in Ezek. 1. 20. the Spirit of life was in the wheels is equivalent to the wheels were alive And Ezek. 2. 30. the Spirit entred into me and set me on my feet that is I recovered my vitall strength not that any Ghost or incorporeall substance entred into and possessed his body In the 11 chap. of Numbers verse 17. I will take saith God of the Spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them and they shall bear the burthen of the people with thee that is upon the seventy Elders whereupon two of the seventy are said to prophecy in the campe of whom some complained and Joshua desired Moses to forbid them which Moses would not doe Whereby it appears that Joshua knew not they had received authority so to do and prophecyed according to the mind of Moses that is to say by a Spirit or Authority subordinate to his own In the like sense we read Deut. 34. 9. that Joshua was full of the Spirit of wisdome because Moses had laid his hands upon him that is because he was ordained by Moses to prosecute the work hee had himselfe begun namely the bringing of Gods peoplâ—… into the promised land but prevented by death could not finish In the like sense it is said Rom. 8. 9. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his not meaning thereby the Ghost of Christ but a submission to his Doctrine As also 1 John 4. 2. Hereby you shall know the Spirit of God Every Spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flâ—…sh is of God by which is meant the Spirit of unfained Christianity or submission to that main Article of Christian faith that Jesus is the Christ which cannot be interpreted of a Ghost Likewise these words Luke 4. 1. And Jesus full of the Holy Ghost that is as it is exprest Mat. 4. 1. and Mar. 1. 12. of the Holy Spirit may be understood for Zeal to doe the work for which heâ—… was sent by God the Father but to interpret it of a Ghost is to say that God himselfe for so our Saviour was was filled with God which is very unproper and unsignificant How we came to translate Spirits by the word Ghosts which signifieth nothing neither in heaven nor earth but the Imaginary inhabitants of mans brain I examine not but this I say the word Spirit in the text signifieth no such thing but either properly a reall substance or Metaphorically some extraordinary ability or affection of the Mind or of the Body The Disciples of Christ seeing him walking upon the sea Mat. 14. 26. and Marke 6. 49. supposed him to be a Spirit meaning thereby an Aeriall Body and not a Phantasme for it is said they all saw him which cannot be understood of the delusions of the brain which are not common to many at once as visible Bodies are but singular because of the differences of Fancies but of Bodies only In like manner where he was taken for a Spirit by the same Apostles Luke 24. 3 7. so also Acts 12. 15. when St. Peter was delivered out of Prison it would not be beleeved but when the Maid said he was at the dore they said it was his Angel by which must be meant a corporeall substance or we must say the Disciples themselves did follow the common opinion of both Jews and Gentiles that some such apparitions were not Imaginary but Reall and such as needed not the fancy of man for their Existence These the Jews called Spirits and Angels Good or Bad as the Greeks called the same by the name of Daemons And some such apparitions may be reall and substantiall that is to say subtile Bodies which God can form by the same power by which he formed all things and make use of as of Ministers and Messengers that is to say Angels to declare his will and execute the same when he pleaseth in extraordinary and suâ—…naturall manner But when hee hath so formed them they are Substances endued with dimensions and take up roome and can be moved from place to place which is peculiar to Bodies and thâ—…refore are not Ghosts incorporeall that is to say Ghosts that are in no place that is to say that are no where that is to say that seeâ—…ing to be somewhat are nothing But if Corporeall be taken in the most vulgar manner for such Substances as are perceptible by our externall Senses then is Substance Incorporeall a thing not Imaginary but Reall namely a thin Substance Invisible but that hath the same dimensions that are in grosser Bodies By the name of ANGEL is signified generally a Messenger and most often a Messenger of God And by a Messenger of God is signified any thing that makes known his extraordinary Presence that is to say the extraordinary manifestation of his power especially by a Dream or Vision Concerning the creation of Angels there is nothing delivered in the Scriptures That they are Spirits is often repeated but by the name of Spirit is signified both in Scripture and vulgarly both amongst Jews and Gentiles sometimes thin Bodies as the Aire the Wind the Spirits Vitall and Animall of living creatures and sometimes the Images that rise in the fancy in Dreams and Visions which are not reall Substances nor last any longer then the Dream or Vision they appear in which Apparitions though no reall Substances but Accidents of the brain yet when God raiseth them supernaturally to signifie his Will they are not unproperly termed Gods Messengers that is to say his Angels And as the Gentiles did vulgarly conceive the Imagery of the brain for things really subsistent without them and not dependent on the fancy and out of them framed their opinions of Daemons Good and Evill which because they seemed to subsist really they called Substances and because they could not feel them with their hands Incorporeall so also the Jews upon the same ground without any thing in the Old Testament that constrained them thereunto had generally an opinion except the sect of the Sadduces that those apparitions which it pleased God sometimes to produce in the fancie of men for his own service and therefore called them his Angels were substances not dependent on the fancy but permanent creatures of God whereof those which they thought were good to them they esteemed the Angels of God and those they thought would hurt them they called Evill Angels or Evill Spirits such as was the Spirit of Python and the Spirits of Mad-men of Lunatiques and Epileptiques For they esteemed such as were troubled with such diseases Daemoniaques But if we consider the places of the Old Testament where Angels are mentioned we shall find that in most of them there can nothing else be understood by the word Angel but some image raised supernaturally in the fancy to signifie the presence of God in the execution of some supernaturall work and therefore in the rest where their nature is not exprest it may be
