cannot be executed without the glorifying of souls and bodies of his servants we may well think it pleased God to give to the old world a pledge or two of the generall glorification of the bodies of his Saints by the particular performance of the same to the bodies of Enoch and Elias whom he assumed up into heaven by way of especiall favour To this I may adde That Enoch and Elijahs raptures being types of Christs ascension since Christ ascended in a glorified and immortall bodie the shadows must be like the substance and therefore they ascended in glorified immortall bodies Suarez is driven to a great exigent They were onely saith he n in statu merendi potuerunt in gratia crescere c. in a state in which they might merit and increase in grace till the time in which they were translated And as they were translated they were so confirmed in grace that they can commit no sinne And to their old estate of meriting shall they return when they shall live again amongst men But who ever heard of such turnings and returnings in any other men or Angels or that their estate shall be changed from o A non posse peccare ad posse peccare an estate wherein they cannot sinne to an estate in which they may sinne and so backward For supposing they shall live again and die again if they can merit they can also sinne whilest they live among men and so when they die and have their reward in heaven this shall be no small part of it p Non posse peccare To have no power to sinne But this opinion somewhat resembleth the diversified estate of devils who shall be saved after the generall judgement as Origen feigned and fabled and which the Church hath branded for erroneous And now I see I have fallen before I was aware upon the fourth and last question by me propounded Whether Enoch and Elias shall ever die or do live with glorified bodies in the highest heavens which also I have answered at large That they never shall die but do and shall live in glorified bodies Tertullian I confesse said concerning Elias at the Transfiguration q Apparuit in veritate carâ—is nondum defunctae He appeared in true flesh which had never been separated from its soul and more punctually de Anima cap. 50. r Translatus est Enoch Elias nec mors eorum reperta est dilata scilicet Morituri reservantur ut Antichristum sanguine suo extinguant Enoch and Elias were translated nor is their death recorded or known it being adjourned they are kept and preserved that they may die hereafter and by their bloud overthrow and extinguish Antichrist as Baronius cites him And the more common opinion of the Papists is That they two shall be slain and they prove it by Rev. 11.7 When the two witnesses shall have finished their testimonie the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomlesse pit shall overcome and kill them The three other places of Scripture on which Bellarmine built his third demonstration that Antichrist is not come because Enoch and Elias are not yet come are answered before This last place and passage of Scripture used by Bellarmine de Romano Pontif. 3.6 cometh now to be examined and you shall finde it thus well winnowed by Bishop Andrews in his Answer to Cardinall Bellarmines Apologie Cap. 11. That the two witnesses are the two Testaments as Beda Primasius Augustinus and Ticonius are Authours S. Hilarius rejecteth Enoch and puts Moses in his room and that very peremptorily Though many have substituted Jeremie in Enochs room saith Hilarie on Matth. Can. 20. S. Hierom the next Father cited by Bellarmine is not constant enough for Elias which I touched at before and Rupertus on Malach. 4. testifieth so much of Hierom and Bullinger in Apocal. lib. 3. v. 3. saith S. Hierom esteemeth them to be Jews and Jewish hereticks who think Elias shall come again Lactantius cited by Bellarmine in his Apologie nameth neither Enoch nor Elias And Chrysostom Theodoret Origen and Primasius say nothing of Enoch Hippolytus for the two witnesses brings in three one whereof is S. John the Divine and indeed he is more likely to be one of the witnesses then Enoch for unto him it was said Revel 10.11 Thou must prophesie again before many peoples and nations and tongues and kings but no such thing was said to Enoch Others say Elizeus shall be one of the two witnesses Hieronymus saith r Nisi quis spiritualiter intelligat hunc locum Apocalypsews Judaicis ei fabulis acquiescendum est In Epist ad Marcellum Vnlesse a man understand this place of the Revelation spiritually he must needs settle and rest on Jewish fables Maldonate on the 17 of Matthew and his learned Interpreter saith It is so cleare a matter that Moses and Elias shall come that none but a rash and impudent man can denie it Thus much Bishop Andrews in his Answer to the place of the Revelation against Bellarmines Apologie who vaunted of a cloud of Fathers which cloud is vanished almost into nothing Much more of great worth and consequence hath that Reverend Bishop in the same 11 chapter concerning Enoch and Elias living in glorified bodies to whom I referre the Reader And this shall suffice to have spoken of Enoch and of Elias against Bellarmines third demonstration as he calleth it that Antichrist is not yet come Every part and parcell of which proof is so weak and so farre from concluding apodictically that they scarce deserve a place among probable arguments And thus is the second main branch of my answers made good and manifested That some have been excepted from death viz. Enoch and Elias though it be objected that It is appointed for men to die The third part of my answer followeth That others also shall be excepted O Fountain of life and preserver of men to whom belong also the issues of death I have deserved to die the first and second death I have provoked thy long-suffering I am no more worthy to be called thy sonne Lord make me as one of thy hired servants and put me to what labour to what pain soever within me without me so long as pleaseth thee onely I beseech thee for the blessed mediation of thy dearely beloved onely Sonne Jesus Christ my Saviour give me grace not to faint under the burthens appointed and at the end of the day at my lives end vouchsafe to give me a penie among thy labourers and eternall life among thy chosen Amen CHAP. III. 1. Some others hereafter shall be excepted from death The change may be accounted in a generall large sense a kinde of death The Papists will have a reall proper death Aquinas an incineration This is disproved 1. Thessal 4.17 which place is handled at large The rapture of the godly is sine media morte without death The resurrection is of all together The righteous prevent not the
raised incorruptible and we shall be changed For this corruptible must put on incorruption c. What coherence subsequent then shall you make unto these words None at all The coherence must be with the antecedent words But say I take the antecedent words as the Vulgat hath them and reade as you must the connexion in this sort We shall indeed all arise but shall not all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump For the trumpet shall sound c. I say even in this reading there is little sense also yea much untruth Is it not certain that we shall be changed in a moment Or how long shall the time of change be There is no way to avoid this foul absurditie which cometh by the Vulgat edition unlesse it be by a greater that is by saying that you will make an Hyperbaton and include these words We shall not all be changed in a Parenthesis and then the sense will be We shall arise in a moment c. For though it be true that we shall arise in a moment yet there is no ground that we shall not be changed in a moment In all likelihood a change may rather be more speedie which is without death then that change which is made through death and resurrection If they may be and shall be raised and changed in a moment they may in a moment be changed and not raised Secondly no authoritie that I know runneth for such a needlesse Parenthesis and I deem it as a violence offered to the Text so to strain it when the sense will runne fairly otherwise according to the best Greek copies We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump Let this also serve to have been spoken against the Latin Vulgat edition and its bad reading Omnes quidem resurgemus sed non omnes immutabimur In momento in ictu oculi in novissima tuba canet enim tuba mortui resurgent incorrupti c. By how much the lesse sense is in this by so much the more are we bound to adhere to the Originall and the most common and best copies of it This I may be bold to averre That if some shall not die and yet be changed there shall be an infallible yea demonstrative proof unto sense That the very self same bodie which man had shall inherit eternall glorie For if they die not they must needs keep and have the same bodies from which they are not parted by immutation Yea the identicall resurrection of the same very bodies which were dead may thus farre be proved That if the changed bodies shall be still the same in substance though differing in qualities the raised bodies also shall be no otherwise nor any way different and Pythagoras will then disprove his * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 transmigration of souls into diverse bodies and his heathenish * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regeneration to which Nicodemus seemed to have an eye Joh. 3.4 when every soul cometh arayed with its own bodie and when they who by change put not off their bodies shall come alive to judgement 5. The Pelagians were wont thus to argue If sinne came in by Adam then all must needs die But some shall not die namely those y Qui reperientur vivi who shall be found remaining alive Therefore sinne came not into the world by Adam S. Augustine answereth this argument very sufficiently otherwise and it may easily and briefly be answered All shall die reatu though not actu Yet that holy Father and that great just enemie of the accursed Pelagians z In majorem cautelam for the greater and better securitie and safetie would seem to rest doubtfull of their assumption which he needed not Whereupon de Civitat 20.20 he saith a Dormitio praecedit quamvìs brevissima non tamen nulla Death goeth before a most short and speedie one yet a death And in the same place b Per mortem ad immortalitatem mirâ celeritate transibunt They shall slip sail or passe over by death to immortalitie with wonderfull speed Again de peccat merit remiss 2.31 c Hoc quibusdam in sine largietur Deus ut mortem istam repentiuâ commutatione non sentient God at the end of the world shall grant this priviledge unto some That by reason of their sudden change they shall not feel death And Retract 2.33 d Aut non morientur aut de vita ista in mortem de morte in aeternam vitam celerrimâ commutatione tanquam in ictu oculi transeundo mortem non sentient Either they die not or otherwise they glide from this life into death and from death into eternall life as it were in the twinkling of an eye by a most speedie alteration taking no notice or sense of death He leaves it doubtfull as you see in these his last books though sometimes before he thought That all should die and otherwhere as ad Dulcitium quaest 3. That they should not die The Master of the Sentences saith concerning the question Whether the change be by death or without it e Horum quid sit verius non est humani judicii definire Man cannot determine certainly which of these is truest Rabanus lib. 4. de sermon proprietat having alledged the consent of divers Fathers to establish his own opinion That all must die yet annexeth this Because there are others alike Catholick and learned men who beleeve That the soul remaining in the bodie those shall be changed to immortalitie who shall be found alive at the coming of our Lord f Et hoc eis reputari pro resurrectione ex mortuis quòd mortalitatem immutatione deponant non morte c. and that it stands them in stead of rising from the dead that they cast away mortalitie by change not by death Let any man rest on which opinion he pleaseth c. Which very words also you shall finde in the book de Ecclesiast Dogmat. cap. 7. Now though S. Augustine was dubious and some with him and though some also have imbraced the contrary opinion yet equally Catholick and learned men have been constant to maintain That some shall not die but be changed as you have heard confessed If you please you may take a view of some more particularly The afore named Theodorus Heracleotes cited by Hierom in his epistle to Minerius and Alexander hath it thus i Sancti qui in die judicii in corporibus reperiendi sunt non gustabunt mortem erúnt que cum Domino gravissimâ mortis necessitate calcatâ The Saints who in the day of the last judgement shall be found to be alive and remain in their earthly bodies shall not see death or taste of it and shall be with the Lord kicking and spurning at death and the greatest inforcing necessitie thereof Apollinaris cited in
of which hereafter and yet for all this dispensation it is truely said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not It Was appointed as having reference to what onely was past but It Is appointed It is a yoke that neither our fathers did nor we shall ever shake off and not onely labour and travell is an * Ecclus 40. ◠heavy yoke upon the sonnes of Adam but much more death Neither hath the worlds redeemer freed us from the stroke but from the curse of death for even hitherto * Pallida morsaequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regúmque turres Horat. Carm. l. 1. O◠4. Pale death doth knock with equall power At th' poore mans doore and kingly tower The grave yet gapeth and though myriads of myriads have died before though Paracelsus promised immortality in this life and perhaps therefore was cut off in the prime of his yeares yet death is * Job 30.23 and 21.33 the house appointed for all living and every man shall draw after him as there are innumerable before him Of the longest liver hath been said in the end 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His life is past or as the Romanes when they were loth to say one was dead spake significantly to the sense yet mildly by this word Vixit Ecclus 14.17 He had his time he did sometimes live And it is the condition of all times THOU SHALT DIE THE DEATH 3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The universall note or particle is not added It is not said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet sure it is included and so meant Not Christ himself the destroyer of death is exempted nor his thrice-blessed Mother nor fair Absalom nor strong Sampson nor wise Solomon nor craftie Achitophel It is appointed to all men and women no sex is freed no nation priviledged no age excepted If some few have been dispensed withall I will say with S. Augustine * Alii sunt humanarum limites rerum alia divinarum signa virtutum alià naturaliter alia miral iliter siunt Aug lib. de Cura pro mortuls gerenda cap. 16 Other are the bounds of humane things other the signes of divine power some things are done naturally and some miraculously We speak of the ordinarie course It is appointed for all men TO DIE 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death is a name of sundry significations and it is taken diversly for there is The last death by the losse of glory The death of the soul by the losse of grace The death of the body by the losse of the soul * Aug. De Civit. Dei lib. 13. cap. 12. If it be demanded saith S. Augustine what death God meaneth to our first parents Whether the death of the body or of the soul or of the whole man or that which is called THE SECOND DEATH we must Consitle si placet ingeniosum ejus Tractatum cap. 15. ejusdem libri saith he answer He threatneth all The death of the soul began immediately upon their eating and is evidenced by their hiding themselves and shame to be seen The death of the body presently seconded it Theod. in Gen. quaest 38. it suddenly becomes mortall saith Theodoret The sentence of mortality GOD called death in Symmachus his exposition For after the divine sentence every day that I may so speak he looked for death as it is in the same Theodoret. As we now expect the resurrection and life eternall every moment so Adam every minute looked for death I am sure he deserved it Peter Martyr on 1. Cor. 13.12 Our first parents perished * Primi parentes quum transgressi sunt illico periêre quoniam mors nequaquam alia censenda quà m recessus à vita nec vitam habemus citra Deum Quare mortui sunt quia à Deo recesserunt eorum anima non fuit à corpore avulsa sed in eo quodammodo sepulta in praesentia non vitam sed mortem vivimus so soon as they transgressed because no other death is to be imagined but a departure from life and we have no life out of God Therefore they died because they departed from God and their soul was not snatcht away from their bodie but in a manner buried in it For the present our life is not a life but a death Of the bodily death onely are the words of my Text to be understood being a prime commentarie on Genes 3.19 Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return It is appointed for men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Once to die * Quod casus in diabolo id in homine mors What fall is in the devil that death is in man They fell but once we die but once We must needs die and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again 2. Sam. 14.14 Waters once spilt embrace the dust and are not gathered up again nor can be spilt again Christ tasted death for every man Hebr. 2.9 As Christ being once dead dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him Rom. 6.9 so is it regularly and ordinarily with all other one corporall death sufficeth It is appointed unto men ONCE to die 4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But after this the judgement Let me speak of the words severally and then in a lump or masse together That these articles Post tum mox modò After then anon presently and the like are taken at large for some yeares before or after you may see it proved in * Alb. Gent. disput ad 1. lib. Maccab. cap. 3. Al bericus Gentilis The Scripture thus Genes 38.1 At that time But it was ten yeares saith Tremellius Exod. 2.11 It came to passe in those dayes and he meaneth fourty yeares Matt. 3.1 In those dayes that is twenty and five yeares after Luke 23.43 To day is taken for presently Aretius hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vpon that or presently after that And questionles that is the meaning for though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After may be interpreted long-after as the word proximus contrarilie doth not enforce necessarily a nearenes Proximus huic longo sed proximus intervallo said Virgil excellently He was next but a great distance between yet in the holy Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after that doth most times rather intimate the procedure and order of things done then intend a large intercedencie of time John 19.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After that Jesus saith I thirst you must not understand it long after not yeares moneths weeks dayes or houres after that for our Saviour hung upon the crosse not above foure houres and many things were said and done before this So in this place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not evidently inferre a spacious distance of time but by the words after that we may say is meant not long after but presently or thereupon judgement cometh after death Which I the more confidently do so interpret because I know no place in the divine Writ where
