therein For we traffick not in Legendary Lies and false Miracles against the Sacred Title of Truth nor desire to keep the people ignorant of the Scriptures and to hold them in darkness against the Sacred Title of Light nor trespass against the Sacred Title of Life by making our Religion consist of dumb shows and heaps of dead Rites and Ceremonies nor derogate from the Divinity of Christ by giving Religious worship to Saints and Angels nor offend against his Paternity by making his Children a company of stocks and stones and by taking away the judgement of discretion from them and forcing them to believe as the Church believes right or wrong with Scripture or against it and are so farre from injuring the life of any Child of God by any captious and wicked Sanction that we profess nothing requisite to Salvation but what is plain in Scripture as appears from what has been already produced out of the Articles of the Church Which alone will also vindicate her from any imputation of the following points of Antichristianism against the Peace of Christ's Kingdome And for absolving Princes from their Oaths what Church unless that of Rome ever pretended to so blasphemous a Power 4. The next Antichristian Opposition and which occurrs in the next Chapter is that against the Divine Life in general Such as Idolatry and all manner of Superstition dumb Shows speaking in an unknown Tongue substituting silly Penances instead of real Repentance and Amendment of life all which our Church is so plainly and professedly against in her Articles and Homilies every-where and so acknowledgedly that I will not give my self the trouble of Citation Some not so well minded may peradventure be over-inclinable to imagine the Episcopal Office and Revenues to have a greater propinquity with that Hypothesis at the end of this Chapter then any indifferent man can possibly judge For he must be very ignorant of the Constitution of Christendome that does not plainly discern that in that Hypothesis it is the Papal Hierarchy that is perstringed and adumbrated which is done again more fully and particularly in the ninth and tenth Chapters For for my own part though I do not know the accurate values of the several Bishopricks of this Nation yet considering the largeness of their Dioceses and the great burthen as well of care as expensiveness in conscientiously executing the Function truly I cannot imagine them so great but that the weight of the Office will weigh down every-where the value of the Revenue and we reade in the Gospel that * Luk. 10. 7. the work-man is worthy of his hire And concerning the Office and Dignity itself it cannot sink into my minde that that Order of the Church which was instituted and in practice in those Ages thereof which were Symmetral can with any face or conscience be judged Antichristian And that the Church was Symmetral for about four hundred years after Christ is a demonstrable Consectary from my Joint-Exposition and that Joint-Exposition so convincingly evident that no Interpretation of any Scripture can be more 5. Whence I cannot but wonder that any true Son of the Church of England should be so shie of the Apocalyps or so fearful of it that they durst not touch it without a pair of Mittens of Grotius his making for fear it should bite them that is to say unless it be unfolded or rather folded up in Grotius his fond and groundless Explications For there is not any Book in the World that makes more for the establishment of the Crown and Church of England then this Holy Book of the Apocalyps if rightly and solidly understood A thing which that wise and sagacious Prince King James of blessed memory had discovered betimes and accordingly made use of it against the Usurpations of the Church of Rome And truly I finde nothing in the Apocalyps though the style seems Mysterious and Aenigmatical but what is very rational and look upon it as the most faithful and Philosophical writing that ever was penned A tast whereof we have in that Catalogue of the evil characters of them that are excluded the Holy City wherein bloudy and inhumane Zeal as also vain and imposturous Superstition is so plainly perstringed The former in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Murtherers the latter in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Sorcerers Exorcists or Enchanters and lying Legendists and in fearful intimidated spirits that are superstitiously inclined to submit to the delusions and lies of such shameless Deceivers These doth our faithful Redeemer of Souls who deals bonâ fide with Man-kinde to rescue their abused minds from the Tyranny and burthen of Superstition note with a mark of Infamy and Condemnation So fast a friend is the Lord Jesus to Humanity to Equity to Truth and Reason 6. And not to insist upon those passages of the Apocalyptick Visions that imply it which are more then one or two either there is the greatest Equity and Reason in the world that every Christian Prince should next under Christ be Supreme Head over all that part of his Church over which he is King or Sovereign over Clergy as well as Laiety in Causes Ecclesiastical as well as Civil and that not any Papal or Presbyterian Power should be above him as our English Episcopacy does most justly and professedly submit unto him For why should any Clergy-men expect of a Prince who has received like precious Faith with themselves to fall in his Power by becoming a Christian Which is as unjust as it were ridiculous to phansy that every proper man should be bound to remit so much of his natural stature as would make him goe lower then the Priest that baptized him For Christianity does not take away Nature nor Power but rightly employs it Could any of the Pagan Emperours think you have been brought over to the Christian Faith if the Bishop of Rome would have laid claim to the Headship of the Empire so farre as it became the Church of Christ or would they not have suspected the preaching the Kingdome of Heaven a trick of the Priests to make themselves Lords of the Earth No certainly a Prince once become Christian that is a Believer and Professour of the Apostolick Faith comprised in the Word of God in those plain and generally-confessed Points of our Religion is a Person so Sacred that nothing can mount above him for Headship in his own Dominions For the anointing of the Spirit whereby we believe to Salvation is infinitely more holy then any external Sacerdotal oil whatsoever Why may not then so sacred a Fountain be the Head and Influencer of the whole Church Or whether is Christ greater as he is Priest or King of Saints Or who had the preeminence in the Polity of the Jews the Kings or High-Priests of Israel And was not that Polity a Type or Figure of the Church of Christ The plain Law of Christ is indeed immutable and it ought to be so no
worldly impurities 3. It is nobly concluded of Caelius Secundus Curio against Floribellus Neque enim vera Dei cognitio verúsque cultus unius aut Familiae aut Gentis aut Sectae propria esse potest sed quicunque sensu immortalitatis tanguntur ii ad se eandem pertinere existimare debent Poterat quidem Judaeorum Gens Circumcisionem externam Aaronis Familia Sacerdotium alias item Ceremonias sibi jure quodam vendicare sed divinam internam Circumcisionem vivas illas animi verásque Hostias aeternas Naturae leges quas in hominum animis Jova Opt. Max. à principio insculpserat omnium mortalium sententiis comprobatas sibi nec Judaei nec Graeci nec Romani nec ulla praeterea Natio quasi propria vendicare potuerunt And immediately after speaking more particularly of Christian Religion as it is revealed in the Scripture Ac nè illud quidem verè dici potest quod quidam putant summam Religionis quasi Haereditariam ad unum aliquem venisse sic ut pro libidine sua interpretari addere demere mutare statuere abrogare aliquid in ea possit Neque enim idcirco Leges divinitus latae sunt Religióve patefacta quò in eam mortales jus haberent sedut omni studio curâ labore diligentiâ colerent ejúsque dignitatem tuerentur 4. Wherefore as concerning those Eternal and Immutable Rules of Divine Reason which God has engraven upon every mans Spirit and come in as freely as the Light of the Sun into their natural eyes and without which what-ever Prophecies there are or Instructions in the Holy Writ it were impossible for us to be ascertained of the Truth of them or indeed of any meaning in them I say upon pretence of an imperious Infallibility to deface these Divine Characters of the Soul or to command them silence or to give them the Lie would be an act of the most notorious False-prophet and most contradictious to the Prophetick Office of Christ whether you respect his Humanity or Divinity that can ever manifest himself in the world 5. As for example If this impudent Oracle should declare That one and the same individual Body can be in several places at one and the same moment of time yea in infinite places in a manner and at vast distances at once That that may be made or created which is already in being That the real and sensible mode of a Subject may subsist separate from that Subject as suppose Motion or Hardness where there is nothing moved or hard That what we have assurance of by all our Senses and by the Senses of all men constantly the Object being at a due distance and the Medium fitted and the Organs rightly disposed may notwithstanding all this be false That the same Body at the same time may be bigger and lesser then it self but an inch distant from me and a thousand miles distant from me at once That one and the same person may be many thousand miles absent from himself and that he may both sit still and make a journey to himself at the same time That an entire organized Body may be wholly in every part thereof all of it in the Eye and consequently every part in every part the comely parts in those on which Nature has bestowed less comeliness That an entire Body may be divided and yet not into two parts suppose but into two wholes and both the same with the divided Entire body That the same Body may be now at Athens and after at Thebes and yet not pass any medium direct or circuitous to come thither That a man may swallow every atom of his own body at once into his belly limbs back belly head and mouth and all That one and the same individual person may be of different ages at once above thirty years old and yet not above three hours old at the same time That Religious Worship even that which is Latria may be given to Images and yet without Idolatry That Christ may satisfie for the faults of men and yet they remain obnoxious to the penalties due for those faults with several others of that kind I say whosoever upon pretence of being Prophet-general to the world should lift up his head on high and utter such Infallible Contradictions as these in the name of the Lord of Hosts or such oracular Definitions as must be false unless these be true we need not spend time in asking him Art thou he or do we look for another but may assuredly conclude that he is that expected eminent False-prophet who does Antichristianly oppose himself against the Spirit of Truth which Christ has imparted to the world partly by writing those immutable and infallible Rules of common Reason in the Souls of men and partly by those Holy Writings which he has left to his Church recorded by inspired men and Prophets and lastly by a special converse with more holy and sanctified Souls to whom he does in a more certain and assured way then ordinary impart his Spirit of Illumination as appears out of what we have cited out of the Book of Wisedom and might be proved out of sundry other places of the Canonical Scripture 6. And now whereas such a False-prophet as this has nothing to defend himself from the suspicion of being an Impostor but the peremptory and impudent bearing men down that he is Infallible it is but seasonable to appeal here to the world Whether it be not infinitely more likely that this one man or company of men or succession of either doing no real Miracles to extort belief nor living better nor so well as other men should be fallible and subject to error or given to deceit then that the above-cited absurd Conclusions should be true For neither he nor they can be Infallible if these be real Falsities as undoubtedly they are 7. Adde unto all this That if this Pseudo-prophetick Power should serve the true Prophets of Christ and faithful Witnesses as the false Prophet did Micaiah strike them on the cheeks nay cruelly persecute them and kill them dealing so with them as the Jews did of old with our dear Lord and Master who complained But now you seek to kill me a man that has Joh. 8. 40. told you the Truth which I have heard of God would they not prove themselves to be that Jerusalem that has become an Harlot and of whom our Saviour has predicted That it cannot be that a Prophet perish out of Luk. 13 33. Jerusalem she must be the Executioner O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee art not thou that mystical City of Hypocrites the false House of God Sodom and Aegypt where our Lord also was crucified as well as the Prophets before him and his holy Witnesses after him For the false Jerusalem the adulterate Church is ambitious to monopolize to her self the trade of bloud and of slaying of the Prophets and Witnesses
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 since they were then past not future and that this straining of this phrase is merely for this Exposition's sake which if it were seriously stuck to would make the Apocalyps utterly unintelligible and consequently unprofitable to the Church nay bring an unspeakable detriment thereto by depriving us of so illustrious a pledge of Divine Providence I think these things put together are of infinitely more moment to us for to adhere to that ordinary and ancient Interpretation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I nominated at first then to this novell one that has been but newly started merely for the countenancing such Expositions of the Apocalyps as are not onely extremely harsh and forced but utterly impossible This I hope is even more then enough to remove all prejudice to Truth that may lie upon any ones mind by reason of the mistaken sense of these words and inable him without any farther hesitancy to acknowledge the unexceptionable Perspicuity of those Expositions of the Apocalyps I have exhibited to his view CHAP. XXI 1. The marvellous Completeness of the Reformation of the Church of England in her Doctrines and Institutes 2. That she plainly condemns the Invocation of Saints for Idolatry 3. As also the Adoration of the Host where our Kneeling at the Communion is vindicated 4. Her condemning the Worshipping of Images 5. Her concluding the manner of the Papists worshipping Saints and Images to be plainly the same with that of Pagans 6. Her free and just censure touching the decking of their Images and making them Lay-mens Books 7. How perfectly she has freed us from that Aegyptian yoke we lay under in the time of Popery 8. The Celebration of Holy-days the keeping of Lent and the use of the Surplice in the sense of the Church of England fully vindicated from all imputation of Superstition or Antichristianism 9. That the use of the Surplice is not from any grounds at all of Policy in the Church but pure Charity with a vindication of the use of the Cross in Baptism 1. HAving thus clearly set out the true nature or Idea of Antichristianism as also plainly made good that such an Antichristianism or Antichrist as is delineated in that Idea is that very Antichrist which the Prophecies in the Holy Scriptures do prefigure or soretell we should now proceed to a more punctual Application of the said Idea and Prophecies to the State of the Church from such times as it fell into this Antichristian Lapse till this very day But that being something a more voluminous Design and less gratefull to my disposition who take far greater pleasure in the Vindication of an injured Friend then in raking into the unsavoury miscarriages of either a Stranger or professed Enemy I shal satisfy myself at least at this bout with that part of Application onely which concerns our Reformed Church of England whereby I do not doubt but to free her from all imputations or suspicions of being guilty of any point of true and real Antichristianism in any of her Doctrines or Institutes Whence it will appear how little she is concerned in this free and faithfull delineation thereof unless it be to give Almighty God most humble and hearty thanks who did so graciously assist those noble Hero's with resolution and judgment for the atchieving of so happy and marvellous a Reformation wherein nothing is left no member nor the least joynt or article of that odious and hatefull Image or Idea of Antichrist which we have described no frauds or falsifications of