Nullum Schisma non sibi aliquam confingit haeresin ut rectè ab Ecclesia recessisse videatur as St. Ierom notes it we have no reason to exclude him absolutely from the Church of Christ For so long as he falleth not into dangerous error but holds by the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles which the Church is built on He is and may be still a member of the Church of God though not of this or that particular Church or Congregation from which he hath disjoyned himself by his wilful folly nor yet so absolutely and fully of the Church of God as they who do communicate entirely in all things necessary As long as the Schismatick retaineth the profession of the Christian Faith in all the Fundamental Points and Articles of it gives ear unto the Word and receives the Sacraments according to the institution of our Lord and Saviour and performs other acts of Religious Worship though in a separate Church or Congregation of his own assembling I dare not shut him out from the hopes of Heaven or rashly say He is no subject of the Kingdom of Grace He may be still a member of the Militant Church and one day have his part in the Church Triumphant notwithstanding his offence in separating from his Fellow-Christians in case he do it not out of pride and against the clear light of his own Conscience But the Church from which he makes his separation may lawfully proceed against him as a great offender for breaking the bond of peace and unity which ought so carefully to be preserved in a Church well constituted With Hereticks the case is worse though not quite desperate for they not onely violate the Churches peace but wilfully defend some pernicious Error which tends to the destruction of the Faith it self So Haeresis aliquod dogma perversum habe◠saith the same St. Ierom. But here we must distinguish first of Heresies before we venture to resolve of the point in Question it being so That neither every erroneous opinion may be called an Heresie nor every Heresie of it self is so great and capital as to exclude the man that holds it from the Church of Christ. Many in all ages have been branded and condemned for Hereticks because they were not wholly of the same opinions with those of greatest reputation in their several Churches though oftentimes in matters of inferior nature in which diversity of opinions might have been admitted whom it were both uncharitable and unchristian too to bar from all their right and interess in the Christian Church Nay granting that the Heresie be in Fundamentals not taken up upon mistake but wilfully and maliciously invented for some private ends yet in regard they still retain amongst them the profession of other Divine verities which they hold and believe in common with the rest of the faithful for should they erre in all points of the Christian Faith they were no longer to be called Hereticks but Apostate Infidels they pertain still unto the Church and were so counted and esteemed of in the strictest times An Argument whereof may be that when an Heretick recanted of his sin and heresie and sought to be again admitted to the Churches Ordinances he was not entred as at first by the door of Baptism nor any of his acts made void if a Priest or Minister which he had done by vertue of his holy orders And so far were the Antients from this new opinion of making Hereticks no members of the Church at all That the Rebaptization of an Heretick or of such as had been formerly baptized by Hereticks was counted an error in St. Cyprian and afterwards condemned for Heresie in those that wilfully maintained it upon his Authority The stories of those times make this plain enough especially St. Augustine's works against the Donatists where this point is very fully handled and with his resolution in it I conclude this controversie Isti in quibusdam rebus nobiscum sunt in quibusdam à nobis exierunt c In some things saith the Father they are with us still in others they are departed from us In those things wherein they agree with us they are a part of that great building whereof the chief Corner-stone is Christ our Saviour In those wherein they disagree they are parted from it And if they draw any more unto them even they are fastned in those joynts to the rest of that Body c. In qua nec illi separati sunt in which their Teachers are not separated from that Sacred Body But yet although the Romanists are extreamly out in excluding all whom they call Schismaticks or condemn for Hereticks from having any place in the Church of Christ to make the more Elbow-room for themselves The Donatist and his followers are more out than they in making none but the Elect to be members of it and so monopolizing the whole Kingdom of Heaven to their faction onely In which it is most strange to see with what precipitancy and inadvertency many in the Reformed Churches of great name and credit not looking into the design and ill consequents of it have labored to promote this Tenet as most true and Orthodox especially after Iohn Wicliff and Hus his follower had set the same on foot again in these latter ages That Wicliff was of this opinion is evidently to be seen in Thomas Waldensis who doth not onely so report him but doth his best endeavor to confute him in it And that Hus also taught the same is no less evident by the proceedings had against him in the Council of Constance in which amongst others of his doctrines they condemned this one viz. Unicam esse sanctam universalem ecclesiam eamque Praedestinatorum Vniversitatem that is to say That there is one onely holy Universal Church which is the general body of Gods Elect. Thus they nor did there want some reason which might move them to it For noting many Errors and Corruptions in the Church of Rome which made them think it very unsafe to communicate any longer with it and being withal unwilling to be so esteemed of as men out of the Church They fell upon this new way to bear off that blow by making the true Church of God to be always invisible because consisting onely of Elect and praedestinate persons which were known onely unto God But on what grounds soever it was first excogitated the fame and piety of the men have so indeered it to the Doctors of the Calvinian Churches and others which profess most enmity to the Church of Rome that generally they make no other definition of the Catholick Church than that it is the Body Collective of Gods Elect. Ecclesia est coetus hominum ab aeterno electus à Deo ad vitam eternam as Vrsine in his Comment on the Palatine Catechism Ecclesia est coetus hominum sanctorum qui ex gratuita Dei electione vocati sunt in unionem cum Christo 〈◊〉
In which estate he cast his eyes opon the Gentiles who either knew him not at all or knew no more of him then they could discern through the false lights as it were of depraved nature or the dull spectacles of Philosophie Thus witnesseth St. Paul in the 4. to the Galatians saying that when the fulness of time was come God sent his Son made of a woman made under the law to redeem those which were under the law that they might receive the Adoption of sons vers 5. And in the 8. unto the Romans We have saith he received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry unto him Abba Father the Spirit of God bearing witness with our spirit that we are the heirs of God and coheirs with CHRIST vers 15. Other particulars there are wherein the Adoption of us sinners to the Kingdome of Heaven holds good proportion with Adoptions made upon the earth some of which I shall briefly touch at to make the mysterie of our Adoption the more clear and signal First then Adoption by the Civil or Imperial Laws which is jus Gentium or the Law of Nations as they use to call it however privately agreed upon between the parties was never counted valid of good authority till it was verified by the Magistrates before all the people in the Town-Hall or Common Forum and under such a form of words which either law or custome had prescribed unto them Which form of words too long to be repeated here are extant still in Gellius and Barnabas Brissonius a late French Writer So our adoption unto life is ratified and confirmed unto us by the publick Minister openly in the Church in the Congregation if it may conveniently and under such a Form of words which we may not alter We have not only custom for it but a strict command that we baptize all those which are presented to the Church as the children of God In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost We finde it also in the practise though the law required it not that they who were adopted into any family used presently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to take unto themselves the name of that house o◠family into the which they were assumed Examples of this truth are infinite almost and obvious in the Roman stories So we being adopted into the kingdom and inheritance of our Saviour CHRIST have took unto our selves Christs name or the name of Christians And the Disciples were first called Christians at Antiochia Act. 11. Suppose we now that our adoption is confirmed ratified by the Magistrate and good in law are we hereby exempted from the power of our Natural Parents Not so the Law is otherwise and resolves it clearly Quod jura Patris naturalis minime solvuntur that the authority of our Natural Parents is the same as formerly Too many of us think not so but being once possessed with a conceit of our adoption to the kingdome of God we cast off all obedience and regard of man Neither our Natural nor our Civil Parents are to be obeyed if once the Son of God hath but made us free Thus did the Anabaptists preach in some parts of Germanie and we have had too many followers of their Doctrines here And last of all it is a Rule or Maxime in the Laws Imperial that children once adopted are to be used and disposed of in all respects ac si justis nuptiis quaesiti as if they were our own by the law of Nature And it doth follow thereupon Haeredes vel instituendi vel exhaeredandi that as we think it fit and as they deserve we may assign them portions out of our estates or exclude them utterly Whether it be thus also in adoptions unto life eternal whether it may not be revoked at the pleasure of GOD if we behave our selves unworthily need not be made a question amongst rational men Or if it be I have no list nor leisure to dispute it here Only I cannot choose but note it as an error in Monsieur de Moulin to ground the irreversible Decree of our Adoption to the Kingdom of Heaven on the like irreversibleness of adoptions here upon the Earth Ex eo quod absoluta sit inter homines adoptio as his own words are But Absque hoc The law we see is otherwise and resolves the contrary And for the error of du Moulin being it is ignorantia juris an error in point of law and not of fact whether and if at all it may be excused I leave to be resolved upon grave advice by some such learned Casuist as his friend Amesius GOD is a Father then by all ways and means by which a name of Father may be gained by any And if a Father as he is no doubt but we shall finde in him the same affections which are in Parents towards their children the same but not with all or any of those imperfections which we observe to be too often intermingled in humane affections Do Parents naturally love their children We finde the love of GOD to his not only to be equal unto that of an earthly father but to surpass the love of women Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the fruit of her womb yes saith the Lord they may forget but I will not forget my people Do Parents out of the affection which they bear their children provide them of all necessaries for this present life Do any of them if their children ask for bread give them a stone or if they ask for a fish present him a Serpent Our Saviour thereupon inferreth that if they being evil know how to give good gifts unto their children how much more should our Father which is in Heaven give good things unto them that ask him Assuredly the love of GOD to all his children especially to those which walk after his commandements is infinitely greater then the love of our natural parents to those which are the children after the flesh Out of this love of GOD it is that he giveth us both the former and the latter rain that he makes his Sun to shine on the good and bad that their Oxen are alike strong to labour that their sheep bring forth thousands yea and ten thousands in their streets and finally that their fields do laugh and their medows sing with fruitful plenty Are parents naturally compassionate towards their children when they fall into misery and distress and pity them at least if they cannot help them Behold saith God like as a Father pitieth his own children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him for he knoweth whereof we are made he remembreth that we are but dust Are parents patient and long-suffering towards their children when they do amiss Alas what is this patience of theirs compared to that of GOD towards sinful man The Lord is full of compassion and mercy long-suffering and
Civil State Not if the State were popular for there were then no popular States when that rule was made the Government of the Church should be also popular but that within such principal Cities as were assigned for the residence of the Civil Magistrate the Prelates of the Church should be also planted This I am sure no learned Romanist can deny And granting this I would have any of them shew when any Monarch having divers Kingdomes under his command did ever yet appoint one General Viceroy to command them all Certain I am that the Assyrian Monarchs had in their several Provinces several Governours as is apparent out of the Book of Daniel So had the Parsians too in the Book of Hester and so the Romans too in St. Lukes Gospel Not to say any thing of the Monarchs of the present times all using the same Arts of Empire And then what reason can there be considering that the Church is bound to follow the external Government of the Civil State that one Lieutenant General should be thought so necessary to govern all Churches in the World seeing one General Vice-roy was not thought sufficient to govern but a few particular Kingdomes Or were it fit and necessary that it should be so yet those of Rome can shew no more Commission from our Lord and Saviour for the appropriating of this Office to St. Peters Chair then a bare Tradition For Bellarmine although he laboured no man more in the search hereof could finde no Text in all the Gospel which would serve his turn and thereupon concludes at last that howsoever some Supremacy in sacred matters might seeme allotted to St. Peter tamen Pontificem Romanum Petro succedere expresse non haberi in Scriptura yet that the Pope succeeded Peter is not found in Scripture What then shall we conceive of the Popish Parasites who give their Pope the title of Vice-deus as Paulo V. Vice-deo the Numeral letters of the which make up 666 as one well observeth but that they are instruments to bring in the Antichrist What of that horrid blasphemie of Petrus Bertrandus who boldly taxeth Christ of great indiscretion in case he had not left behinde him such a Vicar General Visus esset Deus ut cum reverentia ejus loquar indiscretus fuisse nisi unum post se talem Vicarium reliquisset as his own words are and such they are as never any Christian durst pronounce but he If then it be so disagreeable to the Kingdome of Christ to have one General Vice-roy to direct the whole let us next see whether they have not somewhat better provided for him who would impose upon the Church as many petite Popes as there be Parishes if not three for one For by their Plat-form every Parish must be furnisht with a distinct Presbyterie and that Presbyterie to be absolute within it self having authority to censure excommunicate and what not else that appertaineth to Ecclesiastical jurisdiction By means whereof they make Christs Body far more monstrous then the monster Hydra not to have seven heads only but seven hundred thousand Yet this device both new and monstrous though it be must needs be reckoned a chief part of our Saviours Kingdome For as their Champions gave it out in their publick Writings their Controversie was not onely about Caps and Surplices as the world imagined but whether IESVS CHRIST should be King or not Their Discipline they honoured with the Title of Christs holy yoke his Scepter and their endevours as they said aimed at this end only to build up first the wals of