they received their dead raised to life again to live with them according to their desire But others were tortured and would not accept deliverance and cared not for the joyes of this life or the punishment unto death nor temporary raising that they might obtain the better resurrection not to die again as the others did but to live for evermore 4 But as for the third Tostatus saith He lived a long time and he was more healthie then he was before he died And he giveth this sound reason Because what things are done supernaturally are farre more perfect then they that are done naturally Never was there so good wine as the water turned into wine the choicenesse whereof was so easily discerned even when the palate was cloyed when the taste was corrupted and dull'd towards the end of a feast Joh. 2.10 Now as he lived a long time so out of doubt in the end he died tasting of mortalitie as truely as the Prophet did whose bones before had raised him O Blessed Jesu I beg not at thy hands the reuniting of my soul unto my body for a temporary life but if it be thy holy will let the vertue of thy Passion raise me first from the death of sinne to the life of righteousnesse and from a righteous temporary life to the life of immortall happinesse Grant this for thy glorious Names sake O holy Redeemer Amen CHAP. III. 1. Whilest Christ lived none raised any dead save himself onely 2. The Rulers daughter raised by Christ died again 3. So did the young man whom Christ recalled to life 4. Many miracles in that miracle of Lazarus his resurrection 5. Christ gave perfect health to those whom he healed or raised 6. Lazarus his holy life and his second death 1. THe next place of my division leadeth me to treat of those whom Christ himself raised For if Christ did give authoritie to his twelve Apostles to raise the dead Matth. 10.8 though both in the old Interpreter and Theophylact these words are wanting saith Beza yet did they not or the Seventie at their return to him say they had raised any which he himself did so sparingly though they healed the sick Mark 6.13 and the devils were subject unto them through his name Luk. 10.17 Neither did the Baptist nor any in Christs life-time raise up any so farre as can be gathered It was a work he appropriated to his own power for the act thereof whilest he lived and which he maketh to be an infallible token and proof that he was the Messiah as appeareth by the answer of the ambassage which Christ returned to the Baptist Luk. 7.22 The dead are raised by me or by my power Therefore I am he that should come For that is one member of his argument And indeed perhaps he raised divers whom the Scripture hath not particularized for he did very many things that are not written Joh. 21.25 Yea many signes truely did he in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book Joh. 20.30 and his Apostles after his death did actuate that power which habitually in his life they received 2. But those that are mentioned to be raised by Christ whilest he lived on earth are likewise three 1. A Rulers daughter Matth. 9.25 2. A dead man the onely sonne of his mother Luk. 7.15 3. Lazarus his friend Joh. 11.44 And all these returned to do their offices and follow their vocations in this life and in the end payed their due to nature and died again In the first we observe that she was a damsel of twelve yeares of age and being dead her spirit came again Luk. 8.55 She arose and walked Mark 5.42 and Christ commanded to give her meat in the same place of Luke And as the meat was commanded to be given her that they might see she was to live such a life as before she lived so out of doubt the commanded meat was offered unto her and she did eat and was strengthened by it both living and dying afterwards as other maids and men did and no way rising to immortall life 3. As for the second he was a young man on whose mother Christ had compassion Luk. 7.13 She was a widow the youth her onely sonne and when Christ touch'd but the coffin and said Young man arise that you may see both his vertue and his voice had a piercing and quickning power he that was dead sat up and began to speak and Christ delivered him to his mother vers 15. Now these are evident signes of a naturall life in a naturall body which must yeeld in the end to the stroke of death And the raising of this young man being bruited abroad was the especiall motive why the Baptist sent two disciples with a message unto Christ Luk. 7.17 c. 4. The third whom Christ raised was Lazarus who had been buried foure dayes ere Christ came unto him Joh. 11.17 that I may passe over the uncertain time from his death to his buriall d Foetens quairiduanut Stinking after foure dayes enterring saith S. Augustine Yet when Jesus cried with a loud voice Lazarus come forth he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with grave-clothes and his face was bound about with a napkin and Jesus saith unto them Loose him and let him go Joh. 11.44 In which miracle I finde foure or five wrapped up and involved That so suddenly his soul did come from its abode That the stinking ill-organized body was so soon so well prepared That the soul was so quickly united and no sooner united then exercising her faculties on the bodie which yeelded such ready obedience That he could see the way out of the grave and perchance approach towards our Saviour when his eyes were blinded That he was able to go and walk before he was loosed by them while his hands and his feet were bound with grave-clothes Yet that the miracle aimed not to raise him to an immortall life appeareth because he did not onely go from his grave to Bethanie to the house where his sisters Mary and Martha were but because he supped with our Saviour he being one of them that sat at the table with Jesus Joh. 12.2 where out of doubt he did eat as the rest did There is an argument yet left as undeniable as unanswerable That the then living did think Lazarus lived to die again For the chief Priests consulted that they might put Lazarus to death as well as Christ Joh. 12.10 which they would not they could not have done if he had not lived and could not die like other men if he had been raised to life immortall and they knew he was once raised Joh. 11.45 47. 5. Concerning the sick that were healed and the dead raised by Christ worthy Writers further agree that Christ did integram corporis sanitatem conferre omni infirmitate rejectâ Left no reliques of sicknesse or infirmity when he healed Christ never healed any one man twice Joh.
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
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.
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
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
7.23 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Totum hominem sanum feci I made a man every whit whole Healed a man wholly say the Rhemists Perhaps I may adde that Christ never healed the body of any but he healed his soul likewise at least for the instant time I am sure Chrysostom Augustine and Beda to this purpose say The same man was healed by Christ Joh. 5.14 Qui foris ab infirmitate ipse etiam intus salvavit à scelere He saved the man from outward infirmitie and inward sinne He healed as I may comment on the words his body at the pool of Bethesda his soul in the Temple Christ himself said Totum hominem sanum feci I have healed the whole man and Beza on Joh. 7.23 saith He was healed both soul and body Corporaliter spiritualiter Both bodily and ghostly saith Hugo Cardinalis Even he who was impotent and had an infirmity thirty eight yeares upon Christs command immediately was made whole and took up his bed and walked Joh. 5.9 and immediately upon Christs word the blinde received his sight Mark 10.52 the deaf and ill-speaking man after Christ had said EPHPHATHA his eares were straightway opened and the string of his tongue was loosed and he spake plain Mark 7.35 The fever immediately left Simons wives mother after Christ took her by the hand and lift her up and she ministred unto them Mark 1.31 Christ left no relique of any old disease and whom he healed of any one infirmitie we never read that he complained of any other So though Lazarus before his death was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Languens longâ infirmitate fractus actu aegrotus Pining feeble sick saith Salmeron yet was he immediately and perfectly cured and as I imagine he was upon his resuscitation not onely in latitudine sanitatis Void of all weaknesse so that no part was sick or mis-affected by any dyscrasie but in perfectione salutis In full compleat health and had obtained by Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The height and fulnesse of health a constant setled habituall soundnesse in each part of his body For as art is but the ape of nature and naturall things are farre more absolute and perfect then artificiall so things miraculous as much exceed things naturall in perfection So that no naturall crasis no temper or temperature no health is so pure and exact as that which is wrought immediately by a divine finger In the vigour and strength whereof Lazarus might have lived as Adam and Eve did a long time 6. What do I speak of likelihoods or possibilities when we have good Authours which give us more light concerning Lazarus his life and concerning his death There is a manuscript of the English historie in the Vatican at Rome testifying That about the 35 yeare of Christ saith Baronius on the same yeare Lazarus Marie Magdalene and Martha with Marcella their waiting-woman with Maximinus their disciple with Joseph of Arimathea their companion e Imponebantur navi absque remigio were put into a little sciph or great boat without oares or fit tackling and so were in great danger at the sea but by Gods providence f Massiliam appulerunt they arrived at Marsillis a citie of Provance in France Tostatus upon 1. King 17. saith Lazarus was a Bishop and an holy Martyr Epiphanius in the catalogue of Manichaeus his assertions saith he hath it by tradition that Lazarus was thirty yeares old when he was raised up and that he lived afterward other thirty yeares See the same Epiphanius Haeres 66. Gregory the great Dialog lib. 4.28 addeth that Lazarus never laught after he was raised and he did so tame himself with fastings watchings and labours that his very conversation did seem to speak though he held his tongue that he had seen the infernall torments So farre Gregorie Yet under his correction he might as well and as much bring his bodie under and flee from the verie inclination to sinne because he had tasted of the joyes celestiall and peace unconceiveable Thus have you the life and death of Lazarus O Thou who art the Resurrection and the Life quicken me with thy Spirit lead me by thy grace and crown me with thy glory for thy tender mercy O my sweet Saviour my joy and delight the life of my soul my Mediatour and Advocate Jesu Christ Amen CHAP. IIII. 1. Tabitha died again 2. So did Eutychus 3. They who were raised about the Passion of Christ died not again as many ancient and late Writers do imagine Mr. Montague is more reserved 1. NOw am I come to speak of those who after Christs ascension were raised For though in his life time none of Christs inwardest disciples or friends raised any as Elisha's servant could not raise the Shunammites sonne but Elisha himself must do it and did it 2. King 4.31 c. And Elisha himself raised none while his master Elijah lived but Elijah himself did it 1. King 17.22 yet after Christs ascension by his power communicated to them the beleever shall do the works that I do and greater works then these shall he do saith Christ Joh. 14.12 One was raised by S. Peter an other by S. Paul You shall finde the first Act. 9.40 When Peter had kneeled and prayed and turned him to Tabitha her body and said Tabitha arise she opened her eyes and when she saw Peter she sat up Yet was she dead before and washt and laid in an upper chamber vers 37. 2. And for the other the storie is this Act. 20.9 As Paul was long preaching Eutychus sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead perchance broken in some parts of his bodie bruised certainly him S. Paul raised and they brought the young man alive and were not a little comforted vers 12. Of these two as well as of the rest there is no doubt but that they lived again again to die So thinks Aquinas 3. part Summ. Quaest 53. Artic. 3. and the whole School following him agree with us in this So Suarez Lorinus who not Take one of the ancients for all Cyprian reckoneth up those who were raised in the Old Testament and others raised by Christs command and saith of these h Aliquo tempore beneficio vitae usi iterum ad funera rediêre Pag. 523. de Resur Christi paragr 8. They lived a while and died again and a little before of them in the Old Testament i Ad mortem quam gustaverunt iterum redierunt They tasted of death the second time And therefore it needs the lesse proof because none denieth it and the contrary needeth the lesse disproof because none hath averred it 3. Now it is time to come to the third and last part of my main first division and to speak of them who arose about the time that Christ died for of them there is a deep and intricate question and the historie of them is set down at large
dead So that we may shut up this point with this perclose and with a distinction out of Peter Martyr from S. Augustine Death is so termed either properly or improperly compleatly or incompleatly If you take death properly and compleatly for that separation of the soul which cannot admit an other conjunction or union with the bodie till the generall resurrection then no man ever died but once or was come ad plenam mortem to that prefixed period and last houre of life but their former death was onely improper preparatorie and abortive Now if you take death improperly and incompleatly for any manner of true separation which indeed is the commonest acception a man may die twice and divers have died twice yea all they that ever were raised in the Old and New Testament except our Saviour onely who cooperated to his own resurrection all they and every of them died the second time 6. f Paucorum praerogativa non officit legi Naturae ut aliquoties monet Origines The priviledge of a few checketh not offendeth not the law of nature as Origen observeth more then once saith Erasmus on the 1. Thessal 4. or in Hieroms phrase g Singulorum privilegia legem efficere non possunt The prerogatives of singular men establish not a law or in the way of Augustine h Privilegium paucorum universali legi non derogat The priviledge of a few doth not derogate from the generall law Though it be ordinarily appointed for all men once to die yet extraordinarily some may not die at all and some must die twice For i Potens est Deus cum statuto communi dispensare God may and can dispense with a common statute of his own saith Holcot on Wisdome the 2. His hands are free who hath manicled the whole world by his laws he is not tied by Stoicall fatall necessitie who is Agens liberrimum a most voluntarie free agent HOly holy holy Lord God of Hosts I humbly implore thy favourable protection strengthen me O gracious God against all mine enemies bodily and ghostly and when I have by thy power fought a good fight when I have finished my course take me I beseech thee from being a member of thy Church militant in this Jerusalem below to be partaker of blessednesse with thy Church triumphant in Jerusalem above the Mother of us all which petition I earnestly present unto thy Sacred Majestie in the name and mediation of my onely Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Amen CHAP. XIX 1. Strange conceits concerning Nero from Suetonius Tacitus Hierom Augustine Nero supposed to be Antichrist 2. An other incredible relation of the Armenian who is said to have lived at Christs passion The Armenians have their holy frauds AS I began with two or three strange histories having some relation to the propounded question so I hold it not amisse to end with two or three which shall give some light to some other parts of this question or at least by their strangenesse shall afford delight though I end in a fable Suetonius in Nerone cap. 27. toward the end thus historifieth a Non defuerunt quì per longum tempus vernis aestivÃsque floribus tumulum Neronis ornarent ac modò imagines praetextatas in rostris proferrent modò edicta quasi viventis magno inimicorum malo reversuri Denique cùm post viginti annos adolescente me extitisset conditionis incertae qui se Neronem esse jactaret tam favorabile nomen ejus apud Parthos fuit ut vebementer adjutus vix redditus sit There were some who for a long time did deck the tombe of Nero with flowers both of the spring and summer and sometimes did bring his statues and resemblances adorned with long purple imbroydered robes into the pleading places now and then they would proclaim his Edicts as if he had been alive and would shortly return to the damage of his enemies To conclude After twentie yeares when I was but a youth when there appeared on the stage an odde fellow who bragged that he was Nero so great respect was shewed to his name and credit that he had great helps and aids and with much ado was delivered up So farre Suetonius Tacitus also Histor 2. reports that many did beleeve Nero did live long after he was dead S. Hierom to Algasia de undecim quaest quaest ultimâ makes Nero a fore-runner of Antichrist and he gives this sense to these words 2. Thess 2.7 b Jâ—m mysterium operatur miquitatis Multis malit peccatis quibus Nero impurissimus Caesarum mundum premit Antichristi parturitur adventus c. NOW THE MYSTERIE OF INIQUITIE WORKETH By those many harms and sinnes saith he by which Nero the worst of all the Cesars oppresseth the world Antichrists coming is breeding and readie to come to light and what Antichrist shall do hereafter Nero now in part accomplisheth S. Augustine his relation goeth one step further c Nonnulli illum resurrecturum futurum Antichristum suspicantur c. de Civit. 20.19 Some do suspect and imagine saith he that Nero shall rise again and be Antichrist Others think that Nero was not slain but was withdrawn when they thought he was murdered and that he lieth hid living in the vigour of that age wherein he was when they thought he was slain Which storie when I read it recalled to my minde a more uncouth relation of an other dive-dopper And this it is 2. In Matthew Paris on the eleventh yeare of Henry the third anno Christi 1228. in his greater historie printed at London pag. 470. it is said That an Arch-bishop of Armenia came into England in pilgrimage was entertained at S. Albans Abby Being there asked touching that Joseph of whom there was a common speech that he was present when Christ suffered and spake with him and that he yet liveth as a firm proof of the Christian faith the Arch-bishop answered That he knew Joseph well and the Antiochian who was the interpreter to the Arch-bishop told the whole storie thus to Henry Spigurnel his acquaintance and the Abbots servant That before the Arch-bishop came out of Armenia Joseph used to be at his table that at the Passion when Christ was haled from before Pilate to the crosse the said Joseph then called Cartaphilus being usher of the Court did most scornfully punch Christ on the back as he went out of the doore and mocking said Go faster Jesus Go Why stayest thou But Christ looking back with a stern eye and countenance on him said I go indeed but thou shalt expect or stay till I come As if he had said The Sonne of Man goeth indeed as it is written of him and must be crucified and die and shall live again but thou shalt abide and not die till my second coming It is further added that this Cartaphilus was at the time of Christs death about thirty yeares old and so often as he cometh to
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
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie a vast and immense longitude of time but there are also besides them other evident words arguing such pawses and spaces of times As also because the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or post itself is so expounded by Pererius on John 5.4 * Post motionem aquae significat idem ac st dictum fuissâ—t Postquam coepta erat motio turbatio aquae After the troubling of the water signifieth as much as if it had been said After the moving and troubling of the water was begun saith he for the infirm did wait and expect the moving of the water ver 3. and the impotent man said to Christ ver 7. I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled that is so soon as the water beginneth to be troubled for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first descendant into the water 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the troubling was healed Therefore you must expound the word after for immediately after instantly there upon For if he had first stepped in he had been healed whereas if you expound after the motion that is a long while after he might indeed have been put into the water but never the nearer to be healed So also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 John 5.19 and divers other places evince that the phrase implieth not length of time intervenient but rather an historicall narration of things succeeding and sometimes depending one of the other So here first death after that i shortly after that cometh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 judicium judgement Judgement is taken two wayes first for the assenting or dissenting of the intellect in this sense we say I like or like not such a mans judgement so judgement is taken for ones opinion perswasion or determination The Text is not meant of judgement in this sense Secondly it is used for an act of justice giving to every man what belongeth to him Thus is it here taken An act of justice not proceeding from man but from GOD and terminated upon man The judgements of GOD upon man are manifold both in this present life and in the life to come The judgement here mentioned is the judgement after death And of judgements after death there are two Private of souls Publick of bodies and souls Whether of these two judgements is to be understood we hope to finde out when we have considered the last thing propounded the words in a lump together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After that the judgement 5 That there are two judgements after this life we take it here for granted but by GODS assistance it shall be in a fitter place of this discourse demonstrated at large But whether the generall judgement of souls and bodies be especially here meant or the private and particular judgement of souls or both of them is the question now and must be determined by authority and reason Oecumenius is for the first way and wittily interprets these words as if it had been said When all and every one which ever were in the world are dead then followeth after the universall death universall judgement To him assenteth * Bell. de Purgat lib. 2. cap. 4. Bellarmine and the book of Esdras long before either of them * 2. Esdr 14.35 After death shall the judgement come when we shall live again c. where the generall judgement is pointed at and not the particular And from hence S. Paul may be thought to have borrowed the words I answer that the Apostle had them not from that author for there is neither Greek nor Hebrew copie of that book of Esdras * Bell. de Verbo Dei lib. 1. cap. 20. saith Bellarmine from S. Hierome onely it is preserved in Latine and no Councel ever held it as canonicall saith Bellarmine Again I can finde no passage of either of these books of Esdras cited in the New Testament though out of other apocryphall books there be divers things taken And though Ambrose cited the second book of Esdras commonly called the fourth book of Esdras in his book de Bono mortis and in his second book on Luke and in his second epistle to Horatianus yea though * Sixt. Sen Bib. Sanct. lib. 1. Sixtus Senensis saith of Ambrose that Ambrose thought Esdras wrote this book by divine revelation and that S. Paul did follow Esdras in those things which he hath concerning the diversitie of order of glory of brightnes in the elect when they shall be raised yet Sixtus Senensis himself esteemeth not the book to be either canonicall or deutero-canonicall but meerely apocryphall and in it he saith are * Quaedam suspecta dogmata regulis orthodoxae fidei apertè contradiceutia some suspected doctrines manifestly gainsaying the rules of orthodox faith and he instanceth in the * 2. Esdr 4.35 36 39 41 42. fourth chapter maintaining * Omnes animas detineri quibusdam abditis promptuariis in inferuo that all souls are kept in certain hidden floores or chambers in hell till the generall judgement Sixtus Senensis addeth that S. Ambrose seemeth to approve of this opinion Also saith he in chap. 6. vers 49. there are fabulous Jewish fooleries of Henoch and Leviathan two fishes Upon these grounds I may confidently say that though some ignorant people might be seduced by this book and thence perhaps arose the error of the souls not being judged till the resurrection yet S. Paul would never take a testimony from that book which hath such palpable untruths and is not extant in Greek or Hebrew Moreover it hath no place vouchsafed in Arias Montanus his Interlineary Bible nor doth Emanuel Sa comment on any word of it and Bellarmine himself marvelleth why Genebrard would have it held canonicall Estius saith * Liber ille non habet autoritatem in Ecclesia Est in 2. Sent. Dist 19. num 4. That book hath no authoritie in the Church But I return to the first exposition The generall judgement may be meant and is involved I will not deny it Yet these reasons perswade me that the particular judgement is not excluded First if the Apostle had intended it onely of the generall judgement it is likely he would as he doth in other places have used fittest expressions and terms properly advancing to that sense as thus At the second coming of Christ or At the end of the world or When the corruptible hath put on incorruption or After the resurrection cometh judgement But since it is written It is appointed for men to die and after that cometh judgement to interpret it onely of the generall judgement is in my opinion to leave a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great gulf between death and judgement which hiatus will handsomely be filled up if there be reference to the particular judgement Secondly what if I say that the words do denote rather the not passing of judgement while we live and the beginning of it to be shortly