the Gospel of Christ for the Interest of a worldly Church and the feeding of the Priesthood by a trade of Lies and Impostures which would have made any ingenuous man ashamed to be found of the Order or Profession whenas how if no Prophaneness lurk in his soul he may well deem the Calling an ornament to his person And that this is not a boast but a real truth I sâ—…all briefly make good by running through all those limbs of Antichristianism whether opposing the Privative or Positive Ends of the Gospel which I proposed in my Idea 2. The first of the first kind whereof was Idolatry in the Invocation of Saints and Angels in the Worshipping of the Host and in the Adoration of Images Wherein though the Universal Practice of the Church of England does sufficiently clear her from such gross imputations yet I think it not amiss for her greater honour to bring into light her avowed and declared judgment concerning these matters that all the world may take notice how sound she is at the Core in these weighty points of Religion Touching therefore the Invocation of Saints That she does apertly condemn it appears in the Book of Articles where she calls it a fond thing Article 21. vainly invented and grounded upon no warrants of Scripture but that it is repugnant to the Word of God so far is it from being grounded thereupon And the second part of the Homily concerning Prayer is wholly spent in proving That we are to address our Prayers to none but to God himself Where there are excellent Arguments to that purpose and where she does plainly declare that Christ is our onely Mediatour and Advocate as also she does in the Liturgie for the cutting away all pretence for the praying to Saints and does smartly and at once conclude That Invocation is a thing proper to God which if we attribute unto the Saints it soundeth to their Reproach neither can they well bear it at our hands Which is equipollent to the judging of it Idolatry For what is Idolatry but the doing that worship to a creature which is proper to God And therefore she compares it with the Pagans offering sacrifice to Paul at Lystra And how the receiving of Divine honour must redound to the reproach of what-ever Creature receives it I have abundantly Book 1. Ch. 12. Ver. 3. Sect. 4. noted elsewhere I shall onely urge one place more which is very explicit and of great weight The argument runs thus Invocation or Prayer may not be made without faith in him on whom we call but we must first believe in him before we can make our prayer unto him whereupon we must onely and solely pray unto God For to say we should believe in either Angel or Saint or in any other living Creature were mere horrible Blasphemy against God This is a very remarkable passage and a Demonstration that the Invocation of Saints and Angels is flat Idolatry it so plainly implying the acknowledgement of that Excellency which is proper onely to God Nor can our holy Mother the Church be thought to deem it less Idolatry for calling it Blasphemy since all Idolatry is so and is several times called so in Scripture Book 1. Ch. 5. Sect. 11. as I have noted in his due place 3. Now for the second The worshipping of the Host which supposes the Bread trans substantiuted she is most declaredly against both the Opinion and Practice As in
Images kneel before them hold up their hands before them set up Candles burn Incense before them offer up gold and silver unto them hang up ships crutches chains men and women of wax before them attributing health and safeguard the gifts of God to them or the Saints whom they represent as they rather would have it who I say can doubt but that our Image-maintainers agreeing in all Idolatrous Opinions outward Rites and Ceremonies with the Gentile Idolaters agree also with them in committing most abominable Idolatry Truly for my part I must confess I do not at all doubt of it and therefore from such passages as these and several other of the like nature scattered up and down in this excellent Homily of our Church concerning Idolatry and Images do think it an easie Task to prove such a state of the Church as is here described to be the very Image of the Beast foretold in Apoc. 13. 14. the Apocalyps as any man may discern out of my foregoing Discourse But I will give my self the trouble of transcribing one or two more passages as that upon that famous Act of the good King Hezekias in breaking a-pieces the Brazen Serpent when once abused to Idolatry though set up by the special commandment of God and so mysterious a Figure of our Saviour himself How think you saith she would that godly Prince if he were now living handle our Idols set up against God's commandment directly and being Figures of nothing but folly and for Fools to gaze on till they become as wise as the blocks themselves they stare on and so fall down like dared Larks in that gaze and being themselves alive worship a dead stock and stone gold or silver and so become Idolaters abominable and cursed before the living God 6. And again Now concerning excessive decking of Images and Idols with painting gilding adorning with precious vestures pearl and stone what is it else but for the farther provocation and enticement to spiritual Fornication to deck spiritual Harlots most costly and wantonly Which the Idolatrous Church understands well enough For she being indeed not onely an Harlot as the Scripture calleth her but also a foul filthy and withered Harlot for she is indeed of ancient years and understanding her lack of nature and true beauty and great loathsomness which of her self she hath doth after the custome of such Harlots paint herself and deck and tire herself with gold pearl stone and all kinde of precious Jewels that she shining with the outward beauty and glory of them may please the foolish phantasy of fond Lovers and so entice them to spiritual Fornication with her Where it is most manifest that the Church of England doth and that with truth and judgement intimate that that apostatized Church of Rome is prefigured in the Type of the Whore of Babylon accordingly as I have above demonstrated in this present Treatise And answerable to this just Censure is that which we may reade in the following Page Surely the Prophet Daniel in the eleventh Chapter declareth such sumptuous decking of Images with gold silver and precious stones to be a token of Antichrist's Kingdome Wherein undoubtedly allusion is made to those words of the Prophet And a God whom his Fathers knew not shall he Dan. 11. 3â—… honour with gold and silver and with precious stones and pleasant things which is consonant to that sense we have * Ch. 10. above delivered of that Prophecy And as touching that ordinary pretence for Images that they are the Lay-mens Books she doth roundly rebuke the Sophistry of so fond a Plea But away for shame with those coloured Cloaks of Idolatry of the Books and Scriptures of Images and Pictures to teach Idiots nay to make Idiots and stark Fools and Beasts of Christians Do men I pray you when they have the same Books at home with them run on Pilgrimage to seek like Books at Rome Compostella or Jerusalem to be taught by them Do men light Candles at Noon-day to their Books Do they burn incense offer up gold and silver and other gifts to them And a little after Wherefore call them what they list it is most evident by their deeds that they make of them no other Books nor Scriptures then such as teach most filthy and horrible Idolatry as the Users of such Books daily prove by continually practising the same O Books and Scriptures in the which the devillish School-master Satan hath penned the leud Lessons of wicked Idolatry for his dastardly Disciples the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Apocalyps and Scholars to behold reade and learn to God's most high dishonour and their most horrible damnation And at last she winding up towards a Conclusion determines thus True Religion then and pleasing to God standeth not in making setting up painting gilding clothing and decking of dumb and dead Images which be but great Puppets and Babies for old fools in dotage and wicked Idolatry to dally and play with nor in kissing of them capping kneeling offering to them incensing of them setting up candles hanging up legs arms or whole bodies of wax before them or praying and asking of them or the Saints things belonging onely to God to give But all these things be vain and abominable and most damnable before God all such not onely bestowing their money and labour in vain but with their pains and cost purchasing to themselves God's wrath and utter indignation and everlasting damnation both of body and Soul And a little after Wherefore God's horrible wrath and our most dreadful danger cannot be avoided without the destruction and utter abolishing of Images and Idols out of the Church and Temple of God Which to accomplish God put in the minds of all Christian Princes Amen Thus freely zealously and judiciously does our Church of England condemn the Roman Religion of gross Idolatry in all those Points which I have nominated in my Idea nor has she left or appointed any Usage or Ceremony that bears any similitude or has any affinity with that hainous Crime So clear is she from this First part of Antichristianism which is the polluting of the Church of Christ with a Pagan-like Idolatry 7. And now concerning that Second part of Antichristianism opposite to the Second Privative end of the Gospel which was the Removal of that Yoke of Judaical Institutes and Ceremonies in lieu whereof Antichrist brings in an heap and lurry of Superstitious Opinions Rites and Ordinances which prove a load more intolerable not onely then the Law of Moses but the Tyranny of Aegypt itself I demand has not the Church of England by the appointment of the Royall Power of the Nation freed us from this miserable bondage Whose patience is now set on the Tenter-hooks by attending of dumb shows or â—…ish Masses as they are rightly called in our Book of Homilies wherein the Unintelligibleness of the Tongue administers no life nor devotion to the hearer Whose limbs are now tired out with
long Superstitious Pilgrimages exiled from Wife and Children to salute a dead Statue or Image at Rome Compastella or Jerusalem Whose Soul or Body injured by rash and foolish Vows of either Sacerdotal or Monastick Coelibate or whose Wives or Daughters abused by the Hypocritical Professours of the same Whose bosome broke open and rifled by extorted auricular Confessions to the sport of a Profane or Hypocritical Priest and to the clandestine prejudice of the Penitent Whose minde besotted or distracted by the secure belief or unavoidable dissettledness in incredible and even impossible Opinions Is any modest Matron now dismay'd with that Melancholick conceit that she is big with a Child and Devil at once and that that soul Fiend whose proper place is Hell as often as she is pregnant must kennel in her womb Is any man made such a Sot as to creep into a Monk's Coul to shelter himself from the wrathful presence of God or to kiss the Tail of an Ass to be reconciled to his triumphant Rider For in some place saies that Homily is the Tail of the Ass which our Lord Jesus Christ saâ—…e on to be kissed and offered unto for a Relique breaking out thereupon into this just and zealous Exclamation O wicked impudent and most shameless men the devisers of these things O silly foolish and dastardly Daws and more beastly then the Ass whose tail they kissed that believe such things Where I cannot but again note how fitly these Idolatries and Superstitions are resolved into a dastardliness and cowardliness of Minde and how correspondently to the description of those who are excluded the Holy City in the Apocalyps whose first character is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fearful not in regard of that fear which seizes the faint-hearted in warre but of those affrightments that befool men in Religion and is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men whose spirits are cow'd and intimidated by the power of Superstition But to proceed or rather to break off for it were both tedious and unnecessary to repeat all those Particulars I have insisted on in the Description of this limb of Antichristianism Their crouching to exorcized Crosses Their having the light of Reason extinct or drown'd in Holy-Water or enchanted Oils their eyes dimm'd or dazled with the Histrionical Pomp of the masking Vestments of their Priests and their Faith abused to the imagining a wonder-working virtue in them by their being enchanted or consecrated as also in several other exorcized Materials The unseasonable trouble of Extreme Unction and the nasty besmearing the tender Nose and Ears of the Infant in Baptism The vexatious colluctations betwixt the injured Body and illaqueated Conscience about abstaining from meats The Numerousness and Superstition of the Observations of Saints-days The stripping of the Souls of men of the most comfortable fruits of Christ's Suffering making them believe that his Satisfaction reaches not to the sheltering them from the Punishment of sin but from the Guilt onely and lastly The affrighting them out of their wits by that hideous Figment of an Hellish Purgatory and excoriating their Bodies by barbarous and Pagan-like Processionary Flagellations I demand concerning these and what-ever else looks any thing like either an Antichristian Imposition or Imposture belonging to this Second limme of Antichristianism whether the Care and Fidelity whether the unbiassed Judgement and Piety of our Royal and Reverend Reformers have not quite cast them out as the dirt and dung of Superstition 8. I but you will say we do still celebrate Saints-daies and do still keep Lent Surplices are still worn and the Cross in Baptism still in use But to these I easily and briefly answer For the charge is slight and trivial and cannot reach to the least touch of Antichristianism For as for the Saints-daies in our Church they are neither many whereby the Observation of them may become burthensome nor are they Idolatrously or Superstitiously observed there being no Religious worship done to the Saints no Temple nor Altar dedicated to them nor Prayers directed to them but onely an honourable mention made of their Vertues for our Christian Imitation In which thing our Church is very explicite joyning authority with S. Austin and declaring That neither Temples nor Churches ought to be builded or made for Martyrs or Saints but to God alone and that there ought no Priests to be appointed for Martyr or Saint but to God alone as you may see in the second part of the Homily against Peril of Idolatry And he that reads what order she gives for the keeping of these Festivals in her Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical will but betray his Impiety in gain-saying so Religious a Purpose For her Injunction is that these Daies be kept in hearing the Canon 13. Word of God read and taught in private and publick Prayer in acknowledging their offences to God and amendment of the same and in reconciling themselves charitably to their Neighbours where displeasures have been in oftentimes receiving the Communion of the Body and Bloud of Christ in visiting the poor and sick using all godly and sober Conversation And now concerning Lent that our Church puts a snare upon no mans Conscience in difference of Meats is plain out of what we meet with in that eminent Prelate Bishop Jewel in The Defence of his Apology a Part 2. Ch 14. divis 1. Book appointed for every Church by publick Authority where he cites that excellent saying out of Tertullian Deus ventre non colitur nec cibis quos Dominus dicit perire in secessu naturali lege purgari Nam qui per escas Dominum colit prope est ut Dominum habeat ventrem suum He whose Religion is so carnal is but a degree above them that make their Belly their God And in the same Page he speaks from himself and in plain English We weigh not the choice of Fish or Flesh but the burthen of the Minde and the snare of the Conscience The Church herself also doth declare in the Homily of Fasting That there is no Holiness at all in Meats and that it is in itself indifferent whether Lent be kept by eating of Fish or by abstaining from all manner of food till night and then to eat without any choice or difference of meats and that keeping of Lent by abstinence from Flesh is grounded merely upon Policy and thereupon appointed by the Magistrate for the increasing of Victuals Beeves and Sheep for the greater plenty and better provision for the Poor and furnishing out our Navies and for the enriching the Sea-coast-Towns by Fishing and making them more populous and better provided for to repulse the Enemy at any Invasion Which is a very honest and solid account for our celebrating Lent by abstinence from Flesh-meats and feedding on Fish and devoid of all Popery and Superstition And thirdly touching the Pompous Histrionical Vestments of Priests no man can condemn them more heartily or deride them more wittily then our Church