Hierusalem and then to set Christs Throne in the midst thereof For why say they the planting of Presbyteries is the full placing of Christ in his Kingdome which whosoever shall reject I use their own words still no others refuse to have Christ reign amongst them and do deny him in effect to be their King Thus went the cry of old for the Presbyterians and now the Independents use the self same words appropriating Christs Kingdome and his Throne and Scepter unto their separate Congregations and Conventicular meetings And questionless it were an excellent representation of Christs glorious Kingdome to have a company of shop-keepers and inferiour handicrafts sitting upon the bench with their zealous Pastour as if they were the twenty four Elders in the Revelation pronouncing some sad judgement on the Tribes of Israel and after hasten to their Trades as Quintius the Dictator did unto his plough ut ad opus relictum festinasse videatur as my Author hath it And yet so highly do they magnifie this new Kingdome of theirs which they have raised up for themselves in our Saviours Name that Kings and Princes must be suffered to rule no longer then they submit themselves and their Supreme power to the divine authority of their new Presbyteries For Beza quarrelleth with Erastus and thinks him guilty of high Treason against God Almighty quod Principes Reges a Divina ista Dominatione exemerit because he doth not think it fit that Kings and Princes should submit unto this fine yoak the Iudgement seat of Christ as he idlely cals it And some amongst our selves have not spared to say that a true government of the Church there can never be till Kings and Queens submit themselves unto the Church subject their Scepters and lay down their Crowns before this Throne yea lick up the very dust of the Churches feet and willingly endure such Censures be they what they will as the Divine Presbyterie shall impose upon them Huic Disciplinae omnes Reges Principes fasces suos submittere necesse est as Travers once did state it in his Book of Discipline And could they bring it once to that as they much endevour it it were Regale Presbyterium a Royal Presbyterie to the purpose though not unto the purpose the Apostle speaks of To joyn these Foxes the Genevian and Roman both together which though they look two several ways as if they were to run quite contrary to one another do yet carry fire-brands in their Tayles as once Sampsons did and like them are combined to destroy our harvest I would commend unto them that Vice-roy or Vicar General for I perceive they will have one which once Tertullian did commend to the Primitive Church even the holy Ghost For in his Treatise de Virgin veland he calleth him in plain tearms Vicarium illum Domini Spiritum sanctum and doth assign this Office to him dirigere ordinare ad perfectum perducere Disciplinam to direct order and dispose of us in such a manner as may make us perfect at the last in all Christian piety But if they will have nothing to do with the holy Ghost as I think they will not in this business we shall then finde them lawful Vice-roys made of flesh and bloud and those too of Christs own appointment not of mans devising That he doth
not then be cheated by this new distinction that Kings are Gods Vice-roys but not Iesus Christs though the distinction be much hugged by our great Novators Who intend nothing else thereby but to throw down Crowns and lay them at the foot of their Presbyteries and to set up instead of the Regal power their own dear Tribunal a Soveraignty in all causes Ecclesiastical to over-rule it first and extirpe it afterwards as the right learned Bishop of Kell-Alla very well observeth In these ways and by these several means and subordinate Ministers doth Christ administer the Kingdome committed to him And this he doth continually sitting at the right hand of God the Father and there to sit untill his enemies be made his footstool This David did fore-see by the spirit of Prophecy The Lord saith he said unto my Lord i. e. the Lord God almighty said to my Lord CHRIST IESVS Sit thou on my right hand untill thy enemies be made thy footstool This the Apostle also verifieth and affirms of Christ. But this man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins is set down for ever on the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool And this he also telleth us in another place saying of Christ that he must reign till he shall have put all his enemies under his feet Till then his Kingdome is to last and till that time he is to sit at the right hand of God in all power and Majesty If it be asked when that will be that all his enemies shall be subdued and subject to him we answer at the end of this present world when there is no enemie left to be destroyed Now the last enemie which is to be destroyed is death saith the same Apostle And thereupon we may inferre that while death reigneth in opposition to the Lord of life and sin in a defiance to the Lord of righteousness that hitherto we have not seen all things put under him and therefore must expect yet a little longer before he shall deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father But then indeed when Death is utterly destroyed and all the Saints admitted to the glories of eternal life when all things are subdued unto him then also shall the Son himself be made subject to him that did put all things under him that is God the Father Then when he hath put down all rule and all authority and power then cometh the end and then he shall deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father that God may be all in all This is the summe of St. Pauls argument in that point In which there being many things not easie to be understood I shall not think my time ill spent to make a short Paraphrase and discourse upon it that so we may perceive more fully the Apostles meaning And first he saith that CHRIST must reign till he hath put all things under his feet that being one of the especial parts of the Kingly function as before was shewn to save and defend his Church from the hands of her enemies and for the enemies themselves to crush them with a Scepter of iron and break them in pieces like a Potters vessel When this is done when he hath trodden under foot all his mortal enemies the persecutors of his Church false Prophets false Apostles and the great Antichrist himself which labour to seduce even the very Elect when he hath subjugated the powers of Hell and that sin hath no more dominion over us yet we shall still lie under the power of death untill the last and general Resurrection Death therefore is the last enemie to be destroyed that being delivered from his thraldome raised from the grave which is his prison and all those bonds and fetters broken by which we were held captive under his command we may be made partakers of eternal life and reign with Christ for ever in his heavenly glories When that time cometh when there are neither enemies from which to protect his Church nor any Church to be instructed in the wayes of godliness according to the Nomothetical part of the Regal Office then cometh the end the end of all things in this world which shall be no more the end of Christs Kingdome as the Mediator between God and man man having by the power of his mediation attained the end of his desires the guerdon and reward of his faith and piety This being done the rule of Satan and the authority of sin and the power of death being all broken and subdued he shall first raise our mortal bodies in despight of death pronounce the joyful sentence of absolution on them in despight of sin and finally advance them to that height of glory from which Satan fell to the confusion of the Devil and all his Angels And having so discharged the Office of a Mediator for executing which he sate at the right hand of God he shall deliver up unto God the Father the right and interest which he had in the Kingdome of Grace consisting in the building up of his Elect in faith hope and charity that they with him and he with them may reign forevermore in the Kingdome of glory Where there shall be no use of Faith for they shall see God face to face and faith is the existence of things not seen and less of hope for hope is the expectancy of things desired which being once obtained puts an end to hope Charity onely shall remain for that never ceaseth and therefore said to be the greatest of the three Theological vertues of which the Apostle there discourseth 1 Cor. 13.13 And so Primasius hath resolved it In this present life saith he there are three in the life to come onely the love of God and his Augels and of all the Saints That therefore is the greater which is alwayes necessary then that which once shall have an end The like St. Austin before him The greatest of all is charity because when every one shall come to eternal life the other two failing charity shall continue with increase and with greater certainty And finally before both thus St. Chrysostome and these three witnesses enough The greatest of these is Charity because they passe away but that continueth I must confess there is hardly a more difficult Text in all the Scripture then this of Christs delivering up the Kingdome unto God the Father nor which requires more care in the Exposition for fear of doing injurie unto God or Christ conceive me still of Christ in his humane nature For neither must we so understand the place as if God reigned not now at the present time nor was to reign at all untill this surrendry of the Kingdome by Christ our Saviour That were injurious to the power and Majesty of Almighty God by whom all things were made and by whom all made subject unto Christs command for he it is who did put all things
that Hierusalem was seated in the midst of the earth and thereupon is called by some Geographers Vmbilicus terrae and that aswell Mount Olivet as the Valley of Iehosaphat did both stand Eastward of that City From hence it is by some inferred and their illation backed by no mean authority that Christ our Saviour did ascend up into the East part of Heaven I mean that part of Heaven which answereth to the Equinoctial East upon the Earth that in that part of Heaven he sitteth at the right hand of the Throne of Almighty God and from the same shall also come in the day of Judgement The use that may be made out of this illation shall be interwoven in the file of this discourse and altogether left unto the judgement of the Christian Reader That he ascended up into the Eastern part of Heaven hath been a thing affirmed by many of the Antients and by several Churches not without some fair hints from the Scripture also Sing unto God ye Kingdomes of the earth c. saith the Royal Psalmist To him that rideth on the Heavens as it were upon an horse said our old Translation to him that rideth on the Heaven of Heavens from the beginning as our new would have it But in the Arabick it runs thus Sing unto the Lord that rideth on the Heaven of Heavens in the Eastern part And so the Septuagint that rideth on the Heavens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 towards the East This Origen who very well understood the Eastern languages applyeth to CHRIST utpote a mortuis post passionem resurgens in Coelum post Resurrectionem ad orientem ascendens i. e. who rose from the dead after his passion and ascended up into Heaven towards the East after his Resurrection And so the Aethiopick reads it also viz. Who ascended up into the Heaven of Heavens in the East Thus Damascen affirms expressely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that when he was received into Heaven he was carryed up Eastward And unto this that of the Prophet Ezekiel may seem to allude where he saith that the glory of the God of Israel Remember who it is which is called in Scripture the Glory of his people Israel Luk. 2. passâ—d through the Eastern gate Therefore that gate was shut up and might not be opened but to the Prince That being thus ascended into Heaven above he sitteth in that part thereof at the right hand of God must needs be granted if God be most conspicuously seated in that part himself And to prove this we finde this in the Apostolical constitutions ascribed to Clemens take notice by the way of the Antiquity of the custom of turning towards the East in our publick prayers so generally received amongst us who describing the Order of Divine service then used in the Church concludes it thus Then rising up and turning towards the East Let them pray to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who sitteth upon the Heaven of Heavens in the Eastern part To this agreeth that of the Prophet Baruch saying Look about thee O Hierusalem towards the East and behold the joy that cometh unto thee from God Towards the East that is to say saith Olympiodorus an old Christian writer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 towards IESVS CHRIST our Lord the Sun of righteousness And this way also looketh that part of the old Tradition derived as Irenaeus telleth us who lived neer those times ab Apostolorum Discipulis from those which heard it of the Apostles that is to say that the receptacle of the just and perfect men is a certain Paradise in the Eastern part of the third Heaven An argument that the glory of God is most conspicuous in that part also of the Heaven of Heavens the proper mansion of the Highest as before was shewn Finally that from the Eastern part of Heaven he shall make his last and greatest appearance at this day of judgement although it followeth upon that which is said already hath much stronger evidence An Arabick Author writing on the duties of Christian Religion and particularly of that Prayer directeth us to turn our faces when we pray to the Eastern Coast because that is the Coast concerning which Christ said unto whom be glory that he would appear from thence at his second coming To the same purpose the Arabick Code hath a Canon saying When ye pray turn your selves towards the East For so the words of our Lord import who foretold that his return from Heaven at the later day should be like the Lightning which glittering from the East flasheth into the West His meaning is that we should expect his coming from the East Iohn Damascen to the same effect thus For as the lightning cometh out of the East and shineth even unto the West 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so also shall be the coming of the Son of man in which regard we worship him towards the East as expecting him from thence And this saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an unwritten tradition delivered to us from the very Apostles Take for a close this of an old Confession of the Eastern Church viz. We pray towards the East for that our Lord Christ when he ascended into heaven went up that way and there sitteth in the heaven of Heavens above the East And in very deed we make no doubt but that our Lord the Christ as respecting his humane nature hath his seat in the Eastern part of the Heaven of Heavens and sitteth with his face turned towards this world To pray therefore or worship towards the East is to pray and worship towards our Saviour Nor is this only the Tradition of the Eastern and Southern Churches as by the fore-cited Authors it may seem to be We had it also in the West For Paulus de Palacios a Spanish writer makes it the general Tenet of all Christian people quod in Oriente humanitas Christi-sedeat that Christ in reference to his humane nature sitteth in the Eastern part of Heaven and that he is to come from thence where now he sitteth And in an old Festival in this Church of England the Priest used thus upon the Wake days or Feasts of Dedication to exhort the people viz. Let us think that Christ dyed in the Este and therefore let us pray besely into the Este that we may be of the number that he died for Also let us think that he shall come out of the Este unto the Doom Wherefore let us pray heartily to him and besely that we may have grace of contrition in our hearts of our misdeeds with shrift and satisfaction that we may stand that day on the right hand of our Lord IESV CHRIST And so much for this Eastern passage for which I am principally beholding to that learned peece of Mr. Gregory late of Christs Church in Oxon whom as I much esteemed when he was alive so have I made this free acknowledgement to the honour of his memory now
