Lancelot Andrewes's 'Orphan Lectures': The Exeter Manuscript/Selection 1

Selection 1. The lecture on Revelation 2.7 This text essentially appears in 1657, pp. 572–78, not in sequence with the considerations of Genesis as in the manuscript, but in a concluding section of homilies on various texts. See XCVI Sermons, Easter 2 (1607, 1 Cor. 15.20): The text’s ‘first fruits of the dead’ means that an agricultural metaphor runs throughout the sermon, and it blends with a Eucharistic peroration perfectly: ‘Such was the meanes of our death, by eating the forbidden fruit, the first fruits of death: and such is the meanes of our life, by eating the flesh of CHRIST, the first fruits of life’ (5th ed. London, 1661, p. 262). In this ‘lecture’, Andrewes develops the typology of the Tree of Life as a restorative means of grace (cf. Faerie Queene, I.ii.30, and the story Fradubio / Faelissa—who became a tree whose branches, when broken, bleed). See esp. Peter McCullough, ed., Lancelot Andrewes: Selected Sermons and Lectures (Oxford, 2005), A Sermon on Isaiah 6.6–7, 138–45, and notes 378–90, on the eucharistic significance of these sermons, and in the discussion under ‘Further Reading’, below. This edited version is by Peter McCullough. Text. Exeter Manuscript (hereafter EM), fols. 146v–150v, collated with Apospasmatia Sacra (1657, hereafter AS), pp. 572–578. All variants, some of which are substantive, are recorded in the apparatus. The number of readings from AS which clarify, correct, or improve the sense suggests some combination of ‘tidying’ by the editor or compositor of AS, and the likely superiority of the (lost) copy for the latter over EM. Copy for EM and AS is shown (from other sermons collated) to be different, though not necessarily unrelated, since both contain common errors (a good example of which is the incorrect citation—certainly by transcription error in an anterior copy common to both—of John 14 for John 1.4, below p.6, line 7). Headnote. The sermon edited here is part of a remarkable survival, perhaps unique for 1590’s London: extensive notes of a single minister’s complete parish preaching rota stretching over many months (‘notes’ is perhaps slightly misleading—these are summaries written in continuous prose, much fuller than the outline notes often encountered in commonplace books of the period). The bulk of the sermons in question are Andrewes’s lectures on Genesis 3.14–24 and all of Genesis 4. These were preached between Sunday, 18 June 1598 and Saturday, 17 Feburary 1599 at St Giles’s Cripplegate (a sprawling parish immediately north of London’s city walls, where Andrewes was vicar 1589–1605). The Genesis series treated roughly one verse per lecture, mostly on Sundays, with occasional others on Wednesdays, Thursdays or Saturdays, in a pattern which makes clear that Andrewes arranged them from Michaelmas to Trinity Sunday during the three law terms (which governed so much of ecclesiastical and civic life in early modern England), with a continuation during the ‘long vacation’ of June—August. These lectures form the main run of sermons printed in AS pp. 305—499, with a misplaced run of three from the series at pp. 672–94. In EM, they appear in the correct sequence with the other Genesis lectures. Such extended lecture series, usually on a single book of the Bible, or a prominent independent passage from it (e.g. the Lord’s Prayer or the Ten Commandments) were common in parishes and cathedrals at the time, but no other such complete ‘run’ is known to survive in manuscript. But in addition, there also survive AS and EM many of the feast day and Sunday sermons that Andrewes preached during the same period, usually two per month; these carefully track the liturgical calendar of the Book of Common Prayer, and must have been preached in conjunction with the main liturgical observance of the day (either a feast or other saints day, probably after morning prayer, or at Sunday morning communion). Taken together, the evidence of these lectures and other sermons suggests that Andrewes preached, during term time, two to three afternoon lectures in St Giles per week, as well as twice a month in the morning, one of the latter of which being a monthly Sunday communion. With such different aims (the systematic exposition of a book of the Bible in the Genesis lectures, vs the application of a text proper to a feast day or holy communion), these two parts of Andrewes’s preaching rota rarely intersected. A prominent exception, however, is the sermon presented here, which opens by self-consciously announcing itself as a communion day sermon based on a text related to the portion of Genesis recently treated in the independent lecture series: on the two preceding Sundays (21, 28 January 1599) the Genesis series had considered Genesis 3.23 and 3.24—the story of the ‘Tree of Life’ planted in the Garden of Eden—and then, at the communion on Sunday 4 February, Andrewes chose as his text the New Testament vision of the ‘Tree of Life’ in heaven (Rev. 2.7). The sermon is in itself valuable as a relatively rare example of a sermon expounding the Eucharist at a routine Sunday parish observance. Among Andrewes’s surviving works, it is further significant as a parochial example of the far grander feast day Eucharistic sermons preached at the court of Jame VI & I, which so dominate the authorized edition XCVI Sermons (1629, commissioned by Charles I and edited by William Laud and John Buckeridge). But this, and the other Eucharistic sermons from AS, have even greater significance as some of the earliest examples of Andrewes’s ‘avant-garde conformity’, the hallmarks of which are an elevated view of the efficacy and importance of the sacraments and a sustained critique of English Calvinist predestinarianism. As notes (presumably taken by a listener, though possibly derived from authorial notes or drafts), these sermons lack both the literary finesse and the scholarly apparatus of those sermons which Andrewes painstakingly prepared for print in his own lifetime or which appeared in XCVI Sermons. But in addition to thought, arguments, and structures immediately recognizable as Andrewesian, there also survives Andrewe’s characteristically sophisticated mode of composition using tight-knit tissues of scriptural quotation, something that is perhaps even exaggerated here in the condensed summary form of the notes. Content & Sources. Andrewes’s exegesis of Rev. 2.7. is best summarized by placing it in the context of