take with thee one or two more And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen man and a Publican By which it is manifest that the Judgment concerning the truth of Repentance belonged not to any one Man but to the Church that is to the Assembly of the Faithull or to them that have authority to bee their Representant But besides the Judgment there is necessary also the pronouncing of Sentence And this belonged alwaies to the Apostle or some Pastor of the Church as Prolocutor and of this our Saviour speaketh in the 18 verse Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven And conformable hereunto was the practise of St. Paul 1 Cor. 5. 3 4 5. where he saith For I verily as absent in body but present in spirit have determined already as though I were present concerning him that hath so done this deed In the name of our Lord Iesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Iesus Christ To deliver such a one to Satan that is to say to cast him out of the Châ—…rch as a man whose Sins are not Forgiven Paul here pronounceth the Sentence but the Assembly was first to hear the Cause for St. Paul was absent and by consequence to condemn him But in the same chapter ver 11 12. the Judgment in such a case is more expressely attributed to the Assembly But now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator c. with such a one no not to eat For what have I to do to judg them that are without Do not ye judg them that are within The Sentence therefore by which a man was put out of Church was pronounced by the Apostle or Pastor but the Judgment concerning the merit of the cause was in the Church that is to say as the times were before the conversion of Kings and men that had Soveraign Authority in the Common-wealth the Assembly of the Christians dwelling in the same City as in Corinth in the Assembly of the Christians of Corinth This part of the Power of the Keyes by which men were thrust out from the Kingdom of God is that which is called Excommunication and to excommunicate is in the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cast out of the Synagogue that is out of the place of Divine service a word drawn from the custome of the Jews to cast out of their Synagogues such as they thought in manners or doctrine contagious as Lepers were by the Law of Moses separated from the congregation of Israel till such time as they should be by the Priest pronounced clean The Use and Effect of Excommunication whilest it was not yet strengthened with the Civill Power was no more than that they who were not Excommunicate were to avoid the company of them that were It was not enough to repute them as Heathen that never had been Christians for with such they might eate and drink which with Excommunicate persons they might not do as appeareth by the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 5. ver 9 10 c. where he telleth them he had formerly forbidden them to company with Fornicators but because that could not bee without going out of the world he restraineth it to such Fornicators and otherwise vicious persons as were of the brethren with such a one he saith they ought not to keep company no not to eat And this is no more than our Saviour saith Mat. 18. 17. Let him be to thee as a Heathen and as a Publican For Publicans which signifieth Farmers and Receivers of the revenue of the Common-wealth were so hated and detested by the Jews that were to pay it as that Publican and Sinner were taken amongst them for the same thing Insomuch as when our Saviour accepted the invitation of Zacchaeus a Publican though it were to Convert him yet it was ohjected to him as a Crime And therefore when our Saviour to Heathen added Publican he did forbid them to eat with a man Excommunicate As for keeping them out of their Synagogues or places of Assembly they had no Power to do it but that of the owner of the place whether he were Christian or Heathen And because all places are by right in the Dominion of the Common-wealth as well hee that was Excommunicated as hee that never was Baptized might enter inter into them by Commission from the Civill Magistrate as Paul before his conversion entred into their Synagogues at Damascus to apprehend Christians men and women and to carry them bound to Jerusalem by Commission from the High Priest By which it appears that upon a Christian that should become an Apostate in a place where the Civill Power did persecute or not assist the Church the effect of Excommunication had nothiug in it neither of dammage in this world nor of terrour Not of terrour because of their unbeleef nor of dammage because they are retâ—…rned thereby into the favour of the world and in the world to come were to be in no worse estate then they which never had beleeved The dammage redounded rather to the Church by provocation of them they cast out to a freer execution of their malice Excommunication therefore had its effect onely upon those that beleeved that Jesus Christ was to come again in Glory to reign over and to judge both the quick and the dead and should therefore refuse entrance into his Kingdom to those whose Sins were Retained that is to those that were Excommunicated by the Church And thence it is that St. Paul calleth Excommunication a delivery of the ExcoÌ„municate person to Satan For without the Kingdom of Christ all other Kingdomes after Judgment are comprehended in the Kingdome of Satan This is it that the faithfull stood in fear of as long as they stood Excommunicate that is to say in an estate wherein their sins were not Forgiven Whereby wee may understand that Excommunication in the time that Christian Religion was not authorized by the Civill Power was used onely for a correction of manners not of errours in opinion for it is a punishment whereof none could be sensible but such as beleeved and expected the coming again of our Saviour to judge the world and they who so beleeved needed no other opinion but onely uprightnesse of life to be saved There lyeth Excommunication for Injustice as Mat. 18. If thy Brother offend thee tell it him privately then with Witnesses lastly tell the Church and then if he obey not Let him be to thee as an Heathen man and a Publican And there lieth Excommunication for a Scandalous Life as 1 Cor. 5. 11. If any man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or an Idolater
above their understanding than to define his Nature by Spirit Incorporeall and then confesse their definition to be unintelligible or if they give him such a title it is not Dogmatically with intention to make the Divine Nature understood but Piously to honour him with attributes of significations as remote as they can from the grossenesse of Bodies Visible Then for the way by which they think these Invisible Agents wrought their effects that is to say what immediate causes they used in bringing things to passe men that know not what it is that we call causing that is almost all men have no other rule to guesse by but by observing and remembring what they have seen to precede the like effect at some other time or times before without seeing between the antecedent and subsequent Event any dependance or connexion at all And therefore from the like things past they expect the like things to come and hope for good or evill luck superstitiously from things that have no part at all in the causing of it As the Athenians did for their war at Lepanto demand another Phormio The Pompeian faction for their warre in Afrique another Scipio and others have done in divers other occasions since In like manner they attribute their fortune to a stander by to a lucky or unlucky place to words spoken especially if the name of God be amongst them as Charming and Conjuring the Leiturgy of Witches insomuch as to believe they have power to turn a stone into bread bread into a man or any thing into any thing Thirdly for the worship which naturally men exhibite to Powers invisible it can be no other but such expressions of their reverence as they would use towards men Gifts Petitions Thanks Submission of Body Considerate Addresses sober Behaviour premeditated Words Swearing