day in Paradise that is in the state of glory as all Catholick divines profess and teach So that I do not well understand what was your aim to make this Objection The Answer 1. MY intent was to comfort the dying not to contest with the living To shew to penitent and believing Christians That for them to depart out of this life is to be with Christ because it was so to Saint Paul and to the good thief before them You are willing to lay Purgatory in their way which I look upon as a very stumbling block fit only to make their passage hence much more formidable and much less comfortable Nor can I find your Commission as you are a Christian Divine to break a bruised reed and quench the smoaking flax much less to throw it into the flames to burn and to consume it For sure it cometh nearer the office of Christ which is the foundation should be the platform of yours to preach good tidings to the meek to bind up the broken-hearted to comfort them that â—…ourn in Zion to give beauty for ashes not burning instead of beauty the oyle of joy for mâ—…urning the garment of praise even the immaculate robe of our Saviours righteousness for the Spirit of heaviness Isa. 61. For our Saviour Christ requiring the Ministers of his Gospel sparingly to use even true frights in bringing obstinate sinners to rely on his merits and mediation will never approve those who invent false fears to scare true Penitents that are actually with him from their comfort and hold in him 2. But this is rather to acquit my self I come now to answer you and say That Saint Paul looked upon his life as that which gave him a being with the Philippians and therefore was more advantagious to them But he looked upon his death as that which would give him a being with Christ and therefore would be more advantagious to himself This makes him desire rather to die then to live because by his death he should so depart from the one as to approach to the other His dissolution was to be his admission into heaven not his introduction towards it to let him first into Purgatory and from thence to transmit him unto Christ This is Saint Chrysostoms exposition He saith It is good to be dissolved and to be with Christ for death or dissolution in it self is an indifferent thing neither good nor bad but it is bad when a man dies to be punished and sure Purgatory in your belief is a very great punishment good when he so goes from men as to go to Christ So that if you suppose his being dissolved and being with Christ were not both together in one and the same instant Saint Chrysostom will tell you his dissolution was not good and if not good sure not desireable And if good only for being with Christ then desireable only for that being 3. Yet you say All the strength of my first argument stands upon the desire If so it cannot stand upon the dissolution and then it will follow Saint Paul might be dissolved and not be with Christ say then Saint Paul might go to Purgatory to make your good Catholicks the more willing to go thither after him But first so make them good Catholicks as not to let them be bad Christians For their desire to die so holily as to escape Purgatory is too servile to make them good Christians even in the Heathen Poets divinity Oderunt peccare mali formidine poenae They are wicked men who hate to sin for fear of Punishment Therefore if they desire to avoid sin meerly for fear of Purgatory they are not good Catholicks If for love of Christ as their life is to be in him so their death is to be with him and that immediatly for else not to be with him but with some other before him which made Saint Hierom to say concerning Nepotian when he was but newly dead Scimus Nepotianum nostrum esse cum Christo corpus terra suscepit Anima Christo reddita est Hier. in Epitaph Nepot We know that our Nepotian is with Christ you now say quite contrary we know that he is not with Christ for he is in Purgatory the earth hath his body but his Saviour bath his soul See how he disposeth of a man that dies in the faith of Christ His body goeth to the dust but his soul goeth to Christ that redeemed it Oh Sir be not you so willing to allow much less to make a separation betwixt Christ and good Christians in that very instant which God hath appointed to consummate their Union since you find it so expresly said That neither death nor depth and sure Purgatory is a depth in your account shall be able to separate us from the Love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom. 8. 38. and much less shall it be able to separate us from Christ Jesus our Lord of whom it is said Jesus having loved his own which were in the world he loved them unto the end John 13. 1. Nay who hath said of himself Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be where I am that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me Joh. 17. 