also of the creation and fall of man OF the name and nature of the Angels Why the creatioon of the Angels not expressed in Scripture Probable conjectures that the Angels were created before the beginning of the world and those conjectures backed by authority of the Antients both Greeks and Latines The several orders and degrees of the holy Angels The Angels ministring to Almighty God not only in inflicting punishments upon the wicked but in protection of the godly Many things said in Scripture to be done by God which were effected by the Ministry of the blessed Angels That every one of Gods people and they alone hath his Angel-guardian proved not only by the authority of the Antients but by the testimony of the Scripture Of the Daemons of the antient Gentiles That the worshipping of Angels mentioned in Coloss. 2. did arise from thence Angel worship not alone forbidden by Scriptures and Fathers but by the very Angels themselves The evil Angels first created in a state of integrity Of their confederacy and fall That the sin of ambition was the cause of the fall proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers and by several reasons Several differences between the sin and fall of man and the sin and fall of the evil Angels The reason why CHRIST took not on himself the Angelical nature The Devils diligence and design in seducing mankinde The Devil why and how called the Tempter Of the Mali Genii Of the Gentiles and that the Daemonium Socratis so often mentioned by the Antients was not of that nature Several Artifices of the Daemons in gaining Divine honours to themselves The Devil not without much difficulty dispossessed of the Soveraignty he had gotten in the souls of men The goodly structure of mans body and some contemplations thence arising That the soul of man is not ex traduce proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers The Image of God imprinted on mankinde in what it doth consist especially and of the several degrees and perfections of it The voluntary fall of man and how it came to be imputed to his whole posterity the remedy of God provided to restore lost man The fall of Adam not decreed and in what sense permitted by Almighty God CHAP. VI. What Faith it was which was required for Justification before and under the Law of Moses Of the knowledge which the Patriarchs and Prophets had touching Christ to come Touching the Sacrifices of the Jews the salvation of the Gentiles and the justifying power of Faith THe general project of this Chapter No faith in Christ required of Adam till his fall nor after that explicitely affirmed of our Father Abraham The error and mistake of Eve touching the Messias Whether the Prophets fully understood their own predictions touching Christ to come In what Gods Prophets differed from the Heathen Soothsayers The Heathen Soothsayers why called extatici and arreptitii and furiosi No explicite faith in Christ required of the Patriarchs before the law nor of the people of the Iews who lived under the Law What faith it was which was imputed for righteousness to our Father Abraham The Sacrifices of the Iews not counted expiatory in reference unto Christ to come but by the Ordinance and Institution of Almighty God Why CHRIST is said in Scripture to be the end of the Law Or the advantages which the Iews had above other Nations The Gentiles not left destitute of means and helps to bring them to the knowledge and Worship of God No point of Reverence performed by Gods people antiently in the act of Worship which was not practised by the Gentiles The Sacrifices of the Gentiles what they aimed at chiefly before perverted by the Devil The Sacrificing of men and women among the Gentiles by whom first introduced and upon what grounds The eminence of some Gentiles in all moral vertues The union of mans soul with Almighty God proposed as the chiefend of liâ—e by the old Philosophers The salvation of the nobler souls amongst the Gentiles defended by some late Divines denyed by St. Augustine formerly and upon what grounds the grounds on which he built examined The vertues of the Gentiles not to be counted sins or vices for any circumstantial imperfections which are noted in them The special help wherewith God might supply amongst the Gentiles the want of Scripture The charitable opinion of Franciscus Iunius touching the Infants of the Gentiles The case of the Gentiles altered since our Saviours passion and so St. Peter Act. 2. and the 17. Article of the Church of England to be understood What it is that makes Faith instrumental unto Iustification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or the act of faith imputed to a man for righteousness proved by the testimony of the Scriptures and the Antient Writers The Homilies of the Church explicated and applyed to the present point LIBER II. CHAP. I. Nothing revealed to the Gentiles touching Christ to come The Name of JESUS what it signifies and of bowing at it Of the name CHRIST and the Offices therein included The name of Christians how given unto his Disciples SAlvation of the world by Christ kept as a Mysterie from the Gentiles generally before the Preaching of the Gospel The Sibâ—lline Oracles what they say of Christ not to be counted pie fraudes and with what care preserved from the common view The tearm or â—â—tion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the WORD frequently found in Plato and his followers The summe of our belief touching Christ our Saviour The name of IESVS whence derived and what it signifieth A parallel between IESVS the Son of God and Ioshua or Iesus the son of Nun. The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rendred Salvator by the Writers in the Christian Church till the alteration made by Beza and of the full meaning of those words The dignity of the name of Iesus That bowing at the Name of IESVS was antiently used in the Church of Christ and from the first beginning of the Reformation in the Church of England The name CHRIST whence derived and what it signifieth and of the several Offices it relates unto That the name of Christian was not given unto the followers of Christs Doctrine without some solemnities Chrestos and Chrectiani mistakingly used for Christus and Christiani by some Heathen Writers CHAP. II. That JESUS CHRIST is the Son of God Why called his only or his only begotten Son Proofs for the Godhead of our Saviour Of the title of LORD THe name of the Son or Sons of God ascribed in several respects to men and Angels and also to the Saints departed given in a more peculiar manner to Kings and Prophets then unto any other of the sons of men in all of these respects communicable unto CHRIST our Saviour but after a more excellent manner then to all the rest CHRIST not the Son of God only but his only Son properly to be called the natural and begotten Son of Almighty God in reference to his birth
or bad The ill successe that followed the young Prodigals journey was no part of his fathers purpose of his will and absolute decree much lesse no nor so much as to be ascribed unto his permission which was but causa sine qua non as the Schooles call it if it were so much Only it gave the Father such an opportunity as Adams fall did GOD in the present case of entertaining him with joy at his coming home and killing the faâ—ted Calfe for his better welcome T is true that God to whose eternal eye all things are present and fore-seen as if done already did perfectly fore-know to what unhappy end this poor man would come how far he would abuse that natural liberty wherewith he had endowed him at his first Creation Praescivit peccaturum sed non praedestinavit ad peccatum said Fulgentius truly And upon this fore-knowledge what would follow on it he did withall provide such a soveraign remedy as should restore collapsed man to his primitive hopes of living in Gods fear departing hence in his favour and coming through faith in Christ unto life eternall if he were not wanting to himself in the Application For this is a faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation that CHRIST IESVS came into the World to save sinners of whom every man may say as St. Paul once did that he is the chief And it is as worthy of acceptance which came though from the same Spirit from a worthier person that God so loved the World the whole world of mankinde that He sent his only begouten Son into the World to the intent that whosoever did believe in him should live though he dyed and whosoever liveth and believeth in him should not die for ever but have as in another place everlasting life But what it is to believe in him and what a Christian man is bound to believe of him as it is all the subject of the six next Articles so must it be the argument of another book this touching our belief in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth and all things therein with most of the material points which depend upon it beginning now to draw to a final period Chap. VI. What Faith it was which was required for Justification before and under the Law Of the knowledge which the Patriarchs and Prophets had touching Christ to come Touching the Sacrifices of the Jews the Salvation of the Gentiles and the Justifying power of Faith ANd yet before we pass to the following Articles there are some points to be disputed in reference to the several estates of the Church of God as it stood heretofore under the Law and since under the Gospel the influence which Faith had in their justification and the condition of those people which were Aliens to the law of Moses before Christs coming in the flesh For being that the Patriarchs before the time of Moses and those holy men of God that lived after him till the coming of Christ had not so clear and explicite a knowledge of the particulars of the Creed which concern our Saviour or the condition of the holy Catholick Church and the Members of it as hath been since revealed in the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles it cannot be supposed that they should have universally the same object of faith which we Christians have or were bound to believe all those things distinctly touching Christ our Saviour and the benefits by him redounding to the sons of men which all Christians must believe if they will be saved And then considering that there is almost nothing contained in Scripture touching God the Father his Divine Power and Attributes the making and government of the World and all things therein which was to be believed by those of the line of Abraham but what hath been avowed and testified by the learned Gentiles it will not be unworthy of our disquisition to see wherein the differences and advantages lay which the Patriarchs and those of Iudah had above the Nations or whether the same light of truth did not shine on both through divers Mediums for the better fitting and preparing of both people to receive the Gospel In sifting and discussing of which principal points we shall consider what it is in faith it self which is said to justifie of what effect the Sacrifices both before and under the Law were to the satisfying of Gods wrath and expiating of the sins of the people by whom they were offered to the Lord and the relation which they had to the death of Christ the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world and finally what is to be conceived of those eminent men amongst the Gentiles who not extinguishing that light of nature which was planted in them but regulating all their actions by the beams thereof came to be very eminent in all kindes of learning and in the exercise of Iustice Temperance Mercy Fortitude and other Acts of Moral vertue Some other things will fall in incidently on the by which need not be presented in this general view And the mature consideration of all these particulars I have reserved unto this place that being situate in the midst between the Faith we have in God the Father Almighty and the belief required of us in his Son Christ Iesus it may either serve for an Appendix to the former part or a Preamble to the second or be in stead of a bond or ligament for knitting all the joints of this body together in the stronger coherence of discourse And first Faith being as appeareth by the definition before delivered a firm assent to supernatural truths revealed we cannot but conceive in reason that the Object of it is to be commensurable to the proportion and degree of the Revelation For as our Saviour said in another case that to whom much is given of him the more shall be required so may we also say in this that to whom more divine supernatural truths have been revealed of him there is a greater measure of belief expected Till the unhappy fall of Adam there was no faith required but in God alone For without faith it is impossible to please God saith the Apostle which Adam by the Law of his Creation was obliged to endeavour Nor could he come before the Lord or seek for the continuance of his grace and favours had he not first been fitted and prepared by faith For he that cometh unto God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him as in the same text saith the same Apostle Which words we may not understand of Faith in Christ at least not primarily with respect to Adam of whom such faith was not required in the state of Innocency for where there was no sin there was no need of a Saviour but only of a faith in Almighty God the stedfast confession and acknowledgement of whose beeing and bounty was to speak
the fowles of the Aire Next for the Nomothetical arts of Empire let us look on those and we shall finde that as he came not to destroy the Law of God but to fulfil it so hath he added more weight to it either by way of application or of explication then before it had They who consult our Saviours Sermon on the mount and look upon his Commentaries on the law of Moses which the chief Priests and Pharisees had perverted by adulterate glosses will quickly finde that he discharged us not from the Obligation which the moral law had laid upon us but only did become our surety and bound himself to see it faithfully performed by us in our severall places The burden was not made lesse heavy then it was before I speak still of the Moral Law not the Ceremonial but that he hath given more strength to bear it more grace to regulate our lives by Gods Commandements And somewhat he did adde of his own auhority which tended to a greater measure of perfection then possibly we could attain to by the Law of Moses and that not only in the way of Evangelical Counsels and that there are such Counsels I can easily grant but of positive precept For so far certainly we may joyn issue with the Council of Trent that IESVS CHRIST is to be honoured and observed Non tantum ut Redemptor cui omnâ—s fidant sedut Legislator cui obediant not only as a Saviour unto whom we may trust but as a Law-maker also whom we are to obey The same position is maintained also by the Arminian party but not the more unsound for either Veritas a quocunq est est a Spiritu sancto as St. Ambrose hath it And this is so agreeable to the Word of God that either we must deny the Scripture or else confess that it proceeded from the Spirit of God Nor are his laws indeered only to us and sugred over as it were by the promise of a great reward but enjoyned also under pain of grievous punishments punishment and reward being the square or measure of the heavenly government no otherwise then of the earthly Tribulation and anguish saith St. Paul shall come upon the soul of every man that doth evil but glory and honour and peace to every man that doth good to the Iew first and also to the Gentile for God is no respecter of persons By which two general motives set before our eyes and the co-operation of the holy Spirit working with his Word he doth illuminate our mindes and mollifie our hearts and quench our lusts instruct us in the faith confirm us in our hopes and strengthen us in Christian charity till in the end he bring us to the knowledge of his holy will then to obedience to his Laws and finally to a resemblance of his vertues also If after all this care and teaching either by frailty or infirmity we do break his laws or violate his sacred Statutes as we do too often he doth not presently take the forfeiture which the Law doth give him for then O Lord should no flesh living in thy sight be justified but in the midst of judgement he remembreth mercy We may affirm of him most truly as Lactantius did Vt erga pios indulgentissimus Pater ita adversus impios justissimus Iudex as terrible a Iudge he is to impenitent sinners as an indulgent Father to his towardly children as before was said Such is the nature and condition of our Saviours Kingdome which sitting at the right hand of Almighty God he doth direct and govern as seems best to his heavenly wisdome and so shall do untill his coming again to judge both the quick and the dead Although he hath withdrawn himself and his bodily presence yet is he present with it in his mighty power and by the influences and graces of his holy Spirit And in this sense it was that he said unto them Behold I am with you alwayes to the end of the world And that not only with you my Apostles unto whom he spake but cum vobis successoribus vestris