defines it 1. Qu. 8. Ar. 1. 2. The communication of one thing with another so many waies as a Body imparts it self to another so many may it be said to be Present to it And these ways are commonly resolved to be two First by immediate contact and conjunction Secondly by a Virtual or Effectual communication with it the Substance it self continuing remote So that though Christs body should be determined to one certain place in Heaven yet may it by its vertue communicate it self to us in the Sacrament and be said to be Present really though not Corporally after the manner of bodies in their natural state by contiguity And what we now say of the Subject of this Sacrament will hold no less in the Case of Participation of Christs Body and Blood in the Eucharist For as Christs Body may be said to be really though not Corporally Present and immediately So may it be said to be received Really and not Phantastically only though not Corporally after the manner that other bodies are received For they that affirm that Christs body is Corporally Sacramentally received do say if not what they know not themselves yet what no body but themselves can apprehend For either these terms are really distinct or Not. If they be not then are they either superfluous or at most explicatory one of another but this latter cannot be said because Sacramentally is more obscure than Corporally and Corporally signifies a much grosser degree of Presence than the Framers of this distinction will admit to agree with these Divine Mysteries If they be distinct whence shall we fetch the nature of this Sacramental Presence whenas there is nothing to be found in Nature to resemble or explain it but it must be described by it self And Sacramentally Present is no more than to be present in the Sacrament But what it is to be present in the Sacrament or how a thing may be said to be present in the Sacrament otherwise than in other Cases we shall ever be to seek and consequently never learn Therefore we must be constrained at length to reduce this large and unintelligible Presence Sacramental to one of the two old sorts of the Presence of Influence only or Presence of Substance it self or Suppositum So that either the Influence only of Christs Body and Blood should be found in the Eucharist and the vertue of them be therein communicated unto us or the very natural Substance also We have hitherto spoken of the Presence it self precisely taken from its Causes and manner external For according to Philosophers there is a Modus Essentialis and a Modus Accidentalis The Essential manner is simply to be after the intrinsique natureof a thing as the intrinsique nature and manner of a Body is to be Corporally and of a Spirit to be Spiritually that is As a Body and as a Spirit But as a Body ordinarily and naturally palpable and visible may remain a true real Body and yet not be seen or felt so may a Spirit remain a Spirit in substance and yet appear as a Body So that it is possible Christs Body may be present corporally in the essentials and formal nature of a Body and yet not appear in the accidental or separable formalities of a Body which are actually to be seen and felt at a competent distance These I call accidental because they may be wanting as well by reason of the defect of the senses which should perceive them as of the sensiblenes of such objects For a Divine power may take away the one as well as the other by impeding the sense though seeing the very nature and essence of a Body consisteth in being extended and quantitative it cannot be conceived how a Divine Power can divide them which mutually constitute one another though it may render them imperceptible to outward sense And so Christs Body may be in the Eucharist so far corporally as to have all real and essential modifications of a Body but not so Corporally as to appear in the proper forms of a Body But granting or supposing rather that Christs Body were in this Latter sense present in the Sacrament there appears no great reason why this should be called a Sacramental Presence more than that presence when he was with his Disciples at Supper and as the Scripture saith Vanished out of their sight Luk. 24. 31. that is as the word and sense import not translating his Body suddainly to another place but disappearing in that place or ceasing to be seen by them answerable to the contrary power shewn in his sudden appearing without any previous Act and standing in the midst of them before they V. 36. could be aware of it or suppose any such thing which was occasion of their great Affrightment and amazement supposing him to be a Spirit 37. But it is one thing to be Possibly and another Actually so to be And yet farther Actually for Christs Body and Blood so to be present and to be so Present as there should remain nothing substantial or material besides them and the Signs to be changed into the things signified by them absolutely and totally the shew or Accident only excepted So that the Question is double First Whether those Substances of Bread and Wine remain after consecration really the same they were before or be totally abolished Secondly It is inquired not so much whether Christs Body and Blood be really present in the Sacrament but whether it be really the Sacrament it self as it must necessarily be if so be that they be in such manner really present as there remains no other substance besides them For the former of these the knowledge of the Real Presence of Signs Bread and Wine do exceedingly conduce to the understanding of the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ under or through those Signs And it should seem that the Roman