24. This will of his was fulfilled not only in Saint Paul who was given him by a miraculous conversion in his life but also in the good thief who was given him as a more miraculous Convert just a little before his death yet even he was told that he should be with Christ not with tormented souls immediately upon his dissolution and that in Paradise not in Purgatory And I cannot see may not say That Christ is less willing to receive those who are now given him or shall be given him to the worlds end then he was to receive that thief And therefore I still say he was no priviledged person after his conversion to go to bliss sooner then other Penitents though he were indeed a priviledged person in regard of his conversion to be made a penitent when his fellow thief and many others were still left in their impenitency And that satisfies all the evidence you have produced against me either out of your Rhemish or out of your Romish Doctors so that you may reserve your Jo. Poean Jo. Triumphe till another occasion For that evidence makes not my assertion of his being no priviledged person any whit more inevident For he was not priviledged as to his death but only as to his conversion Wherefore since our blessed Saviour is still as ready to receive other true Penitents as he was the good thief I hope you will not say he is ready to receive them in Purgatory not in Paradise For sure you are if it were to be proved as you assert that Christ once shewed his glory in Purgatory yet he doth not now shew it there and therefore that cannot be the place for Christian souls to go to when they depart from hence because
in doing or in suffering because there is no proportion betwixt an infinite Justice and a finite satisfaction This considered may I not be as gross an Ebionite or Cherinthian by saying there is a necessity of penal satisfaction as if I say there is a necessity of legal observations for the expiation of sin do not both alike diminish and disparage the efficacy of Christs death Or may I think that the Church of Christ by using the power of the Keyes in retaining sins intends to retain where Christ remits to wiâ—… in the true Penitent to the undervaluing of Christs merit in purchasing remission of sins and Gods free grace and mercy in granting it and Gods holy Spirit in testifying it Therefore I must let the satisfaction enjoyned by the Church die with the Penitent and not be required of him after death unless I will suppose the Church both able and willing to bind where Christ hath loosed For if Christ loose not the sinner here I do not find upon what grounds to believe That he will loose him hereafter So that we see if satisfaction is to be made by the sinner All must go to Purgatory and for ought we can prove tarry there eternally And so Purgatory will in truth be Hell If satisfaction hath been made by Christ then none at all can justly go thither And so Purgatory will in truth be Nothing certain it is no other satisfaction was given for all the offences of the good Thief though he were not a Penitent till the hour of his death and with what colour of Truth can any Divine teach that God will not take this satisfaction and this alone for all other Penitents And yet this in Bellarmines acount is one of the two supporters of Purgatory the other is Venial sins which may also be shaken in good time In a word The Place the Time the Quality of Torment the manner of tormenting the Tormentor and the cause or end for which souls are said to be tormented in Purgatory are all uncertain and how can the torment it self be taken for a certainty For it is not any mans confidence can make that certain which is invested with so many intrinsecal doubts and ambiguities nor any mans arguments can make that credible which is not certain But besides the uncertainty wâ—… meet with in this temporary Tormentâ—… which will not suffer us to believe it wâ—… find it casts an uncertainty upon that eternal Torment which we confess our selveâ—… bound to believe For as you rightly sayâ—… Nothing is more certain amongst Christiaâ—… then what is de fide of Divine Faith So crave leave to inferr from that sayinâ—… Nothing is to be affirmed de fide of diviâ—… faith among Christians which is not ceâ—…tain unless we will labour to overthroâ—… the Certainty of the Christian faith Fâ—… to require men to believe an uncertaiâ—… equally with a certainty is to invite theâ—… to disbelieve a certainty since it is not possible they should have one and the same Divine Faith for uncertainties and for certainties And therefore to teach men to believe Purgatory which is uncertain is the ready way to make them not believe Hell which is most certain Nor is it to be wondered That Bellarmines certainties concerning this doctrine should be so much enfeebled by his own uncertainties concerning the same no more then it is to be wondered that the certainty of our Christian saith should depend not upon the wit of man but upon the word of God 7. For this doctrine of Purgatory is so far from being taught in the Word of God that if you should ask those Disciples who have been most and best instructed in the Word Have ye received the doctrine of Purgatory since ye believed They must answer you We have not so much as heard whether there be any Purgatory and yet the same men will plainly tell you They have heard there is an holy Ghost and have received him though your over-bold Peltanus would perswade the world That Purgatory is as expresly taught in the holy Scriptures as the Unity of God and yet that is a little more expresly taught then the Deity of the Holy Ghost though blessed be God the Scripture is very express in both these Doctrines But in the whole Book of God there is neither in words nor in sense neither explicitly nor implicitly any such thing as your Purgatory which we cannot say concerning any Article of the Christian Faith That the thing we are bound to believe is not so much as really or virtually named in all the Holy Bible For an sit is as truly a precognition in the object of faith as in the subject of any question by that Rule of the Apostle if reason will not serve How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a Preacher Rom. 10. 