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authority_n	book_n	church_n	faith_n	2,919	5	5.3557	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66360	Ho Antichristos the great antichrist revealed, before this time never discovered, and proved to be neither pope, nor Turk, nor any single person, nor the succession of any one monarch or tyrant in any policies, but a collected pack, or multitude of hypocritical, heretical, blasphemous, and most scandalous wicked men that have fulfilled all the prophesies of the Scriptures ... and especially have united ... together by a solemn league and covenant to slay the two witnesses of God, Moses and Aaron ... that is, the supreme magistrate of the Commonwealth, and the chief pastors and governours of the Church of Christ, and the Christian world is requested to judge whether the Assembly of Presbyterians consulting at Westminster, together with the independents, Anabaptists, and lay-preachers be not the false prophet ... and whether the prevalent faction of the long Parliament ... that killed the two witnesses of Jesus Christ, 1. Charles the First ... 2. William Laud ... be not the grosse and visible body of the same antichrist / by Gr. Williams.	Williams, Gryffith, 1589?-1672.	1660 (1660)	Wing W2662; ESTC R25201	504,825	313

Godliness 2 Tim. 3.5 and thereby 2 Tim. 3.5 saith the Apostle they shall turn the Grace of God into wantonness that is turne the true Service of God into vain jangling and a foolish senceless prating and so probably prove themselves to be just like Jannes and Jambres that resisted Moses who was their chief Governour and King in Jeshuron and like Corah Dathan and Abiram that as the Prophet saith angred Moses in their Tents and Aaron the Saint of the Lord Psal 106.16 and so despised rebelled and would have destroyed both the Civil Magistrate and the Ecclesiastical Governours of Gods Church which Offices themselves desired and aimed at and would have obtained if God by his fearful Judgment had not prevented them And according to these Prophesies and Predictions That all the aforesaid things came to pass according as they were foreshewed and the like 1. Of Deceivers and Corrupters of Gods Truth 2. Of a Faithful Reformation of all in-crept Errours and Abuses And 3. Of a Faithless Apostasie and Rebellion against the Reformers of the same and the Defenders of Gods Service by a company of Hypocritical Zealots we find by the successes saith one and I think very right that all these things happened just as they were fore-shewed by the Apostle as in other places so likewise in this our Church of Ingland For after that the Pope and the Church of Rome had fallen away from some Points of the true Faith Arise Evans in his voice from Heaven p. 18 19. and had privily as I shewed before brought in divers Errours Abuses and Superstitions which defiled the Purity and blemished the Beauty of our Church as of many other particular Churches besides Martyn Luther steps up and falls out with the Pope for and about the Sale of his Indulgences by his Factor Tercelius whom the Pope then employed for that business and then he bitterly inveigheth against his Holiness for this and the other Corruptions of the German Church that were no less as they said than centum gravamina a hundred grievances Fasciculus rerum extendarum King Hen. the 8. writes against Luther which were presented to Pope Adrian the 6th with an earnest desire of a speedy redress as you may find it in fasciculo rerum expetendarum Hereupon King Henry the 8. it may be in Requital of the Popes favour that granted him a dispensation to marry his Brothers Wife writes a Book against Luther and therein blames him very much for apostatizing and starting aside from his Mother the Church of Rome and contrary to his Faith and Oath and all good manners so eagerly to oppose and so bitterly to rail against his holy Father the Pope and so to the uttermost of his Learning that was both an understanding wise and Learned King he defends the Faith together with the Corruptions of the Roman Church or rather maintaines the Errours and Superstitions of that Church together with so much of the true Faith as the Pope and the Church of Rome did then profess King Hen. 8. his double recompence for his book against Luther 1. Recompence and for this Royal Engagement of the King against Luther the King receives a double Recompense 1. The one from Luther his great Antagonist 2. The other from the Pope his dear Client For 1. Luther in the heat of his Fury and the heighth of his German spirit railes as much against the King and calls him as I read it in his own Book and not out of any other Transcriber asinissimus Rex an unseemly term as I conceive for a poor Monk to give to so great a King and as I said none of the meanest Clerks as he had formerly done against the Pope which bitter Invectives against a Father in the Church and the Patriarch of all the Western Churches Tilenus exeges pag. 29. Aphor. 104. p. 20. as the Primitive Counsels term him qui in ordine primus fuit inter Patriarchas primum ordine in Apostolorum collegio eum esse non inviti concedimus saith Tilenus and such uncivil behaviour towards Kings Luther blamed for his too much bitternesse and unseemly terms Matth. 11.29 that are the Lords Anointed be they what they will when I read not upon the credit of others but in his own Tractates as I thought very well of many things that he wrote so I should have thought much better of all the rest but that I conceived so much bitterness mingled with such a measure of Gall and Vinegar as dropped from his Pen not against the sins but against the Persons of men could not be distilled from the spirit of God which is a Spirit of Meekness and Lowliness as our Saviour testifieth But 2. 