By right of the Fathers constitution because the Father hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church Eph. 1.22 and hath made him heir of all things Hebr. 1.2 His Dominion therefore extends not onely unto us but unto all creatures Seeing therefore Christ is the Lord of us all we ought to be humble and meek one towards another for we are fellow servants of the Lord. Masters give unto your servants that which is just and equal knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven saith S. Paul Col. 4.1 And seeing that Christ is the Lord let us adhere to him alone otherwise we shall have very many strange lords whom to serve it will be most miserable Most truly said S. Ambrose O how many lords hath he who hath not one he hath so many lords or masters as he hath sins yea holy father he hath so many mistresses as lusts and certainly thou thy self being judge lust is a most furious mistress Let us therefore serve the Lord Jesus onely And if we be noble and generous Christians let us not admit of any other government As Thomas Aquinas observeth of horses that a spirited and wel-mettled one will not admit of any other rider but his own master and is moved onely at his beck Hitherto of the titles of the Mediator he is further to be described according to the degrees both of his exinanition or humiliation and likewise of his exaltation First Christ did empty himself and became very low The word is made flesh Joh. 1.14 The Son of God is made the Son of man that the son of man might become the son of God He is now who was and what he is he was not De Trin. lib. â—0 saith S. Hilary Our Mediator is become God and man that he might conjoyn God and man together again who were separated and disjoyned And if it be said Object that the flesh of Christ could not be united to our flesh because our flesh is sinful Answ We answer It doth not follow for sinfulness is accidental to our flesh not of the substance or essence of it so that Christs flesh may be united to our flesh but not as to the sinfulness of it If it be said that no accession can be made to God we say That is true if meant of perfection but not of union If further any object Object that the humane nature cannot come or be united to God It is true unless that God assume it That it is most ignominious for God to be a creature Answ It is most ignominious for him to be changed into a creature but not to be united with it without the change of his essence But although there be in Christ two natures yet there is onely one Person Although he be God and man yet he is not two but one Christ as S. Athanasius professeth in his Creed The humane nature of Christ doth not constitute a person because it subsists not of or by it self but it is upheld or sustained in and by the Word If it be objected Object that God and man are two persons We answer Answ That it is true if they be not united If it be said that dead and always living are not the same It is true that they are not the same according to the same But Christ was so according to his divers natures If it be enquired How is the Incarnation attributed to the Son We are to know that the Incarnation is the work of the whole Trinity by inchoation and of the Son alone by termination He assumed our nature which the Father formed in him out of the substance of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost This substantial knitting or joyning although produced by all the Persons yet formally it did not knit or conjoyn the humane nature with any In 3. p. D. Thom. but with the Person of the Son as Suarez copiously and other Divines And of the two natures there was an union made hypostatically or personally not physically as the form is united to the matter nor spiritually as the elect among themselves and with God nor by help and assistance as the mariner to the ship nor relatively as a friend to a friend nor mystically as in the Sacrament the two natures were united inconfusedly unchangeably not admitting of any division inseparably Inconfusedly each nature having their properties remaining but the properties of one nature by communication of idioms is attributed in the concrete to the person denominated from either nature as that God hath purchased his Church by his bloud Acts 20.28 The Lord of glory was crucified 1 Cor. 2.8 this is spoken according to his humane nature This speech ought to be taken in the concrete not in the abstract and it follows not that because God is said to suffer therefore the Deity suffered Secondly the natures were united inconvertibly that is without the change of the Divine into the humane or of the humane into the Divine Thirdly individedly without division of natures although not without distinction they are not two but one Christ Fourthly inseparably this union remains for ever At the death of Christ his soul was separated from his body but the Divine nature remained united to both after its own manner the natural union was dissolved and not the personal Thus far concerning the Incarnation in general The parts thereof follow the conception of Christ and his nativity Conceived by the Holy Ghost Not of the essence but by the efficiency of the Holy Ghost This particle of doth not denote the matter as if that