14. We cannot believe what we have heard we cannot hear any supernatural truth unless God preach it and if he hath been the Preacher we may find the doctrine in his written Word which the most zealous defenders of this your doctrine durst not assert in former times For a very eminent Schoolman of our own Couâ—…rey Iohannis Bachâ—…nus lib. 4. dist 45. quâ—…unica answers all the Texts that were in his daies commonly alledged out of the Bible to prove Purgatory which were then but three though since they have swelled into a far greater number The first Text was that of 2 Mac. 12. To which his answer is Libri Macchabaeorum non sunt de Canone Bibliae ut dicit Hieronymus The Books of the Macchabees are not of the Canon of the Bible as saith Saint Hierom Nor doth your Cardinals new subtilty invalidate this answer Dico librum Maccha non esse Canonicum apud Judaeos sed apud Christianos esse I say the Books of the Macchabees were not Canonical among the Jews but they are among the Christians For the Christian Church had the Canon of the Old Testament from the Church of the Jews who not daring to make themselves a Canon took that which God gave them and therefore left out the Macchabees because they were not in the Ark that is to say not in that Canon which God had given them Nor hath God given the Christian Church power and authority to make that or any other Book Canonical which himself hath not made so for the Text is plain which saith To them were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 2. Which words only shew a Trust of keeping not a power of making the Oracles of God either in Jew or Christian. The second Text then alledged to prove Purgatory was that of 1 Cor. 3. To which his answer is That the Apostle there speaketh of that fire which shall burn the world at the day of Judgement therefore that place will not prove such a a purging by fire as the Doctors suppose before the day of Judgement Benè probatur Purgatio ista conflagrationis in
Purgatory into doubts and his doubts into nothing Nay in truth his last doubt in this 11. Chapter is a meer nothing of it self An per se agant istae poenae Whether those pnnishments do act upon the souls by and of themselves For to think accidents can act of themselves is to think them substances and to think they can act upon immaterial souls is to think them above the best substances And to think they can act upon blessed souls is to think them above the substance of substances above God himself For the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God neither doth any grief hurt them Wisdom 3. 1. or rather and there shall no torment touch them The Latine translation Et non tanget illos tormentum mortis And the torment of death shall not touch them is too short by being too long hath taken from the Text by add ng to it for putting in mortis and saying the Torment of death shall not touch them seems to allow that Torment after death may touch them But the Greek Original is plain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Et non tanget illos tormentum And no torment at all shall touch them sc. after once they may be truly said to be in the hands of God as resigned unto him according to that most comfortable Resignation sanctified unto us by the Spirit of God which made it and by the Son of God which used it In manus tuas commendo spiritum meum Into thy hands Lord I commend my spirit It was alwaies in thy hands by thy dominion and Tuition But now it is more peculiarly in thy hands by my own resignation The souls of the Righteous are alwaies in Gods hands as their Governor but more peculiarly at the hour of death as their Receiver and Possessor For they no sooner go from their own bodies but they go into his hands and being there no grief can hurt them no more then it can hurt him or take them out of his hands And sure we are he will not hurt them for he doth not receive them with one hand that he may torment them with the other so saith the voice from heaven and it is both shame and sin for any voice from earth to say otherwise Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord for they rest from their labours and their works do follow them Apoc. 14. 13. That is their good works to procure their reward not their evil works to procure their punishment such as you teach to be in Purgatory for that 's not agreeable with their rest nor consistent with their blessedness And I desire to know how he can say to God at his death Into thy hands I commend my spirit who believes the Torments of Purgatory by which for ought you dare avow to the contrary he may be in the hands of the Devil Again Cap. 12. Sciri non posse in hac vita quomodo ignis corporeus Animas urat It cannot be known in this life how material fire can burn immaterial souls let me add much less how it can purge them or expiate the reliques of their sins for though we read that fire is an instrument of Gods Justice and so may punish immaterial spirits yet we do not read that it is an instrument of Gods Grace that it should purge or expiate them Cap. 13. An in purgatorio torquentur Animae à daemonibus Whether or no in Purgatory the souls are tormented by the Devils Concerning which he answers Res est omnino incerta It is a a thing altogether uncertain This is the second time he hath answered us with that very word so we see he could be confident where he could not be certain But in this case we have reason to believe him For there are divers several opinions concerning it so the doctrine is uncertain as to the Believers and not one of those opinions but hath an objection stronger then its proof so the doctrine is uncertain as to the belief For some say the souls in Purgatory are tormented by the good Angels but how come they from being their friends and Guardians to be their enemies and tormentors Others say That they are tormented by the Devils and to this Bellarmine inclines because forsooth the pretended Revelations have avowed it But how comes the Devil from being conquered by them whiles they were in the infirmities of the flesh to be a Conquerour over them when they are nothing but pure spirits Doth God say Resist the Devil and he will fly from you James 4. 