ancient as Christianity it self and runs through not onely part but all those Symmetral Ages of the Church So manifest is it that there is not left in the frame of our English Church any thing of its own nature Antichristianly opposing that Heavenly and Christian Grace of Humility But if we come to take view of Persons who can help it but that a Lay-man may be proud as well as a Clergy-man and a Presbyter as soon as a Bishop So that all would be Antichristian upon this score 10. And it is as evident that there are none of those Oppositions against that celestiall Grace of Purity noted in the twelfth Chapter to be found in our Church And not so onely but I think we may without vanity provided it be done with humble thankfulness to Almighty God who inspired our Heroical Reformers with such exquisite prudence and judgment glory in that excellent and fit constitution of things in our Universities Where none are tied up to the Vows of Coelibate nor confined to separate and solitary cells to be shewn disguised in some uncouth habit with circumcised crowns and moaped or bloated looks as they are wont to shew strange Animals through their several grates at the Tower but live under more free and manly Laws and ingenuous Exercises without either the lash or hypocrisy of Superstition and are appointed to spend their time in such things as may adorn their Souls with real Knowledge and Vertue where also there is an honest and frugal Provision made for them that list to lay their Bodies as well as bury their Minds in the dust of an Academie Which if either Nature or some Diviner power has fitted them for it they may doe with honour and if they be weary of a single life they may leave the University when they will without the least reproach Which ingenuous and Christian freedom in my judgment is infinitely to be preferred before the Superstitious Slavery and Hypocrisy of the Roman Monasteries where people are caged up and imprisoned like so many Captives of the King of Babylon or so many Bond-men or Bond-women of that Mystical Pharaoh to work out imaginary stuff to fill the Churche's Treasury of Merits which are vended for ready money to encrease the Revenue and to support the Pomp of this magnificent Tyrant of Aegypt 11. Lastly Concerning those most Antichristian Oppositions against that transcendent Grace of Charity Our English Church is so far from opposing it that she is exemplary in it condemning the Doctrines and Practices of that worst of Churches no more then needs must and courting the adverse party to her Communion by all lawfull accommodations and compliances in her publick Service if by any means she may gain some of them over to the Truth Whereas on the other side that imperious Woman on the Seven Hills sits like a Queen to whom every one must bow but she neither bend nor condescend to any thing but stands as stiff as a Marpesian Rock for the maintaining her own Humour and Interest though never so point-blank against the Eternal Laws of God and Right Reason Then for that bloudy and butcherly Decree of killing of Hereticks namely such as hold against the Tenents of that Church though those Tenents of this Church be plainly repugnant to express Scripture How contrary to this Antichristian and Diabolical Spirit is the Doctrine of our Church of England who as I have above noted has declared That no Article 20. Church has authority to decree any thing against Holy Writ nor to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation besides it as you may see in the Book of Articles Nor can they justly frame any excuse for their abominable Cruelty from the Sanguinary Laws of this Realm against Priests and Jesuites For what a vast difference is there when the one suffer as Traitors to their Liege Sovereign the other because they will not be Traitors and Rebels to God and the Lord Jesus Christ for every Idolater is so And no man can submit to the Church of Rome but he must ipso facto submit to Idolatry 12. Verily while I consider what an honest and faithfull Spirit breaths in the Book of Homilies and other Writings of our Church and how exquisitely and perfectly we are set free from all that Imposture and Wickedness that can properly be styled Antichristian by the wise management and solid and sound judgment of our renowned Reformers and how that men of this Integrity of mind and soundness in the Faith were then advanced into Power in Church and State by the Sovereign Authority I cannot withhold from declaring that I do not at all doubt but that the Reformation of our English Church into such a condition as I have briefly represented was one eminent Speciminall Completion of the Prophecy of the rising of the Two Witnesses and of that Voice from Heaven that is to say of the Sovereign Power saying unto them Come up hither For every tittle of the Prophecy is exactly applicable to the Event as any one may find that will try Besides that so notable a providence as the Protestant Reformation is no-where prophesied of if not in that Vision For the Vials are none of them within the Sixth Trumpet as the Vision of the Witnesses is but all within the Seventh as I have above plainly enough proved nor they expressive of the first Reformation in the chief Circumstances thereof nor any Vision else save this of the Resurrection of the Witnesses Nor know I any thing that should make a man hesitate unless it be that the Witnesses are said to be raised up after three Days and an half that is to say three Times and an half whenas our Reformation fell within these Times namely in the last Half of a Time But no Observation can be more trivial then this That the designation of Time divided into parts unless some intimation determinate it to one sense may signify either such a space of time fully finished or else expiring in the last division thereof As if one should say Post triduum mortis resurrexit Christus no man can understand that of Christ's being dead three entire days And so Aliquot post menses may as well be rendred Within some months after as After some months And the Seventy do expresly translate that in Genesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ch. 38. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whenas the genuine sense is within three months cùm tertius mensis ageretur as the Marginal Exposition has it in Vatablus Whence it is evident that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not imply the time fully run out but that the last part thereof must then be current And so it is in this Prophecy our Reformation happening in the last Half-Time or Half-Day So easily is this Scruple removed And therefore the Application so fit to the Event that I doubt not but this Vision was a Prediction of it Which therefore should make our Reformation
Antichristian what could be more serviceable or seasonable then to draw such a true and genuine Idea of Antichristianism as that that Church which compared with it will appear to bear so near a resemblance thereto may be for the future ashamed to call us Schismaticks for not Communicating with her and our selves being so fully assoiled from all blemish of what ever is really and truly Antichristian may shame the Sectaries for their Schismaticalness in refusing to Communicate with a Church that is so apparently pure and Apostolical 9. The weightiness of which design I hope may excuse the And that his zeal for her Safety may well excuse this unexpectedness of his appearing again in publick unexpectedness of my appearing again in publick For if Croesus his Son as has been ingeniously apply'd in the like case at the seeing of a Souldier make at his Father with a drawn sword forced himself of a sudden out of his natural dumbness into this articulate vociferation against the Murtherer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 surely all men will think fit forasmuch A. Gel. Noct. Attic. lib. 5. cap. 9. as my dumbness or silence is not natural but a kind of Pythagorick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 arbitrariously imposed upon my self that I should make no scruple to break it upon so indispensable an occasion as the succouring my Mother the Church in so great a jeopardy not being reached at by one hand onely but thrust at on either side or rather as the Psalmist complains being compassed about with her enemies as with a swarm of Bees Psalm 118. But that she may timely quench or extinguish them like the fire of thorns as is said in the same place by the overflowing of the pure waters of the Sanctuary or which is all one destroy them not by the weapons of any Carnal warfare but in the might of the Lord and by the Power of his Spirit ought to be the earnest desire and ardent prayer not of my self onely but of every dutifull Son of so excellent a Mother 10. This is a brief but true account of the Scope and purpose of my writing this Treatise and therefore I am very confident that The summary Conclusion there is no man that is an hearty lover of the Church of England or a due resenter of the common Rights and just Security of Mankind but will be a candid accepter and approver of my pains H. M. A MODEST ENQUIRY INTO THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY BOOK I. CHAP. I. 1. That the Mystery of Iniquity or Antichristianism implies the secret undermining of the Ends of Christianity by such a Power as pretends to be Christian. 2. The inconvenience of describing Antichrist from Circumstantial characters and leaving out the Essential parts of the Description 3. The two general Principles of which Antichristianism does consist 4. The right Artifice of drawing the true Idea of Antichristianism with a distribution of the Draught into the two most general strokes thereof 1. THat the Iniquity of that Mystery we are about to speak of is not open Prophaneness or plainly confessed Wickedness is evident from the very Title in that it is said to be Mysterious covering it self under some shadow or show of Equity or Godliness Which kind of Mystery though it may in some way or measure work in or undermine any Religion at large that was instituted for the real Worship of God and for a Fence against Atheism and Prophaneness yet it cannot be doubted but that by that Mystery of Iniquity that Christians so often have in their mouths is meant such a Mystery as is directed to the defeating the Purpose and enervating the Power and Efficacy and to the hiddenly-undermining the very Foundations of that Religion which is called Christian For which reason they also call this Mystery of Iniquity Antichristianism and style the chief Authour and underpropper thereof be it one single person or body of men by the name of Antichrist whether you understand thereby one that opposes Christ or one that puts himself in the place of Christ pretending to act for but indeed acting against the true Interest of his Kingdom 2. The noise of these words and phrases hath filled Christendom with their Echo for some Ages together But I do not remember that the hottest pursuers after this strange Beast no not they that had thought they had found him and taken him have left so perfect and essential a Description of his nature prescinded from external circumstancâ—… that a man may have a due and full apprehension wherein this Mystery of Antichristianity does really consist and therefore have left the world liable to think those things essential to this Mystery which are not and those not to appertain to it that do As if in the description of a Bear they should be carefull not to omit his collar and ring at his nose and yet leave out some integral parts of the body But such imperfect and indistinct representations as these tend to nothing but the raising mens passions against things that are in themselves innocent and the conniving at those that are truly vicious and hurtfull As if for example a man should declare in gross the Turk Antichrist or the Pope not expressing what it was that did really constitute them such The effect thereof would only be this namely without any further examination to congratulate our selves that we are neither Turks nor Papists though we may really have no small measure of the Mystery of Iniquity in us for all that and to take offence at the sight of a Turbant a Crosier or a Miter or other things that have as little or less hurt if it be possible then these because they are found amongst the Turks or Papists And yet methinks the most furious Reformers should not have so little wit in their wrath as to think the Reformation incomplete till with Mattocks and Spades they have dug down the seven Hills at Rome and flung the earth with shovels towards the four winds of Heaven for all that seems the most obvious circumstantial Characteristick of the Whore of Babylon be that Whore who she will that is to be found in the Scripture 3. We see it therefore very requisite that we may not quarrel with shadows to seek out and propose such a Delineation of Antichristianism as may let goe innocuous circumstances and take in what is truely and essentially Antichristian nor make any thing a part of the Mystery of Iniquity that has not any iniquity in it as we cannot well any confessed Wickedness but as it is the effect of some pretended Holiness In these two things therefore in general does this Mystery of Iniquity or Antichristianism consist First In the instituting of such Laws or autoritatively teaching such Doctrines and promoting or commanding such Practices as naturally defeat and frustrate the true scope and purpose of the Gospel of Christ. And then Secondly In the doing this with such artifice and so fair pretences that
and foul Lust and bloudy Wrath and Zeal for those Idols of Fornication as it fares in enraged Gallants in the behalf of their Mistresses must rule and over-run all The crasseness I say of these Superstitions leaves the mind unmortified and unilluminated but raises a zeal for them both ignorant bloudy and barbarous Which methinks is a sad condition for any Soul to be found in 4. But that this bestial Rage accompanies the love of Idols to omit several Examples in Scripture is a Truth largely writ and testified by the bloud of those innumerable companies of the primitive Martyrs who with so much reproach and so many kinds of tortures were put to death for despising or opposing the ancient Pagan Idolatry as is confessed by all And Idolatry whether Pagan or Christian will naturally dispose them that are really devoted to it to the like cruel fury and madness And though the cruelty of Bear or Wolf seems more the mischief of them that suffer by them then the evil of those beasts themselves yet for that Circe that metamorphoses men into these salvage shapes few or none do doubt but that she injures their humane bodies What a mischievous Circe then is Idolatry that transforms the Mind into such beastly salvageness 5. And as for Uncleanness that it is so close an attendant upon the worship of Idols is also a Truth very often intimated in holy Scriptures as in the Epistle to the Romans where the Apostle expresly affirms that Ch. 1. 26 27. because the Heathen changed the truth of God into a lye and worshipped and served the Creature more then the Creatour or rather besides the Creatour for this cause God gave them up to vile affections the women changing the natural use into that which is against nature and the men likewise leaving the natural use of the women and burning in their lust one toward another men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompence of their errour that was meet Also in the first Book of the Kings upon the mentioning of the building of Ch. 14. 24. high places and Images presently is subjoined That there were also Sodomites in the Land c. The places are so many and so obvious where even unnatural uncleannesses are link'd together with Idolatry that it would be needless as well as tedious to recite them And therefore it is a very suspicable thing that where Idolatry seizeth most on the Church of Christ all manner of uncleanness will there be most rife also 6. But methinks I am too favourable in my charge against Idolatry while I seem to restrain the Mischief of it only to Uncleanness and Cruelty For the Authour of the Book of Wisdom does not stint the effects thereof to these but enlarges them also to Dissimulation Theft Unfaithfulness Tumults Perjury and what not * Ch. 14. 16 27. For the worshipping of Idols saith he not to be named is the beginning cause and end of all evil And S. Paul in the above-named Epistle makes it the fountain of all manner of vices and wickednesses which he doth not rashly but very rationally conclude For even as they did not like to retain God in their Rom. 1. 