against Gods Elect. That they do compass the earth to seduce poor man we have it in the book of Iob where he is said to go to and fro in the earth to walk up and down in it and that he wandereth in the ayr we are told by St. Paul by whom he is called the Prince of the power of the ayr But that he was cast down into Hell besides those places of the Old Testament produced before we are assured by St. Peter and that they are reserved there in chains like prisoners is affirmed expressely by St. Iude Not in material chains we conceive not so but that they are restrained by the power of God and are so bridled and tyed up by his mighty hand that they are neither masters of their own abilities nor have the liberty of acting what they would themselves but only so far forth as he shall permit as is most clear and manifest in the case of Iob. And from thence came no doubt this Proverbial speech that the Devil cannot go beyond his chain And though they feel some part of that dreadful torment to which they are reserved in the house of darkness yet is it but initium dolorum or the beginning of sorrows compared with those they are to suffer in the world to come In this regard the Devils did not only cry out against Christ our Saviour that he was come to torment them before their â—ime Mat. 8.29 but they did so abominate the conceit of the bottomeless Pit that they most earnestly besought him Ne imperaret ut in Abyssum irent not to command them down to that deep Abysse Luk. 8.31 Praesentia Salvatoris est tormentum Daemonum Our Saviours presence saith St. Hierom was the Devils torment who seeing him upon the earth when they looked not for him ad judicandos se venisse crederent conceived that he was come to bring them to judgement And to say truth it is no marvel that they were so afflicted at the sight of our Saviour considering that they knew full well that howsoever he might bring Salvation to the sons of men yet for themselves they were uncapable of that mercy and were to have no part in the Worlds Redemption The reasons of which so great difference as the Schoolmen think are these especially First because the Angels fell of themselves but man at the suggestion or perswasion of others Et levius est alienamente peccaffe quam propria as S. Augustine hath it 2. The Angels in the height of their pride fought to be like God in Omnipotencie which is an incommunicable property of the Divine Nature and cannot be imparted unto any other but man desired to be like him only in Omniscience or in the general knowledge of things created which may be communicated to a creature as to the humane â—oul of Christ. Thirdly the Angels were immaterial intellectual Spirits inhabiting in the presence of God and the light of his countenance and therefore could not sin by errour or misperswasion but with an high hand and affected malice which comes neerest to the sin against the holy Ghost and so irremissible but man was placed by God in a place remote left to the frailty of his own will and wanted many of those opportunities for persisting in Grace which the others had Fourthly because the Angels are not by propagation from one another but were created all at once so that of Angels some might fall and others might stand and that though many did apostate yet still innumerable of them held their first estate but men descend by generation from one stock or root and therefore the first man falling and corrupting his nature derived the same corruption upon all his race so that if God had not appointed a Redemption for man he had utterly lost one of the most excellent creatures that ever he made Fiftly the Angels have the fulness of intellectual light and when they take view of any thing they see all which doth pertain unto it and thereupon go on with such resolution that they neither alter nor repent but man who findeth one thing after another and one thing out of another dislikes upon consideration what before he liked and so repents him of the evil which he had committed Sixthly because there is a time prefixt both to men and Angels after which there is no possibility of bettering their estate and altering their condition whether good or bad which is the hour of death in man and unto Angels was the first deliberate action either good or evil after which declaration of themselves unto them that fell there was no hope of grace or of restitution For hoc est Angelis Casus quod hominibus mors that which in man is death was this fall to the Angels as most truly Damascene Finally the Angels had all advantages of nature condition place abilities and were most readily prepared and fitted for their immediate and everlasting glorification whereas man was to pass through many uncertainties to tarry a long life here in this present World and after to expect till the general Judgement before he was to be admitted to eternal Glories In some or all of these respects Christ did not take upon him the nature of Angels nor effect any thing at all towards their Redemption but he took on him the seed of Abraham that so the heirs of Abrahams faith might be made heirs also of the Promises of eternal life So that these Angels being desperate of their own Salvation and stomaching that a creature made of dust and ashes should be adopted to those glories from which they fell have laboured ever since to seduce poor man to the like apostasie and plunge him in the gulf of the same perdition Et solatium perditionis suae perdendis Hominibus operantur saith Lactantius truly This to effect as the same Lactantius there affirmeth per totam terram vagantur they have dispersed themselves over all the World and as mankinde did increase and propagate so had they still their Instruments and Emissaries to work upon the frailty of that perishing creature by all means imaginable The principal and proper Ministery of these evil Angels whom we will hereafter call by the name of Devils is to tempt men to sin and to this end they improve all their power and those opportunities which sinful man is apt to give them And to this trade they fell assoon as the World began working upon the frailty of Eve by a beautiful fruit but more by feeding her with a possibility of being made like to God himself and by her means corrupting the pure soul of Adam to the like transgression In this regard from this foul murder perpetrated on the soul of Adam which he made subject by this means to the death of sin and consequently to the death of the body also our Saviour calleth him Homicidam ab initio a murderer from the beginning Ioh. 8.34 And as he
for ostentation of our Savious power in regard that every man receives his judgement either life or death as soon as he is freed from his earthly tabernacle For which there is sufficient proof in the book of God This day said Christ our Saviour to the penitent theef shalt thou be with me in paradise As plain is that of the Apostle It is appointed unto men once to die and after death the judgement The same we finde exemplifyed in the rich man and Lazarus the soul of the one as soon as dead being carried into Abrahams bosome the other being plunged in unquenchable flames If so as so it is most certain what use can be conceived of a general judgement when all particular persons have already received their sentence what further punishments or glory can be added to them then Paradise to Gods Saints and servants and the unquenchable flames of hell for impenitent sinners Which difficulty though removed in some part before as to the vindicating of the justice of Almighty God and the participation of the body in that blisse or misery which the soul presently is adjudged to on the separation and finally the manifesting of Christs power and glory in the sight of his enemies shall now be also cleared as to that part thereof which seems to place the soul in the height of happinesse as soon as separate from the body or in the depth of anguish and disconsolation And first that the souls of just and righteous persons are in the hands of God in Paradise in Abrahams bosome yea in the very heavens themselves I shall easily grant But that they are in the same place or in the same estate and degree of glory to which they shall be preferred by Christ in the day of judgement I neither have seen text nor reason which could yet perswade me Certain I am the Scripture seems to me to be quite against it the current of antiquity and not a few Moderns of good note and eminencie to incline very strongly to the other side For Scriptures first St. Paul doth speak indeed of a Crown of righteousnesse to be given to him and to all those that love the appearing of Christ but not to be given them till that day i. e. the day of his appearing St. Peter next informeth of an incorruptible inheritance reserved for us in the heavens and more then so prepared already but not to be shewed till the last time In the last place we have St. Iohn acquainting us with the condition of the Saints as in matter of fact where he telleth us that the souls of the Martyrs under the Altar where they were willed to rest themselves till the number of their fellow servants was accomplished And though we grant the souls of righteous men departed are in heaven it self yet doth it not follow by any good consequence that therefore they are in the highest Heaven where God himselfe refideth in most perfect majesty The name of Heaven is variously used in holy Scriptures First for the Aire as where we finde mention of the birds of heaven Mat. 26. and the cloudes of heaven Mark 14. Next for the Firmament above in which the Lord hath placed those most glorious lights which frequently are called the Stars of heaven as Gen. 20. Then for that place which St. Paul calleth in one text by the name of the third heaven 2 Cor. 12.2 and in another place shortly after by the name of Paradise vers 4. which is conceived to be the habitations of the Angels their proper habitation as St. Iude calleth it vers 6. Into this place the soul of Lazarus was carried as to Abrahams bosom to this our Saviour promised to bring the soul of the penitent theef Hitherto Enoch and Eliah were translated by God and St. Paul taken up in an heavenly rapture And to this place or to some one or many of those heavenly mansion for in my Fathers house there are many mansions said our Lord and Saviour the souls of righteous men are carryed on the wings of Angels there to abide till they are called upon to meet their bodies in day of day of judgement And last of all it â—ignifyeth the highest heaven to which Christ our Saviour is ascended and sitteth at the right hand of God in most perfect glory Of which St. Paul telleth us that he was made higher then the heavens Heb. 7. and that he did ascend above all the heavens Ephes. 4. This is the seate or Palace of Almighty God called as by way of excellency the heaven of heavens where his divine glory and majesty is most plainly manifested and therefore called by the Prophet the habitation of his holinesse and of his glory So then the souls of righteous men deceased may be in Paradise in the third heaven in Abrahams bosome and yet not be admitted to the highest heaven wherein God reigns in perfect glory till Christ shall come again to judgment and take them for ever to himself into possession and participation of his heavenly Kingdome That in this sense the Fathers understand the Scriptures which mention the estate of the Saints departed will best be seen by looking over their own words according as they lived in the severall Churches First for the Eastern Cherches Iustin Marter telleth us that the the souls of the righteous are carryed to Paradise where they enjoy the company of Angels Archangels and the vision of Christ our Saviour and are kept in places fit for them till the day of the resurrection and compensation Next Origen The Saints saith he departing hence do not presently obtain the full reward of their labours but they expect us though staying and slacking For they have not perfect joy so long as they grieve at our Errours and lament our sins Then Chrysostome more then once or twice Though the soul were a thousand times immortall as it is yet shall she not enjoy those admirable good things without the body And if the body rise not again the soul remaineth uncrowned without heavenly blisse Theodoret lived in the same times and was of the same opinion also saying The Saints have not yet received their Crowns for the God of all expecteth the conflict of others that the race being ended he may at once pronounce all that overcome to be Conquerers and reward them together Finally not to look so low as Oecumenius and Theophylact who say almost as much as Theoderet did we have at once the judgement of many of the Fathers delivered by Andreas Caesariensis in a very few words It is saith he the judgement of many godly Fathers that every good man after this life hath a place fit for him by which he may conjecture at the glory which is prepared Look we now on the Western Churches and first we have Irenaeus B. of Lyons in France affirming positively thus Manifestum est c. It is manifest that the souls
the damned souls Severall sorts of punishment agreed on by the Schoolmen and how far Christ was liable to any of them Eternity of punishments how proportioned to the sin of Man Two objections answered The Doctrine of the Church of England still the same it was CHAP. X. Of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour with a consideration of the circumstances and other points incident to that Article THe Article of Christs resurrection Most proper for St. Thomas and upon what reasons The credibility of the resurrection proposed and proved by the types of Isaac and of Ioseph Ioseph why called Zaphnath-paaneah The types of Daniel and of Ionah and how applyable especially the last to the story of Christ. Examples of a resurrection no strange thing to the Iews themselves The Resurrection of Christ foretold by the holy Prophets the time and place thereof sufficient to convince the Iews of their incredulity The allegation of the Souldiers touching the stealing of Christs body examined and derided The Doctrine of the Resurrection of how swift a growth Arguments for the resurrection to convince the Gentiles How Christ may be said to lie in the grave three dayes and three nights Severall ways to salve the doubt and which most probable The strange conceits of Gregory Nyssen and of Dr. Alabaster with the learned and judicious Solution made in the case by Paulus Semproniensis an Italian Bishop An accord made between the four Evangelists about the time and hour of the resurrection The first day of the week why chosen for the day of the resurrection why and by whom celebrated as a weekly Festivall why Christ was raised from the dead in a terrible earthquake why he appeared first to women and why first of all to Mary Magdalen How Christ is said to be the first fruits of the dead The resurrection of Christs body a sure pledge of ours Some reasons for the resurrection in respect of Christ and the necessity thereof in respect of man The Institution and antiquity of the feast of Easter the high esteem it had in the Primitive times and antiently in the Isle of Britain the extreme follies of some men on the other side CHAP. XI Of the Ascension of our Saviour with a discussion of the points and other circumstances which are most considerable in the same THe connexion between the Ascension of Christ and the coming down of the holy Ghost foresignifyed by the Prophet David The antiquity of the feast of holy Thursday Some doubts resolved about the time and place of the Ascension the Creed reconciled with the Gospell Enoch and Elijah types of Christs Ascension and in what particulars The Prophecies in holy Scripture touching Christs ascension as also touching the time place and manner of it with observations upon each A parallel between the old Roman triumphs and the Lords ascension Probable conjectures of the disposing of those bodies which were raised with Christ. The Captives what they were which Christ led in triumph The benefits redounding unto mankind by Christs ascension A dissertation of the probleme whether Christ merited for himself or â—or mankinde only The inconsequence of Maldonates illation touching the worshipping of Christ after his ascension That the body of Christ after his Ascension doth still remain a natural body proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers The Doctrine of Transubstantiation destructive of Christs natural body and of the monstrous Paradoxes which do thence arise CHAP. XII Of sitting at the right hand of God the proper meaning of the Phrase and of the Priviledges which accrew thereby to our Lord and Saviour THe meaning of the phrase sedere ad dextram Dei Sitting at the right hand of Kings and Princes accounted for the greatest honour that could be done unto a subject not alwayes so though so in ordinary use amongst common persons The middle the most honourable place amongst the Romans and Numidians The right hand of God what it signifyed in holy Scripture The right hand a hand of power and love as also of friendship and fidelity What the word sitting meaneth