XLIV. The last supposed fault concerneth some few things, the very matter whereof is thought to be much amiss. In a song of praise to our Lord Jesus Christ we have these words, “When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.” Which maketh some show of giving countenance to their error, who think that the faithful which departed this life before the coming of Christ, were never till then made partakers of joy, but remained all in that place which they term the “Lake of the Fathers1.”
In our liturgy request is made that we may be preserved “from sudden death.” This seemeth frivolous, because the godly should be always prepared to die.
Request is made that God would give those things which we for our unworthiness dare not ask. “This,” they say, “carrieth with it the note of popish servile fear, and savoureth not of that confidence and reverent familiarity that the children of God have through Christ with their heavenly Father.”
Request is made that we may evermore be defended from all adversity. For this “there is no promise in Scripture,” and therefore “it is no prayer of faith, or of the which we can assure ourselves that we shall obtain it.”
Finally, request is made that God “would have mercy upon all men.” This is impossible, because some are the vessels of wrath to whom God will never extend his mercy.
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Footnotes
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[2 Adm. 58. ed. 1617. “Things there are maintained by some of them which are not agreeable to the Scripture: namely, the false interpretation of this clause in our Creed, ‘He descended into hell;’ which is expressly set down contrary to the Scriptures in the Creed made in metre in these words: “ ‘His spirit did after this descend Into the lower parts, To them that long in darkness were, The true light of their hearts.’ “If they can warrant this out of the Scriptures, then ‘Limbus Patrum’ and within a while Purgatory will be found out there.” See in Nichols on the 3d Article, p. 47, an account taken from Bishop Montague’s Apparatus, p. 49, &c. of a disputation on this doctrine at Cambridge, 1599, in which Bishop Overall dealt with the same reserve as Hooker here. Neither Cartwright nor the Admonitioners, nor the Book of Discipline, took this exception to the “Te Deum;” so far at least as the Editor has yet been able to ascertain.] ↩