kindled against thee and against thy two friends though he willed them to sacrifice for their offence and promised to accept Iobs prayer for them The same may often be obserued in other places of the Scriptures The wrath of God is likewise taken for the threates whereby God denounceth what he will inflict on the wickednesse of men or for the sharpe reproofe which hee vseth against sinne committed I sware in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest saith God of the disobedient Israelites in the wildernesse In miâ—…e indignation â—…d in the fire of my wrath haue I spoken it saith God by Ezechiel surely at that time there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel So Dauid Then shall ‖ God ‖ speake to them in his wrath and terrifie them in his sore displeasure Wherefore Dauid prayeth for himselfe O Lord reprooue me not in thine anger knowing that Gods rebukes and threates ought to be as much regarded and feared of the faithfull as his plagues Lastly all the Iudgements of God awaking the negligent scourging the disobedient obdurating the impenitent in this life or renenging the Reprobate here and in hell are in the Scriptures called the wrath of God of which speech there can be no question because the word of God giueth plaine plentifull euidence in euery of those parts onely the Discourser auoucheth that the two first are no degrees nor effects of Gods proper wrath though the Scripture call them wrath but are so termed by a very improper speech These are his words To suffer chastisements and corrections as the godly doe is not to suffer or feele Gods wrath except it be in a very improper speech And this is one of the maine points on which he putteth theissue of the question I affirme saith he Christ suffered Gods proper wrath and vengeance You thinke all afflictions whatsoeuer small or great and towards whomsoeuer are the effects of Gods wrath but that is not so except in a most improper speech To the godly their afflictions both small and great are Gods fatherly and gracious chastisements and no effects of his properwrath Thou must not forget Christian Reader from what beginning we come to this issue This Rouer taking vpon him to prooue that Christ suffered the true paines of hell and of the damned made this his foundation That Christ suffered the wrath of God for vs which he affirmed to be equall to hell it selfe and all the torments thereof Mine answere shortly was I did not see what this proposition Christ suffered for vs the wrath of God if it were granted could helpe his cause or hinder mine For the wrath of God extended to all paines and punishments aswell corporall as spirituall in this life and the next were they temporall or eternall So that no paine or punishment small or great could befall the bodie or soule of Christ but it must needs proceed from the wrath of God To this he now replieth To suffer as the godly do chastisements and corrections is not to suffer or feele Gods wrath nor indeed the punishment of sinne except it be in a very improper speech Where first obserue that these words as the godly do are not conteined in mine answer but intended by him in his replie The ground on which I stood was that all the miseries of mans life what soeuer they be came first from the wrath of God reuenging the sinne of our first Father and so are degrees and parts of that wrath wherewith God punished the transgression of Adam I named no miseries peculiar to the godly but common to them with the wicked neither did I touch any speciall maner of suffering as the godly do suffer but prooued that the Scriptures which must teach vs all how to speake in Gods causes called them wrath euen in the godly And consequently since Christ suffered sorrow paine and death which came for sinne and are common to all he might and did suffer the wrath of God for vs and yet not the paines of the damned You cast about afresh Sir Discourser in your defence and tell vs the Scriptures speake verie improperlie when they call the miseries of this life the wrath of God and therefore you bring vs a new phrase of your owne framing and say the godly in no wise doe suffer Gods proper wrath that is properly taken or properly so called which Christ did suffer as you affirme Is your learning so good Sir Defender that you will applie to God wrath indignation and furie properly so called which are the highest degrees of Gods anger against the wicked Haue you forgotten who tooke vpon you such knowledge in the Hebrue tongue that the vsuall words whereby the Scripture expresseth the wrath of God against the wicked do import the nose the heat the boiling the kindling the excesse aâ—…d rage of God against the wicked which words if you referre to God by way of proper speech you make of euery one of them a barbarous and blasphemous heresie So that your late coined distinction of Gods wrath by improper speech towards his children and his wrath properly so called against his enemies is vaine and foolish the words in Scripture that note Gods wrath against his enemies are most improper and are translated from the behauiouâ—… of angrie men to God of purpose to strike a terrour into the wicked of that great and grieuous iudgement which they shall receiue But whatsoeuer the words designe in their naturall signification which the Christian faith forbiddeth vs to attribute properly vnto God because they expresse humane affections and corporall passions which are not in God by the anger which is in God against sinne the Scripture meaneth nothing els but his most holy dislike of sinne in whomsoeuer and his most iust and constant will and decree in some to reward sinne according to desert which is vengeance in this life and the next in others so to temper the punishment of sinne with loue and mercie that whatsoeuer he inflict on bodie or soule shall tend to the praise of his iustice and mercie and end with the consolation and saluation of their soules And by the anger which proceedeth from God are in the Scriptures intended either his threats against sinne or his punishments of sinne be they corporall or spirituall temporall or eternall mixed with mercie or proportioned only to iustice If you relinquish your holdfast of improper speech and rase that vnaduised shift out of your booke for God hath in him no wrath properly so called but his holinesse displeased and iustice prouoked by sinne are improperly named his wrath in the Scriptures Let vs come to the proprieties of the things themselues and see whether chasticements for sinne doe properly proceede from Gods loue onely or from his iustice tempered with loue and mercy Of the wicked I shall not neede to speake much we make no great question of them
howbeit euen their externall punishments in this life are not voide of Gods bountie and patience diuersly blessing them with earthly things often warning and sparing them by giuing them time and place to mislike and leaue their sinnes and length-fully expecting their submission and amendment which the Apostle calleth the riches of Gods bountie patience and long sufferance leading euen the obstinate and hard harted to repentance The doubt is of the godly whether their afflictions which are corrections and chasticements for sinne rise only from Gods loue or rather from his iustice mixed with loue I affirme the Scriptures doe directly and distinctly propose in the chasticements of the elect as well iudgement and wrath as mercy and loue and that not by abusing the words but by reseruing to either their naturall proprieties and seuerall consequents the one for the commendation of Gods iustice the other for the demonstration of his mercy and consolation of the afflicted For his wicked couetousnesse I was angry saith God and did smite him ‖ but ‖ I will heale him and restore comfort vnto him He must be more then absurd that will imagine God would or could say for his wicked couetousnesse I loued him that were to make God the abettour and embracer of wickednesse which is wholy repugnant to his Diuine sanctitie and glory the words therefore must stand as they doe without any euasion of improper speech and Gods anger in this place must plainely differ from his loue which cannot be added to these words without euident impietie Since then the cause was sinne which God doth perfectly hate in whomsoeuer euen in his owne and the smiting came for sinne and from anger it is not possible this chasticement should spring onely from loue but ioyntly both must worke together I meane Gods anger against sinne and his loue towards the person to make the punishment tolerable and comfortable to the bearer The like rule God giueth for all that belong to the true seed and sonne of Dauid which is Christ. If his children forsake my law and walke not in my iudgements I will visue their transgressions with the Rod and their iniquitie with sâ—…ripes but my mercy will I not take from him God threatneth no loue to sinne he threatneth anger the stripes here mentioned are not the loue of a father but mitigated by loue the mercy here promised is not adioyned as the onely cause of this correction which is ascribed to the transgressions and iniquities of the children but it serueth for a salue to heale the wound which Gods iustice prouoked by their sinnes should formerly make For he is the God that woundeth and healeth killeth and quickneth casteth downe to hell and rayseth vp againe not working contraries by one and the selfe same loue but when he hath iustly done the one for our offences he gratiously doth the other for his mercies sake in wrath remembring mercy least we should be consumed He then despouseth the Church vnto himselfe in iudgement and mercy not in iudgement forgetting mercy nor by mercy excluding iudgement for iudgement beginneth at the house of God but retaining both that the whole Church may sing mercy and iudgement vnto him as Dauid did yet with this difference that he doth not punish with the hart as the Prophet testifieth but his delight is in mercie Which plainly prooueth the Rod is not all one with loue as the Apostle noteth when he opposeth the one against the other saying Shall I come to you with a rodde or in loue but is guided by loue lest in displeasure God should shut vp his mercies These two therefore in God iust anger against the sinnes and tender loue towards the persons of his children together with their effects which are iudgement and mercy may not be confounded the one with the other but as they haue different causes and proprieties in God so haue they different effects and consequents in vs the Scriptures bearing witnesse that Gods anger riseth for our sinnes his loue for his owne names sake his anger he threatneth his loue he promiseth he hath no pleasure in punishing he delighteth in mercie he repenteth him often of the euill which he denounceth his gifts and calling are without repentance when we call vpon him he deliuereth vs out of all our troubles his mercy will he neuer take from his nor frustrate his truth Yea the godly haue a different feeling of his anger towards them from his loue they feare they faint they grieue and grone vnder the burden of affliction they waxe weary of it they pray against it they giue him thankes when they are freed from it none of which affections may with any sense of godlinesse agree to his loue But these are no effects of Gods proper wrath you thinke Christ onely hauing wholy suffered that for vs all What you meane by Gods proper wrath is knowen onely to your selfe you neuer expresse nor expound the word but with more obscure and doubtfull termes then the former At first you affirme Gods wrath towards his children was a most improper speech I haue now shewed that if you looke to the words vsed in the sacred Scriptures Gods wrath towards his enemies is as improper a speech as the other Your second wrench was that all chastisements for sinne are inflicted on Gods children properly by his loue I haue prooued that they proceede properly from Gods iustice tempered with mercie and not from his onely loue Your third shift is now they are no effects of Gods proper wrath which Christ did wholy suffer for vs all If you vnderstand by Gods proper wrath that which is only wrath and hath no admixture of his loue fauour or mercie then is your position ridiculous in your first maine point and blasphemous in the second For who euer auouched that God punished his children and his enemies with the same degrees and effects of wrath or who euer dreamed that God chastising the sinnes of his elect in wrath remembred not his mercie you doe indeede affirme of Christ that he suffered all Gods proper wrath which if you now interpret to be without all respect of loue or fauour towards him you light on a greater blasphemie then you are ware of Wherefore looke well to your new found phrases of Gods meere iustice and proper wrath with which you thinke to colour your conceits they will else proue you a weake Scholer and a worse Christian. The word proper applyed to Gods wrath may signifie either that which is not figuratiue or that which is not common to others or that which hath no mixture of loue or mercie to mitigate wrath but is wholy and onely wrath In God nothing is figuratiue he is naturally and wholy truth itselfe The words applyed to him are often improper and figuratiue because we can hardly speake or vnderstand many things that are in him but by such words as are knowen and familiar to
shall neuer inferre by phrases of your owne making which only serue to hide your owne meaning that Christ suffered the paines of hell As for Gods wrath against sinne it hath many degrees and parts by the verdict of holy Scripture though you will not heare thereof For as Gods blessings benefits when he first made man were of his heauenly goodnes richly prouided for man and plentifully powred on the body and soule of man as well for the leading of this life in plenty safety and delight as for the surer attaining of euerlasting ioy and blisse in an other place so when man by sinne fell from God by iustice God depriued him and his of all those earthly and bodily fauours and comforts no lesse then of the spirituall and inward gifts and graces of the mind by that meanes making way to his euerlasting and dreadfull Iudgements against sinne Now if these externall things bestowed on man in his first creation were iustly called and must be confessed in their kind to be the blessings and fauours of God afforded to all mankind when he made man and the whole world for his vse then out of question the taking them away from man and subiecting him by iustice to the contrary for sinne committed may as truly be named and must be beleeued to be the signes and effects of Gods displeasure against sinne which the Scripture nameth wrath And so God calleth either of them when he promiseth the one to the obseruers of his Law and threatneth the other to the breakers thereof who vseth not to promise or threaten words but deeds Neither hath it any reason because the reiecting of man from the greater and higher blessings of inward grace and eternall blisse was farre the sorer and sharper punishment of mans sinne that therefore the withdrawing of these should be no degree nor effect of Gods wrath against sinne no more then the losse of a legge or an arme should be counted no mayme because a man hath an head and an hart which are more principall parts of his body Wherefore though in comparison they may be iustly diminished and abased farre beneath the worthinesse of the rest of Gods blessings which are reserued for his Children in an other life yet can they not be denyed to be Gods blessings euen in this life and if to giue them to man when he was first made were the fauour and bountie of God towards man which no Christian may deny to take them from man for sinne must truely argue Gods displeasure against sinne not in improper speech as you gloze but in a lesse degree then those which bring with them perpetuall subuersion of Body and Soule And when the Scriptures meane to expresse the spirituall and eternall wrath of God they doe it not by proprietie of words as you pretend but by different circumstances either of the TIME after this life when no wrath is executed but that which is euerlasting as Christ deliuereth vs from the wrath to come and thou heapest vp wrath against the day of wrath which is the day of iudgement or of the PERSONS who are wicked and the vessels of wrath prepared to destruction and for whom is reserued the mist of darknesse for euer as for such things commeth the wrath of God on the Children of vnbeliefe or of the CONTINVANCE which neuer ceaseth as the wrath of God abideth on him that beleeueth not or of the HIGTH thereof when it is full as the wrath of God is come vpon them to the vttermost or of the CONTRARY when it is eternall life as God hath not appointed vs vnto wrath but to obtaine Saluation by Iesus Christ or of the CONSEQVENTS which are suddaine destruction and such like as kisse the Sonne least he be angry and ye perish in the way when his wrath shall suddenly burne blessed are they that trust in him By these and such like particulars we may perceiue when the Scriptures speake of the one wrath and when of the other but otherwise the wordes are common to both as also the cause which is sinne O Lord saith Moses why doth thy wrath waxe hote against thy people turne from thy fierce wrath and desist from this euill towards thy People And againe I fell downe saith he fortie daies and fortie nights before the Lord because of all your sinnes which yee had sinned doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord and prouoking him For I was afraid of the wrath and indignation wherewith the Lord was kindled against you to destroy you and the Lord heard me at that time also Exceeding many are the places which teach vs that our iniquities auert the outward blessing of this life and that our sinnes hinder good things from vs Though God after that comfort his people when their warrefare is accomplished and they haue receaued sufficient Correction at the hands of God for all their sinnes Surely these warnings of the holy Ghost are not empty words or improper speeches but effectuall and faithfull instructions for the Church of God to learne them that God doth visite their sinnes when they forget to repent and obey though he spare them in comparison of that wrath which is effunded on the wicked And therefore the name of wrath is rightly and truely applyed in the Scriptures euen to those afflictions wherewith God scourgeth his owne Children for their negligence and impenitence though God haue an other and greater which is eternall wrath laid vp in store for the Reprobate who die without Repentance and Remission of their sinnes Howsoeuer the strife for words standeth wherein I confesse I may not be brought to disalow the tongue and pen of the holy Ghost it is most certaine that the Gospel reporteth of Christs sufferings nothing but what was common to him with his members euen in this life where he suffered The Apostles plainely prooue as much to wit that we haue fellowship and communion with Christs afflictions and are conformed to his death Now there is no communion but where the same things are common to both though the degrees may differ And you your selfe when it maketh for you can vrge that the Apostle speaking of Christs sufferings saith He was tempted in all things like to vs yet without sinne So that in my iudgement it is a most cleere case as well by the witnesse of Scripture as by your owne confession that all Christes sufferings were LIKE yea the SAME that ours are as being common to both and consequently if you any way vnderstand what belongeth to trueth or reason the sufferings of the godly must either bee wrath as well as Christes or if their bee not his were not since they were the same And so the godly must either in all their afflictions small and great suffer as Christ did the proper wrath of God and true paines of hell which you make equiualent or if the godly doe not so