Christ was of the Holy Ghost for he was of the fathers according to the flesh Rom. 9.5 God also is immutable and the Word assumed our flesh and is not changed into it but of signifies the efficient cause because by the vertue and power of the Holy Ghost Christ was conceived His conception by the Holy Ghost speaks the miraculous forming of the flesh or body of Christ without the help of man then the sanctifying of it from original sin and the hypostatical union of it with the Word The body of Christ is thought to have been made simul semel together and at once perfect not successively as the bodies of men are in the space of fourty days otherwise Christ should not have been conceived a man but an embryo yea he was inspired with a reasonable soul Wickedly did Apollinaris say that the soul of Christ was his Divinity His soul was heavy and sad which is not competent to the Divinity at his death his soul departed from his body but his Divinity did not recede or depart He was conceived for us behold his love how can we conceive to express it He was conceived of the Holy Ghost behold his wisdom that he might be free from sin let us mourn by reason of our impure conception Let every one say with David Behold in iniquity was I conceived Psal 51.5 His pure
say an apple cometh from the root by the branch yet the root and branch are not two principles The pool ariseth from the river and the river from the fountain but the water of the fountain river and pool are all one and the same The Father as the fountain begetteth the Son as the river The Father and the Son as the fountain with the river breathe forth the Holy Ghost as it were a pool yet their essence is one and the same The late Grecians are accused because they think that the Holy Ghost did not proceed from the Son neither will I contend very much to excuse them but if their doctrine were with moderation explained perhaps the difference between them and us may seem to be in words and not in the thing it self And if any urge us more morosely that it is no where said that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son we will not contend about the word if he be granted to be the Spirit of the Son no less then of the Father and to be sent from the Son as from the Father which is all one in sense as to proceed Neither do I beleeve that the Grecians will deny this Certainly this procession is done in an unspeakable manner and how it may be done is not for us to search over-curiously The Spirit is said to be Holy because he is essentially holy when as the Angels are so by the grace of creation beleevers by the grace of adoption And again he is said to be Holy because he is the Author of true or perfect holiness he is a quickening Spirit because he is the efficient cause of spiritual life in our souls The body is dead without the soul and the soul is dead without the Spirit Let us say with David O Lord renew a right spirit within us Psal 51.10 and so the short third part of the Creed is briefly explained The fourth follows I beleeve the holy Catholick Church I beleeve the Church was is shall be and that I am a lively member thereof I beleeve not in the Church the affiance of the heart is to be directed onely to God This Church is a company of men that are called who do embrace the word of God and that rightly use the Sacrament The Church is called Ecclesia from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to call forth The convention or meeting of Citizens amongst the Athenians who were called forth by the Cryer from the rest of the company to hear the judgement of the Senate had that name given them answerable to which there are a company of the faithful amongst Christians who by the preaching of the word are called out of the kingdom of the devil to hear Gods will and pleasure The Church is called holy because it is sanctified by the most precious bloud of Jesus because by his merits it is purified through the word sacrament and faith and because it is taken up in the holy exercises of Divine worship and Christian charity They are not true members of the Church who abroad in the world shine in sanctity and at home abound in iniquity nor those who are like to the lascivious Monks whose body is in the Quire and their minde in their chamber of whom Innocentius said of old In the night they embrace venery and in the morning they adore the Virgin From outward sanctity we cannot necessarily conclude the inward holiness of the Church But beloved be you holy within and without To be Saints and seem so is good to seem and not to be such is worst of all Feigned sanctity is double iniquity saith S. Austin To proceed The Church is called Catholick that is Universal This word is not written in the Scriptures but after the times of the Apostles it began to be used The Church is so called because it is gathered out of all kinds of men throughout the whole world and because it doth profess and approve of the Catholick doctrine of the Prophets of Christ and of the Apostles by an unanimous consent So Catholick is the same with Orthodox and it is opposite to heretical as it was first of all opposed to the Arrian heresie and to others not judging aright of the Trinity And they were called Catholicks who