7. and shall men say The Devil comes as a Conquerour upon them who have most resisted him Doth the Church pray That God would beat down Satan under our feet and have we no better benefit of that prayer Then that God should permit Satan to get up even over our Head Others say they are tormented by the fire meaning I suppose as it is directed and assisted by the hand of God But how comes God so low in their esteem as to do that which they do not think fit to be done by his meanest good Angel Why must that office of an Executioner become him which is unbecoming his most inferiour Minister Besides how can his Justice which hath been satisfied by Christ require a second satisfaction Or where hath God declared that he will allow his Justice to be thus satisfied We dare not deny That Gods Justice is fully satisfied in Christ for penitent Sinners because himself hath said This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Mat. 3. which were nothing to us if he were not well pleased with all that flie to Christ or rather that are in Christ for Christs sake yet sure not well pleased if his Justice be not fully satisfied since Justice first and then Charity is a rule not to be violated or broken on earth much less in heaven Again our blessed Saviours fore-runner thus proclaimed concerning him Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world John 1. 29. If he hath taken them away they cannot be left behind either for our guilt or for our punishment since guilt is nothing else but an obligation to punishment for that were to say He hath taken them away so as to leave them behind for us to take them away which is in effect to deny him to be the Propitiation for our sins against the express word of God John 2. 2. and consequently not only against the benefits but also against the belief of our own souls wherefore we dare not deny That Gods justice is fully satisfied in Christ and if we dare we shall not know where to find him any other satisfaction for he hath not allowed or appointed any other and sure no satisfaction can give him content but such as himself hath allowed and appointed And indeed that is the only satisfaction which is adequate to his offended Justice the satisfaction made by his Son not by the sinner either
Minus dicit plus significat vult enim quod non solum in futuro sed etiam hic punitur tale peccatum He speaks little but he signifies much for his meaning is That such a sin is punished not only in the next world but also in this 10. Your late Jesuites tell us of a remission of the sin with a reservation of the punishment but your old Divines take remitting for not punishing without which in truth it cannot be remission For God doth not afford us a less forgiveness then he doth require us to afford one another and that is so to forgive the sin as not once to think of punishing or of revenging it For indeed to forgive sin is nothing else in its own nature but not to reserve it to be punished and because God punished our Saviour for our sins it is said He made him sin for us 2 Cor. 5. 21. For so Christ took our sin upon him that is to say not our Guilt but our Punishment and he took it upon himself that he might not leave it upon us For he was wounded for our transgressions Isa. 53. 5. He was bruised for our iniquities that is He was punished that we might be acquitted The chastisement of our peace was upon him that is His chastisement was our Peace and with his stripes we are healed And blessed be God we are so for sure it is we could never be healed with our own stripes it is his wounds work our cure and not our own yet I will not follow Scotus who to confute them that denyed contingency did say It is pitty but such men should be under torments till they should confess it were possible for them not to be tormented I will not say in like manner It is pitty but they who deny our souls to be healed with our Saviours stripes should themselves be beaten with many stripes till they should confess that their own stripes could not heal them for then I know they would be under the lash for ever But I must say That it were just with God to put them under such a confutation For they are under a gross denyal not of a Metaphysical but of a Theological Truth and that of such a Truth as hath joyned Gods Mercy and Justice both together in mans salvation and therefore such a Truth as may not be denyed without great uncharitableness to man and greater unthankfulness to God I think few of those men who now most stand upon this new Divinity of remission in the next world to be obtained by our own stripes and others suffrages because it brings them so good a market would be willing at their deaths to venture their souls upon it for fear it should bring them as bad a remedy And I cannot but wonder at your Cardinal who hath said concerning this Text Hinc colligunt Sancti Patres quaedam peccata remitti in futuro seculo per orationes suffragia Ecclesiae Bellar. lib. 1. de Purg. cap. 4. Hence the holy Fathers do gather that some sins are forgiven in the next world by the prayers and the suff ages of the Church for he could not say this if Saint Thomas said true without putting Saint Augustine