they bear the world in hand in the mean time that they are doing the work of God and promoting the Interest of the Kingdom of his Son Jesus This I say in general is the very Nature and Essence of Antichristianism And where this poison is imbibed into publick Authority that either one Person or Body politick or jointly both of them together if they be the first beginners or continuers of this Mystery of Iniquity in a due latitude thereof are assuredly that Antichrist there is such a noise of in the Christian world And for others that have it not in such a measure yet so far forth as they are Teachers Abetters or Obtruders of such Practices or Principles upon pretence of Religion as naturally frustrate the End of the coming of Christ they are so far also Antichristian 4. Wherefore he that has duly considered and satisfied himself what is the great Scope of the Gospel of Christ and finds but out which he cannot easily miss what things are contrary thereto if he but colour them over with plausible pretences of promoting the Interest of Christ he has ipso facto drawn the true Image or Idea of Antichrist whereby he may surely know him whereever he is Now that great Scope and those main concernments that the Gospel of Christ aims at are plainly these namely The extirpation of Idolatry out of the world as also A releasement of God's people from the improfitable burthen of Judaical Ceremonies which we may call the Privative End of the Gospel and The exaltation of the Divine life whose Root is Faith in God and of a world to come and the Branches Humility Charity and Purity as I have more at large discoursed in my Explanation of the Mystery of Godliness And in this is comprized the Positive End of Christ's coming into this world CHAP. II. 1. The rooting out of Idolatry by the Messias prophesied of by Jeremy That all the Gods that made not Heaven and Earth should perish 2. An explication of that Prophecy and an assertion of our Saviour's right of being worshipped for ever as the Eternal Logos who made Heaven and Earth 3. Proofs out of the Psalms that the Messias was to root out Idolatry 4. Several places in the New Testament witnessing against Idolatry and Image-worship 5. That the Spirituality of Christian Religion indigitated by our Saviour does abundantly evidence the unlawfulness of Image-worship or of what Idolatry else soever 1. THat God intended the rooting out of Idolatry by sending Christ into the World appears as well by those Prophecies of the Old Testament that foretel that all Idolatry shall be rooted out for by whom should it be done but by the Messias in whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed as by several passages in the New Of the first sort is that in Jeremie chap. 10. where the Prophet puts this prophecy in the mouths of the Jews that were carried captive into Babylon Thus shall ye say unto them saith he The Gods that made not the Heavens and the Earth they shall perish from the Earth and from under the Heavens But the preceding context is so lively and magnificent and so close to our purpose that it ought not to have been omitted At the seventh verse therefore Who would not fear thee O King of Nations for to thee doth it appertain Forasmuch as among all the wise men of the Nations and in all their Kingdoms there is none like unto thee But they are altogether brutish and foolish the stock is a Doctrine of vanities Silver spred into plates is brought from Tarshish and Gold from Uphas the work of the workman and of the hands of the Founder Blue and purple is their cloathing they are all the work of cunning men But the Lord is the true God he is the living God and an everlasting King At his wrath the earth shall tremble and the Nations shall not be able to abide his indignation And then follows this Prophetick denunciation against every undue object of Divine worship Thus shall ye say unto them The Gods that made not the Heavens and the Earth they shall perish from the Earth and from under these Heavens 2. Things are exceeding clear in this Prophecy saving in that comparison of the King of Nations with the wise men of the Nations betwixt whom there is that infinite disparity that the collation seems hugely improper if the pure Deity be here conceived to be compared with any wise men whatsoever Grotius therefore ingeniously hinteth that it is meant of some of the wise men of the Nations that had been translated into the number of their Gods as Taautes for example which a little helps out one terme of the comparison these wise men being supposed to have been advanced to Divine honours after their death and to have been reckoned amongst the Gods But I must confess even that in the 86 Psalm Among the Gods there is none like unto thee O Lord there is none that can doe as thou doest has often puzzel'd me that the Prophet should vouchsafe to compare the Gods of the Nations which were but Deified Mortals or at best but particular Angels or Daemons in that higher sense with the pure infinite and omnipotent Deity which has made me often suspect that such passages as these are to be understood of the Messias who was also to be incarnated and to become the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and thereupon after his sufferings to be declared King of Nations and the Worship of the whole Earth according as it follows in that Psalm All Nations whom thou hast made shall come Rev. 25. 3 4. and worship before thee O Lord and shall glorifie thy Name And you know he was the Logos or Word which was in the beginning without which nothing was made that was made As the Authour to the Hebrews also witnesseth Thou Lord in the beginning layedst the Foundations of Psalm 102. 25. the Earth and the Heavens are the work of thy hands Which is spoke of the Messias his time being there so plainly decyphered as appears in the 22 verse When the people are gathered together and the Kingdoms to serve the Lord. Whence that is also plain that Christ shall be ever the same and that his years shall have no end and that this Prophetick denunciation The Gods that made not Heaven and Earth shall perish from Vers. 27. the Earth and from under these Heavens cannot reach him But the worship of any thing else that is not the pure Deity is to be cast away according to the meaning of that Prophecy 3. That also in the 97 Psalm plainly shews that Idolatry is to goe down at the coming of Christ. Confounded be all they that serve graven Images that boast themselves of Idols worship him all ye Gods which the Author to the Hebrews does expresly interpret of Christ whereby he proves his Divinity and doth therewith disapprove of giving any Religious worship to
esse si quis tres Deos credit See Dr. Rainolds De Romanae Ecclesiae Idololatria So plain is it that Idolatry is not confined to the worshipping of an Image Lib. 2. cap. 9. but to the admitting of more Objects of Divine worship then that one true God For the worshipping any more is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jews call it and is most frequently and most significantly termed in Scripture Fornication which looks more at the Plurality of the Objects of worship then the Kinds of them For this Spiritual Fornication is committed where we worship any thing besides him that is the Creatour and Conserver of all things CHAP. IX 1. The necessity of knowing what Religious worship is for the discovering of Idolatry 2. The faultiness of the distribution of Worship into Latria Dulia and Cultus civilis 3. That Christ only who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has such a middle Excellency as may admit Religious worship 4. That the excess of Excellency in God above that in Saints and Angels is so infinitely more then the excess of excellency in Saints and Angels above that in Men that it is extremely forced and irrational to allot worship of one denomination to the first and second and not rather to the second and last which they being fellow-citizens might rightly be called Civil 5. That no kind of Religious worship is due to Saints and Angels proved by the Angel's refusing to be worshipped by S. John 6. And also from the near affinity of our natures with theirs 7. To whom Origen pronounces Good men equal nor allows the glorious Stars though they were intellectual to be worshipped 8. That the Religious worship of Saints and Angels is no duty of ours as being reducible to the Precepts of neither Table 9. That Religious worship is but One and due to God only proved from our Saviour's answer to the Devil 10. As also from the Authour to the Hebrews arguing the Divinity of Christ from Religious worship due to him with several other testimonies 11. An Answer to an Objection 1. THus we have found out the adequate latitude of the Object of Idolatry that it is whatsoever is not truely God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaks to the Galatians But unless we have also the Knowledge Chap. 4 v. 8. of what is Religious or Divine worship and when or by what we give this worship to that which is not truely God we shall be still at a loss how to discern when our selves or any one else commits Idolatry and when not 2. There are some who for the better palliating their unjustifiable practices have framed a smooth story namely That there are as many kinds of Honour or Worship as there are of Excellency and that therefore there being three kinds of Excellency Divine Humane and a middle betwixt Humane and Divine as that Supernatural grace and glory of the Saints and Angels there are also three kinds of Worship Latria Dulia and Cultus civilis But the distribution had had less fraud and better Logick in it if it had been bipartite for then would have appeared more plainly what kind of Worship they mean by Dulia For they will not have it Civil worship in that it is a distinct member therefrom It remains therefore that it must be Religious worship though they were afraid to speak out what they harbour in their breast For indeed Religion which in its prime and proper sense is nothing else but Cultus Numinis belongs de jure only to the true God and if it be transferred to any thing else it is Idolatry or Superstition But if they would have dealt above-board and like honest men and exact Logicians they should have distributed Honour or Worship first into Religious and Civil and then according to the sense that they intended subdivided Religious worship into Latria and Dulia But this being craftily aimed at and supposed though not so plainly expressed and indeed being the chief thing intended That Religious worship is due to Saints and Angels as well as to God himself I shall direct my answer only against this mistake 3. First therefore I say That that ground of allotting Religious worship to Saints and Angels is very weak namely because they have a middle excellency betwixt God and man For it is plain they have not in a due and strict sense that being a Privilege belonging to Christ alone who is the acknowledged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God-man and therefore may justly be worshipped with Religious worship Wherefore there being nothing that has truly a middle excellency betwixt God and Man as a Zoophyton may be rightly said to have a middle excellency betwixt an Animal and a Plant saving the Man Christ Jesus there is no Creature capable of Religious worship besides him nor is he indeed capable thereof but in virtue of that Mysterious union with the true Godhead and thereby becoming as well God as Man 4. And then again there is another fraud and indeed the more principal and original one in the distribution of these Excellencies immediately into three whenas it had been more faithfully and Logically done to have distributed Excellency first into Created and Increated and then Created Excellency into that of Saints and Angels and that of Men. But hereby the boldness and grossness of their assigning Religious worship to that which is but a Creature would have appeared at first sight the Creatour standing in contradiction to it who is infinitely more Excellent then any glorified creature whatsoever or rather whose degree of Excellency above the most glorious Creature that is is infinitely greater then the degree of Excellency of Saints and Angels above Men. Whence appears what a rash and forced thing it is to hold together two Excellencies betwixt which there is that infinite distance in one common capacity of receiving Religious worship I mean the Divine Excellency and that of Angels and Saints whenas the Humane Excellency and that of Saints and Angels are infinitely nearer one another and therefore infinitely more fit to receive worship of one common denomination to both Which may very well be termed Civil the glorified Saints and Angels and Good men being but fellow-servants and fellow-citizens of that new Jerusalem which reaches from Heaven to Earth according as it is written But you are come to the Mount Sion and to the City of the Heb. 12. living God the Heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels and the Spirits of just men made perfect Which shews plainly that Saints and Angels and Good men upon Earth are all of one communialty Citizens of the same City the new Jerusalem and fellow-citizens you know do not give Religious worship one to another but only Civil 5. Nor yet fellow-servants as the Angel argues to John in the Apocalyps And I fell at his feet to worship him And he said unto me Chap. 19. See thou doe it not I am thy fellow-servant and
