bodie which is not performed before the bodie rise to glorie you turne it as if I professed our redemption from hell to be imperfect till the last day And when I mention with Saint Paul the redemption of our bodies from corruption which shall not be before the resurrection you would inferre thereupon if you could tell how that the bodies of the Saints remaine subiect to the power of hell to the curse of the law and to the claime of Satan Thus you runne on like a riotous spaniel chalenging vpon euery foote but finding nothing With like wit and trueth you inferre vpon my wordes where I say the death of the body was inflicted on mankind as part of the wages of sinne that therefore the godly must pay a part of their owne redemption and satisfaction for sinne and then Christ was not our onely and absolute redeemer But which way doth this follow can you tell punishment for sinne is in our persons neither redemption nor satisfaction for sinne in Christs person it was both Know you not the difference betwixt Christs person and ours But I say pa. 216. that the bodies of the dead Saints are in the possession of hell and in the handfact of hell In wresting and wrangling is all your grace Where some auncient writers seeme to say that Christ deliuered some of the Saints out of the present possession of hell all the defence I said that could any way be made out of the Scriptures to excuse this was to take hell improperly for the sting and wound of bodily death which Satan the ruler of hell procured to man by sinne For sinne death and corruption are the workes of the Diuell which Christ came to dissolue God made not death as the wiseman obserueth but created man without corruption and through the enuie of the Diuell came death into the world This then being one of the wounds which Satan through sinne gaue vnto our first father and all his ofspring this is not perfectly cured but with the resurrection of our bodies to eternall life though the poyson of this wound bee in the meane time allayed and the danger secured And thus whiles I seeke to mitigate other mens wordes and to extenuate the name and power of hell vnderstanding thereby nothing but the dissolution of mans life and corruption of mans bodie which Satan occasioned by sinne you make the Reader beleeue I take the name of hell properly for the power and right that hell hath ouer the bodies of the wicked and teach that the Saints are not deliuered from hell till their bodies rise from death which when you list you can find to bee refuted elswhere by me and therefore to be no part of my meaning heere How death is an enemie which must be destroyed aswell as sinne and hell we neede not your commentarie except it were stoared with better Diuinitie It hindreth the Saints you graunt from enioying their appointed felicitie yet as a peaceable and quiet stop Ascribe you this peace and quietnesse to their bodies voide of life and sense or to their soules staied from the full fruition of eternall glorie by that meanes And troe you the soules of the Saints be well and quietly content to lacke their appointed felicitie not at all to desire it or not earnestly to pray for it were plainly to loath it and not obediently to expect it Wherefore they exceedingly affect and instantly pray for the destruction of this enemie that keepeth their bodies in dishonour and corruption and hindereth their spirits from enioying that glorie which shal be reucaled in the last time which appeareth by their vehement prayer in the Reuelation how long O Lord holy and true doest thou not iudge and auenge our bloud on them that dwell on the earth Where they in heauen seeke not reuenge on them for whom they prayed in earth but they expresse their continuall and ardent desire for that day when they shall be wholy conformed to Christ their head And when they are willed to rest for a season they gladly submit themselues to the will and wisedome of God but meane while they hate death as an hinderer of that blisse and ioy which they so much loue and long for and shall no doubt reioyce exceedingly when this last enemie is swallowed vp in victorie as the rest were before But let death be an enemie which way you will how doth this conclude that Hades here 1. Corinth 15. in no sort signifieth hell The very text seemeth thus to expound it selfe saying where is thy sting O Hades the sting of death is sinne Where the later seemeth a direct exposition of the former noting these two wordes Hades and death as Synonymas for one thing being applied to men When you talke of the text of holy Scripture you should not leaue the wordes that are extant in all our printed copies retained and alleaged by the best and most of the Greeke Fathers as likewise of our new writers and cleane to the single conceite of some one man taking vpon him to correct all the printed copies that euer he saw and of his owne authoritie to alter the Originall I doe not therefore by your and his leaue admit this for Saint Pauls text since it is his priuate change of the wordes in the Greeke against all the copies that are either manu-scripts or printed at this day His owne confession is this Contrario ordine legunt hunc locum non modo Graeci omnes codices quos inspeximus sed etiam Syrus Arabs interpretes Not onely all the Greeke copies that we haue seene but the Syriack Arabick Interpreters read this place in a contrarie order that is they put these words ô Hades where is thy victorie in the last place which you set in the first and the other words ô death where is thy sting they set first which you will haue to be last Thus then stand the Apostles wordes cleane contrarie to that which you bring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O death where is thy sting O Hades wher is thy victorie And in this order doe Luther Erasmus Zuinglius Peter Martyr Caluine Bullingere Gualtere Aretius Hemmingius Hyperius Osiander Marlorate and I know not how many more both keepe and cite that text in Latin vbi tuus mors aculeus vbi tua Inferne victoria Where is thy sting O death where is thy victorie O hell And touching the Greeke copies and Fathers that are auncient and obserue the same order of the wordes for the Apostles text we haue Origen Athanasius Nazianzene Nyssene Epiphanius x Chrysostome x Oecumenius and though the translatours of x Theodoret and x Theophylact retaine the wordes of the old Latin Bible in this place for the text yet there is no likelihood that these two in their own tongue varied from the rest specially Theophylact who in his commenting
no doubt can be made saue of Austen onely because he sometimes repeateth the Creede without that clause which yet he confesseth to be a maine point of the Christian faith That in all places they did varie from this forme though you pretend the names of Ignatius Irenaeus Iustine Tertullian Origen c. yet they prooue no such thing These Fathers do often as learned discoursers enlarge the parts of the Creed somtimes as short comprisers of it they contract the summe thereof into fewer wordes but yet the most and most famous churches had from the beginning a briefe collection of the Christian faith deliuered to the simple people to be learned and said by heart before they could be baptized Of this doe many learned and auncient Fathers beare witnesse Duodecim Apostolorum Symbolo sides sancta concepta est In the Creed of the twelue Apostles saith Ambrose is the holy faith conceaued or comprised So Leo Catholici Symbolibreuis perfecta confessio dâ—…odecim Apostolorum totidem est signata sententijs The short and perfect confession of the Catholike Creed is sealâ—…d vp with twelue sentences of the twelue Apostles So Ierom. In the Creed of our faith and hope which being deliuered from the Apostles is not written in paper and â—…ke but in the tables of mens hearts after the confession of the Trinitie and vnitie of the Church all the mysteries of Christian Religion are closed vp with the resurrection of the â—…lesh Isidore saith the Apostles readie to depart one from another Normam prius sibi futurae praedicationis in commune constituunt appoint first in common a summe of that they would preach least sâ—…uered in diâ—…ers places they â—…ould propose any diuers or dissonant thing to those whom they brought to the â—…ith of Christ. Rabanus Maâ—…rus de Institutione clericorum li. 2. ca. 56. hath the very same wordes Neither could Tertullian whose name you vse haue truely said r Regâ—… fidei vn a omnino est sola immobilis irreformabilis there is but one rule of faith and only that immooueable and vnchangeable vnlesse there had beene some forme of faith receaued in the Church which no man might alter or change For how could he saie there is but ONE RVLE if euery Church had a seuerall rule Or how was it immooueable or irreformable if there were no certaine wordes or parts but euerie man might alter at his will Tertullian therefore doth not repeat the words of the Creed which he varieth in euerie place where he citeth it but he pointeth to the chiefe parts thereof no where keeping the same words but in substance the same matter Against Praxeas the heretike he saith Hanc regulam ab initio Euangelij decurrisse This rule of faith hath had continuance from the beginning of the Gospell Against heretikes in generall he saith Haec regula à Christo probabitur instituta This rule shall be prooued to haue beeâ—…e appointed by Christ. And yet in these two places he keepeth not the same wordes but the same heades and as it were the same principles of faith As likewise both these differ in wordes from that rule which he cited before being omnino vna euerie where one and by no meanes alterable Irenaeus saith The Church throughout the whole world euen to the endes of the earth receaâ—…ed from the Apostles and their Disciples that faith which be beleâ—…eth in one God the Father almightie maker of heauen earth c and in Iesus Christ the Sonne of God incarnate for our saluation and in the holie spirit which preached by the Prophets the dispensation and comming of God and the birth of Christ our Lord by the Virgine his pâ—…ssion resurrection and ascension with his flesh into heauen and his comming from heauen in the glory of his Father to recapitulate all to raise vp all flesh and to giue iust iudgement in all Thâ—… faith the Church dispâ—…rsed through the world hauing receaued faithfully keepeth and constantly teacheth and deliuereth these things as it were with one mouth For though there be different languages in the worlde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet the summe aud effect of the tradition or faith deliuered is one and the same Neither doe the Churches in Germany otherwise beleeue or otherwise teach nor those in Spaine nor those in Fraunce nor those in the East nor those in Egypt nor those in Africke nor those in the middest of the world So that all the churches in the world had one and the same tradition and rule of faith and though the wordes in some places did differ yet in sense they agreed and the chiefer the churches were the more was their care to preserue this Creed not written as Ierom and others confesse but deliuered and receaued by hart euen from the Apostles and their Disciples And since the Church of Rome then one of the most famous Churches in the world kept this Creede comprised in twelue sentences according to the number of the twelue Apostles as Leo testifieth not long after Ruâ—…ines time and Ambrose said the same in effect euen in Ruâ—…ines time and other Churches likewise both East and West had retained the same from their first foundation as Irenaeus witnesseth It can not be but the Creede which we haue at this day was the verie same which the primitiue churches had and kept and these auncient Fathers that alleage the authoritie thereof bring not euerie where the exact wordes but the chiefe parts and grounds thereof as appeareth by Tertullian who saith The Rule or Creed is one and vnchangeable notwithstanding he bringeth three seueral variations therof in wordes For the clause of Christs descent to hell I haue said before it was retained in many places though it wanted in the church of Rome and some other churches of the East and no doubt the Church of Rome and the rest conceaued no lesâ—…e by Christes resurrection from the dead but that he rose conquerer of death and hell as the prophet foretold he should in saying O death I will be thy death ô hell I will bee thy destruction as Christ professed he did when he said I haue the keies of death and hell and as the great and generall Councels of Ephesus Chalcedon and Constantinople did expound that Article of the Creed Christ rose the third day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hauing â—…irst spoiled hell And vpon this resolution of these generall Councels and not as you dreame vpon the opinion of Limbus preuailing the Churches that wanted that Article which others had receaued it into their Creed as contained there before in force and effect but now they concurred in one consent of faith and wordes which before they did not Our third reason is if there be no certaine benefit to the godly by Christs going to hell then doubtlesse he went not thither But there is no certaine benefit to the godly by Christs going to hell Therefore
scourgeth euerie sonne whom he receiueth and yet he vseth him not like a beast All that will liue godlie in Christ Iesus shall suffer persecution not common to them with beasts Count it an exceeding ioy saith Iames when you fall into diuers tentations knowing that the triall of your faith bringeth foorth patience Now to impart any of these things to beasts were very strange Diuinity Blessed are they saith our Sauiour that suffer persecution for righteousnesse sake for theirs is the kingdome of heauen Shall men be blessed and enioy Gods kingdome for suffering as the beasts doe If any suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed He that putteth no difference betwixt the sufferings of beasts and Christians is vnwoorthie to be a Christian. The same afflictions saith Peter are accomplished in your brethren which are in the world If you list Sir Discourser to take beasts for your brethren you may make your sufferings like to theirs or common to them otherwise they that are men and speciallie Christian men must acknowledge that this kinde of paining the soule by the bodie is proper to men and common neither to beasts nor to diuels There hath no tentation taken you saith Paul but such as is humane What is humane but common to all men and onely to men and so common neither to beasts nor to any other creature but proper to men Take backe therefore your vaine imagination and more foolish collection that the suffering of the soule by her bodie is not properly humane because it is common to men with beasts and learne hereafter that beasts hauing no soule much lesse anie graces or promises of God in this life or the next can not communicate with men in that kinde of suffering which the soule feeleth from her bodie and whereby she is chastised prooued perfected in this life and prepared for the glorie of the life to come At least yet you thinke the soules immediate suffering from the hand of God alone is the proper and principall humane suffering If there be any such suffering of paine as you imagine from the immediate hand of God alone it is the proper and principall suffering of deuils and not of men For humane properly it can not be vnlesse it touch the whole man that is as well bodie as soule whereof man consisteth And therefore the râ—…ll punishment of mans sinne in earth and in hell conteineth the torments of both parts without either of which there is no proper nor principall humane suffering though the soule after death be affâ—…icted for a season till the bodie be raysed and punished with heâ—… which is the true humane suffering for sinne after this life because it is euerlastingly allotted to the wicked for sinne by the most righteous iudgement of God But how prooâ—…e you Sir Discourser that the soule of man suffereth sensible and absolute paine I meane not depending on her owne cogitations or actions from the immediate hand of God what Scripture what example haue you for it It is the maine morter of your new erected hell but tempered onely with the water of your owne wit nor Scriptures nor Fathers doe acknowledge any such kind of suffering in hell from the immediat hand of God as you affirme yea they expressely auouch the contrary From the hand of God without question is all power and so all punishment whether it be here or in hell he alone giueth force to each creature to pierce and punish and he alone made the soule capable of paine from her bodie from her selfe and from whatsoeuer creature should please him to vse for the punishment of the soule Of this I make no doubt the hand of God which is the power of God ordereth strengtheneth sharpeneth continueth and worketh all paine and punishment both here and elsewhere for the time and for euer but whether he doeth this by meanes likewise ordeined and appointed by the same power either within or without the soule or by his immediate hand without all meanes this is the question and reading the Scriptures for this with as good attention as I could I find no such thing affirmed in them or prooued by you in all your Discourse Touching hell I sinde the contrarie confiâ—…med and auouched by the manifest and expresse words of the holy Ghost and in the greatest plagues and punishments of this life the meanes that God vseth are likewise mentioned in the Scriptures the immediate hand of God inflicting paine on the soule no where that I read or that you prooue which in so weightie a cause euery wise man will expect at your hands before he admit your metaphoricall flames of a new found fire deuised by you for the Soule of Christ to make it subiect to the paines of hell That God is the onely giuer of all grace by the working of his holy Spirit in our hearts without the assistance of any creature to further that action may not be doubted of any Christian. A man can receiue nothing except it be giuen him from heauen euen from the Father of lights whence commeth euery good and perfect gift For which cause the Scriptures call him the God of all grace working all in all and his Spirit the Spirit of grace distributing to euery man as pleaseth him and yet this diuision and operation of grace which proceedeth most powerfully from God alone is not alwaies immediate but dependeth on the hearing of the word partaking of the Sacraments and imposing of hands which God vseth as meanes not to helpe his power but to direct and guide our weakenesse Otherwise neither man nor Angel hath or can haue any power to touch and turne the heart or to inspire it with grace but onely God who made it and can alter and change it at his pleasure As the giuing so the taking away of all good gifts pertaining either to the vse of this life as prudence courage magnanimitie and such like or to the furtherance of the liâ—…e to come as faith hope loue and other fruits of Gods Spirit depend wholely on Gods will and worke and yet that is no let but when God hath most iustly depriued men of his grace which should preserue them from euill he may and doeth leaue the neglecters and abusers of his grace to be possessed and ruled by the spirit of errour vncleannesse and giddinesse that worketh in the children of disobedience and carieth them headlong into all kind of mischiefe Not that God performeth any of these things with his immediate hand which are wicked and impious but that by his iust iudgement he giueth them ouer which despise and forsake him to be a pray to the roaring Lion that deuoureth them Neither is Satan to seeke howe to leade men destitute of grace to all villanie both against themselues and others since he can blind the mindes of vnbeleeuers distract their wits and inflame their hearts with all sorts of
you must bring stronger stuffe then such wordes as besides their diuers significations haue manie figuratiue translations and applications which will not serue you to conclude any thing for your hell paines suffered in this life These are the mightie proofes that were vnanswered which indeed I neglected as prouing nothing and so would yet haue donne had not you so mouthly called for an answeare as if the things had beene verie materiall which in truth are weake and faint u Defenc. pag. 119. li. 31. The confession and behauior of the reprobate do sundry times in this life testifie so much What is their confession in things which they know not euen as much as your assertion That they are somtimes inwardly and fearefully either tormented by satan or by their owne consciences I easily admit but what is the feare of hell either in the elect or in the reprobate to the true paines thereof which the wicked after this life shall feele that they feele an horror confounding them I neuer denied as also the godly may feele a terror pursuing them but if you determine this to be all the torment the wicked shal find in hell you were best take heed of deluding Gods iudgments against sinne and playing with fiery words in steed of euerlasting fire It is another manner of torment that there abideth the damned then this guilt of conscience remorse of sinne and a fearefull expectation of iudgement and fire in which the wicked sometimes lead their liues with horror and confusion and yet it is open blasphemy to ascribe any of these horrors or feares of the reprobate vnto Christ since they vtterly quench all persuasion of Gods fauour loue and patience towards them which if we affirme of him we wrap him within their reprobation x Defenc pag. 119. li. 32. The Diuels are many times out of the locall hell as when they are in this world But Diuels are neuer released of hell sorrowes Therefore the true sorrowes of hell are euen in this world and then possibly may be inflicted on wicked men as they are on Diuels which are sometimes out of the locall hell We speake of men here liuing on earth and you runne to Diuels ranging in the aire or compassing the earth for proofe of your hell-paines Which is as much as if you did plainely confesse you can find no Scripture to prooue that mortall men in this life may endure the torments of hell For the example of Diuels inferreth no more the paines of hell to be suffered of men in this life then the presence of elect Angels here on earth doth prooue that men in this life may enioy the perfection of Gods heauenly ioies and glory since the angels of God whithersoeuer they goe or wheresoeuer they are cannot be depriued or diminished of that inward power and light blessednesse and glory in which they are confirmed for euer With Angels elect or reprobate men after this life shall haue a resemblance and conuenience the faithfull saith Christ shall be a Matth. 22. as the Angels of God in heauen and the cursed are cast b Matth. 25. into euerlasting fire prepared for the diuell and his angels But in this life except we will waxe mad we must make no equiualence betwixt their estates and ours So that from the diuels condition to mans in this life there is no consequent more then the imitation and communion of his wickednesse in the reprobate whose children they are because they fulfill his desires and an expectation and feare of his punishment Otherwise as the earth is neither heauen nor hell no more is mans life on earth matchable with the ioyes of the good or paines of the bad Angels which haue the place of their abode determined and assigned them in heauen or in hell saue when they are sent or loosed by God to attend the execution of his will And yet if the place of hell had no greater nor other paines then the diuels alwayes carrie with them and in them why should they so much feare to be a Luc. 8. v. 31. sent into the deepe or b Iudae epla v. 6. be reserued vnto the iugdement of the great day and c Peter 2. ca. 2. kept vnto damnation feare they without cause or are they kept and reserued to no more nor worse paines then already they feele That is no reseruation where there is nothing but a continuation of the very same that was besore It is certaine therefore howsoeuer you presume the contrarie that the place of hell hath greater paines euen for the diuels then they feele any heere on earth or before the last day and howsoeuer their inward confusion and desperation doe horribly persue them in all places since their fall yet a more fearefull torment abideth them in hell and especially when the last iudgement commeth which is the set time that shall torment them by addicting and fastning them to eternall and intolerable fire Yet the sorrowes of hell are in the world By such logicke you may prooue the paines of hell to be in heauen and the ioyes of heauen to be in hell and so make a full confusion of all things which well becommeth your newe found faith For the Scriptures beare witnesse that Satan not only c Luc. 10. fell from heauen but made his d Reuel 12. battell or rebellion in heauen and after his fall e Iob 1. stoode among the children of God and euen with f 1. King 22. the host of heauen g Reuel 12. There was a battaile in heauen saith Iohn Michael and his Angels fought against the Dragon and the Dragon fought and his Angels But they preuailed not neither was their place found any more in heauen And the great Dragon called the diuell was cast into the earth Therefore reioyce ye heauens and ye that dwell in them Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea for the diuell is come downe vnto you with great wrath knowing that his time is short h 1. King 22. I saw the Lord sit on his throne saith Michaiah the Prophet and all the host of heauen stoode about him on his right hand and on his left hand Then there came foorth a lying spirit and stoode before the Lord of whom the booke of Iob testifieth that i Iob 1. v. 6. when the children of God came and stoode before the Lord Satan came also among them Certaine it is that Satan and his angels sinned euen in heauen and were cast out of heauen after their defection from God carrying alwayes with them and within them the losse of their originall brightnesse and the chaines of inward and fearefull darknesse whereby they find themselues reiected from Gods sauour despoyled of their former light and glory and reserued for the iudgement of the great day at which they tremble as well as at the place of their perpetuall imprisonment where their torments are and shal be increased though
indeed reueale some reall tast of his heauenly ioies to his children euen in this life I haue already shewed but am not answeared You slide from some blessed men to all the children of God to whom you affirme God doth reueale indeed some reall tast of his heauenly ioies euen in this life What you meane by a reall tast we must learne from your owne mouth by such doubtfull phrases which you may after wrangle about you vse to deliuer your doctrine If you meane ioy in the holy Ghost whiles by hope we expect the promises of God at his determined time that indeed is common to all the children of God in their measure but that teacheth a maine difference betwixt the things heere enioined and reserued for vs in heauen and quite crosseth the new heauen which you would establish For we learne by the Scriptures that our z Coloss. 3. Life is hid in Christ and when Christ who is our life shall appeare then shall we also appeare with him in glory a 1 Iohn 3. Now we are the sonnes of God but yet it doth not appeare what we shal be and we know that when he shall appeare we shal be like him for we shall see him as he is Our knowledge loue and ioy of God and in God beginne heere by the preaching of the Gospell and the working of his spirit but the Scripture neuer calleth those the ioies of ueauen though they shall there continue yet so augmented and accompanied with heauenly brightnesse and glory that they shall not be the same they were For as our naturall vnderstanding and sense and corporall life and flesh shall not be abolished in heauen but abide and be glorified and yet no man is so senselesse as to thinke or say the glory of our creation is the glory of our resurrection so our knowledge loue and ioy which heere are weake and wanting all perfection as being mixed with ignorance and error lust and vnlawfull desires feare and griefe and often obscured and almost ouerwhelmed with infirmity iniquity and misery no wise man will defend to be the ioies of Gods heauenly kingdome where is no want nor defect of any good nor feare nor doubt of any euill inward or outward but as God shall then be all in all so shall we be filled with the sight and fruition of God our loue and ioy increasing according to our knowledge which then shal be the manifest vision of God face to face who is the vnceasing and vnsearchable fountaine of all goodnesse and blessednesse The b Treatis pa. 80 proofe on which you stand as yet not answered is a place of the Apostle to the Corinths applied by many men to the preaching of the Gospel then it maketh nothing for your purpose but if it be referred to the ioyes of heauen as you would haue it it maketh quite against you For c 1. Cor. 2. eye hath not seene saith the Apostle neither eare hath heard neither hath mans heart conceaued the things which God hath prepared for them that loue him If those be the ioyes of heauen which the Apostle there meaneth then is it euident that men are not capable of them whiles they are compassed with sinne and infirmitie but God hath reserued them in the heauens for vs when we shall come to his presence though in the meane time d 1. 2. he hath reuealed to vs by his spirit that such things are kept in store for vs which then shall appeare that is be apparently and perfectly bestowed on vs and we euerlastingly inuested with them The Reuelation which the Apostle here speaketh of is the reuelation of knowledge whereby these things are promised and assured vnto vs not the reuelation of glory whereby we shall see that which we now hope for and enioy that which we now expect This doctrine howsoeuer you would delude it with your reall tasts is plainely deliuered in the Scriptures When Moses besought God to shew him his glory God answered e Exod. 33. ver 20. Thou CANST NOT SEE my face and liue for there shall no man see mee and liue Where God doth not meane that men shall not see him in heauen when they come to be f Matth. 22. as the Angels of God who g Mat. 18. v. 10. alwayes behold the face of God in heauen his owne sonne hath sayd h Matt 5. blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God and his Apostle likewise i 2. Cor. 13. Now we see through a glasse darkely then shall we see face to face But he meaneth that no man liuing in this mortall flesh can see his face Otherwise it is the cleere resolution of the Scriptures that we k 1. Iohn 3. shall see him as he is that is not by faith as now we doe nor by some created shew of his glory as Moses Elias Esai and other the Prophets and Patriarkes did see him for the confirmation of their callings or consolation of their miseries but as the Apostle speaketh face to face Vpon these words of S. Iohn we shall see him as he is S. Austen learnedly and truely sayth l August in 〈◊〉 Iohan. Tract 101. Ista visio non est huius vitae sed futurae non temporalis sed aeterna Hunc totius laboris sui fructum Ecclesia nunc parturit desiderando tunc paritura cernendo This vision of God as he is is not in this life but in the life to come not temporall but eternall This fruite of her whole labour the Church now trauelleth with by desiring it but then shall attaine by beholding it Now if the sight of God himselfe face to face that is of his substance and glory in plaine full and perfect manner and measure be the same with the darke and enigmaticall beholding his graces and promises by the glasse of faith then haue you some reason to say the ioyes of heauen may be had in this life but if in the manner measure obiects and effects of our sight of God in this life and the next there be so great difference then you deceiue both your selfe and your Reader to affirme we haue the ioyes of heauen heere in this life when not onely our sinne our ignorance our miserie mutabilitie and mortalitie but euen our faith and hope do clearely prooue that we haue not that which we desire nor as yet enioy that which we expect and beleeue wee shall haue m August epist. 112. Non corda munda suae substantiae contemplatione fraudauit cum haec magna summa merces Deum colentibus diligentibus promittatur dicente ipso Domino quando corporalibus oculis visibiliter apparebat inuisibilem se contuenaū mundis cordibus promittebat qui diligit me diligitur a Patre meo ego diligam eum ostendā meipsum illi God hath not defrauded cleane harts of the sight of his substance since that is promised to those which serue