of it The end and vse of parables which are allegoricall similitudes ouâ—… Sauiour confessed when his disciples asked him Why speakest thou to them in parables Who answered because it is giuen to you to know the secrets of the kingdome of heauen but to them it is not giuen To them that are without all things are done in parables that seeing they may see and not discerne and hearing they may heare and not vnderstand Then serue parables and allegories which are both one to hide the meaning of the speaker and to darken the vnderstanding of the hearer But the Iudgement of Christ hath cleane contrarie purposes and must haue plaine and proper speech that the whole world may heare it with their eares vnderstand it with their hearts and see it executed with their eyes For how should allegories or metaphores be executed by Gods Angels who shall be the ministers in that iudgement or how shall all the elect concurre with Christ in iudgement if he vse metaphores and allegories knowen onely to himselfe It is euident therefore the generall and finall sentence by which the wicked shall be adiudged to euerlasting fire must haue in it no figures nor allegories but onely plaine and proper speech which must be heard and vnderstood of all good and bad and be presently put in execution by the ministers that attend that Iudgement A third is that where parables by reason of their darknesse must be expounded before they can be conceiued when Christ doth declare the meaning of them his exposition of necessitie must be in plaine and proper words lest a darke and doubtfull exposition breed a further confusion in the mindes of the hearers than the parable it selfe The parable of the good seed sowed by the owner of the ground and of tares sowed by the enemie as also of the haruest and reapers when the Disciples of Christ prayed him to declare vnto them he expounded it in these words The sower of the good seed is the sonne of man the field is the world the good seed are the children of the kingdome the tares are the children of the wicked the enemie that soweth them is the diuell the haruest is the end of the world and the Reapers be the Angels As then the tares are gathered and burned in the fire so shall it be in the end of the world The Sonne of man shall send forth his Angels and they shall gather out of his kingdome all offences and the workers of iniquitie and shall cast them into a furnace of fire there shal be wailing and gnashing of teeth And vpon occasion of the parable of the draw-net cast into the sea and gathering all kinds of men and after seuering the good from the bad our Sauiour repeating the same exposition in the same words So shall it be in the end of the world the angels shall go forth and seuer the bad from among the iust and shall cast them into a fornace of fire sayd to his Disciples Vnderstand ye all these things and they sayd to him Yea Lord. The parable they vnderstood not but this they vnderstood The fire therefore into which the wicked shall be cast is no parabolicall but a plaine and proper speech Againe Christ expoundeth the parable by it it is therefore no allegorie but a true and proper speech by which Christ opened the obscuritie of the parable and his Disciples presently conceiued his meaning by the proprietie and perspicuitie of his words Then that the Angels of God in the end of the world shall seuer the wicked and cast them into a furnace of fire is an euident plaine and proper speech easie to be vnderstood of euerie Christian by the verie hearing of the words vttered without recourse to you Sir Deuiser to helpe allegorize them or to bring in stead of them the immediat soules suffering which you still auouch but neuer take the paines to proue or vse the meanes to vnfold Fourthly your new conceit hath no coherence with the sense or words of the Holy ghost but either he must correct his speech wheresoeuer he mentioneth the fire of hell or you must recall your fansie who suppose an inward paine in the soule from the immediat hand of God to be hell fire For if that which you call hell fire be only within the soules of the wicked how can they DEPART GO or BE CAST INTO HELL FIRE which by your imagination is cast into them not they into it And therefore when our Sauiour so often affirmeth that the wicked shall be cast into hell fire and iudicially willeth them to depart from him into euerlasting fire you must set him to schoole and teach him to speake righter and according to your opinion to say that hell fire shal be cast into them But if these be fooleries most vnfit for any Christian man to controll the sonne of God in his speech and to condemne him of open and childish ignorance as not knowing the difference betwixt an externall and internall fire then learne to reuerence the veritie and grauitie of the word of God and to confesse that he which seeth and setleth all things in heauen earth and hell cannot so forget himselfe as to mistake the one for the other For if the fire be a violent externall and locall agent into which the wicked shal be cast then are the words of our Sauiour and of the Prophets and Apostles most proper and pertinent to the matter but if that fire which shall torment the damned be nothing but an internall paine rising within the soule by the immediat hand of God then are all the speeches of the Holy ghost expressing their punishment wide from the sense and dissonant from the truth of that which you suppose they would deliuer Dauid describing the vengeance that God at the last will execute on the wicked sayth Vpon the wicked God will raine snares fire and brimstone This raining vpon them sheweth that the meanes and matter of their torment shall be without them and not an anguish onely rising within them as you imagine of hell fire The diuell that deceiued them was cast sayth S. Iohn into a lake of fire and brimstone and whosoeuer was not found written in the booke of life was cast into the lake of fire The Holy ghost by your direction must haue sayd the lake of fire was cast into the diuell and into euery one that was not found written in the booke of life It is better sayth our Sauiour to enter into life maimed than hauing two hands to goe into hell into the fire that neuer shall be quenched Our Sauiour by your doctrine is not well aduised so to speake when he should haue sayd It is better to enter into life maymed than hell fire to goe into you And when Christ foretelleth that the Angels shall seuer the badde and cast them into a furnace of fire he committeth two great ouersights by your new Diuinity the first
in saying the Angels shall cast the badde into a furnace of fire where indeed by your deuice the furnace of fire shal be cast into the badde the next in that he sayth the Angels shall cast them into the fire which hath no trueth in it if the soules of the wicked inwardly suffer from the immediate hand of God alone as you teach For how do the Angels cast the wicked into the fire when the immediate hand of God inflicteth that which you call hell fire on the soule without any instruments or inferiour meanes These mockeries you must make of the Scriptures before they will serue your new conceit that hell fire is an allegorie and importeth nothing but a paine raised within the soule by the immediate hand of God alone which what agreement it hath with the doctrine and descriptions of the Holy ghost I leaue the Christian Reader to consider Fiftly the word Gehenna which Christ authorized in the new testament to signifie hell hath no iust representation of hell if there be no substantiall and externall fire in hel For where anciently the children of Iudah built the place of Topheth in the valley of the sonne of Hinnom to burne their sonnes daughters in the fire vnto Molech which valley the eighteenth of Iosue placeth neere to Iebusi that was afterward Ierusalem and calleth Gehinnom and the chiefe councel of Ierusalem whiles their power lasted vsed to punish certaine offences with fire in the same valley lying neere to their citie Our Lord and Master either taking the word that was vsuall among the people in his time to import hell and establishing it with his authoritie or resembling hell to the place of tormenting burning malefactors with fire so wel knowen to the Iewes nameth it Gihanna in Syriack which the Hebrues call Gehinnam the Euangelists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latines Gehenna In this application of the word that the one might fitly resemble the other three things were chiefly respected as Peter Martyr rightly obserueth vpon the second chapter of the second booke of Kings First that being a valley to wit a lowe bottome it resembled hell which is beleeued to be beneath the earth Secondly for the fire wherewith the wicked are tormented in hell euen as the children were in that valley burnt with fire Lastly the place was vncleane and detestable whither all vile and lothsome things were cast out of the citie of Ierusalem euen as defiled and wicked soules are cast out of the kingdome of heauen into hell And howsoeuer you may quarrell with the first and last respects because you thinke them not Canonicall though I finde them grounded on the Scriptures if that were to this present purpose the second is without contradiction the maine reason why our Sauiour tooke the word Gehenna to represent hell and is expressed by himselfe when so often in the Gospell he addeth fire to the word Gehenna and expoundeth the one by the other that is Gehenna by vnquenchable fire Whosoeuer shall say foole to his brother shal be worthy of the Gehenne of fire that is of the vale of fire or of hell And againe It is better for thee to enter into life with one eye than hauing two eyes to be cast into the Gehenne of fire which is the vale or lake of fire and hell fire In the Gospel written by S. Marke Christ ioyneth the one as an explication to the other It is better to goe halting into life than hauing two feet to be cast into GEHENNA into the fire that neuer shal be quenched So that the resemblance of true fire in either place painfull to the sufferer and dreadfull to the beholder was the chiefe respect why our Sauiour allowed GEHENNA in the new Testament to signifie hell and consequently doth assure vs there is true fire in hell For if hell haue no fi e in it besides an inward and inherent paine of bodie or soule as we see in all violent and burning diseases Christ might more fitly haue resembled hell to any sharpe and sore sicknesâ—…e than to an externall and sensible fire which can haue no reference to hell if the torments there be only spirituall and internall These reasons lead me to râ—…solue and beleeue that the fire of hell so much threatned to â—…he wicked in the Scriptures and inflicted on the damned shall be a true visible and externall fire wherein lest thou shouldest thinke Christian Reader I rest too much on mine owne opinion as this Dâ—…scourser doth in all things on his I am content to let thee see that the Ancient and Catholike Fathers of Christes Church haue constantly professed as much before me and condemned the Discoursers conceit as an open errour repugnant to the Scriptures and hurtfull to the Christian faith I haue alreadie produced the testimonies of so many Fathers in the conclusion of my Sermons touching this point the writers being of the greatest learning and account in the Church of Christ as may satisfie the â—…ober and stumble the froward theiâ—… iudgement concurring with the manifest words of holy Scripture yet because this Discouâ—…ser lightly regardeth their concents vainely shifteth off their proofes let vs heare and examine his answere to their assertions The Fathers by me cited were Austen Ambrose Chrysostome Eusebius Tertullian Lactâ—…ntius Cyprian Minutius Pacianus and Gregorie besides the wordes of Sibylla which many of those Fatheâ—…s accept and alleage as proceeding from God to witnesse the trueth and terrour of his generall iudgement to all the world and agreeing with the tenour of holy Scripture His answere beginneth and endeth in this wise You set your sâ—…lfe to prooue that in hell there is materiall fire But it seemeth you are now almost afraid so to call it yet you call it true fire which also wee vtterly denie All your proofes such as they arâ—… runne to prooue corporall and materiall fire yet eternall except your Scriptures which vtterly prooue nothing at all And me thinkes you should not care for corporâ—…ll fire now in hell seeing you seeme to beleeue no torments for damned soules saue on ly at the resurrâ—…ction For thus you reason as the bodie hath beene the instrument of the soules pleasure in sinne so it shall be of her paine But all prouocations and pleasures of sinne the soule taketh from her bodie all actes of sinne she committeth by her bodie Therefore the iustice of God both temporally and eternally punisheth the soule ONELY by the bodie Or therefore all the soules paine for sinne both temporally and eternally is by the body This is your owne reason which being true why should you care for corporall fire in hell before the last iudgemâ—…nt You begin and end with two notorious vntrueths and falsifications of my words that at least you may make others beleeue there is some likelihood in yours when I dare not stand by mine but am either afraid of them or conclude directly
fetch your wood to nourish hell fire and see whether it make no more for the one then for the other Against Senacherib that proud and blasphemous king of Assyria the capitall and cruell enemie of Gods people and Church the Prophet denounceth vengeance in this wise The Lord shall cause the glorie of his voice to be heard and shall shew the stroke of his arme with the anger of his countenance and flame of deuouring fire with scattering and tempest For Tophet is prouided of olde it is euen readie for the King God hath made it deepe and wide the burning thereof is fire and much wood the breath of the Lord doth kindle it as a current or riuer of brimstone Tophet was a place built by hand in the valley of Hinnom nere to Ierusalem made deepe and wide to containe whole Pyles of woode which the Priests of Molech with their deuices and prouisions could readily kindle and raize to huge and mightie flames to inclose and consume the children that were presented to their Idole To this place and vse the Prophet alludeth when he threatneth the King of Asshur and to comfort the Iowes that God had care ouer them he assureth them that Gods Tophet was prouided of olde and readie for the King of Asshur that it was deepe and wide to receiue him and all his retinue and the burning thereof as the fire of much wood the breath of the Lord kindling it as a flood of brimstone That Tophet was a place in the valley of Hinnom a part of Gehinnom BVILT HIE of purpose to burne children in the fire appeareth by Ieremie The store of wood heaped there and the rage of fire kindled there is euident by Esays comparison when he sayth The burning thereof is fire and much wood the breath of the Lord as a Riuer of brimstone kindling it fire and much wood is the fire of much wood to which he compareth the burning of hell for wood without kindling maketh no fire And so the Chaldaie paraphrast expresseth it A flame of sire is there in hell kindled LIKE AS in much wood And to euery man meanely seene in the Hebrew tongue it is a knowen Rule that Caph the note of similitude is often vnderstood in the Scriptures and then specially when it is added to one part of the Periode for example Flie to your mountaine a bird that is LIKE a bird Zion shall be plowed a field that is LIKE a field A Lyons whelpe Iudah from the pray shalt thou ascend that is LIKE a Lyons whelpe All flesh is grasse and the glory thereof is as the flower of the field that is all flesh is LIKE grasse And in this place of Esaie it is so the rather because the aduerbe of similitude is expressed in the next member where it is said the breath of the Lord LIKE a streame of brimstone doth kindle it which argueth that the former part must likewise be vnderstood the burning thereof is A s a fire of much wood which in effect is a mightie flame This then being a comparison what reason haue you Sir Discourser to pronounce that the Scriptures shew no more true fire in hell then much wood since fire was the maine respect why hell was likened to Tophet wood was not and without fire hell is no more like to Tophet then it is to a bodkin which if it be thrust into a mans body will raize paine enough And therefore these amplifications must either vtterly be voyde and import nothing knowen to the Iewes or else there must be fire in hell as there was in Tophet and that like the fire of much wood which is violent and raging and as a torrent of brimstone which flameth all with fire if it be once kindled And since Christ called hell Gehinnam for the resemblance it had to the flames of Gehinnom as is before prooued what maruaile if the Prophet speaking by the same spirite compared hell to Tophet which was the place in Gehinnom where the mightiest fires to burne men were made in his time Or if we follow not the Chaldaie paraphrase to make wood a comparison but leane to the later writers who make it a metaphore and referre it either to the continuance of hell fire or to the sinnes soules and bodies of the wicked feeding and nourishing the fire of hell as wood doth our common fire what gaine you by that If one word in the sentence be figuratiue will you conclude all the rest to be figuratiue so may you as well anouch all the Articles of our faith to be allegoricall because sitting at the right hand of God is a plaine allegorie And are there no moe places in the Scriptures mentioning hell fire besides this of Esaie Or if there be as there be exceeding many which haue no similitudes nor metaphores in them will you allegorize them all because this place of Esaie hath one similitude or metaphore in it whether this haue any learning reason or sense in it let the Reader iudge And because I haue mentioned the opinion of the latter writers making wood a metaphore in this place of Esaie and yet confessing the fire of hell to be a true substantiall aud externall fire I thinke it not amisse to let the Reader see what diuerse of them in true religion and learning not inferior to any of our time haue professed touching either of these points Peter Martyrs iudgement of GEHENNA we heard before who maketh Tophet all one with GEHENNA and saith of Tophet Esaie in his 30. Chapter calleth that place of Gehenna Tophet and fire vnquenchable as hauing much wood and brimstone to nourish it The Prophet also setteth downe the breath wherewith the fire is blowne that it may flame the more siercely Munster in his Annotations vpon the 30. of Esaie saith Gehenna is here called Tophet Dicit habitaculum illud esse igâ—…eum That place or habitacle the Prophet saith is all fierie to let thee vnderstand that the torment there is euerlasting For the vncleane lustes of the mind which here are not purged by faith shall be the nourishment of that eternall flame IN STEEDE of wood and coales And also the conscience within shall afflict the wicked as a kind of fire Hell is perpetuall because the Spirite and will of the Lord giue euerlasting force of fire to it Bullinger in his 90. homilie vpon the same Chapter Our Prophet calleth hell Tophet as our Sauiour called it Gehenna And indeede Tophet or Gehenna did burne and flame with perpetuall fires deuouring their children which seduced with a diuelish error thought they offered them vnto God when they offered them vnto the diuell As then in Tophet wretched men were skorched with fire so in hell all the wicked are tormented with euerlasting fire Therefore hell is rightly called Tophet and Gehenna whose inside or burning is fire that is if thou aske what is in hell there is fire and burning or