other influential commentary (both patristic and early modern) on is dominant image, the ‘Tree of Life’. Interpretation of the tree (and its fruit) as a sacrament has a long pedigree, dating at least from Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, xiii.20. There, considering the state of Adam and Eve’s natural bodies before the Fall, Augustine explained that though not subject to death, their ‘animal’ bodies required ‘nourishment’. Hence, they ate of the many fruits of the garden for natural purposes, but their bodies were preserved from natural decay by the power of the Tree of Life. In his summary, ‘other fruits were, so to speak, their nourishment, but this [the Tree of Life] their sacrament’ (The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods, New York, 1950, p. 431). After Augustine, exegetical and doctrinal debates ebbed around whether Adam and Eve actually ate of the Tree of Life, or whether it simply exuded a preservative power; and about whether that power was natural (like a medicine), or divine (grace). Typically, Andrewes here skirts the quiddities of means, and focuses only on effects: ‘that was a a naturall tree appoynted to preserve Adams natruall life’ (3.7). But in an earlier lecture on Gen. 2.9, preached at St. Paul’s 8 June 1591 (AS, pp. 162–7), in which was ‘as balm … to preserve his bodily constitution in the first perfect good estate of health’. Spiritually, ‘it was also a Symbolum’ placed in the Garden to remind Adam that his life came from God, by whom ‘his life and length of dayes shall be continued hereafter’ (AS, pp. 243–44; and see John M. Steadman, ‘The “Tree of Life” Symbolism in Paradise Regained’, The Review of English Studies, n.s. 11.44 (1960), pp. 384–91). Exegetical tradition agreed that the heavenly Tree of Life promised to the faithful in Revelaion 2.7 (Andrewes’s text here) was the heavenly cognate of the Edenic tree of the same name in Genesis. Several of Andrewes’s contemporaries therefore discussed the sacramental nature of the Tree of Life, whether in Eden or heaven, but with only very slight application to the sacrament of holy communion in the church on earth. Lewis Bayley, in his hugely popular Practice of Piety (many edns. from 1612), giving advice on preparation for communion, compared (metaphorically) the post-lapsarian prohibition of Adam and Eve’s access to the tree by angels with flaming sowrds (Gen. 3.24) to be similarly ‘smitten with the Sword of God’s vengeance, if thou presumest to go to the Church with an impenitent heart, to eat the Sacrament of the Lord of Life’ (p. 308). More sustained, and in many ways closer to Andrewes, are the commentaries on Rev. 2.7 by William Fulke (d. 1589), under whose mastership of Pembroke College Cambridge Andrewes served as fellow, and who he succeeded as head. Fulke retailed the traditional Augustinian interpretation of the tree as a sacramental symbol of Christ, who, like the tree, ‘openeth the paradise vnto vs whiche was shute’ by the Fall (Praelections vpon the … Revelation, 1573, p. **). But in his controversies with the Roman Catholic Nicholas Sanders, Fulke explicitly rejected the Catholic doctrinal logic which maintained that just as Adam had to eat the fruit of the tree to benefit from its immortalizing properties, so believers had to eat the flesh and blood of Christ as transubstantiated bread and wine to benefit from the Eucharist. Interpreting the tree spiritually rather than physically, Fulke insisted that Christ was only the ‘spirituall part of the sacrament, the wisdome of God, which is a tree of life’, which ‘signifieth that Christ is otherwise receiued, then with the mouth’. Consistent with the symbolic, memorial eucharist of English Calvinism, Fulke’s sacraments—whether Tree of Life or holy communion—were more functionally ‘embrac[ed] … with the armes of faith, then with the lippes of the body, who can not touch the wisedome of God’ (Fulke, A Reioynder to Bristows Replie, 1581, pp. 542–43). Finally, William Perkins, the consummate Elizabethan Calvinist, in a series of lectures Andrewes could very likely have heard in Cambridge in 1595, similarly interpreated the tree in heaven as a ‘a true figure of Christ’ who ‘conuey[s] quickening vertue to all which beleeue in him, and are partakers of his merits by a true faith’ (Perkins, Lectures vpon the Three First Chapters of the Reuelation: Preached in Cambridge Anno Dom. 1595, 1604, p. 161). Against this broadly Augustinian and Calvinist consensus, Andrewes’s exegesis stands out in bold relief. To begin with, Andrewes’s English contemporaries were skittish about extending Augustine’s sacramental reading of the tree to the Eucharist (Fulke’s rejection of precisely such a reading by Sanders being the exception which proves the rule). Although Fulke and Perkins discuss the tree as a sacrament or symbol of Christ’s gift of eternal life generally, they do so only by discussing the tree historically (in Genesis), or anagogically (in Revelation). Missing from their commentaries is precisely what Andrewes adds, that is, a reading of the Tree of Life as an image with a tropological (earthly) referent: the Eucharist. The identification is swift, emphatic, and repeated, first in the opening sentences (1.3–6) where the tree ‘may fitly be applyed’ to communion. The strategy ‘to applye this scripture to our present purpose’ (2.11) is next repeated with the added force of linking the tree and communion explicitly to the most climactic Eucharistic passage in the New Testament, the sixth chapter of John’s gospel. Andrewes even paraphrases the most provocative verse (57, at 2.15: ‘my flesh is that bread … soe he that eateth me shall live by me’), before rattling-off a conflicting sequence of imagery for the Eucharist: ‘fuite of the tree … bread of life … Manna … Christes body and blood’ (2.16–19). Andrewes’s embrace of the Johannine insistence on literal eating, on physical reception, is what distinguishes him here from contemporary Calvinists. Perkins, for example, glosses the same phrase ‘To eate of the tree’ (Rev. 2.7) also with a verse from John (6.50, ‘This is that breade, which commeth downe from heauen, that hee which eateth of it, shoulde not die.’), but with the swift and crucial caveat that ‘to eate signifieth sometime to believe’. Therefore, both John 6 and Rev 2.7 give priority to the spiritual sense of eating as believing in Christ, rather than the physical sense of eating as receiving Christ: ‘for he which truly beleeueth