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
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-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-Anti-Apostolical as contrary to the Apostolick Doctrine as any thing can be Wherefore the introduction thereof into the Church of
under no such peculiar Rules or Orders of Religion 3. But there is another Abstinence which urged with like severity and strictness would be equally burthensome to the generality of men if not more and is an Institute that seems expresly contrary to the mind of the * 1 Tim. 4. Apostle who makes it a Character of a Church Apostatizing from the purity of Christianity as he does the other also namely that of Abstinence from meats but this is The forbidding to marry Which prohibition is not only against the express Law of God but of Nature also who unless in some few who may have a peculiar gift of Chastity is a severe exacter of this Tribute to the common upholding of Mankind And therefore with them Marriage cannot be well omitted without very high penalties inflicted by that Nemesis that is interwoven in the very Law of Nature thus transgressed which I will leave to Physicians more accurately to discourse Wherefore I say to make prohibitions against Marriage suppose to all Priests and Deacons and to an infinite number of Religious Orders of men besides restrained to the Rules of a Monastick life and to make such Vows as these equally if not more sacred then the very bonds of Wedlock would be upon Christendom as Antichristian a yoke as almost any Servitude whatsoever can be devised and would put men and women that were seriously set to observe it but surprized in the undertaking it by either superstitious menaces or fraudulent glozings and promises into such Agonies of Mind and afflictions and distempers of Body that the burthen would be unsupportable 4. But yet this designe would be sure to be driven on in a Church rancidly Antichristian it being of so great advantage for the Ecclesiastical Powers For there being nothing there devised with faithfulness but for the Interest of the Church let them that are ineptly serious under these Monastick or Coelibate-Vows be pricked as much as they will as long as there will be held no breach of this Obligation but by taking of a Wife swarms of men will come under the profession who becoming in such a peculiar Religious way the members or rather vowed Subjects of the Antichristian High-Priest are thereby really the Military strength of his Hierarchical Empire and being either hardly or leudly brought up may at a dead lift serve his designs in a more carnal or secular warfare But in the interim such of this Note as are made more mad by Solitude and Superstition may of their own accord or by virtue of their Vow of Obedience to their Superiours being called thereto approve themselves forward and zealous Assasins for the stabbing or porsoning of Kings or dispatching any one that appears considerable against the Interest of this Church of Apostasies Such a dangerous brood of Serpents and Vipers may crawl out into the world from the solitary dust and shades of these Monastick caverns who may embitter the people and poison the hearts of subjects against their Sovereigns and like the African Jaculi strike through the breasts of Princes in a sudden surprizal and spill their Sacred bloud upon the ground 5. But this use is more remote and lies next to the bottom That is more overly and exposed to sight That the profession of so hard a task as totally to abstain from the greatest pleasures of the Flesh upon a design of a more certain merit of the joyes of Heaven and withall to be so clad as makes a shew of being mortified to all the delights of this world upon a firm expectation of those future contents in that to come cannot but work much upon the simple and credulous as if these were the most serious and earnest soliciters of Religion that one can hope to meet withall and that that Church must undoubtedly be true of whom they profess themselves the devoted Members and therefore being very numerous and at leisure singly to assault every one they would prove the most apt Instruments to captivate or detain the world under this Antichristian power we describe that any one can imagine 6. The multiplied Convents therefore of such Angelical Fraternities how can they but be so many Fish-ponds digged out for the draining of the Wealth of the respective Nations and Provinces wherein they are made where every one will be forward to help them in common that pretend to possess nothing in particular nor to use any thing but for mere necessity or for Pious uses they being so wholy castrated and mortified to the world But professing a life so Seraphical and gaining to themselves even a glory with men beyond what other Atchievements of the world will easily procure their Convents may prove honourable Harbours of retirement even to the Nobler sort of Persons who are otherwise misfortunate in their affairs or whose birth exceeds the proportion of their riches Which Accommodations so largely extended is such a binding Interest with all sorts of people that it is no small establishment according to humane prudence to the safety of this Antichristian Polity we speak of 7. To all which you may briefly adde for I would not be over-large that so general a Profession of Coelibate in this degenerate Church tends much to the enriching thereof it naturally falling to her share to be heir these devoted Members of her necessarily dying without any Issue they may own To say nothing of what monies may come into the Holy Pontifical Purse when it is a thing of moment to dispense with any ones Vow of Coelibate These may be the Self-ends that may be aimed at by this Antichristian prohibition of Marriage against the Law of God and the directions of the Holy Apostles of Christ Jesus 8. But the Mischiefs which I shall briefly intimate are manifold For them that are surprized in their Vows and seriously resolved but naturally unfit to keep them there attends them a tedious servitude under indiscreet or at least severe Governours and an irksom and sickly solitude But as for others the issue is foul and noisom in them even to the turning of this false Church into a true Sodom and a cage of unclean birds For this Hypocritical profession of an Angelical Chastity with them will but be the mother of Adultery Sodomie and Fornication and of the bloudy and remorseless murthering of poor Infants as soon as they come out of the womb or moretimely if they can rightly hit on it To which you may also adde the weakening and unpeopling of Christendom and making it less able to oppose their forein enemies This false Ecclesiastical Polity which I am now a-delineating being more solicitous how without controll to domineer and tyrannize over the Layparty then to secure the common Christianity from the Inrodes and Invasions of Unbelievers But as our Saviour said of old The Thief cometh not but to steal and to kill and to destroy and therefore it is no wonder if he have no care nor forecast for the safety and preservation of
signifie certain performance but the duty what they ought to perform As when the Apostles are called the Light of the world and the Matth. 5. 13 14. Salt of the earth which onely signifies what they ought to be not what they were necessitated to be For those that ought to be thus may notwithstanding hide their Talent or grow unsavoury through their own fault as it fared in Judas and in all his succession of false Apostles which call themselves the Servants but are the betrayers of the Lord Jesus 13. But lastly Suppose that the Church then in general were here understood it does not follow That because that Primaeval and Apostolical Church should by a peremptory design of Providence have engraven upon it or exhibit to the world as Articles of belief nothing but what was true that the Church in succession should always doe the like For there was a prime care taken that the first establishment of the Church should be in truth and solidity but that being done which was sufficient for the after-carrying on the affairs of the Church in a right way by free Agents the success should afterwards lie upon their industry and fidelity at least so far as that by no miraculous and supernatural force they should be assisted or driven on to keep things pure and intemerate And that was sufficient for the Church I think which is thought sufficient for every particular man namely That the Christian Doctrines and Precepts being faithfully laid down in the Evangelists and other Writings of the Apostles they might that usual Grace of God which is not irresistible assisting them frame their lives and beliefs accordingly in those things that are plain And all are so that are necessary to Salvation Which Rule if it had been kept to no Error had crept into the Church to this very day 14. Which last Answer will contribute something towards an Answer to the last place alledged for it seems onely to contain a description of a special provision of God for the rightly settling his Truth in the first Ages of the Church To which purpose he appointed not onely Pastours and Teachers which Functions continue still but Apostles having a particular mission from Christ himself who breathed into them the Spirit of Truth as also Prophets and Evangelists men in a special manner inspired and assisted to erect the Fabrick of the Church according to the will and purpose of Christ who then in an extraordinary manner did supervise all by a miraculous assistence of his Spirit And therefore what-ever was wrote for the publick use of the Church while any of those unto whom our Saviour Christ said that the Spirit should abide with them for ever which should lead them into all Truth were alive or was approved by them is really of certain and infallible authority but what-ever after-Inventions or Super-additions there were in the Church they are to be measured by this unerring Rule These unerring Pastors therefore and Teachers Apostles Prophets Evangelists were not a promise to all Successions but an extraordinary gift as the Text it self imports which Christ at that time namely at his solemn Coronation or Triumph ascending above all Heavens that he Eph. 4. 10. might fill all things cast down as a Royal Largess upon his Church for the speedy completement of her for her growing up into the unity of the Faith and Knowledge of Christ and that she might not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine but adhere to that onely that was delivered by those Heavenly-inspired and miraculously-assisted Ministers of the Gospel The acknowledgement whereof I conceive had been the onely sure means to keep the Church in Unity for ever whenas the pretending to an Infallibility in the succeeding Church where indeed it was not and the taking upon them thereupon to impose things with equal authority to the Apostles themselves would naturally prove the fountain of all Error Schism and Confusion CHAP. II. 1. That the safe conveyance of the Apostolick Writings down to us by the Church does not infer her Infallibility 2. That the Plainness of Scripture in points necessary to Salvation takes away the want of an Infallible Judge 3. That the Scripture not pointing to any Infallible Judge nor any faithful Keeper of Traditions does ipso facto declare her self the onely sufficient Guide 4. That there is not onely no want of an Infallible Judge but better there should be none 5. That the want of Infallibility does not take away the Authority of the Church it being the duty of every person in things really disputable to compromise with her 6. That though a Visible Judge be necessary in Civil causes yet it is nothing so in Points of Religion 7. That every private man has not onely a liberty but a command to judge for himself in matters of Faith 8. The said Right or Privilege demonstrated also by Reason 9. That the Reason or Judgment of every private man is not a private Spirit in that reproachful sense that some speak it 10. That the claim to a right of judging for ones self in points of Faith does not make a man superiour to his Church 11. Nor yet equal 12. Nor implies that he thinks himself wiser then his Church but rather more careful of his own eternal Concerns 13. That it is not his private Wisdom he sticks to but the Wisdom of God known to all that are not wilfully blind 14. That the Church is not Infallible proved from the Example of the Jewish Church 15. That there is the same reason of the Christian. 16. That the want of an Infallible Interpreter is no such loss to the common people 17. That their assurance of the truth of the Scriptures by the Spirit is a Tenet not so superciliously to be exploded as some make shew of 18. That this Spirit is properly the Spirit of Faith distinguishable from that of Knowledge and Wisdom 19. The notorious Fraud and excessive Mischief of this pretence of Infallibility 1. BUT being worsted thus in Scripture they will pretend Demonstrations in Reason upon the presumption they are the true visible Church successively descended from Christ and his Apostles that Infallibility is for ever intailed upon them As first That unless the Church were successively Infallible we could have no certain and Infallible belief of the Holy Scriptures which are avouched to be such by the Church But I briefly answer That supposing this successive Church were a trusty undoubted Conveyer of the Copies of the Holy Scriptures uncorrupted yet it doth not follow that they must be Infallible Interpreters of these Scriptures no more then the faithful conveyance of Plato's and Aristotle's Writings to all posterity implies that the Conveyers thereof are Infallible Interpreters of them For they might preserve the Writings of either by a diligent comparing of Copies upon every transcription besides that there might be a special watchfulness of Providence over these Holy Writings for the conservation of
the Scripture is as well useless as false and much as if the Moon should take upon her to witness for the Sun that he sends out light which every one that is not blind will necessarily see though the Moon were under the Horizon So the holy children of God chosen and faithfull will feel and tast clearly see and discern that the Scripture is the Truth of God by that light which is in it that correspondeth with that Spirit derived from the Father of lights which he has shed into their hearts Which as I said is the Spirit of Faith and the sure portion of every Member of Christ whether they can make out things by Knowledge and deep Reason or no. And if they be assaulted by Cavillers it is their prudence to send such to their fellow-members to whom God has given also the Spirit of Knowledge or of Wisedome or it may be more prudent to let them goe as they came they being not worthy to give any the trouble of discourse who put questions not with design of being seriously edified and instructed in the Truth but for captiousness contention and a conceited hope of puzzling him by whom they make show as if they desired to be informed 19. The fraudulent End that this pseudo-Christian Church might drive at in this peremptory boast of Infallibility is very conspicuous as also the Mischievous events thereof For what could this tend to but the making this Antichristian power absolute that they might without any ones whinching decree and declare what-ever would tend to the encrease of their own honour and wealth seem it never so contrary to common Reason to the express Word of God and the Precepts of Christ For the sentence is Infallible let it look never so strangely and repugnantly to any Rule that we might think right Wherefore this Power might even doe what it pleases change Times and Laws even the Law of God it self and fling the house of God out at windows as the proverb is For who has any thing to say against that power which he is already persuaded is Infallible And to speak summarily and then which nothing greater can be said The Admittance of this Infallibility is the Exclusion of Christ from his Kingdom and Throne and the setting up a mere Mortal a masterless Man of sin or a pack of sons of Belial to sway his Sceptre for him in the world This alone is enough if it would take to supplant the Government of Christ upon Earth CHAP. III. 1. That the keeping the Law of Christ in an unknown Tongue is an undermining or opposing of his Sovereignty 2. As also the reproaching and vilifying his Law 3. Their fraudulent pretence of hiding the Scriptures with a vindication of their Usefulness and Excellency 4. The vilifying of the Laws of Christ by setting far less penalties upon the transgression of them then of the inconsiderable Institutes of the Church 5. That their rigid Impositions are against the Kingdom of Christ as also the reading of Legends instead of his Law in Churches 6. The dispensing also with the Divine Laws The Fraud and Mischief thereof 7. The Treasonable pretence of this Power 's being absolute by right of succession in Christ's seat 8. The evil effect of this pretence discoverable in several Institutes contrary to the written Laws of Christ 9. As also in nulling those Laws he has given as he is the Eternal Word 10. The bloudy opposing the Sovereignty and Kingdom of Christ in murthering his faithfull Subjects 1. BUT there are other ways also of lifting the Government from off Christ's shoulders As first Suppose They should keep the Law of God in an unknown Tongue and not let any one reade it in the language they understood nay be so carefull that the very Prayers that are used in publick and the celebration of the holy Eucharist should be unintelligible lest the power of some passages of Scripture that may occurre in the publick Service should unhindge men from the blind obedience they are held in under this Antichristian Usurpation 2. To which you may adde what indeed might better have preceded a Revilement of the Law of Christ as a Book full of nothing but dangerous obscurities a Lesbian or Leaden Rule to be bended any way a Nose of wax a dead letter a Farrago of casuall or occasionall Writings which were penned not by any Divine appointment but onely as fortuitous Exigences moved the Prophets or Apostles to write them And where they would speak most modestly to say it is an insufficient Law or Rule and therefore must be made up by Institutes of their own invention or what they will please to obtrude upon the world for Traditional doctrines and usages I say thus to Revile the Law of Christ is to null it and thereby to null his Sovereignty over his Church and to betray it into the hands of a stranger to deal with them as he pleases and to change Times and Laws and Customes in such sort that there may be nothing sound left in Christianity that may any way thwart the Interest of these Usurpers 3. In brief therefore thus it may be They may pretend the Scripture obscure all over because it is so in some places But we have already sufficiently urged that there is enough clear of it to enlighten the single-hearted in the way of eternal Salvation But upon the pretence of the uncertain sense of some passages they may remove all away that those passages that would plainly discover and reprove their false doctrines and practices might not come into the sight of the people For as a Father has well noted Verbum Dei est Lucerna ad quam fur deprehenditur and our Saviour Christ of old They hate the light because their deeds are evil But that Imputation of the Scripture's being writ occasionally it is as weak as impious and blasphemous As if the Spirit of God would not assist the Apostles most when occasion called for it or as if he were to study how to inspire them and illuminate them and could not doe it extempore or upon emergent occasions but would be taken unprovided These things savour of gross carnality and ignorance of the very nature of God and his holy Spirit which Christ promised should not fail to be with them for ever for the right settling of the affairs of the Church that is to say that it would not desert them so long as they lived and acted in the Ministery and service thereof Which therefore must make the Scripture very precious and of inestimable value to all sincere Believers Wherefore any one Paragraph of the Epistles of S. Paul to whom Christ appeared and called to from Heaven and commissioned to be an Apostle to lay the Foundation and first structure of his Church ought to be preferred before many thousands of pretended Infallible Councils who could never shew any such extraordinary Commission to prove themselves Infallible For God by that miraculous appearing
Sacerdotum praeparatur exercitus Which is a sign that in Gregory's judgment Antichrist was not to be born of the Tribe of Dan but of the Tribe of Levi whom we will further suppose to lay about him for the obtaining of this Levitical Sovereignty and for the advancement of his Episcopal Chair successively in some such manner as follows 3. First he will pretend that it is unfit that the visible Catholick Church being One should not be united under One visible Head Which reasoning yet though it make a pretty show at first sight being closely lookt into will vanish into smoke For this is but a quaint concinnity urged in the behalf of an impossibility For the erecting such an Office for one man which no one man in the world is able to perform implies that to be possible which is indeed impossible Whence it is plain that the Head will be too little for the Body which therefore will be a piece of mischievous Asymmetry or Inconcinnity also No one Mortal can be a competent Head for that Church which has a right to be Catholick and to over-spread the face of the whole Earth There can be no such Head but Christ who is not mere Man but God invested in Humane nature and therefore is present with every part of his Church and every member thereof at what distances soever But to set some one Bishop over the whole Church were to suppose that great Bishop of our Souls absent from it who has promised he will be with her to the end of the World and you may be sure not an idle Spectatour but a carefull Feeder and Governour of their Souls who do really believe in him and unfeignedly obey him 4. Nor does the Church Catholick on Earth lose her Unity hereby for she is under One common Head of the whole Church as well Triumphant as Militant which to come nearer to the Objection is a Visible Head of his Church to those that can approach his Court in that glorious Metropolis in Heaven where undoubtedly he is to be seen sitting on his Sapphire Throne in great Majesty and Glory and where his true Subjects in a small space of time may either see him themselves or at least converse with them that have frequent recourse unto him and wait in his presence And no man I think will say that any large Empire has an Invisible Head because the Emperour himself has placed his Palace in the chiefest Province of his Empire and never comes within the view of some parts of his Dominion and multitudes of men never see him as never having the opportunity of visiting those parts where the Emperour's Court is Whereas Jesus Christ the Head of his Church was seen here on Earth for a good space as also visibly to travel hence into the higher Regions of his Kingdom and in due time will visibly return hither again to take account of the Administratours of his Affairs in these lower Provinces Wherefore Christ is a more visible Head in his large Empire then any Emperour in his So evident is it that there wants no One Visible Head of the Church besides Christ himself 5. But yet notwithstanding all this this ambitious Patriarch I describe will bear the world in hand that it is very fit there should be One visible Head of the Church Universal which should succeed Christ or rather some one whom he would pretend to be Prince of the Apostles and that his Seat is that Apostolical Seat and that there is a necessity for Unity in the Church and for slaking all controversies there should be some one such though the Plea to any indifferent man cannot but seem very weak and frivolous For â—…as I have already intimated the Church will be sufficiently One by being under that One Head Christ Jesus and under One Law which is the Word of God which has been already proved sufficiently plain in all things necessary to Life and Salvation But for other things whether Ceremonies or Conceits they do not at all break the Unity of Christ's Kingdom but it will be truly and conspicuously his so long as it professes the Faith of his Apostles let them otherwise use what difference of Rites they will or differ as much as they can in unnecessary Opinions provided always that none of these Rites or Opinions be really and plainly against the Apostolical Doctrines which are the universal and irreversible Law of Christ's Empire upon Earth For thus the Church-Catholick being in this sort variegated in Externals will yet be visibly the Spouse of Christ though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though cloathed with a Vestment of various flower-work and colours 6. But for this high-flown Patriarch to pretend that his Seat is this Infallible and All-decisive Apostolical Seat is a Plea that can have nothing solid at the bottom For if there had been any such Prelation of some one of the Apostles over the rest it were of that great Moment if ending of Controversies in all succeeding Ages be of that Moment that it would have been recorded in the Scripture and would have ended or prevented all disceptations amongst the Apostles themselves or any others concerning them But quite contrary S. Paul declares that he is in nothing inferiour to the chiefest Apostles which plainly implies an Equality 2 Cor. 12. amongst them all Besides if it were so that some one Apostle had an Authority or Headship over the rest and had once his Residence in such a particular See it does not follow that he that succeeds him in that See should succeed him in that Headship or at all in his Apostleship but onely in his Bishoprick Nor is it credible that if this Prime and Oecumenical Apostle had designed his immediate Successour to the same latitude of Jurisdiction that the claim should not be made and acknowledged by the Universal Church in those more innocent and morigerous times Of so little weight are such pretences as these 7. But if such pretty Sophisms will not serve the turn since Ambition has inflamed the Patriarch's spirits he will leave no stone unmoved to accomplish his desire and what Sophistry cannot doe must be effected though by the coursest methods of either Worldly or Infernal policy That they may therefore obtain this absolute Ecclesiastick Sovereignty the Successours in this pretended prime Apostolical See we will suppose to stick at nothing But that they will forge or counterfeit Canons of Authentick Councils and make them speak for the Supremacy of their Patriarchate that they will countenance abet or allow Treasons and Murthers though upon Emperours and Emperesses Kings and Queens and their whole Posterity by some intrusted Instrument of State whose ambition instigated him thus bloudily to assassinate his Liege Sovereign that he might succeed him in his Kingdom or Empire Whereupon notwithstanding by parasitical fawning conniving or allowing nay by congratulating the success of so beastly an enterprize these eager Candidates for the Ecclesiastick Empire will not stick to
or justice and that is the so freely nick-naming them by the style of Hereticks and Schismaticks Which yet in their own judgment I suppose not to bear so little weight with it whenas their real estimate is discoverable by their proceedings they deeming an Heretick so odious or contemptible that he is not worthy of the common privileges of mankind and of that protection that the Laws of humane Society do afford men that he shall not have the security of a Promise though confirmed by Oath Faith not being to be kept with Hereticks Not to mention here that they have made the penalties of Heresie capital Which how justly though a man were an Heretick in the matters of Belief provided it were not out of Pride and conceitedness but out of invincible Ignorance I will not here discuss 2. It will be of greater use to consider what is real Heresie or Schism that the sincere and knowing Christian may not be reproached nor the less skilful affrighted with these Bug-bears Those that make so great a cry against the hainousness of these sins their Zeal and Rhetorick would be more usefully placed if they would be so faithful as to give us a right Notion of them otherwise while they pretend to be so industriously desirous of Peace and Unity in the Church they may but give greater occasion of Dissensions and Animosities For to make more things Heresies and Schisms then are is to create more quarrels then there need be I will acknowledge as soon as any that Heresie and Schism are very grievous crimes even of the deepest dye but then it must be truly Heresie or Schism not what-ever the peevishness or interest or prejudice of a domineering party will be pleased to call so under the pretence that they are that One Catholick Church from whose Doctrine be it never so false or corrupt for one to dissent must be Heresie and to separate from their communion be their practices never so Idolatrous Schism No certainly those high sins of Heresie and Schism are not against this or that particular Synagogue be they never so numerous but against that ancient and truly Catholick and Apostolick Church and he that sins against her Unity sins against his Creed which has taught us to say I believe one Catholick and Apostolick Church Which words because they may be abused to the making of the Church look less Catholick and One then it is I shall offer an easie resolution of the sense of them 3. I conceive therefore that the Object of our Belief in this Clause of the Creed are these three Propositions First That the Church of God wherein eternal Salvation is to be had is but One that is to say That a man cannot be saved in any Religion as some wantonly conceit but that there is one onely way of Salvation which is revealed to God's true Church under which all must come before they can be saved Secondly That this Church of God is now a Catholick Church not Topical or National as in the Commonwealth of the Jews but a Church that is by right to spread over the face of the whole Earth and is designed so to doe by Providence as is expressed in several passages of the Prophets From the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same my name shall be great amongst the Gentiles c. as * Chap. 1. Malachie has fore-told And David in the second Psalm Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession Thirdly and lastly That this One Catholick Church is neither to be stretched so wide as to be acknowledged there where the Apostolical Doctrine the Faith and Practice delivered and commanded by Christ or his Apostles is oppugned and contradicted and quite contrary Doctrines and Practices brought in nor to be made so narrow as that such companies of men should not be allowed to be part of this Catholick Church amongst whom notwithstanding the Apostolical Doctrines do obtain and Primitive Practices of the Church set on foot by the Apostles or Christ himself are in use That is to say The adequate Character of this One Catholick Church is that it rejects nothing of the Apostolical Doctrines and imitable Usages which were commanded by Christ or by his Apostles to the Church nor teaches or institutes any thing that is point-blank opposite thereto or to the Word of God to which Christ and his Apostles give testimony That therefore is the true Catholick Church in the whole and in every particular company of it which has for its visible Laws and Usages whereby it self becomes also visible the Laws and Usages of Christ and his Apostles and nothing contradictorious thereunto This I hope will be acknowledged by all men the most easie and genuine sense of this Article of the Christian Creed that the words are capable of 4. And hence I think a man may easily discover what that Heresie is that is justly to be deemed so hainous a sin namely That it is A Dissent from the Catholick Church even in those things that are in it Apostolical For by them alone they being entire and uncontradicted in her does she discover her self to be that One and onely Catholick Church of Christ. And this would be an hainous sin indeed against that Authority she has to instruct and imbue the world with this saving truth I say to dissent from any part of this Apostolick Doctrine out of a spirit of contradiction and self-conceitedness would be Heresie in the most loathsom circumstances that can be imagined And the next degree to this would be the dissenting from the Catholick Church in such things as they generally agree in though they be not expressly any part of the Apostolick Doctrine but in the mean time not plainly dissonant to the Word of God nor to the immutable Notions of humane Understanding And the third and last degree is to dissent from the determinations of a mans own particular National Church in the like circumstances with the former These seem to have something an over-near affinity with what we have defined most properly primarily to be Heresie But considering that even Oecumenical Councils themselves may erre and that Scripture in things necessary to Salvation is sufficiently plain and the Affairs and the Genius of particular Nations exceeding different and changeable and General Councils very hardly and slowly to be congregated I must not be over-hasty to call a Dissent here no not from an Oecumenical Doctrine or Usage by so harsh a denomination as Heretical there being no entrenchment made thereby upon the Apostolical Laws and Doctrines But to dissent from or not to subscribe to the determinations of what Church soever that are plainly repugnant to the Doctrines Apostolical were not onely not Heretical but Heroical especially if the Dissent is likely to beattended with any personal inconveniences to the Dissenter 5. And now for Schism there is much-what