did follow the true doctrine of the Divinity of Christ as it was expounded by the Nicene Council This signification of Catholick is the most principal one Where there is not an universality of the faith there the universality of time and place is of no avail If any one should say that the Church of Rome is Catholick in respect of place Object It is a contradiction in the adject Answ because all and one do not agree The Universal and Individual the whole and the part Neither is the Romish Church Catholick in respect of the doctrine of it because it is foully fallen from the faith and fosters most grievous errours Neither doth that make for it that it is called Catholick For it is not enough to be so called but to be such We are not to look what is done but what ought to be done The Pontificians are called Catholicks by us but either according to their own opinion or ironically even as they call us the Reformed But ours is the true Catholick Church because the doctrine thereof was declared by the Apostles throughout the whole world and because it is entertained and received by men of all sorts because it was proposed in all ages although not in a like degree and for that it is consonant and agreeable to Holy Writ Let others please themselves in the beautiful shell of a name we had rather obtain the kernel of the thing Hitherto concerning the Church now let us treat something of the Communion of Saints in the Church Communion is a relation between two or more having something common Saints are the members of the Church which are said to be holy either for the imputation of Christs righteousness or their begun conformity to the law or for their separation from the world The communion of Saints is the common possession and interest which the members of the Church have amongst themselves in Christ their Head and all his benefits and gifts This communion therefore consists First in the union of the members of the Church with their Head Christ which is not the subsistence of the body of Christ within our bodies but the inhabitation of the same Spirit And truly they are three yea four times blessed whose fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ concerning which Saint John speaketh in his first Epistle chap. 1. verse 3. Good God what a noble association is this What is more desireable in this life then to have perfect amity with God the Father and Christ by faith by hope by reciprocal love by mutual colloquies obsequiousness joy by the communication of good things as it is between a father and an adopted son between the bridegroom and the
bride I beseech you therefore by the plentiful effusion of the bloud of Jesus on the Cross that ye walk with God or have your conversation with God not in the darkness of unbelief or of sin but in the light of faith grace and vertue God by his nature is light void of darkness if ye would be joyned to him ye must of necessity bid adieu to darkness and your delightful sins The second part of this communion is the union of the members of the Church between themselves We being many are one body in Christ and every one members one of another saith the Doctor of the Gentiles Rom. 12.5 and from thence the holy man doth infer golden or precious precepts amongst some other these Let love be without dissimulation Communicate or distribute to the necessity of the Saints rejoyce with them that rejoyce weep with them that weep be of the same minde one towards another as if he should say I would have such a sympathy or fellow-feeling among you Christians as to be equally affected both with the good and evil things of all whether in prosperity or adversity Beloved Auditors yeeld ye obedience to these admonitions of the Apostle Be ye endued with humanity or brotherly love charity meekness bounty let it be a shame to Academians who ought to be more rational creatures then others to be given to anger brawlings envyings disobediences evil-speaking inhumanity and revenge shun these vices which become not the Students of humane learning and after the examples of the Christians of the Primitive Church Be ye of one heart and of one minde Acts 4.32 And if ye shall forgive others the injuries that are offered unto you by them ye shall also obtain remission of sins from your heavenly Father The which is treated of in the following words I beleeve the remission of sins Forgiveness of sins is the will or good pleasure of God whereby he forgiveth beleevers both the sin and the punishment due to sin for Christs merits sake Yea their most enormous sins shall be forgiven for it is repugnant to the infinite goodness of God to be overcome by any humane wickedness He doth injury to God that despaireth of his mercy rightly Saint Augustine against those words of Cain Genes 4. Mine iniquity is greater then that it may be forgiven After this manner saith he Thou lyest Cain for the goodness of God is greater then the iniquity of all men and elsewhere he hath written That greater is the mercy of God then the misery of all men Verily it is a most excellent speech of his unto God in his meditations Although O Lord I have committed that for which thou mayest condemn me yet thou hast not lost that whereby thou mayest save me It is most true for