in Christ, he is a partaker of Christ’ (Perkins, Lectures, pp. 161–2). It is certainly not the case that Calvinists like Perkins and Fulke held belief necessary for the efficacy of the Eucharist while Andrewes did not. Nor is it true that Perkins and Fulke dismissed the necessity of receiving the sacraments. The crucial difference is one of emphasis which contains within it, for Andrewes, greater claims for the operative efficacy of communion, something which becomes very clear in the latter parts of the sermon. The Eucharist fades from the sermon while Andrewes discusses the heavenly Paradise as the believer’s reward for overcoming sin (2–4), but it suddenly reappears when he turns to the key question of how to overcome sin. His answer is that ‘where the Sainctes are said to overcome the great dragon’, they do so ‘with the blood of the Lambe’ … the sprinckling of the blood of Jesus Christ … by receaving the cupp of blessing … the blood of Christ’ (5.3–6). Here Andrewes makes a distinction that is foreign to Reformed Eucharistic theology: that the Eucharist is not only (as in the Reformed tradition) a symbolic ‘pledge’ of the saving grace given to the elect, but also a ‘meanes’ for achieving that same grace (5.11). So, in a clever construction which he calls a ‘reciprocation’ (5.7), Andrewes asserts that communion both conveys a reward and is a means to achieve it. And in his peroration he even goes so far as to hint at the Lutheran view that the consecrated elements are given power by God to remit ‘actual’ (vs. Original) sin committed after baptism (5.29–31), a point assayed at even greater length in another St Giles’s communion sermon preached 1 October 1598 (Selected Sermons, pp. 138–45, 378–90). A. correlative of this view is that neither election nor even baptism is the only, final, or permanent guarantee of eternal life. The sermon’s treatment of combating sin and receiving communion as ‘the condition’ required for salvation ignores the entire reformed vocabulary of election and security, positing instead persevering against sin and receiving the Eucharist as the ‘Roote’ or ‘kernell’ (5.13–17) of the Tree of Life that is salvation: ‘In this Sacrament Christ hath provided a tree of life of graces against the death of sinne whereof they must be partakers that will eate of the tree of life’ (6.11–12). Further Reading. See also the further of St Giles’s communion sermons: on Joh. 6.37 and I Cor. 12.13 (AS, pp. 594–600, 614–19), preached 7 October 1599 and 2 Nov. 1600, which surpass the sermon on Rev. 2.7 in their anti-predestinarianism as applied to communion (‘As for them that come not to Christ, howsoever they deserve to be cast out, yet Christ doth not cast them out, but they cast out themselves, in as much as they sever themselves from this Sacrament’, p. 600; even the language of election—‘there are some elected and chose out to be saved’—is qualified by an insistence on individual volition—‘therefore out speciall aim should be to be of that number’ through baptism and communion, pp.615–16). In addition to the works cited above, see, for an overview of Andrewes’s ‘avant-garde conformity’ Peter Lake, ‘Lancelot Andrewes, John Buckeridge and Avant-Garde Conformity at the Court of James I’, in Linda Levy Peck, ed., The Mental Word of the Jacobean Court (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 113–33; the discussion is helpfully extended to the Elizabethan period by Nicholas Tyacke, ‘Lancelot Andrewes and the Myth of Anglicanism’, in Lake and Michael Questier, eds., Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church, c. 1560–1660 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 5–33. Outlines of major English positions on Eucharistic theology are Brian Spinks, Two Faces of Elizabethan Anglican Theology: Sacraments and Salvation in the Thought of William Perkins and Richard Hooker (London, 1999), and Sacraments, Ceremonies, and the Stuart Divines (Aldershot, 2002). Andrewes’s sermon may also bring fresh life to a long-lived discussion in studies of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene: the interpretation of the ‘goodly tree … the tree of life’ (I.xi.46.1, 9) which restores Red Crosse Knight during his climactic battle with the dragon (I.xi.46–52). Rosemund Tuve’s trenchant warning not to limit the allegorical signification of Spenser’s Tree of Life to only the Eucharist is salutary (Allegorical Imagery, Princeton, 1966, pp. 110–12). But in that episode, Spenser does seem to share Andrewes’s view of the Tree of Life as simultaneously both a symbolic pledge of victory and an operative means to achieve it. Suggestively, Andrewes and Spenser were contemporaries at both Merchant Taylor’s School and Pembroke College Cambridge. The first part of FQ (Books I–III) appeared in 1590, but direct influence on Andrewes seems unlikely. Yet this and a significant cluster of Andrewes’s other St Giles’s sermons offer a surprising number of complementary texts for comparison with FQ Books I–III: on Michael’s battle with the Dragon (Rev. 12.7., 8; 29 Sept. 1599; AS, pp. 586–94), and an undated five-sermon series on faith and the moral virtues (II Pet. 1.5–7; AS, pp. 624–34). [146v] February the 4o 1598./ Vincenti dabo edere ex arbore vitae quae est in medio./ Apo : 2.7. A place of scripture purposely chosen that wee might not departe from the consideration of those thinges wherein wee have bene occupyed heretofore and yet suche as may fitly be applyed for our instruction in the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ for though wee be now in the Revelation yet are wee not gone from Gen. 3. wherein wee Learned that Adam was sent out of the garden and kept from the tree of life. And for the busynes wee intend, there is a great affinytye between the tree of which wch god sett in Paradise as a quickinge meanes for the continewance of life in Adam, yf he had continewed in his first state, and the sacrament of christes bodye and blood, for as I tould you the causes of that scriptures geves man a hope of restitution to Paradise and the tree of life wch is acquisitio novi iuris. And that restitution is performed in this place. There was an Angell sett to forbidd Adam accesse to the tree of life, wch was a sight dreadfull for that he was armed with a fiery sword, but here wee have comforte that he makes this promise of Restitution is an Angell aswell armed viz. wth a two edged sworde Apo. 1.16. whose eyes were as a flame of fyer Apo . 