which are nothing like nor neare the paines of hell For example in harty and true repentance how great is the griefe and paine of euery part and facultie of the soule detesting and abhorring sinne and fearing and feeling the power of Gods wrath and yet I trust ech penitent person doth not suffer the paines of hell Feare griefe and sorrow then the soule of Christ might deepely tast when he suffered for sinne and yet be farre from the paines of hell But your collection from my words is more absurd for where I say the soule of Christ might suffer for sinne yet by no meanes could it receiue the same wages of sinne which we should haue receiued you inferre not only without any words of mine but directlv against my words ergo I meane or I ought to meane that the soule and mind of Christ suffered the paines of hell from the immediate hand of God and so where I auouch Christ by no meanes could suffer the same wages of sin which we should haue suffered you paraphrase Imeane or I ought to meane Christ suffered the selfe same which we should haue suffered and of my negatiues you make affirmatiues and then tell the Reader I contradict my selfe But in plaine termes I allow in Christ all those afflictions and passions of the Soule which naturally and necessarily follow paine and this ALL reacheth vnto moe then meere bodily paines it includeth the soules proper and immediate paines also Where you learned to reason I doe not know but you haue the best grace to disgrace your selfe that euer I saw and if this be all the learning you haue you may clout shoes with this Al. Doe the torments of hell naturally and necessarily follow paine then whosoeuer in any part or for any cause is payned suffereth the paines of hell or at least the soules proper and immediate paines which you make extreamest and sharpest in hell Babes and boyes may thus bable it is a shame for men to talke so much out of square Let my words stand simplely as you bring them and allow in Christ all those afflictions and passions of the soule which naturally and necessarily follow paine what conclude you out of them your sight is very sharpe if you see any absurditie in them Howbeit you draw my words from their right course and sense by leauing out what pleaseth you My words are When the auncient fathers affirme that Christ dyed for vs the death of the body only we must not like children imagine they exclude the vnion operation or passion of the soule but in the death of his body and shedding of his blood they include all those afflictions and passions of the soule which naturally and necessarily follow paine and accompany death Christ suffering for vs a painefull death how could it be otherwise but such afflictions â—…nd passions of the soule as naturally and necessarily follow paine and accompâ—…ny deâ—…th should be found in the soule of Christ vnlesse we giue him an insensible flesh or impassiole soule both which are errors in the nature of Christ His flesh waâ—… sensible and his soule passible as ours is because they both were humane Paiâ—… then and death in my words are plainly referred to the body of Christ whose â—…lesh could not be wounded and blood shed as his was but naturally and necâ—…ssarily his â—…le must feele the paine thereof And yet if my words wâ—…e not limited to the paine of Châ—…sts body as indeed they are I see no inconueniencâ—… growing from them nor helpe for your fansie coÌ„tained in them Yet plaiâ—…er as fauoâ—…g your error I say 〈◊〉 paine griefe of body or mind be it neuer so great will commend Christs obedieâ—…ce patience And the punishment of sinne which proceedeth from the iusâ—…ice of God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Christ might and did beare Yea he suffered death with all painfâ—…â—…ut no sinfull 〈◊〉 or â—…onsequents How good a sempsteâ—… you are doth well appeaâ—… by your short cuâ—…ing and â—…ide 〈◊〉 â—…hing my words together The first sentence you take our of a Section of my 〈◊〉 wherein I purposely shew that not only the paines of hell but euen the feare oâ—… 〈◊〉 must â—…e farre from the soule of Christ. The suffering of hell paines in the soule of Christ I there refuse as not consâ—…t to the Christian 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the 〈◊〉 â—…ertaintie sanctâ—…ie of Christs person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 with God Immediatly after the words which you bring I say 〈◊〉 Christ there could beâ—… no apprehension of hâ—…ll paines as due to him or determiâ—… for him but â—…e mâ—…st 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—…are that God would be inconstant or vâ—…st which are more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yea to these very words which you 〈◊〉 I â—…oyne this exception in the same 〈◊〉 but the sense of damnation or separatâ—…n from God or the feare or doubt thereof in Chrâ—…t as they quench faith and abolish grace so they dissolue the vnion and commuâ—…on of â—…ath 〈◊〉 natures or else breed a false persuasion and sinfull temptation in the soule of Christ. Who can be so sottish as not to see that my former words import Smart 〈◊〉 and gâ—…fe of body and mind which haue in them neither senâ—…e nor seare of hell paines that is of damnation or separation from God since no man is damned but vnto the pâ—…ines and place of hell and is first separated from God Wâ—…th as great discretion you fasten on an other sentence of mine where though 〈◊〉 â—…position be not generall but indefinite and hath two restraints euen from your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to wit in this liâ—…e where Christ suffeâ—…ed in â—… like to vs who aâ—… his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you throw off all forgetting what your selâ—…e obiected and whereto I 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—…nswere and suppose that here I fully concurre with your conâ—…ites But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 your owne obiection and that will rightly guide my solution Your reason which you proudly boasted could not be refuâ—…ed by the wiâ—… of man â—…as as you call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the lesâ—…e to the more Thus doe the members of Chriâ—… 〈◊〉 the terrors 〈◊〉 God and sorrowes of hâ—…ll therefore of necessitie Christ suffered the likâ—… Pâ—…ooue you by this Aâ—…gument that Christ aâ—…ter this life suffered the terrors of God and sorrowes of hell I doe you wrong to â—…pect it for it is open impietie so to thinke or say Then do you more wrong to imagine that I extended my words farther then to refell your reason As you spake of this life though you expressed it not so I replied that the puâ—…shment 〈◊〉 sâ—…nne which proceedeth from the iustice of God in this life and is no sinne Christ might and did beare but in no wiâ—…e those terrors and feares of consciâ—…nce which procâ—… from sinne and aâ—…gment sinne Now I pray you what allowance finde you here for your new erected hell or how force you my words to fit your deuises Terror of conscience and feare of hell could haue no
by an Angell wherein his sweat ran from him lâ—…ke drops of blood is not yet agreed on nor any way confirmed by you But note any of these sixe causes which I conceiued might induce our Sauiour to this sorrow or sweat and see whether they haue not direct reference to his passion and a full coherence ech with other Howbeit you reserâ—…e that for a fitter place and so do I. Why then doe I seeme to refuse them as none of mine by saying I shewed not mine owne opinion but the iudgements of the Fathers Nay why seeme you so void of all vnderstanding that you apprehend not so much as vsuall English MY doctrine is not MINE sayth our Sauiour but his that sent me will you hence conclude a manifest contradiction in Christ because he sayth mine is not mine but his that sent me In possessions that is mine which is wholly mine and no mans els and in opinions that is properly mine whereof I am the first inuenter and author howbeit by a larger extension of the word that is mine also wherein I communicate with others though it be not properly or only mine Out of this distinction of proper common knowen to the very children in Grammar schooles our Sauiour sayth most truly My doctrine that is the doctrine which I preach and in that respect is mine is not mine is not only mine nor of my deuising but his that sent me This were enough to warrant my words and yet my speech is somewhat plainer for I added not MINE OVVNE opinion but the iudgements of the Fathers Now mine owne is that which is properly mine and wherein no man partaketh with me and although you might stumble at Mine yet MINE OVVNE would put you out of doubt So that here as elswhere you bewray the sharpnesse of your quarrelling humor but if neither you nor your friends could spie any greater faults than these absurd and ignorant cauils the Reader will scant trust you hereafter when you talke of my contrarieties and inconstancies But how doth this excuse the foulenesse of your mouth in reiecting the Fathers iudgements with irreuerent and disdainfull termes which was the thing I then reproued in you If the opinions were onely theirs and not mine would you the rather reuile them as fond and absurd because they were wholly theirs and no way mine The Fathers you say I call not so Such I meant and tooke for absurd gatherers as commonly â—…le regard the sound doctrine of the Fathers but onely admire their faults whome here I noted by the name of our Contraries Are you so set on shifting and shufling that you can not forbeare seuen lines but you must needs contradict your selfe and that so grosly that euery Carter may controle you In the seuenteenth line of your three and thirtieth page you tell me I am in the best opinion when I denie these to be mine opinions and being charged that insolently you called those iudgements of the Fathers fond and absurd you answer that these your words are purposely meant of those in these dayes that delight to vaunt of the Fathers and chiefly in their errors Your vnciuill and vnseemely liueries of fond and absurd opinions and senses must needs belong either to the Fathers that vttered them or to me that cited them To catch me in a kind of contradiction as you thought your selfe acquit me from holding them For I denie them you say and râ—…fuse them as none of mine On whom then light your fond and absurd speeches but on the Fathers that first conceiued and first deliuered those opinions and senses which you so much dâ—…ke and reproch You meant it not of the Fathers You flutter in vaine to free your selfe from that lime-twig against your plaine speech no man will admit your secret meaning cleane contrary to your words You say indeed I know our contraries do fansie other senses of this Text My God my God why hast thou forsaken me but the senses of that text alledged out of the Fathers word for word the places of the Authors named when you come after your proud and peremptorie maner to examine and censure you say to that which was produced out of Ierome and Chrysostome which sense is most absurd and this is too fond to be spoken To the sense noted out of Athanasius Austen and Leo your answer is this is no lesse absurd than the former there is no cause nor likelihood in the world for it So when the testimonies of Ambrose Austen Ierom and Bede were produced that the reiection of the Iewes might be some cause of Christes sorrow in the Garden you grosly mistake their words as if they had expounded Christes complaint on the crosse and pertly reioyne this is more fond and absurd than the other there is no sense nor reason in it How thinke you Sir speake you of the men or of the matter when you say this sense is most absurd this is too fond to be spoken Could you wrench your words from the matter to the reporter which you can not what gaine you by that If to alledge these opinions of Fathers be so fond and absurd as you say though I refuse them as you aâ—…ch I did what was it in the Fathers themselues to profesâ—…e and publish those most fond and absurd senses as you call them to all ages and Churches but meere and inexcusable madnesse But tie your tongue shorter lest men thinke you mad thus to raue at eueriething be it neuer so learned or aduised that rangeth not with your erroneous fansie They haue spoken wisely and grauely and your kicking and winâ—…ing at their religious and sober expositions with such scornfull phrases may discouer your coltish conceits it can neuer decreaâ—…e or craze their credits I cast a needlesse rebuke vpon you for confounding the causes of the agonie and the complaint together Though all your exceptions to the Fathers expositions of that text My God my God why hast thou forsaken me be most friuolous and foolish yet none is more babish than when you mistake the reiection of the Iewes which I shewed out of Ambrose Ierom Austen and Bede might be some cause of Christes sorrow after his last supper to be the meaning of his complaint on the Crosse and would needs in a flaunt affirme that ME in those words of Christ why hast thou forsaken me doth not signifie my whole Nation which of my certaine knowledge neuer came into my head nor euer out of my mouth For I tooke care to wade no further in expounding them than the Scriptures and Fathers went before me and howsoeuer his sorrow for them might happily not cease before his death yet there was no cause why hauing formerly prayed his Father to forgiue them that knew not what they did he should now call the rest of the perfidious and obstinate Iewes by the name of himselfe If you stand to vphold this ouersight you shew
you once denie it For where you affirme that certaine Sacrifices of the Iewes set foorth those sufferings of Christs soule which you meane and I vtterly denied that any sacrifices of the Iewes did shew the suffering of hell paines in Christs soule or any other kind of death besides the death of the body only you take not the paines to make any proofe of that you aâ—…rme but stand in your state and say you deny my assumption As if the negatiue being mine and the affirmatiue yours you were not by all rules of Râ—…ason to prooue your aâ—…atiue and it sufficed me to stand on the negatiue till you made iust proofe of the contrary Here you will say you doe bring proofe for your assertion Here indeed you spend three leaues in talking of it as your manner is howbeit your word is here as throughout your writings the best warrant you offer vs for this cause But let vs heare your examples and proofes First that sacrifice consisting of two goats a slaine and a scape-goat You obiect heere against first that I abuse the Text. That were a great fault but let vs view the Text. Against your instance of the Scape-goat figuring as you would haue it the suffeâ—…ings of Christs soule I made three exceptions First that the Scripture did not call the Scape-goat a Sacrifice for sinne Secondly that no proofe was or could be made that the Scapegoat signified the soule of Christ Thirdly that if both those were granted which were no way proued the Scape-goat suffering nothing but being let loose into the wildernesse did rather inferre that Christes soule was freed from all such sufferings as you would force vpon it To the last which is the chiefest you take the paines to say little and so giue the Reader to vnderstand that your bolde assertion is the best foundation of your proofe for if you can not shew as you neither doe nor can that the Scape-goat by the Scriptures suffered any thing how will you bring it about that the Scape-goat figured the sufferings of Christes soule shall no suffering be a figure of suffering such may your figures be but the wisdome of God maketh figures for similitude and resemblance to the trueth and not for contrarietie to it as you do The chiefest point then you cleane slide from and take holde on some words in Moses text about which you thinke you may wrangle with some more likelihood The verie expresse wâ—…rds of the text you say are these Aaron shall take of the people two goats for a sinne offering And verie good reason must I bring to frustrate so plâ—… a speech I am farre from bringing any thing to frustrate the Scriptures but if the Scripture expresse it selfe I preferre that before your misapplying the words to your will Aaron shal take of the congregation of the children of Israel two goats for sinne So stand the words if you will needs appeale precisely to the text Here is a taking of two goats and an intent for sinne declared in generall but the particular maner of vsing and ordering either of them according to Gods appointment followeth in distinct and direct wâ—…ds Aaron shall take the two goats and make them stand before the Lord at the doore of the Tabernacle And Aaron shall giue lots vpon both goats one lot for the Lord and another for the Scape-goat And Aaron shall make the goat on which the lâ—… fell for the Lord to draw neere and shall make him reddie or sacrifice him for sinne For here is AASA'HV added which in the Scriptures vsually signifieth to make readie a Sacrifice And he shall kill the goat that is for sinne for the people and bring his bloud within the vaiâ—…e In as plaine words as the former be or any can be that goat on which