto the Jew though in the first place unto the Jew St. Peter witnesseth Acts. 3. 25 26. Te are the Children of the Prophets and of the Covenant which God made with our Fathers saying unto Abraham and in thy seed shall all the Kindreds of the Earth be Blessed Vnto you FIRST God having raysed up his Son Jesus sent him to blesse you in turning away every one of you from his Iniquities 4. Yet seeing he entred not into the heavenly Sanctuary without blood seeing he purified Even Heaven it self by his Blood We may not expect the Blessing promised unto Abraham otherwise than by the Vertue of his Blood nor may we expect that his Blood or Vertue of it should be communicated to us otherwise than by the Exercise or Office of his everlasting Priesthood unto which he was consecrated by his blood He now workes the like Cures in our soules by the Vertue of this Priesthood which he wrought in mens Bodies whilest he lived here on earth by the Vertue or presence of his Prophetical Function We may Baptize with water in his Name and with water sanctified by his blood yet unless he baptize with the spirit sent from his heavenly Sanctuary and say unto every one whome we Baptize as he did unto the Leper I will be thou clean our washing is but in vain our whole Action is but a Ceremonie We his Priests or ministers may upon Confession made unto us either in General or in Particular Absolve his people from their sinnes for this Authoritie he hath given us whose sinnes ye remitt they are remitted whose sinnes ye retaine they are retained Yet unless He by his spirit or sweet influence of Grace say unto the soule whom we Absolve as he some-times did unto the man sick of the Palsy Be of good chear thy sinnes be forgiven thee Our Absolution is but a Complement although without our Absolution he do not in this sort Absolve his people oftentimes from their sinnes We may Consecrate the Elements ofBread Wine and administer them so consecrated as Vndoubted Pledges of his Bodie and Blood by which the new Covenant was sealed and the General Pardon purchased Yet unless he grant some actual Influence of his spirit and suffer such Vertue to goe out from his Humane Nature now placed in his Sanctuarie as he once did unto the woman that was cured of her Issue of blood unless this Vertue do as immediately reach our Soules as it did her bodie we do not Really receive his Body and Blood with the Elements of Bread and Wine We do not so receive them as to have our sinnes remitted or dissolved by them we do not by receiving them become of his flesh and of his Bones We gain no degree of Real Vnion with him which is the Sole Use or fruit of his Real Presence Christ might be Locally Present as he was with many here on earth and yet not Really Present But with whomsoever he is Vertually Present that is to whomsoever he communicates the Influence of his Bodie and Blood by his spirit he is Really Present with them though Locally Absent from them Thus he was really present with the woman which was cured of her bloodie issue by touching the hemme of his garment But not so really present with the multitude that did throng and press upon him that were locally more present with him She did not desire so much as to touch his Bodie with her hand for she said in her self If I may but touch the Hemme of his garmennt I shall be whole And yet by our Saviours interpretation She did touch him more immediately than they which were neerer unto him which thrust or thronged him And the reason why she alone did more immediately touch him than any of the rest was because Vertue of healing did
her Cage and having opportunity to have exercised her rage upon Others did single out a Courtisane of Spanish progenie whom she did as cruelly teare in pieces as if she had been Robbed by her of her whelps wearing upon that day a garment of somewhat a darker colour then the Scarlet or bright red and so much the more apt as * See Scarmilion De coloribus Philosophers teach us to provoke or enrage this or other Ravenous Creatures which be of more duskie melancholy blood And the †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Author of the first Booke of Macehab Chap. 6. ver 34. relates a warlike Practise for encouraging the Elephants to fight more fiercely against their Enemies by representing or as it seemes Squeazing the Blood of Grapes and mulberies in their sight or view 6. Now the sight of semblable Colours can have no greater force or efficacie to stir up the blood of Creatures like unto them then the solemne proposall or representation of sins prohibited hath to provoke or enrage the Reliques of Sin originall or to procure the Fits or Motions of it without the assistance of Grace by Christ to restraine them And I cannot perswade my self that some sins not to be named could ever have been or yet could be so frequently practised in diverse Regions which have submitted themselves unto the discipline of the Romish Church to all her Canons and constitutions save only from the representation or expression of the nature of such sins in those loathsome and abhominable Interrogatories which Romish Priests use in taking Auricular Confession CHAP. X. Containing such Description or Definition of Originall Sin as can be gathered from the Effects or Properties of it before mentioned 1. Sin original such a disease of the Soul as the Dropsie or other like diseases are of the body FRom these Discussions of the Properties or Symptomes we may frame this or the like Description of Original Sin it self That it is such a Disease of the Soul or such a corruption of the Humane nature as the Dropsie or other like corrupt Humours are of the Body The one sort includes a thirst or longing after such things as are forbidden them by the Physitian of their Bodies The other an appetite or hunger after such dyet as is in speciall prohibited by the Physitian of their soules And all diseases we know are dangerous wherein the Longing of the corrupt humour or matter which breeds them is much greater then the Longing or appetite of Nature especially if we give satisfaction to such intemperate desires or appetites 2. Or if the Reader desire more then a Description that is some competent Definition of Sin Original the best which for the present I can exhibite is this That it is a positive Renitencie of the Flesh or corrupt Nature of man against the Spiritual Law of God especially against the Negative praecepts being first occasioned or rather caused by the transgression of our First Parents especially from the intemperate Longing of our Mother Evah after the forbidden Fruit. For as our Apostle instructs us 1. Tim. 2. 14. Adam was not deceived but the Woman Being deceived Was in the transgression that is more deeply in the transgression then the Man because she seduced him to eate the forbidden fruit as the Serpent had done her Or as the flesh or sensitive part of our Nature doth yet often seduce the Reasonable Will to yeeld her tacit or implicit consent unto such Actions as they have expresly resolved upon or undertaken without consulting Reason or the masculine part of our Nature 3. From this First Transgression of our First Parents from the birth of Cain unto this present day or hour the forementioned Observation of the Romane Poet Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimusque negata was never out of Date but continued still in full force and strength amongst all the Sons of Adam throughout their severall generations unless perhaps in some few who by speciall priviledge or peculiar Grace have been redeemed from the raigne or dominion of Sin from the womb or from the time wherein they begun to know the difference between good and evill Our blessed Saviour who was no mere Son of Adam but the true and onely Son of God was absolutely Free from the wombe from his Conception as man from all Tincture of Sin Original from all inclinations to attempt or desire any thing that was evill or forbidden by the Law of God 4. Now the Nature Properties and Conditions of Sin Original being such as have been described it is easie to be conceived how potent it is to conquer us and to bring us into Servitude unto it self and unto Sathan Or how it is that very snare or a great part of it whereby such as oppose the truth are taken Captive by the Devill as our Apostle speaks at his will or pleasure 2. Tim. 2. 26. But of this point hereafter CHAP. XI Containing the Resolution of the maine Difficultie proposed to wit How the First Actual Sin of our First Parents did produce more then a Habit of Sin an Hereditarie disease in all their Posteritie 1. The eating of the Forbidden Fruit did pollute or poyson the nature of man THe chief Difficultie at least as some make it is How the First Sin whether of our Father Adam or of our Mother Evah or of both could possibly produce a perpetuall Habit of Sin in themselves or an Hereditarie corruption of the Humane Nature propagated from them throughout all generations This difficultie though cannot be press'd or drawne unto any Contradiction to the unquestionable rules of Reason or true Philosophy The full and cleer Solution of it only surpasseth the reach of Reason meerely natural or of Philosophy not enlightened by sacred History or Mosaicall Relations of the estate wherein man was created Surely if Plinie or some other Naturalist had been so happy as to have diligently perused and beleeved the Oracles of God delivered by Moses Gen. 1. 2. and 3. c. We Christians this day Living might have had more satisfactorie Resolutions for clearing this Point then we can gather from the Schoole-men or many of the Ancient Fathers * Gregorius de Arimino Some Schoole-men do think that our Nature was corrupted by the poysonous breath of the old Serpent in his conference with our Mother Evah I neither know nor remember whether they have any ground of this conjecture from true Antiquitie or whether it be a Masterlesse piece of their own coyning The conjecture or Phancie it self is for this reason Less probable because the Nature of our Father Adam who held no parlie with the old Serpent was no less corrupted then the Nature of his Consort Evah Other good writers are of opinion that the fruit of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evill was for its specifical quality of a poysonous Nature both to the Soul and body at Least apt to taint or corrupt both and the first mans nature