Advocates of the New sense of a Real Presence of Christs Body and Blood proceed not in the proper and natural method rightly to found their Doctrine For as according to them there must be in order of nature though not of time a Desition or abolition of the Elemental substances before there can succeed those Divine substances so should they have first by sound and sufficient arguments proved the destruction of the preceeding Bodies and then have inferred the succeeding But on the contrary They first presume on the Second upon what grounds we shall hereafter see viz That Christs Body is so really subsisting there and then conclude that the Elements are not there subsistent For he that holds that the Sacramental Signs do not exclude the Body and Blood of Christ doth likewise hold that the Body and Blood of Christ are not inconsistent with the Real Presence of the Elements It must not be denied that those texts of Scripture which are commonly alleadged to Parallel Christs words and consequently to give a more favourable sense than that of Transubstantiation do not exactly
Divine power should be of the nature of Substance but such confusion and havock in nature to bring in an unnatural Dogm is no ways to be admitted not out of any defect in the Divine Power but an incapacity of the Creature to be so order'd against its nature And as this Condition of Species subsisting or existing separately of themselves is contrary to their nature So the significativeness of these Species is contrary to Christs Intention and Institution which were to make a representation of his death and passion by Bread and Wine and not by the Similitudes of Bread and Wine And this is to be noted That when the Ancient Fathers both Greek and Latin do affirm that Christs Body or Blood are present under the Species and Forms of Bread and Wine they do not mean such Species as the Schools of Aristotle have introduced for I find not that they took any notice of them distinct from the subject to which they relate but they took them in a more plain sense for the thing it self so affected and formed and Under the Species signified with them as much as Under the Kinds of Bread and Wine Christs Body was present And they never destroyed the Sacrament it self to give an extraordinary Being to the Body of Christ therein CHAP. XLIII The principal Reasons for Transubstantiation answered AND If this be once made good That there is a Proper Sacrament remaining after Consecration it will be much less difficulty to agree upon the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament For the doubt will not be so much about the Concomitance and co-existence of it with the Sacramental Signs as Whether that which we See with our eys and touch and taste be properly and not denominatively and Figuratively only the Body of Christ And in effect Whether it be the very Sacrament it self or whether only in the Sacrament The Doctrine of the Church of Rome determines not only that There it is but directly and expresly This it is and this we deny as that which indeed must include such a Transubstantiation as is by them affirmed and the chiefest grounds whereof we are now to examine And First from Scripture they are wont to argue and that from the Old Bellarm Lib. 1. Cap. 3. De Sacram. Eucharist Testament where are recorded many Types and Figures of Christ and particularly his Passion which were no less if not much more clear than the representations in the Eucharist if Christ himself be not there otherwise than Figuratively For the Paschal Lamb slain seems to represent Christs Passion more Lively and expresly than the Sacramental Elements Therefore if that the Sacraments of the Gospel might exceed them of the Law it is necessary that what was done there Figuratively only should be properly and really performed in our Sacraments Answ But first supposing Transubstantiation is Christ more clearly in the Sacrament than if there were no such thing Or can the Sacrament of the Gospel be said to be more clear for this when in truth it is more Mystical and abstrufe But though it be not more clear to the sense or Reason yet it is in it self more really present For otherwise the Legal Sacrament must have been only a Figure of this Figure of Christs Body and not of the Bertramus Body it self But the answer of Bertram to this about eight hundred years ago is sufficient to this purpose that both the Paschal Lamb and the Sacramental Elements both Figured and represented Christs body The former Christs Body future and its Passion and the other Instant as at the Institution or Part and compleated So that in truth a great preheminence there is in the Sacraments of the New Testament above them of the Old which is the thing contended for But Christ was really received in both The next Argument taken from Christs words in the sixth of John where he saith amongst many other things I am the Bread of Life And again Verily Joh. 6. 48. 53. 