acceperant potestatem Ibidem They had received power to eat of every fruit that was in Paradise To strengthen their side Augustine annexeth this reason What is more absurd then to beleeve that he would eat of other trees and not of that saith Augustine I answer perchance Adam thought that he had no need of that tree as yet as knowing both that he should not die if he did not sinne and that the time of his translation was not come Nor did those or the like thoughts savour of sinne or ignorance Augustine in this point is incoherent to himself saying * Gustus arboris vitae corruptionem corporis inhibebat The taste of the tree of life did hinder the corruption of the body Again * Vitae arbor medicinae modo corruptionem omnem prohibebat The tree of life by way of physick did prevent all corruption But say I if corruption seised not on Adam till he sinned what needed Adam till he sinned use that medicine since the sick have need of physician and physick and not the whole If Adam had eaten of the tree of life before he had eaten the forbidden fruit God would have kept him from the forbidden fruit as after he kept him from the tree of life or els the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good evill had not caused destruction the apple had not been deadly but Adam should have lived immortally This will not seem strange if you weigh what followeth If after Adam had sinned he had taken of the tree of life and eaten the fruit he had lived for ever Genes 3.22 for els what needed God to have placed such a watch and ward against him Again if Adam might have lived everlastingly for all Gods threat yea though he had now a dead body when God debard him from the tree of life if he had but eaten of it he should also have lived for ever if he had eaten of it before he sinned But saith Augustine * Post peccatum Adam potuit indissolubilis manere si à Domino permissum il li esset edere de arbore vitae Aug. lib. quaest Vet. Novi Testam c. 19. Tom. 4. After sinne Adam might have remained indissoluble if God had given him leave to eat of the tree of life The conclusion reacheth home against Augustine That Adam ate not of the tree of life before he ate of the forbidden fruit I think the malice of Satan egged Adam on to taste first of the unlawfull fruit the usher of death though the tree of life stood next unto it for both the tree of life was in the midst of the garden Genes 2.9 and the tree of knowledge of good and evill was also in the midst of the garden as appeareth in the same place and more plainly Genes 3.3 If any be so curious as to enquire what was the form and figure of the garden of Eden when two trees are just in the midst of it I answer We must not take the word Midst strictly or Mathematically but at large or Rhetorically When the Shunamite said 2. Kings 4.13 In medio populi ego habitans sum it is well rendred by our late Translatours I dwell among mine own people not as if the words inforced that she dwelt exactly in the midst of them The like Hebraism is used by Abraham Genes 18.24 Si fortè fuerint quinquaginta justi in medio civitatis that is Fiftie righteous within the citie not as if all the fiftie dwelt together in the exact middle of the citie David also useth the like phrase Psal 102.24 Take me not away in the midst of my dayes in which place as well as in the propounded difficultie we must not be too strict or rigorous upon the letter The like is in Esay 5.8 The last touch we will give at this point is thus God turned Adam and Eve out of Paradise and by Cherubims and a sword kept away the tree of life so that neither Adam nor his posteritie should be able to approach it And perhaps the Cherubims were purposely placed to confront Satan and his evill Angels lest they might bring to Adam and Eve or to their posteritie the fruit of the tree of life for if we had been immortally miserable cursed as Satan himself is was as much as he desired So great a vertue had the tree of life if once it had been eaten Let me adde in the third place If Adam had not sinned at all nor at all eaten of the tree of life yet he had not died for death was appointed for sinne and for nothing els Bonaventure saith * Impossibile est ' ut simul consistant innocentia corruptionis poena Bonav in 2. Sent. dist 19. art 2. It is impossible that innocencie and the punishment of corruption should stand together But to what use was then the tree of life The question was made of old by an adversarie to the Law and the Prophets * Ista arbor quae in Paradiso fructus vitae ferebat cui proderat That tree which bare fruit of life in Paradise to whom was it profitable I confesse Augustine answereth To whom but first to our first Parents the man and the woman placed in Paradise But that is the point to be proved Again Augustine there saith Enoch and Elias eat of that tree but saith he we must not hastily say that any other eateth of it but how unlikely are these things The adversarie of the Law and the Prophets might better have been answered That there was no more use of that tree then of others which were untasted for no man can think that they tasted of every one in so short a time Or what inconvenience ariseth if we say A profered curtesy not accepted came to nothing What can the adversarie conclude from thence for God profereth salvation and the means thereof to many who do not accept of it the fault being on Mans part and not on Gods To finish this point I resolve There was no use made of the tree of life as it fell out If it be further questioned What might have been the use thereof I answer That the exact specialties can not punctually be known Probable it is that the tree of life might have conferred much to the existence of life though not to the essence Adam should have lived howsoever and that immortally if he had not transgressed Gods commandement the tree of life might have been conducible to his better being yea to his best being by it he might have been changed from his terrestriall not-dying estate or immortall life to a celestiall and not onely an immortall but an unchangeable eternall life In which regard perchance the tree of life is stiled Genes 3.22 The tree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hachajim of lives as profitable if tasted both to Adams present life which was in time to have its consummantem finem though not consumentem its end though not its death and also to his future and more happie life which
punishment to be a favour and blessing of God 3. Not many or more sinnes but one caused death One onely David begotten in lawfull wedlock That this one sinne is not lesse in the godly nor greater in the wicked Death was appointed for one sinne onely of one person onely 4. This one person onely was Man this Man that sinned that one sinne was Adam Strange and curious speculations that Eve sinned not that sinne for which man-kinde was appointed to death 5. Two Schoole-speculations propounded The second handled at large as expounding the former and determined against the Schoolmen themselves viz. That the children of innocent Adam had been born confirm'd in grace The censure of Vives upon these and the like points A part of his censure censured 1. COncerning Death I mean in this place to touch onely the strange medly that is mixed in it of Sower Sweet The sowernes or bitternes of death is discerned because that manner of secession or departure is onely painfull whereas all other approaches unto glorie all other stairs steps and means inducing to blessednes are void of pain Let us see it exemplified in Enoch He walked with God and was not for God took him Genes 5.24 His manner of not-being as he was before whatsoever it were or howsoever was never held painfull Secondly the chariot of fire and the horses of fire which parted Eliah and Elisha both asunder 2. Kings 2.11 hurt neither of them Elijah saith the place went up by a whirlwinde into heaven the very form of words implying a willing-easie ascent nor did the whirlwinde molest him or pain him though Ecclesiasticus 48.9 it is said it was a whirlwinde of fire Christs Transfiguration comes next to be considered It was a true representation of that bodilie glorie which at the recollection retribution of all Saints God will adorn and cloth the faithfull withall Christ shewing them the mark at which they ought to shoot for we also are to be fashioned or configured to his transfiguration Philip. 3.21 * Qualis futurus est tempore judicandi talis Apostolis apparuit As he is to be at the time of judging such did he appeare to the Apostles saith Hierom on Matth. 17. And let not man think he lost his old form and face saith he or took a body spirituall or aëriall the splendor of his face was seen and the whitenes of his vestments described * Non substantia tollitur sed gloria commutatur The substance is not taken away but the glory is changed Or that I may utter it in Theophylacts words on Mark 9.2 By the transfiguration so Oecolampadius should translate it understand not the change of character and lineaments but the character remaining such as it was before an increase was made of unspeakable light This admirable light not coming from without to him as it did to Moses but flowing from his divinitie into his humane soul from it into his body and from it into his very clothes will you say his clothes were changed saith S. Hierom His raiment became shining exceeding white as snow so as no fuller on earth can white them Mark 9.3 And his face did shine as the Sunne Matth. 17.2 What S. Chrysostom saith of the spirituall bodies of the Saints I will much more rather say of Christs body transfigured for if starre differeth from starre in glorie man from man much more shall Christ shine above all other men by infinite degrees They shall shine as the Sunne not because they shall not exceed the splendor of the sunne Aquin part 3. q. 45. art 2. but because we see nothing more bright then the sunne he took the comparison thence And this shining saith Aquinas * Fuit gloriae claritas essentialiter licèt non secundum modum cùm suerit per modum transeuntis passionis was essentially a claritie of glory though not in the manner seeing it was by way of a transient passion as the aire is inlightned of the sunne whereas * Ad corpus glorificatum redundat claritas ab anima sicut qualitas quaedam permanens to a glorified body claritie from the soul doth accrue as some permanent qualitie Which essentiall claritie Christ had from his nativitie yea from his first conception yet by dispensation he ecclipsed it ever till he had accomplished our redemption except at this time when appeared a brightnes of glory though not a brightnes of a glorious body not imaginary unlesse you take imaginary as synonymall with representative but reall though transitorie Can any one think that herein was any pain or rather not infinite pleasure The beholders rejoyced they could not do so at the pain of Christ If there were any pain or grief it would rather have been so at the withdrawing of his unusuall claritie which not being likely the manifestation of this claritie at this transfiguration was lesse likely to be painfull The fourth and last kinde of degree to happines is translation not onely as Enoch was translated from one life to an other kinde of life but such a translation as should have been of Adam if he had not sinned and shall be of such as shall be alive at Christs coming Adams translation had been sine media morte Nor was his slumber painfull nor solutio continui at the drawing out of his rib nor the closing of the flesh again nor is it likely there was in Adams side any scar the badge of pain and sorrow much lesse should he have had pain at his translation Pain is the grand-child of sinne the daughter of punishment from both which the estate of innocency was priviledged Every thing in the Creation was very good Genes 1.31 Every tree was pleasant to the sight and good for food Genes 2.9 and could the tree of life cause pain By tasting the fruit thereof Adam and his ofspring had come to an higher and more unchangeable happines The middesse was then proportionate to the beginning and to the end Sorrow was part of the curse innocency could not feel pain much lesse shall eternall happines and should the tree of life have caused pain Then were there little difference between it and the tree of knowledge of good and evill Or what difference in that point would there be between Adams death which was painfull and his translation if it should have been painfull As concerning the translation of them that shall be found alive at the last day I am thus conceited That there shall be no true and reall separation of their souls from their bodies at least so much as concerneth the righteous That they shall be changed That they shall put on immortalitie If it be delightfull now to our bodies to receive ease shall it be painfull to be clothed with incorruptibility It shall be done in a moment in the twinkling of an eye 2. Cor. 5.4 Nolumus expoliari saith the Apostle shewing the unwillingnes of men to die sed supervestiri