2.18. soe there is a resemblance betwene the partie that here geves lycense to returne to the tree of life, and thother that forbidd to come to yt, Thone threatned wth a sword, thother promiseth to certayne persons that keepe the condition here expressed that they shall eate of the tree of life. The poynt is whether of theis shall prevaile, but if wee consider that all the ANgelles are Seraphins Isa. 6. in that they hidde theire faces before the Lord of Hostes, which [147r]] was Christ whose glory was then shewed Joh. 12. And these Cherubins Ezech. 10. doe Reverence this Angell and cast theire Crownes downe before him as the blessed spirites doe Apo . 5 it is like he shall prevayle for those in a ^the^ sword but of a ministring spiritt Hebr.1 but this is the promise of the Lord of Lyfe and glory Act.3. 1.Cor.2./ But the cheife poynt to be inquired is how the holy ghost agreeth wth him selfe that man being debarred of the tree of life is restored to yt, The answere isGen. 3.22. The punishment laide uppon him was that he might not put fourth his hand and take of the tree of life but if there be a power given to man to eate of the tree Joh. 19. ii. then he maye take of yt, man of himselfe may not rushe into Paradise but if that power of returning be given him which Christ gave to the theife Luke 23. this day shalt thou be wthme in Paradise thus he may enter, Nowe Christ hath purchased to us a new right of retourninge and by vertue thereof wee have power to eate of the tree of life and he geves us lycense to enter into paradise. But to applye this scripture to our present purpose there is something in the Sacrament that disposeth us to life and geves us a power of life, no lesse than the tree of life, for herin wee are partakers of that bread of life wch our saviour spekaes of John. 6. I am the bred of life that came downe from heaven he that eateth of this bread shall live forever, and my flesh is that bread, as I live by the father soe he that eateth me shall live by me Joh. 6.57. Soe that whether yt be the fruite of the tree in Paradise or the bread of life in the sacrament wee see there is a great affynitye as appeareth yf wee compare this bread of life wth the hidden Manna Apo . 2.17. wch as the Apostle saith 1. Cor. 10.2. was the same spirituall meate where wee are partakers in this sacrament of Christes body and blood. This scripture consisteth of 2 partes the condicion and the promise vincenti et dabo. Touching the coniunction of theis [147v] two wee must knowe that when Christ promiseth to him that overcometh that he shall eate of the tree of life wch is in the mddest of the Paradise of god, this is the guift of god, and no matter of sale, and that he will not bestowe yt on them that do nothing for yt is not the bread of Idlenes, but this guifte is bestowed on them that do cooperari cibum qui no perit Joh. 6.John 6.27 reads: ‘Operamini non cibum, qui perit, sed qui permanet in vitam aeternam, quem filius hominis dabit vobis’. See note. In the promise wee are to knowe that the Paradise and tree of life wch Christ promiseth is not that earthlie paradise planted at the beginning for Adam, nor that tree of life appoynted for the prolonging of his naturall life but a better Paradise, thother was Adams Paradise but this is called godes Paradise / thother was a Paradise on earth but this is a celestiall Paradise, that into which the Apostle was caught upp 2. Cor.12. wch he himselfe saith was the third heaven, the paradise which Christ here promiseth is that wherin he himselfe is a paradise of all ioyes and happynes of wch he saith John 17 Father I will that they be wth me where I am that they may beholde my glory John 17.24. for as god himselfe is a spirite soe his ioy and happynes is spirituall and the place wherein he is a spirituall paradise suche ioye was that he speakes of Mat. 25. intra in gaudium domini, so are wee to thinke of the throne of god the Father where Christ sitteth Apo . 3.21. that yt is the heavenly ioy and glory wch he enioyeth in heaven soe saith the wise man Pro.13. that there is ordeyned this tree of life wherin wee have the accompishment of all our desyres, wch is no where but in heaven where god is all in all, For the tree of life which Christ promiseth to him that overcometh yt is another manner of tree then that in the garden of Eden, that was a naturall tree appoynted to preserve Adams naturall life but this is a spirituall tree and preserveth supernaturall life. And albeit man being debarred of this natruall tree in the garden, dyeth a bodily death, yet this tree in the paradise of god keepes us from being hurte of the second death Apo . 2.ii. Christ himselfe saith of himselfe I am alone alive, but I was dead [148r] and behoulde I lyve for evermore Apo . 1.18. that is he lost the naturall life but now he lyves a supernaturall life and soe shall all his members thateate of the tree of life wch he promiseth well is the state of our death and rising agayne shadowed out by a tree, for as Job speakes Job. 14 there is hope of a tree that though yt be cutt downe yet yt will sproute out and the braunches thereof will shoote fourth soe, though wee dye a bodily death yet there is hope that wee shall rise agayne and live a supernaturall life wch wee obteyne by eating of this tree of life, The center of our desire is the tree of life the circumference is Paradise wherein wee have promised us not only coronam vitae Apo . 2.10. but the crowne of glorye 1 . Peter.5. and the crowne of ioye and happynes 1 . Thess. 2.19 wee shall have our societye of pleasure and whatsoever mans harte can desire for wee shalbe in the presence of god at whose right hand is pleasure forever Psal. 16. / From the condition wee are taught that this promise is not be cast uppon us but geven and yt is not a generall promise but made particulerly to him only that overcometh wch condicion carryeth us to the promises of vertues made by Gen. 3. where god proclaymeth warre betwene the woeman and the serpent betwene the woemans seede and the serpentes seede. And Christ tells us here that he which is conquerour is this warr shall enjoy Paradise and be restored to the tree of life for no man is crowned except he both stryve and strive lawfully 2. Tim.2. The battayle that wee are to fight is either with the serpent himselfe or with his seede, with the serpent wee are at warre as the apostle sheweth Ephe.6. wee fight not with flesh and blood but with principalyties and power, suche a fight did the apostle feele when the