momentarie transfiguration of his bodie and to neglect and ouerskippe the constant and continuall ioy and glory of his soule which far better deserued the name of heauen than the change of his bodie t Defenc. pag. ◅21 li. 2. We grant the ioyes of heauen here are nothing equall to those hereafter only we say the very same in nature may be and are by the effectuall working of Gods gratious spirit in his elect reuealed in some measure and sometime euen in this world Neither is this as your charity speaketh any lewd or wicked error My charity serueth me and my duty bindeth me to tell you that if you of your owne head without the word of God will make an heauen or defend that to be heauen which is imperfect mutable and often defiled not with misery and death only but with weakenesse and wickednesse also you maintaine an euident and pestilent error The graces of God are heauenly aswell because they are giuen from heauen and direct to heauen as also they assure men of heauen but the measure of grace or ioy which we haue heere on earth is not the heauen which we are willed to beleeue and expect where our reward is and where an incorruptible vndefiled and immutable inheritance is reserued for vs and whence we looke for our Sauiour Your distinction that our ioy is the very same in nature though not in measure which is in heauen is not only false but a void and idle refuge For the ioy of heauen The name of Nature in the graces of God and ioyes of heauen is a vaine distinction is the plaine vision of Gods face which bringeth with it a present perfect perpetuall and plenary possession of all light power loue holinesse and happinesse deriueable f◅m God which in this weake fraile sinnefull and wretched life no man hath nor can haue And therefore though there be the knowledge loue and ioy of God both in this life and in the next yet the differences are so many and so great that no man of any reason or vnderstanding will make the one to be the other for some agreements in some points whereas in the whole there is not only a substantiall difference betwixt them which is the sight of Gods face but so many parts effects and consequēts in the one which are not in the other that it is more then folly to make the one by pretence of nature to be the same with the other All ioy in nature is the same if by nature we meane the generall definition therof for ioy is the impression or inward sense of good present or instant yea hope is in nature all one with ioy since in hope there is ioy as in feare there is paine and in hope we reioice yet no considerate diuine will confound hope and ioy together because they differ but in time much lesse make the ioies in this life which are defectiue mutable and permixed with our infirmity misery and iniquity the very same in nature with the ioies of heauen which are abundant constant and sincere in all parts and effects of brightnesse mightfulnesse righteousnesse and blessednesse which men can possibly comprehend when they come to the presence of God The sight of God by his creatures by his iudgments by his word and by himselfe is the same in the generall nature of knowledge yet are there as great differences betwixt them as betwixt darkenesse and light The Apostle saith u Rom. 1. The inuisible thinges of God that is his eternall power and godhead are seene by the creation of the world considered in his workes and that which may be knowen of God is manifest in them Shall we then say the heathen haue the very same knowledge of God by his workes which the Angels in heauen haue by the sight of himselfe the Diuels know him also by his workes by his word and his iudgements x Ionas 2. Thou beleeuest saith Iames That there is one God thou doest well The Diuels also beleeue◅t and tremble Yea they know Christ to be the sonne of God y Luc. 4. I know who thou art said the Diuell to Christ euen the holy one of God Shall we then thinke that the Diuels faith is the very same in nature with our Christian faith of many castawaies which fall away from the grace of God and receaue it in vaine the Apostle saith z Heb. 6. They were once lightened and tasted of the heauenly gift and were made partakers of the holy Ghost and tasted of the good word of God and of the powers of the world to come Shall we auouch these reprobates were in heauen in this life because they had once the very same graces in nature which the elect haue If our knowledge doe differ in this life and the next Our loue and ioy do follow our knowledge then doth our ioy likewise differ From our knowledge of God riseth our loue of God and our ioy in God For we can neither haue loue nor ioy of that which we know not but as our knowledge increaseth so doth our loue and ioy And therefore when we see God infallibly as he is then shall we loue him vnfainedly as we ought and reioice in him vnspeakeably euen as much as we are capable of not by the strength of our nature but by the working of his power Till then as our knowledge is darke and in part so our loue is weake and our ioy is faint but then shall these very thinges not only rise to an higher degree and be of another nature but be replenished with all parts of light power and blisse without which we may defend nothing to be heauen indeed howsoeuer wee may vse figuratiue speaches to comfort or encourage the godly As then worke and wages labour and rest sowing and reaping running and obtaining striuing and crowning abroade and at home doe differ euen in nature so faith and sight hope and haning promising and performing that is our state in earth and heauen doth likewise differ though it be one and the same thing which is now promised beleeued and hoped for and which hereafter shal be receaued attained and enioyed a Defenc. pag. 121. li. 7. Now then if more then hope only euen heauenly ioies may be on earth surely it followeth that likewise more then feare euen hellish paines themselues may be in men on earth also If the ioies of heauen be not only constant in nature but perfect in measure and consist in the sight of Gods face which no man shall see and liue then certainly the ioies of heauen are not in this life imparted to any mortall and sinnefull man And though that might be which yet God expressely denieth shal be yet the other is no con◅quent that the paines of the damned may be likewise in this weake and fainting flesh because ioy is an affection that preserueth this life and paine if it be violent and aboue our strength presently seuereth the soule
if it were possible that houre might passe from him Then he came and found them sleeping and said to Peter Couldest not thou watch one houre Watch ye and pray that ye enter not into temptation What signes or words are here of astonishment continuing astonishment stoppeth speech and motion as well as sense y Rhetoricorum ad Herâ—…nnium li. 4. Omnes stupidi timore obmutuerunt They all amazed with feare were mute sayth the heathen Oratour And so the Poet z Plautus in Epidiâ—…o Quid stas stupida quid taces Thou amazed thing why flandest thou still why art thou tongue-tied Yea Galen himselfe giueth euident testimonie that men amazed with feare neither speake nor doe any thing but stand still with their eyes open a Galenus in Aphorismos Hippocratis li. 7. apho 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amazednesse is when men neither speake nor do any thing but abide silent with their eyes open like to men astonished with feare So that if Christ were astonished with feare or amazed he could neither haue done nor sayd any of those things which the Gospell reporteth he did and sayd and therefore vnlesse you can alter the rules of nature as you doe of Scripture Christ was in no such astonishment as you dreame of neither did his memory faile him in speaking those words for then how could he not haue rememâ—…red that they were spoken amisse and needed correction as you conceiue them Your selfe acknowledge that he might be It helpeth not you I sayd if we should so interpret the word which S. Marke vseth that Christ began to be afrayd or somewhat astonished for if b In verbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to admire some sudden or strange sight as Phanorinus auoucheth then might our Sauiour approching Gods presence now sitting in iudgement to redeeme the world easily finde cause both of admiration and feare and yet be free and farre from suffering your hell paines And where you say my words are vtterly vntrue that c Defenc. pag. 123. li. 13. many things might astonish our Sauior for the time besides such paines they are truer than any thing you haue yet spoken or will speake of his astonishment For whether we respect the sight of his eyes or the apprehension of his minde he might either way beholde many things woorthie of that feare or astonishment which the Scripture describeth in him d Zanâ—…hius de Incar Christi li. 2. quaest 11. Thesi 2 de scientia Christi pa. 302. If with the eyes of his bodie cleered with diuine light Christ being in earth sayth Zanchius could see the things in heauen and being in heauen doth see what he will in earth as he saw and heard Steuen saying Lord Iesu receiue my spirit he saw and spake to Paul persuing him in his Church how much more can and could the soule of Christ see particular things in the word which is his Godhead So that either the eyes of Christ or the minde of Christ might beholde or consider the glory of Gods iudgement whereof he spake when he sayd e Iohn 12. Now euen at hand is the iudgement of this world or the greatnesse of mans sinne or power of Gods wrath or the vengeance deserued from which he was to ransome man and for which he was to satisfie God all these things might in more likelihood in some sort astonish the humane soule of Christ than the paines of the damned presently then inflicted on him with Gods immediate hand as you imagine but are no way able to proue saue by your owne conceit And therefore your second obseruation that these infinite incomprehensible and incomparable paines which you meane astonished is but the froth of your fansie for you shall neuer be able to iustifie any such thing by the text or historie of the Euangelists f Defenc pâ—…g 123. li. 20. Thirdly adde heereunto that which you rightly grant that it is true a mighty feare may so affect a man for the time that it shall hinder the senses from recouering themselues and stoppe the faculties from informing one another Likewise afterward astonishment draweth the mind so wholy to thinke on some speciall thing aboue our reach that during the time we turne not our selues to any other cogitation You take this to be true that I said and so do I but this vtterly subuerted your former position which now you recant that g Treat pa. 53. li. 32. Christ could not but be astonished forgetfull and all confounded in his whole humanity botâ—… in all the powers of his soule and senses of his body If Christ according to your desperate doctrine were all consounded in his whole humanity were not his vnderstanding and memory confouÌ„ded aswel as other parts of his humane nature If he were all confounded in all powers of his soule and senses of his body as your wicked error imagineth are not vnderstanding and memory powers of the soule and did not I charge you iustly and truely with casting Christ into an infernall confusion for the time since in hell it selfe they can be no more but all confounded in their whole manhoods both in all the powers of their soules and senses of their body Tell what confusion in hell is or can be more then all in all and I will yeeld I did you wrong If you cannot then bethinke your selfe how lewdly and loosely you aduentured all to confound Christ in all the powers of his soule and senses of his body in which case whether you leaue sense memory or vnderstanding vnconfounded in Chist I leaue to the censure of the discreet Reader h Defenc. pag. 124. li. 1. I say as you say he now on the suddaine might turne neither sense nor memory to any other obiect and so not thinke on any thing els but onlie on this terrible and mighty sorow and feare Your helpers haue aduised you to recall that forgetfulnesse and all confusion in all the powers of Christs soule senses of his body which before you sounded out with such waine loades of wordes as was maruailous and now you be come to say as I say that there was no confusion in the powers of Christs soule nor in the senses of his body but an intentiâ—…e cogitation on some fearefull or sorowfull thing which for the time so detained the powers of the soule as on a matter most importing and nearest touching the state of himselfe either in soule or in body that he did conuert them to no other obiect If you say thus with me then must you say farder with me that as soone as Christ beganne to vse speach or conuert his cogitation to praier this astonishment was eased and howsoeuer feare was not altogether dispelled yet he could no longer be said to be amazed or to seeke what to doe For praier to God without the mind intending and attending it is sinne which might not be in Christ and
ascend aboue the higth of the clouds and I wil be like the most high * The last or highest heauen the Scripture nameth the Seat throne or habitation of God which is not only holy as whereinto no vncleane thing shall enter but is aboue all other heauens and often called the heauen of heauens In this is the presence of Gods throne that is a perpetuall and plaine reuelation of his diuine glory and maiesty which the elect Angels alwaies behold And heere is not only the fulnesse of ioy as in the presence of God but the stability security and satiety of euerlasting life and blisse to men and Angels without any defect doubt or danger of failing or decreasing In this they want nothing and besides this they desire nothing since in him who is all in all they find all things worthy loue delight and ioy Looke downe from heauen saith Esay to God and behold from the dwelling place of thine holinesse and glory And Ieremie The Lord shall crie from aboue and giue out his voice from his holy habitation Behold the heauens and the heauens of heauens containe thee not saith Salomon Praise the Lord from the heauens saith the Psalmist praise him in the highest Praise him all his Angels praise him all his armies Praise him heauens of heauens To this place when Christ ascended with his body the Apostle saith of him that he was made higher then the heauens and ascended aboue all the heauens and sitteth â—…t the right hand of maiesty in the high places Now two we call both not all but of three we first vse this word â—…ll And the Greeke tongue hath a speciall number for two which is the duall the plurall is applied to moe Besides Moses saith in the beginning before the light or firmament were created God made eth hashamaiâ—…m the heauens and the earth where by the name of heauen the best interpreters vnderstand the place appointed for the habitation of Angels and the reuelation of Gods glory Now the word hashamaiâ—…m in Hebrew being not the singular number must haue diuers maâ—…s in it as well as the aire and 〈◊〉 haue diuers regions and sphaeres to make the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 agree to either of them So that when Christ is said to haue ascended aâ—… the heauens nature reason and Grammar besides Scripture seeme to teach vs that he ascended aboue that part of the third heauen where the Apostle noteth Paradise to be And consequently if the soules of the righteous deceased be in Paradise they are not as yet in the highest heauens where Christ sitteth in the glory of God his Father in whose house are many mansions and whether they shal be admitted at the last day when Christ shall come againe to take them vnto himselfe and to haue them for euer with him in the possession and communion of his kingdome and glory that they may be like the Angels To this difference of place and glorie before and after the day of iudgement the Scriptures incline as well as the Fathers if I mistake them not which I referre to the iudgement of the wise and learned S. Iohn saw the soules of the Martyrs Vnder the altar where they were willed to rest vntill the number of their fellow seruants were fulfilled But when crownes of glorie are giuen them as in the last day they shall stand in the presence of the throne of God and before the Lambe and he that sitteth on the throne will dwell among them Henceforth saith Paul is laied vp for me the crowne of righteousnesse which the Lord the iust iudge shall giue me at that day and not to me only but vnto all that loue his appearing Blessed be God saith Peter who hath be gotten vs again vnto â—… liuely hope to an inheritance immortall vndâ—…filed which fadeth not away reserued in heauen for you which is prepared to be shewed in the last time Now are we the Sonnes of God saith Iohn but yet it doth not appeere what we shall be we know that when he shall appecre we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is that is aswell the glorie of his Godhead as of his manhood Then as Paul saith to all the faithfull Your life is hidde with Christ in God When Christ which is our life shall appeare then shall ye also appeare with him in glory And he shal say Come ye blessed of my Father receaue the kingdome prepared for you from the foundation of the world and not retaine the kingdome already possessed by you It were easie out of new writers to shew the same Master Calâ—…m shall suâ—…ce for al who vseth not ouersoone to concurie with the fathers when they diuert from the Scriptures The soules of the saints after death are in peace saith he because they are escaped from the power of the enemy But when heauenly Ierusalem shal be aduanced to her glory and the true Salomon Christ the king of peace shall sitte aloft in his iudgement seat then shall the true Israelites raigne with their KING This they may easily perceiue by the Scriptures whosoeuer haue learned to giue eare to God and heare his voice This also haue they deliuered to vs by hand who haue sparingly and reuerently handled the mysteries of God For Tertullian saith why should we not admit Abrahams bosome to be called a temporall receptacle of the soules of the faithfull And Chrysostom Vnderstand what and how great a thing it is for Abraham to sitte and for the Apostle Paul to expect vntill he be perfected that then they may receaue their reward For vntill we come the Father hath foretold theÌ„ he wil not giue them their reward Art thou grieued because thou shalt not yet receaue it what should Aâ—… doe who ouercame so long since and yet sitteth without his crowne what Noe and the rest of those times for behold they expected thee and expect others after thee They preuented vs in their conflicts but they shall not preuent vs in their crownes because there is onetime appointed to crowne all together Augustine in many places describeth secret receptacles in which the soules of the godly are kept vntill they receaue their crowne and glory Bernard in two homilies made at the feast of all Saints where he handleth this question of purpose teacheth that the soules of the Saints departed from their bodies do stand as yet in the outward courts of the Lord being admitted to rest but not to glory Into that most blessed â—…ouse saith he they shall not enter neither without vs nor without their bodies Those that place soules in some part of heauen so they giue them not the glory of the resurrection to be shewed on them at the time of the resurrection and not before they differ nothing from the former opinion And in his institutions Since the Scripture euery where biddeth vs depend
to heauen as Dauid likewise foretold of him and there sitteth at the right hand of God vntill all his enemies in the rest of his members be made his footstoole and thence hath he shed forth this which you now see and heare euen the promise of the holy Ghost receaued of the Father for all his Know ye therefore for a suertie that God hath made him both Lord ouer all in heauen earth and hell and Christ euen the annointed Sauiour of all his elect Against this illation neither all the miscreants in earth nor all the Diuels in hell can open their mouths Where first we may see that Peter resteth more on the manner and power of Christs resurrection then simply on this that his soule was reunited to his body from which by death it was seuered Secondly he bringeth the words of Dauid to shew that either part of the Messias submitted to death for the time was to returne againe to life with greater glory the flesh free from all corruption the soule superiour to all destruction Thirdly that these things neither were nor could be verified in Dauid since Dauid saw corruption as his sepulchre prooued remaining to that day and Dauid was not as then ascended to heauen much lesse made Lord ouer all his enemies Heere is no such prerogatiue mentioned If this were common to Christ with Dauid and others of the faithfull how could Peter hence conclude that this was not spoken of Dauid but onely of the Messias Againe if this were no prerogatiue what need was there that Dauid should be a Prophet by speciall reuelation to know this much and that which Dauid knew was not onely this that Christ should rise to life againe but the words are that God would raise vp Christ after death to set him on his throne that is to giue him an euerlasting kingdome euen all power in heauen and earth subiecting all his enemies vnder his feet So that simply to rise from death was no prerogatiue nor proper to Christ but to rise Lord ouer all death and hell not excepted this was peculiar to Christ and not common to him with Dauid and therefore must needes be a speciall priuiledge to the manhood of Christ which is expressed chiefly in these words Thou wilt not forsake my soule in hades but bring me thence conquerer of all mine enemies You adde no flesh dead was euer free from corruption but onely Christes what then ergo his soule was in hell Why winch you where no man toucheth you doth any man say Christes soule was in hell because his flesh saw no corruption or rather that Dauids wordes are as plaine and peculiar to Christ in the one that Christes soule was not forsaken in hell as in the other that God would not suffer his flesh to see corruption and both being affirmed of Christ by way of speciall prerogatiue why should not both be likewise performed in Christ were not some being dead raised to life againe before their flesh putrified The promise of God to Christ that his flesh should not see corruption doth not onely assure a speedie resurrection but an impossibilitie that any corruption could preuaile against his flesh since the returne of his flesh to dust to which all others are iudged would bee the dissolution of his person for the time which by no meanes might befall him his Godhead being vnited vnto flesh and not vnto dust In these words therefore of Dauid the soule and bodie of Christ were appointed to be superiour to all contrarie powers that is the soule to hell the flesh to the graue and from both was Christ to rise as subduer of both that he might sit on his heauenly Throne as Lord ouer all not by promise onely as before but by proofe also as appeared in his resurrection And yet so many dayes as Christ did lyeth no man in his graue without some taint of corruption which in Christ was vtterly none It is a strange absurditie still to abuse your Reader calling this word hell which indeede is nothing but death in effect Againe to presume that we take it for Paradise or heauen or hell when wee referre it alwayes to the generall state of the dead and no farder immediately Then when you expound the wordes of the Creede Christ descended to hades your meaning is nothing in effect but that Christ died which was before deliuered in plained and shorter wordes and so your exposition is an idle and obscure repetition Againe hades in the new Testament is neuer taken for the death of the bodie since it is annexed to bodily death as a consequent after it and so your acception of it is repugnant to the trueth of the Scriptures And where you will at no time haue Hades taken for Paradise Heauen or Hell as here you pretend when you thereby note the place of soules deceased meane you they are neither in Heauen Paradise nor Hell are you not a wise man to talke so much of an inuisible place and when you come to the point you will haue it no place at all but you referre it alwayes to the generall state of the dead and no farder immediately An inuisible place you referre immediately to no place and thus when you will be frantike or foolish words shall loose their proper and plaine signification and containe no more then pleaseth you Shew vs a place where soules deceased are besides Paradise Heauen and Hell and wee will graunt you may exclude these three by some pretence when you spake of the place of hades but if you cannot then topos aides a place vnseene which you haue so much bowled at will be a place in spite of your heart and that immediately and consequently will bee Paradise Heauen or Hell whatsoeuer you presume or dreame to the contrarie Christ had another inestimable cause to reioyce that he was raised to life againe namely that he might fulfill his whole worke for our saluation which before his resurrection and ascension he could not accomplish When I told you that Christ after death was to conquere Hell and to free vs thence you would needes defend that Christ on the Crosse perfited our redemption and wrought our saluation and now you say which I take to bee the truer though you meane not to bee constant therein that before his resurrection and ascension hee could not accomplish the worke of our saluation The text saith God raised him vp loosing the sorrowes of death because it was impossible for him to be holden fast of it Will you conclude from hence ergo there were present sorrowes in the place where Christ was there is no strength in this reason There is more strength in it then either you will acknowledge or can answere The sorrowes of bodily death are all dissolued by the separating of the soule from the bodie Then after death there are no sorrowes of bodily death But God raised vp Christ loosing the sorrowes of