that is assuring one another of their promises by invoking them Beyond that reason suggesteth nothing but leaves them either to rest there or for further ceremonies to rely on those they believe to be wiser than themselves Lastly concerning how these Invisible Powers declare to men the things which shall hereafter come to passe especially concerning their good or evill fortune in generall or good or ill successe in any particular undertaking men are naturally at a stand save that using to conjecture of the time to come by the time past they are very apt not onely to take casuall things after one or two encounters for Prognostiques of the like encounter ever after but also to believe the like Prognostiques from other men of whom they have once conceived a good opinion And in these foure things Opinion of Ghosts Ignorance of second causes Devotion towards what men fear and Taking of things Casuall for Prognostiques consisteth the Naturall seed of Religion which by reason of the different Fancies Judgements and Passions of severall men hath grown up into ceremonies so different that those which are used by one man are for the most part ridiculous to another For these seeds have received culture from two sorts of men One sort have been they that have nourished and ordered them according to their own invention The other have done it by Gods commandement and direction but both sorts have done it with a purpose to make those men that relyed on them the more apt to Obedience Lawes Peace Charity and civill Society So that the Religion of the former sort is a part of humane Politiques and teacheth part of the duty which Earthly Kings require of their Subjects And the Religion of the later sort is Divine Politiques and containeth Precepts to those that have yeelded themselves subjects in the Kingdome of God Of the former sort were all the founders of Common-wealths and the Law-givers of the Gentiles Of the later sort were Abraham Moses and our Blessed Saviour by whom have been derived unto us the Lawes of the Kingdome of God And for that part of Religion which consisteth in opinions concerning the nature of Powers Invisible there is almost nothing that has a name that has not been esteemed amongst the Gentiles in one place or another a God or Divell or by their Poets feigned to be inanimated inhabited or possessed by some Spirit or other The unformed matter of the World was a God by the name of Chaos The Heaven the Ocean the Planets the Fire the Earth the Winds were so many Gods Men Women a Bird a Crocodile a Calf a Dogge a Snake an Onion a Leeke Deâ—…fied Besides that they filled almost all places with spirits called Daemons the plains with Pan and Panises or Satyres the Woods with Fawnes and Nymphs the Sea with Tritons and other Nymphs every River and Fountayn with a Ghost of his name and with Nymphs every house with its Lares or Familiars every man with his Genius Hell with Ghosts and spirituall Officers as Charon Cerberus and the Furies and in the night time all places with Larvae Lemures Ghosts of men deceased and a whole kingdome of Fayries and Bugbears They have also ascribed Divinity and built Temples to meer Accidenâ—…s and Qualities such as are Time Night Day Peace Concord Love Contention Vertue Honour Health Rust Fever and the like which when they prayed for or against they prayed to as if there were Ghosts of those names hanging over their heads and letting fall or withholding that Good or Evill for or against which they prayed They invoked also their own Wit by the name of Muses their own Ignorance by the name of Fortune their own Lust by the name of Cupid their own Rage by the name Furies their own privy members by the name of Priapus and attributed their pollutions to â—…ncubi and Succubae insomuch as there was nothing which a Poet could introduce as a person in his Poem which they did not make either a God or a Divel The same authors of the Religion of the Gentiles observing the second ground for Religion which is mens Ignorance of causes and thereby their aptnesse to attribute their fortune to causes on which there was no dependance at all apparent took occasion to obtrude on their ignorance in stead of second causes a kind of second and ministeriall Gods ascribing the cause of Foecundity to Venus the cause of Arts to Apolla of Subtilty and Craft to Mercury of Tempests and stormes to Aeolus and of other effects to other Gods insomuch as there was amongst the Heathen almost as great variety of Gods as of businesse And to the Worship which naturally men conceived fit to bee used towards their Gods namely Oblations Prayers Thanks and the rest formerly named the same Legislators of the Gentiles have added their Images both in Picture and Sculpture that the more ignorant sort that is to say the most part or generality of the people thinking the Gods for whose representation they were made were really included and as it were housed within them might so much the more stand in feare of them And endowed them
fault that Jonathan had committed in eating a honey-comb contrary to the oath taken by the people And Iosh. 18. 10. God divided the land of Canaan amongst the Israelite by the lots that Ioshua did cast before the Lord in Shiloh In the same manner it seemeth to be that God discovered Ioshua 7. 16 c. the crime of Achan And these are the wayes whereby God declared his Will in the Old Testament All which ways he used also in the New Testament To the Virgin Mary by a Vision of an Angel To Ioseph in a Dream again to Paul in the way to Damascus in a Vision of our Saviour and to Peter in the Vision of a sheet let down from heaven with divers sorts of flesh of clean and unclean beasts and in prison by Vision of an Angel And to all the Apostles and Writers of the New Testament by the graces of his Spirit and to the Apostles again at the choosing of Matthias in the place of Judas Iscariot by lot Seeing then all Prophecy supposeth Vision or Dream which two when they be naturall are the same or some especiall gift of God so rarely observed in mankind as to be admired where observed And seeing as well such gifts as the most extraordinary Dreams and Visions may proceed from God not onely by his supernaturall and immediate but also by his naturall operation and by mediation of second causes there is need of Reason and Judgment to discern between naturall and supernaturall Gifts and between naturall and supernaturall Visions or Dreams And consequently men had need to be very circumspect aud wary in obeying the voice of man that pretending himself to be a Prophet requires us to obey God in that way which he in Gods name telleth us to be the way to happinesse For he that pretends to teach men the way of so great felicity pretends to govern them that is to say to rule and reign over them which is a thing that all men naturally desire and is therefore worthy to be suspected of Ambition and Imposture and consequently ought to be examined and tryed by every man before hee yeeld them obedience unlesse he have yeelded it them already in the institution of a Common-wealth as when the Prophet is the Civill Soveraign or by the Civil Soveraign Authorized And if this examination of Prophets and Spirits were not allowed to every one of the people it had been to no purpose to set out the marks by which every man might be able to distinguish between those whom they ought and those whom they ought not to follow Seeing therefore such marks are set out Deut. 13. 