with all you my Disciples and with your successors also in your several places till time be no more Though he be placed above in the heavenly glories and is not joyned unto his Church by any bodily connexion yet he is knit unto it in the bonds of love and out of that affection doth so guide and order it as the Head doth the members of the Body natural Habet ecclesia Caput positum in Coelestibus quod gubernat Corpus suum separatum quidem visione sed annectitur Charitate as St. Austin hath it Vice-roy there needeth none to supply his absence who is always with us Nor we the assistance of a Vicar General to supply his place whose Spirit bloweth where him listeth and who is linked unto us in so strong affections But for all this our Masters in the Church of Rome have determined positively that in regard our Saviour hath withdrawn himself from the Church in his Body secundum visibilem praesentiam for as much as doth concern his visible presence he needs must have some Deputy or Lieutenant General qui visibilem hanc Ecclesiam in unitate contineat to govern and direct the same in peace and unity It seemes they think our Saviour Christ to be reduced unto the same straights as Augustus was of whom it is reported in the Roman stories that he did therefore institute a Provost in the City of Rome because he could not always be there in person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and durst not leave it absolutely without a Governor And sure however others may complain of our Saviours absence and for that reason think it necessary to have some general Deputy to supply his place yet of all others those of Rome have least cause to do it who can command his presence at all times and on all occasions For as Cornelius a Lapide affirms expressely by saying only these words Hoc est Corpus meum the Bread is not only transubstiated into our Saviours Body but Christ anew begotten and born again upon the Altar And not his Body only that 's not half enough but as the Canon of Trent tels us there is totus Christus una cum anima Divinitate whole Christ both body and soul and the Godhead also personally and substantially on the blessed Sacrament That he is present every where in his power and Spirit there is none of us which denyeth If they can have his bodily presence also in so short a warning what use can they pretend for a Vicar General Adeo Argumenta ex falso petita ineptos habent exitus said Lactantius rightly Besides it is a Maxime in Ecclesiastical Polity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that the external Regiment of the Church of Christ is to be fitted to the frame and order of the
till the coming of CHRIST and after a more explicit faith in Christ when he had redeemed it then had been pressed before on the house of Iacob CHRIST hath redeemed us saith St. Paul from the curse of the Law that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles thorough IESVS CHRIST that is to say that as Abraham did believe in God and that was imputed unto him for righteousness even so the Gentiles thorow faith in IESVS CHRIST might be justifyed also And yet faith doth not justifie conceive not so out of any property that is natural or essential to it or any dignity or work inherent in it above other Theological vertues but out of somewhat that is adventitious and extrinsecal meerly that is to say the will good-pleasure or appointment of Almighty God This is the will of him that sent me saith our Saviour that every Man that seeth the Son and believeth in him should have life everlasting Where clearly he suspends the justifying property or power of faith not upon any quality or vertue that it hath in it self but only on the will and free grace of God which had it fallen in conjunction or cooperation with any other of Gods graces either hope or patience or any other whatsoever that act of grace or the act rather of that grace so by God appointed would have conduced as fully to our justification as now the act of faith or believing doth But now to trouble our selves with these speculations suffice it that as God was pleased to make choice of faith so he made choice not of the habit or the object but the act of faith to be imputed to us for our justification Abraham believed God saith the holy Scripture and it was counted unto him for righteousness Nor is it thus with Abraham only but with all the faithful who if they do believe on him that justifyeth the ungodly that faith of theirs shall be accounted unto them for righteousness also T is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere the very act of faith it self which God requireth of us for our justification in stead of all the workes of the Law and if we do believe as we ought to do that every act of our believing without the help of any of the workes of the Law shall be imputed to us for righteousness Seven times at least in the fourth Chapter of the Romans hath the Apostle used this phrase to account or impute faith for righteousness unto the believer We finde the same phrase also used in the 3. Chapter to the Galatians vers 5. and in the 2. of St. Iames vers 23. Scarce such another consonancy of expression in the holy Scripture Which certainly the holy Ghost had not stood upon not bound himself precisely to the words and syllables of if he had not meant to give this honour unto faith it self but rather to some other thing which faith layeth hold of and applyeth for our endlesse comfort And this as it is most agreeable to the Text and Context where faith is put in opposition unto workes that faith alone might have the honour of our justification so hath it been the constant Doctrine of the antient Writers who do ascribe the same to faith and to faith properly so called not as the word is taken tropically or metonymically for the object thereof For thus saith Iustin Martyr first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abraham saith he had not from God the testimony or commendation of righteousness because of his circumcision but because of his faith Tertullian next How saith he are we made the children of faith or of whose faith if not of Abrahams For if Abraham believed God and that was imputed unto him for righteousness and he deserved thereby to be made the Father of many nations Not autem credendo Deo magis pro inde justificamur sicut Abraham we by believing God more as having more things to believe then Abraham had for that I take it is his meaning are therefore also justifyed as Abraham was Next to him that of Origen which we had before Cum multae fides Abraham praecesserint c. Whereas many faiths or many acts of Abrahams faith had gone before now all his faith was recollected and summed up together and so imputed unto him for his justification St. Ambrose in fewer words saith as much as any Sic decretum dicit a Deo ut cessante lege solam fidem gratia Dei posceret ad salutem God saith he hath so decreed that the Law ceasing the grace of God should require only faith of man towards his salvation Why was this writ saith St. Chrysostome of our father Abraham 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that we may learn that we are also justifyed as Abraham was because we have believed the same God And in another place What was Abraham the worse for not being under the Law To which he answereth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was nothing the worse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for his faith was sufficient for his justification What saith St. Augustine of himself In eum credo qui justificat impium ut deputetur fides mea ad justitiam that is to say I do believe in him that justifyeth the ungodly that my faith may be imputed to me for righteousnesse What doth the same Father say of Abraham in another place if at the least the work be his Ecce sine opere justificatur ex fide et quicquid illi legali observatione potest conferri totum credulitas sua donavit Behold saith he Abraham is justifyed without works by faith and whatsoever could have been conferred upon him by the observation of the Law that his believing only hath wholly given him Primasius somewhat after him in the course of time Tam magna fuit dono dei fides Abrahami ut et pristina peccata ei donarentur et sola prae omni justitia doceretur accepta i. e. So great was Abrahams faith by the gift of God that both his former sins were pardoned and this his faith alone was preferred in acceptation before all righteousness And finally thus Haimo B. of Halberstad an Author of the 9. Century to descend no lower Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousnesse that is saith he unto remission of sinnes quia per ipsam fidem qua credidit justus effectus est because by that faith wherewith he believed he was made righteous By all which testimonies of the antients it is plain and evident that faith is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or the very act of believing is that which is imputed to us for our justification and that this is no new interpretation excogitated by Arminius in these latter days as some please to tell us Nor is this contrary to the Church of England delivered in her book of Homilies though at the first appearance it may so be thought When we
we must despair of no body no not of the wickedest as long as he lives and that we may safely pray for him of whom we do not despair So that for ought we see by these Texts of Scripture there is no sin which properly may be said to be irremissible And therefore I resolve with Maldnonate though he were a Iesuite Tenendam esse regulam fidei quae nullum peccatum esse docet quod à Deo remitti non possit That it is to be imbraced as a rule of Faith that there is no sin so great whatsoever it be which God cannot pardon for which if heartily bewailed and repented of there is no mercy and forgiveness to be found from God I shut up all with that of the Christian Poet Spem capio sore quicquid ago veniabile apud te Quamlibet indignum venia faciamve loquarve In English thus My words O Christ and deeds I hope with thee Though they deserve no pardon venial be CHAP. VI. Of the Remission of sins by the Blood of Christ and of the Abolition of the body of sin by Baptism and Repentance Of confession made unto the Priest and the Authority Sacerdotal THus have we in the former Chapter discoursed at large of the Introduction and Propagation of Sin and of the several species or kindes thereof and also proved by way of ground-work and foundation that albeit sin in its own nature be so odious in the sight of God as to draw upon the sinner everlasting damnation yet that there is no sin so mortal so deserving death which is not capable of pardon or forgiveness by the mercy of God We next descend unto those means whereby the pardon and remission of our sins is conveyed unto us the means by which so great a benefit is estated on us The principal agent in this work is Almighty God of whom the Scripture saith expresly That it is one God which shall justifie the circumcision by Faith and the uncircumcision through Faith that it is God which justifieth the Elect and that the Scriptures did foresee That God would justifie the Heathen In all which Texts to justifie the Elect the Iews the Gentiles doth import no more than freely to forgive them all the sins which they had committed against the Law and to acquit them absolutely from all blame and punishment due by the Law to such offences Which appears plainly by that passage of the same Apostle where speaking of Almighty God as of him that justifieth the ungodly Rom. 4.5 he sheweth immediately by way of gloss or exposition in what that justifying doth consist saying out of David Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin And this God doth not out of any superadded or acquired principle which is not naturally in him but out of that authority and supream power which is natural and essential to him In which respect no Creature can be said to forgive sins no not our Saviour Christ himself in his meer humane nature but must refer that work unto God alone For who can so forgive sins but God onely said the Pharisees truly And as God is the onely natural and efficient cause of this justification the principal Agent in this great work of the remission of sins so is the onely moral and internal impulsive cause which inclines him to it to be found onely in himself that is to say his infinite mercy love and graciousness toward his poor creature Man whom he looks on as the miserable object of grace and pitty languishing under the guilt and condemnation of sin Upon which Motives and no other he gave his onely begotten Son to die for our sins to be a ransom and propitiation for the sins of the world That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but through forgiveness in his Blood have life everlasting But for the external impulsive efficient cause of this act of Gods the meritorious cause thereof that indeed is no other than our Lord JESUS CHRIST the death and sufferings of our most blessed Lord and Saviour For God beholding Christ as such and so great a sufferer for the sins of men is thereby moved and induced to deliver those that believe in him both from the burden of their sins and that condemnation which legally and justly is due unto them This testified most clearly by that holy Scripture Be ye kinde saith the Apostle unto one another forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you Where plainly the impulsive cause inclining God to pardon us our sins and trespasses is the respect he hath unto the sufferings of our Saviour Christ. Thus the Apostle tells us in another place That we are freely justified by the grace of God through the Redemption which is in CHRIST IESUS Justified freely by Gods grace as by the internal impulsive cause of our Iustification by which he is first moved to forgive us our sins through the Redemption procured for us by the death and sufferings of CHRIST IESUS as the external moving or impulsive cause of so great a mercy In this respect the pardon and forgiveness of the sins of men is frequently ascribed in Scripture to the Blood of Christ as in the Institution of the Sacrament by the Lord himself This is my Blood of the New Testament which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins Thus the Apostle to the Romans Whom JESUS CHRIST did God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his Blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God And thus to the Ephesians also In whom we have redemption through his Blood the remission of sins according to the riches of his grace To this effect St. Peter also For ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as with silver and gold but with the precious Blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot And so St. Iohn The Blood of Iesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin and he hath washed us from our sins in his own Blood in another place Infinite other places might be here produced in which the forgiveness of our sins is positively and expresly ascribed to the Blood of Christ or to his death and sufferings for us which comes all to one But these will serve sufficiently to confirm this truth that the main end for which Christ suffered such a shameful ignominious death accompanied with so many scorns and torments was thereby to attone or reconcile us to his Heavenly Father to make us capable of the remission of our sins through the mercy of God and to assure us by that means of the favor of God and our adoption to the glories of eternal life By that one offering of himself hath he for ever perfected