the lot fell for the Lord must be made readie that is sacrificed for sinne of which he spake at first and that which was the peoples sinne-offering must be slaine and his blood brought within the vaile But neither of these agree to the Scape-goat therefore the Scape-goat was not the sinne offering for the people which the Scripture in that place mentioneth These words you say proue not that the Scape-goat was no sinne-offering at all These particular circumstances doe plainly proue which of the two goats was made the peoples sinne-offering and so conuince that you inlargc the words of Moses without any iust ground to serue your owne conceit Two sinne-offerings were not taken from the people but two goats were taken for sinne and one of them sacrificed for the people as was after prescribed and performed and Aaron commanded for him and his house to offer a bullocke for his sinne-offering So that where the Scripture mentioneth no moe sinne-offerings for the people but one neither vseth the word AASA but to one of them that one was prepared and slaine by Gods commandement as a sinne-offering for the people where the Scape-goat was preserued aliue and sent away into the wildernesse to shew the force of the former sacrifice by carying with it the sinnes of the people I take a sacrifice and offering in the largest sense as signifying any consecrated thing giuen to God to appease him for sinne And such vnbloudie sinne-offerings very manie we shall finde in Moses Law Wherefore the Scape-goat may be a sinne-offering though it were not slaine or bloudie That the word Sacrifice may be diuersly taken and applied to things vnbloudie and ghostly I haue no doubt but that one and the same word in one and the same place should import both a bloudie and vnbloudie sacrifice for sinne is a shift of yours without all sense it hath no shew in the sacred Scriptures Againe the sacrifices for sinne were they bloudie or vnbloudie which are mentioned in Moses law and namely in all those places which you quote in your margin they were all without exception OFFERED to God by FIRE the things liuing suffered first death by effusion of bloud the things without life as flowre oyle wine and such like were cast into the fire where the bloudie sacrifices were burned and so without bloud or fire no sacrifice for sinne is appointed in Moses law Since then the Scape-goat was neither slaine nor touched with fire but sent forth aliue into the wildernesse what do those examples of things vnbloudie yet offered by fire helpe you to proue that the Scape-goat liuing was such a sinne offering as many are found in Moses law Can there be any thing in the world more full and strong to prooue that the Scape-goat also was a true sinne-offering or rather a true part of this whole and entire sinne-offering consisting and being compleat in both these goats the slaine and the Scape-goat For as the slaine so the Scape-goat we see was CONSECRATED to the Lord and here OFFERED to make reconciliation by him and separated from men and barâ—… vpon him all the sinnes of the
his minde as by his sense and you nothing the neerer to your purpose of his suffering hell paines in mind from the immediate hand of God but to let the Reader see how you catch at Fathers for an aduantage without any shew of their words and when they make against you you reiect with disdaine the whole aray of them Your diuiding of man into his parts and your resolutions thereupon are more absurd and haue neither trueth learning nor common vnderstanding in them Of man to shew your exactnesse you make these partes â—…e bodie the externall sensitiue part of the soule the whole spirit and vnderstanding also You name here the bodie the soule and the spirit but so vntowardly that neither your selfe nor any man els can tell how to make them agree Hath the soule if you will needes distinguish it from the spirit no moe parts or powers to suffer or to be saued but the externall sensitiue part will you take the soule to be all one with the spirit and so make the whole spirit as much as the whole soule But the Apostle reckoneth the whole spirit the soule and the bodie whose words you would seeme to follow and so seuereth the soule from the spirit But not by the externall sensitiue part as you doe Againe why adde you the vnderstanding also after the whole spirit As if it were no part thereof but a different thing from the spirit But this is your skill when you come to any matter of importance to wrap it in ambiguous and confused termes that it shall be more masterie to vnderstand you then to refute you And how commeth it about by your Philosophie that the sufferings of the soule by and from the body pierce no farder then into the externall senses of the soule Doe the sufferings of the body offend and afflict the powers onely or the substance also of the soule Is not the very substance of the Soule passible and punishable as well by the powers of sense as by the affections and vnderstanding The actions passions powers and faculties of the soule are they not all grounded on and seated in the substance of the soule so that from thence all the actions thereof must proceed therein all the passions thereof must be receiued and thereon all the faculties thereof depend Are you so learned in logick that you will bring vs passions without a subiect or powers and faculties without a substance Whether it be therefore by the vnderstanding will affections or sense that the soule suffereth the substance thereof suffereth by those powers and meanes and not any part thereof for so much as the substance of the soule is not diuisible into parts as being a spirit though the powers and faculties thereof may be distinguished and called parts Then is it a strange position of yours that the sensitiue part suffereth or that the vnderstanding suffereth and not the soule by either of them when indeed the substance of the soule suffereth by or from her power or faculties of sense vnderstanding and will which are the meanes that God hath made to impresse paine on the soule For the vnderstanding which you call the mind is no more a seuerall substance in the soule then the power of sense is and the soule not onely discerneth particular things by her facultie of sense as she doth consequent and generall things by hir facultie of reason but by the eares and eyes she heareth the word and beholdeth the works of God whence commeth information of faith and truth Of the vnderstanding Epiphanius saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I thinke not our mind to be any substance of it selfe neither hath any of the children of the Church so thought but to be an effectuall power or operation giuen of God and abiding in vs. Of the sense Tertullian saith Anima perinde per corpus corporalia sentit quemadmodum per animam incorporalia intelligit The soule perceiueth corporall things by the sense euen as she doth vnderstand incorporall things by the mind And shewing how both those powers depend on the soule he addeth Sit nunc potior sensu intellectus dummodo ipse propria vis animae quod sensus Let the vnderstanding excell the sense so that it be a proper facultie of the Soule as the sense is Of the passions of Christs Soule Fulgentius writeth Nunc ostendendum nobis est passionem tristitiae maeroris taedij timoris ad animae substantiam propriè pertinere Now must we shew that the passion of sorrow heauinesse and loathing of hart and feare which our Sauiour felt pertaine properly to the substance of the soule And at the length concluding that the flesh of it selfe can neither haue life nor sense nor sorrow nor desire nor feare nor mourning he saith Haec ergo cuncta in anima quam susceperat pertulit Christus vt veram totamque in se cum suis infirmitatibus hominis demonstraret accepti substantiam All these passions Christ endured in his soule which he tooke that he might shew in himselfe THE TRVE AND VVHOLE SVBSTANCE of a man with his infirmities The purpose for which you pretend so many Fathers is as idle as all the rest for the Soule of Christ might suffer by her senses by her affections by her vnderstanding and will and yet not suffer the paines of hell nor the death of the soule which is your doctrine Though therefore the Fathers doe say that the soule of Christ suffered in his death and passion which is a thing I neuer doubted of much lesse called in question yet neither auouch they it suffered your hell paines neither from the immediate hand of God as your deuice leadeth which things are as strange to them as those they neuer heard of By the Fathers Christ suffered exactly all and whatsoeuer sorrowes and paines which we should haue suffered as well spirituall as corporall as well in all the powers of the soule subiect to suffering as in that which suffered alwaies with and from the body This if you would prooue by the Fathers themselues and not by your false translating and misapplying their words which otherwise haue no such thing you said somewhat You haue raked together some places alleaged formerly by me or formerly refuted by me and out of them you would make fresh shewes if you could tell how There is onely one place of Cyrill taken out of my Sermons by you as you doe the rest of your authorities which hath generall termes apt to be wrested by you and forced against the Authors minde which you forget not to straine to the vttermost the rest are miserably racked without cause or colour from the Fathers mindes and wordes Cyrill saith Omnia Christus perpessus est vt nos ab omnibus liberaret Christ suffered all things that he might free vs from all where the word ALL is found which you make the ground of all your descant
doth directly inferre that either we were not begotten and conceiued in sinne which is an euident heresie repugnant to Dauids wordes or els the vntimely fruites and scapes of women haue reasonable soules at the very instant of their conception when sinne is found in them by Dauids words which is this grosse absurd and false conceite that now you would shunne If you flie for helpe to actuall sinne haue children actuall sinne in their mothers wombes or as soone as they haue reasonable soules Or is actuall sinne traduced and inherited from Adam or spake I of actuall sinne when I said we inherite pollution from Adams flesh before the soule commeth Will you sticke to it and say originall pollution is no sinne Dauid conuinceth you who saith he was begotten in sinnes and conceaued in iniquitie and Paul affirmeth that death went ouer all men infants not excepted for so much as all men haue sinned and euen ouer them also who sinned not after the likenesse of Adams transgression that is who did not commit sinne as Adam did actually and voluntarily but naturally inherited sinne from Adam which dwelleth in them from the houre of their conception to the time of their dissolution and worketh the euill in them that they would not leading them captiue to the law of sinne which is in their members But how could Dauid say he was conceiued in sinne when at the time of his conception he had neither bodie nor soule Howsoeuer mans reason iudge thereof which yet often giueth the name of the whole to a part and the titles of things represented to their images with God nothing is more frequent than to call those things which are not as though they were because he not only made all things of nothing but quickeneth the dead and hath things past and to come present before him Leui is sayd by the Scripture to haue payed tithes to Melchisedech by Abraham as being then in Abrahams loines when Leuies grandfather was not yet borne So God by his Prophet spake to Cyrus many yeeres before Cyrus was borne calling him his anointed and saying to him by name thou art my shepheard So certaine is the counsell of God and his purpose so immutable that he speaketh in the Scriptures of things to come as if they were past or present Out of this infallible decree of God Dauid and Iob call that seed which was prepared to be the matter of their bodies by the names of themselues because it could not be altered what God had appointed But the void conceptions of women which miscarie before the bodie be framed neuer had either life or soule and so neither name nor kinde but perish as other superfluous burdens and repletions of the bodie which God hath appointed to no vse saue to ease the bodie In satisfaction for sinne you runne the same course that you do in the rest for neither vnderstanding my words nor almost any mans els rightly you fight with your owne fansies as if they were parts of my faith I sayd the Scripture acknowledgeth no satisfaction for sinne but by death I did and do so say what then Still we must note that by death you meane onlie the bodilie death In Christes person I alwayes meane by the death which he suffered the death of the bodie though you would include the death of the soule which I do not In the wicked I take death for all kinds of death corporall spirituall and eternall What can you hence distill Then surely the wicked should satisfie easily for their sinnes Farre be it from me to vtter such a sentence Doe the wicked with any kinde of death satisfie for their sinnes or is their condemnation to hell paines therefore eternall because by no death they can satisfie for their sinnes Were the iustice of God once satisfied by any thing the wicked could suffer their torments should cease but their punishments euerlastingly continue for that no satisfaction can be made to God by them suffer they neuer so much or neuer so long Whose follie then is it to pronounce that the wicked may satisfie for their sinnes mine or yours I sayd no such word I directly auouched the contrary The paines of hell haue neither worth nor weight sufficient in themselues to satisfie the anger or to procure the fauor of God Satisfaction for sinne I ascribe to none but onlie to Christ and in him to no death but onlie to that of his body Will it thence follow the Scripture acknowledgeth no satisfaction but by some kind of death ergo the wicked may satisfie for their sinnes by the deaths which they suffer Be it farre from all wise men to make such consequents and from all Christian men to make such conclusions The antecedent in effect is confessed by your selfe The Scriptures you say do shew indeed that Christ should not satisfie without death I sayd the same By satisfaction I meant full satisfaction when no more could be exacted as the word importeth and not the concurrents or precedents to satisfaction when the chiefest is vnpayed Why then doth your absurd and leud conclusion folow more vpon my words than vpon your owne My proofs are not good with those you finde fault If yours were no worse they would go more currantly The Apostle sayth Christ is the Mediator of the new Testament that through death which was for the redemption of transgressions we might receiue the promise Heere death is auouched to be the redemption which is all one with satisfaction for sinne for wherewith we are redeemed therewith God is satisfied Christes bodily death meerely and alone you say without any thing else together therewith which is my intent is not heere mentioned You will not tell where your shoo wringeth Death was for the redemption or satisfaction for sin sayth the Scripture Now the death of Christes bodie or of his soule or of both must here be contained The death of Christes soule you dare not openly professe and therefore all this while you carrie it couertly vnder the sufferings of Christes soule But you must come plainly to it for these assertions of the Apostle Death was the redemption of our transgressions and we are reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne will make this to be the question as I first set it whether the death of Christes soule or the death of the damned which is the true paines of hell be a necessary part of Christs satisfaction and our Redemption Other sufferings of the Soule are meere shifts to harbor your folly if you striue in words or your impietie if you striue indeede for the death of Christs Soule as requisite by the Scriptures to our Saluation That Christ did not die the death of the Soule I doe not prooue there is no cause I should it is your assertion that he did and must be prooued by you which you be so farre from comming neere that you purposely