the same judgment to be made hereon For it is plain that Schism truly so called is A Separation from the Catholick Church or from any National Church which is part thereof even then when she approves her self to be Catholick that is to say even then when she is Apostolick or though she be Apostolick and offer no Opinions and Usages but such as are conformable to the Usages and Doctrines of Christ and his Apostles To separate from the Church in such circumstances as these I confess were a great and damnable sin But for one to separate from the Church in other things upon an invincible suspicion that the consenting to or doing this or that were sinful and displeasing to God though those Opinions might be true and Practices harmless in themselves this I conceive though it make a man materially a Schismatick yet he is not formally so and he is rather to be pitied then reproached But if he separate from that part of the Church if it can be still a part of the Church that does so which imposes Opinions and Practices plainly repugnant to the Precepts of Christ and his Apostles Separation in this case need not be pitied nor ought to be reproached but highly commended and applauded And that voice will warrant them that calls for such sober Separatists Come out of her my people lest you partake of her Rev. 18. sins and of her plagues For the coming out here would be really the going in to the true Church and the standing still the abiding disjoyn'd therefrom as one speaks very smartly and truly Is Ecclesiae non jungitur qui ab Evangelio separatur 6. Wherefore from this true and determinate apprehension of things it is manifest how outrageously and Antichristianly uncharitable this false Church would be against the true Members of Christ in calling them Hereticks and Schismaticks and Renders and Tearers in pieces of the Unity of the Church whenas in truth they are so far from being Hereticks that they are the faithful Witnesses of Jesus and the onely sincere Members of the Apostolick Body and keep to that one foundation of which Christ is the chief corner-stone and are so far from being Schismaticks in their separation from such a Church as I have described where gross Idolatry and Superstition has overflown all that by separating they have redeemed themselves out of this Babylonish or Aegyptian Captivity and returned to that City that is at unity or one with it self and must never vary I mean that one and onely true Catholick Church as being truly Apostolick For if it be true That he is not joyned to the Church that is separate from the Gospel I think it will be true also that he that is sincerely joyned to the Gospel cannot be separate from the Church And therefore this noise of tearing and rending the Church is but a clamorous Accusation of men that feel their own usurped Power and Interest to shake as if it would break in sunder at this resurrection of the true Apostolick Church and Christ's recovering the Power into his own hands for the raising that promised and long-expected Kingdom of Righteousness upon Earth 7. And yet in the fourth place though this false Church be thus perfectly Antichristian as I have described grossely Idolatrous and wretchedly Superstitious and thus shrilly clamorous and querimonious against the rending of the Unity of the Catholick Church as she will phrase it notwithstanding all this we will suppose her so Hypocritically nice and scrupulous that she will not contaminate herself with joyning in Divine Service with those of the true and Apostolick Church though there be nothing in their Service but what is Apostolical no not so much as joyn in the Lord's Prayer or giving of thanks at meat nor say Amen to the shortest Ejaculation or Doxologie that occasion should put into the mouth of those that appertain to the Apostolick Body nor say Grace themselves for fear these Apostolicks should joyn with them or adde their Amen And yet forsooth this Synagogue of Deceivers is so zealous and industrious for the keeping up of the Unity of the Catholick Church as passes when in the mean time they are so full of rancour and railing against these Hereticks as they call them that they will style them and indeed any Church besides their own the Church of the Devil and pronounce that God is not God if he do not damn them and will forbid their Nurselings to so much as wish a Requiem for their Souls when they are departed this life 8. But this is but an Histrionical swaggering in comparison Their Devillish Fraud in the pursuance of this Unsociableness in any Divine duty betwixt them whom they please to term Hereticks and those of their own Church is conspicuous viz. for fear commerce in religious matters should give them the knowledge of the Truth who are held to this false Church by nothing but by believing of Lies I mean not onely such as were long agoe framed for the advantage of their Church but such misinterpretations and falsehoods as they possess their Nurselings with against those whom they call Hereticks whose Doctrines they falsify and traduce their carriage as they please and by this interdicting converse with them keep them in that vile opinion of them which they have infused by their base Calumnies Besides that by this scrupulosity in communicating with them in any Religious duty they ostentate the great Sanctity of their own Pharisaical Church as I intimated before and ingender an hatred and detestation of all that are opposite which plots and practices in those who talk so much for Peace and Unity in the Church is a double iniquity and the highest breach of Charity that comes not yet to blows But she was certainly the Whore that called so remorslesly for the dividing of the Child not the genuine Mother And that must be an Adulterate Church most assuredly that would have Christians differ wherein they profess themselves all agreed and clove in sunder wherein they would naturally joyn together and that is in the Apostolical Doctrines and Practices CHAP. XV. 1. What Incendiaries to War and Plotters of abhorred Murthers these falsely-pretended Successours of Christ are 2. Their Butcherly Cruelty to the Sheep of Christ's Fold 3. Instances of prodigious Barbarities upon them for their very faithfulness to their Saviour and Redeemer 4. The numerousness of them that thus suffer with some particular kinds of Cruelty 5. More Instances of this Diabolical Barbarity 6. All the Elements made Instruments of the wrath and fury of this Antichristian Power 7. Most beastly and unnatural Examples of this Antichristian Salvageness 1. BUT there are yet behind more palpable discoveries of this Antichristian contrariety to that Divine Vertue of Charity the Royal Law as I have already said of the Kingdom of Christ which is described from the Peace and Security of them that live under it That there shall none destroy in God's holy Mountain In
that Grace which was not afforded by the Law namely the Quickning Spirit of God the peculiar promise of the Gospel Wherefore the Truth it self the body of the Sun of Righteousness being now risen with healing in his wings it is time for obscure Shadows and dark Types to fly away 2. And hence it is that S. Paul so stoutly exhorts the Galatians not to be held in bondage any longer within these shady coverts Nevertheless Gal. 4. 30. what saith the Scripture Cast out out the Bond-woman and her son For the son of the Bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the Free-woman So then Brethren we are not children of the Bond-woman but of the Free Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoak of bondage that is to say neither with Circumcision nor any other useless and burthensome ceremony And again upon the same subject he speaks very triumphantly in the above-mentioned Epistle to the Colossians in the same Chapter from the 8 verse to the verse before recited In which paragraph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Coloss. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hand-writing of Ordinances seems most naturally to be understood of Ceremonial ordinances that these were nailed to his Cross and nulled by his death but for that Law which is purely Moral and Eternal and the observation whereof is the perfection of Humane nature he came not to destroy it but to rescue it and perfect it by clearer glosses Which interpretation agrees the best both with the matter in hand which are Ceremonial ordinances which the Apostle speaks of Traditions of men and Rudiments of the World and also with the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in verse 20. If you be then dead with Christ from the Rudiments of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why as living in the world are ye subjected to ordinances to the decrees and ceremonial impositions of men As it follows immediately Tast not touch not handle not which he calls the Commandments and doctrines of men and not unlike those he mentions in his first Epistle to Timothy Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats which in one sense of the Text he seems to term the seducing Chap. 4. v. 3. doctrines of Devils as suggested by them over whom Christ is said to triumph here under the name of Principalities and Powers by virtue of his Cross and so treading them down is supposed to trample upon their ordinances those Doctrines of Devils which they enviously and insultingly entangled poor mankind withall And little better then such would the Judaical Ceremonies themselves be accounted when having been once abrogated by God through Christ they are again re-inforced by new imposers For that zeal that is inspired into men for the driving on superstitious ordinances and practices contrary to the command of Christ and the honour of the Gospel may be rationally conceived to come from Satan the active enemy of the Church of Christ. 3. Like to this of the Colossians is that of the Ephesians For he Chap. 2. 14. is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us having abolished in his flesh that is by his flesh crucified on the Cross as before the law of commandments contained in ordinances which answers to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hand-writing of ordinances in the former And by both these places it is evident That the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross was the solution of all the Ceremonies of Moses Law according as the Prophet Daniel had Dan. 9. predicted and That the everlasting Righteousness should take place a Religion that would instruct us to worship God in spirit and in truth and therefore should stand for ever there being none more perfect to succeed 4. And according to this tenour of the Gospel S. Peter as well as S. Paul is very earnest upon the point in that debate at Jerusalem whether Act. 15. 10. the converted Gentiles should be circumcised where he concludes his speech in this manner Now therefore saith he why tempt ye God to put a yoak upon the neck of the disciples which neither our Fathers nor we were able to bear namely ob ingentem illum numerum praeceptorum ritualium as Grotius has noted and superadded And S. Paul is so zealous for the casting out the Bond-woman and her child that he tells the Galatians roundly Behold I Paul say unto you that if you be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing So industriously did the Apostles of Gal. 5. 2. Christ fling off from the Church that wearisome burthen of the Rites and Ordinances of the Mosaical Law And thus we are sufficiently assured of the Privative End of the Gospel namely That it was to eradicate Idolatry from amongst the Nations and to null the Law of Moses in all the Ritual or Ceremonial ordinances thereof as a troublesome and useless incumberment upon Christianity and the Churches of God 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 Authours 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 Mysterie 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 enquired into 9. The Authour 's serious desire that the Truth of the Description may be perused without Prejudice and acknowledged without Tergiversation by them that are convinced 1. THE Positive Scope of the Gospel as I said and have elsewhere proved is The exaltation of the Divine life which is either by giving all due honour and obedience to Christ in whom this life did so eminently reside or by promoting the increase thereof both intensively and extensively in his members that it may rise to a due height where it is and get footing amongst those where it is not that the whole Mass of Mankind if it were possible might be leavened not with the leaven of Hypocrisie but with the sincere doctrine and enlivening spirit of the Gospel of Christ. 2. That Honour and Homage we owe to the Person of Christ is to be considered chiefly in these five respects As he is our King As he is our Priest As he is our Prophet As he is God Blessed for ever and As he is in a particular manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 as * Ch. 9. Esay describes him that is to say the Father of his Church As it is written concerning the Logos or Eternal Word That As many as received him power is given unto them to become the sons of God which are born not of bloud John 1. 12. nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God According as our Saviour speaks to Nicodemus That which is born of the flesh is John 3. 6. flesh but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit It is therefore the Spirit of Christ whereby we are begotten into a new creature If any man has not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his 3. But this Spirit of Christ is also the Spirit of God the Father and therefore our new creation or Regeneration is also attributed to him For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works And Ephes. 2 10. S. Peter in his first Epistle Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Ch. 1. v. 3. Jesus Christ who hath begotten us again or regenerated us c. But after in the same chapter he again brings the Eternal Word as a sharer in Vers. 23. this action of Paternity Being born not of corruptible seed but incorruptible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 per sermonem viventem Dei in aeternum permanentem though it may be also rendred per sermonem Dei viventis in aeternum permanentis and thus may refer either to God the Father or to the Eternal Logos As I conceive that may also in S. John He that is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed that is the Spirit of Truth which is from the Father 1 Ep. 3. 9. and the Son remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God Wherefore as Christ is said to be Head of all Principalities and Powers though God the Father be also rightly so styled and Christ is likewise said to be the Head of the Church though no man can deny but that God is so also for he that is an Husband to his Church is also ipso facto the Head of her So Christ in like manner may rightly be termed the Father of his Church although that be the ordinary appellation of the First Hypostasis of the holy Trinity And therefore there being such a real respect of Paternity betwixt Christ and his Church laid in this so remarkable ground of Regeneration by his Spirit into a new Creature I thought it both allowable and usefull to take notice thereof and adde this fifth Title to the rest there being most hainous sins committable against Christ in this respect also 4. That Christ is our King Priest Prophet and our God are Truths so generally acknowledged and so exceeding plain that I need produce no proof either of the things themselves or of the fitness of the Phrase 5. The other general branch of the Positive Scope of the Gospel is The spreading and propagating the exciting and nourishing the Divine Life in the members of Christ to the best of their capacities In which Divine Life is comprized Faith in God and a Belief of a Reward of righteousness in the other World as also those three excellent Evangelical Graces Humility Charity and Purity That these make up the grand Scope of the Gospel I think any one will be sufficiently satisfied by what I have written in my Explanation of the Mystery of Godliness 6. Now from hence it will follow with evidence and certitude plainly Mathematical That such a Mystery as in effect is a real counterplot and undermining as well of the Privative as Positive Scope of the Gospel of Christ in the above-named particulars that is to say That Mystery that in stead of ridding the world of Idols pollutes the Church with multifarious Idolatry instead of easing of the Church of the burthen of Judaical ceremonies fills it with a number of superfluous Rites either Judaical Pagan or pretendedly Christian That Mystery that makes Christ a King without power and laws a Prophet without prediction or instruction that sets up corrivalls with him in Heaven and on Earth for both his High-Priesthood and Divinity and eludes or prevents the inchoation or growth of the New birth by mischievous devices and practices That Mystery that naturally tends to the superinducing upon the world Atheism and Infidelity by magisterially obtruding upon mens belief the acknowledgement of such things as are not only useless to be believed but impossible to be and lastly That Mystery that is the Mother of Pride the Nurse of Uncleanness the School of barbarous Injustice and bloudy Cruelty This Mystery I say that is so horrid and Diabolical and so Antipodal to both the Person and Spirit of Christ and to all the Christian Graces provided there be but found a colour for these gross enormities as if they tended to the honour of Christ and the good of his Church must needs be that famed Mystery of Iniquity and the very body of Antichristianism with the distinct Limbs and Articulations thereof 7. Whose Image I having exhibited to your sight in this contracted Draught I shall now endeavour more fully and amply to set it before your eyes pursuing the parts I have enumerated in a more particular manner and in such a method as will carry along with it a reflexion upon the universal nature of the Mystery of Iniquity as it is opposite in a general respect to the Mystery of Godliness that is to say As those more comprehensive members of the Mystery of Godliness were A venerable Obscurity A communicable Intelligibleness Demonstrable Truth and desirable Usefulness so I shall trace along as I goe in every one of the above-mentioned Particulars of the Mystery of Iniquity these three general Depravations or Malignities as namely in opposition to the Truth in the Mystery of Godliness gross and palpable Falseness in stead of Usefulness intolerable Mischievousness and in stead of that venerable Obscurity joyned with Intelligibleness the unwholesome and abhorred fogs of a worse then Aegyptian darkness wherein harbours nothing but deceitfull Sophistry and self-seeking Fraud 8. In brief therefore the Falseness the Fraud and the Mischief shall be the points of inquisition upon every particular member of this Mystery of Antichristianism whose Idea when we have fully set out and demonstrated to be such we shall then proceed further to enquire Where it is actually to be found and by virtue of the said Idea to clear our own Church that is guiltless from the unjust suspicions and aspersions of malicious or inconsiderate spirits that either misrepresent or misapprehend things and so pass unrightfull censures upon what is at least allowable if not praise-worthy 9. He that is the Searcher of hearts and the Enlightner of our eyes so purge all our Hearts from partiality and Hypocrisie and so clear our Understandings that what shall be penned down with truth and sinceritie may be
Christ is the rescinding so many Souls from the body of the Church as are persuaded to entertain it Whence it is manifest that Idolatry is as it were a Gangrene in the body of Christ and eats so much away from it as it seizes upon 9. But this is not the sole Mischief of this kind done to the Church by Idolatry viz. The streightning the extent thereof by the divulsion of those that were her true members but as considerable as this is The prevention or hinderance from making them members that otherwise might be persuaded thereto For it is very visible that letting in of Idolatry into the Church of Christ will for ever while it there continues exclude both Jew and Turk out of it who are deservedly so great abhorrers of Idolatry To say nothing of the Idolatrous Heathens themselves to whom it would be ridiculous to preach as the Apostles did to turn from dumb Idols to serve the living God whenas they might easily see aforehand that it would be but the turning from their wonted Idols to the serving of new ones It is a fearfull thing therefore to profess the Church Catholick and yet by introduction of Idolatry to streighten it at home and hinder the propagation of it abroad by such horrible Scandals 10. Which is not only a Mischief to the Church herself in curbing her growth and eclipsing her glory but a sad disaster to the whole World which is the the last evil issuing therefrom it being to them the most certain pledge of everlasting happiness to become members of the Catholick Church of Christ of which there is little hope in either Jew Turk or Heathen that are consciencious while this stumbling-block is in their way and that they cannot profess Christianity without the allowance and practice of Idolatry Which in my apprehension ought to be reputed a very sad calamity upon Earth Thus we have seen a competent Description of the First main Limb of Antichristianism namely Idolatry brought into the Church of Christ under pretence of honour to him and the Saints with a discovery of the Falseness and Unwarrantableness of that Doctrine and Practice and the gross Fraud and grand Mischiefs that accompany it CHAP. XVII 1. That a multitude of slight Observances may amount to an intolerable burthen 2. That no Religious observance can be slight while it has an obligation upon the Conscience 3. Though this general estimate of the burthen of Superstition from obligation of Conscience and multitude of Observances might suffice yet he will adde a more particular Draught of this Limb of Antichristianism 4. Of Anointings and of the Multiplicity of Sacerdotal Ornaments 5. The pretence and Self-endedness in these Ornaments and Anointings 6. The Mischief arising from these kind of Ceremonies to Priest and People 7. A more full description of their Publick Service 8. That respect to the Priest is better sought and more certainly found in the Power of Life and Doctrine then in any Histrionical Pomp 9. Which is so unsatisfactory to the serious that it may hazzard their departure 10. The Opinion of a miraculous power in religious Vestments 11. The Falseness and Fraud of this Opinion 12. The ill consequence thereof 1. THE next Limb of Antichristianism is The burthening and entangling mens minds with Scrupulosities in either unnecessary or hurtfull Observances and Opinions laying an equal or greater yoke on Believers by reason of the Multitude of these Rites and Superstitious conceits then Judaism it self did upon the people of the Jews and thereby frustrating that End of Christ's coming which was To put a period to such burthen some and unprofitable Ordinances and to conciliate to himself a Church that should worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth Which Burthensomness as I have already intimated may arise merely from the multitude of these Ceremonies though the things may seem slight considered singly and in themselves as Feathers that are singly light may by their number grow heavier then a masse of Lead And what a man may sometime doe out of Idleness or wantonness to wit stoop to take up a straw or to divide clay or dirt into Squares or Oblongs yet to be kept close to this task how little different is it from that vile Aegyptian bondage of being condemned to the perpetual making of bricks or gathering of stubble 2. Besides that every toy to which there is once a Religious obligation girds hard with those that are serious and consciencious And such followers Christ expects and therefore neither he nor his Apostles would burthen them with any thing but what was necessary But we are exhorted rather to stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ has Gal. 5. 1. made us free and not to suffer our selves to be brought under the bondage of any servile and unprofitable burthens of Superstition And our Saviour Christ rebuking the Pharisees tells them plainly that they worshipped God in vain while they taught for Doctrines the commandments Mark 7. of men Forasmuch as laying aside the Commandments of God they held the Traditions of men as the washing of pots and cups and brazen vessels and the like Wherefore if our Saviour Christ was so tender in the behalf of his Disciples that he would not have them superstitiously ensnared no not in so commendable and easy an observance as the washing of the hands ever before they did eat certainly it is utterly against his mind to have his followers intangled and enthralled in an innumerable multitude of less usefull Ceremonies Which be their natures what they will yet if by their numerosity they equallize the burthen of the Judaical Rites this general estimate is sufficient to discover it to be no inconsiderable Limb of Antichristianism in what Church soever such an enormity shall appear 3. Which I speak not as if I found it beyond my skill to pourtray this Limb of Antichristianism more articulately with stronger sinews and more full and solid muscles Such a draught therefore of Ritual Ordinances and Dogmatical Observances I will now draw as I dare appeal to any indifferent judge whether it will not prove an eminent part of that Mystery that opposes and defeats the purposed Ends of the coming of Christ into the world which assuredly were to free his followers from Sin and Superstitious slavery 4. And truly observing how tender and carefull our Saviour is in keeping off the least taint of Superstition from his Disciples about washings and eatings of meat and how expresly he affirms to them in that excellent parable That nothing that enters into a man defiles the man it will be Mark 7. easy thence to infer that much less any thing that hangs upon him or is about him can Sanctifie or make him holy Whence in the first place though I do not lay the greatest stress on it If we should suppose the Christian Priests to heap to themselves several sorts of Consecrated Garments for greater Ornament and Sanctimonie insomuch that every Priest's