fire not Metaphorical but reall The Conclusion of all THe immortality of the soul asserted by the holy Scriptures denyed by some Heretical Christians abetted and defended generally by the learned Gentiles That the world shall have an end and that it shall have an end by fire proved by the old Poets and Philosophers A place of everlasting rest and happinesse designed by the learned both Greeks and Romans for the souls of just and vertuous men to inhabit in with a description of the place so by them designed That the Patriarchs and other holy men of God were nourished in the hopes of eternal life maintained by the Church of England and by the plain Texts of holy Scripture denyed by Servetus the whole Sect of the Anabaptists and by some of our great Masters in the Church of Rome Eternal life frequently promised in the new Testament to the true believer the severall names by which it is presented to us and the glories of it That the Saints shall have a full knowledge of one another in the state of glory proved by clear evidence of Scripture Severall estates of glory and degrees of happinesse amongst the Saints proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers The consideration of those glories of what great power and efficacy on a pious soul. Hell paines designed for the ungodly Of Hades Abyssus Tartarus and Gehenna by which names both the place and names of Hell are represented in the new Testament and what they do amount to being laid together That the Scriptures mentioning hell fire are literally not Metaphorically to be understood proved by the word it self by the authority of the Fathers and the light of Reason Arguments from the same topicks to prove the pains of hell to be everlasting contrary to the fancies of latter Hereticks The end of all FINIS Addend Fol. 453 lin 37. May believe in others Nor doth it any way disagree with the Analogy of Faith or the proceedings in like cases that it should be so that the confession of the Faith made by the sureties or sponsores the Godfathers and Godmothers as we call them now in the Infants name should be accepted by the Lord to the best advantage of the Infant for whom they stipulate Not to the Analogie of the faith for finde we not in the 7. Chapter of St. Luke that the Centurions sick Servant was healed by Christ of his bodily diseases upon the faith of his Master only And is it not expresly said Mat. 9.2 that Christ pronounced the forgivenesse of sins to the sick of the Palsie upon the faith of them that brought him which story we finde more at large Marke 2.3 Luke 5.18 but all concentring on this truth that it was not the faith of the sickman but of them that brought him which did procure the sentence of Absolution or Remission of sins from the hands of Christ. Not with proceedings in like cases for by the Laws the Stipulation made by Sureties or such as have the charge of Guardianship of Infants made in their name and to their advantage in the improvement or establishment of their Estates is taken for as good and valid as if it had been made by himself in his riper years And of this we have a fair example in King Iames the sixt of Scotland and the first Monarch of Great Britain who was crowned King of the Scots and received for such upon the Oath of some Noble men swearing and promising in his Name that he should govern that Realm and People according to the Laws established which I finde urged by that King in the conference at Hampton Court in justification of the Interrogatories proposed to Infants in their Baptism and of the Answers made thereto by the mouth of their Sureties And to say truth there is the same reason for them both the Infant in the one case which is that of Baptism being bound in conscience to perform that when he comes unto riper years which his God-fathers and God-mothers did vow and promise in his Name And in the other case which is that of civill contract or stipulation he is bound by law to make that good which in his name and for his benefit and advantage his Guardians or Curators had so undertaken ERRATA In the Epistle Dedicatory for already read clearly In that to the Reader fol. 2. f. subsequent r. subservient In the Prefaceâ—ol â—ol 11. f. calling in r. casting in f. creating r. preaching f. decurrisse r. decursu f. 21. f. moâ—e r. promote â— new opinions r. no opinions f. 21. f. consent r. consult In the Book it self f. 2. f. traditio r. tradito f. Evang r. â—xani f. 17. f. Eubemerus r. Eubemerus f. 20. f. fellows r. followers f. 27. f. Numens r. Nations f. 31. f. ne se r. ne sic f. 34. f. his land r. his hand f. 37. f. the name r. the means f. 39. f. godly r. goodly f. 41. f. compassion are r. compassionate f. 42. f. in time r. in fine f. 50. l. 52. f. powerful world r. powerful word f. 52. f. materials r. immaterials f. 73. f. Panaon r. Panarion f. 76. f. Gigamire r. Gigantine f 81. f. repertimes r. reperiemus f. 91. f. divinam r. divinatio f. not to make râ— not only to make f. 93. f. may acts r. many acts f. 95. f. justification r. institution f. 96. f. been r. had been f. 101. f. valendinem r. valeludinem f. 104. f Galcalus Martius r. Galeatius Martius f. 107. f. kindred r. children f. 122. f. internal r. infernal f. 139. f. suffered him r. suffered himself f. these lazie lives r. the lazie lives f. 152. f. doties r. does f. 157. f. his r. this f. 170. f. imuition r. intuition f. 180. f. blinde him r. blinde him f. 197. for which the speaks of r. for which the Gospel speaks of f. 200. f. skin r. shin f. 202. f. Arius r. Aerius f. 231. f. meuth r. meath f. 233. f. being then found out r. being not then found out f. 234. f. I must confess r. to which I must confess f. 240. f. by beleeving only r. by feeling only f. 241. f. moral r. mortal f. 246. f. descent r. desert f. 251. f. Kalender r. Kalends f. 269. f. how all this doctrine r. how ill this doctrine f. 275. f. more then in there vertues read more in their vertues f. 280. f. strongest r. strong f. 282. f. happiness r. holiness f. 294. f. the Priesthood r. the Priest stood f. 305. f. transubstiated r. transubstantiated f. on the r. in the. f. 308. f. certainly r. as certainly f. 310. f. nor new r. or new f. 314. f. gravora r. graviora f. to great r. to so great f. 315. f. any other sight r. any other light f. 315. f. day of days r. the days f. 322. f. Loyal r. Loyola f. 328. f. utraque r. utroque f. 374. f. now give r. not give del application f. 379. f. the same r. the name
f. 387. for consorti r. consortio f. 401. f. in their baptism r. in their infancy before baptism f. 414. f. most high Ghost r. most high God f. 391. f. Syrius r. Syria f. 396. f. a siquidem r. siquidem f. 397. f. Arminians r. Armenians f. 398 f. convenientem r. convenientium f. 416. f dum quo r. cum quo f. suppetas r. suppetias f. 456. f. declanative r. declarative f. 453. f an evitable r. unevitable f. 471. f. inventute r. injuventute f. 495. f. which continual r. with continual THE SUMME OF Christian Theologie Positive Philological and Polemical CONTAINED IN THE Apostles CREED Or reducible to it IN THREE BOOKS By PETER HEYLYN 1 Joh. 5.7 There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the holy Ghost and these three are one LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for Henry Seile over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1654. A PREFACE To the following Work CONCERNING The ANTIQVITY AVTHORITY OF THE CREED CALLED THE Apostles CREED With Answer to the chief Objections which are made against it The Drift and Project of the WORK IT was a saying of St. Ambrose Unus unum fecit qui unitatis ejus haberet imaginem that God made only one in the first beginning after the likenesse or similitude of his own unity The creation of the World was the pattern of Man Man of the Church the Almighty of all Being one himself or rather being unity he bestowed upon the World not a being only but his blessing with it that being it should be but one One in the generall comprehension of parts and therefore by the Grecians called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Latines call it universum a name of multitude indeed but of a multitude united Universi qui in uno loco versi say the old Grammarians One also in opposition unto numbers and so maintained by Aristotle in his first De Coelo against the errors of Empedocles and Democritus two old Philosophers Now as he made the world but one after the similitude of himself so out of the world and according to that pattern created he man Made by the Lord according to his own image and made but one because the Lord was so that made him because the world was so out of which he was taken The severall parts and members in him do but commend the unity of the whole Compositum for though they are many members yet but one body saith St. Paul Which mutuall resemblance and agreement as it occasioned many of the old Philosophers to call man an Abridgement of the world so might it no lesse justly have occasioned others to style the world an inlargement of man Nay more then this seeing that only man was without an helper the Lord resolved to make one for him and to make her out of his own body only that so he might preserve still the former unity Nor stayed he here but he did give her unto man to be one flesh with him that to the unity of Original he might add the union of affections Magnum mysterium saith the Apostle but I Speak only as he did touching Christ and the Church For this Creation of the woman as St. Augustine tells us was a most perfect type of the birth and being of the Church of Christ Christum enim et Ecclesiam tali facto jam tunc prophetari oportebat The woman was created out of the side of man at such time as the Lord had caused a deep sleep to fall upon him the Church was also taken out of the wounded side of Christ being cast into a deeper sleep then that of Adam And as the woman was one body both in the composition of her parts and one with Adam both in the union of love and unity of being so is it also with the Church She is at perfect union with him in the union of her affections being marryed unto him for ever one with him in the unity of her original for we are members of his body and of his flesh and of his bone and lastly one in the consent and harmony of all her parts acknowledging one Lord one Faith one Baptisme For though the Church consisted in those early days both of Iews and Gentiles Greeks and Barbarians bond and free men not alone of different countries but of different natures yet being all incorporated into that society of men which we call the Church they make but one body only as St. Paul hath testifyed And whence proceeds that unity of this visible body but in that uniformity which all those severall persons have which belong unto it by reason of that one Lord whose servants they do all professe themselves to be that one Faith of which they do all make confession and that one Baptisme wherewith they are initiated into that society the outward and uniforme profession of these three things which appertain to the very essence of Christianity being necessarily required of each Christian man Christians they neither are nor can be who call not Christ their Lord and Master From hence it came that first in Antioch and afterwards throughout all the world all who were of the visible Church were called Christians Autor nominis ejus Christus saith Cornelius Tacitus But the bare calling of CHRIST IESVS our Lord and Master is not enough to prove us to be Christians unlesse that we do also embrace that Faith which he delivered to his Apostles and was by them delivered unto all the world And though we are not reckoned members of this visible Church till we receive admittance by the door of Baptisme yet is the door of Baptisme opened unto none untill they make profession of their faith in Christ. It is not honestie of life nor morall righteousnesse which gives denomination to a Christian although the want thereof doth exclude from heaven because they are not proper unto Christian men as they are Christians but do concern them as they are men The moral Law was given to mankinde in the state of nature and after promulgated to the Iews in more solemn manner Hence was it that so many of the antient Gentiles not to say any thing of the Iews before the coming of our Saviour were eminent in so many parts of moral vertue But for the acts of Faith whereby we do confesse that IESVS CHRIST is Lord of all things and willingly believe all those sacred truths which he came to publish to the world and by confession of the which we carry as it were a key to the door of Baptisme that is the proper badge and cognizance of a Christian man by which it is made known unto all the world both to what Lord he appertaineth and by what means he was admitted for a member of his house and family Which faith or rather the doctrines of which faith being first delivered by our Saviour with this comfort and reward annexed that whosoever believed in him should not perish but have life
man can say that there was never any exact forme of the Nicene Creed commended by that Councell to the use of the Church because that in the Councell of Chalcedon and in the works of Athanasius and St. Basil it is presented to us with some difference of the words and phrases Of which the most that can be said must be that of Binius idem est plane sensus sed sermo discrepans i. e. that the sense is every where the same though the words do differ In the third place it is objected that the Creed could not be written by the Apostles because there are therein certain words and phrases which were not used in their times and for the proof of this they instance in these two particulars first in our Saviours descent into hell which words they say are not to be found in all the Apostolical Scriptures and secondly in that of the Catholick Church which was a word or phrase not used till the Apostles had dispersed the Gospell over all the world And first in answer to the first we need say but this that though these words of Christ descended into hell be not in terminis in the Scriptures yet the Doctrine is which we shall very evidently evince and prove when we are come unto the handling of that Article And if we finde the doctrine in the book of God I hope it will conclude no more against the authority and antiquity of the Creed we speak of then that the word Homousion in the Nicene Creed did or might do against the authority of that Creed or Symbole because that word could not be found in all the Scriptures as was objected by the Arians in the former times And for the second instance in the word Catholica there is less ground of truth therein then in that before But yet because it hath a little shew of learning and doth pretend unto antiquity we will take some more pains then needed to manifest and discover the condition of it Know then that the Apostles might bestow upon the Church the adjunct of Catholick before they went abroad into several Countries to preach the Gospel not in regard that it was actually diffused over all the world according as it hath bin since in these later Ages but in regard that so it was potentially according to the will and pleasure of their Lord and Saviour by whom the bar was broken down which formerly had made a separation between Iew and Gentile and the Commission given of Ite praedicate to go and preach the Gospel unto every creature Catholick is no more then universal The smallest smatterer in the Greek can assure us that And universal questionless the Church was then at least intentionaliter potentialiter when the Apostles knew from the Lords own mouth that it should no longer be imprisoned within the narrow limits of the land of Iewry but that the Gentiles should be called to eternal life Without this limitation of the word I can hardly see how the Church should be called Catholick in her largest circuit there being many Nations and large Dominions which are not actually comprehended within the Pale of the Church to this very day I hope their meaning is not this that there was no such word as Catholick when the Apostles lived and composed the body of the New Testament If so they mean although they put us for the present to a needless search yet they betray therein a gross peece of ignorance For the discovery whereof we may please to know that the word Catholick is derived from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth in universum as that from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is totum all as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. that I may sum up all in brief And so the word is used by Isocrates that famous Oratour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say generally or in a word I shall endeavour to declare what studies it were fittest for you to incline unto But the proper signification of it is in that of Aristotle where he opposeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a general or universal demonstration to that which he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is partial only or particular Hence comes the adjective 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. universal and so the word is taken by Quintilian saying Propter quae mihi semper moris fuit quam minimum me alligare ad praecepta quae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocant i. e. ut dicamus quomodo possumus universalia vel perpetualia Thus read we in Hermogenes an old Rhetorician 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of usual and general forms of speech and thus in Philo speaking of the laws of Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he ordained a general perpetual law for succession into mens inheritances Take which of these three senses they best like themselves and they will finde at last it comes all to one If the word Catholick do signifie the same with universal it also signified the same in and before the times the Apostles lived in and how the Church might then be called universal we have shewn already If they desire rather to translate it general Pope Iulius will tell us how the Church might be called General in the first days and hours thereof Quia sc. generalis est in eadem doctrina ad instructionem because it generally proposeth the same doctrine for edification or if by that of perpetual rather there is no question to be made but that our Saviours promise to be with them to the end of the world did most sufficiently declare unto them that the Church which they were to plant was to be perpetual There is another meaning of the word Catholicus as it denotes an Orthodox and right believer which whether it were used in the Apostles times may be doubted of it being half granted by Pacianus an antient writer sub Apostolis CHRISTIANOS non vocari Catholicos that Christians were not then called Catholicks But this at best being not the natural but an adventitious meaning of the word according to a borrowed metaphorical sense it neither helps nor hinders in the present business and in this sense we shall speak more of it hereafter when we are come unto the Article of the Catholick Church One more objection there remains and but one more which is worth the answering and is that which is much pressed by Downes namely that to affirm as Ruffinus doth that the Apostles did compose the Creed to be the rule or square of their true preaching lest being separated from one another there should be any difference amongst them in matters which pertain to eternal life were to suppose them to be guided by a fallible spirit and consequently subject unto Errour For answer whereunto we need say but this that the difference which Ruffinns speaks of and which he saith the Apostles laboured to avoid by their agreement on this sum or abstract of the Christian