in the present Article Sitting and standing words of repose and ease and how both Postures do agree with Christ in his severall offices The ill construction made by Maldonate touching Christs sitting at the right hand of God the Father the faultinesse of his Rule and instance upon that occasion his aime therein discovered canvassed and confuted That Christ by sitting at the right hand of God obtaineth not an equality with God the Father contrary to the common opinion of the Protestant Schools Severall Preheminences given to Christ by sitting at the right hand of God above all the Angels That sitting at the right hand of God may piously be taken in a literall and Grammaticall sense Considerations to that purpose to make it percepitble and intelligible to a rationall man Moderation in matters of opinion practised by the Antients and approved by the Authour CHAP. XIII Of the Priesthood of our Lord and Saviour which he executeth sitting at the right hand of God wherein it was foresignifyed by that of Melchisedech in what particulars it consisteth and of Melchisedech himself THe Regall and Sacerdotal offices exercised by Christ as he sitteth at the right hand of God The difference between the calling of Christ and that of Aaron the Parallel and differences between the consecration of Christ and the consecration of Aaron seven dayes designed unto the consecration of Christ how employed and spent the Priesthood of Christ when it took beginning Melchisedech what he was and from whom descended In what the Priesthood of Melchisedech did consist especially with the errour of the Papists in that particular Resemblances between Melchisedech and Christ in their name and titles and in performance of the office of the holy Priesthood Christ made the Mediator between God and man and upon what reasons the Mediator not of redemption only as the Papists say but of intercession A story of Themistocles how applyed to Christ. How necessary it was in reference to the Priestly office that Christ should have humane infirmities about him The ingenious conceit of Mat. Corvinus K. of Hungary No sacrifice for sin but that of Christ upon the crosse The Heterodoxies of the Church of Rome and Orthodoxie of the Church of England in that particular The smart but true censure of Averroes the Moore upon the Christians of his time The sacrifice of Christ though not to be reiterated by man yet dayly to be represented by Christ himself unto God the Father The manner how Christ made his entrance into the sanctum Sanctorum compared with that of the high Priest in the Iewish Church A right of titles inherent in the Priesthood of our Lord and Saviour and consequently in the Ministers of the Gospell also CHAP. XIV Of the Regall or Kingly office of our Lord as far as it is executed before his coming unto judgement Of his Vicegerents on the earth and of the severall
of mankinde and a necessity was laid upon them to obey his pleasure Nec quicquam est in Angelis nisi parendi necessitas said Lactantius truly And so far we have all things clear from the holy Scriptures But if we will beleeve the learned as I think we may there is no signal punishment of ungodly people ascribed to God in the old Testament but what was executed by the ministry of these blessed spirits except some other means and ministers be expresly named That great and universal deluge in the time of Noah was questionless the work of Almighty God I even I do bring a flood of waters upon the Earth Gen. 6.17 But this was done by the ministery and service of the holy Angels Ministerio Angelorum saith Torniellus whom he employed in breaking up the fountaines of the great deep and opening the cataracts of Heaven for the destruction of that wicked unrepenting people Thus when it is affirmed in the 14. of Exodus that the Lord looked into the hoste of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and overthrew them in the midst of the Sea v. 24.27 Non intelligendum est de Deo sed de Angelo qui erat in nube we must not understand it of the Lord himself as Tostatus hath it but only of the Angel or ministring spirit of whose being in the cloud we had heard before And when we read that in the battail of the five Kings against the Israelites the Lord cast down great stones upon them from Heaven Iosh. 10. it is not to be thought saith he Quod Deus mitteret sed Angelus jubente Deo that this was done by Gods own hand but by the holy Angels at the Lords appointment The like may be affirmed of those other acts of power and punishment whereof we finde such frequent mention in the book of God which though they be ascribed to God as the principall Agent yet were they generally effected by his holy Angels as the means and instruments But the most proper office of the holy Angels is not for punishment but preservation not for correction of the wicked but for protection of the just and righteous person That 's the chief part of their imployment the office which they most delight in and God accordingly both hath and doeth employ them so from time to time For by the ministery of his Angels did he deliver Ismael from the extremity of thirst Daniel from the fury of hunger Lot from the fire and trembling Isaac from the sword our infant Saviour from one Herod his chief Apostle from another all of them from that common prison into the which they had been cast by the Priests and Pharisees But these were only personal and particular graces Look we on such as were more publick on such as did concern his whole people generally and we shall finde an Angel of he Lord incamping between the hoste of Egypt and the house of Israel to make good the passage at their backs till they were gotten on the other side of the Sea another Angel marching in the front of their Armies as soon as they had entred the land of Canaan and he the Captain of the Lords hostes Princeps exercituum Dei as the vulgar readeth it but whether Michael Gabriel or who else it was the Rabbins may dispute at leasure and to them I leave it Moreover that wall of waters which they had upon each side of them when they passed thorow the Sea as upon dry ground facta est a Deo per Angelos exequentes that was the work of Angels also directed and imployed by Almighty God as the learned Abulensis notets it Which also is affirmed by the Iewish Doctors of the dividing of the waters of Iordan to make the like safe passage for them into the promised land the land of Canaan The like saith Peter Martyr a learned Protestant touching the raysing of the Syrians from before Samaria when the Lord made them hear the noise of Cariots and the noise of horse-men that it was ministerio Angelorum effected by the ministery of the holy Angels whom God imployed in saving that distressed people from the hands of their enemies And by an Angel or at least an angelical vision 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a dream or Oracle delivered to them in their sleep as Eusebius telleth us did he forwarne the Christians dwelling in the land of Palestine to remove thence to Pella a small town of Syria and so preserved them from the spoyle and fury of the Roman Armies This was Gods way of preservation in the times before us and it is his way of preservation in all ages since GOD is the same God now as then his holy Angels no lesse diligent in their attendance on us then they have been formerly Let us but make our selves by our faith and piety worthy to be accounted the Sons of God and the heires of salvation and doubt we not of the assistance of these ministring spirits in all essaies of personall or publick dangers T is true the apparitions of the Angels in these late times have been very rare not many instances to be found in our choycest Histories But then it is as true withall one of the most eternall truths of holy Scripture that the Angel of the Lord encampeth about all them that fear him and delivereth them Whether we see or see them not it comes all to one and so resolved by Clemens of Alexandria an old Christian writer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lord saith he doth still preserve us by the ministery of his holy Angels though we behold them not in any visible shape as the antients did And to say truth this general protection of the Angels is a point so clear so undeniable in true Divinity that he must needs renounce the Scripture which makes question of it Some difference indeed hath been about Angel-gardians and the particular protection which we have from them to whom God hath committed the tuition of our severall persons And yet even this if we make Scripture to be judge according to the exposition of the antient Writers will prove a point as clear and as undeniable as that of the protection which we have in general For Origen who lived in the third century from our Saviours birth reckoneth it for a tenet of undoubted truth and generally imbraced in the Christian Church long before his time that all Gods children from their birth or at least their Baptisme had their angel-keepers Lactantius speaks more generally as of all mankind Ad tutelam generis humani misit Angelos though possibly he might mean no otherwise then did the other Catholick writers of the times he lived in and those who followed close in the age succeeding St. Basil in Psal. 33. and Psal. 58. St. Chrysost. on the 18. of Matthew The Authour of the Imperfect work Hom. 40. Theodoret in l. 5. divinorum Decretorum do
as good authority as the Laws and Statutes of the Realm can give unto it Which holy time had it been as carefully and conscionably observed by all sorts of people as it was prudently and piously ordained at first we had no doubt escaped many of those grievous plagues with which the Lord of late hath scourged us and even consumed us unto nothing by our own licentiousness But to proceed to the third general point contained in the story of the Lords temptation in which there is a doubt as before was said touching the very moment and point of time which the old Tempter took to give the onset occasioned by the different narrations of the three Evangelists that is to say whether the Devil tempted him all those forty days and then gave him over or that he did not trouble him and begin the business until the forty days were past and his fast was ended St. Matthews words do seem to intimate nay to say expresly that the Tempter did not come unto him till his fast was ended and that afterwards he was an hungred and this more literally agrees with the particulars of the following story But on the other side it is said in Luke that he was led into the Wilderness being forty days tempted by the Devil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek text reads it and then how could the Devil set him upon one of the Pinnacles of the Temple if he were all the time of his Temptation within the bowels of that Desert For resolution of which point Eusebius and St. Cyril two Greek Fathers though they keep the words yet they do point them otherwise then we read them now in our printed copies referring the forty days which are there spoken of not to his being tempted of the Devil but to his being in the Wilderness And then the reading will be thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say And he was led into the Wilderness forty days being tempted of the Devil c. And so it seems it stood in those antient copies which were consulted by the Author of the Vulgar Latine whosoever he was in which we read Et agebatur in Spiritu in deserto diebus quadraginta tentatur a Diabolo Which reading if it be allowed of as I see no reason but it may then the doubt is ended and the appearing difference fairly reconciled Otherwise we may say and no doubt most safely that he was tempted by the Devil all those forty days as is said by Luke and after they were ended also as we finde in Matthew that is to say as Euthymius very rightly noteth the Devil tempted him in those days the said forty days as it were a far off by sleep sloth heaviness and the like but after he knew him once to be hungry then he set upon him prope manifeste as the Author hath it more visibly and hand to hand namely in those three great temptations which the story mentioneth So then the nick and point of time in which the Devil did apply himself most closely to the work intended was cum esuriret when he began to be an hungry As long as our Redeemer kept himself unto prayer and fasting the Devil either did not trouble him or it was either with such trivial and light temptations as made no impression and neither interrupted him in his holy course nor caused him to intermit the business he was then upon by making any necessary replies to his lewd suggestions But when he began to be an hungry when his minde seemed to be upon his belly if I may so say then did the Devil think it was time to work him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it was notably well observed by Chrysostom to this very purpose So excellent is the force and efficacy of an holy fast that it keeps the Devil at a distance This difficulty thus passed over we shall next look on the particular temptations which those Gospels speak of In which it is to be observed that whereas St. Iohn makes mention of three kindes of lust which mightily prevail on the affections of us mortal men viz. the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life the Devil tempted CHRIST in all and in all was vanquished He tempted him in the first place with the lust of the flesh when he found that after such and so long a fast he began to be hungry and was reduced to such extremities as to be forced to seek his bread even in desolate places and said unto him if that thou beest the Son of God as the late voyce from heaven did seem to signifie command that these stones be made bread to appease thy hunger and satisfie that natural necessity which is now upon thee An opportunity well taken and as strongly followed had it been answered with success For commonly when men are in distress and want they are then most apt either to distrust the Lord their God as if he left them to themselves without hope of relief or else to use unlawful means to relieve themselves which was the point the Devil thought to bring him to by this first temptation But when he failed of this design he pressed him in the next place with the lust of the eye taking him up upon an exceeding high mountain shewing him all the Kingdomes of the World and the glories of them and offering to bestow them all upon him if he would only yeild so far as to fall down and worship him Impudent wretch thou worst of all wicked spirits saith Ignatius how was it that thou didst not fear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to utter such a sawcy voyce to the Lord of all things And yet a far more impudent braggart to make an offer of those things which he had no power of the Kingdomes of the earth and the glories of them being holden of no other Lord then the Lord our God And here it is to be observed that whereas in the former onset which only did relate unto Christ himself he only did reply upon him with a Scriptum est in this wherein the glorie of his heavenly Father was concerned so highly he addes an Apage or rebuke Get thee hence thou Satan So that the Devil failing at the two first weapons betakes himself unto the last the pride of life setting him on a pinnacle of the holy Temple saying if thou bee the Son of God as credulous men are made believe by the late great miracle of a voyce supposed to be from heaven do somewhat to confirm them in that belief teque assere coelo somewhat which may indeed make manifest that thou art from heaven and answerable to the testimony which that voyce gave of thee and a more sure and easie trial thou canst never meet with then by casting thy self down from hence knowing so well how all the Angels are at hand to attend upon thee and carry thee upon their