Angell of Sathan was sent to buffett him. 2. Cor.12. And of the victory against this enemy the apostle saith young men I write to you because you are strong and have overcome that wicked one 1. Joh. 2.14. The warre wch wee have with the serpentes seede is first witin us for this poyson infecteth our inward partes not only the Reynes [148v] stirring in us fleshly lusts which fight against the soule 1. Pet. 2. wch must be overcome as the apostle exhortes Coll. 3. mortifye your earthly members but the harte also by that boyling Lust of Revenge wch made Caine of the serpentes seede to kill his brother 1. Joh. 3.12. wch inward desire of Revenge must likewise be overcome as the apostle willeth Rom.12. avenge not your selves, sed vince malum bono wee must overcome the evill of our fleshly lustes and desire of Revenge wth the grace of mortification and patience. Secondly the seede of the serpent is wth out us, for there are filij Beliall of whome were those to whome Christ saide John 8. you are of your Father the devill suche as will do mischeife for doeing well[;] suche enemys are men corrupt mindes and understandinges that are destitute of the trueth and are bould to saie that [gain]Cf. John 8.44. The MS leaves a blank space where this word belongs. It is supplied from AS. See variants. is godlynes from wch wee must separate our selves 1. Tim. 6.5. And if wee overcome in this warre then then wee shalbe partakers of this promise, but who overcometh in this warre and who can saie he is a conquerour in this battayle. The Apostle saith that he that sinneth is overcome of sinne and brought into bondage of the sinne 2. Pete. 2.19. therefore where the promise is here made only to him that overcometh wee must see if the scriptures offereth more graces. Jam. 4.6. And if wee looke Apo . 2.5. wee shall finde then he that makes us this promise offers more graces[,] that is[,] remember from whence thou arte fallen and repent and doe thy first workes, soe there are two victoryes the first continere a peccato, thother is penitere de peccato, yf wee cannot gett this victory over the serpent that he do not cause us to sinne at all yet, yf wee soe farr overcome him that sinne reigne not in our mortall bodyes Rom. 6.12. yf wee wounde his head wch was promised Gen. 3.15. soe as though he cause us to sinne yet he gott not the head or sett upp his throne in our hartes, then wee are to hope that wee shalbe partakers of this promise yf wee returne from whence wee are fallen and repent us of the sinnes wee have comitted and do the first workes [149r] then no doubt wee shalbe restored to our first estate and Christ shall give us a new right in the tree of life. But he that either fighteth not at all but is at a leagueMS reads ‘leauge’. wth hell and hath made a Covenante wth death Isa. 28. he that will deny sinne nothing but will fullfill the Lusts for the fleshe or yf he fight yet not lawfully nor strive to overcome but is content to followe every temptation is an oxe ledd to the slaughter. Pro. 7. and not only soe but putt stumbling blockes before himselfe which may make him fall Ezech. 14 and use all meanes that he may be overcome, And if having fallen they labour not to gett the victory after by repenting of his former sinnes and doeing the first workes then they have no parte in this promise[.] men may drawe nere to the holy mistery of Christes body and blood and snatch at the tree of life but Christ geves yt not except they be suche as overcome either by the grace of abstinence from sinne or of repentance and sorrowe for sinne, They may be partakers of the tree of life de furto but not de iure. The bread of life is to them as the bread of wronge Pro. 4.17. and the bread of deceite which shall in the end fill theire mouthes wth gravell Pro. 20. Soe both the promise and condicion are touched but the question is howe wee shall overcome that wee Learne Apoc. 12.11. where the Sainctes are said to overcome the great dragon the old serpent with the blood of the Lambe wch blood hath two uses first that which the apostle calls the sprinckling of the blood of Jesus Christ 1. Pet. 1.2. second that by receaving the cupp of blessing wee are partakers of the blood of Christ 1. Cor. 10.16. soe that in theis wordes is a reciprocation vincenti ut comedat e comedenti ut vincat dabo edere the body and blood of Christ is the fruite of that tree of life which the Apostle speakes of 1. Peter 2.24. that he bare our sinnes in his body uppon the tree of wch fruite whosoever are partakers in the sacrament when yt is ministred to them do receave power to overcome that soe they may eate of the tree of eternall life for in [149v] this sacrament. wee have both a sacrament wee have both a meanes of victory and a pledge of our reward that is the life of grace begune in us here to assure us of a glorious life in the world to come. Every tree must have a roote and the Roote of that tree wch Christ speakes of is here in this sacrament for in yt sowen in the harte of the Receavers as yt were a kernell wch in tyme shootes fourth and becomes a tree for as there was a death of the soule by sinne before god inflicted a death of the body soe answerable to that first death of sinne there must be in us a life of grace which is the roote of that tree from whence wee shall in due tyme receavee the life of glory[.] In this sacrament the tree of the life of grace is sowen in us that is a measure of grace wrought in our hartes by the power of godes spirit by wch wee shall at length atteyne to eate of that tree wch shall conveye unto us the life of glory. As there are two trees of life, soe wee must have a double Paradise wee must haue a Libertye to be of the paradise on earth that is the church military wch is called hortus conclusus, Cant. 2. before wee can be receaved into the heavenly Paradise that is the Church triumphant, Soe there is a playne Analogye betwene those, As when wee are dead in sinnes and in the uncircumsition of the flesh Coll. 2.13. wee receave the life of grace by the sprinckling of the blood of Christ in baptisme soe when wee are fallen from the life of grace and are restrayned from the life of god Ephe. 4. and dead in trespasses and sinnes Ephe. 2. then wee obteyne victory against sinne and death by the blood of the Lambe being druncke in the sacrament Apo. 12 for if the materiall tree of life in paradise receaved suche an influence from god Gen. 3. that being dead in yt selfe yt had power to Convey the naturall life our parentes while