Faith related not to points of doctrine which could not but be every where at all times the same because all guided by the same infallible spirit but only to the form of words wherewith they were to clothe and express those doctrines which if not in all points the same might amongst many simple and illiterate people be taken for an argument of a different faith Whereas the consonancie which all Churches held with one another not only in the Unity which they maintained amongst themselves in point of judgement but also in that uniformity wherewith they did express that consent in judgement was a strong evidence no doubt to the weak and ignorant who are governed more by words then matters that the Faith wheresoever they travelled was in all parts the same because they found it every where expressed in the self same words So that for ought appeareth by these shifts and cavils the CREED may still retain the honour which of old was given it and be as it is commonly called The Apostles Creed The next thing that I have to do is to resolve upon the course and order which I mean to follow in the performance of the work I have undertaken And here I shall declare in the first place of all that as the main of my design is to illustrate and expound the Apostles Creed so I shall keep my self to that Creed alone and not step out into those intricate points of controversie which principally occasioned both the Athanasian and the Nicene Creeds For though I thank God I can say it with a very good conscience that I believe the doctrine of the holy Trinity according to the Catholick Tradition of the Church of CHRIST yet I confess with all such is the want and weakness of my understanding that I am utterly unable as indeed who is not to look into the depths of so great a mystery and cannot but cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle did in another case Oh the unsearchableness the depth of this heavenly Oeconomie What then I am not able to inform my self in those things wherein I am not able to content and satisfie my own poor shallow understanding how can I hope so to express in words or writing as to give satisfaction and content to a minde more curious Id fides credat intelligentia non requirat was antiently the Fathers rule and shall now be mine In matters of so high a nature I believe more then I am able to comprehend the gift of faith supplying the defect of mine understanding and yet can comprehend more by the light of faith then I am able to express So that I shall not meddle in this following Tractate with the eternal generation of the Son of God or any of those difficult but divine sublimities which are contained in the Creed of the Nicene Councel nor with the manner of the holy Ghosts procession whether from the Father only or from the Father and the Son nor how God can be one in three and three in one Such lofty speculations and sublimities of so high a nature I leave to be discussed and agitated by men of larger comprehensions and more piercing judgements then I dare challenge to my self resting contented with those mediocrities which God who gives to every one his several Talent hath graciously vouchsafed to bestow upon me In other points I shall make use sometimes of such explications as the Athanasian or the Nicene Creeds do present unto me which I shall handle rather in a Scholastical and if occasion be presented in a Philological way also then a way meerly Catechetical or directly practical wherein I see so many have took pains already taking along the stating and debating of such points of Controversies as either naturally do arise from the words themselves or may be very easily deduced from thence on good and logical deductions And in such points of Controversie as shall here be handled as also in such Observations as shall be here amassed together I chiefly shall rely on the Antient Fathers whose reputation and authority is most precious with me but so that I shall now and then make bold as I see occasion to spoyl the Egyptians also of their choicest Iewels for the adorning of this body of Divinity which I had brought into the forge since my first retreat and is now ready for the Anvil St. Paul esteemed it no disparagement to his holy doctrine to strengthen it with reasons drawn from the best Philosophie to prove and press it home in a Logical way and to adorn it with the dictates of three old Greek Poets Menander Aratus and Epimenides whose testimonies he makes use of in three several places As long as Hagar doth submit herself to her mistress Sarah and not contend for the precedency with her so long she is and may be serviceable in the house of Abraham And humane literature especially in relation unto Paganish errours is of as necessary use as she in the Church of God if it conform unto the Scripture and be guided by it and do not bear it self too high on the conceit and reputation of its own great excellencies But for the main of this discourse I shall especially repose my determination on the authority and general consent of the Fathers as before I said not medling with the Protestant Writers of the forein Churches but when a doubt is to be cleared which concerns themselves nor often with the Writers of this Church of England but when I have occasion to enquire into such particulars as must be proved to be the true intent and doctrine of this CHVRCH by law established The holy Scriptures are the main foundation which I am to build on according to that sense and interpretation which have been given us of them by the holy Fathers and other Catholick Doctors of the Church of Christ who lived before the truth degenerated into Popish dotages and whose authorities and judgements I conceive most fit for the determining of such Controversies which are now on foot as being like to prove most indifferent Umpires because not any way ingaged in our present quarrels I know that Downe Dalie and others of great parts and wit have laboured to disclaim them as incompetent Judges not to be trusted in a business of such main concernment as the determination of the controversies in the Church of Christ out of an high conceit of their own great worth which is not willing to acknowledge a superiour eminence And I know well that many if not most of our Innovators whether it be in point of Discipline or Doctrine decline all trial by the Fathers Councels and other the records and monuments of the Catholick Church because directly contrary to their new devices But all this moves not me a jot nor makes me yeild the less authority to their words and writings The Church of England waves not their authority though some of her conceited children and others of her factious
of great goodness saith the Prophet David O Hierusalem Heirusalem saith the son of David how often would I have gathered thee together as a Hen doth her Chickens but ye would not But is the patience of a Father so implanted in him that it can never be worn out and converted to anger Not so we know it is a proverb that patientia laesa fit furor the greatest patience if abused may possibly be turned to the greatest fury or anger at the least in the highest degree How angry was old Iacob with his two sons the Brethren in evil when he desired his soul might not come into their secret and prayed to God to scatter them in Jacob and divide them in Israel And cannot God be angry think we with his stubborn and rebellious children when they do wilfully transgress his holy laws and with an high hand violate all his sacred precepts Why then doth he so often punish those that do amiss for Ira Dei non est aliud quam voluntas puniendi as St. Augustine hath it the anger of God is only his just will to chastise the sinner Why then did he repent of his making man or rain down fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah as it is said he did Why then do we beseech him with such shame and sorrow to correct us in his judgement and not in his fury that we may not be consumed and brought to nothing He that bids us be angrie and sin not intended not the extirpation but the moderation of anger And thereupon Lactantius very well inferreth Qui ergo irasâ—i nos jubet ipse utique irascitur he that bids us be angry so we do not sin can without doubt be angrie too when he seeth occasion The like may be affirmed also of those other affections which are in Parents towards those whom they have begotten Remove the imperfections from them and the affections of themselves after separation may without any danger and as some Schoolmen think without any Metaphor be ascribed to GOD. Now out of those affections which before we specified ariseth the chief care of our natural parents which is to see us trained up in some lawful trades or in the knowledge of good letters that being put into a course of good education we may subsist with credit and escape those miseries which poverty and necessity may else bring upon us And out of that authority which they have by nature to dispose of us as they see most sutable unto our deserts ariseth the chief power of our natural parents either to make us heirs of their goods and fortunes or to leave us out First for the care of education it seemed so necessary to the Grecians in the former times that one of their Wisemen did use to say Praestat non nasci that it was better not to be born then not well instructed And by the laws of Rome which they had from Greece when as the father now grown old and out of work did sue his son for Alimonie as we use to call it it was a good plea in the son against his Father that he had never taken care of his education or trained him in the knowledge of any Art either ingenuous or mechanick Filius arte carens Patris incuria eidem necessaria vitae subsidia ne praestato was one of the laws of the twelve Tables How much more necessary must we think that part of our education which the wise Grecian never knew nor ever was prescribed by the laws of Rome that part I mean by which young children are instructed in the fear of GOD and taught betimes to run the pathes of the Lords commandements But if the Father do his office if that no care be wanting on his part to instruct his children if he admonish and advice them when they do amiss and they continue still to afflict his heart either by neglecting that imployment in which he hath placed them or wasting his estate in riotous and licentious courses is the poor Father left without further remedy then what may be had upon complaint from the Civil Magistrate No by no means The Father at the first by the law of Nations had potestatem vitae necis the power of life and death over all their children But after the receiving of the Christian faith the law was altered in that case by the following Emperours And now as the Civilians tell us Parentibus solummodo relinquitur honesta emendatio maximis ex causis exhaeredatio i. e. The fathers power consisteth most especially in these points to punish and chastise them for their smaller faults and disinherit them in time if they prove incorrigible Which power as it was used by Iacob on his eldest son Reuben because he had defiled his old fathers bed so hath it since been ordinary in the practise of all times and ages though perhaps more to be commended where it may not then where it may possibly be spared Such also is the care and consequently such the power of our Heavenly Father For who but he taught Abel how to order Sheep and Cain to till the ground or to be an husbandman Iubal to play on instruments and Tubal-cain to work in iron who but he called forth Ioshua to fight his battels and Aaron and his sons to serve at the holy Altar And for the bringing of them up in the fear of GOD he hath revealed himself so far to the Turks and Pagans and in the former times to the antient Gentiles which are his children only by the right of Creation that by the things which he hath made they may perceive both his eternal power and Godhead Though he permitted them for a while to walk in their own ways and so fulfil their several lusts yet left he not himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or without a witness in that he shewed his works unto them and filled their hearts with food and gladness Nay that which may be known of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul calleth it is manifest in them for the invisible things of God saith the same Apostle from the creation of the world are clearly seen that is as Augustine doth expound it per visibilia Creaturae pervenisse eos ad intelligent am invisiblis Creatoris by studying on the Book of Nature they came to understand the nature of GOD. For further proof whereof if more proof be necessary we need but have recourse to the former Chapter where we did prove this point that there was a God and that he is eternal and incomprehensible of infinite both power and wisdome Nor did GOD leave them so in this general knowledge but he revealed so much of his will unto them as is included or expressed in the law of Nature The Gentiles saith St. Paul which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law which
and reverent deportment of themselves in the act thereof St. Hierom who gives us a very good description of these Arreptitious or Extatical spirits affirming of them Nec tacere nec loqui in sua potestate habent that they could neither hold their peace nor speak when they would themselves but as they were compelled by the evil spirit hath given a different character of the holy Prophets Of whom he saith Intelligit quod videt nec ut amens loquitur he understands the Vision which he doth behold and speaks not like a madman one besides himself nor like the raving women of the sect of Montanus And in another place Non loquitur in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut Montanus c. sed quod prophetat liber est Visionis intelligentis universa quae loquitur The Prophet of the Lord saith he speaketh not in a trance or besides himself as Montanus Prisca Maximilla spread abroad their dotages but that which he foretelleth is surnamed a Vision the Vision of the Prophet Nahum ch 1. because he understands what he doth deliver The like difference Epiphanius makes betwixt the Prophets of the Lord and those of Montanus against whom he purposely disputeth Haeres 48. And long before them it was said by Lactantius truly of the Prophets of God whom the Gentiles had been pleased to accuse of madness and called them Furiosi as they did their own that the accomplishment of their predictions their consonancy or unanimous consent in the things foretold and the coherency of their words and sentences did very sufficiently free them from that imputation Impleta in plerisque quotidie illorum vaticinia videmus in unam sententiam congruens divinam docet non fuisse furiosos Quis enim mentis emotae non modo futura praecinere sed etiam cohaerentia loqui possit as he most excellently answereth so foul a calumny So then the Prophets of the Lord having a true intention to foretel what should come to pass and being able not to make a good construction of what they spake but also to give assurance to the people in the name of God that every thing should come to pass which they had foretold were nothing like the Heathen Soothsayers who used to speak they knew not what in their Divinations And yet it will not follow upon this distinction that they did explicitely and distinctly comprehend the fulness of those holy mysteries which the holy Ghost was pleased to make known and fore-signifie by them the knowledge of which mysteries as St. Paul hath told us was not made known in other Ages to the sons of men as in his time it was revealed to the holy Apostles and Prophets by the self same Spirit Which being so and that the knowledge of CHRIST IESVS and him crucified was not communicated to the Iews which lived under the Law or the Patriarchs which did live before it in so distinct and clear a manner as it hath been since I dare not confidently say that any explicite faith in the death of CHRIST was required at their hands as necessary to their justification or that they actually did believe more in it then Gods general promise concerning the redemption and salvation of the world by the womans seed with some restrictions of that seed to the stock of Abraham and the house of David which had not been delivered in the first assurance Certain I am that of all the Clowd of