aye-virgin Mary which kinde of oblation for the Saincts sounding somewhat harshly in the eares of the Latines Leo Thuscus in his translation thought best to expresse it to their better liking after this maner We offer unto thee this reasonable service for the faithfully deceased for our fathers and fore-fathers the Patriarches Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors and all the Saints interceding for them As if the phrase of offering for the Martyrs were not to be found in S. Chrysostoms own workes and more universally for the just both the Fathers and the Patriarches the Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists and Martyrs and Confessors the Bishops and such as ledd a solitarie life and the whole order in the suffrages of the Church rehearsed by Epiphanius yea and in the Western Church it selfe for the spirits of those that are at rest Hilary Athanasius Martin Ambrose Augustin Fulgentius Leander Isidorus c. as may be seene in the Muzarabicall Office used in Spaine Sixthly this may be confirmed out of the funerall orations of S. Ambrose in one whereof touching the Emperour Valentinian and his brother Gratian thus he speaketh Let us beleeve that Valentinian is ascended from the desert that is to say from this dry and unmanured place unto those flowry delights where being conjoyned with his brother hee enjoyeth the pleasure of everlasting life Blessed are you both if my orizons shall prevayle anie thing no day shall overslip you in silence no oration of mine shall passe you over unhonoured no night shall runne by wherein I will not bestow upon you some portion of my prayers With all oblations will I frequent you In another he prayeth thus unto God Give rest unto thy perfect servant Theodosius that rest which thou hast prepared for thy Saints and yet hee had said before of him Theodosius of honourable memory being freed from doubtfull fight doth now enjoy everlasting light and continuall tranquillitie and for the things which he did in this bodie he rejoyceth in the fruits of Gods reward because he loved the Lord his God he hath obtayned the societie of the Saints and afterward also Theodosius remaineth in light and glorieth in the companie of the Saints In a third he prayeth thus for his brother Satyrus Almightie God I now commend unto thee his harmelesse soule to thee doe I make my oblation accept mercifully and gratiously the office of a brother the sacrifice of a Priest although he had directly pronounced of him before that he had entred into the kingdome of heaven because he beleeved the word of God and excelled in manie notable vertues Lastly in one of his Epistles he comforteth Faustinus for the death of his sister after this maner Doe not the carkases of so many halfe-ruined cities and the funeralls of so much land exposed under one view admonish thee that the departure of one woman although a holy and an admirable one should be born with greater consolation especially seeing they are cast down and overthrowen for ever but she being taken from us but for a time doth passe a better life there I therefore thinke that she is not so much to be lamented as to be followed with prayers and am of the minde that she is not to be made sadde with thy teares but rather that her soule should be commended with oblations unto the Lord. Thus farre S. Ambrose Unto whom we may adjoyne Gregory Nazianzen also who in his funerall oration that he made upon his brother Caesarius having acknowledged that he had received those honours that did befit a new created soule which the Spirit had reformed by water for he had beene but lately baptized before his departure out of this life doth notwithstanding pray that the Lord would be pleased to receive him Diverse instances of the like practise in the ages following I have produced in another place to which I will adde some few more to the end that the Reader may from thence observe how long the primitive institution of the Church did hold up head among the tares that grew up with it and in the end did quite choake and extinguish it Our English Saxons had learned of Gregory to pray for reliefe of those soules that were supposed to suffer paine in Purgatorie and yet the introducing of that noveltie was not able to justle out the ancient usage of making prayers and oblations for them which were not doubted to have beene at rest in Gods kingdome And therefore the brethren of the Church of Hexham in the anniversarie commemoration of the obite of Oswald King of Northumberland used to keep their Vigiles for the health of his soule and having spent the night in praysing of God with psalmes to offer for him in the morning the sacrifice of the sacred oblation as Beda writeth who telleth us yet withall that he raigned with God in heaven and by his prayeâ—s procured manie miracles to be wrought on earth So likewise doth the same Bede report that when it was discovered by two severall visions that Hilda the Abbesse of Streansheale or Whitby in Yorkeshire was carried up by the Angels into heaven they which heard thereof presently caused prayers to be said for her soule And Osberne relateth the like of Dunstan that being at Bathe and beholding in such another vision the soule of one that had been his scholer at Glastenbury to be carried up into the palace of heaven he straightway commended the same into the hands of the divine pieâ—ie and intreated the lords of the place where he was to do so likewise Other narrations of the same kind may be found among them that have written of Saincts lives particularly in the Tome published by Mosander pag. 69. touching the decease of Bathildis Queen of France pa. 25. concerning the departure of Godfry Earle of Cappenberg who is said there to have appeared unto a certain Abbess called Gerbergis to have acquainted her that he was now without all delay without all danger of any more severe triall gone unto the palace of the highest King and as the sonne of the immortall King was cloathed with blessed immortalitie the Monk that writ the Legend addeth that shee presently thereupon caused the sacrifice of the Masse to be offered for him which how fabulous soever it may be for the matter of the vision yet doth it strongly prove that within these 500. years for no longer since it is that this is accounted to have bene done the use of offering for the soules of those that were beleeved to be in heaven was still retayned in the Church The letters of Charles the great unto Offa King of Mercia are yet extant wherein hee wisheth that intercessions should be made for Pope Adrian then lately deceased not having any doubt at all saith hee but that his blessed soule is at rest but that we may shew our faithfulnesse
company of captives and thus was Hell spoyled and Adam delivered from his griefes Which is agreeable to that which we reade in the works of Athanasius that the soule of Adam was detayned in the condemnation of death and cryed continually unto the Lord such as had pleased God and were justified in the law of nature being detayned together with Adam and lamenting and crying out with him and that the Divell beholding himselfe spoyled did bemoane himselfe and beholding those that sometime were weeping under him now singing in the Lord did rent himselfe Others are more favourable to the soules of the Fathers though they place them in Hell for they hold them to have beene there in a state of blisse and not of miserie Thus the author of the Latin homily concerning the Rich man and Lazarus which is commonly fathered upon Chrysostom notwithstanding he affirmeth that Abraham was in Hell and that before the comming of Christ none ever entred into Paradise yet doth he acknowledge in the meane time that Lazarus did remaine there in a kinde of Paradise For the bosome of Abraham saith he vvas the poore mans Paradise and againe Some man may say unto me Is there a Paradise in Hell I say this that the bosome of Abraham is the truth of Paradise Yea and I confesse it to be a most holy Paradise So Tertullian in the fourth booke of his Verses against Marcion placeth Abrahams bosome under the earth but in an open and lightsome seate farre removed from the fire and from the darknesse of Hell sub corpore terrae In parte ignotâ quidam locus exstat apertus Luce sua fretus Abrahae sinus iste vocatur Altior á tenebris longé semotus ab igne Sub terrâ tamen Yea he maketh it to be one house with that which is eternall in the heaven distinguisht onely from it as the outer and the inner Temple or the Sanctum and the Sanctum Sanctorum were in the time of the Law by the Vayle that hung between which vayle being rent at the passion of Christ he saith these two were made one everlasting house Tempore divisa spatio ratione ligata Vna domus quamvis velo partita videtur Atque adeò passo Domino velamine rupto Coelestes patuere plagae coelataque sancta Atque duplex quondam facta est domus una perennis Yet elsewhere hee maketh up the partition againe maintaining very stiffly that the gates of Heaven remaine still shut against all men untill the end of the world come and the day of the last judgement Only Paradise he leaveth open for Martyrs as that other author of the latin Homily seemeth also to doe but the soules of the rest of the faithfull he sequestâ—eth into Hell there to remaine in Abrahams bosome untill the time of the generall resurrection And to this part of Hell doth he imagine Christ to have descended not with purpose to fetch the soules of the Fathers from thence which is the only errand that our Romanistes conceive he had thither but ut illic Patriarchas Prophetas compotes sui faceret that he might there make the Patriarches and Prophets partakers of his presence S. Hierome saith that our Lord Iesus Christ descended into the furnace of Hell wherein the soules both of sinners and of just men were held shut that without any burning or hurt unto himselfe he might free from the bonds of death those that were held shut up in that place and that hee called upon the name of the Lord out of the lowermost lake when by the power of his divinitie hee descended into Hell and having destroyed the barres of Tartarus or the dungeon of Hell bringing from thence such of his as he found there ascended conquerour up againe He saith further that Hell is the place of punishments and tortures in which the rich man that was cloathed in puâ—ple is seeâ—e unto which also the Lord did descend that he might let forth those that were bound out of prison Lastly tâ—e Sonne of God saith he following Origen as it seemeth too unaduisedly here descended into the lowermost parts of the earth and ascended above all heavens that he might not only fulfill the law and the prophets but certaine other hidden dispensations also which hee alone doth know with the Father For wee cannot understand how the bloud of Christ did profite both the Angels and those that were in Hell and yet that it did profite them wee cannot be ignorant Thus farre S. Hierome touching Christs descent into the lowermost Hell which Thomas and the other Schoolemen will not admitt that hee ever came unto Yet this must they of force grant if they will stand to the authority of the Fathers It remayned saith Fulgentius for the full effecting of our redemption that man assumed by God without sinne should thither descend whither man separated from God should have fallen by the desert of sinne that is unto Hell where the soule of the sinner was wont to be tormented and to the Grave where the flesh of the sinner was accustomed to bee corrupted yet so that neyther the flesh of Christ should be corrupted in the Grave nor his soule be tormented with the paines of Hell Because the soule free from sinne was not to be subjected to such punishment neither ought corruption to tainte the flesh without sinne And this hee saith was done for this end that by the flesh of the just dying temporally everlasting life might be given to our flesh and by the soule of the just descending into Hell the paines of hell might be loosed It is the saying of S. Ambrose that Christ being voyd of sinne when hee did descend into the lowermost parts of Tartarus breaking the barres gates of Hell called backe unto life out of the jawes of the Divell the soules that were bound with sinne having destroyed the dominion of death and of Eusebius Emissenus or Gallicanus or who ever was the author of the sixt Paschall homily attributed to him that the sonne of man laying aside his body pierced the lowest hidden seates of Tartarus but where he was thought to have beene detained among the dead there binding death did hee loose the bonds of the dead Presently therefore saith Caesarius in his third Paschall homily w ch is the same with the first of those that goe under the name of the former Eusebius the everlasting night of Hell at Christs descending shined bright the gnashing of the mourners ceased the burthens of the chaines were loosed the bursted bands of the damned fell from them The tormentors astonished in minde were amazed the whole jmpious shoppe trembled together when they beheld Christ suddainly in their dwellings So Arnoldus Bonaevallensis in his booke de Cardinalibus operibus Christi commonly attributed to S. Cyprian noteth that at that time there was a cessation from infernall
righteousnes and the blessednesse arising therefrom as well as we and the mediation of our Saviour being of that present efficacie that it tooke away sinne and brought in righteousnesse from the very beginning of the world it had vertue sufficient to free men from the penaltie of losse as well as from the penalty of sense and to bring them unto him in whose presence is fulnesse of joy as to deliver them from the place of torment where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth The first that ever assigned a resting place in Hell to the Fathers of the old Testament was as farre as wee can finde Marcion the heretick who determined that both kinde of rewards whether of torment or of refreshing was appointed in Hell for them that did obey the Law and the Prophets Wherein he was gainsayd by such as wrote against him not only for making that the place of their eternal rest but also for lodging them there at all and imagining that Abrahams bosome was any part of Hell This appeareth plainly by the disputation set out among the workes of Origen betwixt Marcus the Marcionite Adamantius the defender of the Catholicke cause who touching the parabolicall historie of the rich man Lazarus in the sixteenth of S. Luke are brought in reasoning after this maner MARCUS He saith that Aâ—raham is in hell and not in the kingdome of heaven ADAMANTIUS Reade whether he saytâ— that Abraham was in Hell MARC In that the rich man and he talked one to the other it appeareth that they were together ADAMANT That they talked one with another thou hearest but the great gulfe spoken of that thou hearest not For the middle space betwixt heaven and earth he calleth a gulfe MARC Can a man therefore see from earth unto heaven it is impossible Can any man lifting up his eyes behold from the earth or from hell rather see into heaven If not it is plain that a vally only was set betwixt them ADAMANT Bodily eyes use to see those things only that are neere but spirituall eyes reach farre and it is manifest that they who have here put off their body doe see one another with the eyes of their soule For marke how the Gospell doth say that he lifted up his eyes toward heaven one useth to lift them up and not toward the earth In like maner doth Tertullian also retort the same place of Scripture against Marcion and prove that it maketh a plaine difference betweene Hell and the bosome of Abraham For it affirmeth saith he both that a great deepe is interposed betwixt those regions and that it suffereth no passage from eyther side Neyther could the rich man have lifted up his eyes and that afarre off unlesse it had beene unto places above him and very farre above him by reason of the mightie distance betwixt that height and that depth Thus farre Tertullian who though he come short of Adamantius in making Abrahams bosome not to be any part of Heaven although no member at all of Hell yet doth he concurre with him in this that it is a place of blisse and a common receptacle wherein the soules of all the faithfull as well of the new as of the old Testament doe still remaine in expectation of the generall resurrection which quite marteth the Limbus Patrum of our Romanists and the journey which they fancie our Saviour to have taken for the fetching of the Fathers from thence With these two doth S. Augustin also ioyne in his 99. epistle to Euodius concerning whose iudgement herein I will not say the deceitfull but the exceeding partiall dealing of Cardinall Bellarmine can verie hardly be excused Although Augustin saith he in his 99. epistle do seeme to doubt whether the bosome of Abraham where the soules of the Fathers were in times past should be in Hell or somewhere else yet in the 20. booke of the Citie of God the 15. chapter he affirmeth that it was in Hell as all the rest of the Fathers have alwayes taught If S. Augustin in that epistle were of the minde as hee was indeed that Abrahams bosome was no part of Hell he was not the first inventer of that doctrine others taught it before him and opposed Marcion for teaching otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alone he went not two there were at least as we have seen that walked along with him in the same way But for that which he is said to have doubted off in one place and to have affirmed in another if the indifferent Reader will be pleased but to view both the places he shall easily discerne that the Cardinall looked not into these things with a single eye In his 99. epistle from that speech of Abraham Betweene you and us there is a great gulfe fixed he maketh this inference In these words it appeareth sufficiently as I thinke that the bosome of so great happinesse is not any part and member of Hell These seem unto the Cardinall to be the words of a doubtfull man with what words then when he is better resolved doth he affirme the matter With these forsooth If it do seem no absurditie to beleeve that the old Saincts which held the faith of Christ to come were in places most remote from the torments of the wicked but yet in Hell untill the blood of Christ and his descent into those places did deliver them truely from henceforth the good and faithfull who are redeemed with that price already shed know not Hell at all If satis ut opinor apparet it appeareth sufficiently as I thinke must import doubting and si non absurdé credi videtur if it doe seeme no absurditie to beleeve affirming I know not I must confesse what to make of mens speeches The truth is S. Augustin in handling this question discovereth himselfe to be neyther of the Iesuits temper nor beleefe He esteemed not this to be such an article of faith that they who agreed not therein must needs be held to be of different religions as he doth modestly propound the reasons which induced him to think that Abrahams bosome was no member of Hell so doth he not lightly reiect the opinion of those that thought otherwise but leaveth it still as a disputable point Whether that bosome of Abraham where the wicked rich man when he was in the torments of Hell did behold the poore man resting were eyther to be accounted by the name of Paradise or esteemed to appertaine unto Hell I cannot readily affirme saith he in one place and in another Whether Abraham were then at any certaine place in Hell we cannot certainly define and in his 12. book de Genesi ad literam I have not hitherto found and I doe yet inquire neyther doe I remember that the canonicall Scripture doth any where put Hell in the good part Now that the bosome of Abraham and that rest unto which the godly poore man was carried by the
sentence of Diphilus the old Comicall Poet. In Hades we resolve there are two pathes the one whereof is the way of the righteous the other of the wicked But as in this generall they agreed together both among themselves and with the truth so touching the particular situation of this Hádes and the speciall places whereunto these two sorts of soules were disposed and the state of things there a number of ridiculous fictions and fond conceits are to be found among them wherein they dissented as much from one another as they did from the truth it selfe So we see for example that the best soules are placed by some of them in the companie of their Gods in heaven by others in the Galaxias or milky circle by others beyond the Ocean and by others under the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet one Hádes notwithstanding was coÌ„monly thought to have received them all Plato relateth this as a sentence delivered by them who were the first ordayners of the Grecian Mysteries Whosoever goeth to Hádes not initiated and not cleansed shal lye in the mire but he that commeth thither purged and initiated shall dwell with the Gods So Zoroaster the great father of the Magi in the East is said to have used this entrance into his discourse touching the things of the other world These things wrote Zoroaster the sonne of Armenius by race a Pamphylian having beene dead in the warre which I learned of the Gods being in Hades as Clemens Alexandrinus relateth in the fifth booke of his Stromata where he also noteth that this Zoroaster is that Er the sonne of Armenius a Pamphylian of whom Plato writeth in the tenth booke of his Common-wealth that being slain in the warre he revived the twelfth day after and was sent backe as a messenger to report unto men here the things which he had heard and seene in the other world one part of whose relation was this that he saw certaine gulfes beneath in the earth and above in the heaven opposite one to the other and that the just were commanded by the Iudges that sate betwixt those gulfs to go to the right hand up toward Heaven but the wicked to the left hand and downeward which testimonie Eusebius bringeth in among many others to shew the consent that is betwixt Plato and the Hebrewes in matters that concerne the state of the world to come Next to Zoroaster commeth Pythagoras whose golden verses are concluded with this distich 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When thou shalt leave the body and come unto a free heaven thou shalt be an immortall God incorruptible and not subject to mortalitie any more So Epicharmus the scholler of Pythagoras If thou be godly in minde thou shalt suffer no evill when thou art dead thy spirit shall remaine above in heaven and Pindarus The soules of the ungodly flie under the heaven or under the earth in cruell torments under the unavoydable yoakes of evills but the soules of the godly dwelling in heaven doe prayse that great blessed one with songs and hymnes Ciâ—ero in his Tusculan questions alledgeth the testimony of Ennius approving the common fame that Romulus did lead his life in heaven with the Gods and in the sixth booke of his Common-wealth he bringeth in Scipio teaching that unto all them which preserve assist and enlarge their countrey there is a certaine place appointed in heavâ—n where they shall live blessed world without end Such a life saith he is the way to heaven and into the company of these who having lived and are now loosed from their body doe inhabite that place which thou seest pâ—inting to the Galaxiaes or milky circle whereof we reade thus also in Manilius An fortes animae dignatque nomina coelo Corporibus resoluta suis terraeque remissa Huc migrant ex orbe suumque habitantia coelum Aethereos vivunt annos mundoque fruuntur With Damascius the philosopher of Damascus this circle is the way of the soules that goe to the Hades in heaven Against whom Iohannes Philoponus doth reason thus from the etymologie of the word If they passe through the Galaxias or milky circle then this should be that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Hades that is in heaven and how can that be Hades which is so lightsome To which they that maintayned the other opinion would peradventure oppose that other common derivation of the word from the Dorick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to please or to delight or that which Plato doth deliver in the name of Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from seeing or knowing all good things For there did Socrates looke to finde such things as appeareth by that speech which Plato in his Dialogue of the Soule maketh him to use the same day that he was to depart out of this life The soule being an invisible thing goeth hence into such another noble and pure and invisible place to Hades in truth unto the good and wise God whither if God will my soule must presently goe which place is alledged by Eusebius to prove that in the things which concerne the immortalitie of the soule Plato doth differ in opinion nothing from Moses The tale also which Socrates there telleth of the pure land seated above in the pure heaven though it have a number of toyes added to it as tales use to have yet the foundation thereof both Eusebius and Origen doe judge to have beene taken from the speeches of the Prophets touching the land of promise and the heavenly Canaan and for the rest Origen referreth us to Platoes interpreters affirming that they who handle his writings more gravely doe expound this tale of his by way of allegory Such another tale doth the same philosoper relate in the Dialogue which he intituleth Gorgias shewing that among men he that leadeth his life righteously and holily shall when he is dead goe unto the Fortunate Ilands and dwell in all happinesse free from evills but he that leadeth it unrighteously and impiously shall goe unto the prison of punishment and just revenge which they call Tartarus which Theodoret bringeth in to prove that Plato did exactly beleeve that there were judgements to passe upon men in Hades For being conversant with the Hebrewes saith he in Aegypt he heard without doubt the oracles of the Prophets and taking some things from thence and mingling other things therewith out of the fables of the Greekes made up his discourses of these things Among which mixtures that which he hath of the Fortunate Ilands is reckoned by Theodoret for one whereof you may reade in Hesiod Pindarus Diodorus Siculus Plutarch and Iosephus also who treating of the diverse sectes that were among the Iewes sheweth that the Essenes borrowed this opinion of the placing of good mens soules in a certaine pleasant habitation beyond
blessed Virgin is superior to God and God himselfe is subject unto her in respect of the manhood which he assumed from her that howsoever she be subject unto God inasmuch as she is a creature yet is she said to be superior and preferred before him inasmuch as she is his mother Then men were put in minde that by sinning after Baptisme they seemed to contemne and despise the passion of Christ and so that no sinner doth deserve that Christ should any more make intercession for him to the Father without whose intercession none can be delivered eyther from the eternall punishment or the temporall nor from the fault which he hath voluntarily committed And therefore that it was necessary that Christ should constitute his welbeloved Mother a Mediatrix betwixt us and him and so in this our pilgrimage there is no other refuge left unto us in our tribulations and adversities but to have recourse unto the Virgin Mary our mediatrix that she would appease the wrath of her Sonne That as He is ascended into heaven to appeare in the sight of God for men Hebr. 9.24 so Shee ought to ascend thither to appeare in the sight of her Sonne for sinners that so mankinde might have alwayes before the face of God a Helpe like unto Christ for the procuring of his salvation That this Empresse is of so great authoritie in the palace of Heaven that it is lawfull to appeale unto her from any grievance all other intermediall Saints omitted for howsoever according to the Civill law the due meane must be observed in Appeales yet in her the style of the Canon law is observed wherein the Pope is appealed unto any intermediall whatsoever omitted That she is a Chancellour in the Court of heaven and giveth letters of mercy onely in this present life but for the soules that depart from hence unto some letters of pure graâ—e unto others of simple justice and unto some mixt of justice and grace For some say they were much devoted unto her and unto them shee giveth letters of pure grace whereby shee commandeth glory to be given them without any paine of Purgatorie Others were miserable sinners and not devoted to her and unto them she giveth letters of simple justice whereby shee commandeth that condigne punishment be taken of them Others were lukewarme and remisse in devotion and unto them she giveth letters of justice and grace together whereby shee commandeth that both favour be done unto them and yet some paine of Purgatorie bee inflicted upon them for their negligence and sluggishnesse And these things they say are signified in Queene Esther who wrote letters that the Iewes should be saved and the enemies should be killed and to the poore small giftes should be given Yea further also where King Assuerus did profer unto the said Esther even the halfe of his Kingdome Esth 5.3 thereby they say was signified that God bestowed halfe of his kingdome upon the blessed Virgin that having Iustice and Mercie as the chiefest goods of his Kingdome he retayned Iustice unto himselfe and granted mercie unto her therefore that if a man do finde himselfe aggrieved in the court of Gods justice he may appeale to the court of mercie of his mother shee being that throne of grace whereof the Apostle speaketh Hebr. 4.16 Let us goe boldly unto the throne of grace that we may receive mercie and finde grace to helpe in time of neede They tell us that it is for the ornament of an earthly kingdome that it should have both a King a Queene and therefore when any King hath not a wife his subjects often doe request him to take one Hereupon they say that the eternall King and omnipotent Emperor minding to adorne the kingdome of heaven above did frame this blessed Virgin to the end he might make her the Ladie and Empresse of his kingdome and empyre that the prophecie of David might be verified saying unto her in the Psalme Vpon thy right hand did stand the Queene in clothing of gold That she is an Empresse because she is the spouse of the eternall Emperor of whoÌ„ it is said Ioh. 3.29 He that hath the bride is the bridegrome and that when God did deliver unto her the empyre of the world and all the things contayned therein he sayd unto her that which wee reade in the first of the Aeneids His ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono Imperium sine sine dedi That shee is the Empresse also of heaven and earth because she did beare the heavenly Emperour and therefore that shee can aske of him what she will and obtaine it that this was figured in the historie of the Kings where the mother of Salomon said unto him I desire one petition of thee doe not confounde my face for then should hee confound her face if he did denie that which she requested and that if in respect of her maternall jurisdicton she hath command of her Sonne vvho was subject unto her as vve reade Luke 2.51 then much more hath she command over all the creatures that are subject to her Sonne That this mightie God did as farre as he might make his Mother partner of his divine majestie and power giving unto her of old the soveraignetie both of celestiall things and mortall ordering at her pleasure as the patronage of men did require the earth the seas heaven and nature at her liking and by her bestowing upon mortall men his divine treasures and heavenly gifts So as all might understand that whatsoever doth flowe into the earth from that eternall and glorious fountayne of good things doth flowe by MARIE That she is constituted over every creature and whosoever boweth his knee unto Iesus doth fall downe also and supplicate unto his mother so that the glory of the Sonne may be judged not so much to be common with the Mother as to be the verie same That so great is her glorie that she exceedeth the nature of Angels and Men joyned together as farre in glorie as the circumference of the firmament exceedeth his center in magnitude when shee understandeth her selfe in her Sonne to be as his other selfe clothed with the Deitie That she being the mother of God doth assume unto her selfe oâ— the omnipotencie of her Sonne upon which she leaneth as much as shee pleaseth and that shee doth come before the golden altar of humane reconciliation not intreating onely but commanding a Mistresse not a mayde They tell us that the blessed Virgin her selfe appeared once unto Thomas Becket used this speech unto him Rejoyce and be glad and bee joyfull with mee because my glorie doth excell the dignitie and joy of all the Saints all the blessed spirits I alone have greater glorie than all the Angels and Saints together Rejoyce because that as the Sunne doth inlighten the day and the world so my brightnesse doth