destruction of body and soule Wee must therefore know that God truely and iustly threatned Adam and in him all mankind to be guiltie of all soâ—…ts of death and to bee thereto subiected as to their due if they transgressed against him but this commination neither included execution of all sorts of death on all mankind nor excluded pardon where pleased God onely thence may rightly bee gathered fiâ—…st that all Adaâ—… of spring should bee condemned and subiected to the guilt of all as deseruing all the one no lesse then the other Secondly that some of Adams issue should effectuall feele the sting of all which God allotted to the reprobate Thirdly that euen the elect as well as the reprobate should beare in themselues the monuments of this transgression by the corruption dissolution of their nature though the one should in this life bee reformed by the working of Gods spirit in them and the other bee restored after this life by the Resurrection from the dead All these wee finde performed by God in the trueth of his iudgements and therefore we may be sure they were intended at the time of his threatning And consequently this collection is very true that God threating Adam with these words Thou shalt die the death purposed if Adam transgressed that none of his posteritie should escape the death of their bodies to which God foorthwith punishing sinne irreuocably subiected Adam and all his children as Gods owne words declare when he said to Adam and in him to all men Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou returne The iudges reuenge then for sinne which we deserued and to which we were iustly condemned was temporall eternall death of the body and soule heere and in hell But this was not executed on all because some were freed by the fauour of God in Iesus Christ though none excused from a corporall death which prooueth my position the truer that God neuer released sinne to any no not to his owne Sonne without some kind of death It must not be forgotten that here you renounce all satisfaction for sinne in respect of merite as from Christes soule vtterly If you meane I vtterly renounce all satisfaction for sinne as from the death of Christs soule I easily graunt it and would gladly heare what you can say against it because the soule of Christ as I beleeue could not die the death of spirits But if you conceiue that Christes soule had neither part sense nor merit in the death of his body by which satisfaction for sinne was fully made it is the weamishnesse of your wit to mistake so much and vnderstand so little I attributed all sense of paine as well in death as other wise to the soule of Christ and the death of his body I communicated to his soule by reason it is a separation of the soule from the body not thereby to bee depriued of sense or grace which Christes soule could not be but therein to feele the paine and sting which the death of the body brought with it I tolde you but the leafe before out of Austen that the paine which is called bodily belongeth rather to the soule and that the paine of the flesh is only the offending or afflicting the soule by the flesh Wherefore I made the soule of Christ to be the principall agent in all his meriting and patient in all his suffering and though the soule of Christ could not pay the satisfaction for our sinnes by her death because shee could not die yet that is no impediment but the soule of Christ might haue and had the chiefest paine sense and merit in the death of Christes bodie by which the whole person made full satisfaction for the sinnes of the world And this is so farre from renouncing all merit of satisfaction from the soule of Christ as you conceiue that it ascribeth the whole power and force thereof to the obedience and patience of Christes soule and maketh the bodie the instrument ordeined of God to conuey paine vnto the soule and to lie dead when the soule is departed from it As for Bernards words which I alledge if you did or could tell how they crosse mine I would take the paines to reconcile them now you say they sute not with mine but awake out of your wonted maze and you shall see that I giue the chiefe place and part in the meritorious sacrifice vnto the soule of Christ which you dreame I doe not as also that you neither like nor allow of Bernards words For he declaring the cause and maner why and how Christes minde was afflicted in his passion sayth it was with a double affection of most humane compassion on the one side for the vncomfortable griefe of the holy women on the other for the desperation and dispersion of his disciples These causes you reiect as fond and absurd and now you would seeme to ioyne with Bernards words But you must say of him as you doe of Ambrose and pray that mens authorities may be omitted in this case for all the Fathers of Christes church are vtter strangers or enemies to your new doctrine That nothing may satisfie for sinne but death is not sound the Scriptures doe shewe indeede that Christ should not satisfie without death but they denie not that there are other parts of Christs satisfaction which differ from his death as his bloodshedding his shame his reproches his apprehension his buffeting and besides that pouertie hunger and wearines These doubtlesse yea all other sufferings of Christ what soeuer small or great are satisfactorie and meritorious That all Christes actions and passions were meritorious with God I haue no doubt but that all his sufferings as well naturall as voluntarie did euery one small or great satisfie for sinne This is a speech of yours which except it be well qualified hath in it an whole heape of absurdities and contrarieties For if the least and the first thing that Christ suffered either naturally or voluntarily did satisfie for sinne superfluous were all the rest to our redemption when God was once satisfied And so by his birth or circumcision you graunt a Supersedeas to all his life and death as needelesse to our redemption Then the which what can be more repugnant to the word of God and faith of Christ and euen to your selfe who by this meanes make your hell paines of no importance to our saluation By satisfaction you meane not full satisfaction but that which any way tendeth to satisfaction or is requisite before satisfaction can be made It is easie and often with you to abuse words though you talke much of their proprietie What is Satis in Latine whence to satisfie commeth but enough and what is enough for sinne but after which more is not requisite If then Christ satisfied that is did or paide enough for sinne by the first of his sufferings then all that followed as I inferred were more then enough and consequently
meriement or a prattlement then an argument That they resisted or inuaded might happely be collected not from the force of those words but from the disposition of such enemies yet which way they inuaded or how farre they preuailed can no way be thence coniectured though it be strongly by you conceited The Apostles words as I haue shewed may either declare the glory of Christes resurrection wherein all knees of things in heauen earth and hell did bow and stoupe vnto him rising from the dead or as some apply them expresse the power and glorie of his Passion in which by the perfection of his innocence patience and obedience he spoyled sinne and Satan of al their right and force ouer his Elect and caried all his Enemies as Captiues in an open shew before God and his Angels notwithstanding all the instance or resistance they could make From either of these senses how you can inferre that Satan tormented the Soule of Christ or that he impressed in Christs hart spirituall wicked cogitations or motions I verily doe not see except you haue a Patent to make Conclusions contrary to their Premisses o Defenc. pa. 85. li. 25. Then you come to confute my fourth Reason but the mainest points thereof you haue not so much as touched I shewed that the Godly sometimes in this life doe feele a tast of Gods insinite wrath and euen of hellish sorrowes 2. That Christ our Redeemer suffered for vs as deepely yea deeper then euen any of vs heere doe suffer but all this you can here clenly passe ouer without any word to it The matters were belike very waightie and your proofes many that I was forced to passe them with silence Indeede I neither tooke nor had any more time to refute your Treatise then whiles my Sermons were in Printing as they know that had the doing thereof and that made me the shorter in refelling your Reasons and sometimes the darker in proposing ruine owne but as for this which here you complaine of I saw no cause why in that speedie dispatch I should trouble my selfe any longer with it The first Proposition in some sense I admitted the second which you barely supposed without proofe I reiected as iniurious to Christ and repugnant to the Apostles words which you alleaged for it Neither haue you in this long aduised and farre consulted Defence so much as medled with the instances that I gaue against your false Collection Let him that will read the 286. Page of my Conclusion and see whether touching the maine points here pretended you were not briefely but truely answered and stand yet staggered with the parts there specified The summe of mine Answere to both as my words there witnesse was this p Conclus pa. 286. li. 7. The Terrors of minde which we fecle through conscience of our vnworthinesse ignorance of Gods Counsell and distrust of Gods fauour Christ neuer felt his Faith admitted no doubting his loue excluded all fearing his hope reiected all despairing q Ibid. li. 15. He was tempted in all things alike except sinne Then neither the rootes parts nor fruites of sinne must be in him but the Apostle that excepteth sinne excepteth all sinfull adherents What say you to this is it no Answere I would gladly heare what you can reioyne against it But you that skip euery thing which toucheth you to the quicke and iette in your generall Phrases like a Crow in a gutter ouer leape what you list and then for a shew surmise that your Reasons and proofes are silenced Well I may speake now more largely and plainly but in effect I can speake neither more truely nor more directly then I then did Yet for your pleasure I will not refuse to put your Propositions once more on foote to see how currant they are r Defenc. pag. 85. li. 27. The Godly sometimes in this life doe feele a tast of Gods infinite wrath and euen of hellish sorrowes You commit but three foule ouersights in this one proposition 1. You marre the whole and make it impertinent to your purpose 2. You contradict your Contradictions in the Defender maine Positions 3. You rest on euident ambiguities or open falsities What some of the godly doe sometimes feele either in Body or Soule maketh nothing to Christs sufferings by your owne Confession Your owne Rule is s Defenc. pag. 86. li. 32. In these words Christ was like vs in all Temptations and afflictions we are to vnderstand all that are incident to mankind generally not which happen to any man particularly So that what the godly doe sometimes feele for not onely Children and Infants but many thousand Christians die free from these hellish sorrowes of yours may not be made a President for Christs sufferings And where you or your Corrector would after salue this ouersight by saying in the margine t Defenc. pag 8â—… in margine li. 1. which though all generally feele not yet generally is due to all in respect of sinne you multiply your absurdities you mend not the loosenesse of this Proposition For due to all in respect of sinne are all manner of externall and corporall plagues from many of which your selfe would exempt Christ by this obseruation of yours and likewise reiection confusion desperation and eternall damnation are due to all in respect of sinne from which if you doe not exempt Christ you exempt your selfe out of the number of the Faithfull to take a worse course then Iudas who yeelded his Masters Body into the hands of men where this conceit yeeldeth Christs Soule into the power of diuels Secondly be you now of the minde that the Godly doe sometimes feele a Tast of Gods wrath How often haue you resolued and Proclaimed in this Booke that u Defenc. pa. 13. li 8. to the Godly their afflictions both small and great are no effects of Gods proper wrath and now they sometimes feele a Tast of his Infinite wrath What shift to saue this repugnancie can you deuise Gods Infinite wrath perhaps is not his proper wrath It is the same you say that Christ suffered and since Christ by your Doctrine suffered none but the proper wrath of God the Faithfull feeling the same that Christ did must suffer the same kind of wrath that Christ suffered Againe can you find vs an Infinite wrath in God that is not properly wrath What hath Gods proper wrath of which you haue iangled so much more then Infinite in time or degree or both but these Resolutions of yours be like your Inuentions they hang together as drunken mens steps or mad mens dreames Consult I pray you with your friends and aske them what answere you shall yeelde to this forgetfulnesse of theirs or variablenesse of yours Thirdly what meane you by hellish sorowes If you thereby note the feare of hell Men â—…ay feare but not suffer the true paines of hell in this lise which may often afright the seruants of God in this life is that
of his bloudie sweate or of that part of his piaier Father if it be possible let this cup passe from me Is that a reason this was not respected by Christ at that time because he had The different affections in Christes agony had different causes diuers other assaults and seas of sorow touching himselfe and others as well as touching the Iewes what hobling is this to aske one entire cause for so many different affections and actions as Christ shewed in his agonie where the Scriptures note not only feare and sorow on euery side but extreame humilitie and ardent zeale with such feruencie of spirit in praier that the sweat brake from him like droppes of bloud who that sought trueth or reade but the words of the Euangelists would thus cauill with matters of such moment Christ was in these passions and praiers by the space of an houre for so himselfe said to Peter f Matth. 26. What could ye not watch with me one houre and he praied 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more intentiuely or more feruently after he was strengthned by an Angell then before Shall we thinke he said nothing all that while in his praiers but only these words O my father if it be possible let this cupe passe from me This he repeated thrise as the Scripture obserueth but his praiers were longer and extended to other things except we thinke Christ was an houre repeating three lines Besides the Scriptures note a change in his praiers For after the Angel from heauen appeared to him and strengthened him f Luc. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then entering into an agonie he praied more earnestly than before so that his sweat trickled downe to the ground like droppes of bloud You say there must be one entire cause of all these passions So you say but which way doe you or can you goe about to prooue it saue by the liquor of your owne lips which is weaker then water to glew these things together g Defenc. pag. 95 li. 21. The worke of Christ at this time wrought by him is by a proper and peculiar name iustly called his passion not his compassion Which I would haue you to note A man may soon note the worthinesse of your arguments that when neither by truth nor reason you can preuaile you fall to collude with the names of passion and compassion As if Christes passion did not sometimes import the whole historie of his death and sufferings wherein are confessions reprehensions predictions praiers and promises of Christ as well as paines endured And did it note noe more but paines are not the passions and affections of feare and sorow as painfull many times to the soule as the stripes and wounds of the bodie Such trifles you take for triple engins when your conceits must be concluded all other mens arguments haue no shape of any reason with you so deepely you are in loue with your selfe and your owne inuentions be they neuer so ill-fauoured or mishapen h Defenc. pag. 96. li. 2. Lastly those holymen it seemeth hauing their thoughts wholly defixed on their vehement pittie towards the Iewes earnestly and constantly wished that the cuppe of Gods eternall wrath might come vpon themselues that the Iewes who deserued it might scape But Christ in his passion contrariewise desired that cuppe which he tasted to be to bitter and to violent for him might passe away from himselfe If your suppositions of Moses and Paule were graunted you which yet are no way true they make the stronger against you though you dissemble the sight thereof For if pittie towards the Iewes so farre preuailed with those two being the seruants of Christ that they yeelded their soules to eternall torments as you imagine to saue their Brethren how great reason then hath it that the Messias himselfe in whom was the fullnesse of all mercie might be mooued with such inward compassion for that whole nation that he most earnestly and frequently praied in the Garden to haue this cuppe that is this maner of death whereby the Iewes should perish to passe from him as Origen Ierom Ambrose and Bede expound those wordes and though your hellish humour be so hoat and so haughtie that you pronounce of euerie thing there is no semblance of reason in this yet the considerate Reader will find in those mens iudgments whom I haue named and produced more sap and pith then in your hell paines For seeing the affection of mercy hath beene so mightie in men that they were more then perplexed with this griefe what bring you but babling to shew that Christ might not feruently pray if so it pleased God not to make his death the meane of their vtter ouerthrowe and when he saw their pertinacie and infidelitie to be such that his praier did not preuaile for them to be troubled and agonized in mind for their wofull and willfull destruction Christ praid for himselfe not for them But these learned Fathers tell you he praied not against his owne death simply but respecting them by whose hands it should come and whose eternall ruine it should be Your cup of hell paines which you dreame Christ then tasted to be too bitter and too violent for him is a false and fond conceit of yours hauing neither trueth sense nor likelihood in it and yet forsooth both Scriptures and fathers must giue place to your deuices and semblances This I speake if your assertion of Moses and Paul were admitted howbeit indeed you are not able to prooue one word of all that you affirme in this case You take certaine verie obscure and much questioned words of Moses and Paul for your ground-worke and at your pleasure without all proofe you build thereon a whole world of falshood and confusion Out of which and the like darke and doubtfull places because the most of your hellish doctrine is drawen I thinke it needfull to let the Reader see how far and what those wordes inferre which you so much striue to abuse When the children of Israel had made them a Calfe of golde and feasted and plaied Moses prayer for the people examined before it as the God that brought them out of Egypt the Lord was wroth and said to Moses i Deuter. 9. v. 13. I haue seene this people and beholde it is a stifnecked people k 14. let me alone that I may destroy them and put out their name from vnder heauen and I will make of thee a mightie nation and greater than they be For this sinne when Moses prayed that the whole nation might not be destroyed he sayd to God l Exod. 32. v. 31. This people hath sinned a great sinne m 32. And now if thou wilt take away their sinne and if not wipe me out of the Booke which thou hast written To whom God answered n Vers 33. Whosoeuer hath sinned against me I will put him out of my booke The first thing here to be considered is what God