Viceroyes put upon him by the Papists and the Presbyterians THe title of King designed to Christ long before his birth given to him by the Souldiers and confirmed by Pilate The generall opinion of the Iews and of the Apostles and Disciples for a temporal Kingdome to be set up by their Messiah the like amongst the Gentiles also Christ called the head of the Church and upon what reasons The actuall possession of the Kingdome not conferred on Christ till his resurrection Severall texts of Scripture explained and applyed for the proof thereof Christ by his regall power defends his Church against all her enemies and what those enemies are against which he chiefly doth defend it Of the Legislative power of Christ of obedience to his lawes and the rewards and punishments appendent on them No Viceroy necessary on the earth to supply Christs absence The Monarchy of the Pope ill grounded under that pretence The many Viceroyes thrust upon the Church by the Presbyterians with the great prerogatives given unto them Bishops the Vicars of Christ in spirituall matters and Kings in the externall regiment of the holy Church That Kings are Deputies unto Christ not only unto God the Father proved both by Scriptures and by Fathers The Crosse why placed upon the top of the regall Crown How and in what respects Christs Kingdome is said to have an end Charity for what reasons greater then faith and hope The proper meaning of those words viz. Then shall he deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father disputed canvassed and determined CHAP. XV. Touching the coming of our Saviour to judgement both of quick and dead the souls of just men not in the highest state of blisse till the day of judgement and of the time and place and other circumstances of that action THe severall degrees of CHRISTS exaltation A day of judgement granted by the sober Gentiles Considerations to induce a natural man to that perswasion and to inforce a Christian to it That Christ should execute his judgement kept as a mysterie from the Gentiles Reasons for which the act of judging both the quick and the dead should be conferred by God on his Son CHRIST IESVS That the souls of righteous men attain not to the highest degree of happinesse till the day of judgement proved by authority of Scriptures by the Greek Fathers and the Latine by Calvin and some leading men of the reformation The alteration of this Doctrine in the Church of Rome and the reason of it The torments of the wicked aggravated in the day of judgement The terrors of that day described with the manner of it The errour of Lactantius in the last particular How CHRIST is said to be ignorant of the time and hour of the day of judgement The grosse absurdity of Estius in his solution of the doubt and his aime therein The audaciousnesse of some late adventurers in pointing out the year and day of the finall judgement The valley of Iehosophat designed to the place of the generall judgement The Easterne part of heaven most honoured with our Saviours presence The use of praying towards the East of how great antiquity That by the signe of the Son of man Mat. 24.30 we are to understand the signe of the crosse proved by the Western Fathers and the Southerne Churches The sounding of the trumpet in the day of judgement whether Literally or Metaphorically to be understood The severall offices of the Angels in the day of judgement The Saints how said to judge the world The Method used by Christ in the act of judging The consideration of that day of what use and efficacy in the wayes of life LIBER III. CHAP. I. Touching the holy Ghost his divine nature power and office The controversie of his Procession laid down historically Of receiving the holy Ghost and of the severall Ministrations in the Church appointed by him SEverall significations of these words the holy Ghost in the new Testament The meaning of the Article according to the Doctrine of the Church of England The derivation of the name and the meaning of it in Greek Latine and English The generall extent of the word Spirit more appositely fitted to the holy Ghost The divinity of the holy Ghost clearly asserted from the constant current of the book of God The grosse absurdity of Harding in making the divinity of the holy Ghost to depend meerly upon tradition and humane authority The many differences among the writers of all ages and between St. Augustine with himself touching the sin or blasphemy against the holy Ghost The stating of the controversie by the learned Knight Sir R. F. That the differences between the Greek and Latine Churches concerning the procession of the holy Ghost are rather verball then material and so affirmed to be by most moderate men amongst the Papists The judgement of antiquity in the present controversie The clause a Filioque first added to the antient Creeds by some Spanish Prelates and after countenanced and confirby the Popes of Rome The great uncharitablenesse of the Romanists against the Grecians for not admitting of that clause The graces of the holy Ghost distributed into Gratis data and Gratum facientia with the use of either Why Simon Magus did assert the title of the great power of God Sanctification the peculiar work of the holy Ghost and where most descernible Christ the chief Pastor of the Church discharged not the Prophetical office untill he had received the unction of the holy Spirit The Ministration of holy things conferred by Christ on his Apostles actuated and inlarged by the holy Ghost The feast of Pentecost an holy Anniversary in the Church and of what antiquity The name and function of a Bishop in St. Pauls distribution of Ecclesiasticall offices included under that of Pastor None to officiate in the Church but those that have both mission and commission too The meaning and effect of those solemne words viz. receive the holy Ghost used in Ordination The use thereof asserted against factious Novelty The holy Ghost the primary Author of the whole Canon of the Scripture The Canon of the Evangelical and Prophetical writings closed and concluded by St. Iohn The dignity and sufficiency of the written word asserted both against some Prelates in the Church of Rome and our great Innovators in the Church of England CHAP. II. Of the name and definition of the Church Of the title of Catholick The Church in what respects called holy Touching the head and members of it The government thereof Aristocraticall THe name Church no where to be found in the old Testament The derivation of the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what it signifyeth in old Authors The Christian Church called not improperly by the name of a Congregation The officiation of that word in our old Translators and the unsound construction of it by the Church of Rome Whence the word CHVRCH in English hath its derivation The word promiscuously used in the elder times
the Greeks and the antient Fathers The ireconcileable differences amongst the Papists and the fluctuation of St. Augustine in the point of Purgatory CHAP. V. Of the first Introduction of sin God not the Author of it Of the nature and contagion of Original sin No actual sin so great but it is capable of forgivenesse In what respect some sins may be accounted venial and others mortall FOrgivenesse of sins the first great benefit redounding unto mankind by our Saviours passion Man first made righteous in himself but left at liberty to follow or not to follow the ways of life Adam not God the author of the first transgression proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers The heresie of the Cataphrygians and of Florinus in making God the Author of sin as also of Bardesenus and Priscilian imputing sin to fate and the stars of Heaven The impious heresie of Florinus revived by the Libertines The Founder of the Libertines a member of the Church of Rome not of Calvins Schoole Calvin and his Disciples not altogether free from the same strange tenets The sin of Adam propagated to his whole posterity Original sin defined by the Church of England and in what it specially consisteth That there is such a sin as original sin proved by the testimony of the Scriptures by the light of reason and by the Practise of the Church Private Baptisme why first used and the use thereof maintained in the Church of England Not the day of their birth but of the death of the Saints observed as Festivals by the Church and upon what reasons The word natalis what it signifyeth in the Martyrologies Original sin how propagated from one man to another and how to children borne of regenerate Parents The sin of Adam not made ours by imitation only but by propagation Of the distinction of sins in venial and mortal and how far abominable Equality of sins a Paradox in the Schoole of Christ. No sin considered in its self to be counted veniall but only by the grace and goodnesse of Almighty God No sin so great but what is capable of Pardon if repented of no not the murdering of Christ nor the sin against the holy Ghost Arguments from the holy Scriptures as Heb 6.4 6. and Heb. 10.26 27. and 1 Ioh. 5.16 to prove some sins to be uncapable of pardon produced and answered The proper application of the severall places with the error of our last Translators in the second Text. CHAP. VI. Of the remission of sins by the bloud of Christ and of the Abolition of the body of sin by Baptisme and Repentance Of confession made unto the Priest and the authority Sacerdotal GOD the sole Author Christ the impulsive meritorious cause of the forgivenesse of sins Remission of sins how and in what respects ascribed to the bloud of Christ. Power to forgive sins conferred upon and exercised by the Apostles The doctrine of the Church of England touching the efficacy of Baptisme in the washing away of sin confirmed by the Scriptures and the Fathers and many eminent Divines of the reformed Churches Baptismal washings frequently used of old both by Iews and Gentiles as well to expiate their sins as to manifest and declare their innocence The waters of Baptisme in what respect made efficacious unto the washing away of the guilt of sin What it is which makes Baptisme to be efficacious unto the washing away of sin The rigor of the Primitive Church towards such as sinned after Baptisme The Clinici what they were and how then esteemed of The institution and antiquity of Infant Baptisme The old rule for determining in doubtfull cases how applyed to this Proofs for the Baptisme of Infants from St. Augustine up to Irenaeus inclusively What faith it is by which Infants are Baptized and justifyed Of the necessity of Baptisme the want thereof how supplyed or excused in the Primitive times and of the state of Infants dying unbaptized Repentance necessary and effectuall in men of riper years for remission of sins Confession in the first place to be made to God satisfaction for the wrong done to be given to man Satisfaction for sin in what sense to be given to God by the Penitent sinner Private confession to a Priest allowed of and required by the Church of England The Churches care in preserving the seal of confession from all violation Confession to a Priest defended by the best Divines of the Anglical Church approved by the Lutheranâ— not condemned by Calvin The disagreement of the Papists in the proofs of their auricular confession from the Texts of Scripture The severity of exacting all particular circumstances in confession with the inconveniences thereof That the power of sacerdotall Absolution in the opinion of the Fathers is not declarative only but judicial and that it is so also both in the Doctrine and the practise of the Church of England CHAP. VII Of the Resurrection of the body and the proofs thereof The objections against it answered Touching the circumstances and manner of it The History and grounds of the Millenarians THe resurrection of the body derided and contemned by the Antient Gentiles Proofs for the resurrection from the words of Iob from the Psalmes and Prophets and from the Argument of our Saviour in the holy Gospels Our Saviours Argument for the resurrection against the cavils of the Sadduces declared expounded and applyed to the present purpose Several Arguments to the same purpose and effect alledged by St. Paul in his Epistles and that too of the same numerical not another body Baptizing of or for the dead a pregnant proof or argument for the resurrection severall expositions of the place produced and which most probable Baptizing or washing of the dead antiently in use amongst the Iews the Gentiles and the Primitive Christians with the reasons of it Practical and natural truths for a resurrection The resurrection of the same bâ—dy denyed by Hereticks and justifyed with strong reasons by the Orthodox Christians Two strong and powerfull arguments for the resurrection produced from the Adamant and the art of Chymistry That the dead bodies shall be raised in a perfect stature and without those deformities which here they had and in their several sexes also contrary to the fancies of some vain disputers Considerations raised on the Doctrine of the resurrection with reference unto others and unto our selves The Doctrine of the Millenarians originally founded on some Iewish dotages by whom first set on foot in the Church of Christ how refined and propagated The Millenarian Kingdome described by Lactantius and countenanced by many of the antient writers till cryed down by Hierome The texts of Scripture on which the Millenarians found their fancies produced examined and lâ—yed by as unusefull for them The disagreement of the old Millenarians in the true stating of their Kingdome CHAP. VIII Of the immortality of the soul and the glories of Eternal life prepared for it as also of the place and torment of hell Hell
ones have bâ—en pleased to do it Witness that famous challenge made by Bishop Iewel by which the several points in issue between the Church of England and the Church of Rome were generally referred to the decision of the Antient Fathers with great both honour and success Witness these words of Peter Martyr a man of great imployment in the REFORMATION of the Church and sent for hither by Archbishop Cranmer to mote it here In judging things obscure saith he the Spirit there are two ways or means for our direction whereof the one is inward which is the Spirit the other outward or external the Word of God to which saith he Si Patrum etiam autoritas accesserit valebit plurimum If the authority of the Fathers do come in for seconds it will exceedingly avail And unto this agrees Chemnitius also though of a different judgement from him in some points of doctrine who having told us of the Fathers that we may best learn from their own words and sayings what we may warrantably conceive of their authority gives in the close thereof this note and a sound one 't is Nullum dogma in Ecclesia novum cum tota antiquitate pugnans recipiendum that is to say that new opinion which seems new and is repugnant to the general cuâ—rent of Antiquity is to be entertained in the Church of God What is decreed herein by the Church of England assembled representatively in her Convocations what by the King and three Estates convened in Parliament we shall see anon In the mean time take here the judgment of the Antients in this very case 'T is true indeed the Fathers many times and in sundry places humbly and piously have confessed the eminency of Canonical Scriptures above all the writings of men whatsoever they be for which consent St. Augustine contr Faust. Manic l. 11. c. 5. de Baptismat contr Donatist l. 1. c. 3. Epist. 