The like significancy is also acknowledged in the Onirocriticks Artemidor lib. 2. c. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The like he saith also c. 41. which have some similitude with that in Daniel But to come nearer to the point concerning Hail Achmetes out of the Indian Persian and Aegyptian Onirocritical Solutions c. 191. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But yet more particularly of Hail and more to our present purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If one dream that Hail falls on a place he may expect a through and sudden incursion of the enemie And further 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if he dream that the Hail hurt the stemms or stalks of the Corn accordingly as they are broken in the same proportion will the slaughter of men be upon the place 3. Harvest That cutting down Corn is significative of the death of men appears by that Apparition of twelve men seeming to mow the Corn-fields with sithes in Merchia upon which a pestilence followed But that mortality that is by war is still more fitly expressed thereby Achmetes out of the Indian Onirocriticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If a King dream he sees harvest reaped in his own Countrey he will suddenly hear of the slaughter of his people This similitude is also used in Scripture Jer. 15. 33. The daughter of Babylon is like a thrashing-floor it is time to thrash her yet a little while and the time of her Harvest shall come But Harvest sometimes has a more auspicious sense as in that of our Saviour John 4. 35. Behold I say unto you Lift up your eyes and look on the fields for they are white already to Harvest And he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit to life eternal that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together 4. Head That the Head of a Beast in these Prophetick Figures signifies that Person or those Persons in whom the Supreme Power resides is as infallibly to be concluded as the fourth Proportional in Arithmetick three Numbers being given For we have three terms of the Analogie here also viz. a Kingdom and the Sovereignty thereof and a Beast which is the Prophetick figure of a Kingdom Wherefore we cannot miss to say As a Kingdom is to the Sovereign Power thereof so is this Prophetick or figurative Beast to the Head thereof and alternately As the Kingdom to the Beast so the Sovereign Power of the Kingdom to the Head of the Beast Whence we see plainly that the Head of a Beast answers to the Supreme Power and that whether the Supreme Power be in one single Person or in many For as the Power abstractedly is not considered so neither the Persons abstracted from their Power but both in concreto make up this Head Politick And therefore if the Supreme be not but in many those many are the Head and not the less one Head for consisting of many persons no more then the Body is less one Body for consisting of many persons Nay if a man should follow the Symmetry of his Phancy rather then his Reason a Head of many persons to a Body of a vast multitude of persons would look more elegantly and proportionably then one single person As if a Beast were made of little wax bullets sticking together a head of one bullet put to it would not look so conformably as an head of many bullets such as the whole body consisted of 5. Heaven and Earth By Heaven and Earth is understood the Universe as Grotius has rightly noted upon Genesis and abundantly proved upon 2 Pet. 3. 13. But that by Heaven and Earth the Prophets sometime understand a Political Universe that is a Kingdom or Polity there needs no further proof thereof then what is found in Esay ch 51. 15. I am the Lord thy God that divided the Sea whose waves roared the Lord of Hoasts is my Name And I have put my words in thy mouth and have covered thee in the shadow of my hand that I might plant the Heavens and lay the foundations of the Earth and say unto Sion Thou art my people that is to say to make them that were but scattered persons and slaves in Aegypt before a Kingdom or Polity to be governed by their own Laws and Magistrates Again chap. 65. 17. For behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth and the former shall not be remembred nor come into minde But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that I create for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy Upon which Text Forerius Decrevi enim novum Orbem condere by which he means the Kingdom of Christ upon Earth that is his Church According to which sense also he interprets For as the new Heavens and the new Earth which I shall make shall remain before me so shall your Esay 66. 22. seed and your name remain Quam diu duraret novus Orbis i. e. Regnum Dei Ecclesiae c. And Grotius also though he look a-scue and is very shie himself best knows the reason at these places that have been mentioned yet he cannot abstain from interpreting the new Heaven and the new Earth Apocal. 21. of the state of the Church upon Earth And Dr. Hammond upon 2 Pet. 3. doth expresly acknowledge the new Heaven and the new Earth there mentioned to have a Political sense Which notion was worth the clearing because this general Analogie will make us the better understand what the parts of the Universe figuratively signify as to be called up into Heaven or cast down to the Earth and the like 6. Horn. Horn also signifies the Supreme Power of a Body Politick which is resembled to a Beast it being the highest part of the Beast and the Defender of his body It is the interpretation of the Angel in Daniel The great Horn is the first King And the ten Horns are interpreted ten Kings by the Angel in the Apocalyps For they were the height and summity of their respective Kingdoms though in some sort subordinate to the seventh Head of the Beast 7. Horse There is no express interpretation of that Animal in Scripture But a generous Horse with his Rider does naturally emblematize Rule and Command Which may seem also hinted to us from that of Psalm 45. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is Prosper and ride which the Seventy turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prosper and reign But an Horse signifies also any success or fortune of him that rides on him So Achmetes out of the Indian Interpretations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. If one dreams that he rides on Pharas which is a generous Steed which goes orderly and obediently he shall obtain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 honour and renown proportionable to the Beast he rides on And so after he descants on the largeness thickness and length of the tail declaring that his power and train shall be answerable but if bob-tailed or thin of hair it signifies defect of power The halting of
any but that which is truly the Deity as I have noted in its due place 4. As for the places in the New Testament they are more copious and not less express The first is that in the Acts where when the Chap. 14. v. 14 15. Priest of Jupiter would have sacrificed to Paul and Barnabas at Lystra by reason of the great miracles he saw done they rent their cloaths and ran in amongst the people crying out and saying Sirs why do you these things We also are men of like passions with you and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God which made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and all things that are therein And what vanities are those from which they must turn but from the giving Acts 17. 29 30. of Divine honour to mere Creatures The same Apostle also at Athens in his Speech he made to them on Mars-hill reads them a very round lesson against Idolatry Forasmuch then as we are the off-spring of God we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto Gold or Silver or Stone graven by art and mans device And the times of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent Which exhortation certainly Paul made with the greatest earnestness that could be it being said verse the 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that his spirit was in a very sharp fit in a paroxysm of zeal when he saw the City of Athens so given to Idolatry Again in his first Epistle to the Corinthians he makes Idolatry the very Chap. 12. v. 2. Character of Gentilisme which Christ came to reclaim the world from Ye know that ye were Gentiles carried away to dumb Idols even as ye were led And elsewhere in the same Epistle he exhorts them more copiously and Chap. 10. v. 14 20 c. vehemently Wherefore my dearly-beloved flee from Idolatry The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to the Daemonia and not to God Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of the Daemonia Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy are we stronger then he And this was only about the meat sacrificed to these Daemons what had it then been to bow to their Idols He speaks also very smartly on this subject in his second Epistle to these Corinthians What fellowship hath righteousness Ch. 6. v. 14 16. with unrighteousness what communion hath light with darkness and what agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols And in his Epistle to the Galatians he plainly reckons up Idolatry amongst the grossest works of the flesh Murther Sorcery and Adultery And therefore accordingly Chap. 5. v. 20. in the Apocalyps Idolaters together with Murtherers and Sorcerers Chap. 21. v. 8. are threatned with the lake that burns with fire and brimstone and are shut with obscene Dogs out of the holy City And therefore assuredly Chap. 22. v. 15. S. John is in very good earnest in his dehortation from Idolatry in the 1 John 5. 20. close of his general Epistle And we know that the Son of God is come and has given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true through his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal life Little children keep your selves from Idols Amen From these places I think it is abundantly manifest That the divulging of the Gospel aimed at the taking away of Idolatry that sottish depravation of Religion out of the World 5. And we may be still the more assured of it by those words from our Saviour's own mouth The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father John 4. v. 23 24. seeketh such to worship him God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth Where Grotius and I think very truly interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sublatis ut ritibus ita locorum discrimine And surely the Christian worship being so pure as to abhor from the voluminousness of Judaizing ceremonies and the affixing of the residence of God to a consecrated place as in the Temple of the Jews Imagery and Idolatry must be abhorred infinitely more as infinitely more inconsistent therewith And if God may not be worshipped with an Image much less any thing that is not God either with an Image or without it CHAP. III. 1. What is meant by Grace and Truth coming by Christ. 2. Further Testimonies of Scripture to evince that Christ came to ease men of the Judaical burthen of Ceremonies The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. That the Death of Christ upon the Cross was the solution of the Ceremonial Law of Moses 4. Further proofs to the same purpose 1. BUT now That the grossness and carnality of the Judaical Ceremonies and the unprofitable burthen of them was to be done away by the coming of Christ which is the other point to be proved is very apparent out of several places of Scripture For the Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ that is to say The John 1 17. Law both Moral and Ceremonial was given by Moses but even that Moral Law was but such an one as could not give life as the Apostle Gal. 3. 21. speaks but the gracious assistance of the Spirit of God promised in the Gospel that does give life and strength to walk according to the will of God And then for the Ceremonial Law both it and indeed all things else happening to the Jews were but Types and Shadows but in Christ is the Truth They were not what they made a show to be and therefore in that sense may be said to be false so as he that says that the Image or Picture of a Man or Horse is a Man or Horse indeed pronounces false And therefore our Saviour speaks true when he saith Moses gave you not that bread from Heaven but my Father giveth you that true bread John 6. 31. from Heaven Whenas yet it is said of the Manna Psalm 78. He gave them bread from Heaven to eat But it being but a shadow of the true Vers. 25. bread from Heaven which is Christ it is said not to be the bread from Heaven As in the Epistle to the Hebrews the Law is said to have a Heb. 10. 1. shadow of good things to come and Paul to the Colossians Let no man judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of an holy-day or of the Coloss. 2. 16 17. new Moon or of the Sabbath which are a shadow of things to come but the body is Christ's So plain is it what is meant by Grace and Truth coming by Jesus Christ. For he is that Truth which was signified by the shadows of the Law and by him is