had a knowledge of the Trinitie and apprehended it above humane reach and therefore is by him stiled the divine man Augustine saith Plato and the Platonicks were so farre preferred before others in the judgement of posterity that when Aristotle a man of excellent wit and though not comparable to Plato for eloquence yet surmounting many others had set up the Peripatetick sect and even while his master lived by his excellent fame * Plurimos discipulos in suam haeresin congregâsset tamen recentiores Philosophi nobilissimi quibus Plato sectandus placuit noluerunt se dici Peripateticos aut Academicos sed Platonicos Aug. De Civitate Dei lib. 8. cap. 12. had gathered very many disciples unto his sect yet the most noble later Philosophers whom it pleased to follow Plato would not be called Peripateticks or Academicks but Platonicks Vives on this place of Augustine confesseth that Aristotle was before Plato in varietie of knowledge c. above most in wit and industry above all skilfull in arts that the Greeks called Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now both the same Greeks called Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latines DIVINUM These things are ill observed by Vives First though Laërtius bringeth the saying of Plato * Aristoteles in nos recalcitravit ut in matrem pulli Aristotle hath kicked against us as colts against their damme yet others deny that he taught publickly in Platoes life-time Vives little remembreth that the precedent words of S. Augustine may incline to the contrarie besides other authorities aswell as Laërtius Secondly that Augustine his term haeresis in the Greek is but secta in the Latine yet by Vives his leave S. Augustine could would have said Congregâsset in suum Lycaeum in suam scholam partem sectam disciplinam or any othersuch word rather then in suam haeresim unlesse Augustine had intended to lay some aspersion upon Aristotle by the word of haeresis which is homonymous Thirdly Vives reporteth without his authour that Plato should say of his two disciples Xenocrates and Aristotle that the former needed the spurre and Aristotle the bridle whereas Cicero in his third book De Oratore ascribeth the saying to Isocrates concerning two of his disciples Theopompus and Ephorus Ephorus the dull Theopompus the witty and apprehensive more distinctly Suidas saith it was spoken of Theopompus Chius not Theopompus Gnidius Again Vives is mistaken in taxing Plotinus for obscuritie * Nè degeneraret à more sectae lest he should degenerate from the custome of the sect Whereby he would insinuate that either Plato was obscure or Plotinus an Aristotelian when S. Augustine accounteth Plotinus among the famous Platonicks in the same place which Suidas also confirmeth For Plotinus his disciples were the great Origen and Porphyrius and divers other famous Platonicks and as all the Platonicks did Pythagorize so did all the Fathers Platonize and Plato was in that high esteem that it was an ancient Proverb * Jovem Graecè loqui si vellet non aliter loquuturum quìm Platonem That if Jupiter would speak Greek he would speak no otherwise then Plato I return from the comparison of Plato with Aristotle and from the oscitancy of Vives to the old matter Strong delusions rightly befall them who make Philosophy equall to Divinity and ascribe asmuch authoritie to Aristotle as to Moses or the Prophets or to any Apostles or Evangelists and who do answer their Texts with equall reverence If they pray to them or for them let them see to it I proceed from the Philosophicall axiome That no Body compounded of contraries can perpetually endure which was spoken onely of the decayed estate beyond which Philosophers could not aspire and not of the state of integritie which is our Quaere and I come to a passage of Divinitie tending that way It is true that Adam was made of earth or rather of the dust of the ground Genes 2.7 of the worst of the elements and the worst part of it God framed man dust of the ground as it is there in the Original Not of the dust or earth of Paradise but of other earth Vives in Aug. De Civit 13.24 Pulvis aridus inidoneus erat ad plasmandum as it is in the Chaldee Targum saith Vives of earth severed and distinct from that blessed garden Cornelius à Lapide the Jesuit saith Drie dust was unfit for to be formed as if God could not work but like a potter by fit and necessary materialls and he citeth Tertullians words God by adding some fat liquour Deus addito opimo liquore in limum quasi argillam coagulavit cruddled it into slime and clay as it were I say though God had done so yet he could have done otherwise he could have made Man of water without earth or of earth without water or of any some-thing or of nothing I will confesse de facto Pulvis humectus Aug. De Civit. 13.24 with Augustine it was wet dust because it is said Genes 2.6 There went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground Augustine readeth it Fons ascendebat the Chaldee Paraphraze hath it Nubes but properly it is a vapour or a mist and immediately The Lord formed Man Now it was of earth out of Paradise for the Lord took the Man therefore he was before created and put him into the garden to dresse it and keep it Genes 2.15 therefore he was out of it ere he was put into it after Adam sinned God sent Adam forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground or that ground from whence he was taken Genes 3.23 therefore the ground from whence he was taken was a different ground from Eden from whence he was expelled and so Adam was not molded or framed of the earth or dust of Paradise All this being granted I say God could frame as lasting and as good a body and as durable against the force of contrarietie of the dust out of Paradise as of the dust of the Garden And questionles Adam was made of the earth before it was cursed and why not then equall to the earth of Paradise So that my Position is not yet shaken The contrarie disposition of the elements had not forced dissolution but Adam had an immortall body Which that you may the rather beleeve let me confirm it by reason and authoritie 3. The first reason is this Death cometh not but by outward violence or inward distemper in which regard Death is divided by Aristotle into these two branches Violent Arist lib. de vita morte Naturall But Adam should not have been subject to externall or internall force or dyscrasie if he had not sinned Therefore he had a bodie that during innocency was immortall and not subject to death The Assumption is onely questionable Concerning the former member of it I evidence it thus Before Man was created the dominion over the Creatures
troup may I put in somewhat unthought of by others Some have said truly that the divine providence and preserving power which extendeth to the least things in our declined estate as to the lives of birds and beasts and the fall of every hair God not being * Contra eorum dogmata qui primos homines si non peccâssent immortales futuros fuisse non credunt De Civit. 13.19 lesse in the least things then he was in the greatest and governing all things in number weight and measure would have much more watcht over Adam and his ofspring continuing perfect But this is that which I propose Whether the good Angels did immediatly minister unto Adam in his integritie and should have done unto us to keep mankinde from harm To which I answer That since the Prophet Psal 91.11 describing the blessed estate of the godly maketh this one especiall branch He shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy wayes and verse 12. They shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone I can not but think that the same Angels should have watcht over us and friendly conversed with us in our innocencie For God reduceth * Deus non minor est in minimis quâ—m in maximis the lowest things to the highest by the middle working by subordination of causes Yea * Infima ad suprema per media grant that this is spoken of the Sonne of God onely which by the Evangelists Matt. 4.6 and Luke 4.9 seemeth to be the Devils argute inference yet it excludes not their watching over us and their ministerie if we had not fallen whose very office and name consist in being ministring Spirits All being sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation Heb. 1.14 which out of doubt both Adam and his issue continuing in perfection should have been But leaving these things Christs answer to Satan proves that unto whom these words were said He shall give his Angels charge over thee c. unto the same was also said Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God Matt. 4.7 which was not spoken to Christ alone or principally but in the plurall number to the Israëlites and others succeeding them as appeareth Deuter. 6.16 Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God as ye tempted him in Massah They are deceived whosoever imagine the ministerie of Angels should not have been any way necessarie if Adam had not sinned since Christ the immaculate Lambe of God who sinned not nor could sinne refused not their ministerie Matth. 4.11 and comfort or strength Luke 22.43 and since one Angel strengthneth himself with an other Dan. 10.21 and Revel 12.7 and since they might have ministred more matter of joy unto us by their most familiar conversation in assumed bodies Unto these authorities let me adde two memorable places out of the Apocrypha The first is Wisd 1.13 God made not death Satan begot it sinne brought it forth Adam and Eve nurst it The other passage is in Wisd 2.23 God created man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be immortall made him an image of his own eternity On which words Holcot thus Corporeall creatures have onely a footstep of God Man is the image of God Again * Quantum fuit ex parte Dei creavit hominem inexâ—crminabile msecundum corpus On Gods part he created him unperishable according to the body And there he hath a large discourse proving howsoever Aristotle Metaph. 8. defineth Man to be a reasonable creature mortall that the opposite is true and he resteth in it For Aristotle knew not Adams innocencie but spake of us as we are in the state of sin Whosoever desireth to read more curiosities strange and learned concerning the bodily immortalitie of Adam at the Creation let him read Estius on the second of the Sent. Distinct 19. But to confirm the truth delivered in the book of Wisdome the last and the best kinde of authoritie shall be produced out of the unquestionable Canon death is stiled our Enemy 1. Corinth 15.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inimicus as Hierome on the 27. of Esai readeth it hostis saith Valla therefore death is not naturall or kindly to us but rather a consort and fellow-souldier of Satan and sinne who fight against us But the sharp-pointed places are in Genes 2.17 In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die or dying thou shalt die Mortalis eris as Symmachus well translates it or morti obnoxius as Augustine well expounds it and Genes 3.3 Ye shall not touch it lest ye die therefore they should not have died if they had not touched the forbidden fruit And so they both were and ever might have been immortall When the woman of Sarepta said to Eliah * 1. Kings 17.18 Art thou come unto me to call my sinne to remembrance and to slay my sonne doth she not secretly intimate that sinne is a murtherer And if there had been no sinne there had also been no death * In 2. Sent. dist 19. quaest 1. in and by her evident confession that her sinne was the cause of his death Scotus shall determine the point Punishment can not be without fault but death is the punishment of sinne and during the state of innocency there could be no sinne therefore no death I have dwelt the longer on this part because every reason authoritie by which I have proved that Adams bodilie estate in the time of innocency was immortall affordeth also by way of preparative a binding argument to evince that Adam for sin was appointed to die which is the first of the two Propositions which I propounded In which words we intend to handle these things First somewhat concerning death Secondlie that Adam was appointed to die for one sinne onely Thirdly that it was for Adams own sinne onely and not for Eves Fourthly we will enquire what that sinne was O Onely-wise God who createdst Man in thine own likenes and madâ—st him the Image of thine own eternitie I beseech thee to renew in me that decaied Image make me like unto thee give me the favour to taste of the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God and to drink of the pure River of the Water of Life clear as Crystall proceeding out of the Throne of God and of the LAMBE Heare me O blessed SAVIOUR for thine infinite Merit and mercies sake Amen 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 body 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 2. Man-kinde died the first minute of their sinne God draweth good out of evill Death in some regard is changed from a
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
desideramus or volumus for so must the Apostle be interpreted as appeareth vers 2 We grone earnestly desiring to be clothed upon Tertullian saith * Quiâ—uon desiderat adhuc in carne superinduere immortalitatem continuare vitam lucrifactam mortis vicariâ denuntiatione De Resur carnis Who desireth not being yet in the flesh to be clothed upon with immortalitie and to continue his life gained by a substituted denunciation of death Can so blessed a change be painfull or can we naturally desire pain shall we grone and grone earnestly that we may have pain Hierome in his Epistle to Minerius and Alexander saith thus of the word Rapiemur * Hoc verbo estendi puto subitum ad meliora transcensum ideirco raptum se voluisse dicere vt velocitas transcuntis sensum cogitantis excederet I think that this word sheweth a sudden passage to a better place and that he said he was caught up to signifie that his passing was swifter then his thinking not as if it were painfull to be taken as I imagine S. Paul speaketh of this translation and change as a matter worthie of thanks unto God 1. Corinth 15.51 c. Onely death of all other wayes by which God useth to call mankinde to glorie death onely is painfull Psal 116.3 The sorrows of death compassed me God loosed the pains of death Act. 2.24 and Hebr. 2.15 Some through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage And indeed this pain of death is part of the curse denounced But of this point more hereafter And thus do I make my approach towards it 2. * Aug. De. peccat Merit Remis 1.16 Augustine saith When disobedient Adam sinned then did his body lose the grace of being obedient to his soul Then arose that bestiall motion to be ashamed of by men which he blusht at in his nakednes Then also by a certain sicknes taken by a sudden and contagious corruption it came to passe that the stabilitie of age being lost in which they were created by the changes of ages they made a progresse to death For though they lived many yeares after yet they began to die the same day when they received the law of death by which they were to grow old For whatsoever by a continuall change and degrees runneth unto an end not perfecting or consummating stands not a moment but decayes without intermission Thus was fulfilled what God said Genes 2.17 In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die So he Let me adde my conjecture First if God had not called Adam and Eve so sensibly to an account yet had they died by vertue of the former sentence For the later sentence inflicts not death which was then entred on them but labour and pain In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the dayes of thy life Genes 3.17 And though it be said vers 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return Yet this is but an explication of the former sentence shewing that the manner of the death shall be by incineration which was not so exactly speciallized before Secondly the same instant that Adam had eaten I make no doubt but both their eyes were opened and they knew their nakednes which was the first sensible degree towards death and corruption For though the Scripture doth not say expressely Immediately their eyes were opened yet it implieth so much as may appeare by the implicative particle and Genes 3.6 c. Eve did eat and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat and the eyes of them both were opened c. S. Augustine thus * Quomodo corpus nostrum dicit Apostolus mortuum Rom 8.10 cùm adhuc de viventibus loqueretur nisi quia jam ipsa conditio moriendi ex peccato parentum haesit in prole De Gen. ad lit 6.26 How doth the Apostle say that our body is dead Rom. 8.10 when he speaks of the living but because the condition of dying arising from the sinne of the parents sticks to the posteritie So we also die or are dying the first houre of our being And again * Corpus mortuum est propter peccatum Nec ibi ait Mortale sed Mortuum quamvis vtique mortale quia moriturum mox vbi praeceptum transgressi sunt ecrum membris velut aliqua aegritudo lethalis mors ipsa concepta est Quid enimaliud non dicam nati sed omnino concepti nisi aegritudinem quandam inchoavimus quâ sumus sine dubis morituri Ibid. 9 10 The body is dead because of sinne He saith not there It is mortall but dead albeit it is truely mortall because it shall die So soon as they transgressed the commandment death like some deadly disease was conceived in their members For as soon as we were I will not say born but even conceived what did weels but begin a certain sicknes by which we shall undoubtedly die IN THE MIDST OF LIFE WE ARE IN DEATH and now non vitam vivimus sed mortem which was toucht at before and must be handled again God who drew light out of darknes yea all things out of the unformed TOHV-BOHV and that masse or rude lump out of nothing is so good a God and so divine a goodnes that he would never have suffered sinne in this world but that he knew how to extract good out of evill and to turn mans sinne to his benefit Neither would he have permitted death to enter upon man but that he knew how to use the sting of death to mans greater happines and how to bring forth meat out of the eater and sweetnes out of the strong Judg. 14.14 As of the vipers flesh is made a preservative against the poison of the viper so from this bitter cup of death ariseth health joy and salvation to mankinde * Aug. De Civit. Dei 9.10 Augustine hath a witty collection from Plato and his follower Plotinus Plato in Timaeo writeth * Hominum animos mortalibus vinculis esse à dâ—is minoribus illigatos that the spirits of men are tied with mortall bands by the lesser gods So Vives on the place citeth Plato but Plotinus in lib. de dubijs Animae as he is also cited by Vives on that place of Augustine thus * Jupiter Pater laborantaâ— animas misâ—ratus earum vincula quibus laborant solubilia fabriâ—avit Father Jupiter having compassion of the afflicted souls hath made their bands soluble wherewith they are wearied These quotations at large give light to S. Augustines meaning which is subobscure for he saith * Plotinus Platenem prae caeteris intellexisse laudatur Is cùm de humanis animis ageret Pater in â—uit misericors mortalia illis vincula saciebat Plotinus is commended for having understood Plato above the rest He treating