was tainted by tasting or eating of it For of it he did eate as much as Evah did if not more though she were more in the transgression because she had plucked it from the tree And I cannot conjecture any ground why any ingenuous Reader of the sacred Story should peremptorily reject this opinion which I for my poore talent in Divinite hold in some better esteem then a meere or probable conjecture No Article of Christian Faith it is though we should suppose Faith it self to be no more then an Opinion yet to be admitted into the List of piè Credibilia or to be ranked amongst such opinions as may be more piously and more safely beleeved then peremptorily rejected or derided The Consequence of this Opinion or Supposition is That Adam did become his own Executioner Or as the Canonists speak incidere in Canonem did absolutely inflict that punishment upon himself unto which his Creator had but conditionally sentenced him Gen. 2. 17. But of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evill thou shalt not eat of it for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye There was no Necessity Laid upon him by his Creator that he should eat of it but such a peremptory Restraint or Command to the Contrary that whensoever he did eat of it Death should necessarily follow And so it did for Mortality and Corruption did enter into his Nature with the Figg or Apple which he tasted not only upon the same day wherein he tasted it but in the very same moment And the same mortality and corruption are propagated to all his Sons from the first moment or point of time wherein they begin to be his Sons Or more briefly The Forbidden Fruit of what sort soever it were did as truly beget or bring forth corruption and Mortality in our Nature as Adam did beget Cain or Evah bring him forth 2. Objections that are or can be made against the former Resolutions answered But it may be and I presume will be Objected That not the Forbidden Fruit only but the whole Tree whereon it grew root and branch were immediately created by God before Adam could taste or eat of it And if it were for specifical quality poysonous or did necessarily taint the whole humane Nature being once tasted of How can either Fruit or Tree be conceived to be any part of Gods six-days-works all of which were very good Or how shall we salve or be able to maintain that Maxim of the Wise man God did not create death Wisd 1. 13. seeing he did create that poysonous Fruit by which our Nature was deadly poysoned Facilis Solutio the answer is ready Albeit deadly poyson be not Good to him that takes it yet that there should be poyson or herbs and fruits in their nature poysonous as well as medicinal or wholsom is and from the beginning was very Good Good likewise it was exceeding Good that the First man should have death as well as Life proposed to his Free or unnecessitatible choice So the whole fault was in himself no part in the fruit which God had forbidden him to eat For he by thus eating of it did chuse death before life And however the fruit which we suppose to have carried deadly poyson with it into his body were immediately created by God Yet that of the Prophet is more remarkably true of our first Parents then of Israel unto whom it was directed Perditio tua ex te O Adam Thou wast the cause of thine own and of our destruction But of our salvation in and through the promised seed Our gratious Creator is the sole Cause and Author Again Albeit Adam did exceeding ill in chusing death before Life yet This in the Consequence by special dispensation of divine Mercy was Good for us Our Nature was not so much wounded or made worse by that unhallowed Food as our persons are bettered and our estate amended by the new Covenant in Christs bloud unlesse we abuse those Talents which our Gratious Creator and Redâ—emer hath given us as Adam did his Were Free choice left unto us which now are living Whether we would accept that estate or Condition of life wherein Adam was created or that which is granted us by the new Covenant in Christs bloud He should commit as great a folly as our First Parents did that would not embrace the later Condition and refuse the Former 3 But for the former Difficulty How more then a Habit of sin an Hereditary disease of nature should be produced by one or two Acts I am afraid some men make it seem a great deal greater then it is more by their own incogitancy then by any positive Argument that can be brought to enlarge or presse it further then at the first sight it appears to every young Student First these men take it not into consideration that our First parents might commit more Actual sins then that One often mentioned before the corruption of nature was propagated to their Successors Besides The Alteration of their diet change of dwelling and air might depresse their nature and dispose then to a deeper degree of Mortality and Corruption then they were subject unto when they were first driven out of Paradise And Paradise for ought we know or can possibly object to the contrary might for many conveniences and conducements to preservation of health whether of body or minde exceed all other habitations as far as Princes Palaces do common Gaoles What further impressions other occurrences besides these mentioned intervenient between our First Parents Grand-sin and the birth of Cain of Seth or others of their Children from whom all the Kindreds of the earth Lineally descended might make in the nature propagated from them or what effects or Symptomes our mother Evah's Longing after the forbidden Fruit might leave in her self or in her Children is unknown to us yet a Point to be considered by such as think it scarce possible for one Act to produce a Habit. This we know in general That the eager Longings of Mothers or distastes or affrightments taken by them do often imprint many hereditary dispositions in their Children And from this original all or most of those strange Antipathies unto meats or drinks in themselves good and wholsome and unto other Live or Livelesse creatures no way noysome do as Learned Physitians resolve us naturally issue Yet no Antipathies in private families can be so perpetually hereditary as those inclinations unto Evil or Antipathies unto goodnesse which proceeded from the First well-head or spring of our Nature to wit from our mother Evah That being once corrupted could not but corrupt the whole current As for Evah's Lusting after whatsoever other unlawful pleasures her Longing after the Fair-seeming Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge we may hence gather to have been very intemperate and exuberant beyond the ordinary size of unruly appetites in that Holiness with sobriety is more specially at Least under more expresse
as well of our Actions as of our Wils and desires Of these two branches of Servitude is that of the Apostle Rom. 7. 14 15. For we know that the Law is spiritual but I am Carnal sold under Sin For that which I do I allow not for what I would that do I not but what I hate that do I. And vers 19. For the good that I would I do not but the evil which I would not that do I. 2. The Third branch of this servitude unto sin consists in an Impotency or want of ability to will or desire those things which we ought to desire The Root of this branch is Ignorance either of those good things which may be known by natural light of Reason or by the word of God Of this branch of servitude or of Servants of this rank or Condition is that of the Apostle especially true and intended by him Eph. 4. 18. That they have their minds darkened and the eyes of their understanding blinded through the ignorance that is in them 3. The Fourth and last Branch which is likewise the worst consists in a Necessity of Willing and desiring that which we ought not to desire or will Against this branch of Servitude or men thus affected is that Woe of the Prophet in particular denounced Esay 5. 20. We unto them that call evil good and good evil that put darkness for light and light for darkness that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter Of this Third and Fourth Branch is that of the Apostle Eph. 4. 19. Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto Lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness 4. The Third Branch or Impotency of willing that which we ought or that which we are in duty bound not only to will but to do is such an Infirmity of the Soul as we see in some mens bodies which have lost not only their digestive Faculty but all appetite of wholesome Food This Fourth and last Branch which consists in a Necessity of willing that which we ought not to will is like to that distemper of body which Physitians call the Pica or the Malacia that is a ravenous Appetite or greedy Longing after such things as are Loathsome and unnatural 5. These Branches of Servitude unto sin either natural or acquired All these Branches of Servitude but especially the First and the Third are Two-fold either Natural or Acquired Or to speak more properly The Roots and First seeds of them are natural and hereditary from our first Parents The Nutriment the Growth or increase of them is for the most part from men themselves not from Adam These are acquired or purchased by ill Education or breeding ☜ by lewd Company or bad Customes Never was there any son of Adam but upon Examination might have found himself oft-times indisposed unapt or altogether unable to do many things which in the General he approved as Good in his retured thoughts he desired to do and for the not doing of which when opportunity served and occasions required his wakened Conscience or After-thoughts would often check him Never was there any son of Adam whose Conscience upon a review or Examination of his Actions would not accuse or condemn him for doing many things which in better Mood he desired not to do and such things as he had promised to himself and his own Conscience if not to others not to do 6. But this Necessity of doing many things which in their sober mood they resolve not to do ☜ or of doing them in such a high measure and degree as oft-times they are done is not Hereditary to any Son of Adam This is a necessity which men bring upon themselves either by frequenting Lewd Company or by bad Custome or at least have it brought upon them not by Adam but by the bad example or ill instructions of their immediate Parents or Overseers As for the Fourth Branch of Servitude which consists in a Necessity of willing or desiring those things which men ought not to desire this of all the rest is least hereditary For it includes a degree of Iniquity with which we cannot charge our Father Adam He indeed sought to mince or mitigate his offence after he had wilfully committed it and thus to do was a grievous fault or offence But we never read nor have we any reason