and Saint Chrysostom out of the Catalogue of the Fathers 11. I know our Country-man Backet was swayed by Saint Augustine to conclude for Purgatory but I fear either he mis-applyed or mis-understood Saint Augustine or Saint Augustine mis-understood himself For Saint Augustine hath most dogmatically determined against it lib. 13. de Civit. Dei cap. 8. In requie sunt animae piorum à corpore separatae Impiorum autem poenas luunt donec istarum ad aeternam vitam illarum vero ad aeternam mortem corpora reviviscant The souls of the righteous are in rest of the unrighteous in torment after they are separated from the flesh till the bodies of the one shall be raised again to eternal life the bodies of the other to eternal death 12. But he that will not teach Fancy instead of Faith must take God for the Author and Gods Church for the Pillar and ground of that Truth which he teacheth else he may chance rove in uncertainties to the worlds end especially if he shall take Metaphorical allusions for dogmatical conclusions and florid declâ—…mations for solid determinations as Divines now usually are on all sides in their citations out of â—…he Fathers upon any argument making some of them speak against their own doctrine to speak for new devices and in effect to write contradictions rather then not write for the great Diana of these clamorous Ephesians Therefore I will not here examine the citations of the Fathers for surely A Christian Divine is bound to teach no other Faith for Christian then such as hath been manifestly declared in the Word of Christ and generally and constantly professed by the Catholick Church of Christ And your Cardinal finds not so muth as the word Purgatory in all the Scriptures nor in any one general Council till the fourth of Laterane under nnocent the third above twelve hundred years after Christ which was as far from being Oecumenical as Rome is from being all the Christian world and if it had been so yet hath only furnished us with Consultations not with Canons or Constitutions your own Platina being my witness who saith thus in the life of Innocent the third Venere multa in consultationem nec decerni tamen quicquam apertè potuit Many things were debated but nothing was openly decreed in this Council and I hope you will not say that they passed their decrees in private or by any underhand dealing An observation that may weaken some of your other Tenents no less then Purgatory which you obtrude upon the consciences of men as established by the Canons of this Council which in truth made no Canons at all if your own Platina be worth belief 13. Next I meet with your Cardinals Reasons whereof some do rather put then prove this new Article of Faith contrary to Aquinas who allows not of Ratio ponens but only of Ratio probans radicem fidei par 1. qu. 32. art 1. ad 2. arguing not so much from the authority of Gods Word as against it As particularly that reason lib. 1. cap. 11. Intelligibile non est quomodo verbum ociosum ex naturâ suâ dignum sit perpetuo odio Dei maneat igitur quaedam esse peccata venialia solâ temporaâ—…i poenâ digna No man can understand how an idle word is in its own nature worthy of Gods eternal hatred therefore let it stand for a Truth that some sins are venial and only worthy of temporal punishment A strange way of arguing for a Divine who should not exercise his Readers curiosity but establish his conscience Christ saith That for every idle word men shall give account in the day of Judgement to make men repent before hand even of their least sins that judging themselves they may not be
Rom. in principio what should I add more witnesses here are enough to shew the unanimous consent of Greek and Latine Church in this doctrine of Justification by Faith without works so it is not of our Invention And they are consenting with the Prophets and Apostles in this Doctrine so it may not be of your rejection For you know who hath said If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead Luk. 16. 31. That is to say in this present case they will not be perswaded though one that hath passed under the Judgement of God should come from the dead to tell them That he had not been acquitted for his own but for his Saviours righteousness I was the more desirous to insist the longer upon the Fathers because some late Protestants to make their own writings the more acceptable have not stuck to say That the Fathers did write either defectively or obscurely of this point whereas if they had written with a pen of Iron or of a diamond they could not have written more Fully and with a Sun-beam they could not have written more clearly And because some Papists on the other side to make their Tenent the more passible have not stuck to say that the Fathers writ all fully and clearly for Justification by works Let any unprejudicate man judge from these few quotations whether all their fulness and plainness be not to enlarge and explain this very doctrine of St. Paul which you have blamed in me Therefore being justified by Faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 5. 