maintain That Adams representation of us and his obedience should have done us equall good to our resisting of the first temptation More might pertinently be said of this matter but besides the precedent tediousnesse of it Ludovicus Vives aurem vellit endeavouring to restrain such speculations to modest bounds Thus he saith on Augustine De Civit. 13.1 Of things which might or might not have happened to man if Adam had not fallen * Quid factum sit magno nostro malo nemo ignorat quid fuisset nescio an ipsi Adam ostensum fuit quantò minùs nobis misellis Nam quid prodest uti conjecturis in re quae conjecturas omnes superat humanas What fell out to our great harm no man is ignorant of what should have befallen I know not whether it was revealed to Adam himself how much lesse to us poore wretches For what availeth it to use conjectures in a thing which is above all humane conjectures But Vives himself is to blame First for his nesciencie or timerousnesse as if Adam knew not what estate he and his should have had if he had persevered in innocency The ignorance of a point so nearely concerning him had argued imperfection which the fulnes of knowledge in which he was created did clearly dispell For if God said to the corrupted World Deut. 30.19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you Life and Death could uncorrupt Adam be ignorant of the life that was set before him Or did Adam understand the miseries and punishments the orts and effects of Morte Morieris expressely threatned against him in a future contingent estate and could he be ignorant of his present condition of blisse and certain blisse to be increased upon his obedience Did he know the natures of beasts and other creatures could he know the strange production of Eve could he prophetically intimate the strict union of Christ with his Church by his own conjunction with Eve and was it not shewed unto him what state he should have had and we in him Secondly though these things be taxed of nicetie yet the impartiall Reader overviewing this Book perhaps will say It was profitable and delightfull to problematize even upon this very point But other matters invite me hence forward to them and therefore having cleared That it was the sinne of Adam of onely Adam and not of Eve for which Death was appointed Let us proceed to examine Which and what this sinne of Adam was which is next and necessarily to be handled O Most glorious Creator who did'st make us in the First Adam excellent Creatures and wouldest have made us better if he who undertook for us had not brought upon us death and destruction Grant I beseech thee for thy mercies sake in the Merit and Mediation of the Second Adam Jesus Christ our onely Saviour That we may recover our lost Image and be made like unto him here and reigne in Life with him hereafter CHAP. IIII. 1. Adams perfection in Innocencie Our imperfection after his fall contrarie to his both in understanding and will and in the parts concupiscible and irascible 2. Adam had other laws given him but one above all and one onely concerning posteritie 3. What this Law was Adam knew the danger to himself and his of spring The first sinne was against this Law 4. Eve sinned before How she sinned the same and not the same sinne with Adam 5. Zeno the Stoicks and Jovinian confuted Sinnes are not equally sinfull 6 Adam sinned farre more and worse then Eve 7 This sinne of Adam was not uxoriousnesse as Scotus maintained but disobedience or pride The branches of Adams sinne 1 LOmbard saith * Quibusdam videtur quòd Adam ante lapsum non habuerit virtutem Lomb. Sent 2. dist 29. lit B. Some are of opinion that Adam before the fall had no vertue He had not justice say they because he despised Gods commandement nor prudence because he provided not for himself nor temperance for his appetite extended to the forbidden fruit nor fortitude for he yeelded to suggestion We answer saith Lombard He had not these vertues when he sinned but before and in sinning losed them For Augustine in a certain Homily saith Adam was made according to the Image of God armed with shamefastnesse composed with temperance splendent with charitie Otherwhere he saith Adam was endued with a spirituall minde Ambrose saith * Beatissimus erat auram carpebat aetheream He was most happy and led an heavenly life and addeth a good observation * Quando Adam solus erat non est praevaricatus When Adam was alone he transgressed not Which may teach us to fear the enticements of companie This point deserveth not to be so speedily cast off and therefore attend this further enlargement Many very many precepts were graven in the heart of Adam and every branch of the naturall Law was there written by the finger of God at his Creation nor was he ignorant what was to be done or omitted in any businesse Eccl. 17.1 The Lord created man of the earth and verse 2. he changeth the singular into the plural He gave them power over the things therein and verse 3. He endued them with strength by themselves and made them according to his image And then followeth an excellent description of their gifts I conceive and explain the matter thus Foure faculties he had and we have of our souls Two superior Two inferior The two superior are understanding and will The two inferior the part irascible and part concupiscible First the object of his understanding was truth the perfection of it was knowledge but now as we are in the state decaied this truth is darkned with ignorance 1 Corinth 2.14 The naturall man receiveth not nor can know the things of the Spirit of God Eph. 4.18 Their understanding is darkned and their hearts are blinde Psal 49.20 Man in honour understandeth not As Adam was in innocencie he was partaker of the truth The Apostle Ephes 4.23 24. saith Be renewed in the spirit of your minde New we were once in Adam and in him also we grew old we are commanded to be renewed as new as once we were and put on that new man which was created in righteousnesse and holinesse of truth therefore the first Adam was created in truth You have the object Truth the perfection was Knowledge Ecclesiasticus 17.7 God filled them with knowledge and understanding and this is seconded by the Apostle Colos 3.10 The new man is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him Renovation necessarily implieth precedent oldnes and oldnes precedent newnes of knowledge in the first Adam Secondly the object of mans will was and is Goodnesse the perfection Love In the decayed estate the will is infected with vanitie Genes 6.5 Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was onely evill continually Ephes 4.17 We walk in the vanitie of our
in her without the help of man or sinne and was even then Lord of all things 5 Another point followeth towit We sinned that sinne in Adam not by imitation onely For Adam sinned and in a sort imitated Eve who sinned first and ate of the forbidden fruit before him yet it is not said That in Eve Adam died or many died in Eve or Adam sinned through Eve So likewise the Devill offended before Adam was and Adams sinne did nearly in many particulars resemble the Devils yet Adam died not by the sin of the Devil though after a fashion he did imitate it But it is said Rom. 5.15 Through the offence of Adam many be dead and thereabouts In Adam all die Therefore this sinne of ours must needs be more then by imitation And this is S. Augustines argument against Pelagius If it had been by imitation onely * Apostolus peccati principium non fecisset Adamum sed Diabolum The Apostle had not made Adam the beginning of sinne but the Devill Against Julian 6.10 he useth this other argument in effect Who almost yea who at all thinketh of Adam when he sinneth whereas the imitator propoundeth himself a pattern to follow and imitate Or what is Adams eating of an apple like unto witchery blasphemy murder lying or the like and how there have been yea are yet many millions in the world who never heard of Adam much lesse of his sinne and did they intend to imitate or did they imitate him Thirdly * De Peccat Merit Remiss 1.9 Augustine thus argueth As the second Adam besides this that we are to follow him and imitate him giveth hidden grace unto the faithfull so contrarily we are faulty and die not by the imitation onely of the first Adam but by the secret blot and spot by which he hath infected us Fourthly he thus disputeth in his 89 Epistle to Hierome The Apostle saith Rom. 5.16 The fault is of ONE offence to condemnation but he must have said It had been of MANY offences and not of ONE if all are condemned for their actuall personall imitation of Adam since the offences of many men must needs be more then the ONE offence spoken of by the Apostle Lastly let me reason thus Rom. 5.14 Death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression But death was the wages of sinne Therefore some died who did not resemble Adam in finning And there is a sinne not like to his for Adams sinne was actuall most voluntary and personall Children in sinning of originall sinne do not imitate Adam for their sinne was onely implicit in and with him and they have not that absolute freedome of will that he had and their sinne is rather naturall then personall Yet children die for sinne and for such a sinne as is not after the similitude of Adams transgression and so originall sinne cleaveth unto us not by imitation onely * Aug. De Peccat Merit Remiss 1.15 Augustine thus If imitation onely make sinners by Adam onely imitation should make us just by Christ and then not Adam and Christ but Adam and Abel should be compared For Adam was the first wicked man and just Abel Hebr. 11.4 the first just man But these things are not thus Therefore we sinned not onely by imitation of Adam 6 I come to a new point namely to prove That this sinne of Adam is not ours by imputation onely as if Adam alone had offended and we were wholly cleare from that great sinne Indeed Adams actuall first sinne or his other sinnes after his repentance as they were personall and private are not imputed to us For he was to answer for himself as well as we are If we repent what doth our repentance help him If he had not changed his minde and turned to God himself alone should have been condemned as himself alone was saved by his own repentance That Adam was by divine wisdome brought out of his fall is said Wisd 10.1 * Veniae redditus est He hath been restored to pardon saith S. August And in the Tribe of Judah there is to this day a den or hole called Spelunca Adam The Cave of Adam in it a rock in which are two stony beds of Adam Eves and here they mourned as is delivered by Tradition saith Adrichomius an hundred yeares for the murdered Abel why not rather for their own sinnes say I This place is not farre from either Ager Damascenus where they say Adam was made of that Red earth which is mire tractabilis saith Adrichomius or from that place which to this day is shewen and recorded to be the plat of ground which drank up Abels bloud when Cain slew him And though I deny not but they might mourn for the death of Abel yet they were more bound to mourn for that sinne of theirs which brought death both upon Abel and themselves and all their posterity That Adam was a Type of Christ is expressed Rom. 5.15 and unfolded in many excellent particulars by * Sal. Ad annum 930◠Salianus That the more eminent Types of Christ should be saved is evinced because of their resemblance and conformitie unto the Antitype nor can it be proved that ever any of his figures were condemned For the shadow must follow the substance and Christ that Proto-type being not onely saved but called Jesus because he shall save his people from their sinnes Matth. 1.21 They are his people especially who in principal things resembled him and wherein can they better resemble him then in being blessed and saved as he was But I return to Adam Concerning Adam Augustine saith thus * De illo quidem primo homine patre generis humani quòd eum ibidem solverit Ecclesia ferè tota conseutit Aug. Epist 99. Ad Euodium As for that first man the father of mankinde almost the whole Church agreeth that Christ being in hell he there delivered him Concerning his body that it arose if other Saints of the Old Testament arose and that it was besprinkled with the bloud of Christ dying shall be shewed hereafter And if God had such care of Adams body or part of it he shall be impudently unreasonable that shall say his soul is not in blessednesse Now as his personall repentance saved himself onely and not one of his ofspring so if he had died unrepentant his sinne or sinnes as they were personall should not have prejudiced one of his posterities salvation Bellarmine * Bell. De Amiss Gratiae 3.12 saith It was one of Tatianus his errours That our first parents were damned Indeed Irenaeus 1.30 ascribes this opinion to Saturninus and Marcion and chap. 31. to Tatianus the first founder of it Tertullian in his book De Haeresib towards the end taxeth Tatian for the same opinion and confuteth him thus * Quasi non si rami salvi fiunt radix salva sit As if
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
properly so called thus we were conceived in sinne that is so soon as ever we were conceived we had a propension and aptitude to sinne such and as much as the flesh was then capable of Augustine thus * Etiam jumenta quamvissunt rationisexpertia tamen plerumque dicimus debere vapulare cùm peccant Aug. De Adultermis Conjugiis lib 1. circa medium Albeit cattell be void of reason yet even of them we say oft that they ought to be beaten when they sinne But let us leave the vulgar forms of speech The said Father annexeth * Propriè peccare non est nisi ejus qui utitur rational is voluntatis arbitrio Holcot De Imputabilitate Peccati mendosè legit argumento To sinne properly is but of him that useth the pleasure and liking of a reasonable will Secondly If you will needs take sinne according to its true definition then I distinguish of conception which is used either strictly and properly or at large and extensively The first way is followed by Naturalists Anatomists Physicians and Philosophers the second way by Divines The first way they make conception to be an action of the wombe for when the wombe hath begun its work with attraction Nam sitiens haurit Venerem interiúsque recondit and continued it both by permixtion thereof and immuring retention in the fourth and last place it ends the operation by the suscitation of the inclosed sperms which is properly called * Vide Laurentii Histor Anatomicam lib. 8. quaest 12. pag. 619. conception The spiritus artifex and the foetus onely formeth nourisheth and increaseth what is done afterwards the wombe onely containeth and therefore conserveth because the place is the conservation of the thing placed in it To say that we did sinne properly when our mother thus conceived us is to say we sinned before we had life and we may aswell be said to sinne while we were in our fathers seed before their conjunction and commixture with our mothers which is not an houre before conception and so in their bloud before seed and in their meat ere it was bloud Thus I dare say the Spirit of God never meant that we were conceived in sinne and the traducted matter is not properly full of sinne or sinneth at all But take we conception largely and as Divines do use the word for the preparatorie formation or a degree of it is a kinde of conception as the exact formation unto the full grown measure a little before the nativitie may be called the completorie conception we may be said to be conceived in sinne conception being taken for the time of our perfecter formation extendible almost to our nativitie In iniquitatibus conceptus sum saith Lyra * Quia homo descendens ab Adam per carnalem generationem in unione animae ad corpus contrabit peccatum originale quod est ad actualia peccata inclinativum Because man descending from Adam by carnall generation in the union of the soul with the body contracts original sinne which inclineth to actuall sinnes Tremellius hath it In iniquitate formatus sum in peccato fovit me mater mea and expounds it in this manner * Iniquitat is peccati reus sum in utero formatus fotus haecenim non ad formam conceptûi formationis foâ—ûs sâ—dad foetûs constitutionem pertinent I am guiltie of iniquitie and sinne being framed and warmed in the wombe for these pertain not to the form of the conception shaping and warming but to the constitution of the fruit Vatablus rendreth it In iniquitate genitus sum and interprets it * Fictus sum formatus sum natus sum I have been fashioned framed born * Concepit me id est peperit Conceived me that is brought forth saith Emanuel Sà out of Hierome though I finde it not so in Hierom on the place S. Augustine following the Septuagint with Theodoret and others for the reading In iniquitatibus conceptus sum hath these passages * Ipsum vinculum mortis cum ipsa iniquitate concretum est nemo nascitur nisi trahens poenam trabens meritum poenae The very band of death is grown together with sinne it self None is born without drawing punishment without drawing the merit of punishment and he doth in a sort parallel this place with an other place of the Prophet and it is in Job I ghesse who may well be stiled a Prophet Nemo mundus in conspectu tuo nec infans cujus est unius diei vita-super terram Job 15.14 Our English late Translatours vary thus I was shapen in iniquitie and in sinne did my mother conceive or warm me as it is in the margin which shaping and warming is also after the union of the reasonable soul to the body Not one of all these doth take conception strictly and physically but largely and significantly enough both to the Scripture and to our purpose Stapleton thus * Anima non caro st subjâ—ctum virtutum vitiorum Stapl. De Orig. Pecc to 1.4 The soul not the flesh is the subject of vertues and vices Augustine * Semen vitiat mest non vitium Aug. Hypognost 2. initio The seed is infected not infection Godfridus Abbas Vindocinensis * Non ex carnis corruptione animae mors pracessit nec Diabolus priùs carnem noâ—ram infecit quà m animam Godfridus Abbas Vind. Epist 39. The death of the soul went not before from the corruption of the flesh neither doth the Devil infect the flesh before he defile the soul Augustine * Non caro corruptibilis animam peccatricem sed anima peccatrix facit esse carnem corruptibilem De Civit 14.3 circa medium The corruptible flesh doth not make the soul sinfull but the sinful soul makes the flesh to be corruptible Thus it was in Adam is in us our flesh is not properly sinfull or defiled before the soul inhabit it Reason also is of our side for if so soon as there is conception in the wombe there is true sinne how many thousand conceptions miscarry and never come to perfect formation as in the Mola where the forming of the parts being begun can not be perfected but the weak workman being drowned in abundance of bloud in stead of a living creature is ingendred an ill-shaped hard and idle lump of flesh oppressing the wombe with its ponderousnes saith * Fernel De Hominis Procreatione 7.8 one as the stomach is loaded with indigestible meats Is there sin in this conception sin before life sin when there is no motion as there is none in the lumpish Mola sin in a Moon-calf But put we the case in a perfect conception which without mischance may come to formation birth and casually suffereth abortion before the soul be united yet it can never be proved that it sinned In At the conception The arguments that trendle that way are these The very seed of which we
our own implicit will we may draw on us a necessitie of after-sinning which most justly may be imputed to us and we may tie our selves with our own bonds To the former part this may give satisfaction That against the will of the soul the soul it self can not be corrupted for then the will should be forced and so no will at all but Noluntas and not Voluntas It is not necessary saith Bellarmine that our soul must needs come from Adam because we draw sinne from him if but one part come from him it is enough For a father doth not per se produce originall sinne in the childe but per accidens namely as by the act of generation it cometh to passe that his sonne is a member of mankinde which was overtaken in Adams corruption and that the propension unto evill of the earthly part traducted meeting with a soul not much resisting causeth this originall sinne to result thencefrom and death by this original sinne So that no sooner is the soul united to its body and the matter glewed to the form but the infant deserveth to be and is the childe of death by reason of the primigeneall corruption If you enquire after what manner the body worketh the soul unto this evill we may truly say * Corpus non agit in animam actione physicâ immediatâ The body worketh not upon the soul by a naturall and immediate action You heard what Hugo Eterianus said It is stricken or cast down onely by fellowship He enlargeth himself in the same Chapter thus * Vitium languor corruptio ante animae conjunctionem in carne persistunt ex qua tabe anima maculatur sicut si testa odore malo imbuta sit quemcunque liquorem susceperit suâ corruptione inficit Imperfection languishing and corruption abide in the flesh before the souls conjunction from which disease the soul is infected as if a vessel be tainted with an ill odour it infects therewith whatsoever liquour it receiveth Gerson thus * Anima ex conjunctione ad corpus contrabit illud vitium sicut quandoquis cadit in lutum foedatur maculatur Gers in Compend Theolog. The soul by the conjunction with the body contracteth that infection as when one falleth into the mire he is besmeared and stained Felisius thus * Pomum mundum in manu immunda positum foedatur Vinum bonum tranâ—fusum in vas acetosum suum naturalem perdendo saporem centrabit alienum sic anima quando incipit esse in carne unita suum naturalem amittit vigorem A clean apple put in an unclean hand is soiled Good wine poured into a fustie vessel contracts a strange taste and loses its own naturall so the soul loses its naturall vigour when it is united in the flesh Another thus Anima cum labente simul labitur frustra nititur dum innititur To the same effect another saith thus As the purest rain-water falling on dust is turned with the dust into a lump of mire so at the coadunation of the soul unto the earthly part both spirit and flesh are plunged in the durt of corruption Augustine against Julian the Pelagian 4.15 preferreth the very Heathen before Julian for he held That nothing was conveyed unto us from Adam and they held * Nos oh antiqua scelera suscepta in vita superiore poenarum luendarum causâ esse natos That we were born to be punished for old crimes committed in a former life And saith Augustine it is true which Aristotle relateth That we are punished like to those who fell among the Hetrurian robbers * Quorum corpora viva cum mortuis adversa adversis accommodata quà m optissimè colligabantur necabantur Whose living bodies being coupled face to face with dead mens carcases were so killed Of the Hetrurian Tyrant Mezentius Virgil Aeneid 8. recordeth the like Mortua corporibus jungebat corpora vivis Componens manibúsque manus at que oribus ora Tormenti genus sanie tabóque fluentes Complexu in misero longâ sic morte necabat But I return from this Digression The Heathen say as S. Augustine relateth * Nostros animos cum corporibus copulatos ut vivos cum mortuis esse conjunctos That our souls united to our bodies are like the living coupled with the dead They saw somewhat saith he and commendeth their wisedome in discerning the miseries of mankinde to be for somewhat before committed in acknowledging the power and justice of God though without divine revelation they could not know that it was Adams offence which brought such a wrack both on our souls and on our bodies What hath been hitherto related seemeth too much to encline to the naturall physicall immediate working of the soul upon the body Others are as faultie who say The soul receiveth no annoyance from the body but by way of IMPEDITION onely where the spirituall faculties are hindered and the Musick spilt by reason of the untuneablenes of the organes But they wil not seem to heare That a spirituall substance can receive infection from a nature corporeall Both opinions may rest contented in the middesse or mean That as the body cannot go beyond the sphere of its activitie and work properly and physically upon the soul so by the interposition as it were of a middle nature the body not onely hindereth the faculties of the soul from working but sometimes worketh upon the soul Thus the naturall vitall and animall spirits do binde and unite the soul to the body that neither part can part from other though it would Thus bodily objects work on the minde but it is by the mediation of the outward and inward senses Shall corporeall outward and remote objects by degrees draw the soul into sinne even in our perfect age when our naturall reason is most vigorous and may not the corrupted seed having as great a propension to evill as Naphtha to take fire at the conjunction infect the soul with a participation of uncleannes though the operation be not physicall or immediate By Adams soul sinning was Adams flesh infected may not our soul be infected as well by our flesh A spirituall substance can produce a bodily effect Boëtius saith excellently Forms materiall came from forms immateriall Our will was moved by our intellect our appetite by our will and a bodily change conformable to our appetite And may not a bodily species work by the same degrees backward on the soul it self The reason is alike in the contrarietie Doth the corporeall fire of Hell torment and affect the incorporeall spirits of evill Angels and shall it of wicked men as most certainly it doth and must which shall be proved God willing otherwhere and may not the matter make some impression on the form the body upon the soul when there is such a sympathie in nature betwixt them If the soul do no way suffer from the body how doth it follow the