to suspect that he did delight or glory either in this or in any other Sin or use his sins past as an advantage or Rise to mount himself to Sin We do not read that Cain did glory in the murther of his Brother Abel or that Judas did make himself merry with the price of bloud Both of them were servants unto Sin and by sin unto Satan Their Servitude unto sin in general was hereditarie and necessarily derived unto them as it is naturally unto all us from our father Adam But neither was the One a Murtherer or Fratricide nor the other a Traytor by natural d scent or inheritance Judas became a Traytor by making himself as base a Servant or vassal to Covetousnesse yet not so great a servant to the one or other Sin as those which delight and glory in these or the like Sins For though the Scripture hath concluded all under sin as well the Jew as the Gentile Though the best of men as the Scripture teacheth us be by Nature the Servants of sin yet we read of some whom the Scripture hath branded with this mark that they have sold themselves to work wickedness or do mischief And these are slaves to Sin and Bond-men unto Satan by a double Title the One by natural descent or inheritance the Other by their own voluntary Acts as it were of bargain or Sale Cain and these Jews mentioned John 8. which persecuted our Saviour because his works were Good and theirs were evil were not only the Sons of Adam though that were enough to make them Servants of Sin but as our Saviour tels them in the 44. verse of that 8. Chapter They were of their Father the Devil 7. But to descend unto a more particular survey of Every Branch beginning with the First and Second which are for the most part coincident and so mutually wrapt together that we cannot truly handle the one but we must touch the other For The First as hath been said before consists in an impotencie or impossibility of doing that which we oft-times desire to doe and approve as good And this impotency or impossibility doth ordinarily proceed from or draw after it a necessitie of doing that which we destire not to do and which in our better thoughts we altogether condemn as naughty and unfitting to be done 8. Some measure of these Branches was clearly discovered by the wiser and more sober sort of the Heathen How far the Testimonies of the Heathen are Authentick for the truth of this Doctrine delivered And the men which were most subject to either were adjudged by them
Salvation as God is readie to work in them and for them And because God never failes to work salvation in them and for them that are diligent in seeking it or affraid to neglect it therefore they are said to Work out their own Salvation not properly or Formally but Consecutivè that is Salvation is the Necessary Consequent of their working or doth necessarily follow upon their work Not by any force or Efficacie of their Work or by any natural Connexion but meerely by Gods Appointment or Decree The very same phrase in the Original our Saviour useth unto the people John 6. 27. Which words can beare no other Construction then that which we have made of St. Pauls words Philip. 2. 12. no other Interpretation then our English hath already made Labour not for the meat which perisheth but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life And so the Vulgar Latin doth not render them verbatim Operamini Cibum but Operamini Cibo Not Work that meat but work for that meat For if That Meat which endureth to eternal Life must be given them by the Son of God if This Meat be the very Bodie and Blood of the Son of God it cannot be the proper Effect of any mans work or any Merit of man but the End or consequent of our Labours or endeavours and yet we are said to work This Meat in the same sense that we are said to work our Salvation viz. Consecutivè because God doth infallibly make us partakers of it if we diligently seek after it or labour for it 7. By the right Use of this Distinction we may reconcile many places of Holy Scripture which seem repugnant one to another as Likewise qualifie many Speeches whether of the Fathers or some Good Modern Writers which otherwise would seem harsh and offensive Who can say saith Solomon Prov. 20. 9. I have made my heart clean This Interrogation is in all mens judgement Equivalent to this Universal Negative No man can say I have made my heart clean Howbeit the Psalmist Psal 73. 13. saith Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain There is no Contradiction between this Psalmists Particular Affirmative I have cleansed my heart and Solomons Universal Negative No man can say I have cleansed my heart Solomon speakes of the Internal Purification which is the proper Effect and sole work of Gods Spirit The Psalmist speakes of his own Labours or Endeavours that his heart might be thus purified by the spirit of God He then did cleanse his heart Consecutivè non Formaliter Every one Saith St. John that hath this hope in him purifies himself as he is pure 1. Joh. 3. 3. This place perhaps Some will say is meant of men Regenerate only seeing they only have that hope whereof the Apostle here speakes Many other such places of scripture there be in which we are said and sometime Commanded to Purifie our Selves as Jam. 4. 8. Cleanse your hands ye Sinners and purifie your hearts ye double minded This place cannot be meant of men truely regenerate For even Sinners and double minded men such as men regenerate are not are commanded to cleanse their hands and to purifie their hearts Many other places likewise there be wherein this purifying of the heart is wholly ascribed unto God God saith St. Paul Act. 15. 9. put no difference betwixt us and them purifying their hearts by Faith Not this Purification only But all other Good Works are said to be wrought by God as Esay 26. 12. Lord thou wilt ordaine peace for us for thou also hast wrought all our workes in us or for us And our Saviour saith John 15. ver 5. Without me ye can do nothing Both parts of our former Distinction are included in that of St. Paul 2. Tim. 2. 21. If any man purge himself from these he shall be a Vessel unto honour Sanctified and meet for the Masters Vse and prepared unto every good work His speech is if we mark it He shall be made a Vessell unto honour if he purge himself He doth not say He shall be enabled to make himself a Vessell of Honour Nor doth he in proprietie of speech or as we say Formally or Efficiently purge himself But in that he doth those things whereupon this Purification by Gods Spirit doth immediately follow Man is said to purge himself And so are we in this place of St. Paul Rom 8. said to mortifie the deeds of the bodie by the Spirit when we do those things whereupon this Mortification doth immediately insue not by any Merit or Causalitie of our works but by Gods meere Grace by the Councel of his Holy irresistible Will by the Determination of his Eternal Decree by which it hath pleased him to apoint The One as a Necessarie Consequent of The Other to witt Spiritual Mortification or life it self as the Issue of our endeavours to Mortifie the Flesh This kind of Speech is usual not in Scripture only but in other Good Writers and in our Common Dialect So Tully tells us of a Romane Orator who for want of skill in Civill Law Petijt revera ut causa caderet made a Motion that he might Loose his Cause This Motion he did not make directly or Formally His meaning is that if his Motion had been granted he must by Necessary Consequent have lost his Cause Thus when we see a man Look Old whom we know to be much younger then our selves we usually say You make me an Old Man Not hereby meaning that he hath brought Old-Age or Gray Haires upon us by any trouble or vexation but that he who is much younger then we being apparently Old we must by Consequence be Old So that he makes us Old not Efficiently but only by Consequent truely argues us to be Old According to this Analogie of Speech by which He is said to make us Old whose Age doth truely argue us to be Old is that Prophesie litterally mean◠of Jeremiah which was punctually or formally fulfilled in God or his Christ Jer. 1. 10. See I have this day set thee over the Nations and over the Kingdomes to root out and to Pull down and to destroy and to throw down to build and to plant Jeremiah did never Levie an Armie or incite any people to take Armes for the Deposition of their present Governour or for the Alteration of any state yet in as much as He foretold the Extirpation of Some Kingdomes and the Erection or Plantation of Others And in as much as what he foretold did certainly come to passe he is said to have Done that which did Follow upon his Predictions though many yeares after his death And in the same Sense we are said to Mortifie the Flesh to cleanse our Hearts to work out our Salvation yea to make our Election sure when we do those things whereupon our Purification or Mortification shall be wrought though many yeares hence and alwaies wrought by the Omnipotent Power of that Decree by which those Kingdomes
heirs not therefore in the estate of absolute election because they are in the estate of the sons of God or heirs with Christ by Baptism For many whom God hath graciously accepted for his sons many who during the time of their Infancy have enjoyed the estate or Priviledge of the sons of God may in riper years turn Prodigal sons and disinherit themselves and none can be disinherited but he that hath been in the estate or Condition of an Heire or untill with Esau he have sold his birth-right Both parts of this Assertion That all that are Baptized in their Infancy become the Sons of God and during their Infancy do live to God 2. That Sin even in such may revive and wound some grievously others mortally are included in our Apostles dispute Rom. 7. 