54. Verily Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye have no life in you For my Flesh is meat indeed and my Blood is drink indeed Is answer'd two ways First from a consent on both sides by some of the Learnedest That Christ spake not of a Sacramental Eating and Drinking of him but Ordinary in receiving him by Faith preached But because as many on both sides affirm that he pointed at the Eucharist in these words therefore I think it most reasonable and equal to take in both senses and that Christ intended the receiving of him by Faith in the word preached and in the Eucharist too And though Christs Flesh be meat indeed and his Blood drink indeed it doth not follow at all that it is properly so For things Metaphorically such are really though not Properly And Christ doth not say Caro mea est verus cibus or Sanguis meus verus est potus i. e. My Flesh is true meat or Proper My Blood is true Drink but My Flesh is Meat indeed and my Blood is drink indeed that is verily and really And besides the difference before intimated between these expressions and that at the Celebration of the Eucharist when he calls the Bread his Body is very great especially with the precise stickers to the Letter For according to these Christ Transubstantiated Bread into his Body but here according to the same Rule of interpretation he should convert his Body into Bread the words being alike operative But if Christ did at no time make a Transubstantiation of his Flesh or body into bread though he affirmed his Body to be bread What reason is there we should believe upon no better grounds than he affirming bread to be his Body should thereby change it into his proper Body A Third principal Argument is taken from the words of Christ at the Celebration viz This is my Body and This is my Blood And upon the proper acceptation of these words they make no doubt to put to silence all seeming oppositions and contradictions and impossibilities in nature For be it say they how it will Christ saying it who is truth it self no doubt is to be made of it For as they teach the vulgar to speak If Christ should say that this stone were his Body we ought to believe it All which is granted But we must distinguish as all sober men do between Loquela and Sermo He that rehearses a certain number of Articulate words doth Loqui or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but he only who doth deliver the word conceived in his mind which is his meaning at his mouth doth Sermocinari or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now if it can be proved by any certain Circumstance that Christ meant these words in a proper sense and not improper in which he delivered no small part of his doctrine in the Gospel we have done the Controversy is at an end we are to lay our hands on our mouths and
freely to conclude with them But until this be better evinced what make they with so many zealous professions of their believing of Christ or protestations against others that herein they believe not Christ It becomes then the principal doubt of all not what were Christs words but what was the drift and purpose of them And surely they must needs grant this to be worthily doubted of when they consider how sundry of their eminent Doctors do yield such an Indifferency in the words as that they are capable of both senses as might easily be made apparent But saying that We ought to take the Scriptures always literally where it will consist with the analogy of Faith they say no more than we But if it happens as here it doth that our Analogy of Faith differs from theirs what are we the neerer For our Faith tells us Christs words were spiritual as well here as in St. John where he expresly testifies so much saying Joh. 6. 63. The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life that is spiritually and not properly to be understood And Literal sense we understand two ways First as being the same as the prime signification of the words according to common use And this Literal sense we deny of these words But affirm them literally to be taken taking Literal for that which by the same words was immediately and primarily intended by the speaker in which way all Metaphorical speeches are Literally to be taken For he that says of a vicious man He is a Beast doth literally mean that he is of beastly qualities and not the very nature of a Beast So that Metaphorical and Literal are not opposite but Metaphorical and Natural and Natural and Spiritual We say then That this Proposition as in the Eucharist is Metaphorical and yet Literal But it is a weak and spiteful slander to say That because we say this therefore we hold that Christs Body is only Metaphorically and Figuratively in the Eucharist For we profess it to be really and properly and really and properly received in the Sacrament and not as they would fain perswade the World of us imaginarily only But the figurativeness is not so much in the Presence of Christ as the Predication of Christ of the visible Elements We say plainly the Elements are Christ only Figuratively and improperly and as St. Ambrose hath Ambros de Sacrament Lib. 4. C. 4. it or rather had it before a false Cause here as elswhere constrained men to foul practises After Consecration that which was remains and yet is changed into another It retains its nature it is changed to its name to its use and ends and effects and these are sufficient The Fathers who are alledged to prove Christ spake here properly do speak of many changes made in the Elements but then they do as often deny the substance to be changed sometimes they say The Nature is changed but we know Nature is somtimes used more largely than to imply the very Being and Essence it self We say commonly Such a man is quite of another nature from what he was We do not mean his very Essence or Being is changed but his condition It is said in the first Book of Samuel 1 Sam. 10. v. 9. that after his anointing to the Kingdom God gave Saul another heart I hope not in substance but in disposition But it is neerer to our Case what St. Paul saith of Christ and us in his Epistle to the Ephesians We Eph. 5. 