inlighten the whole celestiall world Rejoyce because the whole hoaste of heaven obeyeth me reverenceth and honoureth me Rejoyce because my Sonne is alwayes obedient unto me and my will and all my prayers he alwaies heareth or as others doe relate it The will of the blessed Trinitie and mine is one and the same and whatsoever doth please me the whole Trinitie with unspeakeable favour doth give consent unto Rejoyce because God doth alwayes at my pleasure reward my servitors in this world and in the world to come Rejoyce because I fit next to the holy Trinitie and am cloathed with my bodie glorified Rejoyce because I am certaine and sure that these my joyes shall alwayes stand and never be finished or â—ayle And whosoever by rejoycing with these spirituall joyes shall woâ—ship me in this world at the time of the depâ—rture of his soule out of the bodie he shall obtaine my presence and I will deliver his soule from the malignant enemies and present it in the sight of my Sonne that it may possesse joyes with me They tell us that manie many whoores for example that would not sinne on Saturday for the reverence of the Virgin whatsoever they did on the Lords day seeme to have the blessed Virgin in greater veneration than Christ her sonne moved thereunto out of simplicitie more than out of knowledge Yet that the Sonne of God doth beare with the simplicitie of these men and women because he is not ignorant that the honour of the mother doth redound to the childe Prov. 17.6 They argue further that if a Cardinall have this priviledge that if he put his cap upon the head of one that is ledd unto justice he is freed therby then by an argument drawn from the stronger the cloake of the blessed Virgin is able to deliver us froÌ„ all evil her mercy being so large that if she should see any man who did devoutly make her Crowne that is to say repeate the Rosarie or Chaplet of prayers made for her worship to be drawn unto punishmeÌ„t in the midst of a thousand Divels she would presently rescue him not permit that any one should have an evil end who did study revereÌ„tly to make her Crown They add moreover that for every of these Crownes a man shal obtaine 273758. dayes of Indulgence and that Pope Sixtus the fourth granted an indulgence of twelve thousand years for every time that a man in the state of grace should repeat this short orizon or salutation of the Virgin which by manie is inserted into her Crowne Hayle most holy Mary the mother of God the Queene of heaven the gate of Paradise the Ladie of the world Thou art a singular and pure virgin thou didst conceive Christ without sinne thou didst beare the creator and saviour of the world in whom I doe not doubt Deliver me from all evill and pray for my sinnes Amen In the Crowne composed by Bonaventure this is one of the orizons that is prescribed to be sayd O. Empresse and our most kinde Ladie by the authoritie of a mother command thy most beloved Sonne our Lord Iesus Christ that he would vouchsafe to lift up our mindes from the love of earthly things unto heavenly desires which is sutable unto that versicle which wee reade in the 35. Psalme of his Ladies Psalter Incline the countenance of God upon us compell him to have mercie upon sinners the harshenesse whereof our Romanists have a little qualified in some of their editions reading thus Incline the countenance of thy Sonne upon us compell him by thy praiers to have mercie upon us sinners The psalmes of this Psalter doe all of them begin as Davids doe but with this maine difference that where the Prophet in the one aymeth at the advancement of the honour of our Lord the Fryar in the other applieth all to the magnifying of the power and goodnesse of our Lady So in the first Psalme Blessed is the man quoth Bonaventure that loveth thy name O Virgin Marie thy grace shall comfort his soule in the others following Lady how are they multiplied that trouble me with thy tempest shalt thou persecute and scatter them Ladie suffer me not to be rebuked in the furie of God nor to bee judged in his wrath My Ladie in thee have I put my trust deliver me from mine enemies O Ladie In our Ladie put I my trust for the sweetenesse of the mercie of her name How long wilt thou forget me O Ladie and not deliver me in the day of tribulation Preserve me O Ladie for in thee have I put my trust and imparte unto me the droppes of thy grace I will love thee O Ladie of heaven and earth and I will call upon thy name among the nations The heavens declare thy glorie and the fragrance of thine oyntments is spread among the nations Heare us Ladie in the day of trouble and turne thy mercifull face unto our prayers Vnto thee O Lady have I lifted up my soule in the judgement of God by thy prayers I shall not be ashamed Iudge me Lady for I have departed from mine innocencie but because I will trust in thee I shall not be weakned In thee O Ladie have I put my trust let me never be confounded in thy favour receive me Blessed are they whose hearts doe love thee ô virgin Marie their sinnes by thee shall mercifully be washed away Lady judge those that hurt me and rise up against them and plead my cause Waiting have I waited for thy grace and thou hast done unto me according to the multitude of the mercie of thy name Lady thou art our refuge in all our necessities and the powerfull strength treading downe the enemie Have mercie upon me O Ladie who art called the mother of mercie and according to the bowels of thy mercies cleanse me from all mine iniquities Save me Ladie by thy name and deliver me from mine unrighteousnesse Have mercie upon me O Ladie have mercie upon me because my heart is prepared to search out thy will and in the shadow of thy wings will I rest Let Marie arise and let her enemies be scattered let them all be troaden downe under her feete In thee O Lady have I put my trust let me never be put to confusion deliver me in thy mercie and cause mee to escape Give the King thy judgement O God and thy mercie to the Queene his mother Lady the gentiles are come into the inheritance of God whom thou by thy merits hast confederated unto Christ. Thy mercies O Lady will I sing for ever God is the Lord of revenges but thou the mother of mercie dost bowe him to take pitie O come let us sing unto our Ladie let us make a joyfull noise to Mary our Queene that brings salvation O sing unto our Lady a new song for shee
I can hardly be perswaded saith Origen that there can be any worke which may require the reward of God by way of debt seeing this very thing it selfe that we can doe or thinke or speake any thing we doe it by his gift and largesse Wages indeed saith Saint Hilary there is none of gift because it is due by worke but God hath given the same free to all men by the justification of faith Whence should I have so great merit seeing mercy is my Crowne saith S. Ambrose and againe Which of us can subsist without the mercy of God What can we doe worthy of the heavenly rewards Which of us doth so rise up in this bodie that he doth elevate his minde in such sort as he may continually adhere unto Christ By what merit of man is it granted that this corruptible flesh should put on incorruption and this mortall should put on immortality By what labours or by what enduring of injuries can we abate our sinnes The sufferings of this time are unworthy for the glory that is to come Therefore the forme of heavenly decrees doth proceed with men not according to our merits but according to Gods mercy S. Basil expounding those words of the Psalmist Behold the eye of the Lord is upon them that feare him upon them that hope in his mercy Psalm 33.18 saith that he doth hope in his mercy who not trusting in his owne good deeds nor looking to be iustified by workes hath the hope of his salvation only in the mercies of God and in his explication of those other words Psalm 116.7 Returne unto thy rest O my soule for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee Everlasting rest saith he is laid up for them that strive lawfully in this life not to be rendred according to the debt of workes but exhibited by the grace of the bountifull God to them that trust in him If we consider our owne merits we must despaire saith S. Hierome and When the day of judgement or death shall come all hands will faile because no worke shall be found worthy of the justice of God Macarius the Aegyptian Eremite in his 15. homily writeth thus Touching the gift which Christians shall inherit this a man may rightly say that if any one from the time wherein Adam was created unto the very end of the world did fight against Satan and undergoe afflictions he should doe no great matter in respect of the glory that he shall inherit for he shall reigne together with Christ world without end His 37. homily is in the Paris edition of the workes of Marcus the Eremite set out as the Prooeme of his booke of Paradise and the spirituall law There Macarius exhorteth us that beleeving in almighty God we should with a simple heart and void of scrupulositie come unto him who bestoweth the communion of the spirit according to faith and not according to the proportion of the workes of faith Where Ioannes Picus the Popish interpreter of Marcus giveth us warning in his margent that this clause is to be understood of a lively faith but concealeth his owne faithlesnesse in corrupting of the text by turning the workes of faith into the workes of nature for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by his Latine translation which is to be seene in Bibliothecâ Patrum as much to say as Non ex proportione operum naturae There is a treatise extant of the said Marcus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 touching those who thinke to be justified by their workes where he maketh two sorts of men that misse both of them the kingdome of heaven the one such as doe not keepe the commandements and yet imagine that they beleeve aright the other such as keeping the commandements doe expect the kingdome as a wages due â—nto them For the Lord saith he willing to shew that all the commâ—ndements are of dutie to be performed and that the adoption of children is freely given to men by his bloud saith When you have done aâ—l things that are commanded you then say We are unprofitable servants and we have done that which was our dutie to doe Therefore the kingdome of heaven is not the hire of works but the grace of the Lord prepared for his faithfull servants This sentence is repeated in the very selfe same words by Hesychius in his booke of Sentences written to Thalassius The like sayings also hath S. Chrysostome No man sheweth such a conversation of life that he may be worthy of the kingdome but this is wholly of the gift of God Therefore he saith When yee have done all say We are unprofitable servants for what we ought to doe we have done Although we did die a thousand deaths although we did performe all vertuous actions yet should we come short by farre of rendring any thing worthy of those honours which are conferred upon us by God Although we should doe innumerable good deeds it is of Gods pitie and benignitie that we are heard although we should come unto the very top of vertue it is of mercy that we are saved for although we did innumerable workes of mercy yet would it be of the benignitie of grace that for such small and meane matters should be given so great a heaven and a kingdome and such an honour whereunto nothing we doe can have equall correspondence Let the merit of men be excellent let him observe the rights of nature let him be obedient to the commandements of the Lawes let him fulfill his faith keepe justice exercise vertues condemne vice repell sinnes shew himselfe an example for others to imitate if he have performed any thing it is little whatsoever he hath done is small for all merit is short Number Gods benefits if thou canst and then consider what thou dost merit Weigh thine owne deeds with the heavenly benefits ponder thine owne acts with the divine gifts and thou wilt not judge thy selfe worthy of that which thou art if thou understandest what thou dost merit Whereunto we may adde the exhortation made by S. Antony to his Monkes in Aegypt The life of man is most short being measured with the world to come so that all our time is even nothing in comparison of everlasting life And every thing in this world is sold for that which it is worth and one giveth equall in exchange of equall but the promise of everlasting life is bought for a very little matter Wherefore my sonnes let us not wax weary nor thinke that we stay long or performe some great thing for the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed on us Neither when we looke upon the world let us thinke that we have forsaken any great matters For all this earth is but a very little thing in comparison of the whole heaven Therefore although we had beene lords of the whole
earth and did forsake the whole earth that would be nothing worthy to be compared with the kingdome of heaven For as if one would neglect one peece of brasse that he might gaine a hundred peeces of gold so he who is lord of the whole earth and forsaketh it should but forgoe a little and receive a hundred fold Such an other exhortation doth S. Augustine also make unto his hearers When thou dost consider saith he what thou art to receive all the things that thou sufferest will be vile unto thee neither wilt thou esteeme them worthy for which thou shouldst receive it Thou wilt wonder that so much is given for so small a labour For indeed brethren for everlasting rest everlasting labour should be undergone being to receive everlasting felicitie thou oughtest to sustaine everlasting sufferings But if thou shouldst sustaine everlasting labour when shouldst thou come to everlasting felicitie So it commeth to passe that thy tribulation must of necessitie be temporall that it being finished thou maist come to infinite felicitie But yet brethren there might have beene long tribulation for eternall felicitie that for example because our felicitie shall have no end our misery and our labour and our tribulations should be of long continuance For admit they should continue a thousand yeere weigh a thousand yeeres with eternitie Why dost thou weigh that which is finite be it never so great with that which is infinite Ten thousand yeeres ten hundred thousand if we should say and a thousand thousand which have an end cannot be compared with eternitie This then thou hast that God would have thy labour to be not only temporall but short also And therefore doth the same Father every where put us in minde that God is become our debtor not by our deservings but by his owne gratious promise Man saith he is faithfull when he beleeveth God promising God is faithfull when he performeth that which he hath promised unto man Let us hold him a most faithfull debtor because we have him a most mercifull promiser For we have not done him any pleasure or leant any thing to him that we should hold him a debtor seeing we have from himselfe whatsoever we doe offer unto him and it is from him whatsoever good we are We have not given any thing therefore unto him and yet we hold him a debtor Whence a debtor because he is a promiser We say not unto God Lord pay that which thou hast received but pay that which thou hast promised Be thou secure therefore Hold him as a debtor because thou hast beleeved in him as a promiser God is faithfull who hath made himselfe our debtor not by receiving any thing from us but by promising so great things to us For to men hath he promised divinitie to those that are mortall immortalitie to sinners justification to abjects glorification Whatsoever he promised he promised to them that were unworthy that it might not be promised as waâ—es for workes but being grace might according to the name be graciously and freely given because that even this very thing that one doth live justly so farre as a man can live justly is not a matter of mans merit but of the gift of God Therefore in those things which we have alreadie let us praise God as the giver in those things which as yet we have not let us hold him our debtor For hee is become our debtor not by receiving any thing from us but by promising what it pleased him For it is one thing to say to a man Thou art debtor to me because I have given to thee and another thing to say Thou art debtor to mee because thou hast promised me When thou sayest Thou art debtor to me because I have given to thee a benefit hath proceeded from thee though lent not given But when thou sayest Thou art debtor to me because thou hast promised me thou gavest nothing to him and yet requirest of him For the goodnesse of him that hath promised will give it c. The salvation of men depends upon the sole mercy of God saith Theodoret. for we do not obtaine it as the reward and wages of our righteousnes but it is the gift of Gods goodnesse The crownes doe excell the fights the rewards are not to be compared with the labours for the labour is small but great is the gaine that is hoped for And therefore the Apostle Rom. 8.18 called those things that are looked for not wages but glory and Rom. 6.23 not wages but grace For although a man should performe the greatest and most absolute righteousnesse things eternall doe not answer temporall labours in equall poise The same for this point is taught by S. Cyrill of Alexandria that the crowne which we are to receive doth much surpasse the paines which we take for it And the Author of the booke of the calling of the Gentiles attributed unto Prosper observeth out of the Parable Matth. 20.9 that God bestoweth eternall life on those that are called at the end of their daies as well as upon them that had laboured longer not as paying a price to their labour but powring out the riches of his goodnesse upon them whom he had chosen without works that even they also who have sweat with much labour and have received no more than the last might understand that they did receive a gift of grace and not a due wages for their workes This was the doctrine taught in the Church for the first five hundred yeeres after Christ which wee finde maintained also in the next five hundred If the King of heaven should regard my merit saith Ennodius Bishop of Pavîa either I should get little good or great punishments and judging of my selfe rightly whither I could not come by merits I would not tend in desire But thankes be to him who that we may not be extolled doth so cut off our offences that he bringeth our hope unto better things Our glorification saith Fulgentius is not unjustly called Grace not only because God doth bestow his owne gifts upon his owne gifts but also because the grace of Gods reward doth so much there abound as that it exceedeth incomparably and unspeakably all the merit of the will and worke of man though good and given from God For although we did sweat saith he who beareth the name of Eusebius Emissenus or Gallicanus with all the labours of our soule and bodie although we were exercised with all the strength of obedience yet shall not we be able to recompence and offer any thing worthie in merit for the heavenly good things The offices of this present life cannot be compared with the joyes of the life eternall Although our members be wearied with watchings although our faces wax pale with fastings yet the sufferings of this time will not be worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall bee revealed in us Let us
more unlearned and unhappy If I bee not able to discover what feates the Divell wrought in that time of darkenesse wherin men were not so vigilant in marking his conveyances and such as might see somewhat were not so forward in writing bookes of their Observations must the infelicitie of that age wherein there was little learning and lesse writing yea which for want of Writers as Cardinal Baronius acknowledgeth hath been usually named the Obscure age must this I say inforce me to yeeld that the Divell brought in no tares all that while but let slip the opportunitie of so darke a night and slept himselfe for company There are other meanes left unto us whereby we may discerne the Tares brought in by the instruments of Satan from the good seed which was sowen by the Apostles of Christ beside this observation of times and seasons which will often faile vs. Ipsa doctrina eorum saith Tertullian cum Apostolicâ comparata ex diversitate contrarietate suâ pronuntiabit neque Apostoti alicujus auctoris esse neque Apostolici Their very doctrine it selfe being compared with the Apostolick by the diversitie and contrariety thereof will pronounce that it had for author neyther any Apostle nor any man Apostolicall For there cannot be a better prescription against Hereticall novelties then that which our Saviour Christ useth against the Pharisees From the beginning it vvas not so nor a better preservative against the infection of seducers that are crept in unawares then that which is prescribed by the Apostle Iude earnestly to contend for the faith vvhich vvas once delivered unto the Saints Now to the end we might know the certaintie of those things wherein the Saints were at the first instructed God hath provided that the memoriall thereof should be recorded in his owne Booke that it might remaine for the time to come for ever and ever He then who out of that Booke is able to demonstrate that the doctrine or practice now prevailing swarveth from that which was at first established in the Church by the Apostles of Christ doth as strongly prove that a change hath beene made in the middle times as if hee were able to nominate the place where the time when and the person by whom any such corruption was first brought in In the Apostles dayes when a man had examined himselfe hee was admitted unto the Lords Table there to eate of that bread and drinke of that cup as appeareth plainly 1. Cor. 11.28 In the Church of Rome at this day the people are indeed permitted to eate of the bread if bread they may call it but not allowed to drinke of the cup. Must all of us now shut our eyes and sing Sicut erat in principio nunc unlesse we be able to tell by whom and when this first institution was altered By S. Pauls order who would have all things done to edification Christians should pray with understanding and not in an unknowne language as may be seene in the fourteenth chapter of the same Epistle to the Corinthians The case is now so altered that the bringing in of a tongue not understood which hindred the edifying of Babel it selfe and scattered the builders thereof is accounted a good meanes to further the edifying of your Babel and to hold her followers together Is not this then a good ground to resolve a mans judgement that things are not now kept in that order wherin they were set at first by the Apostles although he be not able to point unto the first author of the disorder And as wee may thus discover innovations by having recourse unto the first and best times so may wee doe the like by comparing the state of things present with the middle times of the Church Thus I finde by the constant and approved practice of the auncient Church that all sorts of people men women and children had free libertic to reade the holy Scriptures I finde now the contrary among the Papists and shall I say for all this that they have not removed the bounds which were set by the Fathers because perhaps I cannot name the Pope that ventured to make the first inclosure of these commons of Gods people I heare S. Hierâ—me say Iudith Tobiae Macchabaeorum libros legit quidem Ecclesia sed eos inter Canonicas Scripturas non recipit The Church doth reade indeed the books of Iudith and Toby and the Macchabees but doth not receive them for Canonicall Scripture I see that at this day the Church of Rome receiveth them for such May not I then conclude that betwixt S. Hieromes time and ours there hath beene a change and that the Church of Rome now is not of the same judgement with the Church of God theâ— howsoever I cannot precisely lay downe the time wherein shee first thought her selfe to be wiser herein then her Forefathers But here our Adversary closeth with us and layeth downe a number of points held by them and denied by us which he undertaketh to make good as well by the expresse testimonies of the Fathers of the Primitive Church of Rome as also by good and certaine grounds out of the sacred Scriptures if the Fathers authoritie will not suffice Where if hee would change his order and give the sacred Scriptures the precedency hee should therein do more right to God the author of them who well deserveth to have audience in the first place and withall ease both himselfe and us of a needlesse labour in seeking any further authority to compose our differences For if he can produce as he beareth us in hand he can good and certaine grounds oâ—t of the sacred Scriptures for the points in controversie the matter is at an end he that will not rest satisfied with such evidences as these may if he please travaile further and speed worse Therefore as S. Augustine heretofore provoked the Donatists so provoke I him Auferantur chartae humanae sonent voces divinae ede mihi unam Scripturae vocem pro parte Donati Let humane vvritings be removed let Gods voyce sound bring mee onâ—e voyce of the Scripture for the part of Donatus Produce but one cleere testimony of the sacred Scripture for the Popes part and it shall suffice alledge what authority you list without Scripture and it cannot suffice Wee reverence indeed the ancient Fathers as it is fit we should and hold it our duety to rise up before the hoare head and to honour the person of the aged but still with reservation of the respect we owe to their Father and ours that Ancient of dayes the hayre of vvhose head is like the pure vvooll We may not forget the lesson which our great Master hath taught us Call no man your Father upon the earth for one is your Father which is in heaven Him therefore alone doe wee acknowledge for the Father of our Faith no other Father doe we know upon whose bare credite