into it of frighting away the destroying Angel but was merely a present Sign as also a Type of the sprinkling of the Bloud of Christ who as a Lamb without spot was to be sacrificed in future ages for the sins of the world Nor were the Water and Ashes of the Heifer mingled together with any Exorcism or Enchantment that we reade of in Scripture Nor did Elisha charm the Salt before he cast it into the Waters to heal them but he used it as a circumstance onely or sign in the healing of them which Ceremonies Christianity has nothing to doe withall nor is there any reason to bring in any more of the ancient Types or Figures then are already made use of by his choice who was unerrable The ground therefore of such usages is none at all but the pretence to such power as this so strangely and marvellously to enchant things to such mighty uses would make much for the honour of the Priest who cannot but hereby seem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a very great and adorable person to the credulous people and these Exorcized commodities would be ready mony with as many as had belief in them But the worst is Faith and Temperance would be look'd less after and Pots of Holy-water and enchanted Lambs of Wax would stop those inward living springs of the Spirit of God in the Heart and help to extinguish that sense of Innocency then which there is not a greater Tower of defence to a believing Christian against all the fiery and thundring Artillery of the Prince of the Air. 6. These be the most gross and fundamental Superstitions that look like Magick or Sorcery which yet might be derived and deduced into various uses and practices as in the Visitation of the Sick in Extreme Unction in Funerals or Burials in Christenings Churchings and Marriages where Holy-water Exorcized Oil and Candles might be frequently made use of and some of them truly not without some considerable trouble as in Anointing the Sick their Eyes Ears Noses Mouths and Hands nay their Feet and the Reins of their Back the latter whereof may cause troublesome contests betwixt natural Modesty and Religious zeal in those that have a penitent sense of the transgressions of those parts The conjuring the Devil also out of the Infant that is to be baptized would seem a frightful thing to the Infant himself if he understood in what an ill plight the Priest supposes him while he makes three Exsufflations upon his face and uses an Exorcistical form for the ejecting of the foul Fiend who is imagined very saucily presumptuous to take such timely possession of him to whom he could not but see that Christ Jesus had apparently a better right as being the off-spring of them who were already his the Child being born of Christian Parents But here may come in also beside other Ceremonies the use of the Holy Oil for the anointing him on the fore-head and breast the putting upon him white Vestments and into his hand an holy Candle And which is more holy then any Oil or Candle the Priest's own Spittle is also to sanctifie his Ears and Nostrils by a gentle smearing thereof on those places And lastly that all may be sound and wholesome the holy Salt may also be put into the mouth of the Child that his words when he can speak may be the more savoury Thus may the use of the first consecrated Elements you see go far and make the Christian Sacrament of Baptism exceed in Ceremonie the Judaical nay their Circumcision it self whenas the use of that one Element of Water were sufficient and One dipping as significant of the Unity of the Godhead as Three are of the Trinity Yet such large and prolix Shadows might Christianity cast when the Sun of Righteousness grows towards his setting in the Church 7. And it is much if something might not appear affrightful to the Women in this approching darkness For though it be a gay thing for the Priest to be thought to have so much power over the Stygian Fiend as to Exorcize him out of the Infant yet it may be a sad consideration with some melancholick women laden with Superstition to think they are never brought to bed but they are delivered of a Devil and Child at once and that if their Child should die before Baptism the Devil having got bodily possession of him will certainly carry him thither where the greatest affection of a Mother dares not so much as desire to give him a visit Which indeed would argue the necessity of speedy Baptism to the height but withall depress the afflicted mind of the melancholick Mother with unspeakable anxiety The Delinition also of the Infant 's Ears and Nostrils with the Spittle of the Priest may sometimes strike harshly upon the spirits of the more delicate but it makes much for the opinion of his Sanctity whose spumeous excrement is of so sacred a virtue and will gain also the prayers of all the women in the Town that he may ever be an hail and sound man 8. But it were very unequal if the Load of Superstition should be lay'd wholy upon tender Infancy and our first entrance into this world Surely that severe Goddess will make them feel her weight also in some measure who are in a way of departing out of it And truly that Ceremonie of Extreme Unction that pretends to make the passage more glib to a man not Superstitious would make it more rough and troublesome The ripping up their Breast also by that sharp tool of necessitated Confession and then an over-reaching Satisfaction excited to the advantage of this or that holy Order or the uses of the Church will easily distract the mind of the dying penitent betwixt the care of his own Soul and the provision for his dear Wife and Posterity But frequent aspersions of Holy-water shall be his dilute comfort and he shall have before his eyes so long as he enjoys the light Assistants more cold and dead then those that have lien four days in the grave the Image suppose of Christ on the Cross another of the Virgin Mary and a third of the Saint to whom he had particularly devoted himself where he may if he will salute the Virgin 's Idol in the very words in which the Angel Gabriel once did her But if he would lay aside complements and speak the truth he might take up the complaint of Job touching these liveless companions Miserable Comforters are ye all However in the Interim what the frequent sprinkling of Holy-water can doe and making Crosses on his breast and forehead or the urging upon him the belief of every tittle the Church has defined to be true the Soul now so near her departure being more quick-sighted in those abstruse Mysteries or the promise of Prayers and Oblations when he is in the other State shall not be wanting for the ease of his Soul which in his breathing of it out if he should commend into the
the Sheep 9. But there is yet an harder burthen that Superstition may invent and be either added to some of the Monastick Orders or imposed as Penance or voluntarily inflicted on a mans self out of a blind intoxicating zeal the practice being applauded by this not Mother but Stepdame Church and it is in a word Flagellation or Whipping a mans self cruelly and bloudily for a Religious satisfaction or else for Merits A custom so harsh and salvage that it is more befitting the Altar of Diana Taurica then the Temple of Christ and has no precedent unless in those Religions which were of the Devil 's own setting up whose sport was his Tyrannizing over poor despised Mankind Such a Pastour as this is not onely a clipper but a flayer of his Sheep and exquisitely opposite to his Spirit who promised his followers that his yoke should be easie and his burthen light 10. But such hardships as these as they make a shew in the flesh so they tend nothing to the right chastising and subduing of the corruptions of the spirit and are but like the whipping the Cart and letting the Horses go free That chastisement that reaches to amendment of life and the bringing the Inward man under the obedience of Christ is a resolute denial of acting any of the suggestions of the flesh This will wound the sinning principle more home and will really heal the Soul in the conclusion But the other cannot well be countenanced but upon an Hypocritical affectation of a pompous kind of Severity wherein this false Church may ostentate her own power over the minds and bodies of men and take a secret joy in the relish of this wonderful Empire she has got over the World even to a vile kind of bondage and vassalage But in the mean time such American cruelties as these may well hazzard the life or health of the abused Penitents and will not fail to bring a very loathsom reproach upon the School of Christ making it look like salvage Paganism and the Synagogue of the Devil 11. That also were a kind of Paganical injury put upon deceived Souls and a great wearisomness and drudgery to the Body to be ingaged in long Pilgrimages to salute this or that Saint's Image for better reconciliation But the Offerings tend to the enriching of that Church and the Resort of Pilgrims to the enriching of the Town and thereby to the conciliating of the affections of the Towns-men to so gainful a Religion But in the mean time the Pilgrims affairs at home are left at sixes and sevens his Children to the sole government of his Wife and his Wife to the oversight of the Ghostly Father and what other humane Visitants shall put in for her comfort in her Husband's absence To Pilgrimages might be added Jubilees at the great Metropolis of this Apostatized Church which though not so frequent yet at their celebration would be frequented from the remotest parts of Christendom with multitudes of devout Strangers upon belief of pardon of their sins for so holy a voiage But the end and inconveniences of this Solemnity would be much the same with those of Pilgrimages saving that this is more peculiarly designed for the replenishing of the High-priest's coffers 12. It were an endless business to reckon up all the manners of Superstitious molestations which might be invented for the bodies of deceived and inslaved Christians under the pretence of fulfilling the Laws of Christianity and of the Church Such as Going a considerable way bare-footed and bare-headed The putting themselves into cold congeling Springs the water gushing upon their bare breasts The rolling themselves in beds of Ice and Snow The creeping upon their bare knees on flinty Causeys to the cutting of their skin and flesh and making all run with bloud The wearing of hair-cloth next their skin and a girdle of nails and needles with many such like tragical extravagancies concerning which I have nothing new to take notice of but that they are quite contrary to the ingenuous Spirit that breaths in true Christianity and as I said before do too much assimilate the Religion of Christians to the bloudy Superstitions of barbarous Pagans CHAP. XX. 1. The Burthen of afflictive Opinions 2. The distracting puzzles of a Soul intangled with multifarious Superstitions and Conceits 3. The illaqueations of Religious Vows 4. Intanglements arising from a Superstitious trust in certain surmised virtues in the Mass. 5. Vexatious Scrupulosities concerning the Intention of the Priest in administring the Sacraments 1. BUT to let pass these incommodations of the Body Christianity may be made very uneasie and uncomfortable by several rackings and distractings of the Mind by unnecessary Obligations of the Conscience by entangling Conceits and Opinions which also being innumerable it were to no purpose to go about to reckon up all But some few obvious ones I shall venture to name such as The supposed duty of worshipping the Cross the Images or Reliques of Saints The conceit of communion of Merits The intanglement of Vows A superstitious trust in the Eucharist and in the power of the Priest's Intention in that and other Sacraments The belief of the necessity of Auricular Confession and of the Assent to every of the smallest points of Doctrine held by the Church though there be no footsteps thereof in the Scripture nor any ground in Reason The excruciating fear of a worse then Pagan Purgatory and finally the necessity of Penal Satisfaction and Merit A man may pronounce these words without blistering his tongue but if he once imbibe them as Principles obliging the Conscience and be superstitiously intangled in them he will sleep as uneasily by reason of the unsettledness of his Mind as if his bed were strowed with chopped hairs or pulverized glass There is no redemption of the quiet of his Spirit but by taking of a lusty draught of that Soporiferous potion that will make him repose himself wholly on the faith of his Priest to say and to doe just as he will have him without any disquisition or reasoning and so to metamorphose himself from a rational cautious Man into a mere passive Ass for the false Prophet to ride upon 2. But if he were seriously set to promote his own happiness upon the account of his own judgment and diligence how would he be distracted in the multiplicity of the Objects of his Devotion For if it be so meritorious to visit the Shrine of one Saint it will be the neglect of his own Salvation to omit another And if the Saints be so ambitious as to be pleased by our Religious Invocation of them the invoking one may it not bring upon us the displeasure of the rest who are pretermitted And if I make one of them my Patron why may I not suspect that I have thereby made the rest mine Enemies by slighting them were they thus desirous of Divine Honours as we conceit them And as concerning their holy Reliques that are offered to be kissed by
in order to particular Absolution from the Priest 7. As also a more particular Confession if voluntary 8. The Self-ends of this Church in exacting so punctual a Confession from men 9 10. The slavery and Mischief of such kind of Confessions 11. The infinite vexation to the consciencious and ingenuous from the obtruding upon them incredible and impossible Opinions 1. ABsolution puts me in mind of the pretence of necessity of Confessing once a year at least and that to the Priest of the Parish all a mans sins not onely actually committed but the very purposes desires or propensions to the committing of them Which might rightly be called Carnificina conscientiarum indeed and is as base a piece of servitude and to as ill purpose as if that all the modest Maids and grave Matrons in the Parish should strip themselves stark naked and in that manner humble themselves before their Priest once a year Which would look like a piece of unsupportable Tyranny And yet this extorted Confession upon pain of Damnation not to conceal any thing is not the stripping of a man to his naked body but the stripping him of his body that they may see his naked Heart and so by the force of this Superstition break into those secrets which it is the onely due privilege of God Almighty to be acquainted with who is the onely rightful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and can neither receive any hurt by seeing the most inward motions of his own handy-work nor will knowing whereof we are made doe us any but will judge with equity in all things nor will despise the work of his own hands 2. The pretence for this Confession is the necessity of Absolution by the Priest which if a man through his own neglect have not he must be undoubtedly damned But that any such Absolution is necessary unless upon the case of just Excommunication cannot be made out by either Scripture or Reason For when it is said to Peter to the Church or to the Apostles Whatsoever ye bind in earth shall be bound in heaven or Matth. 18. 18. Whatsoever ye loose in earth shall be loosed in heaven and Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain Joh. 20. 23. they are retained It is impossible the meaning should be Remit or Retain Bind or Loose whether right or wrong I will ratifie all above whatever the Successors of my Apostles shall doe nor shall any remission of sins be ratified without them though they succeed onely in the external profession and partake not of the same Spirit with their Predecessors Wherefore so large and accurate a Commission cannot belong to any but either to the Apostles themselves or to men of a true Apostolical spirit who are entirely of one mind with God and therefore can doe onely what is right It being so rare therefore and so difficult a thing to find such a Confessor it is an argument such an Absolution is not necessary For neither God nor Nature are wanting in necessaries But the Binding by Excommunication and the Loosing answering thereto is of another consideration and concerns the external Oeconomy of the Church 3. But to speak truly That phrase of Binding and Loosing above cited out of Scripture seems not so much to respect Persons as Things For it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whatsoever not whomsoever and reflects upon the known phrases of the Jews who called that which was declared unlawful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ligatum but that which was allowed as lawful they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 solutum And therefore that passage does not respect Absolution from sin but the making of Laws and Institutes for the Church by the Apostles which Christ says he would ratifie in Heaven But that other place Joh. 20. of remitting and retaining mens sins does undoubtedly respect Absolution from sin But mark to what manner of men this power is committed As my Father sent me so send I you now Christ was sent full of grace and of the power of the Holy Ghost and therefore he breathing upon them says Receive the Holy Ghost and did most certainly impart it to them And thereupon is derived upon them that authority Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained 4. Whence Erasmus excellently upon the place Qui ex his posterioribus cristas erigunt Tyrannidem quandam sibi vendicant cur non meminerunt eorum quae mox praecesserunt Toti turgemus mundano Spiritu tamen placemus nobis authoritate commissâ remittendi aut retinendi peccata Tuere authoritatem sed cura ut adsit Spiritus per quem Christus tribuit authoritatem Which implies that where this Spirit is not the Authority is not and that a man cannot rationally be either comforted by the remission or dismay'd by the retaining of sin when it is from such Ghostly Fathers as are devoid of the Spirit of Christ. 5. Moreover Hugo Grotius does soberly and with judgment I conceive interpret this place of Remission of sins by Baptism or Reception again into the Communion of the Church if any be lapsed after Baptism but the Retaining of sins to be Non-admittance of these into the Church who are not yet penitent Believers or the Excommunicating them out of it upon a lapse worthy so great a Censure But what is this to an Anniversary Absolution which must necessitate and squeeze out such an unnecessary and unreasonable Confession St. James saith Confess your sins one to another whose style was ill directed if it had been such an indispensable duty to confess unto the Priest and in such a manner as has been described so frequent so punctual This Anniversary Provolution therefore of a Penitent upon the floor at the feet of a formal Confessor with eyes and hands devoutly lifted up toward him sitting in his majesty is no part of true Christian Discipline but as Erasmus has well intimated a piece of Antichristian Tyranny it being a thing very loathsome and burthensome to be bound to unbosome a mans self to him of whose judgment friendship or fidelity we can have no assurance and very intolerable to be forced to speak of such things as we do not allow our selves to think of and that before such as we may probably â—…spect will conceive some sinful pleasure by the discourse of them 6. The Injunction therefore of such a punctual Confession has no ground at all in either Scripture or Reason For neither did the Apostles nor Christ himself require any such particular and complete enumeration of mens sins nor left in charge with their Successors to doe so And it is sufficient more generally to confess them with a serious profession of detesting and resolution of leaving them wherein if the Penitent will dissemble he may as well dissemble
the number and circumstances of his sins So little pretence can there be from hence of this Injunction But if he profess his sorrow and resolution of amendment and by reason of some weakness or melancholy cannot lay such fast hold upon the Promise of remission upon unfeigned Repentance without this visible and palpable seal set thereto of Sacerdotal Absolution I do not see but a Priest anointed with the Spirit of Christ and full of holy compassion to a penitent member of his Church may rightfully and profitably by that Authority which was derived upon the Apostles and their Successours and by that divine power that assists the sincere exercise of his Ministery seal to him the Remission of his sins by pronouncing his Absolution and so restore to peace his disquieted Mind his sins being as certainly pardoned as if Christ himself in person had absolved him he in such a case as this assuredly ratifying in Heaven whatever is here transacted upon Earth Which I suppose Grotius himself will not deny nor conceive at all clashing with his interpretation of S. John he not pretending those he mentions the only occasions of remitting or retaining of sins but the most notable 7. And as this Voluntary Confession in general to the Priest in order to the Penitent's Absolution is usefull and commendable so likewise a Voluntary unbosoming a mans self in a more particular way to such an one as he could trust and can presume fit and able for his office to the end that he may have a more perfect understanding of the state of his Soul and thereby administer more sutable and effectual counsel is a thing questionless of very good consequence 8. But to extort from every Believer every year or oftener a punctuall enumeration of all his transgressions in thought word and deed with all their circumstances were but a vile and disingenuous pretence of insinuating into all mens bosoms for the getting out their secrets of which the Priest may make his private advantage or communicate to the Churchpoliticians such matters as will tend to the strengthening of their distinct Interest which is The conserving or promoting that Honour Wealth and Power which they affect in the World And truely by this means the secrets not of this man or that woman but of whole Families and Cities nay of whole Provinces and Kingdoms and of all Christendom may flow together into that common Cistern or if you will Sea of Ecclesiastick Intelligence which is the very Eye of Action and the Soul of Conduct in all affairs 9. But though this would be a sweet morsel to this Pseudo-Clergy we are now describing it would be sour sauce to the Laiety not only in that it is a foul badge of an inevitable bondage upon them to be constrained upon pain of Damnation at least once by the year to cast themselves down upon the ground before them that are so many fathom sunk into the Earth themselves and to reproach themselves by ripping up their own faults accurately and punctually before such as they have no assurance of either their Candour Judgment or Friendship and for a man to balk his own Priest in this case would be to brand him and so make one of his chiefest neighbours his greatest enemy I say besides the external slavery of the business and the doing of a Ceremonie which may goe so much against the hair even with good and ingenuous spirits a man may be obnoxious to very great dangers and mischiefs For he that has the office of hearing men thus accurately and necessarily accusing themselves once a year at least has a greater opportunity of injustly defaming them by some tacit insinuations or somewhat expresser notices then is fit to be put into the hand of any man that is not a Saint upon Earth of which sort we suppose in this Polity we speak of extremely few 10. Interrogatories also from such Confessours may in greatest likelihood prove to young men and women Lessons of sin and lust and the knowing of the secrets of Families the seeds of infinite contentions betwixt Neighbours and also betwixt those of the same Families For it will be a hard thing for those that by this Shriving of persons know much of their Interest or disinterest to hold their itching fingers from acting or intermedling in their affairs or their other prurient parts from the soliciting the Chastity of such parties as they find hopefull and coming or not to be officious Intelligencers or Game-finders for such as pursue the pleasures of Venus Besides that the vainness of their Penances which yet must needs look like the right value of the Sin may harden men into a conceit that there is no great hurt in sinning and teach them to esteem the transgressing of the Law of God as a thing slight cheap and trivial Whereas if the only Penance of sin were the pain of forsaking it urged upon them from the certain expectation of that most direfull Judgment to come though no other condition but that were annexed to Absolution it would make men more sensibly feel the weight of sin and make them make the greater speed to get from under the burthen of it But to draw to an end 11. That also will pinch very hard especially upon the more Intellectual or Rational complexions namely To be bound in their Conscience upon pain of Damnation to hold whatsoever the Church professes to be true while she in the mean time obtrudes such things upon mens belief as have no ground neither in Reason nor Scripture For even in things that are disputable either way it is the fate of some men notwithstanding to be in a manner invincibly inclined to conceive this part to be true rather then the other What struggling and conflicting therefore must he undergoe to hold to the Authority of the Church against such strong and fatal sentiments of his own Mind But if the Church should be thus Dogmatical not only in things that may according to the sense of the generality of men be either way but conclude and require the belief of such things as are point-blank against either Scripture or Reason and are impossible according to the Faculties of all men who are unprejudiced to be true as That one and the same Body may be wholy and entirely in a thousand places at once and at a thousand miles distance betwixt all those places That we may worship a graven Image and the like how unevenly must these conditions of Salvation sit upon the spirit of him that is not a mere sot What reciprocations of belief and misbelief of hope and despair of Salvation must such an one be tortured with that holds that his share in eternall bliss depends upon the hearty belief of the truth of the Church in all things when what she propounds according to all his Faculties is not only unlikely but impossible to be true CHAP. XXII 1. The dreadfull Figment of Purgatory 2. That by this affrightfull Fable
some part That it is not an Absolute Inconditionate Promise to the Whole is plain in that the parties of Christendom differ so much in matters of Belief as they do But if it be to some part where is the nomination of that part in these Promises whereby their Right of Interpreting may appear to the world There is no Particular Church specified there neither Greek nor Roman neither Muscovian nor Armenian nor that of Prester John nor any other Church else Whence it is plain that no Particular Church can have any claim or right to any such privilege 6. Again suppose some Particular Church had a Promise how does it appear that the Promise is Inconditionate to this Particular Church and that it is not upon supposal that they will seriously and sincerely apply their mind to find out the Truth and purifie their Souls from all those worldly and sensual impediments thereto For this spirit of Infallibility cannot lodge in a body that is subject unto sin For Purity of heart and life is the very Light and Crystalline Organ the very Eye of the Soul and to think of a privilege of Infallibility without Holiness is like the imagining of a promise to see without Light or Eyes Wherefore it is such an Hypocritical conceit that a man cannot well tell whether it be more to be lamented or laughed at for a Church to pretend that God has an irresistible design of making them Infallible to every Punctilio of Controversie and yet not of making them Holy and Good But it is a sign they contemn or abhor Goodness as being contrary to their corrupt natures but desire the privilege of Infallibility as being agreeable to their natural pride and the boast thereof an instrument to bring about all their deceitful devices And therefore we might adde to this That it is questionable whether the Promise be to any Church visible but to such as the Apostles were chosen sanctified and faithful Regenerate men for none but these are truly the Church of Christ and if he make his Promise good onely to such as are his true Church it is sufficient 7. Moreover be this Promise Conditionate or Inconditionate we cannot but be sure that this Infallibility is not Universal as to all Objects whatsoever And therefore to meddle with such things as are not necessary to Salvation nor really edifying were to go beyond their Warrant or Commission and thereby to forfeit or at least to have no benefit of the promised Assistence 8. But let us particularly examine the Texts of Scripture themselves The first whereof infers no more then this That the Church of Christ shall never cease to be that Death shall never be able to prevail against her neither to extirpate her in this world or hinder her of a glorious Immortality in the world to come For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death or Abolition or The state of the dead But this may be true of the Church though it were not Infallible So weak is this first Allegation 9. As for the second it were well for the Alledgers if it were onely weak for it is strong against themselves and makes much for our Hypothesis who conceive this Infallibility to be Conditional For reade the whole Context entire and it runs thus If ye love me keep my Commandments and I will ask the Father c. which implies there is a Condition That they must love Christ and keep his Commandments if they expect that Spirit which will abide with them for ever that is as long as they lived for so the word ordinarily signifies in Scripture And it is further added that it is such a Spirit as the World cannot receive Which therefore does strongly imply that it resides not in those who are worldly and carnally-minded Which Conditionality of the Promise is also infinuated in the third place alledged When the Spirit of Truth is come he will Lead you or guide you into all Truth that is he will lead you as a Man not hale you or drag you as a Stone or a brute Beast which is not a free Agent So that we see plainly that this Infallibility is Conditional where-ever it is And though I doubt not but the Condition being performed the Promise will be made good to all men as far as it is necessary to their Salvation yet these places are not the best that may be produced to that purpose the Promise being not General here but directed to certain particular men in such circumstances as it is evident that it is meant to them in particular and does not infer any succession For the men that he speaks to there he decyphers to be such as he was present with and should be put in mind by the Paraclet what he had said to them when present such Joh. 14. 16 17. as were sorrowful upon the occasion of his departure with other like circumscribing circumstances that cannot belong to any succession of men but were proper to the Apostles to whom he then spake 10. As indeed Infallibility it self seems a Promise most proper to them they being to lay the Foundations of the Church and to build the House of God which they having done in terms plain enough as to all things necessary to Salvation the Promise of Infallibility needs reach no further the Church for ever hereafter being safe provided she keep but close to what is plainly delivered by the first Founders of her nothing else need be obtruded upon Believers by way of Infallible imposition 11. And as for that fourth citation where the Church seems to be called The Pillar and Ground of Truth If we admit of Cameron and Capellus 1 Tim. 3. 15. their ingenious conjecture upon the place viz. That The Pillar and Ground of Truth is to be disjoyned from the precedent words by a Colon at least and understand also what follows without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness to be onely a Parenthetical Elogium of the Mystery of the Gospel into which the Apostle was transported upon consideration of those weighty Points thereof which he was a-delivering God manifest in the Flesh c. so that The Pillar and Ground of Truth may be 1 Tim. 3. 16. the Preface to the grand Points of the Christian Truth which that Parenthesis being seposed do immediately follow according as it was usual with the Jews to prefix before such Fundamentalls of knowledge the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fundamentum Columna Sapientia this passage will be wholly disâ—…bled from making any shew of proof for what it was alledged 12. But if you will adjoyn this Title to the Church it was the Ephesian Church where Timothy resided which has vanished long agoe And what other Church then unless every Particular Church can urge this place for Infallibility which experience of contradicting one another does openly confute Besides that the style it self of Ground and Pillar may not