1 c. to know a Prophet by and 1 Iohn 4. 1. c. to know a Spirit by and seeing there is so much Prophecying in the Old Testament and so much Preaching in the New Testament against Prophets and so much greater a number ordinarily of false Prophets then of true every one is to beware of obeying their directions at their own perill And first that there were many more false then true Prophets appears by this that when Ahab 1 Kings 12. consulted four hundred Prophets they were all false Impostors but onely one Michaiah And a little before the time of the Captivity the Prophets were generally lyars The Prophets saith the Lord by Ieremy cha 14. verse 14. prophecy Lies in my name I sent them not neither have I commanded them nor spake unto them they prophecy to you a false Vision a thing of naught and the deceit of their heart In so much as God commanded the People by the mouth of the Prophet Iâ—…remiah chap. 23. 16. not to obey them Thus saith the Lord of Hosts hearken not unto the words of the Prophets that prophecy to you They make you vain they speak a Vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. Seeing then there was in the time of the Old Testament such quarrells amongst the Visionary Prophets one contesting with another and asking When departed the Spirit from me to go to thee as between Michaiah and the rest of the four hundred and such giving of the Lye to one another as in Ierem. 14. 14. and such controversies in the New Testament at this day amongst the Spirituall Prophets Every man then was and now is bound to make use of his Naturall Reason to apply to all Prophecy those Rules which God hath given us to discern the true from the false Of which Rules in the Old Testament one was conformable doctrine to that which Moses the Soveraign Prophet had taught them and the other the miraculous power of foretelling what God would bring to passe as I have already shewn out of Deut. 13. 1. c. And in the New Testament there was but one onely mark and that was the preaching of this Doctrine That Iesus is the Christ that is the King of the Jews promised in the Old Testament Whosoever denyed that Article he was a false Prophet whatsoever miracles he might seem to work and he that taught it was a true Prophet For St. Iohn 1 Epist. 4. 2 c. speaking expressely of the means to examine Spirits whether they be of God or not after he had told them that there would arise false Prophets saith thus Hereby know ye the Spirit of God Every Spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God that is is approved and allowed as a Prophet of God not that he is a godly man or one of the Elect for this that he confesseth professeth or preacheth Jesus to be the Christ but for that he is a Prophet avowed For God sometimes speaketh by Prophets whose persons he hath not accepted as he did by Baalam and as he foretold Saul of his death by the Witch of Endor Again in the next verse Every Spirit that confesseth not that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of Christ. And this is the Spirit of Antichrist So that the Rule is perfect on both sides that he is a true Prophet which preacheth the Messiah already come in the person of Jesus and he a false one that denyeth him come and looketh for him in some future Impostor that shall take upon him that honour falsely whom the Apostle there properly calleth Antichrist Every man therefore ought to consider who is the Soveraign Prophet that is to say who it is that is Gods Vicegerent on Earth and hath next under God the Authority of Governing Christian men and to observe for a Rule that Doctrine which in the name of God hee hath commanded to bee taught and thereby to examine and try out the truth of those Doctrines which pretended Prophets with miracle or without shall at any time advance and if they find it contrary to that Rule to doe as they did that came to Moses and complained that there were some that Propecyed in the Campe whose Authority so to doe they doubted of and leave to the
Christ all shall bee made alive then all men shall be made to live on Earth for else the comparison were not proper Hereunto seemeth to agree that of the Psalmist Psal. 133. 3. Vpon Zion God commanded the blessing even Life for evermore for Zion is in Jerusalem upon Earth as also that of S. Joh. Rev. 2. 7. To him that overcommeth I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God This was the tree of Adams Eternall life but his life was to have been on Earth The same seemeth to be confirmed again by St. Joh. Rev. 21. 2. where he saith I Iohn saw the Holy City New Ierusalem coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband and again v. 10. to the same effect As if he should say the new Jerusalem the Paradise of God at the coming again of Christ should come down to Gods people from Heaven and not they goe up to it from Earth And this differs nothing from that which the two men in white clothing that is the two Angels said to the Apostles that were looking upon Christ ascending Acts 1. 11. This same Iesus who is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come as you have seen him go up into Heaven Which soundeth as if they had said he should come down to govern them under his Father Eternally here and not take them up to govern them in Heaven and is conformable to the Restauration of the Kingdom of God instituted under Moses which was a Political government of the Jews on Earth Again that saying of our Saviour Mat. 22. 30. that in the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the Angels of God in heaven is a description of an Eternall Life resembling that which we lost in Adam in the point of Marriage For seeing Adam and Eve if they had not sinned had lived on Earth Eternally in their individuall persons it is manifest they should not continually have procreated their kind For if Immortals should have generated as Mankind doth now the Earth in a small time would not have been able to afford them place to stand on The Jews that asked our Saviour the question whose wife the woman that had married many brothers should be in the resurrection knew not what were the consequences of Life Eternall and therefore our Saviour puts them in mind of this consequence of Immortality that there shal be no Generation and consequētly no marriage no more then there is marriage or generatiō among the Angels The comparison between that Eternall life which Adam lost and our Saviour by his Victory over death hath recovered holdeth also in this that as Adam lost Eternall Life by his sin and yet lived after it for a time so the faithful Christian hath recovered Eternal Life by Christs passion though he die a natural death and remaine dead for a time namely till the Resurrection For as Death is reckoned from the Condemnation of Adam not from the Execution so Life is reckoned from the Absolution not from the Resurrection of them that are elected in Christ. That the place wherein men are to live Eternally after the Resurrection is the Heavens meaning by Heaven those parts of the world which are the most remote from Earth as where the stars are or above the stars in another Higher Heaven called Coelum Empyreum whereof there is no mention in Scripture nor ground in Reason is not easily to be drawn from any text that I can find By the Kingdome of Heaven is meant the Kingdom of the King that dwelleth in Heaven and his Kingdome was the people of Israel whom he ruled by the Prophets his Lieutenants first Moses and after him Eleazar and the Soveraign Priests till in the days of Samuel they rebelled and would have a mortall man for their King after the manner of other Nations And when our Saviour Christ by the preaching of his Ministers shall have perswaded the Jews to return and called the Gentiles to his obedience then shall there be a new Kingdom of Heaven because our King shall then be God whose throne is Heaven without any necessity evident in the Scripture that man shall ascend to his happinesse any higher than Gods footstool the Earth On the contrary we find written Ioh. 3. 