mori An impossibility of sinning or dying An unchangeable and immortall life Non posse deserere bonum vel adhaerere malo An impossibility of for saking goodnesse and cleaving to evil and not onely beatitudinem gloriam but coronam gloriae Not onely blessednesse and glory but a crown of glory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An immarcescible crown of glory 1. Peter 5.4 Lastly if we go to the numbring of them that were hurt by Adam and the number of those who receive benefit by Christ the greatest number is on Christs side I would be loath to say what the e Apud Sleidan pag. 293. Franciscane preached publickly at the Councel of Trent f Eos qui nullam haberent Christi cognitionem alioqui vitam egissent honestè saluteâ—â— esse consecutos That they who had no knowledge of Christ and yet had lived honestly had obtained salvation Nor will I conclude with others that Aristides Cato yea Julius Cesar himself is saved though according to the fertility of the Italian wits divers of them have found quaint passages and conceits tending that way Nay in these dayes of presumption wherein by all likelihood a thousand surfet and perish in the hope of mercy in comparison of one soul ship-wracked on the rock of despair I am afraid to confirm what Coelius secundus Curio hath writ in his books de Amplitudine regni Christi or Marsilius Andreasius of Mantua de Amplitudine misericordiae Christi before him who maintaineth That farre more are saved by Christ then are condemned For though Christ saith Matth. 7.13 Enter ye in at the strait gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat and vers 14. Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that finde it and though divers other passages of Scripture by the little flock and few labourers with the like phrases seem to import the paucity of humane souls saved in comparison of the many condemned yet he restraineth all those places to the dayes of Christ when indeed few beleeved in respect of the unbeleevers and the emphasis may accordingly be set upon that word YE Enter YE And perhaps the antithesis is observable Many there be which GO in to the wide gate and broad way but it is not said Few SHALL go in at the narrow gate nor Few SHALL enter in but Few there BE that finde it And it may be expounded Few there be that finde it by themselves or by their own naturall power without patefaction divine But what they cannot finde without a guide they may finde by a guide and many may enter in at Christ the Doore and many may walk in Christ the Way Where sin abounded grace may much more abound As by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one may many be made righteous Concerning which places with the precedent verses Rom. 5. we shall treat by and by But I return to their answer That respect was had to the primitive dayes of Christs Church and That we are to consider that when Christ likened the Kingdome of God to a grain of mustard seed which waxed a great tree and to leaven which leavened the whole lump Luke 13.18 c. he spake not without reference to his own dayes in which they were generally perswaded as the Papists are now that many were easily saved in their Church whereupon one wondering at Christs doctrine of the hardly obtaining of heaven and that by few saith Luke 13.23 Lord are there few that be saved And Christ answereth not without respect to those times Strive to enter in at the strait gate for many will seek to enter in and shall not be able because they sought awry and refused the right way offered Yet many might be saved and more in after-times then at that present time more by farre in the Church of Christ growing and increasing then in the Church of the Jews waning and decreasing Yea at this present though a diligent computer shall not finde much fault with me for saying that if the world were divided for places and people into thirty parts Nineteen thereof are Infidels six of the Mahometane Religion and five of the Christian the Romane Church and the Reformed Churches making but one part of the five so that the Greek Churches may more brag of their Catholicisme then the Romane and the scabbed petite flock and schismaticall parlour-full yea scarce hand-full of Separatists of Amsterdam may cease to claim themselves to be the onely Church by their paucity which the least number of the never-agreeing and subdivided Brethren may appropriate to themselves excluding by that argument all the Churches of the world besides yea even their own fellow-schismaticks yet this I will be bold to say that many places of the Prophets in the old Testament and many in the New did and do fore-signifie that great abundance of men women and children of all nations of all places shall be saved by Christ that there shall be as it were Mundus hominum electorum A world of elect men a great multitude of men which no man could number Rev. 7.9 Unto which number of humane souls if we annex those thousand thousands of Angels and ten thousand times ten thousand Daniel 7.10 even that innumerable host also we may confidently averre what Elishah said of the blessed Angels in an other case 2. Kings 6.16 They which be with us are more then they that be with our enemies or more then our enemies More in number enjoy eternall life by Christ then are condemned to eternall death by Adam For though Christ be not a Mediatour of redemption unto the Angels yet was he a Mediatour of confirmation in grace and whatsoever blessings they did or do or shall enjoy they had it for and by the merit of Christ foreseen For he is the head of the Church and they be but members and all the vertue or happinesse in the body or in any part of it is derived from the head All things visible and invisible thrones dominions principalities powers were created by him and for him Coloss 1.16 In him all fulnesse dwelleth vers 19. From him the whole body is fitly joyned together Ephes 4.16 In him all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy Temple Ephes 2.21 And of his fulnesse have all we received and grace for grace John 1.16 And not we alone but the good Angels also were predestinated created confirmed and glorified by his means as Suarez well concludeth in his Commentaries on the third part of Aquine his Summe Tom. 1. pag. 656. g Dico Christum meruisse Angelu gratiam gloriam quae illis data fuerat propter merita Christi praevisa I say saith he that Christ merited for the Angels grace and glory which was given them for the merits of Christ foreseen So Aquinas Cajetan Albertus
MISCELLANIES OF DIVINITIE Divided into three books Wherein is explained at large the estate of the Soul in her origination separation particular judgement and conduct to eternall blisse or torment BY EDVVARD KELLET Doctour in Divinitie and one of the Canons of the Cathedrall Church of EXON S. AUGUST serm nov 24. de S. Paulo ¶ Omnibus hominibus natis constituit Deus mortem per quam de isto seculo emigrent Exceptus eris à morte si exceptus fueris à genere humano Iam homo es venisti Quomodo hinc exeas cogita HINC LVCEM ET POCLA SACRA ALMA MATER GANTA BRIGIA Printed by the Printers to the Vniversitie of CAMBRIDGE and are to be sold by Robert Allot at the Beare in Pauls-Churchyard 1635. TO THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD MY VERY GOOD LORD THE LORD Archbishop of CANTERBURIE his Grace Primate of all ENGLAND and Metropolitane Most Reverend THE manifold graces which God hath plentifully poured on you enabling you even from your youth to be a fit instrument divers wayes to advance his glorie and blessing your great good labours with the favourable acceptance of our dread Soveraigne State and all who have well-wishing unto this our Sion have caused me a crazie old retired man who never saw you but once and that long since to leave behinde me a testimoniall to the world both of my heartie thanks to God that you have been of my humblest prayers that you may long continue a prop of our Church a favoured Ezra the prompt Scribe in the Law a powerfull Aaron to make an atonement for the people an Elijah zealous in your calling a provident guide to the Prophets to the sonnes and schools of the Prophets a father chariot horsemen of Israel as Elisha called Elijah as king Joash called Elisha May heavenly influences and divine irradiations say Amen Amen Your Graces in all dutie Edward Kellet The Contents of the first book CHAPTER I. Sect. 1. THe subject of the whole work The reason why I chose the text of Hebr. 9.27 to discourse upon The Division of it Fol. 1. c. 2. Amphibologie prejudiciall to truth Death appointed by God yet for Adams fault The tree of life kept from Adam not by phantasticall Hob-goblins but by true Angels and a flaming sword brandishing it self Leviticall ceremonies dead buried deadly Things redeemed dispensed with yet still appointed 2 3. The Kingdome of Death reigning over all Bodily death here meant and onely once to be undergone 4 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implieth not necessarily the longinquitie of future times intercurrent but rather a demonstration that other things were precedent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After doth often signifie an immediate succession Judgement here taken for an act of justice 5 5. The generall judgement here understood by OEcumenius and Bellarmine The second book of Esdras apocryphall and justly refused More then the generall judgement is meant Even the particular judgement also is avouched by many authorities Three questions arising from the former part of these words 6 CHAP. II. 1. HOw God is immortall how Angels and the souls of men how Adams bodie was mortall and yet immortall though compounded of contraries 10 2. Aristotles last words his death Holcot or the Philosophers pray for him Aristotle canonized by his followers Plato and Aristotle compared Vives taxed Adams bodie was not framed of the earth or dust of Paradise 12 3. Adam should not have been subject to any externall force he was lord of the creatures inward distemper he could not have Adams bodily temperature Christs who was fairer then the children of Adam the helps for Adams bodie meat drink and sleep 17 4. Divers opinions of the tree of life If Adam had eaten of the tree of life before or after his fall he had lived for ever If he had not sinned he had not died though he had not tasted of the tree of life To what use the tree of life should have served 20 5. The Councel of Millan Cardinall Cajetan Richeomus the Jesuit Julianus Pomerius and Saint Augustine think that Adam could not have died if he had not sinned The book of Wisedome Holcot Doctour Estius and two passages of Scripture Canonicall are authorities evincing that Adam had in the state of innocencie an immortall bodie 24 CHAP. III. 1. DEath is a bitter-sweet Enoch and Elias Raptures were not painfull to them Christs transfiguration and the manner of it That it was not painfull to him Adams translation to a life celestiall and a bodie spirituall should not have been painfull if he had not sinned They who shall be changed at Christs coming shall by it finde no pain Death is painfull 28 2. Man-kinde died the first minute of their sinne God draweth good out of evil Death in some regard is changed from a punishment to be a favour and blessing of God 31 3. Not many or more sinnes but one caused death One onely David begotten in lawfull wedlock That this one sinne is not lesse in the godly nor greater in the wicked Death was appointed for one sinne onely of one person onely 33 4. This one person onely was man this man that sinned that one sinne was Adam Strange and curious speculations that Eve sinned not that sinne for which mankinde was appointed to death 36 5. Two School speculations propounded The second handled at large as expounding the former and determined against the School-men themselves viz. That the children of innocent Adam had been born confirm'd in grace The censure of Vives upon these and the like points A part of his censure censured 43 CHAP. IIII. 1. ADams perfection in innocencie Our imperfection after his fall contrary to his both in understanding and will and in the parts concupiscible and irascible 55 2. Adam had other laws given him but one above all and one onely concerning posteritie 57 3. What this law was Adam knew the danger to himself and his off-spring The first sinne was against this law 58 4. Eve sinned before How she sinned the same and not the same sinne with Adam 60 5. Zeno the Stoicks and Jovinian confuted Sinnes are not equally sinfull 62 6. Adam sinned farre more and worse then Eve 65 7. This sinne of Adam was not uxoriousnesse as Scotus maintained but disobedience or pride The branches of Adams sinne 66 CHAP. V. 1. ORiginall sinne is an obscure point The errours of the Schoolmen concerning it The over-sight of Bellarmine 73 2. Originall sinne described by its causes Distinguished from Adams actuall sinne 77 3. In what sense Adam had and his posteritie hath Originall sinne We were in Adam He stood for us idealiter Every one of us would have done exactly as Adam did We did sinne in Adam and how 78 4. Whether Christ was in Adam and how 82 5. We sinned not that sinne in Adam by imitation onely 84 6. Adams sinne as personall was not imputed Adam is saved Adams actuall sinne as it was ideall and
in heaven The place of Revel 11.7 concerning the two Witnesses winnowed by Bishop Andrews Enoch and Elias are not those two witnesses 200 CHAP. III. 1. SOme others hereafter shall be excepted from death The change may be accounted in a generall large sense a kinde of death The Papists will have a reall proper death Aquinas an incineration This is disproved 1. Thessal 4.17 which place is handled at large The rapture of the godly is sine media morte without death The resurrection is of all together The righteous prevent not the wicked in that 224 2. By the words of the Creed is proved that some shall never die The same is confirmed by other places of Scripture with the consent of S. Augustine and Cajetan The definitions Ecclesiasticorum dogmatum of the sentences and tenents of the Church leave the words doubtfully Rabanus his exposition rejected 227 3. The place of S. Paul 2. Corinth 5.4 evinceth That some shall not die Cajetan with us and against Aquinas Doctour Estius and Cornelius à Lapide the Jesuit approve Cajetan S. Augustine is on our side and evinceth it by Adams estate before the fall which state Bellarmine denieth not Salmerons objections answered 228 4. Some shall be exempted from death as is manifested 1. Corinth 15.51 The place fully explicated The common Greek copies preferred The Greek reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We shall not all sleep standeth with all truth conveniencie probabilitie and sense The other Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We shall therefore all of us sleep and the more different Vulgat Omnes quidem resurgemus sed non omnes immutabimur Indeed we shall all arise but we shall not all be changed justly exploded as adverse to sense 230 5. The Pelagians though accursed hereticks yet held truely That some shall not die S. Augustine dubious Others stick in his hesitancie Yet other Fathers and late Writers are constant That some shall be priviledged from death yet that change may be called a kinde of death 235 FINIS A Catalogue of the severall Authours quoted in these three books of MISCELLANIES A ABen Ezra Abraham de Balmis Abulensis Adrichomius Cornelius Agrippa Albericus Gentilis Albertus Magnus Alchabitius Alexander ab Alexandro Ambrosius Bishop Andrews Anselmus Apollinaris Appianus Alexandrinus Aquila Aquinas Petronius Arbiter Arboreus Franciscus Aretinus Aretius Arias Montanus Aristoteles Athanasius Avenarius Augustinus B BAlthasar Bambach Moses Bar Cepha Baronius Barradius Basilius Beda Bellarminus Bernardus Bertram Beza Bilson Boëtius Bolducus Bonaventura Bosquier Brentius Broughton Lucas Brugensis Bucer Bullinger Busaeus C Coelius secundus Curio Caesaris commentaria Cajetanus Calvinus Melchior Canus Carafa Carthusianus Casaubonus Cassander Cassiodorus Catharinus Centuriatores Cevallerius Chaldee Targum Christopher Castrensis Chrysostomus Cicero Clemens Romanus Clemens Alexandrinus Joannes Climachus Philip de Comines Concilium Elibertinum Concilium Milevetanum Franciscus Collius Coverdale Cusanus Cyprianus Cyrillus Alexandrinus D DAmianus à Goës Rabbi David Del Rio. Demosthenes Petrus Diaconus Didymus Dionysius Areopagita Dorotheus Drusius Andreas Dudithius Durandus E ELias Levita Epimenides Epiphanius Erasmus Espencaeus Estius Eugubinus Eusebius Eustathius Antiochenus Euthymius F FAber Stapulensis Felisius Fernelius Ferus Festus Feuardentius Dr. Field Dr. Fox Fulgentius Dr. Fulk G GAgneius Galenus Gasparus Sanctius Genebrardus Gerson Gorranus Gregorius Greg. Nyssenus Greg. de Valentia Gretser H HAlensis Haymo Heinsius Helvicus Hermogenes Hieronymus Hilarius Hippocrates Hippolytus Holcot Homerus Horatius Hugo Cardinalis Hugo Eterianus I JAcobus de Valentia K. James Jansenius Ignatius Illyricus Irenaeus Isidorus Isidorus Pelusiota Josephus Justinus Benedictus Justinianus K KEmnitius Kimchi L LAertius Cornelius à Lapide Laurentii historia Anatomica Joannes Leo. Rabbi Levi. Libavius Livius Lombardus Lorinus Ludolphus Carthusianus Ludovicus de Ponte vallis Oletani Ludovicus Vives Lutherus Lyranus M MAjoranus Maldonatus Marianus Scotus Marsilius Andreasius Martin Marre-prelate Martinus Cantipretensis Justin Martyr Masius Matthew Paris Melchior Flavius Rabbi Menachem Mercer Minshew Mollerus Bishop Mountague Lord Michael de Montaigne Montanus Peter Morales Mr. Fines Morison Rabbi Moses Peter Moulin Muncer Musculus N HIer. Natalis Nazianzenus Nicephorus Nicetas Nonnus O OCkam Oecolampadius Oecumenius Jofrancus Offusius Olympiodorus Origenes P PAcianus Pagninus Paracelsus Paulinus Pererius Peter Martyr Petrus Pomponatius Philo Judaeus Photius Pighius Pineda Plato Plinius Plotinus Plutarchus Polybius Julianus Pomerius Porphyrius Postellus Primasius Procopius Gazaeus Propertius Prosper Ptolomeus R Dr. Raynolds Ribera Richeomus Jesuita Rodulphus Cluniacensis Monachus Rosinus Ruffinus Rupertus S EMmanuel Sa. Salianus Mr. Salkeld Salmanticensis Judaeus Salmeron Rabbi Salomon Mr. Sands Sasbout Scaliger Scharpius Dr. Sclater Scotus Mr. Selden Seneca Septuaginta Mr. Sheldon Barthol Sibylla Sixtus Senensis Sleidanus Socrates Sohnius Sophronius Soto Stapleton Robertus Stephanus Stow. Strabo Suarez Suetonius Suidas Surius Symmachus T TAcitus Tertullian Theodoretus Theodosius Theophylactus Petrus Thyraeus Tichonius Titus Bostrensis Toletus Tostatus Solomo Trecensis Tremellius Trelcatius Historie of the councell of Trent Turrianus V VAlla Terentius Varro Vasques Vatablus Didacus Vega. Ludovicus Vertomannus Blasius Viegas Joannes Viguerius Godfridus Abbas Vindocinensis Virgilius Vorstius Bishop Usher Leonardus de Utino W WHitakerus Willet Z ZAnchius Zimenes O Blessed God Father Sonne and holy Ghost whose deserving mercie to me hath been so infinite that nothing in earth which I enjoy is worthy enough to be offered unto thee yet because thou hast so plentifully rewarded the widow of Sarepta for sharing that little which she had unto the Prophet and hast promised even the kingdome of heaven to them who in thy name give a cup of water of cold water and hast most graciously accepted the poorest oblations both of the goats hair toward thy Tabernacle and the widows two mites into the treasurie receive I most humbly beseech thee the free-will-offering of my heart and weak endeavours of my hand in this intended service and as thou didst fill Bezaleel and Aholiab with an excellent spirit of wisdome and subtill inventions to finde out all curious works to the beautifying of thy Tabernacle so I most meekly desire thee to enlighten my soul to elevate my dull understanding that I may search for such secret things as may be found and finde such things as may be searched for lawfully and modestly and that I may like Joshuahs good spies acquaint my self and others with the desert wayes and the severall tracts and paths which our souls immediately after death must travell and passe over toward the Celestiall Canaan O God my good God grant me to accomplish this through the safe conduct of Him who is the faithfull Guide the onely Way the Light and Joy of my soul my Lord and Saviour JESVS CHRIST So be it most gracious Redeemer So be it MISCELLANIES OF DIVINITIE THE FIRST BOOK CHAP. I. Sect. 1. THe subject of the whole Work The reason why I chose the Text of Hebrews 9.27 to discourse upon The division of it 2 Amphibologie prejudiciall to truth Death appointed by GOD yet for Adams fault The tree