God to have interpreted the Scripture and not for their own ends or carnal satisfaction in any thing And questionless in this case they can shew their Commission and that they act by Authority Let all things be done to edification 1 Cor. 14. 26. But that because every Civil controversy must be determined by a Judge therefore there must be an Infallible determinative Judge of all the nice and unprofitable controversies that emerge amongst Christians about Scripture and Religion is but a weak and lame Illation For Civil controversies cannot be undecided without injury to some party but no man is injured by not having those unprofitable at least unnecessary questions determined for they may hold their several opinions without wronging one another if they will but keep to that known Law of Christ that Royal Law of Charity Nay the deciding such controversies by a pretended Infallible Judge were a vast wrong to one party it galling their consciences and streightning their liberty and making the way to Heaven narrower then Christ has made it For so does this Infallible Judge that imposes his Determinations on men upon pain of eternal Damnation But God of his infinite wisedom and mercy has not given the least Intimation for any such Usurpation And therefore this Infallible Judge being not appointed by God and being unappointable by man the Scripture alone and not these pretended Infallible decisions must be the Rule of our belief 7. The fourth and last pretence is That unless the Sense of Scripture be determined by the Infallibility of the Church every private Spirit must be Judge of the meaning thereof nay and which is worse be Judge of the Church and thereby superiour to the Church then which nothing can be more wild and extravagant This seems a big difficulty at first But I answer That every particular man should judge for himself he has a Commission from the very Word of God nay I may say a Command As where he is bid to try 1 Thess. 5. 21. all things and to hold that which is good as also not to believe every 1 John 〈◊〉 spirit but to trie the spirits whether they be of God and in another place to be ready to give a reason of his Faith The Beroeans also are commended 1 Pet. 3. Acts 17. for searching the Scripture and trying whether the things that Paul even an inspired and chosen vessel of God had taught them were true or no. But for any one man or any company of men to be appointed by God Authoritatively and absolutely to be Judges for others in matters of Faith and Religion we do not find any where in Scripture or in Reason any such Commission given unto them but we are rather admonished to take heed how we be led hoodwinkt by any lest the blind Matt. 15. 14. leading the blind both fall into the ditch 8. But not Scripture onely but Reason it self does plainly commissionate private Spirits as they call them to judge for themselves For these pretenders to Infallibility doe it onely upon the boast that they are the true successive Church from the Apostles But unless they will be above all measure ridiculous they must convince the Reason of him whom they would make a Proselyte to their Church that their Church is that true and Apostolical one For to say so without proof is a madness to be hooted at by all men But to goe about to prove it is to appeal to the private Reason of him they would convince And if he be a Christian already though not of their Church the common acknowledged Principles are the Holy Scriptures in arguing from which the Disputant appeals to him he would bring over if his Interpretation or Allegation of them be not true But if he be an Infidel or Pagan he is to use Reasons to prove the Truth and Authority of the Scriptures themselves Which is still an appeal to the conscience of him that is to be gained to the Church whether what is offered to him be true or false And that which is offered to him being the whole Christian Faith for that is it which makes a true Church it is plain that his Reason and Conscience is appealed unto whether the whole Summe of the Credenda in Christianity is not true That is to say Though the Church and he that argues in the behalf of the Church have already judged and firmly concluded that the Christian Faith is a true Faith in the whole and in every part and make no appeal from their own judgment in reference to themselves yet in reference to the party they would convince they appeal to him if the grounds of their Belief be not solid and so imply and acknowledge that he is Judge for himself in these affairs call that in him a private spirit or what you please 9. But I do not know but it may be too reproachfully called a private spirit at least in the sincere and simple-hearted who have no private designs but to know the Will of God and to doe it and it is the Will of God all men should doe so and the spirit of man * Prov. 20. is said to be the Lamp of the Lord and that which judges according to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common notions of Reason in all men and has not lost the * Psell. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those common characters and ingenuous sentiments of Indispensable Truth and Morality which the Father of lights has of old sealed upon the Soul and which are hardly obliterated quite in any and are necessarily continued and that vigourously in the sincere I say such a Life or Spirit as this judging in a man is very hardly to be called a private spirit it judging according to the Universal sense of humane Nature and so as every one judges when he is unbiassed Nay if this will not serve I say that the Judgement which is thus made is the Judgement of that Universal King and Law-giver the Eternal Son of God it is his sentence in these cases but writ in the tables of our hearts and pronounced by our mouths as by the Praeco of a Court. So far is it from being the Judgement of a mere private spirit But that rather is the Judgement of a private spirit though it should bear the Title of an Infallible Church which is decreed not according to the plain Texts of Scripture so as all unprejudiced men would certainly understand them nor according to those indeleble Characters of Truth which Christ the Eternal Logos has writ in the Rational Souls of all mankind but according to partial Interest and depraved desires The sentence of Thousands nay of Millions of such Judges is more the verdict of a private spirit then the Judgement of the meanest private man that pronounces from such Principles as I have declared 10. Now for that odious imputation of making a mans self Superiour to the
Church by laying claim to a Judgement of discretion I say he lays claim to no more then is of necessity given him as I have already demonstrated For if there be an appeal to the Reason and Conscience of a private man in the endeavouring to convince him he is ipso facto made Judge and if to be Judge in this sense is to be Superiour he is necessarily Superiour But I see no necessity that his being Judge thus for himself makes him Superiour to his Church Indeed if he judged for his Church he were thereby their Superiour but judging for himself onely he usurps no Superiority over the Church but onely is obedient to him that is Superiour to both that is to Jesus Christ following his plain Injunctions and Precepts whether written in the outward Word or legibly engraven upon the Table of his Heart To follow therefore the plain and inevitable dictates of his own Conscience which as the Tribunal of God is not to exalt a mans self above the Church but to submit a mans self to God and exalt him above all 11. Nor does a man herein equallize himself to his Church in that he does not define for others but for himself and professes himself in the mean time ready to obey the visible Church in such things as are not repugnant to the express Precepts of God and Christ and to those immutable Characters of Truth which he has imprinted upon the Souls of all men and which are there to be found unless gross violence and Interest has obscured or obliterated them 12. Nor in the last place does he make himself wiser then his Church which were also an odious imputation But without immodesty it may be thought that a private man may be more sollicitous of his own important Concerns and more faithfull to his own Eternal Interest then many thousand men put together and that therefore though he may not have so much wit and learning as these yet he may conduct his own affairs more safely then if they were put into their hands especially they that pretend to be guides to Heaven for others seeming to be wholy taken up with the things of this World as if they had forgot their intended journey It is not therefore a boast of Wisedom above the Church but a carefull sollicitude touching such things as the wise men of the World do not usually trouble themselves much about that may embolden some private sincere-hearted Christian to dissent from some Dictates of the Church professing himself in other things as weak and childish as they please remembring that Doxologie of our Blessed Saviour I thank thee O Father Matt. 11. Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes Even so Father for so it seemed good in thy sight 13. Finally This Wisedom which they adhere to is plainly and evidently not the Dictate of their own private spirit which to oppose to the Church were indeed to make a mans self wiser then the Church but the plain and perspicuous Testimonies of the Word of God and the common and indubitable Notions of universal humane Nature writ by the Finger of that Eternal Wisedom which created all things on the spirits of all men that be in their wits and therefore is a plain and legible Copy of that Wisedom So that he that adheres thereto does not prefer his own Wisedom before the Wisedom of the Church but submits himself faithfully to the Wisedom of God to which the Church also ought to submit and not to efface as much as in them lies those imprinted Characters of Truth out of the Souls of men thereby to enslave them to themselves and to the corrupt Interest of their Kingdom of darkness and gross Imposture 14. But I have been more copious then was needfull or intended in confuting this dream of Infallibility We might have made shorter work of it and suddenly evinced the folly of that pretence by actual Errours that have been in the Church of God As surely the Church of the Jews was as really the Church of God as the visible Christian Church and has as magnificent promises as it in Isaiah For what is spoke Chap. 54. rebounds upon the Church of the Jews first as Grotius has observed and there it is said That they shall all be taught of God and that with everlasting kindness God will have mercy upon them And yet this Church was in so gross a mistake that the Governours and Grandees thereof knew not their Messiah when he was come into the world but put him to a most shamefull death But even in those times when there was a more palpable Residence of God's miraculous power with them they erred very hainously as in the worshipping the Golden Calf in the wilderness as also in the ten Tribes worshipping those in Bethel nay apostatizing all to the worshipping of Baalim saving seven Thousand which were so few in respect of the rest that Elijah took himself to be left alone And Ahab consulting the Prophets found by wofull experience that four hundred of them prophesied false and onely Micaiah true And * Ch. 5. 30 31. Jeremie complains of his times A wonderfull and horrible thing saith he is committed in the Land The Prophets prophesy falsely and the Priests bear rule by their means and my people love to have it so and what will you doe in the end thereof That is also a smart monition of his * Ch. 7. 4. Trust you not in lying words saying The Temple of the Lord The Temple of the Lord c. For all which they doe that call themselves The Temple of the Lord is not right as appears in the same Chapter where they are accused of committing Idolatry openly in the Cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem which could not be had they not fallen into the hands of blind and erroneous Guides which might cause them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths and yet in the mean time take up that presumptuous boast That the Law shall not perish from the Priest nor the Counsel from the Wise nor the Word from the Prophet no not then when they were imagining mischief against the true Prophets of the Lord as you may see Jeremie 18. But * Ch. 3. 6. Micaiah says plainly That the Prophets that are onely for easie times and for good chear Night shall be upon them and they shall have no vision and it shall be dark unto them that they cannot divine That such Seers shall be ashamed and Diviners confounded as having no answer from God And * Ch. 56 10 11. Esay complains that the watch-men of the City are blind that they are ignorant shepherds that cannot understand they all look to their own way every one for jollity or gain Thus clear is it that the Church of the Jews though it was in such a special manner espoused to God was
not secure from but did actually fall into very great Errours 15. And the Christian Church has no greater assurance but if Avarice Pride and Sensuality seize upon the Guides thereof she may also fall into as great errours and blindnesses The Apostle saith Let him that stands take heed lest he fall And it might have been a seasonable 1 Cor. 10. 12. warning to the Church of Christ betimes which was not onely tottering but almost universally lapsed into that over-spreading Heresy of Arrianism to reflect upon herself that while she does stand she stands upon her good behaviour and that she is not so Infallibly wise but that she may be surprised with Errour and over-run therewith unless true and unfeigned Holiness clear her eyes and keep her from being benighted in such mists of darkness And truly if she was above twelve hundred years agoe so obnoxious to Errour it is high time for her to awake and consider if after so many Ages of ease and wealth and honour and affluency of all things she has not grown fat and kicked and cast the Commandments of God behind her back and brought in a mere carnal Law of her own devising more sutable to the will of the flesh and to the carrying on of her own worldly Interest But it is sufficient in this place to have demonstrated She may erre in what she has erred to define is beyond the scope of my present discourse 16. We have fully defeated that Figment of pretended Infallibility whose downfall our opposers have no colour to bewail unless in the behalf of the common people who are illiterate as if they would hereby be made uncapable of any certainty of Belief and consequently of Salvation by reason they have no Infallible grounds to build on this of the Church being taken away But they may remember that we have already acknowledged sufficient certainty in that which the Universal Church agrees in and has agreed in in all Ages and that is the Scripture Such an Universal Tradition as the Scripture has is acknowledged a firm Foundation which the Church may be unfailing conveiers of down to posterity without being infallible Interpreters thereof The unfailingness of which conveiance notwithstanding I must confess may be a more intricate business then what every Vulgar man can make out to himself though infinitely less hard then to prove That the Church that would appropriate him to their Community is Infallible Nay I must confess I do not know how it were possible that a Church should so much as prove it self a Church much less an Infallible Church without the Scripture And therefore the belief of the Scripture seems to be the most immediate of all as * Cael. Secund. Curio against Floribellus he says well Nam qui de fide authoritate Divinarum Scripturarum dubitat quomodo quaeso credet Ecclesiae quae nullam habet sine eadem Scriptura authoritatem 17. And therefore I cannot explode that by any means which is so superciliously derided by some namely That it is the Spirit of God that does assure us of the Truth of Scriptures more then any thing else whatsoever For our Saviour Christ saith None cometh to me but whom my John 6. ch 10. Father draweth My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me Wherefore there is a discerning Spirit in those that appertain to Salvation whether it be the Voice of God and Christ or no. For the true Shepherd goeth before and the sheep follow him because they know John 10. 4 5. his voice but they follow not a stranger but flie from him because they know not his voice as our Saviour discourses most excellently I say therefore the Voice the Call or Whistle if you will of the true Shepherd are the Holy Scriptures which by an immediate sense they are assured to be the Call of the Shepherd and are at this day to them that belong to the election of God as the Voice of Christ and his Apostles when they were upon Earth the power of whose speech assisted by the Spirit did lead men captive into that Faith that worketh Salvation And without all question the same Word of Salvation still which is in those Holy Records seriously and zealously urged by men of a sincere faith and upright belief without any mingling of it with humane devices will have the same effect upon the multitude and as many as are fitted will be wone to an unshaken belief of the Truth of Christianity as it is exhibited to us in the Holy Scriptures For they of themselves have the light and life and very breath of Christ and his Apostles wrapt up in them to the exciting the vulgar sort to a firm and lively Faith though many subtil Sophisters of the Kingdom of darkness might by crafty and perverse Reasoning intangle them and non-plus them in outward discourse And therefore they are kept safe in the belief of the Scripture by the power of that Spirit in them in virtue whereof there is that indissoluble harmonie and concord betwixt their spirits and the Scripture though they cannot defend themselves by humane Literature nor by the acuteness of Reason and depths of Philosophy 18. Which Spirit residing in them and giving them this solid and firm discernment betwixt the Testimonie of God and the Traditions and Doctrines of men I think I may safely and properly call the Spirit of Faith as it is considered nakedly in it self and separate from the Spirit of Knowledge and of Wisedom Which distinction of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Origen of old has taken notice of in his book against Celsus Lib. 6. upon that Text of S. Paul And truely I think the Gloss is marvellous solid namely That the chiefest and greatest Gift of the Spirit is that Divine Wisedom whereby a man is in a great measure able to comprehend the reasons and more deep Philosophical grounds of the Truth of the Christian Mystery The next is Knowledge suppose of Antiquity History the comparing of Prophecies and helps of the exteriour humane literature the liberal Arts and Languages The third is Faith which is also comprised in the other but is a Gift which is as well general as more necessary whose nature is such as I have described already namely An immediate adherence to the word of Truth comprised in the Scripture through the power of that Spirit that resides in sincere and well-meaning Souls that have a savoury and sensible fear of God and are ready to goe where he calls them For these by an ineffable Sympathy of their hearts with the veracity of the voice of Christ sounding in the Scriptures will be sure to follow their true Shepherd's call though they turn off from the voice of the stranger and Hireling who comes not into the Sheepfold but to rob and kill and steal Whence we further see that this pretended Infallibility of the Church in reference to
needless and diametrically opposite to the meaning and design of the Death and Passion and complete Satisfaction made by our Blessed Saviour himself 9. This doctrine seems abominable enough of it self but if we consider upon what grounds and with what circumstances it may be foisted into the Church by that Antichristian power we are a-describing it will be yet infinitely more hatefull and execrable Judas betrayed Christ for a piece of mony into the hands of them that crucified him for which his memory is accursed to all posterity And yet Christ was betrayed but to that which he was willing to undergoe namely He willingly underwent the wrath of God that he might shelter us from it which was the very end of his Agonie and Passion Now suppose this false Church we are depainting should for a piece of mony betray the very End and Design of Christ's Passion and quite frustrate and evacuate it were not Christ worse betrayed here then by Judas himself For Judas betrayed him but to what he had a mind to that he might be an Oblation to God for the remission of sins to all Believers But this Antichristian Church frustrating him of the End of his Suffering more barbarous then Judas betray the Saviour of the World to an unwilling death and disappoint him of that prize for which alone he parted with his dearest bloud and are more truely the Murtherers of this Just one then the very Jews that Crucified him robbing him of that which was the life in his death and prized by him above his own life that is to say His being a sufficient Sacrifice and Atonement for the sins of the whole World Which holy and weighty Article of the Christian Faith that Church which barters away for gain to scare the people into the belief of a necessity of buying Pardons and Indulgences of hiring Priests to sing their Souls out of Purgatory of redeeming themselves by summes of mony from cruel imposed Penances must needs in this point Antichristianize in the highest and most hainous manner against the Sacerdotal Office of Christ that can be imagined 10. This is the wicked Fraud they commit and the Mischief is not unproportionable For by the persuading of men that they are justified by their own Merits and must satisfie for themselves for all their sins and offences either in this life or that which is to come or both nay indeed in both unless they die so perfect as no modest man will ever imagine himself they put the minds of the serious upon an intolerable rack of sollicitude about the torments of Purgatory which they affrightfully set out to be of the same nature though not of the same continuance with those of Hell or swell the minds of the vain-spirited with unwholesome tumours of Pride upon conceit of such merit as never was nor ever can be in any man living that is a mere man and lastly deface the peculiar glory of Christ and his Religion in which there does really breath nothing but sweetness and pity and tender compassion our Head and Sovereign the Lord Jesus sustaining those great torments both of minde and body on the Cross to set his People free that they might serve him in a way of Love and Ingenuity contrary to that bloudy and cruel vassalage in which Satan aforetimes had enslaved the world Wherefore this false Church by the Fiction of Purgatory and the bloudy and cruel Penances imposed on the flock of Christ by merciless Flagellations and excoriations of the flesh more like the Priests of the Devil that old Tyrant then like the Ministers of the Gospel of the Son of God would make Christendom of one hue again with ancient Paganism and sell the children of Israel into a second Aegyptian bondage to be afflicted and oppressed under those hard Task-masters which state of things how grossely Antichristian it is I have already abundantly noted 11. But yet there is a further opposing of Christ's Sacerdotal Office and that very considerable as he intercedes and meditates for us with God Concerning which the Scripture is very express as in the former case That Christ was offered but once so in this That our Mediatour is but one For there is one God and one Mediatour between God and men the Man 1 Tim. 2. 5 6. Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransome for all to be testified in due time Where not onely the doctrine is asserted That there is but one Mediatour but the reason subjoyned Who gave himself a ransome for all Which being peculiar to him alone there can be no Mediatour betwixt God and Man but he And the merits of his Passion and all the perfections of his life are of so infinite virtue as being the declared Son of God that to joyn the Merits of any Saints or Angels with his in this behalf would be a reproachfull and blasphemous derogation to the Supereminency of his condition Wherefore the Right of Mediatourship upon point of Merit being Christ's alone it must of necessity be an act of Antichristianism and an injury against Christ's person to joyn any other with him in that Office as if he himself were not sufficient but were so weak and unable for that Function that he wanted coadjutors 12. As for those Allegations That God will spare a City for fifty righteous in it and that he would protect Jerusalem for his servant David's sake because he did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and that he will be mercifull to thousands of them that love him and keep his Commandments No reasonings from these Scriptures will reach the matter in hand For these are all about Temporal concernments and the Fate of the righteous would be involved in that of the wicked in the first instance As for that of David he is acknowledged a Type of Christ but the Sun being up the Night is fled away Nor do I see that any thing can be inferred out of that of Exodus but that the posterity of the just if they continue so shall be continued These therefore are but pretences and can never reach the case that I would decypher which is this That we should put up our Prayers to this or that Saint intreating them that they would intercede for us as if they had the same privilege that Christ has who is God as well as Man and therefore is every where ready to hear us 13. Wherefore this is to rob Christ of his honour and privilege to presume that the Saints have a kind of Omnipresence or Omnisciency which is onely proper to him As also in a solemn Religious way at the Altar and in the Temple of such or such a Saint to pray to God in the Merits of these Saints to grant this or that petition were it not to proclaim openly that there is a deficiency in the Merits of Christ our great Mediatour when we thus seek refuge in the names and merits of others How Antichristian then would it be
contrary to a Father then to murther his genuine children and for that very reason because they so lively resemble him and so faithfully adhere to their Father's vertuous practices and principles 10. I might adde also that the over-exercising of the Minds and Bodies of men in the multifarious observances of external Ceremonies and making them dance or trot from one Superstitious performance to another might be a disappointment of the Divine Birth as the over-much exercising of Women in dancing or what other feats of Activity or sore labour makes them often miscarry in that Child-bearing that is natural But I will not insist upon these things 11. The Sixth and last Title is The Prince of Peace In which Principality or Authority if any should claim succession and yet administer the Affairs of Christ's Church such a way as will naturally if not necessarily fill it full of broils and contentions this power would certainly beâ—… a supplanter of the Peaceable government of Christ and be the Author of an Antichristian Tyrannie and Confusion As for example If this usurping Power should coin new Articles of belief for their own benefit contrary to the known Principles of Scripture and Reason and require the profession of these from the Church of Christ as also appoint suspected Observances smelling rank of Idolatry and Superstition it were in a manner impossible but that it should cause vast rendings and tearings in the Church and fill the world full of strife and opposition Also if they should make it their business to define the sense of Scripture by a more determinate meaning then there were use of in the Church and put their Determinations and Expositions upon men as necessary points of belief This would also make much against the Peaceableness of the Church men being in a manner fatally propending to think this or that way in things that are not necessary to Salvation to be determined either There would needless violence therefore be done to the Consciences of men thereby to set the world on fire Whenas what is general is large and unitive and takes all in and gives them leave to live peaceably one by another without justling or crowding 12. But the Folly and Fraud of this curiosity would be the Endeavour of gaining or rather extorting respect from the people and of making their Function seem considerable and their Learning great and their Judgements unerrable and that they may feel their Authority and make others to feel it though to the discontent and dissettlement of the Church of Christ. As if their living exemplarily and urging the performance of what is plain in Scripture and keeping an orderly Discipline in those things would not gain them more respect and make them more honourable both in the eyes of God and man or as if they would not appear more infallible by insisting in his steps who is the Way the Truth and the Life then by grossely crossing this way or going out of it for some by-advantages of the World The discovery of which Frauds must needs make them odious to all men And lastly as for their having their Authority felt Christ has shewed them the way if they would follow it He taught as having authority and not as the Scribes for they say and Matt. 7. Chap. 23. doe not 13. This is one way of Antichristianizing against that sacred Title of Christ The Prince of Peace There is another more vile and execrable then that heart could imagine that is not acquainted with the depths of Satan and that is If this Antichristian power we describe should take upon them to absolve the Princes of Christendom from their Oaths and Covenants they make one to another upon their terms of Peace as also to absolve Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance to their Sovereigns were not this to break a-pieces all the bonds of Unity that not onely Religion but the Laws of Nature do afford thus to destroy the Sacredness of an Oath which is the end of all strife How then can that Heb. 6. 16. Power challenge a right of succession to the Prince of Peace which takes away the chiefest tie of Peace that humane affairs are capable of 14. And lastly that bloudy position of taking away mens lives for mistakes in Opinion when notwithstanding they are otherwise unblameable in faith and conversation and unfeigned professours of Christian Truths that are evidently revealed in the Word of God nay to take away their lives for not doing and holding things quite contrary to the express Word of God written both in our inward Souls and in the Holy Scripture as I have in several Instances declared in this description of Chap. 3. Sect. 8. Antichristianism What were this but to hang out the bloudy flag against the true Church of Christ and to proclaim open war against them to bid battel against them that are inrolled into the company of the Lamb and are the professed Souldiers of the Prince of Peace Whose opposers therefore in such a sort as I have intimated cannot but be that Apocalyptick Beast that makes war with the Saints or that Mother Chap. 13. 7. of Har lots who is drunk with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus So little doubt would there be of this last Opposition's proving an Antichristian Chap. 17. 6. Character of the deepest dye But of this subject more hereafter CHAP. VII 1. That any Constitution of things that naturally opposes and suppresses the Divine Life is Antichristian in the highest measure 2. Such as Idolatry Superstition and all the above-mentioned Oppositions to Christ's Offices and Titles 3. The opinion of a virtue in the Sacraments ex opere operato and of the needlessness of our attention to our Devotions 4. Dumb shows and the resting in the mere doing of a Religious duty be it from what principle it will 5. Easy Absolution and slight Penances 6. Plenary Indulgences purchased by money from Ecclesiastick Authority 7. A general note prefixed touching the Mischiefs of the several Oppositions against the Divine Life 8. The plausibility of the Supposition of an Ecclesiastick Power and Pomp more then Imperial 9. The weakness of the grounds for the said Supposition 10. The consequential Mischief thereof in driving the minds of Church-men from the study of Truth and Holiness 11. Yea in making them oppose every thing that is True and Holy if it oppose their designs of Ambition and Avarice 12. That such a Luciferian Power as this were the very ruine of the Kingdom of Christ upon Earth 13. And the turning of his Church into a mere Mart or Fair. 1. THus expressely and clearly have we delineated the Image of Antichrist in his opposing of Christ in his Offices and in running quite counter to the most Sacred Titles that do adorn his Person We come now to the Divine Life as it is propagable in the world and for which Christ was pleased to take our nature upon him and to lay down his life