Agonie after an Angell appeared from heauen and comforted or strengthened him with a message from God it seemeth rather an effect of Christes intentiue prayer which the Scripture there mentioneth than a consequent to any other passion or paine Christes intentiue prayer after comfort receiued by an Angell from heauen might proceed from his ardent desire care and zeale of our redemption from the wrath of God and protection from the rage of Satan And therefore as the Prophet foreshewed he should not onely beare the sinnes of many but pray for the Trespassers Christ might spend all the spirits and powers of bodie and soule in most vehement and feruent prayer euen vnto a bloudie sweat to haue all his members pardoned their sinnes and reconciled to God by the sacrifice of his bodie which he would offer for them and also to haue Satan cast out from accusing them and in the end trodden vnder their feet If Christes bloudie sweat were supernaturall we must aske no cause thereof but leaue it to his sacred will who could aboue nature doe what he would That it was no proofe of hell paines appeareth plainly because Christ after in greater paines on the Crosse did not sweat bloud and of all those whom these men imagine suffered hell paines in the Scriptures no one can be produced that euer sweat bloud The word forsaking vsed by Christ in his Complaint on the Crosse doth not in all the Scriptures inferre the paines of the damned but in the wicked it noteth reiection desperation and feare of damnation and in the godly it argueth want of protection or decrease of consolation in their troubles In Christ it might shew the time the cause the maner or the griefe of his being so long forsaken and left to the rage and reproch of his persecutors without any sensible signe of Gods loue towards him care for him helpe in his troubles or exse in his paines but it doth not prooue that Christ thought himselfe forsaken of Gods fauour grace or spirit which feare or doubt could not be in him without a manifest touch of error and want of faith Christ neuer feared nor doubted that he should or could perish vnder the hand of God persuing our sinnes in the bodie of his flesh but for the ioy set before him endured the Crosse and despised the shame and as S. Peter sayth of him at the time of his suffering he alwayes beheld God at his right hand that he should not be shaken and therefore his heart reioyced and his tongue was glad and his flesh rested in hope because his soule should not be forsaken in hell nor his flesh see corruption Christ was made a curse for vs in that he suffered the temporall and corporall curses of the Law threatned vnto sinners as all sorts of afflictions belonging to this life and in the end a painfull and shamefull death by which he abolished the spirituall and eternall curse of God due to vs for sinne but he was neuer inwardly truely nor eternally accursed of God since by tasting of our externall curse for a time he made vs partakers of his spirituall and celestiall blessednesse for euer Christ who knew no sinne was made sinne for vs that is either the punishment of our sinnes or the sacrifice for our sinnes for we were healed by his stripes and he gaue himselfe for vs a sacrifice of a sweet smell to God Being then an holy and acceptable sacrifice to God for sinne he was neither defiled nor hatefull to God with our sinnes but suffered the iust for the vniust that is he tooke vpon him the punishment of our sinnes though he were most innocent and by the holinesse of his person submitting himselfe to the death of the crosse purged our vncleannesse by his innocencie couered our guiltinesse and by his fauour with God reconciled vs that were enemies Christ bare the full punishment of our sinnes that is not all which we should haue borne for then he must haue beene euer lastingly reiected confounded and condemned to hell fire which are most horrible blasphemies but he bare so much of the punishments of this life where he suffered as in his person by the iust iudgement of God was most sufficient for all our sinnes TOuching Christs descent to hell the words are plainly cited by Peter out of Dauid that Christes soule after death should not be left in Hades which Saint Luke in his Gospell vseth for the place where torments are prepared for the wicked after this life And in that sense is the word vsed thorowout the New Testament as likewise the Greeke Fathers tooke it for the place vnder the earth whither the soules of all men were condemned for sinne and where the Diuels detaine and torment the wicked That Christ likewise descended to the lower parts of the earth and to the bottomlesse deepe after death is vouched by Saint Paul whereupon the whole Church of Christ from the beginning hath confessed his descent to hel to be a point of Christian pietie Peters Sermon in the second of the Acts intended not simply to proue that Christ was risen from the dead as Lazarus and others were but affirmed farder of him That God raised him vp to set him on Dauids Throne that is to make him King of Glorie This he prooueth In that Christes flesh could not see corruption nor his soule be forsaken in hell which was verified in none no not in Dauid who were all dead and saw corruption but only in the Messias It was therefore impossible that either death or hell should detaine Christ but he was to rise Lord of death and hell and the Sauiour of all his from both as appeared by his ascending to heauen and sitting at the right hand of God Neither was this strange to the Iewes who were taught to expect that to be performed by the Messias which God promised by his Prophet O Death I will be thy death O Hell I will be thy destruction Sheol in the Olde Testament signifieth the Graue and Hell that is the places whither the dead bodies of all men went and whither the soules of the wicked dead in sinne descended after death And therefore where it is distinguished from the death of the bodie or referred to the soule after death as it is in Dauids words applied by Peter to Christ it apparently signifieth Hell The ends of Christes descent are likewise deriued from the Scriptures as the destroying of the Diuels kingdome and triumphing ouer powers and principalities and making an open shew of them spoiling them by deliuering all his Elect dead liuing and yet vnborne from the right power and feare of eternall death taking into his hands the Keyes of Death and Hell that he might be Lord of all in Heauen Earth and Hell The Creed is not a Collection of Greeke or Hebrew phrases vnknowen to the people but a short summe of the Christian faith prouided for the simpler sort of men to learne by heart And therefore as
vs. In this sense all that the Scripture intendeth by wrath in God is most proper and naturall to God namely his holinesse abhorring sinne his iustice proportioning punishment to it and his power performing whatsoeuer his will and councell decreeth for the repressing or reuenging of sinne For which respect Zanchius a very moderate and considerate writer of our time and one whom amongst others the Discourser iudgeth no way inferior to the best of the Auncients setteth downe this for one of his Resolutions which he calleth a Thesis Ira eo sensu quo scripturae dant illam deo veré proprié ei attribuitur Anger in that sense in which the Scriptures giue it to God is truely and properly ascribed vnto him And his resolutions ensuing vpon the former are not onely that God is angry he meaneth truely and properly as his first Thesis affirmeth with all sinners as well elect as reprobate but that maior grauior est ira dei aduersus homines etiam electos propter peccata quam existimari possit ab ipsis hominibus The anger of God against his elect for sinne is greater and greeuouser then they can conceiue A second signification of proper may be that this wrath which the Scriptures attribute to God is proper to him and common to no creature els Men and deuils haue wrath but that is tumultuous or vitious and hath no communion with Gods wrath which is righteous and holy The Saints and Angels in heauen no doubt detest all iniquitie but they are no fit discerners esteemers nor rewarders of sinne The secrets of the heart they know not whose vncleannesse is open onely to the eies of God The waight of sinne they cannot truely balance he onely that is offended and cannot be deceiued rightly knoweth how farre euery sinne should displease and what euery sinne deserueth As they cannot fully ponder offences no more can they iustly proportion punishment to the demerits of euery sinner and least of all ordaine and arme meanes temporally to afflict or eternally to reuenge the bodies and soules of transgressors he onely that is all-wise all-holy all-iust and allmightie can throughly discerne perfectly dislike euenly reward and powerfully represse sinne by repentance or vengeance as seemeth best to him and therefote he onely is the righteous Iudge of the world and capable of that wrath which is proper to God A third meaning of Gods proper wrath may be this that as euery thing most rightly deserueth his name when it hath in 〈◊〉 permixtion of the contrary to alter his nature so Gods proper wrath may be that which is wholy and onely wrath without any temper of mercie or loue to diminish the heate and hight of wrath That is most properly light that hath no darkenesse trueth that hath no falshood good that hath no euill in it And since Gods iustice against the wicked admitteth neither loue to their persons nor mercie to their miseries that is also Gods proper wrath which is fully and wholy wrath without any fauour or pitie towards them that are the vessels of wrath appointed to destruction Of their damnation S. Iohn writeth The smoke of their torment shall ascend for euer and they shal haue no rest day nor night Wherby it is euident their iudgement shall be mercilesse their worme neuer dying and the fire neuer quenching And how can it be otherwise since they are both haters and hated of God Iacob haue I loued saith God and Esau haue I hated Thou hatest saith Dauid to God all those that worke wickednesse Yea the wrath of God saith Paul is reuealed from heauen against all vngodlinesse and vnrighteousnesse of men For as they regarded not to know God so God deliuered them vp into a reprobate minde to doe vnseemely things Neither is there any greater wrath in this life then for men to be left to the lustes of their owne hearts that they may be full of all vnrighteousnesse wickednesse maliciousnesse haters of God inuenters of euill voyde of all loue fidelitie and mercie and here receiue in themselues a meete reward of their errour to prepare them for eternall vengeance with diuels in the world to come This wrath of God against the wicked hath in it neither loue nor mercie but is wholy wrath proportioned to their desires which are sinnefull and their deserts which are hatefull before God and so they feele the iust and full recompence of their affected ignorance and wilfull disobedience Of this wrath the elect doe not taste they are freed from it in Christ their Redeemer and Sauiour by whose spirit their mindes are lightned and renued and their hearts perswaded to the obedience of faith and by whose death they are wholy deliuered from the wrath to come Of the two former they often taste specially when they neglect continuall and serious repentance to which free remission of sinnes is offered in the blood of Christ Iesus or when through the rebellion of the flesh against the spirit they are caried backe to the desires of their former corruption In which cases the Lord with sundry and sore afflictions letteth them sharpely feele what it is to prouoke the holinesse or abuse the goodnesse of so gracious a Father and neuer leaueth scourging them till they see and acknowledge their vnrulinesse and lament and leaue their vncleannesse taking hope and hold through faith of his mercies promised them in Christ Iesus If it can not be truely sayd of the elect that in this third sense which you vrge they taste of Gods proper wrath because of the loue which God beareth and sheweth them in Christ his sonne how much lesse may it be auouched of Christ himselfe that he suffered all Gods proper wrath on whom nothing was layed for our sinnes but with so great loue fauour and honour considering the cause which he vndertooke that God in each and all Christs sufferings declared him to be the best pleasing sacrifice and most sufficient recompense for sinne that heauen could yeeld or God would haue For whether wee looke to the choise of the person to the measure of his chastisement or to the reward of his labour wee shall see the exceeding and admirable loue and fauour of God towards him albeit the iustice of God kindled against our sinnes did not quit him from all paine yea that very chastisement by which he yeelded and learned obedience did not onely witnesse but also increase Gods loue towards him And where you Sir Discourser cast your eyes onely vpon Gods seuere and implacable iustice against sinne when you speake of Christes sufferings to serue your owne turne and to tole in hell-paines with some pretence of piety all the godly may perceiue and must confesse that God in satisfaction for sinne had greater regard of his holinesse despised by mans disobedience and of his glorie defaced by Satans triumph for our fall than of the rigor of his iustice prouoked by contempt of his commandement For
submission and patience of his Sonne on the Crosse. More then this if you will vrge on the person of Christ as needefull for our Redemption first proue it and then professe it at your pleasure otherwise if you boldly and vainely presume it your addle and idle wordes can not preiudice the setled and vndoubted principles of the Christian faith warranted by the word of God and fully receaued by the Church of Christ euen from the beginning To your maimed and ruinous foundation that Christ must suffer all and the very same punishment wages and vengeance of sinne which the damned doe suffer and we should haue suffered had we not beene excused by his suffering it for vs I haue plainly and sadly answered I know not how often it is a false and lewd imagination and so impious that your selfe dare not in your late Defence offer it to vew without many bridles to holde it from horrible blasphemie But Sir discourser why coyne you conclusions in christian Religion that must haue three or foure exceptions to saue them from open impietie and why see you not that your speciall reseruations ouerthrow the truth of your owne assertion for where the true and proper punishment wages and vengeance of sinne in all the wicked is spirituall corporall and eternall death in your limitations at last which you forgate at first you except Christ from spirituall death which is sinne and from eternall death which is damnation of body and soule to hell fier yet you still affirme that Christ suffered the full proper punishment wages and vengeance of sinne as though these two spirituall and eternall death were no parts of the punishment vengeance due to sin or these being excepted as vnfit for Christ to suffer you could truely say Christ suffered the full and proper punishment and vengeance of sinne which consisteth of these three kinds of death And who but you would send vs such headlesse and senselesse resolutions in Diuinitie as these are I affirme that Christ suffered all gods proper wrath and vengeance for sinne I say all that the very damned do suffer namely so described and limited as is aboue said And againe He suffered from Gods hand euen as the damned doe namely in these points which are both possible and reasonable Were you some new Euangelist or vpstart Apostle it were euen enough for you to referre Christs sufferings to your description and your limitation without any farther authority but when you take vpon you with your bare word to broch so many nouelties in Christian religion without one line or letter of holy writ to vpholde your dreames and deuices who can chuse but deride your follie You pinne mens faiths for the ground of their saluation to your descriptions and your limitations to possibilitie and reason measured by your rule without any text or title of Scripture to warrant your words and then you thinke the maine question is profoundly and fully handled but your sober and wise Reader will presently finde the lamenesse or leudnesse of your grand conclusion For if Christs person not only by your possibilitie and reason but by the soundnesse of trueth and sincerenesse of faith must be exempted from sinne which is the death of the soule and from damnation which is euerlasting death why write you so boldly that Christ must suffer all Gods proper wrath euen all that the damned do suffer whereas apparently those two being excepted Christ could suffer no kinde of death but only a corporall And if by your so describing and so limiting the matter you draw Christ within the staine or guilt of sinne or within the compasse or danger of damnation hope you to finde any Christian eares so patient that will endure that monstrous and sacrilegious indignitie But you will inuent a new hell for Christ which shall haue the substance but not the circumstance of damnation and shal be inflicted by Gods immediate hand properly ye a only in the verie soule of Christ which Gods owne infinite wrathfull power and iustice can inflict for satisfaction where and how it pleaseth him The question good Sir is not of Gods power what he can do but of his will reuealed in his Word and of his promise performed in the person of his sonne for our saluation and testified by the mouthes and pennes of the Prophets and Apostles that were guided by his holy spirit to speake and write the trueth I make no doubt but God can create another heauen another earth and another hell as quickly and as easily as he did these that now are yet if any man affirme that God will so do or hath so done I must holde him for an Infidell because he gainsayth Gods trueth and belieth Gods will by pretending Gods power Talke not therefore what God can doe shew rather by the word and witnesse of trueth what God hath done to that must we trust to that are you bound and from that are you slipt You haue not so much as any colour of Scripture for these desperate nouelties and vanities I will giue them no woorse words lest you complaine of my bitternesse and if any man be but so wise as to let your proue these things before he beleeue them he is safe enough for euer admitting them I may spare my paines in refuting them yet because destitute of all other helpe you appeale to possibilitie and reason to fourbish your new inuention of another hell let vs see how handsomely you hale it onward By the law of our creation as we are men hauing a soule besides our bodie so our soule hath in it a threefolde facultie of suffering paines First that which is proper and immediate iustly so called proper because it is proper only to reasonable and immortall spirits Immediate two wayes First because it can and doth receiue an impression of sorrow and paines made from God only by and in it selfe without any outward bodily meanes thereunto Secondly it is also an immediate punishment or els correction of sinne it commeth not for any other cause at all So that thus we meane when we speake of the soules proper and immediate suffering The soules second facultie of suffering paines is not proper but common to vs with beasts namely that which is by sympathie and communion with and from the body A third kinde of painfull suffering the soule hath namely her vehement and strong affections are painfull whether they be good or euill as zeale loue compassion pitie care c. neither are these immediatly for sinne whether punishments or corrections neither are they punishments or corrections at all properly in themselues accidentally they may be when they grow so strong that they paine and grieue the soule If the walles and roofe of your new hell rise no fairer nor stand no faster then your foundation doth a weake puffe of winde will blow all away If a man should shortly answer you That the soule of man hath but one
firy worme not dying nor destroying the bodie but breaking forth of the bodie with vnceasing anguish Howbeit because S. Austen leaueth it indifferent for euery man to refer the WORME properly to the bodie or figuratiuely to the minde as he liketh best so that by no meanes he thinke the bodies in hell shall not be touched with the paine of fire I left it likewise free for euery man to make his choise and saw no need of farther answer Touching brimstone you may iest at S. Iohn if you list who saith of the wicked they shall be tormented in fire and brimstone before the holy Angels and before the Lambe and likewise of the diuell that he was cast into a lake of fire and brimstone or if you please you may oppose God himselfe and aske whether materiall brimstone were mixed with the fire which hee rained from heauen on Sodom and Gomorre and why hee powred them both on the heads of those wicked ones as if fire alone were not sufficient to destroy them who are set forth for an ensample by suffering the vengeance of eternall fire But howsoeuer you presume to alter or new frame the iudgements of God after your fansies when I reade that God hath rained brimstone and fire out of heauen on Sodom and the cities adioyning and will raine fire and brimstone vpon the wicked as Dauid testifieth I dare not allegorize either of them because I reuerence the word of God which is his will and by no meanes distrust his power For if God will haue brimstone mixed with hell fire to make it burne not onely the darker and sharper but also the lothsommer and so to grieue the sight smell and taste of the wicked which haue heere surfeited with so many vaine pleasures what haue you or any man liuing to say against it yea rather why teach you not men to tremble at the terror of Gods iudgements who can and will so fully punish all the powers and parts of bodie and soule with one and the same fire in hell Your obiection of true chaines and much wood I called sleeuelesse in deed I should haue called it witlesse for but you no man that would seeme wise euer did account it worth the obiecting or answering Who knoweth not that the names of artificiall things applied to Gods iudgement or gouernement must not import with him as they doe with vs things made or prouided with mens handes but the woonderfull works and powerfull acts of God tending to the same end for which these artificiall things do serue with vs As when we read in the Scriptures of Gods sword cup bow booke sootestoole furnace and such like Is any man so foolish as to aske after the Cutler Goldsmith Flâ—…tcher Stationer Carpenter Mason that made those things for God and not rather to looke to the vse of these things amongst men and thence to collect the marueilous and manifest effects of Gods power iustice counsell and prouidence determining and perfourming in this world and the next what pleaseth him against men and Angels The chaines wherewith the deuils are bound Peter calleth the chaines of darkenesse not of mettall which man can frame and they note the ineuitable subiection and immutable condition of deuils plunged in outwarde and inward darkenesse malediction and horror whereby they are now kept vnto damnation without any power to resist or decline the iudgement which shall be pronounced on them That God hath a Smith to make Iron chaines to bind the deuill or a fueller to cut and fetch wood for hell fire lest it should faile these were such meriments to be concluded out of Scripture that if you find no vanitie nor absurditie in them against the trueth and glorie of God you may take the Legend or the Alcoran into your Creede without any scruple of conscience but if these things be more then sottish then deserue your obiections a worse name then I gaue them The Scriptures you say shew no more any true fire in hell then true chaines and much wood To suppose those things to be needefull for hell which are prepared by the hands of men is a very wicked and wilfull impietie For so should hell fire quickly cease which Christ hath said shall be euerlasting And that the Scriptures prooue no more the trueth of fire there then they doe of wood is an open and arrogant vntruth For first all the Fathers of Christs Church and the soberest Diuines of our time are condemned by this insolent assertion as ignorant and absurd teachers who confesse the trueth of hell fire to be established by the Scriptures which of wood they do not Secondly the words of Christ and his Apostles are chalenged to be false For they in plaine speech affirme fire to be in hell which of wood they doe not Thirdly the reason whereupon the Defenders obiection is grounded ouerthroweth all religion in this life and all reward in the life to come For this is and must be the pillar whereto his obiection leaneth The Scripture nameth fire and so it nameth wood and therefore it sheweth the trueth of the one no more then it doth of the other but if the wood be figuratiue so must the fire be Applie this reason to the Church of Christ on earth or to the kingdome of heauen or to Christ himselfe and see whether it will not vtterly subuert them all and make all Gods promises and graces here and in heauen to be allegoricall and not literally true Of Christ God saith Behold I will lay in Sion a stone a tried stone a precious corner stone And of himselfe Christ saith I am the true Vine Were it not braue blasphemie to say the Scriptures shewe Christ to be no more a true God then a true Stone or a true Vine because they affirme of him all three To his Church God saith I will lay thy foundation with Saphires and will make thy windowes of Emeraudes and thy gates shining stones All thy children shall bee taught of God and much peace shall be to thy children in righteousnesse shalt thou be established Shall we say that wisedome peace and righteousnesse here promised to the Church are figuratiue because Emeraudes and Saphires mentioned in the very same place must be figuratiuely taken Christ saith to his disciples I appoint you a kingdome as my Father hath appointed to mee that you may eate and drinke at my table in my kingdome Are all the rewards of the faithfull in the kingdome of heauen allegoricall because this most apparantly is so Proude and false therefore is that surly resolution of yours Sir Discourser who auouch the Scriptures shewe no more true fire in hell then much wood because the Prophet in one place nameth them both and if your obiections be no better let the Christian reader iudge whether there be any cause you should so earnestly call for an answere But let vs view the place whence you
speechlesse we die that are of the earth but he which came from heauen breathed out his soule with a loud voice We must say it was a shew of his diuine power to lay downe his soule when he would and to take it againe Yea the Centurio hearing him say to hiâ—… Father Into thine hands I commend my spirit statim sponte spiritum dimisisse and straightway of his own accord to send forth his spirit mooued with the GREATNES of this WOONDER said Truly this was the Sonne of God Chrysostome vpon these words of Matthew Iesus crying with a loud voice gaue vp the ghost sayth Idcirco magna voce clamauit vt ostendat haec sua potestate fieri Therefore Christ cried with a loud voice that he might shew this to be done by his owne power Marke sayth Pilate maruâ—…lled if he were alreadie dead And the Centurion also THERâ—…FORE CHIEFLY beleeued because he saw Christ die of his owne accord and power Victor of Antioch vpon the like words of Marke sayth By so doing the Lord Iesus doth plainly declare that he had his whole life and death in his owne free power Wherefore Marke writeth that Pilate not without admiration asked if Christ were yet dead addidit item ea potissimum de causa Centurionem credidisse he added likewise that the Centurion chiefly for that reason beleeued because he saw Christ giue vp the ghost with a loud crie and signification of great power Leo noting that Christ died not for lacke of helpe but of determinatâ—… purpose sayth Quae illic vitae intercessio sentienda est vbi anima potestate est emissa potestate reuocata What intreatie for life shall we thinke there was where the soule was both sent out with power and recalled with power Fulgentius Cum ergo homo Christus tantam accepâ—…rit potestatem vt cum vellet animam poneret cum vellet denuò resumeret quantam potuit habere Christi diuinitas potestatem Ideo autem ille homo potestatem animae habuit quia cum diuina potestas in vnitatem personae suscepit Where then the man Christ receiued so much power that he might lay downe his soule when he would and take it againe when he would how great power might the Godhead of Christ haue and therefore the manhood of Christ had power to lay downe his soule because the diuine power admitted him into the vinitie of person Sedulius Animam protinus suam sancto de corpore volens ipse deposâ—…it Christ himselfe forthwith vpon his prayer willingly layd off his sacred soule from his bodie Nonnius in his Paraphrase vpon S. Iohns Gospell expresseth the saying of Christ None taketh my soule from me in these words No birth-law taketh my soule from me no incroching time that tameth all things nor Necessitie which is vnchangeable counsell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but ruler of my selfe I of mine owne accord yeeld vp my willing soule Beda vpon that place of Matthew And Iesus crying with a loud voice sent out or gaue vp his spirit writeth thus Quod autem dicit emisit spiritum ostendit diuinae potestatis esse emittere spiritum vt ipse quoque dixerat nemo potest tollere animam in that the Euangelist saith Christ sent out his soule or spirit he sheweth it is a point of Diuine power to send out the soule as Christ himselfe sayd None can take my soule from me Nullus enim habet potestatem emittendi spiritum nisi qui animarum conditor est For none hath power to send out the soule but he that is Creator of soules Which Bede buildeth vpon the words of S. Matthew who saith that Christ crying with a loud voice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dismissed or sent his soule from him Theophylact Iesus crieth with a loud voice that we should know it was true which he sayd I haue power to lay downe my soule for not constrained but of his own accord he dismissed his soule And the Centurion seeing that he breathed out his soule so like a Commander of death WONDERED and confessed him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he died not like other men but as the Master of death Lyra vpon these words of Matthew Iesus againe crying with a loude voice sent forth his soule Whereby it appeareth that voice was not naturall but MIRACVLOVS because a man afflicted with great and long torment and through such affliction neere to death could not so cry by any strength of nature The latter writers concurre with the older in this obseruation Erasmus in his Paraphrase vpon Saint Luke Iesus when with a mighty cry he had said Father into thy hands I commend my spirit breathed out his soule to make it manifest to all that he did not faint as others doe the strengh of the body by little and little decaying but straightway vpon a strong cry and words distinctly pronounced laid downe his life as of his owne accord And the Centurion who stood ouerright as a Minister and witnesse of his death and had seene many dye with punishment when he saw Iesus besides the manner of other men after a strong cry presently to breath out his soule said truely this man was the Sonne of God Musculus That Christ sent foorth hiâ—… soule with aloude voice is a proofe of greater power then may be found in a man dying Whereby he shewed that he layed of his soule of his owne accord answerable to that I haue power to lay downe my soule and to take it againe To which end Iohn saith that bowing his head he gaue vp the Ghost Others first dye and then their heads fall but he first layeth downe his head and then of his owne accord deliuereth his soule vp to his Father Gualter But let vs see the manner of Christs death who as Iohn writeth with bowing downe his head yelded his Spirit Luke saith he cryed with a loude voice Father into thy hands I commend my Spirite Concurrunt hâ—…c non obscura Diuinitatis argumenta Here find we manifest arguments of his Diuinitie which the Centurion and others obserued as some of the Euangelists witnesse First this cry and distinct pronouncing of his last words sheweth a power and vertue MORE THEN HVMANE For we know that men dying so faint that the most of them cannot speake be it neuer so softly Againe he dyeth when he will himselfe yea and layeth of his soule with authoritie to shew himselfe Lord of life and death which is an euident proofe of his Diuine power It is profitable for vs diligently to marke the Diuine power of Christ which shewed it selfe so plainly in his death Marlorat vpon the words of Mathew and Iesus crying againe with a loud voyce sent foorth his spirit saith Declarat hic Christus maiestatem suam Christ declareth here his Maiestie that he layeth downe his soule not when men constraine him but when he himselfe will