after death excluding judgement in this life and placing death rather before judgement then any great distance betwixt death and judgement according to the native use of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which before The second exposition is of Gregory de Valentia * Tom. 4. Disp 1. quaest 22. punct 9. who applieth the words to the particular judgement immediately upon death So doth Ludovicus de ponte Vallis Oletani * Part. 1. Meditat. medit 9. who sets it down as a veritie of faith * De particulari judicio animae quod sit proximè post mortem judicium singulorum exerceri invisibiliter statim post eujusque mortem Concerning the particular judgement of the soul which is done immediately after death every one is judged invisibly presently after his death and evinceth it by this Text. So doth Joannes * Viguer Instit pag. 692. Viguerius * Bus initio Panarii Antidotorum spiritual Busaeus the Jesuite likewise accounteth * Secundum novissimum est judicium particulare mortem proximè consequens the second last thing to be the particular judgement following death immediately the severitie whereof saith he Job the holy patient feared Job 31.14 What shall I do when God riseth up and when he visiteth what shall I answer him S. Ambrose on this place hath it thus * Post mortem judicabitur unusquisque â—uxta userita sua Every one shall be judged after death according to their own deservings Which words do point at the particular judgement saith Suarez Lastly lest I may seem too eager against the second book of Esdras let me borrow a testimony or two from thence 2 Esdr 9.11 12. They that lothed my law while they had yet libertie and place of repentance open unto them must know it after death by pain And 2. Esdr 7.56 While we lived and committed sinne we considered not that we should BEGIN to suffer for it AFTER DEATH Whence we may probably collect That the beginning of punishment is immediately after death upon the particular judgement and the increase or additament at the generall judgement 2 That some are in torments before the generall day of retribution 3 That the beginning to suffer is not after a long time GOD onely knoweth how long but after death yea presently after it All these proofs on each side make way for the third and best interpretation That the Apostle meaneth not onely either of these judgements but both of them Benedictus Justinian on these words thus * Post eujusque obitum sequitur judicium privatum in quo quisque suarum actionum reddit urus estrationem post finem mundi erit judicium omnium tum hominum tum daemonum After every ones death private judgement follows in which every one is to give an account of his actions after the end of the world shall be the judgement of all both men and devils Of both the Apostle may be understood saith he So also Salmeron and Hugo Cardinalis and Carthusianus Oecolampadius thus * Sive speciale judicium intelligas sive generale uihil refert Whether you understand the speciall judgement or the gener all it matters not Thus have I brought you back to the point where I first began That this text is fitted to my intentions affording me just liberty to write whatsoever may be conceived or expressed concerning the estate of humane souls in their animation or in death or after it in the life future because the words must be expounded of both judgements And now the text being cleared from ambiguities the termes explained the state being made firm and sure not rolling and changeable and being fixed upon its basis and foundation three questions do seem to arise from the first words of the text and each of them to crave its answer before I come to my main intendment First How and when Death came to be appointed for us Secondly Whether Adam and his children all and every one without priviledge or exception must and shall die It is appointed for men to die Thirdly Whether they that were raised up from the dead at any time did die the second time It is appointed to men once to die O Gracious LORD who orderest all things sweetly and who dost dispose whatsoever man doth purpose I humbly implore thy powerfull guidance and enlightning assistance in all this work for his sake who is Alpha and Omega the Way the Truth and the Life thy onely SONNE my blessed SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST Amen CHAP. II. 1 How GOD is immortall how angels and the souls of men how Adams body was mortall and yet immortall though compounded of contraries 2 Aristotles last words his death Holcot or the Philosophers pray for him Aristotle canonized by his followers Plato and Aristotle compared Vives taxed Adams body was not framed of â—he earth or dust of Paradise 3. Adam should not have been subject to any externall force he was Lord of the creatures inward distemper he could not have Adams bodily temperature Christs who was fairer then the children of Adam the helps for Adams body meat drink and sleep 4. Divers opinions of the tree of life If Adam had eaten of the tree of life before or after his fall he had lived for ever If he had not sinned he had not died though he had not tasted of the tree of life To what use the tree of life should have served 5. The Councel of Millan Cardinall Cajetan Richeomus the Jesuite Julianus Pomerius and S. Augustine think that Adam could not have died if he had not sinned The book of Wisedome Holcot Doctor Estius and two passages of Scripture Canonical are authorities evincing that Adam had in the state of innocency an immortall body 1. TO the full answering of the first question how or why Death was appointed for us I shall need to cleare but these two points That Adam for sinne was appointed to die That Adams sinne and punishment was propagated to us Thus sinne was the mother of death thus we were appointed to die because of sinne As a preparative to the first of these two points I hold it fit to demonstrate that Adam at first was made an immortall creature Concerning Adams soul and the spirits of all men descended from him that they are immortall I hope to prove it so soundly in an other part of this tractate that I will fear no other reproof but this that I bring too much proof for it Therefore supposing or rather borrowing that truth which by GODS grace shall be repayed with interest I now come to shew that Adams bodie was created immortall Immortall I say not as GOD is immortall who neither had beginning nor shall have end with whom is no shadow of change much lesse any reall substantiall change who hath as all other good things else so immortalitie eminently and so eminently that our Apostle in some sort excludeth all others and appropriateth it to him saying 1.
Tim. 6.16 GOD onely hath immortalitie Neither was the body of Adam immortall as the Angelicall spirits and souls of men which had a beginning but shall have no end Nor immortall as the counsels of GOD which had no beginning but shall have an end His bodie was not eternal but eviternal or immortall not absolutely immortall but conditionally it should never have tasted death if he had not first tasted of the forbidden fruit Immortall not as if it could not die but because it might and could have lived ever He had not non posse mori and so he was mortall he had posse non mori and so was immortall As mortall is taken for earthly animall and contra-distinct to spirituall so his bodie was mortall and terrene not spirituall or celestiall As he could not possibly die unlesse he had sinned his very bodie was immortall In the Schoole-phrase thus both mortall and immortall are taken two waies Mortall for one who must needs die thus Adam was not mortall in innocency but by sinne was made mortall who can die thus was he mortall yet onely in sensu diviso because he could sinne therefore could die Immortall for one who cannot die so Adam in innocency was not immortall save onely in sensu conjuncto * Adam in natura sua habuit mortalitatem quandam scilicet aptitudinem moriendi it à aliquam immortalitatem in natura sua habuit id est aptitudinem quâ poterat non mori he was immortall and could not die unlesse he sinned upon whom there is no necessity laid that he should die thus was he simply immortall Lumbard thus Adam had in his nature some mortalitie an aptnes to die so he had in his nature some immortality that is * Pet. Diac. de Gratia Christ lib. 1. cap. 6. Fulg. lib. 2. cap. 13. Max. Profess Fidei snae cap. 8. to wit an aptnes by which he might not die 2. Sent. dist 19. lit F. Further as some have said Adam was neither mortall nor immortall for thus wrote Petrus Diaconus and Fulgentius * Corpus Adae ante peccatum mortale secundum aliam immortale secundum aliam causam dici poterat De Genesi ad literam lib. 6. cap. 25. and Maxentius so others have written that Adam was made both mortall and â—â—mortall and all and every one of these in some sense is most true Augustine saith that Adams body before sinne may be said to be mortall in one respect and immortall in another as he there proveth at large Hierome hath a different strain and an unusuall phrase in one of his * Epist ad Paulum Concordiensem epistles wherein he maketh the body to be eternall till the serpent by his sinne prevailed against Adam and ascribeth a second kinde of immortality to the body because some of the first ages lived so long a time as about or above 900 yeares Even they who say Adams body was mortall agree in sense with me They distinguish thus It is one thing to be mortall and another thing to be subject to death If they grant to us that he was not obnoxious to death and could not die without finne I will not be offended much though they say he was mortall As this our flesh which now we have is not therefore not to be wounded because there is no necessitie that it should be wounded so the flesh of Adam in paradise was not therefore not mortall because there was no necessitie that it should die De peccat Meritis Remis l. 1. c. 3. saith Augustine So that this is but a meer logomachy They who call him mortall expound themselves that he could not mori unlesse he had sinned and I mean no more when I say he was immortall that is he could not have died in the state of innocencie without a precedent transgression he could not have been subject or obnoxius to death They say though he should not have died yet he was mortall I say he was therefore onely immortall because in that blessed estate he could not die Whether of these two contraries Mortall or Immortall do best fit Adam before he sinned let the reader judge As bodies are compounded of contrarieties they are subject to dissolution to the evidencing whereof let me recount what Holcot saith on Wisedome 12.22 upon these words We should look for mercy 2 Aristotle saith Holcot spake these his last words IREIOYCE THAT I GO OUT OF THE WORLD WHICH IS COMPOUNDED OF CONTRARIES BECAUSE BACH OF THE FOURE ELEMENTS IS CONTRARY TO OTHER AND THEREFORE HOW CAN THIS BODY COMPOUNDED OF THEM LONG ENDURE Then he dyed and the Philosophers prayed for him saith Holcot And because he did scorn to be behinde the Philosophers in love to Aristotle Holcot himself secondeth their prayers thus * Ille qui suscipit auimas philosophorum suscipiat animam tuam He that receiveth the souls of Philosophers let him receive thy soul This he speaketh to Aristotle by a part of that little Rhetorick that Holcot had or was used in his dayes or otherwise it might be the prayer of the Philosophers related by Holcot for the words are doubtfull No marvell therefore if after this our Christian Peripateticks the Divines of Culleyn have made Aristotle a Saint as they did if we beleeve * Corn. Agr. De Vanit Scient Cornelius Agrippa and perhaps prayed to him as devoutly as others prayed for him * Dinis annumerant They count him among the Gods saith Agrippa in his 45 Chapter though Agrippa himself be of a contrarie opinion for he saith * Ipsis Daemouibus dignum factus sacrificium Aristotle killed himself being made a sacrifice worthy of the Devils Sure I am I have read in a book Of the life and death of Aristotle in the beginning whereof the Poët prayeth to GOD from heaven to help him to write concerning Aristotle acceptable things and to speak in his words De sapiente viro cujus cor lumine miro Lustrâsti Divae super omnes Philosophiae Quem si non fractum lethi per flebilis actum Adventus prolis Divae veri quoque Solis Post se liquisset fidei qui vi micuisset Creditur à multis doctoribus artis adultis Quòd fidei lumen illustrans mentis acumen Defensatorem vix scivisset meliorem From whence the commenting questionist examineth Whether Aristotle would have been in an high degree the great champion of the Christian faith if he had lived after Christs time And he resolveth affirmatively because Aristotle had the best intellect among all the creatures under the sunne for supernaturals saith he are given according to the disposition of naturals * Cum conatu hominum with mens endeavour grace distilling on man according as he well useth the talent of nature But at the end of that book the Expositor strikes all dead in these words * Concludendo finaliter cum veritate dico c. Concluding
should never have end I summe up all with Augustines words * Cibus aderat nè Adam esuriret potus nè sitiret lignum vitae nè illum senecta dissolveret nullus intrinsecus morbus nullus ictus metucbatur extrinsecus De Civit. 14.20 There was meat lest Adam should hunger drink lest he should thirst a tree of life lest old age should dissolve him no inward disease no outward blow was feared A new Quaere may be made Whether if Adam after his sin had eaten of the tree life his posteritie as well as himself had lived for ever My answer setleth on the negative because Adams action had been personall not representative or ideall and his posteritie was neither to answer for his second sinne or after-offences nor to have received any benefit by his good deeds succeeding his fall but he stood alone for us and we were in him onely as he had power to keep or break the first commandement And now am I come to the second Topick place by which I undertook to prove that Adams body had been immortall if he had not sinned and that is Authoritie 5. Not S. Augustine alone but a whole Councell where he was present to wit the Milevitan Councell is strong on our side * Quicunque dixerit Adam primum hominem mortalem factum it à ut sive peccaret sive non peccaret moreretur in corpore hoe est de corpore exiret non peccati merito sed necessitate naturae Anathema sit Whosoever shall say that the first man Adam was made mortall so that whether he had sinned or no he should have died in body that is gone out of the body not for the desert of sinne but by the necessitie of nature let him be accursed And this curse fell heavy upon the Pelagians who did think that Adam should have died though he had not sinned for so they held saith * Lib. de Haeresibus cap. 88. Augustine Cajetan thus * In 1. Cor. 15.53 In the state of innocencie Adam had a corruptible body in regard of the flux of naturall moisture but not mortall Richeomus a Jesuit saith * In statu innocentiae Adam corpus habebat corruptibile quantum ad fluxum humidi naturalis sed non mortale If man was created mortall those threatnings where by God did denounce death unto him were unprofitable for Adam might have answered I know well enough that I shall die although I neither taste nor touch the tree of knowledge of good evill And again God in the production of every one of his works kept an exact and most beautifull symmetry between the matter and the form the body and the soul and such a symmetrie as was most fit and accommodate to * Si komo mortalis creatus fuit inutiles crant illae minae quibus ' Deus mortem illi intendebat poterat namque respondere c. In Valedictione animae devotae Colloq 32. obtain the end of everie creature furnishing the matter with qualities and instruments most apt and pliable to serve the vertues and faculties of the form Therefore the soul of man being immortall and the faculties and