1. Whereby he attributes not only our Justification from the guilt of sin but also our peace for the deliverance from the terrour of that guilt only to Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ But because men of the contrary opinion do pretend to be wholly for the Church it shall not suffice me to have shewed what the Catholick Church did believe and profess in the daies of St. Ambrose St. Augustin and St. Chrysostom but what the present Roman Church doth believe and profess at this very day for that still teaching all her Communicants to pray on this wise Effunde super nos misericordiam tuam ut dimittas quae conscientia metuit adjicias quod oratio non praesumit per dominum nostrum Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy forgiveing us those things whereof our Conscience is afraid and giving unto us that that our Prayers dare not presume to ask through Jesus Christ our Lord 12. Sunday after Trinity doth plainly shew and declare That forgiveness of sins and quietation of our Consciences are among those blessings which our prayers dare not presume to ask and much less may hope to attain by any of our own but only by our Saviours righteousness and what is Justification but the forgiveness of sins and what is the immediate effect of it but the quietation of our Consciences God hath made Remission of sins an Article of our Faith not a duty of our life and his Church accounteth them Infidels who do not believe it But if we can purchase it by our own works t is rather to be merited or to be deserved then believed Let us then change the daily Hymne of the Church and say When we had overcome the wickednesse of life we did open the Kingdom of Heaven to our selves that were workers not when Thou hadst overcome the sharpnesse of death Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers The Church owns the opening of Heaven to Christs death not denying true believers to be workers but denying Heaven to be opened by their works And shall we say that Heaven is opened by our Saviours merits but entred by our own 15. But see first if by saying so we do not only forsake Christs Church but also destroy it For none can shut the gates of Hell but He that hath opened the gate of Heaven The same righteousness shuts Them for they are many and wide and opens This for it is but one and very narrow If mans righteousnesse can do so let not Hierusalem be any longer called by this name The Lord our righteousnesse Jer. 23. 16. But if she be no longer so called How will she be Gods Church for withoubt dout the gates of Hell will easily be able to prevail against Her righteousness though not against Her Saviours Therefore the Church that Hell shall not prevail against must be founded on the Rock of Christs righteousnesse not on the Sand of mans righteousness for then God may soon come to have no Church because the Church may soon come to have no righteousness surely it can have no such righteousness as either to vanquish Hell or to challenge Heaven no such righteousnesse as not for ever to say most justly what now she saith si iniquitates observaveris Domine Domine quis sustinebit If thou Lord wilâ—… be exâ—…ream to mark what is done amisse O Lord who may abide it That man would be very desperate who should answer this question and say I may abide it and consequently that Divinity must needs be very dangerous which must put him upon such an answer for his Justification This is for Christians to have a worse opinion of Christ then had the Jews for even Rabbi David upon these words of Jeremy The Lord our Righteousnesse gives us this glosse Israel shall call the Messias by this name The Lord our righteousnesse because in his daies the Justice of God shall be firmly established for ever acknowledging that a Justice which is to be established in us for ever is not to be obtained may not be expected by and from our selves but by and from the Messias by and from him who is here called The Lord our righteousnesse 16. Yet your Bellarmine lib. 2. de Just. useth no less then ten Arguments to prove that the imputation of Christs righteousness in our justification is little other then a fiction or a vain and empty opinion Justificationem non consistere in Imputatione justitiae Christi He saith positively That Justificatoin doth not consist in the imputation of Christs righteousnesse Sure St. Paul taught him not to say so for he plainly rejecteth his own inherent righteousnesse and cleaved only to the imputed righteousnesse of Christ when he desired to be justified Phil. 3. 9. That I may win Christ and be found in him not having mine own righteousnesse which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by Faith He desired not to be found in his Own but in his Saviours righteousnesse when he was to pass under Gods sentence and he could not be found in that unless it might be imputed to Him for being Anothers it could not be inherent in Him Therefore if your Cardinals contradistinctions stand for good in your account Vera mundities non Imputativa arg 9. non verè sed
these two words And I ask no more about the â—…ow words Covenant and Testament to vindicate this my observation from domestick impertinencie and from forrein calumâ—…e which takes notice That Christ is called â—…he Mediator of the New Testament Heb. 9. 15. not the Mediator of the New Covenant as in other places 3. For even your own Latin Interpreter though in the Books of Moses he commonly say Faedus orpactum as Gen. 17. yet after them He doth much more delight in the word Testament then in the word Covenant as Psal. 50. v. 5. Qui ordinant Testamentum ejus super sacrificia not those who have made a Covenant but those who have made a Testament with me by Sacrifice looking through the Sacrifices of the Law upon the Sacrifice of Christ and in his death seeing that made a Testament which was before but a Covenant so again v. 16. Why takest thou my Covenant in thy mouth Pactum meum saith Pagnine and faedus meum saith the Hebrew as before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Compact or Covenant but your Latin Testamentum meum my Testament And though Exod. 24. 