19. in Proem lib. de Trinitate desiring liberty of dissent from one another when they saw occasion and binding no man to adhere unto their opinions further then they agreed with the Word of God delivered by the holy Prophets and Apostles which have been since the world began De quorum Scriptis quod omni errore careant dubitare nefarium est and of whose writings to make question whether or not they were free from error were a great impiety And this is that whereof St. Hierome speaks in an Epistle to Pope Damasus Ut mihi Epistolis tuis sive tacendarum sive dicendarum Hypostase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n detur autoritas that he might be left to his own liberty either in using or refusiug the word Hypostasis But then it is as true withall that Vincentius give it for a rule Multorum magnorum consentientes sibi sententias Magistorum sequendas esse that the antient consent of godly Fathers is with great care both to be searched into and followed in the Rule of Faith And 't is as true that having moved this question in another place that if the Canon of the Scripture be so full and perfect and so abundantly sufficient in it self for all things Quid opus est ut ei Ecclesiasticae intelligentiae jungatur autoritas what need there is that the authority of Ecclesiastical interpretations should be joyned with it returns this answer in effect Lest every man should wrest the Scriptures to his own private fancy and rather draw some things from thence to maintain his errours then for the advancement of the truth Of the same resolution and opinion was St. Augustine also who though he were exceeding careful upon all occasions to yeild the Scriptures all due reverence yet he was willing therewithall to allow that honour which was meet both to the writings of the Fathers which lived before him and to the Canons and Decrees of preceding Councels and to submit himself unto their Authorities For speaking of General Councels he subjoyns this note Quorum est in Ecclesia saluberrima autoritas that their authority in the Church was of excellent use And in another place alleadging the testimonies of Irenaeus Cyprian Hilarie Ambrose and some other Fathers he concludeth thus Hoc probavimus autoritate Catholicorum sanctorum c. This we have proved by the authority of Catholick and godly men to the end that your weak and silly novelties might be overwhelmed with their only authority with which your contumacie is to be repressed He speaks this unto Iulian a Pelagian Heretick And with these testimonies and authorities of such holy men thou must either by Gods mercy be healed i. e. recovered from his errour or else accuse the famous and right holy Doctors of the Catholick Church against which miserable madness I must so reply that their faith may be defended against thee even as the Gospel it self is defended against the wicked and professed enemies of Christ. More of this kinde might be produced from the Antient Writers But what need more be said in so clear a point especially to us that have the honour to be called the children of the Church of England who by a a Canon of the year 1572 doth binde all men in holy Orders not to preach any thing in their Congregations to be believed and holden of the people of God but what is conâ—onant to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments Quodque ex illa ipsa doctrina Catholici Patres Veteres Episcopi collegerint and had been thence concluded or collected take which word you will by the Catholick Fathers and antient Bishops of the Church The like authority and respect is given to the first four General Councels by the unanimous vote and suffrage of the Prince and three Estates convened in Parliament in the first year of Queen Elizabeth of famous memory wherein it was ordained or declared rather amongst other things that nothing should be deemed or adjudged Heresie in the Kingdome of England but what had been adjudged so formerly in any of the said four General Councels or any other General Councel determining the same according to the Word of God c. Where we may see that the Estates in Parliament did ascribe so much to the authority of those four Councels and the judgement of the Fathers which were there assembled as not to question any thing which they had determined concerning heresie or to examine whether it agreed with Gods Word or not but left the people of this Kingdom totally to repose themselves upon their authority and to take that for heresie without more ado which they judged to be so And so I close this point with those words of Saravia a learned man and one that stood up stoutly in this Churches cause against the innovating humors which was then predominant though not so high as in these times of Anarchie Qui omnem Patribus adimit autoritatem nullam relinquit sibi that is to say He who depriveth the Fathers of their due authority will
also as before was shown Which if it may not be admitted in the Articles of the Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints with the rest that follow I see no cause why it should be admitted in the front of all which was to be the leading Case unto all the rest But other men of higher mark have seen this before me who give no other sense theâ—eof in this place of the Creed then to believe that there is one only eternal God the Maker of all things For thus the Book entituled Pastor and commonly ascribed to Hermes St. Pauls scholar Ante omnia unum credere Deum esse qui condidit omnia i. e. Before all other things believe that there is one God who made all things Origen thus Primum credendus est Deus qui omnia creavit i. e. In the first place we must believe that there is a God by whom all things were created S. Hilary of Poyctiers thus In absoluto nobis facilis est aeternitas Iesum Christum a mortuis suscitatum credere i.e. Eternity is prepared for us and made easie to us if we believe that Christ is risen from the dead And finally thus Charles the Great in the Creed published in his name but made by the most learned men which those times afforded Praedicandum est omnibus ut credant Patrem Filium Spiritum sanctum unum esse Deum omnipotentem i. e. the Gospel must be preached to all men that they may know that the Father Son and holy Ghost is one God Almighty Which resolution and authority of the antient Fathers is built no doubt upon the dictate and determination of S Paul himself who did thus lead the way unto them viz. He that câ—meth to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Where the first Article of the Creed I believe in God is thus expounded and no otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I believe that God is that there is a God According to which Exposition of the blessed Apostle our Reverend Iewell publishing the Apology and Confession of the Church of England did declare it thus We believe that there is one certain Nature and Divine power which we call GOD c. and that the same one God hath created Heaven and Earth and all things contained under Heaven We believe that Iesus Christ the only Son of the Eternal Father when the fulness of time was come did take of that blessed and pure Virgin both flesh and all the nature of man c. that for our sakes he died and was buried descended into Hell c. We believe that the holy Ghost is very God c. and that it is his property to mollifie and soften the hardness of mens hearts when he is once received thereunto c. We believe that there is one Church of God and that the same is not shut up as in times past amongst the Iews into some one corner or Kingdom but that it is Catholick and Universal and dispersed throughout the whole world c. and that this Church is the Kingdom the Body and the Spouse of CHRIST c. To conclude we believe that this our self same flesh wherein we live although it dye and come to dust yet at the last shall return again to life by the means of Christs Spirit which dwelleth in us c. and that we through him shall enjoy everlasting life and shall for ever be with him in glory Which consonancy of expression being so agreeable to that observed before by the antient Fathers and that observed before by the antient Fathers so consonant unto the expression of S. Paul the Apostle is the last reason which I have for this resolution that the so much applauded explication of the phrase in Deum credere is not to be admitted in this place of the Creâ—d And this shall also serve for a justification of that gloss or Commentary which I have given on this first Article viz. that to believe in God the Father Almighty is only to believe that there is one Immortal and Eternal Spirit of great both Majesty and Power which we call GOD and that this God is the Father Almighty the Father both of IESVS CHRIST and of all mankinde who as a Father hath not only brought us into the world but hath provided us of all things necessary both for body and soul protecting us by his mighty power and governing us and our affairs by his infinite wisdome But against this there may be some objections made which must first be answered before we come unto the further explication of this Article For if Faith be no other then a firm assent to supernatural truths revealed the Reprobate as they call them may be said to have faith which yet is reckoned in the Scripture as a peculiar gift of God unto his Elect which is therefore called Fides electorum or the Faith of the Elect Tit. 1.1 2. If to believe in God the Father Almighty and in IESVS CHRIST his only Son c. be only to believe that there is a God and that all those things are most undoubtedly true and certain which be affirmed of IESVS CHRIST in the holy Scripture the Devil may be reckoned for a true believer S. Iames assuring us of this that the Devils do believe and tremble Iam. 2.19 And 3. if the definition and the explication before delivered be allowed for currant it will quite overthrow the received distinction of Faith into Historical temporary saving or justifying faith and the faith of Miracles so generally embraced in the Protestant Schools This is the sum of those objections which I conceive most likely to be made against me but such as may be answered without very great difficulty For that the Reprobate as they call them may have Faith in CHRIST is evident by many instances and texts of Scripture Of Simon Magus it is written in the Book of the Acts that he believed and was baptized and continued with Philip the Evangelist Adhaerebat Philippo saith the Vulgar he stuck so fast unto him that he would not leave him Ask Calvin what he thinks of this faith of Simons and he will tell you Majestate Evangelii victum vitae salutis authorem Christum agnovisse ita ut libenter illi nomen daret that being vanquished by the power and Majesty of the Gospel of Christ he did acknowledge him to be the Author of salvation and eternal life and gladly was inrolled amongst his Disciples And whereas some had taught and published amongst other things that Simon never did believe but counterfeited a belief for his private ends Calvin doth readily declare his dislike thereof acknowledging this faith of Simons to be true and real though but only temporarie Non tamen multis assentior qui simulasse duntaxat fidem putant quum minime credâ—ret I cannot yeild to them saith he which think
those Prophesies which himself delivered of a spiritual Kingdome in the souls of men such as our Saviour Christ erected in his holy Church in whom the said predictions were accomplished and of whom intended and not rather of the flourishing and continuance of his temporal Kingdome the Royal seat whereof was by him setled on Mount Sion and the renown of his magnificence and personal valour had made so formidable to the Nations which were round about him And may it not be questioned also if not out of question whether that famous Prophesie Behold a Virgin shall conceive had any reference in the intention of the Prophet Isaiah to the Virgin Mary and the birth of Christ But of this more hereafter in another place The like whereof might be made good in most of the rest of the Prophets if one would put himself to the trouble of searching into all particulars which might be disputed or rather if our Saviour CHRIST himself had not already put it beyond all disputes when he thus said to his Disciples that many Kings and Prophets have desired to see the things which ye see and have not seen them and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them upon which words we may infer that the Evangelists and Apostles being bound to teach no other things in the Church of CHRIST then what had been foretold by Moses and the holy Prophets both knew and taught others also to believe many things of CHRIST which the Prophets no not David himself the Kingly Prophet although they very much desired it did not see nor hear of and therefore that they did not distinctly apprehend the meaning of the holy Ghost in all those things which he was pleased to utter by their mouths or express by their pens touching CHRIST to come For otherwise they must have seen all that the Evangelists saw and have known all the mysteries of the Kingdome of Heaven which the Apostles after our Saviours resurrection either knew or taught which is directly contradictory to our Saviours words and to the truth of his assertion When therefore it is said so often in the holy Gospel that some things were either done or suffered that the sayings of the Prophets might be fulfilled we must not understand it in that sense alone whereof the Prophets did intend it or of that natural proper and immediate end to which the Prophets did direct it but of some further mystical or mysterious meaning reserved in the intention of the holy Ghost and in the fulness of time accomplished by our Lord and Saviour according unto that intention though no such meaning was imparted to the Prophets themselves whose mouths he made the pen of a ready writer But then perhaps it will be said that if the Prophets had not a distinct and explicite apprehension of every thing by them delivered in the way of Prophesie but either knew not what they spake or spake what they did not understand they differed little if at all from the Heathen Sooth-sayers who foretold many things which did come to pass but without any apprehension of the truth thereof For satisfying of which scruple we may please to know that when the evil spirit did intend to foresignifie any thing to come by the mouth of the Sooth-sayers or Diviners amongst the Heathens he used to cast them into a trance or extasie so that they used to rave or speak in those sudden fits that which they neither understood at the time they spake it nor could remember when they came to their sense again These they called Arreptitii in the Latine as being snatched up as it were from the use of their senses to move divine and immaterial contemplations but generally both in Greek and Latine they were called Ecstatici from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Hierome rightly rendreth excessus mentis an exilience or transport of minde adding that he can tell of no other word by which to express it in the Latine Aliter enim Latinus sermo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exprimere non potest nisi mentis excessum Tertullian doth not only make it a transport of minde but such as is conjoyned with a spice of madness Extasin dicimus excessum sensus amentiae instar And such an extasie he thought had been fallen on Peter when saying on the sight of his Masters glorious transfiguration Bonum est nobis esse hic that it was good for them to continue there the Evangelist gives this character or censure of him Nesciens quid diceret that he understood not what he said Luk. 9.33 But this was only a device or conceit of his being now fallen into the heresie of Montanus to countenance by the like frenzy of St. Peter the raving follies or plain madness of Maximilla Prisca and such other Prophetesses to whom that wretched and infatuated man had given up himself Of those or one of them he telleth us in his Book De Anima that in those extasies which she suffered by the Spirit of God she had the grace of Prophesie imparted to her Est hodie soror apud nos Revelationum charismata sortita quas in Ecclesia inter Dominica solemnia per Extasin in Spiritu patitur and this he plainly calleth in another place Spiritalis extasis i. e. amentia a spiritual extasie or madness Whereof he gives this reason in another of his Books against the Marcionites In spiritu enim homo constitutus praesertim quum gloriam Dei conspicit vel quum per ipsum Deus loquitur necesse est ut excidat sensu obumbratus scilicet virtute divina that is to say a man being ravished in the Spirit especially when he beholds the glory of God which he took to be S. Peters case or when God doth please to speak by him which was the case of Prisca and her fellow Prophetesses must needs be ravished from his senses being so fully over-shadowed by the Spirit of God His exposition of the word we allow well of and doubt not but it was a plain spirit of madness which fell on Maximilla and her fellow Prophetesses as well as on any of the Heathen Soothsayers at the time of their prophesying whom for this cause the Latines called Furentes or Furiosos men besides themselves Hi sunt Furentes quos in publicum videtis excurrere vates ipsi absque Templo sic insaniunt sic bacchantur sic rotantur as Minutius hath it In which we do not only finde their name but those frantick and absurd gesticulations which they did commonly express in the time of those extasies to signifie what an heavy burden of the Spirit did then lie upon them But so it was not with the Prophets inspired by God who very well understood what they said and did and did not only prophesie what should come to pass but did it in a constant and coherent way of expression and with a grave