yet is daily offered for the life of the vvorld Contra quem saith he satis argumentatur Rabanus in Epistolâ ad Egilonem Abbatem Ratrannus quidam libro composito ad Karolum regem dicentes aliam esse Against whom both Rabanus in his Epistle to Abbot Egilo and one Ratrannus in a booke which he made to King Charles argue largely saying that it is another kind of flesh Whereby what Rabanus his opinion was of this point in his Epistle to Abbot Egilo or Egilus consequently what that was which the Monkes of Weingart could not indure in his Penitentiall I trust is plaine enough I omit other corruptions of antiquitie in this same question which I have touched elsewhere only that of Bertram I may not passe over wherein the dishonesty of these men in handling the writings of the ancient is laid open even by the confession of their owne mouthes Thus the case standeth That Ratrannus who joined with Rabanus in refuting the error of the carnall presence at the first bringing in thereof by Paschasius Ratbertus is he who commonly is knowen by the name of Bertramus The booke which he wrote of this argument to Carolus Calvus the Emperour was forbidden to be read by order from the Roman Inquisition confirmed afterwards by the Councell of Trent The Divines of Doway perceiving that the forbidding of the booke did not keepe men from reading it but gave them rather occasion to seeke more earnestly after it thought it better policy that Bertram should be permitted to goe abroad but handled in such sort as other ancient writers that made against them were wont to be Seeing therefore say they we beare with very many errors in other of the old Catholike vvriters and extenuate them excuse them by inventing some device oftentimes deny them and fayne some commodious sense for them when they are objected in disputations or conflicts with our adversaries wee doe not see why Bertram may not deserve the same equitie and diligent reviseall Least the heretickes cry out that we burne and forbid such antiquity as maketh for them Marke this dealing well The world must be borne in hand that all the Fathers make for the Church of Rome against us in all our controversies When we bring forth expresse testimonies of the Fathers to the contrary what must then be done A good face must be put upō the matter one device or other must be invented to elude the testimonies objected and still it must be denied that the Fathers make against the doctrine of the Papists Bertram for example writeth thus The things which differ one from another are not the same The body of Christ which was dead and rose again and being made immortall now dyeth not death no more having dominion over it is everlasting and now not subject to suffering But this which is celebrated in the Church is temporall not everlasting it is corruptible not free from corruption What device must they finde out here They must say this is meant of the accidents or formes of the Sacrament which are corruptible or of the use of the Sacrament which continueth only in this present world But how will this shift serve the turne when as the whole drift of the discourse tendeth to prove that that which is received by the mouth of the faithfull in the Sacrament is not that very bodie of Christ which dyed upon the Crosse and rose againe from death Non malé aut inconsulté omittantur igitur omnia haec It were not amisse therefore say our Popish Censurers nor unadvisedly done that all these things should be left out If this be your maner of dealing with antiquity let all men judge whether it be not high time for us to listen unto the advice of Vincentius Lirinensis and not be so forward to commit the triall of our controversies to the writings of the Fathers who have had the ill hap to fall into such hucksters handling Yet that you may see how confident we are in the goodnesse of our cause we will not now stand upon our right nor refuse to enter with you into this field but give you leave for this time both to be the Challenger and the appointer of your owne weapons Let us then heare your challenge wherin you would so faine be answered I would faine know say you how can your Religion be true which disalloweth of many chiefe articles which the Saints and Fathers of that primitive Church of Rome did generally hold to be true For they of your side that have read the Fathers of that unspotted Church can well testifie and if any deny it it shall be presently shewen that the Doctors Pastors and Fathers of that Church doe allow of Traditions c. And againe Now would I faine know whether of both have the true Religion they that hold all these abovesaid points with the primitive Church or they that do most vehemently contradict and gainsay them they that doe not disagree with that holy Church in any point of Religion or they that agree with it but in very few and disagree in almost all And the third time too for fayling Now would I willingly see what reasonable answer may be made to this For the Protestants graunt that the Church of Rome for 400 or 500 yeares held the true Religion of Christ yet do they exclaime against the abovesaid articles which the same Church did maintaine and uphold as may be shewen by the expresse testimonies of the Fathers of the same Church and shall be largely layd downe if any learned Protestant will deny it If Albertus Pighius had now beene alive as great a Scholer as he was he might have learned that he never knew before Who did ever yet saith he by the Church of Rome understand the Vniversall Church That doth this man say I who styleth all the ancient Doctors and Martyrs of the Church Vniversall with the name of the Saints and Fathers of the primitive Church of Rome But it seemeth a small matter unto him for the magnifying of that Church to confound Vrbem Orbem unlesse he mingle also Heaven and Earth together by giving the title of that unspotted Church which is the speciall priviledge of the Church triumphant in heaven unto the Church of Rome here militant upon earth S. Augustine surely would not have himselfe otherwise understood whensoever hee speaketh of the unspotted Church and therefore to prevent all mistaking hee thus expoundeth himselfe in his Retractations Wheresoever in these bookes I have made mention of the Church not having spot or wrinkle it is not so to be taken as if she were so now but that she is prepared to bee so when she shall appeare glorious For now by reason of certaine ignorances and infirmities of her members the whole Church hath cause to say every day Forgive us our trespasses Now as long as the Church is subject to these ignorances and infirmities it cannot
true by often experience that the wounded conscience will still pinch grievously notwithstanding the confession made unto God in secret At such a time as this then where the sinner can finde no ease at home what should hee doe but use the best means he can to finde it abroad Is there no balme in Gilead is there no physician there No doubt but God hath provided both the one and the other for recovering of the health of the daughter of his people and S. Iames hath herein given us this direction Confesse your faults one to another and pray one for another that yee may be healed According to which prescription Gregory Nyssen toward the end of his Sermon of Repentance useth this exhortation to the sinner Be sensible of the disease vvherewith thou art taken afflict thy selfe as much as thou canst Seeke also the mourning of thy intirely affected brethren to helpe thee unto libertie Shew me thy bitter and aboundant teares that I may also mingle mine therewith Take likewise the Priest for a partner of thine affliction as thy Father For who is it that so falsely obtayneth the name of a father or hath so adamantine a soule that he will not condole with his sonns lamenting Shew unto him without blushing the things that were kept close discover the secrets of thy soule as showing thy hidden disease unto thy physician Hee will have care both of thy credit and of thy cure It was no part of his meaning to advise us that wee should open our selves in this maner unto everie hedge-priest as if there were a vertue generally annexed to the order that upon confession made and absolution received from anie of that ranke all should be straight made up but he would have us communicate our case both to such Christian brethren and to such a ghostly father as had skill in physick of this kinde and out of a fellow-feeling of our griefe would apply themselves to our recoverie Therefore saith Origen looke about thee diligently unto whom thou oughtest to confesse thy sinne Try first the physician unto whom thou oughtest to declare the cause of thy maladie vvho knoweth to be weake with him that is weake to weepe with him that weepeth who understandeth the discipline of condoling and compassionating that so at length if hee shall say anie thing who hath first shewed himselfe to be both a skilfull physician and a mercifull or if he shall give anie counsaile thou mayest doe and follow it For as S. Basil well noteth the verie same course is to be held in the confession of sinnes which is in the opening of the diseases of the bodie As men therefore do not discover the diseases of their bodie to all nor to everie sort of people but to those that are skilfull in the cure thereof even so ought the confession of our sinnes be made unto such as are able to cure them according to that which is written Yee that are strong beare the infirmities of the weake that is take them away by your diligence He requireth care and diligence in performance of the cure being ignorant good man of that new compendious method of healing invented by our Romane Paracelsians whereby a man in confession of attrite is made contrite by vertue of the keyes that the sinner need put his ghostly father to no further trouble then this Speake the word onely and I shall be healed And this is that Sacramentall confession devised of late by the Priests of Rome which they notwithstanding would faine father upon S. Peter from whom the Church of Rome as they would have us beleeve received this instruction that if envie or infidelitie or anie other evill did secretly creepe into anie mans heart hee who had care of his owne soule should not be ashamed to confesse those things unto him who had the oversight over him that by Gods word and wholsome counsaile he might be cured by him And so indeed we reade in the apocryphall epistle of Clement pretended to be written unto S. Iames the brother of our Lord where in the severall editions of Crab Sichardus Venradius Surius Nicolinus and Binius wee finde this note also laid downe in the margent Nota de confessione sacramentali Marke this of sacramentall confession But their owne Maldonat would have taught them that this note was not worth the marking forasmuch as the proper end of sacramentall confession is the obtayning of remission of sinnes by vertue of the keyes of the Church whereas the end of the confession here said to be commended by S. Peter was the obtayning of counsaile out of Gods word for the remedie of sinnes which kinde of medicinall confession wee well approve of and acknowledge to have beene ordinarily prescribed by the ancient Fathers for the cure of secret sinnes For as for notorious offences which bred open scandall private confession was not thought sufficient but there was further required publick acknowledgement of the fault the solemne use of the keyes for the reconciliation of the penitent If his sin do not only redound to his own evill but also unto much scandall of others and the Bishop thinketh it to be expedient for the profit of the Church let him not refuse to performe his penance in the knowledge of manie or of the whole people also let him not resist let him not by his shamefastnesse add swelling to his deadly and mortall wound saith S. Augustine and more largely in another place where he meeteth with the objection of the sufficiencie of internall repentance in this maner Let no man say unto himselfe I doe it secretly I doe it before God God vvho pardoneth me doth know that I doe it in my heart Is it therefore said without cause Whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Are the keyes therfore without cause given unto the Church of God Doe we frustrate the Gospell of God doe we frustrate the words of Christ Doe we promise that to you which hee denieth you Do wee not deceive you Iob saith If I was abashed to confesse my sinnes in the sight of the people So just a man of Gods rich threasure who was tried in such a furnace saith thus and doth the childe of pestilence vvithstand me and is ashamed to bow his knee under th◠blessing of God That which the Emperor was not ashamed to doe is he ashamed of who is not as much as a Senator but only a simple Courtier O proud neck ó crooked minde perhaps nay it is not to be doubted it was for this reason God would that Theodosius the Emperour should doe publick penance in the sight of the people especially because his sinne could not be concealed and is a Senator ashamed of that whereof the Emperour was not ashamed is he ashamed of that who is no Senator but a Courtier onely whereof the Emperour was not ashamed Is one of the vulgar sort or a trader
your faults one to another and pray one for another that ye may be healed for the fervent prayer of a righteous man avayleth much The later of which sentences hath reference to the prayers of everie good Christian whereunto we finde a gracious promise annexed according to that of S. Iohn If anie man see his brother sinne a sinne which is not unto death he shall aske and he shall give him life for them that sinne not unto death But the former as the verse immediatly going before doth manifestly prove pertayneth to the prayers made by the ministers of the Church who have a speciall charge to be the Lords remembrancers for the good of his people And therefore as S. Augustin out the later proveth that one brother by this meanes may cleanse another from the contagion of sinne so doth S. Chrysostom out of the former that Priests doe performe this not by teaching onely and admonishing but by assisting us also with their prayers and the faithfull prayers both of the one and of the other are by S. Augustin made the especiall meanes whereby the power of the keyes is exercised in the remitting of sinnes who thereupon exhorteth offendors to shew their repentance publickly in the Church that the Church might pray for them and impart the benefite of absolution unto them In the life of S Basil fathered upon Amphilochius of the credite whereof we have before spoken a certaine gentlewoman is brought in comming unto S. Basil for obtayning remission of her sinnes who is said there to have demanded this question of her Hast thou heard ô vvoman that none can forgive sinnes but God alone and shee to have returned him this answer I have heard it Father and therefore have I moved thee to make intercession unto our most mercifull God for mee Which agreeth well with that which Alexander of Hales and Bonaventure doe maintaine that the power of the keyes extend to the remission of faults by way of intercession onely and deprecation not by imparting anie immediate absolution And as in our private forgiving and praying one for another S. Augustin well noteth that it is our part God giving us the grace to use the ministerie of charitie and humilitie but it is his to heare us and to cleanse us from all pollution of sinnes for Christ and in Christ that what we forgive unto others that is to say what wee loose upon earth may be loosed also in heaven so doth S. Ambrose shew that the case also standeth with the ministers of the Gospell in the execution of that commission given unto them for the remitting of sinnes Ioh. 20.23 They make request saith he the Godhead bestoweth the gift for the service is done by man but the bountie is from the power above The reason which hee rendreth thereof is because in their ministerie it is the holy Ghost that forgiveth the sinne and it is God onely that can give the holy Ghost For this is not an humane worke saith he in another place neyther is the holy Ghost given by man but being called upon by the Priest is bestowed by God wherein the gift is Gods the ministery is the Priests For if the Apostle Paul did judge that hee could not conferre the hâ—ly Ghost by his authoritie but beleeved himselfe to be so farre unable for this office that hee wished wee might be filled with the spirit from God who is so great as dare arrogate unto himselfe the bestowing of this gift Therefore the Apostle did intimate his desire by prayer hee challenged no right by anie authoritie hee wished to obtaine it he presumed not to command it Thus farre S. Ambrose of whom Paulinus writeth that whensoever anie penitents came unto him the crimes which they confessed unto him hee spake of to none but to God alone unto whom he made intercession leaving a good example to the Priests of succeeding ages that they be rather intercessors for them unto God than accusers unto men The same also and in the selfe same words doth Ionas write of Eustachius the scholler of Columbanus our famous countrey-man Hitherto appertaineth that sentence cyted by Thomas Waldensis out of S. Hieroms exposition upon the Psalmes that voyce of God cutteth off daily in everie one of us the flame of lust by confession and the grace of the holy Ghost that is to say by the prayer of the Priest maketh it to cease in us and that which before hath been alledged out of Leo of the confession offered first to God and then to the Priest vvho commeth as an intreater for the sinnes of the penitent which hee more fully expresseth in another epistle affirming it to be very profitable and necessarie that the guilt of sinnes or sinners be loosed by the supplication of the Priest before the last day See S. Gregory in his morall exposition upon 1. Sam. 2.25 Anastasius Sinaita or Nicaenus in his answer to the 141. question of Gretsers edition and Nicolaus Cabasilas in the 29. chapter of his exposition of the Liturgie where he directly affirmeth that remission of sinnes is given to the penitents by the prayer of the Priests And therefore by the Order used of old in the Church of Rome the Priest before hee began his worke was required to use this prayer O Lord God almightie be mercifull unto me a sinner that I may worthily give thankes unto thee who hast made mee an unworthy one for thy mercies sake a minister of the Priestly office and hast appointed me a poore and humble mediator to pray and make intercession unto our Lord Iesus Christ for sinners that returne unto repentance And therefore O Lord the ruler who wouldest have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth who doest not desire the death of a sinner but that he may be reconciled and live receive my prayer which I poure forth before the face of thy mercie for thy servants and handmaydes who have fledd to repentance and to thy mercy Yea in the dayes of Thomas Aquinas there arose a learned man among the Papists themselves who found fault with that indicative forme of absolution then used by the Priest I absolve thee from all thy sinnes and would have it delivered by way of deprecation alledging that this was not onely the opinion of Gulielmus Altisiodorensis Gulielmus Parisiensis and Hugo Cardinalis but also that thirtie yeares were scarce passed since all did use this forme onely Absolutionem remissionem tribuat tibi omnipotens Deus Almightie God give unto thee absolution and forgivenesse What Thomas doth answer hereunto may be seene in his little treatise of the forme of absolution which upon this occasion he wrote unto the Generall of his order This onely will I adde that aswell in the ancient Ritualls and in the new Pontificall of the Church of Rome as in the present practise
of the Greek Church I finde the absolution expressed in the third person as attributed wholly to God and not in the first as if it came from the Priest himselfe One ancient forme of Absolution used among the Latins was this Almighty God be mercifull unto thee and forgive thee all thy sinnes past present and to come visible and invisible which thou hast committed before him and his Saints which thou hast confessed or by some negligence or forgetfulnesse or evill vvill hast concealed God deliver thee from all evill here and hereafter preserve and confirme thee alwayes in everie good worke and Christ the sonne of the living God bring thee unto the life which remayneth without end And so among the Grecians whatsoever sinnes the penitent for forgetfulnes or shamefastnesse doth leave unconfessed we pray the mercifull and most pitifull God that those also may be pardoned unto him and we are perswaded that hee shall receive pardon of them from God saith Ieremy the late Patriarch of Constantinople Where by the way you may observe no such necessitie to be here held of confessing everie knowne sinne unto a Priest that if either for shame or for some other respect the penitent doe not make an intire confession but conceale somewhat from the notice of his ghostly father his confession should thereby be made voyde and hee excluded from all hope of forgivenesse which is that engine whereby the Priests of Rome have lift up themselves into that height of domineering and tyrannizing over mens conscience wherewith we see they now hold the poore people in most miserable awe Alexander of Hales and Bonaventure in the forme of absolution used in their time observe that prayer was premised in the optative and absolution adjoyned afterward in the indicative mood whence they gather that the Priests prayer obtayneth grace his absolution presupposeth it that by the former he ascendeth unto God and procureth pardon for the fault by the later he descendeth to the sinner and reconcileth him to the Church for although a man be loosed before God saith the Master of the Sentences yet is he not held loosed in the face of the Church but by the judgement of the Priest And this loosing of men by the judgement of the Priest is by the Fathers generally accounted nothing else but a restoring of them to the peace of the Church and an admitting of them to the Lords table againe which therefore they usually expresse by the termes of bringing them to the communion reconciling them to or with the communion restoring the communion to them admitting them to fellowship granting them peace c. Neyther doe we finde that they did ever use anie such formall absolution as this I absolve thee from all thy sinnes wherein our Popish Priests notwithstanding doe place the verie forme of their late devised sacrament of Penance nay hold it to be so absolute a forme that according to Thomas Aquinas his new divinitie it would not be sufficient to say Almightie God have mercie upon thee or God grant unto thee absolution and forgivenesse because forsooth the Priest by these vvords doth not signifie that the absolution is done but intreateth that it may be done which how it will accord with the Romane Pontificall where the forme of Absolution is layd downe prayer-wise the Iesuites who follow Thomas may doe well to consider I passe this over that in the dayes not onely of S. Cyprian but of Alcuinus also who lived 800. yeares after Christ the reconciliation of Penitents was not held to be such a proper office of the Priest but that a Deacon in his absence was allowed to performe the same The ordinarie course that was held herein according to the forme of the ancient Canons is thus layde down by the fathers of the third Councell of Toledo that the Priest should first suspend him that repented of his fault from the communion and make him to have often recourse unto imposition of hands among the rest of the penitents then when hee had fulfilled the time of his satisfaction as the consideration of the Priest did approve of it he should restore him to the communion And this was a Constitution of old fathered upon the Apostles that Bishops should separate those vvho said they repented of their sinnes for a time determined according to the proportion of their sinne and afterward receive them being penitent as fathers would do their children To this Penitential excommunication and absolution belongeth that saying eyther of S. Ambrose or S. Augustin for the same discourse is attributed to them both Hee who hath truely performed his repentance and is loosed from that bond wherewith he was tyed and separated from the body of Christ and doth live well after his repentance whensoever after his reconciliation he shall depart this life he goeth to the Lord he goeth to rest he shall not be deprived of the kingdome of God and from the people of the Divell he shall be separated and that which we reade in Anastasius Sinaita Binde him and till thou hast appeased God doe not let him loose that he be not more bound with the wrath of God for if thou bindest him not there remaine bonds for him that cannot be broken Neither doe we enquire whither the wound were often bound but whither the binding hath profited If it have profited although in a short time use it no longer Let the measure of the loosing be the profit of him that is bound and that exhortation which another maketh unto the Pastors of the Church Binde with separation such as have sinned after baptisme and loose them againe when they have repented receiving them as brethren for the saying is true Whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed in heaven That this authoritie of loosing remaineth still in the Church wee constantly maintaine against the heresie of the Montanists and Novatians who upon this pretence among others that God onely had power to remit sinnes took away the ministeriall power of reconciling such penitents as had committed haynous sinnes denying that the Church had anie warrant to receive them to her communion againe and to the participation of the holy mysteries notwithstanding their repentance were ever so sound Which is directly contrarie to the doctrine delivered by S. Paul both in the generall that if a man be overtaken in a fault they who are spirituall should restore such a one in the spirit of meekenesse and in the particular of the incestuous Corinthian who though hee had beene excommunicated for such a crime as was not so much as named amongst the Gentiles yet upon his repentance the Apostle telleth the Church that they ought to forgive him and comfort him lest he should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow Where that speech of his is specially noted and pressed against the hereticks by S. Ambrose To whom
yee forgive anie thing I forgive also for if I forgave anie thing to whom I forgave it for your sakes I forgave it in the person of Christ. For as in the name and by the power of our Lord Iesus such a one was delivered to Satan so God having given unto him repentance to recover himselfe out of the snare of the Divell in the same name and in the same power was hee to be restored againe the ministers of reconciliation standing in Christs stead and Christ himselfe being in the mids of them that are thus gathered together in his name to binde or loose in heaven whatsoever they according to his commission shall binde or loose on earth And here it is to be noted that Anastasius by some called Nicaenus by others Sinaita and Antiochenus who is so eager against them which say that Confession made unto men profiteth nothing at all confesseth yet that the minister in hearing the confession and instructing and correcting the sinner doth but give furtherance onely thereby unto his repentance but that the pardoning of the sinne is the proper worke of God For man saith he cooperateth with man unto repentance and ministreth and buildeth and instructeth and reproveth in things belonging unto salvation according to the Apostle and the Prophet but God blotteth out the sinnes of those that have confessed saying I am he that blotteth out thine iniquities for mine owne sake and thy sinnes and will not remember them There followeth now another part of the ministery of reconciliation consisting in the due administration of the Sacraments which being the proper seales of the promises of the Gospell as the Censures are of the threats must therefore necessarily also have reference to the remission of sinnes And so we see the ancient Fathers doe hold that the commission Ioh. 20.23 Whose sinnes yee remit they are remitted unto them c. is executed by the ministers of Christ aswell in the conferring of Baptisme as in the reconciling of Penitents yet so in both these and in all the sacraments likewise of both the Testaments that the ministerie onely is to be accounted mans but the power Gods For as S. Augustin well observeth it is one thing to baptize by way of ministerie another thing to baptize by vvay of power the power of baptizing the Lord retayneth to himselfe the ministerie hee hath given to his servants the power of the Lords Baptisme was to passe from the Lord to no man but the ministery was the power was to be transferred from the Lord unto none of his ministers the ministery was both unto the good and unto the bad And the reason which hee assigneth hereof is verie good that the hope of the baptized might be in him by whom they did acknowledge themselves to have beene baptized The Lord therefore would not have a servant to put his hope in a servant And therefore those Schoolemen argued not much amisse that gathered this conclusion thence It is a matter of equall power to baptize inwardly and to absolve from mortall sinne But it vvas not fit that God should communicate the power of baptizing inwardly unto any lest our hope should be reposed in man Therefore by the same reason it was not fit that hee should communicate the power of absolving from actuall sinne unto any So Bernard or whosoever was the author of the booke intituled Scala Paradisi The office of baptizing the Lord granted unto many but the power and authoritie of remitting sinnes in baptisme he retayned unto himselfe alone whence Iohn by vvay of singularitie and differencing said of him He it is which baptizeth with the holy Ghost And the Baptist indeed doth make a singular difference betwixt the conferrer of the externall and the internall baptisme in saying I baptize with water but it is hee which baptizeth with the holy Ghost While Iohn did his service God did give who fayleth not in giving and now when all others doe their service the service is mans but the gift is Gods saith Optatus and Arnaldus Bonaevallensis the author of the twelve treatises de Cardinalibus operibus Christi falsely ascribed to S. Cyprian touching the Sacraments in generall Forgivenesse of sinnes whether it be given by Baptisme or by other sacraments is properly of the holy Ghost and the priviledge of effecting this remayneth to him alone But the word of reconciliation is it wherein the Apostle doth especially place that ministerie of reconciliation which the Lord hath committed to his Ambassadors here upon earth This is that key of knowledge which doth both open the conscience to the confession of sinne and include therein the grace of the healthfull mysterie unto eternitie as Maximus Taurinensis speaketh of it This is that powerfull meanes which God hath sanctified for the washing away of the pollution of our soules Now ye are cleane saith our Saviour to his Apostles through the word which I have spoken unto you And whereas everie transgressor is holden with the cords of his owne sinnes the Apostles according to the commission given unto them by their Master that whatsoever they should loose on earth should be loosed in heaven did loose those cords by the word of God and the testimonies of the Scriptures and exhortation unto vertues as saith S. Hierome Thus likewise doth S. Ambrose note that sinnes are remitted by the word of God whereof the Levite was an interpreter and a kinde of an executer in that respect concludeth that the Levite was a minister of this remission As the Iewish Scribes therefore by taking away the key of knowledge did shut up the kingdom of heaven against men so every Scribe which is instructed unto the kingdome of heaven by opening unto his hearers the doore of faith doth as it were unlock that kingdome unto them being the instrument of God herein to open mens eyes and to turne them from darkenesse to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgivenesse of sinnes and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith in Christ. And here are we to understand that the ministers of Christ by applying the word of God unto the consciences of men both in publick and in private doe discharge that part of their function which concerneth forgivenesse of sinnes partly operatively partly declaratively Operatively inasmuch as God is pleased to use their preaching of the Gospell as a meanes of conferring his spirit upon the sonnes of men of begetting them in Christ and of working faith and repentance in them whereby the remission of sinnes is obtayned Thus Iohn preaching the Baptisme of repentance for the remission of sinnes and teaching the people that they should beleeve on him which should come after him that is on Christ Iesus is said to turne manie of the children of Israel to the