witnesses mentioned by St. Paul amongst all those examples of faith and piety which he hath laid before us in the 11. to the Hebrews there is no mention made at all of faith in Christ nor any word so much as by intimation that Noah Abraham Moses or the rest there spoken of did look upon him as an object of their faith at all The total and adaequate object of their faith for ought I can finde was only God the Maker of Heaven and Earth on whose veracity and fidelity in making good his general and particular promise they did so rely as not to bring the same under any dispute For what faith else doth any Text of Scripture give to Abel or Enoch then that they did believe that there was a God and that he was a rewarder of all those that seek him What Faith else was it that saved Noah in the midst of the waters but that he did believe what God said unto him touching his intention of bringing a floud of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh and thereupon did build thn Ark as the Lord commanded Or what else was the faith of Isaac when he blessed Iacob and Esau or of Iacob when he blessed the sons of Ioseph or of Ioseph when he gave commandement as concerning his bones Heb. 11.21 22 23. but a reliance on the promise which God made to Abraham of giving to him and his seed the whole land of Canaan But because Abraham is proposed in the holy Scripture as the great example of the righteousness which comes by faith or of justification by faith call it which you will we will consider all those Texts which do look this way to see what was the object of that faith of Abraham to which the Scriptures do ascribe his justification Now the first act of Abrahams faith which stands commended to us in the Book of God is the belief he gave to the promise of God to bless him and make him a great Nation and his obedience thereupon unto Gods command in leaving his own Countrey and his Fathers house and go unto the land which the Lord should shew him Which promise being afterwards confirmed by God and believed by Abraham it is thus testified of him in the book of Genesis that he believed in the Lord and he that is to say the Lord counted it unto him for righteousness Here then we have the Iustification of our Father Abraham ascribed unto his Faith in the Lord IEHOVAH to faith in God as the proper and full object of it as the word is varyed by St. Paul Rom. 4.3 Thus also when the promise was made of the birth of Isaac without considering of the deadness of Sarahs womb or the estate of his own body then as good as dead he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but faithfully believed that God was able to perform what he pleased to promise And this saith the Apostle was imputed to him for righteousness Of which of these two acts of faith the Apostle speaketh in the third of the Galatians where Abrahams faith is imputed to him also for righteousness it is hard to say but sure it is that there is no other faith there mentioned but his Faith in God For it is said Even as Abraham believed God c. And last of all as to the imputation of his faith for righteousness when God commanded him to offer up Isaac his onely begotten Sonne even him of whom it had been
the children of Infidels are saved partly by vertue of the Covenant and partly by Gods Election By vertue of the Covenant in regard they are descended of such Ancestors as were themselves within the Covenant though it be long since and that there be some interruption in the whole succession Gods mercy reaching as he tels us Exod. 20. unto a thousand generations By Election because God hath not barred himself from a power and right to communicate his Grace to those whose Ancestors were not of the Covenant For if he called those Adulti men of riper years to be partakers of the Covenant who were not within the same before why may he not in like manner if he please elect children also Finally as he doth believe that all who are elected or within the Covenant shall most undoubtedly be saved so he doth charitably conceive that those whom God takes out of this world in the state of infancy servari potius secundum electionem providentiam ipsius paternam quam a regno Coelorum abdicari are rather saved by Gods election and paternal providence then utterly excluded out of the Kingdom of Heaven If the same charity make me hope the like of those famous men among the Gentiles who were not wanting to the grace of God which was given unto them why should I fear worse fortune then was found by Iunius who never yet was censured for ought I have read for that so charitable resolution in the case of Infants no not by those of the Reformed who differ in opinion from him as to that particular And so far I conceive I may go with safety without opposing any text of holy Scripture or any publick tendry of the Church of England 'T is true St. Peter telleth us in the 4. of the Acts that there is no name under Heaven given among men whereby they be saved but that of our Lord and Saviour IESVS CHRIST v. 12. But this is spoken with relation to the times of the Gospel when CHRIST had broken down the partition wall and that the Gentiles were admitted to the knowledge of the word of life a general command being laid by CHRIST on his Apostles to preach the Gospel to all Nations After this time the case was altered and the Gentiles altogether left without excuse if they embraced not the ordinary meanes of their salvation which by the universall preaching of Christ crucifyed had been offered to them And so I understand that Article of the Church of England by which all they are to be accursed who presume to say that every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect that he professeth so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law and the light of nature Act. 18. For certainly the Article relates not to the times before Christs coming or the condition of the Gentiles in those elder dayes but only to the present condition of the Church of Christ as it now stands and hath stood since his death and passion in opposition both to Iewes and Gentiles unto Turkes and Saracens with reference to the Familists and such modern Sectaries who made the external profession of the faith of Christ but a thing indifferent so they conformed themselves by the light of nature Of which opinion one Galcalus Martius also is affirmed to be by Paulus Iovius in his Elog. doct virorum So that for ought appeares from that place of the Acts and from this Article of the Church we may conceive the charitable hope of the salvation of some of the more noble Gentiles the great example of whose vertues is transmitted to us in Classical and approved Authors But this was only in some extraordinary and especial cases some Casus reservati as the Lawyers call them which God reserved to his own Power and dispensation and not of any ordinary and common right For generally the Heathen people as they knew not God having extinguished that light of nature which was given unto them so having their understanding darkned and that light put out their will forthwith became depraved the affections of their hearts corrupted and their lusts exorbitant And as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge so did God give them over to a reprobate minde to do those things which are not convenient dishonouring their owne bodies amongst themselves and being filled with all unrighteousnesse and uncleannesse Nay even their greatest Clerks men of wit and learning professing themselves wise did become fooles in that they sought not after God the true fountain of wisdome and holding the truth which was revealed to them in unrighteousnesse as St. Paul saith of them were thereby made without excuse And as the light of nature was thus generally extinguished amongst the Gentiles so was the light of Prophecie as much neglected amongst the Iewes who though they were Gods chosen and peculiar people had so degenerated from the piety of their Predecessors that there was hardly either faith or charity to be found amongst them Insomuch as all the world was now of the same condition in which it was before the flood Of which God said that all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth the wickedness of man grown great and all the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart continually and only evill Nothing could have prevented a second deluge but Gods gratious promise that there should never more be a flood to destroy the Earth nothing have respited the World from more grievous punishment had not Christ come into the World and by his suffering on the Crosse for the sinne of Man appeased Gods anger for the present and caused his Gospell to be preached unto every nation that so they might escape the wrath of the time to come Nothing required by him for so great a mercy but that we would believe in him that to the faith which every man was bound before to have in God the Father Almighty by whom we were created when we were just nothing there might be added a beliefe in IESVS CHRIST his only Sonne by whom we were redeemed being worse then nothing He knew the frailty of our nature that we were but dust that we were utterly unable to observe the Law which Adam either could not or would not keep in the state of innocency and therefore did not look so far as to the Covenant of works to require them of us but to the Covenant of faith as the easier duty God in the Covenant of works required of every man for his justification an absolute and entire obedience to the Law which he had prescribed and that obedience to the Law had it been performed had justifyed the performance of it in the sight of God But finding man unable to fulfill the Law he made a second Covenant with that sinfull Creature and required nothing of him for his justification but only faith in God and his gracious promises for the redemption of the world
now sitteth and shall sit till all things be fully perfected We believe also that from that place he shall come again to execute that general Iudgement as well of them whom he shall then finde alive in the body as of them that shall be already dead This is the main of that which is to be believed touching CHRIST IESVS our Lord but so that we divide not the man CHRIST IESVS from IESVS CHRIST the Son of God For though that note of Estius be exceeding true that all things contained in the Creed concerning Christ from his conception in the womb of the Virgin to his last coming unto judgement inclusively de Christo dicuntur secundum humanam naturam are verified and affirmed of him in his humane nature yet are we also bound to believe this of him that he was so truly and indissolubly the Son of God according to the Tenor of this present Article that whilest this man was born of the Virgin Mary the Son of God was also born of the self same Virgin whilest the man CHRIST IESVS suffered under Pontius Pilate the Son of God was also crucified dead and buried Et sic de caeteris For otherwise Tacitus who reporteth his sufferings under Pontius Pilate and Pontius Pilate who gave testimony to his Resurrection in a Letter writ on that occasion to Tiberius Caesar or Nicolas one of the Seven the Founder of the Sect of the Nicolaitans who beheld him at the instant of his Ascension might pass for Orthodox professors of the Christian Faith Besides a partial assent to one or to some only of the Articles which relate to CHRIST is not enough to give denomination to a true believer It must be uniform and alike sincere unto every truth recorded of him in the Scriptures or summarily comprehended in the present Creed which qualifieth a man a right to deserve that title So that unless we fix our selves upon this Principle that IESVS CHRIST our Lord is the Son of God the only begotten Son of God as the Nicene hath it and carry the same with us through every Article which hath relation to his Person our Faith being partial only to some matters of fact and not compleat and perfect in each several lineament fals short of that assent to the Word of God and all those supernatural truths revealed in it which is required unto the constitution of salvifical faâ—th Now for the better understanding of the present Article which is so operative and influential over all the rest we will resolve it first into this Proposition that IESVS CHRIST our Lord is the Son of God the only begotten Son of God as before we had it from the Nicene And having so resolved it into this Proposition will take a view thereof in its several parts and look upon our Saviour Christ first in his Person and his Office next in his several relations unto God and man His Person we finde represented in the name of IESVS his Offices in that of CHRIST his reference or relation to Almighty God as he is his Son his only Son to man as he is made our Lord. First for his person or his nature we finde it represented in the name of IESVS for Christus nomen est officii Jesus naturae personae as the learned note and that originally Hebrew derived from the future tense of the verb Iashang which signifieth Salvavit i. e. he hath saved or from the substantive Isshagnah which is as much as salus ipsa or salvation it self If from the first it is the very same in Hebrew with that of Iehoshua or Ioshua as our English reads it the son of Nun who by St. Luke Act. 7.45 and by St. Paul Heb. 4.8 is called plainly Iesus and then the difference betwixt him and the son of Nun will consist rather in the manner of the salvation which he hath bestowed then in the property of the name If from the second we finde more in old Simeons Nunc dimittis then hath been generally observed who did not only praise the Lord because his eyes had seen his Saviour but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the salvation of God And then those Texts of holy Scripture which speak so clearly of the Salvation of God or where God is called our Salvation as Exod. 15.2 Esa. 12.1 2 3. 49.6 52.10 56.1 and also Habak 3.18 may possibly be intended of CHRIST our Saviour But whether this be so or not it can be no disparagement to the Son of God to have his name derived from the same Original with Ioshua the son of Nun who was so clear a type of the Lord himself that scarce a clearer doth occur in the book of God For as Moses the Law-giver of the Iews though he did bring that people out of the land of Egypt was not so happy as to settle them in the land of Canaan but left that work to be performed by the hand of Iesus the Son of Nun so neither could the Law which was the School-mistris unto CHRIST though it dispelled the clowds of Egyptian darkness bring them that did live under it into the Sanctum Sanctorum but left the honour of the work to IESVS the Son of God And as Ioshua or Iesus the son of Nun having subdued the heathenish Princes who possessed the land estated the whole house of Iacob in possession of it so IESVS CHRIST the Son of the living God having subdued Sin Hell and Satan who held the whole world of mankinde under their subjection brought those who are the children of Abrahams faith into a peaceable fruition of the land of Promise whereof the land of Canaan was a Type or figure The difference as unto the name was in this especially that Ioshua the son of Nun was at first called Oshea Numb 13.9 and had his name changed afterwards by Moses vers 16. on some presage perhaps of his future greatness but IESVS CHRIST the Son of God received that name from God himself in his first conception For thus the Angel Gabriel to the blessed Virgin Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a Son and shalt call his name IESVS The reason of which choyce or appellation is by another Angel thus given to Ioseph Ipse enim salvum faciet populum suum c. i. e. for he shall save his people from all their sins Here then we have a salvabit or a salvum faciet to manifest the true interpretation of this blessed name and therewithall the nature of a more blessed Person And so Ruffinus doth resolve it IESVS Hebraei vocabuli nomen est quod apud nos Salvator dicitur IESVS saith he is an Hebrew name and signifieth as much as Saviour Where we may note that the old Author keeps himself to the old Ecclesiastical word Salvator and was not so in love with the Roman elegancies as Beza for the most part is in his translation as to obtrude