the Cunning and Industry of Secular Princes and if all those Doctrines and Duties which were most urged and most frequently came into practice were of such a nature as did plainly tend to the either Honour Power or Profit of the Priesthood This I say would strike very far towards the making the World Infidels or believers of nothing but this That the Summe of our Religion is but a witty Invention of so many fictitious Stories Doctrines Precepts and Ceremonies which would serve to hamper the Consciences of men and make the World more Governable but so shaped out by the Priests as made most for their worldly advantage And such we have already described the Tenents and Doctrines of this Church to be continuedly displaying the Frauds and Self-endedness of all their Errours and Mispractices and need not here again repeat them 4. Thirdly This also would oppose the Christian Faith To make the nature of it such that it must be always doubtfull Of which I must confess I know not what may be the fetch unless it be to keep mens Minds as some deceitfull Physicians and Surgeons do their Bodies in such an unsound and valetudinarious condition that they may have the more frequent recourse to them and depend the more upon them or because they mixe some things in Religion necessarily to be believed which it is impossible they should be firmly believed by any but fools And thus the true and solid points of Christianity such as have sufficient evidence to convince any maâ—… of Reason must be reputed obscure and uncertain for being found in the company of such gross Falsities or Uncertainties which yet pretend to an equal right of entire reception with the clearest Truths And further It is no wonder that such a Church as places whatever certainty there is of Faith upon her own Infallibility as if that were the ground of it should derive both an opinion and profession of the Uncertainty of Belief upon her Nurselings they having no better ground then what we have so plainly demonstrated already to be hollow and ruinous But it is their onely Shift and Refuge to make their Infallibility the ground of Belief the matters they propose to be believed having no recommendation either from Scripture or their own nature to be embraced And therefore things being thus uncertain at the bottom upon their Principles they must instead of a firm and solid Faith be content with an obscure and uncertain one Which is indeed the destroying of Christian Faith and the substituting of a more vertiginous fluctuation of mind in lieu thereof 5. Fourthly That Principle also tends to the ruining of Faith which supposes That without right Succession of Bishops and Priests there is no true Church and therefore no true Faith and that this Succession may be interrupted by the misordination or misconsecration of a Priest or Bishop the persons thus ordained or consecrated being Atheists or Jews or ordained by them that are so or do out of malice not intend what they ought in the Sacrament of Orders as some call it Which were a conceit able to turn all men Scepticks concerning their state in Religion but is a Position absolutely against inward sense and Reason As if a man could not feel in his own conscience whether he believed or not the Truths of Holy Scripture without he were first assured that he was a member of that Church that had an uninterrupted lawfull Succession of the Priesthood from the Apostles times till his own Whenas there is nothing more immediate to a man then inward sense which it is not in the power of any Sophistry ever to confute 6. Wherefore though this Position may be spightfully levelled against the Certainty of Faith yet the execution it can doe upon the considerate is very inconsiderable and small much like that peevish Supposition of the necessity of Unity of Opinion as if those Churches that did differ in any thing had the certainty of nothing An excellent Hypothesis indeed were it but true and such as would effectually recommend the usefulness of an Infallible Judge of Controversies if he could be had for love or mony by whom they might closely compact the parts of the Church Catholick together as with cramps of Iron But there is no such force in the Theorem which will of it self fall asunder into dust if we consider it can stand upon no other terms then what will supplant the truth of all Reason and Religion in the world the whole world being divided in their judgments and conclusions concerning both Whence it is plain that the Attempt though weak tends to the bringing in universal Scepticism in all things In which deluge the Christian Faith would be also drowned and perish with all other Truths there being no Ark left to take Sanctuary in and to be safe from the working and absorptive waves of this reciprocating Euripus 7. But sixthly and I shall now instance in what is not onely ill-meant but must needs have a successfull efficacy for making the World Atheists or Infidels and that is The glutting of them with lying Miracles and gulling of them with delusions and cousening devices call them pious Frauds or by what other fine names you please For the Falsehood being once discovered in such a Church as requires to be believed more upon their own Authority and Infallibility then upon the credibility of the matters which they propound I say if they once be taken tardy in Forgeries and guilefull Fictions in any points especially such as tend to their own profit how can this fail of shaking or rather ruining the whole Frame of belief to the very Foundations How ruinous then must the Christian Faith be where such Lies and Figments are frequent and almost as frequently discovered by those that are more nasute Certainly Atheism and Infidelity must break in upon such a Church as the Sea upon the cutting of the Banks 8. That I may the better be understood I will give you some brief Instances of these impudent Figments As for example If they should have the face to tell the people that such a Saint when his Head was struck off walked four or five mile with it in his hand onely resting himself every mile's end to take breath at his open weasen-pipe That another Saint being hospitably entertained at the expence of the lives of a Cow and a Calf restored them again to life and that they were both of them found the next day in their Master's Meadows That by another Saint the Devil was seen behind the Altar busily writing down mens sins in a parchment which being something too scant he stretched with his teeth and his hold slipping knocked his head against the wall That a certain She-Saint being swallowed by a Dragon she making a Crosse in the Dragon's belly burst him in pieces and so was delivered That a Bishop having cut off his own hand upon its being polluted by the kiss of some over-affectionate female it
so long as the Moon endureth And a little after in the same Psalm He shall spare the poor and needy and shall save the souls of the needy He shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence and precious shall their bloud be in his sight And in * Chap. 4â—… Esay it is said of him A bruised reed shall he not break and smoaking flax shall he not quench till he hath brought judgment into victory And again in the * Psal. 45. Psalms In thy majesty ride on prosperously because of truth meekness and righteousness and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things namely to break in pieces the Oppressour and to put the Fraudulent to open shame Also in * Chap. 9. Zacharie Rejoice greatly O daughter of Sion shout O daughter of Jerusalem Behold thy King cometh unto thee â—…e is just and having salvation lowly and riding upon an Ass and upon a Colt the foal of an Ass. And again in * Chap. 40. Esay He shall feed his Flock like a Shepherd he shall gather the Lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those that are with young And in another place more copiously describing the Kingdom of Christ * Chap. 11. With righteousness saith he shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness the girdle of his reins The Wolf also shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lie down with the Kid and the Calf and the young Lion and the Fatling together and a little Child shall lead them and the Cow and the Bear shall feed their young ones shall lie down together and the Lion shall eat straw like an Ox. And a sucking Child shall play on the hole of the Asp and the weaned Child shall put his hand on the Cockatrice den They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea To all which you may adde That Christ with his Church in the Revelation is all along represented under the Hieroglyphick of a Lamb that harmless and peaceable creature and in Daniel under the Type of a Man whenas the rest of the Kingdoms are typifi'd by wild Beasts Which intimates that the Kingdom of Christ is not a Kingdom of Belluine Ferocity but of Reason Humanity and tender Loving-kindness 3. According therefore to this Description of the Kingdom of Christ it is plainly a Kingdom of Peace and Love the Empire of that Divine vertue of Charity and discovers it self in the defending righting and easing of the poor in the lowliness and meekness of the Governours and in the truth and faithfulness of them in managing their affairs without any guile or deceit in the unity and friendly conversableness of people in the cessation of war and hostility and in the protection of the â—…aints of God from persecution and slaughter All these Happinesses are included in the Reign of Christ according to the above-cited predictions and are all of them the Effects of Charity as S. Paul has described that Grace from the excellent fruits thereof For Charity is kind full of acts of Humanity seeketh not her own much less what belongs to others either out of envy or covetousness 1 Cor. 13. Charity is not puffed up with pride and high-mindedness has no pleasure in unrighteousness or deceitfulness but rejoyceth in truth and faithfulness Charity does not easily think evil of men or unseemly behave her self out of the bad opinion she conceives of them in matters of Morality or Religion Charity is so far from exciting others to war that she is hardly provoked to anger but is patient and long-suffering so far from persecuting and murthering the good that she will not be over-severe to those that are no better then they should be For Charity beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things so far is she from persecuting imprisoning from racking and killing of innocent and good men that are endued with the true fear of God upon worldly Jealousies and Suspicions that is to say for fear the spreading of the Truth of the Gospel should bear down their usurped Empire of Idolatrous Tyranny and Superstition 4. Having therefore so clear a view of the nature and properties of Charity and of the condition of the Reign of Christ in his Church whose Dominion is founded in the Law of Love it will not be hard to draw the picture of an Antichristian Polity so far forth as it is opposite to this last Branch of the Divine Life which is that transcendent Grace of Charity Let us suppose therefore a company of men that pretend to succeed Christ and his Apostles who if they be his legitimate Successours they should succeed him also in the Graces of his Spirit to be quite contrary in the administration of the affairs of the Church to that Description of the Kingdom of Christ out of the Prophets and Psalms would not this of a truth prove a most palpable and remarkable Limb of Antichristianism 5. As suppose first for example Whereas our Saviour Christ is described as one that does redeem the souls of the poor and needy from oppression and wrong if the Frame of this Polity that his pretended Successours set up in the World were a yoke upon the most simple-meaning people greater then that of Judaism and a servitude and bondage more intolerable then that of Aegypt as I have above described it as both burthening and afflicting their Consciences and also wearying their Bodies and Book I. ch 19 20 21 22. emptying their Purses by mulcts for such offences as are neither against the Law of God nor any duty we any way owe to our Neighbour but onely against such Superstitious Institutes as were made by the Ignorance of some and the cunning Craft of others who multiply unnecessary Laws that they may enjoy the sweet of the Penalties and suck away the bloud and sustenance of the poor labouring-man as often as they catch him in these nets were not this point-blank contrary to that part of the Description of Christ's Kingdom that consists in the protecting and easing of the poor and oppressed 6. It were a very unchristian thing and a shreud sign that those were not the true and genuine Successours of Christ that did not prevail so much upon the Civil Government that vassalage and slavery and squallid and deplorable poverty should be chased away for the glory of the Gospel and the honour of the Kingdom of Christ which is supposed to be where-ever the Gospel is received But for these pretended hypocritical Successors to be Instruments and Assistants to the enslaving of the World for the partaking
of the spoil or rather to erect a Spiritual Polity to enslave all and bring the most insupportable Servitude of Body Soul and Estate such as Paganism could scarce ever shew the like certainly this must be very highly Antichristian For indeed what can be more salvagely oppressive in reference to the very Estates of men then to frame such a Religion upon the pretence of their Infallibility as is perfectly repugnant to the plain Word of God and immutable Rules of Reason depraving of things so for their own worldly advantage as I have already abundantly set out to bring in a more ample Revenue to feed the Pride and Luxury of this false Church And then when they have thus grossly perverted the Truth of God to declare that they who will not say Amen to their lies and forgeries have no more right to their own Estates then a Thief or Robber to what he has got by unlawful spoil and therefore accordingly not onely to hinder them from any employments of either profit or credit but disable them from making of Wills and their Heirs from inheriting their Estates and awing them from laying claim to their Patrimonies lest their Father's Heresie be intailed upon them whether they will or no. 7. To which Antichristian Barbarities you may adde also the scornful and cruel Penances they put upon them that do submit themselves to their Church making them go in procession in contemptible disguises or else enjoyning them to march in their shirts bare foot and bare leg and to whip their own bodies in the sight of the people as they go along How unlike nay how utterly contrary is this to that Meekness and Sweetness that is described in the Discipline and Government of the Kingdom of Christ But we need not insist upon these things we having treated sufficiently of them already 8. Now upon the second particular viz. that Humility and Lowliness which is also one fruit of Charity and by which the Person and Rule of our Saviour is described in the ancient Prophecies We have shewn the Antichristian Detestableness of the opposite to this Vertue already in the first Branch of the Divine Life and need adde nothing more thereto 9. The third character of Charity is her delighting in true and faithful dealing amongst men The opposites to which are easily discoverable To say nothing therefore of the manifold Frauds which we have already taken notice of all along in this our Description of Antichristianism this certainly must be very Antichristian and uncharitable namely To misrepresent mens Actions and Opinions in publick Speeches or Writings nay to invent notorious lies and fictions to the disparagement of mens Persons and Doctrines and suborn men to write them and divulge them to the world for truths Which is to doe so as was the custom of those who were under the Dragon that old Serpent and false accuser of the ancient primitive Christians whom they aspersed and calumniated as worshippers of the Sun because they put up their prayers with their faces towards the East as Man-sacrificers and as Eaters and Drinkers of humane flesh and bloud because of their calling the Eucharistick Bread and Wine the Body and Bloud of Christ they understanding it onely in a mystical or symbolical sense For professing with S. Paul There is neither Male nor Female in Christ but that both have equal admission into his eternal Kingdom That they had no regard of Sexes but were vile Sodomites and abusers of themselves with Mankind For meeting together to serve God in private in Grotts and Caves of the Earth for fear of persecution That they were Conspirators against the Roman State and Empire And lastly for their reverently receiving the Elements of Bread and Wine at their holy Communions That they were Worshippers of Ceres and Bacchus 10. In like manner we may imagine that this Pseudo-christian Church may raise such perverse Calumnies against the true members of Christ as namely traducing them for Atheists or at least Arrians because they will not acknowledge the Divinity of a consecrated piece of Bread reporting them as Manichees because they do not hold the power of the Church to be superiour to that of Emperours and Kings to make thereby but one Sovereignty in the Church but affirm the Secular Power independent thereon as if the holding these two distinct Powers were forsooth the holding the two Principles of the Manichees defaming them for Beesoneriders or Witches because they have by reason of hard persecution been driven to inhabit desert and mountainous places or upon their meeting more privately in houses by night to impute to them some such horrid and villainous practices as were reported of the primitive Christians that the Candle being put out they committed Incest and all manner of Uncleanness in the dark nay that they killed their own children in these concealed Assemblies of theirs To accuse them of reviling the Saints merely upon their professing it unlawful to invoke them or of blaspheming the Blessed Virgin because they hold it unfit to worship her To tax them of disobedience to the Magistrate onely because of their persisting in the sincere profession of that Faith that is consonant to the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles And lastly to father upon them what abominable actions they please and speaking without a Metaphor to gag the mouths of the thus accused and slandered that they may not answer for themselves to clear themselves in the audience of the people Nay to rack men till their very bowels break out of their belly to force them to acknowledge themselves or their party guilty of such villainous crimes as it is incredible their very persecutors should in good earnest suspect them of merely to get a pretence from such an extorted Confession to verifie their wicked Slanders to the world and to make the harmless and innocent professors of the Truth of the Gospel to be odious and hateful in the eyes of all men Certainly if this be not diametrically opposite to that part of Charity that discovers it self in true and faithful dealing nothing can be excogitated that is so CHAP. XIV 1. The nick-naming of the true Christians by the odious Title of Hereticks with their barbarous injuries thereupon 2. That Heresie and Schism are sins against the truly-Catholick and Apostolick Church 3. What is meant by One Catholick and Apostolick Church 4. What is that hainous sin of Heresie 5. What Schism 6. That while men are sincere members of the Apostolick Body they can be neither Hereticks nor Schismaticks 7. The Hypocritical and Schismatical Niceness of this Antichristian Church in forbearing to joyn in any Religious Duty with any member of the truly-Apostolick Body 8. Their fraudulent purpose in fostering this Schismatical Niceness and Unsociableness 1. BUt we will also take notice of that which will be so usually cast upon the Dissenters from this false Church that it will be scarce accounted any reproach done to them but rather civility
as they maintain with truth as the Papists are of their own party even in their obtruded Falsities and Deceits It may therefore more rightfully be imputed to my fidelity to the true Church of Christ then Uncharitableness to the Church of Rome that I again bring into play with all due advantages this common Assertion of the Protestants touching the Great Antichrist Which appearing to me so solid and unexceptionable a truth I should be conscious to my self of the highest degree of Uncharitableness to the precious memory of the first Reformers those Witnesses whom Divine Providence so miraculously raised from the dead if I did not what in me lies for the maintaining their Credit in so grand a Point wherein they cannot seem to fail but with infinite dishonour to themselves and an irreparable prejudice to the Protestant Cause For as there is no Doctrine wherein the Romanists and we differ more true so there is none any thing near so potent for the bearing off all their assaults against us as this of their Church being that City of Babylon which the People of God are expressly commanded to come out of lest they partake of her sins and of her plagues Which that Apoc. 18. 4. wise Prince King James of ever-glorious memory knew full well and accordingly kept entire those Primitive Sentiments of the Protestant Reformation or rather adorned them and improved them by his Royal Pen as also did those singularly Devout and Learned Prelates Bishop Andrews and Bishop Jewell and several other Pious and Learned Bishops of our Church Nor will I omit how explicit our Church herself is touching this point in her Homily of the Peril of Idolatry as also in that against Rebellion Which illustrious witnesses to so concerning a Truth it were both uncivil and unjust to either suspect or accuse of Uncharitableness And for my own part I cannot but farther adde having such an apprehension of things as I have and so great encouragement from those Heroical Examples in whose footsteps I insist for the main in my Prophetick Interpretations that I should think my self not onely Unfaithfull to the true Church of Christ and to the Interest of his Kingdom which Charity will never betray but Uncharitable also even to the Church of Rome herself if I should not use this liberty of prophesying against her which I have or rather of interpreting Prophecies for her just Reproof and Amendment Stultorum incurata pudor malus ulcera celat That saying is true as well of him that conceals the sore of his friend when the disclosing thereof tends to the healing of it as of him that conceals his own sore And her own professed Nurslings either cannot or dare not use these Scripture Reproofs to her they being either blinded with her Lustre or terrifi'd by her Cruelty Whence it must be some good Samaritan Stranger that must work her cure But if it be Uncharitableness to speak some few hard words against her though never so true what Barbarity would it be to expose her to the greatest hardships of Fortune that humane Affairs are obnoxious to as suppose to betray her to the successfull Rage and Ravin of the overflowing Turk would that be such a piece of indearing Kindness and Charity And yet surely those doe so to her that sow pillows under her Elbow that sooth her up and call her my Sister and my Mother and say there are no considerable miscarriages in her whenas she stands guilty of all those sins that are reckoned up Revel 9. 20 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 multifarious Idolatries bloudy Persecutions Conjuring or Enchanting defiled Coelibate and pious Frauds or wicked Policies with Impenitency added to them all For these sins have the Locusts and Euphratean Horsemen the Turks and Saracens laid wast the Eastern Church and yet it is Uncharitable to admonish the Latine Church thereof which is much more guilty of these high miscarriages yea and that in such a time as the Mahometan Forces have fallen so grievously upon the disspirited Empire and have made all fly before them To give a stop to whose fury for the future I am confident nothing can be more effectual then the Reformation of the Roman Church according to the Word of God and the first Primitive Ages or to speak more compendiously according to the platform of our excellent English Reformers For this would put a new life and spirit into Christendom and make her grow young and strong again and able to repulse the Turkish forces for ever with Victory And truely the whole summe of what may seem either so affrightfull or distastfull in my old Orthodox Protestant way of interpreting the ensuing Prophecies to either the Church of Rome her self or any of her hidden friends or well-willers is but to reduce the whole Western Church to that unexceptionable Purity and Beauty that our Royal and Reverend Reformers through the special assistence of God did reduce this of ours But if this be of such excellent purpose must it not be to very great purpose to make the Church of Rome sensible that she wants this Reformation And is there any thing that can convince her more of that want then that her enormous miscarriages are so plainly depainted as most certainly they are in those Visions we have explained in this Treatise nay are very stingingly and satyrically set out by the Spirit of God on purpose to awake the Christian World out of this deep Sopour or Lethargie For it must be some such rousing Rebuke that can wean or reclaim that Church from so inveterate errours rooted in Custom and founded in a sweet bewitching Interest not to be parted withall upon any easy terms Which power of the Light of the true meaning of these Prophecies that obnoxious Church does plainly acknowledge herself sensible of in her hiding herself as well as she can from the convictive perstringency of them and in getting men to palliate her deformities with all possible art and to shelter off the searching gleams and piercing Lustre of these veracious Visions by their false and adulterate Glosses Which is the greatest Uncharitableness and Disser vice that can possibly be done unto her thus to lull her asleep to be surprised by the irresistible wrath of God and to expose her to the fury of his Jealousy Wherefore had she not better cease to take Sanctuary in such forced and incredible misinterpretations of Scripture and letting go those false shifts reform herself according to that Platform which has so manifest approbation from the Divine Oracles in a sense not onely credible but true 16. For it is demonstratively true by the second Consectary of my Joint-Exposition That the Church was not grown Antichristian till How well the Protestant Reformation is attested to out of the Apocalyps especially that of our English Church And what were the main hinderances to the Authour from the applying so illustrious an Event to the Prediction about 400 years after Christ As also
History of Christ and his Apostles but introducing thereupon such a face of Idolatry and Heathenish Superstition and barbarous Cruelty against the true Servants of Christ that by those whose judgments are more free and piercing such a state of the Church cannot but be deemed rather a Revival of Paganism then an uninterrupted Succession of true Christianity in the world or to use the softest language that the truth of the thing will admit of it cannot be judged pure and unadulterate Christianity but a kind of Pagano-Christianism the Pagan Rites Idolatries and Superstitions being practised upon Christian Objects and this Paganism in this pretended Christianity being maintained with as ferine cruelty as Paganism it self was in the time of the Heathen Emperours It remains now according to our proposed Method to search into the holy Oracles to find out Whether such a kind of Antichristianism as I have described be not prefigured therein and Whether so horrible a Mutation in the Church of Christ which for the general it is apparent even in the judgements of all that are not wilfully blind has for these many Ages seized upon the Church was not predicted of old by the Prophets or Apostles or by both 2. For it seems to me a wonderfull thing and incredible That God who was so carefull and watchfull over the Church of the Jews foretelling their Captivities and Returns out of Captivity and fore-advertising them in a manner of all their affairs of Importance by the mouths of his Prophets sometimes many hundred years before should leave the Church of Christ for so great a number of Ages without Ephod and without Teraphim without Prophets or timely Predictions what things would betide her in the decursion of so long a space as twelve or thirteen hundred years together to let her be bewildred thus in so endless a Night and leave her floating upon the waves without any Cynosura to stear by Wherefore I do not doubt but Christ has been so faithfull to his Spouse that he has left some Oracular Records wherein a man may reade if he come with unprejudiced eyes in a very legible Character the state and condition of the Church and this grand Apostasy of it with the most notorious circumstances thereunto appertaining that is to say He shall find in a manner all those Heads of Antichristianism which I have insisted upon intimated some way or other and charged upon that Church especially which History has found so guilty thereof 3. Which thing I being so fully persuaded of in my own judgement cannot without a great measure of grief or indignation reflect upon the misspent pains of some learned Pens who have endeavoured to pervert all those illustrious Prophecies whether in Daniel the Apocalyps or other places that do forewarn the people of God of this grand Degeneracy of the Church unto some other sense and meaning though never so forced and frivolous though never so strained and inconsiderable thereby obscuring both the glorious Providence of God of whose watchfulness over his Church the true and easy sense of these Prophecies is a most ample witness as also hindering that benefit which was to accrue to us by the right understanding of these holy Prefigurations and Predictions which if rightly interpreted would be of wonderfull great virtue for the reclaiming of the world and converting of Christendom to that ancient and Apostolick purity as well in Practice as Doctrines from which they have so long time swerved Wherefore out of a due sense of the Honour of God and the Interest of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus I hold it fit to bring into view all those Prophecies as well of the Old as New Testament that have been by the Ancients understood of this Antichristian Apostasy and with an unprejudiced freedom and impartiality to unfold the meaning of them Which I hope I shall doe with that plainness and simplicity of evidence offering so unforced so easy and so natural a sense of things and so coherent with undubitable Principles that there is no man that is not grosly prejudiced but will receive full satisfaction concerning the true meaning of these Divine Oracles 4. I must confess that it is hard to produce any Text of Scripture wherein this Apostatized state of the Church is undoubtedly foretold under the very Name of Antichrist though that Name be found more then once in the Epistles of S. John But though some do yet I dare not contend that this Antichrist or Antichristianism which I have hitherto described is so clearly pointed at in every one of those places Not onely Grotius but Mr. Mede himself understands those Antichrists of the Pseudo-christs that our Saviour foretells of in Matthew which should start up before and after the destruction of Jerusalem which was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the last hour of the Jewish Commonwealth But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is indifferently rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Fourth Kingdom in Daniel being the last the time of that Kingdom may be also intimated by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whence that in S. John * 1 Ep. 2. 18. My little children it is the last hour and as you heard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that that famous Antichrist will come even now there are many Antichrists whereby we know it is the last hour may bear this sense upon supposition the Prediction is somewhat Elliptically set down That the last time in Daniel's Kalendar of his Four Kingdoms that is to say the last Kingdom was then a running on which is the Roman during which Kingdom the Little horn which here is called Antichrist shall come upon the stage This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he that famous Antichrist whom you may have heard of out of Daniel but this is a greater distance off Wherefore to speak what more pressly concerns you Even now there are many Antichrists which not Daniel but our Saviour foretold of whereby again we know it is the last hour but I mean not of the Four Kingdoms of Daniel but of the Jewish Commonwealth according as our Lord has predicted Or more briefly thus My little children it is the last hour that is to say the last Kingdom of the Four namely the Roman and as you have heard that that famous Antichrist will then come viz. in that last hour so also now in the last hour of the Jewish Polity there are many Antichrists whence we may gather it is the last hour thereof these many Antichrists according to prediction attending this last hour as that one famous Antichrist that In some such sense as this I do confess that that Antichrist or Antichristianism which I have hitherto treated of may be by very Name intimated in this Text of Scripture though I shall quarrel with no man that would interpret it otherwise Grotius expounds this famous Antichrist of whom they