beene said actually voideth himselfe of this power this unrighteous judgement of his given upon earth being no wayes ratified but absolutely disanulled in the court of heaven For hee who by his office is appointed to be a minister of the word of truth hath no power given him to do any thing against the truth but for the truth neyther is it to be imagined that the sentence of man who is subject to deceive and be deceived should anie wayes prejudice the sentence of God whose judgement wee know to be alwayes according to the truth Therefore doth Pacianus in the end of his first epistle to Sympronianus the Novatian shew that at that time absolution was not so easily given unto penitents as now a dayes it is but vvith great pondering of the matter and with great deliberation after manie sighes and shedding of teares after the prayers of the whole Church pardon was so not denyed unto trâ—e repentance that Christ being to judge no man should prejudge him and a little before speaking of the Bishop by whose ministerie this was done He shall give an account saith he if hee have done anie thing amisse or if he have judged corruptly and wickedly Neyther is there anie prejudice done unto God whereby he might not undoe the workes of this evill builder but in the meane time if that administration of his be godly he continueth a helper of the workes of God Wherein he doth but tread in the steps of S. Cyprian who at the first rising of the Novatian heresie wrote in the same maner unto Antonianus Wee doe not prejudice the Lord that is to judge but that hee if he finde the repentance of the sinner to be full and just he may then ratifie that which shall be here ordayned by us but if any one doe deceive us with the semblance of repentance God who is not mocked and who beholdeth the heart of man may judge of those things which we did not well discerne and the Lord may amend the sentence of the servants Hereupon S. Hierome expounding those words Daniel 4.24 It may be God will pardon thy sinnes reproveth those men of great rashnesse that are so peremptorie and absolute in their absolutions When blessed Daniel saith he who knew things to come doth doubt of the sentence of God they do a rash deed that boldly promise pardon unto sinners S. Basil also resolveth us that the power of forgiving is not given absolutely but upon the obedience of the penitent and his consent with him that hath the care of his soule For it is in loosing as it is in binding Thou hast begun to esteeme thy brother as a publican saith S. Augustin thou bindest him upon earth But looke that thou bindest him justly For unjust bonds justice doth breake So when the Priest saith I absolve thee Maldonat confesseth that hee meaneth no more thereby but As much as in me lyeth I absolve thee and Suarez acknowledgeth that it implicity includeth this condition Vnlesse the receiver put some impediment for which hee alledgeth the authority of Hugo de S. Victore lib. 2. de Sacramentis pa. 14. s. 8. affirming that this forme doth rather signifie the power and vertue then the event of the absolution And therefore doth the Master of the Sentences rightly observe that God doth not evermore follow the judgement of the Church which sometimes judgeth by surreption and ignorance whereas God doth alwayes judge according to the truth So the Priests sometime declare men to be loosed or bound who are not so before God with the penaltie of satisfaction or excommunication they sometime binde such as are unworthy or loose them they admit them that be unworthy to the Sacraments and put backe them that be worthy to be admitted That saying therefore of Christ must be understood to be verified in them saith he whose merits doe require that they should be loosed or bound For then is the sentence of the Priest approved and confirmed by the judgement of God and the whole court of heaven when it doth proceed with that discretion that the merits of them who be dealt withall doe not contradict the same Whomsoever therefore they do loose or binde using the key of discretion according to the parties merits they are loosed or bound in heaven that is to say with God because the sentence of the Priest proceeding in this maner is approved and confirmed by divine judgement Thus farre the Master of the Sentences who is followed herein by the rest of the Schoolemen who generally agree that the power of binding and loosing committed to the Ministers of the Church is not absolute but must be limited with Clave non errante as being then onely of force when matters are carried with right iudgement and no error is committed in the use of the keyes Our Saviour therefore must stil have the priviledge reserved unto him of being the absolute Lord over his owne house it is sufficient for his officers that they bee esteemed as Moses was faithfull in all his house as servants The place wherein they serve is a Stewards place and the Apostle telleth them that it is required in Stewards that the man be found faithfull They may not therefore carrie themselves in their office as the unjust steward did and presume to strike out their Masters debt without his direction and contrarie to his liking Now we know that our Lord hath given no authoritie unto his stewards to grant an acquittance unto anie of his debtors that bring not unfayned faith and repentance with them Neyther Angell nor Archangell can neyther yet the Lord himselfe who alone can say I am with you when we have sinned doth release us unlesse vvee bring repentance with us saith S. Ambrose and Eligius Bishop of Noyon in his Sermon unto the Penitents Before all things it is necessary you should know that howsoever you desire to receive the imposition of our hands yet you cannot obtaine the absolution of your sinnes before the divine piety shall vouchsafe to absolve you by the grace of compunction To thinke therefore that it lyeth in the power of anie Priest truely to absolve a man from his sinnes without implying the condition of his beleeving and repenting as he ought to doe is both presumption and madnesse in the highest degree Neyther dareth Cardinall Bellarmine who censureth this conditionall absolution in us for idle and superfluous when he hath considered better of the matter assume unto himselfe or communicate unto his brethren the power of giving an absolute one For he is driven to confesse with other of his fellowes that when the Priest saith I absolve thee he doth not affirme that he doth absolve absolutely as not being ignorant that it may many wayes come to passe that he doth not absolve although he pronounce those words namely if hee who seemeth to receive this Sacrament for
by Peter Lombard and other of the Schoolemen but also by Iudocus Clichtoveus not long before the time of the Councell of Trent Lazarus saith Clichtoveus first of all came forth alive out of the sepulchre and then was commandement given by our Lord that hee should be loosed by the disciples and suffered to go his way because the Lord doth first inwardly by himselfe quicken the sinner and afterwards absolveth him by the Priests ministerie For no sinner is to be absolved before it appeareth that hee be amended by due repentance and bee quickned inwardly But inwardly to quicken the sinner is the office of God alone who saith by the Prophet I am he that blotteth out your iniquities The truth therefore of the Priests absolution dependeth upon the truth and sinceritie of Gods quickning grace in the heart of the Penitent which if it be wanting all the absolutions in the world will stand him in no stead For example our Saviour saith If yee forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you but if ye forgive not men their trespasses neyther will your Father forgive your trespasses and in this respect as is observed by Sedulius in other mens persons we are eyther absolved or bound graviusque soluti Nectimur alterius si solvere vincla negamus Suppose now that a man who cannot find in his heart to forgive the wrong done unto him by another is absolved here by the Priest from all his sinnes according to the usuall forme of Absolution are wee to thinke that what is thus loosed upon earth shall be loosed in heaven and that Christ to make the Priests word true will make his owne false And what wee say of charitie toward man must much more be understood of the love of God and the love of righteousnesse the defect whereof is not to be supplyed by the absolution of anie Priest It hath beene alwayes observed for a speciall difference betwixt good and bad men that the one hated sinne for the love of vertue the other onely for the feare of punishment The like difference do our Adveâ—saries make betwixt Contrition and Attrition that the hatred of sinne in the one proceedeth from the love of God and of righteousnesse in the other from the feare of punishment and yet teach for all this that Attrition which they confesse would not otherwise suffice to justifie a man being ioyned with the Priests Absolution is sufficient for that purpose he that was attrite being by vertue of this Absolution made contrite and iustified that is to say hee that was led onely by a servile feare and consequently was to be rancked among disordered and evill persons being by this meanes put in as good case for the matter of the forgivenesse of his sinnes as hee that loveth God sincerely For they themselves doe graunt that such as have this servile feare from whence Attrition issueth are to be accounted evill and disordered men by reason of their want of charitie to which purpose also they alledge that saying of Gregory Recti diligunt te non recti adhuc timent te Such as be righteous love thee such as be not rightâ—ous as yet feare thee But they have taken an order notwithstanding that non recti shall stand recti in curiâ with them by assuming a strange authoritie unto themselves of iustifying the wicked a thing we know that hath the curse of God and man threatned unto it making men friends with God that have not the love of God dwelling in them For although we be taught by the word of God that perfect love casteth out feare that wee have not received the spirit of bondage to feare againe but the spirit of adoption whereby wee cry Abba father that mount Sinai which maketh those that come unto it to feare and quake engendreth to bondage and is to be cast out with her children from inheriting the promise that without love both we our selves are nothing and all that we have doth profit us nothing yet these wonderfull men would have us beleeve that by their word alone they are able to make something of this nothing that feare without love shall make men capable of the benefite of their pardon as well as love without feare that whether men come by the way of mount Sinai or mount Sion whether they have Legall or Evangelicall repentance they have authoritie to absolve them from all their sinnes as if it did lye in their power to confound Gods Testaments at their pleasure and to give unto a servile feare not the benefite of manumission only but the priviledge of adoption also by making the children of the bondwoman children of the promise and giving them a portion in that blessed inheritance together with the children of her that is free Repentance from dead workes is one of the foundations and principles of the doctrine of Christ. Nothing maketh repentance certaine but the hatred of sinne and the love of God and without true repentance all the Priests under heaven are not able to give us a discharge from our sinnes and deliver us from the wrath to come Except ye be converted ye shall not enter into the kingdome of heaven Except yee repent yee shall all perish is the Lords saying in the new Testament and in the old Repent and turne from all your transgressions so iniquitie shall not be your ruine Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby yee have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit for why will yee dye O house of Israel Now put case one commeth to his ghostly father with such sorrow of minde as the terrours of a guiltie conscience usually doe produce and with such a resolution to cast away his sins as a man hath in a storme to cast away his goods not because he doth not love them but because he feareth to loose his life if he part not with them doth not he betray this mans soule who putteth into his head that such an extorted repentance as this which hath not one graine of love to season it withall wil qualifie him sufficiently for the receiving of an absolution by I know not what sacramentall facultie that the Priest is furnished withall to that purpose For all doe confesse with S. Augustin that this feare which loveth not justice but dreadeth punishment is servile because it is carnall and therefore doth not crucifie the flesh For the willingnesse to sinne liveth which then appeareth in the work when impunitie is hoped for but when it is beleeved that punishment will follow it liveth closely yet it liveth For it would wish rather that it were lawfull to doe that which the Law forbiddeth and is sorry that it is not lawfull because it is not spiritually delighted with the good thereof but carnally feareth the evill vvhich it doth threaten What man then doe we
the writings of S. Cyrill Gennadius Olympiodorus and oâ—hers S. Cyrill from those last words of our Saviour upon the Crosse Father into thy hands I commend my spirit delivereth this as the certaine ground and foundation of our hope Wee ought to beleeve that the soules of the Saints when they are departed out of their bodies are commended unto Gods goodnesse as unto the hands of a most deare Father and doe not remaine in the earth as some of the unbeleevers have imagined untill they have had the honour of buriall neyther are carried as the soules of the wicked be unto a place of unmeasurable torment that is unto Hell but rather flye to the hands of the Father this way being first prepared for us by Christ. For hee delivered up his soule into the hands of his Father that from it and by it a beginning being made we might have certaine hope of this thing firmely beleeving that after death we shall be in the hands of God and shall live a farre better life for ever with Christ. for therefore Paul desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ. Gennadius in a booke wherein hee purposely taketh upon him to reckon up the particular points of doctrine received by the Church in his time when he commeth to treat of the state of soules separated from the body maketh no mention at all of Purgatorie but layeth down this for one of his positions After the ascension of our Lord into heaven the soules of all the Saints are with Christ and departing out of the bodie goe unto Christ expecting the resurrection of their bodie that together with it they may be changed unto perfect and perpetuall blessednesse as the soules of the sinners also being placed in Hell under feare expect the resurrection of their body that with it they may be thrust unto everlasting paine In like maner Olympiodorus expounding that place of Ecclesiastes If the tree fall toward the South or toward the North in the place where the tree falleth there it shall be maketh this inference thereupon In whatsoever place therefore either lightsome or darke that is either in the foule station of sinnes or in the honest of vertues a man is taken when he dyeth in that degree and order he remaineth for ever For either hee resteth in the light of eternall felicitie with the just and with Christ our Lord or is tormented in darkenesse with the wicked and with the Divell the prince of this world The first whom we finde directly to have held that for certaine light faults there is a purgatory fire provided before the day of judgement was Gregory the first about the end of the sixth age after the birth of our Saviour Christ. It was his imagination that the end of the world was then at hand and that as when the night beginneth to be ended and the day to spring before the rising of the Sunne the darkenesse is in some sort mingled together with the light untill the remaines of the departing night be turned into the light of the following day so the end of this world was then intermingled with the beginning of the world to come and the very darkenes of the remaines thereof made transparent by a certaine mixture of spirituall things And this he assigneth for the reason why in those last times so many things were made cleare touching the soules which before lay hid so that by open revelations and apparitions the world to come might seeme to bring in and open it selfe unto them But as we see that he was plainly deceived in the one of his conceits so have we just cause to call into question the veritie of the other the Scripture especially having informed us that a people for enquiry of matters should not have recourse to the dead but to their God to the Law and to the Testimony it being not Gods manner to send men from the dead to instruct the living but to remit them unto Moses and the Prophets that they may heare them And the reason is well worth the observation which the author of the Questions to Antiochus rendreth why God would not permit the soule of any of those that departed from hence to returne backe unto us againe and to declare the state of things in Hell unto us least much errour might arise from thence unto us in this life For many of the Divels saith hee might transforme themselves into the shapes of those men that were deceased and say that they vvere risen from the dead and so might spred many false matters doctrines of the things there unto our seduction and destruction Neither is it to be passed over that in those apparitions and revelations related by Gregory there is no mention made of any common lodge in Hell appointed for purging of the dead which is that which the Church of Rome now striveth for but of certaine soules only that for their punishment were confined to bathes and other such places here upon earth which our Romanists may beleeve if they list but must seeke for the Purgatorie they looke for somewhere else And yet may they save themselves that labour if they will be advised by the Bishops assembled in the Councell of Aquisgran 240. yeares after these visions were published by Gregory who will resolve them out of the word of God how sinnes are punished in the world to come The sinnes of men say they are punished three maner of wayes two in this life and the third in the life to come Of those two the Apostle saith If we would judge our selves we should not be judged of the Lord. This is the punishment wherewith by the inspiration of God every sinner by repenting for his offences taketh revenge upon himselfe But where the Apostle consequently adjoyneth When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with this world this is the punishment which almightie God doth mercifully inflict upon a sinner according to that saying Whom God loveth he chasteneth and he scourgeth everie sonne that hee receiveth But the third is very fearefull and terrible which by the most just judgement of God shall be executed not in this world but in that which is to come vvhen the just Iudge shall say Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire which is prepared for the Divell and his angells Adde hereunto the saying of the author of the booke De vanitate saeculi wrongly ascribed to S. Augustine Know that when the soule is separated from the body presently it is eyther placed in Paradise for his good merites or cast headlong into the bottom of hell for his sinnes and that in the dayes of Otto Frisingensis himselfe who wrote in the year of our Lord MCXLVI the doctrine of Purgatory was esteemed onely a private assertion held by some and not an article of faith generally received by the whole Church for why should hee
else write of it in this maner That there is in Hell a place of Purgatory wherein such as are to be saved are either only troubled with darkenesse or decocted with the fire of expiation SOMâ— doe affirme and lastly that the Purgatorie wherewith the Romish clergie doth now delude the world is a new devise never heard of in the Church of God for the space of a thousand yeares after the birth of our Saviour Christ. For the Gregorian Purgatorie which reached no further then to the expiation of small and very light faults would not serve these mens turne who verie providently considered that little use could be made of that fire if it had no other fuell but this to maintaine it For such peccadilloes as these they say may be taken away in this life by knocking the breast by receiving the Bishops blessing by being sprinkled with holy water and by such other easie remedies that if this were all the matter to be cared for men needed not greatly to stand in feare of Purgatorie Yea admit they should be so extremely negligent in their life time that they forgat to use anie of these helpes they might for all this at the time of their death be more afraid then hurt yea this feare alone if there were nothing else might prove a meanes to purge their soules at the very parting from thâ—se faults of the lightest kinde if Gregory may be credited Nay which is more diverse of their owne elder Divines to whom wee may adjoyne Cardinall Caietan also in these later dayes have taught that all the remaines of sinne in Gods children are quite abolished by finall grace at the verie instant of their dissolution so that the staine of the least sinne is not left behinde to be carried unto the other world Now Purgatory as Bellarmine describeth it is a certaine place in which as in a prison those soules are â—urged after this life which were not fully purged in this life that being so purged they may be able to enter in to heaven wherein to no uncleane thing can enter And of this saith he is all the controversie If that be so their own Doctors you see will quickly bring this controversie unto an end For if the soules be fully purged here from all spot of sinne what need have they to be sent unto anie other Purgatorie after this life Yes say they although the fault be quite remitted and the soule clearely freed from the pollution thereof yet may there remaine a temporall punishment due for the verie mortall sinnes that have beene committed which if reliefe doe not otherwise come by the helpe of such as are alive must be soundly layd on in Purgatory But why in Purgatory say we seeing here there is no more purging worke left for the fault and the blot being taken away already what remaineth yet to be purged The punishment onely they say is left behinde and punishment I hope they will not hold to be the thing that is purged away by punishment Againe we desire them to tell us what Father or ancient Doctor did ever teach this strange divinity that a man being cleerly purged from the blott of his sinne and fully acquitted here from the fault thereof should yet in the other world be punished for it with such grievous torments as the tongue of man is not able to expresse And yet as new and as absurd a doctrine as it is the Pope and his adherents have builded thereupon both their guilefull Purgatory with which it suteth as evill-favouredly as may be and their gainefull Indulgences which by their own doctrine free not a man from the guilt of anie fault either mortall or veniall but onely from the guilt of the temporall punishment which remayneth after the fault hath beene forgiven When Thomas Aquinas other Friars had brought the frame of this new building unto some perfection and fashioned all things therein unto their owne best advantage the Doctors of the Greeke Church did publickely oppose themselves against it Matthaeus Quaestor by name wrote against Thomas herein whose booke is still preserved in the Emperours Librarie at Vienna So Athanasius his disputation against Purgatorie is or lately was to be seen in the French Kings Librarie and the like of Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople and others elsewhere The Apologie of the Grecians touching the same subject is commonly to be had which was penned by Marcus Eugenicus archbishop of Ephesus and presented to Cardinall Cusanus and the deputies of the Councell of Basil in the yeare MCCCCXXXVIII the 14 of Iune the verie same day wherein Bessarion Archbishop of Nice disputed with the Latines of the same matter in the Councell assembled at Ferraria In that Apologie the Grecians begin their disputation with this proposition A purgatory fire and a punishment by fire which is temporall and shall at last have an end neyther have we received from our Doctors neyther doe we know that the Church of the East doth maintaine They adde further Neither have we received it from any of our Doctors and moreover no small feare doth trouble us least by admitting a temporary fire both penall and purgatory wee should destroy the full consent of the Church And thereupon they conclude verie peremptorily For these reasons therefore neyther have we ever hitherto affirmed any such thing neither will we at all affirme it Yet within a yeare after the Pope and his ministers prevailed so farre with them in the Councell at Florence that they were content for peace sake to yeeld that the middle sort of soules were in a place of punishment but whether that were fire or darkenesse and tempest or something else they would not contend And accordingly was the pretented Vnion betwixt them and the Latines drawne up that if such as be truely penitent dye in Gods favour before they have satisfied for their sinnes of commission and omission by worthy fruits of penance their soules are purged after death with purgatory punishments neither fire nor anie other kinde of punishment being specified in particular But neyther would Marcus the Bishop of Ephesus who was one of the Legates of the Patriarches of Antioch and of Ierusalem consent to this union neither could the Greeke Church afterwards by anie meanes be drawne to yeeld unto it And so unto this day the Romish Purgatorie is rejected as well by the Grecians as by the Muscovites and Russians the Cophtites and Abassines the Georgians and Armenians together with the Syrians and Chaldaeans that are subject to the Patriarches of Antioch and Babylon from Cyprus and Palaestina unto the East Indies And this may suffice for the discoverie of this new-found creeke of Purgatorie OF PRAYER FOR THE DEAD PRayer for the dead as it is used in the Church of Rome doth necessarily suppose Purgatorie and therefore whatsoever hath beene alledged out of the Scriptures and Fathers against the one doth
merits as they shal be judged to be worthy some into the place which is called Hell others into Abrahams bosome and through diverse eyther places or mansions and in his Commentaries upon Leviticus hee addeth further Neyther have the Apostles themselves as yet received their joy but even they doe expect that I also may be made partaker of their joy For the Saincts departing from hence doe not presently obtaine the full rewards of their labours but they expect us likewise howsoever staying howsoever slacking Then touching the purging of men after the Resurrection he thus delivereth his minde in his Commentaries upon Luke I thinke that even after our resurrection from the dead we shall have need of a sacrament to wash and purge us for none can rise without pollutions and upon Ieremy If any one be saved in the second resurrection he is that sinner vvhich needeth the baptisme of fire which is purged with burning that whatsoever he hath of wood hay and stubble the fire may consume it Neither doth Lactantius shew himselfe to varie much from him in eyther of those points for thus he writeth When God shall judge the righteous he will examine them by fire Then they whose sinnes shall prevaile eyther in weight or number shall be touched with the fire and burned but they whom perfect righteousnesse and the ripenesse of vertue hath throughly seasoned shall not feele that fire for from thence have they something in them that will repell put back the force of the flame so great is the force of innocency that that fire shall flye back from it without doing anie harme vvhich hath received this power from God that it may burne the wicked and do service to the righteous Yet notwithstanding let no man thinke that the soules are presently judged after death All of them are detayned in one common custodie untill the time come wherein the great Iudge doth make tryall of their doings In like maner doth S. Hilary write of the one part All the faithfull when they are gone out of the bodie shall be reserved by the Lords custodie for that entry into the heavenly kingdome being in the meane time placed in the bosome of Abraham whither the wicked are hindred from comming by the gulfe interposed betwixt them untill the time of entring into the kingdome of heaven doe come and thus of the other Being to render an account of every idle word shall we desire the day of judgement wherein that unwearied fire must be passed by us in which those grievous punishments for expiating the soule from sinnes must be endured for to such as have beene baptized with the holy Ghost it remaineth that they should be consummated with the fire of judgement In S. Ambrose also there are some passages to bee found which seeme to make directly for either of these points as these for the former The soule is loosed from the body and yet after the end of this life it is held as yet in suspence with the uncertainty of the future judgement so that there is no end where there is thought to be an end We reade in the books of Esdras that when the day of judgement shall come the earth shall restore the bodies of the deceased and the dust shall restore the reliques of the dead which doe rest in the graves and the habitacles shall restore the soules which were committed to them and the most high shall be revealed upon the seat of judgement Also that scripture nameth those habitacles of the soules Promptuaries or secret receptacles and meeting with the complaint of man that the just which have gone before may seeme to be defrauded untill the day of judgement which is a very long time of the reward due unto them saith wonderfully that the day of judgement is like unto a crowne wherein as there is no slackenesse of the last so is there no swiftnesse of the first For the day of crowning is expected by all that vvithin that day both they who are overcome may be ashamed and they who doe overcome may obtaine the palme of victory Therefore while the fulnesse of time is expected the soules expect their due reward Paine is provided for some of them for some glory and yet in the meane time neither are those without trouble nor these without fruite and these for the latter With fire shall the sonnes of Levi be purged with fire Ezechiel with fire Daniel But these although they shall be tryed with fire yet shall say We have passed through fire and water Others shall remaine in the fire And if the Lord shall save his servants we shall be saved by faith yet saved as it were by fire Although we shall not be burned up yet shall we be burned After the end of the vvorld when the Angells shall be sent to separate the good and the bad this baptisme shall be when iniquitie shal be burnt up by the furnace of fire that in the kingdome of God the righteous may shine as the Sunne in the kingdome of their Father And if any one be as Peter or as Iohn he is baptized with this fire Seeing therefore he that is purged here hath need to be purged again there let him purge us there also when the Lord may say Enter into my rest that every one of us being burned with that flaming sword not burned up when he is entred into that pleasure of Paradise may give thankes unto his Lord saying Thou hast brought us into a place of refreshment Hereunto wee may adjoine that observation of Suarez the Iesuite They who thinke that the soules of men are not judged at their death nor do receive reward or punishment but are reserved in hidden receptacles untill the generall judgement doe consequently say that as men do not receive their last reward or punishment so neyther are they also purged untill the generall Resurrection and Iudgement do come from vvhence they might say vvith reasonable good consequence that men are to be purged with the fire of Conflagration and with as good consequence also may we further adde that prayers were not to be made for the deliverie of the soules of the dead from any purgatorie paines supposed to be suffered by them betwixt the time of their death and their resurrection which be the only praiers which are now in question In the Resurrection when our workes like unto clusters of grapes shall be cast into the probatory fire as it were into the wine-presse every mans husbandry shall be made manifest saith Gregorius Cerameus sometime archbishop of Tauromenium in Sicilia and No man as yet is entred eyther into the torments of Hell or into the kingdome of Heaven untill the time of the resurrection of the bodies saith Anastasius Sinaita upon whom Gretser bestoweth this marginall annotation that this is the Error of certain of the ancient of latter Greece And we