Augustine doth informe us saying Id enim sacrificium est quod successit omnibus sacrificiis quae immolabantur in umbra futuri that this one sacrifice succeedeth in the place of all those which were offered in relation unto Christ to come But before him St. Ireneus did more plainly affirme that same who living in the next age to the Apostles is able to instruct us better in the mysteries of the Christian faith then any other more remote and of lesse antiquity And he tels us this viz. that as God caused his Gospel to be preached over all the world in stead of the innumerable ordinances of the Law of Moses so he ordained that for those several sorts of sacrifices which are there prescribed simplex oblatio panis et vini sufficiat the offering of bread and wine only should be held sufficient More plainly yet as plainly as he could expresse himself by words and writing he doth thus deliver it Sed suis Discipulis dans consilium c. Christ saith he giving his Disciples charge to offer the first fruits of every creature to the Lord their God not that God standeth in need of their oblations but that they might not be esteemed to be either unfruitfull or ungratefull tooke ordinary bread eum qui ex natura panis est and having given thanks said This is my body and taking the cup into his hands such as we use to drink of the fruit of the vine acknowledged it to be his bloud What then for this we know already It followeth Et novi testamenti novam docuit oblationem quam Ecclesia ab Apostolis accipiens in universo mundo offert Deo By doing which saith that old Father he taught us the new sacrifice of oblation of the new Testament which the Church receiving from the Apostles doth offer unto God over all the world So that the holy Eucharist was ordained by Christ not only as a Sacrament but a sacrifice also and so esteemed and called by the most antient writers though many times by reason of several relations it hath either severall names or severall adjuncts that is to say a sacrifice a commemorative sacrifice an eucharisticall sacrifice a spiritual sacrifice the Supper of the Lord a Sacrament A sacrifice it is and so called commonly in reference unto the oblation or offering of the bread and wine made unto God in testimony and due acknowledgment that all which we possesse is received from him and that we tender these his creatures to him as no longer ours but to be his and to be spent in such employments and for such holy uses as he shall please to put it to In this respect it is entituled Oblatio panis et vini the offering or oblation of bread and wine as before we saw from Irenaeus the sacrifice offered by us Gentiles hostia quae ipsi a nobis Gentibus offertur of the bread and wine presented in the holy Eucharist as in Iustin Martyr Sacrificium panis vini the sacrifice in plain terms of bread and wine as Fulgentius hath it For clearing of which point we may please to know that antiently it was the custome of the Primitive Christians to bring their bread and wine to the Church of God and offer them to the Lord by the hands of the Priest or Minister part of the which was consecrated for the use of the Sacrament the rest being usually given to the poor and needy as having a letter of attorney from the Lord of heaven to receive our bounties For thus we read in Iustin Martyr who lived the next dore also to the Apostles Prayers being done saith he we salute one another with an holy kisse Then do we offer to the Bishop for such is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom he speaks of there bread and wine mixt with water as the use then was which he receiving offered to God the sacrifice of praise and glory c. And thus St. Cyprian speaking of a rich but covetous Widow who came not with her offering to the Church as her poor neigbours did charged her that she came into Gods house without her sacrifice and eat of that which had been offered or sacrificed unto God by far poorer folke Locuples et dives Dominicum celebrare te dicis but there dominicum signifyeth the Lords day plainly qui corbonam omnino non respicis qui in dominicum there it is the Church sine sacrificio venis qui partem de sacrificio quod pauper obtulit sumis are his words at large Where sacrificium in both places signifyeth the bread and wine which they used to offer to the Lord to be consecrated and employed in celebrating the memorial of our Saviours passion It is called next a commemorative sacrifice a Sacrifice commemorative and representative by Dr. Morton Ld. B. of Durham in his book of the Sacrament in regard that it was instituted by our Saviour Christ for a perpetual memory of that one perfect and al-sufficient sacrifice which he offered of himself upon the Crosse. And to this end it was that Chrysostome having called the Sacrament of the Lords supper by the name of a Sacrifice addes presently not by way of correction or retractation as I know some think but by way of explanation only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it was the remembrance rather of a sacrifiâ—e or a commemorative sacrifice as some others call it Which word commemorative as I take it detracts not from the nature of a sacrifice as if it were the lesse a sacrifice because commemorative but only signifyeth the end to which it is specially directed For as the sacrifices of the old law were true and proper sacrifices in respect of the beasts or â—owles or other things which were offered although prefigurative of that sacrifice made upon the Crosse which was then to come so are the sacrifices of the Gospel true and real sacrifices in reference to the oblation made of bread and wine for the service of God although commemorative of the same great sacrifice now already past It was called thirdly a spiritual and Eucharistical sacrifice by reason that Gods servants therein make profession of their due acknowledgements for all the blessings which he hath vouchsafed to bestow on their souls and bodies especially for the redemption of themselves and of all mankinde by the death of Christ and therewith offering up themselves their souls and bodies as a pleasing and most acceptable sacrifice to the Lord their God For thus we finde in Iustin Martyr that the Bishop or President of the Congregation having received the bread and wine from the hands of the faithful offered by them the sacrifice of praise and thanks to God the Father of all things in the name of the Son and the holy Ghost for all those blessings which he hath graciously from time to time bestowed upon them And thus Irenaeus Oportet nos
absurde credi videtur c. If saith he it may seem to be believed without absurdity that the Saints of the Old Testament which believed in Christ to come were in places most remote from the torments of the wicked in locis tormentis impiorum remotissimis and yet amongst the Inferi in the lower places until the bloud of Christ ad ea loca descensus and his descent unto those places did deliver them thence then certainly the godly believers now redeemed with the price of that bloud-shed prorsus inferos nesciunt shall never come into that place where those inferi are that is to say within the mansions below to the time that recovering again their bodies they do receive the blessings prepared for them So far and to this purpose he Now by this last passage cited from the works of Augustine it is clear and evident that in those times it was an opinion generally received in the Christian Church and such as might be well believed as himself acknowledgeth without any absurdity that the Patriarchs and others of the Saints of the Old Testament were detained in some lower places amongst the Inferi but without any sense of those infinite torments which were endured by the wicked and that they were detained there till the coming of Christ till he by his descent thither did release them thence Which opinion as he did not very well approve of so in regard it was so generally received he was very tender in confuting it All he thought fit to say was no more then this Illud me nondum invenisse confiteâ—r inferos appellatos ubi justorum animae requiescunt that he had no where found as yet in holy Scripture that the place where the souls of the just did rest was called by the name of Inferi So wary was that Reverend and learned Prelate from pronouncing rashly in a point wherein the general current of the Church â—eemed to be against him and the like wariness I hope I may have leave to observe here also For though this be the reason as before I said which I am to consider as a matter questionable yet I shall consider it as a matter questionable only I shall not dare to say it is false or impious The joynt consent of such and so many of the Antients both Greek and Latine which have been formerly alleadged besides others as considerable but not here alleadged who have in terminis and expresly affirmed the same make me hold off my hand from that presumption The rather in regard it carries no impiety with it nothing derogatory to the Gospel or Kingdome of Christ but rather seemes to adde much lustre to our Saviours Person and much conduceth to the honour of the Faith and Gospel For what can be more honourable to the Person of Christ then that the Patriarchs and other holy men of God who dyed under the Law were kept from being admitted into a participation of the joys of heaven till he by his Divine power took them by the hand conducted them into the blessed gates of Paradise and having overcome the sharpness of death set open the Kingdome of Heaven unto all believers What could adde more unto the dignity and reputation of the Gospel of Christ then that all such as faithfully believe the same and frame themselves to live thereafter should have a greater priviledge then their Father Abraham and all the rest who dyed in the fear of God before the coming of our Saviour and be admitted presently to the joys of Paradise And this is that which is affirmed by St. Hierom and some other Fathers Ante Christum Abraham apud inferos post Christum latro in Paradiso that before CHRIST Abraham and the bosom of Abraham was in the lower regions in some parts of the Inferi but after Christ the penitent theef was admitted presently admitted into Paradise For this saith he is the land of the living in which the good things of the Lord are prepared for meek and holy men to which before the coming of our Lord and Saviour in the flesh neither Abraham nor Isaac nor Iacob nor the Prophets nor other just men could attain With whom accords St. Chrysostom also in his Homilie on the Parable of the rich man and Lazarus Luk. 10. But here perhaps it will be said that being both the Greek Hades and the Latine Inferi have been before declared to be hell and the place of torments how can the Patriarchs and other holy men of God be said to be in or amongst the Inferi and not participate of the torments of that wretched place In answer whereunto it may be replyed that there might be some part or region of the Inferi wherein the greatest or rather the only punishment was poena damni a want of those Celestial comforts which were reserved for them in the land of Paradise which to a soul that longed for the sight of God could be no small infelicity And secondly it may be said that though the Inferi in it self were a place of punishment yet God was able to command the fire that it should not burn them and to the torments of the pit that they should not touch them That God who so preserved the three Hebrew Salamanders in the middle of a fierie furnace that the hairs of their head were not â—indged nor the colour of their coats changed nor so much as the smell of the fire passed upon them and did so shut the mouths of the ravenous Lyons that they could not hurt his servant Daniel though he was cast amongst them into their den is also able to afford his people such a proportion of refreshing as to him seems meet even in the middle of the flames and in the dens of those roaring Lyons who day and night have had an expectation to devoure them Nor is this all that may be said in justification and defence of those antient Writers which have looked this way if one did seriously set about it For possibly they might mean no more by those expressions of bringing back the souls of the just from Hades then that by the descent of Christ into hell all claim and challenge which the Devil could pretend unto them were utterly made void and of none effect and that our Saviour by subduing the whole forces of hell and spoyling the powers and principalities thereof communicated the benefit and effect of so great a triumph aswell to those who went before as to us that come after assuring both that neither hell it self nor the Rulers of it have any interest in either or should be able from thenceforth to disturb their rest But I pronounce not this way neither but shall still look upon it as a matter questionable And so I leave this point with these words of Bullinger a man of eminent note in the Protestant Churches Sinus Abrahae nil aliud est quam portus salutis c. The bosome of Abraham is
present Article that is to say that by Christs descending into hell is meant nothing else but his going down into the Chambers of death and his continuance in the state of separation from his body for the space of three days under the power and dominion of death Which though it came after the conceit of Calvin who maketh the descent of Christ into hell to be the sufferings of hell paines in his soul in his Agony and upon the Crosse yet we have joyned it to the former as being at the furthest cousin german to it if not the same device clothed in other words For what else is it to be dead and buried but to descend down into the chambers of death and what else to goe down to the chambers of death but to be dead and buried as our Saviour was What need was there that when the Creed had specifyed his death and burial and his lying in the grave three days in as plain termes as possibly the wit of man could devise to put it in there should a clause be added in the next words following to signifie his going down to the Chambers of death a three dayes separation of his soul and body and that in words so figurative and Metaphorical that all the Lexicons and Grammars of both the languages must be searched and studied before we can finde out what we are to trust to Assuredly it was not the Apostles purpose to set mens wits upon the rack to finde out their meaning or to make the Creed which they intended for the use of the simplest sort tormentum ingeniorum a torture to the brain of the ablest Scholar or to expresse themselves in such difficult termes that men must go to Schoole to the old Greek Poets and the late Iewish Rabbins before they can attain to the meaning of them As if there were no way to become a Christian but to be first an exact Critick a professed Philologer Yet this hath been the Helena of our greatest Clerks of none more preciously beloved then by the Bishop of Meuth who in his Answer to the Iesuites challenge hath spent a great deal of unfortunate pains to no other purpose but to crosse the current of Antiquity together with the authorized doctrine of the Church of England Concerning which I shall not need to say more now then what was touched upon before touching the unliklyhood of improbability of using such obscure and figurative expressions in so plain a forme in the which all things else must be understood in the literal sense and the repeating of the same thing twice in so short an Abstract not capable of a Tautologie though in divers words And as for the far fetching of Theological and Ecclesiastical notions out of the works and writings of old obsolete Authors it is a devise not known nor heard of in the Christian Church till these Critical times nor very well approved in this neither by judicious men And therefore for a full and finall answer to this last conceit I shall use this caution of Aquinas viz. Aliud est etymologia nominis aliud significatio nominis c. that is to say that in words we must not so much look upon their original exact and precise signification or derivation as that whereto they are by ordinary use applyed And unto this shall add the counsell and advise of a grave Divine a late learned member of the Church viz. That he who hopeth to attain the true knowledge of the principles of the Christian faith must either use the help of some Lexicon peculiar to Divinity or make one of his own it being an easier thing saith he to learn the termes of Law or Physick out of Thomasius or Riders Dictionaries then to know the true Theological use and meaning of many principal termes in the old or new Testament out of Stephanus or Pagninus his Thesaurus though both of them most excellent writers in their kinde Which I conceive to be as fit and full an answer unto this second exposition of the descent into hell drawn from the Greek Hades and the Hebrew Sheol as the merit of it doth require Only take here the substance of my former answer in these words of Calvin Quantae oscitantiae fuisset rem minime difficilem verbis expeditis claris demonstratam obscuriore deinde verborum complexu indicare magis quam declarare How great a folly must we think it in the compilers of the Creed whosoever they were to lay down that in difficult and intricate phrases which had been formerly delivered in most clear and significant termes especially considering that when two several formes of speech are joyned together to expresse one thing the latter commonly doth use to explain the former We now proceed to that interpretation of this part of the Creed which hath found most followers and hath been most insisted on by some late Divines as the undoubted sense and meaning of the present words though to attain unto this meaning they must allow themselves both Metaphors and other figures which as before was shewn this short forme admits not And this interpretation found the better welcome not because any way more probable then the rest of the new devices but in regard it came from Calvin whose reputation was so high and his authority so great amongst them that as one very well observeth they were esteemed to be the most perfect Divines who were most skilful in his writings which were almost grown the very Canon by which both Discipline and Doctrine were to be judged Now Calvin seeing how absurd and inconvenient it must needs be thought to make the descent of Christ into hell to be nothing else but his burial and that of his descent into the chambers of death and his continuance of separation from his body being then found out fell on a fancie which might seem to have more affinity to his descent unto the very place of torments the habitations of the damned though to say truth it was not so much properly a descending of his soul to the torments of hell as an ascending of the torments of hell to finde a place in his soul. To bring this in he first declareth that Christ had done nothing for us in the way of redemption if he had died no other then a bodily death and therefore that it was necessary he should undergoe divinae ultionis severitatem the severity of the divine vengeance Then he inferres that to this end he was to struggle cum inferorum copiis aeternaeque mortis horrore with the infernall powers of hell and the horrors that attend on eternal death and to submit himself unto all those punishments which the most wicked souls are condemned to suffer the eternity thereof excepted only that in this sense he may be truely said to descend into hell in regard he suffered all those torments nay that death it self which are by God inflicted upon wicked men dirosque