9. I was once alive saith the Apostle without the Law but when the Commandement came sin revived and I dyed Doth he speak this of himself only or of all men without exception or restraint that were without the Law Not Absolutely of all Men that were without the Law for so the Gentiles which were not under the Law which knew not God nor his Lawes should have been so alive as the Apostle there saith he sometimes was because they were more without the Law then he at any time was Nor doth he speake this of himself alone but of all such as he was That is of all such and only such as were the Seed of Abraham and had been circumcised the 8 th day and by Circumcision became under the Law though for the present without the Law So that as Baptism now so circumcision then did free the Children of Abraham from the curse of the Law did Translate them from the estate or Condition of the Sons of wrath to the Condition or Priviledge of the Sons of God But did the Apostle or his brethren which were made alive by Circumcision in their Infancy continue in the same estate of Life untill their mortal Lives end No The Apostle expresly adds But when the Commandement came sin revived and I dyed So that sin before the Commandement came was dead and revived when the Law came And the Apostle before the same point of time was alive but then dyed When then did the commandement come which by its coming did bring life to sin and death to this our Apostle and such as he was It is an Observation of very good Vse which S. Basil hath to this purpose in his Comment upon the first Psalm See S. Basil's words at the End of this Chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When our Reason comes once to ripeness or perfection That is fulfilled which is written Adveniente mandato revixit Peccatum when the Commandement comes Sin revives For when such as have submitted themselves to the Law of God come to the use of Reason or to take their Estate into Consideration they begin to examine their Consciences by the Law of God and sin which was before Inherent though quiet being called in Question grows desperate and rebellious against the Law by which it is examined against the Judge which condemns it against the Party which calls it in Question The Extract as well of our Apostles speech as of S. Basils Observation upon it confirms the Truth Chap. 29. n. 5. which was before delivered in the Treatise of Mortification That the same measure of Regeneration which sufficeth during the time of Infancy or Childhood sufficeth not to save the same Parties when they come to Use of Reason or Consideration for then the Commandement comes upon us a Commandement to Mortifie the deeds of the Flesh by the Spirit to enter the Lists or Combate with sin reviving in us which will certainly kill us unless we mortifie it as it reviveth in us or quell it as it rebells against us So that the estate or Condition of such as have been baptized after once they come to the use of Reason is an estate different from their estate in their Infancy or Childhood an estate likewise different ordinarily from the Absolute estate of Election But of this estate and of our Christian demeanour in it I shall now only say thus much in Generall This Mortification of the Flesh which our Apostle injoynes Rom. 8. 13. is that Reasonaâ—le Service which the same Apostle requires Rom. 12. 1. I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your Reasonable Service But why a Reasonable Service In opposition to the Service of the Law which did consist in the Sacrifice of Buls and Goats and other Reasonless Creatures which yet were offered by the holy men of God in Testification of their Faith or Expectation of the promised Messias This Reasonable Service or Mortification of the Flesh must be performed by us in Testification of our Beliefe that he hath accomplished the Sacrifices of the Law by the Sacrifice of himself Again this sacrifice or offering of Our selves that is of Mortifying our Brutish or unreasonable affections by the Spirit Aurum Thus Myrrham Regique Hominique Deoque says Juvencus an old Poet and Father that lived An. xii 330. is a great deal more acceptable to God then the offerings which the three Kings or Wise men offered unto our Saviour Jesus Christ They offered Gold Myrrhe and Frankincense in testimony or acknowledgement that the child then born was the King of the Jews But in as much as we know that we are not redeemed with silver and gold but with the precious bloud of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish we cannot either Symbolize with the Sacrifice of our High Priest or attain to that live Sympathie with him by the offering of silver gold or any other kind of offering besides the sacrifice of a broken and contrite spirit If as He offred himself by the eternall Spirit to God the Father for us So we again offer up our selves to him by Mortifying our earthly man by the Spirit then his Bloud as the Apostle speaks Heb. 9. 14. shall throughly purge our Consciences from dead works to serve the living God and finally cleanse us from all our sins Unto this Reasonable service or offering up of our selves We were consecrated by Baptism This was a Sermon preacht upon the Epiphanie as I take it and bound by solemn vow then made and if we continue constant in performing this Vow after we come to riper years we shall continue in the state or Condition of the Sons of God which we had by Baptism and by continuance or Progress in this estate we shall arrive at the Immutable state of grace or absolute election For the end of the Son of Gods appearance or manifestation was that he might thus lead us on from strength to strength untill we appear before our God in Sion The Doctrine of Mortification and the consequences thereof were it thus Taught and Laid to the
a Black English Letter printed at London Anno Dom. 1598. By the Deputies of Christopher Barker And it Runs thus The Text. Of old ordasined to this Condemnation The note e He confirmeth their heart against the Contemners of Religion and Apostates shewing that such men trouble not the Church at All-adventures but are appointed thereunto by the Determinate Counsel of God Thus it is in that Edition Though in some Bibles with Notes since printed some words or part of that Note is omitted 2. To Fol. 3168. To Those words in in the 7. Paragraph of this 38. Chapter The Party thus offending doth expell himself The Heathens had a Notion very remarkable That the Gods were desirous to shew mercy at least to be quiet and not to have their Justice provoked by the sins of men Coelum ipsum petimus Stultitia neque per nostrum patimur scelus Iracunda Iovem ponere fulmina says Horace Carm. l. 1. Ode 3. It is a complaint usual with Salvian Salv. Lib. 1. in his Books de Gubern Dei That though God were loth to pumish yet men did exigere extorquere ut perirent And that they did vim facere manus inferre pietati Divinae omni peccatorum scelere quasi omni telorum genere misericordiam Dei expugnare And yet for all this Complain'd of Gods severitie whereas nos nobis nos accusandi sumus Lib. 4. Nam cum ea quibus torqueamur admittimus ipsi tormentorum nostorum autores sumus Isa 50. 11. Unusquisque nostrum ipse se punit ideo illud Propheticum ad nos dicitur Ecce omnes vos ignem accendit is vires praebet is Flammae Ingredimini in Lucemignis vestri flammae quam accendist is Totum namque humanum genus hoc ordine in poenam aeternam ruit quo scriptura memoravit Primum enim accendit posteà vires ignibus praebet postremo flammam ingreditur quam paravit Quando igitur primum sibi homo aeternum accendit ignem sc cum primùm peecare incipit Quando autem vires ignibus praebet Cum utique peccatis peccata cumularit Quando verò ignem aeternum introibit quando irremediabilem jam Omnium Malorum summam Crescentium delictorum iniquitate Compleverit Mat. 23. 32. Sicut Salvator noster ad Iudaeos ait Implete mensuram patrum vestrorum And in his seventh Book Quicquid actum est peccatis non Deo ascribendum Salv. Lib. 7. quia rectè illi rei factum ascribitur quae ut ita fieret exegit Nam Homicida cum à judice occiditur suo scelere punitur Et Latro aut Sacrilegus cum flammis Exuritur suis criminibus concrematur This agrees with the Rules of Civil Law Qui causam dat damni ipsum Damnum dedisse videtur Qui sceleratum Consilium cepit exinde quodammodo sua mente punitus est So the Emperours Severus and Antoninus in L. 34. D. de Jure Fisci Rescripserunt Asclepiadi Ipse te huie poenae subdidisti Ex quo notant D. D. Eum qui delinquit hoc ipso praesumi voluisse obligare sese ad poenam ei delicto praestitutam See Macarius his 4. Homilie where he Cites Rom. 2. 5. Thou treasurest up to thy self wrath Hom. 12. Interrog 5. Yea sure most Certain it is That every One which commits any sin together with yea in the very Commission of that sin enters an Obligation and forfeits himself to the very same punishment which the Divine Justice hath inflicted or awarded unto that sin in the Examples recorded in Holy Scripture Achan bound himself to appear in the Valley of Achor or Trouble by the very taking of the wedge and cloathes which were indeed no other then the Earnest of those wages which were there paid unto him Ahab and Iezabel by seazing on Naboth and his Vineyard forfeited their blouds to the Dogs Gehezi brought back the Syrian Leprosie wrapt up in the Raiment c. Even so Holy and True and Righteous are Thy Iudgements O Lord who would not fear Thee O King of Nations which hast Ordained that an Inordinate mind should not only Breed and bring forth but Be a Punishment an Executioner a witness and a Iudge unto it self This last Observation is partly S. Austin's That which follows is a Heathen's Exemplo quodcunque malo Committitur ipsi Displicet Authori. Prima est haec ultio quod se Iudice nemo nocens absolvitur improba quamvis Gratia fallacem Praetoris vicerit urnam c. See Iuvenals 13. Sutyre The 3. Note taken out of the Authors writings relates to Fol. 3172. at the 2. Marginal Note Some deny all Baptismal Grace Others grant that some Grace is given to Infants in Baptism but restrain it only to Infants Elect. So they expound the Church-Catechism which teaches children to believe That as Christ redeem'd them and all maâ—kind so the Holy Ghost doth sanctifie them and all the Elect People of God But who can think that our Church meant to teach Children at the first Profession of their Faith to believe they were Elect that is such as cannot finally perish This was to teach them their Faith backwards to seek heaven by descending from it S. Paul nay The Angels that have kept their first Estate almost 6000. years could not reach higher Yet would our Church have every one at his first Profession of Faith believe that he is One of the Elect people of God Those RR. Fathers that composed that Catechism and our H. mother that did Authorize it did in charitie presume that every one which would take upon him to expound that Catechism or other Principles of Faith should first know the Distinction between Elect that is such as cannot perish and the Elect people of God or between Election unto Gods ordinary Grace or means of Salvation and Election unto Glory Every Nation or Company of men when first Converted from Gentilism to Christianity became an Elect people a chosen Generation that is they and their seed were made capable of Baptism reciev'd an Interest in Gods Promises c. which Heathens whilest Heathens could not have All of us are in Baptism thus far sanctifyed that we are made true Members of the visible Church qualifyed for hearing the word receiving the Sacrament of Christs Body and Bloud and all other Benefits of Christs Priestly Function that are committed to the Dispensation of his Ministers here on earth Out of This the Reader may easily Pick what is Pertinent to that place Fol. 3172. A Note Relating to the Chapter following This Learned Author in the year 1628. Published his sixth Book of Comments upon the Creed or his Treatise of the Divine Essence and Attributes Immediatly where upon Mr. H. Burton taking offence Published his book styled Israels Fast Perhaps he might preach some part of it at the Fast held in the Beginning of the Parliament cald that year In the Epistle Dedicatory perfix't to that Book he