least suspition of heresie The narration of Lazarus and the rich man saith the author of the Questions and Answers in the workes of Iustin Martyr presenteth this doctrine unto us that after the departure of the soule out of the body men cannot by any providence or care obtaine any profite Then saith Gregory Nazianzen in vaine shall anie one goe about to relieve those that lament Here men may have a remedie but afterwards there is nothing but bonds or all things are fast bound For after death the punishment of sinne is remedilesse saith Theodoret. and therefore S. Hierome doth conclude that while we are in this present world we may be able to helpe one another eyther by our prayers or by our counsailes but when vvee shall come before the judgement seat of Christ neyther Iob nor Daniel nor Noah can intreate for any one but every one must beare his owne burden Other Doctors were of another iudgement that the dead received speciall profite by the prayers and oblations of the living eyther for the remission of their sinnes or the easing of their punishment but whether this were restrained to smaller offences only or such as lived and died in great sinnes might be made partakers of the same benefite and whether these mens torments might be lessened only thereby or in tract of time quite extinguished they did not agree upon That Stephanus Gobarus whom before I alledged made a collection of the different sentences of the Fathers whereof some contayned the received doctrine of the Church others the unallowable opinions of certaine of the ancient that varied therefrom Of this latter kinde he maketh this sentence to be one that such sinners as be delivered unto punishment are purged therein from their sinnes and after their purging are freed from their punishment albeit not all who are delivered unto punishment be thus purged and freed but some onely whereas the true sentence of the Church was that none at all was freed from punishment If that were the true sentence of the Church that none of those who suffered punishment in the other world were ever freed from the same then the applying of prayers to the helping of mens soules out of any such punishments must be referred to the erroneous apprehension of some particular men and not to the generall intention of the ancient Church from which in this point as in manie others beside the latter Church of Rome hath swarved and quite gone astray The ancient writer of the Ecclesiasticall Hierarchie handling this matter of praying for the dead professedly doth by way of objection move this doubt to vvhat purpose should the Bishop intreat the divine goodnesse to grant remission of sinnes unto the dead and a like glorious inheritance with those that have followed God seeing by such prayers he can be brought to no other rest but that which is fitting for him and answerable unto the life which he hath here ledd If our Romish divinitie had bene then acknowledged by the Church there had beene no place left to such questions and doubts as these The matter might easily have beene answered that though a man did die in the state of grace yet was he not presently to be admitted unto the place of rest but must first be reckoned withall both for the committall of those smaller faults unto which through humane frailtie he was daily subject and for the not performance of full penance and satisfaction for the greater sinnes into which in this life he had fallen and Purgatorie being the place wherein he must be cleansed from the one and make up the iust payment for the other these prayers were directed unto God for the deliverie of the poore soule which was not now in case to helpe it selfe out of that place of torment But this author taking upon him the person of S. Pauls scholler and professing to deliver herein that tradition which he had received from his divine Masters saith no such thing but giveth in this for his answer The divine Bishop as the Scriptures witnesse is the interpreter of the divine judgements for hee is the Angell of the Lord God almightie He hath learned therefore out of the oracles delivered by God that a most glorious and divine life is by his just judgement worthily adwarded to them that have lived holily his divine goodnesse and kindenesse passing over those blots which by humane frailtie he had contracted forasmuch as no man as the Scriptures speake is free from pollution The Bishop therefore knowing these things to be promised by the true oracles prayeth that they may accordingly come to passe and those sacred rewards may be bestowed upon them that have lived holily The Bishop at that time belike did not know so much as our Popish Bishops doe now that Gods servants must dearely smart in Purgatorie for the sinnes wherewith they were overtaken through humane infirmitie he beleeved that God of his mercifull goodnesse would passe by those slipps and that such after-reckonings as these should give no stoppage to the present bestowing of those holy rewards upon the children of the promise Therâ—fore the divine Bishop saith our author asketh those things which vvere promised by God and are gratefull to him and without doubt will be granted theâ—eby aswell manifesting his own good disposition unto God who is a lover of the good as declaring like an interpreter unto them that be present the gifts that shall befall to such as are holy Hee further also addeth that the Bishops have a separating power as the interpreters of Gods judgements according to that commission of Christ Whose sinnes ye remitt they are remitted unto them and whose you shall retaine they are retained and Whatsoever thou shalt binde upon earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth shall be loosed in heaven And as in the use of the keyes the Schoolemen following S Hierom do account the minister to be the interpreter onely of Gods judgement by declaring what is done by him in the binding or loosing of mens sinnes so doth this author heâ—e give them power onely to separate those that are alâ—eady judged of God and by way of declaration and convoy to bring in those that are beloved of God and to exclude such as are ungodly And if the power which the Ministers have received by the foresaid commission doe extend it selfe to any further reall operation upon the living Pope Gelasius will denie that it may be stretched in like maner unto the dead because that Châ—ist saith Whatsoever thou shalt binde upon earth He saith upon earth for he that dyeth bound is no where said to be loosed and that which a man remayning in his body hath not received being uncloathed of his flesh he cannot obtaine saith Leo. Whether the dead received profite by the prayers of the living was still a question in the Church Maximus in his Greeke
scholies upon the writer of the Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy wisheth us to marke that even before his time that doubt was questioned Among the questions wherein Dulcitius desired to be resolved by S. Augustin we finde this to be one Whether the offering that is made for the dead did avayle their soules any thing and that MANY did say to this that if herein any good were to be done after death how much rather should the soule it selfe obtaine ease for it selfe by it owne confessing of her sinnes there than that for the ease thereof an oblation should be procured by other men The like also is noted by Cyrill or rather Iohn Bishop of Ierusalem that he knew MANY who said thus What profite doth the soule get that goeth out of this world eyther with sinnes or not with sinnes if you make mention of it in prayer and by Anastasius Sinaita or Nicaenus Some doe doubt saying that the dead are not profited by the oblations that are made for them and long after them by Petrus Cluniacensis in his treatise against the followers of Peter Bruse in France That the good deeds of the living may profit the dead both these hereticks doe deny and some Catholicks also do seeme to doubt Nay in the West not the profite onely but the lawfulnesse also of these doings for the dead was called in question as partly may be collected by Boniface archbishop of Mentz his consulting with Pope Gregory about 730. yeares after the birth of our Saviour Whether it were lawfull to offer oblations for the dead which hee should have no reason to doe if no question had beene made thereof among the Germans and is plainly delivered by Hugo Etherianus about 1170. yeares after Christ in these words I know that many are deformed with vaine opinions thinking that the dead are not to be prayed for because that neither Christ nor the Apostles that succeeded him have intimated these things in the Scriptures But they are ignorant that there be many things and those exceeding necessary frequented by the holy Church the tradition whereof is not had in the Scriptures and yet they pertaine neverthelesse to the worship of God and obtaine great strength Whereby it may appeare that this practise wanted not opposition even then when in the Papacie it was advanced unto his greatest height And now is it high time that I should passe from this article unto the next following OF LIMBVS PATRVM And CHRISTS DESCENT INTO HELL HEre doth our Challenger undertake to prove against us not only that there is Limbus Patrum but that our Saviour also descended into Hell to deliver the ancient Fathers of the Old Testament because before his Passion none ever entred into Heaven That there was such a thing as Limbus Patrum I have heard it said but what it is now the Doctors varie yet agree all in this that Limbus it may well be but Limbus Patrum sure it is not Whether it were distinct from that place in which the infants that depart out of this life without baptisme are now beleeved to be received the Divines doe doubt neyther is there any thing to be rashly pronounced of so doubtfull a matter saith Maldonat the Iesuite The Dominican Friars that wrote against the Grecians at Constantinople in the yeare 1252 resolve that into this Limbus the holy Fathers before the comming of Christ did descend but now the children that depart vvithout baptisme are detained there so that in their iudgement that which was the Limbus of Fathers is now become the Limbus of Children The more common opinion is that these be two distinct places and that the one is appointed for unbaptized infants but the other now remayneth voide and so shall remaine that it may beare witnesse aswell of the justice as of the mercie of God If you demand how it came to be thus voyd emptied of the old inhabitants the answer is here given that our Saviour descended into Hell purposely â—o deliver from hence the ancient Fathers of the Old Testament But Hell is one thing I ween saith Tertullian and Abrahams bâ—some where the Fathers of the old Testament rested another neyther is it to be beleeved that the bosome of Abraham being the habitation of a secret kinde of rest was any part of Hell saith S. Augustin To say then that our Saviour descended into Hell to deliver the ancient Fathers of the old Testament out of Limbus Patrum would by this construction prove as strange a tale as if it had beene reported that Caesar made a voyage into Brittaine to set his friends at libertie in Greece Yea but before Christs Passion none ever entred into Heaven saith our Challenger The proposition that Cardinall Bellarmine taketh upon him to prove where he handleth this controversie is that the soules of the godly were not in Heaven before the Asâ—ension of Christ. Our Iesuite it seemeth considered here with himselfe that Christ had promised unto the penitent theefe upon the crosse that not before his ascension only but also before his resurrection even that day he should be with him in Paradise that is to say in the kingdome of heaven as the Cardinaâ—l himselfe doth prove both by the authoritie of S. Paul making Paradise and the third heaven to be the selfe same thing and by the testimony of the ancient expositors of the place This belike stuck somewhat in our Iesuites stomack who being loath to interpret this of his Limbus Patrum as others of that side had done and to maintaine that Paradise in stead of the third Heaven should signifie the third or the fourth Hell thought it best to shift the matter handsomely away by taking upon him to defend that not before Christs ascension least that of the Thiefe should crosse him but before his passion none ever entred into Heaven But if none before our Saviours Passion did ever enter into Heaven whither shall we say that Elias did enter The Scripture assureth us that he went up into heaven 2. Kings 2.11 of this Mattathias put his sonnes in mind upon his death-bedd that Elias being zealous and fervent for the law was taken up into heaven Elias and Moses both before the passion of Christ are described to be in glory Lazarus is carried by the Angells into a place of comfort and not of imprisonment in a word all the Fathers accounted themselves to be strangers and pilgrims in this earth seeking for a better countrey that is an heavenly as well as we doe and therefore having ended their pilgrimage they arrived at the country they sought for as well as wee They beleeved to be saved through the grace of our Lord Iesus Christ as well as we they lived by that faith as well as we they dyed in Christ as well as we they received remission of sinnes imputation of
of the godly where is the inheritance of the mercifull where is the blisse of the undefiled where is the joy and consolation of such as love the truth Thither will I goe where is light and life where is glory jocundnesse where is joy and exultation whence griefe and heavinesse and groning flie away where they forgett the former tribulations that they sustayned in their body upon the earth Thither will I goe where there is a laying aside of tribulations where there this a recompense of labors where is the bosome of Abraham where the proprietie of Isaac where the familiarity of Israel where be the soules of the Saints vvhere the quire of Angels where the voyces of Archangels where the illumination of the holy Ghost where the kingdome of Christ where the endlesse glory and blessed sight of the eternall God the father What difference I pray you now is there betwixt this Limbus Patrum and Heaven it selfe Of Abrahams bosome Gregory Nyssen writeth after this maner As by a certaine abuse of speech we call a baye of the sea an arme or bosome so it seemeth to me that the word doth signifie the exhibitioÌ„ of those unmeasurable good things by the name of a bosome into which good bosome or baye all men that sayle by a vertuous course through this present life when they loose from hence put in their soules as it were into a haven free from danger of waves and tempests and in another place If one hearing of a bosome as it were a certaine large baye of the sea should conceive the fulnesse of good things to be meant thereby where the Patriarch is named and that Lazarus is therein he should not thinke amisse True it is indeed that diverse of the Doctors who make Abrahams bosome to be a place of glorie do yet distinguish it from Heaven but it is to be considered withall that they hold the same opinion indifferently of the place whereunto the soules of all godly men are received aswell under the state of the New as of the Old Testament For they did not hold as our Romanistes doe now that Christ by his descension emptyed Limbus removed the bosome of Abraham from Hell into Heaven their Limbus is now as full of Fathers as ever it was and is the common receptacle wherein they suppose all good soules to remaine untill the generall resurrection before which time they admit neyther the Fathers nor us unto the possession of the kingdome of Heaven For Abraham saith Gregory Nyssen and the other Patriarches although they had a desire to see those good things and never left seeking that heavenly countrey as the Apostle saith yet are they notwithstanding that even yet in expectancie of this favour God having provided some better thing for us according to the saying of S. Paul that they without us should not be made perfect So Tertullian It appeareth to every wise man that hath ever heard of the Elysian fields that there is some locall determination which is called Abâ—ahams bosome to receive the soules of his sonnes even of the Gentiles he being the Father of many nations that were to bee accounted of Abrahams family and of the same faith wherewith Abraham beleeved God under no yoke of the law nor in tâ—e signe of Circumcision That region tâ—erefore doe I call the bosome of Abraham although not heavenly yet higher than hell which shall give rest in the meane season to the soules of the righteous untill the consummation of thinâ—s doe finish the resurrection of all with the fulnesse of reward And we have heard S. Hilary say before that all the faithfull when they are gone out of the body shall be reserved by the Lords custody for that entrie into the heavenly kingdome being in the meane time placed in the bosome of Abraham whither the wicked are hindred from comming by the gulfe interposed betwixt them untill the time of entring into the kingdome of heaven doe come and againe The rich and the poore man in the Gospell do serve us for witnesses one of whom the Angels did place in the seates of the Blessed and in Abrahams bosome the other the region of punishment did presently receive For the day of judgement is the everlasting retribution eyther of blisse or paine but the time of death hath every one under his lawes while eyther Abraham or punishment reserveth every one unto judgement The difference betwixt the Doctors in their iudgement concerning the bosome of Abraham and the resting of the ancient Fathers therein wee finde noted in part in those expositions upon the Gospell which goe under the name of Theophilus Bishop of Antioch and Eucherius Bishop of Lyons In that the rich man say they did in Hell behold Abraham this by some is thought to be the reason because all the Saints before the comming of our Lord Iesus Christ are said to have descended into Hell although into a place of refreshment Others thinke that the place wherein Abraham was did lye apart from those places of Hell situated in places above for which the Lord should say of that rich man that lifting up his eyes when he was in torments he saw Abraham a far off The former of these opinions is delivered by some of the Doctors doubtfully by others more resolutely Primasius setteth it downe with S. Augustins qualification It sâ—emâ—th that without absurditie it may be beleeved The author of the imperfect worke upon Matthew saith that peradventure the just did ascend into heaveâ— before the comming of Christ yet that he doth thinke â—hat no soule before Christ did ascend into heaven since Adam sinned and the heavens were shut against him but all were detayned in Hell and as I doe thinke saith the Greeke expositor of Zacharies Hymne likewise even our fathers Abraham Isaac and Iacob and the whole queere of the holy Prophets and just men did enjoy the comming of Christ. Of which comming to visite the Fathers in Hell S. Hierome Ruffinus Venantius Fortunatus Gregory Iulianus Toletanus and Eusebius Emissenus as he is commonly called interpret that question propounded by the Baptist unto our Saviour Art thou he that should come or looke we for another which exposition is by S. Chrysostome iustly reiected as utterly impertinent and ridiculous Anastasius Sinaita affirmeth very boldly that all the soules aswell of the just as the unjust were under the hand of the Divell untill Christ descending into Hell said unto those that vvere in bonds Come forth and to those that were indurance Be at libertie For he did not only saith he in another place dissolve the corruption of the bodies in the grave but also delivered the captive soules out of Hell vvherein they were by tyrannie detained and peradventure not by tyrannie neyther but for many debts which being payed he that descended for their deliverie brought backe with him a great
he brought unto those just men that were in the bosome of Abraham when he did descend into Hell I have not yet found Thus farre S. Augustin For the better understanding of this wee are to call unto minde that saying of the Philosophers that they who do not learne rightly to understand words use to be deceived in the things themselves It wil not be amisse therefore to consider somewhat of the name of Hell that the nature of the word being rightly understood wee may the better conceive the truth of the thing that is signified thereby Wee are to know then first of our English word Hell that the originall thereof is by diverse men delivered diversly Some derive it from the Hebrew word Sheol eyther subtracting the first letter or including it in the aspiration For this letter S saith Priscian hath such an affinitie with the aspiration that the Boeotians in some words were wont to write H for S saying Muha for Musa Others bring it from the Greeke word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth a lake others from the English hole as signifying a pit-hole others from hale as noting the place that haleth or draweth men unto it Some say that in the old Saxon or German Hel signifieth deepe whether it bee high or low But the derivation given by Verstegan is the most probable from being helled over that is to say hidden or covered For in the old German tongue from whence our English was extracted Hil signifieth to hide and Hiluh in Otfridus Wissenburgensis is hidden And in this countrey with them that retayne the ancient language which their forefathers brought with them out of England to hell the head is as much as to cover the head and hee that covereth the house with tile or slate is from thence commonly called a hellier So that in the originall propriety of the word our Hell doth exactly answere the Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which denoteth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place which is unseene or removed from the sight of man Wee are in the second place therefore to observe that the tearme of Hell beside the vulgar acception wherein it signifieth that which Luke 16.28 is called the place of torment is in the Ecclesiasticall use of the word extended more largely to expresse the Greeke word Hádes and the Latin Inferi whatsoever is contayned under them Concerning which S. Augustine giveth this note The name of Hell is variously put in Scriptures and in many meanings according as the sense of the things which are entreated of doth require and Master Casaubon who understood the propertie of Greeke and Latin wordes as well as any this other They who thinke that HADES is properly the seate of the damned be no lesse deceaved then they who when they read INFEROS in Latin writers doe interpret it of the same place The lesse cause have wee to wonder that Hell in the Scripture should bee made the place of all the dead in common and not of the wicked onely as in Psalm 89.47 48. Remember how short my time is wherefore hast thou made all men in vaine What man is hee that liveth and shall not see death shall hee deliver his soule from the hand of HELL and Esai 38.18 19. HELL cannot prayse thee death cannot celebrate thee they that goe downe into the pit cannot hope for thy truth The LIVING the LIVING hee shall prayse thee as I doe this day Where the opposition betwixt Hell and the state of life in this world is to be observed Now as the common condition of the dead is considerable three maner of wayes eyther in respect of the body separated from the soule or of the soule separated from the bodie or of the whole man indefinitely considered in this state of separation so do we finde the word Hádes which by the Latins is rendred Infernus or Inferi and by the English Hell to be applied by the ancient Greek interpreters of the old Testament to the common state and place of the bodie severed from the soule by the heathen Greekes to the common state and place of the soule severed from the bodie and by both of them to the common state of the dead and the place proportionably correspondent to that state of dissolution And so the Doctors of the Church speaking in the same language which they learned both from the sacred and the forraine writers are accordingly found to take the word in these three severall significations Touching the first we are to note that both the Septuagint in the Old Testament and the Apostles in the New doe use the Greeke word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 HADES and answerably thereunto the Latin Interpreters the word Infernus or Inferi and the English the word Hell for that which in the Hebrew text is named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 SHEÓL on the other side where in the New Testament the word HADES is used there the ancient Syriack translator doth put 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Shejul in steed thereof Now the Hebrew Sheol and so the Chaldy Syriack and Aethiopian words which draw their originall from thence doth properly denote the interior parts of the earth that lye hidden from our sight namely whatsoever tendeth downeward from the surface of the earth unto the center thereof In which respect we see that the Scripture describeth Sheol to be a deepe place and opposeth the depth thereof unto the heighth of Heaven Iob. 11.8 Psalm 139.8 Amos 9.2 Againe because the bodies that live upon the surface of the earth are corrupted within the bowells thereof the dust returning to the earth as it was therefore is this word commonly put for the state and the place wherein dead bodies do rest and are disposed for corruption And in this respect wee finde that the Scripture doth oppose Sheol not only unto Heaven but also unto this land of the living wherein we now breathe Esai 38.10 11. Ezech. 32.27 the surface of the earth being the place appointed for the habitation of the living the other parts ordayned to be the chambers of death Thus they that are in the graves Ioh. 5.28 are said to sleepe in the dust of the earth Dan. 12.2 The Psalmist in his prophesie of our Saviours humiliation tearmeth it the dust of death Psal. 22.15 which the Chaldee Paraphrast expoundeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the house of the grave interpreting Sheol after the selfe same maner in Psa. 31.18 89.49 R. Mardochai Nathan in his Hebrew Concordance giveth no other interpretation of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sheol but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the grave R. Abraham Aben-Ezra in his commentary upon those words Genes 37.35 I will goe downe into Sheól unto my sonne mourning writeth thus Here the Translator of the erring persons he meaneth the Vulgar Latin translation used by the Christians erreth in translating Sheól Hell or Gehenna for behold the signification of the word