of Christ. And for that cause the people in the celebrating of these â—olemn sacrifices used to confess their sins to the Lord their God and by that means did make the Sacrifice more acceptable and their atonement with the Lord more assured and certain but expiate â—ins those Sacrifices of their own nature neither did nor could In which sense Chrysostom said well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The LEGAL SACCRIFISE saith he was rather an accusation then an expiation a confession rather of their weakness then a profession of their strength Now there are many things observable in these Legal Sacrifices which were performed and really made good in our Lord and Saviour For first the Sacrifice or Beast sacrificed was to be a male Levit. 1.3 and to be a male also without spot or blemish or any corporal defect And so it was with Christ our Saviour the son of David in whose lips there was found no guile in whom there was no sinful blemish no defect of righteousness The man who brought the sacrifice was to present it at the dore of the Tabernacle and to lay his hand upon the head of it in testimony that he laid all his sins thereon that it might be accepted as an atonement for him Levit. 1.3 4. And so CHRIST took upon him our infirmities and bare our sicknesses Matth. 8.17 and bare our sins in his own body on the Tree 1 Pet. 2.24 The Sacrifice being brought before the dore of the Tabernacle was after bound with cords Binde the Sacrifice with cords to the horns of the Altar Psal. 118. slain by the Priest and his bloud sprinkled round about upon the Altar and then burnt with fire So the Redeemer of the world was led bound to Pilate Matth. 27.2 and after fastned to the Altar of the Cross with cords of iron implyed in this that they crucified him Matth. 27.35 i.e. they nayled him to the Cross. The Sacrificer was himself Ipse enim Sacrificium Sacerdos for he himself was both the Sacrifice and the Priest as St. Austin hath it offering his body to the Lord that by the hands of wicked and unrighteous men it might be crucifyed and slain and the whole Cross the Altar upon which he suffered besprinkled round about with his precious bloud issuing from his hands and feet and wounded side As for the burning of the sacrifice which was usual in their whole burnt offerings what could it signifie but those pains and sorrows that bitter cup and all the terrible pangs thereof which even burnt up his heart and consumed his spirits in the whole act of his crucifixion unless perhaps the ascending of the flames on high might signifie the the gracious acceptation of the sacrifice by the Lord their God as in that of Noah which carryed up a sweet savour to the God of Heaven In which regard a sweet savour and an offering made by fire do seeme to be Synonymas in the Book of God as Exod. 24.41 Levit. 3.5 And what more pleasing savour could ascend to God what could he smell more acceptable from the sons of men then the oblation made unto him of the Son of God reconciling the world unto his Father Finally as the bodies of those beasts which were brought into the Sanctuary by the high Priest for sin which was a differing kinde of Sacrifice from the whole burnt offering were burnt without the Camp so Jesus also saith St. Paul that he might sacrifice the people with his own bloud suffered without the Gate Heb. 13.11 12. And of this sort of Types and Figures were both the Anniversary Sacrifice of the Paschal lamb and the daily sacrifice of the two lambs one for the morning and the other for the evening Exod. 29. both of them shadowing or prefiguring in Gods intention though not in the intent of the ignorant Iews that all-sufficient Sacrifice of the Lamb of God which really and truly taketh away the sins of the world How far they are applyable in their other circumstances we shall see elsewhere As for the manner of Christs death and passion there were also some Types and figures of it as well before the Law as after What else was that of Isaac the promised seed the only and beloved son of his Father Abraham from whom the blessing promised by Almighty God to all the Nations of the world was to be derived commanded by an order from the Court of Heaven to be offered to the Lord for a burnt offering What did it signifie or prefigure but the offering of our Saviour CHRIST the dearly beloved Son of God in whom his Father was well pleased the expectation of the Genâ—iles conceived so miraculously beyond hope and reason above the common course of nature more then Isaac was The mountain on which that sacrifice was to be performed what did it signifie but that CHRIST should be offered up to God on a mountain also even the mount of Calvarie Luk. 23.33 What else the laying of the wood upon Isaacs shoulders wherewith himself the sacrifice was to be burned but the compelling CHRIST to take up that Cross whereon himself was to be crusified till Simon the Cyrenian came that way by chance to ease him of that heavy burden The calling of the Angel out of heaven to Abraham bidding him stay his hand and not strike the blow by means whereof poor Isaac was reprieved from slaughter doth it not clearly signifie the sending of an Angel from heaven to CHRIST our Saviour to comfort him in the midst of his fears and troubles and to deliver him from those fears and terrors which make death dreadful unto mankinde that he might undergo it with the greater cheerfulness And when the Devil had tryed all ways imaginable to prevail upon him out of a confident presumption to effect his ends and work some â—inful and corrupt affections to have power upon him what got he at last but a breathless carkass a short dominion of his body The Ram the fleshy part of CHRIST was all which fell unto his share in that bloudy sacrifice and that he was to take or nothing in stead of the Son the Son of the eternal everliving God whom he expected as a prey and in hope had swallowed And yet this Type though full of clear and excellent significancies comes not so home to my purpose unto the manner of Christs death as doth the Type and story of the Brazen Serpent The people journeying in the Wilderness and murmuring as they did too often against God and Moses had provoked the Lord And the Lord sent fiery Serpents amongst the people and they bit the people and much people of Israel died No remedy for this but upon repentance And when the people had repented the Lord said to Moses Fac Serpentem aeneum c. i. e. Make thee a Brazen Serpent and set it upon a pole and it shall come to pass that every one
the meaning of this text will be briefly this that according to the Christian faith these actions which to men seemed so impossible those namely ascending up into heaven and descending down into the deeps of hell were performed for us in the person of Christ and therefore now to doubt of either were nothing else but to enervate and weaken the power of Christ who most perfectly hath accomplished both to save us from the one and bring us to the other Besides the Reader may take notice that that which our Translatours have rendred by these words the deep is called in the Greek Original by the name of Abyssus which signifieth a bottomlesse pit and is so taken and translated in the Revelation Chap. 9.2 11.7 where it can probably meant of no place but hell In the next place we meet with that of the Ephesians where it is said When he ascended up on high he led captivitie captive and gave gifts unto men Now that he ascended what is it but that he also descended first into the lowest parts of the earth He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fil all things Now in these words we may observe First that before Christs ascending by way of relation the Apostle putteth Christs descending Secondly that because descending and ascending must have contrary extremes from which and to which the motion is made therefore St. Paul opposeth the lowest parts of the earth to which Christ first descended unto the highest heavens of all above which he ascended Thirdly that these lowest parts of the earth could not be the grave as some men would have it which is seldome two yards deep in the ground and so not opposite in that respect to the height of the heavens according to the words and inference of the Apostle And Fourthly that the end of his descending was to lead captivity captive to beat them from the place of their chiefest strength even as the end of his ascending after he had led captivitie captive was to give gifts to men For what place fitter for the scene of so great an action as the full conquest of death sin and Satan the final dissolution of the kingdome of darknesse then the chief seat and fortresse of their whole empire which is hell it self situate in the lowest parts of the earth as before was shewn And hereunto agreeth the exposition of the antient Fathers St. Irenaeus citing these very words of the Apostle that Christ descended into the lower parts of the Earth makes them equivalent with those words of David concerning Christ viz. thou shalt not leave my soul in the neathermost Hell saying Hoc David in eum prophetans dixit and so much David said of him by way of prophesie Tertullian alleadging the same words of the Apostle concludeth thence Habes ergo Regionem Inâ—erum subterraneam i. e. by this thou mayst perceive that the place of Hell is under the earth Chrysostom thus Christ descended to the lower parts of the earth beneath which there are none other and he ascended above all higher then which there is nothing St. Ambrose on these words of Paul gives us this short gloss After death Christ descended to Hell whence rising the third day he ascended above all the heavens St. Hierome on the same saith thus Qui descendit in anima ad infernum ipse cum anima corpore ascendit in Coelum that is to say he that descended to Hell in his soul only ascended into Heaven both with soul and body Primasius doth not only concur with Hierom in his Exposition of the place but repeats also his very words Oecumenius out of Photius thus To the lower parts of the earth he meaneth Hell beneath which place there is no lower Next Haymo Christ descended first into the lower parts of the earth that is into hell and after ascended into heaven Which said he gives this reason of his Exposition as Hierom and Primasius had done before that by the lower parts of the earth he must needs mean hell which is called infernus in the Latine because it is lower then the earth or rather under it And finally Theophylact thus asks the question Quem in locum descendit into what place did Christ descend And presently returns this answer in infernum c. into hell which St. Paul calleth the lowest parts of the earth after the common opinion of men There is another part of this Text of Scripture touching the leading of Captivity Captive of which we have said nothing from the antient Writers because I purposed to consider it with another Text neer of kin unto it where it is said that having spoyled principalities and powers he made a shew of them openly triumphing over them In both which texts we must distinguish between the taking of Captivity captive and the leading of them as in triumph being once so taken between the spoyling of those principalities and powers the Apostle speaketh of and the open shew or triumph which was made upon it The first was only the great work of Christs descent into Hell the other the chief pomp and glory of his Resurrection and Ascension For clearing of which point we may please to know that the Devil since the fall of man laid a claim to mankinde and held him like a captive in the bonds of sin by means whereof as he drew many after him into the pit of torments so he presumed to have the like advantages over all the rest And though Christs over-mastering Satan began here on the earth when he cast him out of such as he had possessed yet his full and final conquest could not be accomplished till he had followed and pursued him over all the world driven him at last into the very heart and seat of his Dominion which was Hell it self and there in the presence of his Angels and other instruments of mischief destroyed his power dissolved his Empire and put a period to his tyranny over the sons of men And this is that to which the Fathers doe attest both with heart and hand but none more clearly to this purpose then St. Athanasius The Devil saith he was fallen from Heaven he was cast from the earth pursued through the ayr every where conquered and every where straightned in which distress 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he determined to keep Hell safe which was all that was left him But the Lord a true Saviour would not leave his work unfinished nor leave those which were in Hades as yeilded to the enemie so that the Devil thinking to kill one lost all and hoping to carry one to Hell or Hades was himself cast out By means whereof Hades or Hell is abrogated death no more prevailing but all being raised unto life neither can the Devil stand any more against us but is fallen and indeed creepeth on his brest and belly Which
to proceed with them by the authority of Scripture and of reason both To the old Testament and our proofs from thence we shal challenge an obedience from them because by them confessed for Scripture and reverenced as the Oracles of Almighty God And for the new the writings of the holy Evangelists we shall expect submission to the truths thereof so far forth as it shall appear to be built on reason and unavoydable Demonstration Now the old Testament consisteth in that part thereof which doth reflect upon the birth and actions of our blessed Saviour either of types and figures or else of Prophecies and examples and the first type which looks this way is that of Isaac the only son the only beloved son of a tender father a type both of his death and his resurrection In which observe how well the type and truth do agree together The Altar was prepared the fire kindled Isaac fast bound and ready to receive the blow the knife was in his Fathers hand and his arme stretched out to act the bloudy part of a Sacrificer And yet even in the very act and so near the danger God by his holy Angel and a voice from heaven delivered the poor innocent from the jawes of death and restored him back unto his father when all hopes had failed him How evidently doth this fact of Abrahams stretching out his hand to strike the blow and being withholden by the Angel from the blow it self fore-shadow those sacred fundamentall truths which we are bound to believe concerning the true bodily death and glorious resurrection of our Lord and Saviour The Iews themselves in memorie of this deliverance did celebrate the first of Tisri which is our September usually called the Feast of Trumpets with the sound of Rams hornes or Corners and counted it for one of the occasions of that great solemnity which shews that there was somewhat in it more then ordinary somewhat which did concern their nation in a speciall manner Needs therefore must the Iews of our Saviours time be blinde with malice at the least with prejudice that look upon this story of Isaac the child of promise only as the relation of a matter past not as a type and shadow of the things to come this only son of Abraham this child of promise the only hope or pledge of that promised seed which was expected from the beginning being to come thus near to death and yet to be delivered from the power thereof that so the faith of Abraham touching the death and resurrection of his son the heir of promise might be tryed and verifyed or rather that by experiment our Saviours death and resurrection might be truly represented and foreshadowed in Isaacs danger and delivery And this is that to which St. Paul alludeth saying By faith Abraham when he was tryed offered up Isaac and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from whence also he received him in a figure i. e. a figure of the resurrection of Christ the promised seed represented by it though Abraham probably looked no further then the present mercy Isaac then was the true representation and foreshadowing of our Saviours death and resurrection And so the wonderfull increase of Isaacs seed in whom all the nations of the world were to be blessed was as full an embleme of our Saviours seed and generation which cannot be numbred he having begotten unto God since his resurrection more sons and daughters throughout all nations then all the children of Abraham or Isaac according to the flesh though like unto the sands of the Sea for multitude But the circumstances of our Saviours selling and betraying his cruell persecution both by Priests and people the whole story of his humiliation unto death and exaltation after his resurrection are more perfectly foreshadowed by the cruel persecutions of Ioseph procured by his brethren by his calamity and advancement in Egypt The story is so well known it needs no repeating And the afflictions laid on both by the sonnes of Iacob in a manner parallel themselves Both of them were the first-born of their several Mothers both of them the best beloved sons of their Fathers and for this cause both of them envied and maligned by their wicked and ill natured brethren by whom they were both severally betrayed and sold for a contemptible piece of money So far the parallel holds exactly goe we further yet The pit whereinto Iosephs brethren cast him as also the pit or dungeon unto which he was doomed by a corrupt and partial Iudge on the complaint of an imperious whorish woman without proof or witnesse what was it but the picture of our Saviours grave to which he was condemned in the sentence of death by as corrupt a Judge as Potiphar on the bare accusation and complaint of an Adulterous generation as the Scripture cals them without proof or evidence And the deliverance of Ioseph from both pit and dungeon his exaltation by Pharaoh over all the land of Egypt and his beneficence to his Brethren whom he not only pardoned but preservation from famine what were they but the shadowes and resemblances of Christs resurrection his sitting at the right hand of God the Father by whom all power was given him both in heaven and earth and finally his mercie to the sons of men whose sins he doth not only pardon but preserve them also from the famine of the word of God The Kings ring put on Iosephs hand the gold chain put about his neck and the vesture of fine linnen or silke wherewith he was arraied by the Kings command what were they as the Antients have observed before but the resemblances of those glorious endowments with which the body or Humanity of Christ our Saviour hath been invested or apparelled since his resurrection More then this yet The name of Zaphnath Paaneah given to Ioseph by the Kings appointment and the Proclamation made by Pharaoh that every knee should bow before him what is it but a modell or a type of that honour which God the King of Kings hath ordered to be given to Christ to whom he hath given a name above every name that at the name of JESUS every knee should bowe of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth Where by the way and that addeth something farther to the parallel also the name of Zaphnath Paaneah as the Hebrew reads it but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psonthem Phanech as the Septuagint is naturally as the learned Mr. Gregory very well observeth a Coptick or Egyptian word and signifyeth an Interpreter of hidden things or a revealer of secrets And so not only the Babylonish Targum and others of the Rabbins do expound the word but we finde the same exposition in Theodoret also 〈◊〉