28 29. knowledge so God saith he gave them over to a reprobate mind to doe those things that are not meet Being filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness full of envy murther debate deceit malignity whisperers back-biters haters of God despightfull proud boasters men of evil machinations disobedient to parents devoid of judgement covenant-breakers without natural affection implacable unmerciful So great a deluge of wickedness breaks in upon men by their being addicted to Idolatry For Apostatizing from God by this hainous sin God also forsakes them as the Apostle intimates And besides The sottishness of Idolatrous worship that calls out the Affections to such gross and unfitting objects does naturally lay the sense of better things asleep and extinguish the true life of Religion which is the renewing the Mind into the Image or similitude of God and Christ which consists in an holy and peaceable love and in a pure chast and unpolluted spirit unspotted of the vain desires of this present world Whence the introduction of Idolatry into the Church of Christ must needs be the overflowing it with all manner of vice and wickedness But that consideration belongs rather to the next point The Mischief that redounds to the Church from Idolatry to which I shall immediately pass after I have but briefly intimated one Mischief more which falls upon the Idolater himself and of which I think he will be most sensible and it is only this That he shall have his portion in the Lake that burneth with Rev. 21 〈◊〉 fire and brimstone which is the second Death that is to say that eternal Death and destruction that will assuredly attend all such enemies of God 7. The Mischief that accrues to the Church from Idolatry I have partly hinted already namely that it is the most likely way to debauch her with all other manner of vices and does ipso facto transform her who should approve herself the pure Spouse of Christ into the abhorred condition of an Harlot To which you may adde those great agonies and aggrievances of spirit that the true members of Christ are cast into by beholding such abominable practices besides their personal unsafety and danger of barbarous persecutions and those hard trialls and disquieting solicitudes that naturally will attempt them as they are men consisting of mortal flesh and liable to all the evils it exposes them to and finally the actual injuries reproaches imprisonments and multifarious Deaths that would fall upon the sincerest part of the body of Christ for opposing or refusing to partake with others in their Idolatrous Abominations 8. And yet this is not all There is still a very grand Mischief behind and exceeding considerable done to the Church by this fearfull sin of Idolatry and that is The hinderance of her spreading and propagating herself in the world It is part of our Christian Faith as we make profession of it in the Nicene Creed That there is One Catholick and Apostolick Church Which implies that the Church has a right to be Catholick to be universally spred over the face of the Earth and that the true and proper Character of this Catholick Church is to be Apostolical That whatsoever Nation or People or part of any Nation or People profess that Doctrine and Discipline which was delivered by Christ and his Apostles become immediately thereby part of the Catholick Church and those that profess and enjoyn Doctrines and practices that are Anti-Apostolical run the hazzard of losing the true title of Catholick and of making themselves indeed no part of the Church of Christ. And certainly Idolatry is as Anti-Apostolical as contrary to the Apostolick Doctrine as any thing can be Wherefore the introduction thereof into the Church of
them from any material blemishes as being so exceeding necessary for the continuance of those Truths that were published by such men as accordingly as I have already intimated were Divinely and Infallibly inspired And that there were such Writings sufficient for the conveyance of the knowledge of Christ written by them that were infallible Witnesses of the Truth and that we may be assured that those which commonly bear the Title of them are they I have without any recourse to the Infallibility of the Church so plainly demonstrated in my Explanation of the Book 7. chap. 10 11. Mystery of Godliness that I think it needless to say any thing further of it in this place 2. In the second place they will pretend That the Church must be Infallible or else there will want an Infallible Judge of Controversies nay there will not be so much as any Authority in the Church to order the affairs thereof But the Answer is easie and brief That there is no want of any such Infallible Judge and therefore not of the Churche's Infallibility for the Scripture is a Sufficient Rule of Faith to all that have understanding whether Learned or unlearned in things necessary to Salvation and That the belief and practice of these will carry a man to Heaven The Spirit of God therefore is the onely Infallible Judge here and has declared as plainly as any successive Judges can in those things that are necessary to Life and Salvation what is to be believed and to be done Which if we believe and practise in particular and do also in general and implicitly believe and stand in a readiness to obey the rest of the Scripture when the sense thereof appears to us we are in a safe condition and need not doubt but it will go well with us in the other State For it is manifest that what is necessary is plain in the Word of God to all men otherwise Salvation were not sufficiently revealed to the world and what we above recited out of St. Paul were not true nor the Providence of God sufficiently watchful in the laying the first Foundations of his Church 3. For if the Scripture were not a Sufficient Infallible evidence of all necessary Truths God would have afterwards raised other persons of Apostolical purity in conversation and with the like power of working Miracles to have made a Supplement to the former which yet was never done or else those other necessary Truths taught indeed by the first Apostles but not written by them had been committed to Tradition which had been a very lubricous and perillous way and unlikely to be taken by Divine Providence But if any such way had been taken certainly the Scripture it self in which all men are agreed would have pointed it out to us as also if there had been any Interpreter instituted that there might be infallibly communicated to us what remains necessary to our eternal safety But the Scripture being silent herein it openly declares it self to be Sufficient to all such as with sincerity and care apply themselves to the understanding of it as certainly every man considering that his eternal Salvation lies upon it will be enforced to doe in his own behalf whenas if others interpret for him they may doe it more remissly or more fraudulently 4. Besides that it is a very unskilfull and inept desire that there should be any such Infallible Judge that has concluded all Controversies to our hands already For that would prevent or forestall that privacy and peculiarity of converse which God has with those Souls that are more dear to him who does in a special manner assure them of such Conclusions as are not to be reached at by every hand But when the Infallible Determination of the Church has passed all mens assurances will be alike and God will have as it were given the staff out of his own hands Wherefore there being no external Infallible Judge for the Interpreting obscure places in Scripture God's right of his dispensing his special favours is preserved and men of a more devout and Intellectual spirit are divinely employed and earnestly engaged to extraordinary piety and holiness that they may win the favour of that inward Infallible Interpreter even of that Holy Spirit which the World cannot receive and by the light of his assistence be inabled to reach the true sense of those Writings which himself dictated to the Apostles and other Holy men of God 5. And lastly That the want of Infallibility will take away the Authority of the Church is a very weak Inference For her Authority is entire in the urging those Truths and Duties in Scripture that are plain to all men even to such as do not in the least dream that they are Infallible And those that are thus plain are such as are the most useful for our safe conduct to Heaven And for those Doctrines that be more obscure if they be withall useful and edifying as also Rites and Ceremonies the Church has Authority though she be not Infallible to declare them and appoint them Let all things be done decently and in order But how she is to behave her self to Dissenters having spoke of that more copiously elsewhere 2 Cor. 14. 40. I shall not here so much as touch upon it I will onely adde That in things that are really disputable I conceive it is the duty of every one whatever his private judgment and inclinations otherwise would be to compromise with the Authority of the Church and for Peace and Order sake to be concluded by their Determinations 6. Now what has been already suggested will serve to null or enervate a third Sophism For it seems a plausible Objection against the Scripture alone being sufficient to guide us and rule us without a publick Infallible Interpreter That this were as if one should contend that the Law alone in Civil matters were sufficient without a publick Judge For besides what we above insinuated That a plain Law and such we averre the Scripture to be in matters necessary to Salvation may want no Judge where the Conscience finds it self upon pain of Damnation obliged to understand it aright we further suggest That the urging or pressing of the Law of Christ by a publick Minister Interpreter or Declarer of the sentence of his Law so far as it is plainly his to all unprejudiced Understandings as well unlearned as learned is not denied by those that contend that the Scripture is the sole Rule of Faith And for my own part as I said before in places that are not thus plain if such Interpretations be made as are not repugnant to other plain Texts of Scripture but tend to the promotion of the Ends of the Gospel which I have elsewhere specified I hope no man shall offend God but doe his dutie to the Church in compromising with them in their sentiments of things in such circumstances as these For they are supposed conscienciously and in the Fear of
from the proportion of the Outward Court to the Inward that it was Symmetral till about that time Which approvable Ages of the Church were the Pattern of our English Reformation Besides that as I have already intimated the said Reformation is an eminent Speciminal completion of the Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Witnesses So that the Rectitute thereof is ratified as well from those Visions that prefigure the Recovery of the Church as from those that signify her primaevall Purity Nor can those Perstrictions of the less perfect condition of things which I elsewhere have noted touching the Reformed Churches be rightly conceived to concern our English Church both because it had disappeared in a manner when I penned that Treatise as also because of her special immunity from those Imputations as may appear from my Vindication of her at the end of this present Discourse And as for the whole Protestant Reformation I must freely and ingenuously confess I had something a lesser value for it then it does deserve being born down by the authority of our best Interpreters into a belief that we were not yet past the Sixth Trumpet much less had advanced any thing in the Seventh According to which supposition some things have passed my Pen in the Mystery of Godliness which I here take the opportunity of recalling judging it with Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Etbic Nicom lib. 1. cap. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which duty is more indispensable in Theologie Though here I must confess I do not so much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mistake being not originally mine but others Which yet I the more easily swallowed down by reason of my Computing the Woman's abode in the Wilderness and the mournfull condition of the Witnesses by Days and not by Semi-Times as the Three days and Half did indigitate By the former of which Computes the Woman could not be come out of the Wilderness nor the Witnesses be rose from the dead till about this time But reckoning by Semi-times the Protestant Reformation will very easily and naturally be a Speciminall Completion of the Prophecy of their Resurrection it plainly happening in the last Half-Day or Semi-Time according to prediction Nor does the Prophecy require any greater accuracy of Compute then so Which I confess is a great ease to my mind in the Apprehension of things For examining the Frame of our Church and finding it such as I have represented it in the two last Chapters of this Book it was so near to what according to my best Judgment I could desire and had hinted at in some passages of my Mystery of Godliness that methought it fared so with me in this matter as it did once with a musing companion of mine and myself in a short Journey we took together when we asked the way to a certain Town we were to go to even then when we had already unawares got into the midst of it The Reddition is very easy and obvious But nothing then puzzled me but my compute by Days as I said instead of Semi-times which hindred me from rightly applying so illustrious an Event to the Prediction But correcting that errour as also a false surmize that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies the full expiration of the time to which it is prefixed the Application of the Prophecy proved very easy to me nor do I at all doubt but that it is a Prediction of the Protestant Reformation in Christendom in general Of which notwithstanding this of the Church of England seems the most noble Specimen and the Resurrection of the Witnesses and their Ascension more high more full more orderly and more answerable to the Vision here then any where else that I know 17. And as if Providence had a more special eye to this Church A peculiar Attestation to the Church of England in the Completion of the Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Witnesses above the rest of the Reformed Churches and to the Platform of the Reformation thereof then to any other as it indeed seems to me to exceed all the rest in several main Respects as in her moderation in the Cinq-Points her perfect freeness from all manner of superstitious and imposturous Opinions and Usages her declaredness concerning things indifferent and apert profession of them to be such and her Loyal Obsequiousness to the Sovereign Power with others of the like nature which at least joyntly considered make her condition peculiar so she seems to me also to have a more full and peculiar privilege in her being witnessed to from above then any of the rest have For beside her Resurrection in the East Reformation which fell within the last Semi-time and is common to her with the rest she has had of late after she was suppressed and in a manner extinct for so many years together another most glorious and unexpected Resuscitation to life our Zerobabel and Jesuah that is to say that Regal and Episcopal Power of England which were the first Founders and Establishers and are now the present Restorers and Upholders of so well a constituted Church being so happily and providentially restored again to the Nation What is this but another Resurrection from the dead to the slain Witnesses and a second Testimonie from Heaven to the Sacredness and Inviolableness of our English Reformation and that beyond all cavil and exception it falling out not within the last Semi-Time at large as the former did but just at the expiration thereof or if you will of the 1260 Days For taking a fit Epocha for the matter in hand which concerns the purely Christian and Antichristian Periods of the Church and I think there can be none more fit then that year wherein so many were converted to the faith at Antioch insomuch that the Church was then first called Christian which was the fourtieth year from the Nativity of Christ if we adde to these fourty years 360 the time of the Churche's continuing Symmetral and 1260 the time of the mournfull Prophecy of the Witnesses or of their Political Death the very last year of the whole summe is the year 1660 Which therefore must be the last year of the Witnesses sad and calamitous condition And lo to the admiration of the whole world in the very self-same year is the restoring of our English Protestant Regal and Episcopal Power our Moses and Aaron do not onely stand upon their feet but ascend into Heaven in a cloud the whole world looking up and wondring at them Can there be a more fit fulfilling of the Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Witnesses then this or a more ample Testimonie to the Excellency of our English Reformation such as I have decyphered at the end of this Book then this completion of the Prophecy or lastly a more urgent obligation from Divine Providence upon these so miraculouslyrevived Witnesses for the perfecting of Faith and Holiness Whom God seems on purpose after his