〈◊〉 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
perused without prejudice may be discerned with facility and be acknowledged by them that are inwardly convinced without any slights or tergiversations to the glory of God's name the peace of his Church and the advancement of the Kingdom of his Son Jesus Amen CHAP. V. 1. Instances of several specious pieces of Idolatry introducible into Christian Religion 2. The overmuch streightening or widening the Notion of Idolatry taxed 3. The usefulness of giving a true Notion thereof 4 5. That it is not restrained to the worshipping of Idols properly so called 6. That any thing worshipped that is not God becomes ipso facto an Idol and of the Seventy's rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7. That they likewise render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they do also Baalim and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which further argues that more general sense of Idol 8. That an Idol and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Non-Deus is all one in the estimate of God 1. LET us begin then with the delineation of the first member of this hideous Mystery opposite to the first branch of the Scope of the Gospel of Christ which was The ridding of the world of the impure worship of Idolatry I say therefore if in stead of those manifold Idolatrous worships in Paganism there were introduced upon pretence of the greater honour to God and Christ and the better instruction of the people the Religious worship of the Cross as also the Image of God the Father Son or Holy Ghost the devotional invocation of the blessed Virgin or any other Saints or Angels the worshipping of their Pictures or Images and the doing Divine honours accordingly as it was practised toward the Roman Emperours to a mere man upon account of his being the Vicar General of Christ and Oecumenical Head of his Church upon Earth and lastly the adoration of the consecrated Bread in the Eucharist upon the imagination that it is transsubstantiated into the very body of Christ I say where these things are brought into the Church as true Doctrine and laudable Practice they will not fail to make up one Limb of Antichristianism and that a principal one too For the Doctrine is not true nor the Practice allowable but gross and palpable Idolatry one of the most abhorred sins the Scripture takes notice of as you shall easily understand after I have with all possible caution searcht out the true Notion and definitive nature thereof 2. This term Idolatry though nothing is more frequent in the mouths and writings of men yet there is nothing of so unsettled and fugitive a signification For some to excuse or palliate their grosly-disallowable Rites and Practices in Christian Religion have restrained the sense of the word to such narrow limits that according to their nice distinctions and restrictions the foulest Paganism will scarce be found guilty of Idolatry Others whether out of a fright and abhorrency of so detestable a crime or out of an over-factious disgust and detestation of the contrary party have so stretched the signification of the word beyond the natural meaning thereof that not only harmless but even laudable circumstances of Divine worship appointed by Authority will not fail to be stigmatized by them with that odious and reproachful name whose zeal and passionate unskilfulness in amoving this grand errour out of the Church has had an answerable ill success in that they have not so much wrought a cure as changed the disease and bartered away one great evil for several others of something a lower form such as Scandal rash and unjust Censure and Superstition which are very evil and undesirable distempers in the Church of Christ and the necessary Authours and Fomenters of unnecessary Schisms And indeed if I had said only that they had changed Idolatry into Superstition it had been enough and all it including the rest For Superstition being properly a Fear of displeasing God in such things as neither do oblige him nor offend him arising out of an opinion of the good or evil of those things that are indifferent Those that either out of ignorance or some worse principle ingender in the minds of men a superstitious aversation from such harmless and allowable actions must needs make them obnoxious to Scandal and tempt them to rash and unjust Censures 3. Wherefore as well to excuse the innocent as to discover the guilty I shall endeavour exactly to set out the bounds of this great sin of Idolatry that thereby we may know when it is committed and when not when it may be called by that so hatefull name and when again it is Injustice and Uncharitableness so to term this or that action of Religious worship 4. That the name or guilt of Idolatry is not to be restrained to the worship of an Idol only is plain out of ordinary consent of Speech when we discourse of Idolatrous Nations that worship the Sun Moon and Stars not considering whether they make any Images to them or no. For these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these conspicuous and sensible Deities as Origen contr Cels. lib. 〈◊〉 they are termed by the Greeks may easily be conceived to have allured the rude people to adore them before they had either art or leisure to build Temples and erect Statues to them From whence that Caveat is given by God to his own people in Deuteronomie Take ye therefore Ch. 4 v. 15 19. good heed unto your selves for you saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire lest you corrupt your selves and make you a graven Image c. And lest you lift up your eyes to Heaven and when you see the Sun and the Moon and the Stars even all the hoast of Heaven should be driven to worship them and serve them So strongly enticing have they been to mankind to bestow Religious worship on them These were the first Objects that gain'd the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being in perpetual Motion as Philo has observed which appellation was afterwards derived upon all other Deities whatsoever And Maimonides also lays the first foundation of Idolatry in these 5. But Nations sufficiently civilized as namely the Persians made Herodot lib. 1. c. 131. shift to be Idolaters without carved Images or Idols For they sacrificed on the tops of Mountains to the visible Heaven under the name of Jupiter as also to the Sun Moon and Earth to the Fire Water and Winds all sensible Objects but worshipped without any sensible figure or representation And yet I think no man learned or Idiot will stick to style this Nation Idolatrous As neither the ancient Romans who worshipped their many Gods without the use of any Idol or Image for near two hundred years together as both Varro and Plutarch affirm 6. Wherefore Idolatry is
soul being struck by the confidence and canting of this imposturous Magician into a full belief that this Statue is become the visible but the true and eternal God of Heaven and Earth should therefore worship that Divine Complicate as is pretended though it be really a mere figment for the true God this act of worship be blameless and irreprehensible or whether it constitute a Fifth Mode of Idolatry For it may be said in his excuse it was well meant and that he intended his worship for the true God which was not in the foregoing case But as I said before if Ignorance will excuse from Idolatry Philosophers will be the only men that will be found capable of that crime And in the former case though they had not so true a notion of God as is competible but to One yet they thought they had lighted on a due Object of Religious worship if that might plead their excuse And he that in this last case had the right notion of the true God yet misses the mark in application and adores a mere Idol And though it be in reference to the true God I mean really meant to him yet to serve him in an Idol is Idolatry but to take an Idol to be him far worse 4. In brief the sinfulness of any Idolatry towards God consists chiefly if not solely in either a kind of Injustice to him or Reproach of him or both Now I demand of any man whether it be not a greater Reproach to the true God to take a mere Idol to be him then to apply that worship which we use to him and which always falls infinitely short of him unto that which is but an Idol or whether it be not a lesser piece of Injustice to take that mite of honour for all that we can doe is no more which is due to God and give it to an Idol then to take God from himself as it were by taking that to be him which is so infinitely debased below him As it would be a greater piece of Injustice to steal a Prince out of his cradle and leave a Changeling in the room then to take away his mantle to wrap a Changeling in and a far less Reproach to fit a Scepter and Tiara to the hand and head of Cyrus his Ape and then doe the Persian reverence to him then to take this Ape to be King Cyrus himself For the other may be interpreted only a ridiculous excess of respect and homage unskilfully intended to the King himself in thus royally adorning and reverentially courting his Ape But this latter the grossest and most sottish Reproach imaginable namely for want of a duely-prefigured Idea of a Royal Prince not to distinguish so Heroical a personage as King Cyrus from an ordinary Ape or Monkey And yet that Mysterious Statue above mentioned into which the prestigious Magus or Pagan Priest would pretend to have vitally incorporated the true God of the Universe any one will acknowledge to be more vile then these vilest of Animals So plain is it that this Fifth case will constitute a Fifth Mode of Idolatry and that a very rank one too 5. And these Five Instances of Idolatry shall serve our turn to have recourse to as plain patterns of that so hainous a crime there scarce being any case which is not reducible to these either directly or analogically For the Religious worship of Rivers Plants or Animals such as the Aegyptians worshipped as they are natural things are to be referred to the first Classis as Representatives of a more hidden Numen to the second Pictures also to the second and consecrated Pillars and Stones suppose they have no Image on them are to be referred to Statues if Divine worship be done unto them As that Stone which had only the Pier. Hierogl lib. 49. footstep of Hercules on it which the Thracians worshipped and another four-square one which Maximus Tyrius says was worshipped by the Arabians To which you may adde the Lapis Manalis of the Romans and their Terminus lapideus in the Capitol 6. And in brief to hold you in no longer suspence upon the view of all particulars the common Notion or Idea of Idolatry does undoubtedly consist in this namely In the giving Religious or Divine worship to any thing that is not truely God as certainly no Visible thing is that either Nature or Art can exhibit And therefore it is said in Deuteronomie Chap. 4. v. 12. You heard a voice but saw no similitude According to which is that Dogma of Pythagoras which Plutarch notes in the life of Numa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which made Numa cast away all Images in Divine worship but he erected a Temple that bore the similitude of the World that great and august Temple of God placing the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Vestal fire in the midst thereof Wherein he did also Pythagorize though he lived some ages before Pythagoras flourished Which is a witness of an happy combination of the profoundest skill in Nature and the purest Religion in that Philosophy which was afterwards called Pythagorical of any that ever could be found out of the acknowledged Church of God and may well amuse us from whence they had it if not from thence 7. But then the purity of this Philosophy abated when ever they admitted the worship of Angels For the due Object of our worship is One as well as Invisible Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is One and Deut. 6. 