if a sinner do repent the Lord will not remember his iniquities Let the wicked forsake his way and turn again unto the Lord and the Lord will have mercy on him Isai 55.7 In God there is omnipotent mercy and merciful omnipotency such is the benignity of his omnipotency and the omnipotency of his benignity that there is nothing that he will not or cannot forgive a beleeving soul yea oftentimes beyond remission God bestows most abounding grace What cannot repentance do Who in the secular state sinned more enormously then Paul Who in the religious more out of measure then Peter Yet they by repentance did not onely attain to the ministery but also the magistery of holiness But to explain this Article more fully We must know that God is the principal efficient cause of remission He alone can forgive sins primarily or by chief authority But the Priests or Ministers of the Church are onely administring causes as they are messengers of the Divine forgiveness God onely of himself forgiveth sins because he cleanseth the soul from the inward blemish or stain and releaseth it from the debt of eternal death but he hath not granted this to the Priest to them notwithstanding he hath given the power of loosing and binding that is by shewing them they are loosed and bound 4 Sent. Dist 18. as Lombard writes Some may say Object that it is not agreeable with the justice of God to forgive sin and not to punish it This is true Answ if he punish it neither in the sinner nor in another to wit the surety But God hath punished sin in Christ Some may object again that it is an unjust thing to punish the innocent for the offender We answer It is not if the innocent party offer himself spontaneously to punishment if he can go through it and get out of it and if this tend to the glory of God and the salvation of men all which conditions do meet very well in Christ It may be further objected that this remission of God is not freely bestowed because satisfaction was required to the forgiveness of sin But we say the satisfaction required was not made by us but by another If we be urged still that he who on such condition forgiveth doth not forgive freely It may be answered It is true unless the party that requires it doth also give the satisfaction But God the Father hath given his Son that he might satisfie for us Hitherto Of the remission of sins the resurrection of the body or flesh followeth Credo resurrectionem carnis I beleeve the resurrection of the body or flesh It is a very difficult thing to understand by the sense or perception of corrupt reason how or in what manner the same body should rise again after so many transmutations and be reunited to the same soul And therefore many in the Areopagus derided Paul when they heard of the resurrection of the dead yet by the light of faith it is most clearly manifest that there shall be such a resurrection It will not be difficult to them to beleeve this who do beleeve that with God there is nothing difficult the restitution of the body or flesh is by far easier then its first constitution or forming It is of lesser concernment by much to restore that which hath been then to make that which never had any being He which could make all things out of nothing can easily raise again our bodies out of something to wit restore them out of the dust of the earth and why should we admire that that could be born again which hath had a being when as we behold that to have a being which never had any before Holy Job in the Old Testament an Evangelical man before the Gospel doubted not of this thing I know saith he that my Redeemer liveth and after that worms shall consume this body of mine yet in my flesh I shall see God whom I shall see for my self and not another Job 19.25 Thy dead men shall live saith Isaiah to the Lord together with my dead body shall they arise chap. 26. verse 19. And in the New Testament the Lord Jesus John 5.28 doth most apparently attest the
at the right hand of God thereby is shown the Majesty of Christ glorified therefore both of them are true in a diverse respect Besides some may argue after this manner The right hand of God is every where the humane nature sitteth at the right hand of God therefore it is every where But in this argumentation you are to say there are four terms as in this which follows The sea compasseth the whole world a certain city is situate by the sea therefore a certain city compasseth the whole world Neither also doth the uniting of two inseparable things require that wheresoever one is the other should be but onely that they are somewhere together and not at a distance This is evident in the soul and in the head which are united inseparably and yet not wheresoever the soul is there is the head when as the soul is in the feet where the head is not But let us give over this subject and be of good courage Christ sitteth at the right hand of God the Father interceding for us O how great a comfort is this Let us therefore embrace the Lord Jesus with our chiefest love and do his will so we shall be blessed when he shall come to judgement of which there is mention made in the next Article From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead That word From thence designs the place