Prophetical Predictions as he has the Laws of natural shame and modesty besides superinduced Institutes of Religion and humane Policy upon that impetuous propension of experimenting the pleasures of the Nuptial Bed that so strong Inclinations may not be gratified without the Ceremony of some tedious attendance and expectation thereof And it may be that this Expectation and hope being a kind of prelibation of enjoyment may in both cases lengthen out the pleasure 2. But there is also a great necessity of this Obscurity which we have not yet hinted and that is That these Divine Predictions concerning the Church of God may not be easily or at all understood by those that are to be the fulfillers of them till the appointed time come when it may be without prejudice to the true Church that is to say That things are not to be so clearly prefigured as would bear too hard against that free Principle in Man whereby he does unless thus miraculously called to from Heaven determine his ways according to his own pleasure For so plain a Divine Prediction as should certainly inform the party that he should doe such an act as would tend to his shame and destruction or be a badge or mark conspicuous and infallible to all the world that he was that odious person that so ill a fate must attend would without all doubt unless God should use a strong force upon him to make him fulfill the Prophecie cause him to decline the fulfilling of it merely for his own honour and security and make him omit any such circumstances as he is prefigured by to the end that he may deface the characteristicks of his own person in the Prophecie As for example If S. John had said expresly that by the Two-horned Beast and by The Whore of Babylon he did understand a Succession of Bishops of Rome with their whole Hierarchy adhering thereunto it would be an hard thing to conceive that this Oecumenical Prelate would not to hide his shame have been tempted to change his Seven-hilled See that he might not seem to be the man at whom the Prophecie pointed At least they would never have wrote Mysterium upon the Pope's Crown as it is on the Whore of Babylon if they had been aware that his Holiness had been so much concerned in that Vision Nor can we imagine that if instead of Six hundred sixty six Twenty five had been said to be the Number of the Beast the Church of Rome would have affected that Number so much as they have And many more such Instances may be produced But God could hardly be said to leave man in the hand of his own Counsel and let him act freely according to his own nature if he should have uttered these Divine Oracles concerning future things in so plain and naked a manner and yet brought about the fulfilling of them 3. Besides this The knowledge of future things concerning the Church communicated to the Enemies thereof may tend to her prejudice it being ordinarily unsafe to let an Adversary get intelligence of our consultations and purposes Which is not onely true in respect of Men but of those Invisible enemies of the Church who ever attempt her and oppose her under the conduct of the Prince of the Powers of the aire who are the great Abettours and Assisters of the children of Disobedience An eximious instance whereof is that taken notice of by Mr. Mede out of S. Austine How the Devil who of old had so much skill in Mathematicks as to puzzle the Athenians by the Problem of doubling the Cube computing the proportion betwixt the Outward Court of the Temple and the Inward which it seems he found to be as 1260 to 365 or thereabout presently concluded That Christianity would continue but 365 years in the World and that then Paganism would up again And therefore adorning the credit of his own Oracles by this stoln but misunderstood Prediction out of the Apocalyps gave it out accordingly that thereby he might hinder mens conversion to the Faith of Christ. Which I think is argument enough to persuade us how necessary it is that the holy Prophecies should be wrapt up in Aenigmatical coverings and be made of uncertain Interpretation by undeterminable lubricities till either Events or some faithfull Interpreter more then ordinarily assisted by God shall give their clear Solution 4. Now for the Art of obscuring Predictions wherein it consists though I will not undertake the declaration of the whole yet I will bring in as great a share thereof as may at least suffice for our present design which I shall comprise in the Explication of these few Prophetick Figures or Schemes which I will venture to call Diorismus Hylasmus Henopoeia Zoopoeia Israelismus Ellipsis Metalepsis Homonymia Antichronismus Icasmus most of which do as well embellish and adorn the externall Cortex of Prophecies as conceal and cover the more precious and inward Sense of them 5. Diorismus is such a Scheme of the Prophetick style as polishes the outward letter with an appearing sense of a very exact and determinate account of things either as to Number Proportion or Specification Which does the more strongly strike the Phancy as an Object settled and unmoved makes a stronger impress upon the Sight then that which is flitting as ordinary Experience tells us So any determinate Conception does more vigourously and palpably affect the Mind then what is more general and undeterminate An Example of the first kind of this Figure I conceive is that Apocal. 2. Ye shall have the affliction of ten days Where I must confess I could never imagine that spoken otherwise then figuratively by a Diorismus and to be a modest subinsinuation of the most perfect and full persecution as is intimated from the following words Be thou faithfull unto death c. See Vatablus and Drusius upon the place who produces several examples of Ten being put for many Which sense if the Ten Horns on the Beast be supposed to have there is no absurdity in admitting that meaning though I do not condemn their industry that are so solicitous to find just Ten and no more For it may the more potently convince the obstinate while others may be satisfied that that condition is onely intimated of the Empire when it was divided into a considerable Number of Kingdoms or Principalities enjoying Sovereign Power within themselves And that the Hundred fourty four thousand with the Lamb on Mount Sion are not to be conceived just so many or so few any one will grant that observes that the number 144 is onely the square of 12 and therefore according to the mode of the ancient Cabbala signifies symbolically the Apostolicalness of that Company but not their determinate number no more then 666 the number of them that follow the Beast I suspect also that those 7000 names of men said to be slain in that great Earthquake Apocal. 11. is spoken onely by way of a Prophetick Diorismus but what the
Sensuality Luxury and Affluency and to be drunk therewith to abound with worldly felicity even to an Insensibility of better things and to a besotted security and contentedness with the present enjoyments of this Life This also may be one sense of this intoxicating Cup besides what I have touched upon before Ver. V. And upon her forehead was a Name written Which Interpreters have rightly noted to allude to the custom of some impudent Harlots who had their names written upon their foreheads as appears from that in Seneca Nomen tuum pependit in fronte pretia stupri accepisti manus quae Diis datura erat sacra capturas tulit 2. Mystery Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth All which Inscription I conceive is the Name of the Whore For the Scripture often makes long Names even a whole Sentence as I shall have occasion more fully to note anon I say the very word Mystery is part of the Name And the sense of the whole is That the Name of the Whore is Mystical Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots or rather the Mother of Fornications 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so some Copies which the Vulgar Latin follows and Grotius best approves of and best fits with what follows and of the Abominations of the Earth that they may be both Abstracts And Mystical here signifies the same that Spiritual elsewhere in the Apocalyps Which is spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt as Chap. 11. v. 8. Cornelius à Lapide has also compared them and it is the Great City there too which is so called Wherefore let any one judge if Mystical or Spiritual Babylon can be understood of Rome Pagan or whether it is likely that the Spirit of God should prefix the term Mystery to an Inscription that hath no more in it then a dry Synecdoche For if Rome Pagan be understood it is no more but putting one Pagan Idolatrous and Persecutive City for another With which certainly so profound and venerable a Preface as Mystery cannot well suit 3. Wherefore it must be understood of a Christian City or Polity Idolatrizing and debauching others with Idolatry And the meaning of the Mystery must be this Even that that Hierarchy which should over-spread the Empire pretend to be the pure and unadulterate Apostolick Church and be generally believed to be so nay to be that City from Heaven the foundations of whose Walls are twelve with the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb inscribed upon them that City wherein God will wipe away all tears from the eyes of his servants where there shall be no more death nor sorrow nor crying nor any more pain that is to say no more bloudy Persecutions Pressures nor Tortures of the faithful Servants of Christ as Grotius well interprets it and lastly that City wherein there is no Temple that is to say no Object towards which we bow besides the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb who alone is worshipped with Religious worship I say the Mystery is this That that Occumenical Hierarchy or Body of the Clergie that boast themselves to be this pure and Apostolick City as being of an unerring judgment should indeed be the very City Babylon it self which in stead of being so chast a pattern of Purity of Worship were Sacrificers to the dead and the Adorers or Worshippers of Bel and the Propagators of the worship of the Baalim that is to say of the worship of Daemons or false Gods through the world infecting therewith even the very Jews themselves the peculiar people of God and in stead of being a Protection and Refreshment to the Servants of the true God held them in a long and sad Captivity casting them that would not bow to the Image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up into an hot fiery Furnace This is the Mystery and yet a very true one For it is over-manifest of this Pseudo-christian Hierarchy that they have debauched the professed People of God with various kinds of Idolatry and have held them captive a long time under an hard servitude and besides other tortures and persecutions have burned thousands of the faithful servants of Christ with Fire and Fagot Wherefore it is a Mystery indeed that she that so boldly professes her self the City of God and had the luck to be believed so generally to be so should in truth be found to be that bloudy and Idolatrous Babylon 4. And because she boasts her self also to be the Catholick as well as the Apostolick Church she is farther adorned with the Title of Great as well as of Babylon and is at once styled Babylon the Great the vast extent of that City which they that have made the most frugal computation reckon 360 or 380 Stadia in compass Pliny and Herodotus 480 being a fit Symbol of their pretence to Catholickness or Universality And lastly because she will pretend to be the Spouse of the Lamb and be called Our Mother the Church the Spirit of God in reproach to this false Beast has styled her the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth 5. Which style does plainly discover that this City Babylon is not Rome Heathen but a Polity Christian. For Rome Heathen was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius reads it the Mother that is the Author and Dispenser of Idolatry over the face of the Earth for the Nations were Idolatrous of themselves without her and she rather a Learner and Receiver of their Idolatries which she increased as she advanced her Trophees as it may appear by that promissory Charm which Macrobius sets down used by Saturnal lib. 3. cap. 9. the Romans when they had hopes of taking a City calling out thereby the Tutelary Gods of the Place and promising them Temples and Solemnities at Rome Wherefore the Title of Mystery prefixed to the Name of the Whore or rather it being a part of it and which easily answers to that Mystery of Iniquity the Apostle speaks of jointly considered with this part of the 2 Thess. 2. 7. Name The Mother of Fornications and Abominations of the Earth does evidently agree with our Demonstration in the foregoing Chapter that proved it necessary to understand by Babylon not Rome Heathen but a State of the Church degenerating into Heathenism and Idolatry Which lying deeper then that every man can discover it at first sight as being coloured and gilded over with fair pretences of magnifying Christ and his Apostles and the rest of the Saints especially the Virgin Mary the Mother of Christ is rightly called a Mystery In which this Whore and the Two-horned Paral. 1. Agr. 5. Beast do exactly agree For his having Horns like a Lamb is that outward pretext of Succession from Christ and his Apostles and of having a power from them to rule and discipline the Church according to the mind of Christ to his Honour and for his interest which they pretend in every thing But his speaking like a Dragon bespeaks him
of the old Cabbalists and in all likelihood hid in some such dress as this Grotius acknowledges the phrase of Alpha and Omega to be Rabbinical and to be taken from their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that which follows * Apocal. 1 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what is it but a Talmudistical Exposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is peculiar to this Book of the Apocalyps Wherefore if it be found to Cabbalize in other things this Cabbalistical computation of the Number of the Beast is rather the more credible for being Cabbalistical 6. Nor can these Examples be excepted against for their antiquity because the Ancient Latines pronounced the nearest to the Greeks as appears in those diphthongs of oe and ae and in y which the After-Latines distinguished not from i but it was the Greeks short u and they had no other And that the Greeks sounded it like u appears from several words derived from that tongue as in Sus Super Fucus Turba Trutina and the like which are from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which analogie Ennius keeps to in that he says Olumpus and not Olympus Cuclops and not Cyclops Luchnus and not Lychnus and pronounces oe oi and ae ai Adeste Annal. lib. 1. Musai quai pedibus magnum polsatis Olumpum And for that example of Cuclops it is in the ninth Book of his Annals Cuclopis venter velut olim turserat alti Carnibus humaneis And the third example is also had in the same place Luchnorum lumina bis sex For the pronouncing oe like oi there has been one example already in Poinei to which you may adde Book 1. Quanquam molta manus ad coilei coirola templa Tendebam lacrumans where there is also lacrumans for lacrymans which is from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by changing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into l as in Ulysses from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have also had two examples of sounding ae like ai in Musai and quai to which you may adde out of the same Book O gnata tibei sunt anteferendai Airomnai And infinite other examples there are to the same purpose whereby it may appear that the ancient Latines pronounced more exactly according to the mode of the Greeks then the latter Latines did and that therefore it is most likely that the Greeks pronounced Latine words according to the mode of the ancient Latines and that they saying Lateinus and not Latinus the Greeks without any more a-doe spoke and wrote 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be found in Greek Authors it is the unskilful officiousness of some pragmatical Scribe or Critick that has depraved the Orthography of the word Of which pragmaticalness there are innumerable examples But these are subjects too trivial to insist upon 7. Thus have we made good the Orthography of the Name Now the Application is to admiration fitted to the Two-horned Beast For though at first he might wear his Horns somewhat equilibriously yet the Eastern Horn being afterwards so out-topped by the other in every respect and shrinking into so small a power the Beast became at last solely in a manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it is well known that upon the Division of the Empire into Eastern and Western the Greeks called the Western Churches the Latine Church but called themselves Romans Wherefore whenas not onely the Latines but the Greeks called themselves Romans and their Emperours Imperatores Romani their City also New Rome and the Countrey about it Romania the Latine Church or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is very particularly and discriminatively aimed at and described by this Numeral name of the Beast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Event exactly agreeing with the Prophecy For this distinction of the Greek and Latine Church was so notorious and acknowledged that in general Councils the Western Bishops were called the Latine Bishops and the Subscriptions of them both were accordingly distinct under the Titles of Patrum Latinorum Patrum Graecorum Thus exquisitely does the Name of the Beast determine him to Rome and Italy 8. Nor is it any thing to the purpose to say there are several other Names wherein the letters will make up 666. For that this of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is notwithstanding the right not onely the Event shews but the Connexion which the Two-horned Beast has with the Beast that has Seven heads and Ten horns which is undoubtedly the Roman Empire Who therefore so fit to play these pranks therein as this Latine Beast as he is discovered to be and doth so Latinize in every thing Mass Prayers Hymns Litany Canons Decretals Bulls Councils Bible and every thing so in Latine that it cannot seem a slight cause that moved the Spirit of Prophecy to characterize him so particularly by this Name I say not every thing whose Name contains 666 in the letters thereof can be this Beast but together with a Name containing this Number all those things that are said of the Two-horned Beast must be also applicable to what-ever any one will pitch upon for Him For no man that minds what he saith will argue thus This Person or Polity's Name comprises 666 therefore he is the Beast but rather thus This Person or Polity does or has done all those things that the Two-horned Beast is said to have done in reference to the Roman Empire and moreover his Name also comprehends 666 wherefore this is most assuredly the Beast This is sound Reasoning yea perfect Demonstration 9. Hitherto we have but numbered the Number of the Beast in the Name of the Beast But there is a farther piece of Cabbalism in the numbering the Number it self whereby the chief Residence of the Beast will again be determinately detected and the now Roman Catholick Church so called discovered to be chiefly aimed at in this Vision of the Two-horned Beast Wherefore as in the ancient Cabbala the Number Ten and the Number Thirty six are each called the Tetractys whenas indeed they are rather the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or power of the Tetractys though more in a Cabbalistical sense then a Geometrical or Arithmetical the one arising from the parts of Four put together the other from the addition of the four first faminine and masculine Numbers so is this Number of the Beast though it be called his Number rather the power of that Number that detects the Beast then the Number it self For he could not say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Let him that has understanding count the Number of the Beast if it were a mere reading of the Number or but summing the Numeral letters of some Name Therefore there is a greater skill required to the counting of the Number of the Beast then of the Number of his Name And yet it is to be counted humano more as it is intimated by It is the Number of a
Spirit speaketh expresly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of Devils speaking lies in Hypocrisy having their conscience seared with an hot-iron forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats c. It should be rendred Through the Hypocrisy of them that speak lies having their conscience seared with an hot-iron c. as any one that understands Syntax must needs acknowledge for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot agree in Grammar nor Devils and Seared consciences in usual phrase or sense There cannot be a better Gloss upon the first part of this Prediction then what Epiphanius has occasionally wrote upon it in his sharp reproof of the Collyridians who gave Divine worship to the Virgin Mary offering up a Cake or Cracknell to her They did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that Father speaks from whence they were called Collyridians Of which Idolatry he saies certain women in Arabia were the first Inventours who came out of Thrace thither and there practised this nefarious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I the more willingly take notice of because Idolatry is so often styled by that name in the Apocalyps and at last concludes thus fully and roundly upon the whole matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which last words do plainly import that this Apostasy here is understood of giving religious worship to Daemons that is to say to the Souls of men deceased And it is observable that Chrysostom and Theophylact read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Erasmus has noted upon the place if any one like that word better then the other But Epiphanius seems to understand the same thing by both that is the Souls of dead men religiously worshipped which he compares with the Baalim worshipped by the Israelites as the Psalmist complains They joyned themselves to Baal-Peor and ate the offerings of the dead Wherefore in brief according to the mind of Epiphanius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal. 106. 2â—… which we render seducing spirits are erroneous and fallacious Doctrines or Prophecies as Grotius also ordinarily interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inspired into mens minds by the Devil For so he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Diabolical Inspiration and Doctrine taught by the unclean Spirit to pollute the worship of God This respects those words in the Text Giving heed to seducing spirits whereby he would have the Original of these wicked Doctrines noted 5. But then the Matter or Object of them to be couched in that more definitive expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is not Doctrines of Devils as taught and suggested by them for that he had touched before but Doctrines of Damons that is to say concerning Damons or the worshipping of the Dead answerably to the Israelites worshipping the Baalim which the Psalmist intimates to be the Souls of men deceased 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Epiphanius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For that Prophecy is fulfilled in these Collyridians viz. Some shall depart from sound doctrine giving head to fabulous stories and doctrines concerning Daemons For that this Genitive may be a Genitive of the Object as well as of the Agent any one will grant And that Epiphanius understands it in that former sense is plain both from his prefixing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which fabulous stories are not conceived to be told by the Daemons but of them and also from what immediately follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For he saith there will be those that will worship the dead c. Which yet the Apostle does not say unless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Doctrines concerning Daemons which are the Souls of men deceased as I have elsewhere sufficiently intimated Wherefore it is plain from the Exposition of Epiphanius that this Prediction of S. Paul is very applicable to the Apostasy of the Church of Rome for their giving Divine honour unto the Saints which is apparently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to worship the dead 6. Which will still be found more exquisitely to fit them of Rome if we consider by what external means this Daemon-worship is promoted For these that are said to depart from the faith that is from the sound doctrine of it as Epiphanius has interpreted it and to Apostatize into the Idolatrous worship of Daemons are said to doe this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through the Hypocrisy of tellers of lies the Apocalyps calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that make lies that is to say that feign Legends of the Miracles of their Saints or Daemons and in deed doe it so impudently as if they made no conscience of those pious frauds and fables whence it is said that they have their consciences seared with an hot-iron What can be more expressive of the Greek and Roman Legendaries then this and yet there is still a more particular character added Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats Whom can this Character fit so well as the Orders of Monks into whose Societies no man could be admitted but upon strict observation of these laws They prohibited any one that would be of their Fraternity to marry and enjoyn'd them also to abstain from certain meats These things are so solidly and copiously made out in Mr. Mede's Apostasy of the Latter times that I need adde nothing more but a Recommendation of that Treatise to the Reader There is scarce any Prophecie falls more fitly upon any Event then this does upon the Church in those times when she had lapsed into this Daemon-worship by the seduction of a fraudulent and superstitious Clergy 7. Thirdly The summary Description of the whole Mystery of Godliness preceding so immediately before in the very last Verse of the foregoing Chapter me-thinks there is a congruity that this immediate Digression into the mention of a Lapse from the purity of this Mystery should be of no petty concernment the perstringing of a few Pythagorizing Christians or such as might leave Christianity to follow Apollonius of which notwithstanding I do not remember any particular stories but a more solemn and notorious Apostasie of the Church of Christ and the converting of that great Mystery of Godliness immediately before mentioned into a Mystery of Iniquity as it is else-where called For that expression of Some shall depart from the Faith is no barâ—…e at all to this meaning as Mr. Mede has demonstratively made good by many and sufficient Examples where some is said of the greatest part and in a manner of the whole people as you may see in the above-named Treatise 8. Fourthly and lastly The Preface to this Prediction Now the Spirit speaketh expresly that in the latter times c. seems not onely too big but too determinate another way then to comply with what Grotius would put us off with namely a glance at Apollonius and his