30. are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones Can any thing be more expresly affirmed than this to signifie a corporeal unity and identity with Christ if the Verb Copulative Are must here be taken Substantively as they say Is must in these words This Is my Body As they profess with much ardour and zeal they will believe Christ say he what he please and be the thing never so contrary to our common sense and reason so do we And no less do we believe St. Paul speaking by the same spirit This he hath said and therefore we must not dispute but believe He hath said as plainly as words can make it that we are the very flesh of Christ and the bones of Christ and that he cannot be understood of the same in Kind but number is manifest from his argument when he saith No man ever hated his own flesh but as his flesh is anothers in nature we know there is nothing more common Now the like if not same interpretation will satisfy the Scripture in one place and other And not only so but the Fathers who are urged for the literal signification of the words rather than Literal sense of the Author of them speak diverse times of a Real change of the foresaid Elements but saying the same in other cases as in the holy Chrysm after Benediction and specially the water of Baptism we would have one give meaning to the other And the Modern Greeks who are arrived at higher expressions and sense than their forefathers yet when occasion serves can affirm the substance of Bread and wine to remain and would never fully receive the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Transubstantiation as the Latins do which declare how much they suspect an Evil sense in the Roman Church Again as they are defective in their characterizing this change to that degree so are they excessive according to the Latins opinions in ascribing too great a change upon Consecration For they make no such distinction as the other between Nature or substance and the Accidents And they deny as much there remains any Accidents as any substance of Bread wherein they seem to take Christ more Literally than the Papists For if as they give out we must take Christ at his word and hold him hard to the Letter we must and ought to do it no less in reference to the Accidents than the Substance For Christ made no distinction and then why should we By vertue therefore of his words the Accidents must be changed as well as the Substance And so in truth we believe and to make our meaning clear will allow no effect of Christs words upon the one which we will not upon the other And if they oppose sense to discriminate the Cases saying that we see and feel that the Specieses and Accidents are the same We must tell them in their own words and that without fraud or dissimulation that we believe Christ rather than our own senses And were it not so yet we cannot teil that they are the same individual Accidents which were before consecration though like them and appearing so to be And I could never as yet meet their reason worth the noting 〈◊〉 remembring which should move them to be lead by their senses to interpret Christs words when he saith Positively and with the same Verb Suâ—â—â—an â—â—ve This Cup IS the New Testament in my blood and commands them to drink the Cup
and to deny Luk. 22. 20. V. 17. their senses when he saith This is my Body And as reasonles and frivolous are their Answers to St. Augustine who 1 Cor. 11. 27. affirms it to be a Prophane and blasphemous sense to understand Christ of Aug. de Doctrina Christ his proper Body and to eat it For can any thing be more Elusorie and ridiculous than to Scholie on him with a That is As meat is bought and sold in the Shambles Nam Sacramentum Alâ—ptionis suscipere dignatus est Christus et quando circumeisus est et quando baptizatus est et potest Sacramentum adoptionis Adoptio â—uncupari sicut Sacramentum coâ—poris et sanguints jus quod est in pane poculo consecrate Corpus jus sanguinem diciâ—us Non quod proprie corpus ejus sit panis poculum sanguinis Sed quod in se Mysterium coâ—poris ejus et sanguinis ejus contineant Hinc ipse Dominus Benedictum panâ—m Calicem quem Discipulis tradidit corpuaae sanguinem ejus voâ—â—vit Quocirea sicut Christi fideles sacramentum Corporis sanguinis ejus accipientes Corpus et sanguinem ejus recte dicuntur accipere c. Facundus Hâ—rmianensts Pro. 3. Capitulis Lib. 10. Cap. 5. But if it be possible to express any thing more clearly Facundus Hermianensis and that as set forth by Syrmondus doth both expound St. Austins meaning and our Saviour Christs yet more irrefragably writing against the Eutichians in these words For Christ vouchsafed to take on him the Sacrament of Adoption both at his Circumcision and at his Baptism and the Sacrament of Adoption may he called Adoption as the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ which is the Bread and Cup Consecrated we call his Body and Blood not that properly his body is Bread or his Blood the Cup but that they contain in then the Mystery of the Body and Blood of him Whence our Lord himself called the Blessed Bread and Cup which he delivered to his Disciples his Body and his Blood Wherefore as Christian believers taking the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of him are said truly to take the Body and Blood of Christ So Christ when he took the Sacrament of Adoption of Children might truly he said to take the Adoption of Children Thus he and Syrmondus in his notes upon this place doth confess these to be very harsh expressions like unto some of St. Austins there mentioned And to our urging the name fruit of the Vine given to the Consecrated substance and thence concluding that the real nature of Wine remains they answer that it is not unusual to give the name to a thing as a little before it was or seems to be Which we deny not And by the parity of reason return upon them to their loss For we know it is not unusual for a thing to be called by the name not which is proper to its nature but which it represents And to the eye of Faith the consecrated Elements Heb. 5. are the Body and Blood of Christ and so may not unaptly be so called by those whose senses are exercised as the Apostle speaks to discern both good and evil though in nature they be farr otherwise Some indeed as I conceive have been but too free of the Figures in this question supposing that the very word Est or Is must not be taken in its proper sense but stand for as much as Significat Signifies but this is without ground in Grammar or Divinity For he that saith as St. Paul 2 Tim. 4. 