for saken of God whose cause to reconcile them 〈◊〉 then vndertookest and as a most skillfull Patron for seruants thou didest not disdaine to take the person of a seruant and SO FARRE thou didst compassionate the weake that thou wast neither afraid nor ashamed to be crucified and to dy leauing for a time thine owne higth and emptying the maiesty of thy glory that the dispersed might returne and the forsaken might take breath or comfort The forsaking which Cyprian here describeth in Christ consisteth in leauing of his diuine power and glory for a time and in abasing himselfe SO FARRE as to dy the death of the Crosse for their sakes but no farder And these wordes he saith Christ would haue vnderstoode to be a cause of their Reconciliation to God who had deserued for their sinnes to be forsaken of God and therefore he addeth presently f 〈◊〉 I consider thee Lord on that crosse where thou seemedst without helpe or forsaken how with an Emperiall power thou didst send the theefe before to thy kingdome by assuming of whom it is manifest how much thou hadst preuailed for those that were forsaken You would faine so wrest Cyprians wordes that he should say Christ vndertooke our cause and no more but he withall affirmeth that Christ tooke vpon him our person and that his carefull complaint were the wordes of his beloued If the wordes were spoken as well in our person as in our cause then we were indeed forsaken and Christ by laying downe his glorie for a time and obeying his fathers will did by those wordes declare that he reconciled vs to God when we were forsaken and in signe thereof with full power made the theefe partaker of his kingdome that had deserued and was condemned to die the death of a for lorne and forsaken malefactour g Defenc. pag. 109. li. 2. If you thincke they ment that Christ spake this by some strange metonimy naming himselfe but meaning his Church that can haue no good sense I shall not need to tell you The first sense of 〈◊〉 complaint on the Crosse. what I thinke let them speake themselues what they ment and when you haue heard their meaning out of their owne wordes you shall see how much you abused Cyprian to make him speake that he neuerment It is plaine enough which Athanasius saith h Athanaâ—…ius de incarnatione Christi Christ spake those wordes in our person for he was neuer forsaken of God and Austen is as euident i August epist. 120. why disdaine we to heare the voice of the body by the mouth of the head to me that is to my body my church and my litle ones So was it said why hast thou forsaken me euen as it was said he that receaueth you receaueth me No doubt we were in those wordes and the head did speake for his body And likewise Leo k Leo Serm. 16. de Pâ—…ss Dom. Christ spake those wordes in the voice of his Redeemed Neither are they alone in this opinion Theodoret satith l Theodoret. iâ—… Psalm 21. because Christ was the head of mans nature he speaketh for the whole nature of man So Bede m 〈◊〉 a in Psal. 21. Quare dereliquistime idestmeos ideo scilicet quia longè te fecerunt peccata esse à salute mea id est meorum Hec verbaplane innuunt caput non in persona sua hic loqui Quomodo enim derelictus vellonge à salute factus posset esse ille Why hast thou forsaken me that is mine because sinne did put thee farre from sauing me that is mine These words do plainly prooue that the head doth not here speake in his owne person For how could he possiblely be forsaken or remooued from saluation And Euthymius n 〈◊〉 in Psal. 21. The Lord taketh vnto him the person of mans nature as lincked to him and saith why hast thou forsaken me now a man that is the whole nature of man And Damascene o 〈◊〉 Orthodoxe fidei li. 3. ca. 24. Christ was neuer forsaken of his owne Godhead but we were those that were forsaken and despised Wherefore appropriating our person he praied in that sort And expressing what it is to appropriate or assume an others person he saith As when a man doth put on an others person of piety or charitic and in his steed vseth speach for him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which agreeth not vnto himselfe If then we take dereliction for the want of Gods fauour spirit and grace as these Fathers doe it is euident Christ could not so be forsaken and consequently these wordes in that sense which is proper to the Children of Gods wrath could not agree to the person of Christ though it were true in his members that they by nature were forsaken and destitute of grace till he reconciled them to God and diffused his spirite into their harts to make them partakeâ—…s of his holinesse And as for the strangenesse of the metonimy count you that strange which Christ vseth in one Chapter more then thirty times and find you no strangenesse in your conceits which are no where throughout the Scriptures either expressed or so much as coherent with the continuall speach and plaine rules of the Scriptures p Defenc. pag. 109. li. 5. That can haue no good sense For how can it be that we were forsaken of God when Christ was on the Crosse Nay euen then and there we were purchased vnto God not forsaken by God Doth any man vse when he would make reasons for his opinion to refuâ—…e himselfe as you doe we were purchased you say on the Crosse vnto God you must adde by the bloud of his sonne which was also God for that Saint Paul in the plâ—…ce which you cite nameth as the true and right price of this purchase God purchased his Church with his owne bloud and not by the direfull paines of hell as your braine hath lately broched Now if we were purchased on the Crosse then till we were purchased we were enstranged from God and so forsaken of him And what hindreth this complaint or prayer of Christs to beare witnesse that we were now reconciled and purchased vnto God which before were forsaken and separated from God For those words doe not imply that we still continued forsaken but that formerly without Christ we were vtterly forsaken and now by him restored to fauour And the goodnesse of this sense I doe not thinke but any man of meane capacitie will soone conceaue and iudge it more fruitfull for vs to know that by Christs mediation and oblation on the crosse we are now no longer strangers vnto God nor forsaken of him as before we were for our sinnes then that Christ suffered the direfull and infernall paines and death of the damned in his Soule before we could be freed from our sinnes For of the first there can be no question and of the second you neither haue nor euer shall be able to bring one
in him It workâ—…th both in vs and why should either want in him who was farre better able to pâ—…rforme both then we are the like I say of the feare of Gods wrath when we haue prouoked it We ought not only to reuerence that most excellent maiesty but when we haue sinned to feare and tremble before that power which can doe with vs what he will And though we hope in his mercy yet that doth not breed any neglect of his power which if we doe not feare when we haue prouoked we doe despice And therefore Moses giueth this for a rule of true deuotion and submission vnder the mighty hand of God Who knoweth the power of thy wrath for according to thy feare that is as thou art feared so is thine anger The lighter account we make of his anger the heauier shall his hand be to vs. The more we feare it without distrust the lesse we shall feele it For submission and sorow doe mitigate the wrath of God which carelessenesse and contempt do aggrauate Since then no man knew the power of Gods wrath against sinne so perfectly as Christ did and yet the infinitenesse of Gods power did passe the reach of Christs humane soule to comprehend why might not the manhoode of Christ yeld greater feare and trembling to the power of Gods wrath against our sinne for which he was to satisfie then all men liuing were able to do and yet together with the fearefull impression thereof retaine a religious submission thereto In compassion when we feare for other mens dangers or grieue for other mens harmes is not this affection painfull to vs because it proceedeth from mercy and 〈◊〉 is affâ—…iction thogh it be a vertâ—…e pity in vs are you so hard harted as well as hie minded sir defendour that you were neuer touched nor troubled with the sense of other mens miseries l Iob. 30. Did I not weepe saith Iob with him that was in trouble Was not my soule in heauinesse for the poore When the Apostle willeth vs to m Rom. 12. mourne with them that mourne Doth he meane we should make a pastime of it because it is an affection of mercy and charity Doth not daily experience teach vs how much the miseries of those whom we dearly loue do bite pinch vs Can we forget Dauids n 2. Sam. 19. ver 1. 4. affection aud affliction for Absolon Doth not the Scripture describe all naturall mothers in those words o Matt. 2. v. 18. In Rama was a voice heard mourning and weeping and great Lamentation Rachel weeping for her children would not be comforted because they were not In godly zeale and care we shall find the like p 2. Cor. 11. Who is weake saith the Apostle and I am not as weake who is offended and I burne not yea the q Psal. 69. zeale of thine house hath consumed me saith Dauid Then are feare and sorow proceeding either from piety or charity no whit the lesse grieuous because The highest degrees of religious feare and sorow were in Christ. they are religious but rather the more inwardly we are touched with either the more acceptable is that affection to God specially when it concerneth his owne power or honor And consequently as the highest degrees of religious feare and sorow were in Christ at the time of his propitiating the holinesse and iustice of God for our sinns so were they in him as sharpe and painfull as any his afflictions which otherwise he felt in his body r Defenc. pag. 115. li. 15. That these should or could afflict Christ so much aboue his strength and patience is more then strange Easily they might aboue his strength since he would vse no strength but weakened himselfe of purpose to feele the smart and burden of our sinnes but not aboue his patience since he did not repine at any of these but requested by praier to haue the punishment of our sinne proportioned to the weaknesse of his humane flesh considering the infinite power of Gods wrath most iustly prouoked by our sinnes s Defenc. pag. 115. li. 17. It were no vertue but sinne in any to giue way to our affections though about good things immoderately beyond our patience and strength of nature It is no sinne but vertue to presse both our strength and patience to the vttermost for Gods glory in things commanded by him As in louing God t Bernardus de diligendo Deo modus est sine modo diligere the measure is to loue him without measure so in all the dueties which God requireth the most that we can doe is not too much Feare and sorrow then which are as the Apostle speaketh u 2. Corin. 7. vers 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to God or for God that is obedient to Gods will are neuer immoderate neither bring they danger of life or defect of grace as worldly feare and sorow do But how commeth your discâ—…etion to charge Christes affections with immoderation For your hell-paines you are content to plunge his bodie and chiefly his soule into astonished and all comfortlesse confusion and for submission to God and confession and apprehension of the iustnesse and greatnesse of his anger against our sinnes you will not giue him leaue being our Agent and Intercessour in his owne person to present that to God which is due from vs and for vs euen inward sorrow for Gods iust displeasure and an humble feare of his mightie power thereby to honour the one and preuent the other when he now addressed himselfe to make full satisfaction for our sinnes x Defenc. pag. 115. li. 19. Though they somewhat molest the minde yet in trueth they are most pleasing and delightfull to good men not tedious much lesse painfull vnto death The Apostle himselfe answereth this obiection and telleth you that y Heb. 11. no chastisement FOR THE PRESENT seemeth to be ioyous but grieuous yet AFTERVVARD it bringeth the quiet fruit of righteousnesse to them that are thereby exercised Our Sauiour by this example teacheth the same Verily z Iohn 16. Verily I say vnto you ye shall weepe and lament but your sorow shall be turned into ioy A woman when she trauelleth hath sorrow because her houre is come but as soone as she is deliuered of the childe she remembreth no more the anguish for ioy that a man is borne into the world To say that paine is pleasure and sorrow is delightfull fighteth against Nature Scripture and euen against common sense but God doth diuersly comfort the affliction of his Saints with ending easing or otherwise recompensing them whereby the faithfull a 2. Cor. 4. faint not though their outward man perish because our light affliction which is for a moment worketh to vs a farre exceeding and euerlasting weight of glorie Though then our Sauiour was on euery side pressed with sundry sorowes which would not end but in his death yet that doth
and loue God as the great and chiefe reward the Lord saying when he appeared visible to the eyes of their bodies promised himselfe inuisible to be seene of cleane hearts he that loueth me shal be loued of my Father and I will loue him and will shew mine owne selfe vnto him n Defenc. pag. 120 li. 7. The transfiguration of Christ on the mount declareth that some reall part of heauenly glory may be heere on earth which you your selfe somewhere confesse cleane against your selfe You would needes tell vs in you Treatise that heauen was some foretaste of the infinite ioy prepared for the godly which you attempted to prooue by the Apostles words common to all the children of God and thereupon concluded thus you o pa. 80. li. 23. see that as there is heauen in this life in some measure euen so there may be hell I replied that if you p Conclu pag. 337. 〈◊〉 34. affirmed of heauen as you did of hell that the VERY SAME IOYES which are in heauen or EQVALL with them are heere sometimes found in vs liuing on earth it was a wicked error flatly repugning to the trueth of Gods promises and to the very nature of our Christian faith and hope We reasoned not of Christs manhoode which q Colos. 1. in all things had the preeminence aboue and afore all the sonnes of God but OF THE CODLY whom you expressely named and of whom I accordingly replied and to whom those words of the Apostle cited by you for proofe of your purpose doe precisely pertaine For of Christ they are most false that his eye neuer saw nor his eare neuer heard nor his hart neuer conceiued the things which God hath prepared for them that loue him Now when you should prooue that mortall men and no more then men though the members of Christ liuing heere on the earth haue THE VERY SAME IOYES which are in heauen or EQVALL with them you run to Christes transfiguration on the mountaine and by that you would inferre that there was heauen euen in this life in some measure But first where can you shew that Christes transfiguration on the mountaine is called heauen in the Scriptures Next what deriuation can you make from Christs power knowledge and glory to ours heere on earth Christs soule had many parts and degrees of heauenly perfection in this life which ours haue not he was free from sinne and error which abound in vs he was full of trueth and grace which want in vs saue what we receiue from his fulnesse he was the way the light and the life that leadeth lightneth and quickeneth euery man comming into the world yea the crosse of Christ was the wisdome and power of God These and many other maine differences the Scriptures expresse betwixt Christ and vs so that from his perfection and preeminence to our weakenesse wickednesse and wretchednesse in this world no comparison can be made nor any consequent but that beleeuing in him louing him and obeying his commandements as we are heere regenerate and renewed by his spirit so we shal be conformed to his image to raigne with him in the next life if we suffer with him in this life Christs transfiguration then is not called heauen in any Scripture neither had it the perfection or condition of heauen since heauen is not a transitory taste of mutable ioy or glory but a full and euerlasting possession of all power honour and blisse communicable from God and proportionable to the receauer But if Christ had the reall fruition of heauen in his flesh heere on earth how much more in his soule which was alwaies full of trueth and grace light and life and hauing so reall a tast as you speake of and so immeasurable a fulnesse of life and grace as the Scriptures speake I greatly maruaile how you come really to place hell and heauen in one soule together and specially in the soule of Christ on which you inflict the very substance of hell paines when yet the abundance and continuance of heauenly ioy could not want in him As for my somewhere confessing cleane against my selfe that Christ transfigured in the mount tasted of that heauenly glory prepared for him I see not how that crosseth any thing auouched by me in the 337. and 338. page by you noted You shall do well when you challenge contrarieties not to let the report rest on your crackt credit but produce the words that your Reader may be iudge of both You are sharp enough to catch hold of any thing if there were any cause I called indeed Christs transfiguration on the mount a taste of that heauenly ioy prepared for him I called it not heauen A taste of things neither abideth nor sufficeth which heauen fully doth therefore it is rather a contradiction then a confession of your conceit For if you thinke that Christs heauenly glory may be defectiue or mutable as his transfiguration was you broch a wicked and impious error Christs transfiguration did not exempt him from feare sorrow shame and death following which if you imagine of his glorification in heauen it is a right hellish impiety And whatsoeuer we affirme of Christ touching his preeminence aboue all the children of men as that he was free from sinne and full of grace and had the perfect knowledge of Gods trueth and will aboue men and Angels I hope you will not deriue it to his members heere liuing in the flesh least you leaue no ground of Christian religion vnshaken r Defenc. pag. 120. li. 10. Onely this you haue to obiect touching men that faith and hope is the euidence of things not seene neither are our greatest ioyes the same nor equall to them which we shall possesse in the next world I haue also to obiect that it is not lawfull for you nor for any man liuing to determine of Gods kingdome without his warrant nor to auouch that to be heauen which the Scriptures doe not Take heed it is no pastime to play with heauen and hell as you do without better aslurance than you haue Know you not what that learned Father sayth s Tertullianus de praescrip aduersus haereticos Nobis nihil ex nostro arbitrio indulgere licet It is not lawfull for vs that be Christians to deuise any thing of our owne heads But t Cyril de fide ad Reginas li 2. it is necessarie for vs as Cyril sayth to follow the diuine Scriptures and in nothing to depart from their praescription u Defenc pag. 120 li. 14. I answere our reasons before do proue more than only hope in the faithfull sometimes And I replie that none of your reasons do any way proue the ioyes of heauen Gods answere to Moses must stoppe your mouth and the presumption of all such as you are x Exod. 33. Thou canst not see my face for there shall no man see me and liue Moses saw as much as in this mortall life any