7. he saith Volumen Faederis the Book of the Covenant yet Heb. 9. 4. he saith Arcam Testamenti The Ark of the Testament notwithstanding the Ark was so called from the Book that was kept in it therefore either he should have said the Book of the Testament or he should not have said the Arke of the Testament but as in Exodus he said The Book of the Covenant so in the Hebrews he should have said the Arke of the Covenant using the same word in both places as the Seventy Interpreters and ours do since both relate to the same Thing I say not this to blame your Interpreters but to shew you upon what slight grounds you have blamed ours and more particularly Bâ—…za for using the words Covenant and Testament promiscuously for he did no more then your own Latin Translators had done before Him Therefore since you have respect to the man with a gold ring in goodly apparel that in your account weareth the rich clothing of Authority equally with the Original Text it self and say unto him sit thou here in a good place which however the Ancient Fathers did vouch safe only to the Original Text placing the Greek Testament but not any Translation of it on a Throne in the midst of their assembly in the four first general Councils you may not justly say to the poor man in the vile raiment for such is Beza in your account as being a Protestant Interpreter though you put the Master upon him that he may be thought a Gentleman rather then a Divine stand thou here or sit here under my footstool unless you will be Partial in your self and become a Judge of evil thoughts James 2. 4. And yet even Beza himself prefers Testament before Covenant in the Title to his Translation saying Testamentum Novum The New Testament though he also adde sive Novum faedus Domini nostri Jesu Christi or the New Covenant of our Lord Jesus Christ haply to shew that Jews and Christians had but one and the same Covenant to be saved by one and the same way of salvation though under defferent forms of administration and that was through our Saviour Christ who was to them no less then to us The way the Truth and the Life But to return again to your Interpreter for I left Bâ—…za to follow him that 〈◊〉 might say of Christ he was the Mediatour of the New Testament not of the new Covenant Heb. 9. 15. 't is very observable that Exod 24. 8. he saith Hic est sanguis Faederis This is the blood of the Covenant But Mat. 26. 28. Hic for Hoc est sanguis Novi Testamenti Tbâ—… is the blood of the New Testament Nay those very words of Moses which in Exodus he interprets sanguis faederis The blood of the Covenant Exod. 24. 8. in the Epistle to the Hebrews he interprets sanguis Testamenti The blood of the Testament Heb. 9. 20. Sure he saw either more efficacy or more comfort in the word Testament than in the word Covenant or he would not have exchanged the one for the other in the Interpretation of the very same Hebrew Text. 4. But why should I mention one single Interpreter for so he is accounted though he be made up of two interpretations the old Vulgar and St. Hieroms when the whole Catholick Church recording the Books which contain the mysteries of our salvation had rather call them the Old and the New Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then the Old and New Covenant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seeking rather to bring the Law to be called the Testament in compliance with the Gospel then to permit the Gospel to be called the Covenant in compliance with the Law And indeed though the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Covenant between two parties both living then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Testament which supposeth one party to be dead yet the Sept. never interpret it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Covenant but by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Testament Symmachus renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal. 44. 18. but the Sept. there also hold to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 surely by some special Providence and for some special reason happily to shew us That as all the Promises of God were Truth in Christ so they were also Mercies in him as in Christ Jesus every Promise was Yea and Amen so also in him alone it was such as to make us say of it Amen so be it even the Covenant of not drowning Noah with the world Gen. 6. 18. where this word is first used and of not drowning the world any more Gen. 9. was no mercy but in Christ the promised seed the Saviour of the world For what mercy is it not to perish by water to be reserved to everlasting fire to be suffered to prolong the pleasures of a sinful life that we may encrease the torments of an eternal death Therefore I conceive the seventy Interpreters in rendring the Hebrew Berith did make choyce of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Testament rather then of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Covenant that they might direct all mens thoughts and desires only to Christ and fix all their hopes and delights upon him for that the word Testament doth as expressely point at our Saviour Christs passion as St. John Baptists finger did point at his Person and doth in effect say what he said Ecce Agnus Dei Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world for he took away ous sins by his death plainly presignified and necessarily included in the word Testament because that could not be ratified and confirmed without his death For where a Testament is there must also of necessity be the death of the Testator Heb. 9. 16. But where a