4. there is no God besides him of which the immediate consequence is that he alone is to be worshipped according as our Saviour Christ has also ratified it Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him alone shalt thou Luk. 4. 8. serve And the Authour to the Hebrews arguing the Divinity of Christ produces that in the Psalms Let all the Angels of God worship him Chap. 1. 6. Which if Religious worship were not due to that alone which is God would not infer Christ's Divinity And lastly even the very second Council of Nice who were over-favourable to Images did yet condemn the Arrians of Idolatry in holding Christ but a Creature and not very God And Nestorius was stigmatized with the odious style of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Man-worshipper in that he held Christ a mere Man For both the Arrians and Nestorians held that Christ was to be worshipped though he was but a Creature which that Synod concluded absolute Idolatry whether the worship be with an Image or without it As also the Synod of Laodicea makes the praying to Angels Idolatry And Epiphanius concerning the Persians he says they abhor Images and yet they worship Idols meaning the Sun Moon and Fire Gregory Nazianzen likewise as I have above noted places Idolatry simply in transferring that worship which is due to the Creatour upon the Creature according to which notion Aquinas also and Bellarmine define it And lastly S. Jerome roundly affirms Idololatram factum
This plainly appears from the first Instance of Idolatry and from those kinds of appropriate signes of Divine worship that of their own nature are discoverable to be such 5. And truly such is the Invocation of the help of this or that Saint though it were not in those more conspicuous circumstances of putting up our Petitions in a Temple or before the Image of the Saint we pray to For the simple Invocation of a particular invisible power is of it self Idolatry without those other circumstances because it consequentially attributes that to that power which is only proper to the true God I mean Omnipresence or Ubiquity For no man can be assured that an invisible power is in such a particular place but by Supposition that he is in all places at once which is the proper Prerogative of God Wherefore simple Invocation of any particular invisible power is no such slight business as some make it but absolute Idolatry nay I think the most fundamental part of all the Idolatry committed by the Heathen if rationally and philosophically examined and the mother of the rest Or at least whatever great exception there is or convincingly rational against those usual Signes of Religious worship being given to these particular invisible powers it is found here and is allegeable against Invocation For the main is That it implies an Omnipresence of that invisible power they worship And therefore the Consecrating of a Temple and Altar and a Symbolical residence or visible representation and Offering of Sacrifices and the like cannot be competible to any but the All-present God whom they are always sure to find at home if I may so speak when they make their approaches to his House But for other particular invisible powers who knows whether they be at home or no or whether pursuing or in a journey or asleep somewhere as Elias sarcastically argues concerning Baal nay I will adde whether they be not carried away captive and confined to some other place None can have any certainty of them where they are or whether ever there where their visible and symbolical residence is erected unless they be Omnipresent and of necessity are there because every-where If not we have no faith nor assurance of their Presence or Audience But Prayer and Invocation supposes faith and assurance of being heard at least in that ordinary sense of which there being no assurance without the invisible Power invoked be Omnipresent it is plain that he that invokes an invisible Power interpretatively implies its Omnipresence and consequently if it be a particular Power and finite commits Idolatry thereby 6. Nor can the demonstrativeness of this Reason be eluded or evaded by those usuall subterfuges of the Saints seeing and knowing all things by particular revelation from God or by the exalted peculiarity of their condition in that separate glorified state they are in For those that talk at this rate rant it and speak unintelligible riddles without all ground or probability of Reason or warrant of Scripture they being mere afterfigments and precarious suppositions to excuse the madness and extravagancy of their Idolatrous actions For as for the latter surmise it is plainly a dream to think the blessed Virgin suppose merely by virtue of her glorified and separate condition from this terrestrial body can hear from Heaven at such a vast distance the devout whispers or suspirations of her affectionate Supplicants or see through the earth their humble prostrations For she is called upon by the inhabitants of this Globe in all postures or distances of Habitation even by those that are Antipodes one to another where if she assist the one she must be at least the Earth's Diameter distant from the other through which distance neither her sight nor hearing can ever penetrate And for the former Hypothesis how childish and ridiculous is it they pretending that they supplicate the Saints to speak to God in their behalf whenas the Saints cannot speak to God till he tell them their errand first who has received the message from the Supplicant already but must impart it to the Saints to say it over to him again which shews the incongruity of making any addresses to them and considering how perfectly appeasable and propitious and how freely accessible God is through the only name and mediation of Jesus Christ is such an useless patch and bungle in Divinity that it cannot seem credible to any man of common sense and therefore there is no such special revelation to the Saints of our compellation of them in our Prayers and consequently the Invocation of them which is proper to God by reason of his Omniscious Ubiquity being thus misplaced upon these particular invisible powers must be interpretatively an act of Idolatry there being done such an act of worship to them as implies in the Object such an Excellency as is found only in God 7. Nor will their profession of those diminishing apprehensions concerning Saints in other respects as That they are not the true God but only glorified Creatures and That they are Intercessours inferiour to Christ and the like excuse them from Idolatry For the acknowledgement of any one Divine Excellency and Peculiarity of the Godhead in that which is a mere Creature is undoubtedly Idolatry as the betraying any one Castle to the enemy is Treason against a Prince And the Pagans were esteemed as Idolaters in worshipping Mercury and the whole order of the Medioxumous or internuntial Deities or Daemons for all their acknowledging them inferiour to the Supreme God So that I cannot see but that the mere Invocation of Saints or Angels is a palpable nay a fundamental piece of Idolatry and in reference to which all the pomp and furniture of Idolatry was superstructed I mean the building of their Temples erecting Altars and Images Incensing and Sacrificing and the rest For all end in or are circumstances of Invocation upon faith and assurance to be heard which cannot be rationally placed in any invisible power unless it be Omnipresent which this Invocation does naturally and necessarily implie else there will be no sense of the action but it will be very incongruous and ridiculous For other suppositions are arbitrarious uncertain nay incredible surmises touching an invisible power and upon which there can be no faith not assurance of being heard 8. Fourthly And as this worship of Invocation to either Saint or Angel without the use of an Image is thus plainly Idolatry so the invoking them or any other way of worshipping them with an Image must be a double piece of Idolatry and is referrable to the third Mode thereof 9. Fifthly The worshipping of the Image suppose of the blessed Virgin or of any other Saint upon a mistake that it is the very Virgin herself or this or that Saint is also Idolatry and to be referred to the fourth Instance thereof 10. Sixthly To worship any man yet living with Religious worship whether in gesture compellation appellation or any thing else that is
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
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
to Paul from Heaven and so appointing him to be an Apostle did proclaim to all the World that he would Infallibly assist him and that therefore what was imparted to the World by him should be a Law irreversible to Christendom Whence the nulling of the Authority of S. Paul's writings were the abrogating of the very Law of Christ which were a most rebellious and blasphemous Enterprise against the Sovereignty of Christ himself 4. But there is also another way of undermining or subverting the Rule and Sovereignty of the Son of God and that is An undervaluing his Laws in proportion of Penalties laid upon the transgression of them and of some slighter humane Ecclesiastick Institutes As surely these would be very Antichristian Instances of this kind namely If Absolution for him that kills his Father or lies with his Mother should be five or six times Cheaper then of him that takes two Orders in one day or is Ordained without Letters dismissory or that to be Ordained out of the set times of the year should have a penalty ten times greater then Lying with a mans own Mother or if you will but equal to the deflouring of a Virgin the lying with a mans own Sister Murther Perjury Sacrilege Simonie revealing Confession keeping a Concubine lying with a woman in the Church but equal I say to all these nine put together What could vilifie the indispensable Law of God and Christ more then to make so many transgressions and so hainous less then that trifle of humane Tradition To Ordain onely at such times of the year 5. Again That were likewise a very conspicuous vilification of the Word of God if instead thereof there were read in the Churches finelydevised Fables to entertain the People withall As if they were wiser then the Wisdom of God himself and could entertain the people more edifyingly with incredible and ridiculous stories then with the Discourses of Christ Jesus and sober and easily-intelligible histories of truth that Divine Providence has recorded for the instruction of his Church 6. Dispensations also against the Law of Christ whether written in the Word of God or comprised in the sacred Law of Nature which is but the Transcript of that Law in the Eternal Logos Christ according to his Divinity were also an Antichristian defeating of Christ's Rule and Sovereignty as also would be the Interpretation of the serious Injunctions of Christ as if they were not Praecepta but Consilia not Commands but Advice left to us to follow if we would or to let alone if we pleased whenas Christ plainly declares that he that breaks the least of these Matt. 5. Commandments and teaches men so to doe shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven What then would it be to dispense with Perjury Treason Murther Incest Adultery Sodomie and other such hainous crimes What were it but