ANNOTATIONS. CHAP. II.

↑ 2. The seventh day.) All creatures being made in their kinds in six days, complete and perfect, God not needing (as men often do in their works) to perfect, polish, or amend the same, rested the seventh day: and therefore the natural perfection of God’s works is attributed to the seventh day, and the supernatural perfecting of men in eternal life, after the Resurrection, is attributed to the eighth day, as St. Augustin and other fathers teach. And for this cause God blessed and sanctified the seventh day: and after we have in the Decalogue or ten commandments, that this day all should rest and abstain from works, yea and keep it festival, occupying themselves in spiritual exercises, service, and special worship of God, as the Jews did even until Christ’s and his Apostles’ time, praying and hearing the word of God read and expounded in the Sabboath day. Whereby we see that distinction of days pertaineth to Religion the people of God thus observing the Sabboth in memory of the Creation, and diverse other feasts, in memory of other benefits. And we now keep the Sunday holy in memory of Christ’s Resurrection, and other feasts in grateful remembrance of other Mysteries of Christ’s Nativity, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the like. Yea also feasts of his Blessed Mother, and other Saints, for the benefits received from Christ by them, and for more honour to Christ in them. So this Catholic observation of feasts is neither Judaic (which also in the Law was good, but good but now is abrogated) nor heathen, for we honour not Jupiter, nor Juno, nor any false God or Goddess, but our Lord God Creator and Redeemer, and for his sake his best servants. Whereof see the Annotations in the English new Testament, fourth chapter to the Galathians. Whereto we here only add these words of St. Basil, which may serve for a general answer to the most common objection. Honor servorum redundat in communum Dominum. The honour of the servants redoundeth to the common Lord, or Master. So, saith he, the honour of Saints is the honour of Christ their Lord and ours.

↑ 17. Of the tree of knowledge.) Besides the law of nature, by which Man was bound to direct all his actions according to the rule of reason; and besides the supernatural divine law, by which he was bound to believe and trust in God, and to love him above all things, having received the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; God gave him another particular law, that he should not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And that for two special reasons, which St. Augustine noteth upon this place. First, that God might declare himself to be Lord of man. Which was absolutely necessary for man, and nothing at all profitable to God, who needeth not our service, but we without his dominion should utterly fall to nothing. Nec enim ipso non creante, &c. For he not creating us, neither could we have been, nor he not conserving us could we remain, nor he not governing us, could we live rightly. Wherefore he only is our true Lord, whom not for his, but for our own profit and salvation we serve. The other reason was, that God might give man matter wherein to exercise the virtue of obedience, and to show himself a subject of God. Which could not be so properly and effectually declared by keeping other laws, nor the enormity of disobedience appear so evidently as by fulfilling of God’s will commanding him, or by doing his own will, moved to the contrary, in a thing of itself indifferent, and only made unlawful, because it was forbid. But let us hear St. Augustine’s own words. Necporuit melius aut diligentius conimendari quantum malum sit sola inobedientia, &c. Neither could it (saith this great Doctor) be better, nor more exactly signified how bad a thing sole disobedience is, than where a man became guilty of iniquity, because he touched that thing contrary to prohibition which if he, not forbidden, had touched, he had not sinned at all. For he that saith, for example sake, Touch not this herb, supposing it is poisonful, and doth forewarn one of death, if he touch it, death assuredly falleth on the contemner of the precept: yea though no man had prohibited, and he had touched, for he should die because the same thing bereaveth him of health and life, whether it had been forbidden him or not. Also when one forbiddeth that thing to be touched, which would not indeed prejudice him that toucheth, but him that forbiddeth, as if one take another’s money, being forbid by him, whose the money is, it is a sin in him that is forbidden, because it is injury to him that forbiddeth. But when that thing is touched which neither should hurt him that toucheth, nor any other, if it were not forbid, wherefore is it prohibited, but that the proper goodness of obedience, and the evil of disobedience might appear? Thus St. Augustine showeth, that disobedience is a sin because it is against a precept, though otherwise the thing that is done were not evil. And among other good notes, teacheth that true obedience inquireth not, wherefore a thing is commanded, but leaving that to the Superior, promptly doth what is appointed.

↑ 17. Of the tree eat thou not.) This example of our first parents’ transgression showeth, how frivolous an answer it is to say, that breaking of commanded fasts, or eating meats forbidden can not hurt us, the meat being good and wholesome: for so the fruit of the tree was good, and should have hurt no man, if it had not been forbidden. Even so all meats of their own nature are good, yet the precept of fasting (foretold by our Saviour in general, and determined by his Church in particular) and so of any other like law, though it be in things otherwise indifferent, proceeding from lawful Superiors, bindeth the subjects in conscience. And the transgression is properly disobedience, what other sin soever may also be mixed therewith.

↑ 17. Thou shalt die the death.) Against the new doctrine, denying that after sin is remitted, any temporal punishment remaineth for the same, this place declareth that death (whereof God forewarned Adam, if he should eat of the fruit forbidden) remained due, and was at last inflicted upon him, for his sin, which was presently remitted upon his repentance.

Again, for so much as we are all subject to death, it proveth that we were all guilty of this sin, by which death came upon all men, as St. Paul teacheth. Else God should punish us without our fault, which is impossible that his goodness should do. Especially it appeareth in infants, who dying before they come to use of reason, can never commit other sin: for though they were circumcised, or had Sacrifice offered, or other remedy used for them before Christ, or baptised since Christ, yet they suffer (as St. Augustine noteth) both death and many other penalties, of sickness, cold, heat, hunger, and the like, which can neither be to them matter of merit (as to others it may be) nor profit them for avoiding of other sins, seeing they dye in their infancy. Yea moreover, if they dyed without circumcision, or other remedy of those former times, their souls perished from their people; and now without Baptism can never enter into the Kingdom of heaven, which could not stand with God’s justice, if they were not guilty of sin.