Israel Exod. 17.8 though they were presently punished by being vanquished in battell yet God said vers 14. Write this for a memoriall in a book I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek under heaven And the Lord did swear he would have warre with Amalek from generation to generation Exod. 7.16 And above foure generations after about 400 yeares Saul destroyed them A Quaere indeed may be made Whether God can justly punish the fathers for the childrens actuall delinquencies And this resolution is easie That he may do it if the father hath doted on the children not duely corrected them for so did God to * 1. Sam. 2.29 Eli or if wicked children do tenderly love their parents which though it be not usuall yet it hath been so and in this case the punishment of the father is indeed a punishment also of the childe But if an holy father do his duty and hate his sonnes courses and thereupon the childe loveth not his father if God can punish the father with temporall punishments for the notorious faults of his sonne yet he will not punish him eternally Nay I will go yet further and truely avouch that the sinnes of predecessours which are not of consanguinitie with us but are fathers onely by our imitation fully may be punished on their children First the word father is taken two wayes in Scripture for either there are fathers by imitation or fathers by nature from whose loyns we lineally descend The Jews though they came not of Cain whose posterity ended at the floud yet may be said to be his sonnes by imitation yea they are called the sonnes of Satan Joh. 8.44 because they followed his steps and did the work of their father vers 41. which is one degree more remote Those who thus take a pattern for themselves out of example of wicked ancestours God justly punisheth Satan having been a murderer from the beginning John 8.44 Cain being as it were the head of murderers among men and the Jews treading in their steps to an inch they may justly be cast into the same fire prepared for the devil and his angels Matth. 25.41 And the Apostle S. Jude justly pronounceth vers 11. Wo to them that have gone in the way of Cain Yea our blessed Saviour himself foretelleth the Jews that for their bloudy proceedings Vpon them shall come all the righteous bloud shed upon the earth from the bloud of the righteous Abel unto the bloud of Zacharias whom they slew c. Mat. 23.35 Where first the distinct deaths of severall martyrs or just ones as the Syriack hath it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one just bloud secondly they are said to slay Zacharias whom others slew thirdly the bloud is not said in the preterperfect tense to have been shed but in the present tense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is shed or is now a shedding as Jerusalem is called vers 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quae occidisti occîdis occisura es as Erasmus well expounds it All these circumstances concurre to make as it were one continued act of murder from the beginning of the world till the destruction of Jerusalem repayed with one and the same punishment upon the father and all the sonnes of imitation Now as the punishment of the fathers by imitation may in an extended sense be communicated to posterity so their sinnes cannot be said to be communicated For how can the sinne of Cain be communicated unto him who last of all killed his brother and unto the Jews who descended not from him but from the younger brother Or can we think that God will inflict damnation upon men for others personall transgressions Temporall chastisements he may justly inflict for the ungracious perpetrations of parents x Non est tibi Israel ultio in qua non sit uncia de iniquitate vituli There is no vengeance taken on thee Israel wherein there is not an ounce of the iniquitie of the calf saith Rabbi Moses Ben Nachman whom they call Ramban or Gerundensis See an excellent place for both points together Jerem. 32.18 19. And eternall torment can he rightly adjudge the soules and bodies of men unto for original sinne which is our second proposition 5. God may and justly doth punish some children eternally and all temporally for originall sinne whether they be like their parents in actuall aversion and back-sliding yea or no. For the most righteous sonnes of Adam endure pain labour sicknesse death which are the orts and effects of the primogeneall offence and the death both of soul and body was inflicted in Morte moriemini and this shall hereafter be fully proved 6. God justly inflicteth eternall punishment on wicked children if they resemble their wicked parents y Malorum imitatio facit ut non solùm sua sed etiam eorum quos imitati sunt merita sortiantur August in priori Enarrat Psal 108. The imitating of wicked men makes a man to be punished not onely for his own sinnes but for theirs also whom he imitates This is a truth so apparent that it needeth no further proof 7. God oftentimes punisheth one sinne with an other And in my opinion this manner of punishing if it continue all a mans life is worse then the torment of hell-fire which were better to be speedily undergone then to be deferred with the increase of sinne Psal 69.27 Adde punishment of iniquitie or Adde iniquitie unto their iniquitie Thus God gave the Gentiles over to a reprobate minde Rom. 1.28 and then such offenders do but treasure up wrath against the day of wrath Rom. 2.5 But this happeneth not for the foregoing offences of our progenitours but for our own transgressions 8. The personall holinesse of the parent never conveied grace or salvation to the sonne Abraham the father of the faithfull prayed for his sonne Gen. 17.18 Oh that Ishmael might live in thy sight yet was he a cast-away Temporall blessings indeed he had for Abrahams sake vers 20. Isaac had an Esau David an Absalom and often the like 9. God never punished eternally the reall iniquities of fathers upon their children if the children were holy Let an instance be given to the contrarie Indeed it is said Psal 109.14 Let the iniquitie of his fathers be remembred with the Lord and let not the sinne of his mother be done away But he speaketh first of a very wicked man equalling if not exceeding his parents in sinne And the New Testament applieth it to Judas Act. 1.20 to Judas the monster of men Secondly the remembrance mentioned hath reference rather to penalties consequent then onely to sinnes precedent z Memoratur quantum ad poenam quoniam puncti sunt filii pro iniquitate patrum qui occiderunt Christum It is remembred in regard of the punishment because the children were pricked for the iniquitie of their fathers who slew Christ saith Cajetan on the place And this is not our question Thirdly why may there not
be a change of number as Vatablus stileth it And though the Interlinearie bible readeth it patrum eorum and Vatablus so expounds it but reads it patrum ejus why may it not be expounded patris ejus being accordant to that following peccatum matris ejus and whether it be patrum eorum or patrum ejus or patris ejus I see not but originall sinne may be meant in both places as being expressed onely in the singular rather then the many actuall transgressions especially since our singular originall sinne came to him by many fathers and it was not the intent of Gods Spirit in this Psalme to extenuate the sinnes of the wicked one's forefathers and to plaister this over with the title of one single iniquitie Indeed Theodoret on the place saith thus a Paterna virtus saepe siliis peccantibus prosuit ut fides Abrahae Judaeis Davidis pietas Solomoni The fathers vertue hath often profited the transgressing children as Abrahams faith did the Jews and Davids pietie Solomon So Cesar at his pardoning of those in Marseil and in Athens who took part with Pompey in the civill warres said They were excused for their ancestours sake as contrarily b Pravitas pattum filiis similibus poenam adauget The wickednesse of parents increaseth the punishment of like children saith Theodoret. I answer That all this speaketh of temporal chastisements none of eternall horrour infligible upon good children for the sinnes of their parents When God saith I will visit the sinnes of the parents if it implyed the visiting them with like sinnes as it doth not yet it is of them that hated him also and by their personall hating him deserved to have one sinne punished with an other for the hatred of the sonnes is meant as annexed to the sinnes of the fathers This any one may see that will read Ezekiel 18.14 Lo if a wicked man beget a sonne that doth not like his father he shall not die for the iniquitie of his father he shall surely live vers 17. God hath no pleasure that the wicked should die vers 23. And hath he delight that the righteous shall perish eternally for his wicked ancestours The drift of the whole chapter is against it and proveth his wayes to be equall because a wicked man repenting shall not die for his own transgressions vers 25. c. And shall a righteous man die or be condemned for he meaneth the death of the soul for the offences of others Who ever perished being innocent Even as I have seen they that plow iniquitie and sow wickednesse reap the same Job 4.7 8. and God rewardeth every man according not to the works of his forefathers but according to his own works Rom. 2.6 Mat. 16.27 which seemeth to be taken from the Psalmograph who ascribeth to the Lord not injustice not severitie but grace and mercie in his judicature Vnto thee O Lord belongeth mercy for thou rewardest every man according to his work Psal 62.12 And Every one shall give account of himself Rom. 14.12 Every one shall receive the things done in his bodie according to that he hath done whether it be good or evil 2. Cor. 5.10 If this be not enough more may be added with an easie hand to the strengthening of this sixth Proposition now chiefly questioned God never damned a good childe for the fathers personall wickednesse I now come to the seventh Proposition 10. No personall sinnes can be communicated Indeed they who maintain the traduction of souls may if that be granted better defend the propagation of actuall iniquities But that opinion being false ridiculous exploded and hereticall of which otherwhere in this Tractate the superstructive is founded on slippery ice and these terms To propagate communicate derive transmit and transfuse sinnes personall are meerly amphibologicall and dubious phrases If they mean as the words do signifie let them say that the matter of sinne actuall is transfused or the form or both The matter is the action the form is the obliquitie thereof both these do vanish Doth the guilt of punishment passe over c Reatus est vinculum inter poenam peccatum quasi medium interjectum Guilt is a band joyning punishment sin as a thing coming between them And this band is rather in God then in man to tie or untie at his pleasure d Actus qui jam transiit dicitur manere quoad reatum non quia rectus sit aliquid sed quia à tali actu denominatur quis reus Reatus peccati non est aliqua res cùm non sit substantia vel accidens sed solùm maneat in occultis legibus Dei mentibus Angelorum An act that is past already is said to remain in regard of the guilt not that the guilt is any thing but because a man is denominated guiltie from such an act The guilt of sinne is not any thing since it is neither a substance nor an accident but onely remains in the secret laws of God and mindes of Angels as Holcot De Imputab pec truely gathereth from S. Augustine The guilt is not the personall sinne it self but the effect thereof and our question is not now of the descent of punishments Doth the guilt of sinne take hold of the childe they cannot say so unlesse here also they confound the effect with the cause and this is but Petitio principii in other terms Again how heterodoxall is it to say A man begetteth a sonne guiltie of all his actuall iniquities For then though the father may be saved by his after-repentance yet the sonne who knoweth not perchance nor ever heard inckling of his fathers horrid and secret sinnes according to their position may be damned for them Do they mean the stain and spot is communicated I answer The stain and spot is not the actuall sinne but the fruit of it inherent in the soul of the offender and not transmissible by the bodie and is onely metaphorically termed the stain having no positive realitie transmissible Zanchius himself relates their opinion thus e Peccatorum quae aliquis parens committit labem ceu contagium justo Dei judicio redundare in ejus corpus sanguinem per ejus porrò sanguinem semen in filios quos ex illo semine it à vitiosè affecto gignit transfundi That the spot and as it were contagion of the sinnes which any parent committeth doth redound by Gods just judgement upon his bodie and bloud and is further transfused by his bloud and seed into the sonnes whom he begets of that seed thus viciously affected I answer That justo Dei judicio is brought in tanquam Deus aliquis è machina to make things vast improbable seem likely passable but the vain impertinencie of these words is easily observable by any who knoweth that no manner of Gods judgements are any way unjust Secondly are not sinnes of omission personall sinnes and are they communicated
and involved in originall sinne which they either knew not or considered not Lastly when I had taken these pains to frame this chapter in defence of a point which I never held to be questioned it grieved me to heare my ingenious friend so much to defend the new Writers and to dance after the new pipe Candid and favourable expositions I shall love while I live and both use towards others and desire to be used towards me but violent forced farre-fetched interpretations as this hath been I can no way allow For since reformation hath been so sharp-sighted as to finde fault in all things to esteem the Schoolmen as dunses though they are thought dunses that so censure them to account the Fathers as silly old men or as children though they are but babes that admire them not to disregard Provinciall Councels yea Generall Councels as the acts of weak and sinfull men though they are the chiefest the highest earthly-living-breathing Judges of Scriptures controversed which cavils against former times I have heard belched forth by the brain-sick zealous ignorants of our times since we have hissed out the Papists and think they speak against their own consciences when they maintain the infallibilitie and inerrabilitie of the Pope May not Bucer and Martyr erre Must all new opinions needs be true and defended with might and main with wrested part-taking over-charitable defenses rather then a small errour shall be acknowledged If such milde dealing had been used against times precedent we could not have found as some now have done about two thousand errours of the Papists But thus much if not too much shall suffice concerning these men and this matter with this cloze That Zanchius himself in the place above cited saith thus against that new-fangled opinion t Neque enim aliud peccatum in posteros transfusum est quà m quod ipsius quoque fuit Adami fuit enim inobedientia cum privatione justitiae originalis totius naturae corruptione Deinde etiam non propter aliud peccatum nos sumus adjudicati morti quà m propter illud propter quod Adamus Ejusdem enim peccati stipendium fuit mors Illi autem fuit dictum Morte Morieris propter inobedientiam c. For no other sinne was transfused to posteritie then that which also was Adams for it was disobedience with a privation of originall justice and corruption of the whole nature Besides we are sentenced to death for no other sinne then for that for which Adam also was for death was the wages of the same sinne Now it was said to him THOU SHALT DIE THE DEATH for disobedience c. Now let them say if they can that Adam was sentenced to death for any sinne of predecessour or successour or any other sinne of himself but one onely I have maintained and do resolve Death was inflicted for his first sinne onely Therefore by Zanchius his true Divinitie against Bucer and Martyr and their peremptorie defenders Not all not many sinnes of all of many of any of our predecessours but the first sinne onely of Adam is transfused to posteritie nor are they guiltie or condemnable for any other preceding actuall sinne or sinnes of others whosoever O Father of consolation O God of mercies who knowest that every one of us have sinnes personall more then enow to condemne us lay not I beseech thee the sinnes of our fathers or fore-fathers or our own if it be thy holy will to our charge to punish us in this life present or our originall sinne in and by Adam or our own actuall misdeeds to trouble our consciences by despair or to damne us in the world to come but have mercy upon us have mercy upon us according to thy great mercy in Christ Jesus our alone Lord and Saviour Amen CHAP. VIII 1. Original sinne came not by the Law of Moses but was before it in the World 2. God hath good reason and justice to punish us for our original sinne in Adam Gods actions defended by the like actions of men 3. Husbands represent their wives The men of Israel represented the women Concerning the first-born of men and beasts The primogeniture and redemption of the first-born 4. The whole bodie is punished for the murder committed by one hand Corporations represent whole cities and towns and Parliaments the bodie of the Realm Their acts binde the whole Kingdome Battelling champions and duellists ingage posteritie 5. S. Peter represented the Apostles The Apostles represent sometimes the Bishops sometimes the whole Clergie The Ministers of the Convocation represent the whole Church of England The authoritie of Generall Councels National Synods must be obeyed 6. Private spirits censured Interpretation of Scripture not promiscuously permitted An Anabaptisticall woman displayed 7. An other woman reproved for her new-fangled book in print Scriptures not to be expounded by anagrams in Hebrew much lesse in English but with reverence How farre the people are to beleeve their Pastours 8. Saul represented an entire armie Joshua and the Princes binde the Kingdome of Israel for long time after 9. Christ represented us Christ and Adam like in some things in others unlike Christ did and doth more good for us then Adam did harm IT hath been plentifully evidenced that death entred into the world by sinne and that both Adam and we were sentenced to die for one sinne the first sinne onely of Adam onely and not for any other sinne or sinnes of him or any other our remote propinque or immediate parents and that death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression Rom. 5.14 I adde Death shall live fight and prevail though not reigne from Moses unto the end of the world For when this mortall shall have put on immortality then then and not till then shall be brought to passe the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory 1. Cor. 15.54 and the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death 1. Cor. 15.26 Aquine on Roman 5. lect 4. thus Because corporall death reigned from Adam by whom originall sinne came into the world unto Moses under whom the Law was given and death is the effect of sinne especially originall sinne it appeareth there was originall sinne in the world before the Law and lest we might say they died for actuall sinnes the Apostle saith Death reigned even over those who sinned not proprio actu as children So he 2. The things themselves then being unquestionable and before elucidated to the full That death is inflicted for originall sinne and that we all and every of us except Christ have contracted originall sinne it followeth justly by the judgement of God that death is appointed unto us for this sinne Tertullian lib. 1. contra Marcion a Homo damnatur in mortem ob unius arbusculi delibationem pereunt jam omnes quì nullum Paradisi cespitem nôrunt Man is condemned to death for tasting of a small
tree and now they all perish that never were acquainted with Paradise and let me adde They are most justly punished Neither let man cavill or cast aspersion of unrighteousnes upon God For though men be but of yesterday yea though the childe be born but this minute yet by reason of their originall sinne in Adam and with him they were justly sentenced in Adam unto death almost six thousand yeares ago For though God needeth no defence from the actions and behaviour of men yet from their usances and customes generally received from their right and equitie daily practised let us ascend to behold the blamelesse course in the like of the Almightie Do we finde a young snake viper or other venemous or hurtfull beasts birds or the egges of a cocatrice we destroy them not for the harm which they have done but for the kinde sake and for the spoil which they may do Do not prodigall great heirs waste and scatter abroad estates ensured to posteritie Do they not cut off intailes annihilate and void perpetuities draw inheritances drie in smoke and consume them wholly on gut or groin to the everlasting prejudice of their issues Did not the disobedience of Queen Vashti unto her husband do a wrong not to the King Ahasuerus onely but to all the princes and all the people Esther 1.16 and as being exemplarie was punished accordingly If the whordome of the High-priests daughter be a profanation of her father Levit. 21.9 and therefore she was to be burnt alive though other whores were put to milder deaths if an evil done to a brother striketh up to the abuse of the father as it doth for God rendered the wickednesse of Abimelech which he did unto his father in flaying his seventie brethren Judges 9.56 then why might not the wickednesse of a father descend in some sort upon the children in a storm of wrath and punishment 3. The husband representeth the wife what bargain he maketh she maketh they are one flesh The great commandment to keep the sabbath was given to sonne and daughter to servants and to strangers but not to the wife She was forbidden in her husband which the rest were not but dividedly so was Eve forbid in Adam not inhibited her self but in him who represented her The men of Israel represented the women and the women had good by the actions or passions of the men The females were redeemed in the males every male gave a ransome for his soul unto the Lord all and every one rich and poore alike even half a shekel and they gave this offering unto the Lord to make an atonement for their souls Exod. 30.15 Women were partakers of this benefit and in the mens atonement was the womans comprized Neither were the females presented to the Lord but the males the males onely and the women in them and by them but not in their own persons In Gods due claim to the beasts these three conditions were to be observed First that the beasts should be clean and so not swine not horses camels dromedaries elephants or the like but onely these three kindes sheep ruther-beasts and goats were the Lords unlesse you will make up the number foure with an asse which was to be redeemed with a lambe or his neck to be broken Exod. 13.13 For though it be said Exod. 13.2 Sanctifie unto me all the first-born whatsoever openeth the wombe among the children of Israel both of man and beast it is mine Yet you must not extend the words to dogs or cats or things unclean but onely to such clean beasts as God hath appointed for sacrifices Yea though it be said Numb 18.15 The firstling of unclean beasts thou shalt redeem You must know there is a double uncleannesse First that which is unclean throughout all its species as swine and horses and the like Secondly that which is unclean by accident and is contra-opposed to perfect and unblemished Levit. 22.22 23. as blinde or broken or maimed or having a wen or scurvie or scabbed or which hath any thing superfluous or lacking in his parts such beasts even of clean beasts as sheep goats c. the Lord counted unclean and claimed them not Those that were thus unclean by accident were to be redeemed and so that place of Numb is to be understood and not to be wire-drawn as if God did claim the unclean beasts to be his The second condition That those clean beasts should be first-born Thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the matrix and every firstling that cometh of a beast Exod. 13.12 Thirdly these clean first-born or sirstlings must not be the females though they first open the matrix but the males 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Septuagints have it Exod. 13.12 The males shall be the Lords Semblably in the case of mankinde women were not the Lords claim but the men onely and the women included in the men For though it be said in generall terms Exod. 13.13 All the first-born among thy children thou shalt redeem yet the women were not redeemed but in the men and the men onely were offered Luke 2.23 Every male that openeth the wombe shall be holy Openeth the wombe by extramission and ejection not by intromission and injection as the Hebrew phrase importeth the Greek is thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Omnis masculus primogenitus as Beza reads it Omne masculinum as the Vulgat hath it according to that Exod. 22.29 The first-born of thy sonnes thou shalt give unto me From whence let me inferre this conclusion That the first-born had his denomination from the mothers first birth or parturition as well as from the fathers first generation Exod. 11.5 From the first-born of Pharaoh to the first-born of the maid-servant that is behinde the mill The Septuagints stile the first-born not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with reference to the fathers act but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the mother and Christ is not called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from a carnall father for he had none or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 John 1.18 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 2.7 her first-born sonne Which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is ill interpreted by the old Bishops bibles Mat. 1.25 first-begotten and by the Genevean translation as ill rendered Luke 2.7 forsaking their good rendering of it Mat. 1.25 But our late translation in both places aptly hath it the first-born and not first-begotten Though Jacob saith Genes 49.3 Reuben thou art my first-born yet Leah might have said the same words as well for he was the first-born of both Yea I dare say if a man had more wives at once as Jacob had or successively as many others the first male childe of each of these women by the same man may justly be called his first-born and every one of these first-born children if they had lived under the Leviticall law had been consecrated to God And therefore Reuben having lost his birth-right the double