But men do thinke that what doth grow from Hades into light is newly made and what is diminished from the light into Hades is perished by light understanding nothing else but the visible structure and existence of things and by Hádes that invisible and insensible thing which other Philosophers commonly call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chalcidius the Platonick translateth Sylvam the Aristotelians more fitly Materiam primam whence also it is supposed by Master Casaubon that those passages were borrowed which we meet withall in the bookes that beare the name of Hermes Trismegistus In the dissolution of a materiall bodie the body it selfe is brought to alteration and the forme which it had is made invisible and so there is a privation of the sense made not a destruction of the bodies I say then that the world is changed in as much as every day a part thereof is made invisible but never utterly dissolved wherewith wee may compare likewise that place of Plutarch in his booke of living privately Generation doth not make any of the things that be but manifesteth them neyther is corruption a translation of a thing from being to not being but rather a bringing of the thing that is dissolved unto that vvhich is unseene Whereupon men according to the ancient traditions of their fathers thinking the sunne to be Apollo called him Delius and Pythius namely from manifesting of things and the ruler of the contrary destinie whether he be a God or an Angel they named Hádes by reason that we when we are dissolved doe goe unto an unseene and invisible place By the Latins this Hádes is termed Dispiter or Diespiter which name they gave unto this lower ayre that is joyned to the earth vvhere all things have their beginning and ending quorum quòd finis ortus Orcus dictus saith Varro All this earthly power and nature saith Iulius Firmicus they named Ditem patrem because this is the nature of the earth that all things doe both fall into it and taking their originall from thence doe againe proceed out of it Whence the Earth is brought in using this speech unto God in Hermes I do receive the nature of all things For I according as thou hast commanded doe both beare all things and receive such as are deprived of life The use which we make of the testimony of Hippocrates those other authorities of the heathen is to shew that the Greek Interpreters of the old TestameÌ„t did most aptly assume the word Hádes to expresse that coÌ„mon state place of corruption which was signified by the Hebrew Sheol therfore in the last verse of the 17. of Iob where the Greeke maketh mention of descending into Hádes Comitolus the Iesuite noteth that S. Ambrose rendreth it in sepulchrum into the grave which agreeth well with the paraphrase that the Greeke Scholiasts make upon that place Is it not a thing common unto all mortall men to die is not Hell or Hádes the house of all doe not all finde there an end of their labours Yea some doe thinke that Homer himselfe doth take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either for the earth or the grave in those verses of the eighth of his Iliads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I 'le cast him downe as deepe As Tartarus the brood of night where Barathrum doth sleepe Torment in his profoundest sinks where is the floore of brasse And gates of iron the place for depth as far doth Hell surpasse As heaven for height exceeds the earth For Tartarus being coÌ„monly acknowledged to be a part of Hádes and to be the very Hell where the wicked spirits are tormented they thinke the Hell from whence Homer maketh it to be as farre distant as the heaven is from the earth can be referred to nothing so fitly as to the Earth or the Grave It is taken also for a tombe in that place of Pindarus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Other sacred Kings have gotten a tombe apart by themselves before the houses or before the gates of the Citie And therefore we see that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by Suidas in his Lexicon expressely interpreted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by Hesychius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a tombe or a grave and in the Greeke Dictionary set out by the Romanists themselves for the better understanding of the Bible it is noted that Hádes doth not onely signifie that which we commonly call Hell but the sepulchre or grave also Of which because Stapleton and Bellarmine doe denie that any proofe can be brought these instances following may be considered In the booke of Tobi chap. 3.10 I shall bring my fathers old age with sorrow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto Hell what can it import else but that which is in other wordes expressed chap. 6.14 I shall bring my fathers life with sorrow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto the grave In the 93. and 113. Psalm according to the Greeke division or the 94. and 115. according to the Hebrew where the Hebrew hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place of silence meaning the grave as our adversaries themselves do grant there the Greeke hath Hades or Hell In Esai 14.19 where the vulgar â—atin translateth out of the Hebrew Descenderunt ad fundamenta laci quasi cadaver putridum They descended unto the foundations of the lake or pit as a rotten carkeis in steed of the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth the lake or pit the Greeke both there and in Esai 38.18 putteth in Hades or Hell and on the other side Ezech. 32.21 where the Hebrew saith The strong among the mightie shall speake to him out of the middest of Sheol or Hell there the Greeke readeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the depth of the lake or pit by Hell lake and pit nothing but the grave being understood as appeareth by comparing this verse with the five that come after it So in these places following where in the Hebrew is Sheol in the Greeke Hades in the Latin Infernus or Inferi in the English Hell the place of dead bodies not of soules is to be understood Gen. 44.31 We shall bring downe the gray haires of our father with sorrow unto Hell where no lower Hell can be conceited into which gray haires may be brought then the Grave So 1. King 2.6 David giveth this charge unto Salomon concerning Ioab Let not his hoare head goe downe to Hell in peace and in the ninth verse concerning Shimei His hoare head bring thou downe to Hell with bloud Psalm 141.7 Our bones are scattered at the mouth of Hell Esai 14.11 Thy pompe is brought downe to Hell the worme is spread under thee and the wormes cover thee Psal. 6.5 In death there is no remembrance of thee
fit time and he who granted unto him that his flesh should not see corruption will grant also unto us that our flesh shall not see corruption but that in fit time it shall bee freed from corruption Neyther is it any whit strange unto them that are conversant in the writings of the ancient Doctors to heare that our Saviour by his buriall descended into Hell spoyled Hell and brought away both his owne body and the bodies of the Saints from Hell Wee finde the question moved by Gregory Nyssen in his sermon upon the Resurrection of Christ how our Lord did dispose himselfe at the same time three maner of wayes both in the heart of the earth Matth. 12.40 and in Paradise with the thiefe Luk. 23.43 and in the hands of his Father Luk. 23.46 For neither will any man say quoth he that Paradise is in the places under the earth or the places under the earth in Paradise that at the same time he might be in both or that those infernall places are called the hand of the Father Now for the last of these hee saith the case is plaine that being in Paradise he must needs be in his Fathers hands also but the greatest doubt hee maketh to be how he should at the same time be both in Hades and in Paradise for with him the heart of the earth the places under the earth and Hades or Hell are in this question one and the same thing And his finall resolution is that in this Hell Christ remained with his dead body when with his soule hee brought the thiefe into the possession of Paradise For by his body saith he wherein he sustayned not the corruption that followeth upon death hee destroyed him that had the power of death but by his soule he ledd the thiefe into the entrance of Paradise And these two did worke at the selfe same time the Godhead accomplishing the good by them both namely by the incorruption of the body the dissolution of death and by the placing of the soule in his proper seat the bringing backe of men unto Paradise againe The like sentence doe wee meet withall in the same Fathers epistle unto Eustathia Ambrosia and Basilissa His body he caused by dispensation to be separated from his soule but the indivisible deitie being once knit with that subject was neyther dis-joyned from the body nor the soule but was with the soule in Paradise making way by the thiefe for an entrance unto mankinde thither and with the body in the heart of the earth destroying him that had the power of death Wherewith wee may compare that place which we meet withall in the workes of S. Gregory Bishop of Neocaesarea wherein our Saviour is brought in speaking after this maner I must descend into the very bottome of Hell for the dead that are detay-there I must by the three dayes death of my flesh overthrow the power of long continuing death I must light the lamp of my BODY unto them vvhich sit in darkenesse and in the shadow of death and that of S. Chrysostom who is accounted also to be the author of that other sermon attributed unto S. Gregory How vvere the brasen gates broken and the iron barres burst By his BODY For then appeared first a body immortall and dissolving the tyrannie of death it selfe whereby was shewed that the force of death was taken away not that the sinnes of those who dyed before his comming were dissolved and that which we reade in another place of his workes He spoyled Hell descending into Hell hee made it bitter when it tasted of his flesh Which Esay understanding before hand cryed out saying Hell was made bitter meeting thee below so the Septuagint render the words Esai 14.19 It was made bitter for it was destroyed It was made bitter for it was mocked It received a BODY and light upon God it received Earth and met with Heaven it received that vvhich it saw and fell from that which it did not see Thus Caesarius expounding the parable Luk. 13.21 wherein the kingdome of God is likened unto leaven vvhich a woman tooke and hid in three pecks of floure till all was leavened saith that the three pecks of floure are first the whole nature of mankind then death and lastly Hell wherein the divine BODY being hidden by BURIALL did leaven all unto resurrection and life Whereupon he bringeth in our Saviour in another place speaking thus I will therefore be buried for their sakes that be in Hell I will therefore as it were a stone strike the gates thereof bringing forth the prisoners in strength as my servant David hath said So S. Basil asketh How we do accomplish the descent into Hell and answereth that we doe it in imitating the BURIALL of Christ in Baptisme For the bodies of those that be baptized are as it were buried in the water saith he S. Hilary maketh mention of Christs flesh quickened out of Hell by himselfe and Arator in like maner Infernum Dominus cùm destructurus adiret Detulit inde suam spoliato funere carnem When the Lord went to Hell to destroy it He brought from THENCE his owne flesh spâ—yling the grave Philo Carpathius addeth that in his grave he spoyled Hell Whereupon the Emperour Leo in his oration upon the buriall of our Saviour wisheth us to honour it by adorning our selves with vertues and not by putting him in the grave againe For it behoved saith he that this should be once done to the end that Hell might be spoyled and it was done And the Grecians retaine the commemoration hereof in their Liturgies unto this day as their Octoëchon Anastasimon and Pentecostarion do testifie wherein such hymnes and prayers as these are frequent Thou didst receive death in thy flesh working thereby immortalitie for us O Saviour and didst dwell in the grave that thou mightest free us from Hell raysing us up together with thy selfe When thou vvast put in the tombe as a mortall man the keepers of Hell gates shooke for feare for having overthrowne the strength of Death thou diddest exhibite incorruption to all the dead by thy Resurrection Although thou didst descend into the grave as a mortall man ô giver of life yet didst thou dissolve the strength of hell ô Christ raysing up the dead together with thy selfe whom it had also swallowed and didst exhibit the resurrection as God unto all that in faith and desire doe magnifie thee Thou who by thy three-dayes buriall didst spoyle Death and by thy life-bringing resurrectioÌ„ didst raise up corrupted man ô Christ our God as a lover of mankinde to thee be glory Thou who by thy three-dayes buriall didst spoyle Hell and by thy resurrection didst save man have mercy upon me By thy three-dayes buriall the enemy was spoyled the dead loosed from the bands of Hell death deaded the palaces of hell voyded Therefore in hymnes doe we
honour and magnifie thee ô giver of life Thou wast put in the tombe being voluntarily made dead and didst emptie all the palaces of hell ô immortall King raysing up the dead with thy ResurrectioÌ„ Thou who spoyledst hell by thy buriall be mindfull of me Hitherto also belongeth that of Prudentius in his Apotheosis tumuloque inferna refringens Regna resurgentes secum jubet ire sepultos Coelum habitat terris intervenit abdita rumpit Tartara vera fides Deus est qui totus ubique est where in saying that our Saviour by his grave did break up the infernall kingdomes and commanded those that were buried to rise up with him he hath reference unto that part of the history of the Gospell wherein it is recorded that The graves were opened and many bodies of the Saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection and went into the holy citie and appeared unto many Matth. 27.52 53. upon which place S. Hilary writeth thus Inlightning the darkenesse of death and shining in the obscure places of Hell by the resurrection of the Saints that were seene at the present he tooke away the spoyles of death it selfe To the same effect writeth S. Ambrose also Neither did his sepulchre want a miracle For when he was anoynted by Ioseph and buried in his tombe by a new kinde of worke he that was dead himselfe did open the sepulchres of the dead His body indeed did lye in the grave but he himselfe being free among the dead did give libertie unto them that were placed in Hell dissolving the law of death For his flesh was in the tombe but his power did worke from heaven which may be a sufficient commentary upon that sentence which we reade in the Exposition of the Creed attributed unto S. Chrysostom He descended into Hell that there also he might not want a miracle For many bodies of the Saints arose with Christ. namely HELL rendring up the BODIES of the Saints alive againe as eyther the same or another author that goeth under the like name of Chrysostom doth elsewhere directly affirme which is a further confirmation of that which we have heard delivered by Ruffinus touching the exposition of the article of the Descent into Hell that the substance thereof seemeth to be the same with that of the Buriall for what other Hell can we imagin it to be but the Grave that thus receiveth and giveth up the bodies of men departed this life And hitherto also may bee referâ—ed that famous saying of Christs descending alone ascending with a multitude which we meet withall in foure severall places of antiquitie First in the hâ—ads of the sermon of Thaddaeus as they are reported by Eusebius out of the Syriack records of the citie of Edessa He was crucified and descended into Hades or Hell and brake the rampiere never broken before since the beginning and rose againe and raysed up with him those dead that had slept from the beginning and descended alone but ascended to his Father with a great multitude Secondly in the epistle of Ignatius unto the Trallians He was truly and not in opinion crucified and died those that were in heaven and in earth and under the earth beholding him those in heaven as the incorporeall natures those in earth to wit the Iewes and the Romanes and such men as were present at that time when the Lord was crucified those under the earth as the multitude that rose up together with the Lord for many bodies saith he of the Saints which slept arose the graves being opened And hee descended into Hades or Hell alone but returned with a multitude and brake the rampiere that had stood from the beginning and overthrew the partition thereof Thirdly in the disputation of Macarius Bishop of Ierusalem in the first generall Councell of Nice After death wee were carried into Hades or Hell Christ tooke upon him this also and descended voluntarily into it he was not detayned as wee but descended onely For hee was not subjected unto death but was the Lord of death And descending alone he returned with a multitude For he was that spirituall graine of wheat falling for us into the earth and dying in the flesh who by the power of his godhead raysed up the temple of his body according to the Scriptures which brought forth for fruite the Resurrection of all mankinde Fourthly in the Catechises of Cyrill Bishop of Ierusalem whose wordes are these I beleeve that Christ was raysed from the dead For of this I have many witnesses both out of the divine scriptures from the witnesse and operation even unto this day of him that rose againe of him I say that descended into Hades or Hell alone but asceÌ„ded with many For he did descend unto death many bodies of the Saints that slept were raised by him which resurrection he seemeth afterward to make common unto all the Saints that dyed before our Saviour All the righteous men saith he were delivered whom death had devoured For it became the proclaymed King to be the deliverer of those good proclaymers of him Then did every one of the righteous say O death where is thy victory ô Hell where is thy sting for the conqueror hath delivered us wherewith we may compare that saying of S. Chrysostom If it were a great matter that Lazarus being foure dayes dead should come forth much more that all they who were dead of old should appeare together alive which was a signe of the future resurrection For many bodies of the Saints which slept arose saith the text and these articles of the Confession of the Armenians According to his body which was dead he descended into the grave but according to his divinitie which did live he over came Hell in the meane time The third day he rose againe but withall raysâ—d up the soules or persons of the faithfull together with him and gave hope thereby that our bodies also should rise againe like unto him at his second comming Of those who arose with our Saviour from the Grave or as anciently they used to speake from Hell two there be whom the Fathers nominate in particular Adam and Iob. Of Iob S. Ambrose writeth in this maner Having heard what God had spoken in him and having understood by the holy Ghost that the Sonne of God was not onely to come into the earth but that he was also to descend into Hell to that he might rayse up the dead which was then done for a testimony of the present and an example of the future he turned himselfe unto the Lord and said O that thou wouldest keepe me in Hell that thou vvouldest hide me untill thy wrath be past and that thou wouldest appoint me a time in which thou wouldest remember me Iob. 14.13 in which wordes he affirmeth that Iob did prophecie that he should be raysed up at the passion of
carkasses are heaped together promiscuously in one certaine pit so when the Heathen write that all the soules of the dead goe to Hades their meaning is not that they are all shut up together in one and the selfe same roome but in generall onely they understand thereby the translation of them into the other world the extreame parts whereof the Poëts place as farre asunder as wee doe Heaven and Hell And this opinion of theirs S. Ambrose doth well like off wishing that they had not mingled other superfluous and unprofitable conceits therewith that soules departed from their bodies did goe to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to a place which is not seene which place saith he wee in Latin call Infernus So likewise saith S. Chrysostom The Grecians and Barbarians and Poëts and Philosophers and all mankinde doe herein consent with us although not all alike and say that there be certaine seats of judgement in Hádes so manifest and so confessed a thing is this and againe The Grecians were foolish in many things yet did they not resist the truth of this doctrine If therefore thou vvilt follow them they have granted that there is a certaine life after this accounts and seats of judgement in Hádes and punishments and honors and sentences judgements And if thou shalt aske the Iewes or heretickes or any man he will reverence the truth of this doctrine although they differ in other things yet in this doe they all agree and say that there are accounts to be made there of the things that be done here Only amoÌ„g the Iwes the Sadducees w ch say that there is no resurrection neyther Angel nor Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 take away the punishments and honours that are in Hádes as is noted by Iosephus For which wicked doctrine they were condemned by the other sectes of the Iewes who generally acknowledged that there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Olam hanneshamoth for so doe they in their language untill this day call that which Iosephus in Greeke tearmeth Hades that is to say the world of spirits into which they held that the soules were translated presently after death and there received their seuerall judgements The same thing doth Theodoret suppose to be signified by that phrase of being gathered to ones people which is so usuall in the word of God For it being said of Iacob before he was buried that he gave up the ghost and was gathered unto his people Genes 49.33 Theodoret observeth that Moses by these words did closely intimate the hope of the resurrection For if men saith he had beene wholy extinguished and did not passe unto another life he would not have sayd Hee was gathered to his people So likewise where it is distinctly noted of Abraham Genes 25.8 9. first that hee gave up the ghost and died then that hee was gathered to his people and lastly that his sonnes buried him Cardinall Cajetan and the Iesuite Lorinus interpret the first de compositi totius dissolutione of the dissolution of the parts of the whole-man consisting of body and soule the second of the state of the soule separated from the body and the third of the disposing of the body parted from the soule Thus the Scriptures speech of being gathered to our people should be answerable in meaning to the phrase used by the heathen of descending into Hell or going to Hades which as Synesius noteth out of Homer was by them opposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a most absolute extinguishment as well of the soule as of the body And forasmuch as by that tearme the immortalitie of the soule was commonly signified therefore doth Plato in his Phaedo disputing of that argument make this the state of his question Whether the soules of men deceased be in Hades or no and our Eccâ—esiasticall writers also doe from thence sometimes fetch a difference betwixt Death and Hades You shall finde saith Theophylact that there is some difference betwixt Hades and Death namely that Hades contayneth the soules but Death the bodies For the soules are immoâ—tall The same we reade in Nicetas Serronius his exposition of Gregory Nazianzens second Paschall oration Andreas Caesareensis doth thus expresse the difference Death is the separation of the soule and the body But Hades is a place to us invisible or vnseene and unknowne which receiveth our soules when they departe from hence The ordinary Glosse following S. Hierome upon the thirteenth of Hosea thus Death is that whereby the soule is separated from the body Hell is that place wherein the soules are included eyther for comfort or for paine The soule goeth to Hádes saith Nicetas Choniates in the Prooeme of his Historie but the bodie returneth againe into those things of which it was composed Caius or whoe ever else was the author of that auncient fragment which wee formerly signified to have been falsely fathered upon Iosephus holdeth that in Hades the soules both of the righteous and unrighteous are contayned but that the righteous are led to the right hand by the Angels that awayte them there and brought unto a lightsome region wherein the righteous men that have beene from the beginning doe dwell and this wee call Abrahams bâ—some saith he whereas the wicked are drawen toward the left hand by the punishing Angels not going willingly but drawen as prisoners by violence Where you may observe how he frameth his description of Hades according to that modell wherewith the Poets had before possessed mens mindes Dextera quae Ditis magni sub moenia tendit Hâc iter Elysium nobis at laeva malorum Exercet poenas ad impia tartara mittit The right hand path goth underneath the walls of Pluto deepe That way we must if paths to Paradise we thinke to keepe The left hand leads to paine and men to Tartarus doth send For as Wee doe allot unto good men a resting place in Paradise so the Greekes doe assigne unto their Heroës the Fortunate Ilandes and the Elysian fields saith Tzetzes And as the Scripture borroweth the terme of Tartarus from the Heathen so is it thought by Tertullian and Gregory Nazianzen that the Heathen tooke the ground of their Elysian fields from the Scriptures Paradise To heape up many testimonies out of the Heathen authors to prove that in their understanding all soules went to Hades and received there eyther punishment or reward according to the life that they led in this world would be but a needlesse worke seeing none that hath reade any thing in their writings can be ignorant therof If any man desire to informe himselfe herein he may repayre to Plutarches consolatory discourse written to Apollonius where he shall finde the testimonies of Pindarus and many others alledged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 touching the state of the godly in Hades Their common opinion is sufficiently expressed in that
the Ocean from the Grecians But the Pharisees as hee noteth elsewhere held that the place wherein both rewards were given to the good and punishments to the wicked was under the earth which as Origen doth declare to have been the common opinion of the Iewes so doth Lucian shew that it was the more vulgar opinion among the Grecians For among them the common multitude whom wise men saith he call simple people being perswaded of these things by Homer and Hesiod and such other fabulous authors and receiving their Poëms for a law tooke HADES to be a certaine deepe place under the earth The first originall of which conceite is by Cicero derived from hence The bodies falling into the ground and being covered with earth whence they are said to be interred men thought that the rest of the life of the dead was led under the earth upon which opinion of theirs saith he great errors did ensue which were increased by the Poës Others do imagine that the Poets herein had some relation to the sphericall situation of the world for the better understanding whereof these particulars following would be considered by them that have some knowledge in this kinde of learning First the materiall Spheres in ancient time were not made moveable in their sockets as they are now that they might bee set to any elevation of the Pole but were fixt to the elevation of XXXVI degrees which was the height of the Rhodian climat Secondly the Horizon which devided this Sphere through the middle and separated the visible part of the world from the invisible was commonly esteemed the utmost bound of the earth so that whatsoever was under that horizon was accounted to be under the earth for neyther the common people nor yet some of the learned Doctros uf the Church as Lactantius S. Augustine Procopius and others could be induced to beleeve that which our daily navigations finde now to bee most certaine that there should bee another southerne hemisphere of the earth inhabited by any Antipodes that did walke with their feete just opposite unto ours Thirdly the great Ocean was supposed to be the thing in nature which was answerable to this horizon in the Sphere Therefore it is observed by Strabo that Homer and by Theon Achilles Statius and others that Aratus and the rest of the Poets doe put the Ocean for the Horizon and thereupon where the astronomers say that the Sunne or the starres at their setting goe under the horizon the common phrase of the Poets is that they doe tingere se Oceano dive themselves into the Ocean for as they tooke the Earth to be but halfe a globe and not a whole one so they imagined that demye globe to be as it were a great mountaine or Iland seated in and invironed round about with the Ocean Thus the author of the booke de Mundo affirmeth that the whole world is one Iland compassed about with the Atlanticke sea and Dionysius Alexandrinus in the beginning of his Geography 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein he followed Eratosthenes as his expositor Eustathius there noteth who compareth also with this that place of Orpheus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereunto answereth that of Euphorion or as Achilles Statius citeth it of Neoptolemus Parianus in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this opinion of theirs the Fathers of the Church did the more readily entertayne because they thought it had ground from Psalm 24.2 and 136.6 and such other testimonies of holy Scripture That the whole earth saith Procopius Gazaeus doth subsist in the waters and that there is no part of it which is situated under us voyde and clear'd of waters I suppose it be knowne unto all For so doth the Scripture teach Who stretcheth out the earth upon the waters and againe Hee hath founded it upon the seas and prepared it upon the floods Neyther is it fit we should beleeve that any earth under us is inhabited opposite unto our part of the world The same collection is made by S. Hilary Chrysostom Caesarius and others Fourthly it was thought by the ancient heathen that the Ocean supplying the place of the Horizon did separate the visible world from the kingdome of Hades and therefore that such as went to Hádes or the world invisible to us must first passe the Ocean and that the pole Antarctick was seene by them there as the Arctick or North pole is by us here according to that of Virgil in his Georgicks Hic vertex nobis semper sublimis at illum Sub pedibus Styx atra videt manesque profundi Fiftly as they held that Hades was for situation placed from the center of the earth downeward so betwixt the beginning and the lowest part thereof they imagined as great a space to be interjected as there is betwixt Heaven and Earth So saith Apollodorus of Tartarus the dungeon of torment This is a darke place in Hades having as great a distance from the earth as the earth from the heaven and Hesiod in his Theogonia agreably to that which before we heard from Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is as farre beneath the earth as heaven is from the earth for thus equall is the distance from the earth unto darke Tartarus whereunto that of Virgil may be added in the â—ixt of the Aeneids tum Tartarus ipse Bis patet in praeceps tantum tenditque sub umbras Quantus ad aethereum coeli suspectus Olympum then Tartarus it selfe that sinke-hole steep Two times as low descends two times as headlong downright deep As heaven upright â—s hie that see how hye the heaven is over us when we looke upward to it the downright distance from thence to Tartarus should be twice as deepe againe for so wee must conceive the Poets meaning to bee if wee will make him to accord with the rest of his fellowes These observations I doubt not will be censured by many to savour of a needlesse and fruitelesse curiositie but the intelligent reader for all that will easily discâ—rne how hereby he may be led to understand in what sense the ancient both heathen and Christian writers did hold Hades to be under the earth and upon what ground For they did not meane thereby as the Schoolemen generally doe and as Tertullian sometime seemeth to imagine that it was contayned within the bowels of the earth but that it lay under the whole bulke thereof and occupied that whole space which we now finde to be taken up with the earth ayre and firmament of the southerne hemisphere the inhabitants of which infernall region and vast depth are thereupon affirmed by S. Hilary to be non intra terram sed infra terram not within the earth but beneath the earth And this proceeded