the utter taking away the Law of Christ and destroying his Kingdom upon Earth The Fraud and Self-endedness of which easy Anarchy is onely to fill the net full though it be of rotten sticks and durt so long as out of this durt they can extract Silver But the Mischief is that the Riches of this false Church would flow and rise with the height of the Abominations and Transgressions of rich sinners till a deluge of wrath wash away this deluge of sin But those in the interim that are so foolish to believe these Dispensations and think they are come into a fair liberty of spirit having found so facil ghostly Fathers will thereby most certainly become the Bond-slaves of sin which in the conclusion will as certainly deliver them up to Eternal Death 7. But what plea or pretence will you say may there be made of acting Religiously while they act thus enormously in letting the raines loose to all manner of wickedness to them that will goe to the price thereof Why yes This Antichristian Power might pretend that all that Power which is in Christ though it be plainly a casting Christ out of his Royall Throne is derived upon him or them as his Successours But Christ being the absolutely-Supreme Power may doe as he will dispense with his own Laws as he pleases Wherefore this Antichristian power pretending to be or have the very same power may dispense with the Laws of Christ as it pleases especially for the enriching the Church for all such Interest is pious Which yet is such an Imagination that nothing can be more Treasonable against the Regal Office of Christ nor more destructive of his Kingdom 8. The effect of which villanous Principle would also certainly appear in this Synagogue of Satan or Antichrist and we should find Laws and Institutes quite contrary to the Laws and Decrees of the Son of God As certainly such as these would be namely Sundry sorts of Idolatry such as I have instanced in already and need not repeat and have noted the Frauds Book I. ch 12. and fetches in the practice of them The teaching for Doctrines the commandments of men which is expresly against our Saviour's own command and of which I have given sundry examples in my * Book I. ch 17 18 19 20 21 22. second branch of Antichristianism The with-holding the Cup from the Laiety notwithstanding the Institution of the Lord's Supper by Christ himself does so plainly injoyn the communicating both of Bread and Wine Drink you all of this and S. Paul again following the Example of Christ Let a man examine himself Matt. 26. 27. and so eat of this bread and drink of this cup which indefinite command 1 Cor. 11. 28. surely includes all But the drinking of the Cup being made the Privilege of the Priest it magnifies his condition hugely and makes the poor Laiety feel and acknowledge their distance how unholy and how removed from God they are in comparison of the Priesthood This would be the true Reason though they might pretend for I think they have nothing better to pretend the length of the Lay-mens beards which I suppose they would rather cut off then be cut short in their share of so holy a Sacrament Again The serving of God in the Church in an unknown Language praying to him and praising him and reading the Scripture in a Tongue the people understand not is evidently against the directions of S. Paul 1 Cor. 14. in this particular and against that more universal and indispensable Law Let all things be done to edifying As also the worshipping of Angels 1 Cor. 14. 26. Coloss. 2. 18. which the same Apostle does expressely speak against and likewise the forbidding to marry and the abstaining from meats upon a Religious 1 Tim. 4 3. account with several other such All which being expressely against the Commands or Laws of Christ it were a most reproachfull and Traitorous affront to him the true Head of the Church and a plain declaring against the Right of his Sovereignty thus to make any Laws or Institutes so
himself may at the same time move and rest lie along and walk be many miles absent from his friend and present with him at once may be now in Heaven and then in a moment on the Earth without passing any of the Regions betwixt with many such like Incongruities which we having above noted it is needless any longer here to insist upon 20. It is already plain enough that Transsubstantiation or the turning of the Bread into the very Body of Christ is encumbred with so many and so manifestly gross Impossibilities and easily deprehensible that the Impossibility of the Churche's either ignorantly erring or voluntarily imposing uponmen for her own gain can bear no weight at all to turn the scales in her behalf but there will be such an irresistible moment of these apparent and plain Contradictions of this so boldly obtruded Article of the Church I mean this of Transsubstantiation that the weight thereof will naturally sink all her sons that but a little consider of it if nothing better then their Church help them and buoy them up into the abhorred pit of Infidelity first and then of Hell 21. For there is no plastering over such Impossibilities which are deprehended to be such according to the Universal and Immutable Laws of Reason by feigned Miracles to give countenance thereto As if they should make such Stories as these That the Sacrament being struck with a dagger did bleed That when the Bread as was thought was taken out of the mouth of the Communicant it proved Flesh in the fingers of the Priest That the Host has dropt many drops of bloud upon the Corporall as it has been taken into the Priest's hands That it has flown out of his hands round about the Church dropping drops of bloud on the Marble pavement all the time of its flight That a lovely fair Child has been seen sometimes to appear out of the consecrated Bread and the like For these Stories could not evince the truth of that which is impossible to be true but would argue their own falseness by the end of their producement For commonly liers back lies with lies 22. And now I think I have described so plentifully and punctually this particular Limb of Antichristianism which is opposite to the Root of the Divine Life Faith that nothing can be conceived wanting to the perfection of such a Contrariety nor any man doubt but that Church which is thus described is really one and the same with that which is excluded out of the New Jerusalem as being opposite to her inhabitants For from such a Constitution of things as I have here in this member of Antichristianism set forth it will plainly follow that the professed sons of this false Church as those in the * Chap. 21. Chap. 22. Apocalyps must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say They must either be men whose spirits are intimidated with superstirious Fables which are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fearfull and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as love to hear lies and believe vain things out of a sottishness and imbecillity of mind and brutish simplicity or else they must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Unbelievers and Atheists though they externally for their own peace sake submit to the Orders of their Church or lastly they must be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as forge lies and help to deceive the people with multifarious Falsehoods and Impostures Which being the Characters of that Church which is opposite to the Holy City it is a farther Indication that in the putting together these things that do so diametrically oppose or undermine the Christian Faith we have truly described a notorious Limb of Antichristianism CHAP. IX 1. Humility the proper Characteristick of the Person and Spirit of Christ. 2. The Affectation of an Ecclesiastick Sovereignty contrary to this Divine Grace 3. The pretence for this Ambition That the visible Church being One requires one visible Head with the Answer thereto 4. Further Reasons to prove the Church wants no visible Head besides Christ. 5. That this one Head Christ Jesus and one Apostolick Law does make the Church sufficiently One 6. That there is no just pretence for any such claim of being this Universal Head in any Bishop 7. But that Ambition may purchase such a Title by wicked practices 8. The method of this Universal Bishop's enslaving the Clergie to himself and undermining the Secular Powers 9. His Frauds against the Emperour and other Princes 10. A further description of the Frauds Rapine and Pride of this Universal Pastour and of his Usurpation in a manner of the whole Power of the Empire 1. WE proceed now to the Description of as lively Opposition as we can to the First Branch of the Divine Life namely Humility which being so special a Characteristick of the nature and Genius of Christ's own Spirit and so pronounced by himself in his own person when he was upon Earth Learn of me for I am humble and meek Matt. 11. 29. that which is perfectly opposite to this must needs be exquisitely Antichristian in all manner of people but especially in those that do in a more peculiar way presume themselves to be Successours of Christ and his Apostles whom he of old premonished of Pride and Lordliness and affectation of Superiority saying The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and they that are great exercise authority upon them But Luke 22. Mark 10. it shall not be so among you c. Which lesson Peter remembred and endeavoured to transmit it to others where he advises the Pastours to feed their flocks not for filthy 1 Pet. 5. 2 3. Lucre but of a ready mind neither as being Lords over God's Heritage but being ensamples to the flock How contrary therefore to this would it be if some pretended Supreme Pastour whom others in their severall subordinate capacities would in proportion naturally imitate should not onely Lord it over his flock but tyrannize over Kings and Emperours and Lucifer-like place himself in the same Throne with God and Christ or rather displace them and domineer absolutely according to his own will treading under foot the plainly-promulgated Laws of God 2. Let us therefore dip our pencil a little deeper in some of those colours which we made use of in the Description of that member of Antichristianism which was opposite to the Divine Life in general and pourtray out more fully such an Ecclesiastick Polity as will appear most oriently Luciferian and Antichristian and most diametrically opposite to that holy Humility that was recommended by Christ to his Successours We will therefore suppose as before some one Prelate that has got the start of the rest to put in for the Title and Authority of Universal Bishop which whosoever does was declared by Gregory the Great the Fore-runner of Antichrist the Fore-runner of that Rex Superbiae cui