and some of them perhaps reduced to their primitive dust is more then probable for the text speaks of them as of men which had long been dead Now why a glorifyed soul should be re-united to a corrupt and putrefyed although new raised body unlesse it were to raise that body also to a share of glory I plainly must confesse I can see no reason Some of the Saints then as his Souldiers did attend this Pomp I take that for granted And I conceive it probable for I goe no further that every Saint or Souldier had his Crown or Coronet bestowed upon them by their Generall in testimony that they had fought a good fight against sinne and Satan For though in common course the Saints and servants of the Lord shall not have their Crowns untill the generall day of judgment yet here in this particular case it might be otherwise by speciall priviledge and extraordinary dispensation Next to the Saints and Souldiers look we on the Captives of whom the Psalmist and St. Paul both do expressely speak Duxit captivam captivitatem He led captivity captive saith the holy Scripture But who these captives were and what this captivity will aske a little more paines to declare aright though somewhat hath been said in this point before We shewed you in our Commentaries on the former Articles that by the unanimous consent of all the Fathers our Saviour spoyled the Principalities and powers of hell when he went down thither and there took captive both the Devill and his evill Angels The shewing of them openly and triumphing over them the leading of them captive when they were so taken that doubtlesse was the work of another day that was the work of the Ascension When he ascended up on high then not before he led them captive and when he led them captive then he triumphed over them The victory he obtained before now he made his triumph The great Battel which Paulus Aemilius won of Perseus the Macedonian did shrewdly shake the main foundations of his power and Empire the victory was not perfected nor the Realme subdued and made a Tributary Province of the state of Rome untill the King himself was taken in the Isle of Samothrace to which he had retired as his strongest hold immediately on his defeat near the City of Pidna The triumph followed not till after when he made his entrie into Rome the imperiall City the miserable King and all the flower of his Nobility being led like Captives in their chaines and doomed unto perpetuall prison And this saith the Historian was interpulcherrimos the happiest and most stately triumph that the Roman people ever saw the victory having also been of the greatest consequence So in this case The first main Battell after some previous skirmishes and velitations which our Redeemer sought with Satan was upon the Crosse in which he seemed for a time to have had the worse But it was only for a time For by his death saith the Apostle he overcame him which had power of death which was the Devill That was the first great blow which the Devill had But the victory was not perfected nor the Empire of the Prince of darknesse broke in pieces and brought under the command of the Son of man till he mastred hell it self and forced the Devill and his Angels in their strongest hold Then came he to demand his triumph at the hands of God who received him into heaven with the greatest glory that ever had been seen by the heavenly Citizens the Devill and rest of the powers of hell being led bound in chaines in triumphant wise whom he flung off as soon as he approached near the gates of Heaven and hath ever since reserved in chains under darknesse to the judgment of the great and terrible day If you will see this triumph set down more at large we have it in the 13. of the Prophet Hosea and out of him in St. Pauls first to the Corinthians death led captive without his sting Hell broken and defaced like the picture of a conquered City the strength of sinne the Law rent and fastned to his Crosse ensigne-wise the Serpents head broken and so born before him as was Goliahs head by David when he came from the victory Never so great a victory such a glorious triumph as that of Christ in his Ascension when having spoyled the Principalities and powers of hell he led this captivity captive in his march to Heaven making a shew of them openly unto men and Angels and triumphing over them in semet ipso in his own person saith the vulgar Reddunt inferna victorem superna suscipiunt triumphantem Hell restored him back a Conquerour and Heaven received him a Triumpher as faith St. Angustine happily if the work be his But there were other Captives which adorned this triumph besides the Devill and his Angels even the sons of men The Devill first began the war with our Father Adam foyled him in Paradise and made him of a Prince to become a Prisoner a slave to his own lusts and and loose affections And he prevailed so far upon his posterity that he brought all mankinde in a manner under his dominion their sins and wickednesses being grown unto such an height that God repented him at last of mans creation It angred him saith the text at the very heart David complained in his time that there was none that did good no not one and when the son of David came upon the Theatre he found the seed of Abraham so degenerated that they were become the slaves of Satan at best the children of the Devill as himself affirmed In this estate we were the whole race of man when with a mighty hand and an outstretched arme our Saviour Christ encountred with the powers of darknesse and subdued them all By this great victory of Christ over sin and Satan the Devill was not only taken and made a Captive but all mankinde even that captivity which was captive under him became his Prisoners jure belli even by the common law of war as being before part of the Devils goods of his train and vassalage So true is that of Aristotle in his book of Politicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those which are taken in the warres are in the power and at the pleasure of the Conquerour The Fathers many of them look this way directly but none more plainly to this purpose then Dorotheus an old Orthodox writer and he states it thus What means saith he the leading of captivitie captive And then he answereth It meaneth that by Adams transgression the enemie had made us all captives and held us in subjection and that Christ took us again out of the enemies hands and conquered him who kept us captive So that the case of mankinde in this double captivitie was like that of Lot whom the five Kings when they took Sodom carried Prisoner with them Lot was then Captive to those Kings
certainly this his sitting at the right hand of God will not do it for him For building on the grounds which before we laid though sitting at the right hand of a Prince or Potentate were a great honour to the man that sate there and gave him the next place to the Prince himself yet that it gave him an equality of power and Majesty neither the nature of Soveraignty which can brook no equals nor any of the instances before remembred can evince or evidence Not that of David and his Queen if of her he means it for David was too well acquainted with his own authority as to divide it with his wife and become joynt Tenant with her to the Crown of Israel Nor that of Solomon and his Mother which the Iesuite stands on for then the King had done her wrong to reject her suit and more then so to put his brother to the sword for whom and in whose cause she came a suiter Though Solomon was then very young and as much indebted to Bathsheba for the Crown of Israel as a son could be unto a Mother yet he knew how to keep his distance and preserve his power Young Princes have their jealousies in point of State aswell as those of riper years and can as ill endure or admit a Rivall Omnisque potestas impatiens consoriis erit as the Poet hath it Their hearts are equally made up of Caesar and Pompey as unable to endure an equal as admit a Superior Though Nero was advanced to the Empire of Rome by the power and practises of Agrippina his Mother and came as young unto the Crown as King Solomon did yet would he not permit her to be partner with him no not so much as in the outward signs and pomps of Majesty And therefore when he saw her come into the Senate with an intent to sit down with him as he thought in the Throne Imperial he cunningly rose up to meet her Atque ita specie pietatis obviam itum est dedecori saith the wise Historian and under pretence of doing his duty to her did prevent the infamy So then the sitting of our Saviour at the right hand of God importing neither an equality with him nor any superiority at all above him the phrase being measured as it ought according to the standard of the Iewish Idiom and the received customes of that Nation we must enquire a little further to finde out the meaning Most like it is that by these words And sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty is meant the exaltation of the man CHRIST IESVS our blessed Lord and Saviour in his humane nature to the next degree of power and glory unto God himself whereby he was made Lord and Christ the Prince and Saviour of his people as St. Peter cals him the head over all things unto his Church as St. Paul entitles him that to inable him the better to discharge those Offices wherewith by God he is intrusted he hath received withall a participation of Gods Almighty power and most infinite goodness for the defence and preservation of the Church committed to him with all those other powers and faculties which are in Scripture called the right hand of God and finally that sitting there in rest and quiet after all his labours he is continually intent on his Churches safety which he stands ready to defend against all its enemies to govern aâ—d direct it in the ways of godliness and to reward or punish as he sees occasion Which exaltation of our Saviour in his humane nature I can no better liken then to that of Ioseph when Pharaoh made him Ruler over all the land of Egypt and placed him also over his house that according to his word they might all be ruled and made him to ride in the second Charet that he had with an Officer to crie before him Bow the knee All he reserved unto himself was the Regal Throne in which he could not brook an equal Onely in the Throne said he will I be greater then thou So stands the case as I conceive it between God the Father and his Christ. Christ by his exaltation to the right hand of God hath gained the neerest place both of power and glory unto God himself a participation of Gods divine power and goodness an absolute command over all the Church consisting both of men and Angels Only the Divine Throne the Supreme transcendency the Lord God Almighty reserves unto himself not to part with that And if we look into the Scriptures with a careful eye we shall finde Christ standing neer the Throne of Almighty God but not sitting on it St. Paul informs us to that purpose where he saith of Christ that he sate down at the right hand of the Throne of God And St. Iohn telleth us in the Book of the Revelation that he saw in the right hand of him that sate upon the Throne which was God the Father a Book written within and on the backside And the Lamb which had been slain came and tooke the Book out of the right hand of him that sate on the Throne A matter which the strongest Angel mentioned in the second verse did not dare to meddle with knowing his distance from the Throne and how ill it became him to attempt too neer it For though the Angels of themselves are of a more excellent glorious nature and far surpassing all the children of the loyns of Adam yet in this point they fall short of those infinite glories which CHRIST acquired in his person to our humane Nature First in his birth God did in no wise take the Angels saith the great Apostle but the seed of Abraham he took the meaning is that when God was to send a Saviour to redeem the world and that both men and Angels stood at once before him both coveting to be advanced to so high a dignity he did confer that honour on the seed of Abraham on one descended from his loyns and not on any of the Angels of what rank soever Who being born into the world was honoured presently with the name of the Son of God the first begotten Son of the Lord most high and therein was much better and more excellent then the Angels were in that he did inherit a more excellent name That 's the first point in which our Saviour had the better of those glorious creatures For unto which of the Angels that is to say none at all said he at any time Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Though he was made lower then the Angels of inferiour metal and for a while of less esteem in the eyes of men yet did they worship him at his birth by Gods own command and cheerfully proclaimed the news to the sons of men Now as God honoured him with a name above all the Angels so he advanced him to a place at his own right hand which
never any of the Angels was thought worthy of For unto which of the Angels said he at any time Sit thou on my right hand untill I make thine enemies thy footstool But this man being the brightness of the glory and the very Image of the substance of God upholding all things with the Word of his power and having by himself purged away our sins hath sate down on the right hand of the Majesty on high saith the same Apostle And this is that which the same Apostle meaneth in another place saying that God hath set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places far above all principalities and powers and might and dominion and every name that is named Where plainly he relates to the holy Angels whom he distinguisheth there as elsewhere by their several Orders but makes all subject and subordinate to the Son of man Nor hath he only the advantage of those blessed spirits in place and title and no more but also the greatness of that power and authority which sitting at the right hand doth present unto us He doth not only sit there and no more but so but sits there till his enemies be made his footstool as before was said all things what ever being put in subjection under his feet Which as it is one of the effects or consequents of sitting at the right hand of God the Father Almighty so is it such an height of honour such a point of Soveraignty as never any of the Angels could attain unto For unto the Angels saith St. Paul hath he not put in subjection the world to come nor made them to have dominion over the works of his hands And all this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no not in any wise not at any hand These priviledges and preheminences are for none but Christ reserved for him from the beginning before the foundations of the world were laid These then are the Preheminences and Prerogatives Royal which Christ our Saviour doth enjoy above Angels and Men at the right hand of God the Father where he sits crowned with honor and eternal glory And why this sitting at the right hand of God may not be taken in the literal and Grammatical sense according to the plain meaning of the words without tropes and figures and all these several Preheminences and Prerogatives Royal for the effects or consequents of his exaltation I must confess I know no reason to convince me Some things there are which very much incline me to be so perswaded which I shall briefly offer unto consideration and offer them no otherwise then considerations and so leave them there First I consider with my self and desire all learned men and Orthodox believers to consider with me why all the other Articles of the Christian faith even that of the descent into Hell as before was proved should be delivered in plain words and generally received in all times and Ages according to the literal sense this only being of such moment for our Consolation should be wrapt up in Tropes and figures and have another meaning then the words import or why the Apostles when they made this Creed to be the summary or abstract