untill we be actually cleansed from these later by the bloud of Christ. I should now proceed unto the manner how the Son of God doth dissolve those works which Satan worketh in us after Baptism or regeneration or how we are actually cleansed from sinne by his bloud 11. The Error of the sacrifice of the Mass But here again I find the Truth besett with Two Errors or Extremes the One Positive or an Heresie maintained by the Romish Church which in effect denies the infinite value or everlasting Efficacie of Christs bloudy Sacrifice upon the Crosse The Other Extreme is an Incogitancy of some men which magnisie the everlasting Efficacie or infinite value of Christs Bloudie Sacrifice not too much for so they cannot but amiss they make it everlasting after such a manner or rather make such use or application of its everlasting Efficacie or infinite value to themselves and to their hearers as makes his Everlasting Priesthood to be uselesse or needlesse To begin with the First Error or Extreme Is it possible that That Church which challengeth the Title of Catholick as her own peculiar should deny the most Fundamental Article of Catholick Faith as is the everlasting Efficacie or infinite value of Christs Bloudie Sacrifice In expresse terms or directly she doth not deny it Her Advocates dare not professe the denyal of it For so most of their Faction whom they lead blindfold would forsake them as Hereticks and Aliens from the Antient and Orthodoxal Church Yet the more stifly the greatest Scholars in that Church deny the imputation or Charge which we lay upon them the better proof we shall gain from them that they are the men which as the Apostle saith are given over to believe Lyes that they are the men on whose soules the spirit of delusion hath seazed If we shall decypher the impression or Character of that spirit so clearly that every one which is not sworn to their Faction whether Jew Mahumetan or Heathen or other more indifferent though but indued with Common Reason may run and read it Let us see then how they expose the greatest Mysteries of our Salvation unto the just scorn and derision of the lew Mahumetan or Heathen without possibilitie of Apologie for their manifest contradicting the Principles not of Christianitie only but of Common Reason Thus you may imagine any Iewish School-Boy or young Artist Catechized in the Rudiments of his own Religion would oppose the greatest Rabbines in the Romish Church We of the Jewish Nation once had our ordinary Priests which offered sacrifices daily in the temple we had our high Priest which went into the most holy place once a year with the bloud of the Anniversary and solemn sacrifices ye Christian Catholicks so ye term your selves teach your hearers as your Apostle hath taught you that the best sacrifices which our Fathers used were but Shadowes fore-signifying the taking away of sin they did not they could not take away sins or cleanse the consciences of such as offered them And why could not our sacrifices take away sin your Apostle gives this Reason because they were often offered Heb. 10. ver 1. 2. c. Ye Christian Catholicks have your high Priest who as ye say offered himself up in bloudy sacrifice unto God for your sinnes was this his sacrifice perfect or was it not Did it take away sinnes more perfectly then the sacrifices which our Fathers used or did it not ye say It did we say It did not it could not if your Apostles Principles or Expositions of Scriptures be true and your practise not false or unlawful Your Priests as you confess stand daily ministring and offering the same sacrifice which your high Priest did offer and therefore by your Apostles argument against us and by your practise this sacrifice can never take away sinne it is more the same sacrifice than the sacrifices of the Law were And yet it is offered oftner and in more places than any Legal sacrifices were 12. Some devoted to the Romish religion will perhaps say in their hearts the Doctors of our Church know well enough how to untye these knots which the Iewes cast albeit so learnedly and so subtilly that no unlearned man can perceive how they untye them If men will thus believe or rely upon their Teachers skill without any true experiment of it we cannot help it Yet if you will believe me upon the faith of a Christian I never yet could see any Romish Writer which leaves not the former knot worse then he found it after he had used all the paines and skill he had to untwist it The wisest and most learned of them usually let it slide away without medling Many of you perhaps have read what the Rhemists in their Notes upon the tenth to the Hebrewes have attempted To make you believe that all is loose The Apostle say they speakes of the sacrifices of the Law not of the sacrifice of the Mass It is true indeed he speakes of the sacrifices of the Law for he proves them to be unperfect unsufficient but he proves them to be unsufficient by such a Reason as will conclude more strongly not only against the sacrifice of the Mass if so the sacrifice of the Masse were as lawfull as the Legal sacrifices sometimes were or the Reiteration of it not more abominable in the sight of God then the restauration of Legal bloudie sacrifices at this day would be But against Christs bloudy sacrifice upon the †He meanes if it needed to be often offered Cross also The only Reason by which the Apostle proves the best kind of Legal sacrifices even whilest they were lawfully used and according to Gods appointment to have been altogether unsufficient for taking away sinne is because they were to be often offered Now every particular must be proved by an universal and A true universal Rule or Principle includes the same reason in every particular The Apostle could not prove the Legal Services to have been imperfect for this Reason that they were often offered unless this Vniversal were true and taken by him as granted That no sacrifices or sacrifice of what kind soever which is often offered can be perfect or sufficient to take away sinnes This universal Reason the Apostle takes as granted by Light of Nature and Common Reason and so frames his Argument from the Authoritie of Scriptures and the consonancie of Common Reason or light of nature ver 15. The Holy Ghost ALSO is witnesse c. It is as idle and as frivolous a shift wherewith the same Rhemists seek to put off their ignorant Readers when they tell them that Christs body was but once offered up in a bloudy manner but may and ought to be often offered up in a bloudless manner The very root and ground of this distinction if you examine it by our Apostles Argument includes a confession or acknowledgement of the CRIME or HERESIE which we object unto them to wit that The bloudy Sacrifice
Wrath against sinne and sinners vvas not appeased nor could be appeased by this kind of bloudy sacrifices All this the yearly and daily offering of bloudy sacrifices did clearly testifie unto the consciences of such as offered them And that so often as God required these sacrifices he did call their sins unto remembrance and as it vvere by matter of Fact proclaim unto the World that as yet his Wrath against sin vvas not could not be appeased by these or the like kind of Sacrifices But inasmuch as the Law though in it-self imperfect and therefore could make nothing perfect vvas yet an Introduction to a better Hope the continual reiteration or repetition of these bloudy sacrifices did teach such as used them aright to expect a more sufficient bloudy sacrifice vvhich should fully appease the vvrath of God and Testifie unto mens consciences that he did remember their sins no more in such sort as during the time of the Law he had done that is there should be no more exchange or commutation of punishment no solemn remembrance of sinne by any sacrifice of what kind soever for sin but this one sacrifice should suffice for all 4. That we may ascend by degrees unto the infinite value and everlasting Effiâ—acie of the sacrifice of the sonne of God we are in the first place to consider the odds or difference between this only Sacrifice and the sacrifices of the Law The odds or differences between them may be reduced unto these Two Heads First To the Diversitie of their immediate Effects Secondly To their different Efficacie or proportion for effecting the several Ends to which they were especially destinated 1. The Immediate effect of the bloudy Sacrifices of the Law was to cleanse or purifie the offerers from sinnes committed against the Law of Ceremonies and this as the Apostle termes it was a Purification or Sanctification according to the flesh Howbeit this Sanctification was a shadow or picture of that purification of the Conscience or Sanctification of the Spirit which was to be effected by the bloody Sacrifice of the Son of God 2. The sacrifices of the Law were no way so Powerfull or sufficient for effecting the Sanctifying of the flesh as the Sacrifice of the Son of God is for effecting the Sanctification of the spirit and Conscience There was no one kind of Legal sacrifices which might make a full attonement for all sinnes or sinners against the Law of Ceremonies For every different sin or legal uncleanness they had for the most part a different kind of sacrifice or offering And if a man had been this day cleansed by sacrifice from some particular sin or legal uncleanness and had fallen again unto the like to morrow the blood of the former sacrifice could not stead him the second time Every particular relaps into the same sin was to have a particular offering or fresh Sacrifice though of the same kind with the former 5. The infinite value of the Bloody Sacrifice of the Son of God may from this imperfection of the legall sacrifices be distinctly apprehended if we consider that not the Jew onely but the