2. Recompence The Pope for this Scholastick Defence of the Faith of the Roman Church by the King which the Pope himself should have done by his Pen and desired the King to have assisted him by his Sword gives to him and to his Successors the Kings of Ingland the just good and honourable Title of Defender of the Faith that is the True and Christian Faith or the Faith of Gods Elect which was pretended to be then in Rome and is now defended by the King And though King Henry obtained this Eulogy this Title and this Authority upon a wrong ground because he defended a wrong Faith yet as Jacob got the blessing upon an untrue suggestion that he was his father Isaac's eldest son even his first-born Esau but being once gotten he still retained it So did the King Genes 27.19 when he fell out with the Pope and fell from the Pope about his divorce from Queen Katherine which the Pope upon good grounds would not admit still retain that Title How the Faith was defended in Ingland and especially the truth and substance of that Title and maintained the same as a King with his sword which he had gained as a Priest with his pen and so did his son and his Successor after him Edward the 6th continue a royal defender of the true faith and when Queen Mary would have remitted the Title and permitted the faith to be undefended and the truth to be corrupted in this Kingdome the witnesses of Christ his Gospel the holy Martyrs of our Church Cranmer Latymer Ridley 3 reverend Bishops and the rest of those holy Champions stood up and defended the same unto death with the sheding of their blood and the loss of their dearest lives And after Queen Maries time Q. Elizabeth like another Deborah with the advice and assistance of all the godly Bishops and the best of all the Divines in her Kingdom concluded and set forth the Articles of our Church and that perfect form of Godliness the Liturgy and book of common prayer and service of God which they composed with a free liberty from her majesty at home and without any fear either of Pope or any other forraign Authority abroad And this faith

or how soon Christ will come to Judgment to make a final end of the Antichrist and to deliver his Servants out of all their troubles And this Author wrote a Book entituled The Grand Rebellion that they shall suffer by the Means and procurement of the Antichrist And so first the grand Rebellion will shew it self and the great Apostasie will appear then the great Antichrist will come and settle himself in the Church of Christ and he shall be revealed and made known not to all men no more than Christ was when he came into the world but to as many as the Spirit of God shall enlighten and open the eyes of their understanding to take notice of him that they may avoid him and not be seduced by him E. H. de Antichristo c. 6. pag. 101. to follow his pernicious waies as E. H. hath most truly declared And then as the Apostle saith the Day of the Lord will come and we may certainly expect it and believe it will not be long before he cometh Question Now it is demanded where in what Kingdom and in what Reformed Church or in what other Church this Grand Rebellion and huge apostacy hath happened and appeared And it is answered Respons That the apostacy here spoken of cannot be 1. The apostafie of the prime grand Hereticks 1. That this apostacy here spoken of cannot be meant of the apostasie of the prime grand Hereticks For though the Nicolaitans the Ebionites and the Cerinthians in the time of St. John and afterwards the Montanists Valentinians Arians Nestorians Eutychians and the succeeding Hereticks Manichaeans Pelagians Donatists and all the other Brood of the prime Hereticks fell into many most fearful errours and so rebelled against their Governours and drew many Disciples after them to make a defection from the true Faith and have by their apostasie and subtilty corrupted whole Churches and Congregations of Christ yet that their backsliding and apostasie cannot be said to be this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the grand Rebellion and the special great falling away from the Faith which the Apostle here speaketh of because their apostasie was not so general and so extensive from the most and the chiefest points of Faith as this is but each Heretick and each Sect of those Hereticks started aside from some particular point of the true Catholick and Christian Faith as Arius denied the Divinity of Christ Nestorius made Christ to subsist of two Persons and Eutiches on the other side to confute him confounded the true Properties of both Natures Manichaeus would have God to be the Author of evil or that there be two Gods the one good and the author of all goodness and the other evil and the author of all the evil that is Pelagius taught the too large extent of mans Free-will All the prime grand Hereticks far better than our present Presbyterians and others with the Stoicks ascribed all events to a fatal necessary and so the rest of those Heresiarchs defiled themselves and their Churches with some particular errour or with some very few at the most and yet still they retained the rest and the most points of the true Faith and especially the setled Form of Gods Service and defired alwaies to be in the Commnion and to keep the unity of the Catholick Church and they ever observed the right Government and Discipline of the Church none of all the Hereticks until Aerius nor after he was therefore condemned for an Heretick as Epiphan sheweth any other Heretick till this last Century produced a Brood of Aerius Proselites were ever found to deny the Episcopal Government of the same and they all generally retained the established Creeds and Articles of wholsom Doctrine Lyturgies Catechismes and the right manner of the Worship of God with that reverence and devotion as he ought to be worshipped though they started aside and apostatized from some particular points of the Foundation of the Catholick Faith And 2. 