man But there is no numbering of one Number given but by extracting of the Root 10. Wherefore as the Square-Root of 36. may rightly be conceived to detect that that famed Tetractys had a relation to the Hexameron of Moses and signified that every Day 's Creation had its Foeminine Principle as well as Masculine the First it self not excepted which is consonant to that Aphorism of the Jews Nulla virtus divina descendit sine indumento and to Moses his assimilating the First Day 's Creation to Light so the Square-Root of this Number of the Beast may also detect to whom this Vision of the Two-horned Beast doth belong And I have already shewed in my Mystery of Godliness that the Root of this Number is 25 and that Book 5. Ch. 16. Sect. 8. it does plainly agree with several substantial Observables concerning the Church of Rome and their City and that in a perfect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to 12 which is the Root of 144 the number of the Regiments that appear with the Lamb on Mount Sion Which things being sufficiently cleared in the said Treatise and may be more copiously understood out of Mr. Potter I shall spare to speak any thing farther of them in this place but wholly remit the Reader thither for satisfaction 11. In the mean time I will not stick to conclude that it is apparent Paral. 2. Agr. 9. partly from what I have delivered there and partly from what is added in this place That the Seat as well of the Two-horned Beast as of the Whore is at last in their respective Visions determined to Old Rome as being the most permanent and conspicuous Residence of the Apostatized Priesthood and such as by being so notorious an Instance of this Wickedness becomes a Measure and Rule of comparing and judging of the greatness of the Apostasy of other Churches by their nearer accession and agreement to this Queen of Harlots And therefore by intimating the Name Number and Seat of this chief part of the Apostatized Clergy it gives us the clear knowledge and fast apprehension of the whole corrupted Body and all the parts thereof where-ever and how long soever they be found within the Boundaries of the Roman Empire But when once they are swallowed up and washed off by some extraneous Power and fall under the Jurisdiction of some other Empire I must confess though we may judge these too by this measure I do not see how they then can so well be concerned or aimed at in these two Prophecies both the Two-horned Beast and the Whore being look'd upon as Riders and Guiders of the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns and therefore supposed within the Roman Empire Which is a plain cause why these Prophecies have laid so fast hold on the Church of Rome in the conclusion of them as if she were in a manner solely concerned For it was fit so to doe by reason of her Permanency in Duration as well as Eminency in wickedness Which may be one reason also why this body of the adulterate Clergy is called the Beast with two Horns because all those Patriarchates annumerated to the Greek Church were betimes swept away a new Empire overflowing them whenas the Patriarchate of Constantinople was free from this inundation till about two hundred years ago So faithful is the Spirit of Prophecy in the Prefiguration of Events as he may easily see that pleases to consult History In the mean time as I said it is manifest enough that the Seat as well of the Whore as the Two-horned Beast in each Vision is determined to Old Rome Which is the last Agreement of our first Parallelism 12. As the last of our second is That the Seat of the Seven-headed Par. 2. Agr. 1â—… Beast is left free in either Vision and not fixt to any Metropolis Indeed the Seven Heads of the Beast being also interpreted of the Seven Hills of Rome it is apparent that the Beast has some relation to that place and must have some Title or denomination from that City else why should the Beast's Heads have any thing to doe to typifie those Seven Hills But the Prophecy as it were datâ operâ declining the fixing the Imperial Seat of the Seven-headed Beast bestows that Privilege on the Whore assigns her the Seven-Hilled seat saying The seven Heads are seven Hills where the Whore sitteth Which is admirably agreeable to the event For indeed Rome has been the constant See of the Whore but the Seat of the Seven-headed Beast has been very changeable some time at Rome then at Constantinople and lastly in Germany 13. And thus we have seen the exquisite Congruity and Coincidence of all the parts of the Visions of these Thirteenth and Seventeenth Chapters one with another which though they be so accurately correspondent yet I must confess not altogether so adequately but that the Vision of the Whore bears a more press and close respect to the Church of Rome all along and besides the plain designment of her Seat which is common to both her gorgeous attire and bloud-thirstiness or rather her being so lavishly bloud-drunk as she is described seems to appropriate the Vision more peculiarly to her then the Greek Church Which Drunkenness as well as Gorgeousness of Apparrel though it be not all along the reign of the Whore yet according to the nature of these Prophetick Figures which exhibit the whole Succession of affairs under one joint show they were without any discrimination to be represented at once Which Consideration may take off any the like scruple in these Prophetick Schemes and Representations For what was done but for a while adorns those Images as much as what is permanent there being no mention of Succession of time but all represented at once 14. And therefore though that Inscription Mysterium upon the Pope's Crown which was questionless in imitation of the Inscription on Aaron's Mitre all his vestments and ornaments being so industriously imitated in the Pontifical Habiliments be now turned into Julius Pontifex Maximus yet it is not the less probable that it was glanced at in this Description of the Whore The truth of which Story Bishop Dounham does assert with all imaginable confidence Quod autem ait in fronte Meretricis De Antichristo lib. 1. cap. 7. scriptum fuisse nomen Mysterium id in Romano Pontifice completum esse pro comperto habemus Which passage is so confessed a truth that Lessius in his Answer to King James could not deny it Wherefore as our Saviour Christ's uttering that first verse of the twenty second Psalm My God my God why hast thou forsaken me intimated to the world that the whole Psalm was a Prophecy of his Passion so this first word of the Name of the Whore of Babylon on the Papal Tiara was an indication that the whole Name or Title belonged to the Pope with his Clergy and that they are this Great Whore that has made drunk the
as also of adoring of what they eat 5. The minute multiplication of the Pagan Deities compared with and found to be out-gone by this Pagano-Christian Church in the Presidents of Physick and Rural Affairs 6. As also in the Presidents of Trades or Courses of Living 7. The Saints and Heathen Deities compared in their Offices and how punctually they have surrogated the Blessed Virgin into the place of Venus and the Moon 8. Most lively Lineaments of Restored Paganism in dedicating the Pantheon to the Virgin and all the Saints as also the Seven Hills to seven several Saints in erecting Altars and Images thereon in adorning these Images in appointing Festivals in Adoration and Prayers in Oblations of Wax-candles and Incense in carrying their Images in Procession and hiding them in Lent 9. In Vows Oathes Deifying deadmen Pilgrimages Miraculous Cures with the Monuments of them hung up in the Temples 10. In Aspersions and Purifications by Holy Water 11. In the driving away the Devil by the jangling of baptized Bells 12. In their Jubilees and general manner of celebrating their Festivals 13. In fetching in May in running about the fields with light Torches in their hands in sprinkling their Beasts with Holy Water by the Friars of S. Antony in leaping over S. John's Fires in Baptismal Spittle in their Master of Misrule at Christmas in their Carnavals and other Festivals 14. That the Image of the Beast is also in some sort revived in their Funerals 15. But more considerably in their Religious Fraternities under this or that Saint 16. As also in their shorn Crowns in their Vows of Virginity and in their Ninevites or Flagellants 17. In their pretence of bringing down Christ bodily and personally at the Mass 18 19. As also in their more pompous Processions 20. The great Usefulness of the Observation of the punctual correspondency of the Events hitherto to the Predictions touching the state of the Church 21. His amazement and astonishment at Grotius that he should decline so clear and easie a meaning of the Image of the Beast and take up with one so impossible and so unprofitable 1. I Must confess that the mere changing of the Empire into a Superstitious and Idolatrous condition again though there were not either any study of or heedless coincidence with the particular Modes of that Idolatry and Superstition that was before yet for the general Agreement therein the Empire thus relapsed might be rightly said to be the Image of the former state thereof But since there is a more particular Resemblance even to Affectation or else by a strange Fatality it will not be amiss to note some few of those many Instances that occurre for the greater light and fuller assurance that by the Image of the Beast is understood this Idolatrous and Paganly-Superstitious Relapse 2. And truly that this Image was not made by chance but by imitation has been already observed even by them that lived in the Roman Church and who in some sort justifi'd it as Polydore Virgil in his Prooeme to his five last Books De Rerum Inventoribus where he says that the Fathers did receive their Rites and Ceremonies from the Pagans sed in bona illorum parte recipienda piè ac cum causa fecisse quippe qui gentes etiam barbaras ad verae pietatis cultum ducere aventes arbitrati sunt humanitatis condimentis tractandas cùm earum instituta haud prorsus horruerint nec sustulerint sed meliora fecerint quò nè ullum religionis periculum crearetur c. Where he seems to speak the sense of Gregory the Great in his Epistle to Mellitus where he would have the Offerings Lib. 9. Epist. 71. to Daemons rather changed then abolished and that the Feasts of the Gods should be turned into the celebration of the Festivals of the Saints the Repository of whose Reliques he would after the manner of the Pagans have adorned with leaves and boughs of Trees at the Days dedicated to their Name And Theodoret bluntly confesses That the Festivals of De Curaendis Grac. Affect Sermon 8. S. Peter S. Paul S. Marcellus S. Thomas c. succeed in the room of the Dionysia Diasia Pandia and other Solemnities of the Pagans Which shews a timely affectation of reviving the slain Beast in every limb and proportion And lastly Durandus takes so little shame at the imitation of the Heathenish Customs that he is not content to compare their Dedication of Churches with the Temple of the Jews but immediately addes the Example of the Dedication of that Babylonish Image in Daniel Nabuchodonosor etiam Rex vocavit omnes Satrapas Optimates ad Dedicationem Statuae aureae quam fecerat Which had been more fit to mention in the Consecration of Images But not to trouble our selves with their professions the effect will declare their propension to the ancient Heathenish Rites and Customs as I shall make plain by several brief Instances 3. As first in those Divine Honours which I have above intimated that the Pope does affect and accept as also the kissing of his Feet What are these but an imitation of the Pagan Caesars who received Divine Honours even before they were dead And how much less Idolatrously does Dominus Deus noster Papa sound concerning the Bishop of Rome then Edictum Domini Deique nostri of the Roman Emperour Domitian Of whom also Lampridius and Aurelius Victor testifie that affectation Passus est adorari se appellarique uti Deum whom therefore the Pope does very lively imitate who also from Diocletian and other Emperours did learn the holding out his Foot to kiss And as Numa constituted Martius the son of Marcus whom he made Pontifex Maximus judicem ac arbitrum rerum aequè divinarum ut humanarum as Festus relates so the Pope upon the pretence of his Universal Pontificate claims a right to both Swords and will be Caesar as well as Bishop as the Roman Caesars before him were as well Pontifices Maximi as Emperours Which are lively strokes in the Revival of the Image of the Beast To which you may farther adde his Senate of purpurate Cardinals answering to the purpurate Senators which the Emperours had in their Government and the power of Canonizing Saints residing in these Cardinals with the Pope answering to that of the Senate of Rome in whom was the right of Apotheosis or of enrolling deceased men in the number of the Gods appointing them Temples Altars Statues Festivals as the Pope and Cardinals doe to the deceased Saints that have deserved well of the Church of Rome See Polydore Virgil de Rerum Inventoribus where 〈◊〉 lib. 6. cap. 8. he affirms that this was an imitation of the old Roman Custom with all imaginable assurance Hujus rei rationem nostri Pontifices secuti non duhitanter videri possunt 4. Again as the old Pagans had their Tutelar Deities of Kingdoms and Provinces and Cities Dii quibus imperium hoc steterat And I have already
and the punishments thereof Consect XI That the Authority of neither Fathers nor Councils after 400 years from Christ or thereabout is of any validity to determine Controversies against the Protestant Churches touching those things which the Church of Rome and they disagree in 10. This naturally follows from the Epocha of Antichristianism falling about that time we mention After which the Church being supposed in some measure lapsed into that great Apostasy neither the Fathers Doctrines nor her Councils can have right to decide the Controversies betwixt the Papists and us so as authoritatively to testifie against us But it is observable that their Testimony will hold good against the Papists in such Points as they contradict them in because they are in that witnesses of the successive minde of the Church as yet unaltered by this growing Corruption or at least testify matter of fact against the false Pretences of the Popish Traditions Consect XII That all Visions that are Synchronal to this of the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns which is said to continue fourty two moneths have necessarily the extent of one thousand two hundred and sixty years 11. To be Synchronal is as much as to begin continue and end together Whence it is plain that that which is Synchronal to what continueth 1260 years must it self continue so many years But the 42 moneths of the Beast are 1260 years by the first Consectary Which is a plain Demonstration of the truth of this last The use of which Consectary is of very great moment for the detection of the falshood of such petty Expositions as some put upon those Visions which are Synchronal to this of the restored Beast For extend them but upon this measure of time and they will all crack and break into fitters and thereby which I would have thus timely taken notice of excuse me from any farther Confutation of them Wherefore it will be worth the while to take notice of all those Visions that are Synchronal to this of the restored Beast it being so necessary a Method to be assured of the right sense of them and to discern more certainly in what Prophecies of the Apocalyps those Lineaments of Antichristianism which I have noted in my foregoing Treatise are prefigured 12. In the mean time I need not I think re-minde my Reader that the Visions of these two Chapters which I have thus carefully interpreted do plainly foretel that grand part of Antichristianism which consists in Idolatrous worship how it should over-run the Empire by the seduction and activity of an Imposturous Clergy figured out in the Type of the Beast with two Lamb-like Horns but that would speak like the Dragon and re-introduce the Image of old Paganism again under the colour of a more heightned Devotion and Affection toward Christ the Blessed Virgin and the rest of the Saints and Martyrs As also in the Type of the Whore of Babylon who is called the Mother of Fornications and Abominations of the Earth that is of Idolatry and Pagan-like Worship who 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Kings of the Earth and all the Inhabitants thereof with the Cup of the filthiness of her Fornications that is seduces them to Idolatry Hoc enim est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idololatriae calicem as Grotius himself has interpreted it Wherefore these are two notable Predictions of the Apostasy of the Church into Heathenish and Idolatrous worship But I shall also produce others out of the same Book after I have prepared the way by making good certain Synchronisms thereunto appertaining CHAP. VI. 1. The Synchronism of the Whore the Two-horned Beast the restored Beast or the Beast that was and is not and yet is demonstrated out of our Joint-Exposition 2. To which the False-Prophet is also proved Synchronal the Virgin-Company the Two Witnesses the Woman in the Wilderness and the Outward Court as being either the fame Antistoechal or necessarily connected all along with them 3. Again in a more abstract way That the restored Beast the Woman in the Wilderness the Outward Court the Two Witnesses are of equal time 4. That the Woman in the Wilderness and the restored Beast begin together and therefore are Synchronal 5. That the restored Beast and Two Witnesses are Synchronal as ending together 6. That the Two Witnesses and Outward Court are Synchronal as both beginning and ending together And all these four Synchronal to the Whore and Two-horned Beast because the Two-horned Beast and the Whore are Synchronal to the restored Beast to which the other three are Synchronal 7. That the Virgin-Company and the Sealed out of the twelve Tribes are all one Company and therefore both Synchronal to the Whore by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consequently with the rest of the fix with whom She is Synchronal 8. That the said Sealed Virgin-Company is Synchronal to the Series of the first six Trumpets as being sealed immediately before the blast of the first Trumpet and as being Synchronal to the Mourning of the Witnesses which ceases at the end of the sixth Trumpet 9. The six first Seals the Fight of Michael and the Dragon and the Inward Court proved Synchronal 10. That the Vision of * Apocal. 