are said to ascend up to Heaven in a cloud it seems an Allusion to Christ's Ascension after his Crucifixion which is also alluded to here in the eighth verse And the time of Christ's mournfull Prophecy before his Resurrection was about Three years and an half if we may believe Chronologers to make the Allusion still more perfect Ver. XIII And the same time there was a great Earth-quake and the tenth part of the City fell and in the Earth-quake were slain seven thousand Names of men and the Remnant were affrighted and gave glory to the God of Heaven That an Earth-quake signifies Political Commotions and change of affairs is obvious to any one to note But that the City here mentioned should be understood not of a City of brick or stone but a Polity has not been so easy for every one to hit on But I conceive it is plain enough that this City is the very City mentioned in the eighth verse which is called the great City and this great City is the Whore of Babylon and the Whore of Babylon is nothing but the body of the Idolatrous Clergy in the Empire who appertain to the seventh or last Head of the Beast which is an Head of Blasphemie as well as the six first that is to say an Idolatrous Head Whence we may understand what is meant by these Seven thousand Names of men For neither seven nor thousand signify any determinate number though by a pleasant Diorismus they seem to doe so but onely the nature or property of those Names of men that are said to be slain namely That they are Titles Dignities Offices or Orders of men belonging to the State of Christendom as under the Seventh Head that is become Idolatrous and Antichristian And in that this Number Seven is multiplied into a Thousand it signifies a perfect and durable nulling all such Offices and Orders of men Which if Mr. Mede had taken notice of it would have saved him the labour of making out the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and also the solicitude touching the proportionableness of the Number of the slain For no men at all here are necessarily implied to be slain but onely all Antichristian Offices and Fraternities to be dissolved and abrogated and things to be reduced to the purity of the first four hundred years For to slay by a Diorismus signifies nothing else but a causing a thing to cease to be This I little question but is the true meaning of this place And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will have a sense marvellous coincident therewith But that there is any design upon the brick and stone the walls and buildings of Rome either in this present Vision or any other in the Apocalyps I do profess my self for the present so dim-sighted as not to discover the Papal Polity by an Hylasmus not the material City being understood in all the denunciations against her so far as I see yet So that if she be to be burnt or sack'd or sunk by Earth-quakes it may be but a By-Accident and not directly pointed at nor prefigured in the Apocalyptick Visions But if such a thing should happen in such circumstances as should in a special and peculiar way fit with some of these Prophecies it will be therein comprised by an Henopoeia of the second sort as I have intimated in my Prophetick Schemes But be this how it will I make no question but this thirteenth verse of the Chapter we are upon concerns mainly if not onely the Idolatrous Clergy it self But it is said of the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the remnant that they were indeed affrighted and amazed but gave glory to the God of Heaven as being just in his judgments 2. Out of what I have written here and in my Mystery of Godliness I think it is evident enough that that Antichristian Opposition that is made Book 5. Ch. 17. Sect. 8. against the Prophetick and Regal Office of Christ is clearly prefigured in this Vision of the Two Witnesses who are said to lie slain in the street of the great City during the Conculcation of the Outward Court of the Temple by the Gentiles And truly though some please themselves in conceiting this Vision such an invincible puzzle I cannot but prosess that the fense thereof seems to me as clear as the Meridian Sun And for that special Knot therein imagined to lie in the eighth verse how these Witnesses can be understood of Christendom their bodies being said to lie dead in the City where our Lord was crucified which must be Jerusalem I have already intimated that this City is called the old Jerusalem spiritually or mystically as well as Sodom and Aegypt And if any one have an heart to hear for it requires no great labour of the head to understand it the brief and plain sense of this verse is this That these Two Witnesses shall lie despoiled of all Respect and Power in the Precincts of the Jurisdiction of that Church which hitherto has always been the greatest and is now very large indeed consisting of mere formal carnal and Hypocritical Professours of the worship of the true God in which Church our Lord also was crucified What can be more easy and plain then this For it onely supposes that this carnal Hypocritical Witness-slaying Church of the Christians is one succeeding City Synagogue or false Church with the formal Hypocritical Prophet-murthering Church of the Jews Which is a plain truth whether this Prophecy suppose it or no. But we proceed CHAP. XIII 1. That the little Horn in Daniel is a Type of that Power which should oppose the Regal Office of Christ. 2. That the Fourth Kingdom in Daniel is not that of the Lagidae and Seleucidae but the Roman proved from the universal Consent of Ecclesiastick Writers 3. From the eminency and greatness of the Fourth Kingdom 4. From the distance of time betwixt the Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae and the Kingdom of the Stone cut out without hands or the Kingdom of the Son of man which is also the Kingdom of Heaven or of God 5. Grotius his fond and profane Interpretation of the Son of man as if thereby were meant the People of Rome 6. The like extravagancy in his interpreting the Stone cut out without hands of the same People 7. The unsoundness of that conceit more particularly discovered 8. The Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae farther proved not to be the Fourth Kingdom from the Coexistence of the Ten Kings according to Type 9. From their vastly-differing Periods the one ending according to Daniel presently after Antiochus the other not before the Day of Judgment 10. From Daniel's making the great Horn the first King in the Third Kingdom and four lesser to grow up after him on the same Goat's Head 11. From the four Heads of the Leopard which are the four Successours of Alexander in this Third Beast or Kingdom and from Daniel's reckoning Antiochus in the latter end of
miss-led into so bad an adventure The Son of man coming in the clouds of Heaven according to him is Populus Romanus nullum intra se habens regem When our Saviour Christ intimated to the high Priest that he was that Son of man that should come in the clouds of Heaven it seem'd so high an Arrogation that he rent his clothes and said he had spoken blasphemie And truly I think that neither Jew nor Christian can well acquit Grotius of that crime who attributes that which is the peculiar character of the Messias to a Prophane and Pagan people and that forsooth because they had no King as if they were ever the better for that But they had Kings at first and both in the Infancy of their Empire and afterwards they had a Supreme Power so great and imperial as may excuse them from the least shew of Contempt They had always over them a Sovereignty so that they could not be deemed the Son of man for any such private condition For the Summa Potestas is the Summa Potestas under what name or form soever and of the same real grandeur Besides that they were a most glorious and victorious people before Antiochus his time So that it is a very dilute and sapless conceit of Grotius to apply the phrase of the Son of man to them for any inconsiderableness in them or obscurity For they were not so in the times of Antiochus 6. Again the Kingdom of the Son of man and the Stone cut out without hands are all one both in truth and according to Grotius his own Concession But this Stone is Christ and his Kingdom as being Heavenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing erected not by humane power but by the power and Spirit of God That this is the meaning of without hands is the general vote of Interpreters S. Jerom Irenaus Justin Epiphanius S. Augustin Theodoret and several others Where think you does Grotius take shelter now Why This Figure which is so appropriate to Christ and mentioned of him so often in the New Testament This Stone must be cast away as if it were neither precious nor a Corner-stone and be bestowed again on a Pagan people the Romans For so Grotius does not stick to profess Idem Lapis Filius hominis and he made the Son of man before the people of Rome But can a man believe that the Original or Success of that people was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing brought to pass by the special power and Spirit of God and not more humano according to the usual course of the World and that not of the best kind their beginnings being helped on by a rabble of Ruffians and Robbers 7. No but that is not Grotius his gloss you will say Let us therefore hear what it is Lapis abscissus de monte sine manibus according to him is Exercitus populi qui suae esset spontis nullique regi pareret cujus populi origo à monte nempe Palatino In which there is nothing sound nor solid For was this Roman Army any thing more suae spontis in that they had not a Kingly Government at Rome That Supreme Power of Consuls and Senatours was as directive and coactive as if it had been Regal So that the motion of this Army was never the more spontaneous for this Again The Stone cut from the mountain without hands implies that it was then spontaneously divided from the Mountain when it is said to be cut thence But when the Romans first issued from mount Palatine yea so soon as they were populus Romanus Regal Government was amongst them it being the first Government of this People and therefore they were not then Populus suae spontis according to Grotius his Conceit so that he cannot bring both ends together And lastly To interpret Mountain here in a literal sense is unskilfully done and not according to the analogy of the Prophetick style nor the very intimation of the present Text which says the Little stone became a great Mountain itself and filled the whole Earth Wherefore this Mountain signifying not literally but politically there is no question but the other does so too and that the Stone is in some sense homogeneall to this rocky Mountain Whence the sense is plainly this That out of the great Mountain that is the Roman Empire there should be a People raised not by humane power or policy but by the Spirit of God and the preaching of the Gospel by Jesus Christ and his Apostles which should be a peculiar people to him and become the Subjects of his Kingdom that is to say That the Church of Christ should be cut out of the Roman Empire without humane help This is a most easy and undistorted sense and against which there cannot be made the least Exception 8. Fourthly which I have already intimated above The Ten Horns of the Fourth Beast with iron teeth and the Ten toes of the iron leggs of the Statue signify the same thing Wherefore it is plain sith the Ten toes imply a Coexistence of the Ten Horns by reason of the coordination of their Site that there must be Ten Kings together in the Fourth Kingdom But in the Kingdom of the Seleucidae and Lagidae there were not Ten Kings together all at once Therefore that Kingdom is not the Fourth 9. Fifthly Antiochus Epiphanes part of this Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae is said to rise up in the latter time of the Kingdom of the Successours of Alexander Dan. 8. 22 23. Wherefore this Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae has expired near two thousand years ago But the Kingdom of the Fourth Beast reaches even to the Day of Judgment Dan. 7. 9 10. And I beheld till the thrones were cast down and the ancient of days did sit His throne was like the fiery flame and his wheels as burning fire A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him thousand thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him the Judgment was set and the Books were opened c. That this is the Description of the Day of Judgment is the general Opinion of both Christians and Jews and answers exactly to the Lake of fire and the opening of the Books Apocal. 20. which Grotius himself does interpret of the Last Day Whence we may safely conclude that the Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae is not the Fourth Kingdom as having ceased so long before that time though we understood the Day of Judgment in the sense of the Rabbins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 According to which the meaning of I beheld till the thrones were set and the Books were opened is this That the Prophet Daniel had a prospect even to the utmost end of that great Day But he begins more particularly at the beginning of that Day in the eleventh verse But this I have onely noted by the bye 10. Sixthly and lastly Alexander's Kingdom and that of his Successours
were made rich by reason of her costliness so the English Translation and accommodately enough to the literal sense But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may as well signifie out of that treasure of honours dignities preferments and offices wherewith she was able to enrich these Merchants 20. Rejoyce over her thou Heaven and ye holy Apostles and Prophets for God hath avenged you on her That is to say Rejoyce ye heavenly-minded over these Merchants of the Earth and ye that are Teachers of the pure and Apostolick doctrine and declare the naked truth of things unto the world be ye glad that the Lord has avenged the bloud of your Predecessours upon her the bloud of the Waldenses and Albigenses and of those that suffered in Queen Mary's time with the rest of the holy Martyrs of Jesus Ver. 21. And a mighty Angel took up a stone like a great Mil-stone and cast it into the Sea saying Thus with violence shall that great City Babylon be thrown down and shall be found no more at all The sense is That at last there will be an utter ruine and dissipation of this Idolatrous City or Polity namely at the pouring out of the seventh Vial. But in the mean time I cannot omit to note how unlikely a thing it is that this great Triumph and rejoycing and that so perfect and final destruction figured out by the plunging of a Mil-stone by a mighty Angel to the bottom of the Sea should signify nothing else but Totilas his sacking of Rome which presently recovered again and the spirits of the Apostles and Prophets their looking down through the windows of Heaven and making merry at that Spectacle which could not but be very sad and Tragical to many a good Christian. 22. And the voice of Harpers and Musicians and of Pipers and Trumpeters shall be heard no â—…re at all in thee and no Crafts-man of whatsoever craft he be shall be found any more in thee and the sound of a Mil-stone shall be heard no more at all in thee 23. And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee and the voice of the Bridegroom and the Bride shall be heard no more at all in thee For thy Merchants were the great men of the Earth for by thy Sorceries were all Nations deceived 24. And in her was found the bloud of Prophets and of Saints and of all that were slain upon the Earth The twenty second and part of the twenty third verse comprise the sad silence and desolation of this City the rest the reason of her destruction And the voice of Harpers and Musicians c. All this first part may be either nothing else but a Prophetick Hylasmus setting out one single thing the destruction silence and vast solitude of this Idolatrous Hierarchy by the privation or absence of such gross and palpable Objects as occur in a City inhabited as the noise of Musicians the hammering and knocking of Artificers the grinding of Mills the light of Candles in the night and the singing and dancing at Weddings and the like Or else there may be a more particularly contrived Allegory in reference to this Mystical City here meant As if we should understand rather the Musick at their Idolatrous worship by these here specified which were onely a Diorismus by these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as do technas consuere sophisticas politicas in Theology and Church-Administration for the Interest of their Hierarchy these Artifices Imperii in Imperio and those also that work curious work in the Scholastick Divinity by the sound of the Mil-stones their fraudulent Profit for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you may see in Achmetes by the light of a Candle Honour and Prosperity as you may reade in the same Author and lastly by the Bridegroom and the Bride not the spiritual Marriages betwixt Christ and a Nun or the Virgin Mary and a Monk in the Monasteries but the propagation of this Pseudo-Catholick Religion that it shall be no longer propagated for the end of Marriage is Propagation For thy Merchants were the great men c. Now follows the reason of this great Desolation which is threefold The first The Riot and Lordliness of these Mystical Merchants they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Great men of the world and greatly worldly ambitious covetous and sensual which is the very essence of an Earthly minde Which how much it has been amongst the Popes Cardinals Abbots and other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Primates or Maximates if you will of the Roman Church History and the mouths of all men are full of it The second is The debauching the world with Idolatry accompanied and countenanced with the pretence of a power plainly Magical of changing the Elements in such a sort as all the Magicians of Pharaoh could never do nor had the face to attempt the like it being so beyond all credibility besides other Magical feats of an inseriour Rank and Necromantick Stories of the Apparitions of dead Saints Whence Idolatry is indigitated here by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as also that Cup in the hand of the Whore is look'd upon as a Philtrum and likewise their being said to be deceived by these Sorceries implies their being seduced to Idolatry to which they tend as appears plainly from what is written of the Miracles of the Two-horned Beast ch 13. 13 14. The third and last Reason is The bloudy Cruelty of this Roman Hierarchy In her was found the bloud of Prophets and of Saints c. namely of such as out of conscience to the Law of God and Christ could not submit to their Idolatrous Profession and Practice but witness against them And not their bloud onely is laid to her charge but the common bloudshed in Christendom by wars and tumults which they for the better rooting themselves in Countries and Kingdomes ingage the world in and abet and assist when begun by the Secular Powers whenas if they were the true Successours of the Apostles as they boast themselves to be they would make it their business that Christians should not spill one anothers bloud nor conscientious men lose their liberties or lives for being the faithful Professours of the pure Apostolick doctrine nor suffer the Turk to over-run Christendome rather then they will forsake their Idols and Daemon-worship or Apoc. 9. 20 21. repent of their Prophet-murthering Fornications Sorceries and thievish Impostures CHAP. XVI 1. This mystical sense of the burning of Babylon confirmed out of his Joint-Exposition and from Alcazar's Interpretation and that the same is prefigured in the destruction of Tyre 2. How lively the Patriarch of Rome is typified in Ezekiel by the King of Tyre 3. Another Vision to the same purpose in the same Prophet 4. A third Vision in Esay concerning Tyre typifying Rome Pagan Christian and then Esay 23. Pagano-Christian Ver. 18. That Tyre that is Rome will be reformed from her Pagano-Christianism and become purely
this Prediction may be still the same with Mr. Mede's 1. WE come now to the parts of the Divine life the Root and the Branches Upon the former whereof we shall not long insist the Predictions being not so ample nor so frequent But Prophecy is not altogether silent concerning those things which do so grosly oppose or undermine our Belief of Christian Religion As namely concerning those Legendary Stories we have taken notice of are they not plainly foretold in that Prophecy of the Apostasy of the Latter times That Doctrines of Daemons should be brought in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through the Hypocrisy of those that tell lies who by their Hypocriticall show in their professed Abstinence from meats and marriage as if they were such Saint-like and Angelical men themselves gain by this disguize the opinion of Sanctity with the people and therefore the more easily recommend to them the worshipping of Saints by feigning of lying Legends that contain their Miracles which they are very ready to believe by reason of the reverence they bear to these vizards of Holiness What can be more plain then this 2. Again 2 Thess. 2. there is a more full Prefiguration of the state of the lapsed Church in this point Verse 8. And then shall that wicked one be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming 9. Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signes and lying wonders 10. And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish because they received not the love of the Truth that they might be saved 11. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie 12. That they all might be damned who believed not the Truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 3. The description seems to consist of those two parts that are briefly expressed in the Apocalyps by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that makes and he that loves a Lie This wicked one that is the Pope with his Clergy is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lie-maker whose coming is after the working of Satan the Father of Lies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 belongs to them all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if he should say In all manner of false and counterfeit shows of power signs and miracles For he seems to adde by way of farther explanation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all unjust or injurious deceivableness The same accusation that seems to lie against them in the Apocalyps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they repented them not of their thefts Chap. 9. 21. But now the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 follows viz. the Description of the lovers of these Lies They are those that perish for want of a sincere love of the Truth that they might be saved For Hypocrisy is ordinarily at the bottom of those that can be gulled by these Impostours They not seeking sincerely the Kingdom of God and his righteousness are made a prey to these deceitfull men As is farther hinted v. 12. where they are said to take pleasure in unrighteousness For this cause God sends them strong delusion that they may believe lies that is all the fabulous Impossibilities of Transsubstantiation Legendary Miracles and affrightfull stories of Purgatory Thus one part of their Church becomes Sotts and Bigots and the other that behold this Scene of things though they profess themselves of their Church become a company of profane Atheists and clancular Deriders of all Religion So miserably does the Christian Faith go to rack by these Impostures Nay it is a question whether those that do more superstitiously cleave to them doe it not rather in a kind of confusion and obstupefaction of mind out of fear and suspicion then any determinate assurance or firm belief of the things they outwardly profess Nor does this Interpretation at all clash with their supposition that admit that there are sometimes things that happen extraordinarily in that Church For it is enough that they do so abound with and glory of their Miracles and that so very few of those numerous stories of them are true at all and that none of them are true Miracles but prestigious Juggles of the Devil that egregious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theodoret calls him 4. To these you may adde Apocal. 13. where the Two-horned Beast which is the same with the Pseudo-Prophet and this Man of Sin is said to doe great miracles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In conspectu hominum In conspectu Bestiae that is saith Aretas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oculos hominum praestringens and accordingly Bellarmine also interprets those words Which juggle notwithstanding concerns the eyes of the Minde as well as those of the Body For Transsubstantiation does not make the Bread look to the outward eyes otherwise then usuall but to the eyes of Faith and Reason to which their being able to make a consecrated Wafer appear to be the very Body and Person of Christ is such a piece of Prestigiousness as has no parallel The apparent affectedness of accurate humane Policy if not worse in the frame of their Religion is perstringed in the Vision of the little Horn with eyes And their Atheism and Infidelity in the general in those passages of the Revelation Chap. 21. 8. But the fearfull and unbelieving c. and Chap. 22. 15. For without are dogs Which places in what sense they make to the present Theme I have already declared in my Idea of Antichristianism and therefore hold it needless to repeat 5. We come now to the Oppositions to the Branches of the Divine life Humility Purity and Charity And that against the first of them is plainly that unmatchable Loftiness and Haughtiness which we have described in the afore-named Idea and which History does every-where complain of in the Bishop of Rome Which I conceive is very lively set out in that Vision of Ezekiel touching the King of Tyre For that Tyre is a Type of Rome Antichristian I have above I think made very rational The words which I had occasion to recite before were these Son of man say unto the Prince of Tyre Thus saith the Lord God Because thine heart Ezekiel Chap. 28. 2. is lifted up and thou hast said I am a God I sit in the seat of God in the midst of the Seas Is not this the very language which the Pope accepts of Dominus Deus noster Papa And that the Seat and Tribunal of the Pope is the very Seat and Tribunal of God Again ver 6. Therefore thus saith the Lord Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God behold I will bring strangers upon thee the terrible of the Nations c. To set his heart as the heart of God is to have his will in all things Who has resisted his Will
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place that Lapse into Idolatrous worship which is Rebellion against God and Christ and that Man of Sin be revealed the Son of Perdition That this is to be understood of that signal Antichrist is the current Opinion of Antiquity yea of Alcazar Ribera and Bellarmine himself But we say that this Antichrist will prove the Pope with his Clergy For it is a ridiculous Defence to excuse it by saying that the Man of Sin must imply one single person whenas a Man as well as a Woman in the Prophetick style does easily signify not onely a Succession of single men but of a Body Politick by an Henopoeia and so does here the succession of lapsed Popes with their Clergy who are called the Son of Perdition because they are to be destroyed by the brightness of the coming of Christ and the power and Light of the Gospel Not by worldly power nor by might but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts Ver. 4. Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or what is worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God That the Bishop of Rome fulfilleth every tittle of this Prediction any one will see that does but cast back his eyes upon what we have wrote in our Idea of Antichristianism and what is generally known to all that have sipped but never so little of the History of the affairs of Christendom For it is plain from thence that he opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God in some eminent way or other For he opposeth and exalteth himself above Christ who is very God in all his Offices Regal Sacerdotal and Prophetical as I have abundantly shewn and therefore consequently above all the Saints Nay particularly he is set above the Saints and Angels as Bishop Dounham proves at large in his Treatise De Antichristo lib. 4. c. 4. And as for the Emperours he treads on their very necks and makes them his vassals kicks off their Crowns with his feet and with his feet sets them on again So plain is it that this Prince of the Crowning City does exalt himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say above all Powers whatsoever whether celestial or terrestrial amongst the latter of which are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Augusti the Roman Emperours An Hint is sufficient a more full Amplification of his enormous Pride is set down in the above-named Idea which yet is no more then what is obvious Idea of Antichristianism Book 2. Ch. 11. and notorious as well in common Fame as in History This passage in this verse does so expresly answer to that in Daniel ch 11. 36. He shall exalt himself and magnifie himself above every God that I doubt not but that the Apostle had a respect to that King of Pride there described and means here the same thing by the Man of Sin So that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Doing and accepting such things as if they did rightly belong to him would demonstrate that he were God but by so doing he does ostentare se Deum esse makes a shew as if he were God The Temple of God is here either materially to be understood and then it is plain how well it fits with the Pope's receiving honour sitting on the high Altar in S. Peter's Church at Rome after his Election and his being there adored or if it be understood Figuratively for the People that bear the Name of Christ and are dedicated to him here he sits too and rules as God infallibly uncontrollably antiquating or dispensing even with the Laws of God himself Ver. 5. Remember ye not that when I was with you I told you these things 6. And now you know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time That is to say what hindereth his revealing and shewing of himself to be in the world For all things are in the confused Potentiality of the Universe but hid as a Rose in winter but appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in their season But that which hindered this appearing of Antichrist was according to the general opinion of Antiquity the Entireness of the Roman Empire Till the breaking of the Empire into ten Kingdomes Antichrist was not to be and it may be not to appear in another sense till afterwards That this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Roman Empire Alcazar brings in plenty of witnesses out of Malvenda Tertullian Chrysostome Ambrose Jerâ—…e Austin Theophylact Oecumenius To which he addes Anselmus Hayâ—… Strabus Thomas Lyranus Cajetan Bellarmine Suarez and Pamelius Ver. 7. For the Mystery of Iniquity does already work onely he that now letteth will lett until he be taken away Tertullian and Chrysostome and most of the Expofitors as Alcazar does avouch understand this working of Iniquity in the Apostles time to be onely as a Type and Figure of that which should be under Antichrist That there was then something either actually in being or a-brewing that was a previous Representation of the state of the Church under Antichrist Alcazar would have it the Roman Paganism or worship of Idols But that was no Mystery of Iniquity But it may be he will say it may be a Type of that which when it came would be a Mystery and that a wonderful one that is the living Image of Paganism revived in Christianity and that therefore the future Mystery did work in its Type as well as was in its Type For the Empire revived into Idolatry is called the Beast that was and is not and yet is The conceit is not altogether extravagant But I am more inclinable to think that the Apostle might speak of something in Christianity already I mean in the Professours of it that bore some similitude with that of the great Antichrist that was to appear in his season that he might intend by this present working of the Mystery of Iniquity some miscarriage in some of the Christians or some propensions thereto in them as having got a great smack of the Antichristian Spirit and particularly of the spirit of contention for Rule and Priority Whether Simon Magus may not be here hinted at I shall consider in its due place But this Antichristian heat of Ambition must play at lesser games till the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till the Roman Emperour most properly so called namely he that has his Imperial Seat at Rome be removed or destroyed which Series of Casars ended in Augustulus After which the Pope plai'd his pranks in these Western parts of the Empire and gleaned much wealth and power to himself in the ruines thereof and at last grew visibly to the full pitch and stature of this Man of Sin or Antichrist Then he was big enough to be seen by them that were not blinde as it follows in the next verse Ver. 8. And then shall