away speaketh he these things as if he were tâ— goe down into hell by dying For of Hell there is a great question and what the Scripture delivereth thereof in all the places where it hath occasion to make mention of it is to be observed Hitherto S. Augustin who had reference to this great question when he said as hath beene before alledged Of Hell neyther have I had any experience as yet nor you and peradventure there shal be another way and by Hell it shall not be For these things are uncertaine Neyther is there greater question among the Doctors of the Church concerning the Hell of the Fathers of the Old Testament then there is of the Hell of the faithfull now in the time of the New neyther are there greater differences betwixt them touching the Hell into which our Saviour went whether it were under the earth or above whether a darkesome place or a lightsome whether a prison or a paradise then there are of the mansions wherein the soules of the blessed do now continue S. Hierome interpreting those words of King Ezechias Esai 38.10 I shall goe to the gates of Hell saith that this is meant eyther of the common law of nature or else of those gates from which that he was delivered the Psalmist singeth Thou that liftest me up from the gates of death that I may shew forth all thy prayses in the gates of the daughter of Sion Psalm 9.13 14. Now as some of the Fathers doe expound our Saviours going to Hell of his descending into Gehenna so others expound it of his going to Hell according to the common law of nature the common law of nature I say which extendeth it selfe indifferently unto all the dead whether they belong to the state of the New Testament or of the Old For as Christs soule was in all points made like unto ours sinne onely excepted while it was joyned with his body here in the land of the living so when he had humbled himselfe unto the death it became him in all things to be made like unto his brethren even in that state of dissolution And so indeed the soule of Iesus had experience of both For it was in the place of humaine soules and being out of the flesh did live and subsist It was a reasonable soule therefore and of the same substance with the soules of men even as his flesh is of the same substance with the flesh of men proceeding from Mary saith Eustathius the Patriarch of Antioch in his exposition of that text of the Psalme Thou wilt not leave my soule in Hell Where by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Hell you see he understandeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place of humaine soules which is the Hebrewes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or world of spirits and by the disposing of Christs soule there after the maner of other soules concludeth it to be of the same nature with other mens soules So S Hilary in his exposition of the 138. Psalme This is the law of humaine necessitie saith he that the bodies being buried the soules should goe to Hell Which descent the Lord did not refuse for the accomplishment of a true man and a little after he repeateth it that de supernis ad inferos mortis lege descendit he descended from the supernall to the infernall parts by the law of death and upon the 53. Psalme more fully To fulfill the nature of man he subjected himselfe to death that is to a departure as it were of the soule and body and pierced into the infernall seates which was a thing that seemed to be duâ— unto man So Leo in one of his Sermons upon our Lords passion Hee did undergoe the lawes of Hell by dying but did dissolve them by rising againe and so did cut off the perpetuitie of death that of eternall hee might make it temporall So Irenaeus having said that our Lord conversed three dayes where the dead were addeth that therein he observed the law of the dead that hee might be made the first begotten from the dead staying untill the third day in the lower parts of the earth and afterward rising in his flesh Then he draweth from thence this generall conclusion Seeing our Lord went in the midst of the shadow of death vvhere the soules of the dead were then afterward rose againe corporally and after his resurrection was assumed it is manifest that the soules of his disciples also for whose sake the Lord wrought these things shall goe to an invisible place appointed unto them by God and there shall abide untill the resurrection wayting for the resurrection and afterwards receaving their bodies and rising againe perfectly that is to say corporally even as our Lord did rise againe they shall so come unto the presence of God For there is no disciple above his master but every one shall be perfect if he be as his master The like collection doth Tertullian make in his booke of the Soule If Christ being God because he was also man dying according to the Scriptures and being buried according to the same did heere also satisfie the law by performing the course of an humane death in Hell neyther did ascend into the higher parts of the heavens before he descended into the lower parts of the earth that he might there make the Patriarches and Prophets partakers of himselfe thou hast both to beleeve that there is a region of Hell under the earth and to push them with the elbowe who proudly enough doe not thinke the soules of the faithfull to be fit for Hell servants above their Lord and disciples above their Master scorning perhaps to take the comfort of expecting the resurrection in Abrahams bosome And in the same booke speaking of the soule What is that saith he which is translated unto the infernall parts or Hell after the separation of the body which is detayned there which is reserved unto the day of judgement unto which Christ by dying did descend to the soules of the Patriarches I thinke Where he maketh the Hell unto which our Saviour did descend to be the common receptacle not of the soules of the Patriarches alone but also of the soules that are now still separated from their bodies as being the place quò universa humanitas trahitur as he speaketh elsewhere in that booke unto which all mankinde is drawne So Novatianus after him affirmeth that the very places which lye under the earth be not voyde of distinguished and ordered powers For that is the place saith he whither the soules both of the godly and ungodly are led receiving the fore-judgements of their future dâ—ome Lactantius saith that our Saviour rose againe ab inferis from Hell but so he saith also that the dead Saints shall be raised up ab inferis at the time of the Resurrection S. Cyrill of Alexandria saith that the Iewes killed Christ and cast him into the deepe
and darke dungeon of death that is into Hades adding afterward that Hades may rightly be esteemed to be the house and mansion of such as are deprived of life Nicephorus Gregoras in his funerall Oration upon Theodorus Metochites putteth in this for one strayne of his lamentation Who hath brought downe that heavenly man unto the bottome of Hades and Andrew archbishop of Crete touching the descent both of Christ and all Christians after him even unto the darke and comfortlesse Hades writeth in this maner If hee who was the Lord and master of all and the light of them that are in darknesse and the life of all men would taste death and undergoe the descent into Hell that he might be made like unto us in all things sinne excepted and for three dayes went thorough the sad obscure and darke region of Hell what strange thing is it that wee who are sinners and dead in trespasses according to the great Apostle who are subject to generation and corruption should meete with death and goe with our soule into the darke chambers of Hell where we cannot see light nor behold the life of mortall men For are wee above our Master or better then the Saints who underwent these things of ours after the like maner that we must doe Iuvencus intimateth that our Saviour giving up the ghost sent his soule unto heaven in those verses of his Tunc clamor Domini magno conamine missus Aethereis animam comitem commiscuit auris Eusebius Emesenus collecteth so much from the last words which our Lord uttered at the same time Father into thine hands I commend my spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His spirit was above and his body remayned upon the crosse for us In the Greeke exposition of the Canticles collected out of Eusebius Philo Carpathius and others that sentence in the beginning of the sixt chapter My beloved is gone down into his garden is interpreted of Christs going to the soules of the Saints in Hádes which in the Latin collections that beare the name of Philo Carpathius is thus more largely expressed By this descending of the Bridegrome we may understand the descending of our Lord Iesus Christ into Hell as I suppose for that which followeth proveth this when he sayeth To the beds of spices For those ancient holy men are not unfiâ—ly signified by the beds of spices such as were Noë Abraham Isaac Iacob Moses Iob David Samuel Elisaeus Daniel and very many others before the Law in the Law who all of them like unto beds of spices gave a most sweete smell of the odours and fruits of holy righteousnesse For then as a triumpher did he enter into PARADISE when he pierced into Hell God himselfe is present with us for a witnesse in this matter when he answered most graciously to the Thiefe upon the Crosse commending himselfe unto him most religiously To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Lastly touching this Paradise the various opinions of the ancient are thus layd downe by Olympiodorus to seeke no farther It is a thing worthy of enquirie in what place under the Sunne the righteous are placed which have left this life Certaine it is that in Paradise forasmuch as Christ said unto the Thiefe This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise And it is to be knowne that the literall Tradition teacheth Paradise to be in earth But some have said that Paradise also is in Hell that is in a place under the earth unto which opinion of theirs they apply that of the Gospell where the rich man saw Lazarus being yet himselfe sunke downe in a lower place when Lazarus was in a place more eminent where Abraham was But howsoever the matter goeth this without doubt is manifest aswell out of Ecclesiastes as out of all the sacred Scripture that the godly shall be in prosperity and peace and the ungodly in punishments and torments And others are of the minde that Paradise is in the Heavens c. Hitherto Olympiodorus That Christs soule went into Paradise Doctor Bishop saith being well understood is true For his soule in hell had the joyes of Paradise but to make that an exposition of Christs descending into hell is to expound a thing by the flat contrary of it Yet this ridiculous exposition he affirmeth to be received of most Protestants Which is even as true as that which he avoucheth in the same place that this article of the descent into Hell is to be found in the old Roman Creed expounded by Ruffinus where Ruffinus as we have heard expounding that article delivereth the flat contrarie that it is not found added in the Creed of the Church of Rome It is true indeed that more than most Protestants do interprete the words of Christ uttered unto the Thiefe upon the Crosse Luk. 23.43 of the going of his soule into Paradise where our Saviour meaning simply and plainly that hee would be that day in Heaven M. Bishop would have him so to be understood as if he had meant that that day he would be in Hell And must it be now held more ridiculous in Protestants to take Hell for Paradise then in M. Bishop to take Paradise for Hell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the wordes of the Apostles Creed in the Greeke and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Symbol of Athanasius Some learned Protestants do observe that in these words there is no determinate mention made eyther of ascending or descending either of Heaven or Hell taking Hell according to the vulgar acception but of the generall only under which these contraries are indifferently comprehended and that the words literally interpreted import no more but this HEE WENT UNTO THE OTHER WORLD Which is not to expound a thing by the flat contrary of it as M. Bishop fancieth who may quickly make himselfe ridiculous in taking upon him thus to censure the interpretations of our learned linguistes unlesse his owne skill in the languages were greater then as yet he hath given proofe of Master Broughton with whose authoritie hee elsewhere presseth us as of a man esteemed to be singularly seene in the Hebrew and Greeke tongue hath beene but too forward in maintayning that exposition which by D. Bishop is accounted so ridiculous In one place touching the terme Hell as it doth answer the Hebrew Sheol and the Greeke Hádes he writeth thus He that thinketh it ever used for Tartaro or Gehenna otherwise then the terme Death may by Synecdoche import so hath not skill in Ebrew or that Greeke vvhich breathing and live Graecia spake if God hath lent me any judgement that way In another place he alledgeth out of Portus his Dictionary that the Macedonians call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heaven And one of his acquaintance beyond the Sea reporteth that he should deliver that in many most ancient Manuscript copies the Lords prayer is found with this
thence as the standers by in mocking wise did wish him to doe might be truly said to have beene crucified but not to have dyed so when he gave up the ghost and layde downe his life if he had presently taken it up againe he might truly be said to have dyed but not to have gone to the dead or to have beene in Hádes His remayning under the power of Death untill the third day made this good Whom God did rayse up loosing the sorrowes of death forasmuch as it was not possible that he should be holden of it saith S. Peter and Christ being raysed from the dead dyeth now no more Death hath no more dominion over him saith S. Paul implying thereby that during the space of time that passed betwixt his death and his resurrection he was holden by death and death had some kinde of domination over him And therefore Athanasius or who ever else was author of that writing to Liberius the Roman Bishop having reference unto the former text affirmeth that he raysed up that buried body of his and presented it to his Father having freed it from Death of which it was holden and Maximus or he that collected the Dialogues against the Marcionites under the name of Origen out of him expounding the other text Over whom then had Death dominion saith he For the saying that it hath no more dominion sheweth that before it had dominion over him Not that Death could have any dominion over the Lord of Life further than he himselfe was pleased to give way unto it but as when Death did at the first sease upon him his life indeed vvas taken from the earth yet none could take it from him but he layd it downe of himselfe so his continuing to be Deaths prisoner for a time was a voluntarie commitment only unto which he freely yeelded himselfe for our sakes not anie yoake of miserable necessitie that Death was able to impose upon him For he had power to lay downe his life and he had power to take it again yet would he not take it againe before he had first not layd himselfe downe only upon Deaths bed but slept also upon it that arising afterward from thence he might become the first fruits of them that slept In which respect the Fathers apply unto him that text of the Psalme I layd me down and slept I awaked for the Lord sustained mee Psalm 3.5 and Lactantius that verse of Sibyll 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The tearme of death he shall finish when he hath slept unto the third day His dying or his burying at the farthest is that which here is answerable unto his lying downe but his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dionysius calleth it his his three-dayes buriall and his continuing for that time in the state of death is that which answereth unto his sleeping or being in Hádes And therefore the Fathers of the fourth Councell of Toledo declaring how in Baptisme the death and resurrection of Christ is signified do both affirme that the dipping in the water is as it were a descension into Hell and the rising out of the water againe a resurrection and adde likewise out of Gregory with whom many other Doctors doe herein agree that the three-fold dipping is used to signifie the three-dayes buriall which differeth as much from the simple buriall or putting into the earth as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the transportation or leading into captivitie from the detayning in bondage the committing of one to prison from the holding of him there and the sowing of the seed from the remayning of it in ground And thus have I unfolded at large the generall acceptions of the word Hádes and Inferi and so the Ecclesiasticall use of the word Hell answering thereunto which being severally applyed to the point of our Saviours descent make up these three propositions that by the universall consent of Christians are acknowledged to be of undoubted verity His dead body though free from corruption yet did descend into the place of corruption as other bodies doe His soule being separated from his body departed hence into the other world as all other mens soules in that case use to doe He went unto the dead and remayned for a time in the state of death as other dead men doe There remayneth now the vulgar acception of the word Hell whereby it is taken for the place of torment prepared for the Divell and his Angells and touching this also all Christians do agree thus farre that Christ did descend thither at leastwise in a virtuall maner as God is said to descend when he doth any thing upon earth which being wonderfully done beyond the usuall course of nature may in some sort shew his presence or when he otherwise vouchsafeth to have care of humaine frailtie Thus when Christs flesh was in the tombe his power did worke from Heaven saith S. Ambrose which agreeth with that which was before cyted out of the Armenians Confession According to his body which was dead he descended into the grave but according to his DIVINITIE which did live he overcame Hell in the meane time and with that which was cyted out of Philo Carpathius upon Cantic 5.2 I sleepe but my heart waketh in the grave spoyling Hell for which in the Latin Collections that goe under his name we reade thus I sleepe to wit on the Crosse and my heart waketh vvhen my DIVINITIE spoyled Hell and brought rich spoyles from the triumph of everlasting death overcome and the Divells power overthrowne The author of the imperfect worke upon Matthew attributeth this to the Divinitie not cloathed with any part of the Humanitie but naked as he speaketh Seeing the Divels feared him saith he while he was in the body saying What have we to doe with thee Iesus the sonne of the high God art thou come to torment us before our time how shall they be able to endure his NAKED DIVINITIE descending against them Behold after three dayes of his death he shall returne from Hell as a conqueror from the warre This conquest others do attribute to his Crosse others to his Death others to his Buriall others to the reall descent of his soule into the place of the damned others to his Resurrection and extend the effect therof not only to the deliverie of the Fathers of the old Testament but also to the freeing of our soules from Hell from whence how men may be said to have been delivered who never were there S. Augustin declareth by these similitudes Thou sayest rightly to the physician Thou hast freed me from this sicknesse not in vvhich thou wast but in which thou wast like to be Some bodie else having a troublesome businesse was to be cast into prison there commeth another and defendeth him vvhat saith he when he giveth thankes Thou
and vve must pray to the Word of God his onely begotten and the first bornè of all creatures and we must intreat him that he as high Priest would present our prayer when it is come to him unto his God and our God unto his Father and the father of them that frame their life according to the word of God And whereas Celsus had further sayd that we must offer first fruits unto Angels and prayers as long as we live that we may finde them propitious unto us answere is returned by Origen in the name of the Christians that they held it rather fit to offer first fruits unto him which sayd Let the earth bring forth grasse the herbe yeelding seed and the fruite tree yeelding fruite after his kinde And to whom wee give the first fruites saith he to him also doe wee send our prayers having a great high Priest that is entred into the Heavens Iesus the Sonne of God and we hold fast this confession whiles we live having God favourable unto us and his onely begotten Sonne Iesus being manifested amongst us But if we have a desire unto a multitude whom we would willingly have to be favourable unto us we learne that thousand thousands stand by him and millions of millions minister unto him who beholding them that imitate their pietie towards God as if they were their kinsfolkes and friends helpe forward their salvation who call upon God and pray sincerely appearing also and thinking that they ought to doe service to them and as it were upon one watchword to set forth for the â—enefit and salvation of them that pray to God unto whom they themselves also pray For they are all ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heires of salvation Thus farre Origen in his eight booke against Celsus to which for a conclusion we wil adde that place of the fift booke All prayers and supplications and intercessions and thankesgivings are to be sent up unto God the Lord of all by the high Priest who is above all Angels being the living Word and God For to call upon Angels we not comprehending the knowledge of them which is above the reach of man is not agreeable to reason And if by supposition it were granted that the knowledge of them which is wonderfull and secret might be comprehended this very knowledge declaring their nature unto us and the charge over which every one of them is set would not permit us to presume to pray unto any other but unto God the Lord over all who is aboundantly sufficient for all by our Saviour the Sonne of God Tertullian and Cyprian in the bookes which they purposely wrote concerning Prayer deliver no other doctrine but teach us to regulate all our prayers according unto that perfect patterne prescribed by our great Master wherein we are required to direct our petitions unto Our Father which is in heaven Matth. 6.9 Luk. 11.2 These things saith Tertullian in his Apologie for the Christians of his time I may not pray for from any other but from him of whom I know I shall obtayne them because both it is he who is alone able to give and I am he unto whom it appertayneth to obtayne that which is requested being 〈◊〉 servant who observe him alone who for his religion am killed who offer unto him a rich and great sacrifice which he himselfe hath commanded Prayer proceeding from a chaste body from an innocent soule from a holy spirit where he accounteth Prayer to be the chiefe sacrifice wherewith God is worshipped agreeably to that which Clemens Alexandrinus wrote at the same time We doe not without cause honour God by prayer and with righteousnesse send up this best and holyest sacrifice The direction given by Ignatius unto Virgins in this case is short and sweete Yee Virgins have Christ alone before your eyes and his Father in your prayers being inlightened by the Spirit for explication whereof that may be taken which we reade in the exposition of the Faith attributed unto S. Gregory of Neocaesarea Whosoever rightly prayeth unto God prayeth by the Sonne and whosoever commeth as he ought to doe commeth by Christ and to the Sonne he can not come without the holy Ghost Neyther is it to be passed over that one of the speciall arguments whereby the writers of this time do prove our Saviour Christ to bee truely God is taken from our praying unto him and his accepting of our petitions If Christ be onely man saith Novatianus how is he present being called upon every where seeing this is not the nature of man but of God that he can be present at every place If Christ be onely man why is a man called upon in our prayers as a mediatour seeing the invocation of a man is judged of no force to yeeld salvation If Christ be onely man why is there hope reposed in him seeing hope in man 〈◊〉 sayd to be cursed So is it noted by Origen that S. Paul in the beginning of the former epistle to the Corinthians where he saith With all that in every place call upon the Name of Iesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours 1. Corinth 1.2 doth thereby pronounce Iesus Christ whose Name is called upon to be God And if to call upon the Name of the Lord saith he and to adore God bee one and the selfe same thing as Christ is called upon so is he to be adored and as we do offer to God the Father first of all prayers 1. Tim. 2.1 so must we also to the Lord Iesus Christ and â—s wee doe offer supplications to the Father so doe we offer supplications also to the Sonne and as wee doe offer thankesgivings to God so doe we offer thankesgivings to our Saviour In like maner Athanasius disputing against the Arrians by that prayer which the Apostle maketh 1. Thessal 3.11 God himselfe and our Father and our Lord Iesus Christ direct our way unto you doth prove the unitie of the Father and the Sonne For no man saith he would pray to receive any thing from the Father and the Angels or from any of the other creatures neyther would any man say God and the Angell give thee this And whereas it might be objected that Iacob in the blessing that he gave unto Ephraim and Manasseh Genes 48.15 16. did use this forme of prayer The God which fed me from my youth unto this day The Angel which delivered me from all evills blesse those children which Cardinall Bellarmine placeth in the forefront of the forces he bringeth forth to establish the Invocation of Saints Athanasius answereth that he did not couple one of the created and naturall Angels with God that did create them nor omitting God that fed him did desire a blessing for his nephews from an Angel but saying Which delivered me from all evills hee did shew that it was not any of the created Angels but