they seek the praise and admiration of men by setting a badge of special Sanctity on themselves by their peculiar Habiliments and extravagant method of living I confess it were a miracle to me if this self-chosen Sanctity of theirs consisting in meats and drinks and abstaining from marriage and the like did not so puff them up in their carnal conceits that they may deservedly be look'd upon as the most genuine Subjects of this King of Pride 5. Besides that the very pretence to this By-course of Life may be very impudently turgent to the modest sense of any sober and truly-sanctified Christian who cannot but esteem it presumptuous to stand upon their own merits and plead their right to Heaven upon what they could any way doe here on Earth for so inestimable and ineffable a Reward What an high Luciferian Rant then were it in these Spiritual undertakers to pretend that they can doe not onely their own task but the tasks of others also In which pretence there is comprised two of the most hatefull Specimens of Pride that can be excogitated namely the vilifying of the all-sufficient Merits of Christ as if they were defectuous and not able to supply the wants of all men to whom God would be propitious but they must be eeked and patched out by the Supplements of such self-weening wretches and then an over-estimation and ridiculously-heightned conceit they have of their own Power Strength and Sanctimony that they can doe more and that by way of Merit then will serve their own turns or then God requires at their hands Whenas we are expressely taught by the Holy Scripture to say That when we have done all we can we are unprofitable Luke 17. 10. Eph 2. 9. servants and that Salvation is by Faith not by Works that no man may boast 6. Wherefore we will look upon this High-Priest and Universal Head of this Pseudo-christian Clergie together with all the several Religious Ranks and Orders under it and by devout acknowledgement sodered and cemented to it and influenced by it all plumped up with one common spirit of Pride and sense of Ruling and Domineering over the persons and consciences of the Laiety and highly conceited of themselves by reason of these carnal and external shews of Sanctity and Supereminency above the rest of the world which consists onely in Anointings in Habits in Abstinence from meat and the like which are poor and beggerly Elements but yet bloating and swelling with a secret poison those that relish them and esteem them and are interessed in the observation of them I say we will look upon all these from the highest to the lowest as one Body of one Head and altogether as one Man of sin who having one spirit and mind against the Law of God and Christ do exalt themselves against and above both though some in one manner others in another But they having one mind and will and joint consent are all accessory to all and are such a Draught and Representation of Antichristian Pride as nothing can be more or more absolute This is he that * Job 41. 3â—… beholdeth all high things and is the King of the children of Pride the highest and most notorious example of a proud and elated Polity as ever yet appeared in the World 7. And I think the Text it self may not be misapplied there being that great affinity betwixt Antichrist and the Devil And it may be greater betwixt him and some expressions of the Text describing the Leviathan then betwixt the said expressions and his corrival for the honour of being typified therein * Verse 15 16 17. His Scales are his Pride shut up together as with a close seal One is so near another that no aire can come betwixt them They are joyned one to another they stick together that they cannot be sundred Which we will suppose to be the very boast of this Pseudo-Christian Polity That they are as it were all of one piece firmly joyned each part to another though not by any tie of Ingenuity and Love but riveted and nailed together by the iron hand of Necessity and Tyrannicall Force Fear of extremity Joynt-Interest and Oaths of absolute Obedience to an Infallible Power holding them as close together as these brazen shields or sealed scales of the Leviathan And now if we consider the Head of this monster His Eyes are said to be * Verse 18. like the Eye-lids of the morning that is very lofty and supercilious splendid and glorious as we have already described the Pomp of this Superlative Head to be But * Verse 19 20 21. out of his mouth goe burning Lamps and sparks of fire leap out Out of his nostrills goeth smoak as out of a seething pot or caldron His breath kindleth coals and a flame goeth out of his mouth That is to say He sets all the world on Fire in his Pride and Wrath by his wicked Incendiaries and Emissaries that run like lightning at his command into all quarters of the Empire Or in a pretended Religious Rage against the opposers of his Sovereign Holiness he thunders out Excommunications against Princes and so kindles war and discord and involves all in flames and bloud And lastly to set out the obstinate Immutableness of this Polity in their Dogmatisms and their remorseless Martyring and torturing them that submit not to them it is said that * Verse 24. his heart is as firm as stone and as hard as the neather mil-stone But as it is said of Pharaoh King of Aegypt in the Psalms Thou brakest the Heads of Leviathan in pieces and gavest him to be Psalm 74. 14. meat to thy people in the wilderness namely to the Israelites to whom all things fell out in Types and Figures So * Chap. 26. 21. Esay has foretold that the time will come when the Earth shall disclose her bloud and shall no more cover her slain In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong Sword Chap. 27. 1. even with that sharp Sword that goeth out of his Mouth shall punish Leviathan the piercing Serpent even Leviathan that crooked Serpent and shall meet him in all his fraudulent windings and obliquities and shall slay the Dragon that is in the Sea that is to say that dwells betwixt the two Seas as Grotius interprets the watry Leviathan in the Psalms of Pharaoh King of Aegypt because his Dominion was extended betwixt two Seas In that day sing ye unto her A Vineyard of red wine I the Lord do keep it I will water it every moment lest any hurt it I will Verse 2 3 keep it night and day He will cause them of Jacob to take root Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit But this was Verse 6. an Excursion more then I intended CHAP. XII 1. An Antichristian Frame opposite to the Divine Grace of Purity described in general 2. That the Numerousness of
style represents under the figure of Animals or single Persons whether by the simple Appellation of Man or Woman or else such Conditions of man or woman as Whore Wife Witness or the like Now what Life and Spirit is to a natural Animal that is Rule and Power to figurative Persons or Animals in the Prophetick sense which are Bodies Politick And therefore as the loss of the one is the death of the one so the loss of the other is the death of the other And because there is a Spirit in all things even in those things that are inanimate the fading or vanishing of that spirit may be said analogically to be the Death of those things Instances are innumerable I will onely adde that as in the Hebrew Idiom not to be is to be dead so in analogie any thing that is not what it was namely any thing that is changed from its former condition this change thereof may goe for a kind of Death as Death is ordinarily said to be a Change 6. Desart That by Desart is meant Paganism Alcazar pronounces with great confidence speaking of the Woman in the wilderness In qua locutione notandum est per Desertum proculdubio figurari Gentilitatem For which opinion he produces a cloud of witnesses Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Ambrosius Basilius Hieronymus Gregorius Hilarius Hesychius c. The reason of which Hieroglyphick I conceive is this The Idolatry of the Pagans was much in Woods and Groves and on the tops of Mountains and wast places and the names of their Daemons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have reference to the fields and desarts Besides that Idolaters do not emerge above the pitch of the mere Animal life and their worship and devotion is little higher then that of the Elephant or Cercopithecus The Rapacity also and bloudy Cruelty of the Pagan Kingdoms farther fill out the congruity of the Type And consequently where such a condition of things is as this does typify that is to say whatever Kingdoms or Empires do paganize they do ipso facto become a Wilderness or Desart 7. Dragon The Hebrew word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifies Draco or Serpens and also Cetus as being the great Serpent or Dragon of the Sea And accordingly the Seventy render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it is a Figure of the Devil the ancient Cabbala of Moses may assure us and it may be though one be noted chiefly yet the Serpent there may have a Prophetick Henopoeia in it and signify the whole Principality of Satan that Kingdom of Darkness which has been ever in opposition against the Kingdom of God and therefore it is no wonder that those Kingdoms that have in such a special manner afflicted the Church have been represented under this Figure as Aegypt and the Roman Empire Awake awake put on strength O arme of the Lord awake as in the Esay 51. ancient days in the generations of old Art noâ—… thou he that hath cut Rahab that is Aegypt see Forerius and wounded the Dragon which is Pharaoh as Ezekiel plainly speaks out I am against thee Pharaoh King of Aegypt the great Dragon that lieth in the midst of the Chap. 29. Rivers And for that he lies thus in the Rivers he is called Leviathan as if he were a Water-serpent or a Whale Psalm 74. Thou brakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces and gavest him to be meat to thy people in the Wilderness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heads of the Leviathan as if this Leviathan as the Dragon in the Apocalyps had more Heads then one These considerations plainly intimate to us That the Seven-headed Serpent in the Apocalyps which is the Roman State or Kingdom is so represented not onely in regard of that old Serpentine form that tempted our first Parents but has a reflexion also upon that Tyrannical Kingdom of Aegypt which is typified under the image of a Dragon and Leviathan and that not only Rome Pagan has a share in this Type but Rome Pagano-Christian For all the Seven Heads are from the Body of the Dragon and the Beast that was and is not and yet is is as well the Dragon as not the Dragon and therefore is as well Aegypt and I wish I could not say more as the Church of God or the Kingdom of his Son Jesus 8. Drunkenness It is taken sometimes for the being so filled and intoxicated with the pleasures and affluences of this world as to be regardless and senseless of the things of God Esay 29. Stay your selves and wonder cry ye out and cry They are drunken but not with wine they stagger but not with strong drink For the Lord has poured upon you the spirit of deep sleep and hath closed your eyes the prophets and the rulers the seers hath he covered Such a remiss Stupor and Drunkenness does the prosperity of this world often cast men into Achmetes from the Indian Interpretations cap. 111. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any one dream he is drunk with wine riches and power will flow in to him proportionably to his dunkenness And he affirms the like in the following Chapter according to the sense of the Aegyptians and Persians There is also a Drunkenness from the Cup of Affliction which is often intimated in the Scriptures 9. Eagle Esay 40. 31. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as Eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not be faint And Exod. 19. 4. Ye had seen what I did to the Aegyptians and how I bare you on Eagles wings and brought you unto my self Artemidor lib. 2. c. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For poor men to dream they ride upon an Eagle it is good for it signifies they will be supported and well relieved by the rich Earth-quake So we usually turn the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but it signifies also more generally any shaking or concussion as Heb. 12. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the Author says this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the removing of those things that are shaken Hagg. 2. 21. Speak to Zerubbabel Governour of Judah saying I will shake the Heavens and the Earth and I will overthrow the Thrones of Kingdoms and I will destroy the strength of the Kingdoms of the Heathen This is a plain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The like ruine and overturning of things is set out but by what is the effect of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Earth-quake properly so called Jer. 4. 24. I beheld the Mountains and lo they trembled and all the Hills moved lightly Which verse 26 he interprets as Haggai before I beheld and lo the fruitful place was a Wilderness and all the Cities thereof were broken down c. Achmetes out of the Indian Persian and Aegyptian Onirocriticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Artemidor lib. 2. c. 46. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