and Lust. But these Intimations shall suffice concerning this second Opposition to the Divine Life in the branches thereof 9. The third and last is that which is so conspicuously opposite to that last and best of the three Christian Graces Divine Love or Charity and that is the bloudy Antichristian Cruelty against the sincere Servants of Christ. Which is noted in several of those Visions we have already explained and therefore we need onely produce them As first that concerning the King of Babylon who was a Type of the Pope The reason of his Ruine in that Vision is declared to be his barbarous and Antichristian Cruelty Esay 14. Because thou hast destroyed thy Land and slain thy People that is to say the people of Christendom the Land over which thou challengest an Ecclesiastick Sovereignty as being the Vicar of Christ and yet dost most bloudily murther and martyr his truest and most faithfull Servants Again Dan. 7. The little Horn there which is a Figure of the same Pontifician Power is said to make war with and to wear out the Saints of the most High that is to consume them and destroy them with perpetual persecutions 10. A third Presignification is Apocal. 11. concerning the Witnesses The Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pâ—… shall make war against them and shall evercome them and kill them And their dead bodies 〈◊〉 lie in the street of the great City which is spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt where also our Lord was crucified Which is a description of perpetuall Opposition and Persecution taking away from the true Servants of God either their Honours Offices Goods or Lives So that the real and sincere Church of Christ which is his Body lieth during the treading under foot the Outward Court like a dead corps without Political life or power and also dreadfully wounded all over gore bloud by the cruel Murthers Martyrdoms and Massacres of the faithfull Members thereof Fourthly Apocal. 13. the Two-horned Beast is said to animate the Ten-horned when he had revived into the ancient Idolatrous form of Paganism to destroy as many as would not yield obedience to him even in his Idolatrous Commands And he had power to give life to the Image of the Beast that the Image of the Beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the Image of the Beast should be killed And that no man might buy nor sell save he that had the Mark or the Name of the Beast or the Number of his Name that is As many as would not profess themselves Roman Catholicks and thereby Paganize in Christianity should be famished and starved and not suffered to live So great is the Charity of this Tyramical and Antichristian Power towards the true members of Christ. But blessed are the dead that die in the Lord as it is said in the following Chapter concerning the Martyrdom of those that are murthered by this Pontifician Power 11. Fifthly That also is a Record of the Antichristian Roman Cruelty for the Vials are poured upon the Beast the Aegyptian Plagues upon the Antichristian Aegypt Revel 16. where the Angel of the third Vial which turns the Rivers into bloud speaks thus Thou art righteous O Lord which art and wast and shalt be because thou hast judged thus For they have shed the bloud of Saints and Prophets and thou hast given them bloud to drink for they are worthy Sixthly As the Ruine of the King of Babylon in Esay so the Ruine of the Whore of Babylon in S. John is imputed to this salvage and barbarous Antichristian Cruelty the murthering of the Saints of God The voice of Harpers and Musicians is heard no more in her no Crafts-man of any Craft is found any more in hâ—… the light of a Candle shines no more in her but she is left to utter darkness and desolation because in her was found the bloud of Prophets and of Saints and of all that were slain upon the Earth Murtherers also are particularly noted in both those Catalogues of them that are without the Holy City 12. Seventhly and lastly In the description of the Whore of Babylon which I have above plainly shew'd to signify the Church the Roman especially apostatized into Idolatry there is express and significant mention made of this odious branch of Antichristianism this bloudy Persecution of the true members of Christ. And the woman was arâ—…ied in purple and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls having a golden cap in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her Forâ—… And upon her forehead was a Name written Mystery Babylon the great the mother of Harlots and abominations of the Earth And I saw the 〈◊〉 drunâ—…n with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 and when I saw her I wondred with great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the gorgeous Pomp of the Pope and his Ecclesiastick 〈◊〉 the Cardinals and other great men as also on the coâ—…ly and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of their 〈◊〉 Altars and Temples how this Where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Ornaments Carpets and Laces of Aegypt how 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfumâ—…d her bed with Myrrh Aloes and Cinnamon with Incense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 odours if he have any skill in the Prophetick style he cannot say but this Prefiguration of the state of the Roman Church is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 and richness of it For thus is Idolatry begun to the world in this golden Cup and costly outside of things But this is not the only miscarrlage of this Church she is also drunk with the bloud of the 〈◊〉 and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus Grotius his gloss upon this part of the Text is very expressive and significant 〈◊〉 â—…am 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 despum aâ—…te evomente sanguinem ut ebrii 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saw the 〈◊〉 or enraged Woman foming at mouth with stained froth and vomiting bloud as drunk drâ—…s do wine Which must needs be a wonder to all her Spectatours that a woman so richly and so gloriously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be oâ—… 〈◊〉 â—…erine and salvage a nature Which admiration certainly â—…ust be â—…doubled upon them while they consider how this illustrious Queen professes herself to be the Catholick Church of Christ and Mother of Christendom and yet thus to froth at the mouth nay to foul her raiment by impotently easing of her stomack over-charged with the bloud of her own children But by being thus lavish of the life of her Infants she demonstrates herself not to be that Catholick Mother but a bloudy and treacherous Harlot accordingly as the Holy Ghost has inscribed upon her Forehead The Mother of Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth 13. Thus have we seen every member of Antichristianism comprised in our Idea as they are easily found in the Church of Rome so likewise expresly prefigured in the Writings of the holy Prophets as appertaining to her and that there is no eludng oâ—… evacuating so clear and perspicuous Testimonies by any
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
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
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
man upon earth may dispense with one tittle thereof But for authorizing Interpretations Opinions and the Rites and Ceremonies of Religious Worship either this is in a Christian Prince's power and not in the Priest's or else his Kingdome and safe administration thereof is not in his power For all these things according to the Eternal Law of Nature and of Reason are to be in the hand of him that is Supreme Governour and it is a contradiction to his Supremacy if it be not so For he that holds the rains of the Souls of men rules their whole Persons and the strongest rains are those of Religion And therefore if any Power distinct from the Kingly pretend to the right of ordering the affairs of Religion farther then his allowance and liking that Power is really the King and the King himself a precarious Power to be blown about and blown out of his Throne by the false breath of these pretenders to the Headship of the Church as often and as violently as they please Wherefore as the plain and confessed Law of Christ is immutable so what is doubtful and merely Ritual is to have its interpretation change or continuance at the judgement and discretion of every Christian Prince who has most justly and necessarily the power of accommodating such things to the peace composure and prosperity of his Kingdome Nor have the Ecclesiastick Powers any right in an immutable and essential manner to affix to the Christian Religion any thing that is not expresly and declaredly comprised therein according to the Divine Authority of the Scriptures For it is an high wrong to that Religion which is to be Everlasting and Universal to be bound and fettered with either Rites or Opinions that are but Temporary or Topical or that the Errours and Mistakes of dark Antiquity should become as a Law of the Medes and Persians to more serious and clear-sighted Posterity or what was fetched up upon some transitory emergency that all the importunities and necessities of after-Affairs of the Church or any parts thereof should not be able to conjure it down again for the making the Gospel more freely to run and be glorified 7. And therefore most apertly and judiciously has our Church declared in her Homily of Fasting That God's Church ought not neither may it be tied to any order now made or hereafter to be made and devised by the authority of Man but that it may lawfully for just causes alter change or mitigate those Ecclesiastical Decrees and Orders yea recede wholly from them and break them when they tend either to Superstition or to Impiety when they draw the people from God rather then work any edification in them And in the Book of Articles she again plainly asserts That it is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places Article 34. one or utterly alike for at all times they have been diverse and may be changed according to the diversity of Countries Times and mens manners so that nothing be ordain'd against God's Word And lastly in the close of that Article Every Particular or National Church hath authority to ordain change and abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained onely by Mans authority so that all things be done to edifying Which Affairs of so dispensable and changeable a nature if they could be ordered by a power distinct from and independent of the Supreme Power of any Christian Nation and affecting and relishing a private Interest of their own what wilde commotions and confusions might they cause in a Christian State while they gore and spurre up the Ass to goe that way where he sees the Angel of the Lord with a drawn sword to drive him back Wherefore it is most safe and just that in all preter-Essentials to Christian Religion the Supreme Magistrate in every Christian Nation have the allowing or disapproving of them and that no Rites nor Opinions pass into Decrees but by his Authority that the Priesthood may not be able as they ought to be so faithful to their Prince as not to be willing to teach or decree any thing against his Interest whose Subjects they are or against the Safety Peace and Prosperity of the whole State of which they are but part and therefore ought to have no power to doe any thing independently of the Prince who is the Common Father of his whole Countrey and whose Interest is the good and welfare of all Who therefore must needs be the Head of the Church over all Causes and Persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil as our Church does plainly acknowledge that vital Influence may indifferently flow from him into all the members of his Dominions But this is a point that might have been more seasonably deferr'd till we came to the Antichristian Opposition to the first branch of the Divine Life which is Humility and which the superlative Pride of the Papal Supremacy does so apparently affront But that there is not the least smutt of Antichristianism in Episcopacy itself I have already abundantly evinced 8. Now concerning those Oppositions that be made against Faith the Root of the Divine Life our Church is so plainly free from them as any one may perceive that pleases but to recount them that it is enough merely to intimate so much Onely I cannot let go this seasonable opportunity of triumphing in her behalf in that she is so throughly reformed from that notorious though subtle and slim piece of Antichristianism I mean that Self-ended Policy in those Doctrines and Practices which are so many in the Church of Rome and so profitable and yet Our Heavendirected Reformation has perfectly refined us and cleansed us from them all The consideration whereof must needs make our Mother the Church of England look very lovely and amiable to every ingenuous and discerning eye who cannot but bless God for that due judgment and faithfulness which he put into our Royal and Reverend Reformers and must be a great satisfaction to every honest Priest or Minister of our Church that he neither feeds himself nor the people with Lies after the manner of the Roman Priesthood nor puts one morsell of bread into his mouth filched from the Laiety by fraud and imposture and that as he labours in the Gospel so he lives by the Gospel and not by Figments and cunningly-devised Fables 9. Those Oppositions also against that Divine Grace of Humility which are specified in the ninth tenth and eleventh Chapters that our Church is cleared from them it is more apparent to any one that considers them then that I need give my self the trouble of particularly making it out The Pope's Supremacy is not onely declared against but sworn against as is very just and right And though there be peculiar Habits for Clergy-men yet as I have noted above our Church does professedly declare there is no Holiness in any such things but that they are for decency and distinction And distinction betwixt Laiety and Clergy is as
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
Various ways of the improving this gainful persuasion 6. The unspeakable honour that seems to accrue to the Priest from this stupendious miracle 7. That it seems to give him a just claim to exemption from Civil jurisdiction and saves him the labour of endeavouring after Truth and Sanctity 8. That their Pretences for Idolatry though they be weak yet their Self-ends therein are palpable 51 CHAP. XVI 1. That Idolatry is the highest and most peculiar injury that can be committed against God 2. That giving Religious honour to Saints or Angels is really a reproaching them and blaspheming them 3. The exceeding great Mischief done to the Soul of man by Idolatry 4. That Idolatry turns men into bloudy Wolves and Bears 5. And is the Mother and Nurse of the foulest impurities 6. That it is the source of all manner of wickedness and eternal death to the Idolater 7. The great Mischiefs it doth to the Church of Christ. 8. How the Church is lessened by Idolatry at home 9. And the spreading thereof hindred abroad 10. And consequently the whole World injured thereby 55 CHAP. XVII 1. That a multitude of slight Observances may amount to an intolerable burthen 2. That no Religious observance can be slight while it has an obligation upon the Conscience 3. Though this general estimate of the burthen of Superstition from obligation of Conscience and multitude of Observances might suffice yet he will adde a more particular Draught of this Limme of Antichristianism 4. Of Anointings and of the Multiplicity of Sacerdotal Ornaments 5. The pretence and Self-endedness in these Ornaments and Anointings 6. The Mischief arising from these kind of Ceremonies to Priest and People 7. A more full description of their publick Service 8. That respect to the Priest is better sought and more certainly found in the Power of Life and Doctrine then in any Histrionical Pomp 9. Which is so unsatisfactory to the serious that it may hazard their departure 10. The Opinion of a miraculous power in Religious Vestments 11. The Falseness and Fraud of this Opinion 12. The ill consequence thereof 59 CHAP. XVIII 1. Of the Enchanting or Exorcizing of Water Oil Salt Wax-candles c. with a general intimation of the Mischief thereof 2. Of the Exorcizing of a Golden Rose and Lamb of Wax 3. That the using of the Name of the true God in these Exorcisms does not hinder but that they may be properly termed Enchantments 4. Other Instances of their being Charmers and Magicians With an Anticipation of an Objection 5. The Falshood Fraud and Mischief of these Exorcisms 6. The derivation or distribution of these Exorcized Elements into several Superstitious uses 7. Of the supposal of the Infant 's being possess'd and of Baptismal Spittle 8. Of Extreme Unction and other Superstitious practices upon the dying man 9. As also upon his Corps laid out 10. The Fraud and Mischief of these practices .. 65 CHAP. XIX 1. The burthen of Spiritual Cognation and excessive Numerosity of Holy-days 2. Perpetual abstinence from Flesh in some Religious Orders The Fraud and Mischief thereof 3. The burthen of vowed Coelibate 4. The more dangerous purposes thereof 5. The ordinary services done by the Monasticks to this Antichristian power we describe 6. That its establishment is much corroborated by the Interest of Monasteries 7. And enriched by being Heir to all professours of Coelibate 8. The great Mischiefs of Coelibate 9. Of Flagellation 10. The ineffectualness thereof Hypocrisie of the Penitent salvage Pride of his Church and the Mischiefs resulting therefrom 11. Of Pilgrimages and Jubilees 12. An enumeration of several other Antichristian Austerities 70 CHAP. XX. 1. The Burthen of afflictive Opinions 2. The distracting puzzles of a Soul intangled with multifarious Superstitions and Conceits 3. The illaqueations of Religious Vows 4. Intanglements arising from a Superstitious trust in certain surmised virtues in the Mass. 5. Vexatious Scrupulosities concerning the Intention of the Priest in administring the Sacraments 75 CHAP. XXI 1. Of the necessity of Anniversary Confession 2. Of Sacerdotal Absolution 3. What is meant by Binding and Loosing and to what manner of persons Remission of sins is committed 4. Erasmus his gloss upon that Text of S. John 5. As also Hugo Grotius his whence Auricular Confession and Absolution prove groundless 6. A voluntary Confession and in general useful in the Church in some circumstances and in order to particular Absolution from the Priest 7. As also a more particular Confession if voluntary 8. The Self-ends of this Church in exacting so punctual a Confession from men 9 10. The slavery and Mischief of such kind of Confessions 11. The infinite vexation to the consciencious and ingenuous from the obtruding upon them incredible and impossible Opinions 78 CHAP. XXII 1. The dreadful Figment of Purgatory 2. That by this affrightful Fable the whole Moles of Superstition hitherto described is made infinitely more weighty and burthensome 3. The Antichristian Doctrine of Christ his Satisfaction reaching onely to the freeing us from the Guilt of sin not the Punishment 4. The multifarious drudgery and slavery this Doctrine and that Figment of Purgatory casts men into 5. A confutation of the said Doctrine and Figment 6. That it is impossible that the sincerely-minded in this life should find either Hell or Purgatory in the other 7. That there is no ground for this Antichristian Purgatory in either Scripture or Fathers 8 The gross Fraud and grand Mischief of this Fiction 9. The conclusion of the description of this second Limme of Antichristianism 82 BOOK II. CHAP. I. 1. The Positive Ends of the Gospel which the rest of the Limms of Antichristianism do oppose 2. That to lay claim to a Right of Infallible Interpretation of the Laws of Christ is a supplanting of his Kingly Office 3. An instance of that danger in the Glosses of the Pharisees 4. Several places of Scripture alledged to prove the Church Infallible 5. The first general Answer to these Allegations by demanding whether the Promise of Infallibility be to the Whole Church or to Part. 6. The second by demanding whether the Promise be Absolute or Conditional 7. A third That the Promise cannot be Universal touching all Objects that may be considered 8. A particular Answer to the first place of Scripture 9. An Answer to the second and third 10. Infallibility a Promise onely to the first Founders of the Christian Church 11. What the meaning of The pillar and ground of truth 12. A farther exposition of that passage of Paul to Timothy 13. That if understood of the Universal Church it may be meant onely of it in the Apostles times 14. And that the like may be said of the last Allegation 87 CHAP. II. 1. That the safe conveyance of the Apostolick Writings down to us by the Church does not infer her Infallibility 2. That the Plainness of Scripture in points necessary to Salvation takes away the want of an Infallible Judge 3. That the Scripture not pointing to
any Infallible Judge nor any faithful Keeper of Traditions does ipso facto declare her self the onely sufficient Guide 4. That there is not onely no want of an Infallible Judge but better there should be none 5. That the want of Infallibility does not take away the Authority of the Church it being the duty of every person in things really disputable to compromize with her 6. That though a Visible Judge be necessary in Civil causes yet it is nothing so in Points of Religion 7. That every private man has not onely a liberty but a command to judge for himself in matters of Faith 8. The said Right or Priviledge demonstrated also by Reason 9 That the Reason or Judgment of every private man is not a private Spirit in that reproachful sense that some speak it 10. That the claim to a right of judging for ones self in points of Faith does not make a man superiour to his Church 11. Nor yet equal 12. Nor implies that he thinks himself wiser then his Church but rather more careful of his own eternal Concerns 13. That it is not his private Wisedom he sticks to but the Wisedom of God known to all that are not wilfully blind 14. That the Church is not Infallible proved from the Example of the Jewish Church 15. That there is the same reason of the Christian. 16. That the want of an Infallible Interpreter is no such loss to the common people 17. That their assurance of the truth of the Scriptures by the Spirit is a Tenet not so superciliously to be exploded as some make shew of 18. That this Spirit is properly the Spirit of Faith distinguishable from that of Knowledge and Wisedom 19. The notorious Fraud and excessive Mischief of this pretence of Infallibility 92 CHAP. III. 1. That the keeping the Law of Christ in an unknown Tongue is an undermining or opposing of his Sovereignty 2. As also the reproching and vilifying his Law 3. Their fraudulent pretence of hiding the Scriptures with a vindication of their Usefulness and Excellency 4. The vilifying of the Laws of Christ by setting far less penalties upon the transgression of them then of the inconsiderable Institutes of the Church 5. That their rigid Impositions are against the Kingdom of Christ as also the reading of Legends instead of his Law in Churches 6. The dispensing also with the Divine Laws The Fraud and Mischief thereof 7. The treasonable pretence of this Power 's being absolute by right of succession in Christ's seat 8. The evil effect of this pretence discoverable in several Institutes contrary to the written Laws of Christ 9. As also in nulling those Laws he has given as he is the Eternal Word 10. The bloudy opposing the Sovereignty and Kingdom of Christ in murthering his faithful Subjects 102 CHAP. IV. 1. Sundry particular Oppositions against the Prophetick Office of Christ which may be the Characters of that grand Pseudo-prophet that was to come into the world 2. That the Spirit of Prophecy is not to be monopolized by any one person but is free 3. An Excerpt out of Caelius Secundus Curio to that purpose 4. The silencing the Dictates of those common Notions implanted in humane Souls the highest affront to the Prophetick Office of Christ that can be 5. Several Absurdities propounded as Instances of that Tyranny over the immutable Principles of humane Understanding with the detection of that eminent False-prophet thereby 6. That it is infinitely more likely that this pretended Prophet should be fallible then the foregoing Absurdities true 7. That the slaying of the Prophets 8. Together with the above-mentioned Oppositions against the Prophetical Office of Christ make up a conspicuous Limme of Antichristianism 106 CHAP. V. 1. That the pretence of repeating the Oblation of the real Body of Christ is a derogation to the Excellency of Christ's Priesthood 2. Fuller Aggravations of this wicked affront 3. A prevention of a subterfuge 4. Another more dangerous assault against the Priesthood of Christ and the main end of his Suffering 5 6. The making the Bloud of Christ available to take away the Guilt of sin onely and not the Punishment how salvagely Antichristian 7. Farther Aggravations of this despightful piece of Antichristianism 8. That there can be nothing more fundamentally Antichristian then it 9. That the crime considering the circumstances seems worse then that of Judas with the Fraud of this wickedness 10. As also the great Mischief thereof 11. Injuries against the Mediatourship of Christ. 12. An Answer to some slight pretences 13. A farther confutation of such Antichristian errors and mispractices 14. The Fraud and Mischief of multiplying Mediators 15. A special Mischief done thereby to our growth in grace and holiness 110 CHAP. VI. 1. The opposing of Christ in his three noted Offices how hainously Antichristian 2. An enumeration of other Titles of Christ. Opposition against him as he is the Truth 3. As he is the Light 4. As he is the Life 5 6. Opposition to his Divinity by equallizing Saints and Angels to him 7. Yea by preferring what is but a Creature before him 8 9 10. Opposition against his Paternal Title by injuries and cruelties to his children 11. Opposition to him as he is Prince of Peace 12. By needless Definitions in points of Opinion 13. By taking away the obligation of Oaths 14. By making war with the Saints 118 CHAP. VII 1. That any Constitution of things that naturally opposes and suppresses the Divine Life is Antichristian in the highest measure 2. Such as Idolatry Superstition and all the above-mentioned Oppositions to Christ's Offices and Titles 3. The opinion of a virtue in the Sacraments ex opere operato and of the needlessness of our attention to our Devotions 4. Dumb shows and the resting in the mere doing of a Religious duty be it from what principle it will 5. Easie Absolution and slight Penances 6. Plenary Indulgences purchased by money from Ecclesiastick Authority 7. A general note prefixed touching the Mischiefs of the several Oppositions against the Divine Life 8. The plausibility of the Supposition of an Ecclesiastick Power and Pomp more then Imperial 9. The weakness of the grounds for the said Supposition 10. The consequential Mischief thereof in driving the minds of Church-men from the study of Truth and Holiness 11. Yea in making them oppose every thing that is true and holy if it oppose their designs of Ambition and Avarice 12. That such a Luciferian Power as this were the very ruine of the Kingdom of Christ upon Earth 13. And the turning of his Church into a mere Mart or Fair. 124 CHAP. VIII 1. That such a Frame of things as naturally tends to the extinguishing of Faith is highly Antichristian 2. That A trade of Worldliness in the Spiritual Guides is one part of this Frame 3. And a Self-ended policy in all the Doctrines and Practices of this Church another 4. Thirdly The profession of uncertainty and obscurity in the Christian Faith 5.
second 10. A Demonstration out of Scripture and Grotius his own Concessions that this Second Epistle was wrote ten years after Caius his death as also that the fall of Simon Magus from his fiery Chariot was eight years before this Prophecy 445 CHAP. XX. 1. The Preeminence of this latter Interpretation above that of Grotius 2. A summary Proposal of the same 3. The first part of this Exposition the same with Grotius his and therefore confuted already The second enervated 4. The third confuted from a farther discovery of the improbability of Simon Magus his Story from his being sufficiently revealed before and from his not being found to sit in any Temple to receive Divine honours 5. That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not so good Syntax in the present case nor the wickedness of the Gnosticks a Mystery but open Impiety and Hostility against the Church 6. The harshness of interpreting whom in whom the Lord shall consume c. of two several Subjects the one to be destroyed by the breath of Christ's mouth the other by the brightness of his coming and that in distinct places and times 7. That if the History of Simon Magus had been true and the Application fit to this Prophecy the most ancient Fathers would not have failed to have hit upon it And that it might then have been a preludious Type to the great Antichrist to come 8. Brief Prophetick Strictures touching Antichristian Impurity 9. The Antichristian Cruelty predicted in the Vision of the King of Babyion and of the little Horn. 10. Also in the slain Witnesses and in the Two-horned Beast's causing the Ten-horned to kill as many as would not worship the Image of the Beast nor receive his Mark 11. In the Vision of the Angel with the third Vial and in the Declaration of the cause of the Whore's Ruine 12. And lastly in the Description of the Whore as drunk with the bloud of the Saints 13. That all the Members of Antichristianism in our Idea are prefigured in the Prophecies of the Holy Writ so expressly that so clear an evidence cannot be withstood for ever 14. That that ample Testimony of the Apocalyps cannot be evaded by the novel Exposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 450 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 459 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 469 FINIS Errata PAG. 27. l. 45. for Contradiction r. Counterdistinction P. 130. l. 12. for Clergie r. Charge P. 132. l. 12. for more r. mere P. 141. l. 21. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 P. 204. l. 11. for this judgement r. the judgement P. 207. l. 21. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 P. 227. l. 33. for the presidency r. their presidency P. 241. l. 33. for Supreme be r. Supreme power be P. 246. l. 45. for vivet r. vivat P. 254. l. 28. for naturally by r. naturally by and for Israelism it r. Israelism it P. 284. l. 23. for Beast r. Boast P. 306. l. 19. for named r. noted P. 399. l. 37. for sight r. light P. 422. l. 34. for right use r. right use P. 429. l. 3. for Prophet-murthering Fornication r. Prophet-murthering Fornication P. 434. l. 8. for faign change r. faign to change