13. that no man hath ascended into Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of man that is in Heaven Where I observe by the way that these words are not as those which go immediately before the words of our Saviour but of St. John himself for Christ was then not in Heaven but upon the Earth The like is said of David Acts 2. 34. where St. Peter to prove the Ascension of Christ using the words of the Psalmist Psal. 16. 10. Thou wilt not leave my soule in Hell not suffer thine Holy one to see corruption saith they were spoken not of David but of Christ and to prove it addeth this Reason For David is not ascended into Heaven But to this a man may easily answer and say that though their bodies were not to ascend till the generall day of Judgment yet their souls were in Heaven as soon as they were departed from their bodies which also seemeth to be confirmed by the words of our Saviour Luke 20. 37 38. who proving the Resurrection out of the words of Moses saith thus That the dead are raised even Moses shewed at the bush when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob For he is not a God of the Dead but of the Living for they all live to him But if these words be to be understood only of the Immortality of the Soul they prove not at all that which our Saviour intended to prove which was the Resurrection of the Body that is to say the Immortality of the Man Therefore our Saviour meaneth that those Patriarchs were Immortall not by a property consequent to the essence and nature of mankind but by the will of God that was pleased of his mere grace to bestow Eternall life upon the faithfull And though at that time the Patriarchs and many other faithfull men were dead yet as it is in the text they lived to God that is they were written in the Book of Life with them that were absolved of their sinnes and ordained to Life eternall at the Resurrection That the Soul of man is in its own nature Eternall and a living Creature inpedendent on the body or that any meer man is Immortall otherwise than by the Resurrection in the last day except Enos and Elias is a doctrine nor apparent in Scripture The whole 14. Chapter of Iob which is the speech not of his friends but of himselfe is a complaint of this Mortality of Nature and yet no contradiction of the Immortality at the Resurrection There is hope of a tree saith hee verse 7.
his successors may probably enough have crept into the Religion of the Jews But seeing it is not likely our Saviour would countenance a Heathen rite it is most likely it proceeded from the Legall Ceremony of Washing after Leprosie And for the other Sacrament of eating the Paschall Lambe it is manifestly imitated in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in which the Breaking of the Bread and the pouring out of the Wine do keep in memory our deliverance from the Misery of Sin by Christs Passion as the eating of the Paschall Lambe kept in memory the deliverance of the Jewes out of the Bondage of Egypt Seeing therefore the authority of Moses was but subordinate and hee but a Lieutenant to God it followeth that Christ whose authority as man was to bee like that of Moses was no more but subordinate to the authority of his Father The same is more expressely signified by that that hee teacheth us to pray Our Father Let thy Kingdome come and For thine is the Kingdome the Power and the Glory and by that it is said that Hee shall come in the Glory of his Father and by that which St. Paul saith 1 Cor. 15. 24. then commeth the end when hee shall have delivered up the Kingdome to God even the Father and by many other most expresse places Our Saviour therefore both in Teaching and Reigning representeth as Moses did the Person of God which God from that time forward but not before is called the Father aud being still one and the same substance is one Person as represented by Moses and another Person as represented by his Sonne the Christ. For Person being a relative to a Representer it is consequent to plurality of Representers that there bee a plurality of Persons though of one and the same Substance CHAP. XLII Of POWER ECCLESIASTICALL FOr the understanding of POVVER ECCLESIASTICALL what and in whom it is we are to distinguish the time from the Ascension of our Saviour into two parts one before the Conversion of Kings and men endued with Soveraign Civill Power the other after their Conversion For it was long after the Ascension before any King or Civill Soveraign embraced and publiquely allowed the teaching of Christian Religion And for the time between it is manifest that the Power Ecclesiasticall was in the Apostles and after them in such as were by them ordained to Preach the Gospell and to convert men to Christianity and to direct them that were converted in the way of Salvation and after these the Power was delivered again to others by these ordained and this was done by Imposition of hands upon such as were ordained by which was signified the giving of the Holy Spirit or Spirit of God to those whom they ordained Ministers of God to advance his Kingdome So that Imposition of hands was nothing else but the Seal of their Commission to Preach Christ and teach his Doctrine and the giving of the Holy Ghost by that ceremony of Imposition of hands was an imitation of that which Moses did For Moses used the same ceremony to his Minister Joshua as wee read Deâ—…teronomy 34. ver 9. And Ioshua the Son of Nun was full of the Spirit of VVisdome for Moses had laid his hands upon him Our Saviour therefore between his Resurrection and Ascension gave his Spirit to the Apostles first by Breathing on them and saying Iohn 20. 22. Receive yee the Holy Spirit and after his Ascension Acts 2. 2 3. by sending down upon them a mighty wind and Cloven tongues of fire and not by Imposition of hands as neither did God lay his hands on Moses and his Apostles afterward transmitted the same Spirit by Imposition of hands as Moses did to Joshua So that it is manifest hereby in whom the Power Ecclesiasticall continually remained in those first times where there was not any Christian Common-wealth namely in them that received the same from the Apostles by successive laying on of hands Here wee have the Person of God born now the third time For as Moses and the High Priests were Gods Representative in the Old Testament and our Saviour himselfe as Man during his abode on earth So the Holy Ghost that is to say the Apostles and their successors in the Office of Preaching and Teaching that had received the Holy Spirit have Represented him ever since But a Person as I have shewn before chapt 13. is he that is Represented as often as hee is Represented and therefore God who has been Represented that is Personated thrice may properly enough be said to be three Persons though neither the word Person nor Trinity be ascribed to him in the Bible St. Iohn indeed 1 Epist. 