any reason or learning ergo Christs dead bodie depriued of soule and sense was the whole Ransom for our sinnes for that he meaneth by Christs death or ergo no action nor passion of Christs soule before or on his crosse was meritorious If I say these conclusions doe necessarily follow out of those words or out of the meaning of them then I must confesâ—…e I am fowly ouershot in my speach But if these be most ignorant and absurd collections from my words and from theirs that vsed that speâ—…ch before me then mayest thou see Christian Reader what meaning this man hath throughout this booke purposely to peruert and misconster all that I say to make thee beleeue I broch some strange and wonderous Doctrine But shifts lâ—… hid but a while the shame in the end will be his How then can that which I sundrie times teach of Christs sufferings in his soule be true if our whole ranâ—…om and propitiation be bodily bloudy and deadly only which is the point â—…here stand on What contradiction finde you in my words that Christ might haue and had sufferings in his soule as feare sorrow and affliction of minde and yet died no death but only a bodilie Only a bodily death doth not exclude all paines which are not bodily but all deaths saue the death of the bodie Wherefore my conclusion is whâ—…re it was That the death which the Mediator must suffer for sinne by the Apostles doctrine must onely be bodily and bloodie and therefore by no meanes the death of the soule or of the damned Yet this â—…as not our whole râ—…some you say nor the whole sacrifice for sinne the sufferings of his soule must be added vnto it When I speake of Christes death I vnderstand that maner and order of his death which the Euangelists describe for so the Scriptures meane when they speake of Christes death and from that death I doe not seuer those sufferings of his soule which the Scripturâ—…s mention because the sharpnesse of that death which his body was to suffer draue him to the deepe consideration of the cause why of the Iudge from whom and the captiue for whom he suffered Christ otherwise had not suffered death as a Redeemer if he had been ignorant of any of these or compelled by force to endure the furie of the Iewes he had power enough to stay their rage decline their bloudie hands yea to auert or decrease the paines as he thought good but because he was to offer himselfe as a willing sacrifice to suffer death to saue vs from the wrath of his Father he layed aside his owne power and submitted himselfe wholly to be disposed at his Fathers will which the Scriptures call his obedience vnto death When therefore he foresaw and felt how sharpe and painfull that death would be and was which he must and did suffer for our sinnes was it possible he should not fully cast the eyes of his â—…inde vpon the horror of our sinnes which did so sting him vpon the fiercenesse of Gods wrath which did so pursue him though he were his innocent and only sonne and vpon the terrible vengeance that rested for vs if he should mislike or refâ—…se to beare the burden of our offences If any man learned thinke it possible for Christ to suffer the one and not in spirit most cleerely to see the other I am content he shall seâ—…er the sufferings of Christs soule from the griefe and anguish of his bodily death but if it be more than absurd so to conceiue then finde we that the sight and sense of Christes extreame torments in bodie caused and vrged his soule thorowly to beholde these things with feare and sorrow which in themselues were most fearefull and could not châ—… but affect Christes soule deeply and diuersly As for the whole ransome of our sinne we shall haue occasion in the next reason more largely to treate of But you haue reasons you say to confirme your maine matter among manie these two the first the Iewish sacrifices shadowing and foreshewing the second the sacraments of Christians testifying and confirming that the true sacrifice for sinne was bodily and bloudy Still what trifling is this doth any in the world denie that the true sacrifice for sinne was the bodie bloud and death of the Redeemer Wherefore the proposition must be as I did set it in your behalfe the Iewish sacrifices were shadowes or figures and our sacraments were signes of our whole and absolute redemption by Christ I say of the whole and entire propitiatorie sacrifice or els you shrinke and leaue the question When I lacke one to set propositions in my behalfe I will send to you for helpe till then spare your paines except you might reape more thanks But you must learne to get you plainer termes or at least more plainly to expound them if you will needs be a setter of propositions for what is the WHOLE sacriâ—…ice propitiatorie and what is our WHOLE redemption By the whole sacrifice meane you the whole person of Christ that gaue himselfe for vs or intend you the whole action whereby he sanctified submitted and presented himselfe as a sacrifice of a sweet smell vnto God or by the whole vnderstand you all that in Christ was deuoted and deliuered vnto death for the satisfaction of Gods iustice And so our whole redemption doe you referre it only to remission of sinnes as the Apostle doth when he sayth We haue redemption through Christes bloud euen the forgiuenesse of sinnes or also to deliuerance from the dominion and infection of sinne and to the abolishing of all corruption in soule and bodie which is our whole and absolute redemption When the powers of heauen shall be shaken and the Sonne of man come in a cloud with power and great glorie then lift vp your heads sayth Christ for your redemption draweth neere You are sealed by the holy Spirit vnto the day of redemption sayeth Paul And Dauid God shall redeeme their soules from deceit and violence that is he shall deliuer their soulâ—…s The Saints as the Apoâ—…e speaketh were racked and would admit no redemption to obtaine a better resurrection where by redemption he meaneth deliuerance As Zacharias sayd God hath visited and sent redemption to his people that is saluation or deliuerance from our enemies and from the hands of all that hate vs to serue him in holinesse and righteousnesse all the dayes of our life So that our whole and absolute redemption compriseth all the degrees and steps of our saluation as iustification sanctification and glorification and these though they were merited and obtained for vs by Christes obedience vnto dâ—…ath yet are they performed and accomplished by diuers other meanes therewith concurring and thereon depending as by the grace of his spirit the working of his power and glory of his comming And therefore the words which you haue set in my behalfe are like their authour that is they are
respect as they are bodily things represent the soule of Christ or any matter pertaining to it In that respect as they are bodily things without any sacred action or passion they figure neither bodie nor soule of Christ nor are indeed any figures at all But you speake of sacrifices of beasts which can not beare that name in the Scriptures without some sacred action and passion ordeined by God to praefigure the sacrifice of his Sonne And where euery thing which was appointed of God to foreshew the comming and dying of his Sonne was a figure of him not in respect of any bodily matter or forme for so all things of that kinde should naturally haue beene figures of Christ and not by gods appointment which is most absurd and false but in regard of some holie rare or beneficiall action passion or propertie authorized by God to represent the power and vertue of Christ appearing in our flesh you like a deepe Diuine seuer from those sacrifices all sacred actions and passions ordained by God to make them both sacrifices and figures and then tell vs that in respect of their earthly and bodily substance they were no figures of Christes soule When you sayd Sacrifices you included those sacred actions and passions which made them sacrifices and figures of Christes sacrifice and therefore to exclude them againe with an idle respect is a silly and emptie refuge If vnder bodily things you comprise externall and sensible actions and passions then is it euident that by sensible signes in those Sacrifices God did alwayes and altogether declare the ioynt sufferings of Christ for the sinnes of the world but not the paines of hell nor the death of the soule from which you alwayes and altogether slide vnder pretence of my grosse vttering it though I vtter it in the selfe-same words and parts which the Scripture doth But how considerate are you when you vouch that the Scape-goat representeth not Christes soule vnlesse onely in respect of the escaping of it when the other goat died yet not the body of the holocaust but the vtter consuming by sire of the whole signifieth the sufferings of whole Christ What agreement hath ESCAPING with VTTER CONSVMING and yet you make both these actions to be figures of the sufferings of Christes soule So that Christes soule by your refined figures did escape free from death and not escape free from death for you defend that Christ died the death of the soule and was vtterly consumed and could not be consumed but as it were escaped and yet escaped not and was at it were vtterly consumed and yet could no way be consumed but escaped free and vntouched as the Scape-goat did Such is your settlednesse that yea and no with you are as it were all one That fire did signifie the incorruption of Christes flesh after death is very hard and farre fetcht Sacrifices had their respect to Christes death not to any thing further or afterwards All things are farre fetcht with you that come not from the whirlepoole of your owne head It is the iudgement of S. Austen and other learned Fathers which you so lightly esteeme The same substance of the bodie shall be changed into an heauenly qualitie quod ignis in sacrificio significabat velut absorbens mortem in victoriam which fire in sacrifice signified as it were swallowing vp death in victorie Whom Bede disdaineth not to follow Ignis in sacrificio id significabat velut absorbens mortem in victoriam Fire in sacrifice did signifie victorie euen swallowing vp death Cyril is of the same minde Agreeably to the sacrifices did heauenly fire consume all things that were done by our Sauiour in the bodie and restored them all neerer to the nature of his Diuinitie for rising from the dead he ascended to heauen his passage to which place the nature of fire doth shew To farder sufferings after Christes death no sacrifice had respect because there neither were any nor needed any but to the efficacie and glorie consequent to Christes death the fire in sacrifices had respect as these Fathers affirme Against whom though you euery where oppose the worm-eaten warrant of your owne words I trust you will somewhat relent to the Apostles authoritie who telleth you that the high Priests going intâ—… the most holy place with the blood of the sacrifice once euery yeere signified Christes entring the heauens with his owne blood which I hope was after both his death and his resurrection As for an other sense out of Austen that it should signifie our perfection and burning charitie it can not be true for the holocaust-sacrifice out of question primarily signified the person of Christ not ours Also you both here do seeme to double vnderstanding by the holocaust both incorruption after death and a perfect burning loue in vs now in this life which things are farre distant and can not stand together You are so giddie that you dislike euerie thing and so hastie that you conceiue nothing right S. Austen sayth indeed that fire in the holocaust may note the feruent â—…esse of charitie and brightnesse of immortalitie which are all one with perfection and incorruption What fault finde you with this The holocaust you say signified primarily the person of Christ not ours Doth S. Austen denie that It suffâ—…ceth for the trueth of his wordes that those sacrifices did principally point out Christes sufferings grace and glorie and consequently ours For as we haue fellowship with his afflictions and are conformed vnto his death so shall we be partakers of his perfection and incorruption and be fashioned to his image 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If we suffer as he did sayth Paul that we may be glorified as he was not presuming an equalitie with him but promising a conformitie to him The Sacrifices then which as you grant primarily signified the person passion and perfection of Christ did secondly note and teach our dying to sinne our rising againe in glorie and appearing before him in perfect holinesse which in this life we endeuour but can not attaine to the full till by death we be freed from sinne The bearing of Christs Image is enough to iustifie Saint Austens speech For he neither saith that the holocaust did primarily signifie the members of Christ nor that men could haue perfection of charitie in this life but when Christ shall present vs righteous and glorious vnto his Father then shall he offer vs as holocausts vnto God And yet in the meane while what hindereth Saint Austen to exhort vs that the Diuine fire of Gods wisedome and grace may wholy inflame vs and euen consume vs Who but a moth of your mould would giue Saint Austen the lâ—…e twice in two lines for so speaking and in the third line after charge him with doubling as if Christs puritie in this life and glorie after this life could not stand together or the perfection of Gods Saints here such as
deuice to the doctrine of our saluation than what is euidently reuealed and directly witnessed in the Scriptures Whether it be of Christ sayth Austen or of any other thing what soeuer touching the faith I say not if we who are no way comparable to him that so spake but that which followeth if an Angell from heauen teach you BESIDES that which you haue receiued in the Scriptures of the Law and the Gospell holde him accursed It is a manifest fall from the faith sayth Basil either to abrogate any thing that is written or to bring in any thing that is not written For when once we beleeue the Gospel sayth Tertullian this we first beleeue that there is nothing besides which we ought to beleeue So that the meere bloud and single bodie of Christ are but sleights of yours with vnknowen phrases to draw your Reader from asking or eying your proofes for the death of Christes soule and the paines of the damned to be suffered by him before wee could be redeemed The Scriptures are maine and manifest for that which I beleeue and teach and which the whole Church of Christ before mee taught and beleeued these fifteene hundred yeeres afore your conceit of hell paines in the soule of Christ was either hatcht or heard of The sufferings of the soule and the wrath of God which things you now catch holde on to make some introduction to your secret and priuate fansies are too generall to inferre either the death of the soule or the paines of the damned except to the rest of your absurdities you will adde these that the soule neuer suffereth but it dieth the death of spirits and that Gods anger in this life hath none other effects but damnation Here you vrge a reason against vs if then our soules be not redeemed by the blood of Christ our bodies haue no benefite of Redemption from death You hunt so headily after aduantages of words by some ambiguitie in them that you neither remember what the Scriptures teach nor what your selfe defend nor when I vse a word in the same sense that the Apostle doth It is not my deuise but the Apostles doing to take REDEMPTION of the body for the incorruption of the same We sigh in our selues saith Paul wayting for the Redemption of our body And againe you are sealed by the holy spirit of God vnto the day of Redemption When that day shall be our Sauiour telleth vs in these words When the powers of heauen shall be shaken and you see the sonne of man come in a cloud with power and great glory then lift vp your heads for your Redemption draweth neere In all which places Redemption is taken for none of those mercies or graces which are bestowed on Gods children in this life but for that glorie and immortalitie which shall be reueiled on them when Christ shall come to iudge the world and namely the Redemption of the body for that incorruption wherewith our vile bodies shall bee changed and made like to his glorious body Take then the Redemption of the body for the incorruption of the same as the Apostle plainely doth and I did and see what absurditie or obscuritie there is in my reason which you so much wrangle with and wonder at as though it passed all vnderstanding The Redemption which we haue in this life by the bloud of Christ must needes bee either of body or of soule we haue no more parts to be redeemed by Christ. But the Redemption of our bodies we haue not in this world we must waite for it till this corruptible put on incorruption The Redemption therefore which we haue in this life or shal haue before the last day is the Redemption of our soules And so the words of Peter You were Redeemed with the precious bloud of Christ and of the Saints in heauen saying to the Lambe Thou hast redeemed vs to God by thy bloud pertaine expresly to the Redemption of their soules because their bodies then did and yet do lie in corruption What so strange monsters or marueiles doeth your Logicall head finde in this reason that you should make such wonderizations at it and protestations against it Is it not open and easie to all that be meanely witted or soberly minded But you haue three things to note in my words which you alleage 1. The Proposition is vaine and Illogicall hauing no consequence in it at all It is a speciall point of Art memoratiue in you to note three things and vtterly to forget two of them For in this whole Section you doe not so much as mention any second or third thing to bee noted in those words which you cite The first and al which you note is that my proposition is vaine Illogicall and vncoherent Your idle and vntheologicall head hath ouer busied it selfe with many mad multiplications and what ifs vpon this proposition and yet you come nothing neere the sense or coherence of it The Proposition hath two parts whereof the second is either an illation out of the Apostles words vpon the first being a supposition of yours if we limit it to the time of this life or if wee speake without restraint of time as you doe it is a necessarie consequent to the former being the condition and cause of the latter That our soules are not redeemed by the bloud of Christ but by his soule is a resolution of yours wherewith you giue a fresh on-set in the next Section as the Reader shall there perceiue though here in shew you somwhat relent after your inconstant maner That being a position of yours I added by the Apostles warrant that our bodies haue not their Redemption in this life but must stay for it till the day of Redemption or generall resurrection And so the reason standeth If our soules be not here redeemed by the bloud of Christ which is your Assertion our bodies by the Apostles doctrine haue no Redemption in this life But this That wee should presently haue no Redemption in body or soule by the bloud of Christ is quite m contrarie to the words of Peter who sayth Yee are redeemed by the bloud of Christ not yee shall be and of the soules in heauen that say to Christ thou hast redeemed vs by thy bloud when their bodies were rotten in the earth Since therefore either body or soule must haue Redemption in this life and the body as Paul assureth vs hath not Redemption in this life Ergo the Redemption which we haue in this life by the bloud of Christ must bee referred to our soules and our bodies must expect the generall day of Redemption in the end of the world before they shall haue it If the sober and wise Reader vnderstand not this reason or can dislike the sequence of it I am content he shall condemne it as darke and obscure but if it be open to all mens eyes saue yours then is your
with both parts as well with bodie as with soule and so Christ if your proportion were any thing needfull which I wholly reiect as needlesse in the Sonne of God by this reason of yours needed no proper sufferings of the soule without and besides the bodie Paul vnderstoode Rom. 7. vers 7. when hee became a Christian that the desiring of euill is sinne before the outward act bee consummate You alleage Saint Paul as you doe the rest for matters that he neuer meant Paul speaketh not there of the actuall desire of euill when the will hath thereto consented such as was in Adam when hee resolued to eate the forbidden fruite but of the naturall inclination and first motions to sinne which are in vs after Adams disobedience but were not in him before his fall For that precept thou shalt not lust conuinceth and condemneth our nature to be corrupt and sinfull to which originall concupiscence the roote and spring of all sinne in vs cleaueth so fast that euen in our cradles this corruption excludeth vs from the kingdome of God if we be not regenerate in Christ by water and the holy Ghost In Adam besore sinne there was no such thing his nature was vpright and sincere as it was first created and voide of all concupiscence intended by this precept as the best learned of our time teach till by his transgression sinne entred and infected both body and soule Neither doe you conceiue right of Paul as he was a Pharisee when you suppose he tooke the outward fact of sinne onely to bee sinne Neuer read he thinke you when he was a Pharisee the words of Esay Aram hath taken wicked counsell against thee but it shall not stand Nor of Salomon The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord and the euill thought of a foole is sinne Could hee not tell what to iudge of Hamans thoughts against the Iewes or of Achitophels purpose against Dauid or of Balams counsell against the Israelites The very heathen Philosophers placed vertues and vices in the minds of men and the prophane Poets would haue mens enterprises measured by the intent not by the euent The Pharisees were neuer so blinde as to thinke all counsels thoughts desires and lusts to bee lawfull against the manifest and expresse words of the law and Prophets but they blindly mistooke the law of God as forbidding externall facts onely which are hurtfull to others vpon paine of malediction and damnation They rather stood vpon the Popish opinion of veniall and mortall sinnes and did not thinke that veniall sinnes did exclude them from the righteousnesse of the Law nor from the kingdome of heauen Of that opinion was Paul when he was a Pharisee but vpon his conuersion and better instruction by the spirit of Christ hee vnderstoode that not onely euill desires and thoughts were forbidden by the seueral precepts of Gods law as deadly sinnes which the Pharisees would not admit to vphold their owne righteousnesse but that euen the secret tentation to sinne and the inward propension and corruption of our hearts are interdicted and condemned by this precept thou shalt not lust as sinne sufficient to exclude vs from the kingdome of God Your doctrine is very strange where you teach that the soule properly committeth no sin but by with the body that is the soule in it selfe by it selfe alone sinneth not You say all prouocations and pleasures of sin the soule taketh from her body all acts of sin she committeth by her body which speeches are exceeding vntrue and hurtfull To him that either fully can not or rightly will not vnderstand what is said all things seeme strange otherwise set aside your olde ordinarie phrases of proper and meere without which you can say nothing and the matter which you so much maruaileat is very plaine as well by the rules of Scripture as proofes of nature Is it so strange a doctrine with you that the whole man and not this or that part of man is by the word of God charged with the committing of euery sinne and guiltie thereof in such sort that the whole person is defiled therewith and shal be condemned therefore Depart from me Lord saith Peter to Christ for I am a sinfull man Blessed is the man saith Dauid to whom the Lord imputeth no sinne O God be mercifull vnto me a sinner saith the Publicane Tribulation and anguish vpon the soule of euery man that worketh euill saith the Apostle By which as by infinite other places of Scripture wee are taught that the whole person which is man himselfe is the sinner by which part so euer he sinneth Euery one that committeth sinne is the seruant of sinne saith our Sauiour Can the soule be in bondage for sinne and the body bee free Cursed is the man saith Moses that keepeth not all the words of the law to doe them Can the soule bee accursed for sinning and the body be blessed as not sinning The wages of sinne is death saith the Apostle Shall death preuaile against the Soule for sin and the Body escape death as voyd of sinne Surely no. Sinne defileth the whole Man by what part soeuer it is committed yea the very thoughts of the hart coinquinate the whole man When the Pharisees held opinion that meate eaten with vnwashen hands defiled the Body our Sauiour reprooueth that error in them and teacheth his Disciples that nothing without a man can defile him when it entreth into him but the things which come foorth of him are they that defile the Man For from within out of the hart of Man come foorth euill thoughts couetousnesse wantonnesse a wicked eye pride foolishness All these euils come from within and defile a Man Where we see that enuie which Christ noteth by a wicked eye and pride and such like inward sinnes yea and euill thoughts defile the Man that is as well the Body which the Pharisees tooke to be defiled with vncleane hands as the Soule The Apostle stretcheth the infection of sinne farder euen to the meates them selues that are eaten of the wicked All things saith he speaking of meates which the Iewes counted vncleane are cleane to the cleane but to the vncleane and vnbeleeuers nothing is cleane but euen their minde and conscience is vncleane So that the vncleannesse of the inward Man defileth the outward Man and all things which the outward Man vseth This is so true that not onely the guiltinesse and filthinesse of sinne is in this life communicated from the Soule to the Body but both shal be therefore condemned in the righteous iudgement of God to euerlasting fire We must all appeare before the tribunal of Christ euery man to receiue the things done by his Body Where all sorts of sinnes in thought word or deede are by the Apostle called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as others read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things done