wings that thou take no harm This was the Devils last attempt and he failed in this too our Saviour keeping still to his old ward and beating off all his blows with a Scriptum est to teach us that the Word of God is the best assurance we can have to rest our selves upon in the day of Temptation and that there is no readier way to quench the fiery darts of Satan then to be always furnished with the waters of life This done the Devil finding him impregnable and that he did but lose his labour in those vain assaults gives him over presently He left him to himself as St. Matthews tels us and thereby made that good in fact which is recorded of him by St. Iames the Apostle Resist the Devil and he will flie from you And yet he left him so as to come again He departed from him for a season as St. Luke informs us and he that goes away for a season only hath animum revertendi a purpose of returning when he sees occasion and when he meets with those occasions we shall finde him at it In the mean time there are some doubts to be resolved touching these temptations which we will first remove and then pass forwards For first a question may be made how the Devil could so suddenly take our Saviour up and set him on a pinnacle of the holy Temple being a place so remote from the heart of the Wilderness But the answer to this doubt is easie would there were no worse Read we not how a good Angel laid hold on Habacuc and took him by the hair of the head and carryed him with his dinner in a moment of time from the land of Iewrie unto Babylon And then why may we not conceive but that the Devil though an evil Angel yet an Angel might take up Christ into the ayr and carry him to the top of the Temple and arrest him there especially our Saviour making no resistance but rather giving way unto it and perhaps facilitating the attempt For that the Devil could do nothing against him without much less against his will is a truth past questioning But then there is a greater difficulty occurring in the story of the second temptation where it is said which seems impossible to be comprehended that having taken Christ unto the top of the mountain he shewed him all the Kingdomes of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Luke in a moment of time For resolution of which doubt we must first premise that those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render in the English in a moment of time are a Proverbial kinde of speech as Erasmus noteth by which the Grecians use to signifie a short space of time as where Plutarch saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our whole life is but a short time and yet far longer then a moment Agreeably whereto the Translator of the Syriack doth thus read the words which Translation is of great and approved Antiquity He i. e. Satan shewed him all the Kingdomes in a very small time And this premised the doubt may easily be resolved by those two answers or by which of them the Reader pleaseth Some think that Satan gave him not a particular inspection of every place but a general direction to the coasts and parts of the earth where those Kingdomes lay the rest being supplyed by speech and not by sight and of this minde is he that made the Expositions on St. Matthew ascribed to S Chrysostom Satan saith he did not so shew those Kingdoms unto Christ that he saw the very Kingdomes themselves or the Cities people gold and silver in them but the parts of the earth in which every Kingdome and the chief City of it stood And then it followeth to the same purpose and effect which before we spake of For Satan might most directly point with his finger unto every place and then relate in words express the state and glories of each several Kingdome With whom agreeth Euthymius Zigabenus amongst the Antients and Musculus a man of no mean learning amongst later Writers Others conceive that as the Devil can transform himself into an Angel of light so he is able also to make spectres or false shews of any thing when he is suffered so to doe by Almighty God to deceive mens eyes as the Magicians of Egypt turned their rods into Serpents and changed the rivers into bloud and brought frogs upon the land of Egypt Experience of all Ages doth confirm this truth And therefore it may be believed to be no hard thing for him to frame the appearances of Kingdomes and Cities and shew the similitudes of them from every part of the earth And to this Calvin doth incline though very modestly he leaveth every man to his own opinion A most learned Prelate of our own likes a third way better and thinks that Satan might shew and Christ might see all those places themselves with all the pomps and glories of them for that Satan being an Angel had another manner of sight even in the body which he assumed then we mortals have and Christ when it pleased him could see both what and whither he would notwithstanding all impediments which were interjected as appeareth by his own words unto Nathaniel for which Nathaniel did acknowledge him for the Son of God Before Philip called thee when thou wert under the fig-tree I saw thee In such variety of Answers each of them being satisfactory to the doubt proposed and all agreeable to the analogie or rule of faith I leave the Reader to his own choyce and to rely on that which he thinks most probable And now to draw unto an end of that part of our Saviours sufferings which consisted in diversity of strong temptations although the Devil left him for a season as before was said yet he resolved within himself not to give him over but to make use of other means and try other ways for the effecting of his enterprise And to this end he seeks to tempt him to ambition by offering him the crown of his own Country in the way of a popular election working upon the common people to come and take him by force and to make him King He tempts him also to vain glory by the shouts and acclamations of the Vulgar Nec vox hominem sâ—nat Never man spake as this man speaketh He tempts him also to self-love to have a greater care of his own preservation then of doing the will of him that sent him and therein he makes use of Peter one of Christs domâ—stickâ— his principal Secretary as it were one of counsel with him And Peter in pursuance of the dangerous drift took him aside advised him to have more care of himself then so Let this be far from thee O Lord and was rejected for it in the self same termes Get behinde me Satan wherewith the very Devill was repulsed
of Articles and suffering him to put it forth with the glorious title of being published by authority considering that he permits all people in this Church and State to put what sense they will upon the Article so they keep the words Which as it gives a great advantage to the Papists in making them report with the greater confidence that this Church alloweth not of a local descent into hell contrary to the doctrine of the primitive times so have they charged it on us in some solemne conferences more then once or twice Nor doth the Church of England stand alone in this interpretation of the Article according to the literal and Grammatical sense but is therein countenanced and backed by the most eminent Doctors of the Protestant and reformed Churchs And first we will begin with Luther who speaking of those words of the royal Psalmist Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell and of those foolish glosses which were made upon them in those times adviseth thus that despising all such frivolous and impious trifles we simply understand the words of the Prophet of the being of Christs soul in hell as they were simply and plainly spoken and if we cannot understand them that howsoever we do faithfully believe the same Pomeranus commenting on the same words of the Prophet thus infers thereon Here hast thou that Article of our faith Christs descent into hell If thou aske what he did there I answer that he delivered thence not the Fathers only but all the faithful from the beginning of the world to the end thereof nor out of Limbus only but out of the lowest and neathermost hell to which all were condemned David Chytreus to this purpose that we are to understand this Article of the Creed plainly and simply as the words do seem to import and to resolve that the Son of God truly descended into hell to deliver us thence to which place we were condemned for sin in Adam as also from the power and tyranny of the Devill which held us captive in the same and for the proof hereof he referreth himself to Hierome Augustine and Fulgentius whose words he quoteth Vrbanus Regius saith the same The Church saith he delivereth out of holy Scripture that Christ after he was dead on the Crosse descended also into hell to suppresse Satan and hell to which we were condemned by the just judgment of God and to spoyle and destroy the kingdome of death More plainly Henricus Mollerus thus The descent of Christ to hell being one of the Articles of the Creed we understand simply without any allegory and believe that Christ truly descended to the lower parts of the earth as St. Paul speaketh Ephes. 4. It is enough for us to believe which Austin affirmeth in his Epistle to Dardanus that Christ therefore descended that he might help those which were to be holpen Of the same mind as touching the true and real descent into hell are Westhmerus in Psal. 16. Hemingius in Coloss. c. 2. Wolfgangus Musculus in Psal. 16. and the whole body of the Lutheran Divines in their book of Concord Artic. 9. But none more positively and significantly then Zacharias Scilterus though perhaps of lesse eminent note then those before who informes us thus The descent of Christ to hell whereof mention is made in the Apostles Creed after the death and burial of Christ is to be understood simply and without Allegory according to the literal sense of the manifestation and declaration of Christs victory no lesse glorious then terrible made to the Devils in hell or in the place of the damned and of Christs expugning spoyling disarming captivating the power of Satan and of his destroying hell and everting the whole kingdome of darkness and of his delivering us from the pains of death and eternal damnation and out of the pains of hell Nor is this only the opinion of the Lutheran Doctors but of those also which in matter of the Sacrament and some other points adhere rather to the Doctrine of Zuinglius Calvin and those other Churches who commonly do call themselves the reformed Churches And first we will begin with Peter Martyr not only because first in time but because purposely sent for hither by Arch-bishop Cranmer to travel in the great work of reformation which was then in hand As touching Christs soul saith he as soon as it departed from the body it rested not idle but descended ad inferos unto hell and certainly both the one and the other company as well of the godly as the damned found the presence of it For the souls of the faithful were much comforted and gave God thanks for delivering them by the hands of this Mediator and performing that which had so long before been promised and those which were adjudged to everlasting damnation animae Christi adventum praesenseruâ—t perceived the coming of Christs soul with as much discomfort Aretius next declaring that the Article of Christs descent into hell is delivered in plain termes in holy Scriptures and then repeating many other senses which had been obtruded on the Article he rejects them all and thus produceth Quare mea sententia est c. It is therefore mine opinion that Christ descended into hell after he had yeilded his soul on the Crosse into the hand of God his Father and hell in this place we affirme to be the very place appointed for the souls of the damned even for Satan and all his members Finally Zanchius doth not only hold for his own particular that though the powers and principalities spoken of Coloss. 2. were vanquished and conquered on the Crosse by Christ yet that the triumph there also mentioned was not performed till Christ in his soul entred the kingdome of hell as a glorious Victor bringing them out of their infernal Kingdome and carrying them along in the air in the sight of all the Angels and blessed souls but doth affirme that the Fathers for the most part were of that opinion Et ex nostris non pauci neque vulgares and of their own Expositers not a few and those no mean persons So that in him we have not only his own judgment opinion but the agreement and consent of almost al the rest of the considerable Divines of the reformed Churches Yet notwithstanding this agreement and consent both of the Antient Fathers and the Later writers this Article of Christs descent hath not wanted those who have endevoured with all care diligence either to make it of no authority by expunging it out of the old received Creeds or to dispute as well the possibility as the use and pertinencie of the said descent by pressing it with many studied Objections to that end and purpose or finally to put such a sense upon it as is utterly inconsistent with the meaning of it and as destructive in a manner as the first attempt of making it no part of the antient Creeds And
Heaven or taken up on high as our English reads it it was Gods act there And so it was indeed it was Gods and his the Persons having such an interest in one another that what was done by the one is ascribed to the other without wrong or prejudice to either as it is also in the case of the Resurrection in which although we find it to be his own act his Resurrexit only in the holy Gospels yet is it quem Deus suscitavit a mortuis him hath God raised from the dead in St. Peters Sermon Or else it may be answered thus that though our Saviour did ascend by his own power and vertue yet he may properly be said to be assumptus taken or carried up into Heaven in three regards that is to say either as taken up on the wings of Angels whereof we shall say more anon as Lazarus was carryed into Abrahams bosom or because he seemed to be wrapt up in a cloud and so taken up out of their sight or finally that the man CHRIST IESVS was taken up into Heaven by the power and vertue of the Godhead in separably united to him Either of these constructions will atone the difference and reconcile the Creed with the words of the Text though we may further add and ex abundanti that St. Luke doth not only say ferebatur in Coelum or he was carryed up into Heaven as if he were passive in it only but that Recessit ab iis first he left them of his own accord gave the first rise to his Ascension and after ferebatur for so it followeth suffered himself to be assumpted taken or carryed up into Heaven either by the Cloud or by the Angels or how else he pleased Lastly it is to be observed that he ascended into Heaven videntibus illis saith the Text whilest his Apostles looked on to signifie that he did ascend by little and little that he might feed their eyes and refresh their souls and by his leisurely ascent make them more able to attest it as occasion served For had he been caught up into Heaven as Elias was who had but one witness to affirm it or rapt up into Heaven as St. Paul was afterwards without any witness but himself and scarce that neither for whether it were in the body or out of the body he could hardly tell the truth thereof had wanted much of that estimation which the mouths of so many witnesses as beheld the mirâ—â—le were able to afford unto it And yet it was strange that many witnesses should need to confirm that truth which had so clearly been fore-signified both by Types and Prophecies that none who did believe the Scriptures could make question of it For if we look upon the Substance or the quod â—it of it or on the circumstances of the time the place the cloud the pomp and manner of the same or finally on the consequent or effect thereof as to Christ himself we finde all signified before-hand in the Book of God and that so fully and expressely as must needs convince the Iews of the greatest obstinacy that ever had been entertained in the hearts of men first in the way of Type or Figure we have that of Enoch before the Law and that of Elias under the Law Of Enoch it is said in the holy Scripture that he walked with God that is to say as the text doth expound it self in the case of Noah he was a just man and perfect in his generation for