of the Christian faith and therefore to be fitted to the capacity of the weakest Christians who must be fed with milk as St. Peter tels us and he was one of those that composed this Symbol should use a phrase of such a dark and doubtful interpretation as doth distract the greatest Clerks to finde out the meaning Assuredly they had but ill provided for the vulgar Christian who must be fed with milk and not with stronger meats as St. Paul adviseth should they have set before them meats of hard digestion and feasted them with figurative and Metaphorical speeches which none of them did understand or could hope to do it In which respect I am not of the Doctors minde though I much reverence the man for his parts and learning who telleth us that we are bound to believe distinctly and explicitely all other Articles of the Creed concerning Christ according the plain literal and Grammatical sense of the words wherein the Evangelists and Apostles have expressed them without the vail of any Rhetorical Trope or Allegorie but for the place whither he Ascended and for the manner of his sitting at the right hand of God these cannot so distinctly he conceived by us because they are not in such proper tearms exprest by the holy Ghost but are wrapt up in a vail of Legal shadows and Representations I say I cannot be in this of that Doctors judgement because me thinks the reason which he giveth to confirm his opinion doth incline me very strongly to the contrary For if our belief or knowledg of the other Articles be literally required as he saith it is seeing the matter contained in them is sensible and comprehensible to reason sanctified by Grace I cannot see but that his sitting at the right hand of God in the literal sense may be as sensible and comprehensible to a sanctified reason as his Conception by the power of the holy Ghost or being born into the World of the Virgin Mary To make this probable and comprehensible I shall consider in the next place that though Almighty God in his own Divine Nature be infinite immensurable and incomprehensible not circumscribed in any place or confined unto it but equally in all places by his Omnipresence according to that of the Prophet Ieremie Do not I fill Heaven and Earth saith the Lord Almighty Yet we are to behold him in another notion when we speak of our Redeemers sitting at the right hand of God though we abstract him not from that Omnipresence nor that from him For look on God in his infinite nature equally present in all places and contained in none and then place CHRIST our Saviour upon Gods right hand it must needs follow thereupon that Christs natural body in which he sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty must have a local being in all places also which is a thing not possible to a Body natural And what can follow after that but that we either fall into the errour of the Vbiquitarians who under colour of the personal union and communication of the properties of either nature in CHRIST have utterly destroyed the beeing of his natural body by making it present in all places by an Omnipresence or salve it by a miracle as the Papists doe in giving him a multipresence a thing as utterly inconsistent with a body natural making him to be present in as many places at once as all the Popish Priests in the world can say several Masses And therefore I consider in the third place that though God the Lord be present in al places at once If I climbe up into heaven thou art there if I go down into Hell thou art there also as the Psalmist hath it
after this description without father c. that he was likened unto the Son of God and continueth a high Priest for ever it may be said that he did purposely devest himself of all natural relations putting off all references unto Father and Mother wife and children which necessarily do represent both a beginning and end of days that being thus transformed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle and turned out of his own proper and natural shape he might be made more like to the Son of God who being told that his Father and Mother sought him weeping seemed not to note their tears or regard their sorrows but put them off with this short answer Wist ye not that I must goe about my Fathers businesse But take it in the former sense because most received and then Melchisedech is a perfect type or embleme of our Saviour Christ who as he had no beginning of dayes â—or in the beginning was the word before time it self So shall he have no end of life the man CHRIST IESVS being freed from the powers of death and made by God a Priest for ever till time be no more after the order of Melchisedech In the performance of the office which is the next part of the parallel our Saviour did all that Melchisedech did and consequently may pretend to all which Melchisedech claimed Melchisedech blessed Abraham so the text informes us and questionlesse that blessing was accompanied with prayers to God that he would ratifie the blessing then pronounced upon him Blessed saith he be Abram of the most high God possessour of heaven and earth And blessed be the most high God which hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand In which we finde Melchisedech the high Priest of God not only blessing Abraham in the name of God but offering prayers and praises unto God for so great a victory in behalf of Abram which are two principall parts of the Priestly function And these our Saviour did performe as soone as he was consecrated and established in his holy and eternall Priesthood For after his glorious resurrection from whence his Priesthood doth commence as before was proved and before he did withdraw his bodily presence from his Disciples it is said that he lift up his hands and blessed them And questionlesse his blessing was accompanied with prayers to God that he would furnish them abundantly with all gifts and graces which were necessary for the Ministery he had called them to he having told them formerly and it proved accordingly that he would pray unto his Father to send down the Comforter by whom they should be guided in the wayes of truth Nor did he so accumulate his blessings upon them alone that he hath none left in store for us St. Peter hath resolved it otherwise saying to the Iewes that God had raised up his Son Jesus and had sent him to blesse them in turning away every one of them from his iniquities And yet this blessing came not to the Iewes alone but upon the Gentiles and for that we have St. Paul to witnesse CHRIST saith he hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us that the blessing of Abraham might come unto the Gentiles The difference only is in this that Christ is more authentick and authoritative in his blessings then Melchisedech was Melchisedech indeed blessed Abraham but he blessed him only in the name of the most high God and not as having power to confer the blessing But Christ doth blesse us of himself by his own authority and hath withall a power to make good the blessing All power saith he is given me both in heaven and earth and therefore power to give the blessings of the earth and the blessings of Heaven the blessings of this life and the life to come Nor are we only blessed by him in the sense aforesaid but we are also blessed for him we are blessed through him and all unto this end and purpose to be everlastingly blessed in him For him it is that we are blessed and therefore dare not aske any good thing at the hands of God but it is propter merita Iesu Christi for the merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ which either explicitly or implicitely is in all those prayers which we do or ought to make to the Lord our God Through him it is that we are blessed he being as it were the Conduit or Channell through which the blessings of the Lord are conveied unto us in which regard the Church concludeth most of her formes of prayer with this solemne clause per Dominum nostrum I. C. through Jesus Christ our Lord. And finally we shall at last be blessed in him when we are made partakers of that endless happiness which formerly consisteth in our union with him when we are so united to him that we seem to be incorporated in him and all make up together but one glorious body whereof CHRIST IESVS is the head The next part of the Priestly function consisted in offering up the peoples prayers to Almighty God or offering up his own prayers for the weal of the people Melchisedech did both in the case of Abraham for first he prayed unto God for a blessing on him and then he praised God in his Name for his blessings to him And so doth Christ our Saviour also St. Iohn who had presented him unto our view in the first Chapter of the Revelation clothed in Priestly garments as before was said doth in the eight present him in the execution of his Priestly Office For there he telleth us of an Angel standing before the Altar having in his hands a golden Censer to whom much Incense was given that he should offer it with the prayers of all Saints those upon the earth upon the golden Altar which was upon the Throne vers 3. This Angel was our Lord Christ Iesus as St. Augustine telleth us the Mediator of the New Covenant as the Scriptures call him who offereth up the prayers of his faithful servants to the Throne of God and addes much also of his own incense which was given unto him to offer it together with the prayers of the Saints that so they might be made more acceptable in the sight of God This that he doth and doth it by the vertue of the Priestly function is more cleerly evidenced by St. Paul This man saith he discoursing of our blessed Saviour because he continueth for ever hath an unchangeable Priesthood and therefore he is also able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them And for performance of this Office his sitting at the right hand of God doth so fitly serve as if he were advanced to it for this purpose only We touched upon this string before and now to make the Harmony more compleat and perfect I shall adde that also of St. Paul in another
not then be cheated by this new distinction that Kings are Gods Vice-roys but not Iesus Christs though the distinction be much hugged by our great Novators Who intend nothing else thereby but to throw down Crowns and lay them at the foot of their Presbyteries and to set up instead of the Regal power their own dear Tribunal a Soveraignty in all causes Ecclesiastical to over-rule it first and extirpe it afterwards as the right learned Bishop of Kell-Alla very well observeth In these ways and by these several means and subordinate Ministers doth Christ administer the Kingdome committed to him And this he doth continually sitting at the right hand of God the Father and there to sit untill his enemies be made his footstool This David did fore-see by the spirit of Prophecy The Lord saith he said unto my Lord i. e. the Lord God almighty said to my Lord CHRIST IESVS Sit thou on my right hand untill thy enemies be made thy footstool This the Apostle also verifieth and affirms of Christ. But this man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins is set down for ever on the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool And this he also telleth us in another place saying of Christ that he must reign till he shall have put all his enemies under his feet Till then his Kingdome is to last and till that time he is to sit at the right hand of God in all power and Majesty If it be asked when that will be that all his enemies shall be subdued and subject to him we answer at the end of this present world when there is no enemie left to be destroyed Now the last enemie which is to be destroyed is death saith the same Apostle And thereupon we may inferre that while death reigneth in opposition to the Lord of life and sin in a defiance to the Lord of righteousness that hitherto we have not seen all things put under him and therefore must expect yet a little longer before he shall deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father But then indeed when Death is utterly destroyed and all the Saints admitted to the glories of eternal life when all things are subdued unto him then also shall the Son himself be made subject to him that did put all things under him that is God the Father Then when he hath put down all rule and all authority and power then cometh the end and then he shall deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father that God may be all in all This is the summe of St. Pauls argument in that point In which there being many things not easie to be understood I shall not think my time ill spent to make a short Paraphrase and discourse upon it that so we may perceive more fully the Apostles meaning And first he saith that CHRIST must reign till he hath put all things under his feet that being one of the especial parts of the Kingly function as before was shewn to save and defend his Church from the hands of her enemies and for the enemies themselves to crush them with a Scepter of iron and break them in pieces like a Potters vessel When this is done when he hath trodden under foot all his mortal enemies the persecutors of his Church false Prophets false Apostles and the great Antichrist himself which labour to seduce even the very Elect when he hath subjugated the powers of Hell and that sin hath no more dominion over us yet we shall still lie under the power of death untill the last and general Resurrection Death therefore is the last enemie to be destroyed that being delivered from his thraldome raised from the grave which is his prison and all those bonds and fetters broken by which we were held captive under his command we may be made partakers of eternal life and reign with Christ for ever in his heavenly glories When that time cometh when there are neither enemies from which to protect his Church nor any Church to be instructed in the wayes of godliness according to the Nomothetical part of the Regal Office then cometh the end the end of all things in this world which shall be no more the end of Christs Kingdome as the Mediator between God and man man having by the power of his mediation attained the end of his desires the guerdon and reward of his faith and piety This being done the rule of Satan and the authority of sin and the power of death being all broken and subdued he shall first raise our mortal bodies in despight of death pronounce the joyful sentence of absolution on them in despight of sin and finally advance them to that height of glory from which Satan fell to the confusion of the Devil and all his Angels And having so discharged the Office of a Mediator for executing which he sate at the right hand of God he shall deliver up unto God the Father the right and interest which he had in the Kingdome of Grace consisting in the building up of his Elect in faith hope and charity that they with him and he with them may reign forevermore in the Kingdome of glory Where there shall be no use of Faith for they shall see God face to face and faith is the existence of things not seen and less of hope for hope is the expectancy of things desired which being once obtained puts an end to hope Charity onely shall remain for that never ceaseth and therefore said to be the greatest of the three Theological vertues of which the Apostle there discourseth 1 Cor. 13.13 And so Primasius hath resolved it In this present life saith he there are three in the life to come onely the love of God and his Augels and of all the Saints That therefore is the greater which is alwayes necessary then that which once shall have an end The like St. Austin before him The greatest of all is charity because when every one shall come to eternal life the other two failing charity shall continue with increase and with greater certainty And finally before both thus St. Chrysostome and these three witnesses enough The greatest of these is Charity because they passe away but that continueth I must confess there is hardly a more difficult Text in all the Scripture then this of Christs delivering up the Kingdome unto God the Father nor which requires more care in the Exposition for fear of doing injurie unto God or Christ conceive me still of Christ in his humane nature For neither must we so understand the place as if God reigned not now at the present time nor was to reign at all untill this surrendry of the Kingdome by Christ our Saviour That were injurious to the power and Majesty of Almighty God by whom all things were made and by whom all made subject unto Christs command for he it is who did put all things