Gentiles one and other were Enemies and rebells against God all by nature the sonnes of wrath and perdition and yet the favour of reconciliation for all that then were or afterwards should be albeit this world should continue a million of years was purchased by this one bloody Sacrifice as by a just and full price What sinnes soever any man had committed they did not prejudice his Interest in the pardon purchased it was universal in respect of al sinners and in respect of all sinnes The Almighty Father's wrath against mankind was by this Onely Sacrifice so well appeased so fully satisfied that he is ready to receive all into the favour and Privilege of sonnes which will with due reverence accept of the Pardon offered and sue it out by such meanes as he hath appointed Now this Vniversal Favour for all men to whom nothing but vengeance was in Justice due could not possibly be purchased by any Sacrifice which was not of Value absolutely infinite But to grant an absolute Pardon not onely for all sinnes past before the acceptance of the Pardon but for willfull obstinacie or continuance in sinne or rebellion after so Gratious a Proclamation of Pardon could be no Effect of Gods infinite Mercy no Fruits of Christs infinite Merits For infinite Merits cannot benefit men altogether unqualified or uncapable of them And Mercy infinite must retaine the nature of mercy it reacheth not beyond the proper Object of mercy And the proper Object of mercy is penitencie or sorrow for Misdemeanors past or present Willfull continuance or obstinacie in exorbitant courses or contempt of mercy offered is the Object of Justice or indignation 6. But besides the Infinite Value we are to acknowledge the infinite or Everlasting Efficacie or Operative Vertue of this bloody Sacrifice of the Son of God Want of distinguishing between these two hath occasioned many Errours or oversights in Divinitie That there is a Distinction to be put betwixt them we may thus conceive Suppose the Son of God immediately after he had payed the ransom for our sinnes or in that Instant in which he said Consummatum Est all is finished had deposed or layed aside the humane nature in which he was conceived and born to the end and purpose that he might dye in it or according to it his offering or Sacrifice had been of Value infinite in that it could purchase so Vniversal a Pardon at Gods hands for all sinners and for all sinnes Yet if he had laid aside the humane nature immediately after his suffering The Everlasting Efficacie of this infinite Sacrifice had been cut off Now besides the infinite price of our redemption which was then Payd when Christ said Consummatum Est another End of his assumption and retaining the humane nature was that we might be partakers of the Everlasting Vertue of his Sacrifice and Priesthood And herein doth this Sacrifice truely differ from the sacrifices of the Law from all sacrifices whatsoever in that we obtaine remission of sinnes by it and through it not onely as it was once offered but by the reall Communication of its Vertue unto our soules If there were any use or need of a second third or reiterated offering of it the Vertue and Efficacie of it could not be imagined to be perpetually everlasting or Uncessant but endlesse or uncessant onely by Vicissitude or Turn in such a sense as we say the Moone shall be Eclipsed to the worlds end Yet is it not eclipsed at all times but at some speciall times throughout all Ages of the world But if both the Value of the Sacrifice be truely infinite and the Vertue of it everlasting without interruption or discontinuation more Uncessant than the Motion of the heavens or the Rest of the earth The often offering of the Sacrifice after what manner soever is superfluous and blasphemous The true
goe out from him to her alone It is true then for our Saviour saith it her Faith did make her whole and yet she was made whole by the Vertue which went out from him this was the fruit or effect of her Faith or rather the Reward or Consequent of her Faith In like sort as many as are healed from their sinnes whether by the Sacrament of Baptism or the Eucharist are healed by Faith relatively or instrumentally Faith is as the mouth or organ by which we receive the medicine but it is the Vertual influence derived from the Body and Blood of Christ which properly or efficiently doth cure out soules and dissolve the works of Satan in us This woman as St. Matthew relates the storie had said within her self if I may but touch the hemme of his garment I shall be whole She wanted either the opportunitie or boldness to touch the fore-part of his garment or to come into his sight or presence Yet he then knew not onely that she had touched the Hemme of his garment but what she had said within herself and out of his knowledge of this her faith and humilitie he did pronounce and make her whole Now it is but one and the same Act of one and the same Divine Wisdom to know the hearts and secret thoughts of men a farre off and neere at hand And therefore a matter as easie for the Son of God or for the man Christ Jesus in whom the Godhead dwelleth bodily though still remayning at the right hand of God to know the hearts and secret thoughts of all such as present themselves at his Table here on earth aswell as he knew the secret thoughts of this woman which came behind him What need then is there of his Bodily Presence in the Sacrament or of any other presence than the influence or emission of vertue from his heavenly Sanctuary unto our soules He hath left us the consecrated Elements of bread and wine to be unto us more than the hemme of his garment If we do but touch and tast them with the same faith by which this woman touched the hemme of his garment this our faith shall make us whole and stanch the running issues and cleanse or cure the leprous sores of our soules as perfectly as it did this womans issue of blood But of Christ's Presence with us Especially in the B. Sacrament of his Body and Blood we shall take occasion to speake somewhat more in Handling the Article of His Sitting at the Right-Hand of God which may perhaps give the Reader some degree of Satisfaction and Line out the Right Mean betwixt Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation or between the Romanist and the Lutheran at least between the Lutheran and other reformed Churches A Note relateing to the precedent Chapter First Paragraph or Number 1. Those words St. Cyrill in his Parallels c. I Conceive the Author meanes St. Cyrill's Comments or Strictures upon Genesis and in them This Place or These words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in These words his Eye was fixt upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exâ—ulit or proâ—ulit it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obtulit That is Melchisedek Brought out or Caryed forth not OFFERED Bread and Wine Cyrill Alex. Tom. 1. Glaphyrorum Lib 2. Paris Edit 1638. Fol. 47. To which I may adde that the same S. Cyrill in the same Book p. 62. Sayes That Melchizedek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. according to Sylburgius Suidas and Hesychius Procuravit Adornavit Exportavit Commeatum Commodavit not obtulit as Andr. Schotus translates it there And again p. 63. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. apportantem afferentem not offerentem as the same Schotus translates it also But it is the Roman Ingenie to Catch at this place So Maldonate to despight Calvin corrects the Magnifyed Vulgar Latin altering it to et erat Sacrificans but partially for his Criticism Being given it will amount to no more then erat ministrans See this Author 's 9. Book Chap. 10. Where he cites Philo Judaeus Lib. 2. S. leg Allegor Making Melchizedeks Bringing forth Bread and Wine not an Act of Pietie and Religion but of Hospitalitie Opposite to Ammons Churlish niggardliness who afforded not the posteritie of Abraham in their travel Bread and Water Though he that only reades this Author by Index is unworthy both of him and it and though the observant Reader may serve himself well of the Contents of the Chapters the Table of Texts of Scripture the Titles of every Page and the Marginal Breifes yet for his further Advantage is made this ensuing Table To which every Reader may adde what he pleases space being left for that purpose at the end of every Letter in the Alphabet A. A Aronical Priesthood farre inferior to Christ's 3268 c. Aaron see Priesthood Abraham in Gods promises to him assurance of faith to be sought 3267 Abrahams Bay 3256 Abraham see promise Active passive see Conversion Some Actions required in us that Grace may be created in us viz. To make us meere passives 3107. c 3115. 3143 These Actions or Endeavours necessary necessitate praecepti nâ—cessitate medii 3191 Adam like his Maker 3091 Adam God dealt not so hardly with him as some say he did 3015 Adam's first sin Actual and voluntarie 3101 Adam's Prerogatives Opinions about them Compatible contending not contradictory 3003. 3008 Adam's Righteousnesse not Supernatural 3004 3033 Church of Rome bound to maintain that it is supernatural 3004 Reformed Churches that it is not so 3005 Three inconveniences follow the Affirmamative ibid. Righteousness as connex to Gods Image in Adam as Rotunditie to a Sphere 3006 3178 Adams losse of Righteousness had a positive cause wrought a positive effect a wound many wounds in mans nature 3006 How Adam had been rewarded had he stood 3008 Neither Adams Fall nor standing necessary both possible ibid. 3009 He that sayes Adams fall was necessitated by Gods Decree lays more to Gods charge then we can truly lay to the Divelâ—s 3012 That God de facto did decree a mutual possibilitie of Adams Falling or not Falling demonstrated 3016 More of that point 3226 Whether he that sayes God decreed Adams Fall inevitably may be demonstrated to make God Author of sin 30â—0 Author of Sin see Sin Adams Inadvertencie and Evah her contempt let sin into the world 3008 The sinfulnesse of Adams sin wherein it did consist 3017 How Adams one sinfull Act could produce an Habit and more then an Habit 3017 3019 3029 c. Act see Obliquitie Adams first sin did pollute our Nature now our nature defiles our persons 3019 Admonitions vain where no freedom is 3129 Admonitions presuppose possibilities to good and evill 3246 Advocate his Office 3288 No Advocate pleades for pardon of sin already forgiven ibid. Aestunare res humanas norunt pauci 3001 Affections indifferent differenced by their Objects must be wonne to the Spirit 3125 Of Affections strange effects and alterations 3073