So that all your platforme is quite ouerthrowen by the direct words of the Apostle freeing Christ and all his elect euen in this life from all power of the second death And therefore you set your selfe in this section euidently to confront the holy Ghost when you seeke to proue that Christ suffered the second death of the soule as the Scripture speaketh And besides the Scriptures if you talke of second deaths you may as well tell vs tales of a new world as of an other word without the witnesse of Gods spirit But you haue found out many places of Scripture where this last kinde of death is so called and named Eight you quote by the side in your margine but take not the paines to discusse one of them onely you pronounce after your stately manner that those places of Scripture prooue that which you meane to bee the death of the soule Now what if not one of them speake any such thing is not your Reader sure to find you a true man of your word when you quote eight places and not one of them to your purpose but this is your perpetuall course to mistake and misuse Scriptures at your pleasure and then to say you haue soundly prooued it On the contrary I affirme that none of these places intend any such thing as you imagine of your terrestiall and temporall hell but they exactly conclude against you that damnation is eternall and no death of the soule which is not euerlasting is expressed or intended in any of those Scriptures or in any other that you or your friends are able to picke out And though it may suffice me as well to say nay as you to say yea yet for the Readers better resolution I will not bee grieued to run through all these places as much as shal be needfull The first is l Ezech. 18. ver 4. the soule that â—…inneth it shall die These words may signifie either subtraction of grace in this life which is consequent to sinne in the wicked or exclusion Eight places of Scripture abused for the temporall death of Christs soulâ—… from glory in the next world which is the iust and full wages of sinne But that euery soule which sinneth hath felt or shall feele in this life your temporall hell or the pains of the damned this is a grosse error to be fathered on those words and repugnant not onely to the trueth of this text but euen to the sense and experience of all the Godly and such as your selfe dare not auouch since you qualifie your conceit in that behalfe with these words that m Defenc. pag. 134. li. 15. some in some measure are conformed with Christ in these his sufferings But if God by Ezechiel ment your earthly hell then absolutely all men children not excepted must feele in this life paines equall with the damned for so much as they haue sinned and deserued euerlasting damnation The second is the commination that God made to Adam n Genes 2. ver 17. Whensoeuer thou â—…atest thereof thou shalt die the death or surely thou shalt die Here are all sorts of deaths threatned but not to be executed either on all men nor in this present life God reseruing to himselfe power and libertie to dispose of all mens soules according to his determinate counsell though they should all be guiltie and liable to all kinds of death by vertue of those words vpon the transgression of the first man This exposition the Apostle giueth when he saith o Rom. 5. The offence of one came on all men to condemnation which is the verifying of these words that all men died in Adam to wit were subiect to death not onely by dying the death of the bodie which is appointed for all men but to the guiltinesse of euerlasting death not executed on all though deserued by all The third which is the p Rom. 6. Apostles conclusion is either generally ment of all kinds of death which came in by sinne as the rewards and punishments thereof and then it is nothing to your intention or else it expresseth the full wages of sinne to be euerlasting death by opposition to eternall life mentioned in the next wordes following For eternall life is the gift of God as eternall death is the wages that is bothe the desert and repayment of sinne Take which you will either the generall or speciall construction of death it is no way pertinent to your purpose Lesse is the fourth that the Apostles were the q 2. Cor. 2. vers 16. sauour of death vnto death in them that perished as they were the sauour of life vnto life in them that were saued For the preaching of the Gospell which the Apostle meaneth in that place doeth not proclaime a terrestiall or temporall heauen to them that beleeue in Christ but life eternall and consequently neither doth it denounce a temporall death to them which refuse Christ but euerlasting death And therefore there can be nothing more absurd then to conuert these places to the proofe of your temporall hell for so you should doe the reprobate a very good turne if you could shew that the death threatned them for not beleeuing in Christ were to dure but for a time or in this life only where your new found hell hath power and place and no where else With like successe you note for your fifth that the r 2 Cor. 3. vers 7. ministration of death was glorious the Apostle so calling the law because it denounced death not temporall but eternall to all transgessours So that if the full wages of sinne be eternall death by the word of God then did the law not denounce a temporall death due to all men by course of nature be they good or bad though euen that at first entered as a part of the punishment of sinne but euerlasting death which is the second death is reserued as S. Iohn writeth for all sorts of sinners and liers Saint Iames is the sixth who sayth s Iames 5. He that conuerteth a sinner erring from the trueth shall saue a soule from death If a man conuerted shall be saued from your temporall hell which you here would intend by the death of the soule then much more the Conuerter and he that neuer erred from the trueth shall be free from your hell and consequently Christ was most free who was trueth it selfe and neuer erred But as trueth is the way to euerlasting life and freeth men from all bondage of sinne and Satan so errour and infidelitie haue another maner of death than your terrestiall hell which you make common to Christ and some of his members and he that is conuerted from errour or sinne shall be saued from euerlasting perdition which indeed is the death of the soule depriuing it of all blisse and ioy for euer The seuenth and eigth you take out of Saint Iohn who sayth t 1. Ioh. 5. vers 16 17. There is sinne vnto
And how come you now to put so great a difference betwixt alwaies and vsually where before you did interpret alwaies to be ordinarily but now you finde flesh and spirit together applied to men once to signifie meerely the body and soule Meane you in all the Scriptures or in the new Testament onely You call it the r Treatis pag. 136. li. 8. perpetuall vse of the Scripture and so must include the old Testament as well as the new except you will barre the old from being part of the Scripture What then shall become of that which Moses so often ascribeth to God when he saith s Numb 16. 27. O God the God of the spirits of all flesh Praieth he for the spirits of men or of beastes If you will straighten your wordes to the new Testament how insolent a bragger and negligent a Reader of the Scripture are you that first said it was alwaies so and now correcting your error say you finde it once otherwise where a childe might easily haue found it oftner The Apostle decreed the Offender at Corinth to be t 1. Coâ—… 5. deliuered vnto Sathan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit might be saued in the day of the Lord. And to the Hebrewes he telleth vs u Heb. 12. We had fathers of our flesh which corrected vs and we reuerenced them Should we not much more be subiect to the Father of spirits In both which places the spirit of force must signifie the substance of mans soule x Defenc. pag. 144. li. 19. Finally to make an end with your Fathers and Councels I haue shewed before that your large claime prooueth a very short gaine For in substance and full effect they are euidently and generally against you and for vs. If thou thinke Christian Reader that I charge this man vniustly with impudent facing behold but these wordes and say what thou thinkest of them He that hath not brought nor can not bring one euident or pertinent word out of any Father for the death of Christes soule he yelleth out with open throatâ—… that generally and euidently they are in substance and full effect for him and against me It is no time heere to repeat what is past by that which is said thou maist easily iudge on which side the Fathers stand with full confession of the trueth and their faith Bragging is boies play where all performance wanteth y li. 24. As for their denying that Christ died in his soule I haue answered before With senselesse and shamefull shifts that Christes soule died not as the body did that he died not the ordinary death of the soule expressed in the Scriptures but an extraordinary newly deuised by your selfe and more then this in summe and substance you haue not said one word z li. 25. Further where you bring them in many places saying by his bloud onely he redeemed vs and he suffered onely in his body they are abused by you woonderfully not in their wordes but in their meaning You would faine change dying into suffering and haue your Reader imagine that I say Christes soule suffered nothing at all but these are now so stale tricks of yours that euery man reiecteth them as fast as I doe From death you 〈◊〉 to sufferings from sufferings to proper sufferings of the soule to which you à dde as a supplussage the paines of the damned from the immediate hand of God And so where you finde any Father affirme that Christ GRIEVED FEARED OR SORROWED in soule which are the naturall passions of mans soule common to good and badde you looke no farder but presently pronounce that Father maketh euidently with you But awake out of this ignorant lâ—…thargie there be many steps betweene their words and your wiles which you will neuer tread ouer with any the least shew of truth or proofe If I haue not abused their wordes in alleaging them as you confesse and I assure my selfe I haue not but where the Printer perchance hath made some fault which no man can auoid as pag. 81. August de Trinitate li. 11. the Printer hath set for lib. 13. and some such then haue I lesse abused their meaning whereof I make euerie Reader iudge and so referre my collecting to their censuring which is no abuse a Defenc. pag. 144. li. 28. They striuing against Arians and such other heretikes who would haue Christs Deitie to take part in his sufferings for our redemption the godly auncient writers doe heereupon say he suffered and satisfied for vs onely in his body not excluding the proper and immediate sufferings of his spirit Let the Authors themselues be viewed if you thinke 1 affirme of them falsely Against whom they write is not so much as what they write and how they confute those heretikes whom they vndertake The positions which they establish out of the Scriptures against such heresies are most to be regarded by their proofes you shall see their purpose To confound those misbeleeuers that would haue the Godhead of Christ suffer in his flesh or together with his flesh the Fathers do soundly oppose first that the Godhead is inuiolable impassible immutable and such like properties of the Godhead Secondly that the soule of Christ was subiect to no kind of death neither of sinne nor damnation which are not the death of the body as you wilfully but most absurdly would wrest it and therefore the Godhead was much more free not onely from this death of the bodie but from all touch of any kinde of death Thirdly to shew what it was in Christ that died since neither the Deitie nor the soule of Christ could die any kinde of death they prooue that that which died was a mortall bodie buried and raised againe the third day according to the Scriptures Which accidents and attributes belonging onely to the body of Christ It is most certaine by the sacred Scriptures that onely the body of Christ was yeelded to death for the redemption of our sinnes These be the chiefest of their reasons though they haue many others tending to the same issue which whether they truely and effectually exclude the death of Christes soule from the worke of our redemption I leaue it to their iudgement that shall peruse the former places by me cited or view the Fathers themselues in their full discourses And yet a number of these Fathers in the places by me alleaged doe not refute the Arians but handle professedly other points of our redemption saluation as Tertullian in his booke of the Resurrection of the flesh Chrysostom in his Homily of drunkennesse of the resurrection Augustine in his 99. Epistle those Chapters of his fourth Booke de Trinitate which I produced Gregorie vpon Iob Bernard in his Sermons to the Souldiers of the Temple Bede in his Homilies and Albinus in his questions these I say doe not there take in hand to refell the Arians but to deliuer what kinde of death Christ died to free
of the dead opposed to the lyuing and yet bin restored to life againe And consequently in spite of your heart Abyssus the bottomles deepe must not onely keepe his signification perpetuall in the new Testament which is the place appointed for the diuels but descending thither with returne must import an impossible condition to all men â—…aue onely to Christ which in the generall condition and state of the dead is nothing so Besides that the condemned to hell are truely dead and so called in the Scriptures is vnknowne to none of any learning saue to you Death and hell saith Saint Iohn deliuered vp their dead And if the second death bâ—… the truest and terriblest death that is wherein both soule and body are for euer dead then hell is most properly the place of the dead since all there are adiudged to euerlasting death where in the condition of death opposed to the liuing heere on earth the soules of the Saints doe liue with God and taste neither torment nor death Touching the word Abyssus the bottomlesse pit with which you play at your pleasure this may sufâ—…ce that throughout the Scriptures the word is neuer vsed for the graue For the depth of the sea and bottom of earth it is vsed in the old Testament and metaphorically for the deepe counsels of God and desperate troubles of men but in the new Testament it is onely vsed for the bottomlesse pitte whither Diuels are afraid to goe as appeareth by their petition to Christ not to be commanded to depart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the bottomlesse deep and where they are lockt and kept when pleaseth God This meaning the Syriacke translator an auncient writer of no small credit seemeth to haue sith he turneth it abyssum sepulchri the deepe of the graue The Syriacke translation I reuerence for antiquity but you bring the Latin traÌ„slator of the Syriacke that is partiall by your leaue rendreth the Syriacke word according to his owne supposition For though the man were very learned that made the Latin translation yet in this and some other things he yeelded ouer much to the priuate affections of some men with whom he liued conuersed The words in Syriacke are who shall descend latâ—…ehuma dashiul to the deep of sheiul Where sheiul in Syriacke hath the same deriuation and signification that Sheôl hath in Hebrew and therefore standeth as indifferent to the Sheâ—…l of soules which is hell as of bodies which is the graue Againe Tehuma in Syriacke being all one whith tehoma in Chalday and thence taken as they both are froÌ„ tehom in Hebrew and throughout the Scriptures tehom the deepe being neuer applied to the graue but to the great and vnsearchable deepes of the sea of the earth and of hell it hath neither sense nor truth that Tehuma in this place should be applied to the six foot depth of a graue Lastly Tehuma without addition is vsed by the Sayriack Translator for the deepe of hell to which the Diuels desired not to be sent And sheiul alone is also put by him to signifie the place of torment where the rich Gluttons soule was punished after death The Arabicke Translator keepeth the same sense which the Syriack doth saying who is he that descended ILEY AFFAâ—… LGIAHIM to the lower places of hell GIAHIM being vsed by the same Translator in S. Lukes Gospell to expresse the place where the Rich mans soule after death was tormented So that the Syriacke Arabicke Translators fully refute your conceit of the graue besides the sound and sufficient reason alleadged formerly by me to which Translators must confirme their words that the Apostles speach heere cannot be construed of the graue without a manifest and inexcusable falsehood For where then the sense of these words must be None euer descended to the graue that returned saue Christ this is so false that children will not endure it to be thought Apostolike therefore will you nill you the bottomlesse deepe here in this place of the apostle must signifie that deepe to which neuer man descended and returned but only Christ. Which if it be not hell we desire to know of you and your friends what place you can plot vs out to fitte these words The Apostle may also insinuate in this word a seeking to the deepest and fardest parts of the sea to learne somewhere if it might be among all the creatures how to fulfill keepe the law For so Moses whom here he doth cite expressely signifieth then so the Apostle also signifieth the very same You thought the Sextens would deride you if you should rest on this resolution that euery day they digge bottomlesse pits to burie men in when they themselues so easily get out of them and therefore you now put forth to sea and goe a diuing to see whether you can catch cockles in the deepe or no to learne of them how the law of God may be fulfilled A pattern of your profound learning if a man would seeke he shall need goe no farder then this Page and the next where he shall find how ignorantly absurdly and vntruely you roue at the matter and meaning of Moses and Paul and misse them both as wide as the sea is broad For Moses speaketh no word of the depth of the sea much lesse of seeking to all creatures how the law of God might be fulfilled Neither doth the Apostle exactly cite the wordes of Moses as you imagine but somewhat altereth them that he may fitte them to Christ with greater effect and comfort then Moses could vnto the law Moses speach is faire and plaine The Iewes to whom he deliuered the law written could not pretend the knowledge of Gods will to be hidde in heauen nor farre remooued from them beyond the seas that they should wish some would goe vp to heauen to bring it them or ouer the sea to fetch it but the word saith Moses to the people is very neere vnto thee in thy mouth and in thine heart for to doe it That is written before thine eies that thou mightest read it and pronounced in thine eares that thou maiest remember it if thou wilt take heed to obserue it I take heauen and earth to record I haue set before thee life and death blessing and cursing Moses doth not say the performing of the law was not in heauen nor beyond the sea but the knowledg of the law Otherwise you make Moses teach that the fulfilling of the law was in their mouthes hearts which is an open error and repugnant to the trueth of the Gospell For if righteousnesse might be by the law then Christ died without cause As you come nothing neere to Moses meaning so you swarue farder from Pauls The right way to decline death threatned to the breakers of the law and to obteine life promised to the obseruers thereof is not to looke to the law which we cannot obserue but to Christ who