that is sought out and drawn into judgement and answereth as he ought to do truly without mentall reservation modestly and as befitteth him to answer unto his superiours if he receive no satisfaction in his conscience and his Judges doom him worthy to die what shall he now do Shall he be over-ruled by his superiours both spirituall and temporall doing as they do and thinking as they think shall he go against the dictates of his own conscience or shall he adventure his bloud and life What my self would do by Gods grace I will prescribe unto another First before I would sacrifice my life I would once more recollect my former thoughts for humblenesse and diligently consider whether the matters for which I am to suffer death be abstruse depths beyond my reach or capacity If they be very intricate I have cause to think that I am an unfit man to judge of things which I know not and cannot comprehend 2. Cor. 10 13 c. Secondly I would in this case before expense of bloud bring my intentions to the touchstone call to minde that good intentions alone cannot excuse me before God but good intentions well grounded and regulated S. Paul with good intentions persecuted the Church and was injurious but he did it ignorantly in unbelief 1. Tim. 1.13 where an ill belief though meaning well is counted unbelief In a good intention S. Peter would have disswaded our Saviour from death but he was called Satan for it Matth. 16.23 though Christ had blessed him before and promised him excellent gifts vers 17 c. I cannot think but they who offered their children unto Moloch did think they served God rightly though indeed they served the Devil yet God saith Levit. 20.3 I will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people The priests of Baal who cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancers till the bloud gushed out upon them 1. King 18.28 did they not follow the ill guide of a misled conscience did they not think they were in the right do not millions of Turks Jews and of Pagans go to the Devil though they perswade themselves they be in the onely true way do not many think that to be constancie which in truth is obstinacie and that to be knowledge which is ignorant self-love There is great resemblance and manifold likely hood between some truth and some errour and the mistake is easie and there is a great difference between opinion and sound belief Thirdly I would endeavour to think humbly of my self and as the Apostle adviseth to preferre others before me I would ruminate on that which the Apostle saith 1. Cor. 13.3 Though I give my bodie to be burned and have not charity it profiteth me nothing And shewing what he meaneth by charity addeth Charity suffereth long and is kinde charity envieth not charity is not rash or vaunteth not it self is not puffed up doth not behave it self unseemly So that he who behaveth himself unseemly who is puffed up who vaunteth himself or is rash who envieth and is unkinde and hasty hath not charity And though he give his bodie to be burned his death profiteth him nothing saith the Apostle Examine therefore and again I say examine thine own heart if thou finde any one of these sinnes beforenamed reigning in thee then know there is a spot in the sacrifice And till that be washed away rased out or reformed thou must suspect thy self and mayest well be dubious Self-conceit is a branch of pride pride never agreed with charity and no death profiteth a man any thing who hath not charity Oh but this enfeebleth the resolution of confessours and stoopeth down the constancy of martyrs to pendulousnesse it maketh them draw their hands back from the plough and to look backward to Sodom with lots wife No no my discourse intends onely to dull the edge of singularity to stop the mouths of pridie undertakers and ignorant praters to put a bridle into the teeth of such as revile Magistracie to reduce people to humblenesse and such thoughts as these If many may be deceived how much easier may I If the more learned be awrie how shall I be sure I am right They have souls to answer as well as I and charity bids me think they would not damn their own souls by damning mine have I alone a sound rectified conscience Self-deniall is a better schoolmaster to true knowledge then presumption An acceptable martyr is a reasonable sacrifice and an acceptable sacrifice is a reasonable martyr A conscience not founded on good causes not strengthened with understanding is like a fair house built on the sands a very apple of Sodom a painted sepulchre which appeares beautifull outward but is within full of dead mens bones and of all uncleannesse Matth. 23.27 My cautions are not remoraes of staying or withdrawing any man so farre as his knowledge can or doth aspire unto for so farre I allow them a judgement of discretion but necessary preparatives to the true perfect and glorious martyrdome He shall be no martyr in my estimate who without great motives runneth to death and posteth rashly to destruction But when pride with all her children singularity self-love vaunting rashnesse unseemly behaviour is cast out of the soul and the contrary graces the children of charitie possesse it then if thy conscience can no way be convicted if thou knowest thy cause to be good and the contrary to be apparently amisse follow not the multitude conform not thy self to the world keep thy conscience untainted poure out thy bloud unto death offer thy life and body as a reasonable sacrifice die and be a martyr be a martyr and be crowned crowned I say not onely with glory and immortality but with those gifts and aureolae which are prepared above others for true martyrs In this sort Whosoever shall confesse Christ before men him will Christ confesse also before his Father which is in heaven Matth. 10.32 The judgement of jurisdiction which is in superiours having authoritie and the judgement of direction which is in Pastours by way of eminency forbid not in this case the judgement of discretion which is and ought to be in every private man so farre as he hath discretion and knowledge or immediate inspirations of all which I would not have a man too presumptuous That which our Divines do term the judgement of discretion is in the words of z Contra Marcionem 4. post medium pag. 269. Tertullian Clavis Agnitionis He must never contrary this for this must he die What he knoweth let him as a good witnesse seal with his bloud if need be But in things beyond a simple mans capacitie I will say once more with a Serm. 20. de verbis Apostoli Augustine b Melior est fidelis ignorantia quà m temeraria scientia A faithfull ignorance is better then a rash knowledge In such things is he to be guided by his Pastours
together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Ephes 2.5 6. Our conversation is in heaven Philip. 3.20 From which positive proofs and doctrine that Christ stood in our stead and that almost all if not all his actions and passions as he was the Mediatour between God and man were representative of us let us descend to the comparative and shew that Christ hath done and will do more good unto us then Adam hath done harm Which point I have more enlarged in my Sermon at the re-admitting into our Church of a penitent Christian from Turcisme being one of the two intituled A return from Argier where these five reasons are enlarged First that Adam conveyed to us onely one sinne but Christ giveth diversities of grace and many vertues which Adam and his posterity should never have had as patience virginity repentance compassion fraternall correction martyrdom Secondly Adams sinne was the sinne of a meer man onely but the Sonne of God merited for us Thirdly by Adams offence we are likened to beasts by the grace of Christ our nature is exalted above all Angels Fourthly Adams disobedience could not infect Christ Christs merit cleansed Adam saving his soul and body Fifthly as by the first Adam goodnes was destroyed so by the second Adam greater goodnes is restored and all punishments yea all our own sinnes turned to our further good To which I will annex these things following By Adams sinne we were easily separated from God Satan the woman and an apple were the onely means But I am perswaded saith the Apostle Rom. 8.38 that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God Again Rom. 5.13 c. the Apostle seemeth to divide the whole of time in this world into three parts under three laws the law of Nature of Moses of Christ In the first section of time sinne was in the world Neverthelesse death reigned from Adam to Moses saith the Apostle In the law of Moses though death was in the world yet sinne chiefly reigned and the rather for the law Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimúsque negatum This the Apostle confirmeth often especially Rom. 7.8 Sinne taking occasion wrought in me all manner of concupiscence The third part of times division is in the dayes of grace under Christ and now not so much death not so much sinne as righteousnes and life do reigne or rather we in them by Christ and the power of both the other is diminished and shall be wholly demolished If Adam hurt all mankinde one way or other Christ hath helped all mankinde many wayes In this life he giveth many blessings unto the reprobate his sunne shineth on all his rain falleth both upon good and bad and I do not think that there ever was the man at least within the verge of the Church but had at some time or other such a portion of Gods favour and such sweet inspirations put into his heart that if he had not quenched by his naturall frowardnes the holy motions of the Spirit God would have added more grace even enough to have brought him to salvation For God is rich in mercy Ephes 2.4 The Father of mercies 2. Corinth 1.3 Thou lovest all things that are and abhorrest nothing that thou hast made for never wouldest thou have made any thing if thou hadst hated it Wisd 11.24 What thou dost abhorre or hate thou dost wish not to be what thou dost make thou dost desire it should be saith Holcot on the place In our Common-prayer-book toward the end of the Commination this is the acknowledgement of our Church O mercifull God which hast compassion of all men and hatest nothing that thou hast made which wouldest not the death of a sinner but that he should rather turn from sinne and be saved c. God is intituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amator animarum A lover of souls Wisd 11.26 Holcot on the place confirmeth it by Ezek. 18.4 All souls are mine saith God Men commonly love the bodies saith Holcot but God the souls b Amat Deus animas non singulariter sic quòd non corpora amet sed privilegialiter quia eas ad se in perpetuum fruendum praeparavit God loveth the souls not onely as if he did not love the bodies but principally because he hath fitted them for the eternall fruition of himself It is not the best applied distinction for whose soever souls shall enjoy God their bodies also shall and that immortally for ever If he had said that God had loved humane souls privilegialiter because man had nothing to do in their creation or preservation he had spoken more to the purpose Nor think I that God forsaketh any but such as forsake him but Froward thoughts separate from God Wisd 1.3 c. For into a malicious soul wisdome shall not enter nor dwell in the body that is subject unto sinne For the holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit and remove from thoughts that are without understanding Concerning the souls of infants dying without the ordinary antidotes to originall sinne baptisme and the pale of the Church though they may most justly be condemned yet who knoweth how easy their punishment may be at least comparatively as some imagine For that some drops of mercy may extraordinarily distill upon them they cannot deny who say That the rebellious spirits of actually sinfull men and Angels are punished citra condignum But to leave these speculations I dare boldly affirm that if there be any mitigation of torments in any of them it is not without reference to Christ Moreover the redeeming of man was of more power then the very creation for this was performed by a calm Fiat but the redemption was accomplished by the agony passion and death of the Sonne of God c Aug. in Joan. Tractatu 72. post medium Augustine on those words John 14.12 Greater works then these shall he do saith thus It is a greater work to make a wicked man just then to create heaven and earth Therefore much more doth Christs merit surmount the fault of Adam In the first Adam we onely had posse non peccare posse non mori A possibility of not sinning a possibility of not dying We should have been changed though we had not died posse bonum non deserere A possibility of not forsaking goodnesse and should by his integrity and our endeavours have attained at the utmost but bene agere beatificari To do well and be blessed By Christ we have not onely remission of sinnes and his righteousnes imputed but rich grace abundance of joy and royall gifts Not a more joyfull but a more powerfull grace saith d Non laetiorem sed potentiorem gratiam Aug. de Correp Gratia cap. 11. Augustine and we shall have non posse peccare non posse
h Sentent 3. Distinct 13. Artic. 2. Marsilius i In illud Psal 102. BENEDICITE DOMINO OMNIA OPERA BIUS Jacobus de Valentia k Lib de Regno Christi Melchior Flavius l Theosophiae 3.13 Arboreus And again the same Suarez pag. 65.8 m Christus Dominus meruit sanctis Angelis omnia dona gratiae exceptis iis quae ad remedium peccati pertinent meruit iis electionem praedestinationem vocationem auxilia omnia excitantia adjuvantia sufficientia efficacia denique omne meritum augmentum gratiae gloriae The Lord Christ hath merited for the holy Angels all gifts of grace except those which belong to the remedy of sinne He hath merited for them election predestination vocation all means exciting helping sufficient and effectuall Lastly all merit and increase of grace and glory As the precious ointment upon the head of Aaron ran down upon his beard and thence descended to the skirts of his garments Psal 133.2 so all vertue distilleth from Christ the Head upon every member of his Church Angelicall or Humane Triumphant or Militant neither have they ought but what they received and from him onely In brief we have exchanged and bartred our brasse for gold n Periissâ—mus nisi periassemus We had perished if we had not perished as Themistocles said of old o O felix culpa quae tantum talem meruit Redempterem O happy fault that hath obtained so great and excellent a Redeemer Christ hath done us more good then Adam did himself or us hurt If these my humble private speculations or rather relations of other mens opinions give not satisfaction I desire you to have recourse unto the Apostle who hath put the first and second Adam into the balances and behold the first Adam is found too light In which comparative being like in the genus and unlike in the species as Origen soundly and wittily observed First let us see the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things wherein they are like Rom. 5.12 As by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne the Apodosis is not expressed but thus to be conceived So by one man grace came into the world and life by grace See the same confirmed v. 19 20. Secondly As by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous The third thing wherein they were like is set down in the 18. verse of which hereafter Concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things wherein they differ they are set down in the 15 verse and so downward Not as the offence so also is the free gift For if through the offence of one many be dead much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many An other dissimilitude is in the 16 verse And not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift for the judgement was by one to condemnation but the free gift is of many offences unto justification And verse 17 If by one mans offence death reigned by one much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousnesse shall reigne in life by one Jesus Christ After this he returneth to the third point of their comparison the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things wherein they differ being involved in a Parenthesis which indeed may seem at the first sight more strange Therefore as by the offence of one judgement came upon all men to condemnation even so by the righteousnes of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life vers 18. But the true meaning is this according to the way of S. Augustine As none cometh to death but by Adam and none to Adam but by death so none cometh to life but by Christ nor to Christ but by life Thus the free gift came on al as the offence came on all As when we say All entred into the house by one doore it is not intended or included that all that ever were farre or nigh came thither into the house but that no man entred into the house save by the doore So though the Apostle saith Omnes in the application he meaneth not that all and every one are justified but that all that are justified are not otherwise justified then by Christ and this is S. Augustines exposition against Julian the Pelagian 6.12 As if he had said Christ is the Α and Ω the beginning means and end There is none other name by which we must be saved Acts 4.12 He perfecteth them for ever who are sanctified Hebr. 10.14 And they are Christs and Christ is Gods 1. Cor. 3.23 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is my love delight said Ignatius And I professe I desire not heaven or the blessednes of heaven without him as I undeserving ill-deserving poore I hope to reigne in life by him onely who giveth spirituall birth life and increase till he bring us unto blessednesse even all them who are saved even the universality of the chosen in Christ The limitation of the word Omnis is frequent in Scriptures not comprehending generally or universally every one in all and all with every one but being put for a great number for many Luke 6.26 Wo unto you when all men shall speak well of you where All must not be tentered and stretched to its utmost extent for all and every did never do never and never shall speak well of them So Acts 22.15 Thou shalt be witnesse unto all men saith Ananias to S. Paul which was not accomplished if All have no restraint Again Titus 2.11 The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men and yet there were then and now are many who never saw or knew that salutiferous or saving grace So here you are to reduce the word Omnes to omnes sui All that are in Christ saith the Glosse Again why may not All be aswell taken for Many in this our 18 vers as Many is taken for All in the 19 verse where it is said By one mans disobedience many were made sinners when all and every one that descended ordinarily and naturally from Adam sinned in him and by him as is expressed verse 12. and proved before Genes 17.4 Thou shalt be a father of many nations which is repeated word for word Rom. 4.17 and is thus varied Genes 22.18 In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed and this is confirmed Galat. 3.8 where Many and All differ not in sense and substance By Omnes homines All men you may understand Humanum genus Mankinde and because all mankinde must be distinguished into two sorts goats and sheep and considered according to two estates fallen and repaired and their different receptacles the two cities the one the city of God the other of the Devil in the first member the word All must be interpreted generally without
Varro Dionysius and Festus Afterwards A duce Tarpeio mons est cognomen adeptus saith Propertius lib. 4. ante medium and was called Mons Tarpeius from Tarpeia a traiterous maid there killed and as it were buried under the spoils See Plinie lib. 19.1 Propertius there intimateth that she expected marriage with Tatius and specializeth his reply in disdain Nube ait regni scande cubile mei Dixit ingestis comitum superobruit armis Haec virgo officiis dos erat apta tuis Whilst she both wife and Queen did look to be He smothered her with armour thrown upon her And said Virgin this dowrie fitteth thee Being for thy ill offices the meetest honour But Livie confessing that by their armour she was smothered reporteth two different relations First that she compounding with them to have what they wore on their left arms which were according to the present fashion bracelets of pure gold they thought their promise quitted by throwing to her and on her their targets Others secondly say she demanded their principall armour of defence and thereupon suspecting that her intent was to deceive they payed her in her own kinde and by them killed her Thirdly upon this accident it received its surname of Mons Capitolinus Ludovicus Vives on Augustine de Civit. 4.10 citeth Dionysius saying that it was called CAPITOLINUS Ab humano capite in fundamentis reperto From a mans head found in the foundation of it Livius towards the end of his first book saith That in the foundation of the temple there appeared a mans head and his whole face sound and uncorrupt Arnobius contra Gentes lib. 6. almost in the beginning instructeth us at large whose head this was and from the ancient authorities of Sammonicus Granius Valerianus and Fabius declareth to the Romanes themselves as well as to the other Gentiles That there was one Tolus slain by his brothers servant that his head was cut off and carefully hid for good lucks sake that his grave or sepulchre was the Capitol that the composition of the name made the thing to be known and that the citie of Rome being to dedicate and name the temple was not ashamed to call it ex Toli capite CAPITOLIUM rather then after Jupiters own name And perhaps upon a relation of the head found on mount Calvarie Adrian might cause Jerusalem to be called not onely Aelia-Adria but also Capitolina with reference to their hill and the head there buried also O Righteous Saviour which didst shed thy most precious bloud on the Crosse to purifie thy Church let one drop of thy bloud distill upon my soul that it may be presented blamelesse at the Throne of Grace and avoid the second death which without thee is due unto me Grant this I humbly beseech thee for thine own Merit and Mercy Amen CHAP. VI. 1. Hierom saith Adam was not buried on mount Calvarie Both Hierom Andrichomius and Zimenes say he was buried in Hebron Hierom censured for doubling in this point by Bellarmine 2. Hieroms arguments answered 3. The Original defended against Hierom in Josh 14.15 ADAM there is not a proper name but an appellative Arba is there a proper name of a man Adrichomius erreth in Kiriath-Arbee and the words signifie not Civitas quatuor virorum The citie of foure men New expositions of Kiriath-Arbee 4. It may signifie as well Civitas quatuor rerum The citie of foure things as Quatuor hominum Of foure men The memorable monuments about Hebron 5. It may be interpreted Civitas quadrata quadrilatera quadrimembris quadricollis A citie fouresquare of foure sides of foure parts of foure hills 6. If Kiriath-Arba doth signifie the citie of foure men yet they might be other men besides the foure Patriarchs 7. If it had its denomination from foure Patriarchs and from their buriall there yet Adam is none of them 8. Augustine peremptory for Adams buriall in Calvarie and Paula and Eustochium or rather Hierom. 9. An other objection answered The Jews never shewed extraordinary honour to Adam or Noah but to Abraham and others after him Drusius preferreth the reading used by our late Translation Hos 6.7 before the Genevean and Tremellian 1. ON the other side and for the contrary opinion the same Hierom on Matth. 27.33 saith Calvaria signifieth not the sepulchre of the first man Adam but the place of those that were beheaded Secondly Adam was buried by Hebron and Arbee saith Hierom. Thirdly the accurate Adrichomius in verbo HEBRON pag. 49. saith Hebron or Chebron was first called Arbee and Mambre and Cariath-Arbee the citie of foure men because the foure Patriarchs Adam Abraham Isaac and Jacob there dwelt and were buried Franciscus Zimenes Archbishop of Toledo and many others accord with him S. Hierom led them all the way though awry Hierom in lib. de locis Hebraicis on the word ARBOCH thus a Corruptè in nostris codicibus Arboch scribitur cùm in Hebraeo legatur Arbee id est quatuor â—ò quòd ibi quatuor Patriarchae Abraham Isaac Jacob sepulti sunt Adam magnus ut in Jesu libro scriptum est licèt eum quidam conditum in loco Calvariae suspicentur It is corruptly written in our copies ARBOCH since in the Hebrew it is read ARBEE that is Foure because there the foure Patriarchs Abraham Isaac and Jacob were buried and the great Adam as it is written in the book of Joshua though some suppose Adam to be buried in Calvarie The same Adrichomius pag. 46. describeth a double cave in the tribe of Judah which cave with the ground and trees Abraham bought of the sonnes of Heth in which were buried Adam and Eve Abraham and Sarah Isaac and Rebecca Jacob and Leah which Mausoleum continued till the time of S. Hierom. Now this place was close by Hebron and Hebron and this sepulchre farre from mount Calvarie 250 stadia or there-abouts Lastly saith Hierom If any will strive that Christ was crucified in Calvarie that his bloud might distill on the tombe of Adam I will ask him why others even theeves were there crucified The force of these authorities or reasons is not such as to remove me from the common opinion that Adam was buried in Golgotha And thus I answer the Objections in order Bellarmine de Amissione gratiae statu peccati 3.12 bringeth Hierom against Hierom and wondreth at his doubling and he refuteth Hieroms arguments and produceth many strange proofs that Adam was buried in mount Calvarie But I descend to the particulars 2. The first is a mistaken imputation of S. Hierom. For who saith or ever said that the word Calvaria signified the sepulchre of the first man Neither can any man primarily argue from the names of Golgotha or Calvaria and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Calvariae locus The place of a skull that Adam was there buried nor yet doth Calvaria signifie locum decollatorum though Hierom would have it so But since Calvaria 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly and natively