they eate of the fruite thereof[,] then is god able aswell to give suche a power to the Creatures of bread and wyne in the sacrament that albeit [150r] they are dead of them selves to convey into us the life of grace, even as the tree of life did prolong naturall life for soe saith Christ Joh. 6.53. except yee eate of the flesh of the sonne of man and drinck his blood ye have no life in you, they that eateth my flesh and drincketh my blood hath eternall life, he that eateth me shall lyve for ever, There is no life but in god Deut. 30. ipse enim est vita mea and he Comitteth life to the sonne, Therefore yt is saide there is a ryver of water of life proceeding out of the Throne of god and of the Lambe Apo. 22. And as the Father has life in him selfe so he hath given to the sonne to have life in him selfe Joh. 5. And as the father rayseth upp the dead and quickneth them soe the sonne quickneth whome he will Joh. 5.21. god being the fountayne of life drawes life to his sonne as into a Cesterne from whence wee drawe life therefore yt is saide of the wisdome of god that is Christ that he is a tree of life Pro. 3.18. of whome it is now said in ipso erat vita Joh. 14. And therefore he calls him selfe this life Joh. 14. This is the Cesterne of life to geve life to them that are dead in originall sinne by the sprinckling of blood in Baptisme. And when they are dead in actuall sinnes he geves new life to them that are partakers of his body and blood in the sacrament of the supper. In this Sacrament Christ hath provided a tree of life of graces against the death of sinne whereof they must be partakers that will eate of the tree of life wch Christ here promiseth soe that whereas the wiseman fructus iusti et Lignum vitae Pro. 11.30. the seed of this tree is here sowen and bringeth fourth the roote of a better tree for as grace is the roote of glory soe glory is the fruite of grace here in this life the roote of grace is planted in us and bringes fourth the fruites of rightuosnes that in the life to come yt may make us partakers of the tree of glory and to assure us of this lyfe wee are sealed with the holy spirit of promise as the earnest of our inheritance Ephe. 1.13. 2. Cor. 1.22. that albeit wee are fallen and can be overcome of sinne yet yf wee fight better and do the first workes wee shalbe partakers of the life of glory [150v] the kernell of grace is planted in us by the participation of the body and blood of Christ of wch kernell cometh a tree wch bringeth fourth the fruites of holynes and rightuosnes in our whole lyfe wch god will in due tyme reward wth the Crowne of life and glory in the world to come / Amen. List of variants The Exeter manuscript reading appears first, with reference by page and line to the transcription; there follows the variant reading, located by page and line number of the printed text of 1657. 1.1 Vincenti] Victori vitae] illa vitae medio.] medio Paradisi Dei. 572.1 1.9 scriptures] scripture 572.15 1.14 returne] come 572.26 1.16 certyne persons] the persons 572.26 1.17 whether of thesis] next, how these 573.1 that all] how 573.2 are] or 573.2 1.19 And these] and 573.5 2.18 1. Cor.10.2] first epistle to the Corinthians the tenth chapter and the third verse 573.35–36 2.30 John 17] omit 574.9 3.2 thinke of] think 574.15 3.19 at whose] whose 574.45 3.28 Ephe. 6.] cites also verse 12 575.10 4.8 blank space] gain 575.33 4.13 scriptures] Scripture 575.41 looke] look into 575.42–43 then] there 575.43 4.14 makes us] makes 575.44 4.18 gott] get 576.4 4.25 is an] as an 576.13 4.30 abstinence] abstinencie 576.21 5.3 Apoc. 12.11.] cites chapter only 576.28–29 5.5 second] Secondly 576.33 5.11 a sacrament … both] omit 576.42 5.14 harte] hearts 576.46 5.21 military] Militant 577.9 5.25 Ephe. 4.] cites also verse 18 577.17 5.27 Apo. 12] cites also verse 11 577.20 5.28 suche an] such 577.21 5.32 eate of] eat 577.38 5.33 they that] Whoso 577.29 6.1 for ever, There] by me; And he that eateth of his body shall live for ever. 577.30–31 6.3 Apo. 22.] cites also verse 1 577.35 6.13 et] est 578.4 6.22 come / Amen.] come. 578.20 Notes The annotations below document sources (mostly biblical), translate Latin phrases, define difficult or now obsolete words or senses of words, explain contemporary allusions, and cite passages helpful for comparison either from elsewhere in Andrewes or other sources. Unless otherwise stated, all biblical quotations are from the ‘Geneva’ version. All biblical citations in the text have been checked for accuracy; those noted below are only those which in the text are incomplete (usually through the citation of chapter but not verse). 1.1 February … 1598: Sunday, 4 February 1599. For Andrewes’s pattern of preaching at St Giles’s, see headnote. 1.1 Vincenti … 2.7.: closer to Tremellius/Beza (‘victori dabo edere ex arbore illa vitæ quæ est in medio paradisi Dei’, quoted exactly in AS) than Vulg. (‘vincenti dabo ei edere de ligno vitæ quod est in paradiso Dei mei’). 1.2 thinges … heretofore: Andrewes’s on-going lecture series on Genesis; see headnote. 1.5-6 Gen. 3 … life’: Gen. 3.23–4, the texts for Andrewes’s lectures on Sundays 21 and 28 January, 1599 (AS, pp. 339–51). 1.8 first state: prelapsarian state. 1.9 as … told you: cf. the peroration of Andrewes’s lecture (Gen. 3.24) preached the Sunday before (28 Jan.), ‘if we … shall be partakers of Christs Sacrifice, which worketh reconciliation between God and man … then followeth the restoring of us to the heavenly Paradise, And to him that overcommeth God will give to eate of the Tree of life in the middest of the Paradise of God’ (AS, p. 351). 1.10 acquisitio novia iuris: Lat., ‘the acquisition of a new law’. 1.10 in this place: in this verse (Rev. 2.7); cf. lecture on Gen. 3.23, preached two Sundays’ earlier (21 Jan.) 1.11–12 Angell … fiery sword: Gen. 3.24, the text for Andrewes’s lecture 28 Jan. (AS, pp. 345–51) 1.15 Thone … thother: i.e., ‘the one … the other’ (as modernized in AS, p. 572). 1.17–18 Seraphins … Joh. 12: Is. 6.2, Joh. 12.39–41. 1.19 Ezech … this Angell: A very compressed reading of Ezekiel’s vising of the cherubim (Ez. 10), which suggests that these supporters of the glory of God (the cherubim) adore the ‘Angel’ with the two-edged sword and eyes of fire (Rev. 1.16, 2.18), that is, Christ. 2.1 Apo. 5: Rev. 5. continues the account of the Elders’ praise of the glorified Christ, though this seems an incorrect reference for Rev. 4.10 (‘The foure and twentie Elders … cast their crownes before the throne’). 