5. 7. saith There be three that bear witnesse in heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit and these Three are One But this disagreeth not but accordeth fitly with three Persons in the proper signification of Persons which is that which is Represented by another For so God the Father as Represented by Moses is one Person and as Represented by his Sonne another Person and as Represented by the Apostles and by the Doctors that taught by authority from them derived is a third Person and yet every Person here is the Person of one and the same God But a man may here ask what it was whereof these three bare witnesse St. Iohn therefore tells us verse 11. that they bear witnesse that God hath given us eternall life in his Son Again if it should bee asked wherein that testimony appeareth the Answer is easie for he hath testified the same by the miracles he wrought first by Moses secondly by his Son himself and lastly by his Apostles that had received the Holy Spirit all which in their times Represented the Person of God and either prophecyed or preached Jesus Christ. And as for the Apostles it was the character of the Apostleship in the twelve first and great Apostles to bear Witnesse of his Resurrection as appeareth expressely Acts 1. ver 21 22. where St. Peter when a new Apostle was to be chosen in the place of Judas Iscariot useth these words Of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Iesus went in and out amongst us beginning at the Baptisme of Iohn unto that same day that hee was taken up from us must one bee ordained to be a Witnesse with us of his Resurrection which words interpret the bearing of Witnesse mentioned by St. John There is in the same place mentioned another Trinity of Witnesses in Earth For ver 8. he saith there are three that bear VVitnesse in Earth the Spirit and the VVater and the Bloud and these three agree in one that is to say the graces of Gods Spirit and the two Sacraments Baptisme and the Lords Supper which all agree in one Testimony to assure the consciences of beleevers of eternall life of which Testimony he saith verse 10. He that beleeveth on the Son of man hath the
we or an Angell from Heaven preach any other Gospell unto you than that wee have preached unto you let him bee accursed But the Gospell which Paul and the other Apostles preached was onely this Article that Jesus is the Christ Therefore for the Beleef of this Article we are to reject the Authority of an Angell from heaven much more of any mortall man if he teach the contrary This is therefore the Fundamentall Article of Christian Faith A third place is 1 Joh. 4. 1. Beloved beleâ—…ve not every spirit Hereby yee shall know the Spirit of God every spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the flâ—…sh is of God By which it is evident that this Article is the measure and rule by which to estimate and examine all other Articles and is therefore onely Fundamentall A fourth is Matt. 16. 18. where after St. Peter had professed this Article saying to our Saviour Thou art Christ the Son of the living God Our Saviour answered Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church from whence I inferre that this Article is that on which all other Doctrines of the Church are built as on their Foundation A fift is 1 Cor. 3. ver 11 12 c. Other Foundation can no man lay than that which is laid Jesus is the Christ. Now if any man build upon this Foundation Gold Silver pretious Stones Wood Hay Stubble Every mans work shall be made manifest For the Day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is If any mans work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward If any mans work shall bee burnt he shall suffer losse but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire Which words being partly plain and easie to understand and partly allegoricall and difficult out of that which is plain may be inferred that Pastors that teach this Foundation that Jesus is the Christ though they draw from it false consequences which all men are sometimes subject to they may neverthelesse bee saved much more that they may bee saved who being no Pastors but Hearers beleeve that which is by their lawfull Pastors taught them Therefore the beleef of this Article is sufficient and by consequence there is no other Article of Faith Necessarily required to Salvation Now for the part which is Allegoricall as That the fire shall try every mans work and that They shall be saved but so as by fire or through fire for the originall is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it maketh nothing against this conclusion which I have drawn from the other words that are plain Neverthelesse because upon this place there hath been an argument taken to prove the fire of Purgatory I will also here offer you my conjecture concerning the meaning of this triall of Doctrines and saving of men as by Fire The Apostle here seemeth to allude to the words of the Prophet Zachary Ch. 13. 8 9. who speaking of the Restauration of the Kingdome of God saith thus Two parts therein shall be cut off and die but the third shall be left therein And I will bring the third part through the Fire and will refine them as Silver is refined and will try them as Gold is tryed they shall call on the name of the Lord and I will hear them The day of Judgment is the day of the Restauration of the Kingdome of God and at that day it is that St. Peter tells us * shall be the Conflagration of the world wherein the wicked shall perish but the remnant which God will save shall passe through that Fire unhurt and be therein as Silver and Gold are refined by the fire from their drosse tryed and refined from their Idolatry and be made to call upon the name of the true God Alluding whereto St. Paul here saith That the Day that is the Day of Judgment the Great Day of our Saviours comming to restore the Kingdome of God in Israel shall try every mans doctrine by Judging which are Gold Silver Pretious Stones Wood Hay Stubble And then they that have built false Consequences on the true Foundation shall see their Doctrines condemned neverthelesse they themselves shall be saved and passe unhurt through this universall Fire and live eternally to call upon the name of the true and onely God In which sense there is nothing that accordeth not with the rest of Holy Scripture or any glimpse of the fire of Purgatory But a man may here aske whether it bee not as necessary to Salvation to beleeve that God is Omnipotent Creator of the world that Jesus Christ is risen and that all men else shall rise again from the dead at the last day as to beleeve that Jesus is the Christ. To which I answer they are and so are many more Articles but they are such as are contained in this one and may be deduced from it with more or lesse difficulty For who is there that does not see that they who beleeve Jesus to be the Son of the God of Israel and that the Israelites had for God the Omnipotent Creator of all things doe therein also beleeve that God is the Omnipotent Creator of all things Or how can a man beleeve that Jesus is the King that shall reign eternally unlesse hee beleeve him also risen again from the dead For a dead man cannot exercise the Office of a King In summe he that holdeth this Foundation Jesus is the Christ holdeth Expressely all that hee seeth rightly deduced from it and Implicitely all that is consequent thereunto though he have not skill enough to discern the consequence And therefore it holdeth still good that the beleef of this one Article is sufficient faith to obtaine remission of sinnes to the Penitent and consequently to bring them into the Kingdome of Heaven Now that I have shewn that all the Obedience required to Salvation consisteth in the will to obey the Law of God that is to say in Repentance and all the Faith required to the same is comprehended in the beleef of this Article Jesus is the Christ I will further alledge those places of the Gospell that prove that all that is Necessary to Salvation is contained in both these joined together The men to whom St. Peter preached on the day of Pentecost next after the Ascension of our Saviour asked him and the rest of the Apostles saying Act. 2. 