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
things but if he turned it to the back side of his hand he was as conspicuous as an other man So Cicero in the third book of his offices out of Plato 4. The same Maldonat presseth us sore with an other argument What should they do here living again in mortall bodies who had a taste of Gods glory surely they had been in worse condition then if they never had been raised out of the bosome of Abraham where they were quiet to come to a turbulent life again Because this Maldonat is an importunate snarler at our religion I give him this bone to gnaw upon and for my first answer I will call to minde the prodigious Legend which divers eminent men of their own side have recorded of one Christina called by them by way of eminency e Mirabilis Wonderfull To omit what Surius and others relate I will speak in the words of Dionysius the Carthusian f Cùm defuncta esset in pueritia ducta erat in paradisum ad Thronum Majestatis Divina Domino congraiulante ineffabiliter gavisa est Dixitque Dominus Revera hac charissima filia est Christina died young and was carried into paradise to the throne of the Divine majesty and she was ineffably glad God congratulating with her And the Lord said Truly this is my deerest daughter And then he telleth That God gave her choice either to stay with him or to return unto her bodie and by penitentiall works to satisfie for all the souls in purgatorie and to edifie those who lived and to return to God b Cum meritorum augmentis with increase of her merits She answered the Lord presently that for that cause she would return to her bodie And so she did and because sinnefull men by their stench did too much afflict her O tender-nosed virgin she did flie or the Papists did lie and sit on the top-boughes of trees pinacles or turrets since noisome smells ascend it had been her farre better course to have crept into some dennes and caverns of the earth or vaults and tombes as he said she did sometimes and when her neighbours or kindred thought her mad and kept her from meat she prayed once to God and milk came out of her breasts was not she an intemerate rare virgin and so she refreshed herself This and a great deal more hath that Carthusian holy and learned above many of their side de quatuor novissimis part 3. Artic. 16. Let censorious and maledicent Maldonat ponder these things well and it will stop his mouth for ever from barking at the belief of us whom they style Hugonets Calvinists Hereticks though none of us think or say otherwise then the good Pacianus did of old in his first epistle to Sempronius CHRISTIAN is my name and CATHOLICK is my surname The Turks indeed have some strange figments of this nature but though the Mahumetan priests have devised and feigned many superstitious miracles concerning their great Saintesse Nafissa as is confessed by Joannes Leo in his African historie lib. 8. yet the Papists have surmounted both this and other their impostures with this their mirabilarie Christina Secondly concerning these Many raised I answer unto Maldonat They continued not long in this life but as I guesse shortly after Christs ascension laid their bodies down to sleep again in the earth Thirdly what thinks Maldonat of Lazarus Was not his soul in Abrahams bosome as well as the other poore Lazarus his soul who was so tenderly beloved of Christ and his Apostles and yet he lived long after and whatsoever can be objected against these Saints holds stronger against Lazarus Fourthly I denie that they by their return into the flesh were in worse condition Lorinus on Acts 9.41 saith c Non affert molestiam ut Deo vocanti mortuus obtemperet reviviscendo It is no trouble to a man if being dead he obey Gods call and live again And Salmeron saith No reason but holy men at Gods command may put on and put off their own bodies as well and as contentedly as the Angels do their assumed bodies which I do the rather beleeve because I do say with Tostatus on the 2. King 4. Quaest 56 Though it cannot be certainly proved yet it is probable That none of those that ever were raised did perish everlastingly nor that any reprobate had the favour of an extraordinary resurrection for a separated soul that hath been partaker of these unspeakable joyes will esteem worse then dung or salt that hath lost its savour all the pleasures and profits of this life though their severall excellencies were distilled into one quintessence of perfection So that as Lorinus saith well in the place above cited Whosoever hath once escaped the perill of damnation he shall not come into the same danger again 5. The last objection that I have met withall is this That to die the second time is no favour but a punishment and a punishment iterated I answer If a righteous man should die thrice or oftner death is no punishment unto him yea to passe seven times through hell to come once and everlastingly to heaven a despairing soul would hold to be a cheap blessednesse Secondly Suarez himself saith It is no punishment to die the second time no more then it was to Moses to die twice as saith Augustine de Mirabilib Scripturae 3.10 though others dissent from Augustine Nay saith Suarez To lay down their bodies the second time is more acceptable and pleasing to God To this doth Peter Martyr agree in 1. King 4.22 If by mans hurt or losse God be glorified it is no injurie to man But in truth it is no hurt or losse to man for saith Barradius Perchance without any pains they might redeliver their carcases to the earth And if the pains be any the pains both of the latter and former death may be so tempered and diminished that they both shall not exceed the pains of one death saith Peter Martyr ibid. Which learned Peter Martyr out of S. Augustine de Mirabilib Scripturae 3. ult hath an excellent observation or two First That to every man is setled and appointed a prefixed time of death Secondly That before the last prefixed time some do die that they that raise them up to life may be more famous and God more glorified And this is proved by the very phrase which Christ used concerning Lazarus John 11.4 This sicknesse is not unto death Yet did he die and besides the time intercedent between his death and his buriall he was foure dayes buried But his sicknesse was not d Ad mortem plenam in qua Lazarus maneret to an intire death in which estate he should remain Neither is that so properly called death e Quando praeoccupat ultimum terminum when it is abortive and cometh before its time So Luke 8.52 She is not dead but sleepeth and yet verse 55. her spirit came again Therefore it was gone and she was
pec 4.15 The decree is performed if all the posterity of Adam be obnoxious to death Or as S. Augustine answered the Pelagians concerning those which shall be alive at Christs coming x Satìs est illos fuisse morti destinatos 〈◊〉 quae subsecuta esset si seculum processisset Quòd eximantur à morte erit casus neque privilegium paucorum universali causae derogat It sufficeth that they were appointed to die and die they should if the world had endured By casualty they are freed from death nor doth the dispensation with some particular ones infringe the universall cause as I vouched in the second book And as S. Augustine goeth on when they have lived a life full of miserie and calamitie who can say they have not tasted death especially since thirst hunger cold heat infirmities crosses sicknesses are nothing else but a daily dying In which regard the wise woman of Tekoa in her subtile oration saith not We shall all and every one die but 2. Sam. 14.14 We die MORIENDO MORIMUR so runneth the Hebrew and are as water spilt on the ground when immediately both before and after she had spoken of outward crosses y Etiam dum crescimus vita decrescit Even whilest we are growing our life decreaseth saith Seneca Which S. Augustine in libro Soliloq cap. 2. thus enlargeth z Vita mea quantò magìs crescit tantò magìs decrescit quantò magìs procedit tantò magìs ad mortem accedit My life in going forward groweth backward and by how much it advanceth forward by so much it maketh a nearer approach to death As the fire it self consumes its fuell and is nourished by the consumption of it so mans age is fed and nourished by the consumption of his life and of the age he liveth in Man at the same time begins to live and die for LIFE is but the way tending to DEATH a Nascendo morimur imò longè ante nativitatem morimur In our birth we die yea long before it From the instant of the souls infusion we begin to die Lastly I say in that Christ died for all Although some be extraordinarily dispensed withall every one may be said to die Christ by the grace of God tasted death for every man Hebr. 2.9 Thus much shall serve for the first part of the answer O Blessed Saviour who art life in thy self and the fountain of life unto others Grant I humbly beseech thee that when I shall passe from this present world from this dying life or living death I may evermore live by Thee in Thee and with Thee Amen Amen CHAP. II. 1. The third question resumed Whether every one must die The second part of the answer unto it That some have been excepted as Enoch and Elias The controversie hath been exquisitely handled by King James and Bishop Andrews 2. Bellarmines third demonstration that Antichrist is not yet come propounded The place of Malachi 4.5 expounded by Bishop Andrews and enlarged by my additions The Papists objection answered 3. The place of Ecclesiasticus 48.10 concerning Elias examined 4. Another place of Ecclesiasticus 44.16 concerning Enoch handled at large against Bellarmine Enoch was never any notorious sinner in some mens opinions Others otherwise Their arguments for both opinions are onely probable and answered My opinion and it confirmed Some think E. noch died Strange and various opinions concerning S. John the Evangelist his living death and miraculous grave More miracles or else mistakings in the Temples of Christs Sepulchre and of his Assumption about Jerusalem S. John did die Enoch did not die but is living Mine own opinion of the place Genes 5.24 Et non ipse and it confirmed A comparison between Enochs Elijahs and Christs ascension The posture and circumstances of Christs ascending 5. Bellarmine and others say Paradise is now extant In the earth or in the aire saith Lapide the Jesuit The old translation censured The heaven into which Enoch and Elias were carried was not Aërium nor Coeleste but Supercoeleste The earthly Paradise is not extant as it was Salianus with others say truly The materiall remaineth not the formal Superest quoad Essentiam non quoad Ornatum The Place is not removed but the Pleasure and Amenitie Salianus his grosse errour That Enoch and Elias are kept by Angels within the bounds of old Paradise on earth 6. Enoch shall never die as is proved from Hebr. 11.5 Three evasions in answer to that place confuted Melchizedech and strange things of him The East-Indian language hath great affinitie with the Hebrew An errour of moment in Guilielmus Postellus Barentonius Elias was not burnt by that fire which rapted him Soul and bodie concur to make a man saith Augustine from the great Marcus Varro Vives taxed Moses at the transsiguration appeared in his own bodie An idle conceit of Bellarmine concerning Moses his face and good observations of Origen upon that point It is probable that Elias was changed at his rapture and had then a glorified bodie An humane soul may possibly be in a mortall bodie in the third heaven Corah Dathan and Abiram are in their bodies in hell properly so called and alive in the hell of the damned Ribera and Viegas confuted Our Doctour Raynolds was not in the right in this matter Some kinde of proofs That Enoch and Elias are in glorified bodies in heaven The place of Revel 11.7 concerning the two Witnesses winnowed by Bishop Andrews Enoch and Elias are not those two witnesses THe main third question being Whether all men and every one must of necessitie die the first part of the answer was That there was no absolute necessitie but there might be an exception The second part of the answer touched at was this That some have been excepted who never did die nor shall die If I be further demanded Who they be I will onely insist in Enoch and Elias The controversie concerning which two men is so exquisitely handled by the most learned Monarch our late Soveraigne King James in his monitory Preface and by his Second the reverend Bishop Andrews in his answer to Bellarmine his Apologie cap. 11. that the most scrupulous inquisitour may be satisfied After I have selected some matters of moment from that unanswerable Prelate I will take leave to glean after the gathering of their of their full sheaves and to discover a few clusters after their plentifull vintage and to bring to your taste some remarkable passages concerning Enoch and Elias which perhaps they thought fit to omit as affecting brevitie or tying themselves most strictly to the question whilest the nature of my Miscellanies give me licence to travel farre and neare 2. Bellarmine Tom. 1 de Romano Pontifice 3.6 makes it his third Demonstration as he calleth it that Antichrist is not yet come Because Enoch and Elias are not come who yet do live and must oppose Antichrist Bellarmines first place is from Malach. 4.5 and sixth
the Apocryphals bend me to think that Enoch was sometimes a great sinner for he was an example of repentance unto posteritie therefore in likelihood his sinne was exemplarie and his repentance proportioned in a sort unto it When Christ said John 13.15 I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you the precedent actions demonstrate that he shewed great humilitie and brotherly love to which he exhorted them When S. James saith chap. 5.10 Take the Prophets for an example of suffering affliction and of patience it may be justly inferred that they suffered great affliction and were very patient So when Ecclesiasticus saith Enoch was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the same word that is used in both the former places an example of repentance the resultance is fair Enoch was a very great penitent otherwise he was unfit to be an example unto others since exemplarie men and actions have alwayes somewhat above ordinary in their kinde and are so excellent therein that they are seldome or never out-gone by any that follow them As the picture though taken to life as they call it cometh short of the lively bodie and artificials of naturals so doth the exempla tum the duplicate or counterpain of the exemplar the pattern or originall We attain not to that perfection which S. Paul had though he commanded us to follow his example nor he to the intire perfection of Christ whom S. Paul set before himself as the example to imitate Let no man nicely insist that exemplum and exemplar do differ I professe that I weigh not matters to scruples or half-scruples but though I know some take exemplar for the man from whom the example was taken yet I use the words promiscuously Enoch was an example of repentance therefore he was sometimes a great sinner since as there needeth no repentance where is no sinne so he is Stoically mad who thinketh that there needeth as great repentance for small sinnes as for great Degrees of sinnes ought to have proportionable degrees of repentance The sacrifices were more chargeable for hainous crimes then for little offences Indeed one may charitably think that Enoch was no chief delinquent but did as tender consciences will repent much even for smaller sinnes and an inference may be thus made If Enoch so much repented for a few motes for sinnes not unto death how fit is he to be an example of repentance to us who have sinned a thousand times worse and have beams upon beams in our eyes and repent a thousand times lesse But I rather think according to the use of the phrase in other places that his being an example of repentance proveth both primarily that he was a chief penitent and secondarily that there was some proportion between his repentance and his sinne Which I rather embrace because of another place viz. Wisd 4.10 He pleased God and was beloved of him so that living among sinners he was translated and vers 11. Yea speedily was he taken away least that wickednesse should alter his understanding or deceit beguile his soul and ver 13. He being made perfect consummated or sanctified in a short time fulfilled a long time My first observation is this That these verses are meant of Enoch since the Apostle seemeth to have alluded to the place Heb. 11.5 which I marvell that the learned Holcot and Lyra did not so much as once touch at but apply the words with violence to the generalitie though the narration be in the passed time not in the present much lesse in the future With mine opinion Drusius agreeth expounding the words of Enoch and the margin of Vatablus and of the old Bishops bibles and of Coverdales and of our last Translations do designe and as it were with the finger point at the storie of Enoch The second point is in confesso cleare and evident That Enoch was assumed whilest he was in an holy estate The third That he was sometimes wicked as may be intimated from these passages First That he lived among sinners which all men els did as well as Enoch unlesse the place be meant of notorious sinners and though an Abraham may be in Ur a Lot in Sodom yet even both of them in those places contracted some corruption They who walk in the sunne are somewhat sunne-burnt Noscitur ex socio qui non cognoscitur ex se Who by himself is hardly known Is known by his companion David cried Wo is me that I sojourn in Mesech and that I dwell in the tents of Kedar Psal 120.5 The Prophet justly complaineth That he dwelt among a people of polluted lips Isai 6.5 If one scabbed sheep infect a whole flock an unsound flock may infect one good sheep Sinne is like a gangrene a leprosie and the plague of a spreading and infectious nature A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump 1. Cor. 5.6 Christ himself could not do the good which he would have done where the peoples unbelief was exceeding Matth. 13.58 but he went otherwhere Mark 6.6 There are as well popular sinnes as epidemicall diseases and holy ones have been tainted in both kindes Secondly It is not said He went out from among the wicked he separated himself or fled from their sight or companie which had been fitting in such dangerous places but God translated him it was Gods act not his Thirdly saith the Text He was speedily taken away presuppose as Lot was by the Angel pulled out of Sodom by the hand Genes 19.16 or Habakkuk by the hair of the head or as the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip Act. 8.39 Fourthly This was done Lest that wickednesse should alter his understanding or deceit beguile his soul m Voluntas hominis deambulatoria est usque ad mortem c. The will of man hath a power to be changed even till death his understanding unsetled and easily to be deluded with apparances the souls of men in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 theater of temptations stand upon the ice consist in lubrico in ancipiti in slipperie and doubtfull places they who stand may fall who have fallen may recover He was taken away speedily to the intent he might not sinne which the all-seeing eye needed not to have done if he could not have lost his station and in likelihood would not have done but that Enoch before that time had both turned and returned was both bad and good which in the last place the thirteenth verse seemeth to confirm as if his holinesse had continued but a short time but yet was so intense and so consummate and perfect even almost ad perfectionem graduum to the highest perfection in this life that in a short time he fulfilled a long time n Justus erat Enoch at mente levis ut facilè redire potuerit ad vitam improbam ideo properabat Deus eum tollere Enoch was just but apt to return to wickednesse therefore God hastened to translate him saith Rabbi