2. Nor the apostasie of the Eastern Churches The like may be said of all the Asiatick and Affrican Churches that succeeded them and were many of them corrupted by those grand Hereticks that they professed the Creeds observed the Lyturgies and reverenced their Governours as the Apostle enjoyneth and receded only like their Leaders from some few Points of the true Faith and therefore the grand apostacy here spoken of cannot be fastned nor applied to any of them And 3. As the Eastern Churches are free from this apostacy so the Church of Rome 3. Nor the apostasie of the Church of Rome and all the rest of her subordinate Western Churches though they have corrupted the Doctrine of Christ with many Errours Ceremonie and Superstitions yet because they retain the main Heads the true Scriptures the Catholick Creeds and the gross sum of the Christian Religion though mingled with many erroneous accessions and is therefore rightly compared to a field of goodly Wheat but very full of Tares and Darnels cannot be said to be guilty of this grand Rebellion and apostasie Reason 1 1. Because all their Errours and Superstititions are not so foul as those of the foresaid Hereticks and the additions which they agglutinate unto the Truth as a bad super-structure upon a good Foundation cannot be liable to this transcendent apostasie when as all the errours of the Church of Rome are rather Superstitions and additions of more Articles than ever the Apostles left or the Primitive Church professed to the true Faith and Catholick Creeds than a defection or discession and departure from the Faith and therefore that Church cannot be guilty of this apostasie and departure from the Faith but rather of creating a new Faith and new Articles of Faith which God never requireth us to believe Reason 1 2. Because the now Church of Rome of France Spain and other Churches under the Popish Jurisdiction did never profess all the Articles of our faith in the true and right sence as they ought to be believed and interpreted but they were born nursed and nusled in the errors and Superstitions that they are in continually and how can they be said to recede and depart from the faith and from the truth that never knew them nor profest them and therefore seeing they never were in the true faith they can no wayes be said to be guilty of this apostasie from the faith Object But you will say as E. H. doth and many others with him that when after Constantines time E. H. in the Preface of his book de Autic the Church began to be wealthy and as the envious said venenum intravit in Ecclesiam poison that is the poison of riches honors and authority especially after Ph●cas his time that gave unto the Pope the title of universal Bishop entred into the Church and among the Clergy then the Monks brought tapers into the Church and they induced the trisagium that is sancte Deus sancte fortis sancte immortalis which as

or at least a defect of Christian Charity And therefore we adhere to these in love and pity and deem them as our Brethren in Christ Jesus But for the rest that are the wilful and obstinate Abettors of the Romish Idolatry and impiety we will not only follow the counsel of our Lord and Master and of his blessed Prophets and Apostles to get out of this Babylon and to separate our selves from amongst them and to have nothing to do with their stool of wickedness Jer. 50.14 but we will also do as our God commandeth us by his Prophet Jeremy lay siege against it and spare no arrowes because she hath sinned against tho Lord. And thus I have shewed unto you that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 respectively yea and in many respects that Rome and the Church of Rome is a Babylon a City of Confusion and the Popish Hierarchy full of many iniquities and impieties And I have been the more large and ample in this Point to let the world see how falsly and unjustly the Presbyterians Puritans and their Adherents have and do throw their scandalous imputations and aspersions upon my self and the rest of our Reverend Bishops for being Papists and Popish and Popishly affected when as indeed all wise men know that none propagated and defended the Gospel of Christ and the true Protestant Religion and impugned the Romish Babylon and shewed confuted and here with us Bishop Bilson Bishop Baclow Bish Montagu Bish Abbats suppressed the Superstitions Heresies and Idolatries of the Church of Rome better and more learnedly than Bishop Jewel Bishop Babington Bishop Horne Bishop Andrews Bishop Downam Bishop Usher Bishop Prideaux Bishop Hall Bishop Morton Bishop White Bishop Laude and the rest of our Reverend Bishops And on the other side the Presbyterians and Puritans that hated and opposed our Bishops though they railed against the Pope and Popery and stuffed their Sermons with Invectives against them yet through their Ignorance for want of Learning have insensibly against their own wills dispersed and taught many Popish points and the flat Errours of the Romish Church unto their Auditors who as the blind do swallow many a flie so do their simple Proselites suck those poysonous Tenets which are thus insensibly by their ignorant Teachers infused into them But to return you see Rome and the Church of Rome is a mystical Babylon And yet 2. The City of Rome not to be understood to be the Seat of the Antichrist and the Babylon spoken of in Rev. c. 17. 