11. measuring the Temple begins from the first Epocha indicated from the quality of the Person that holds in his hand the opened Book 11. From his supplying the place of the seventh Angel and the space of the seventh Trumpet with seven Thunders 12. From the suspending of the sound of the seventh Trumpet to make a Regression 13. From the newness or new condition of the Book in the Angel's hand 14. From the voice communing or talking with John from Heaven as in the beginning of the Prophecies of the Seals 15. From the bitterness of the Book in his belly From his being bid again to prophesy and that before many Kings and Peoples and Nations 16. From the Epocha of the Vision of the * Apocal. 12. ensuing Chapter 17. The Synchronism of the first six Seals with the Inward Court of weighty concernment 18. The Millennial Empire of Christ the Palm-bearing Company the New Jerusalem and the Ligation of Satan that they are all in some sense Synchronal to the Seventh Trumpet 1. THat the Beast with seven Heads in the Thirteenth Chapter is Synchronal with the Beast that carries the Whore in the Seventeenth is plain in that they are the very self-same Beast in every Respect as appears out of my Joint-Exposition That the Whore of Babylon also and the Two-horned Beast are the self-same Thing is made evident in the same Exposition and therefore they must be Synchronal unless one and the same thing can begin to be after it has continued in Being and continue after it ceases to be That the Whore or the Two-horned Beast is Synchronal to the Seven-headed with ten Horns in these two Chapters is evident in that the Two-horned Beast is the Reviver and Healer of this Seven-headed Beast or Restorer
Saints in Daniel 5. That our Interpretation of the Woman in the Wilderness does not clash with Mr. Mede's though different from it 6. The third synchronal the Virgin-Companie The meaning of the Number of their Regiments and of the new Song which none could learn besides them 7. How the Vision of these Virgin-souldiers implies the Lapse of the Church into Idolatry 1. BEsides those notable and leading Prophecies of the Idolatry of the Church in the Thirteenth and Seventeenth Chapters of the Revelation there are farther Intimations of the same Lapse in other places Indeed no less then six of the seven Middle Synchronals of the Prophecies of the opened Book are Predictions of this Idolatrous state of the Church Three of which we have done withall namely the Whore of Babylon the Two-horned Beast and the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns The first of those three behind is the Outward Court or Holy City troden under foot by the Gentiles for the space of 42 months Which Apoc. 11. Outward Court or Holy City that it is to be understood of those that make a visible profession of Christianity in the world appears from the evidence of the Synchronisms that of the Temple or Inward Court reaching from the beginning of the Church to the time of its Lapse into such a Condition as was not commensurable to the Reed of the Angel and therefore rejected The Court that is without the Temple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cast it out so the words signify But the Outward Court belongs to the Inward and the Jews having been cast off long before it is plain from hence that all this is understood of Christendom Nor is it any more wonder that the Jewish Temple or Courts thereof should typify the Christian Church then that their Tribes did Chap. 7. For this is but an usual Israelism Wherefore Christendom being the Scene of these Transactions and it being presently after added concerning this Outward Court that it is given to the Gentiles and that they shall tread under foot the Holy City fourty two months which Holy City and Outward Court is in a maâ—…ner the same thing the very Camp of Israel being the Outward Court in the Wilderness and this Outward Court the Receptacle of the People of Israel at their solemn times of worship when the Temple was built as Mr. Mede has well observed it is evident Christendom was to be over-run with Gentilism that is with Paganism the life and soul whereof is Idolatry so long a time forasmuch as the Holy City or Outward Court is supposed here in being that is to say a people that do profess Christianity and are externally dedicated to God but in the interim are over-grown with an Heathenish kind of Superstition and Idolatry And in that this Outward Court is said to be given to the Gentiles that is answerable to what is wrote in Ch. 17. For God has put it into their hearts Ver. 17. to fulfill his will and to agree and give their Kingdom unto the Beast untill the words of God shall be fulfilled So fatal as I may so speak does this Apostasy of the Church seem to be and so little reason have those great Politicians of Italy to sacrifice to their own Nets as I have above noted and impute all to their own wit when they have apparently hitherto rowed with the stream But the times are coming wherein they will find the course of things turned and their Resistence of a due Reformation a fighting against God Which is worth their observing that they may take up in due time 2. The next of those latter Synchronalls is The Woman in the Wilderness namely That Woman that * Apocal. 12. 1. wears upon her head a Crown of twelve Starrs whose glory it is to be that pure and Apostolick Church uncontaminated with after-Superstitions and Idolatries that Woman that is said * Vers. 2. to travail in birth and was pained to be delivered and after long throes and pangs that is to say sharp persecutions at last * Vers. 5. brought forth a Male-childe that should rule the Nations This Woman not changing place herself is notwithstanding said * Vers. 14. to have the wings of an Eagle given her whereby she fled into the Wilderness there to be secured from the persecution of the old red Dragon which is the bloudy Pagan Powers of the Roman Empire as yet unconverted to Christianity And indeed by being thus escaped though but into a Wilderness she was sheltred from them But in that she is said to be in a Wilderness it is an intimation that she is hid and blended amongst them that under the outward profession of Christianity did again Paganize in their Superstitious and Idolatrous Worship as you may understand out of the acknowledged meaning of Wilderness in the Prophetick-Alphabet For that Men not a mere Solitude of Trees and Beasts is understood by Wilderness is plain also out of that in the Evangelist The voice of one crying in the wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths straight Which he spoke not to Beasts Matt. 3. 3. and Trees but to Men whom these resemble when they are wholly taken up in the functions and delights of the mere Vegetal and Animal nature of which Superstition and Idolatry is one part as I have above intimated 3. The sense therefore of this Prophecy is this That the pure and Apostolick Church though sheltered therewithall for a time from the red Dragon was over-run with a kind of Christiano-Paganism from one side to the other from the East wing to the West wing of the Eagle or Roman Empire which because it had its Eastern and Western Caesars is figured with two wings and that with greater facility then the Leopard in * Chap. 7. 6. Daniel with four which signified the quadripartition of the Greek Empire into four parts This therefore intimates the Greek Church as well as the Latine to be culpable in this matter of Idolatrous worship correspondently to what I have said of the two Horns of the Beast that they intimate the two Imperial Patriarchates that of Rome and the other of Constantinople the two chief Summities of the Idolatrizing Clergie This I doubt not but is the meaning of the Woman in the Wilderness though it seems something hard that she is said to fly into this Desert this Desert rather coming upon or over-running her in the thing signified 4. But it is an Hypallage of which this is no solitary Example but like that of casting Hades into the lake of fire and brimstone whenas that fire is rather cast into Hades at the Conflagration of the world by Thunder and Lightening 2 Figure even needlesly affected for Elegancy sake by Poets Brutium ponto feriente Corum Such an Hypallage as this I suspect also to be in Daniel ch 7. where he speaks of the Kingdoms under the whole Heaven being given to the Saints of the most High
the Fourth Monarchy 10. That the course of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of the Reign of Antichrist is indigitated by those Numbers of Days in the last of Daniel 1. TO these Middle Synchronalls of the Book-Prophecy we will onely adde the Vision of the Sixth Trumpet the Prediction of S. Paul concerning the Apostasy of the Latter times and that Prophecy in Daniel from whence he seems to have drawn that Prediction and then we shall have done And truly the Vision of the Sixth Trumpet is very signal and notorious That it is meant concerning the Turks invading Christendom according as Mr. Mede has interpreted I have abundantly made good against Grotius in my * Book 5. Ch. 16. Sect. 5. Mystery of Godliness To which we adde briefly That it is plain that the Invasion of these Euphratean Horsemen is long after the Empire became Christian nay indeed Pagano-Christian forasmuch as it is the Sixth Trumpet the last of those that taken together in order Synchronize with the reign of the Pagano-Christian Power The Beast that was and is not and yet is And for the place as well as the time that it was the Empire to which this Vision belongs appears from that often-repeated Character whereby it uses to be denoted the proportion of a third part For the * Apocal. 9. 15. third part of men are here said to be killed But that the Roman Empire was look'd upon by S. John as the third part of the known World in his Age is evident in that Description of the red Dragon with seven Heads and ten Horns in that he is said to have struck down the third part of the Starrs with his tail to the ground Apocal. 12. 4. Moreover the posture of these Horsemen was such as Mr. Mede has also noted in respect of S. John in Patmos his seeing them coming as from Euphrates that they must needs march upon the Territories of the Roman Empire Which also the consideration of our third Rule of interpreting Prophecies does more fully assure us of For what had S. John to doe with any Visions but such as concerned the Church of Christ Wherefore there is no reason to doubt but that Mr. Mede's Interpretation of the Sixth Trumpet is very true 2. From whence it will evidently appear that there is a Prevision of that gross Idolatry which would be in both the Greek and Latine Church For after the description of that numerous Army of the Turks under the Type of the Euphratean Horsemen and the great Execution they did the third part of men being killed by the fire smoke and brimstone that issued out of their Horses mouths that roared like Lions against their Enemies to which you may adde the preceding Plague of the Saracens those tormenting Locusts it is said that The rest of the men which were not Apoc. 9. 20 21. killed by these Plagues repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship Devils and Idols of Gold and Silver and Brass and Stone and of Wood which neither can see nor hear nor walk Neither repented they of their Murthers nor of their Sorceries nor of their Fornication nor of their Thefts Can there be a more express and plain Prophecy of the Idolatry of the Christian Empire then this For the sense plainly is this That though the Turks and Saracens had over-run the Eastern Churches and laid all wast with fire and sword yet the Western Part of the Empire did not lay it to heart nor indeed the Greek Church as they should do but that the Church of Rome did notwithstanding persist in their Idolatrous worship in the worshipping of their Daemonia or Daemons the Souls of men departed our English Translation reads it Devils and none certainly whenas they are not God would receive Divine honour after their deaths unless they were become Devils so great a * See Book 1. Ch. 12. Ver. 3. Sect. 4. Reproach is that pretended honour the Romanists give to the Saints in the worshipping of Idols of Gold and of Silver and of Brass c. which neither can hear nor see nor walk This is added as an Aggravation and more palpable detection of the madness or sottishness of this Sin And is it not the same in the Images of the Saints as in the Images of the Heathen Gods Can the Images of the Saints see more clearly hear more quickly or walk more nimbly then the Idols of the Heathen Wherefore we see such a ground of the reprehension of this sin of Idolatry is alledged as is common to that of the Pagans with this of those that call themselves Christians So that there is no hole for them to escape out at But there are other Crimes also which the Roman Church notwithstanding the severe judgment of God against the Greek Church has not repented of as namely of her Murthers in shedding of innocent bloud or cruelly and hatefully persecuting men under pretence of Heresy of Sorcery in such a sense as I have expounded it in my * Book 1. Chap. 18. Idea of Antichristianism of Fornication in the unnatural Constitution of their unclean Clergie and of Thefts in their frauds and impostures to emunge the simple people of their money But these things belong not to this present Head 3. In the mean time it is exceedingly worth our Observation of what infinite consequence it would be to the safety and prosperity of Christendom if they would reform from this gross sin of Idolatry the worshipping of Daemons and Images of Gold and Silver and other Materials For who knows or rather who knows not but that God who brought that exceeding great scourge of the Turk upon the Christian world for their gross Idolatries may make him flow back again into his own Chanell if we would once return to that ancient pure and Apostolick Christianity For the Cause of this great evil once removed the Evil it self will be removed also Whence it is plain that they are the truest Friends to Christendom even to Rome herself that do not sooth them up in their sins by mitigating and hiding their foul miscarriages but deal apertly and plainly with them for their own safety that neither admit nor invent subterfuges to countenance or palliate their Idolatrous and Superstitious practices but tell them plainly how much they are apostatized from the true worship of God and Christ into Paganism and Idolatry Better are the Rebukes of a faithfull Friend then the hired flatteries of a glozing Mercenary 4. Wherefore persisting in the same liberty of speech I shall adventure to pronounce that that Prediction of S. Paul 1 Tim. 4. respects the Apostasy of the Empire into Idolatrous worship by means of the seducing and seduced Clergie thereof who taught them to give religious worship to mere men departed this life and so turned the deceased Saints of God as much as in them lay into Pagan Daemons The words of the Prediction are these Now the