is grounded on Austin it is his collection not the text without him that serues your turne you and your friends will neuer be able to ouermatch Saint Austins obseruation that he neuer found in any place of Scripture Inferi which is the word that is vsed in Latin for sheol to be taken in any good sense and much lesse to make good proofe by the word of God that the condition or place in which the soules of the Saints are after death is called sheol or hades since as I haue sufficiently shewed Sheol is opposite to heauen and to euery part thereof as the lowest and woorst place of abode to the highest and best which things if you canne glew together you shall quit your selfe to bee your craftes master But first you must note that we goe not about to prooue sheol or hades to be heauen We neuer thought it the more is your iniurie when you haue nothing to reproouâ—… yet with bitter reproches to disgrace me as you doe and that euen for this your owne meere conceit What time of the day is it I pray you Sir that you awake so lately out of your deepe and drowsie maze or sleepe choose which you will that you now begin in sadnesse to disclaime that you euer said or ment Sheol was or could be heauen or any part thereof Is it so many moneths agone that positiuely and publikely you affirmed Sheol and Hades in the Scriptures to BE THE PLACE where the iust mens soules are after death Were the sections of your booke framed so farre a sunder and so verie strangers ech to other that you forget it was a resolute position of yours or of some of your friends for you euen in the verie last section and but in the other side of the leafe that THE CONDITION OR PLACE WHERE IVST MENS SOVLES ARE AFTER DEATH was SHEOL and HADES and that which argueth your notable stupidity or folly reiecting so violently the inuention of Limbus which supposed the soules of the righteous deceased before Christ to be in Sheol and Hades as well as the soules of the damned you now come to tell vs that Sheòl and Hades is the place as wel where the iust mens soules are after death as that where the damned are You talke of wittie reasons to solace your selfe withall if you could tell how in trueth this stuffe better deserueth to be tawed with tearmes then to be refuted with reason since it hath neither ground nor proofe nor so much as concordance with it selfe Consider a word of like vse in Latin Defuncti signifying the dead may be applied generally to the soules deceased Yet I hope notwithstanding Limbus may be easily auoided Are defuncti none other but the damned onely in hell the word is properly generall signifying them that are gone hence certainly so doth hades and sheol All these the Latin the Greâ—… and the Hebrew words are indifferent and common in themselues signifying indeed no positiue thing properly but a meere priuation of this life You shall doe well to consider that you know not what you say but as a man out of trueth and tune you fall from one absurdity to another and trole out positions that are meere priuations of all sense and vnderstanding that such words as onely note the priuation of this life or leauing this world are common to all deceased and departed hence this Children know We striue not for that and so defuncti importing such as haue ended the course of this life and are gone from hence may serue as well for those that are with Christ in rest and blisse as for the rest that are in the paines and torments of hell but what is this to Sheol or hades or to the place where the one or the other are Is the PLACE where soules departing hence are receaued no POSITIVE THING with you but a MEERE PRIVATION who euer said so that was not meerely depriued of his witts the places where soules after this life are disposed are Paradise or as you say heauen and hell Are heauen and hell and the states of soules there no positiue things but meere priuations of this life if this be the best way you haue to aâ—…oid Limbus in faith my reason will soone conuince you to want more then witte You speake not of places you will say but of conditions If you did so your error were groâ—…e enough but by your leaue looke on your owne words you speake of the PLACE WHERE IVST MENS SOVLES ARE AFTER DEATH as well as of the condition and would you now shift your hands of both and say you ment a meere priuation of this life you would faine conuey your selfe to your old castel of comfort which are empty words and phrases best fitting your wrangling humour but we must pray you to conuince the Creed and expound the Scriptures with more then meere priuations and idle obseruations or els to let them stand in their former trueth and strength Who knoweth not that such as haue ended this life may be called defuncti or mortui the deceased or dead in that their bodies lie now in corruption though their soules be in peace and rest with God but what is that to the place or state in which they are after death which the Scripture maketh to be positiue though such a phrase-founder as you are would haue it nothing els but priuatiue Of Enoch and Elias who were translated hence with their bodies liuing it cannot be said they are dead because no part of them was or is subiected to death and yet are they gone from hence to a more blessed and happie life But Sheol in the Scriptures as we haue seâ—…e by the common and constant consent of Iewish and Christian Grammarians and expositors is a place vnder earth opposed to heauen as the lowest to the highest aâ—…d the word of God doth exactly confirme that assertion of theirs Moses Iob Daniâ—… and Esay teach that Sheol is q below Now aboue and beneath are positions of places and not differences of priuations And so likewise Ioâ—… Dauid Esaie and Aâ—… vse Sheol or the place moâ—… opposite to heauen Now if heauen be a poâ—… place and state so is Sheol though either of them import a priuation of this earthly life Gods ordinance being such that this life shall end or change â—…efore men goe to heauen or hell It is then a weake and waterish collection that because both the graue and hell which in the Scriptures are comprised in the name of Sheol haue in them the priuation of this life therefore Sheol properly noteth a meâ—…re priuation of this life and nothing els vnlesse you nourish this secret error in your bosome that the soules deceased sleepe and so haue neither positiue nor sensible ioy or paine but a meere want of this world In effect they are all one with Thanatos death but that Thanatos belongeth properly to
conceits with rounder words then to any learned or sober writer I would willingly giue That the graue then by which death is meant hath in it or bringeth with it a lacke or losse of all earthly things and that common to good and bad this as it is not denied so is it no special signification of Sheol as you out of your new found notes obserue but the generall consequent of Sheol or the graue in all men iust or wicked as also corruption returning to dust is from whence they were taken To the wicked that wedde their soules to these earthly vanities and neglect God his promises the Prophets often threaten Sheol that is the place and state where all these thinges shal want or perish to them but with the sheol of their bodies which is the graue is ioyned the sheol of their souls which is hell though they not regarding or not beleeuing the later are most often threatned with the former which they euery day saw before their eies so was likeâ—…st to moue them most To the godly the remembrance of Shâ—…ol was somtimes grieuous either because it was ioyned with an vntimely death to theÌ„selues or with the dishonour of Gods name or with the danger of his Church or signification of his dislike of their liues and courses which circumstances haue often troubled the Saints at the sight or foreshew of death These things you stampe and straine with your distempered and vnlearned fansies and then you produce a meere priuation which you call a destruction of the whole man in Sheol Now what if Iob called the graue an house appointed for euery man liuing or said the graue must be an habitation to him as well as to others doth he meane that the whole man bodie and soule shall dwell in the graue or â—…ome to corruption as is presently added I shal say to corruption thou art my Father to the worme Thou art my mother my sister Are you so good a Carpenter that with a meere priuation you can make an habitation and to furnish your house bring soules from heauen or the whole man to dwell with corruption and wormes A seely reason like the rest you interpose That seeing Iob speaketh of Shâ—…ol as his continuall habitation to the worldes end it can not be went onely of the graue for his bodie which endured but a very short time and had no being at all after it was turned to verie earth and wormes Much lesse may it be ment of his soule that turneth neither to earth nor wormes and least of all of his whole person since in the whole euery part is coÌ„tained if it be true of neither part how can it be verified of the whole but such is your folly that with your idle fansies you call the maine grounds of Christian faith in question and offer doubt how God can raise his Saints out of their graues when as their bodies being long before turned to earth and ashes haue no being at all Sir if you speake in earnest these be wicked quarrels and shew that you woulde faine shake heauen and earth to vphold your new found Sheol Otherwise all the godly know that God hath their ashes in sight before him and will not mistake one earth for another though their dust were scattered ouer all the world And so long as he that will raise them by his mightie power hath in so certaine number and measure the whole and euery the least dust that came of their bodies they lie in their graues till the time of resurrection and their maker will not misse an haire of their head nor a mote of their ashes which if it be strange to you dispute against him that created heauen and earth of nothing and not against me that beleeue the resurrection of mens bodies and flesh many thousand yeeres after they be turned to dust and as you wickedly surmise haue no being at all after they are turned to earth and wormes In greatest reason this is that which Iacob meaneth when he saith he will goe downe mourning to his Sonne in Sheol His body he thought was deuoured and digested in the belâ—…es of wilde beasts Therefore he will goe to the soule of his sonne in sheól to enioy the society of his deere Soâ—…e It is no maruell you be so stiffe-necked in rules of Discipline when you â—…e thus â—…ad-headed in points of doctrine I pray you Sir where did Iacob thinâ—… that â—…osephs soule was after death or that his owne should be in hell in Abrahams bosoâ—… or in some place lately deuised by your selfe to containe iust mens soules Or are soules by your Diuinitie without all place that the father might enioy the socieâ—…e of his deare sonnes soule and yet in no place you may doe well to declare vs these doubts for I assure you vnlesse you plead dottage these discourses will amount to plaine impietie In hell there is no great enioying one of an other I trow In heauen you meane it not for then you must confesse heauen to be Sheól which you say you neuer thought In the graue I hope soules doe not lodge then must you find vs a place whither Iacob would descend to enioy the society of his deere sonnes soule Will you call it a meere priuation and destruction which are the graffes that you haue newly planted you must first tell vs what ioy there is in priuation and destruction Next whether this priuation and destruction be any where and so in some place or no where and so a right creature of yours as being a priuation of all witte and trueth Thirdly if Iosephs soule were neither in ioy nor rest what comfort Iacob could take to finde his deere sonnes soule in such a plight And lastly whether the Patrâ—…arks had no promises of rest and receit with God after this life but that they were to seeke for the soules of their parents and children in your priuatiue Sheol which is neither hell heauen nor Abrahams bosome For if it be one of these then is it not onely positiue but also locall that is somewhere and hath a state and condition agreeable to the mercies of God and the desire of the Saints But why persue I your follies so farre as if they were not peeuish pangues of your vnsetled braines Iacobs words without your iests are plaine enough to ech good Christian in saying he would goe mourning to sheâ—…l that is to his graue assuring himselfe after death to haue his soule receaued into that place of rest into which he did not doubt but the soule of his innocent childe was formerly admitted by the goodnesse of his God And if any man like Rabbi Selomoes exposition that êl in this place may signifie ouer or for as it often doth then Iacobs wordes are more easie that he will descend to Sheol mourning for his sonne Howbeit Iacob knew well enough that Iosephs bodie though deuourâ—…d and digested in the
any trueth in it that hades is the priuation of this life or power of death had the stones of Capernaum euer any life that they might be depriued of it and come vnder the power of death It is not so often applied to other things notwithstanding we may find it applied to other things as where Plato which you stumble at sayth in hades were birds beasts trees flowers fruits I deny not but they had toyish cōceits but wise mē may see how their meaning was these vnreasonable creatures being once brought to destruction they yeelded hades to them also Is it not enough to draw the Scriptures to Platoes fabulous conceits but you must grosly falsifie Plato to fit your new made hades Where Plato saith there were trees flowers fruits and beasts in hades doth he not there also say there were men that liued long and without sickenesse and temples in which the Gods dwell familiarly and that to see these things is the sight of the blessed Was this ment of destruction as you expound your hades or was it a Pagans imagination of an earthly heauen farre aboue vs in which he described all things heere found with vs but in greater perfection and excellencie then here on earth thus wrest you not only the words of our Sauiour from their right sense but you force other writers directly against their words and meaning that you may seeme in them to haue some shew for your licentious exposition of the Scriptures as heere you plainely peruert Plato to make a preface to your mistaking destruction in steede of perfection The like wrong you offer to Plutarke whose name you abuse without either word or syllable sounding towards your intent as if you ment to ouerthrow the whole world to enlarge your hades Thus it seemeth Moses also vseth Sheol when he saith men women children and cattell aliue yea houses and riches went to Sheol If Moses had sayd so calling that vast and deepe gulfe of the earth into which the tents and stuffe of Corah and his companie fell Sheol yet vnlesse you can prooue that the citie of Capernaum was in like sort swallowed vp housen and implements aswell as men in the same deepe gulfe of the earth Moses Sheol maketh nothing for the ruine and destruction of cities where the buildings thereof fall to the ground and lie on the ground as in decayes they doc But though you were both with Plato and Plutarke thinking it no sinne to father your fansies on them you may not doe the like with Moses without more blame then you will willingly beare Moses hath no such wordes that houses and riches went to Sheol but they were swallowed vp in the cleft of the earth as well as the rest yet nothing went to Sheol saue what was liuing because the Scripture saith they descended aliue to Sheol Now if you can proue tents and houshold-stuffe to be aliue you may chance to say somewhat though not much for your destroying Hades but if that be false and absurd then haue you no words in Moses to proue that riches went to Sheol or Hades The words of Moses are plaine enough and exclude as well your cattell as your cofers from Hades If the earth open her mouth and swallow them and all that they haue and they descend aliue to Sheol you shall know that these men haue prouoked the Lord. Themselues descended aliue to Sheol the rest was swallowed vp by the earth For the ground brake vnder them and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them and their housen or families and euery man that belonged to Corah and all their substance And they descended and all the men that pertained to them aliue to Sheol Who pertained to them the Scripture expresseth before namely their wiues their children and their families All their goods were swallowed vp in the gulfe of the earth but of the men that were liuing and belonging to them and not of their cattell the Scripture saith they descended aliue to Sheol That they had any cattell at this time saue for sacrifices it cannot be prooued they did eate no flesh of beasts nor bread garments they changed not on foote they trauelled seruants they had to do their workes and to beare their burdens and yet were it granted they had some cattell for carriage they kept them not in their tents which were swallowed vp in the cleft of the earth These are Moses wordes to the people Depart I pray you from the tents of these wicked men and touch nothing of theirs least you perish in all their sinnes For their tents with all that was in them fell into the earth and the persons descended aliue to Sheol Now that they descended aliue to hell not only the auncient Fathers Cyprian Ierom Basil Austin Epiphanius and others teach but our new writers therein agree with them as namely Pellican in Numerorum ca. 16. vers 32. Aretius in his problemes de inferno loc 162. Bullingere in 28. cap. Mat. de morte aeterna Gualtere homil 89. in Esaiam homilia 158. in Lucam Lauatere in ca. 15. Prouerb vers 24. So that you must seeke farder for your Sheol and Hades of vnreasonable beasts since to descend aliue to Sheol is the terrible iudgement of God against seditious rebels and not against sheepe or oxen After this maner also those sheepe in Sheol which you turne to the worst may be vnderstoode If you can prooue there be sheepe in Sheol we will giue eare to it but if you tell vs nothing besides your seeming and saying you shew your selfe to be like a sheepe out of Sheol And here the Reader may see how certaine a leader he shall haue of you for in the halfe of this one side you deliuer six or seuen expositions resolutions with no better warrant then It seemeth this may be and yet with these you patch vp your predicament of Hades to containe all things euen stones cattell and sheepe But hath this any seeming worth the speaking of that because Dauid saith of the wicked like sheepe they lie in Sheol you should conclude ergo there be sheep in Sheol you need not feare my turning of this to the worst I cannot well turne it to worse then it is The wise man saith be not like a Lion in thine owne house Doth that inferre euery man to haue Lions in his house Thy children saith the Psalmist shal be like oliue plants round about thy table Hath euery good man therefore Oliue plants about his table The wicked be in Sheol like sheepe that is either bound hand and foote and cast into vtter darkenesse as sheepe are bound by all foure when they are prepared for the slaughter or voide of reason and vnable to helpe themselues like sheepe That the word Sheol standeth next to sheepe in the Hebrew and the verbe commeth