operations proportioned to the essence the body also then must needs be immortall Item In every good marriage two things are observed at least the qualities of the parties and their age Therefore unto the soul which is free from the tyranny of death God married the body which was free also from the grave-clothes and bands of death Death is the brood of sinne saith Julianus Pomerius Adam was so created * Colloq 34. that having discharged his duty of obedience without the intervention of death he should have been followed of Angelicall immortality and blessed eternity He had immortalitie * Etiam ipsam nobis corporis mortem non lege naturae sed merito inflictam esse peccati De Civit. Dei 13.15 yet changeable not Angelicall and eternall As I began with S. Augustine so with him will I end It is a constat among Christians holding the Catholick Faith * Adâ—ujusque creaturae finem consequendum that even the death of the body hath been inflicted upon us not by the law of nature but by the desert of sinne * Peccatum est pater mertis Otherwhere he saith * Colloq 35. Sinne is the father of death Again * Vt perfunctus obedientiae munere sine interventu mortis Angelica eum immortalitas aeteinitas sequeretur beata If Adam had not sinned he was not to be stripped of his body but clothed upon with immortalitie that mortalitie might be swallowed up of life that is that he might passe from a naturall to a spiritual estate from an earthly to an heavenly from a mortal to an immortall as I truly interpret his meaning For he taketh not Mortall for that which must die And Again * Si non peccâsset Adam non erat expoliandus corpore sed supervestiendus immertalitate ut absorberetur mortale à vita id est ab animali ad spirituale transiret à terreuo ad coeleste à mortali ad immortale De peccat Merit Remis l. 1. cap. 2. It was not to be feared if Adam had lived longer that he should have been troubled with age or death For if God was so gracious to the Israëlites that for fourty yeares their clothes waxed not old upon them nor their shoes waxed old upon their feet Deutero 29.5 what marvell were it if God granted to obedient Adam * Ibid. cap. 3. that having a naturall and mortall body he should have in it some state and condition that he might be old without imperfection and at what time it pleased God he should come from mortalitie to immortalitie * Vt animale ac mortale habens corpus haberet in eo quendam statum without passing through death Where though S. Augustine seemes to say Adam had a mortall body and should have passed from mortalitie yet he taketh Mortale for all one with Animale and opposeth it to Spirituale So that I confesse Adam in Paradise had not a spirituall body not such a bodie as he and we shall have after the Resurrection And thus the body which he had may be called Animale or Mortale and yet S. Augustine with us and we with him acknowledge this truth that the body of Adam could not have died if he had not sinned and in that regard Adams body may be justly termed immortall not with reference to that heavenly and spirituall bodie which he shall have hereafter but immortall therefore because except for sinne his body as it was was free from death And the same Augustine hath a whole Chapter intituled thus * Sine media morte Against the doctrines of those that beleeve not that the first men had been immortall if they had not sinned Among such a
of the souls of men saith The mercifull Father made them mortall bands Whether the particle Is aimeth at Plato or Plotinus appeareth not by Augustine Bartholomaeus * Barth Sib. Peregrin Quaest Decad. 1. c. 2. q. 2. Sibylla appropriateth the word Is to Plato I rather assigne it to Plotinus as the good Expositor of Plato Or it may be that S. Augustine taking some words from both of them into one sentence purposely left it doubtfull unto whom the Is must be referred Howsoever his collection as I said is ingenious and subtile * Ità hoc ipsum quòd mortales sint homines corpore ad misericordiam Dei Patris pertinere arbitratus est nè semper huâ—us vitae miseriâ teneantur So he thought that this very thing that men are mortall in body proceeds from the mercie of our divine Father lest they should be alwayes held with the miserie of this life Even as the very miserie of mankind from which no man is free could not pertain to the just judgement of the Almightie if there had been no originall sinne as Augustine saith otherwhere Gods judgement brought miserie and death for sinne yet in death God remembred mercie distilled good out of it I cannot omit this memorable speech of Gregory * Naz. Orat. 2. de Pasch Nazianzen Adam was expelled and extruded from this tree of life from Paradise at once by God for sinne And yet even in this case by death he gaineth the cutting off of sinne lest the evill should be immortall So was punishment turned into mercy He is excellently seconded by Rupert * Rup De Trinit 3.24 c. How should we turn away with deaf eares the care of the death of the soul and the generall judgement if we should never have died that are so proud to day dying to morrow Well therefore did our Lord God strike Man with the death of the flesh of the body lest he should be ignorant of the death of his soul and sleep securely in his pleasures till the dawning of the last day that at least Man might be waked even by the fear of the instantaneall death and that he might not like the immortall devil adde prevarication to prevarication but rather flee and avoid the pride height of sinne by humble repentance Let me adde Hence is the patience of the Saints Here are the crowns of the Martyrs saith Chrysostome This death causeth many vertues which had else never been * O munde immunde si sic me tenes breviter transeundo quid faceres diu permanendo O unclean World saith devout Bernard if thou holdest me so shortly passing what shouldest thou do long remaining If ye desire more proofs that death was appointed to Adam for sinne and that he was kept from the tree of life after he had sinned lest his miserable life should have been immortall consult with the authoritie of Irenaeus in his third book and 37. chap. of Hilarius in his commentarie on Psal 69.26 of Hierome on Esai 65. of Cyrill of Alexandria about the middle of his third book against Julian and they shall confirm you in this point That death is a bitter-sweet a compound of judgement and mercy a loathsom pill and a punishment yet wrapt up in gold and working out health and blessings for mankinde * A culpa natae sunt duae filiae Tristitia Mors quae duaefiliae pessimam matrem destruunt From the transgression two daughters are born Sorrow and Death which two daughters destroy their very ill mother Augustine against two Epistles of the Pelagians 4.4 * Quamvìs bonis conferatur per mortem plurimum boni unde nonnulli etiam DE BONO MORTIS Congruenter disputaverunt tamen hinc quae praedicanda est nisi misericordia Dei quòd in usus bonos convertitur poena peccati Although by death much good be bestowed on good men whereupon some have fitly discoursed even of the good of death yet what hence can we commend but Gods mercie that the punishment of sin is turned to good uses I will seal up all with the saying of Cicero in the beginning of his third book de Oratore where he spake wiser then he was aware of * Mihi non à diis immortalibus vita erepta sed mors donata est Life hath not been taken away from me by the immortall gods but death hath been given Death is a benefit though it was appointed unto Adam for sinne for one sinne onely which is the next point to be explained 3. It is true that the wages due to any one sinne is death and as true that we commit many sinnes which are rightly divided into originall and actuall Actuall sinnes are of a thousand kindes committed by us yet none of these our sinnes nor Adams after-sinnes but his first sinne onely produced death Likewise originall sin consisteth of two parts of Adams transgression of our corruption In Adams transgression were many sinnes involved our corruption consisteth both in the want of original justice in the positive ill-qualitie of our nature Adams sinne is imputed to us our corruption both inherent imputed His sin as a qualitie concerned himself as relation concerned us As he was an individual man it touched himself onely as a coÌ„mon person it drop't down upon us His actuall sin is not propagated his corrupting of our nature is deriv'd And this corruption is both a sin and a punishment of sinne Some late Divines have written Originall sinne is said to be twofold 1 Imputed which was inherently in Adam and charged upon his posteritie 2 Inherent which is naturally propagated to us So amongst others Scharpius pag. 463. But they speak improperlie for originall sinne is but one onely made up of two parts or branches indeed perchance parts constituent not ratione onely but re differentes yet not so natively to be call'd a double sinne as one sinne of two steps degrees sections composures parts or branches for originall sinne is not many not two but one onely viz for which death was inflicted And this is the point I must now insist upon and thus I prove it apodictically Rom. 5.12 Death entred by sinne and verse 21 Sinne reigned unto death Likewise Rom. 6.23 The wages of sinne is death and 1. Corint 15.56 The sting of death is sinne All in the singular number evincing it to be one onely sinne David complaineth Psal 51.5 I was shapen in iniquitie and in sinne did my mother conceive me In sinne not in sinnes both the Hebrew and the Vulgar Translation have all these places in the singular number Concerning David it is observable lest any one might imagine that Davids mother was lascivious and that therefore he complained and so this complaint concerned David himself onely and personally and not us that it was no part of Davids intent to disparage his mother and Aquinas saith David was born of a lawfull
the branches being saved the root also should not be saved But in his book De praescript advers Haereticos as it is cited by Bellarmine there is no mention of Tatian in Rhenanus his Edition Augustine saith of the Tatians and Encratites * Quòd contradicunt primorum hominum saluti Aug. De Haeresib cap. 25. That they gainsay the salvation of the first men Where Bellarmine used another Edition then Erasmus his or was mistaken in the collation He who will see more into this point let him consult with Bellarmine in the place above cited and Salianus ad Annum Mundi 930. where he justly taxeth Rupert for saying in this third book on Genes chap. 31. * Salvationem Adami à multit liberè negari à nullo satìs firmiter defendi That the salvation of Adam is freely denied by many and by none strongly enough defended And he bringeth many authorities and proofs to the contrary From Irenaeus he bids them blush for saying Adam was not saved and more vehemently That by saying so they make themselves Hereticks and Apostates from the truth and Advocates for the Serpent and Death God cursed not Adam and Eve but the earth and the Serpent Yea before God pronounced any punishment against Eve or Adam even in the midst of his cursing of the Serpent with the same breath he both menaced Satan and comforted Adam and Eve with the gracious promise of the Messiah Genes 3.15 Now there was never any unto whom God vouchsafed a speciall promise of Christ but they were saved Indeed the Apostle reckoneth not Adam among the faithfull ones Hebr. 11. but one reason of this omission is because he entreateth of such faithfull ones onely as were much persecuted which Adam was not so farre as is recorded If it be further objected That God is called THE GOD OF ABRAHAM ISAAC AND JACOB Exod. 3.6 Matth. 22.32 and is no where called THE GOD OF ADAM let it be answered That Adam is called THE SONNE OF GOD Luke 3.38 And I think he is too severe a judge who saith a sonne of God is damned The Targum or Chaldee Paraphrase set forth by Rivius on the Canticles chap. 1. vers 1. saith * Et veuit dies Sabbati protexit eum aperuit os suum dixit Psalmum Cantici diei Sabbati That the first song that ever was made was indited by Adam in the time when his sinne was forgiven him Damianus à Goes De Moribus Aethiopum makes this the belief of Zagazabo and the Ethiopians for whom he negotiated That Christs soul descended into Hell for Adams soul pag. 93. and that Adam was redeemed by Christ from Hell pag. 55. How glorious was it for Christ to save his first sheep and how would the Devil glorie if it were otherwise Adams fig-leaves may be thought to be sharp afflictive and penitentiall Epiphanius Haeres 46. calleth Adam Holy and saith We beleeve he is among those Fathers whom Christ reckoneth alive not dead God is not the God of the dead but of the living Irenaeus saith Adam humbly bare the punishment laid upon him Can humility be damned then may pride be saved Josephus 1.2 recordeth That Adam foretold the universall destruction of the World one by the floud the other by fire And can the first of Mankinde the first King Priest and Prophet of the World be condemned Others probably conjecture that before his death he called the chief of his children grand-children and their descendants and gave them holy and ghostly counsel as Abraham did Genes 18.19 and Jacob Genes 49.1 c. and Moses Deuteron 31.1 c. Salianus fits him a particular speech at his death and a witty Epitaph Feuardentius on Irenaeus thus relateth Nicodemus Christs Disciple in the History ascribed to him OF THE PASSION AND RESVRRECTION OF THE LORD reporteth That our Lord Jesus Christ when he descended into Hell in his soul spake thus to Adam and held his hand PEACE BE VNTO THEE VVITH ALL THY SONNES MY IVST ONES But Adam falling on his knees such spirituall knees as before his spirituall hand which Christ held while both their bodies were in the grave weeping-ripe thus prayed with a loud voice * Exaltabo te Domine quoniam suscepisti me nec delectâsti inimicos meos super me Domine Deus clamavi ad te sanâsti me eduxisti ab inferis animam meam salvâstime à descendentibus in lacum I will magnifie thee Lord because thou hast received me and hast not made glad mine enemies over me Lord God I have cried unto thee and thou hast healed me Thou hast brought up my soul from Hell thou hast saved me from those that go down to the pit Thus Salianus in his Scholia ad Annum 930. Another ancient Apocryphal book affirmeth that Adam repented Didacus Vega in his second Sermon on the fifth penitentiall Psalme pag. 443. thus Leonardus de Vtino in his Book De Legibus Sermon de Poenitentia saith That Adam repented not of his sinne but remained obstinate till the death of Abel but when he saw him lye dead at his feet wallowed in his bloud and yet pale and as in a glasse saw the deformity of death he began to repent Strabo saith He was so sorrowfull that he vowed chastity for ever and would have performed it if an Angel had not injoyned him the contrary And from the authority of Josephus he saith Adam was so sorry for Abel that he wept an whole hundred yeares But I beleeve saith Vega He rather wept for the cause which was sinne then for the very death of Abel Ludovicus Vertomannus in his sixth Book fourth Chapter of his journey to India hath recorded that a Mahumetan Merchant told him that at the top of an high mountain in the Iland of Zaylon subject to the King of Narsinga there is a den in which Adam after his fall lived and continued very penitently And though their tradition rests on an idle conjecture because there is yet seen the print of the steps of his feet almost two spannes long for how should they know they were his feet rather then some giants and because how Adam should come to this Iland and why cannot be shewed yet so farre as is probable we will joyn issue with their beleef to wit That he was penitent and so saved Thus much be spoken concerning the salvation of Adams soul Concerning Adams actuall sinne though I said truly before That as it was private and personall it was not imputed to us yet I must needs say as it was ideall and representative it was and is imputed to us He who denieth this let him also deny that Christs active and passive Merits are imputed to us Neither can the Divine providence be taxed with rigour much lesse with injustice for imputing Adams sinne unto us For first he imputeth not our own actuall and personall iniquities but forgiveth us both this sinne of Adam and all manner of