c. Betwixt affections calm and troubled a mighty difference ibid. Agar and Ishmael related unto by St. John Chap. 8. verse 36. 3070 Agencie Immanent and Transient 3087 Alexander P. the fifth his Canon for holy water 3264 Alexander Pheraeus weeping Ripe at a Tragoedie and yet a cruel man 3073 3145 Ambition 3063 3065 3076 3126 An Ambitious Error Infallibilitie 3067 St. Ambrose A Saying in him Ego non sum ego 3240 St. Ambrose his Rule for interpreting Scripture Fints Dicendorum Ratio Diâ—â—orum 3160 c. Anathema Maranatha Taken out of Enoch his Prophesie or Book 3171 Antedate pardons God never does 3283 See sins remitted Antichrist Eastern and Western 3262 Aquinas comes neere making God Author of sin 3012 Arts ought to have Artists for Judges 3014 Art See Rules Ashes the Emblem of Immortalitie 3270 3300 Eastern Antichrist The height of his Heresie some place in maintenance of the more then Fatal â—rrespective Decree by which all things Christs death not excepted be said to fall out inevitably 3266 Astipulation before Admission to the Lords Supper necessary 3272 St. Austins attempt to draw the middle Line betwixt Stoicism and Pelagianism 3081 Auricular confession abused by base Interrogatories 3026 St. Austins Saying about Gods accurate weighing the actions of men 3239 The Authors solemn Appeal 3279 God by some mens Consequences made Author of sin 2012 B. THough Baptism do not utterly kill original sin yet are Children by Baptism in such measure regenerated as is needfull to save them if they dye Infants 3100 Life Spiritual created in Baptized Infants 3114 Sinne may revive in Baptized Infants 3158 St. Basils saying about that Point 3159 By baptism we are translated from Sons of Wrath to be Children of God 3158 Baptismal Grace denyed restrained 3174 Baptismal vow the first thing Children are to consider at their arrival at the use of Reason 3100 To null the Benefit of Baptism is a great sinne 3115 Baptism See Regeneration No Infant Reprobate at the hower of Baptism 3167 Analogie betwixt Baptism and the water of Sprinkling mixt with the Ashes of the red Heifer 3300 Singularitie of Baptism typifyed in the rarity of the Rite of that Heifer 3270 c. How Sin is remitted by Baptism 3296 Christs most Efficacious presence in Baptism 3296 Baptism needles if sins be Remitted before committed 3295 The Church of Englands Doctrine of Baptism 3272 Baptism a Sacramental Consecration to fight against Flesh c. 3101 A Bear enraged with Crimson or Scarlet colour did teare a woman in pieces 3027 Becanus's dispute with Paraeus 3012 Belief a Term divisible 3073 Believers in part may fall away 3072 c. Bellarmin as harsh as Piscator or Zuinglius about the Author of sin 3012 Berith well translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3259 Beza's inference against Origen right 3225 Beza's mistake 3226 the fallacie that caused it 3232 3237 Bloud of Christ shed not spilt immortal brought into the heavenly Sanctuary daily purifyes us 3258 3297 c. Christs Body and Bloud vertually present really operative 3258 3296 c. 3303 c. Christs Bloud See Parallels The bloud of Buls c. inefficacious because corruptible 3297 Bodin his resolution 3184 The Body of man must be sanctifyed also 3118 Bodies the nature of the fight with our own Bodies 3102 c. St. Pauls method in Fighting with his Bodie 3103 Bosom or Bay of Abraham 3256 Bruits Their rare docilities 3133 c. Mr. Burtons Accusation of the Authour with his addition 3174 c. Busbequius's Discourse with Chiaussus a Turke 3181 C. CArdan's Apothegm 3001 Calavius his craft 3074 3145 Calvin Calvinists Canisius 3012 Called a Grammatical Passive Real Passive 3278 Caleb Joshua Israelites Gods dealing with them a Type how he deales with Christians 3150 Canon for holy water Text mistaken 3264 c. 3270 In Canonem incidere how men punish themselves 3163 3170 3171 3173 Cain Corah Balaam their Sentence a Ruled Case 3169 c. Cathedrals their good use 327â— c. A Catholick confession Reall Communication of Christs Body and Bloud 3298 A caveat for Confidents 3244 Cathari followers of Novatianus and Novatus 3291 Cause See Obliquitie See Relation Charitie of the Heathens 3125 c. Chemnitius his Rule 3017 Children at their first arrival at the use of Reason must reflect upon their Baptismal vow 3100 upon what else 3130 3146 Children See Baptism See Regeneration Circumcision Loath'd whilest commanded Longed for when it was forbidden 3026 Christ dyed for all 3172 Christ See Bloud Sacrifice Priesthood Christians may serve Bacchus Venus Pluto as much as the Heathens did 3060 Church Primitive denyed two favours to Revolters 3282 Church present not bound by precedents of the antienter Church in meere matters of Fact 3282 Ceremonies See Sacrifice Certaintie of our State in Grace how to examine it 3103 c. Certaintie good grounds of it 3104 3278 Clergie their Obligation their Armes 3025 Two great conquests of Satan gotten over the Church by the device of Infallibilitie 3067 Commutatio poenae favorabilis in Sacrifices 3293 Confirmation or Benediction Episcopal Sadly neglected 3273 Conscience Synteresis what c. 2118 c. Conscience purifyed by the Spirit of God directs the Affections 3127 Consubstantiation the pretence for it 3298 Controversies betwixt Jesuites and Dominicans Lutherans and Zuinglians Arminians and Gomarists their sad effects 3129 Two seeming contradictories 3237 Contingencie as possible to be decreed by God as necessitie 3016 Contingens defined divided 3088 Conversion Man meerly Passive in most degrees of it 3106 c. Yet active in some sort that he may therein be though a meere yet a towardly passive 3108 c. 3128 Conversion what unregenerate men are to do before it 3115 3143 3216 3219 3221 In conversion how Free-wil Co-operates with Gods Spirit the manner inexplicable 3112 Whether conversion be ex operibus praevisis 3112 c. To set men right into the work of Conversion the main work of the Ministerie 3219 Covenant of the Eye Pericles guessed at it 3142 New Covenant the condition of men under it 3292 c. New Covenant See Legal Confession abused 3026 Covetousness 3063 3098 3126 A malapert Courtier 3227 Creatura rationalis an dari possit in totum impeccabilis 3007 The Question restrained to Angels and Men ibid. It begets a second Question whether creatures ever secured from all possibilitie of sinning be capable of reward ibid. All things created ex nihilo 3113 c. Creation ex termino praeviso non ex causa 3113 Creatures Inanimate Vegetant Sensitive Rational differenced 3082 c. Their several natural capacities 3132 c. Criticism of some sawcie Grammarian about Berith 3259 Maldonate's Criticism about Cohen in opposition to Calvin 3305 Crotonian Reformation wrought by Pythagoras 3137 Ill Custom the force of it 3055. 3085 The crosness of our Nature 3024 c. St. Cyprians saying 3002. 3018. D. DAvus his Discourse with his Master distinction of the Romans 3056 c. Decree irrespective and
of Moral Philosophie their power 3134 Pelagius his quarel about Free will the occasion of it 3081 Perseverance no Indivisible Term. Queries about it 3147 c. Pilate transported with Ambition passion c. 3066 Popes infallibilitie an improvement of Jewish heresie 3067 obliges succeeding popes to continue in errour if their Predecessors did confirm any 3068 Pharaoh one Religious in his kind 3190 Second Pharaoh his Projects Infant-killing 3191 A third Pharaoh the Subject of hardening c. ibid. This Pharaoh and his people bound to make restitution to the Israelites for their predecessors wrongs ibid. A fame of an Hebrew Child to be born c. made Pharaoh kill the Infants 3192 Pharaoh's hardening wrought by Gods gentle Checks 3193 3196 3197 Degrees of Pharaoh's hardening 3198 3200 Pharaoh's repentance like the Divels vow 3199 Process of Pharaoh's hardening 3201 Pharaoh infatuated ibid. and 3204 retaliated ibid. Pharaoh's itch to see more miracles 3202 Pharaoh hardened by Gods irresistible will 3225 Pharaoh no absolute Reprobate from the womb nor born to be hardened 3226 3232 to 3242 Gods hardening Pharaoh justifiable by Rules of equitie 3230 Pharaoh in his Infancie was not excluded from possibilitie of repentance by Gods irresistible will 3240 c. Once Possible alwaies possible to God 3241 The Fallacie upon it Ergo possible to save Pharaoh having filled up his measure of sin 3242 Logical possibilitie presupposed to the working of Gods Power 3176 c. Possibilities both waies supposed in monitions 3246 Polemo mutatus 3138 Potter and vessel a dialogue 3228 Two Postulata 3249 Phâ—lo Judaeus probably the Author of the Book of Wisdom 3205 Physitians Rules applyed to Spiritual matters 3120 Plinie his sense of mans disorder 3020 Plinie Junior his saying of Affliction 3121 Plerophorie See Faith Predestination See Election Premisses must be recanted before conclusions 3185 Professors zealous to mens eyes may be servants to sin 3078 Prodigalitie 3065 A Prayer Lord deliver me from my self 3039 A Church Prayer decides the case about Grace and Free-will 3131 Two Church prayers more commended to use 3269 More Church prayers explicated c. 3271 Gods promises without oath revocable under oath not so 3148 Gods promise to Abraham ratified by Degrees 3152 In Promises seek your salvation not in Parcarum Tabulis 3267 Proposition universal Negative simply turned The Foul Fallacie made out of it 3162 3185 3275 Libertie of Prophesying had sad effects 3274 Protopatbie 3119 Pulpit-pride 3024 Man purges himself how 3111 Pythagâ—ras his Cure his precepts his Scholars honestie 3135 3137 Of Christs everlasting Priesthood Read the seventh and eighth Sections beginning Fol. 3252 The high preeminencie of Christs Priesthood above the Legal 3261 c. Wherein the Exercise of Christs Priest-hood doth consist 3301 c. and how fore-shadowed ibid. He cures our soules by the exercise thereof 3303 Our Ministerie vain without That ibid c. the use of Christs Priest-hood and the Efficacie of his Sacrifice two different things 3301 His vertual presence is a Real presence 3298 3303 c. Local presence implies not alwaies Real and vertual presence 3304 Christ is a perennal perpetual purification for sin 3300 3295 Q. A Question named 3013 Another Question stated c. 3283 Mr. Burtons quarel with the Author 3175 Novatianus his quarel with Cornelius Bishop of Rome 3281 Novatus his quarel with or feare from St. Cyprian 3291 R. REcta ratio 3022 Ratio recta a competent witness for though no Rule or Judge in Divine Mysteries 3073 Right Reason and Rules of Art needful for such as are called to studie Controversies in Divinitie 3010 c. Rules of Art tell what Scripture-Propositions be universal particular c. Affirmative Negative c. ibid. Rules