before the blessed Angels coming out to meet him the Saints incompassing him about to wait upon him the Devil and his Angels led in chaines behind After this comes his inthronizing at the right hand of God the Angelâ— and Archangels all the hosts of heaven falling down before him the Saints and Martyrs joyning to make up the consort and saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and strength and wisdome and honour and glory and blessing Blessing and honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb for evermore The last and greatest as I said is his coming to judgment solemnized in the sight both of men and Angels of the unjust and righteous person yea and the Devill and his Ministers all which shall be attendant at that grand Assize some to receive their severall and particular sentences and some to put the same into execution In my discourse upon this Article I shall take for granted that there shall be a day of judgment He ill deserves the name of Christian that makes question of it And to say truth it is a point of so clear an evidence that the wiser and more sober men amongst the Gentiles though guided by no other light then that of natural reason did subscribe unto it For as Lactantius one much versed in their books and writings hath told us of them not only the Sibyls who may seem to have been inspired with the Spirit of Prophecie but Hydaspes and Mercurius surnamed Trismegistus were of that opinion delivering as with one assent this most certain truth that in the last age the godly being severed from the wicked men with tears and groans shall lift up their hands to Jupiter and implore his aide for their deliverance and that Jupiter shall hear their prayers and destroy the wicked And all these things saith he are true and shall accordingly come to passe as they have delivered nisi quod Iovem illa facturum dicunt quae deus faciet but that they do ascribe to Iupiter what belongs to God Nor want there pregnant reasons which may induce a natural man if wilfully he do not quench that light of reason which is planted in him to be perswaded strongly of a future judgment For granting that there is a God and that God is just and seeing that in this present world such men as were indued with most moral virtues were subject to disgrace and scorn and many times brought to calamitous ends and on the other side voluptuous persons who made their belly their God and their glory their shame to live in peace and plentie much reverenced and respected by all sorts of people right reason could not but conlude that certainly there must be some rewards and punishments after this life ended which God in his eternall justice would proportion to them according as they had deserved And this was Davids contemplation in the book of Psalmes He had observed of wicked and ungodly men that they came unto no misfortune like other folks neither were they plagued like other men that they did prosper in the world had riches in possession and left the rest of their substance to their babes but that he himself and other children of God who cleansed their hearts and washed their hands in innocencie were not only chastened every morning but punished also all day long Which though at first it made him stagger in the way of Godlinesse so that his feet had welnigh slipped yet upon further consideration he resolved it thus that God did set them up in slippery places but it was only to destroy them and cast them down and that at last for all their glories they should perish and be brought to a fearfull end The Parable of Dives and Lazarus serves for confirmation of this Upon whose different fortunes Abraham gave this censure Son remember that thou in thy life time enjoyedst thy good things and Lazarus received evili But now he is comforted and thou art tormented Some sins the Lord is pleased to punish in this present world left else the wicked man should grow too secure and think Gods justice were asleep and observed him not and some he leaves unpunished till the world to come to keep the righteous soul in hope of a better day in which he shall obtain the Crown of his well deserving And to this purpose the good Father reasoneth very strongly Should every sinner be punished in this present life nihil ultimo judicio reservari putaretur c. It would be thought that there was nothing for Christ to do at the day of judgment And on the other side if none the providence and justice of Almighty God would be called in question by each sensual man Qui numina sensu Ambiguo vel nulla putat vel nescia nostri And therefore it is necessary also in respect of God that there should be a day of judgement both of quick and dead at least as to vindicating of his Divine justice which else would suffer much in the eye of men when they observe what we have noted from the Psalmist with what prosperity and peace the ungodly flourish but go not as he did into the Sanctuary to understand of God what their end should be Add yet the Poets contemplation on this point was both good and pious and such as might become a right honest Christian had he intended that of eternal punishments which he speaks of temporal But howsoever thus he hath it Saepe mihi dubiam traxit sententia mentem Curarent Superi terras an nullus inesset Rector incerto fluerent mortalia casu c. Abstulit hunc tandem Ruffini poena tumultum Absolvitque Deos jam non ad culmina rerum Injustos crevisse queror tolluntur in altum Vt lapsu gravore ruant Oft had I been perplex'd in minde to know Whether the Gods took charge of things below Or that uncertain chance the world did sway Finding no higher ruler to obey Ruffino's fall at last to this distraction Gave a full end and ample satisfaction To the wrong'd Gods I shall no more complain That wicked men to great power attain For now I see they are advanc'd on high To make their ruine look more wretchedly Something there also is which may make us Christians not only to believe but expect this day considering that we are told in the holy Scriptures that we shall all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ that every man may receive according to that which he hath done in his body whether good or evill The strength and efficacie of the Argument in brief is this The bodies of us men being the servants of the soul to righteousnesse or else the instruments to sin in justice ought to be partakers of that weal and woe which is adjudged unto the soul and therefore to be raised at the day of judgment
the Royal Prophet which shaketh the Wilderness even the great Wilderness of Cades The best way to resolve this doubt is to look unto the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai which was delivered in the hands of an Angel and much after the same manner as the day of Iudgement is described in the holy Gospel And it came to pass saith Moses on the third day in the morning that there were thunders and lightnings and a thick clowd upon the Mount and the voyce of the Trumpet exceeding loud so that all the people that was in the Camp trembled And all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noyse of the Trumpet and the Mountain smoaking and when the people saw it they removed and stood a far off Whatsoever noyse that was which is by Moses said to be made with the sound of the Trumpet when the Law was given the same do I conceive it will also be when all the world is called to given an account of all their doings whether conform unto that Law or against the same The Trumpet was sounded with great terrour when the Law was given that the whole world might hear the noise of the Eccho of it and thereby brought into a fear of violating any part of that sacred Rule For though the Law seemeth to be given only to the house of Israel and to none but them as indeed it was given to none but them by the hand of Moses in which respect it is not binding to the Gentiles as the Schoolmen very well observe yet being it was naturally imprinted in the hearts of men as the perpetual moral Law of the most high God although the tract and footsteps of it were almost defaced the Gentiles at their peril were obliged to keep it and to take notice of the publication of it whensoever and by what means soever it should arrive unto their Ears So that the trumpet spoken of in the books of Moses is like that of Triton in the Poet as shrill as that and without all peradventure to be heard as far Of which Ovid thus buccinaâ—umitur â—umitur illi Tortilis in medium quae turbine crescit ab imo Buccina quae medio concepit ubi aera Ponto Littora voce replet sub utraque jacentia Phoebo Thus Englished by George Sandys He his wreath'd trumpet takes as given in charge That from the turning bottom grows more large To which when he gives breath 't is heard by all From far up-rising Phoebus to his fall Such also shall the voyce of the Trumpet be in the day of Judgement when all the Nations of the world shall be called together and called to account for their actions past which ought to have been squared by the rule of the Law of which they have such ample notice and such deep impressions although they did not stand at the foot of the Mount when it was published by the Iews The Gentiles saith St. Paul which have not the law that is to say which have it not in writing as the Iews had do by nature the things câ—ntained in the Law and having not the Law so given are a law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written in their hearts their consciences also bearing witness and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another So that all Nations of the world not the Iews alone having such deep characters of the Law of God imprinted in them are thereby made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or without excuse if they keep it not And being bound to keep the law shall be judged according to the law and therefore shall be called together to receive their sentence by that or the like noyse of a Trumpet in which the law was published by the Lord Almighty The next thing here to be considered is the attendance of the Angels which doubtless are not taken in to fill up the train to make the manner of his coming the more brave and glorious but for some other special and more weighty use Therefore our Saviour having told us that the Son of man shall come in glory and all the holy Angels with him addes also in the following words and before him shall al the Nations of the world be gathered Gathered together but by whom by those very Angels Then saith he shall he send his Angels with the sound of the Trumpet and shall gather together the Elect from the four windes c. What the Elect and none but they Not so For they shall also gather out of his Kingdome all things that offend and them that do iniquity But having gathered them together is their work then done Not yet for they must also separate the wicked from the righteous man the goats from the sheep the tares from the good seed the good fish from the bad that being so disposed in their ranks and files they may together hear their senâ—ence whether life or death But when the sentence is pronounced is there any thing more behinde for these ministring Spirits Much more assuredly The greatest part of their imployment is yet to come Gather ye together first the Tares and binde them in bundles to burn them but gather the Wheat into my barn After the gathering and the sentence then comes in the binding And binding is a tearm derived from the Courts of Iustice according to the course whereof the Prisoner is led bound to his Execution so to prevent all hope and possibility of their escape and make them yeild unto their censure with the less resistance I lictor liga manus verberato infoelici arbori suspendito Here Lictor binde the prisoner scourge him or hang him on the Tree as the sentence varied but whether verberato or suspendito there was still liga manus the binding of the prisoner as a part of his punishment God doth so deal with wicked and ungodly men as the great Tyrant Nebuchadnezzar did with the three Hebrew children in the Book of Daniel command them to be first bound and after cast into the midst of the fiery furnace The like we finde in Virgil also Vinxerat post Terga manus quos mitteret umbris the Poet speaking there of those wretched men whom Aeneas was about to sacrifice to the powers below Well being thus bound and ready for the Execution what comes after next Alligate ad comburendum saith our Saviours Parable binde them to burn them saith the Text. And here the case is somewhat altered as it relates unto the Ministers though still the same in reference to the Malefactors Before it was Colligite and Alligate i. e. gather them together and binde them fast here not comburite but ad comburendum The holy Angels were the Ministers to attach the sinner to bring him before Gods Tribunal and after sentence is pronounced to lay hands upon him and make him ready for the punishment which he is to
suffer But that being done they doe confign him over to the Fiends of hell to the Tormentors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as our Redeemer cals them in the 18. chapter of St. Matthew vers 34. The holy Angels are the Ministers of this dreadful Court the Devil and his Angels are the Executioners who bearing an old grudge to man from the first beginning will doubtless execute his Office on him with the most extremity And thus accordingly they do Anima damnata continuo invaditur a Daemonibus qui crudelissime eam rapiunt ad infernum deducunt as before we had it from St. Cyril But in their Ministery after Judgement to the just and righteous the case is otherwise The Angels as the Scripture tels us are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ministring Spirits sent out to minister unto them which shall be heirs of Salvation Sent out to minister unto them when they are alive sent out to carry their souls as they did that of Lazarus into Abrahams bosome when they are deceased sent out to gather the Elect together from the four windes And when the joyful sentence is pronounced upon them they leave them not till they have brought them to their place in the heavenly glories It is not only Colligite gather them together but Congregate in horreum meum in our Saviours Parable Gather the Wheat into my barn that is to say as he expounds himself in another place in gaudium Domini into the joy of the Lord Regnum a constitutione mundi paratum the Kingdom prepared for them before the foundations of the world were laid or as St. Paul doth change the phrase in Civitatem Dei viventis the City of the living God To such end serve the Angels in the day of Iudgement Which though they execute with great chearfulness at the Lords command and are assured of their own confirmation in the state of bliss yet can they not but tremble as the Fathers have it at the great hazard which is then to be undergone by their Fellow-servants So witnesseth St. Basil saying At Christs coming from the Heavens every creature shall tremble Even the Angels themselves shall not be without fear for they shall also be present though they shall give no account to God Not without fear Of what Of their fellow-servants and of Gods wrath upon the world as St. Chrysostom hath it At that day saith the Father all things shall be full of astonishment horror and fear A great fear shall even then possess the Angels and not the Angels only but the Archangels and Thrones and Powers of Heaven because their fellow-servants are to undergoe the judgement of their actions past Such and so terrible is the manner of Christs coming to Iudgement that not alone the guilty persons or the Saints themselves but even the very Angels are possessed with terror As for the method of this day whether the righteous or the wicked shall come first to judgement hath been made a question some thinking that the wicked shall be first condemned before the righteous do receive their absolution and others that the righteous shall be first absolved before the wicked have the sentence of their condemnation They that maintain the first opinion do ground themselves upon that passage in our Saviours Parable in which the Reapers are commanded first to gather the Tares and binde them in bundles for to burn them and then to gather the Wheat into his Barn But this illation is ill grounded and doth much worse agree with our Saviours method used in other places For in the parable of the Net cast into the Sea the good fish were first gathered into Vessels before the bad were thrown away and in the other parable of the Sheep and the Goats Venite hath precedencie of Discedite the blessed of the Father were first absolved before the cursed were condemned to eternal torments Nor will it serve the turn which is said by some that though the merits of the just are prius in discussione first taken in consideration and enquired into yet shall the punishment of the wicked and ungodly man be prius in executione first put in execution and inflicted on them For this as ill agreeth with those texts of Scripture in which it is said not only in particular of the twelve Apostles that they shall sit on twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel but also of the Saints in general that they shall judge the world as St. Paul hath told us That they shall judge the world but how Not only sâ—la comparatione by telling them or rather upbraiding them with their impieties and impenitencies as full well they may in which respect the Ninivites and the Queen of the South are in the Gospel said to condemn the Iews but Approbatione Divinae sententiae by approving and applauding that most righteous judgement which Christ the Supream Judge shall pronounce against them Which could not be in case the wicked did receive their final condemnation before the righteous were admitted into some participation of the heavenly glories When therefore it is said in the former parable Colligite primum Gather first the tares together either the word first must have reference to that of binding which doth follow after first gather them and then binde them up Or else it must be said and perhaps more rightly that the gathering of the tares is there first propounded not because first in order of the several judgements but because they gave occasion unto that discourse betwixt the Heavenly Husbandman and his household servants This difference thus composed and this rub removed the method used in this great action will disclose it self The Lord CHRIST IESVS being set in his glorious Throne the many thousands of his holy Angels shining round about him and the Saints apparelled with their bodies standing all before him or rather placed at his right hand as in the Parable the Reprobates being left on the Earth beneath or standing at his left hand at as great a distance he shall first pronounce the sentence of Absolution upon his Elect Come saith he O ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdome prepared for you from the foundation of the world And this shall first be done for these reasons specially first that the wicked seeing from what bliss they are fallen and what reward is laid up for the righteous man may be the more confounded in the apprehension of their own misfortune and secondly to shew how much more CHRIST is prone to mercy then he is to judgement according to the good old verse Ad poenam tardus Deus est ad praemia velox This done there shall be placed twelve Thrones neer the Throne of Christ for the twelve Apostles who as they were the Lords chief Agents in the work of the Gospel so shall they be his principal Assessors in the Act of Judicature the residue of the Saints