the times he lived in So righteous was he as it seems in the sight of God that we finde no mention of his death Only the Scriptures say that he was not found because God took him i. e. because God took him to himself translating him both body and soul to his heavenly Kingdome And so St. Paul expounds it saying By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death neither was he found because God had taken him And of Elijah it is said that being talking with Elisha one of his Disciples there appeared a Charet of fire and horses of fire and parted them asunder and that Elijah went up in a whirlwinde into Heaven Here then we have two Types or figures of the Lords Ascension the one delivered in the person of a righteous man who was unblameable in his conversation walking in the commandements of God without reproof the other of a Prophet mighty both in WORD AND WORK who did not only reprove sin and foretel of things which were to come but did confirm his Doctrine with signs and miracles And being that the Iews cannot but confess as Iosephus did that Christ was not only a wise man a Teacher of the people in the ways of truth one that wrought miracles and had gained many both of the Iews and Gentiles to adhere unto him being they cannot but acknowledge of our Saviour Christ as the good Theif did ille autem nil mali fecit that he had done nothing amiss or as Pilate that there was no fault to be found in him they have no reason but to think that Enoch and Elijah were the Types of the Lords Ascension aswell as of his life and doctrine But here perhaps it will be objected that either Enoch and Elijah were not taken up into Heaven and so no Types and figures of the Lords Ascension or if they were then was not Christ the first which opened the gates of Heaven and ascended thither in his body to make a way for others in due time to follow as all Antiquity in a manner do affirm he was grounding their judgement on the evident and plain texts of Scripture For doth not the Apostle expressely say that the way into the Holiest of all was not yet manifest while the first Tabernacle was yet standing Heb. 9.8 And doth not Christ our Saviour as expressely say that no man had ascended into Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of man Ioh. 3.13 How then were Enoch and Elijah Types of Christs Ascension if they were not taken up into Heaven or how was Christ the first if they there before him Our Saviour Christ himself makes answer unto this objection where he saith that in his Fathers house there were many mansions that is to say several degrees of happiness and estates in glory though all most glorious in themselves To some of which degrees of happiness and estates in glory unto some one or other of those heavenly Mansions both Enoch and Elijah were by God translated there 's no doubt of that the Scripture is expressely for it But that they were in Coelosummo in the highest Heaven that unto which the Lord ascended and where he now sitteth at the right hand of God the Father that as the Scriptures doe not say so there is no necessity why we should believe it Our Saviour was the first who ascended thither that place of supreme glory
rule his Church in things which concern salvation by men in sacred Orders is confessed on both sides and that he doth preserve the same in external Order at peace and decency and in the beauty of holiness by the power of Christian Princes is affirmed in Scriptures Why else are Kings entituled the Nursing Fathers and Queens the nursing mothers of the Church of Christ but for the protection which they give their superintendency over it in their several Kingdoms Kings are Christs Vice-roys on the earth in their own Dominions over all persons in all causes aswell Ecclesiastical as Civil the Supreme Governours And so are Bishops in the first sense in their several Dioceses and under them those Presbyters which have cure of souls Which lest we may be thought to say without good authority we call the Popes themselves to witness against those of Rome and to the others will say more in the following Paragraph For Pope Eusebius in his third Epistle decâ—etory which whatsoever credit it be of amongst learned men must be good ad homines saith plainly that our Saviour is the Churches head and that his Vicars are the Bishops to whom the Government and Ministerie of the Church is trusted Caput Ecclesâ—ae Christus est Vicarii autem Christi sacerdotes sunt And Sacerdotes in those times did signifie the Bishops no inferior Order For further proof whereof if more proof be needful consult St. Ambrose on 1 Cor. cap. 11. St. Austin in his questions on the Old and New Testament qu. 127. The Author of the Imperfect work ascribed to St. Chrysostom Hom. 17. the Fathers of the Councel of Compeigne and divers others all of which call the Bishop in most positive tearms Vicarium Christi the Vicar of Christ. And for the King so said Pope Eleutherius in a letter of his to Lucius a King of Britain no great Prince assuredly but the first Christian Prince that ever was in the world Vicarius Dei vos estis in regno vestro you are Gods Vice-roy or Lieutenant in your own Dominions Which title Edgar as I take it a West-Saxon King did challenge as his own of right in a speech made unto his Clergy in their Convocation or some such like Synodical meeting The like occurs of William the Conquerer who in a Parliament of his is called Vicarius summi Regis as is said by Bishop Iewel in the Defence of the Apology part 5. cap 6. sect 3. And this perhaps the sticklers for Presbyterie will not stick to grant who will allow Kings to be Gods Vice gerents so they be not Christs and if not Christs then not to intermeddle in such things as concern the Church but to betake themselves meerly unto secular matters Beza hath so resolved it against Erastus Our Saviour Christ saith he hath told us that his Kingdome is not of this world adeo ut 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 administrationi nunquam se immiscuerit and therefore would not be a Judge in a Temporal difference and thereupon it is inferred that Secular Princes must not meddle in such things as concern Christs Kingdome But none have spoke more plainly in it then our Scottish Presbyters from Father Henderson down to Cant and Rutherford who build their Presbyterian Platform upon this foundation that Kings receive not their authority from IESVS CHRIST but from God the Father Which being so pernicious a Maxime to the right of Kings and so derogatory to the honour of our Lord and Saviour I shall in brief summe up some passages in holy-Scripture and other good authorities from the antient Fathers as may aboundantly convince them of most gross absurdity in offering such strange fire in the Church of God For first our Saviour who best knew his own Prerogative hath told us that All power is given to him both in Heaven and Earth If all then doubtless that of ordaining Kings which are the greatest powers on earth If all then must it be by him as indeed it is or Solomon mistook the matter By whom Kings reign and Princes decree justice In reference to this power no question but St. Paul calleth him Rex Regum or the King of Kings He is saith the Apostle the only Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords By the same title he is called in the Revelation chap. 17. vers 14. And this not only in the way of excellencie because a greater King and a more puissant Lord then any here upon the earth but also in the way of derivation because from him all Kings and Princes whatsoever do derive their power Just so and in the self same sense some of the mighty Monarchs amongst the Gentiles having inferiour Princes under their command and such as do derive all authority from them do call themselves the Kings of Kings Rex Regum Arsaces the old style of the Parthian Emperours This further proved and very significantly inferred from another place of the Revelation where it is said of Christ the Lamb that he hath on his vesture and on his Thigh a name written viz. Kings of Kings and Lord of Lords In which last place there are two things to be observed which concern this point the one that this name of King of Kings and Lord of Lords is fixed and setled in Christs Person as the Son of man the other that all Kings are De femore Christi certainly of his appointment and Ordination as if they were descended from his very loyns Nor want we of the Fathers which affirm the same St. Athanasius paraphrasing on this Text of Scripture And he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever c. saith plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Christ having received the Throne of David hath transferred the same and given it to the holy Kings of Christians And so Liberius one of the Popes of Rome writing unto the Emperour Constantius a Prince extremely wedded indeed to the Arian faction admonisheth him not to fight against Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 s who had advanced him to the Empire nor to be so unthankeful to him as to countenance any impious opinion that was held against him Adde to these two though these the great Patriarchs of the Roman and Egyptian Churches the suffrage of the Fathers assembled at the Councel holden in Ariminum who writing to the same Constantius and speaking of our Lord and Saviour addes these following words viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say By whom thou reignest and hast Dominion over all the world And this no question is the reason why all Christian Princes do place the Cross upon the top of their Royal Crowns For though they use it as a badge of their Christianity and to acknowledge that they are not ashamed of the Cross of Christ yet by allotting to it the superior place they publish and confess this also that they do hold their Crowns by and under him Let us
for ostentation of our Savious power in regard that every man receives his judgement either life or death as soon as he is freed from his earthly tabernacle For which there is sufficient proof in the book of God This day said Christ our Saviour to the penitent theef shalt thou be with me in paradise As plain is that of the Apostle It is appointed unto men once to die and after death the judgement The same we finde exemplifyed in the rich man and Lazarus the soul of the one as soon as dead being carried into Abrahams bosome the other being plunged in unquenchable flames If so as so it is most certain what use can be conceived of a general judgement when all particular persons have already received their sentence what further punishments or glory can be added to them then Paradise to Gods Saints and servants and the unquenchable flames of hell for impenitent sinners Which difficulty though removed in some part before as to the vindicating of the justice of Almighty God and the participation of the body in that blisse or misery which the soul presently is adjudged to on the separation and finally the manifesting of Christs power and glory in the sight of his enemies shall now be also cleared as to that part thereof which seems to place the soul in the height of happinesse as soon as separate from the body or in the depth of anguish and disconsolation And first that the souls of just and righteous persons are in the hands of God in Paradise in Abrahams bosome yea in the very heavens themselves I shall easily grant But that they are in the same place or in the same estate and degree of glory to which they shall be preferred by Christ in the day of judgement I neither have seen text nor reason which could yet perswade me Certain I am the Scripture seems to me to be quite against it the current of antiquity and not a few Moderns of good note and eminencie to incline very strongly to the other side For Scriptures first St. Paul doth speak indeed of a Crown of righteousnesse to be given to him and to all those that love the appearing of Christ but not to be given them till that day i. e. the day of his appearing St. Peter next informeth of an incorruptible inheritance reserved for us in the heavens and more then so prepared already but not to be shewed till the last time In the last place we have St. Iohn acquainting us with the condition of the Saints as in matter of fact where he telleth us that the souls of the Martyrs under the Altar where they were willed to rest themselves till the number of their fellow servants was accomplished And though we grant the souls of righteous men departed are in heaven it self yet doth it not follow by any good consequence that therefore they are in the highest Heaven where God himselfe refideth in most perfect majesty The name of Heaven is variously used in holy Scriptures First for the Aire as where we finde mention of the birds of heaven Mat. 26. and the cloudes of heaven Mark 14. Next for the Firmament above in which the Lord hath placed those most glorious lights which frequently are called the Stars of heaven as Gen. 20. Then for that place which St. Paul calleth in one text by the name of the third heaven 2 Cor. 12.2 and in another place shortly after by the name of Paradise vers 4. which is conceived to be the habitations of the Angels their proper habitation as St. Iude calleth it vers 6. Into this place the soul of Lazarus was carried as to Abrahams bosom to this our Saviour promised to bring the soul of the penitent theef Hitherto Enoch and Eliah were translated by God and St. Paul taken up in an heavenly rapture And to this place or to some one or many of those heavenly mansion for in my Fathers house there are many mansions said our Lord and Saviour the souls of righteous men are carryed on the wings of Angels there to abide till they are called upon to meet their bodies in day of day of judgement And last of all it â—ignifyeth the highest heaven to which Christ our Saviour is ascended and sitteth at the right hand of God in most perfect glory Of which St. Paul telleth us that he was made higher then the heavens Heb. 7. and that he did ascend above all the heavens Ephes. 4. This is the seate or Palace of Almighty God called as by way of excellency the heaven of heavens where his divine glory and majesty is most plainly manifested and therefore called by the Prophet the habitation of his holinesse and of his glory So then the souls of righteous men deceased may be in Paradise in the third heaven in Abrahams bosome and yet not be admitted to the highest heaven wherein God reigns in perfect glory till Christ shall come again to judgment and take them for ever to himself into possession and participation of his heavenly Kingdome That in this sense the Fathers understand the Scriptures which mention the estate of the Saints departed will best be seen by looking over their own words according as they lived in the severall Churches First for the Eastern Cherches Iustin Marter telleth us that the the souls of the righteous are carryed to Paradise where they enjoy the company of Angels Archangels and the vision of Christ our Saviour and are kept in places fit for them till the day of the resurrection and compensation Next Origen The Saints saith he departing hence do not presently obtain the full reward of their labours but they expect us though staying and slacking For they have not perfect joy so long as they grieve at our Errours and lament our sins Then Chrysostome more then once or twice Though the soul were a thousand times immortall as it is yet shall she not enjoy those admirable good things without the body And if the body rise not again the soul remaineth uncrowned without heavenly blisse Theodoret lived in the same times and was of the same opinion also saying The Saints have not yet received their Crowns for the God of all expecteth the conflict of others that the race being ended he may at once pronounce all that overcome to be Conquerers and reward them together Finally not to look so low as Oecumenius and Theophylact who say almost as much as Theoderet did we have at once the judgement of many of the Fathers delivered by Andreas Caesariensis in a very few words It is saith he the judgement of many godly Fathers that every good man after this life hath a place fit for him by which he may conjecture at the glory which is prepared Look we now on the Western Churches and first we have Irenaeus B. of Lyons in France affirming positively thus Manifestum est c. It is manifest that the souls