17. is interpreted to speak Nero is a Lion doth not lay the agreement upon Est or Is but upon the subject Nero For the Verb Substantive is equally indifferent to Comparative and Proper Speeches and continues so applied to any thing The Signification or Similitude lies in the two Terms Nero and a Lion and Bread and Wine and the Body and Blood of Christ Now there being no difference between a Similitude and a Metaphor but that the one is at large and in many words what the other is in one To say Christ is a Lamb or This which is bread is Christ is no more than to say Christ is as a Lamb and Bread is as Christs Body For the many agreements between the natural and Spiritual senses The one and that principal is that of Sacrifice which ought here to be briefly explained CHAP. XLIV Of the Sacrifice of the Altar What is a Sacrifice Conditions necessary to a Sacrament How and in what sense there is a Sacrifice in the Eucharist GREAT contentions have been about the Sacrifice of the Altar and perhaps though with just Cause yet not so great as is generally believed For these two Terms do much illustrate one the other For neither is the Altar upon which Christians offer properly an Altar any more then as is said before the Lords-Day now observed is properly a Sabbath nor is the Sacrifice thereon performed properly a Sacrifice Some will have that only truly called a Sacrifice which consisted of living Creaturs slain and offered to God Dixerunt aliqui quia Sacrificium non est nisi de Animalibus et erraverunt in hoc c. Guliel Parisien de Legib. Cap. 3. and to this sence do I most incline For there must be in all things some one thing which is as a Rule and Law and gives denomination to others according as they agree with it Now if all offerings to God as fine Flower and fruits of the Earth be called a Sacrifice in an equal sence to the most proper then have we no Rule to go by in Judging of Sacrifices And therefore Gulielmus Parisiensis who rejecteth the former acceptation because we Read in Leviticus 20. of a Sacrifice of fine Flower and Exodus 31. Sweet Smell seemeth himselfe to erre as he saith others do in the Notion of a Sacrifice For either these things and such-like were more properly called Oblations than Sacrifices or when they were called Sacrifices they were so called because of the Proper bloudy Sacrifice as the principal thing to which they were adjuncts Five things are said to be required to constitute a Sacrifice 1 A Proper Lessius de Ju. Just it Minister who is the Priest Heb. 5. Secondly the Matter must be sensible 3. The form of that matter must be changed and that after the nature of it Thirdly It must be directed and devoted to a Good end God And fiftly It must be offered in a proper place But not all these are certain and constantly true For Cain and Abel and Noah and Abraham and the rest under the Law offered proper Sacrifices but that they had peculiar Temples or Altars is not true For until that injuction of God in Deuteronomie Take heed to thy selfe that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in Deut. 12. 13. 14. every place that thou seest But in the place which the Lord shall
wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power That your Faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God Signifying unto us that the power of God is no more than necessary to concur with humane reason to the heightning it to such great effects though the Grace of God be all sufficient of it self to produce such effects without yea contrary to such reasons as humane Philosophy or Eloquence can minister to a man And this I have held not unnecessary to be premised to this great difficulty of asserting and evidencing the Scriptures to be the word of God as well ingenuously to profess there appear no such convincing reasons to prove the same as some make shew of and promise as to discover the error of such who would have Christian Religion to stand upon humane Faith For if Christian Faith be built upon the Scripture as is most undeniable and the assurance we have that the Scriptures are the word of God can be absolutely wrought by outward reasons which cannot be drawn from the Scriptures being supposed at present under question certainly all our Faith must hang upon the veracity and certainty of such Reasons Therefore must this middle way be chosen to acknowledg such prerogatives even of outward reason preparing and disposing mens hearts that no other Religion or writing can lay any tolerable claim to and yet such as shall stand in need of a divine concourse to perfect the same to the nature of a truly divine and Christian assent and Faith Now the foresaid preparatory and justly inclining motives may be these following peculiar to the Scriptures The first thing then which must be supposed in this case is that which all Religions and even common Reason require that it is the will of God that some of mankind should be saved that is become blessed and happy after this Life is ended in heaven But this cannot be supposed without due obedience and worship given unto that great and bountiful Creatour and Saviour and this Obedience or worship cannot be given unto God in a manner acceptable to him unless this manner be first of all known unto man and this cannot Vid. Thomam 1. â—â— q. 1. 