Our Sauiour knew no more waies when he said to Peter Flesh and blood hath not reuealed it vnto thee but my Father which is in Heauen Where men that are teachers or learners are called flesh and blood because without the Body the Soule learneth nothing in this life but what is reuealed vnto it by the spirit of God Saint Iohn knew as few That saith he which we haue seene and heard declare we vnto you that you also may haue fellowship with vs. This a man would thinke were plaine enough that all knowledge must be either naturally infused in vs as it was in Angels or collected of vs by sense and experience or reuealed to vs from God For if we be borne voide of all knowledge as the Scripture expresly testifieth we know not at first our right hand from our left then must we get it by meanes And meanes to come by the knowledge of particular and externall things what can you assigne besides the sense If therefore the Heathen saw this and you see it not you prooue your selfe to haue lesse vnderstanding then the Heathen The Soule indeede by the power of vnderstanding and reason wherewith she is endued of God doth in continuance obserue discerne and compare the agreements and contrarieties of things as also their causes and consequents and what of her selfe she can not perceaue she learneth with more ease of others who are longer and better acquainted therewith and whose phantasiue spirits are thinner and quicker to pearce into the depth of things The differences then and defects of mens wits doe cleerele witnesse that not onely the instruments of sense but the Imaginatiue spirits must concurre to attaine and encrease knowledge in this life vnlesse God inspire the Hart aboue nature which he doth when and where pleaseth him These may be the meanes of thinking and yet not the causes or occasions of mis-thinking The naturall meanes of thinking must still be the meanes of well and ill thinking they varie not howsoeuer the minde varie in her resolutions What or how manie may be the causes or occasions of ill thoughts maketh nothing to this question it sufficeth for my purpose to make the bodie liable to the punishment of euery sinne that the parts powers or spirits of the Body haue any communion with the suggesting admitting or performing of ech sinne For in all sinne not onely the Doers but the leaders directors aduisers helpers consenters allowers and reioycers are in their degree partners with the principall Yea all the instruments are iustly detested where the crime is worthily condemned But whence ill thinking commeth can you tell A man may thinke and speake of all the errors and heresies in the world and yet not sinne It is the liking and embracing of them that maketh the offence and not thinking or reasoning of them The will then causeth thoughts to be good or euill the vnderstanding doth not Now the will must haue somewhat to lead it which is either the show of truth or the loue of some other thing which doth preiudice the truth There is no truth but in the word of God which we must either heare or read before we can apprehend If we stop our eares against the word of God shall not that wilfull deafenesse of ours turne to the deserued destruction of Body and Soule If we open our eares but not our harts to the voice of God doth not the loue of some earthly good or feare of some temporall harme close our harts against the truth Both which as well loue as feare come from the bodily senses and affections and make their manifest impression on the hart leading the will to consent to their law For where all ill thoughts are against veritie charitie or temperance men are ledde from the truth by commoditie glory soueraigntie or credulitie as Austen obserueth whereto if we put ease enuie and luxurie we see the causes of all ill thoughts which haue no place in the Soule apart from the Body The proper prouocations and pleasures of sinne are often times not outward at all but the mâ—…ere peruersitie and malignitie of our euill mind is vsually the very cause of ill thoughts and ill determinations You would say some what if you could tell how Doth any thing properly prouoke it selfe Doth the fire prouoke it selfe to burne or the Sunne prouoke him selfe to shine Lamenesse maketh a creeple to halt it prouoketh him not And so doth pitch defile the hands and not prouoke them to fowlenesse The next and necessarie causes of things are called efficients and not provocations So that will you nill you prouocations are externall either to the person or to the part that is the principall or speciall Agent The Apostle teacheth you how to vse the word properly when he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prouoking one an other The very composition of the word proueth as much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or prouocare is first to call or vrge a man to any thing before he him selfe be willing Then the naturall and inward corruption of the minde is no prouocation but the cause efâ—…cient of ill thoughts and if there be any prouocations they must be externall to the part or partie prouoked And did you know the principles of learning or grounds of nature you would soone perceaue that as well the will of man as his desire is led with respect of somewhat that is good or at least seemeth good which prouoketh and draweth both sense and will to performe her actions Now though the desire Antecedent and delight consequent be inward and inherent yet the good things which we affect and would attaine are then externall when we pursue them and when we vse them or enioy them they are but conioyned with vs in possession or opinion which contenteth both Body and Soule As you do not vnderstand what PROVOCATION meaneth so do you lesse perccaue what PLEASVRE is You mingle Soule and sense head and heeles together to make some shew of opposition but in the end you bewray your presumptuous ignorance and daube it ouer with your wonted words of PROPER MEERE which are as much to this purpose as salt to make sugar The PROPER prouocations and pleasures of sinne are often times you say not outward at all I vsed not the word outward but sayd the soule tooke from the bodie all PROVOCATIONS and PLEASVRES of sinne brought to effect and committed all ACTS of sinne by her bodie you neither marke the restraint which I made in the beginning of that section of all sinnes brought to effect neither see the words following in the same sentence which expresse as much the acts of sinne committed but rouing quite from the matter you â—…arle at my words without iudgement or memorie For as you fumble about prouocations so do you about pleasure which you would make to be meerely spirituall But notwithstanding your toying with termes that is properly PLEASVRE which the soule
soule that without it the soule doth not sinne If by naturall dreames you would prooue the perpetuall operation of the soule euen when the bodie is at rest for celestiall dreames come not often and but to few remember first that all ages and persons do not dreame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It hath hapned to some sayth Aristotle that they neâ—…er dreampt in all their life Plinie and Plutarch confirme the same To some sayth he dreames happen when they grow in yeeres who before that time neuer dreamed Next in those that vse it straight vpon meat whiles sleepe is sound they dreame not but vpon distribution and reuocation of the naturall heat vp to the head Thirdly in dreames except they be from God it is certaine that mens imaginations which haue corporall spirits and seats worke as well as their minde and so the operation of the soule in sleepe is no way continuall nor excludeth the bodie though the outward and common sense be bound and oppressed with sleepe And euen the first ordaining of sleepe for man by God proueth that in meditation contemplation the spirits of the braine which are aeriall yet corporall are vsed by the soule in this life For with inward and earnest intension of the minde and vnderstanding those spirits waxe hoat and drie and therefore of necessitie must be cooled and tempered with sleepe otherwise if men lacke sleepe long frensie disturbeth both reason and remembrance By the maner of curing Lethargies Apoplexies Epilepsies Frensies and such like Galen resolutely concludeth that the discourse of reason and remembrance of sensitiue imaginations haue their seat in the bodie of the braine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the first instrument of the soule to all sensible and voluntarie operations is the spirit that is in the hollownesse or celles of the braine Damascene being a Diuine sayth as much The power of imagination receiuing the resemâ—…ances of naturall things from the sense deliuereth the same to the cogitation and consultation of the minde for they both are one which taking them and iudging of them sendeth them to the memorie The instrument of the cogitatiue and consultiue part of the soule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the middle celle of the braine and the animall spirit that is there and the instrument of the part mâ—…moratiue is the hinder celle of the braine and the animall spirit that is in it Where the instrument is taken for the seat in which the soule worketh and obiect from whence the soule receiueth the representations of things on which she worketh If the soules operations hang so necessâ—…rily on the bodie the doubt is how she may be separated from the bodie The power by which the soule discerneth and iudgeth of things offered by sense or by reuelation is internall and essentiall so that when she is seuered she is fully possessed of that facultie as part of her nature The meanes by which she commeth to the knowledge of externall and particular things in this life are naturally her senses and spirits by which she worketh in the body supernaturally the power of God which now and hereafter lightneth the eyes of the soule and not onely continueth her knowledge here obtained but increaseth the same and representeth to the mind and conscience all things good or bad here obscured neglected or forgotten The separation of the soule from the bodie and her knowledge after this life depend not vpon her naturall power and strength but vpon the worde and hand of God who can diuide the spirit from the soule euen in this life and either take or giue both sense and reason from her or to her as pleaseth him From Nabuchodonoser God tooke all cogitation and operation of humane reason and sense hee doth the same to others when it liketh him Paul liuing was rapt into the third heauen whether in the bodie or out of the bodie he could not tell but either way was easie to God as also Iohn when he was in the bodie was willed to ascend vp to heauen and was there in his spirit his bodie not dying in the meane space whiles his spirit was absent To children that vtterly know nothing in this life God will giue exact and perfect knowledge of their States by reuealing vnto them either his mercies or their miseries In vs all God will lighten the secrets of darkenesse and as he is trueth so suffer no trueth to lie hid in his presence We shall not onely remember all the workes of our hands and counsels of our hearts which now we haue forgotten but we shall see each others deedes and thoughts which is no way possible for our naturall abilitie so farre as shall be needefull for the declaration of his iust iudgement For nothing is secret that shall not be open neither is there any thing hid that shall not be knowen and come to light Therefore neuer doubt whether the soule hauing left her naturall and corporall meanes of knowledge shall sleepe till the day of resurrection shee shall haue an other manner of knowledge then here shee had either to her euerlasting comfort or confusion She shall then perceiue and discerne the things which eye neuer sawe nor eare euer heard nor euer ascended into the heart of man here on earth Howbeit neither the separation nor intellection of the soule pertaine directly to this question I speake not of cogitations nor of operations of the soule except they be sinnefull and those cease after this life though the knowledge of the soule remaine and in this life when sense discretion or memorie doe wholy faile vnlesâ—…e it be by our owne fault as in gluttonie drunkennesse immoderate passions of loue or anger and such like there also the committing of actuall sinne faileth Further you commit two grieuous faults 1 Tertullian the principle ground which you haue for your opinion here is wonderfully ill vsed 2 you are strangely contrarie to your selfe in your verie winding vp of the matter It seemeth that Tertullian cited before the reason of the Heretikes holding that the soules slepâ—…â—…ill the day of iudgement and receaued no reward at all in the meane time for want of the societie of their flesh but Tertullian answereth and renounceth all the same And so those were the Heretikes words against Tertullian which you alleage out of him in steede of Catholikes It is no fault in you to reade so loosely and erre so grossely that you see neither Tertullians intent methode nor proofes but wilfully taking the words that are his owne anâ—… common to him with the rest of the ancient and Catholike Fathers as if they were the wordes of Heretikes to blurre him and the rest with the spot of heresie when they speake a trueth receiued and beleeued in the Church of Christ. It seemeth you say Tertullian cited the reasons of the Heretikes houlding the soule slept till the last iudgement It is past
sayth d 1. Tim. 5. I charge thee in the presence of God and of the Lord Iesus Christ and of the elect Angels that thou obserue these things without preiudice or partiaâ—…tie And againe we are made a e â—… Cor. 4. spectacle to the world to angels and to men And likewise s The woman ought to haue power on her head because of the Angels that is she ought to couer her head in signe of subiection to the power of the man because the Angels beholde this as all other actions of men either in the Church or in the world From this power to heare and see what is sayd and done on the face of the earth euen in the secret and darke places thereof the diuell is not excluded in that he is an Angel though fallen from heauen and cast vnto the earth yet an g Reuel 12. accuser and so a beholder of good whom he impugneth and of badde ouer whom he ruleth And what maruell that Angels who by their creation excell vs in power and might haue this incident to their condition when as men God opening their eyes can see things done in heauen and earth which naturally they can by no meanes see When Dothan was besieged by the Aramites to apprehend Elizeus and his seruant was afrayd at the sight of them the Prophet encouraging his seruant sayd h 2. Kings 5. Feare not for they that be with vs are moe then they that be with them and prayed God to open his seruants eyes which the Lord did and h 2. Kings 5. he looked and beholde the mountaine was full of â—…ierie charets and horses round about Elizeus i Mark 1. Assoone as Iohn was come out of the water where he baptized Iesus in Iordan Iohn saw the heauens cleaue asunder and the Holy Ghost descending on Christ like a Doue Steuen likewise not only had his face changed in the Councell k Acts 7. as the face of an Angell but looking stedfastly into heauen saw the glory of God and Iesus standing at the right hand of God Which though the incredulous Iewes did no wayes beleeue but stopped their eares when they heard him so say and ranne vpon him all at once and cast him out of the citie and stoned him as a blasphemous liar yet can he be no Christian Christ might see what he would that doubteth whether Steuen saw this with his bodily eyes or no the Scripture being so resolute for it how impossible soeuer it be to our eyes This power to beholde things farre distant notwithstanding all impediments interiected not onely Christ had when he would as appeareth by his words to Nathaniel l Ioh. 1. v. 48. Before Philip called thee being vnder the figge tree I saw thee for which Nathaniel acknowledged him to be the Sonne of God but he promised his that they should see greater things m Vers. 50. Because I sayd to thee I saw thee vnder the figge tree beleeuest thou Thou shalt see greater things then these n Vers. 51. Verily verily I say vnto you henceforth you shall see the heauens open and the Angels of God ascending and descending vpon the Sonne of man Since then Christ could and o Luke 10. vers 18. did see Satan like lightning fall downe from heauen I make no doubt but he could open his owne eyes to see the remote parts of the earth when it pleased him though vsually he did it not by reason he needed it not for he knew all things and euen what was in man which the Angels doe not and therefore needed not any such vse of his eyes but when he saw his time which in this case he might like lest the dâ—…uell should despise him as hauing greater power and cleerer sight then Christ did or could shew himselfe to haue For which cause also Christ would stand on the pinnacle of the Temple without the diuels helpe to let him know that he wanted not power to doe greater things then the diuell vrged him vnto but onely that hee would take his owne time and do nothing at the diuels instigation or motion nor repugnant to the will and pleasure of God A third way the diuell had if Christ would permit it to set these things before our Sauiours eyes Satan is able not onely to assume what shapes he will and to transforme himselfe into an Angell of light but also to make specters and shewes of any thing in the aire and to deceiue the eyes of men when he is suffered by God so to do which not onely experience of all ages but the Scriptures themselues confirme wherein all p 2. Thess. 2. false woonders and signes are ascribed to the operation of Satan By this meanes Simon the Sorcerer so bewitched the whole citie of Samaria that q Acts 8. they all from the least to the greatest gaue heed vnto him and sayd This man is the great power of God The Sorcerers of Pharaoh r Exod 7. turned their rods into serpents and changed the riuers into r Exod 7. bloud and brought s Exod. 8. frogs vpon the land of Egypt as Moses and Aaron did and other miracles could the diuell haue done as we see by killing of Iobs t Iob. 1. sheepe and seruants with fire from heauen and the u Iob. 2. smiting of Iobs bodie with sore boiles had not the hand of the Almightie stopped him and thereby made the Sorcerers confesse that x Exod. 8. v 19 there was the finger of God It was therefore no hard thing for Satan to frame the appearances of kingdomes and cities and shew the similitudes of them from euery part of the earth since they are but the figures and semblances of things that we see with our eyes which Angels good and badde haue in their power when they are sent of God to do his will Howbeit Satan could not delude the eyes of Christ without his knowledge and leaue though Satan did not so thinke And therefore all these wayes being possible yet I thinke the second most agreeable to the words and see no cause why we should measure Christs sight when pleased him by mans reason when as he did so many things heere on earth aboue all humane power and reason For he often y Marke 4. walked on the sea and z Iohn 20. came and stood in the midst of his disciples when the doores were shut and made the ship that receiued him in the sea of Tiberias a Iohn 6. to be by and by at the land whither they went besides many thousand miracles which he wrought with his word and hand whiles he conuersed amongst men Of which if no Christian may make any question why flie you to imaginations or visions so long as Christ had power enough with his eyes to behold whatsoeuer Satan could shew him It was Satans act you will say to shew them and not Christes Satan as an angell might see
before the world was With this most assured and infallible perswasion and resolution Christ passed to his passion to be glorified and thereby declared to be the Sonne of God Which the Theefe on the crosse confessing receaued that present day an euerlasting reward in Paradise And the Centurion and Souldiers that watched him when they saw the manner of his death and woonders consequent acknowledged saying c Matth. 27. Truely this man was the Sonne of God Against this foundation of faith and knowledge in the soule and spirit of Christ if you dreame of any doubt or feare that did arise in the heart of Christ vpon any suggestions of men or diuels you make him a liar and a sinner His faith could not shrinke without hainous infidelitie because he was assured of his personall vnion with God and of his inunction with power and the holie Ghost from God by the voice of his Father speaking thrice from heauen vnto him by the visible descent of the holie Ghost vpon him at his baptisme by the seruice and adoration of Angels by the power and commaund which he had ouerall creatures and ouer diuels themselues Wherefore the least doubt or distrust in Christs heart that his person might perish or his sacrifice be reiected or that his Father was or could be displeased with him must needs haue beene most detestable impietie And this cleerenesse of faith and knowledge standing fast and immooueable against all the powers of hell what strange temptations or incomprehensible torments could the diuell worke in the soule of Christ the Scriptures assuring vs that the d Ephes. 6. shield of faith euen in vs quencheth all the fiâ—…rie darts of the wicked and that e Iames 4. the diuell will flie from vs when he is resisted And therefore as f 1. Pet. 4. we reioice and ought so to doe in that we be partakers of Christs sufferings so Christ in all his sufferings had exceeding both comfort and ioy though the anguish of his flesh were very painfull vnto him whereto the manhood of Christ did ful mit it selfe according to the will of God g Defenc. pag 〈◊〉 li. 16. Neither say you any thing whereby you doe or can ouerthrow this assertion What can or need more be said against this and all other your false and vaine conceits then that they haue no ground in the word of God but are couered with certaine close and currant phrases which you neuer expound least you should lie open to infinite absurdities and impieties As euen in this case which is now before vs you tell vs Christ disâ—…erned the very stroke of Gods own hand receaued the sting of his wrath where these words the stroke and sting being metaphores designe no proprietie nor particularitie of Christs sufferings but any of those paines which Christ receaued in his bodie may iustly be called the stroke of Gods hand or sting of his wrath So that you secretly carie your meaning in euerie place with some ambiguous words which cannot be directly refuted because there is no speciall thing mentioned in them but generall and metaphoricall circumstances guilesully proposed h Defenc. pag. 85. li. 17. Our authorised doctrine in England agreeth with me saying he fought and wrastled as it were hand to hand with the whole armie of hell At least you dreame so but where are the words that expresse any such thing as you take vpon you to maintaine The Catechisme saith Christ encountered and wrastled with the whole power of Satan I saie no lesse but still obseruing Christs owne words that i Iohn 14. within him Satan had nothing You suppose that Christs owne heart was a souldier of Satans and fought against his faâ—…th by seruing the diuels turne the Catechisme saith no such thing Satan with all his power and pollicie force and â—…urie did what he could by the mouths and hands of the wicked to tire Christs patience and shake his confidence but he could do neither Christ persisting in most perfect patience faith and obedience to the verie breathing out of his soule To aggrauate the paines of Christes stripes and wounds Satan omitted no meane that by men he could execute To vndermine and batter Christes faith the diuell opened the mouthes of the k Luke 23. People that gazed on him of the high l Mâ—…k 15. Priests and k Luke 23. Rulers that conspired against him of the Scribes and Pharises that derided him of the l Passengers that shooke their heads at him of the m Matth 27. Souldiers that crucified him of the Theefe that hung with him to mocke reuile and blasphemâ—… him as falsly calling himselfe the Sonne of God and forsaken of God and left vnable to saue or helpe himselfe Their tentations the Scriptures doe specifie which were sufficient to trie the stedfastnesse of Christs faith and hope of others they make no mention And to these or any other if you thinke Christs heart did yeeld but by fearing or doubting whether their words were true or no you take from him all assurance of faith and place him in the midst betweene fidelitie and infidelitle hope and despaire as not resolued whether God would deceaue him and forsake him vnder the burden of our sinnes and his sufferings This perplexitie would indeed haue beene a strange temptation and horrible torment of minde but withall a manifest faile in faith and ecclipse of hope which if you take from Christ you robbe him not onely of his comfort confidence and glorie but euen of all pietie patience and obedience for that time as doubting whether God were faithfull in his promise and whether the coniunction of God and man in his person might be seuered and dissolued or no. But of these temptations feares and sorrowes I wish you to take heede least if you defile the merits or diminish the graces of his sufferings you declare your selfe to be any thing rather then a Christian and to haue no part in the kingdome of God and of Christ by dishonoring the Father and the Sonne to serue your owne fansies n Defenc pag. 85. li. 20. Where you detest my sense of the Apostle in this place and yet giue no inkling of anie other sense at all it is more then half a conclusion against you that my interpretation of it is vniustly by you reprooued Such conclusions doe well become a man of your iudgement The Defender â—…ainly presumeth all places of his vnanswered to be granted As though I must be bound to make Commentaries vpon all the Scriptures which you abuse or else you will take the trueth tardie by my default It sufficed good Sir that your application had neither coherence with the Apostles words nor deriuance from them and so was woorthely reiected as voide of all reason and sense For this that Christs soule was inwardly tempted and tormented by diuels because he triumphed ouer them most gloriously this I say to all wise men is rather a