and Martyrs approving and applauding as before I said that most righteous judgement which CHRIST shall then pronounce against all the wicked saying Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels This dreadful sentence thus pronounced and the condemned persons being delivered over by the Angels of God to the Devil and his according to the sentence of that righteous Iudge CHRIST shall arise from his Tribunal and together with his elect Angels and most blessed Saints shall in an orderly and triumphant manner ascend into the Heaven of Heavens where unto every one of his glorious Saints he shall bestow the immarcessible Crown of glory and make them Kings and Priests unto God the Father When all the Princes of the Earth have laid down their Scepters at the feet of CHRIST God shall be still a King of Kings a King indeed of none but Kings Rex Regum Dominus Dominantium always but most amply them For then shall CHRIST deliver up the Kingdom unto God the Father which how it must be understood we have shewn before And the Saints laying down their Crowns at the feet of Christ shall worship and fall down before him saying Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever For thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy bloud out of every kindred and tongue and people and Nation and hast made us Kings and Priests to God to reign with thee in thy Kingdome for evermore Thus have I made a brief but a plain discovery so far forth as the light of Scripture could direct me in it both of the manner of our Saviours coming unto Judgement and of the Method he shall use in the act of judging That which comes after Iudgement whether life or death whether it be the joys of Heaven or the pains of Hell will fall more properly under the consideration of the last Article of the Creed that of Life Everlasting and there we mean to handle all those particulars which I think pertinent thereunto In the mean time a due and serious consideration of this day of Iudgement will be exceeding necessary to all sorts of people and be the strongest bridle to restrain them from the acts of sin that ever was put into the mouths of ungodly men For what a bridle think we must it be unto them to keep them from unlawful lusts nay from sinful purposes when they consider with themselves that in that day the hearts of all men shall be opened their desires made known and that no secrets shall be hid but all laid open as it were to the publick view What a strong bridle must it be to curb them and to hold them in when they are in the full careere and race of wickedness when they consider with themselves that there will be no way nor means to escape this Judgement Though they procure the Rocks to fall upon them and the Hils to hide them yet will Gods Angels finde them out and gather them from every corner of the World be they where they will Though they have flattered their poor souls and said Tush God will not see it or have disguised themselves with fig-leaves out of a silly hope to conceal their nakedness or wiped their lips so cunningly with the harlot in the Book of Proverbs that no man can discern a stollen kiss upon them yet all this will not serve the turn God will for all this bring them unto judgement and apprehend them by his Angels when they go a gathering There shall not one of them escape the hands of these diligent Sergeants Ne unus quidem no not one And finally what a bridle must it be unto them to hold them from exorbitant wickedness as either the crucifying again of the Lord of glory the persecuting of the Saints their mischievous plots against the Church in her peace and Patrimony when they consider with themselves that he whom thus they crucifie is to be their Iudge and that those poor souls whom they now contemn shall give a vote or suffrage on their condemnation and that the poor afflicted Church which they made truly militant by their foul oppressions malgre their tyranny and confederacies shall become Triumphant And on the other side what a great comfort must it be to the righteous man to think that Christ who all this while hath been his Mediator with Almighty God shall one day come to be his Iudge What a great consolation must it be unto him in the time of trouble to think that all his groans are registred his tears kept in a bottle and his sighs recorded and that there is a Iudge above who will wipe all the tears from his eyes and give him mirth in stead of mourning What an incouragement must it be unto him in the way of godliness when he considereth with himself that there is laid up for him a Crown of glory which the Lord the righteous Judge will give him at that day and give it him in the fight both of men and Angels Finally what strength and animation must it put into them to make them stand couragiously in the cause of Christ and to contemn what ever misery can be laid upon them in the defence of Christs and the Churches cause when they consider with themselves that there is no man who hath lost Father or Mother or wife or children or lands and possessions for the sake of Christ but shall receive much more in this present world and in the world to come life everlasting For behold he cometh quickly as himself hath told us and his reward is with him to give to every man according as his work shall be Even so Lord Jesus So be it Amen THE SUM Of Christian Theologie Positive Philological and Polemical Contained in the APOSTLES CREED or Reducible to it THE THIRD PART By Peter Heylyn 1 Cor. 12.13 For by one Spirit are we all Baptized into one Body whether we be Iews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free and have been all made to drink into one Spirit LONDON Printed for Henry Seyle 1654. ARTICLE IX Of the Ninth ARTICLE OF THE CREED Ascribed to St. IAMES the Son of ALPHEVS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Credo in Spiritum sanctum sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam i. e. I beleeve in the Holy Ghost the holy Catholick Church CHAP. I. Touching the Holy Ghost his divine Nature Power and Office the Controversie of his Procession laid down Historically Of Receiving the Holy Ghost and of the severall ministrations in the Church appointed by him WE are now come unto the third and last part of this Discourse containing in the first place the Article of the Holy Ghost and of the holy Catholick Church gathered together and preserved by the power thereof And in the rest those several Gifts and special Benefits which Christ conferreth by the operation of
misunderstood dictates of those old Philosophers For where the Scripture saith They had all things common we are to understand it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the use and communication and not in referenee to the right and original title The goods of Christians were in several as to the right title and possession of them but common in the merciful inclination of the owner to the works of mercy And this appears exceeding plainly by the Text and Story of the Acts. For the Text saith That no man said of any thing that it was his own no not of the things which he possessed which plainly shews That the possession still remained to the proper owner though he was mercifully pleased to communicate his goods to the good of others But this the story shews more plainly For what need any of the Possessors of Lands or Houses have sold them and brought the prices of the things which were sold and laid them down at the Apostles feet to be by them distributed to the poorer Brethren If the poor Brethren might have carved themselves out of such estates and entred on them as their own or with what colour could St. Paul have concealed this truth and changed this natural community to a communication Charge them which be rich in this world saith he that they be willing to communicate a communication meerly voluntary and such as necessarily preserves that interess which the Communicators have in their temporal fortunes And so Tertullian also must be understood For though it be omnia indiscreta in regard of the use or a communion if you will with the Saints maintained with one another in their temporal fortunes yet was it no community but a communication in reference to that legal interess which was still preserved and therefore called no more than rei communicatio in the words foregoing The like may be replied to the other Argument drawn from the quality of friendship and the authority of Aristotle and the rest there named That which I have is properly and truly mine because descended on me in due course of Law or otherwise acquired by my pains and industry and being mine is by my voluntary act made common for the relief and comfort of the man I love and have made choice of for my friend yet still no otherwise my friends but that the right and property doth remain in me Quicquid habet amicus noster commune est nobis illius tamen proprium est qui tenet as most truly Seneca As for the practise of the Spartans and that natural liberty which is pretended to be for mankinde in the use of the Creatures It is a thing condemned in all the Schools of the Politicks and doth besides directly overthrow the principles of the Anabaptist and the Familist and their Confederates who are content to rob all mankinde of the use of the Creatures so they may monopolize and ingross them all to the use of the Saints that is themselves But the truth is that these pretences for the Saints are as inconsistent with the Word and Will of God as those which are insisted on for mankinde in general For how can this Community of the Saints or mankinde agree with any of those Texts of holy Scripture which either do condemn the unlawful getting keeping or desiring of riches by covetousness extortion theevery and the like wicked means to attain the same or else commend frugality honest trades of life and specially liberality to the poor and needy Assuredly where there is neither meum nor tuum as there can be no stealing so there needs no giving For how can a man be said to steal that which is his own or what need hath he to receive that in the way of a gift to which he hath as good a Title as the man that giveth it I shut up all with this determination of the Church of England which wisely as in all things else doth so exclude community of mens goods and substance as to require a Christian Communication of and communion in them The riches and goods of Christians saith the Article are not common as touching the right title and possession of the same as certain Anabaptists do falsly boast therefore no community Notwithstanding every man ought of such things as he possesseth liberally to give Alms to the poor according to his ability and there a Communion of the Saints in the things of this world a communication of their riches to the wants of others But the main point in this Communion of the Saints in reference to one another concerns that intercourse and mutual correspondency which is between the Saints in the Church here Militant and those which are above in the Church Triumphant The Church is of a larger latitude than the present world The Body whereof Christ is Head not being wholly to be found on the Earth beneath but a good part thereof in the Heavens above Both we with them and they with us make but one Body Mystical whereof Christ is Head but one Spiritual Corporation whereof he is Governor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we read in Chrysostom And if he be the Head of both as no doubt he is then must both they and we be members of that Body of his and consequently that correspondence and communion must be held between us which is agreeable to either in his several place So far I think it is agreed on of all sides without any dispute The point in question will concern not the quod sit of it that there is and ought to be a communion between them and us but quo modo how it is maintained and in what particulars And even in this I think it will be granted on all hands also that those above do pray unto the Lord their God for his Church in general that he would please to have mercy on Ierusalem and to build up the breaches in the walls of Sion and to behold her in the day of her visitation when she is harassed and oppressed by her merciless enemies How long say they in the Apocalypse O Lord holy and true how long dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell upon the earth And as they pray unto the Lord to be gracious to us so do they also praise his name for those acts of mercy which he vouchsafes to shew to his Church in general or any of his servants in particular The joy that was in Heaven at the fall of Babylon which had so long made her self drunk with the blood of the Saints and Martys and that which is amongst the Angels of Heaven over every sinners that repenteth are proof enough for this were there no proof else We on the other side do magnifie Gods name for them in that he hath vouchsafed to deliver them out of the bondage of the flesh to take their souls unto his mercy and free