Solomo Procopius Gazaeus Sophista in his Commentarie on the place thus o Si tum demum postquam genuit Methusalem placuit Deo Enoch certè antequam gigneret ut Scriptura docet non gratus acceptus erat Deo Quòd igitur amore complexus est eum Deus poenitentiae quam egit imputari debet If then at last Enoch pleased God after he had begot Methusalem certainly before he begat him as the Scripture saith God did not like him nor accept of him Therefore it is to be ascribed to Enochs repentance which he performed that God made so much of him and loved him Though Salianus saith of this testimonie that p Nescio quomodo animus aversatur his minde was against it yet there is no impossibilitie no nor improbabilitie in it and howsoever it be not apodicticall yet it is not inepta foolish as Salianus censureth it He addeth Perhaps Philo the Jew was of that opinion for in his book de Abrahamo speaking of repentance c. he bringeth Enoch in as an example And it seemeth saith he that he followed Jesus the sonne of Sirach in the words cited viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ecclefiastic 44.16 And though he slubbereth over the words and matter which are to him Canonicall and saith that The minde of the Scripture in that place is that Enoch shall be an exemplarie penitent not as David and Manasses Peter or Mary Magdalene but as John Baptist yet I answer First no Ancient ever said John Baptist was an example of repentance and did repent of any enormous sinnes but was alwayes holy and most austere preventing great sinnes rather then repenting and not so much bemoaning his own offences as dehorting other men and crying out against their iniquities with a charge almost inforcing them to repentance whilest himself shewed a signe of his being sanctified and illuminated even in his mothers wombe Secondly there is as much joy over a repentant and God is as much glorified for point of mercie in a Marie Magdalene or a Peter as in a Baptist or just man that needeth no repentance if not more Procopius Gazaeus who imagined the worst of Enochs former part of life till he begot Methuselah yet speaketh very good things before of Enoch thus God rested on the seventh day when he had made the world q Et nunc ille idem Deus generatione septimâ accipit ceu symbolum consummationis seculi Enochum ut primitias rationalis creaturae c. and now the same God in the seventh generation of the world assumeth as a signe of the ending of an age I say assumed Enoch as the first fruits of the reasonable creature He was out of Gods favour for a while but when he pleased God he was extraordinarily assumed Thus in effect Procopius which the Jesuit had not much cause to finde fault withall Let this suffice for the first question Whether Enoch were at any time a very wicked man The second question is Whether Enoch did ever die Divers Rabbins maintain that he did die So Rabbi Solomon on the fifth of Genesis Aben Ezra saith His death was sweet and he felt no pain which opinion the Jesuit Cornelius à Lapide ascribeth also to Calvin whether truely or falsely I enquire not but the matter giveth me the hint of an excursion Moses said from God Genes 6.3 Mans dayes shall be an hundred and twentie yeares and Moses himself died when he was 120 yeares old Deut. 34.7 David said The dayes of our yeares are threescore yeares and ten Psal 90.10 and he himself who prayed to God to teach him to number his dayes died the same yeare being the first lesser climactericall yeare after that great one of nine times seven that dangerous threescore and third yeare for He was thirtie yeares old when he began to reigne and he reigned fourty yeares 2. Sam. 5.4 Both these were most certain Prophets of their own deaths and perhaps had more especiall reference to their own times designing those yeares out in the more generall which were more appropriate to their own persons in particular Let me adde two heathen examples by way of imperfect parallels That most exquisite work of nature her glory pride and master-piece Julius Cesar preferred a swift and sudden death in his choice before any other kinde Suetonius in vita Julii Caesaris in fine thus of him r Quondam cùm apud Xenophontem legisset Cyrum ultimâ valetudine mandâsse quaedam de funere suo aspernatus tam lentum mortis genus subitam sibi celerémque optavit mortem pridie quà m occideretur in sermone nato super coenam apud M. Lepidum Quisnam esset vitae sinis commodissimus repentinum inopinatúmque praetulerat When Julius Cesar had sometime read in Xenophon that Cyrus in his last sicknesse ordered some things concerning his funerals he hating so lingring a death wished that himself might have a sudden and quick end Again the day before he was slain as he was at supper with Marcus Lepidus a question arising Which death was most commodious and to be wished for Cesar preferred a sudden unlooked for and unthought of end And sutable to his choice and desire in that respect did a sudden and unlooked for end befall him Likewise that wonder of Fortune that darling of terrene happinesse Augustus the successour unto the Dictatour ſ Fere quoties audîsset citò nullo cruciatu defunctum quempiam sibi suis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 similem precabatur Almost as often as he had heard saith Suetonius in Augusto in fine that any one had died speedily without long pain or great torment he would pray that the like easie departure might befall himself and his friends And saith he t Sortitus est exitum similem qualem semper optaverat c. He died according as he alwayes desired parting as in a complement with his most familiar friends u Et repentè in osculis Liviae defecit and gave up the ghost amidst the kisses of Livia This storie hath brought my Miscellanie home to that point which the Rabbin said of Enoch That he died without pain The New Testament also is thought to afford us such an other example x De Joanne Evangelista dicitur quòd dolorem in moriendo non sensit It is said of John the Evangelist that he died without any pain saith Holcot on Wisd 2.5 and by that instance saith concerning those who rose about Christs resurrection y Non sequitur quòd si iterum moriehantur moriebantur cum poena vel sentirent etiam poenam It followeth not that if they died again they had or felt any painfull death But because of the strange opinions which are held concerning S. John the Apostle let me enlarge my discourse a little concerning him Melchior Canus Locor Theolog. 7.2 saith We may hold or deny z Salvâ fide without prejudice to our belief either that he
marginali 2. thus Sixtie eight yeares from Christs death S. John died at Ephesus as Hierom hath it de Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis in Joanne And Polycrates a most ancient Divine writing to Victor then Bishop of Rome as Eusebius hath it 1.25 saith of S. John h Ephesi obdormivit He died at Ephesus Tertullian i Obiit Joannes quem in adventu Domini remansurum frustra fuerat spes in lib. de Anima cap. 5◠S. John died of whom some conceived a vain hope that he should live till Christ came again Eusebius 3.33 saith There were two Johns in Asia John the Apostle and John the Disciple and both their sepulchres were at Ephesus Chrysostom Homil. 26. in Epistolam ad Hebraeos saith The sepulchre of S. John is manifest as of other Apostles therefore he speaketh of S. John the Apostle But k Non nisi mortuorum solent esse sepulchra Sepulchres belong properly to them who are dead as Baronius well inferreth So much obiter concerning some unusuall passages about S. John occasioned by Holcots testimonie of the strange relation of his painlesse death but this I shall by Gods grace handle much more plentifully in my succeeding books wherein against Cardan and his Indian apples the procurers of death without any pain as he saith I shall I say under the tuition of the Almighty prove that the separation of the soul from the bodie is painfull that all death is bitter in one degree or other And now I return to our Enoch whom the Jewish Rabbin feigneth to have been dead without any pain against whom and all other Jewishly-affected I hope to demonstrate that Enoch did not die but is now living Heb. 11.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Enoch was translated that he should not see death Ad non videndam mortem saith Montanus Nè videret mortem saith the Vulgat The end why he was translated was that he might not die and the reason is annexed why he did not die for God translated him Shall God intend to keep Enoch from death and did he yet die shall God be frustrated of his end shall things come to passe contrary to his will where is then his Omnipotencie It holds firmly God translated Enoch that he should not see death therefore he died not but liveth as yet A second argument though not so sharp-pointed is this Of the other Patriarchs it is said They died so it is recorded of Adam Mortuus est Genes 5.5 of Seth vers 8. of Enos vers 11. of Cainan vers 14. of Mehalaleel vers 17. of Jared Enochs father vers 20. of Methuselah Enochs sonne vers 27. of Lamech Enochs grandchilde vers 31. even of the whole holy Genealogie from Adam to Noah of every one it is said Mortuus est He dyed except onely when mention is made of Enoch and then it is not said He dyed but it is remarkably varied thus vers 24 Et non ipse which our later translation hath And he was not which words you must not take in too strict a sense for if he had died yet had he had a being but consisting of soul and bodie we may truly say He was How then shall we interpret Et non ipse I named you the Rabbin who expounds it He died not with pain as other men but died sweetly Others thus He was not on earth after the same manner as he was before This is true and well strengthened Ecclesiasticus 49.14 Vpon earth was no man created like Enoch for he was taken from the earth DE TERRA SVBLIMIS ASSVMPTVS EST He was lifted up on high from the earth saith Vatablus This is also certain that from the divers expressions used concerning Enoch and of others in the same Chapter that were not translated but died there is more signified of Enoch then of others and in that speciall unusuall phrase some speciall unusuall thing is involved concerning Enoch But no speciall unusall thing is spoken if it be onely meant of him as it is of others that he died Therefore certainly Enoch died not I will not recount more diversitie of opinions In all humblenesse I will present before you mine own conjecture First I say that there is an hiatus in the Hebrew and somewhat to be understood The Spirit would leave some things doubtfull and put us to the search Secondly a supply must be made one way or other if we will fix any sense on the place Thirdly I would have wary and probable supplements not of imagination and aire onely Scaliger Exercitat 81. Parag. 2. saith thus e In tabulis Mosis fractis dimidiati Samech pars altera erat in extrema ora tabulae altera in aere videbatur In the tables which Moses brake one halfe of the letter Samech was in the utmost brink of the table the other part of it was seen in the aire Or els Scaliger told an untruth say I give me fair likelihood and not the vastnes of a phansie Fourthly I say the words Et non ipse may commodiously be thus interpreted He was not found If any one ask where I finde ground for this Commentarie I answer first it is in the seventy Genes 5.24 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non apparuit saith the Interpreter in Vatablus or as himself commenteth Nusquam comparuit but it is better rendred Non est inventus He was not found And so it is rendred Hebr. 11.5 where S. Paul hath taken the same words letter for letter from the seventie whose authoritie by themselves considered I esteem somewhat above the ordinary humane and made them divine By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death And was not found because God had translated him Concerning Enoch these things I do further observe with some of the Fathers with Aquin and Cornelius à Lapide That he was a type of Christ so also was Elias and both their raptures or translations were figures of Christs ascension Again Hebr. 11.5 Enoch before his translation had this testimonie that he pleased God He did not onely please God but it was published and proclaimed and as it were letters testimoniall from heaven or a divine certificate was made that he pleased God And therefore I hold it very probable that as Elijahs assumption was known before-hand to the sonnes of the Prophets that were at Beth-el 2. Kings 2.3 and to the sonnes of the Prophets that were at Jericho vers 5. as well as to Elishah himself so was the translation of Enoch also known to those of his time unto whom God testified that Enoch pleased him And it is conformable also to the Antitype because Christ before told his Disciples concerning his departure John 14.28 c. John 16.5 c. and vers 16 c. and more punctually concerning his ascension John 20.17 I am not yet ascended to my Father but go to my brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father and to my God and your God
a tempestuous winde did he make him to ascend including an intimation that in a whirlwinde they were both rapted If the Scripture had used the very words in describing the nature of Elias I should the sooner have liked the conceit but the Rabbinicall speculations conclude not therefore I will Lastly it is improbable but divers of the Disciples or Apostles who saw Christs ascending might and would have sought and looked for him but that they were in a sort dehorted by two Angels who told them That Christ was taken from them into heaven Act. 1.11 and therefore it was vain to seek him any longer on the earth And most certain it is that when the sonnes of the Prophets saw Elijah snatcht up and Elishah parting Jordan with Elijahs mantle they said unto Elishah There be with thy servants fiftie sonnes of strength let them go we pray thee and seek thy master 2. Kings 2.16 and accordingly they sent fiftie men and they sought three dayes but found him not vers 17. Semblably we may well imagine that some also did seek for Enoch after he was translated yea it approacheth nearer to belief then to imagination upon this fair resultance He was not found say the Septuagint He was not found saith the Apostle therefore he was sought after therefore he was searched for TV NON INVENTA REPERTAES I have found thee whom I could not finde when I sought thee saith the old Poet but it is harsh to say TV NON QVAESITA REPERTA ES Thou art found and wast never lookt after Finding implieth precedent search or going after most ordinarily but Not being found necessarily implieth a former inquirie Elias was not found by Ahab therefore Ahab sought for him Enoch was not found therefore they made enquirie after him So much be spoken in defence of my Comment upon the words Et non ipse which I have supplied from the Septuagint and most especially from the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he was not found And with it is also ended and terminated the second Quaere by me propounded Whether Enoch did ever die with its Answer That Enoch died not either a sweet death or a sowre an easie death or a painfull 5. The third Question followeth Whether Enoch and Elias now live in and with their bodies in Paradise Bellarmine is for the affirmative That Paradise is now extant and Enoch and Elias live in it More particularly concerning Elias Rabbi David in his Comment on 2. Kings 2. reports it as the common opinion of the Jews That Elias went with his bodie into Paradise and there liveth in the same estate that our Parents did before the fall Others have taken upon them to describe and circumscribe exactly the place of Paradise in an Island now called Eden not farre from Babylon as certain Nestorians of the Greek Church have fabled I say fabled because millions of learned men both Heathen Jews and Christians have seen Babylon and lived in it and round about it who never had such a thought or belief or tradition so farre as may be gathered by any ancient extant records Of which Paradise whosoever desireth to see more at large let him have recourse to my learned friend M. John Salkeld in his Treatise of Paradise I will onely adde somewhat which he omitteth Salianus the great Annalist from the creation of the first Adam to the death of the second Adam or rather to his resurrection and ascension Ad annum mundi 987 saith Cyprian Ambrose Hierom Tertullian Gregorie Epiphanius and Hippolytus acknowledging the translation of Enoch and Elias are silent concerning the place of their being Augustine leaves it as doubtfull and disputable Chrysostom and Theodoret like not the enquirie Rupert saith The Scripture is silent neither are the words of Paradise or Eden in the place of Ecclesiasticus 44.16 in the Greek text but onely in the Vulgat So farre Salianus But indeed first me thinks that the old Translatour should have been constant to himself and adding somewhat to the words of Ecclesiasticus 44.16 should not have added In Paradisum as he doth without any shadow of ground from any other place but In coelum because it is so written 1. Macc. 2.58 Elias was taken up into heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In coelum receptus est as the Vulgat it self hath it Secondly the Jesuit Salianus is somewhat too favourable in that point for S. Ambrose in lib. de Paradiso cap. 13. saith expressesly Enoch was r Raptus in coelum caught up into heaven and S. Hierom on Amos 9. saith Enoch and Elias were carried into heaven Bellarmine and other Papists distinguishing COELVM into AERIVM COELESTE ET SVPERCOELESTE Aëriall heavenly and supercelestiall say Enoch was carried into the aëriall heaven I must confesse that the region of the aire that Expansum the aëriall orb is sometimes called Heaven The Lord thundred from heaven 2. Sam. 22.14 God gave us rain from heaven Act. 14.17 and birds are called the fowls of the heaven Psal 104.12 The Lord cast down great hailstones from heaven Josh 10.11 and they were more which died with hailstones then they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword These hailstones came from the middle region of the aire I confesse also that Enoch was carried up into the aëriall heaven but with this distinction He was taken into it as his way not as the end of his journey not as his habitation or resting place The case of Enoch and Elias is so like so one in this puncto that you are not to marvell if sometimes I use the name of one sometimes of the other what is said of one is meant of both f Qui unum rectè nôrit ambos noverit Who knoweth one is not ignorant of the other Chrysostom in his oration of Elias is expresse that he resteth not in the aire and bringeth in Satan as wondring at Elias his riding through and above the clouds neither is his reason to be contemned Elias is not there where the devil is Prince and what should he do among lightning and thunder hail snow storm and tempest This is the portion of the wicked to drink If you flee to the miraculous omnipotent hand of God why may not I say the like concerning Gods extraordinary clothing him with immortalitie and that by dispensation unusuall in the act of translating him God did not let him continue on the earth or in the aire but assuming him into the highest heaven did glorifie his bodie For concerning coelum coeleste Bellarmine will not say that he resteth there nor did ever any afford patrocinie to that conceit Indeed Seneca De consolatione sheweth that the Stoicks thought that the souls of men departed hovered about their bodies and in the end were carried up t Ad ipsos orbes astrâ—s ornatos to the starry heaven And Cicero De somno Scipionis placeth that heroïcal soul among the starres Besides that the conceit is heathenish it
flcut sua eisque propter seipsos hoc velit quod sibi They say that an happy life is a sociable life which loveth the welfarre of friends as it doth its own good and wisheth as well to others as to it self Ludovicus Vives on the place saith They were the Stoicks who said so but I rather guesse they were the Peripateticks and Aristotle their cheif Chaunter Which blessed life the heathen meaned not of eternall blessednes after the resurrection but of a blessed naturall life in this world and on this earth such an one cannot Enoch and Elias have though they were in Paradise because they have no more companie of their kinde Enoch more especially had lesse happines by this argument if he be supposed to be in the earthly Paradise because he was long by himself ere Elias came to him by the space I say of above two thousand yeares To the further illustration of the former point I may truly say If Adam and Eve had lived in Paradise by themselves alone without any other companie at any other time I should not much have envied or wished that felicitie yea though he had not fallen whereby he became Radix Apostatica in the phrase of Augustine Yea such a blessednes there is in communication of happines that the all-blessed onely-blessed ever-blessed Deitie of the Vnitie would not be without the conjoyned happines of the Trinitie The singlenes of Nature would not be without the pluralitie of Persons Thirdly do they see those men and women and their actions who now live in the bounds of old Eden whilest themselves in their bodies are invisible Fourthly here is a multiplying of miracles daily that Angels shall keep them yet so that they cannot be seen From Enochs assumption which is now above 4000 yeares since have Angels kept him that he hath not been once seen Besides no one place of Scripture Canonicall saith they are in Paradise and it is so farre from a favour as it is rather a durance and captivitie if they be kept from all other parts of the world within the bounds of old Paradise since many places are now more delightfull then the place or places whereabouts Salianus himself now holdeth Paradise to be situated Moreover Elijah was taken up into heaven Suppose that to gratifie Bellarmine we grant Coelum aerium is there meant yet must he needs be taken up from the earth and so not abide on earth in the circuit of old Paradise as Salianus foolishly conceiveth Likewise Ecclesiasticus 49.14 Enoch was taken from the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Vatablus hath it and rendreth it De terra sublimis assumptus est He was taken up on high from the earth the Vulgat hath it Receptus est à terraâ— Eâ—terra had been more pithie When the Apostle saith He was translated Heb. 11.5 was he left on the same earth on which he was before Or after he was in heaven did he come again on the earth It was an excellent and true observation of our learned Whitaker That Bellarmine sometimes confuting his fellows answers confuteth farre better answers then himself bringeth And I will be bold to say of Salianus though he doth justly deride them who make Paradise in the aire as Cornelius à Lapide and Bellarmine or in the orb of the Moon as others Yet his crotchet is as foolish as any of theirs For in what part of Paradise were they kept when the floud was or was not all the earth overflown The Angels then kept them in the aire or else by an other miracle kept the water from over-flowing that place That the Angels kept people from entring into Paradise I have read that they kept any from going out of it and kept them in it I have not read k Nemiui conspicul esse possunt None can see them saith Salianus They may say I by the same divine power by which they are invisible if invisible they be Can they be seen by none How was Elias seen by our Saviour and his three Disciples at the Transfiguration Or were all they within Paradise or was Elias out of the bounds of the old Paradise when Christ was transfigured on the mount But these and greater inconveniences must these men run into who will maintain against Scripture that Enoch and Elias are in earthly or aeriall Paradise that they may uphold an other crotchet worse then this namely That Enoch and Elias shall hereafter die and be slain by Antichrist and are not l In coelo supercoelesti in the highest heaven which is the last question 6. Let us speak of them severally then joyntly Concernning Enoch the first of them who were rapti it seemeth to me that the Apostles words Heb. 11.5 not onely do reach home to that point unto which before I applyed them viz. That Enoch died not but evince also that he shall never die For it is not said Enoch was translated that he should not die for a good while but he was translated that he should not or might not see death Therefore he cannot he shall not die hereafter since the holy Ghost hath expressed and signed out the end of his translation Nè videret mortem That he should not see death Some may answer to that place of the Apostle first that he speaketh of THE DEATH OF SINNERS as if he had meant with the book of * Wisd 4.11 Wisdome to say NE MALITIA MVTARET INGENIVM EJVS LEST HE SHOVLD BE CHANGED TO THE WORSE for sinners are called DEAD MEN according to that saying l Improbi dum vivunt mortui sunt WICKED MEN EVEN WHILE THEY LIVE ARE DEAD So farre Drusius To whom let me adde that Christ saith Luke 9.60 Let the dead bury their dead And 1. Timoth. 5.6 She that liveth in pleasure is dead whilest she liveth And to the Angel of the Church of Sardis the Spirit saith Revel 3.1 Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead In all which places wicked men are taken for the dead yet in the place of the Apostle it cannot be so for he was speaking of the true lives and deaths of Gods Saints And if the literall sense can be admitted we must not flee to the mysterie but here is no inconvenience in the letter Moreover the same God who mercifully placed him in the state of Grace could as easily have kept him so without inflicting death on him Lastly the Apostle said Hebr. 11.4 Abel is dead and then descending to Noah and Abraham at the 13. verse These all died in faith I hope no man will say the word died is here taken for sinned but it is taken literally that their souls were parted from their bodies So the words That he should not see death prove that Enochs soul was not parted from his bodie Indeed he is one of them that are mentioned between Abel and Abraham but yet singled out by expresse words That he was translated lest he should or might see