2.2–3 Hebr. … Cor. 2: Hebr. 1.14.; Acts 3.20–1, 26; 1 Cor. 2.8. 2.5 Gen. 3.22: the text for Andrewes’s lecture on 14 Jan. 1599 (AS, pp. 335–9), which he treated as God’s ‘deliberation’ over executing the sentence of expulsion upon Adam and Eve. 2.7 Joh. 19.ii: i.e., John 19.11. 2.8 theife Luke 23: Luke 23.43; an exemplum used similarly in the lecture on 21 Jan. (AS, p. 344). 2.13 John.6: John 6.35. 2.17 Manna Apo . 2.17: several senses of ‘manna’ are in play here: the miraculous food which fed the Israelites in the wilderness (Exo. 16.13–15); Christ’s assertion of his own body as the New Testament fulfilment of the same (John 6.31–58); and the further application of both to holy communion, the spiritual virtue of the latter being eteranl life, the ‘hidden Mannah’ promised to the members of the triumphant church (Rev. 2.17). 2.18 1. Cor. 10.2: an error for 1 Cor. 10.3 (as AS, p. 573). 2.19–20 2 partes … dabo: typically, Andrewes divides the main parts of his argument according to grammatical units in his text: ‘vincenti’ (‘to him that overcommeth’), or overcomming sin, is the requirement or ‘condicion’ for receiving (‘dabo’, ‘I give’) the ‘promise’ of eternal life. 2.20 coniunction: again, Andrewes makes grammar do theological work; the conjunction ‘et’ (Lat., ‘and’) which links ‘vincenti’ and ‘dabo’ makes the necessary, and carefully balanced, theological point that eternal life is a ‘guift’ not earned, but is also not given to those who are idle; the ‘et’ her carries an immense strain by trying to reconcile opposed reformed and catholic views about the efficacy of human works in the economy of salvation (see next note). 2.23–4 cooperari … Joh. 6: Lat., ‘work together for the food that does not perish’, a startling rephrasing of John 6.27 (‘Labour not for the meate which perisheth’; Vulg. and Trem/Beza, ‘Operamini non cibum, qui perit’). The slight adjustments of adding the prefix ‘co-’ to the main verb (‘operamini’), and moving the negative modifier ‘non’ from it to ‘perit’, effects an assertion of the cooperation of the believer necessary to obtain salvation that is foreign to Elizabethan Calvinist soteriology, but found elsewhere in Andrewes (see headnote). 2.28 Apostle … Cor.12: Paul, 2 Cor. 12.1–4. 2.30 John 17: John 17.24 (the citation is repeated, 1.31). 3.1–2 Mat. … domini: Vulg., Matt. 25.21 (Trem/Beza, ‘engredere in …’); ‘enter into thy Master’s joy’. 3.3 wise man Pro.13: Solomon; Prov. 13.12. 3.5 all in all: a Pauline epithet; cf. 1 Cor. 12.6, 15.28; Eph. 1.23. 3.9 2.ii: i.e., 2.11. 3.13 Job. 14: Job 14.7. 3.16 center … circumference: The garden of Eden within ‘Paradise’ was traditionally thought to be a round hortus conclusus, in the centre of which stood the Tree of Life (Gen. 2.8–9; cf. Milton, Paradise Lost, IV.134–45). Cf., from the court nativity sermon of 1613, ‘And the tree of life (we know) is in the middst, is the very center of all the ioyes of Paradise’ (XCVI Sermons, p. 68; the only citation in Andrewes’s later works of Rev. 2.7). In his lectures on Gen. 2 at St Paul’s (summer, 1591), Andrewes asserted the historical reality of a physical Eden, yet scorned overly-quizzical attempts either to historicize it, or to allegorize it (cf. Augustine, City of God, xiii, 21). Instead he insisted upon the greater importance of the ‘second’ Paradise, ‘in which place we shall enjoy an everlasting Sabbath of repose and rest without any ceasing, and of such a Paradise of pleasures as are without fear or danger of losing, as these earthly ones were’ (AS, p. 161). 3.17 cornam vitae: Lat., ‘cown of life’. 3.20 Psal. 16: Psal. 16.11. 3.21 the condition: the prepositional phrase (‘to him that overcommeth’) which qualifies the main clause of the text (Rev. 2.7); cf. above, 2.19–20. Andrewes’s interpretation of this ‘condition’ is a sustained qualification of strict predestinarianism: eternal life is not forced upon (‘cast uppon’) any, but instead offered (‘geven’) only to the believer who ‘overcometh’, or preserves, in the struggle against sin in the earthly life. 3.23 Gen. 3.: Gen. 3.14-16. 3.26 2. Tim. 2: 2 Tim. 2.5. 3.28 Ephe. 6.: Eph. 6.11–12. 3.29 2. Cor. 12.: 2 Cor. 12.7. 3.31–2 warre … inward partes: an orthodox statement of the relationship between original and actual sin; cf. ‘Articles of Religion’ (1571), no. IX: ‘Original sin’ … is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam … so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit … And this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated’. 3.32 Reynes: lit., the kidneys; fig., in Biblical usage, the seat of the emotions (OED ‘reins’, 1, 3). 3.33 1. Pet. 2.: 1 Pet. 2.11. 4.1–2 Revenge … Caine: anticipates Andrewes’s extended treatment of Abel by Cain, and of Cain’s subsequent punishment and progeny (Gen. 4) in the same lecture series at St Giles’s, preached during term times from 7 February 1599 to 17 February 1600 (AS, pp. 363–499). Together, these lectures constitute one of the most extended, and neglected, early modern considerations of the immorality of revenge (discussed briefly in Tyacke, ‘Lancelot Andrewes’, pp. 12–13). Their proximity to the likely date of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1600) is highly suggestive, and is the subject of work in progress by the editor. 4.3 Rom. 12.: Rom. 12.19. 4.3–4 sed … bono: Lat., Rom. 12.21: ‘but ouercome euill with goodnesse’ (Geneva); ‘sed vince in bono malum’ (Vulg.). 4.5 mortification: ‘the subjection or bringing under control of one’s appetites and passions by the practice of austere living’ (OED I.1). 4.5 wthout us: outside of us; external temptations to sin (as opposed to the prompts to sin ‘within us’ from original sin and lusts of the affections; cf. above, 3.32). 4.5 filij Beliall: Lat., ‘children (or sons) of Belial’; common Old Testament epithet for evil people, by New Testament times understood in the Judeo-Christian tradition as servants of the devil; cf. Judges 20.13 (Bishops’ and Vulg.); Geneva consistently translates as ‘evil men’ (cf. Judges 19.22), with the Hebrew transliteration used only in marginal notes. 4.6 John 8: John 8.44. 4.10 The Apostle: Peter 4.15 continere a peccato: Lat., ‘to hold back from sin’ 4.16 penitere de peccato: Lat., ‘to repent of sin’ 4.18–19 gott … head: ‘to gain force, ascendency, or power’ (OED, ‘head’ 52; citing 1625 as the first usage of the phrase ‘to get head’). 4.23 Isa. 28.: Is. 28.18. 4.25 Pro. 7.: Prov. 7.22. 4.26 Ezech. 14: Ezek. 14.3. 