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 standing What an agonie is in doubt or feare to missâ—… of that we vndertake we are agonized Galene the chiefe of Physicians and well skilled in the perturbations and commotions of the bodie that come from the bloud or spirits noteth of what affections an agonie is compounded ' Fâ—…are sayth he doth prâ—…sently driue the bloud and spirits inward towards their fountaine c Galenus dâ—…â—…ausis comatâ—…n li. 2. and contracteth them together by cooling the vttermost parts of the bodie and anger doth as suddenly heat them diffund and send them foorth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that which in Greeke is called an agonie is compounded of them both and hath inequall motions according to the predominant affection Aristotle a great Philosopher in the knowledge of naturall things not only sheweth that there may be an agonie without feare as when we attempt things honest and commendable though diâ—…cult d Arist Rhetoricorum li. 1. cap. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for which men striue and are agpmozed without feare but also that sweating in an agonie commeth rather from indignation and zeale than from feare e Idem Problemat sect 2. quest 26. An agonie sayth he is not the passing of the naturall heat from the higher parts of the bodie vnto the lower as in feare but it is rather an increase of heat as in anger and indignation And he that is in an agonie is not troubled with feare or colde but with expectation of the euent Wherein Theophrastus not much behinde him agreeth with him f Theophrastus de Sudoribus 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An agonie is not the remouing of the naturall heat but the increasing thereof as in anger And heat doth drie the outmost parts of the bodie I speake not this to bind Christes sweate in the Garden wholy to naturall causes but to shew that neither Diuinitie Philosophy nor Physicke doe permit that feare or sorow which coole the blood and quench the spirits should be the cause of this bloudie sweate but that rather as the Euangelist expresseth it came from strength and contention of zeale whiles Christ most feruently prayed for that which he was very desirous and in present expectation to obtaine An Angell appeared from heauen g Luc. 22. 43. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strengthning him saith the Scripture no question with a message from God For Angels otherwise were not in this case to entermeddle And then Christ h vers 44. entring into an Agonie that is into a vehement contention of mind to preuaile against that which resisted or hindred him he prayed more feruently From this feruencie of zeale and contention of minde came that bloudie sweate which the Euangelist mentioneth which whether we make to be according to Nature or aboue Nature it could not proceede from feare or sorrow as some men imagine For feare doth driue the bloud inward and coole it and so can not thinne it and expell it by the outmost parts and pores of the Body The Physitian that wrote the Booke de vtilitate Respirationis amongst Galens works saith i Li. de vtilitaâ—…e Respirationiâ—… Galen attribut â—…om 7. Contingit Poros ex multo aut feruido spiritu vsque adeo dilatari vt etiam exeat sanguis per eos â—…iatque sudor sanguineus It sometimes happeneth that abundant or feruent spirits doe so dilate the pores of the bodie that bloud passeth by them and so the sweate may be bloudie If we leane not to the course of Nature for the cause of Christs bloudie sweate then Hilaries Rule is very sound k Hilarius dâ—… Trinitate li 10. It is no Infirmitie which power did aboue the custoâ—…e of Nature No man then may dare impute Christs sweate to weakenesse because it is against Nature to sweat bloud Beda followeth him in the l Beda in Luc. cap. 22. same words Rupertus in larger m Rupertus de victoria verbi Dei li. 12. ca. 21. This is vnwonted this is aboue nature the flesh whole the skinne not cut for bloude to runne out of all the body and to fall on the earth as it were sweate Lyra receaueth the same According to the Iudgement of diuers n Lyra in Luc. ca. 22. this was supernaturally done that bloud should come foorth in steede of sweate that so Christ euen then might begin to shed his bloud for our saluation Then neither in Diuine nor humane learning is there any necessitie that the feare of your hell paines should be the cause of this sweate which Augustine Prosper and Bernard ascribe vnto Christs wil and power for a mysticall signification as I haue shewed in my * Serm. pag. 38. 39. Sermons Thus see we by the words of the holy Ghost that in the Garden Christs Soule was affected with feare and afflicted with sorrow his prayer prooueth his submission and intention of minde after comfort sent him from heauen by an Angell and his bloudie sweate if we attribute it to nature must come from zeale if we referre it to Christs power aboue Nature might haue many causes to vs vnknowne in particular though we can ghesse at the generall Of all these circumstances actions and affections there can no one direct cause be designed in speciall except in large termes we will say the worke of our Redemption was the cause of them all but neither pains nor suffrings can precisely be determined to be the proper ground of them all since after comfort from heauen he fell to most feruent prayer and therein to his bloudie sweat much lesse can you conclude that hell paines were the right and true cause thereof So that I haue more reason to reiect your maior proposition as apparently false than you haue right to pronounce it firme because you can denie mine assertion by flinging off all the Fathers as vnworthy to haue their iudgements regarded outfacing the Scriptures with phrases and figures to bring them to your bent But in the kinds of paines which Christ suffered in the Garden we doubt as much as in the causes of his agonie You must therefore declare what maner of paines you meane in your proposition before we shall fully vnderstand you p Defenc. pag. 91. li. 16. You meane it seemeth that Christ suffered paines in his soule by reason of the strength and zeale of his holy affections and that those were the proper and maine causes of that his most wofull and miraculous agonie and complaint Therefore not only extraordinarie paines inflicted vpon him by way of proper punishment as my proposition intendeth You seeke nothing but by confusion to couer and colour your absurd and false doctrines and that maketh you huddle and heape things together without all distinction or exposition Christes agonie in the Garden was before any paines inflicted on his bodie or soule other than feare or sorrow which were painfull affections rising from diuers occasions and causes as we shall afterward see His complaint
sorow necessarie in the sacrifice for sinne of his sanctitie with godly sorrow which was despised with our iniquitie the mitigating of his anger with humble and earnest praier which was prouoked with our contempts were they not three different effects euen in Christ himselfe and so might stirre vp three religious affections of feare sorrow and prayer Why then should they be confounded in Christ whose humane nature might yeeld all three to God as well in respect of pietie to God and of charitie to men as in regard of his office for the satisfaction of our sinnes for he might not approch the presence of God as a Priest with our person and cause who were sinnefull though he were innocent and holy to make intercession and sacrifice for our sinnes but he must giue God his due glorie haue compassion on our miserie and mediate for our safetie As therefore I see no cause to exclude these affections and actions from the satisfaction for sin so I see greater reason to include them in the sacrifice for sin except we make Christ a Priest onely by his SVFFERINGS leaue him neither any honor of OFFERING nor right of PRAYING for vs in the purgation of our sins which were a strange kind of Priesthood no way answerable to the Leuiticall in that wherin the apostle compareth them For in the Law the Priest was to present the sacrifice to God and to pray for the trespasser which if you thinke needlesse in the true sacrifice that should propitiate the sinnes of the world you must correct the Apostle that maketh the Law a figure of the Gospell though the person of the Priest and the price of the sacrifice farre excell all that was vnder the Law b Defenc. pag. 99. li. 20. Furthermore you knit in within this foure other seuer all causes of Christes agonie as you recken them pa. 27. First his taking of our infirmities in his flesh to cure them Secondly his breaking the knot betwixt bodily death and hell which none but hee was able to doe Thirdly Gods anger which might be executed on his bodie but was mitigated by him Fourthly the desire he had to continue the feeling and enioying of Gods presence with his bodie As there is no one thing in the Scriptures that receiueth and hath more diuers opinions of it than Christes agonie in the Garden so I proposed as many as had any coherence with trueth and left the Reader to make his choise which he liked best Howbeit I did not pag. 27. recken foure seuerall causes of Christes agonie as you mistake but of the c Serm. pag. 27. li. 23. feare which Christ had and shewed of his bodily death His agony had other parts and affections besides feare and astonishment as sorow zeale submissiue and intentiue prayer and a bloudie sweat the obiects and ends whereof might be as different as the things themselues For example Christes feare in the Garden might haue many respects and causes as well as his sorow He might feare the glory of God now sitting in iudgement to receiue recompense for the sinnes of his elect For as Christ himselfe who best knew it confirmeth it by saying d Iohn 12. Christes manhood might feare the glorie of Gods iudgement Now at hand is the iudgement of this world now shall the Prince of this world be cast on t so wee must not thinke so mightie and weightie matters as the iudgement of the world and the casting out of Satan the accuser of his brethren and the admitting the Redeemer to present himselfe here on earth for our cause to the face of God in iudgement were decreed and setled by God without some reuelation of his glorie and maiestie meet for those persons and purposes For this is a rule which may euery where be obserued in the Scriptures that when God is described as a Iudge he is sayd to sit in a Throne and all the host of heauen to stand before him to resemble the glory of his iudgement as we finde in Daniel 7. vers 9 10. Esa. 6. vers 1 2. 1. Kings 22. vers 19. Wherefore Dauid sayth e Psal. 9. v. 7. The Lord hath prepared his throne for iudgement This Michaiah and Esay the Prophets say they SAW which whether it were by sight as Steuen f Act. 7 v. 55. looked stedfastly into heauen and with his eyes saw the glory of God and Iesus standing at the right hand of God or in spirit as Ezechiel waking and g Ezech. 8. sitting in his house with the Elders of Iudah before him was by a diuine vision brought to Ierusalem to see all the abominations there committed I dare not determine Christ himselfe sayth I saw Satan fall downe from heauen like lightning Which way soeuer Gods glory in iudgement was reuealed vnto Christ and beheld of Christ in the Garden it was able for the time of his humilitie to impresse a religious feare and trembling into his humane nature since Christ came now by iudgement to haue the burden of our sinnes taken from vs and layed vpon him that he might make satisfaction for them Another thing that Christ might iustly and yet religiously feare in the Garden offering now to ransome man from the wrath of God was the POWER of Gods wrath Hâ—… might feare 〈◊〉 pâ—…wer of Goâ—…s wrath 〈◊〉 our sinne whiâ—…h hâ—… was to â—…eare which is fully infinite and so farre exceedeth the strength and reach of mans nature that our earthly infirmitie to which Christ submitted himselfe for our sakes can not comprehend the greatnesse thereof nor thinke on the power thereof without feare and trembling h Psal. 90. v. 11 Who knoweth saith Dauid to God the power of thy wrath for according to thy feare that is as thou art feared so is thine anger Contempt and carelessenesse kindle and increase the wrath of God against vs feare and submission asswage it And when I name feare I meane not a dreadfull distrust of Gods purpose towards vs which is desperation but a perswasion and confession of his power ouer vs whereby we feare to displease him and tremble before him withall submission when we haue displeased him This feare Christ teacheth his disciples when he saith I will shew you Luc. 12. whom you shall feare feare him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell yeâ—… I say feare him not meaning they should firmely beleeue God would euerlastingly condemne them but that thinking on his power preuailing here and in hell they should beware to prouoke him and with all humilitie prostrate themselues before him when they had offended him to preuent his anger Christ you will say needed not thus to feare since he was no sinner For himselfe he needed not because he was innocent and obedient in all thinges to the vttermost but since he was at this time now to beare the burthen of our sinnes in his body and to haue the chasticement of our peace laid
that you name for a contradiction to this But the Scriptures are against it That were worth the hearing if you had any in store but if your ignorance be such that you bring the parts of Christs agonie for the causes thereof and your insolence such that you will pronounce what the Scriptures shall say or meane without any farder proofe you may soone make them contrarie to themselues as you doe in the maine matter and merit of our redemption by the death and bloud of 〈◊〉 That Christ in the Garden began to be afraid and said of himselfe he was on euery side sorrowfull and after comfort receaued by an Angell from heauen fell into an agonie of intentiue prayer in which his sweate was like drops of bloud this the Scriptures report What was the direct and particular cause of this feare and sorrow or for what after the vision of an Angell from heauen Christ prayed so earnestly that his sweate was like bloud this is the Question in this place Wherein like some late risen Apostle you take vpon you to decide what best sorteth with your error and proclaime that to be expresse Scripture But where doth the Scripture expresse that Christs feare sorrow and discomfort caused his Agonie If they were parts of his agonie as well as his bloudie sweate then must there be a cause as well of these as of the other and they caused not his bloudie sweate Now the cause of neither is directly mentioned in the Scriptures The Scripture Comfort by an Angell and intentiâ—…e prayer went before Christs bloudie sweate speaketh of Christs prostration and prayer of his triple Petition that the Cup might passe from him of his Disciples heauinesse and neglect to watch with him of their danger and tentation of the weaknesse of flesh as well as of his sorrow or feare Doth it therefore expresse these to be the causes of his agonie and how doth the Gospell declare discomfort to haue caused that agonie because it saith there appeared to him an Angell from heauen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strengthning or comforting him the Angell was not able to inspire any spirituall strength into Christ that is proper to the spirit of God neither did the Angell performe the part of an honest neighbour to perswade Christ with words to be content and patient these kinds of strengthning and comforting are not tolerable in this place but by his message from God for he was Gods messenger comming from heauen he declared in all likelihoode that Christs prayers were heard in that he feared For so much the Apostle noteth of Christs prayers in the Garden which in all coherence was the comfort the Angell brought with him when he appeared to him in the Garden Now this comfort would rather asswage his sorrow and feare then increase it Yea how could any comfort brought by the Angel cause this agonie you dreame perhaps Christ would not receaue that comfort but notwithstanding the Angels comfortable message continued his former agonie or fell into a worse then before wherein he sweate bloud If your dreames be expresse Scripture then here is all the Scripture you haue euen your presuming besides the Scripture or rather against the Scripture For since the Euangelist affirmeth t Luke 22. an Angell from heauen that is from God appeared comforting him that is with a comfortable message to him in all reason his feare and sorrow did now cease and he fell vpon this comfort receaued as I thinke not repelled as you imagine to an agonie not of feare and sorrow much lesse of hell paines but of more vehement prayer then before and in that zealous and inflamed prayer in which he powred forth not onely the strength of his Soule but the very spirits of his body for desire to preuaile for man against sinne and satan his sweate was like bloud u Defenc. pag. 107. li 1. The words next before in the text are u Luk. 22. 43. 44. AN ANGEL CAME TO GIVE HIM SOME COMFORT that is lest he should be ouerwhelmed quite in his sorow discomfort but still he was in his agonic and sweat like drops of bloud trickling downe to the ground and presently sayth MY SOVLE IS FVLL OF SORROVVLS EVEN VNTO THE DEATH â— The Tempter in the wildernesse that sought by pretence of Gods power and protection to procure Christes ouerthrow had more regard not to be taken tardy with corrupting the Scriptures than you haue in this place for he cited the words as they lay without addition or interposition of his owne which you do not buttaking some parts of the text for a shew you most vntruly and most pestilently corrupt both the text and the trueth of the Gospell You cite out of S. Luke ca. 22. vers 43 44 these words in a different letter as the words in the text next before Christes bloudie sweat An Angell came to giue him some comfort c. Are these the Euangelists words Was your haste so great or your care so little that you could not or would not so much as looke in your booke for the right words of the text S. Luke sayeth x Luk. 22. v. 43 There appeared vnto him an Angell from heauen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strengthening him or comforting him no doubt with a message from God which what it was we do not know except we applie the Apostles words to this purpose where he sayth Christ y Heb 5. v. 7. in the dayes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did offer vp prayers and supplications with strong crying and teares to him that was able to saue him from death AND WAS HEARD IN THAT WHICH HE FEARED This if we take to be the comfort which the Angell brought from heauen the Apostle might well intend it For that Christes prayers were heard and so much declared to him by an Angell from heauen could not be but very comfortable to him If we list not to beleeue this was the Angels message of comfort then we must confesse that the comfort which the Angell brought is vnknowen to man as the certaine cause of Christes bloudie sweat But whatsoeuer we suppose of the Angels message there is some difference betwixt S. Lukes words and those which you cite as the words next before the text not in matter you will say I speake of the words which you may not alter when you professe to cite the text whatsoeuer the matter be You keepe the meaning of the Euangelist you thinke Such a meaning as you your selfe make of the Euangelist for you translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is strengthening him to giue him some comfort Where by the diminutiue some you would implie that it was not sufficient to remooue his feare and that intent you betray in the next line citing againe your owne words in stead of S. Lukes and apparently corrupting his text for comming to cite the 44 verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and falling into an agonie he prayd more earnestly or intentiuely in stead
houre and this cup might passe from him That which this houre and this cup doe signifie the same is the proper and principall cause of this agonie but what can be ment by this houre vnlesse the paines of his suffering set and appointed by God for him to be are at his determined time from Gods iustice for sinne What is this cup but the bitter taste of the same paines aforsaid this I hope was not his holinesse and sanctification which so troubled and molested him nor his piety nor his pity If you permit our Sauiour to be the interpreter of his owne wordes as he was the speaker then neither this hower nor this cup import any thing suffered in the garden After his agony past and praiers ended in the garden Christ said to his Disciples b Sleepe henceforth and take your rest behold THE HOWER draweth neere and the Sonne of man is giuen into the hands of sinners And so to the Iewes that came to approhend him c 〈◊〉 this is your very hower and the power of darknesse And when Peter would with force haue defended him he said d 〈◊〉 Put vp thy sword into thy sheath shall I not drinke of the cup which my Father hath giuen mee So that this â—…ower and this cup were to come when his agony was ended and were they not why may not this howre and this cup conteine in them as well his painfull affections oâ—… sorow and feare as his other sufferings Was not the Cuppe mixed that he dranke and the houre long enough to comprise all that he suffered But what maketh either of those for your hell paines Was there no Cuppe for him to drinke nor time for him to suffer except your hellish torments were interposed His sufferings then are confessed though no feare nor sorow might besiege him but such as was ioyned with obedience and patience and in the midst of his afflictions he neither neglected submission to God nor compassion to men You with the one would exclude the other and I see no words nor cause but both might be ioyned in one houre and one Cup whatsoeuer you pretend to the contrary e Defenc. pag. 110. li. 23. Nay finally he himselfe expresseth the true cause euen his excessiue paines his ouerabounding sorowes and anguish saying My soule is full of paines or full of sorowes euen vnto death Heere he nameth the cause You are a man of much intelligence that out of Christs words would conclude his sorow to be the cause of it selfe For where by Christs agonie if it be largely taken you must meane his feare and his sorow confessed in that speach My soule is heauy or sorowfull vnto death You make no more adoe but auouch that Christ here nameth sorow to be the cause of his agony that is of his sorow For if by his agony you meane his bloudy sweat from these words to that part of his action in the garden you shall neuer make any consequent The Euangelist expressely saith There appeared an Angel from heauen comforting him and then falling into an agonie he praied more earnestly and in that vehement praier his sweat was like drops of bloud He was comforted before this last praier and therein rather with the intention of spirits for zeale then with the remission of them for feare he did sweat as the Scripture noteth Now whereof receaued he comfort but of his sorow and what is comfort but a depulsion or mitigation of sorow what sense then can it haue to say that after Christs sorow was eased and comforted from heauen his sorow decreasing his agony of sorow so much encreased that he sweat bloud for very sorow how hang these contraries together which you would hale out of Christs owne words In the former part of his action in the garden wherein he praied the cup might passe from him he said his soule was heauy or sorowfull vnto death We enquire the cause of this sorow You answere that Christs owne words expresse and name sorow to be the cause therof What is this but to collude with Christs words in making his sorow to be the cause of his sorow which in a more generall and confused word you call his agonie but with vs the cause of his sorow is in question to that you neither can nor doe say any thing out of Christes words out of your owne conceit you presume that Christs f Pa. 116. li. 31. excessiue paines then felt and the intire want of feeling of Gods comfort and nothing els was the proper and principall cause of that sorow But these be your additions and expositions they be no part of Christs words nor meaning And by what authority to aduantage your error doe you not only contrâ—…le the translation vsed by all the Latin Fathers Tertullian Cyprian Hilarius â—…erom Ambrose Austen Fulgentius Bede and others but euen corrupt the words of our Sauiour rendered by the Euangelists Matthew and Marke Tristis est enima mea vsque ad mortem My soule is heauie sadde or sorowfull vnto death say all the Latine Fathers saue Tertullian who sayth g Tertullian de carne Christi Anxia est anima mea vsque ad mortem My soule is 〈◊〉 vnto death The Euangelists words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My soule is heauie or on euery side heauy and sorowfull vnto death You translate it h Pa. 116. li. 25. My soule is full of paines meaning by paines present inherent and absolute paines such as your hell-paines are where the words import no such thing for neither tristitia in Latine nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greeke either in prophane or diuine Writers note any such actuall and absolute impression of paine as you would haue but an affection troubling the minde and rising vpon opinion of euill past or instant Of sorow Saint Austen sayth right well i Auâ—…ust in Psal 42. Dolor animae tristitia dicitur molestia quae fit in corpore Dolor dici potest tristitia non potest The griefe of the soule is called heauinesse or sorow the griefe of the bodie is called paine not sorrow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greeke with prophane Writers is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Cicero translateth k Tuscul. quaest libro 4. Opinio recens mali praesentis A fresh opinion of present or instaâ—…t euill The Scriptures in like sort vse the same word opposing it to the affection of ioy and expressing by it not any actuall or absolute paine but griefe and sadnesse of minde which wee call sorow l Ioh. â—…6 v. 20. The world shall reioyce and you shall be sorrowfull 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but your SOROVV shall be turned to ioy So Paul m 2. Cor. 2. I would not come againe to you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in heauinesse for if I made you sorâ—… who is he that should make me glâ—…d but the same that was made SORY by me And this very thing I wrote vnto you lest
man compassed with sinne is able to see He saw posteriora Dei the backe parts of God for so God sayd vnto him y Exo. 33. v. 22 I will couer thee with mine hand whiles I passe by z 23. After I will take away mine hand and thou shalt see mine hinder parts but my face shalt thou not see Whereupon S. Austen sayth very aduisedly a August de Symbolo aâ—… Catethâ—…menos li 〈◊〉 ca. 3. Ipsa sunt illa posteriora Dei Christus Dei Those hinder parts of God were the Christ of God Which exposition Christ confirmeth when he sayth b Iohn 8. Your Father Abraham reioyced to see my day and he saw it and was glad Other shewes of Gods glorie some others had as Elias in the Caue the People in the Wildernesse Salomon in his Temple and Iohn Baptist in Iordan when he saw the Holy Ghost descend like a Doue and abide on Christ but none of those was the sight of Gods face which no mortall man can see and liue And that is the true and essentiall ioy of heauâ—…n to which all other degrees of perfection and happinesse are consequent c August dâ—… ciuitate Dei li. 16. â—…a 9. Videns Deum quod erit in sine praemium omnium sanctorum The sight of God sayth Austen shall in the end be the reward of all his saints Which doctrine he learned from S. Paul and S. Iohn the Apostles of Christ and they from their Master d 1. Cor. 13. Then we shall see him face to face and then shall I know sayth S. Paul euen as I am knowen When Christ shall appeare sayth S. Iohn e 1. Iohn 3. we shall be like to him for we shall see him as he is And so our Sauiour f Iohn 14. I will loue him that loueth me and shew mine owne selfe vnto him g Defenâ—… 〈◊〉 120. li. 15. Secondly it is true the Apostle sayth that here we walke by faith and liue by hope yet some rare exceptions do not ouerthrow this generall course The Scriptures are true with you saue where you list to make exceptions of your doctrine as not conteined in them nor agreeing with them No man in this life Christ Iesus only excepted had euer any such vision of God or possession and fruition of his heauenly kingdome that he did not walke by faith and liue by hope Paul was h 2. Cor. 12. taken vp into the third heauen and heard words not lawfull or not possible for man to vtter Did he then cease to walke by faith who after and alwayes prosessed of himselfe i 1 Cor. 13. Now I know in part but then I shall know as I am knowen And including himselfe with the rest k 2. Coâ—… 5. We walke by faith not by sight And â—…xactly speaking of himselfe l Galat. â—… That I now liue in the flâ—…sh I liue by the fâ—…ith of the Sonne of God m Phil. 3. that I may know him and the vertue of his resurrection and fellowship of his afflictions not as though I had alreadie attained to it but I endeuour my selfe to that which is before and follow hard towards the marke for the price of the high calling of God in Iesus Christ. If you dare defend that Paul in Paradise did see God face to face then may you say that at that time he walked not by faith but by sight but if that be a plaine errour then Paul as yet attained not the sight of Gods face nor the crowne of righteousnesse layed vp for him which should be giuen him by the iust Iudge at that day and consequently neither faith nor hope ceased in Paul notwithstanding his being in the third heauen The like I say of S. Iohn who n Reuâ—…l 4. saw a dore open in heauen and was willed to come vp thither and of all the Saints that either talked with God or had any manifest reuelation of his glory whiles here they liued The transfiguring of Christ in the mount was to him not only a ioyfull hope but a reall taste of his very heaueâ—…ly ioyes That transfiguration of Christ whether it were for himselfe or for the confirmation of his Disciples the Scriptures doe not precisely determine When a voice came from heauen to Christ in the audience of all the people Christ answered This voice came not because of me but for your sakes S. Peter who was one of those Disciples that saw him transfigured writeth thus of it o 2. Pet. 1. We followed not deceiuable fables but with our eyes we saw his Maiestie for he receiued of God the Father honour and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory This is my beloued Sonne in whom I am well pleased This voice which was greater glory than his transfiguration came in respect of them to confirme them in their faith and obedience to the Sonne of God then incarnate and yet to assure their eyes by sight as well as their â—…ares by that voice he was transfigured before them but this transfiguration did not frâ—…e Christ from feare sorrow shame violence and death which followed and therefore this was not heauen to him nor all the glory prepared for him but an outward shew thereof to establish rather his Disciples then himselfe For his soule within him had here on earth greater glorie continually then a transitorie change of his body as namely the personall vnion with God which no creature man nor Angell in earth or heauen had or hath besides him the fulnesse of Gods spirit resting on him by which he knew all the counsell and will of God and all the secrets of mens hearts power ouer all flesh and command ouer all creatures which neither Saint nor Angell in heauen hath In the glory of his body Moses and Steuen did here on earth in part communicate with him P 2. Cor. 3. Moses face did shine when he knew it not The children of Israel could not behold the face of Moses for the glorie of his countenance which so glittered that the children of Israel were afrayd to come neere him he forced to put a vaile vpon his face when they spake with him and yet Moses q Exod. 34. ver 29. wist not that the skin of his face shone bright And likewise r Acts 6. all that sate in the councell where Steuen was conuented condemned looking stedfastly on him saw his face as the face of an Angell that is bright and glorious though Steuen knew it not no more than Moses for ought that the Scripture noteth of him saue that in the end Steuen s Acts 7. looking stedfastly into heauen saw the glory of God and Iesus standing at the right hand of God But the inward and continuall glorie of Christes soule heere on earth was proper to him no man nor angell matching him therein How come you then to attribute heauen vnto Christ for the