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
the Gospel as by no means to let it be accommodated to the times of the Law That by a name distinct they have called the Synagogue Synagoga Iudaeorum Ecclesia Christianorum est as St. Augustine hath it And the distinction may sort well enough with the state of the Church as it stood heretofore in the time of the Law and now under the Gospel though otherwise the names may be used promiscuously For properly Synagogue is no other than a Congregation derived from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to congregate or gather together into one and the other in one word may be rendred a Convocation from calling the same men together to some certain end Both words of Ecclesiastical use and notion and both import the same thing though in divers words For both the Patriarks and other holy Men of God which lived under the Law may be called a Church that is to say a Convocation a Body Collective of men called by their God unto a participation of his Word and Ordinances And we which have the happiness to live under the Gospel may without any reproach or dishonor to us be called by the name of the Congregation Certain I am St. Augustine though much affected with the foresaid distinction doth yet allow the one to be called a Church Tamen illam dictam invenimus ecclesâ—am as his words there are and no less sure that the meetings of Christs faithful Servants are by St. Paul called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. A Congregation or gathering of themselves together as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word of the same Root and Origination is used by him to the same purpose in another place And yet I can by no means like the zeal of our first Translators who were it seems so out of love with the name of Church that wheresoever they found the word Ecclesia in Greek or Latine for I know not which of the two they consulted with they would not render it the Church but the Congregation And so it stands still in the Epistles and Gospels and several other passages of our Publick Liturgy which were taken out of that Translation A thing which Gregory Martin justly doth except against though he be out himself in saying That the Apostles never called the Church by the name of the Congregation But that Error is corrected in our late Translations and we are now no more afraid of the name of the Church than the Romanists are afraid of the name of Pope Audito Ecclesiae nomine hostis expalluit was a vain brag in Campians mouth when the times were queasiest more ayt to strain at Gnats than they have been since Much less can I approve of that false Collection which those of Rome have made from St. Augustines words For whereas he appropriating the name of Synagogue to the state of the Iews and that of the Church unto the Christians inserts I know not why this Grammatical note Congregatio magis pecorum convocatio magis hominum intelligi solet That to be convocated or called together doth belong to Men but to be congregated or gathered together appertains to Beasts the Authors of the Roman Catechism have from thence collected That the people under the Law were called a Synagogue because like brute Beasts they sought after nothing but temporal and earthly pleasures not being nourished in the hopes of eternal life The vanity of this Collection we have shewn before by bringing in St. Paul to witness how properly the word Congregation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek may be applied and understood of the Church of Christ. The falshood of the Tenet we shall shew hereafter when we are come to speak of the last Article that of Life Everlasting In the mean time the scornful Papist may be pleased to be put in minde that there is nothing more frequent in the Acts of the Council of Constance than Synodus in Spiritu Sancto congregata and yet I know they neither have the confidence nor the heart to say That the Bishops which were there assembled were gathered together like brute Beasts which Congregari doth import in the Tridentine Criticism Of the Quid nominis the name or notion of the Church as it is called Ecclesia both in Greek and Latine we have said enough Our English word Church hath another Root and is derived from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in the proper signification of it doth signifie Gods house the material Church the place appointed for the Meetings of Christian people to celebrate the Name of the Lord their God So witnesseth Eusebius saying That in as much as the Holy Houses and Temples of that time were dedicated unto God the chief Lord of all therefore they did receive his Name and were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dominicae in the Latine Tongue that is the Houses of the Lord A name saith he imposed upon them not by the will of man but the Lord himself In correspondence to the Greek they were called Dominica in the Latin and called so very early too in St. Cyprians time as appears by his reproof of a wealthy widow of whom he saith In Dominicum sine sacrificio Venis That she used to come into the Church without her Offering Of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that famous Antiquaâ—y Sir Henry Spelman hath right well observed came the Saxon Cyric or Kirk which still the Scots retain without alteration which we by adding thereunto a double Aspirate have changed or mollified into Church A name which though at first it signified the Material Temple I mean the place of meeting for Gods Publick Worship yet came it easily to be applied to the Body Mystical to the Spiritual Temple built on the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles IESUS CHRIST himself being the chief corner stone As on the otherside the word Ecclesia which first the Christians used to signifie the Spiritual Temple the Collective Body of Gods people became in little time to denote the building the material edifice appointed for the meeting of the Congregation Tertullian hath it in this sense for the African Churches Conveniunt in ecclesiam confugiunt in ecclesiam They met together in the Church and they fled to the Church So hath St. Ierome for the Roman Aedificate ecclesias expensis publicis Let Churches be erected at the Publick charge And for the Eastern thus the Synod of Laodicea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. In the Church of the most holy Martyr Euphemia Many more instances of which kinde might be here alleged but that St. Paul is generally supposed by all sorts of Writers to speak of the Material Church when he charged those of Corinth for despising the Church of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Greek Original Concerning which consult St. August quaest 57. super Levit. St. Basil. in Moral Reg.
to the water but the institution nor to the Sacramental water of it self alone but to the holy Spirit which is active in it Et ipsi soli hujus efficienciae privilegium manet to which belongeth the prerogative in this great effect For as the Spirit of God moving upon the waters of the great Abyss did out of that imperfect matter produce the world so the same Spirit moving on the waters of Baptism doth by its mighty power produce a regenerate Creature From hence it is that in the setting forth of so great a work the water and the Spirit are oft joyned together as in St. Iohn Except a man be born again of Water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And in St. Paul accrrding to his mercy hath he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost And in St. Iohns Epistle also There be three that bear witness on the earth the Spirit and the Water and the Blood And if the Spirit go along with the Waters of Baptism as we see them joyned together in the holy Scripture no question but it will be made effectual to the work intended which is the washing away of sins whether smal or great whether Original or Actual of what sort soever For proof whereof besides what hath been said of this Point already let us behold the practise of the Primitive times when the Discipline of the Church was grown so severe that some were hardly admitted at all unto publick Penance others removed from the communion of the Church for three four or seven years together and sometimes as the quality of the sin appeared for the whole time of their lives A Discipline which the Church used onely towards those which had given up their names in baptism to be visible members of that body whereof Christ was Head and that made more unpleasing to most sort of men upon the growth and spreading of the Novatian Heresie who mistaking the Apostles meaning declared all those to be uncapable of mercy who sinned after Baptism and therefore neither would admit them unto publick penance nor otherwise restore them to the Churches peace of whom St. Cyprian thus complaineth Sic obstinatos esse quosdam ut dandam non putent lapsis poenitentiam And though the Orthodox party did abominate these Novatian rigors yet were they too strait-laced towards those who fell into any publick or notorious sin after they had received the Sacrament of Regeneration it being conceived that after Baptism major in sordibus delictorum reatus as it is in Augustine the smalest sins seemed greater than indeed they were Upon this ground and an assurance which they had that all their sins whatever were expunged in Baptism it was the custom of too many to defer their Baptism till the hour of their death or till they lay so far past hope on the bed of sickness that nothing but the stroke of death was to be expected Thus doth the Story tell us of the Emperor Constantine that in extremo vitae die when he was even brought to the point of death he was baptized in Nicomedia by the hands of Eusebius the like of Theodosius a most pious Prince upon these grounds St. Austine did defer his baptism a long time together that so he might more freely enjoy those pleasures to which he was addicted in his younger years On the like fear of such relapses as were censured so severely in those rigid times he put off the baptizing of Adeodatus his own natural Son till he came to thirteen years of age at what time the severity of the Church began to slaken or rather the good Fathers judgement was then changed to the better on the right understanding of the use and nature of that holy Sacrament A custom as ill taken up so as much condemned and subject to the Churches censures when occasion served those which were so baptized and escaped from death whom they called Clinici because they were baptized on the bed of sickness being disabled by the Canons from the holy Ministery But whether censured or not censured it comes all to one as to the point I have in hand which was to shew that in the practise and opinion of those elder times the Sacrament of Baptism was held to be the general plaster for all manner of sins and though sometimes deferred till the hour of death on the occasion and mistakes before remembred yet then most earnestly desired ad delenda erratu illa quae quoniam mortales erant admiserant as the Historian saith of the Emperor Constantine for expiating of those sins which they had committed But on the other side as some did purposely defer it till the time of their death out of too great a fear of the Church's censures and a desire to injoy the pleasures of sin yet a little longer so others and those the generality of the people of God out of a greater care of their childrens safety procured it to be administred unto them in their â—endrest infancy almost as soon as they were born And this they did on very pious and prudential considerations though there be no express command nor positive precept for it in the holy Scripture for when we read that we were shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin Psal. 51.5 that all men are by nature the children of wrath Ephes. 2.3 and that except a man be born again of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Joh. 3.5 What Parent can so far put off all natural affections as not to bring his child to baptism especially if there be any danger of death as soon as all things fitting can be had in readiness for that ministration And though there be no positive precept nor express command for Infant-baptism in the holy Scripture it is sufficient ground for the Church to go on if it be proved to be an Apostolical practise and that it is at least an Apostolical practise there will appear sufficient evidence to any man not prepossessed with prejudice and mis-perswasions For when we finde particular mention of the baptizing of whole housholds as of that of Lydia Act. 16.15 of the Gaoler vers 33. of the same Chapter and of Stephanus 2 Cor. 1.16 Either we must exclude children from being part of the houshold which were very absurd or else admit them with the rest to this holy Sacrament But because many exceptions have been made against these instances some thinking it possible enough that those housholds had no children in them as we see many families in great Towns and Cities where no Infants are others restraining the administration of Baptism unto such of the houshold as by giving testimony of their Faith and Repentance were made capable of it we must for further proof make use of a Rule in Law and back that Rule of Law by a practical Maxim delivered by the
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