1 Pet. 5.3 2. As the Chaldean City of Babylon cannot be said to be the Babylon that is spoken of in Revel 17. and the proper peculiar Seat of the Antichrist so no more can the Italian City of Rome be said to be the same And though that after the eclipsing of that great Assyrian Babylon first by Cyrus the Persian then by Alexander the Graecian that was here poysoned by Thessalus with poyson in a horse hoof and after that exhausted and almost unpeopled by Seleucus Rome was for the splendor strength and dominion thereof termed Babylon and for her Pride Idolatry and confusion in the service of her Idol Gods is so stiled by S. Peter and is acknowledged by the Fathers afore-cited and by most of the Learned Jesuits that confess the Assyrian Babylon to be the Type and figure of the Italian Rome and to be so understood by the Apostle in that place Yet I say it cannot be meant by any place of Scripture to be the Seat and Throne of the great Antichrist and the Babylon spoken of in Rev. 17. For though Martial saith Terrarum Dea gentiumque Roma Cui par est nihil nihil secundum And Though Rome be somtimes signified by this name of Babylon as I said before and is therefore interpreted by all those that would have the Pope to be the Antichrist to be that great City and that great Babylon spoken of in Rev. 17. And Ovid saith imperii Roma deumque locus l. 1. trist eleg 4. Athenaeus l. 1. Tacitus Annal lib. 4. and elsewhere in that Book And I confess it is often called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that great City yet not simply in respect of the quantity or circuit thereof when we read of many Cities that were bigger than it but in respect of the Power and Authority that her Consuls and Emperors had over all other Cities and Dominions in which sense she is said by Athenaeus to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Heavenly City and by Julius frontinus she is said to be Domina Regina orbis terrarum the Lady and Queen of the world which made the Smyrnenses to erect a Temple and dedicate the same to the City of Rome as to a Goddess Yet I say this is not that great City nor that Babylon which is to be understood in Rev. 17. and is to be the Seat of the great Antichrist 3. The City of Constantinople cannot be the Seat of the Antichrist that must have a greater room than the great City of Rome And 3. As neither Babylon in Assyria nor the mystical Babylon of Rome can be said to be that Babylon the Seat of the Antichrist so no more can the City of Constantinople which is known to be called New Rome be understood to be his Throne and the Babylon there spoken of For though Constantine the Founder of this City Bish Montagu in his apello Caesar●m Constantinus apud Thraces qua Bosphorus aequor thracius ●●xinus granted unto it in both slates of Church and Common-wealth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every way equalized Priviledges with the Old Rome as having Senators and one of the yearly Consuls and being the Imperial City and seared upon seven Hills as well as Old Rome and is therefore called by Nicetus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by Paulus Diaconus urbs septicollis the City of seven hills and being likewise in a fore-land or Land-straight where two seas meet Aegaeumingurgacat undis constituit sedem Imperii latiumque relinquit Christo Bizantium oppidum maritimum inter Pontum Euxinum propontidem orientalibus Thraciae finibus situm est 4. No one City of the world is to be understood by this Babylon What place is meant by this Babylon Eccles 9.14 Luke 12.32 and therefore the only seat in the world for an Imperial City far more convenient than old Rome yet I say she cannot be understood to be the peculiar place or City that the Apostle here meaneth by that Babylon where the great Antichrist must locally reside and set up his domineering Throne and Court therein 4. As none of these aforesaid great Cities can be understood by that Babylon which is to be the Seat and Residence of the Antichrist so no more indeed can any one City of the world how great and how powerful soever she were be properly and literally said to be the Throne or residing place

they could find to put these offices and the government of the Churches into their hands and they thought it well in such a kingdom as this of Ingland if they found 26. men that with the help and advice of their brethren their Deans and Prebends were sufficient to govern the Churches so wisely and so orderly as they ought to do it and do you think it is as easie to finde 6000. men that are fit to do it that you may place a Bishop in every Parish I think you will faile and your selves at last will see your own folly and smart for your mistaking when every Parish Priest will be as imperious over you as Hildebrand was over Henry the fourth But 2. Touching the working of strange miracles we say it was a great miracle 2. To work strange miracles 1 Reg. 17.23 Acts 9.4 John 11.44 that Elias did to raise the dead child of the widow of Sarepta and a great miracle that Saint Peter did to raise Dorcas an old widow that was dead to life again and it was a greater