contracting of sinnes and undergoing punishment for them Fourthly weigh this strong inconvenience which he toucheth at That the latter born in time is still the worse in nature worse then any that went before as followeth necessarily if the sinnes of our forefathers are communicated to us Fifthly he seemeth to conclude the unreasonablenesse That they who were never regenerated should be overburdened with eternall damnation if they should be compelled from the beginning of mankinde to contract the sinnes of all their progenitours and be punished for them And therefore he questioneth Whether it reacheth onely to the third and fourth generation I would also question Whether if the threat reach onely to the third and fourth generation upon supposall that from Adam all the predecessours of a man were wicked till the fourth generation that man shall have none of those sinnes imputed to him before his progenitours in a fourth ascent Or if an others progenitours were all good from Adam till the foure last generations and from it all and every of his parents in a lineall descent were stark-naught till we come to himself who is good Whether he shall have communicated to him the sinnes of these foure last progenitours and no goodnesse for a thousand generations of holy and repentant forefathers himself also being a holy man since God sheweth mercy unto thousands that love him that is more mercy to more good men then severitie which extendeth even towards his haters but to the third and fourth generation which number is short of thousands The last objection from the place of Exodus is this q Consequi videtur Deum permittere ut pâ—ccata parentum in filios transeant It seems to follow that God doth permit that the sinnes of parents passe unto their children and the sonnes imitate the sinnes of their fathers that God may justly punish sinnes which are not so proper to the parent as to the parent and childe I answer He doth well to mince it with It seems to follow But Quaedam videntur non sunt Some things seem to be and are not Bucer and Martyr do float too much in generalities they neither mention what sinnes all or some neither what parents good bad or all nor what they mean by passing when they say r Peccata parentum in filios transeunt The sinnes of parents passe unto the children There are also nets and ginns in these their words Å¿ Peccatorum labes cou contegium redundat in patris corpus per ejus sanguinem semen in filios The spot and as it were contagion of sinne overspreadeth the fathers body and by his bloud and seed redoundeth upon the children Before they said sinnes now the spot of sinnes though there be a great difference between them two for the sinne is past before the spot cometh and the latter is the effect of the former Again because it is easie to prove that t Macula patris non redundat in filios the stain of the father redoundeth not on the children it is added u Labes ceu contagium the spot and as it were contagion Moreover how unaptly do they bring the place of Exodus to prove the sinnes of the next parents to be communicated if by them they understand onely the immediate father and mother when in that place there is expresse mention of the third and fourth generation If they stretch the words of the next parents to the third and fourth generation onely why not to the fifth sixth and so upward Sixteen generations since Christs time are the next parents if you compare them to the thirty nine generations which in the law of Nature and of Moses preceded Christ Lastly note their wilde inference God permits the fathers sinne to passe unto the childe and the childe to imitate the father that he may punish as if God could not justly punish the sinnes of the fathers in the children unlesse they be like them in personall transgressions as if the communication of original sinne onely were not cause enough to punish children for the sinnes of their parents as if the evil of sinne were ordained to justifie the evil of punishment Away then with this fishing in troubled waters this delighting in amphibolous terms Which censure that I may the rather justifie I will endeavour to explain all things necessary to the knowledge of this point to salve all doubts to unfold all intricacies in these seven propositions 4. God justly may and doth punish with any temporall punishment any children like or unlike to their parents for their fathers personall sinnes Horat. Epod. 7. Immerentis fluxit in terram Remi Sacer nepotibus cruor And Carminum 3. Ode 6. Delicta majorum immeritus lues Romane For the children are a part of the fathers and in the childes punishment the father himself is punished For as a sonne receiveth under God life and the things of this life by the father so it is no injustice if he lose the same for him The widow of Zarephath her sonne was in her apprehension dead for her sinne 1. King 17.18 So 2. Sam. 12.15 God stroke the childe that Uriahs wife bare to David and it was sick and died Both father and childe endured a punishment of seven dayes the father in sorrow fasting a fast lying on the earth in a holy sordiditie weeping and praying the childe by sicknesse tormenting him to death Ahabs children were punished for his offence 1. King 21.21 and among the rest Jehoram his sonne who although he wrought evil in the sight of the Lord yet was not so bad as his father or mother 2. Kings 3.2 The passage is very observable Jer. 16.3 4. For thus saith the Lord concerning the sonnes and daughters that are born in this place and concerning their mothers and fathers They shall die of grievous deaths Both the great and small shall die vers 6. The punishment of Gehazi his posterity is more exemplarie for though they sinned not nor could sinne the sinne of Gehazi yet the leprosie of Naaman did cleave unto him for that his personall simonie and unto his seed for ever 2. Kings 5.27 The case of Jobs children surpasseth this for they were not stricken with death for their own sinnes or the sinnes of their father Job so much as for the triall of his patience and for the experimentall confutation of Satan yet was it not unjust that they should lose their lives for their fathers good which they had by him since he also suffered in their sufferings and might easily see Gods especiall hand against himself For the greatest winde in the world naturally cannot smite the foure corners of an house and if it should yet one corner would uphold the other but this whirlwinde did so and the house fell Job 1.19 1. Sam. 15.6 the Kenites are spared because they shewed kindenesse to the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt but because Amalek had fought with
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here whereas in the place of Exodus it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Also in the Septuagint the first place is thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Leviticus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may well be expounded one manner of pleading their causes as there was one law This I am sure of the verb is so used Micah 7.9 I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 untill he plead my cause Why may not then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the pleading of ones cause And why may not the meaning of our Apostle be That as Adam was ostium mortis The doore of death so Christ is clavis resurrectionis The key of the resurrection as Tertullian sweetly calleth him And as by Adam all and every one was guilty of death and damnation so by Christs merit every one shall arise to free himself from it if he can and to plead wherefore he should not be condemned to defend himself and answer for himself as Paul did Acts 26.2 to apologize And herein Adam and Christ to be like That as every one was made guilty by one of condemnation so every one for Christs all-sufficient condignity shall be permitted yea enabled to speak for himself why the sentence shall not be executed But these things I leave to the Professours of the Greek tongue and suo quisque judicio abundet So much for the second exposition of the words and for the similitudes and dissimilitudes between Adam and Christ from which resulteth That Adam representing us did not so much hurt us as Christ representing us did do good unto us And therefore since we are acquitted from sinne from all sinnes originall and actuall since we are acquitted from eternall death and have grace and abundance of grace and the gift of righteousnesse and shall have life eternall and shall reigne in life by ones obedience by one onely Jesus Christ who in his life and on the altar of the crosse merited all these things for us it is no hard measure no iniquity of God if for Adams sinne and disobedience when he sustained our persons both himself and his posterity in his loyns implicitly consenting with him be appointed to die And thus much shall suffice for the first generall Question upon the words of the Text. The second followeth Drusius towards the end of his Preface before his book called Enoch thus * Haec alia quae hoc libro continentur ut in aliis omnibus à me unquam editis aut edendis subjicio libens Ecclesiae Catholicae judicio à cujus recto sensu si dissentio non er◠pertinax These and other things which are contained in this book as also in all other books which have been or shall be set forth by me I willingly submit to the censure of the Catholick Church from whose right judgement if I dissent I will not be pertinacious O Deity incomprehensible and Trinity in Unity in all respects superexcellent and most admirable with all the faculties of my soul and body I humbly beg of thee to shew thy mercy upon me for Jesus Christ his sake and O blessed Redeemer accept my prayer and present it with favour to the throne of grace where thou canst not be denied If thou O gracious Jesu art not able to help me and to save my sinfull soul let me die comfortlesse and let my soul perish but since thy power is infinite I beseech thee to make me one of those whom thou bringest to more happinesse then all our enemies could bring to miserie Heare me for thy tender mercies sake and for thy glorious name O great Mediatour Jesu Christ AMEN AMEN MISCELLANIES OF DIVINITIE THE SECOND BOOK CHAP. I. Sect. 1. THe question propounded and explained 2. Armenius or rather his sonne Zoroaster dead and revived 3. Antillus dead and living again because the messenger of death mistook him in stead of Nicandas Nicandas died in his stead 4. A carelesse Christian died and recovered life lived an Anchorite twelve yeares died religiously SECT 1. THe second Question which from the words of my Text I propounded is this Whether such as have been raised from the dead did die the second time yea or no because it is said It is appointed for men once to die I speak not of those who have been thought to be dead and have been stretch't out and yet their soul hath been within them though divers for divers daies and upon severall sicknesses have had neither heat nor breathing discernable but onely of such who have suffered a true separation of their souls from their bodies Whether these have again delivered up the ghost and died I make my question 2. Before I come to mention those whom the Scripture recordeth to be truly raised I hold it not amisse to propound to your view a few stories out of other authours Theodoret lib. 10. de fine judicio hath two strange relations The first is out of Plato of one Armenius but Clemens Alexandrinus Stromat 5. relateth from Zoroaster himself that it was Zoroaster the sonne of Armenius He who onely of all the world laughed so soon as he was born saith Plin. 7.16 and was so famous a Magician One of these two either father or sonne the twelfth day after he and others fell in the battell and was to be buried ante pyram constitutus revixit and being come to himself told what he had seen apud inferos namely that his soul being divided from his bodie came with many others who died with him to an admirable and incredible place in which there were two gulfs opes or ruptures of the earth and two open places of heaven right over them In the midst of these hiatus or gulfs judges did fit who when judgement was ended bade the just souls ascend by the heavenly opennes and gaps the judges sowing on their breasts the notes of their judgement But the souls of the wicked men were commanded to go on the left hand and to be hurried to hell carrying with them on their backs the memoriall of their passed life But as for himself being now come in fight the judges bade him diligently heare and see all things and tell all those things which were done when he revived These are sayings worthy of Philosophy saith Theodoret. 3 A second storie is cited in the same place by Theodoret from Plutarch among those things which he wrote De anima Sositiles Heracleon and I saith Plutarch were present when Antillus told us this of himself The Physicians thought Antillus to be dead but he came to himself as one out of a deep sleep and neither said nor did any other thing * Quod emetae mentis signum possit censeri which might argue him to be crazy or light-headed but he told us that he was dead and that he was again revived and that his death upon that sicknesse
was not altogether irrevocable but that the messengers who brought him to judgement were sharply blamed by their governours because they brought Antillus in stead of Nicandas Within a while after Nicandas died and Antillus recovered life and health And Plutarch in my opinion seemeth to insinuate that he was present at the recovery of him Of both these if each particular were true that they were dead and relived we may boldly averre that they died again Neither doth Plato Plutarch or Theodoret doubt of it As strange a storie though more remote from our subject you shall finde in Alexander ab Alexandro Genialium dierum 6.21 4 An other istance you shall finde in Bellarmine De arte bene moriendi lib. 2. cap. 1. taken out of Joannes Climachus in scala sua grad 6. who relates thus of a man that died twice In his first life saith he he lived most negligently but dying and his soul being perfectly separated from his bodie after one houre he returned again and he desired Climachus and the rest to depart Whereupon they walled up the cell and he lived as an Anchoret within the cell twelve yeares speaking to no man till he was ready to die again eating nothing but bread and drinking water sitting so he astonishedly revolved those things onely which he had seen in his separation with so earnest a thought that he never changed countenance but continuing in that amazement secretly wept bitterly When he was at deaths doore the second time they forced open the entrance into the cell and coming to him humbly desired him to speak some words of doctrine He answered nothing but this onely b Nemo qui revera mortis memoriam agnoverit peccare unquam poterit The serious remembrance of death will not consist with sinne The like storie you may finde in Venerable Bede All these if they lived again died again and rose not to life immortall And in this sense is that averred Wisd 2.1 Never was any man known to have returned from the grave viz. not to die again for otherwise some were known to have been raised From these I come more especially to speak of such whom the word of God reporteth to have been raised MOst gracious God who didst breathe into the face of man the breath of life and at thy pleasure drawest it forth again out of his nostrils grant that we make such use of this present life that we may see love and enjoy thee in the life eternall through Jesus Christ our onely Lord and Saviour Amen CHAP. II. 1. A division of such as have been raised They all died 2. The widow of Zarephath her sonne raised yet died again supposed to be Jonas the Prophet The Shunammites sonne raised not to an eternall but to a temporary resurrection A good and a better resurrection 3. Christ the first who rose not to die again 4. The man raised in the sepulchre of Elisha arose not to immortality 1. ANd because divers have been raised up of whom there is not the like doubt and answer in each kinde to be made I will therefore distribute them in regard of their times into three sorts Such as were raised 1. Before Christs death 2. After he was ascended 3. About the time of his death Which inverted method I purposely choose because I will reserve the hardest point to the last The first sort again is subdivided into such as were raised either before Christ was incarnated or by Christ himself They who were raised before Christ was born were three 1. The widow of Zarephath her sonne 1. King 17.22 2. The Shunammites sonne 2. King 4.35 3. A dead man who was cast into the grave of Elisha and when he touched the bones of Elisha he revived and stood upon his feet 2. King 13.21 All these three were raised up to live and lived to die again Neither did the intention of such as requested to have them raised or of such as raised them aim once that they should live immortally but live onely on earth again as other men did and then die again Neither did I ever reade any who held these to arise to immortall glory neither stands it with reason For that they were once dead and raised to life the Scripture saith and that they must either live to this time or be translated to immortall glorie in their bodies or die is as true as Scripture Now because there is no ground to say that they yet live or were translated bodily into heaven there is good ground to conclude that again they died 2. Concerning the first of these the Jews think he was Jonas the Prophet and S. Hierome in his Prologue on Jonas citeth their opinion and dislikes it not Tostatus also saith Dïvers others think so If Jonas were the widow of Zarephath her sonne we know that Jonas died afterward for the Prophets are dead Joh. 8.53 and he was one of the Prophets And concerning both the first and second instance it is thought by many good Authours that they are pointed at Heb. 11.35 The women received their dead raised to life again or the Prophets delivered to the women their dead as the Syriack reads it that is to converse with them as formerly being raised not to an eternall but a temporary resurrection and so to die again at their appointed times And to this truth the Text it self giveth in evidence for it is said in the same verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they might obtain a better resurrection Of holy men there is a double resurrection the first and the last the good and the better The resurrection mentioned in the beginning of the verse was good and with reference to the former saith Chrysostom the latter resurrection is called the better For the former was temporary the latter eternall called also The holy resurrection in our book of Common Prayer in the Epistle on the sixth Sunday after Trinity though there is no substantiall ground for the word holy either in the Latine or Greek Rom. 6.5 Of the former Aquinas in his Comment on Hebr. 11.35 saith it was rather a resuscitation then a resurrection and again c Isti sic resuscitati sunt iterum mortui Christus autem resuegens ex mortuis jam non moritur Rom. 6.9 These being raised died again but Christ rising from the dead dieth no more Rom. 6.9 3. And therefore Christs resurrection was as Aquinas saith and as it is indeed the beginning of the future resurrection Then must they needs die again who were raised before him He was the first Guide that lead the way to the eternall resurrection He abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light 2. Tim. 1.10 Life and immortalitie to light which were before in darknesse And I think that the Apostle may well be thus paraphrased in that place to the Hebrews The women desired that their dead children might be raised again 1. King 17.18 2. King 4.22 c. and as a gift