from whence the Judge shall come namely from heaven He shall come from thence whither the disciples saw him ascending Acts 1.9 10. And although the work of judgement may be assigned to every one of the Persons according to decree consent and authority yet the exercise of this visible act and the execution is committed to the Son as he is the Son of man As for that place Object Joh. 5.22 The Father judgeth no man to it we say thus He judgeth no man alone and without the Son Answ but by the Son Neither doth that of Christ in any wise contradict this when he saith Joh. 12.47 I came not to judge He speaks there concerning his first coming in the flesh in the which he came not to condemn the world but to save it and not of his second coming which is unto judgement Neither is that which is said of the Apostles that they shall judge the twelve tribes Matth. 19.28 and of the Saints that they shall judge the world 1 Cor. 6.7 any let hereunto for this shall be done of them by way of approbation not of authority The end of Christs Advent or Coming is explained by the distribution of the subjects that he may judge both the quick and the dead under which terms all men altogether are comprehended who are said to be quick of dead in respect of that state which precedes the judgement The quick being they whom the last day of judgement shall surprize alive who in a moment shall be changed from a mortal condition to an immortal The dead those who from the beginning of the world have departed this life and before the last day shall be raised up at length by the trump of the Arch-angel and presented before the judgement-seat of Christ and the Angels are included also who kept not their first station Jude v. 6. and are therefore reserved in chains under darkness to the judgement of the great day 2 Pet. 2.4 It may be objected Object that the devil is now judged Joh. 16.11 and he that beleeveth not is condemned already John 3.18 We answer Answ that this is done in part to wit in the word of God in their own consciences or in respect of the beginning of their punishment but they shall be judged afterwards in regard of the manifestation and promulgation of the judgement already made the exasperation of the punishment and the consummation of the torments both of body and soul The last judgement shall be set up that every one may receive what he hath done in his body whether it be good or evil and that the justice of God may be published to the praise of it Since God is just it is necessary that it be perfectly well with the good and godly and that the wicked and impious be for ever miserable this very thing is not done in this world therefore it is righteous to recompense to them who trouble the godly trouble and to you who are troubled rest when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven 2 Thess 1.7 That there shall certainly be a judgement this we know against the Epicureans but the year moneth day and hour we know not no not the Angels in heaven Mark 13.32 The Fanaticks err who either out of an enthusiastical revelation or Arithmetical calculations and Astrological prognostications do set down the time when the judgement shall be but without a right judgement Let us in the mean time prepare our selves all our days and moments of our lives for the coming of Christ and let us take heed lest that day come upon us unawares and finde us unprepared The last day is hid from us that we might watch all our days it is always unknown that it may be always expected let therefore that terrible trumpet ever make this noise in our ears Arise ye dead and come to judgement The second part of the Creed was concerning the Son of God the third follows of the Holy Ghost I beleeve in the Holy Ghost We are to beleeve that the Holy Ghost is God and that he is the third Person of the Trinity equal to the Father and the Son in all perfection This is clear out of Sacred Writ and the doctrine of the Church which do render equal glory to the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Yet it may be said Object that he who receives from another is not his equal But the Holy Ghost hath received something from the Father and the Son Ergó This is true of him who receiveth part from another Answ in time successively and by grace but the Holy Ghost received from the Father and the Son the whole essence from eternity and by nature Some may object that he that is sent is not equal to him that sendeth but this doth not hold where the mission or sending is by a voluntary consent He is called a Spirit because he is a spiritual essence and that by way of excellency because he is far above all created spirits It may be objected Object that the Father and the Son are by way of eminency Spirits and holy So they are indeed absolutely Answ and bynature but this is attributed to the Holy Spirit by appropriation as it were a characteristical note and because his proper office is to sanctifie the elect He breathes into our hearts good motions and he himself was breathed from the Father and the Son as from one principle or beginning and this is that which the Oriental or Eastern Fathers do teach when they say that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father by the Son even as we