miracle that Christ did to raise up Lazarus out of his grave when he had been dead four dayes And yet besides their many meaner miracles that these Presbyters say they do they pretend if you will believe them to do things that are far more miraculous and greater wonders then any of these or them either that Moses or Elias or any other of all the Prophets or Apostles ever did for we are sure that neither of all those either did or could raise a soule dead in trespasses and sins to the life of grace but this being as it were a new creation it must be left alone to God for ever whose proper work it is to create a new heart and to renew a right spirit within us yet this beast and the disciples of this false Prophet do boast and brag unto the people of the multitude of Saints that they have begotten to God when as indeed they have of late seduced them to be as false and as rebellious as themselves What wonderful thing the Presbyters do Psalm 51.10 The discourse of a Presbyterian with the Authour Esay 53. ●● And so one of them asked me where were the Seales of our Apostleship the signes and evidences of our Bishops and Prelatical mens ministery how many soules had they converted unto God and where were those converts whereby they might approve themselves unto the people to be the true Ministers of God as they could do by the confession of their Proselytes and I answered that I feared their converts were but perverted and that I conceived it was not in mans power to convert soules when as the Prophet cryeth who hath believed our report and again all day long have I stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and a gainsaying people and if it had been in mans poower to work faith in the hearts of the hearers then questionlesse Rom 10 1. c. 9.3 We have not the power to convert souls this great Prophet would have done it in the children of Israel and Saint Paul would have converted the Jewes his own brethren according to the flesh whom he did so dearly love as himself doth testify to have believed in Christ but we know that although the false Prophets may easily pervert men to disloyalty and wickednesse because the devill is alwayes ready to help them and natural men are prone to evill yet we cannot convert men to the true faith and to goodnesse Acts 15.19 unlesse the Spirit of God cooperateth with us to open the hearts of our hearers as he opened the heart of Lydia when the Apostle preached unto her because as Saint Hierom saith inanis est sermo docentis nisi intus sit qui docet the Preacher may say with the Prophet in vacuum laboravi I have laboured in vain if God by his spirit doth not preach unto the heart And therefore their wonderful brags of converting soules are but lying wonders not to be regarded by any man that regards the truth Psal 15.12 and these hornes are not the hornes of the Lamb but ungodly horns and the horns of the ungodly which as the Prophet saith shall be broken by the Lord all to pieces That the two horns may signifie the two Testaments Torres in sua Philosophia morali pag. 849. Texeda pag. 6. of his miracles unmasked Or else these two horns as Cornelius à lapide saith to whom I subscribe may signify the two testaments which are robora ornamenta Christi the strength and ornament of Christ and the language of the lambe which bring men to believe in Christ rather then then all the miracles of Christ for as Torres out of Lactantius saith non idcirco à nobis creditur Christus quia mirabilia fecit sed quia vidimus facta esse omnia quae nobis annuciata sunt vaticinio prophetarum Christ is not therefore believed by us because he wrought miracles which Vespasian did and the idolatets of China do and the false Prophets by our Saviours testimony may do but because we have seen all things accomplished which were foretold us of him by the Prophets The paralell This is infallibly fulfilled in the Paesbyterians And the beast layeth claim to these hornes and so of all the Preachers and Prophets Papists or Protestants it is well known that none pretend more love and more right to these hornes then the Presbyterians and the Independant and Lay-Preachers do for they reject all other learning and all authorities of Counsells Fathers Poets Orators Histories and all other Books and will allow of nothing but the pure book of the holy Scripture they will have none other horns but these which they say are the hornes of our Lamb and no Christian will denie them to be so nor gainsay the strength and authority of these hornes And yet as A lapide rightly observeth as I told you before of it A good obserservation of Cornel à lapide in loc this beast is said to have not the two hornes of the Lamb but two hornes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like to the horns of the Lamb and every Sophister can tell you that nullum simile est idem that which only is like a thing is not the thing and therefore though they cry out with the false Prophets of the Jewes os Domini loquutum est the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it for they preach nothing but Gospel and the pure Scriptures of the two Testaments and it is we and not they if you believe them that run to the puddles of humane authorities yet in very deed it is no such matter for the holy Ghost that best understandeth both the language of the Lamb and of this beast tells us plainly in the very next words that although their horns be like the horns of the Lamb yet in truth Why this second beast is said to speak like the Dragon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