of Art good perspective Glasses and shew the Legal descent of Consequences 3011 Guides of reason Artistotle Plato c. provided by God and thankfully to be acknowledged 3011 Want of these rules of Art in pretended Favourites of the Spirit the occasion of many Controversies ibid. Of this want in others the effects 3012 A rule of St. Ambrose his Finis dicendorum ratio dictorum 3160 c. A rule of the Authors Search the places of the Old Testament to which places in the New Testament relate 3227 Chemnitius his rule State questions upon Texts 3017 A rule of Hemingius his Seek salvation in promises not in Parcarum Tabulis 3267 Ad quid teneatur homo cum primùm ad usum rationis pervenerit 3100 3130 3146 As reason ripens sin quickens 3159 St. Basilâ—s Testimonie of that assertion 3163 Reflexive power the root of freedom 3086 To reflect upon and revise what has befaln us a dutie of Concernment 3085 3108 c. 3038 Reconciliation two-fold 3267 again two-fold 3278 Reconciliation how wrought the ground of hope ibid. Red Heifer see Heifer See Parallels Regenerate and unregenerate how corrupted with sin 3036 c. Rom. 7. meant of a man inter Regenerandum 3026 Regeneration The same measure of it wil not serve men as will save Infants 3101 3159 Even Regenerate ones need daily cleansing by the Bloud of Christ our High-Priest 3269 3287 c. Reiteration of Sacrifices a sure Argument of their imperfection 3263 3290 Rhemists distinction vain 3291 Relations have no Cause but that which caused their Foundation 3012 Reprobated from Eternitie how men are said to be 3167 Though men be Reprobated from eternitie yet if any born Reprobates none Reprobates at point of Baptism ibid. Absolute reprobation the Effects and Consequences of that Tenet 3186 c. Absolute reprobation no print of it in Pharaoh or in the eleven first Chapters of Exodus 3205 Causes of reprobation to assign them without warrant of Scripture dangerous 3204 Reprobation See Election Judas Decree Rigid Tenets See Decree Righteousnesse Original See Adam Reviviscentia meritorum 3285 Revolters to Heathenism denyed by the Primitive Church admission to Penance Absolution 3282 God rewards according to works not Entities or Natures 3167 3284 Roman Ritual cited 3114 Romish slaverie 3066 c. S. SAcrament None to be admitted to the Lords Table before they Ratifie their Baptismal vow 3272 Sacrament See Baptism Body and Bloud The one Sacrifice of Christ of the Alsufficiencie Eminencie Efficacie infinite vertue and value of it read the seventh and eighth Sections beginning at Fol. 3252 more particularly Fol. 3262 3266 c. 3293 c 3288 c. The infinite value and everlasting Efficacie of Christs one Sacrifice be two distinct things 3267 3294 c. so be the Efficacie of his Sacrifice and use of his Priesthood 3301 Christs one Sacrifice much wronged by the Doctrine of the Masse 3262 More Errors against his Sacrifice and Priesthood 3263 c. 3266 c. 3279 3280 3289 c. 3298 Sacrifices that did need reiteration were imperfect 3263 3290 c. Sacrifices were favorabilis commutatio poenae what they taught 3293 of Christs Sacrifice the perennal and perpetual Efficacie foretold by Zacharie 3300 By his Sacrifice on the Cross
Christ Consecrated to be an Everlasting Priest 3301 Sacrifice See Priesthood Sanctum Sanctorum a Type of the heavenly Sanctuary into which Christ ascended c. 3255 Salvation only from Gods Grace 3210 c. Satans two great Conquests 3067 Satans noose See proposition negative universal Sensual Doctrine 3274 Sepulveda's storie of a Bear 3027 Severitie without instruction Tyranny 3275 Schoolmen faulty 3012 3266 Schoolmen lose the Truth in second Notions 3019 Scepter in Homer 3236 Scripture sole Rule of Faith and Manners 3010 Scripture Stories and Examples Transcendent 3190 Sententia Juris sententia Judicis 3167 c. Christs Session at Gods Right Hand St. Austins Answer to Dardanus about the manner of it 3252 c. Socinians ignorant of themselves 3002 Socinians more dissonant from truth in point of our natural corruption then the meere Naturalist 302◠then Pelagius 3023 Soules of Righteous men not so high in Bliss before as they were after Christs Ascension 3255 c. These soules probably before it were in a Place of Heaven answering to the Atrium Sacerdotum or Congregationis in the Temple 3257 Spirit Mind Soul their difference c. 3118 c. Soul in St. Paul is Flesh ibid. Spirit of God Spirit of man their several importances and opposition 3116 c. Spirit of man is not to be mortifyed but to be quickned and renewed 3118 3124 Spirit and Synteresis probably both one 3119 Spirits working our working by the spirit the order of them 3120 Gods Spirit Transformes our spirits into the likeness of Christ's Spirit 3122 Soules cured whether by Symbolicals or by contraries 3120 c. Soul the Centre of the motions both of Flesh and spirit 3123 Sin see Adam How sin got entrance into the world 3007 c. Sin the Author of it 3012 Diabolus seducens Homo Consentiens 3019 Aquinas Bellarmin and the Thomists as strait laced in the point about Author peccati as Zwinglius and Piscator ibid. Sin Original 3017 to 3039 Sin Original pollutes our persons 3019 Sin Original is not a meer privation 3006 3028 3035 Of sin Original Heathen Notions 3019 c. 3100 3145 These consort better with the Truth then the Socinian Tenets about sin Original do 3022 St. Austin not the first teacher of sinne original 3023 Parents may by sin Actual improve the venom of sin Original in their Posteritie 3019 3030 3031 Two Symptomes of sin Original Loathing to do commanded or known Good Longing after what is forbidden 3034 c. Sin provoked by negative precepts c. 3025 c. Sin Original defined 3028 Fl. Illyricus his definition discussed 3032 c St. Austins Melancthons Aquinass 3035 Mr. Calvin and P. Martyr consent with Illyricus in the definition of sin Original 3036 How farr the nature Faculties Actions of men good or bad be tainted with sinne Original or acquired 3037 c. Sin Original not utterly taken away by Baptism 3100 c. Sins must be weighed in the Scale of the Sanctuary 3097 Servitude and servants to sin and Satan 3039 c. Sin against the holy Ghost 3282 Jewes in part believers servants to sinne and corruption 3040 c. 3072 c. A Civill Servant 3042 Degrees of Servitude Ibid. English servants Famuli rather then Servi or servants but in part or mixt 3043 Meere servants or slaves mancipia or servi servati ibid. Jewes might have Heathen slaves but might not remain slaves 3044 Our Saviours Parables as that Matth. 18. speake of meere slaves 3045 Servants Hired and Bond wherein they agree 3045 wherein they differ 3046 Serve two Masters no man can ibid. A servant may have a will more free or less servile then his Master 3130 3144 Between servitude civil and servitude to sinne the Analogie 3047 Servitude to sin the prime Analogate 3048 Of Servitude to sin four Branches 3051 Servitude to sin Natural and acquired 3052 What Freedom of will compatible with servitude to sin 3129 Servitus est obedientia fracti animi Tullie 3054 Heathen Notions of Servitude to sinne right 3055 c. but fruitless 3059 Christian Professours may be as great servants to sin to Bacchus Venus and Pluto as heathens were 3060 To obey our Lusts is to serve sin to serve sin is to serve Satan service to Satan is Treason against Christ 3061 How Satan works men into Slavery to himself 3062 c. His main Wile to enlarge or enflame our desires of things not simply evill 3063 Romish slavery 3066 Heathen Romans slaves 3056 Two Errors 1. The same Fact sin in one no sin in another 3182. 2. That some mens sins be remitted before they commit them 3182 c. 3282 An opinion of no pious use 3268 Worse then Popery or Novatianism 3283 A Question about it stated 3292 c. This Tenet Sin remitted before committed makes Christs Resurrection needless in respect of us and Baptism needless 3295 Sponte Malus nemo Plato how it may be true 3062 Our reasonable service is mortification 3159 Stoicks their Bruitish opinion 3080 Antient Fathers their disputes with them 3081 Sympathie 3119 Synteresis the same with Spirit ibid. Synteresis in it be the Reliques of Gods Image 3124 Synods their good use 3274 T. TEstimonies of the Heathen and ill men the use of them 3053 Threates of God under Oath Irrevocable without oath not so 3149 Transubstantiation a Modern Monster 3298 The pretense and use of it ib. The Tree of knowledge of Good and evill poysonous 3029 c. Turkish Divinitie All things come to passe by fatal necessitie 3181 c. Tyrannie to punish and not instruct 3275 V. VAlentinus jumpt with the Stoicks and Manichees 3081 Vbiquitie a modern Monster 3298 The pretence for it ibid. Vertue and value of Christs Sacrifice disparaged by the Romanist 3289 Value vertue of Christs Sacrifice See Sacrifice Vessel and Potter the debate or Dialogue betwixt them 3228 Vnregenerate man what freedom such a man hath 3092 Vertues of the Heathen 3134 c. Visitations or Synods of former times 3274 Vngodly men how ordained to Damnation 3164 Vniversal see Proposition Vnjust God is not unrighteous the sense of it 3286 Vse of vows an Argument of Freedom 3094 Vse of Christs Priesthood 3301 Vow in Baptism the first thing that young ones are to consider and be reminded of 3100 W. WAter of sprinkling The Resemblance between it and Christs Bloud 3300 See Parallels See Heifer Holy water See Holy Will of God how Rule of Equitie and Justice 3229 Will of God One Immutable Free Causeth Pluralitie Mutabilitie Necessitie Contingencie 3223 Gods Will Resistible or Irresistible ibid. Irresistible Will of God Pharaoh hardened by it 3225 c. God Wills Mutabilitie Immutably c. 3245 Wee St. John saith if any We have an Advocate 3288 c. Why Weeds grow so fast 3083 Whelps trained by Lycurgus 3085 3134 The Book of Wisdom Philo Judaeus Author of it 3205 Wisdom Christian three Points of it 3128 Woman with the Issue of Bloud touched by Christ really and vertually though not Locally 3303 Merit of Works see Merit We work out our Salvation Consecutivè non formaliter 3109 No man can be said to renounce the Good Works which he never did 3132 3161 Romish Sophism about Works 3218 Works foreseen or ex praevisis operibus 3113 3218 Opus quo renunciamus opera quae renunciamus 3219 Good Works of the Elect and of men within the Covenant how God regards them 3284 Good VVorks of the Heathen 3141 X. XEnocrates cured Polemo 3138 Xenocrates his Chastitie Contempt of Gold 3139 Y. SAtans Yoke of slavery put upon mens necks by the Pope 3068 Z. ZAcharie prophesied of the Efficacious vertue of Christs Body and Bloud 3300 Zachaeus had some degree of Free-will 3131 Zelots English improved Forraign Errors 3275 FINIS