the Book of Articles Trans substantiation cannot be proved Article 28. by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many Superstitions Whence she rightly and demonstratively concludes that the Sacrament is not to be carried about lifted up nor worshipped For there is none that can worship the Host upon presumption that it is Christ to whom Divine worship is due but he is ipso facto an Idolater as I have proved elsewhere more at large And again in the same Book she does expresly declare That the Sacrifices of Masses in the which it is commonly Article 31. said that the Priest does offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt are blasphemous Fables and dangerous Deceits The truth of which is easy to be understood out of what we have written in our Idea of Antichristianism touching Idolatry and the Abuse of Christ's Person and Office in this enormous Errour And in the Homily concerning the Sacrament she expresly taxes the Popish Masses with Idolatry imputing it to the ignorance of the nature of the Lord's Supper What hath been the cause of this gross Idolatry but the Ignorance thereof what has been the cause of this mummish Massing but the Ignorance thereof And a little after Let us therefore so travail to understand the Lord's Supper that we be no cause of the decay of God's worship of no Idolatry of no dumb Massing of no hate and malice c. To all which you may adde what is annexed in our Liturgie at the end of the Communion viz. That the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithfull Christians And the natural Body and Bloud of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places then one Which Rubrick is interserted in our Liturgie with unexceptionable Judgment and Fidelity and does fully reach the end of its Intersertion For no man I think can be so grosly ignorant or so openly malicious as to pretend that after this so plain Declaration of our Church either himself or any one else can become guilty of Idolatry by that humble posture of Kneeling at the receiving of the Sacrament 4. And lastly touching the Adoration of Images there can be nothing more seriously protested against by any Church then this enormous wickedness is by ours To omit how she has perstringed them in the Book of Articles she does expresly bind the worshippers of them under a curse in her Liturgie in the Form of Commination Cursed is the man that maketh any carv'd or molten Image to worship it And in her Homily against the Peril of Idolatry with a passionate but unexceptionable and judicious zeal she does copiously inveigh against the very having of Images in Churches I mean such as are in any capacity of being worshipped nay against the very making of the Image of God or any of the Persons of the Holy Trinity yea of Christ himself forasmuch as he is truly God contending that no Image can be made of Christ but a lying Image as the Scripture peculiarly Homily against the Peril of Idolatry Part 3. calls Images Lies for Christ is God and Man Seeing therefore for the Godhead which is the most excellent part no Image can be made it is falsly called the Image of Christ. Wherefore Images of Christ be not onely Defects but also Lies Nor does she stick here but urges the argument and truly not without judgement against the Images of Saints whose Souls the most excellent part of them can saith she by no Images be represented and expressed But concerning the having such Images in Temples she doth with an holy Jealousy peremptorily contend and inculcate that it is plainly against the Second Commandment adding this reason For they being set up have been be and ever will be worshipped and thereupon become abominable Idols nothing different from those of the Heathen they being made of the same matter with them and men having the same conceits of the Saints they are made to and of their offices as the Heathen had of their Deities they worshipping them also with the same Rites and Ceremonies And to shew they have the same opinion of their Saints that the Pagans had of their several Gods she compares such Saints as are made Guardians of Kingdoms to their Dii Tutelares such as Belus was to the Babylonians Osiris and Isis to the Aegyptians Vulcan to the Lemnians the Guardian Saints of Cities to their Dii Praesides such as Apollo was to Delphos Minerva to Athens Juno to Carthage and Quirinus to Rome and lastly their Templed Saints to Jupiter in the Capitol and Diana in the famous Temple of Ephesus And touching one and the same Saints having Images in several places she parallels our Lady of Walsingham our Lady of Ipswich and our Lady of Wilsdon to Venus Cypria Venus Paphia and Venus Gnidia to their Sea-Gods Neptune Triton Nereus and Venus S. Christopher S. Clement and the Blessed Virgin to Vulcan and Vesta Gods of the Fire S. Agatha And then intimating that as in ancient Paganism the Affairs of Love of War of Diseases in men and beasts were assigned to several Deities so to several Saints in the Popish Religion she at last breaks out into this zealous Exclamation Where is God's Providence and due honour in the mean time who saith The Heavens be mine and the Earth is mine the whole world and all that in it is I give victory and I put to flight Except I keep the City the Watch-man waketh but in vain that keepeth it Thou Lord shalt save both man and beast But we have left him neither Heaven nor Earth nor Water nor Countrey nor City Peace nor War to rule and govern neither men nor beasts nor their diseases to cure That a godly man might justly for zealous Indignation cry out O Heaven and Earth and Seas what madness and wickedness against God are men fallen into What dishonour doe the Creatures to their Creatour and Maker namely in reposing a religious trust in those Saints they invoke to these purposes which can belong to none other but God himself 5. And as touching the manner of their worshipping these Images and Saints What meaneth it saith she that they after the manner of the Gentile Idolaters burn Incense offer up gold to Images hang up crutches chains and ships legs arms and whole men and women of wax before Images as though by them or Saints as they say they were delivered from Lameness Sickness Captivity or Shipwreck Is not this COLERE IMAGINES to worship Images so earnestly forbidden in God's Word And a little after more fully and vehemently Wherefore when we see men and women on heaps to goe on Pilgrimages to
dispatch with like brevity as in these former CHAP. XXII 1. The diametrical Opposition of our Church to that part of Antichristianism which would subvert the Regal and Prophetick Offices of Christ. 2. As also to that which strikes at his Sacerdotal Office 3. That she holds nothing against those other sacred Titles of Christ the Truth Life Light c. 4. A demonstrative Vindication of Episcopacy from the Imputation of Antichristianism out of the Apocalyps 5. What an Establishment that Book is if rightly understood to the Crown and Church of England 6. That no Papal nor Presbyterian Power is of right above the King no not in causes Ecclesiastical 7. The judgement of our Church thereupon 8. The peculiar glory of our Church that she is so perfectly free from all Frauds and Impostures 9. Her freeness from Pride 10. From Antichristian Impurity 11. And from Cruelty 12. Her Reformation an eminent Speciminal Completion of the Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Two Witnesses 13. The usefulness of this Vindication of her for the suppressing of Popery and Schism 1. I Demand therefore concerning those three known Offices of Christ Regal Sacerdotal and Prophetical is not our Church very faithful and sincere in this point and not at all guilty of such opposings and underminings of them as I have specified in my Idea of Antichristianism Does our Church pretend to be Infallible her self or so much as connive or consent to the pretended Infallibility of others Nay has she not plainly declared That general Councils for asmuch as they be an Assembly Article 2â—… of men whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God may erre and sometimes have erred even in things pertaining to God and that therefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scripture And in the fore-going Article she does affirm That it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary Article 20. to God's Word written and that she may not so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another and finally concludes That although the Church be a Witness and a Keeper of Holy Writ yet as she ought not to decree any thing against the same so besides the same ought she not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation To which effect she also speaks in another Article touching the Sufficiency of Article 6. Holy Scriptures Holy Scripture saith she containeth all things necessary to Salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation And again to the same purpose doth she speak in that excellent Exhortation to the reading and knowledge of Holy Scripture where with all earnestness she invites every one to the diligent perusing thereof declaring That in Holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought to doe and what to eschew what to believe and what to love and what to look for at God's hands at the length and tells us the best way for understanding of them in a Paragraph worthy to be written in letters of Gold toward the end of the first part of the Homily And in reading of God's Word saith she he profiteth not most always that is most ready in turning of the Book or in saying of it without-book but he that is most turned into it that is most inspired with the Holy Ghost most in his heart and life altered and changed into that thing which he readeth he that is daily less and less proud less wrathful less covetous and less desirous of worldly and vain pleasures he that daily forsaking his old vicious life increaseth in Vertue more and more And in the second part of the said Homily she heartens her Sons against those discouragements and stumbling-blocks which that false and treacherous Church casts in their way of pretended difficulty and obscurity exhorting them to pray to God for Assistence in reading the Scriptures assuring them that if they be sedulous and serious what they are at a loss in God will either send some pious and knowing person as he did Philip to the Eunuch reading the Prophets to instruct them or that Himself from above will give light into our minds and teach us those things that be necessary for us and wherein we be ignorant farther adding out of S. Chrysostom That humane and worldly wisdom or science is not so needful for the understanding of Scripture but the revelation of the Holy Ghost who inspireth the true meaning into them who with humility and diligence do search therefore And lastly she concludes That none be enemies to the reading of God's Word but such as either be so ignorant that they know not how wholsome a thing it is or else be so sick that they hate the most comfortable medicine that should heal them or so ungodly that they would wish the people still to continue in blindness and ignorance of God How diametrically opposite this Genius of our Church is to that Antichristian Spirit I have described in his opposings and underminings of the Regal and Prophetical Offices of Christ is obvious for any man to discern who listeth but to compare them 2. And now for his Sacerdotal Office which is injured and affronted in multiplying Mediatours in pretending to offer up the very Body of Christ in the Mass and in derogating from the virtue of that Sacrifice himself made for the sins of the world as if it reached not to the Punishment but to the Guilt onely and that every man must satisfie for himself in imposed mulcts and penances either here or in Purgatory As for the first we have already proved it to be contrary to the Doctrine of our Church And that one Article part whereof I have cited already against Transsubstantiation will assure us of her rejection of the two latter The offering of Christ once made saith she is that perfect Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world both original Article 31. and actual and there is no other Satisfaction for sin but that alone And then it follows Wherefore the Sacrifices of Masses in the which it was commonly said that the Priest did offer up Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits See also the Article of the Justification of Man and the Homily of Salvation and Good Works But this is so notorious a Doctrine in our Church that I need not insist any further upon the proof of her avowing of it 3. As for the Oppositions against the other Titles of Christ specified in the sixth Chapter of the second Book of my Idea of Antichristianism it is manifest that our Church is not concerned
the more Sacred and awe men off from either violently tearing it in pieces or more hiddenly and obliquely corrupting it by foisting in any old out-cast ware disallowed and rejected by our Pious and Judicious Reformers 13. But this is a Mantissa cast in over and above the bargain I had before finished my task which was briefly to prove and if I mistake not myself I have done it clearly and convincingly That the Heaven-inspired Prudence and Judgment of the Royal Heroical and Reverend Reformers of our Church of England have purged her and cleansed her from what-ever Doctrine or professed Practice may rightly and properly be deemed Antichristian and that she holds nor injoyns any thing that is contrary to the truly Catholick and Apostolick Faith Which just and seasonable Vindication of her joyntly considered with our free and faithfull Description of the true Nature and Idea of Antichristianism such as we have demonstrated to be predicted in the Prophecies of Holy Scripture will not fail I hope to prove for ever a Sovereign Remedy or safe Preservative of her against those two hatefull and destructive diseases of the Church of Christ Popery and Schism Which good effect of our labours God of his infinite mercy grant for the onely Merits of the Lord Jesus Amen The End of the Second Part. THE CONTENTS Of the First Part OF The Enquiry into the Mystery of Iniquity BOOK I. CHAP. I. 1. THAT the Mystery of Iniquity or Antichristianism implies the secret undermining of the ends of Christianity by such a Power as pretends to be Christian. 2. The inconvenience of describing Antichrist from Circumstantial characters and leaving out the Essential parts of the Description 3. The two general Principles of which Antichristianism does consist 4. The right Artifice of drawing the true Idea of Antichristianism with a distribution of the Draught into the two most general strokes thereof Fol. 1 CHAP. II. 1. The rooting out of Idolatry by the Messias prophesied of by Jeremy That all the Gods that made not Heaven and Earth should perish 2. An explication of that Prophecy and an assertion of our Saviour's right of being worshipped for ever as the Eternal Logos who made Heaven and Earth 3. Proofs out of the Psalms that the Messias was to root out Idolatry 4. Several places in the New Testament witnessing against Idolatry and Image-worship 5. That the Spirituality of Christian Religion indigitated by our Saviour does abundantly evidence the unlawfulness of Image-worship or of what Idolatry else soever 3 CHAP. III. 1. What is meant by Grace and Truth coming by Christ. 