〈◊〉 is taken Ezechiel 24.16 t Ecce ego aufero 〈◊〉 te desiderium oculorum tuorum Behold I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes Salmanticensis Judaeus in lib. Johasin 98.2 saith u Mortuus est Rabbi Emmi quia rapuit eum mors Rabbi Emmi died for death snatched him away And so it is in the Latine phrases Rapio and Aufero what in the Hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quis Deus Octavi te nobis abstulit te Raptum Romanam flebimus historiam What God Octavius Took the away from us We will bemoan the death of thee And of our Romane historie So farre Drusius in the preface to his book called Henoch But this is no good exposition since God took away by death all the rest of the Patriarchs as well as Enoch and yet it is most singularly spoken of Enoch He was not found for God took him By death saith the shallow Jew but our divine Apostle saith He was translated that he might not see death What Christian or rationall man will doubt but we are to incline to the Apostle Again the third answer brought by Drusius against his own opinion as himself professeth to prove that VIDERE MORTEM To see death doth not signifie to die a naturall death where there is a true separation of the soul from the bodie and that NON VIDERE MORTEM Not to see death on the contrary doth not signifie To be kept alive from death which I with Drusius do say was the true intent of the Apostle draweth to this head Enoch saw not death that is died not because the holy Scriptures where they make mention of his rapture mention not his death I answer If all were true yet it followeth not that Enoch is dead or shall die which is the point questioned Moreover if Enoch were dead or to die the wisdome of the Divine Inspirer would never have singled out such a phrase among so many other thousand as should leade men to think the clean contrary He was translated that he should not see death For there resteth the period If it had been meant he should die it would have been added He should not see death for a long time or He should not see death till toward the end of the world or the like But He was translated that he should not see death Therefore he shall never see death Suarez in tertiam partem summae quaest 59. artic 6. sect 1. saith directly S. Paul meaned that Enoch should not die in that place into which he was translated True But why should he die in any other place or indeed why should he die at all who above other men was rapted purposely That he might not see death Surely the deferring of death for a time is not so great a favour The exempting one wholly from death is a blessing above ordinary Again it is said of Enoch Genes 5.23 All his dayes were 365. where dayes are taken for yeares as otherwhere in Scripture But these are not all his dayes if either he remove from one place of the earth into an other which Salianus fondly imagined or live now in a mortall corruptible bodie It is said of our blessed Saviour Hebr. 5.7 He poured out prayers in the dayes of his flesh that is whilest he lived on earth the life of nature in an elementary terrene humane passive bodie And of some other Patriarchs All the dayes of them were such and such Genes 5.17 20 c. that is all the dayes while they breathed on the earth the breath of life in mortall bodies Therefore even from the very phrase concerning Enoch All his dayes were 365. we may inferre He lived not in a mortall bodie any longer on the earth He liveth not now any where in a mortall bodie Somewhat must I say also of Elias severally Rabbi Solomon on the 5 of Genes saith When Elijah was hurried up in a fiery chariot his bodie was burnt up of that fire and Other Jews agree with him saith x De Romano Pontifice 3 6. Bellarmine For my part I say I will not embrace an unlikelihood though it runne toward my opinion I think the cloke might have been burnt as well as his bodie and Elishah could not have escaped scorching when the fire parted them Again the ashes might have fallen as well as his mantle And the Jew would account it no great favour to be burnt alive That fire certainly was rather conservative then destructive not penal and consuming as the fire from heaven drawn down by Elias 2. Kings 1.12 not punitive and conserving as the fire of hell Everlasting Matth. 25.41 Vnquenchable Mark 9.43 but like the fierie furnace in which the three children sang Daniel 3.25 or the fire in the bush Exod. 3.3 harmlesse yea gracious or the fire at the consummation of the world which one calleth Ignem rationalem The phrase then 2. Kings 2.11 importeth no lesse Elijah went up by a whirlwinde into heaven Elijah All Elijah Whole Elijah Soul and bodie His soul had no need of a whirlwinde Elijah went up It is varied 1. Maccab. 2.58 He was taken up into heaven His rapture excluded not his willingnes his willingnes had been insufficient without his rapture his ascension being grounded on assumption the power being Gods not his or his passively and Gods actively If it be true what Bellarmine avoucheth That some other Jews agree with Rabbi Solomon in this that Elijah was burned Yet I am sure y Bibliotheâ—â— Sanctae lib. 2. pag. 65. Sixtus Senensis citeth the opinion of other Jews to the contrarie For they said that the length of time from the beginning of man till the end of the world hath been and shall be measured by the severall lives of seven men and that there was never houre from mans creation to the generall resurrection but some one of these seven men did or shall live in it Adam lived to see Methuselah Methuselah was alive in Sems time Sem died not till Jacob was born Jacob lived till Amram Moses his father was born Amram expired not till Ahijah the Shilonite lived Ahijah lived with Elijah Elijah shall live till the end of the world Therefore they thought Elijah was not burnt is not dead But first the Papists themselves say that Elijah shall be slain by Antichrist before the end of world Therefore this maketh not for them Secondly the Jews might have tucked up the time shorter on this fashion Adam lived in the dayes of Enoch and Enoch to the end of the world And so their number of seven might be reduced unto two But let us leave these Rabbinicall speculations concerning Elijah and say somewhat of him not as he was in a Paradise of phansie but as he was with our blessed Saviour on the mount at that glorious transfiguration And this I set down for certain No passage in the Gospels proveth demonstratively that his bodie was immortall It is true it is said of
wicked in that 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 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 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 arise but we shall not all be changed justly exploded as adverse to sense 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 1. THe third main question being Whether Adam and his children all and every one of them without priviledge or exception must and shall die I have first answered and proved that there may be an exception of some who shall not die Secondly I have instanced in Enoch and Elias That they have been excepted and that they shall not die I am now come to the third branch of my answer That others also hereafter shall be excepted In the avouchment of this truth consisteth the labour till the end of this Chapter And first of all it must needs be acknowledged That all and every one of those who might have been or have been or shall be excepted may yet be said in a sort to die a Loco mortis erit momentanea commutatio The change which shall be in the twinkling of an eye shall be in the room and stead of death saith Aretius b In illis qui repentè immutantur immutatio illa erit species mortis The immutation of them who shall be suddenly changed shall be a kinde of death saith Beza Bosquier in his Terror Orbis maketh rapture to be a kinde of death we may more safely and properly call that sudden change by the name of death For in this it shall be like death That it shall take away from our bodies all corruptibilitie and mortalitie together with the defects now annexed to them and because it altereth if not abolisheth the former state or nature it shall go for a kinde of death But because this change doth not separate the soul from the bodie doth not dissolve the compositum we are bold to say It is not a true proper reall death The Papists will not be content with this immutation but urge a perfect naturall death a very disjunct separation of the soul from the bodie Aquinas goeth further and will have an incineration of the bodies from which dust and ashes incorruptible bodies shall arise But this is confuted by the Apostle 1. Thess 4.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Nos viventes relicti simul cum illis rapiemur in nubibus in occursum Domini in aera We who remain alive shall be hurried together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the aire as Montanus hath it The Vulgat differeth but in word not in sense d Qui vivimus qui relinquimur c. We which are alive and remain shall be caught up That the Apostle speaketh not this of himself and of his own person is confessed Occumenius citeth Methodius his opinion thus and addeth his reason For S. Paul was not alive corporally to that time But it cometh more home if we say as well we may that the blessed Apostle S. Paul knew that himself was none of them who were to endure alive on earth till the day of the generall judgement because he saith 2. Tim. 4.6 I am now readie to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand Yea 2. Thess 2.2 he exhorteth the same Thessalonians That though seducers should pretend his message or his letter yet they should not beleeve that Christs day was at hand His own time was at hand but Christs day was not The English translation jumpeth verbally in the contradiction At hand and Not at hand The Originall varieth but a little and that not in sense nor in the Verb it self but the Preposition and Montanus hath the word Instat by way of exposition in both places e Sed suam personam verbi gratiâ profert But he instanceth in his own person saith Methodius That he speaketh it onely of the godly is also apparent by the context for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we the remainder sheweth that a few shall be left at that time and if he had spoken of the wicked perhaps he would not have put in himself and other holy ones he would not have said Rapiemur We shall be taken up but Rapientur They shall be taken up Again when he saith Rapiemur cum illis We shall be taken up with them who are meant in those words save they onely who sleep in Jesus and whom God will bring with him 1. Thess 4.14 which are not the wicked but the godly onely They are the Saints with whom the Lord cometh Jude ver 14. The Rhemists themselves confesse that the Apostle speaketh of all the faithfull then living when Christ cometh to the last judgement Diodorus as it is in Hierom saith The Apostle f Apostolus Nos dixit pro eo quod justos de quorum ego sum numero said WE that is they who are just out of whose number I am not excluded A powerfull reason may confirm this because the wicked will wish mountains to cover them will quake and tremble at that houre and would not be willing to come to judgement if they could avoid it Therefore it is not likely that they would spring forth and put themselves forward to meet the Lord. The summe is The godly which shall be then left and be alive shall be taken up into the aire The Papists say this is not to be done g Sine media morte without intercurrent or intercedent death whereas the words are expresse We living and remaining shall be snatched up The argument of Gregorie de Valentia hath pith in it For he saith If the live men do die h Sequitur justos aliquantò pòst resurrecturos quà m alios fiquidem morientur atque adeò resurgent it followeth that the just shall arise somewhat after
justly suspected saith the worthy Estius the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being so easily turned into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the addition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a little dash And he findeth just fault with Acacius in Hierom for saying it was so read in most Greek copies when as certainly it was read so but in verie few copies whereof there is scarce one now extant and not many proofs that ever there were many copies of that extant Neither indeed doth the reading stand with sense For the Apostle solemnly premizeth Behold I shew you a mysterie and then subjoyneth immediately according to this new-fangled mis-writing We shall all therefore sleep or die Is this a mysterie that all shall sleep or all die Doth he promise mountains and bring forth a molehill Every Heathen knows that we shall die every Christian Turk and Jew that we shall be raised again But when God justly for sinne sentenced man to death with a morte morieris That some sinfull men should be excepted is a mysterie deserving such a watchword as Behold Behold I shew you a mysterie we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed Secondly from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I thus argue That death if such a death there be any which is so speedily begun by separation of the soul from the bodie and ended as I may so say by the swift and momentanie reuniting of the same soul to the same bodie cannot handsomely be called a sleep Doth he sleep who in the twinkling of an eye is changed from mortalitie to immortalitie yea from being alive is made dead and from being dead is made alive and that incorruptibly Was ever sleep confined to an instant till now or may one be said to sleep in the midst of these great works It is not so much as Analogicall sleep The greatest sleepers have more then an instant ere they can begin to sleep Sleep creepeth or falleth on men by degrees heavinesse and dulnesse usher it and the spirits have a time to retire to their forts and cittadels the senses are not locked up nor do they deposite the use of their faculties in a moment And may that be called properly rest or sleep which resteth not above an instant and is as quick as thought Rest and sleep do couch upon the bed of time likewise it is as much as possibly can be done if so much can be done to awake one in an instant The Scripture useth the phrase of sleeping towards them who rest as it were in death in the earth in the grave Our friend Lazarus sleepeth saith Christ John 11.11 when indeed he was buried Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake Dan. 12.2 Let one place of holy Writ be produced where one and the same instant beginneth sleep and endeth awaking and then I may say there may be some shadow for that reading But here is no pause no rest no quiet therefore no sleep therefore the word sleep in this place is applied to such as died before and not to such as are alive and shall die as the second lection implieth Thirdly it wanteth force to say in the whole conjoyned sentence We shall therefore all sleep or die but we shall all be changed If the Apostle had intended any such thing he would not have used the adversative particle But but the implicative word And We shall all therefore sleep AND we shall all be changed This had been sense if thus it had been but not being so we may the more confidently shake off the second lection of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as abhorrent from reason and cleave to the first of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Omnes quidem non dormiemus c. All we shall not die but all we shall be changed And so from the varietie of Greek copies I come to the Vulgat the Translation in Latine Omnes quidem resurgemus sed non omnes immutabimur Truely we shall all of us arise but we shall not all of us be changed First I say this differeth from all Greek copies whereas if it had been according to any sort of them it might have swayed us much that way Secondly the same argument toucht at before may also give a side-blow to this translation The Apostle raiseth up their considerations by promising to tell them a mysterie But it was no mysterie to tell them that they should all be raised when he had told it so pithily so divinely and so often beat upon it before by so many kindes of arguments as he did Thirdly where the Vulgat saith Non omnes immutabimur it is not true for Omnes immutabimur We shall all be changed from mortalitie to immortalitie from naturall bodies to spirituall If you say We shall not be all changed to glorie I say so with you I adde That is no mysterie all know that Therefore the Apostle speaketh not of a change to glorie eternall in the heavens whereunto some onely shall be changed but he speaketh of a change from mortalitie to immortalitie from corruptible bodies to incorruptible which even the wickedest men shall have And perhaps he meaneth that this generall immutation shall be made sine media morte without intercurrent or intercedent death even in the wicked that shall be then alive yet in the change you must alwaies make this diversitie The wicked shall be singled out to shame to losse to punishment eternall with their raised or changed bodies for even in their raising also there is a change from corruption to incorruption but in the change of the godly there is glorious incorruption joyfull immortalitie pleasurable eternitie The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth a change of a thing from place to place as when we take a piece of wood from the earth and cast it into the water Thus the wicked shall be hurried from their graves to the judgement seat and shall be placed on the left hand of our Saviour and after sentence shall be haled and cast from earth into hell On the other side the righteous in their change shall be mounted up from their graves or from the earth into the aire to meet Christ and shall be at his right hand and after sentence be carried or ascend up into heaven in most glorious manner to live with Christ eternally Fourthly if we reade it with the Vulgat We shall all arise but we shall not all be changed we must also immediately annex the words In a moment in the twinkling of an eie at the last trump for there is the pause and stay to be made there is the full sentence The Vulgat hath done very ill to make the stay and full point at immutabimur for then the words following bear no construction at all if they be considered by themselves In a moment in the twinkling of an eie at the last trump For then cometh in new matter For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be
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
compared Book 1. p. 13 14 15. The Ascension of Christ represented in the assumption of Enoch and Elias Book 3. p. 191 to 195. B BEauty desired Book 1. pag. 19. The Being or not Being of a thing may be said divers wayes Book 2. p. 77. Bristoll built of old by Brennus ibid. p. 23 24. C WHence the Capitol in Rome had its name B. 2. pag. 18. Ceremonies Leviticall died at first by degrees and now they are not onely dead but deadly Book 1. p. 3. There is no Chance where Providence reigneth Book 2. p. 71 72. Cherubims with reall flaming swords were placed in Paradise Book 1. p. 2 3. and why ibid. p. 23. Christs beautie in his humanitie described together with his Passion B. 1. p. 18 19 20. compare ibid. p. 193. Christ doth us more good then Adam did us harm ibid. p. 185 to 188. Christ saved more in number then Adam condemned ibid. p. 188 189. c. Whether Christ were in Adam and how ibid. p. 82 83. The judgement of the essentiall Church of Christ is infallible ibid. p. 148. Circumcision of women by the Turks ibid. p. 144. A wicked Companion is very dangerous Book 3. p. 184 185. Conception what it is and how B. 1. p. 93 to 99. Confirmation in grace is of two sorts ibid. p. 48. Generall Councels are the highest earthly Judges of Scriptures controversed ibid. p. 136 148. D DEath is threefold Book 1. p. 4. Death is common to all ibid. Death Naturall and Violent ibid. p. 17. Sinne is the onely cause of Death ibid. p. 26 27. Death is bitter because painfull ibid. pag. 28 31. Death is sweet to some men because God makes it beneficiall unto them ibid. pag. 32 33 c. Death was inflicted on Adam for one sinne ibid. Death was inflicted for the sinne of the man Adam not of the woman Eve ibid. pag. 36 to 44. Speedy death by some is accounted best Book 3. pag. 187. Whether all Adams posteritie without priviledge or exception must and shall die Book 3. Chap. 1 2 3 throughout The difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Book 1. pag. 192 193 c. Disciples of Christ were none of them Noble at least not Nobly bred Book 2. pag. 86. E OF the East-Indians and their language Book 3. p. 204. Of Elias and Enoch whether they be yet living or dead Book 3. Chap. 2. throughout Divers questions about Enoch more especially ibid. p. 181 182 c. Equivocation in what sense and in what cases it may be allowable Book 1. pag. 165 167. The second book of Esdras was never held Canonicall ibid. p. 7. Eve remained an intemerate virgin untill after the sinne of Adam ib. p. 39 40. Whether Eve sinned before she talked with the serpent ibid. pag. 60. Excommunication was of three sorts in the Jewish politie Book 2. pag. 48 49. F THe word Father is diversly taken in the holy Scripture Book 1. pag. 120. and Book 2. pag. 113 c. G GEnealogies were ever drawn from the Males Book 1. page 40 41. H THe Healed by Christ were never a second time cured of any disease Book 2. p. 8. Heavenly influences which are noxious are the causes of much sicknesse and destruction Book 1. p. 17. All languages have some words retaining the foot-steps of the Hebrew Book 2. p. 45. When the Hebrew points were first used Book 1. p. 100 101 102. Hebron the citie Book 2. page 19 to 29. Humilitie ibid. p. 161 162. The humilitie of S. Paul Book 2. p. 84 85. The Husband represents the wife Book 1. p. 140. I JEr 10.11 was the onely verse of his whole prophesie that was written in Chaldee which every captive Jew was commanded to cast in the teeth of the Babylonians Book 1. p. 180. Jerusalem the holy citie Book 2. p. 154 155 156. Ignorance threefold Book 1. p. 60. Interpretation of Scriptures is the Pastours right with whom the Laitie must consult ibid. p. 149 150 156 181 182. Book 2. p. 63. Interpretation of Scriptures by Anagrams is profane B. 1. p. 152 153. Whether interpretation of Scriptures or judgement of doctrine do in any sort belong unto the people and how farre ibid. p. 157 159. Helps and cautions prescribed unto the people for interpretation of Scriptures ibid. pag. 160 to pag. 169 c. John the Apostle his death Book 3. p. 187 188 189. Joseph was the first-born of Jacob. Book 1. p. 142 143. Joseph was a type of Christ Book 2. p. 33. A twofold acception of the word Judgement Book 1. p. 6. Judgement after death is private of souls publick of bodies and souls ibid. K. KIngs represent the people under them Book 1. p. 183 184. Of the honour due unto the King ibid. Whether Korah Dathan and Abiram descended with all their goods truly into hell Book 3. p. 214 215 to p. 221. L WHerein the confusion of Languages consisted Book 2. p. 45 46. Orientall languages conduce much to the understanding of Scriptures therefore necessarie to be studied ib. p. 48. Of the same languages also B. 3. p. 204 205. Of Lazarus raised by Christ Book 2. p. 7 8 9. Humane Learning is an handmaid to Divinitie ib. p. 88 89. Literall sense of Scripture is hardest to be found Book 1. p. 149. M MAgistrates not to be reviled Book 1. p. 168 169 170. Maran-atha expounded Book 2. p. 48 to p. 54. Of Melchisedech and why he is said to be without father and mother Book 3. p. 201 202 c. to p. 206. Members of the bodie are not all of equall worth Book 1. p. 63. God is very Mercifull unto all ib. p. 186 187. Whether Moses at the Transfiguration appeared in his own true person or not Book 3. p. 208 209 c. O IN Oaths we must be warie of mentall reservations and unlawfull equivocations Book 1. p. 166 167. Opinion Book 2. p. 83. Originall sinne See Sinne. P OF Paradise Book 3. pag. 194 195 196 197. The Pastours wisdome both for the matter and manner of his doctrine Book 1. p. 158. The Patriarchs were buried in Sychem Book 2. chap. 10. Meerly Personalls are not propagated B. 1. p. 109 to p. 138. S. Peter represented all the Apostles Joh. 21.15 16. Book 1. p. 147. The Pope is servus servorum Dei ibid. p. 132. The Priviledges of a few make not a law Book 2. p. 160. Whether God may justly Punish the Fathers for the childrens actuall delinquencies B. 1. p. 119 120. In what cases God may and doth punish the children for their Parents faults either with temporall or eternall punishment ib. p. 118 to p. 124. Every individuall man is justly punished for originall sinne in Adam ib. p. 145 146 147 c. R REdemption was of a double kinde in the Leviticall law Book 1. p. 143. Of Reliques Book 2. chap. 12. and the Authours esteem of a true choice Relique ibid. p. 130 131. The Resurrection was typified in