suffer But that being done they doe confign him over to the Fiends of hell to the Tormentors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as our Redeemer cals them in the 18. chapter of St. Matthew vers 34. The holy Angels are the Ministers of this dreadful Court the Devil and his Angels are the Executioners who bearing an old grudge to man from the first beginning will doubtless execute his Office on him with the most extremity And thus accordingly they do Anima damnata continuo invaditur a Daemonibus qui crudelissime eam rapiunt ad infernum deducunt as before we had it from St. Cyril But in their Ministery after Judgement to the just and righteous the case is otherwise The Angels as the Scripture tels us are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ministring Spirits sent out to minister unto them which shall be heirs of Salvation Sent out to minister unto them when they are alive sent out to carry their souls as they did that of Lazarus into Abrahams bosome when they are deceased sent out to gather the Elect together from the four windes And when the joyful sentence is pronounced upon them they leave them not till they have brought them to their place in the heavenly glories It is not only Colligite gather them together but Congregate in horreum meum in our Saviours Parable Gather the Wheat into my barn that is to say as he expounds himself in another place in gaudium Domini into the joy of the Lord Regnum a constitutione mundi paratum the Kingdom prepared for them before the foundations of the world were laid or as St. Paul doth change the phrase in Civitatem Dei viventis the City of the living God To such end serve the Angels in the day of Iudgement Which though they execute with great chearfulness at the Lords command and are assured of their own confirmation in the state of bliss yet can they not but tremble as the Fathers have it at the great hazard which is then to be undergone by their Fellow-servants So witnesseth St. Basil saying At Christs coming from the Heavens every creature shall tremble Even the Angels themselves shall not be without fear for they shall also be present though they shall give no account to God Not without fear Of what Of their fellow-servants and of Gods wrath upon the world as St. Chrysostom hath it At that day saith the Father all things shall be full of astonishment horror and fear A great fear shall even then possess the Angels and not the Angels only but the Archangels and Thrones and Powers of Heaven because their fellow-servants are to undergoe the judgement of their actions past Such and so terrible is the manner of Christs coming to Iudgement that not alone the guilty persons or the Saints themselves but even the very Angels are possessed with terror As for the method of this day whether the righteous or the wicked shall come first to judgement hath been made a question some thinking that the wicked shall be first condemned before the righteous do receive their absolution and others that the righteous shall be first absolved before the wicked have the sentence of their condemnation They that maintain the first opinion do ground themselves upon that passage in our Saviours Parable in which the Reapers are commanded first to gather the Tares and binde them in bundles for to burn them and then to gather the Wheat into his Barn But this illation is ill grounded and doth much worse agree with our Saviours method used in other places For in the parable of the Net cast into the Sea the good fish were first gathered into Vessels before the bad were thrown away and in the other parable of the Sheep and the Goats Venite hath precedencie of Discedite the blessed of the Father were first absolved before the cursed were condemned to eternal torments Nor will it serve the turn which is said by some that though the merits of the just are prius in discussione first taken in consideration and enquired into yet shall the punishment of the wicked and ungodly man be prius in executione first put in execution and inflicted on them For this as ill agreeth with those texts of Scripture in which it is said not only in particular of the twelve Apostles that they shall sit on twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel but also of the Saints in general that they shall judge the world as St. Paul hath told us That they shall judge the world but how Not only sâ—la comparatione by telling them or rather upbraiding them with their impieties and impenitencies as full well they may in which respect the Ninivites and the Queen of the South are in the Gospel said to condemn the Iews but Approbatione Divinae sententiae by approving and applauding that most righteous judgement which Christ the Supream Judge shall pronounce against them Which could not be in case the wicked did receive their final condemnation before the righteous were admitted into some participation of the heavenly glories When therefore it is said in the former parable Colligite primum Gather first the tares together either the word first must have reference to that of binding which doth follow after first gather them and then binde them up Or else it must be said and perhaps more rightly that the gathering of the tares is there first propounded not because first in order of the several judgements but because they gave occasion unto that discourse betwixt the Heavenly Husbandman and his household servants This difference thus composed and this rub removed the method used in this great action will disclose it self The Lord CHRIST IESVS being set in his glorious Throne the many thousands of his holy Angels shining round about him and the Saints apparelled with their bodies standing all before him or rather placed at his right hand as in the Parable the Reprobates being left on the Earth beneath or standing at his left hand at as great a distance he shall first pronounce the sentence of Absolution upon his Elect Come saith he O ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdome prepared for you from the foundation of the world And this shall first be done for these reasons specially first that the wicked seeing from what bliss they are fallen and what reward is laid up for the righteous man may be the more confounded in the apprehension of their own misfortune and secondly to shew how much more CHRIST is prone to mercy then he is to judgement according to the good old verse Ad poenam tardus Deus est ad praemia velox This done there shall be placed twelve Thrones neer the Throne of Christ for the twelve Apostles who as they were the Lords chief Agents in the work of the Gospel so shall they be his principal Assessors in the Act of Judicature the residue of the Saints
Ecclesia malignantium as the Psalmist calls it Or if you will we may by these behold the Church in her chief ingredients which are the sanctimony of life and conversation it is an holy Church and the integrity of her doctrine free from all Heresie and Error in the title Catholick For the word Catholick is not onely used to signifie Universality of extent but purity of doctrine also The first in the natural the second in the borrowed sense of the word In the first sense the Church is called Catholick in respect of place Thou hast redeemed us by thy blood out of every kinred and tongue and people and nation To which accordeth that of an Antient writer saying Ab ortu solis ad occasum lex Christiana suscepta est That the Gospel of Christ had been admitted from the rising of the Sun to the setting of it that is to say In all parts of the world And it is called Catholick too in respect of persons who are promiscuously and indefinitely called to the knowledge of Christ In whom there is neither Iew nor Gentile bond nor free male nor female but all called alike And so Lactantius telleth us also Universos homines sine discrimine sexus vel aetatis Minutius addes Aut dignitatis ad coeleste pabulum convocamus Lastly it hath the name of Catholick in respect of times as comprehending all the faithful since our Saviours days unto the age in which we live and to continue from henceforth to the end of the world Of which duration or extent of the Church of Christ the Angel Gabriel did fore-signifie to his Virgin-mother that he should reign in the house of Jacob for ever and of his Kingdom there should be no end And in this sense it doth not onely include that part of the Church which is now Militant on the Earth but also that which is Triumphant in the Heaven of Glories Both they with us and we with them make but one Body Mystical whereof Christ is Head and all together together with the Antient Patriarcks and other holy men of God which lived under the Law shall make up that one glorious Church which is entituled in the Scriptures The general Assembly the Church of the first-born whose names are written in the Heavens For the better clearing of which Vnion or Concorporation which is between these different Members of the Body Mystical the Fathers of the Constantinopolitan Council added the word One unto the Article reading it thus And I believe one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church Catholick then the Church may be rightly called in regard to extent whether it do refer to time place or persons and it is called Catholick too in respect of Doctrine with reference to the same extensions that being the true Catholick Doctrine of the Church of Christ Quae semper quae ubique quae ab omnibus credita est which hath always and in every place been received as Orthodox and that too by all manner of men according to the Golden Rule of Lerinensis Catholick in this sense is the same with Orthodox a Catholick Christian just the same with a true Professor by which the Doctrine is distinguished from Heretical and the men from Hereticks Iustinian in the Code doth apply it so Omnes hanc legem sequentes Christianorum Catholicorum nomen jubemus amplecti That for the persons the Professors it followeth after for the Doctrine Is autem Nicenae adsertor fidei Catholicae Religionis verus cultor accipiendus est c. A National or Topical Church may be called Catholick in this sense and are often times entituled so in Ecclesiastical Authors For Constantine the Emperor writing to the Alexandrians superscribed his Letters in this form 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. To the Catholick Church of Alexandria And Gregory Nazianzen being then Bishop of Constantinople calls himself in his last Will and Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The Bishop of the Catholick Church in the City of Constantine Of this word Catholick in this sense there hath been different use made as the times have varied The Fathers of the purest times made use of it to distinguish themselves from Hereticks according to that so celebrated saying of Pacianus Christianus mihi nomen est Catholicus cognomen Christian saith he is my name and Catholick my sirname by the one I am known from Infidels by the other from Hereticks And so long as the main body of Christianity retained the form of wholesome words and kept the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace it served exceeding fitly for a mark distinctive to known an Orthodox Professor from those who followed after Heretical and Schismatical Factions But when the main Body of the Church was once torn in peeces and every leading faction would be thought the true Church of Christ they took unto themselves the names of Catholicks also as if the truth was not more Orthodoxly held by the soundest Christians than it was by them And this hath been a device so stale and common that the Nestorians in the East though antiently condemned for Hereticks in the Third General Council do call their Patriark by the name of Catholick that is to say The Catholick or Orthodox Bishop as Leunclavius telleth us very rightly not Iacelich as the Copies of Brochardus and Paulus Venetus do corruptly read it In the same Error are our great Masters in the Church of Rome who having appropriated to themselves the name of Catholicks and counting all men Hereticks but themselves alone First cast all others out of the Church by the name of Hereticks who do not hold communion with them in their sins and errors and then defend themselves by the name of Catholicks from having dealt unjustly with their Fellow-Christians men every way more Orthodox than they be themselves Just so the Collier justified himself for a true Believer because he believed as the Church believed though he knew not the doctrine of the Church and the Church believed as he believed though the Church troubled not it self about his opinions I know the great Cardinal presumes very much on the name of Catholick making it to be one of the signs of the true Church now because an adjunct of the true Church in the Primitive times And wonder it is that we are grown so prodigal of late as to give it to them A courtesie which they receive with a great deal of joy and turn the bare acknowledgement to their great advantage there being no Argument more convincing than that which is drawn from the confession of an adversary Upon this ground doth Barclay build his Triumph for the cause of Rome Adeo probanda est ecclesia nostra à nomine Catholicae quod extorquet etiam ab invitis hareticis as he brags it there For my part as I never gave it them in writing nor in common speech as thinking
a full discourse which he entituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Discourse of Promises and finding that he grounded his erroneous Tenets on the Revelation he wrote another on that Book which he inscribed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or The confutation and reproof of the Allegorists Nor did he labour by his pen onely but by conference too making a journey or Episcopal Visitation into Arsenois a Province of Egypt where this opinion was most cherished of purpose to dispute down this erroneous Doctrin◠In which he sped so answerably unto his desires that many of the chief Sticklers in it did recant their error et veritatem una nobiscum confite bantur and chearfully imbrace that truth which he brought unto them This Doctrine being set on foot though by such vile Hereticks and seeming to have ground and countenance from the Revelation was by the Fathers and other Writers of the first times of the Church thought fitter to be rectified and reformed than abandoned wholly And thereupon a new conceit was taken up and dispersed abroad unto this effect That after the Resurrection Christ should have an Earthly Kingdom the principal Seat whereof should be Hierusalem Hierusalem new built of gold and most precious stones Hierusalem aurea gemmata as St. Hierom calleth it in which the Saints should reign with him for a Thousand years in all manner of happiness and after that accompany him to the Heaven of Heavens and there live for ever This was the sum of the Opinion thus refined and rectified But for the Readers satisfaction and my own together I shall describe it more at large that we may see the better what we are to think of it and therein I shall follow Lactantius chiefly who hath more copionsly presented the true state thereof than any other of the Antients By him we are informed that after the destruction of the Roman Empire which must be utterly subverted before any of these things shall come to pass there shall follow great plagues unseasonable weather a general mortality of all living Creatures many strange Prodigies in the Air the Stars fall down from Heaven and the whole course of nature shall be out of order Things being in this dreadful state the Lord shall send into the world the great Prophet Elias who shall convert many unto God with great signs and wonders but in the midle of his work Antichrist shall arise out of Syria encounter with that great Prophet kill him in the Fight leaving him for three daies unburied after which time he shall revive and be taken up into Heaven After this shall presently ensue a terrible persecution of those righteous persons who will not worship this proud Tyrant calling himself the Son of God and practicing to seduce the people after the working of Satan by power and signs and lying wonders insomuch that all the Saints shall be compelled to retire themselves into the Wilderness and there abide in great distress calling continually for help to the Lord their God For their relief Christ shall descend at last with the Hosts of Heaven fight with this dreadful Tyrant overthrow him often and finally take him and his Confederates Prisoners whom he shall presently condemn to their merited torments Then shall the graves be opened and the bodies of the Saints shall arise and stand before