2. Farther testimonies of Scripture to evince that Christ came to ease men of the Judaïcal burthen of Ceremonies The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. That the Death of Christ upon the Cross was the solution of the Ceremonial Law of Moses 4. Farther proofs to the same purpose 6 CHAP. IV. 1. The Positive End of the Gospel summarily proposed 2. The several grounds of honour due to Christ and particularly of his Paternal Title 3. Both God the Father and Christ the Authors of our Regeneration and how the First Hypostasis being called Father does not exclude the Second from that Title in respect of his Church 4. The other Titles of Christ plain of themselves 5. The Divine life with its Root and Branches the Second part of the Positive scope of the Gospel 6. That such a Mystery as upon Religious pretences does really supplant all the grand Ends of the Gospel whether Privative or Positive is Mathematically manifest to be that notorious Mystery of Iniquity 7. The method of pursuing the particulars of this Mystery more largely 8. The Falsness Fraud and Mischief of every member of Antichristianism to be inquired into 9. The Author 's serious desire that the Truth of the Description may be perused without Prejudice and acknowledged without Tergiversation by them that are convinced 8 CHAP. V. 1. Instances of several specious pieces of Idolatry introducible into Christian Religion 2. The over-much streightning or widening the Notion of Idolatry taxed 3. The usefulness of giving a true Notion thereof 4 5. That it is not restrained to the worshipping of Idols properly so called 6. That any thing worshipped that is not God becomes ipso facto an Idol and of the Seventy's rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7. That they likewise render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they do also Baalim and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which farther argues that more general sense of Idol 8. That an Idol and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Non-Deus is all one in the estimate of God 11 CHAP. VI. 1. That the Israelites worshipped Jehovah in the Golden Calf proved out of Exodus 2. That Elohim though joyned with a verb of the plural number is understood of the true God with farther testimony out of the 106 Psalm that God was worshipped in that Calf and what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there signifies 3. That the Golden Calf was no figure of the Aegyptian Apis but a Cherub 4. Aaron's case of making the Golden Calf compendiously opened as also the ground of Tacitus his ridiculous errour discovered 5. That the Golden Calves in Dan and Bethel were two Cherubim set up for the worship of the God of Israel proved from Jeroboam's Politicks 6. Also from Jehu and Elias his zeal and the instruction of the Assyrian Colonies by an Israelitish Priest 7. That Micah's Ephod and Teraphim were also meant to the true God 8. And yet both he and the Israelites in the Wilderness Idolaters in their use of the Teraphim and Cherub in Divine worship 9. That Jeroboam was also an Idolater in setting up the Calves in Dan and Bethel proved out of Scripture 10. Other Testimonies to the same purpose and of the Idolatry committed in the Brasen Serpent 15 CHAP. VII 1. The worshipping that which is not God by an Image a third mode of Idolatry 2. Of the worshipping of an Image as such 3. How the vulgar sort of the Heathen came to take the very Idols themselves for Gods 4. What arguments used for the begetting an opinion of the residence of the Daemons near their Statues 5. What indications of their presence there and how awful the Images themselves became from thence 6. The conceit of the Daemon and dedicated Image's coalition into one person 7. And that the worshipping of this Complicate was a fourth Mode of Idolatry 20 CHAP. VIII 1. That the Heathen held one Supreme God the Maker of all things 2. Proclus his conceit of so uniting the Supreme Deity with a Magical Statue as that the Complicate becomes one visible and Supreme Godhead 3. Whether the worshipping of this Magical Complicate by him that is persuaded it is the visible Deity were Idolatry 4. Wherein the sinfulness of Idolatry does
confirmation of the truth of our Idea of Antichristianism therefrom 4. A summary Representation of this Idea in the Oppositions and Defeatments of the Privative Ends of the Gospel as also of those noted Offices of Christ. 5. Of his Divinity and other holy Titles 6. Of the Divine Life in Root and Branches 7. A Parable to set out the salvage Injustice and Cruelty of this Antichristian Synagogue 8. The Apodosis of the Parable 9. That we have set out the Idea of the most real and essential Antichristianism that can be with an Answer to what may be objected to the contrary 10. That it is that very Antichristianism that is foretold in the Prophets the clearing whereof necessitates us to an inspection into them before we make any punctual Application of our Idea to the Apostasy of the Church 173 The CONTENTS of the Second Part OR SYNOPSIS PROPHETICA BOOK I. CHAP. I. 1. THat the Antichristianism we have so punctually described in our Idea and is for the general so notoriously known to have everrun the Church is in truth a kind of Pagano-Christianism 2. That it is incredible that there should be no Divine Predictions of so considerable a Change 3. The ill-spent pains of those Interpreters who endeavour to obscure such Predictions by distorting them to other useless meanings 4. Whether this Great Antichrist be prophesied of in the Epistle of S. John under that very Name 5. That Barchocab if applicable at all to the Text may be a Type of this famous Antichrist 6. That the mention of those many Antichrists in S. John was occasioned from the fame of that Great Antichrist predicted in Daniel 7. That there is much-what the same reason of the slowness of Christians in discovering the true Antichrist as of the Jews in discovering the true Christ. 8. That a fraudulent and Hypocritical Opposer of Christ may be as real and considerable an Antichrist as an open Enemie as also S. John's description as easily applicable to him 9. The inept Niceness of declining the Name of Antichrist and that the Title was put upon this great Enemy of the Church by the ancient Fathers occasionally from this Epistle of S. John 10. Certain Considerations proposed touching the Obscurity of the Prophetick style 205 CHAP. II. 1. Why Prophecies are wrapt up in some considerable Obscurity 2. An indispensable necessity of these kinds of involutions in regard of mans Free will 3. As also in regard of the Enemies of the Church both Men and Devils 4. A recital of such Schemes and Figures wherein this Obscurity does most-what consist 5. What Diorismus is with several examples of Numeral Diorisms 6. That it seems most safe to expound the Rev. 9. 5 10. five months of the Locusts according to this Figure 7. The reason of the use of Numeral Diorisms 8. From whence also some light is offered toward the understanding the reason of the uncertain designation of Vers. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. Examples of Proportional Diorisms 10. As also of Specifical 211 CHAP. III. 1. Hylasmus what it is with the kinds thereof 2. Eximious Examples of each kind 3. What the first and chiefest kind of Henopoeia 4. That one single Beast signifies a Body Politick demonstrated out of Daniel 5. That a Succession of Individuals is represented by one Individual 6. That one individual Beast represents a Kingdom or Body Politick from its rise to its fall 7. That one single Man or Woman does also represent a Body Politick in the Prophetick style 8. The second kind of Henopoeia what it is 9. What Zoopoeia with Examples thereof 10. A second kind of Zoopoeia proved and illustrated from Examples 217 CHAP. IV. 1. Israelismus what it is 2. That the reason of the frequent use thereof is the Sacramentalness of the Jewish Church in reference to the Christian as appears in their Tabernacle and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. In the brasen Serpent Manna strucken Rock and fiery Law 4. In the High-priest's Robes in his entring alone once a year into the most Holy and in the Jews worshipping towards the Mercy-seat 5. In their bondage in Aegypt and in their escape through the Red Sea 6. What is properly a Prophetick Ellipsis 7. What the meaning of the Apocalyptick Book being written within and without 8. The difference of a Prophetick Ellipsis illustrated by example 9. Homonymia what it is and in what it differs from an Henopoeia of the second kind 10. What Metalepsis with the proof and examples thereof 11. Antichronismus what it is together with the rise thereof 12. That the three days and an half of the unburied Witnesses put for three times and an half is apparently resolvible into this Figure 13. What Icasmus is and that the frequency of the Figure does not so obscure Prophecies but that they are as intelligible as ordinary Heraldry 221 CHAP. V. 1. The great Usefulness of an Alphabet of Prophetick Iconisms 2. What the best way of attaining to the right sense of them 3. What weight the Onirocriticks of the Ancients may cast in toward the determining their meaning 4. That there is the same reason of the Signification and Interpretation of Dreams as there is of Visions provided they be merely Typical and not Complexional 5. Angels Their Ministery in all affairs of Providence a noted Supposition in the ancient Cabbala and in the Apocalyps 6. Ascension into Heaven 7. Air the special Region of Devils 8. Balances 9. Beast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idolatrous Kingdoms 10. The reason of the Lamb 's signifying one single Person and of wild Beasts noting Idolatry as well as Cruelty 11. Blasphemy That it signifies Idolatry made out both upon the account of Reason use of Scripture and Authority of Interpreters 12. Bloud 13. Bow and Arrows Buildings Burial 226 CHAP. VI. 1. Candle 2. Character 3. Clouds of Heaven 4. Crown of precious Stones 5. Darkness Day Death 6. Desart 7. Dragon a figure of the Devil according to the ancient Cabbala and then of the chief Polities that oppose the Church 8. Drunkenness 9. Eagle Earth-quake 10. Eclipses 11. Eye an Hieroglyphick of Counsel and Prudence 12. Fishing Fish dead in the Sea 13. Fire the different significations thereof 14. Fire from Heaven its exact significancy of Excommunication 15 16. Flesh two notable significations thereof 17. Floud Fornication Frogs 18. Gemms and precious Stones God 232 CHAP. VII 1. Hail the signification thereof according to Scripture 2. And the ancient Onirocriticks 3. Harvest the evil and auspicious sense thereof 4. Head how clearly significative of Sovereign Power whether in Many or One. 5. Heaven and Earth 6. Horn. 7. Horse Islands 8. King and Kingdom 9. That Kinds or Sorts of things are sometimes expressed as if Individualls of the same Kind 10. Leopard Locusts 11. Male-childe Mark Measure Mill Month Moon 12. Mountain the several significations thereof 240 CHAP. VIII 1. Nakedness Paradise 2. Philtre That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Virus amatorium 3.
the Pope's Crown and of a Woman-Pope 305 CHAP. XVI 1. What remains for the making up the fullest assurance that can be desired of the truth of our Joint-Exposition 2. That the Roman State from the beginning to the end is to be look'd upon as One Kingdom or Empire appears out of Florus 3. That there had been Five sorts of Supreme Magistrates in S. John's time in the Roman State Reges Consules Tribuni Consulares Decemviri Dictatores and that the Tribuni Plebis were no Supreme Power 4. Nor the Tribuni Militum simply so styled 5. But that the Decemviri and Tribuni Consulares were 6. As also the Dictators 7. That there had been no more then Five sorts of Supreme Governours in S. John's time and that the Interreges were not nor were at all reckoned by Historians a Supreme Government distinct from that of Kings 8. That the Triumviri Reipublicae constituendae was either a Scuffle and Confusion in the Roman State 9. Or else a formal Caesareate exercised by Augustus Lepidus and Antonius 10. That there is full and sufficient ground from Reason and History not to reckon the Triumvirate of constituting the Commonwealth a Sixth Form of Government distinct from Emperours and the Five fore-going Forms 11. That though there had been some other Forms truly distinct but yet of a near affinity with some of the other it had not been so harsh to have accounted them one with those they had that nearness with 12. But that there is a greater Exactness then this in the Application of this Vision and such as Scepticism it self can hardly doubt of 13. The Conclusion of the whole drift of the Chapter with a fuller enforcement of the truth thereof 317 CHAP. XVII 1. That a Relapse of the Empire into Idolatry in general were sufficient to make it the Image of the old Pagan Empire and yet that the Resemblance is more exquisite and particular 2. That there was an intended imitation of the Pagan Rites in the Church degenerating 3. The Pope compared with the Pagan Caesars and his Cardinals with the Roman Senate 4. The Tutelar Saints compared with their Tutelar Deities as also of adoring of what they eat 5. The minute multiplication of the Pagan Deities compared with and found to be out-gone by this Pagano-Christian Church in the Presidents of Physick and Rural Affairs 6. As also in the Presidents of Trades or Courses of Living 7. The Saints and Heathen Deities compared in their Offices and how punctually they have surrogated the Blessed Virgin into the place of Venus and the Moon 8. Most lively Lineaments of Restored Paganism in dedicating the Pantheon to the Virgin and all the Saints as also the Seven Hills to seven several Saints in erecting Altars and Images thereon in adorning these Images in appointing Festivals in Adoration and Prayers in Oblations of Wax-candles and Incense in carrying their Images in Procession and hiding them in Lent 9. In Vows Oathes Deifying dead men Pilgrimages Miraculous Cures with the Monuments of them hung up in the Temples 10. In Aspersions and Purifications by Holy Water 11. In the driving away the Devil by the jangling of baptized Bells 12. In their Jubilees general manner of celebrating their Festivals 13. In fetching in May in running about the fields with light Torches in their hands in sprinkling their Beasts with Holy Water by the Friars of S. Antony in leaping over S. John's Fires in Baptismal Spittle in their Master of Misrule at Christmas in their Carnavals and other Festivals 14. That the Image of the Beast is also in some sort revived in their Funerals 15. But more considerably in their Religious Fraternities under this or that Saint 16. As also in their shorn Crowns in their Vows of Virginity and in their Ninevites or Flagellants 17. In their pretence of bringing down Christ bodily and personally at the Mass 18 19. As also in their more pompous Processions 20. The great Usefulness of the Observation of the punctual correspondency of the Events hitherto to the Predictions touching the state of the Church 21. His amazement and astonishment at Grotius that he should decline so clear and easie a meaning of the Image of the Beast and take up with one so impossible and so unprofitable 323 BOOK II. CHAP. I. 1. The great Usefulness of shewing the folly of Ribera's and Grotius his Expositions of these two Chapters of the Apocalyps 2. That according to Ribera the Beast is the Devil 3. The seven Kings the wicked Kings of the seven Ages of the world 4. That five of these Ages were gone over in S. John's time and that the Reign of Antichrist is the seventh and Rome Heathen the Whore 5. The general Usefulness of our Joint-Exposition 6. That the Beast is not the Devil proved there-from by several circumstances Nor the seven Heads seven such Ages by the deadly wound in the sixth Head 7. Nor the Whore Rome Heathen more then the Two-horned Beast 8. That the Devil cannot be the Beast that was and is not c. proved by arguments not leaning on our Joint Exposition 9. Farther proof from that part of his Name and yet is with a Vindication of that reading 10. A confutation of Ribera's Exposition of the seven Heads from the groundlesness and exceptionableness of his division of the duration of the world into seven Ages 11. From the Ununitableness of the Kings of the Age into one Head 12. From the Devil's eminency and superiority over these Heads 13. From the leaving neither room nor time for an eighth King 14. From the disproportionableness of the seventh Age of the world to the rest and especially to the strange Feats they say Antichrist is then to atchieve 15. And lastly from the seven Hills necessarily appropriating those seven Heads to the Roman Empire 16. That these Expositions of Ribera as also of the rest of the Roman Interpreters were very weak even in Grotius his own judgment which set him upon minting new ones 336 CHAP. II. 1. What the meaning of the Scarlet Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns and of the Woman riding him is according to Grotius 2. A Confutation of Grotius his Interpretation out of our Joint-Exposition 3. Two main Grounds or necessary Supporters of Grotius his Interpretation The one That S. John reckons the Seven Heads beginning at Claudius with the Confutation thereof 4. The other That this Vision was wrote in Vespasian's time with a Discovery of the weakness and falseness of that Opinion 5. That Claudius his banishing the Jews from Rome falls many degrees short of a proof that John was then exiled into Patmos And that Impulsore Christo in Suetonius does not so much as evince that any Christians were then expelled the City 6. And if the Decree reached Christians it does not strait follow that S. John was concerned therein 7. An Answer to a Passage in Epiphanius alledged for S. John's Exile then 8. An Answer to another alledged to the