not to have bought that but an other piece of ground at an other time in an other place for * Genes 23.16 c. foure hundred shekels of silver of Ephron the Hittite neare Hebron which was farre distant from Sychem Which sale of Ephron and purchase of Abraham is ratified by the witnesse of truth in the mouth of Jacob himself and dying Jacob Genes 49.29 c. Therefore though the name of Abraham be read it may be it must be a patronymick and Jacob is called by his grandfathers name and Jacob did what is ascribed to Abraham for other passages of Scripture do force us to expound it of Jacob. Thus have I digressed to satisfie the great doubt which hath tortured the wits both of old and late Writers O Lord God God of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob God of our fathers Father of Jesus Christ our God and Saviour be pleased I beseech thee that these my poore weak labours in points obscure may receive strength from thy strength light from thy light that thy most blessed holy and all-wise Word may be a lanthorn and light not onely to my paths but to my understanding that so I may know thee love thee and alway cleaving to thee may be glorified by thee through Jesus Christ my Redeemer and Advocate Amen CHAP. XI 1. Pineda makes Moses to be one of the raised at Christs Passion if once he died Pineda censured for his assertion or rather his hypothesis 2. David then arose in Pineda his judgement 3. His Argument answered Bishop Bilson wavering and rejected as he rejecteth S. Augustine 4. A demonstration upon S. Augustine his ground and Act. 2.24 that David was not raised nor ascended bodily into heaven 5. Davids sepulchre now kept by the Turk I Return to my old task against Pineda and of him I demand Who else are said to arise about the time of Christs Passion besides Abraham Isaac and Jacob He hath alreadie answered a At fuerit quoque redivivus Moses stolim diem suum obiit Moses also lived again if long since he died once I answer Why doth he make a needlesse If The Scripture saith expressely he died Deut. 34.5 and he was an hundred and twentie yeares old when he died vers 7. and he was buried vers 6. If he died not yet then first was he partaker of celestiall blessednesse saith Pineda after Christ was risen But in Christs life say I Moses and Elias appeared in glory and spake of his decease Luk. 9.30 31. They were not onely glorified but they did appeare gloriously to Christ and his Apostles before his resurrection And if S. Ambrose hath such words as Pineda citeth we may trulier reply b Mosen nunquam in caelesti gloria legimus postquam sed antequam Christus resurrexit We never read that Moses was or was seen in heavenly glorie after Christ arose but before 2. From this his pendulousnesse concerning Moses he descendeth to others c Neque abfuerit omnino David David was one of them and was not excluded I confesse with the divine S. Augustine that if any did arise to the eternall glory both of their souls and bodies David may be thought to be one neither then will I exclude Adam Abraham Isaac and Jacob and other Patriarchs under the law of Nature but Augustine in the same 99 Epistle ad Euod cited by Pineda proveth by divers reasons that they who arose out of their graves arose not then to an eternall happinesse 3. Yea but Sophronius in his Sermon of the most blessed Virgins Assumption evinceth saith Pineda that David did then arise because S. Peter speaking of the death of David Act. 2.20 saith not His bodie was at Jerusalem but His sepulchre is with us Cajetan on Aquin. part 1. quaest 53. artic 3. addeth ascribing it to Hierom that S. Peter said d Cujus sepulchrum apud nos est quasi non ausus fuerit dicere cujus corpus apud nos est Whose SEPVLCHRE is with us as if he durst not say Whose BODIE is with us Bishop Bilson in the place afore-cited is either for us or dubious in the rere or end although he be peremptorie and adverse to us in the front and beginning for he holdeth That it would somewhat impeach the power of Christs resurrection if it were able to raise the Saints to life but not to preserve them in life I answer The question is not of what Christ could do or can do but what he did do and what was done A Posse ad Esse non valet argumentum And if he imagineth that it impeacheth the power of Christs resurrection unlesse de facto the raised Saints be now alive in their bodies which is his intent any indifferent reader will say he is amisse and ought not to square the power of Christs resurrection to his own fancie Yea but saith he The whole fact will seem rather an apparition then a true resurrection I answer If he take apparition for a phantasticall vision and meer imagination or a delusion of the senses his meaning is not to be suffered yet in a good sense and at large it may be called an apparition for they appeared unto many Matth. 27.53 A true apparition and as true a resurrection A true resurrection is of two sorts the first and the last a good and a better resurrection of which I spake before One eternall Such was Christs Christ dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him Rom. 6.9 and He hath the keyes of death Revel 1.18 yea he alone was blessed with this resurrection hereafter we shall Every man in his own order Christ the first-fruits afterward they that are Christs at his coming saith the Apostle 1. Cor. 15.23 The very time is expressed S. Paul wrote this after Christs first coming yea after his resurrection many yeares and therefore you must needs interpret it of his second coming as is most evident by the context Therefore either those Saints are not Christs or they shall arise at his last coming and therefore have not risen to an eternall resurrection The other true resurrection is temporarie Thus some were raised in the Old Testament and some in the New and though they died again I dare not say their resurrection was an apparition And as out of doubt some of them who were raised by the Prophets or by Christ in his life time died sooner then other so if any of them had died within three or foure dayes yea within an houre or two after that their resurrection yet had it not been an apparition onely but a true temporary resurrection As if a childe should die the third instant after the souls infusion there were a true union and a true death so if one should die again presently after a resurrection there must needs be both a true reunion resurrection and a second death God reuniting the soul and again separating it and disposing of the creature without its wrong to the
nothing certain concerning her death nor is her bodie or her tombe-stone found on earth nor did S. John the Evangelist who out-lived her and the rest of the Apostles by all mens consents write any thing of her death much lesse of her assumption though as Christ committed her to him so he took her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to his own home was a sonne unto her Joh. 19.26 27. Amongst those who assent to her assumption i Monstrosa quaedam discrepantia reperitur there is monstrous diversitie saith Baronius Anno Christi 48. num 4. Which words I wonder he would let drop from his pen or that others of their side would suffer to be printed Of the former instances I say the lesse because if all which was supposed were granted and if they had this priviledge to prevent others in their bodily glorie yet it was long after Christs ascension whereas my principall question was of those many that arose about Christs Passion Who in particular they were 8. The summe is Pineda hath taken great pains to little purpose hath presumed to name those whom the Scripture or any sound tradition hath left unnamed his proofs have been so slender as his conjectures have been bold He convinceth not exactly that any one of those whom he specializeth were raised much lesse to eternall happinesse and I have demonstrated that some of those whom he nameth did not then arise to a glorious immortalitie In the particular instancing in those who arose about Christs death his fellow-Jesuite dares not follow him k Non ausim de ullo particulatim definire I dare not say peremptorily that any such an one was raised saith Lorinus most modestly on Act. 7.29 Yet still it must be confest that many bodies which slept arose c. though the book be clasped the secret reserved and no absolute knowledge can inform us who they were O Lord who didst open the eyes of the blinde to thee do I confesse the blindenesse of my understanding open I beseech thee those eyes of my minde dispell the clouds leading me in the right way amidst by-paths and uncertainties even for thine own sake who art the onely way to the true life So be it Lord Jesus Amen Amen CHAP. XIIII 1. My conjecture that none of the Patriarchs or old Prophets were raised 2. An objection concerning Peters knowing of Moses and Elias on mount Tabor answered 3. A conjecture that the Saints who lived in Christs time and died before him were raised at his Passion Who they were in most likelihood When Joseph the reputed father of Christ did die 4. The end why they were raised To whom they appeared 5. A crotchet concerning the wives of dead men which have been raised IF still you presse the question Who those MANY were or Who were some of those MANY I answer with Lorinus that part of truth lieth hid and covered Amongst conjectures I propound this mine own as probable First negatively That none of the ancient Patriarchs Prophets or Types of Christ in the Old Testament arose for if one Who is he and why not others as well as he and if they had risen Who should have known them or how could they induce the then living to beleeve that they were the same Patriarchs or Prophets They might have been as well thought to have been incarnate spirits for the evil spirits also kept about the tombes and graves of the deceased Unlesse you will multiply miracles upon miracles and say God by miracle did reveal these to be true Patriarchs Otherwise they could not prove it to those who lived 2000 yeares after them And if there had been such miracles the Evangelists would not have slipt them 2. Yea but S. Peter knew Moses and Elias at Christs transfiguration though they were taken away from among men long before And therefore the then living might know the dead Patriarchs and holy men raised though they died long before I answer That S. Peter and the other Apostles James and John might know by the conference between Christ and Moses and Elias who they were Whereas Christ never conversed or conferred with those that were raised for ought that is recorded or probably to be maintained And it is a figment to say or imagine that there was any third person which knew both the then raised on the one side and the living which never had been dead on the other side or could give assurance that the raised were such and such Patriarchs and Fathers Nor were their testimonies to be taken one for another since the deniall or doubt concerning any one draweth in the deniall or doubt of all the rest and upon supposall of one false apparition any one and every one of the rest might be questioned Secondly S. Peter and S. John might know Moses and Elias by divine revelation which to them was not unfrequent as Christs Divinitie was revealed to Peter Matth. 16.17 and Ananias his heart Act. 5.3 c. or as Luke knew by the Spirit that Peter wept bitterly though Peter wept secretly for he went out first Luk. 22.62 and what he went out purposely to conceal shall we think that he did purposely reveal Now though the Apostles had supernall illumination guiding them into all truth yet that by divine revelation extraordinary every one of them then living at Jerusalem knew every one of them who were raised and appeared unto them is unnecessarily to multiply many miracles Now since they knew not the persons of the raised by Christ nor any other third person nor by heavenly instruction they could no way know the raised Patriarchs unlesse by their pictures or statues which of all other wayes is most unprobable as being a course not practised in those times and places The argument now hath received its answer Peter might many wayes and did some way know Moses and Elias and yet I finde not any way whereby the inhabitants of the holy citie could personally know the Patriarchs and Fathers being before buried and incinerated And therefore I probably conclude Not any one of these were raised 3. Secondly my positive probable conjecture is this which also seemeth more likely to Lucas Brugensis That many of those Saints who lived in Christs time and beleeved in him whose memorie was fresh and whose children kindred or acquaintance were yet living and who were known to adhere to Christ and to this opinion Bishop Bilson seemeth somewhat to encline Many I say of those dead Saints now arose and appeared unto many as it may be John the Baptist though the deceitfull miracle-mongers shew the false reliques of that good Saints head in divers places and Zacharie and Elisabeth his parents and those many Luk. 1.66 and those shepherds Luk. 2.8 and those wonderers to whom the shepherds told our Saviours nativitie Luk. 2.18 perhaps some would adde those wisemen who came to worship Christ Matth. 2.2 and old Simeon and Anna the Prophetesse and Joseph Christs reputed father though