1 cor be known unless God teaches him that knowledg And this teaching of him must either beby inward or outward Revelation Inward Revelation is the natural endowment of the understanding given by God unto Man enabling him to judge of things and this all People equally share in not that there is a necessary equality or so much as disposition to knowledg in all men but that no order of People are denied this benefit which some persons stir up and improve to a more high and excellent degree of knowledg yet not so but we see many persons and almost people so degenerate as not to perceive those things which conduce necessarily to the ends of common humanity and civility Therefore God at first in creating of man purposely instituted him least the greatest part of his own workmanship and that by his own intention should miscarrie in the due ends of being or the defects of him originally redound on himself To determine this more accurately is the office of some other place only this may suffice here to note that man apparently being defective in this so necessary a point standeth in need of some supply to perfect him in it divine inward Revelation failing him generally even in matters of an inferiour nature to devine worship Wherefore that his will be cleared and revealed outwardly which inwardly is obscured and corrupted is necessary to the foresaid ends And therefore that the Word of God which is received by Christians as proceeding from him and a Declaration of his Will to mankind is to be made appear so far as it may be credible to an indifferent and imprejudicate mind and serve the ends for which it was ordained of God viz. Instruction of man in the mind and will of God and leading him unto eternal happiness CHAP. VIII More special proofs of the truth of Christian Religion and more particularly from the Scriptures being the Word of God which is proved by several Reasons IT coming to the same end to prove the Scriptures to be the Word of God and the Religion built upon them to be of God we shall here endeavour to give farther evidence of both together in this order First If the Scriptures and Christian Religion have been preserved and asserted by God himself it is plain that they proceed originally from God For as the Scripture telleth us not without the assent of rational men Whatsoever plant God hath not planted shall be rooted out Mat. 15. 13. But God hath specially and wonderfully owned and maintained the Doctrine of the Scriptures therefore by his appointment were they ordained For it is a Rule in Natural Philosophy which holds no less true in Supernatural We are nourished and conserved by those things of which we consist Neither is it probable that God should give any direct countenance to that as Divine which is forged and counterfeit But we see that whereas many eminent and Learned mens Works highly approved and applauded have perished the Holy Scriptures have been preserved entire And this attestation of God to them hath been more apparent in the concomitant Acts and Miracles wrought by Christ the immediate Author of them and his Apostles and Servants under him Christ saith expresly My Doctrine is not mine but his that sent me This he thus proves elsewhere Joh. 7. 16. Joh. 10. 25. Joh. 14. 11. The works that I do in my Fathers name they bear witness of me And again Believe me for the very works sake And again If I do not the works of my Father believe me not From all which fair dealing it appears that Christ Joh. 10. 37. intended not to impose a groundless and reasonless Faith upon the world but to commend such an one as had such competent demonstrations as that subject was capable of or the like Moral things Now that such miracles were wrought by Christ and that not by sleight of hand after the manner of cunning Impostours the Effects themselves in himself and which is much more his Followers and Servants in his name is matter of Credit as much as any thing delivered unto us in humane Histories Besides Christs Apostles professed they delivered nothing but from God and Christ to us and this they prosecuted with many and great difficulties dangers distresses and generally with the loss of their very bloud cheerfully poured out and their lives prodigally spent in that testimonie that no men of reason or common sense would have gone through so much dry service but upon a divine impulse and assurance of the truth they delivered an expectation of an everlasting reward for it Here therefore both Jews and Gentiles enter their Caveat and affirm That what Christ did was by indirect means of Evil Spirits Some Jews specially