the Iudgement seat of Christ the Conqueror and being united to their souls shall be incorporated with those righteous persons which are found alive and both together constitute an earthly Kingdom to our Lord and Saviour who shall reign over them or with them rather for a Thousand years triumphing over the remainder of their mortal Enemies who shall not be extinguished but preserved to perpetual slavery During this time the Devil shall be bound in chains that he do not hurt the Saints inhabiting the holy City in all peace and happiness the Sun shall shew more glorious than ever formerly the Earth become more fruitful than it was before producing most delicious fruits of its own accord the Rocks shall yeeld the sweetest hony and all the Rivers flow with Milk and Wine After which Thousand years expired the Devil that old Murderer shall get loose again stir up the Nations of the Earth to destroy the Saints and not onely lay siege unto the holy City But fire and hail and tempests from the Heavens above shall make so general and terrible a destruction of them that for Seven years there shall no other wood be burat but their Spears and Targets Then shall the Saints be brought into the presence of Almighty God whom they shall serve for evermore and at the same time shall be the Second and most general Resurrection in which the wicked shall be raised to eternal torments and damned for ever to the lake of fire and brimstone This is the substance of the Story as Lactantius telleth it which whether it have more of the Iew or of the Poet in it it is hard to say That of the great defeat of Antichrist and the burning of the Spears and Shields for Seven years together is branded by St. Hierom for a peece of an old Talmudical Tale the Iewish Rabbins making the like endless fables interminabiles fabulas as the Father calleth them of Gog and Magog who for a while shall tyrannize so cruelly over those of Israel but be at last subdued and slain with as great an overthrow as he affirmeth of Antichrist and his Confederates That of the flourishing estate of Christs earthly Kingdom was reckoned in those times when it was most countenanced to be but a Poetical fiction Figmenta haec esse Poetarum quidam putant as Lactantius doth himself acknowledge And more than so he seemeth to refer his Reader for a further description of this Kingdom to the works of the Poets affirming positively that all those characters shall be verified of this Kingdom of Christ I mean this Millenarian Kingdom Quae Poetae aureis temporibus facta esse dixerunt which by the Poets are affabulated of the golden age for proof whereof for fear we should not take his word he puts down a description of it out of Virgils works But in my minde his own description of it comes more near to Ovids who thus concludes his Map or Character of that blessed time Mox etiam fruges Tellus inarata ferebat Nec renovatus Ager gravidis canebat aristis Flumina tum Lactis tum flumina Nectaris ibant Flavaque de viridi stillabant Ilice Mella Which is thus Englished by Geo. Sandys The fruitful Earth Corn un-manured bears And every year renews her golden Ears With Milk and Nectar were the Rivers fill'd And yellow Honey from green Elmes distill'd But whether it were Iewish or Poetical or compounded of both the fancy being once taken up proved very acceptable as it seems in those elder times to most sorts of people both in the East and Western Churches who did
and beams of our Heavenly Father who hath bestowed our souls upon us indued with such a perfect measure of understanding and who not onely doth direct our mindes in the ways of godliness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in due time also will save our Bodies The Divine Plato and his followers borrowed a great deal of their light from this Zoroaster and the like Dictates of the rest of the Chaldean Sages which grounded him in his opinion of the Souls immortality and the account it was to give to the dreadful Iudge in the world to come whereof he speaketh in his second Epistle and eleventh Book De Legibus Pythagoras though sometimes he held the transmigration of the soul into other Bodies yet in his better thoughts he disposed it otherwise and placed the souls of vertuous men in the Heavens above where they should be immortal and like the gods saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say Leaving the Body they to Heaven shall flie Where they shall be immortal never die And to this purpose also that of Epicharmus may be here alleged assuring us That if we live a life conform to the rules of vertue death shall not be able to do us hurt because our souls shall live in a blessed life in the highest Heavens Upon these grounds but specially upon the reading of some Books of Plato Cleombrotus is said to have been so ravished with the contemplation of the glories of that other life that for the more speedy attaining of them he cast himself down from the top of a Mountain with greater zeal by far than wisdom And therefore much more commendable was the death and dying speech of one Chalcedius another of those old Platonicks Revertar in patriam ubi meliores Progenitores Parentes I am saith he returning into my own Country where I shall finde the bettet sort of my Progenitors and deceased Parents Nor was this such a point of divine knowledge as was attainable onely by the wise men of Greece the sober men amongst the Romans had attained it also For Cicero affirms expresly Certum esse ac definitum in coelo locum ubi beati aevo sempiterno fruantur That there is a certain and determinate place in Heaven where the blessed souls of those who deserve well of the publick shall injoy everlasting rest and happiness And Seneca speaks thus of death intermittit vitam non eripit that it onely interrupteth the course of life but destroyeth it not because there will come a day at last qui nos iterum in lucem reponat which will restore us again to the light of Heaven Finally Not to add more testimonies in so clear a case Homer makes Hercules a companion of the gods above with whom he lives in endless solace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Ennius saith the like of Romulus Romulus in Coelo longum cum diis agit aevum If we would know what their opinion was of the place it self in which eternal life was to be enjoyed we have a glimpse or shadow of it in the fiction of the Elysian fields so memorized and chanted by the antient Poets Locos laetos amoena vireta Fortunatorum nemorum sedesque beatas A place conceived to be replenished with all variety of pleasures and divine contentments which possibly the soul of man could aspire unto the ground continually covered with the choycest Tapistry of Nature the Trees perpetually furnished with the richest fruits excellent both for taste and colour the Rivers running Nectar and most heavenly Wines fit for the Palat of the gods And which did add to all these beauties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sweets thereof not blasted by untimely dewes or interrupted by the inclemency of a bitter winter A place by them designed for the soules of those who had been careful of Religion or lost their lives in the defence and preservation of their natural Country or otherwise deserved nobly of the publick Nay even the rude Americans and savage Indians whom we may justly call jumenta rationalia a kind of reasonable beasts retain amongst them a Tradition thar beyond some certain hils but they know not where there is a glorious place reserved for the soules of those who had lived vertuously and justly in this present life or sacrificed their lives to defend their Country or were the Authors of any notable and signal benefit which tended to the good of mankind If then not onely the Philosophers and learned Gentiles but even the Barbarians and rude Americans have spooken so divinely of the place and state of good men departed there is no question to be made but that the Patriarchs Prophets and other holy men of God were very well assured of the truth hereof although they lived before or under the Law as well assured as we that have the happiness to live under the Gospel For St. Paul telleth us of the Fathers which were under the cloud that they all passed thorow the red Sea and did all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual Rock which followed them and that Rock was Christ Not that they had the same Sacraments in specie which we Cristians have but others which conduced to the same effect and did produce the same fruits both of Faith and Piety The Mysteries of salvation the hopes and promises of eternal life are frequently expressed in the Old Testament quamvis obscuriores longè though more obscure by far than in the forms of speech in which they are presented to us in the New Testament as Peter Martyr well observes And he notes too that many were the temporal promises or the promises concerning temporal blessings but so as to conduct and train them up in the hopes of happines eternal The temporal blessings which they had were but the types and figures of those endless comforts which were reserved for them in the Heavens above the land of Promise but a shadow of that promised land of which they were to be heirs in the Kingdom of God Hierusalem but a Map of that glorious City whose Author and founder is the Lord. Enoch had neither been translated before the Law nor Elias under it had not both of them stedfastly beleeved this truth that they should see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the living And yet some men there were and I doubt still are who teach that the holy men of God which lived before Christ our Saviours time did fix their hopes only upon temporal blessings and not at all upon spiritual or if upon spiritual as the peace of conscience yet not upon eternal happiness which is the crown and glory of that peace The Anabaptists and the Familists were of this opinion against whom the Church of England hath declared her self in the Seventh Article of her Confession saying That they are not to be
as also a Crown of righteousness 2 Tim. 4.8 and finally a Crown of life by St. Iames Chap. 1.12 With one of which Crowns or some like unto it we shall be all made Kings in Gods heavenly Kingdom as is affirmed by St. Iohn in the Revelation In a word it is sometimes called Civitas Dei viventis or the City of the living God as in that to the Hebrews Chap. 12.5 A City by St. Iohn described to be of pure Gold and as clear as Chrystal the Walls of Iaspar stone and the Gates of Pearl and all the Pavements throughout of most precious stones Which Character we must not understand in the literal but the mystical sense The Man of God in his description of the New Ierusalem selecting such materials to set forth the same as he conceived to be most estimable in the eyes of men Put all which hath been said together and we shall finde That under this one notion of Life Everlasting are comprehended all the comforts which attend the same that is to say A Kingdom and a Crown of glory the joyes and never-fading pleasures which are to be possessed at the right hand of God in that Heavenly City the very Gates whereof are so rich and beautiful O coelo dilecta domus postesque beati A City where we shall possess all divine contentments which possibly the soul of man can aspire unto health without sickness beauty without blemish felicity without admixture of afflictions and joy without disconsolâ—â—ion There shall we for evermore enjoy the Beatifical Vision of Almighty God when we shall see him face to face in his perfect glory and know him as we are known of him not by faith but sight which is the onely object of divine felicity Visio Dei beatifica sola est summum bonum nostrum said St. Augustine truly And in that blessed Vision of Almighty God we shall with joy possess those unspeakable glories which St. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such as it was not possible for a man to utter which neither the tongue of man nor angels can express aright To which what need we adde the happiness which we shall enjoy in having the society of the glorious company of the Apostles the goodly fellowship of the Prophets the noble army of Martyrs the beloved embraces of those happy souls whose sad departure from us we so much lamented What need it be added unto this That there we shall enjoy those favors which the frown of Princes cannot ruine nor the riot of posterity impair nor the tongues of evil people blemish those riches which the rust of pleasure shall not eat into nor the moth of vanity consume nor the great thief of Hell steal from us In a word What need be added unto this That there we shall attain such an height of bliss Vt ne voto quidem opus sit that there shall be no need of prayers but we shall spend our whole eternity in no other office than singing Hymns of praise and glory to the Lord our God All this and more than can be added is comprehended in the glory of that blessed Vision which is all in all But of the glories and felicities of eternal life it is enough to say a little because it is impossible we should say enough Two things there are which may deserve a further and more punctual search because they have been much debated amongst the learned The one about the different degrees in eternal happiness the other about the knowledge which the Saints shall have of one another whether they lived with us or in other ages Of both these I shall venture a word or two in a positive way rather than traverse and debate them in the way of Argument And first beginning with the last It is apparent that the Apostles knew our Saviour after his Resurrection from the grave of death and that the people of Ierusalem the holy City did know those Saints who rose together with our Saviour and appeared unto them though both our Saviour and those Saints rose in glorified bodies Bodies not subject any more unto putrefaction And if a mortal eye could see and distinguish clearly of such bodies as by their Resurrection were become incorruptible how much more may we think that a glorified eye is able to recall unto our remembrance the knowledge of that glorified body which formerly we knew in the state of corruption It is apparent also by our Saviours Parable that Dives and Lazarus knew each other though then in divers places and in different states the one at rest in Abrahams bosom the other in the pit of Hell and in flames unquenchable How much more shall the Saints the Elect of God both know and be made known unto one another abiding in the same place and the same estate and looking daily in the Mirror of Gods blessed Vision which represents all things unto them in their true condition We shall then know as we are known of God as St. Paul hath told us out of which place St. Augustine comforted a poor widow called Italica who mourned heavily for the loss of her husband assuring her That as in this life she saw him with external eyes but with those eyes discerned no more than his outward lineaments so in the life to come she should see him again and in that sight discern the very thoughts of his heart and all his secret counsels and imaginations Nor shall we onely know and be known of those with whom we took sweet counsel together or walked together in the House of the Lord as Friends but at the first sight shall be able to say that this is Abraham Isaac Iacob these are the Saints that went before us these are they who came in the arrere many ages after For Christ our Saviour tells the Iews That they should see Abraham Isaac Jacob and all the Prophets in the Kingdom of God Not see them as men see a stranger whom they did not know but see them so as to know who they were by their names and qualities Else could not the discomfort be so great unto them to see their Fathers after the flesh and all the Prophets whom they murdered in a state of glory and they their miserable and unhappy children to be quite excluded from the same And the same Christ our Saviour doth assure his followers That they should sit at the same Table with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of Heaven that is to say They should commerce as freely and as knowingly with those antient Patriarks as men that use to eat together in the self-same house Besides the Scriptures do affirm in several places That at the last day shall be a manifest declaration of the just judgment of God when he shall reward every man according to the works which he hath done in the flesh whether good or evil And if the works of every man shall be