raised the tombe-stone was first removed and Lazarus arose tied with the grave-clothes and his face bound with a napkin yea came forth bound hand and foot with grave-clothes Joh. 11.44 by a new miracle walking being bound and bound with grave-clothes to shew that though he did live he did live to die again In which respect also perhaps the graves were opened at Christs passion when he yeelded up the ghost and continued open till his resurrection yea till the ends of their rising were fulfilled and after his resurrection many bodies of Saints which slept arose and came out of the graves Matth. 27.52 53. O Blessed Lord God who hast commanded that we shall not adde to thy Word nor yet take from it Grant I beseech thee that I may neither think thy certain true Scriptures to be doubtfull nor the uncertain to be Canonicall but possesse me with awfull and reverent thoughts concerning thy holy writ that I adoring the fulnesse thereof may avoid all hastie supine forced and uncharitable expositions and fetch my little light and candle of knowledge from that first shine and prime rayes of thee the onely Light my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Amen CHAP. XVII 1. The place of Matth. 27.53 is diversly pointed and according to the pointing is the diversitie of meaning The first implieth that the Saints arose with Christ though their graves were opened before This interpretation is not so likely though received generally 2. The second inferreth that they arose before Christ though they went not into the citie till after his resurrection This is favoured by the Syriack and is more agreeable to reason 3. That the raised Saints died again proved by reasons and Hebr. 11.40 4. Christ the first-fruits of the dead and of the raised Angelicall assumed bodies were seen and heard much rather should mens bodies ascending with Christ 5. S. Augustine Aquinas Hierom Chrysostom Theophylact Euthymius Prosper Soto Salmeron Barradius Pererius Valentian affirm that the raised Saints died again Franciscus Lucas Brugensis holds it likely THose last cited words of Matth. 27.53 being differently pointed will bear a double and different interpretation Our late Translation hath it thus The Saints came out of the graves after his resurrection there is one pause and went into the holy citie there is another pause so is it in the Vulgat and in most Greek copies This sense in those words is involved That the Saints arose not till Christ arose and that their resurrection was a little after or almost contemporary with Christs which also is evidently foretold Isaiah 26.19 if the prophet prophesieth there of Christ or speaketh in Christs person Thy dead men shall live together with my dead bodie shall they arise c. For Christs bodie ariseth not from the earth at the generall resurrection and therefore they punctually signe out the resurrection of other Saints with Christ and with his dead bodie But if Isaiah speaketh of his own resurrection and not of Christs nor in Christs person but in his own by these words and the words following he pointeth out the generall resurrection and so Vatablus Hierom and Lyra expound the place Now if he point at the last day of the world the argument is demonstrative that either Isaiah arose not with Christ though he was the most Evangelicall Prophet and in no likelihood to be secluded from those benefits which other Prophets are said to enjoy or if he arose that he died again to rise with others at the day of judgement which they who ascended bodily into heaven did not Therefore Isaiah is not bodily ascended into heaven and if not he why others 2. The second way of pointing that place of S. Matthew is this Many bodies of the Saints arose there is one Colon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and coming out of the graves after his resurrection went into the holy citie there is the full period and no other pointing of the words And thus it is read in the edition printed at Geneva by John Vignon 1615. and illustrated with Casaubon his notes but I take it that a pause should be immediately after the word Graves and then they might arise before Christ but not enter into the holy citie till after his resurrection I am sure the Syriack translated by Tremellius thus readeth and pointeth it and Lucas Brugensis disliketh it not a Et egressi sunt post resurrectionem ejus ingressi sunt in urbem sanctam And they came forth and after his resurrection went into the holy citie In the Syriack you have these steps Obdormierant surrexerunt egressi sunt post resurrectionem ejus ingressi sunt in urbem From which second reading the resultance is That those Saints arose before Christ arose Neither is it against reason for at Christs passion the graves were opened vers 52. Shall the graves be opened and nothing be raised No for it is added immediately Many bodies of Saints were raised Shall the bodies be raised and either lie down or sit still in the graves To what end Many bodies arose of the Saints which HAD SLEPT 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is in the preterperfect tense Now were they waked now were they raised now went they forth out of their monuments and between the time of Christs passion and his resurrection perhaps the raised conferred with themselves perchance they communed with others without the citie or being rapt with divine speculations might either on mount Olivet or rather on mount Calvarie spend that time in solitary devotions expecting the triumphant return of their captain Jesus Christ from hell and the grave and after his resurrection they came into the holy citie 3. The summe is These reliving Saints arose at Christs passion and before him but none ever arose before him unto an eternall resurrection for in that regard Christ was the first fruits of them that slept 1. Corin. 15.20 and it is Christs priviledge which the Apostle toucheth at Rom. 6.9 That Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him of which hereafter though I have spoken of it also before Death had power over others who were raised before him Therefore they ascended not into heaven with their bodies nor were partakers of the eternall incorruption and immortalitie Let me adde That as the sepulchres were opened that they might come forth and continued open till the resurrection and perhaps after so in that they were opened to their hand and did not shut again I take it as a figure that they did as it were expect the return of their bodies and as a probable argument that they did lie down again in their old repositories or dormitories And that you may the sooner give credit unto this in the next place consider the generall law That all of us shall have glorie and immortalitie together for Hebr. 11.40 God hath prepared a better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect If
Saints is called the resurrection unto life The resurrection of the dead wickâ— ones is called the resurrection unto damnation John 5.28 Likewise say I The change of the wicked if changed they be as I hold it most likely may be called the change unto shame and pain eternall as the change of the godly may be called a change unto glorie For the wicked shall reap no benefit by that change nor shall they meet Christ in the aire by any extraordinarie rapture as I conceive And since they die the second death it mattereth not if they avoid either the first death by immutation or the fire of conflagration Lastly if they shall meet Christ in the aire it is to their greater terrour They shall be hurried to their judge and haled toward their punishment they meet him not as he is a milde Saviour but as an angrie and just God And this is a sufficient answer both to the second and third objection of Salmeron as the learned who reade him can testifie 4. Another argument and that of moment and validitie to prove that some shall hereafter be excepted from death is taken from that memorable diversly read diversly expounded place of the Apostle 1. Corinth 15.51 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 e Omnes autem non dormiemus omnes autem immutabimur We shall not all die but we shall all be changed as the Interlinearie hath it And this is the first and best reading Let us examine first the words and the severall translations and so approach to the exposition The Greek cited by me at large is in all the Greek copies so saith Peter Martyr and Doctour Estius confirmeth the same so likewise doth Chrysostom and Theophylact reade it and Theodoret and Justinus ad Orthodoxos quaest 61. quaest 109. and Origen in tertio volumine enarrationis Epistolae primae ad Thessalonicenses as also in his book against Marcion Which is a manuscript in the Vatican saith Estius So Oecumenius Prognost 3.48 So Theodorus Heracleotes reades it saith S. Hierom in Tom. 3. Epistolarum pag. 198. and in the end of the same Epistle to Minerius and Alexander S. Hierom acknowledgeth that even in his dayes the Greeks did not reade it as the Latines Salmeron on the place findes fault with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Omnes quidem non dormiemus All of us shall not die f Quod juxta verborum proprietatem perinde est ac dicere Nullos dormituros non enim dicitur Non omnes dormiemus quà declararet aliquos non morituros Est grande discrimen apud Logicos inter Non omnes dormiemus Omnes non dormiemus which according to the proprietie of the words is as if he had said NONE SHALL DIE. For it is not said NOT ALL OF VS SHALL DIE by which words is meant and declared that some shall not die And there is a great difference among Logicians between these two propositions NOT ALL OF VS SHALL DIE and ALL OF VS SHALL NOT DIE. So farre he First I say Estius a learned Doctour and Popish Divine doth sleight this subtiltie g Sâ—ito sensum non mutari sive legas Omnes quidem non dormiemus qui ordo verborum est in Graeco sive Non omnes quidem dormiemus quomodo legit Hieronymus plerique Lat ni vertunt Know saith he that the sense is no whit changed or altered whether you reade it thus ALL OF VS SHALL NOT DIE as the order of the words is in the Greek text or thus NOT ALL OF VS SHALL DIE as Hierom reades it and most of the Latines interpret it Secondly I say if we should maintain that none shall die of them that are residui then remaining alive but that both good and bad shall all be changed without death I see no inconvenience to arise from that opinion Catharinus in his Commentaries findes fault with those who follow the first reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Estius findes fault with him for his fault finding condemning him of inconsideration and rashnes The Arabick accordeth with the Greek Nos omnes non moriemur sed nos omnes mutabimur We all shall not die but we all shall be changed The Syriack also is in harmonie with both Greek and Arabick though Salmerons nicetie may think it a jarre Non omnes nos obdormiemus omnes autem nos immutabimur Not all we shall sleep but all we shall be changed yea an old vulgat translation which is in Basil in the librarie of the Predicants saith Erasmus agreeth with our Greek Aquinas himself in the end of his 8. Lect. confesseth that our Greek reading is in sense consonant to that which the Apostle wrote to the Thessalonians the first Epist 4 chap. and 17 verse Scriptures sweetly expound Scripture We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed saith the Apostle here and to the Thessalonians We which are alive and remain shall be caught up together The very Prefaces have a correspondence in substance and are more then ordinarie This we say unto you by the word of the Lord 1. Thessal 4.15 and here 1. Corinth 15.51 Behold I shew you a mysterie And then doth he in both places evince an immutation without death Therefore there can be no danger in our opinion as may be evinced from Aquinas his free acknowledgement Yea there is not onely no danger but great reason for it for How excellently doth this agree with that which presently followeth verse 52. The dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed Doth he not plainly discriminate and diversifie those which shall be raised from those which shall be changed He doth not say We shall be raised incorruptible and We shall be changed as he must have done if all are to die and then to be changed And to shew that the change is not by laying down of the bodie he addeth immediately This corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortall must put on immortalitie vers 53. phrases implying no losse no decay no separation but a superinduction and superaddition to what before was enjoyed And when this is done he saith most pertinently vers 54. Then shall be brought to passe the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victorie as if he had said When both these things are accomplished the raising of the dead and the change of the living so that they shall be no more mortall then shall death be overcome O DEATH WHERE IS THY STING vers 55. So much for the first and best reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I come to the second which is varied by the addition of one letter but it makes a contrarietie in the sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Omnes non dormiemus All of us shall not sleep saith the former Omnes dormiemus All of us shall sleep saith the latter And this latter way it seemeth to have been read in some few copies even in S. Hieroms time But this Greek lection is
the same epistle said Some shall not die but be snatcht out of this life that with changed and glorified bodies they might be with Christ Chrysostom on the 10. to the Romanes and on 1. Thess 4. and upon this place to the Corinthians saith Some shall escape death With him agreeth Epiphanius Haeresi 64. saying k Qui rapitur nondum mortuus est Who is suddenly snatched up is not yet dead And before them Origen lib. 2. contra Celsum so opineth Theophylact on 1. Corinth 15. thus l Etiam qui non morientur ad incorruptibilitatem transferentur Even they who shall not die shall be transchanged out of this corruptible life to incorruptibilitie And again m Nonnulli nè morientur quidem Some indeed shall not die at all To that effect S. Hierom in his epistle to Marcella quaest 3. num 148. and in his epistle to Minerius and Alexander bringeth the saying of Christ Matth. 24.37 c. of the dayes of Noah when the floud swept them away as they were eating and drinking to prove that at the last judgement some shall not die Theodoret evinceth the same truth producing the passage of Matth. 24.40 of two in the field one assumed the other rejected And Chrysostom in his Sermon de Ascensione Domini instanceth in the verse following of two in a mill one refused the other accepted which proofs aim at this That all shall not die Cajetan is rich in proofs That all shall not die See him on Act. 10. upon Timoth. 4. upon 1. Corinth 15. upon 1. Thessal 4. Tertullians words must not be omitted in his book de resurrectione carnis n Hujus gratiae privilegium illos manet qui ab adventu Domini deprehendentur in carne propter duritias temporum Antichristi merebuntur compendio mortis per demutationem expunctae concurrere cum resurgentibus This gracious priviledge belongs unto those who at the coming of our Lord and Saviour to judgement shall be found alive upon earth and for the grievous afflictions and pressures of the times under Antichrist they shall have granted unto them this indulgence That they shall not die but shall be suddenly changed and so go to meet Christ together with those which shall then be raised from the dead Salmeron being peremptorie That all and every one shall die properly upon 1. Thessal 4. hath a wilde crotchet That all who shall be alive toward the end of the world shall be consumed with the fire of conflagration which shall go before Christ and so dead and raised shall be snatched up But S. Augustine de Civitat Dei 20.16 setting down the order of the last judgement saith The fire of conflagration shall be after the last judgement I will close this point with the sound and learned words of Calvin which fully accord with what I rested on in the beginning of this chapter upon 1. Corinth 15. o Cùm mutatio fieri nequeat quin aboleatur prior natura ipsa mutatio meritò censetur species mortis sed cùm non sit animae à corpore solutio non reputatur in morte ordinaria Since there cannot be a change saith he but the former nature must be abolished the very change on good grounds may justly be accounted a kinde of death but since there is not a separation of the soul from the bodie it is not to be reputed as if it were the common and ordinarie death Upon 1. Thessal 4. he wittily observeth that they p Qui dormiunt aliquo temporis spatio exuunt corporis substantiam qui innovabuntur non nisi qualitatem who are dead or do die for some space of time or other longer or shorter their souls put off the substantiall clothing of the bodie or flesh but they who shall be changed shall put off onely the qualitie not the substance The summe of all is this The third main question by me at first propounded was Whether all and every one without exception must and shall die The Papists are obstinate for the affirmative I have proved the negative That some may be some have been and some others shall be excepted and not die And so I end my third and last Chapter of my third book of Miscellanies O Most gracious Lord God who hast committed all judgement to thy onely sonne our onely Lord and Saviour I beseech thee to have pitie upon me and for Jesus Christ his sake receive me into thy especiall favour O blessed JESU accept of these my poore and weak endeavours and receive my prayers and present them with mercie to the throne of Grace hasten thy coming and thy kingdome Come sweet JESU come quickly and prepare my soul to meet thee with joy If it be thy holy will let me be one of them that shall be changed and changed to the better from pain to comfort from sicknesse sorrow and labour to rest and blessednesse eternall Amen Amen Amen VNI-TRINO DEO LAVS ET GLORIA FINIS An Alphabeticall Table of the principall things contained in these three Books of Miscellanies A ABortion is a curse Book 1. pag. 103. Two kindes of Abortives ibid. pag. 98 99. Adams body was created immortall and how ibid. p. 11. Adams body was framed of other dust then the dust of Paradise ibid. p. 16. viz. out of the red earth of ager Damascenus ibid. p. 85. Book 2. p. 23. The contrarie disposition of Elements had not caused a dissolution of Adams body had Adam stood Book 1. p. 17 to 28. The naturall temper and constitution of Adams body in state of innocencie ibid. p. 18 and 20. Whether if Adam and Eve had stood confirmed in innocencie any of their children could have sinned ibid. p. 44 to 54. The endowments of Adam in state of innocencie ib. p. 55 56. Whether Adam and Eve foreknew their fall ibid. p. 59. Whether Adam and Eves sinne were the same ibid. p. 61. Whether of their sinnes were the greater ibid. p. 62 65 to 73. where also of Adams first sinne by which he fell ibid. Adam mourned 100 yeares for the murdered Abel ibid. p. 85 87. Adam was a type of Christ therefore saved ibid. Adam was buried in Golgotha and his skull found upon mount Calvary Book 2. from p. 13 to 29. Whether Adam could naturally understand all languages ibid. p. 47 48. Amphibologie prejudiciall to truth Book 1. p. 2. Angels fell the second instant of their creation ib. p. 108 and 126. Christ merited for Angels ib. p. 189 190. Angels representing men are called men in the Scripture Book 2. chap. 16. Apocryphall books too much slighted Book 2. p. 145. They are to be preferred before any other humane Authours Book 3. p. 183. Of the diverse Appointment of things by God Book 1. p. 2 3. The Apostles represented the whole body of Christs Ministers ibid. p. 147 148. The Apostles were none of them learned before their calling Book 2. p. 87 88. Aristotle and Plato