omnium mores actus omnium verba denique occultas cogitationes diligenter inquirere as by the same Cecilius it was charged upon them The fourth which is the way most travelled but of no more certainty is That they see our thoughts and counsels by looking on the face of God in whom as in some magical mirror Tanquam in speculo as they phrase it they see what ever things are done both in Heaven and Earth And hereupon that saying of the first Pope Gregory Qui videt videntem omnia videt omnia is grown into a Maxim in the Schools of Rome But for the proof of this as of that before we have no proof at all but some bare conjectures or Gregories ipse dixit if so much as that too weak foundations to support such a weighty fabrick and therefore not relied on by their greatest Scholars Aquinas the great Patriarch of the Roman Schools saith plainly That the blessed Angels behold the Divine Essence of God and yet know not all things Nesciunt enim futura contingentia cogitationes cordium For they neither know future contingencies nor the thoughts of the heart which belongs onely unto God Thus Martinez Bene potest videns deum non videre omnes creaturas in illo That one who sees God face to face may withal not behold in him each particular Creature Thus Bannes Nullus beatus videt in essentia divina omnia individua aut omnes cogitationes eorum No blessed Saint beholdeth all individuals or the thoughts of all men in the Divine Essence And Durand with a limitation that spoils all the rest Intellectus creatus videns divinam essentiam videt in ipsa omnia quae per ipsam naturaliter ex necessitate repraesentantur alia vero non that is to say A created understanding looking on the Divine essence doth therein see all things which naturally and of necessity are represented by it and not else at all Bellarmine therefore is resolved on another way which though it hath less countenance from the antient Schoolmen yet is by him preferred before all the rest Vt quae magis idonea sit ad convincendos Calvinistas as being fittest to convince and confute the Calvinists And that is that all sublunary matters are made known unto them Deo revelante by revelation from their God which is the matter to be proved and by us denied but with no evidence made good by the learned Cardinal for ought I am able to perceive That at some times they have some things revealed unto them is already granted That all things are revealed unto them is but his opinion and the opinion of some few of the same society Others as eminent as he or they therein differing from them who tell us that this revelation is so made by God Ut unus alio plures vel pauciores videat That one Saint comes to know more or less than others according to the providence and goodness of Almighty God Qui disponere potest quatenus quantum se extendat cognitio cujuscunque videntis deum Who can and doth dispose of so great a favor both to the manner and the measure of the knowledge given therefore no revelation of all things to the Saints in general as Bellarmine desires to have it but onely of some things to some of them and but on some occasions too as before was granted Or were it as Bellarmine desires to have it yet must our prayers unto the Saints be a fruitless vanity For what else is it to desire of the Saints or Angels that they would recommend our wants and endear our prayers unto the Lord considering that our prayers and wants can come unto their knowledge by no other means than by such revelation Little need they commend our desires to him who must first tell them what we want before they can sollicite him in our behalf Upon such false and faulty grounds have they raised this doctrine and by that means reduced again into the world an old peece of Gentilism long since exploded For if we please to look into the Mysteries of the Pagan Theology we shall finde that they devised a kinde of inferior gods whom they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Deastros and placed them as it were in the middle between God and men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in Plato And they devised them to this end That because the principal or supream gods were of so pure and divine a nature as might not be prophaned with the approach of earthly things or with the care and managing of worldly businesses They might make use of these Deastros or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Mediators for them in the Courts of the greater deities Thus the same Plato doth inform us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God saith he is not to be approached by men but all commerce and intercourse between gods and men is performed by the mediation of Daemons And in particular he tells us That they are the Messengers and reporters from men to God and again from God to men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. As well of the supplications and prayers of the one as of the commands and rewards from the other This have we more exactly from Apuleius whom take here at large Mediae sunt potestates per quas desideria nostra merita ad Deos commeunt inter mortales caelicolasque vectores hinc precum inde donorum qui ultro citroque portant hinc petitiones inde suppetias seu quidam utrinque interpretes salutigeri We had the sum before in English and repeat not now He that desires to see more to the same effect may finde it in the tract of Plutarch entituled De defectu oraculorum and in St. Augustines most learned and elaborate Books inscribed De civitate Dei especially in the eighth Book cap. 18.21 and in the ninth Book cap. 9.17 where we shal finde this point discussed Whether in our addresses to the Court of Heaven we should make use of Daemons for our Internuncios An error which it seems began to creep into the Church upon the first converting of the Gentiles to the Faith of Christ who under colour of humility as if they were not worthy to come near to God would have brought in the worshipping of Angels instead of Daemons but were encountred presently by St. Paul himself advising the Colossians who as it seems began to be thus inclined to take special care lest any man did beguile them of their reward through voluntary humility in the worship of Angels But what they failed to do in the holy Angels the Papists have since brought about in the blessed Saints whom they have made their Mediators between God and man in the commending of their prayers and desires to God and the obtaining from his hands of such gifts and graces as they stand in need of And that they might
to him therefore must we sue and address our prayers as often as we stand in need of his help and succour either in stirring up the diligence of our own proper Angels or sending us such for their succour as the case requireth The Angels are his Ministers but not our Masters our Guardians at the best but by no means our Patrons Therefore we must not pray to them in our times of danger but to God that he would please to send them Not unto them because we know no warrant for it in the holy Scripture nor any means might it be done without such warrant to acquaint them ordinarily with our present need by which they may take notice of our distresses and come in to help us 'T is true the Daemons or evil Angels in the state of Gentilism were honoured both with Invocation and with Adoration and the Colossians being newly weaned from their Idolatries thought it no great impiety to change the subject and to transfer that honour on the Angels of light which formerly they had conferred on the Angels of darkness But doth St. Paul allow of this No he blames them for it Let no man saith he beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels Not in a voluntary humility as if we thought our selves unworthy to look up to God and therfore must employ the Angels for our Mediators For this was formerly alleadged as it seems by Zonaras by some weak Christians in the infancy and first days of the Church Of whom he telleth us that they were verily perswaded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say That we ought not to invocate Christ to help us or to bring us to God but to desire that favour of the Angels rather immediate address to Christ being a thing too high for our great unworthiness Nor in the worshipping of Angels which being an effect of their former Gentilism Of which consult St. August Confess l. 10. cap. 42. De Civit. Dei l. 8 9 10. Theodoret upon the Text Clemens of Alexandr Strom. l. 3. Can. 35. Concil Laodicensis was therefore by St. Paul condemned and forbidden as a thing plainly derogatory to the honour of Christ whom they did hereby rob of the glorious Office of being the Mediator between God and man 'T is true that there were some in the Primitive times who were called Angelici who intermingled the Worship of God with the adoration of Angels and lived about the end of the second Century But then it is as true withall that they were reckoned Hereticks for so doing both by Epiphanius in his Pannaion and by St. Augustine in his 39. chap. ad quod vult Deum And not the adoration only but even the invocation of Angels also invocation being an act of Divine worship is by the same Epiphanius condemned for heresie Haer. 38. where he speaks of it as a thing in usual practise amongst the Hereticks called Caini Nor was this worshipping of Angels condemned only by them but by all the Fathers of the Council of Laodicea Canon 35. nor by them only who were guided by a fallible spirit nor by St. Paul only though directed by the Spirit of God but by the very Angels themselves who constantly have refused this honour whensoever by mistake or otherwise it was offered to them For when Manoah in testimony of his joy and thankfulness would have offered a Kid unto that Angel which brought him news from Heaven of the birth of his son the Angel did refuse it saying If thou wilt offer a Burnt-offering thou must offer it unto the Lord By which modest and religious refusal of so great an honour Manoah knew as the Text hath it that he was an Angel And if we may not offer to them the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving then certainly they do as little expect our incense or the oblation of our prayers And therefore it was both piously and acutely said by divine St. Augustine that if we would rightly worship Angels we must first learn of them that they will not be worshipped The like we also finde in the Revelation Where when St. Iohn astonished at the sight of the Angel fell down at his feet to worship him the Angel did refuse it saying See thou do it not for I am thy fellow-servant and of thy Brethren Concerning which we have this memorable passage of the same St. Augustine Quare honoramus eos c. We honour saith he the angels with love not service neither do we build Temples to their honour for they will not so be honoured by us because they know that we our selves are the Temples of God And therefore it is rightly written that a man was forbidden by an Angel that he should not worship him but one God alone under whom he was a fellow-servant with him They then which do invite us to serve and worship them as Gods and so do all which do invite us to pray unto them are like to proud men who would be worshipped if they might though to say truth to worship such men is less dangerous then to worship Angels Finally he resolves it thus and with his Resolution I shall close this point though much more might be said in the prosecution Let Religion therefore binde us to one God Omnipotent because between our mindes or that inward light by which we understand him to be the Father and the truth there is no creature interposed Pray to them then we may not we have no ground for it But pray to GOD we may to send them to our aid and succour when the extremity of danger doth invite us to it And having made our prayers we may rest assured that God will send them down from his holy hill from whence comes Salvation and give them charge to succour us as our need requireth Calvin himself alloweth of this and gives it for a Rule or Precept Vt in periculis constituti a Deo petamus protectionem Angelorum confidamus eos ex mandato Dei praesto fore But behold a greater then Calvin here For our most blessed Mother the Church of England not only doth allow of so good a rule but hath reduced his rule to as good a practise By whom we are taught to pray in the Collect for St. Michael the Archangels day that God who hath ordained and constituted the service of all Angels and men in a wonderful order would mercifully grant that they who always do him service in Heaven may by his appointment succour and defend us on earth through IESVS CHRIST our Lord. Amen Further then this we may not go without entrenching deeply upon Gods Prerogative which as these blessed spirits expect not from us so neither will they take it if it should be offered Non nobis Domine non nobis is the Angels song But so it is not with the Devil or the Angels of darkness who do not only accept of those
prayers and offerings which are made unto them by that miserable and infatuated people whom they have captivated in the chains of sin and ignorance but they look for it at their hands and threaten most severe punishments if it be neglected The Devil is still sick of his old disease of being like to God both in power and greatness And being still possessed of his old ambition no marvel if he stand on Temples Altars Sacrifices both upon Invocation and on Adoration and whatsoever else is requisite to the Worship of God It was the pride and vanity of this glorious humor which made them uncapable of long stay in Heaven and hath since plunged them in the depths of disconsolation They were at first created by Almighty God in the state of perfection as were the blessed spirits who still stand in Grace endued with a most excellent understanding and a conformity of will to the Will of God Good they were made as all the rest of Gods creatures were but not good unchangeably That was the priviledge and Prerogative of the Lord most high But made so good that they were also capable of doing evil if they would themselves and put into a power or liberty of condition either of placing their whole comforts in the service of God or by falling off from that felicity to make themselves the authors and the servants of sin Which power or liberty of their will call it how you please some of them did abuse so far unto Gods dishonour that they were presently removed from that glorions dwelling banished for ever from the presence of Almighty God and kept in chains of darkness to the day of Judgement So witnesseth the holy Scripture both old and new Behold he put no trust in his servants and his angels he hath charged with folly or rather in his Angels he found wickedness In Angelis invenit pravitatem saith the Vulgar Latine Which though they were the words of Eliphaz the Temanite a man not altogether Orthodox in points of Divinity yet that which he intends thereby is countenanced by other passages of Canonical Scriptures For if by finding wickedness or folly in the Angels themselves be meant no more then this as indeed there is not quod illi a Deo propria voluntate discesserunt that by the impulsion of their own will they fell off from God as the learned Estius well obsereth then doth this Temanite say no more in the Book of Iob then what St. Peter and Iude have also said in their two Epistles God spared not the Angels which sinned as St. Peter hath it but cast them down to Hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgement St. Iude affirms the very same The Angels saith he which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day By both it is as clear as day that the Angels sinned and that the punishment due unto their transgression was inflicted on them but what the particular sin was which they did commit and in what state they stand in regard of the punishment we shall crave leave to look into with some further search as being necessary to be known in reference to the fall of man the incarnation of our Lord and Saviour and his last coming unto Iudgement For being fallen themselves from the love of God they have practised ever since on Adam and his whole posterity to make them also liable to the same damnation In solatium calamitatis suae non desinunt perditi jam perdere saith Minutius Felix And this calamity of man induced the ever gracious and most merciful God to send his onely begotten Son into the World to redeem such as were under the law of sin that so they might receive the adoption of sons First for their sin the general opinion of the Church hath been that it was an ambitious pride to be equal with God For being made by God of so pure a substance of such an excellent comprehension and so rare abilities they thought themselves too glorious and sublime an essence to obey a superiour and that it was sufficient honour to the Lord their God if they admitted him for an equal and let him be half sharer with them in the Supreme power Just like some proud ambitious favorite in the Courts of Princes who being raised from nothing to be next in dignity to their Soveraign Lord are not content with those preheminences which their King hath given them but are resolved to strike at all and either get the Regal Diadem or perish in the glory of their undertaking But being this could not be the hope of all those Angels who forsook their God it is supposed to be the aim of some chief amongst them of him who in the Scripture is called sometimes Satan and sometimes Lucâ—fer and sometimes Beelzebub the Prince of Devils The rest of the apostate Angels were drawn into the plot either upon a hope of having a supreme Lord of their own nature which should bear rule over them or fancying to themselves a more moderate reign by living under a Prince of their own Election Now that it was ambition which caused Lucifers fall it is expresly said by the Prophet Esay How art thou fallen from Heaven O Lucifer son of the morning How art thou cast down to the ground which didst weaken the Nations For thou hast said in thine heart I will ascend above the height of the Clowds I will be like the most High Yet shall thou be brought down to Hell to the sides of the pit Upon which words S. Hierom giveth us this short Gloss Qui per superbiam dixerat In Coelum ascendam ero similis altissimo non solum ad infernum sed ad Inferorum ultimum detrahitur He that said through the pride of his heart I will ascend above the height of the Heavens and be like the most High is not only brought down to Hell but to the lowest pit of that dreadful Lake And to this fall of Lucifer as I conceive our Saviour doth allude in St. Lukes Gospel saying I saw Satan as lightning fall from Heaven 10.18 Upon which passage take this short note from the pen of Theophylact Marvel not that the Devils are made subject to you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for their Prince is long since fallen from Heaven and hath no power left which although mortal men beheld not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet was it visible to me who see things invisible The like Ezekiel saith as of Lucifers fall under the name and notion of the King of Tyre Thus saith the Lord God Thou hast been in Eden or Paradise as the Vulgar reads it the Garden of God thou art the anointed Cherub that coverest thou wast upon the holy Mountain of God and perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wert