that as the case now stands as they speak in Acts 4. 12. sensu composito God having determined that no other name under heaven be given whereby men must be saved that there is no salvation in any other but in Christ Jesus But secluding that Decree it doth not appear why God out of the Abyss of his Counsels and Immensness of his Wisdome and absoluteness of his Free Grace might not have compassed Mans salvation some other way My Reason besides those I find used by others is that now intimated If God could entertain such favourable thoughts towards Man as to decree his Salvation without intuition of Christ surely he might have effected it without Christ For 't is neither just nor reasonable to imagine that God could decree any thing absolutely and not absolutely bring it to pass for we cannot so judge of Gods Counsels as we do of Mans who alwayes determines with supposition of means and ability to bring to pass what he determined but all causes out of himself being without exception subject to his will nay his will needing no outward means to attain its purpose or resolution it is sufficient argument that such a thing may be that God without consideration of any means decrees it and at his liberty chooses those means he pleases Neither upon this supposition is the advantage such as the Socinian Heretick expects to his cause It is one of his pernicious heresies That Christ satisfied not by his Passion he expiated not the offense of Man thereby but left him many a good lesson to direct and instruct him in the way to heaven set him an excellent and fair example to follow Makes now at last being in heaven not before intercession and mediates for man but his death was no satisfaction for the wrath of God conceived against the sinner And to make way to this opinion he says that God might without any satisfaction have freely remitted mans offence and therefore it was not absolutely and indispensably requisite that Christ should dye If we should yield all this which is here taken for granted which yet if it be not granted is not so easie to be demonstrated there appears no great advantage to their cause For if it be assured unto us out of holy Writ that God hath determined that no salvation should be attained no recovery had without the mediation of Christ and his satisfaction what availeth it them that possibly it might have been otherwise I confess the advantage to the other side would have been much greater if it could be proved that Gods justice of absolute necessity must have been satisfied by fulfilling the penal part of the Law but however there remains evidence enough from the conditional will of God which according to Scriptures admits of no other way now For so saith St. Paul to the Colossians It pleased the Father that in Col. 1. 19 20. him should all fulness dwell And having made peace through the bloud of his Cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him I say whether they be things in heaven or things on earth And Christ himself in St. Luke saith Luke 24 46. Thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day And that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his Name among all Nations beginning at Jerusalem And St. Peter 2 Pet. 2. 24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead unto sin should live unto righteousness by whose stripes we were healed And what can be more plain than that of the Epistle to the Hebrews Without Heb. 9. 22 23. shedding of bloud is no remission And lest some may presume to restrain the Apostles words to the state of the Old Law it is added It was therefore necessary that the paterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these but the heavenly things themselves with better Sacrifices than these And what doth the Apostle mean by the better Sacrifices but the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross St. John declares so much exprefly where he saith If we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another 1 John 1. 7. and the bloud of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin And in the fore-cited place of the Hebrews more fully and expresly making a comparison Hebr. 9. 14. between the expiations of the Law and Gospel sayes thus For if the bloud of Bulls and Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the bloud of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God If therefore God under the Mosaical Law might have passed over the errours and uncleanness of his people Israel but never would remit them without expiations and sacrifices to that end ordained how can it be imagined that the moral errours and impurities of the soul of Man by sin should be expiated or passed over without that Sacrifice and shedding of the bloud of Christ appointed to that purpose Surely therefore a sense there is wherein it is impossible God should remit sins without due punishment for the same inflicted and the least and lowest is that which we call conditional supposing that God hath so decreed that no sin should be expiated but that way A way which besides the excellent agreement it hath with the Justice of God and Mercy also is full of pregnant advices and instructions to the Offender partly informing of the foul and mortal nature of sin which cannot otherwise be pardoned than by such satisfaction of bloud partly by humbling him and moving him to cry God mercy bitterly and heartily and lastly by possesing his mind with a dread and terrour of the nature of sin so as to avoid the same for the time future CHAP. XVI Of the Nature and Person of the Mediatour between God and Man In the beginning was the Word proved to be spoken of Christ and that he had a Being before he was Incarnate The Vnion of two Natures in Christ explained Christ a Mediatour by his Person and by his Office and this by his Sacrificing himself The Scriptures proving this THUS far of the necessity and use of Mediation between God and Man for the reconciling them at this great distance Now it remains to speak more particularly of the Person or Mediatour himself whom Christian Faith acknowledges to be Christ Jesus who as the Scripture tells us came unto the world to save sinners and to save them by his Mediation 1 Tim. 1. 15. And that this is a faithful saying that is a truth to be embraced by true Faith without which there is no Salvation But of the Condition of this Mediatour we find no small differences amongst such who are called Christians