37. Men and Brethren what shall we doe To whom St. Peter answered in the next verse Repent and be Baptized every one of you for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost Therefore Repentance and Baptisme that is beleeving that Jesus is the Christ is all that is Necessary to Salvation Again our Saviour being asked by a certain Ruler Luke 18. 18. What shall I doe to inherite eternall life Answered verse 20. Thou knowest the Commandements Doe not commit
and not the Reprobate To the Reprobate there remaineth after the Resurrection a Second and Eternall Death between which Resurrection and their Second and Eternall death is but a time of Punishment and Torment and to last by succession of sinners thereunto as long as the kind of Man by propagation shall endure which is Eternally Upon this Doctrine of the Naturall Eternity of separated Soules is founded as I said the Doctrine of Purgatory For supposing Eternall Life by Grace onely there is no Life but the Life of the Body and no Immortality till the Resurrection The texts for Purgatory alledged by Bellarmine out of the Canonicall Scripture of the old Testament are first the Fasting of David for Saul and Ionathan mentioned 2 Kings 1. 12. and againe 2 Sam. 3. 35. for the death of Abner This Fasting of David he saith was for the obtaining of something for them at Gods hands after their death because after he had Fasted to procure the recovery of his owne child assoone as he knew it was dead he called for meate Seeing then the Soule hath an existence separate from the Body and nothing can be obtained by mens Fasting for the Soules that are already either in Heaven or Hell it followeth that there be some Soules of dead men that are neither in Heaven nor in Hell and therefore they must bee in some third place which must be Purgatory And thus with hard straining hee has wrested those places to the proofe of a Purgatory whereas it is manifest that the ceremonies of Mourning and Fasting when they are used for the death of men whose life was not profitable to the Mourners they are used for honours sake to their persons and when t is done for the death of them by whose life the Mourners had benefit it proceeds from their particular dammage And so David honoured Saul and Abner with his Fasting and in the death of his owne child recomforted himselfe by receiving his ordinary food In the other places which he alledgeth out of the old Testamēt there is not so much as any shew or colour of proofe He brings in every text wherein there is the word Anger or Fire or Burning or Purging or Clensing in case any of the Fathers have but in a Sermon rhetorically applied it to the Doctrine of Purgatory already beleeved The first verse of Psalme 37. O Lord rebuke me not in thy wrath nor chasten me in thy hot displeasure What were this to Purgatory if Augustine had not applied the Wrath to the fire of Hell and the Displeasure to that of Purgatory And what is it to Purgatory that of Psalme 66. 12. Wee went through fire and water and thou broughtest us to a moist place and other the like texts with which the Doctors of those times entended to adorne or extend their Sermons or Commentaries haled to their purposes by force of wit But he alledgeth other places of the New Testament that are not so easie to be answered And first that of Matth. 12. 32. Whosoever speaketh a word against the Sonne of man it shall be forgiven him but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not bee forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come Where he will have Purgatory to be the World to come wherein some sinnes may be forgiven which in this World were not forgiven notwithstanding that it is manifest there are but three Worlds one from the Creation to the Flood which was destroyed by Water and is called in Scripture the Old World another from the Flood to the day of Judgement which is the Present World and shall bee destroyed by Fire and the third which shall bee from the day of Judgement forward everlasting which is called the World to come and in which it is agreed by all there shall be no Purgatory And therefore the World to come and Purgatory are inconsistent But what then can bee the meaning of those our Saviours words I confesse they are very hardly to bee reconciled with all the Doctrines now unanimously received Nor is it any shame to confesse the profoundnesse of the Scripture to bee too great to be sounded by the shortnesse of humane understanding Neverthelesse I may propound such things to the consideration of more learned Divines as the text it selfe suggesteth And first seeing to speake against the Holy Ghost as being the third Person of the Trinity is to speake against the Church in which the Holy Ghost resideth it seemeth the comparison is made betweene the Easinesse of our Saviour in bearing with offences done to him while hee himselfe taught the world that is when he was on earth and the Severity of the Pastors after him against those which should deny their authority which was from the Holy Ghost As if he should say You that deny my Power nay you that shall crucifie me shall be pardoned by mee as often as you turne unto mee by Repentance But if you deny the Power of them that teach you hereafter by vertue of the Holy Ghost they shall be inexorable and shall not forgive you but persecute you in this World and leave you without absolution though you turn to me unlesse you turn also to them to the punishments as much as lies in them of the World to come And so the words may be taken as a Prophecy or Praediction concerning the times as they have along been in the Christian Church Or if this be not the meaning for I am not peremptory in such difficult places perhaps there may be place left after the Resurrection for the Repentance of some sinners And there is also another place that seemeth to agree therewith For considering the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. 29. What shall they doe which are Baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all why also are they Baptized for the dead a man may probably inferre as some have done that in St. Pauls time there was a custome by receiving Baptisme for the dead as men that now beleeve are Sureties and Undertakers for the Faith of Infants that are not capable of beleeving to undertake for the persons of their deceased friends that they should be ready to obey and receive our Saviour for their King at his his coming again and then the forgivenesse of sins in the world to come has no need of a Purgatory But in both these interpretations there is so much of paradox that I trust not to them but propound them to those that are throughly versed in the Scripture to inquire if there be no clearer place that contradicts them Onely of thus much I see evident Scripture to perswade me that there is neither the word nor the thing of Purgatory neither in this nor any other text nor any thing that can prove a necessity of a place for the Soule without the Body neither for the Soule of Lazarus during the four days he was dead nor for the Soules of them which the