majesty should have recourse unto the Saints who are most pure and gratefull to God who may present the sinners prayers unto the most High and by adjoyning their merits and prayers thereunto might make the same more fit for audience more pleasing and more gratefull Therefore Salmeron the Iesuite sticketh not to deliver his opinion plainely that the praying unto God by the Saints seemeth to be better then the praying unto him immediately as for other reasons so because the Church which hath the Spirit of Christ though S. Augustin surely would have judged such a Church to be led by the spirit of Antichrist rather then of Christ most frequently hath recourse unto God by the Saints but commeth more rarely unto God by it selfe and also because the praying of God by the invocations of Saints doth argue greater humilitie as may be seene in the Centurion Luc. 7.6 7. whereunto he applieth also the saying of David He hath had respect to the prayer of the humble and did not despise their prayers and of Iudith The prayer of the humble and meeke hath alway pleased thee Thus in the dayes of the Apostles themselves under the pretence of Humilitie some laboured to bring into the Church the worshipping of Angels which carried with it a shew of wisedome as S. Paul speaketh of it and such a shew as was not farre unlike unto that wherewith our Romish Doctors do cozen simple people now a dayes For this saith Theodoret did they counsell should be done namely that men should pray unto Angels pretending humility and saying that the God of all things was invisible and inaccessible and incomprehensible and that it was fit wee shoâ—ld procure Gâ—ds favour by the meanes of Angels whereas S Chrysostom treating of Christian humâ—litie â—heweth that the faithfull who are furnished with that grace do notwithstanding ascend beyond the highest toppes of heaven and passing by the Angels pâ—esent themselves before the Regall throne it selfe yea by earning thus to speake with God in prayer he sheweth that the man himselfe is made a kinde of an Angel the soule is so set loosâ— from the bonds of the body the reasoning is raysed up so high he is so translated into heaven he doth so overlâ—oke these worldly things he is so placed by the Regall thrâ—ne it selfe although he be a poore man although a servant although a simple man although an unlearned Neither is it to be forgotten that the heathen Idolaters also to cover the shame of their neglecting of God were wont to use this miserable excuse that by these they might goe to God as by officers we goe to the King which is the very selfe same ragg our Romanists have borrowed from them to cover their superstition with that the nakednesse thereof might not appeare But S. Ambrose or who ever else was author of those commentaries upon S. Pauls epistles that are found among his workes hath mett well with them and sufficiently discovered the vanitie of these grosse and carnall imaginations Go too saith he is there any man so mad or so unmindfull of his salvation as to give the Kings honour to an officer whereas if any shall be found but to treat of such a matter they are justly condemned as guiltie of high treason And yet these men thinke themselves not guiltie who give the honour of Gods name to a creature and leaving the Lord adore their fellow servants as though there were any thing more that could be reserved to God For therefore doe men goe to the King by Tribunes or officers because the King is but a man and knoweth not to whom he may commit the state of the common-wealth But to procure the favour of God from whom nothing is hid for he knoweth the merits or workes of all men we need no spokes-man but a devoute minde For wheresoever such a one shall speake unto him he will answer him But of all others S. Chrysostom is most plentifull in setting out the difference of the accesse which we may have to God to the great ones in this world When we have suit unto men saith he in one place vve have need of cost and money and servile adulation and much going up and downe and great adoe For it falleth out oftentimes that we cannot go straight unto the Lords themselves and present our gift unto them and speake vvith them but it is necessary for us first to procure the favour of their ministers and stewards and officers both with paying and praying and using all other meanes unto them and then by their mediation to obtaine our request But with God it is not thus For there is no need of intercessors for the petitioners neyther is he so ready to give a gracious answer being intreated by others as by our own selves praying unto him When thou hast need to sue unto men saith he in another place thou art forced first to deale with dâ—ore-keepers and to intreat parasites and flatterers and to goe a long way But with God there is no such matter without an intercessor he is intreated without money without cost he yeeldeth unto thy prayer It sufficeth only that thou cry in thine heart and bring teares with thee and entring in straightway thou mayest draw him unto thee Amongst men saith he in a third place it behoveth him that commeth unto one to be a man of speech and it is required that he should flatter all those that are about the Prince and to thinke upon many other things that he may finde acceptance But here there is need of nothing save of a watchfull minde onely and there is nothing that hindereth us from being neare to God So in his sermon upon the woman of Canaan which hee made in his latter dayes after his returne from his first banishment God is alwayes neare saith he If thou wilt intreat man thou askest what he is a doing and he is asleep he is not at leisure or the servant giveth thee no answer But with God there is none of these things Whithersoever thou goest and callest hee heareth there is no want of leisure nor a mediatour nor a servant that keepeth thee off Say Have mercy upon me and presently God is with thee For while thou art yet a speaking saith he I will say Behold here I am Esai 58.9 And therefore he biddeth us to marke the philosophy as he tearmeth it or the wisedome of the woman of Canaan She intreateth not Iames saith he she beseecheth not Iohn neyther doth she come to Peter but brake through the whole company of them saying I have no need of a mediatour but taking repentance with me for a spoakes-man I come to the fountaine it selfe For this cause did he descend for this cause did he take flesh that I might have the boldnesse to speake unto him I have no need of a mediatour have thou mercy upon me Hitherto S. Chrysostom Sixthly the
take for their Gods And here also out of Epiphanius we may further observe who were the masters or the mistresses rather for this was the womens heresie from whom our Romanists did first learne their Hyperdulîa or that transcendent kind of service wherewith they worship the Virgin Mary namely the Collyridians so called from the Collyrides or cakes which at a certaine time of the yeare they used to offer unto the blessed Virgin against whom Epiphanius doth thus oppose himselfe What Scripture hath delivered any thing concerning this Which of the Prophets have permitted a man to be worshipped that I may not say a woman For a choyse vessell she is indeed but yet a woman Let Mary be in honour but let the Father and the Sonne and the holy Ghost be worshipped let no man worship Mary This mysterie is appointed I doe not say for a woman nor yet for a man neyther but for God the Angels themselves are not capable of such kinde of glorifying Let none eate of this errour touching holy Mary for although the tree be beautifull yet is it not for meate and although Mary be most excellent and holy and to be honoured yet is she not to be worshipped The bodie of Mary was holy indeed but not God the Virgin indeed was a virgin and honourable but not given unto us for adoration but one that did her selfe worship him who was borne of her in the flesh and came from heaven out of the bosome of his Father Thus did this learned Father labour to cut the roots of this Idolatrous heresie when it first began to take hold of the feminine sexe animating all that were of masculine spirits to the extirpatiō therof in this maner Go to then ye servants of God let us put on a manlike mind and beat down the madnes of these women But when this disease afterwards had gotten a farther spredd and had once throughly seized upō men as wel as women it is a most wonderfull thing to consider into what extremitie this frenzie brake out after the time of Sathans loosing especially For then there wanted not such as would interprete that speech of the Angel unto the holy Virgin Haile full of grace the Lord is with thee of the equality of her Empire with her Sonnes as if it had beene said Even as he so thou also dost enjoy the same most excellent dignitie of ruling In the redundance and effusion of grace upon the creatures the Lords power and vvill is so accommodated unto thine that thou mayest seeme to be the first in that both diadem and tribunall The Lord is with thee not so much thou with the Lord as the Lord with thee in that function Then it was taught for good Divinitie that from the time wherein the Virgin mother did conceive in her wombe the Word of God she hath obtained such a kind of jurisdiction so to speake or authoritie in all the temporall procession of the holy Ghost that no creature hath obtained any grace or vertue from God but according to the dispensation of his holy mother that because she is the mother of the sonne of God who doth produce the holy Ghost therefore all the gifts vertues and graces of the holy Ghost are by her hands administred to whom she pleaseth when she pleaseth how she pleaseth and as much as she pleaseth That she hath singularly obtained of God this office from eternitie as her selfe doth testifie Proverb 8.23 I was ordained from everlasting namely a dispenser of celestiall graces and that in this respect Cantic 7.4 it is said of her Thy neck is as a tower of Yvorie because that as by the neck the vitall spirits do descend from the head into the bodie so by the Virgin the vitall graces are transmitted from Christ the head into his mysticall body the fulnesse of grace being in him as in the head from whence the influence cōmeth in her as in the necke through which it is transfused unto us so that take away the patronage of the Virgin you stop as i◠were the sinners breath that he is not able to live any lōger Then men stuck not to teach that unto her all power was given in heaven and in earth So that for heaven when our Saviour ascended thither this might be assigned for one reason among others why he left his mother behinde him least perhaps the court of Heaven might have beene in a doubt whom they should rather go to meet their Lord or their Lady for earth she may rightly apply unto her selfe that in the first of Ezra All the kingdomes of the earth hath the Lord given unto me and we may say unto her againe that in Tobi 14. Thy kingdome endureth for all ages and in the 144. or 145 Psalme Thy kingdome is a kingdome of all ages That howsoever she was the noblest person that was or ever should be in the world and of so great perfection that although she had not beene the mother of God she ought neverthelesse to have beene the Lady of the world yet according to the lawes whereby the world is governed by the right of inheritance she did deserve the principality and kingdome of this world That Christ never made any legacie of this Monarchy because that could not be done without the prejudice of his mother and he knew besides that the mother could make voyde the Testament of the sonne if it were made unto her prejudice And therefore that by all this it appeareth most evidently that Mary the mother of Iesus by right of inheritance hath the regall dominion over all that be under God That as many creatures doe serve the glorious Virgin Mary as serve the Trinitie namely all creatures whatsoever degree they hold among the things created whether they be spirituall as Angels or rationall as men or corporall as the Heavenly bodies or the Elements and all things that are in Heaven and in Earth whether they be the damned or the blessed all which being brought under the governement of God are subject likewise unto the glorious Virgin for asmuch as he who is the sonne of God and of the blessed Virgin being willing as it were to equall in some sort his Mothers soveraigntie unto the soveraignty of his Father even he who was God did serve his mother upon earth Whence Luke 2.51 it is written of the Virgin and glorious Ioseph He was subject unto them that as this proposition is true All things are subject to Gods command even the Virgin her selfe so this againe is true also All things are subject to the command of the Virgin even God himselfe that considering the blessed Virgin is the mother of God and God is her sonne and every sonne is naturally inferior to his mother and subject unto her and the mother hath preeminence and is superior to her sonne it therefore followeth that the
hath done marveilous things O give thankes unto the Lord for he is good give thankes unto his mother for her mercie endureth for ever Lady despise not my prayse and vouchsafe to accept this Psalter vvhich is dedicated unto thee The Lord sayd unto our Lady sit thou my mother at my right hand They that trust in thee O mother of God shall not feare from the face of the enemie Except our Lady build the house of our heart the building thereof will not continue Blessed are all they who feare our Ladie and blessed are all they who know to doe thy will and thy good pleasure Out of the deepe have I cried unto thee O Ladie Ladie heare my voice Ladie remember David and all that call upon thy name O give thankes unto the Lord because he is good because by his most sweete mother the virgin Mary is his mercie given Blessed be thou O Ladie which teachest thy servants to warre and strengthenest them against the enemie and so the last Psalme is begun with Prayse our Ladie in her Saints prayse her in her vertues and miracles and ended accordingly with Omnis spiritus laudet Dominam nostram Let everie spirit or everie thing that hath breath prayse our Ladie To this we may adioyne the Psalter of the salutations of the Virgin framed by Iohn Peckham archbishop of Canterburie which is not yet printed His preface he beginneth thus Mente concipio laudes perscribere Sanctae Virginis quae nos à carcere Solvit per filium genus in genere Miri vivificans effectus opere and endeth with a prayer to the blessed Virgin that shee would release the sinnes of all those for whom hee prayed and cause both his owne name and theirs to be written in the booke of life Nec non omnibus relaxes crimina Pro quibus supplicans fundo precamina Nostrumque pariter horum nomina Conscribi facias in vitae paginâ Then followeth his first Psalme wherein he prayeth that she would make us to meditate often Gods Law and afterwards to be made blessed in the glorie of Gods kingdome Ave Virgo virginum parens absque pari Sine viri semine digna foecundari Fac nos legem Domini crebró meditari Et in regni gloriâ beatificari His other 149. Psalmes which are fraught with the same kinde of stuffe I passe over But Bernardinus de Senis his boldnesse may not be forgotten who thinketh that God will give him leave to maintaine that the Virgin Marie did more unto him or at least as much as he himselfe did unto all mankinde and that wee may say for our comfort forsooth that in respect of the blessed Virgin whom God himselfe did make notwithstanding God after a sort is more bound unto us than wee are unto him With which absurd and wretched speculation Bernardinus de Busti after him was so well pleased that hee dareth to revive againe this most odious comparison and propose it a fresh in this saucy maner But O most gratefull Virgin didst not thou something to God Didst not thou make him any recompence Truely if it be Lawfull to speake it thou in some respect didst greater things to God than God himselfe did to thee and to all mankinde I will therefore speake that which thou out of thy humilitie hast past in silence For thou onely didst sing He that is mightie hath done to me great things but I doe sing and say that thou hast done greater things to him that is mightie Neyther is that vision much better which the same author reciteth as shewed to S. Francis or as others would have it to his companion Fryar Lion touching the two ladders that reached from earth unto heaven the one redd upon which Christ leaned from whence many fell backward could not ascend the other white upon which the holy Virgin leaned the helpe whereof such as used were by her received with a cheerefull countenance and so with facilitie ascended into heaven Neyther yet that sentence which came first from Anselme and was after him used by Ludolphus Saxo the Carthusian and Chrysostomus à Visitatione the Cistercian Monke that more present reliefe is sometimes found by commemorating the name of Mary then by calling upon the name of our Lord Iesus her onely Sonne which one of our Iesuites is so farre from being ashamed to defend that he dareth to extend it further to the mediation of other Saints also telling us very peremptorily that as our Lord Iesus worketh greater miracles by his Saints then by himself Iohn 14.12 so often he sheweth the force of their intercession more then of his owne All which I doe lay downe thus largely not because I take any delight in rehearsing those things which deserve rather to be buried in everlasting oblivion but first that the world may take notice what kinde of monster is nourished in the Papacie under that strange name of Hyperdulia the bare discoverie whereof I am perswaded will prevaile as much with a minde that is touched with anie zeale of Gods honour as all other arguments and authorities whatsoever secondly that such unstable soules as looke backe unto Sodome and have a lust to returne unto Egypt againe may be advised to looke a little into this sinke and consider with themselves whether the steame that ariseth from thence be not so noysome that it is not to be indured by one that hath any sense left in him of pierie and thirdly that such as be established in the present truth may be thankefull to God for this great mercie vouchsafed unto them and mak◠this still one part of their prayers From all Romish Dulîa and Hyperdulîa good Lord deliver us OF IMAGES WIth prayer to Saints our Challenger joyneth the use of holy Images which what it hath beene and still is in the Church of Rome seeing hee hath not beene pleased to declare unto us in particular I hope he will give us leave to learne from others It is the doctrine then of the Romane Church that the Images of Christ and the Saints should with pious Religion be worshipped by Christians saith Zacharias Boverius the Spanish fryar in his late Consultation directed to our most noble Prince Charles the Hope of the Church of England and the future felicitie of the World as even this Balaam himself doth style him The representations of God and of Christ and of Angels and of Saints are not onely painted that they may be shewed as the Cherubims were of old in the Temple but that they may be adored as the frequent use of the Church doth testifie saith Cardinall Cajetan So Thomas Arundell archbishop of Canterbury in his Provinciall Councell helde at Oxford in the yeare 1408. established this Constitution following * From henceforth let it be taught commonly and preached by all that the Crosse and the Image of the Crucifixe and
the rest of the Images of the Saints in memorie and honour of them whom they figure as also their places and Relickes ought to be worshipped with processions bendings of the knee bowings of the bodie incensings kissings offerings lighting of candles and pilgrimages together with all other maners and formes whatsoever as hath beene accustomed to be done in our or our predecessors times And in the Romane Catechisme set out by the appointment of the Councell of Trent the Parish priest is required to declare unto his parishioners not onely that it is lawfull to have images in the Church and to give honour and worship unto them for asmuch as the honour which is done unto them is referred unto the things which they represent but also that this hath still beene done to the great good of the faithfull and that the Images of the Saints are put in Churches aswell that they may be worshipped as that we being admonished by their example might conforme our selves unto their life and maners Now for the maner of this worship we are told by one of their Bishops that it must not onely be confessed that the faithfull in the Church doe adore before the Images as some peradventure would cautelously speake but also adore the Image it selfe without what scruple you will yea they doe reverence it with the same worship wherewith they doe the thing that is represented thereby Wherefore saith he if that ought to be adored with Latrîa or divine worship this also is to bee adored with Latrîa if with Dulîa or Hyperdulîa this likewise is to be adored with the same kinde of worship And so we see that Thomas Aquinas doth directly conclude that the same reverence is to be given unto the Image of Christ and to Christ himselfe and by consequence seeing Christ is adored with the adoration of LatrÃa or divine worship that his image it to be adored with the adoration of Latrîa Vpon which place of Thomas Fryar Pedro de Cabrera a great Master of Divinitie in Spaine doth lay downe these conclusions I. It is simply and absolutely to be said that holy Images are to be worshipped in Churches â—ut of Churches and the contrary is an hereticall doctrine for explication wherof he declareth that by this worshipping he meaneth that signes of service and submission are to be exhibited unto Images by embracing lightes oblation of incense uncovering of the head c. and that this conclusion is a doctrine of faith collected out of the holy Scripture by which it appeareth that things created yea although they be senselesse so that they be consecrated unto God are to be adored II. Images are truely and properly to be adored and out of an intention to adore themselves and not onely the samplers that are represented in them This conclusion which he maketh to be the common resolution of the Divines of that side he opposeth against Durand his followers who helde that Images are adored onely improperly because they put men in minde of the persons represented by them who are then adored before the images as if they had beene there really present But this opinion he saith is censured by the latter Divines to be dangerous rash and savouring of heresie yea and by Fr. Victoria to be plainely hereticall For if Images be adored only improperly they are not to be adored simply absolutely which is a manifest heresie saith Cabrera And if Images were onely to be worshipped by way of rememoration and recordation because they make us remember the samplers which we doe so worship as if they had beene then present it would follow that all creatures should be adored with the same adoration wherewith we worship God seeing all of them doe lead us unto the knowledge and remembrance of God and God is present in all things III. The doctrine delivered by Thomas that the Image and the sampler represented by it is to be worshipped with the same act of adoration is most true most pious and very consonant to the decrees of Faith This he saith is the doctrine not onely of Thomas and of all his disciples but also of all the old Schoole-men almost and particularly he quoteth for it Cajetan Capreolus Paludanus Ferrariensis Antonius Soto Alexander of Hales Albertus Magnus Bonaventura Richardus de Mediavilla Dionysius Carthusianus Major Masilius Thomas Waldensis Turrecremata Angestus Clichtoveus Turrian and Vazquez In a word it is the constant judgement of Divines saith Azorius the Iesuite that the Image is to be honoured and worshipped with the same honour and worship wherewith that is worshipped whereof it is an image Against this use or rather horrible abuse of Images to what purpose should we heape up anie testimonyes of holy Scripture if the words of the second commandement uttered with Gods owne mouth with thundring and lightning upon mount Sinai may not be heard Thou shalt not make to thy selfe any graven Image nor the likenesse of any thing that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth Thou shalt not bowe downe to them nor worship them Which thunderclap from heaven the guides of the Romish Church discerning to threaten sore that fearefull Idolatrie which daily they commit thought fit in wisedome first to conceale the knowledge of this from the people by excluding those words out of the Decalogue that went abroad for common use under pretence forsooth of including it in the first Commandement and then afterwards to put this conceite into mens heads that this first commandement was so farre from condemning the veneration of Images that it commanded the same and condemned the contrarie neglect thereof And therefore Laurence Vaux in his Catechisme unto this Question Who breaketh the first Commandement of God by unreverence of God frameth this Answere They that doe not give due reverence to God and his Saints or to their Relickes and IMAGES and Iacobus de Graffijs in his explication of the same Commandement specifieth the due reverence here required more particularly namely that we should reverence everie Image with the same worship that we doe him whose image it is that is to say that wee impart Latrîa or divine worship to the Image of God or of Christ or to the signe of the Crosse also in asmuch as it bringeth the Passion of our Lord unto our minde and that we use the adoration of Hyperdulîa at the Image of the holy Virgin but of Dulìa at the Images of other Saints And can there be found thinke you among men a more desperate impudencie then this that not onely the practise of this wretched Idolatrie should be maintayned against the expresse commandement of almightie God but also that hee himselfe should be made the author and commander of it even in that verie place where he doth so severely forbid it and reveale his wrath from heaven against the ungodlinesse and unrighteousnesse
Christ. Thirdly That Gods promise is annexed indeed to the workes of just men yet it belongeth no way to the reason of the merit but commeth rather to the workes which are alreadie not worthy only but also meritorious Unto all which hee addeth afterwards this Corollary Seeing the works of a just man doe condignely merit eternall life as an equall recompence and reward there is no need that any other condigne merit such as is the merit of Christ should come betweene that eternall life might be rendred unto them Yea the merit of every just man hath somewhat peculiar in respect of the just man himselfe which the merit of Christ hath not namely to make the man himselfe just and worthie of eternall life that hee may worthily obtaine the same But the merit of Christ although it be most worthie to obtaine glory of God for us yet it hath not this efficacy and vertue to make us formally just and worthy of eternall life but men by vertue derived from him attaine this effect in themselves And so we never request of God by the merits of Christ that the reward of eternall life may be given to our worthy and meritorious workes but that by Christ grace may be given unto us whereby we may be enabled worthily to merit this reward In a word Our merits saith hee have this force in us that they make us formally worthy of eternall life the merits of Christ doe not make us worthy formally but Christ is worthy in regard of them to impetrate unto us whatsoever he requesteth for us Thus doth Vasquez the Iesuite discover unto us to the full the mysterie of this iniquitie with whom for the better information of the English Reader wee joine our Rhemists who deliver this as their Catholike doctrine that all good workes done by Gods grace after the first justification be truly and properly meritorious and fully worthy of everlasting life and that thereupon heaven is the due and just stipend crowne or recompence which God by his justice oweth to the person so working by his grace For he rendreth or repayeth heaven say they as a just Iudge and not only as a mercifull giver and the crowne which he payeth is not only of mercy or favour or grace but also of justice And againe that mans workes done by Christs grace doe condignely or worthily deserve eternall joy so as works can be none other but the value desert price worth and merit of the same Whereupon they put us in minde that the word Reward which in our English tongue may signifie a voluntarie or bountifull gift doth not here so well expresse the nature of the Latine word Merces or the Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are rather the very stipend that the hired work-man or journey-man covenanteth to have of him whose worke he-doth and is a thing equally and justly answering to the time and weight of his travels and workes rather than a free gift This is that doctrine of merits which from our very hearts we detest and abhorre as utterly repugnant to the truth of God and the common sense of all true-hearted Christians The lesson which our Saviour taught his disciples is farre different from this Luk. 17.10 When ye have done all those things which are commanded you say We are unprofitable servants we have done that which was our dutie to doe And if he be unprofitable saith S. Hierome who hath done all what is to be said of him who could not fulfill them So likewise the Romanes themselves might remember that they were taught by S. Paul at the beginning that there is no proportion of condignitie to be found betwixt not the actions only but the passions also of the Saints and the reward that is reserved for us in the world to come For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us saith he Rom. 8.18 and Bernard thereupon Concerning the life eternall we know that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory no not if one man did sustaine them all For the merits of men are not such that for them eternall life should be due of right or God should doe any iniurie if he did not give it For to let passe that all merits are Gods gifts and in that respect a man is for them made a debter to God more than God to man what are all merits in comparison of so great a glory and S. Ambrose long before him All those things which we suffer are too little and unworthy fot the paines whereof there should be rendred unto us so great reward of good things to come as shall be revealed in us when being reformed according to the image of God we shall merit or obtaine to see his glory face to face Where for the better understanding of the meaning of the Fathers in this point we may further observe that merits in their writings doe ordinarily signifie nothing but workes as in the alleaged place of Bernard and to merit simply to procure or to attaine without any relation at all to the dignitie either of the person or the worke as in the last words of Ambrose is plainly to be seene And therefore as Tacitus writes of Agricola that by his vertues he merited that is to say incurred the anger of Caius Caesar so S. Augustine saith that he and his fellowes for their good doings at the hands of the Donatists in stead of thanks merited that is incurred the flames of hatred On the other side the same Father affirmeth that S. Paul for his persecutions and blasphemies merited that is found the grace to be named a vessell of election having reference to that in 1 Timoth. 1.13 Who was before a blasphemer and a persecuter and injurious but I obtained mercy where in stead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the vulgar Latine translateth Misericordiam consecutus sum S. Cyprian readeth Misericordiam merui I merited mercy Whereunto we may adde that saying which is found also among the workes of S. Augustine that no sinner should despaire of himselfe seeing Paul hath merited pardon and that of Gregory Paul when he went about to extinguish the name of our Redeemer upon earth merited to heare his words from heaven as also that other straine of his concerning the sin of Adam which is sung in the Church of Rome at the blessing of the Taper O happy sinne that merited that is found the favour to have such and so great a Redeemer Howsoever therefore the ancient Doctors may seeme unto those that are not well acquainted with their language to speake of merits as the Romanists doe yet have they nothing common with them but the bare word in the thing it selfe they differ as much from them every way as our Church doth