from the body Take an example of this fire which we see and know If it be not possible without a miracle from the mighty hand of God for flesh to abide or life to dure in the paine of burning and flaming fire how lesse possible is it for the wicked on whom God sheweth no such wonders to liue and continue in the paines of the damned whiles they are heere fastened to the flesh b Chrysost. ad Theodorum lapsum epâ—…st 5. Hic quidem non simul contingit vehementia poenarum earum diuturnitas Altera enim cum altera pugnat propter conditionem corruptibilis huius corporis non ferentisea In this life saith Chrysostome the violence of paines and the continuance thereof cannot stand together The one fighteth with the other by reason of this corruptible body which cannot beare both And againe c Idem ad Populum Antioch homil 49. Name fire or sword or any thing that is more grieuous then these yet these are scant a shadow to those torments d Defenc. pag. 121. li. 16. And if hell paines in this world may be in any much rather may they be in Christ whom God purposely sent through paines and afflictions the extreamest that might be to be consecrated the Prince of our saluation If the true paines of hell might be in others here liuing yet in Christs soule they might not be since his soule had alwaies greater inward ioyes of the holy Ghost which you call heauen then any man here liuing on earth could haue except your learning serue you to put both the ioyes of heauen and the paines of hell at one and the same time in the soule of Christ. As for your proofe when you shew that the paines of hell are sacred and holy then bring them to consecrate the Prince of our saluation Till then refraine this apparent collusion to make Christ both obedient and astonished patient and ouerwhelmed in the paines of hell and learne that God tried the obedience and patience of his Sonne by the things which he suffered and so consecrated or consummated him to be the Prince of our saluation who must be conformed to his image to suffer with him not the pains of hell but the miseries and afflictions of this life with all obedience to the will and counsell of God if we will reigne with him e Defenc pag. 121. li. 14. 19. If you say yet thus it will follow that the extreamest paines of hell are not to be found in this world as the hiest ioyes of heauen are not likewise by my confession I answere I know not neither meane I to determine the measure and depth of sorowes which Christ in his Passion suffered Either you change mindes with the windes or he that wrote this wrote not that which went before In the 52 page of this booke li. 25. you prated apace that Christ suffered a sense of Gods wrath EQVALL to hell it selfe and ALL THE TORMENTS thereof And in the 15 page li. 16. you solemnly concluded whence it must follow that the paines of Christs suffering were the same in nature and ALTOGETHER AS SHARPE and as painfull as they are in hell it selfe Now you know no such thing nor meane to determine it It were good you tooke vpon you to know lesse of your hellish mysteries till you were more assured of them or better learned in them This floting vp downe like the waues of the sea shew that either diuers mens pens haue beene in your papers or that vnquiet buzzes are in your owne braines who sometimes can not nor will not and yet somtimes can and will determine and pronounce the paines of hell suffered by Christ to be EQVALL to hell and all the torments thereof and AS SHARPE as the sharpest in hell But your Reader if he be wise will see you more constant in your owne conceits before he giue any credit to them and lesse maruell that men fallen from the trueth thus reele to and fro f Defenc. pag. 121. li. 22. Only grant this plainly that Christ suffered in his soule the true effects of Gods proper iustice and wrath and we seeke no more Tell me first what you meane by the effects of Gods proper iustice and wrath and then from what Scripture you deriue it and you shall soone see what I grant Only say you no more than you haue expresse warrant of the holie Ghost to beleeue and I aske no more With the name of Gods proper wrath you haue plaied a long time and a number haue deceaued them selues For as it is most true that God would haue laid none of these things which Christ suffered on his owne sonne but displeased and angrie with our sinnes for which he was to satisfie the Iustice of God least our iniquitie should seeme a matter of dalliance and easily â—…uerpast so it is as true that God neither was nor could be wroth and offended with the person of his owne sonne in whom he was well pleased and for whose sake he was reconciled to vs but that the chastisement of our peace being imposed on him who for the innocencie and excellencie of his person was able to tolerate and mitigate the wrath of God prouoked by our sinnes he made the purgation of them by that kind of satisfaction which was conuenient both to the dignitie and safetie of his person and argued apparantly the loue of God towards him and his loue towards vs whiles he put him selfe in the gappe by his owne smart to auert and appease the iust wrath kindled against vs. Now what this chastisement was wee may neither of vs nor any man els seeke farder then the holie Ghost hath deliuered that g 1. Cor. 15. Christ died for our sinnes according to the Scriptures and h Philip 2. became obedient to the death euen the death of the crosse which is plainly described by the Euangelists and should not be questioned by any that is not more wedded to his conceits than to the word of God i Defenc. pag. 121. li. 31. Though Christ suffered all which he did suffer here in this world yeâ—… for any thing I can see there is cause why Christ should be an extraordinarie person in the case of suffering for sin in this life and that therefore as touching sorow and paine he might feele more than euer any els hath or could feele for the time He was an extraordinarie person indeed as being the true and only Sonne of God that is both God and man in one person bearing the burden of our sinnes in his bodie but appropriating or accounting the same to the dignitie of his person that by his death he might abolish him that had rule of death and restore vs to life by his humilitie and obedience which was so precious and glorious in the sight of God that he accepted it as a full sacrifice and satisfaction for all our sinnes and made him the authour of eternali saluation
to all that obey him but that he must be God aswel as man to be able to suffer the paines of hell the second death that is a new deuice of yours not conuerting the Godhead of Christ to the infinitenesse of his merits but abusing it to the infinitenesse of his paines to make place for your new-found hell from the immediate hand of God where Scripture mentioneth no such thing in the worke of our redemption but plainly and fairely teacheth vs that we are k Rom. 5. reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne who l Coloss. 1. by the bloud of his Crosse procured perfect peace in heauen and in earth and restored vs to the fauour of God through death in the bodie of his flesh in which he m Rom. 8. condemned sinne that we might be n Heb. 10. sanctified by the offering of his bodie once made on the altar of the Crosse. And this doctrine so euidently and frequently deliuered by the Holy Ghost in the sacred Scriptures is so sufficient that I see no cause nor need of your hell paines besides no warrant nor witnesse of them except we dreame that the spirit of God did not well vnderstand or could not aptly expresse your hellish mysteries which he alwaies ouerpasseth with silence when hee speaketh of the purgation of our sinnes and our redemption by the precious bloud of the Lambe vnspotted and vndefiled If therefore it be not lawfull in the highest points of faith to adde ought to the word of God nor to thinke that the spirit of Trueth faileth or defecteth in his instruction vnto trueth I do not see with what dutie to God you and others may be so bolde with the Sonne of God as to subiect his soule to the second death and to the paines of the damned when the Scriptures offer vs no such part or point of our beliefe o Defenc. pag. 121. li. 36. You seeme to grant vnto Christ all naturall sorrow and feare neither doe we seeke any more but you trust the paine of the damned is more than a naturall oppressing and afflicting of the heart with humane feare and sorow For sooth it is not It is no more than a very naturall humane feare and sorow It proceedeth immediately and principally from God himselfe who is the Nature of Natures Also mans nature is apt to receiue such sorow and feare from him Thus the very paines of the damned are meerely naturall If you make vs many such conclusions you will proue your selfe a meere Naturall For if all things be meerely naturall to man that God either bestoweth or inflicteth on man then grace and glorie are meerely naturall to man yea heauen it selfe is as naturall to man as hell and the Holy Ghost himselfe shall become meerely naturall to man for God doth giue and we p Rom. 8. receiue the spirit of adoption whereby we crie Abba Father yea the second person in Trinitie is inseparably ioyned to mans nature and as well the â—…ather as the Sonne q 1. Ioh. 4. abide and r 2. Cor. 6. dwell in all the Saints So that the coniunction communion and inhabitation of the godhead in man is meerly naturall vnto man by your doctrine and not only God but the Diuell is as naturall to man and so are those things which are most vnnaturall and most repugnant to mans nature For man doth and suffereth them by and from God or the Diuel As corruption and incorruption mortality and immortality righteousnesse vnrighteousnesse saluation and destruction eternall life and eternall death are meerly naturall to man by your learned discourse which if you persist to defend take heed least men doubt whether frensie be naturall to you or no. Natural I called not whatsoeuer is any way incident to men in this life or the next but that which is generall necessary to all men in that they are men Wherfore I make neither hell nor heauen naturall vnto men since the one God giueth by his power and grace aboue our nature for our nature is not to be as the Angels of God and in the other by iustice and wrath God worketh against our nature For that fire should euerlastingly burne and flesh euerlastingly dure therein and soules be extreamely tormented therewith are to my vnderstanding farre beyond nature except you beâ—…eaue God of his almighty power and will which the Scriptures confesse in him and call him by the name of nature which is no more but the condition and operation that he hath assigned in this world to euery creature If you would needs know whence I tooke the word naturall read either Fulgentius or Damascene and you shall soone see what they and I meane by nature s Tulgentiâ—… ad Trasimundum li. tertio Because Christ saith Fulgentius tooke vpon him to be a true man ideo cunct as naturae humanae infirmitates ver as quidem sedvoluntarias sustinuit therefore he sustained all the infirmities of mans nature truely but voluntarily and so Damascene t Damas. li. 3. ca. 20. We confesse that Christ vndertooke all naturall and sinlesse passions Naturall and sinlesse passions are those which entered into mans life by the condemnation of Adams transgression as hunger thirst wearinesse labour weeping shunning of death feare agonie and such like which are naturally in all men So that what is geneâ—…all and necessarie to all men in this life is naturall to man which I trust neither hell nor heauen is though by iustice or mercie all men after this life shall feele the one or enioy the other u Defâ—…nc pag. 122. li. 6. Supernaturall I graunt they are if we meane this that they are aboue our natures state to beare or to comprehend them If your rule be true that men naturally receiue the paines of hâ—…ll why should not mans nature as well beare them or compâ—…ehend them as receiue them except you meane the bearing of them with patience or comprehending the end of them what punishment men receiuâ—… that they beare x Gala 5. He that troubleth you shall be are his condemnation whosoeuer he be And againe y Gala 6. euery man shall beâ—…re his own burden And so elsewhere z Ephes. 3. I bow my knees vnto the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ that he will grant you that ye may be strengthened by his spirit in the inward man that ye may be able to COMPREHEND with all Saints what is the breadth length and depth and height and to know the loue of Christ which passeth the knowledge of man And if men shall feele the paines of hell why shall they not comprehend that which they feele They shall apprehend no end nor ease thereof but feeling is a comprehension of the paine though it shall be so great that they cannot endure it with any patience And yet since you striue for the paines of hell in the soule of Christ aduise you whether Christ shall
z Defenc. pag. 134. li. 33. Eternall continuance in hell paines is not of the essence or nature of hell tormâ—…nts So haue you said page 12. though page 53. as you often quote it there is no such thing but euen there also haue I shewed that this you say out of your owne braine the Scriptures affirme no such thing Secondly I answered you that the horror of the paines of the damnâ—…d did admit no ioy for in hell I hope there is no ioy Christ then by your owne doctrine hauing constant continual exceeding generall ioy was neither in the true paines nor in the true terrors of hell vnlesse in defence of your deuices you will now make your new heauen and your new hell to be all one For ioy in the holy Ghost you directly make to be the substance of heauenly bliâ—…ie Now if in Christ and all his members you put at one and the same time the true terrors of hell and the true ioy of the holy Ghost what misse you of mixing heauen and hell at one instant in Christ and all the faithfull A third replie I gaue in that very place to this obiection which you say I neither doe nor can answere and that was a Serm. pag. 135. li. 3. since it is no where witnessed in the Scriptures that Christ suffered the paines of hell why striue you to establish a meere conceit of men neither written nor spoken before our age All these are no answeres with you and only because you haue deuiced a new hell from the immediate hand of God with which you delude as your maner is all that the Scriptures speake of the paines of the damned But glory not in your deuice to inuent a new faith it is as much sinne as to renounce the true Christian faith which indeed is auncient and in substance as old as the Scriptures since they serue to testifie from the beginning Gods blessed will and promise of saluation vnto man through the death of Christ which God first named the Serpents biting the heele of the womans â—…eed b Defenc. pag. 135. li. After this you set vâ—…hemently against my last argument that Christ suffered not in some sort the death of the soule first if we should speake strictly after the manner of death in the bodie then no man is so mad or foolish as to say that any mans soule can die at all that is want life and sense as a dead bodie doth You be come now to the vpshot of all your defence and doctrin whether the Scriptures do any where teach that Christ died the death of the soule or the second death for our redmption and here shall we find nothing but an heape of words broched out of your braines and so tempered with your conceits that when you haue all said you say nothing with any substance or shew of holy Scripture You disclaime that the soule is at any time deuoide of life and sense as dead bodies are as if that were ought to your purpose but yet the death of the soule hath a resemblance and concordance with the death of the bodie as spirituall things may haue with corporall And therefore as the bodie being once dead wanteth all sense and motion which are the parts or effects of life from the soule quickning the bodie so the soule being dead to God who is her life hath no sense nor motion of Gods grace in this life nor sight nor hope of glory in the life to come but destitute of the one here on earth which is grace hath no desire nor feeling of God and in the next world depriued of all possibilitie of glory is subiected to eternall and intolerable miserie from the presence of God d Defenc. pag. 135. li. 24. Such a death as immortall soules are subiect vnto is Gods separation from them this is two fold the first death and the second death as the Scripture speaketh The first is the separation of them from Gods grace which is in this life by sinne raigning in them The soule loaden with sinne in this life is not vtterly dead so long as it retaineth any sense or motion of Gods grace So that sorow for sinne ioyned with any desire of true repentance is a plaine signe of life in the soule though sorrow for sinne without hope be plaine despaire and death of the soule And therefore the soule of man finding the danger of sinne and desiring to be deliuered from it yet liueth whiles she apprehendeth affecteth or seeketh the grace of God but if she want all sense of God by faith and motion to God by hope and desire she is wholy dead to God that is void of the life of God which is deriued from God vnto the soules of men As for the second death of the soule the Scriptures indeed speake thereof but you erre groslely in this second death the execution whereof alwayes followeth the first death as well of the bodie as of the soule though the guiltinesse and condemnation thereof by a mans owne conscience may be found heere in this life And therefore the second death by the open and euident wordes of the holy Ghost is called the d Reuel 20. lake of fire or the e 19. 21. lake burning with fire and brimstone which is not in this life And consequently your next collection that the second death is Gods leauing them in the feeling of the most sharpe and most vehement paines inflicted by Gods iustice for sinne is as false as it is defectiue not agreeing in one word with the tenor of the sacred Scriptures which you pretend to follow f Defenc. pag. 1â—…5 li. 30. This last kind of death is so called and named in many places of Scripture The second death is expresly named but in foure places of the Scripture The first g Reuel 2. v. 11 Be thou faithfull to death and I will giue thee the crowne of life He that ouercommeth the first death shall not be hurt of the second death The second h Reuel 20. v. 6 blessed and holy is he that hath part in first resurrection of the soule vnto the life of grace on such THE SECOND DEATH hath no power The third i Ibid. v. 14. Death and hell were cast into the lake of fire THIS IS THE SECOND DEATH The fourth k Reuel 21. v. 8 The fearefull vnbeleeuing the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liers shall haue their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone WHICH IS THE SECOND DEATH Saue in these places the second death is neuer expresly named in the Scriptures and in these most apparantly the second death followeth after the death of the bodie and is euerlasting And neither on Christ who is the first resurrection vnto grace and the second resurrection vnto glorie nor on any of his members hath the second death any power by the plaine words of Saint Iohn
vs though against the opinion of the Fathers that the soules of the holie Patriarks dead before Christ were not beneath but aboue Not in Limbo but with God in peace ioy and blisse euen in Paradise that is heauen Your certainties be your owne ouerhastie coniectures neither well vnderstanding your selfe nor others In the places which you quote out of my Sermons I say as Christ himselfe deliuered that the iust deceased were in Abrahams bosome which the wise man calleth the hand of God And that Abrahams bosome was vpward farre aboue hell as appeareth by the wordes of our Sauiour more I durst not determine Neither did I make Abrahams bosome to be Paradise or Heauen I had no warrant so to doe but the place whither the soule of the thiefe was caried the day of his death Christ calleth Paradise which the Apostle seemeth to make a part of the third heauen And heere were the soules of the righteous after Christes death except you thinke that Paradise was prouided only for the penitent thiefe which S. Austen counteth a great absurditie Thus much I said and still say as also that the faithfull departing this life rest from their labours and dwell with the Lord in places prepasred and appointed for them though as yet they haue not their house which is eternall in the heauens nor are clothed with life swallowing vp mortalitie But that the soules of the Patriarks were in heauen that is in the glorie of gods kingdome before the death and comming of Christ I haue no such wordes in any of the pages which you produce I vse not of things vnknowen to giue hastie iudgement I leaue it to God who hath many places of abode in his house and desire not to search into his secrets vnreuealed in this life Hence I conclude that Christes soule after his death ascended indeed and descended not downward beneath vs heere I heare your conclusion but I see no premises from which you may iustly inferre so much For though the soule of Christ might ascend after death if we respect situation of place in comparison of the earth yet because the Scriptures reckon no ascending but into the glorie of heauen otherwise the diuels that rule in the aire should ascend and the damned that come to iudgement shall ascend the Christian faith doth not say that Christ ascended before he descended And the apostle exactly obseruing the relation and application of those two wordes vnto Christ saith his descending was the first of the twaine that was performed This saith he that Christ ascended what is it but that he first descended into the lower parts of the earth Otherwise if you be disposed to play with the ascending and descending of Christes person bodie or soule before or after death you may finde vs many descents and ascents besides the two that are mentioned in our Creed The Nicene Creed saith of his person that for vs and our saluation he descended from heauen and was incarnate by the holy Ghost of the virgine Marie and of himselfe he saith I am the liuing bread which descended from heauen Then after his death his soule ascended as you say and so must descend againe before his body could be restored to life Now the apostle saith Christ descended into the lower parts of the earth and likewise must thence ascend before his resurrection And lastly after forty daies he ascended body and soule aboue all the heauens Heere are sixe descents and ascents if you list to controle the Creed but the Christian faith following the apostle noteth onely two his descending to hell or to the lower parts of the earth and his ascending aboue all heauens which were two materiall parts of our saluation after he tooke flesh and profitable for vs to know And though you stifly stand on this that Christes soule descended not downeward beneath vs heere Yet against the Creed and the apostles wordes that Christ descended to hell and to the lower parts of the earth no wise man will admit either your opinion or assertion howsoeuer you thinke you can make a florish with Dauids words who saith he was fashioned beneath in the earth of which we will speake when we come to examine the force of the apostles wordes Only except there be some speciall reason of good authoritie to the contrary which is the second point of importance heere to be considered Touching which thus I say without expresse and euident Scripture there is in the world no sound nor meet authoritie to disprooue our former reason or conclusion Your reasons raked out of the Scripture are such that no man need to regard they are miserable mistakings and palpable misapplyings of the Scriptures intending no such thing as you imagine and for the contrarie they are plaine enough and such as haue been receaued and reuerenced by all Christendom without exception till you and some others in our age started vp with figures and phrases to mince and manage the Scriptures to your pleasure They are â—…eely diuines that doe not know the names of heauon and hell of life and death of flesh and spâ—…it of Christ and of God may be diuersly taken and diuersly vsed euen by example of holy Scriptures but it is the high way to all heresie and infidelity to turne and wind euery word occurrent in the Scriptures after euery signification that may be found thereof in the old or new Testament without respect to the maine grounds of the Christian faith and to make Rabbins and Pagans to be the best interpreters of words vsed by the holy Ghost to expresse the mysteries of Christs kingdome And how come you now to be so strickt in this second question that without expresse and euident Scripture against which you cannot so much wrangle you will yeeld to nothing who were so licentious in the former that without all Scripture and against the Scripture you maintained a new kind of redemption by the death of Christs soule and his suâ—…ering the second death which if you stand to the word of God is eternall damnation of body and soule in hell fire you shew your selfe more then a Patriarke in the Church thus to coine new articles of the Creed without all warrant of the word and to cast out the old though confessed and continued since Christs time because you find some words to haue diuers senses at least with Iewish and heathen writers though not with Christians Austen himselfe auoucheth well and faithfully supposing there were no expresse nor plaine Scripture for Christes descending theâ—… sayth he it were maruellous boldnesse that any should dare say he went downe to hell But the same Austen in the same place telleth you that euidentia testimonia infernum commemorant dolores euident testimones of Scriptures mention both hell and the sorowes thereof to which Christ came And for full proofe heereof he sayth euâ—…n in the same Epistle We can not contradict
apostles speech as the wordes interposed in an other letter and with two lines inclosed but that the Printer did sometimes forget my markes and directions doe plainly witnesse And to what purpose I pray you Sir in common reason were it for me to repeat a place faire and full as I doe and within two lines after to cite the same againe with sixe wordes added which were not in the former except it were an exposition and no citation of the Apostles words Wherefore your wisedome might presently haue perceaued that the halfe circle which standeth after places did in my coppie stand after presence and that the Printer by haste or neglect brought it neerer then hee should And those very wordes places with his presence you finde twice in the same section in an ordinarie letter and cite them your selfe as an exposition and not an addition to the Apostles words But my speech you say is both inconuenient and farre from the Apostles meaning Of that you are no fitte iudge you must reade more and more indifferently then you doe before you will come neere the Apostles meaning Your exposition that Christ first descended into the lower parts of the earth and then ascended farre aboue all heauens onely to fill all his Church with the gifts of his spirit which by his ascending hee promised to doe is farre from the Apostles wordes and meaning For in these wordes to fill all the apostle compriseth as well the benefits of Christs descending as of his ascend ing And euen by his ascending we are assured of other and greater gifts then those which are powred on his church heere on earth for the support of his Saints in this life Christes comming to iudgement his raising our bodies from corruption and conforming them to be like his glorious body and bringing vs into the kingdome of his Father where perfect eternall and celestiall ioy blisse and glory shall be reuealed on vs these be waightier and excellenter gifts then the graces of this life and yet by Christes ascending into heauen we haue a manifest interest in all these So that though it be true that Christ departing from vs prouided sufficiently for vs whilcs heere we liue by the gifts and graces of his spirit yet the kingdome of Christ which cxtendeth to things places and persons celestiall terrestriall and infernall is farre larger then that part which you mention which commeth nothing neere to the fulnesse of the Apostles wordes or sense Since then by descending to the lowest and ascending to the highest the apostle noteth all the places in the world the earth not excepted from which Christ both descended and ascended after he had finished the worke of our redemption and by his presence in euerie place was acknowledged his power and dominion ouer all things in euery of these places hell it selfe being not able to make any resistance to his person or pleasure the sensc which I giuc to the apostlcs words that Christ descended ascended to fill all places with the maiestie of his presence and might of his word better declareth the greatnesse and largenesse of Christes kingdome now sitting in heauen then doth the guiding of his church in the miseries and infirmities of this life though I do not denie but that is a woorthy part of his excellent and supereminent power And for that application of the apostles wordes which perhaps you finde not in your Note bookc and so suspcct it to be the more inconuenient Athanasius a man of more iudgement then I or you or any that you follow for ought that I know first led me to it Christ performed the condemnation of siâ—…ne on the earth the abolition of the curse on the crosse the redemption of corruption in the graue and the dissolution of death in hell Omnia loca permeans going to euerie place that he might euery where worke mans saluation And againc As then Christ our Sauiour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 filled all places on all sides with his presence so he filled all with the knowledge of himselfe Man compassed on euerie side and euery where that is in heauen in hell in man in earth may behold the Diuinitie of the Sonne of God vnfolded by his Manhood Third you make much of that which doth you not a pinnes worth of good where it is asked who shall descend into the deepe that is to bring Christ againe from the dead If the deepe here did signifie Hell which yet certainely it doth not but suppose it doth how will that follow which you presume that Christ dying descended into the deepe The text saith no such thing You be a deinty diuine that thinke the Apostle here wandreth in his question eâ—…eth in his answere abruptly impertinently clapping things vncoherent together If the Apostle did not referre the former questions to Christ how then in his answere doth head this is to bring Christ down from heauen to bring Christ backe from the dead Will your wisedome then learne that the question must fit the answere the one be pinned at least to the other But Christ you say is not named in either of those questions who shal or can ascend to heauen who shal or can descend to the deepe What thcn are there not besides the answers which name Christ so â—…ie the former question to the person of Christ two manifest reasonsto restrain these questionsvnto Christ First that the coâ—…snes of faith there mentioned by the Apostle which dependeth only wholy on Christ may moue no such questions nor doubt no such things For he that doubteth whether Christ dying descended to the deepe or rising ascended to heauen vtterly frustrateth the faith that is in Christ. The perswasion then of faith which must be farre from moouing any such questions of Christ prooueth those questions to pertaine to Christ. Secondly the questions themselues exactly comprise the person of Christ and consequently though he be not there named yet is he there â—…nely intended as appeareth by the answere For these interrogatiues who can ascend to heauen or who can descend to the deepe are equiualent to these generall Negatiues none can ascend to heauen and none can descend to the deepe as is plaine by the perpetuall vse of the Scripture What hast thou which thou hast not receaued who is like to thee O Lord his generation who shall declare which of you reproueth me of sinne Who shall accuse the elect of God Who shall separate vs from the loue of Christ And a thousand like examples doe exquisitely proue these interrogatiues to be resolute and absolute Negatiues And so Iob expoundeth them Who can make cleane of vncleane not one If NONE can ascend to heauen or descend to the deepe then NOT CHRIST and so much the Apostle expresseth when he saith that Christ is excluded from descending and ascending by those questions and in that respect all that will be faithful must forbeare them