Attribute expresseth best his Nature which is Incomprehensible but what best expresseth our desire to honour Him To know now upon what grounds they say there be Essences Abstract or Substantiall Formes wee are to consider what those words do properly signifie The use of Words is to register to our selves and make manifest to others the Thoughts and Conceptions of our Minds Of which Words some are the names of the Things conceived as the names of all sorts of Bodies that work upon the Senses and leave an Impression in the Imagination Others are the names of the Imaginations themselves that is to say of those Ideas or mentall Images we have of all things wee see or remember And others againe are names of Names or of different sorts of Speech As Vniversall Plurall Singular are the names of Names and Definition Affirmation Negation True False Syllogisme Interrogation Promise Covenant are the names of certain Forms of Speech Others serve to shew the Consequence or Repugnance of one name to another as when one saith A Man is a Body hee intendeth that the name of Body is necessarily consequent to the name of Man as being but severall names of the same thing Man which Consequence is signified by coupling them together with the word Is. And as wee use the Verbe Is so the Latines use their Verbe Est and the Greeks their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through all its Declinations Whether all other Nations of the world have in their severall languages a word that answereth to it or not I cannot tell but I am sure they have not need of it For the placing of two names in order may serve to signifie their Consequence if it were the custome for Custome is it that give words their force as well as the words Is or Bee or Are and the like And if it were so that there were a Language without any Verb answerable to Est or Is or Bee yet the men that used it would bee not a jot the lesse capable of Inferring Concluding and of all kind of Reasoning than were the Greeks and Latines But what then would become of these Terms of Entity Essence Essentiall â—…ssentiality that are derived from it and of many more that depend on these applyed as most commonly they are They are therefore no Names of Things but Signes by which wee make known that wee conceive the Consequence of one name or Attribute to another as when we say a Man is a living Body wee mean not that the Man is one thing the Living Body another and the Is or Beeing a third but that the Man and the Living Body is the same thing because the Consequence If hee bee a Man hee is a living Body is a true Consequence signified by that word Is. Therefore to bee a Body to Walke to bee Speaking to Live to See and the like Infinitives also Corpâ—…reity Walking Speaking Life Sight and the like that signifie just the same are the names of Nothing as I have elsewhere more amply expressed But to what purpose may some man say is such subtilty in a work of this nature where I pretend to nothing but what is necessary to the doctrine of Government and Obedience It is â—…o this purpose that men may no longer suffer themselves to be abused by them that by this doctrine of Separated Essences built on the Vain Philosophy of Aristotle would fright them from Obeying the Laws of their Countrey with empty names as men fright Birds from the Corn with an empty doublet a hat and a crooked stick For it is upon this ground that when a Man is dead and buried they say his Soule that is his Life can walk separated from his Body and is seen by night amongst the graves Upon the same ground they say that the Figure and Colour and Tast of a peece of Bread has a being there where they say there is no Bread And upon the same ground they say that Faith and Wisdome and other Vertues are sometimes powred into a man sometimes blown into him from Heaven as if the Vertuous and their Vertues could be asunder and a great many other things that serve to lessen the dependance of Subjects on the Soveraign Power of their Countrey For who will endeavour to obey the Laws if he expect Obedience to be Powred or Blown into him Or who will not obey a Priest that can make God rather than his Soveraign nay than God himselfe Or who that is in fear of Ghosts will not bear great respect to those that can make the Holy Water that drives them from him And this shall suffice for an example of the Errors which are brought into the Church from the Entities and Essences of Aristotle which it may be he knew to be false Philosophy but writ it as a thing consonant to and corroborative of their Religion and fearing the fate of Socrates Being once fallen into this Error of Separated Essences they are thereby necessarily involved in many other absurdities that follow it For seeing they will have these Forms to be reall they are obliged to assign them some place But because they hold them Incorporeall without all dimension of Quantity and all men know that Place is Dimension and not to be filled but by that which is Corporeall they are driven to uphold their credit with a distinction that they are not indeed any where Circumscriptivè but Definitivè Which Terms being meer Words and in this occasion insignificant passe onely in Latine that the vanity of them may bee concealed For the Circumscription of a thing is nothing else but the Determination or Defining of its Place and so both the Terms of the Distinction are the same And in particular of the Essence of a Man which they say is his Soule they affirm it to be All of it in his little Finger and All of it in every other Part how small soever of his Body and yet no more Soule in the Whole Body than in any one of those Parts Can any man think that God is served with such absurdities And yet all this is necessary to beleeve to those that will beleeve the Existence of an Incorporeall Soule Separated from the Body And when they come to give account how an Incorporeall Substance can be capable of Pain and be tormented in the fire of Hell or Purgatory they have nothing at all to answer but that it cannot be known how fire can burn Soules Again whereas Motion is change of Place and Incorporeall Substances are not capable of Place they are troubled to make it seem possible how a Soule can goe hence without the Body to Heaven Hell or Purgatory and how the Ghosts of men and I may adde of their clothes which they appear in can walk by night in Churches Church-yards and other places of Sepulture To which I know not what they can answer unlesse they will say they walke definitivè not circumscriptivè or spiritually not temporally for such egregious distinctions are