4.28 drawe nere: physically approach, quoting the minister’s invitation to recite the General Confession before receiving the Holy Communion (BCP): ‘You that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins … Draw near, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort; make your humble confession to Almighty God …’. 4.29–30 snatch … repentance: an orthodox English protestant insistence that the worthy state of the believer’s soul is a condition for the efficacy of the Holy Communion; cf. Articles or Religion (1571), no. XXV: ‘And in such only as worthily receive the same, they have a wholesome effect or operation’. 4.31 de furto … jure: Lat., ‘deceitfully, but not lawfully’. 5.1–2 bread … gravell: correlative to 4.29–30, unworthy receiving of the Holy Commonion is damnable; Article XXV: ‘but they that receive them [the sacraments] unworthily, purchase to themselves damnation’. 5.2 Pro. 20.: Prov. 20.17. 5.7 vincenti … edere: Lat., ‘to him that overcommeth to partake and to him that partaketh to overcome, I will cause (give) him to eat [of the tree of life]’; Andrewes’s own cleverly chiasmic combination of the main text (Rev. 2.7) and 1 Cor. 10.16–17, epitomizes the ‘reciprocation’ whereby, in the worthy receiving of the holy communion, the believer is simultaneously rewarded for overcomming sin and given strength to overcome sin; cf. 5.9–10. 5.11 wee have … wee have: the repetition is caused by the copyist’s ‘eyeskip’ error (moving back to the wrong point in the copy after the eye has wandered; frequently found when starting a fresh page, as here). 5.11 means … pledge: for the holy communion as both a confirmation (‘pledge’) and an operative strengthening of faith, see Article XXV: ‘[sacraments are] not only badges or tokens of Christian men’s profession … and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our Faith in him.’ 5.13 Roote … Christ speakes of: although the allusion is highly compressed, probably the parable of the tree and the fruit from the Sermon on the Mount: ‘So euery good tree bringeth foorth good fruite, & a corrupt tree bringeth forth euill fruite.’ (Matt. 7.17). 5.20 two trees of life: the historical Tree of Life in Eden (Gen. 3.23–4, and the future Tree of Life in heaven (Rev. 2.7). 5.20–1 Libertye … on earth: the freedom, or free will, to participate in the life of the church; perhaps another counterpoint to a strict Calvinist definition of the true church as the predestined elect. 5.21 church military: church militant, the church on earth (vs the ‘church triumphant’ in heaven, 5.22). 5.21 hortus … Cant.2.: incorrect citation for Canticles 4.12, ‘My sister my spouse is as a garden inclosed, as a spring shut vp, and a fountaine sealed vp.’ (Vulg., ‘hortus conclusus soror mea sponsa hortus conclusus fons signatus’). The allegorization of the enclosed garden as the church was first made by Gregory the Great: ‘horta sancta ecclesia existit’ (‘the garden is deemed to be the holy church’) (Expositio Super Cantica Canticorum, IV.17), and became a commonplace. Cf., among the prayers for the ‘continuance of the true institution of the Sacraments’ in Thomas Bentley, The Monument of Matrones (1582): ‘I AM come (saith Christ vnto his spouse the Church) into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I gathered me mirrh with my spice, I ate my honie-combe with my honie: I dranke my wine with my milke. Eate ô freends, drinke, and make ye merrie ô welbeloued.’ (p. 568). 5.25 Ephe.4.: Eph. 4.18. 5.26 Ephe.2.: Eph. 2.1. 5.27 Apo.12.: Rev. 12.11. 5.28–30 power … sacrament: cf., from the serman preached at St Giles’s 1 October 1598 (on Is. 6.6), ‘in the Sacrament he doth so elevate a piece of bread, and a little win, and make them of such power; that they are able to take away our sinnes … he can so elevate the meanest of his creatures; not only the hemme of a garment, but even a strawe, (if hee see it good) shall be powerfull enough, to save us from our sinnes’ (Selected Sermons, ed. McCullough, p.143). 6.1 Deut. 30.: Deut. 30.20. 6.1 ipse … mea: cf. Vulg., Deut. 30.20, ‘ipse est enim vita tua’ (‘for he is thy life’); the change here and in AS to the first person predicate (‘ipse enim est vita mea’; ‘for he is my life’) may be authorial, but is probably a note-taker’s or copyist’s error. 6.3 Apo. 22.: Rev. 22.1. 6.4 Joh. 5.: Joh. 5.26. 6.6 Cesterne: cistern 6.6–7 wisdome … Christ: Wisdom, personified as female in the Old Testament, was interpreted by Christians as a defining attribute of the second person of the Trinity (Christ), through whom divine knowledge is conveyed to mankind; cf. from Andrewes’s funeral sermon by John Buckeridge, ‘for Christ is made to us wisdom from God’ (appended to Andrewes, XCVI Sermons, p. ‘51’ [15]). 6.7 Christ … 3.18: Of Wisdom it is said that ‘She is a tree of life to them that lay holde on her, and blassed is he that retaineth her.’ (Prov. 3.18). Using the traditional identification of Wisdom with Christ (see prev. n.), Andrewes cements his analogy between eating Christ’s body in the Eucharist and eating the Tree of Life in heaven. The Geneva gloss on this verse avoids the Eucharistic and christological altogether: ‘Which bringeth foorth such fruite that they that eate thereof, haue life: and he alludeth to the tree of life in paradise.’ 6.7 in ipso … 14.: i.e., Joh. 1.4: ‘in ipso vita erat’ (Vulg.), ‘in it [the Word, Christ] was life’ (Geneva). The transcription is repeated in AS, p. 577, ‘John the fourteenth chapter’. 6.8 Joh. 14.: Joh. 14.6 (‘Iesus sayd vnto him, I am that Way, and that Trueth, and that Life. No man commeth vnto the Father, but by me.’). 6.9 blood in Baptisme: traditional baptismal doctrine, applying the soteriological reasoning that the grace to wash away sin could only be bought by the blood-sacrifice of Christ; cf. Andrewes, Whitsunday 1615: ‘And the baptisme of the bodie, is but the bodie of baptisme; the soule of baptisme, is the baptisme of the soule.’ Of the soule, with the blood of CHRIST, by the hand of the Holy Ghost’ (XCVI Sermons, p. 679). 6.9 actual sinnes: sins committed after baptism (i.e., vs original sin). Cf. sermon at St. Giles’s, 1 October 1598, ‘By one bodily sacrament [baptism] he taketh away the affection unto sin … By another bodily Sacrament [Eucharist] he taketh away the habituall sins, and the actuall transgression, which proceed from the corruption of our nature’ (Selected Sermons, ed. McCullough, p. 143). 6.13 fructus … 11.30: Prov. 11.30 (Vulg.); ‘The fruite of the righteous is as a tree of life’. References