heard which feign that the old Fathers did onely look for transitory promises Of this opinion also was that wretched Servetus who thought no otherwise of the people of the house of Israel quam de aliquo porcorum grege than other men would do of an herd of Swine whom he conceived the Lord did fatten in the Land of Canaan Citra ullam spem coelestis immortalitatis Without breeding them in any hopes of the life eternal And against him doth Calvin who hath given us this knowledge of him intend his whole tenth Chapter of his second Book of Institutions Nor do I find but that our Masters in the Church of Rome like it well enough though they keep more aloof in the tendrie of it For neither doth Prateolus nor Alphonsus à Castro nor any other of their Writers for ought I can finde in reckoning up the errors of the Anabaptists or of Servetus and his followers account this for one nor do they give such efficacy to the Iewish Sacraments as to confer Grace or spiritual gifts on them that were partakers of them And Harding telleth us in plain terms That the body is not raised to eternal life but by the real and substantial eating of the flesh of Christ Which were it so as Bishop Iewel well observeth what life could Abraham Isaac and Iacob and other holy Patriarchs and Prophets have which were before the coming of Christ and therefore could not really and substantially eat his flesh Must we not needs conclude by this strange Divinity that they have no life but are dead for ever without any hope of resurrection unto Life everlasting But what need such deductions though most clear and evident when one of their infallible and Authentick Records speaks it out so plainly that every ordinary understanding cannot but perceive it I mean the Roman Catechism published by the order and authority of the Council of Trent The Authors whereof abusing the authority of St. Augustine in his Comment on the 77th Psalm will have the Iewish Church to be called the Synagogue Quia pecudum more quibus magis congregari convenit terrena tantum caduca bona spectarent i. e. Because like brute beasts who properly are said to be congregated or gathered together for so the word Synagogue doth import they sought after nothing but transitory and temporal things Than which no Anabaptist in the world could have spoke more plainly A Tenet very contrary to plain Texts of Scripture which speak no otherwise of the Patriarchs Prophets and other holy men of God which lived before and under the Law than of those to whom pertained the adoption of Sons and the glory and the service of God and the same Promises which are made to us who live under the Gospel For doth not God say to our Father Abraham that he was both his shield and his great reward his shield or his Protector as the Vulgar reads it to save him from all danger in this present world and his exceeding great reward in the world to come And doth not Iob whose history was writ by the hand of Moses as it is generally conceived by men of learning profess a more than ordinary confidence in the Resurrection and of his seeing God with those very eyes which were to be consumed with worms Doth not the Royall Psalmist tell us of himself that he did verily beleeve to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living And doth not the Prophet tell us of the blessed Land where men live for ever that the eye hath not seen nor the ear heard neither can the heart of man conceive those things which God hath prepared for them that love him Sufficient evidence to prove that as well in the Old Testament as in the New Everlasting Life is offered to mankinde by God according to the Doctrine of this Church of England It is true the Promises of Everlasting Life to us which live under the Gospel are delivered in more clear expressions than those which were delivered to our Fathers which lived under the Law for which we have the greater cause to give thanks to God who speaks so plainly to us without Tropes and Figures without Types and Ceremonies the shadows of those things which we have in substance For what can be more plain than that of our Lord and Saviour saying That the righteous shall go into life everlasting Matth. 25.46 That they which do forsake all for his sake shall in the world to come have eternal life Mark 10.30 That whosoever believeth in the onely begotten Son of God shall not perish but have life everlasting John 3.6 That he which hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal Chap. 12.25 Or what can be more plain than those words of St. Paul in the first to Timothy advising us That we lay up in store for our selves a good foundation against the time to come that we may lay hold on eternal life Chap. 6.19 Or those to Titus That being justified by his grace we shall be made heirs according to the hopes of life eternal Chap. 3.7 Or that in the second to the Corinthians We know that if our earthly tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens Chap. 5.1 Finally What can be more plain than that of St. Peter assuring us That by the Resurrection of Christ from the dead we are begotten again to an inheritance immortal undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved for us in the Heavens 1 Pet. 5.3 4. Or that in the same Epistle where he telleth his Presbyters That if they feed the flock of Christ committed to them when the chief Shepherd shall appear they shall receive immarcessibilem coronam gloriae an immarcessible Crown of glory or a Crown of glory which withereth not as our English reads it Chap. 5.4 How much more might be added from the Revelations and other passages of the New Testament where the same thing is either figuratively expressed or easily inferred by logical and necessary consequences but that I was to shew that eternal life was promised unto those who lived under the Law although not every where nor altogether in such clear expressions as it is held forth unto us who live under the Gospel As clear are those expressions also which do set forth the nature and condition of this life to come as those which do deliver the eternity and duration of it For in some places it is called the joy of the Lord Enter into thy masters joy Matth. 25.5 Where there is fulness of joy and at his right hand there is pleasure for evermore as the Psalmist hath it Et nunquam turbata quies gaudia firma in the Poets language Sometimes it is called a Kingdom and a Crown of glory A Kingdom by our Saviour in St. Matthews Gospel Chap. 25.5 A Crown of glory by St. Paul
onely in their single and sole capacities but as convened in Council about sacred matters have held opinions contrary to the truth of God That therefore the whole Church or the Body collective and diffusive over all the world shall universally agree to betray the truth or be given over unto Error One might as logically conclude that because many of the Citizens and some of the Aldermen many of the Parishioners and some of the Ministers and that not onely in their Houses but the very Church or the Guild-hal were swept away at London by the last great plague that therefore the whole City was dispeopled by it not a man escaping Such Arguments as these need no other Answer than to demonstrate the non sequiturs and inconsequence of them But first before we do proceed unto further evidence it will be necessary to lay down the state of the Question which is the Litis contestatio or the point in Controversie And in my minde Becanus states it very rightly We will therefore use his terms though he were a Iesuite and propose it thus viz. An tota Ecclesia Christi vel tota multitudo Christianorum quatenus ex Pastoribus ovibus conflata est errare possit in aliquo Articulo vel puncto fidei that is to say whether the whole Church of Christ or the whole multitude of Christian people consisting both of the Flock and the Pastors too may erre in any Article and point of Faith or publickly profess any point of Doctrine contrary to the Faith and Gospel of our Lord and Saviour This we deny and we deny it on the credit of our Saviours promises Upon this Rock saith he will I build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Where by the gates of Hell as the Fathers say he means not onely outward violence but Errors Heresies and false Doctrines which covertly or openly do aim at the ruine of it And of this minde is Epiphanius in Anchorato Origen Tract 1. on Matthew Ierome and Bede upon the place St. Augustine also hence inferreth Haereses omnes de ecclesia exiisse tanquam sarmenta inutilia à vite praecisa ipsam autem manere in radice sua in vite sua that is to say That Heresies were to the Church like unprofitable branches cut off from the Vines the Church remaining still in the Root in the Vine it self How so Quia portae inferorum non vincant eam because the gates of Hell cannot overcome it He promised his Apostles to send them a Comforter who should teach them all things Iohn 14.16 who should guide them into all truth Iohn 16.13 Not that he bound himself hereby to teach them all things or lead them into all truths of what sort soever For it is sure that some things the Apostles were still ignorant of as of the day and hour of the General Iudgment And probable enough it is that there were many Philosophical and Historical truths into which the Spirit did not lead them All things and all truth must be understood of all things truly necessary to a mans salvation In omnem veritatem i. e. Omnem quae expedit ad salutem saith Dr. Raynolds very rightly A promise made indeed to them the Apostles personally for it was unto them he spake and to none but them but made to all the Church in them the whole Church essentially whereof they were at that time the sole Representatives Consolatprium est ex hoc loco cognoscere fide audire quicquid est promissum his Apostolis promissum esse toti ecclesia saith a learned and a modest Papist It is saith he a special comfort to learn and faithfully believe from these words of Christs that the promise made to these Apostles was also made to the whole Church to the Body collective It was not Peter onely as the Papists say nor the Apostles onely as the words may seem to bear to whom these promises were made touching the not prevailing of the gates of Hell and the conducting of their feet in the ways of truth but to the whole Body of the Church represented by them Hence I conclude That the whole Church in the full latitude and universality thereof is free from Error such Errors as do lead to the gates of Hell and are destructive of salvifical supernatural Truths The Church being so far privileged by our Lord and Saviour that when the truth is banished out of one or more particular Churches it is admitted into others and some still opposing those corruptions both in Doctrine and Practise which in the others are defended The Church in this capacity is secure from Error even in the points of smallest moment and so it is confessed by Luther a man not over forwards to ascribe too much unto the Church Impossibile est illam errare posse etiam in minimo Articulo It is impossible saith he that the Church should erre conceive him of the Church essential in the smallest Article But this perhaps will be made more apparent by the matter of Fact than by any other kinde of evidence in an Argumentative way And for this matter of Fact we will take those times in which the truth may seem to be most miserably oppressed by the predominancy of the Arian faction and the tyranny and superstitions of the Popes of Rome That the Arian Heresie did extend no further than the Roman Empire we have shewn before that all the Roman Empire was not poysoned with it we will shew you now For besides all the Bishops of Rome successively from the first rising of this Heresie to the fall thereof who constantly except Liberius onely did maintain the truth the stories of those times acquaint us with the names and merits of some Catholick Bishops who with their Churches did oppose that predominant faction And because it were an endless and indeed a needless labor to recite them all take but those three whom Ierome brings together in one line or passage O Siquidem Arianus victis triumphatorem suum Egyptus excapit Hilarium ◠praelio revertentem Galliarum Ecclesia complexa est ad reditum Eusebii sui lugubres vestes Italia mutavit i. e. Upon the overthrow of the Arians Egypt received her Athanasius now returned in triumph the Church of France embraced her Hilary he was Bishop of Poictiers coming home with victory from the battel and on the return of Eusebius Bishop of Vercellis Italy changed her mourning garments By which it is most clear even to the vulgar eyes that not these Bishops onely did defend the truth but that it was preserved by their people also who never had received them with such joy and triumphs had they not been all of one opinion Or had but those three Bishops onely stood unto the truth yet had that been sufficient to preserve the Church from falling universally from the Faith of Christ or deviating from the truth in that particular
The word of truth being established as say both Law and Gospel if there be onely two or three witnesses to attest unto it Two or three Members of the Church may keep possession of a truth in the name of the rest and thereby save the whole from Error even as a King invaded by a forein enemy doth keep possession of his Realm by some principal fortress the standing out whereof in time may regain it all The Body cannot properly be said to be wholly dead as long as any Member of it doth remain alive But in this storm raised by the Arians in the Church the Orthodox Professors had but one Error to encounter with and that discovered and opposed in the first rising of it The Church of Rome maintained so many and those promoted by such power and so subtile instruments that there was far more danger in the Mass of Popery than any single Errors in the times before yet never could they so prevail by their force or cunning but that their Errors were opposed in some Church or other and truth though banished in the West found hearty entertainment in the Eastern parts As for example The Popes Supremacy is and hath long been held at Rome as an Article of the Faith and a chief one too and held so ever since it was declared by Pope Boniface the Seventh Omnino esse de necessitate salutis omni humanae creaturae suâ—esse Romano Pontifici i. e. That it was altogether necessary to Salvation for every mortal man to be subject to the Bishops of Rome But this Supremacy was never acknowledged by the Greeks nor Muscovites nor by the Habbassines or Christians of Ethiopia nor by the Indian Churches neither till these latter days in which they have submitted to the Popes authority And in the West it self where the Pope most swayed it was continually opposed by the Albigenses the Hussites Wiclivists and others in their several times The Popes usurped a power over Kings and Princes and did not onely hold it as a matter practical but publickly maintained and taught as a doctrinal point But against this did all the Princes of the world oppose their power the French by the Pragmatical Sanction the English by the Statutes of Provisions and Praemuniri the German Emperors at once both by Sword and Pen as is apparent by the writing of Marsilius Patavinus Dante 's Occam and many others of those times whereof consult Goldastus in his Monarchia It pleased the Popes for politick and worldly ends to restrain the Clergy of that Church from marriage because that having Wives and Children they would be more obnoxious to their natural Princes and not depend so much as now on the See of Rome But on the other side the Greeks the Melchites and the Maronites which are names of several Churches of the East neither deny Ordination unto married men or force them to abstain from the use of their Wives when they are in Orders The Russes and Arminians admit none but married men into the Priesthood the Iacobites and Nestorians allow of second and third marriages in those of their Clergy as also do the Indians and Christians under Prâ—ster Iohn the Patriarck being first sued to for a dispensation In Germany when this yoke was first laid upon them by Pope Gregory the Seventh the Clergy generally opposed stiling that Pope Hominem plane haereticum vesani dogmatis an Arant Heretick and the Broacher of a mad opinion In Italy it was taught by Panormitanus Votum non esse de essentia Sacramenti That the vow of single life was not essential unto Orders How late it was before the Priests of England could be brought to forsake their Wives and what embroilments have been raised in the Church about it Henry of Huntingdon and others of our Antient Writers do declare at large Pope Innocent the Third first setled Transubstantiation in the Church of Rome a word not known unto the Fathers in the Primitive times nor any of the old Grammarians and Professors of the Latine tongue But the Armenians do reject it as an unsound Tenet and so as I conjecture did the Egyptian Maronite and the Habbassine Churches who neither do allow of the Reservation nor the Elevation of the Host as the Romanists call it which are the Pages or attendants of that Popish Error And in the Church of Rome it self it was opposed by Bertram Berengarius and Basilius Monachus as afterwards by the Pauperes de Lugduno the Albigenses Hussites Wiclivists and their descendents to the time when first Luther writ The taking of the Cup in the holy Sacrament from the Lay-Communicant and thereby sacrilegiously robbing him of the one half of his birth-right crept unawares upon the Church by a joynt negligence as it were both of Priest and People But so that it was still retained by the Eastern Churches claimed and accordingly enjoyed by the Albigenses and their followers and so tenaciously adhered unto by the Bohemians where the Hussites had their first original that in small time they got the names of Calistini and Sub utrâques from their participating of the Cup and communicating under both kindes when none else durst do it And this they did in so great numbers that Cochlaeus one of their greatest Adversaries relates that Thirty thousand of them did assemble together at one time to receive the Sacrament under both kindes The fire of Purgatory hath for a long time warmed the Popes Kitchin and kept the Pot boiling for the Monks and Friers But there is no such fire acknowledged by the Greeks and Moscovites nor by the Melchites Iacobites Armenian and Egyptian Christians nor by the Waldenses Hussites and their Descendents The Worshipping of Images hath not onely been practised but enjoyned by the Church of Rome ever since the second Nicene Council But the Christians of St. Thomas so they call the Indians admit no Images at all to be set up in their Churches The Grecians Moscovites and Ethiopians though they admit of Painted Images yet allow not of the Carved and forbid the worshipping of both The Church of Rome hath long time used Auricular Confession as a kinde of State-picklock and opening therewith the Cabinet-Counsels of the greatest Kings and laid it as a burden upon the conscience of the penitent sinner But the Nestorians and the Iacobites never did enjoyn it themselves or approved it in them that did And though the Greek Church still retains the use of Confession of the right use whereof we shall speak hereafter yet such a rigorous pressing of it as our Masters in the Church of Rome have been used unto they allow not of These are some few of many Errors which have been taught and patronized in the Church of Rome which yet were constantly opposed and condemned by others in the East and South As on the other side those Churches of the East and South and such