hades either for the place or state of the godly now deceased in Christ nor for the generall or common condition of both elect and reprobate since Christs resurrection but as we saw before in Iustine the martyr Chrysostome and Theodoret precisely for a place opposite to Paradise and heauen where the wicked after this life find the due wages of their sinnes which is eternall darâ—…knesse and death where the dwelling and dominion of Diuels is and whence the Saints dead and liuing from the beginning of the world to the end thereof weâ—…e and are redeemed and deliuered by Christ. Iosephus a Iew and yet a fauourâ—…r of Christian Religion as appeareth by his testimonie giuen of Christ and one that liued euen in the Apostles time as being a chiefe leader of the Iewes in the battaile against the Romans and taken by Veâ—…pasian to whom he foretold by the gift of pâ—…ophesie whiles Nero yet liued that he should be Emperour in his oration to dissuade them that would haue killed themselues and him before he should yeeld to the Romans Know you not saith he that such as goe out of this life by the law or course of nature and repâ—…y the debt which they râ—…ceaued of God when he that gaue it is willing to receaue it haue immortall glory an house and ofspring setled and their soules cleansed and fauoured of God inhabit the holiest place of heauen and whose hands waxe mad against themselues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THEIR SOVLâ—…S HADES that is darke RECEIVETH Ignatius the third bishop of Antioch after the Apostles sayth of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He descended alone to Hades Hell and threw downe the rampier that had stood from the beginning and brake vp the partition wall thereof which kept men from heauen To the state of the dead Christs soule did not descend alone the thiefs soule was with him neither had the rampier of bodily death continued vnbroken from the beginning since many before Christs suffering rose from the generall condition of the dead but hell it was to which he alone of all men that euer returned went and brake the strength and force thereof which till that time was vntouched Theophilus the sixt bishop of Antioch about 170 yeeres after Christ alleageth against Autolycus a maligner of Christian religion the verses of Sybilla to prooue that the Gentiles did sacrifice to diuels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You made sacrifices to diuels in hades Clemens Alexandrinus not long after labouring to proue that Peters words Christ preached to the spirits in prison pertained to the wicked not to the godly giueth this reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who being well aduised will thinke the soules of the iust and of sinners to be in one condâ—…mnation Whence he concludeth that none heard Christs voice there but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as were placed in hades and had yeelded themselues wâ—…ttingly to destruction And for proofe thereof alleageth these words as out of the Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hades sayd to destruction We saw not his shape but we heard his voice I cite not these places to approoue euery allegation or opinion that is occurrent but to shew in what sense the auncient Greeke writers that were Christians vsed the worde Hades not for the common condition and state of soules iust and vniust which Clemens heere disaâ—…oweth but for the place where the wicked were detained that wilfully wrought their owne destruction Eusebius speaking in the person of Christ saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I see my descent to Hades approch and the rebellion against me of the contrarie powers that are enemies to God He saith Eusebius went thither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the saluation of the soules that were in Hades and descended to breake the brasen gates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to dismis those that before were prisoners of hades And out of Plato he alleageth this for a trueth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the soules of the wicked immediately after death departing hence endure the punishment in Hades of their doings heere Athanasius a man of no meane iudgement in whose confession or Creede allowed in the Booke of Common Prayer we finde it a part of the Christian faith that Christ descended to Hades declareth in infinite places what he meaneth by the word Hades After man had sinned saith he and was fallen by his fall death preuailed from Adam vntill Christ the earth was accursed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hades was opened Paradise was closed Heauen was offended but after all things were deliuâ—…red to Christ the whole was reformed and persited the earth in steede of a curse was blessed paradise was opened 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hades shranke for feare the gates of heauen were left open He suffering for vs recouered vs and hungring refreshed vs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And descending to hades brought vs backe For if the Lord had not beene made man we had neuer risen from the dead as redeemed from our sinnes but had remained vnder the earth as dead neither had we euer beene lifted vp to heauen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but had lien in hades Againe he that examined mans disobedience and gaue iudgement inflicted a double punishment saying to that which was earthly Earth thou art and to earth shalt thou returne and to the soule Thou shalt die the death and so man was distracted into two parts and condemned to abide after death in two places If you can shew an other place whither man was condemned well may you say man was deuided into three parts and that being recouered out of two places he remaineth bound and chained in the third 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but if you can shew none other place besidâ—…s the graue and hades hell out of which man was perfectly freed by Christ how say you then that God is not yet reconciled to man This appeareth not onely in vs but in the death of Christ the body comming to the graue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the soule descending to Hades being places that are seuered with a great distance the graue receauing his body for there it was present and hades his spirit or soule els how did Christ present the shape of his owne soule to the soules detained in bandes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that hee might breake in sunder the bandes of the soules detained in hades So likewise speaking of Christes persuing the diuell by his life and death hee else where saith The diuell was fallen from heauen hee was cast from the earth hee was persued in the aire euery where conquered and euery where straightned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he determined to keepe Hades hell for this place was yet left him But the Lord a true Sauiour would not leane his worke vnfinished 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor leaue those that were in hades as yeelded
after Like sheepe in Sheol shall they be put is the occasion but no iustification of your error since the verbe they shall be laid or put hath no sense at all except you repeate Sheol with the preposition after it and say they shal be laid in Sheol like sheepe So that vnlesse you will bee more then like a sheepe you must leaue this kind of collecting Your quoting of the Prophet Abacuk and of the Prouerbes to shew that all things are in Hades because neither Hades nor death can bee satisfied is much like your sheepe in Sheol Doe proud men couet chaulke and chibols because in the same verse it is said they can be no more satisfied then death and Sheol I winne not but rather as death and Sheol cannot be satisfied with bodies and soules of men which are things by them desired and receiued no more can the proud oppressour be satisfied with the spoiles of many countries but seeketh to gather vnto him all nations and to heape vnto him all people euen as death and Sheol doe The place of the Prouerbes which you bring ioyneth with Sheol a barren wombe and the earth which cannot bee satisfied with water And thence you can no more conclude that all kind of creatures are in Sheol then that they are in a womans wombe which is barren And but that I see men loose their wits aswell as their senses in Hades I should much maruaile what were become of yours all this while that speake not onely so impertinently and vntowardly but so absurdly and ridiculously that men will stoppe their eares for very shame if you will not stoppe your mouth Yet we must comeneerer You alleage two friuilous proofes of sheols signifying hell viz. when it hath opposition to beauen and situation as the lowest For the situation of hell it is a secret which Gods word hath not reuealed at all Neither ought we to determine as you very rashly doe if hell be any where there can be no doubt but it must be in the lower parts of the earth You that haue ranged so farre both from the trueth and from the matter in question had need at length come somewhat neerer The proofes produced by me that Sheol when it is opposed to heauen or described to be in the lowest parts of the earth importeth hell are not so friuolous as your follie maketh them they are grounded on better and surer rules of holy Scriptures then are your toyes of birds and beastes in Hades And first touching the place of hell below in the earth which you labour to crosse as much as you can though I before haue shewed the constant opinion of old and new writers yet can I be content to reason it farder with you because you and your friends are deuising new hels and heauens euen as you are hammering of a new Hades That hell is a place of torment the Gospel is euident Being a place it must be either in heauen aboue vs or in earth beneath vs except you will coyne vs a new Creede and say God is creator of heauen earth and of hell also which is neither in heauen nor in earth But you may not controle the Creede except you will also correct the Scriptures For that diuision of the created world into heauen and earth is witnessed in infinite places of holy Scripture to be most sufficient Hell then since it is somewhere must be within the earth vnder vs except you will make it a part of heauen ouer vs and then must men ascend to hell as they doe to heauen and no longer descend But the Scriptures are plaine that hell is beneath vs if they make mention at all of any hell which perhaps you will call in question as well as you doe the rest Those whom the Apostle calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which stoupe to the power of Christs kingdome and confesse him to be their Lord who are they but reprobate and condemned men and Angels and where is the place of the punishment but vnder the earth since dead bodies can neither yeeld subiection nor make confession vnto Christ you selfe graunt Abyssus in the Scripture doth signifie a vast and deepe gulfe in the earth and Abyssus is a place whither the Diuels feare to be sent where they are chained and bound when pleaseth God Now euidently by the Scriptures from this Abyssus to the earth is an ascent no descent And therefore the dungeon for diuels which is hell is vnder vs that are in earth not aboue vs. The very name of Gehenna vsed by our Sauior for hell confessed by you to be the most proper name of hell doth it not conuince hell to be Gehennam ignis a vale of fire and where are there vales but in earth hell is called Ge-hinnon saith Peter Martyr because a vale being a low and deepe place doth resemble hell quod infra terram esse creditur which is beleeued to be vnder the earth The pit lake also which are words vsed bythe holy Ghost to expresse hell as the pit of perdition and lake burning with fire and brimstone doe confirme the same since there are no pits nor lakes but in the earth By Moses God saith A fire is kindled in my wrath and shall burne to the lower Sheol and inflame the foundations of the Mountaines A man would thinke these wordes were plaine enough to prooue the lower Sheol to bee vnder the foundations of the hils and that there burneth the fire of Gods wrath with which the wicked are punished after this life Of the lower earth I haue spoken before and prooued it to be equiualent with hell in the iudgement of the best Hebraicians and Diuines of our times And if the lower earth be hell then is hell without question in the lower parts of the earth Bullingere saith As touching the place of punishment where the soules and bodies of the wicked are tormented the Scripture simply pronounceth saying the wicked descend to hell vnde constat inferos esse infra nos in terris constitutos whereby it is certaine that hell is beneath vs that abide heere on earth We must throughly maintaine against scoffing Epicures saith Gualtere that there is a certaine place prepared for the wicked into which their soules straight after death and their bodies after the resurrection are receiued Of which place Moses speaketh when he writeth that Core Dathan and Abiram were swallowed vp with the gaping of the earth and descended aliue with all theirs to hell But hauing treated thereof in sundrie places before I will end with a verse of Sibyllaes prophesie alleaged and allowed for a Christian trueth by Lactantius Austin and Prosper where speaking of the last iudgement and the signes and consequents of that day she saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The earth gaping or cleauing in sunder shall then shew or lay open
as you doe tending all to expresse one thing but seeke a little to shew vs what matter is contained in them you should soone see what labour you haue lost in this Carrecke of words which you haue newly brought vs home Your meere and simple death which you say is nothing els but the going asunder of the soule from the body hath of necessitie thus much in it It is the separation of the soule from the body which is the cause of life in the body It is the dissolution of the person which consisteth of body and soule It is the priuation of life which endeth with the departing of the soule It is the continuing of death since possibly there is no regresse from the priuation to the habite without the mightie hand of God working aboue nature For the soule departing neuer returneth till God commaund by whose word heauen and earth were made What now after death becommeth of both parts of man is no hard matter to conceaue Salomon saith Dust meaning flesh first made of dust returneth to earth as it was and the spirit to God that gaue it by him to be disposed and adiudged to ioy or paine as pleaseth him The body then goeth to corruption the soule receaueth iudgement where it shall remaine in hell or heauen till the bodie be restored againe which shall be at the last day Descending to hades after death cannot be verified of the whole person of man but in respect of the parts Referred to the body it is as much as buried and laide in the place where it shall putrifie and returne to dust Applied to the soule it must signifie the place to which the soule is caried which I say must be vnder earth since heauen is neuer called by that name nor expressed by that word either in the Scriptures or in any other sacred or prophane writers The power and dominion of death which you so much speake of is nothing else but Gods ordinance that from death there is no returne to life till hee appoint If then there be no dominion nor kingdome of death preuailing or ruling in heauen where the soules of the Saints are without their bodies then Christ in ascending to heauen descended not to Hades Againe with what trueth can you auouch Christes soule came vnder the full power and dominion of death since death had no power ouer the bodie or soule of Christ longer or farder then he himselfe would permit and his soule free from all bands and paines of death destroied the dominion and kingdome of death to which it was alwaies superiour and neuer subiect but onely that he might shew himselfe with greater power to be conquerer of death rather in rising from the dead then in declining the force of death as if he were not able after death and in death to dissolue the dominion and power of death Wherefore your exaggerating the power and dominion of death OVER THE SOVLE of Christ and that IN HEAVEN whither you graunt Christes soule went after death is not onely a vaine and idle flourish but a poisoned and pestilent doctrine if you take not heed to it since no power of death but Christes will to shew himselfe Lord of life and death either seuered his soule from his bodie or bestowed his soule in any place after death or detained him in the condition of death but he was free to die when he would and rise from death when he would which euerteth all power and dominion of death ouer him how much soeuer in wastefull wordes you auouch the contrarie Touching the proprietie of wordes that you say is as true as the rest For Hades hath no such natiue and proper sense as you talke of but exactly and directly when it is referred to a place and not to a person signifieth a place of darknesse where nothing can be seene as with one consent Heathen and Christian writers acknowledge And the word descending after death which you must applie to the soule ascending to heauen you childishly change into the fall of the person from lise to death or inconstantly varie you know not how to Christes submission when he died or his abasement by lying held and subdued so long time in death Where againe you incurre the same sands that you did before in affirming Christ was held and subdued of death for the time which is plainly false doctrine since he would abide that time in death least any should thinke him not truely dead but was neuer vnder the power and dominion of death And as for lying held in death that phrase is strangely referred to the soule of Christ which ascended to the third heauen with more honour and ioy then it receaued in this life heere on earth What Ruffine saith is not much to be regarded if we beleeue S. Ierom neither was Ruffines faith sound nor his authoritie any thing in the Church and yet were he woorth the respecting he maketh more against you then for you For first these wordes are not vsed as an exposition of Christs descent to Hades but Ruffine saith Diuina natura in mortem per carnem descendit non vt lege mortalium detinerâ—…tur a Morte sed vt per se resurrecturus ianuas mortis aperiret The diuine nature of Christ descended to death by his flesh not to be held of death after the law of mortall men but that rising of himselfe hee might open the gates of death Where he saith the diuine nature descended to death he speaketh not of the soule but of the godhead of Christ which words by your leaue require a sober interpretation and yet in respect of the diuine glory the phrase of descending vnto death signifieth Christes submission to die not his descent after death And withall he refelleth two of your fansies first that Christ was was not held of death which you say he was Secondly that he followed not heerein the lâ—…w of mans nature which you say he did And that Christes soule descended to hell by Ruffines opinion his wordes are plaine enough in many places He applieth that to Christ which Dauid saith Thou hast brought my soule out of hell and alleaging the place of Peter In his spirit Christ preached to them which were in prison heerein saith â—…e it is declared quid operâ—…â—…gerit in Inferno What Christ did in hell So that the lesse hold you take of Ruffine the better for you and your cause he will doe more harme then good If any thinke this to be somewhat figuratiue yet is it verely so familiar and easie to all people as that other word in the Creede is he sitteth at the right hand of God yea it is farre easier When you can diue deepe into your owne fansies you thinke them as familiar to all others as to your selfe If this were so easie and readie with the simpler sort as you make it me thinkes it should not so much trouble
Ephesus which the Councels of Chalcedon and Constantinople doe fully approoue Now what Cyrill meant by spoiling hades appeareth in these words Our Lord Iesus saith Cyrill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hauing spoyled death and loosed the number of soules that were detained in the dâ—…nnes there rose the third day We must not say that the Deitie of the onely begotten returned from the denns vnder the earth but his soule descended to hades and vsing his diuine power and authoritie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shewed it selfe to the soules there and said to them in bands come forth and to them in darkenesse receiue light This Cyrill tooke from Athanasius whom he much followed and often cited Those wretches the diuels did not know that the death of Christ should giue vs immortalitie and his descent to Hades should procure our ascent to heauen For the Lord rose the third day from the dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hauing spoiled Hades hel troden the enemie vnder foote dissolued death broken the chaines of sin with which we were tyed and freed vs that were bound saying arise let vs goe hence Being therefore freed from the bondage of the diuell let vs acknowledge our redeemer and glorifie the Father c. So elswhere What neede had Christ that was God of the crosse of the graue of hell to which things we were subiect but that in them he sought vs quickning vs in this manner agreeable to vs For if the Lord had not bene made man wee had neuer risen from the dead as redeemed from our sinnes but had remained dead vnder the earth neither had we beene exalted to heauen but had laine still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in hell For vs therefore and for our sakes it is sayd God exalted him and gaue him the dominion of heauen earth and hell By which places as by infinite others in Athanasius it is euident that Christ conquered and spoiled hell and Satan for vs and deliuered vs thence aswell as those that were formerly deceased to whom as to vs hell had a chalenge till the Sauiour of the world freed both them and vs thence And this is the true meaning of those prouinciall and generall Councels which say Christ rose the third day hauing first spoiled hell The same I affirme of that Allegory in Luke which sheweth Christs ouercomming binding and spoiling of Satan indeed but not by his locall being in hell Christ expressely applieth it to his dispossessing of Diuels out of mens bodies I did not alleage this parable to prooue Christs going to hell in soule after death but to shew what parts Christs conquest ouer hell and Satan must haue to wit that he must subdue bind and spoile Satan before his conquest ouer Satan could be perfect Other places of Scripture applied these parts to Christs rising from the dead and spoiling the kingdome of Satan for this parable it did suffice that these things heere mentioned must be fully performed by Christ before he did fully conquere Satan Now that these things were throughly performed by Christ whiles he liued on earth is repugnant to the Scriptures For so Christ should neuer haue died since death was a part of Satans power which Christ was to spoile It is therefore certaine that Christs ouermastering of Satan began here on earth when he cast him out from such as were possessed but Christs conquest ouer Satan had not his sull and complete higth no not in his owne person till he rose from the dead and ascended to heauen leading captiuity captiue That therefore it began before Christs death I doe not denie but that it was not finished till his resurrection and ascension the Scriptures auouch Christ saith Origen hauing bound the strong man and by his crosse conquered him went euen to his house to the house of death and into hell and thence tooke his goods that is the soules which he possessed And this was that which he spake by a Parable in the Gospell saying Who can enter a strong mans house and spoile his goods except he first bind the strong man So Ierom. The strong man was bound and tied in hell and troden vnder the Lords foote and the Tyrants howsen being spoiled captiuity was led captiue And Zanchius The Apostle to the Ephesians the 4. where he speaketh of Christs triumph and saith he led captiuity captiue that is he led the Diuel captiue and triumphed ouer him doth not there say this triumph was made on the crosse but then performed that is perfected when Christ ascended to heauen Christ then obteined it on the Crosse but performed it afterwards Of euill spirits subdued and spoiled the Sonne of God triumphed Whither pertaineth that parable of Christs when a strong man keepeth his house his goods are in peace but when a stronger then he commeth vpon him he taketh his spoiles from him Remember I pray how God shewed his displeasure against your wresting of his word by that strange terrour that happened euen then when you were descended intâ—… he depth of this vncouth doctrine at Paules Crosse. Indeed it may be that you and such others were in a strange terror at that time otherwise there was no cause nor harme but the breakeing of an old rotten forme which men desirous to heare had ouer loaden and so where they stood halfe a yard aboue ground before they were then faine to stand on their feet But Sir by what authoâ—…ity doe you take vpon you to interprete Gods will by the cracking of an old stoole Are you of late become a Southsaier that you professe to declare Gods meaning by the breaking of an old borde in sunder What say you then to those Coronations of Princes and other assemblies where many haue been slaine What say you to S. Pauls Sermon where Eutychus falling downe from a third lâ—…ft was taken vp dead Will you say his doctrine was vncouth because the hearers were a while troubled with that accident had there any thing indeed fallen out as God be thanked there did nothing you would haue plaied the false Prophet apace to presume of Gods purpose when by your owne foolish feare vpon the cracking of an old forme you proudely and prophanely take vpon you to pronounce of Gods pleasure Where you charge me in the end arrogantly and absurdly to falsisie the Synod of this Realme it is but what your selfe doth in effect I said our Synod corrected King Edwards Synod You acknowledge and professe that in the later words of that former Synod now left out are three things that cannot be iustified by the Scriptures If a man would hire you you cannot leaue this outfacing and falsifying no not when you goe about to cleare your selfe of it which whether it be absurd or arrogant I leaue to the Reader Our Synod you said corrected King Edwards Synod Said you no more did you not lustily conclude Therefore our Synod