but Fire from Heaven To which destruction whoever do take upon them to adjudge men may very well be said to bring down fire from Heaven upon them which that Thunder-bolt of Excommunication does threaten 15. Flesh. By Flesh is understood in Scripture whatsoever is opposite to the Spirit and I mean in a Moral or Mystical way and that is all to be consumed by the Spirit and by Fire But more particularly Flesh signifies sometimes that which they vulgarly call Carnal Ordinances in some such sense as that is meant by S. Paul Are ye so foolish having begun in the Gal. 3. 3. spirit are ye now made perfect by the flesh Where he speaks of the Law of Moses And the Author to the Hebrews more expresly who speaking Chap. 7. v. 16. of Christ and comparing of him with the Mosaick Aaron Who is made saith he not after the Law of a carnal commandment but after the power of an endless life And still nearer to our purpose chap. 9. ver 10. where he speaks of a service which stood onely in meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal Ordinances imposed on them untill the time of Reformation By Flesh therefore may be understood all the external Ordinances and Institutes that men have rashly heaped upon Christianity whether merely useless or else Superstitious and Idolatrous for these are to the spirit of Christianity as the over-load of a fulsome and over-grown and unwholesome Flesh to the spirit of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 16. But there is another sense of Flesh taken much notice of in the Onirocriticks Artemidor lib. 3. c. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not good for a rich man to dream he eats his own flesh for it signifies the utter wasting of his riches or substance Achmetes c. 283. according to the Indian Persian and Aegyptian Interpreters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Like that of the Israelites eating the flesh or the Leviathan in the Wilderness for the Leviathan or Dragon is the King of Aegypt And again c. 285. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And lastly according to the Indians c. 87. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And compendiously and at once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Flesh is universally referred to gold and riches in the interpretation of Visions or Dreams 17. Floud See Water Fornication See Whoredom Frogs A Frog is an Hieroglyphick of Imperfection saies * Hieroglyph lib. 29. Pierius according to the sense of the Aegyptian Priests and he makes as if the occasion thereof was the observation of the half-finished generation of this Animal out of the slime of Nilus which he casts up in his overflowing after which this Creature is seen half-formed part Frog part Mud as * Lib. 1. Hieroglyph 25. Horus Apollo also expresly affirms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But in that it is thus gendred of filth and mire I should look upon it as a fit Emblem of that Wisedom which is not from above but is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Earthly Animal or Sensual and Devillish and is accompanied with bitter zeal and strife in the heart as the Apostle intimates just before and contrary to that Wisedom which is from above which is first pure not bemired with worldly lusts then peaceable not breeding contention nor full of words and brawlings like the importunate narsh and disharmonious Coaxations of Frogs so called in the Greek from that very ungratefull noise as if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the shrilness and asperity of the noise they make much less forward to war and bloudshed or to the instigating of Princes and men in Power thereunto which the hoarse and harsh Coaxation of these Creatures may be a fit Symbol of and the rather if these Trumpeters to war be conceived to be such men as are as soft and unwarlike as these naked and slimy Animals no more fit to fight then they but be onely Trumpeters to war and confusion and that for their own Interest the zealous declamations and vociferations they make being in behalf of themselves as all the noise the Frog makes is with its tongue turned inwards towards its one gullet Whence that Creature seems a very lively Emblem of such Wretches as these Artemidor lib. 2. c. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ranae homines impostores scurras significant which has no small affinity with our larger description of them 18. Gemms and precious Stones See Crown God In the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Magistrates as well as God as appears from several places of Scripture And Artemidorus has taken notice of the Analogie even from the highest Antiquity lib. 2. c. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quicquid dominatur vim habet Dei And again lib. 3. c. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any rich man dream he is made a God it prognosticates a very great Principality For Princes are in a power of doing good and hurt in a manner equal to the very Gods CHAP. VII 1. Hail the signification thereof according to Scripture 2. And the ancient Onirocriticks 3. Harvest the evil and auspicious sense thereof 4. Head how clearly significative of Sovereign Power whether in Many or One. 5. Heaven and Earth 6. Horn. 7. Horse Islands 8. King and Kingdom 9. That Kinds or Sorts of things are sometimes expressed as if Individualls of the same Kind 10. Leopard Locusts 11. Male-childe Mark Measure Mill Month Moon 12. Mountain the several significations thereof 1. HAil Whenas Winds and Storms signify Political Commotions and Warres as is acknowledged by Grotius and all other Interpreters that they doe as in Daniel 7. 2. where the Four winds of Heaven are said to strive upon the great Sea well may a storm of Hail signify War and Incursion of the enemie and especially if they come from the North the congeledness of this Meteor bearing upon it the character of that Quarter Two eminent Examples of this Prophetick Figure we have in Esay The first Ch. 28. Behold the Lord hath a mighty and strong One which as a Tempest of Hail and destroying storm as a floud of mighty waters overflowing shall cast down to the Earth violently The crown of Pride the Drunkards of Ephraim shall be troden under feet Haec significant saith Forerius hostium adventum qui universum regnum Israel devastaturi erant But it is so plain it wanted no interpretation The other example is Esay ch 30. And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard and shall shew the lighting down of his arme with the indignation of his anger and with a flame of devouring fire with scattering and tempests and hail-stones For with the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down c. that is to say The forces of the Lord will come against Assur like Thunder and Lightening and Hail So plain is it that an Hail-storm is significative of the incursion and assault of an enemie according to the style of Scripture 2.
may be found to disguise the worthiness of their persons For the Witnesses were to be clothed in sackcloth a thousand two hundred sixty days Scorpion See Serpent Scorched by the Sun Achmetes Onirocrit c. 167. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If one dream that the Sun has scorched him much he will be punished by the King proportionably to that scorching according to the doctrine of the Aegyptians Indians and Persians 9. Sea Waters signifying people as the Angel tells S. John the gathering together of people into one Body Politick Kingdom or Jurisdiction may fitly be called a Sea in the Political world as the gathering together of the Waters is so termed in the Natural Gen. 1. And the whole University of Kingdoms or a great part of them may according to this analogie be called either the great Sea or Ocean as is figured out also in the Vision of Daniel Ch. 7. I saw in my Vision by night and behold the four winds of Heaven strove upon the great Sea Where by Winds undoubtedly is meant War as well as by the great Sea a comprehension of several Kingdoms in which this bluster and tempest of War is made one Kingdom fighting against another to enlarge their dominions This analogie of the Sea is also acknowledged in the Interpretations of the Indians Persians and Aegyptians Achmetes c. 178. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any dream he is Master of the Sea he will be entire successour in the whole Kingdom And so likewise of the Winds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If a King see the Sea troubled by a wind from a known quarter â—…e will be molested by some Nation from that quarter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if he see the Sea calm he will enjoy his Kingdom in peace This interpretation therefore of the Sea will farther confirm that of the Rivers Serpent That notorious Serpentine shape which deceived Adam and Eve and lapsed them into rebellion against God cannot but assure any one that in Scripture all the Serpentine kind that are described in Prophecy do in all likelihood refer to the Kingdom of the Devil Ship That a Ship as well as a Mill may be an Hieroglyphick of Profit any one may easily conceive if he think but of Merchandizing Achmetes according to the mind of the Aegyptians and Persians c. 180. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If one dream he builds Ships he shall grow rich proportionably to the number of the Ships he builds But out of the foregoing Chapter according to the doctrine of the Indian Interpreters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which is an interpretation as far fetched as from the Indies indeed Nor is it easy to conjecture why a Ship should intimate the congregating of men for the celebrating religious Mysteries unless we conceive a Ship to represent a Temple Which why we should I know not unless because they are disterminated and solitary buildings as Temples are not joyned to one another no more then a Temple to other Houses But in that it is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Navis mercatoria it may be the profit of the Priest from sacrifices or offerings to Idols may be alluded to And whether any darker recesses in the Ship may represent the Adyta in Temples I know not Such particularities I leave to every mans phancy to pursue at leisure Slain See Resurrection Slaughter See Death 10. Sun Moon and Stars The Sun and Moon have either a Spiritual signification or a Secular Of the Spiritual signification of the Sun there is an example where Christ is called the Sun of Righteousness as he is by the Prophet Malachi Also the Apostle to the Ephesians Awake thâ—… that sleepest that Christ may give thee light The Moon also may have a Spiritual signification supposing it to typifie the Mosaical dispensation Which it may very well doe both because it is a light and a far dimmer light then that of the Gospel as also in allusion to their New Moons and other Festivals of the Jews the order of which depended on that Planet See Mr. Mede on Apocal. 12. To which you may adde That as the Law of Moses is compared to the Moon so may the Light of the Gospel of Christ be compared to the Sun For that the Word of God is compared to Light is plain from that of David Thy word is a Lamp unto my feet and a Light unto my path And Psalm 119. 105. that great Lamp of the Universe the Sun is the clearest Light men can walk by Whence that vulgar expression of the Sun-shine of the Gospel was framed by very warrantable analogie and does further assure unto us that the Light of the Gospel may also be one Spiritual signification of the Sun 11. The Secular signification of Sun and Moon is when they signifie the Power and Glory of this world And that either generally and at large as Jerem. 15. 9. Her Sun is gone down while it was yet day Which the Targum renders Their glory passed from them in their life-time The like to which is in Amos 8. 9. I will cause the Sun to goe down at noon and I will darken the Earth in the clear day Vatabl. Cùm eritis in supremo felicitat is gradu tunc indè vos dejiciam infelicissimos reddam Again Esay 60. 20. Thy Sun shall no more goe down neither shall thy Moon withdraw herself that is to say Thou shalt have uninterrupted glory and prosperity as it follows presently after The days of thy mourning shall be ended In such places as these Sun and Moon have not a sense determined to any particular Dignity in a Kingdom but signifie onely at large the Glory and Prosperity thereof 12. But in other places there may be a more particular meaning of these Lights For as there is a Political Universe as well as a Natural as I have already shewn which has its Heaven also as well as Earth so there must be something answering in the Political Heaven to those chief conspicuous parts of the Natural the Sun Moon and Stars Whence it will follow that he that is chief in a Political world must be the Sun thereof as may appear though in an inferiour instance touching a Body Oeconomical Gen. 37. 9. viz. the Dream of Joseph that the Sun and the Moon and the eleven Stars made obeisance to him Which Jacob unriddling What is this dream saith he to his son that thou hast dreamed Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to how down our selves to thee to the Earth Wherefore if these Symbols signifie so distinctly in a Family which is but a Body Oeconomical much more is it to be expected that it may signifie so in a Body Politick Achmetes according to the mind of the Indians Persians and Aegyptians cap. 167. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the next chapter he calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second or lesser King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom he calls in the following chapter 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The sense of all which is in brief that in the interpretation of Visions or Dreams the Sun immutably represents the King the Moon the next in power to him the Planet Venus the Queen and the rest of the bigger Stars the Princes or Nobles of the Kingdom 13. Which is not so superstitiously to be understood but that if there were no Queen any third in dignity might be represented thereby For this Venus is also Lucifer which the Hebrews call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under which the mighty King of Babylon is represented Esay 14. 12. How art thou fallen from Heaven O Lucifer son of the Morning how art thou cut down to the ground that didst weaken the Nations Which seems to be against the analogie of the Onirocriticks which say the Sun signifies the King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But they do not say a Star may not signifie him especially when he is not compared with his own Nobles and Princes but with other Kings For a plurality of Suns is unnatural Wherefore in that case the Parable is to be made from the Stars onely and the chiefest King is the greatest and most glorious Star Whence when the Roman Empire had two Caesars unsubordinate to one another they could not well be called Suns but Stars though glorious ones Which agrees well with Mr. Mede's interpreting of that great Star that fell at the sound of the third Trumpet of the expiring of the Western Caesareate 14. But that there is a more Mystical sense of Stars also may appear in that Promise of Christ * Revel 2. 28. I will give him the Morning-star But where Christ saith * Chap. 22. 16. I am the root of David and the bright Morning-star I know not but that may be understood in a Political sense for all Kingdoms had not then nor have yet submitted unto him But where Stars signifie Angels that is more Cabbalistical Apocal. 1. 20. The seven Stars are the seven Angels of the seven Churches According as they signifie also in Job 38. 7. When the Morning Stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy As many of which as kept not their station but fell into this terrestrial pollution may well be called Fallen Stars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Stars fallen from Heaven to the Earth According to which that Apocal. 9. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is nothing but a Periphrasis of some one fallen Angel or Devil who afterwards is called the Angel of the Abyss a great Officer in the Kingdom of darkness That this is the sense is plain in that it is said not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the preterperfect Tense It may not be impertinent also to adde what * Lib. 2. Hieroglyph 1. Horus Apollo says of this Hieroglyphick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CHAP. IX 1. Tail Temple 2. Throes Throne of God 3. Thunder an Iconism of Divine assistence for the discomfiting of the Enemies 4. Other more mystical meanings thereof 5. Time Hours Days That Day signifying a Year is an Icasmus 6. The appropriation of Months and Days to the story of the Wicked and Righteous with an inference from the latter of a latitude of compute in the 1260 days in the Apocalyps 7. Trees Vintage Water 8. White-clothing Wilderness Winds 9. Whore and Whoredom 10. The exquisite Analogie Idolatry bears thereunto 11. Wine-press 12. That it signifies also spiritual Destruction and slaughter 13. Woman and Women 14. Worship World 15. That the Prophetick style is so determinately intelligible that the endeavour of understanding Prophecies is most unjustly reproached for any insuperable difficulties therein 16. Certain Rules to try Interpretations of Prophecies by which are more warrantable and genuine which less 1. TAil The Tail of a Beast is that part that follows or comes behind to which therefore the Train of a great Prince or Potentate will correspond in Analogie But me-thinks the Analogie is most exact in Serpents of a great length who therefore have a long train following them But it is significant enough in other Animals also as the Onirocriticks have taken notice Achmet c. 152. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any one dream he rides on a generous Steed such as the Persians called Pharas having a large Tail thick of hair and long he shall have a Retinue or Train of Men or Officers answerable to the fulness and length of the Tail This Analogie will hold good from Nobles to Princes and Emperours or any Sovereign Power over a State or Kingdom In which case their Forces and People are their Train or Tail Temple To omit those more Mystical or Moral meanings of Temple it signifies sometimes in the Prophetick style a People consecrated to God by an outward profession of him and so set apart from other Nations as consecrated Places are from other buildings or plats of ground 1 Tim. 3. 15. That thou maiest know how to behave thy self in the House of God which is the Church And Rev. 3. 12. Him that overcometh will I make a Pillar in the Temple of my God which both Grotius and Dr. Hammond interpret of the Church Visible Grotius of the Sardian Dr. Hammond of the Church Catholick 2. Throes of Child-birth The Throes of Child-birth are a Figure or Image of great endeavours to bring something to pass not without much difficulty pain and danger And the compassing their end is a delivery of what they were big with and a deliverance from the pain and danger they laboured under There are several examples of this Iconism in the Prophets Jer. 30. 6 7. Wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins as a woman in travail and all faces are turned into paleness Alas for that day is great so that none is like it it is even the day of Jacob's trouble but he shall be saved out of it Also Esa. 66. 7. Before she travailed she brought forth before her pain came she was delivered of a man-child which Interpreters usually understand of the sudden Birth of the Church I mean of the sudden Conversion of the Gentiles to it Grotius of the deliverance of Judaea by Maccabaeus Throne of God The Throne of God signifies a great Throne a magnificent Throne according to that usual Hebraism where Nouns joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 acquire a sense of excellency vehemency or greatness So the Trees of God the Cedars of God the Mountains of God are great and high Trees Cedars and Mountains the Fire of God a vehement Fire and the like According to which the Throne of God is an high and exalted Throne a Royal or Imperial Seat from whence the Political World is ruled as God from Heaven rules the whole Universe 3. Thunder Thunder and Lightning signifies the disjection and dissipation of the forces of War Esa. 29. 6. Thou shalt be visited of
as it will defile them who joyn with them in publick worship But there is yet another sense of Woman not Political but more Physical and Cabbalistical and that is The life sense and relish of this Body This is a Woman that we must have a special care of being polluted by through over-passionately closing with any of her suggestions or over-deeply sympathizing with or resenting of those pleasures she would allure us by and so desix our desire upon her For not Idolatry onely but all other Enormities arise in us from the listening to the false counsel of this domestick Eve 14. Worship That Worship or Adoration may be an Iconism of Subjection is plain from the nature of the Ceremonie it self the bowing of the Body being a fit Symbol of submitting the Mind and Will to his power to whom we doe this homage And that it does signifie thus in the Hebrew Idiom is manifest from several Instances But the very Symbol it self is explained Gen. 37. where the Sheafs of Joseph's brethren are said to make obeisance to Joseph's Sheaf that is to worship Joseph's Sheaf 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Your Sheafs worshipped my Sheaf Whereupon his Brethren presently interpreting the Dream say unto him Shalt thou indeed reign over us or Shalt thou indeed have dominion over us that is to say Shall we be your Subjects or fall under your Dominion So Esa. 45. 14. speaking of the subjection of the Aethiopians and Sabeans to King Cyrus They shall come after thee saith he in chains they shall come over and they shall fall down unto thee The Greek has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They shall worship thee All which signifie submission and subjection to his Sovereignty I will onely adde one place more Gen. 27. the blessing of Isaac upon Jacob Let people serve thee and Nations bow down to thee be lord over thy brethren let thy mother's sons bow down to thee The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in both places and signifies obedience or subjection at large as is manifest But suppose it had not that general signification of it self but only denoted that part of the duty of subjection which is Worship or Incurvation it might notwithstanding signifie thus largely Stylo Prophetico by a Diorismus World See Heaven and Earth 15. These be the chief Icastick terms that occur in the Prophetick style which if they haply prove more in number then we shall have use for in this Discourse yet I account my pains not improper in reference to what I have had occasion to treat of in my Mystery of Godliness besides their desireable usefulness at large for understanding the chief Visions and Prophecies in Scripture And I hope I have made it appear partly by this Alphabet of Iconisms and partly by my Explication of those preceding Prophetick Schemes That it is as easie a thing to render a Prophecy or Vision out of this Prophetick style into ordinary language as it is to interpret one language by another and That the difficulty of understanding Prophecies is in a manner no greater when once a man has taken notice of the settled meaning of the peculiar Icasâ—…s therein then if they had been penn'd down in the vulgar speech in which there are as frequent Homonymies of words as here there are of Iconisms and That therefore it need be no reproach to any one that he endeavours to understand the Prophecies of Scripture more then the Histories thereof Prophecy being nothing else but an Anticipatory History and when once fulfilled as plain an History as that which was never prophesied of 16. We will onely annex a few Rules concerning the Preference of one Interpretation of Prophecy before another and then conclude The first Rule That Interpretation that keeps close to the approved Examples and Analogie of the Prophetick style is to be preferred before such as are framed at pleasure according to the private phancy of the Interpreter The ground of this Rule is this That besides that it is safer to follow an approved Example then to be destitute thereof and wholly lean upon a mans private sense the very style of the Prophets being as it were a peculiar language or dialect there is a necessity of understanding things according to the meaning of their dialect or language and not according to what it would sound in our own Which is as fond and ridiculous as if an English-man in hearing of Latin spoken where the word Fur is occasionally brought in should think the Furre of an Alderman's Gown were meant or at the sounding of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek should let his fancy presently fall into the dripping-pan And yet as absonous and incongruous is it to interpret the Iconisms of the Prophets according to what conceits are either vulgar or peculiar to our selves As if because Vices and Vertues are painted out in the figure of Women or Beasts we should therefore apply that meaning to the Prophetick style whenas they always signifie a Body Politick even in that very Scheme where abstract Inscriptions are upon them as Zech. 5. 7. where the Woman in the Epha is said to be Wickedness By which Woman notwithstanding Vatablus understands the Ten Tribes revolted to Idolatry and other Interpreters expound it to the same purpose And so to interpret Hail of hardness of heart is like the interpreting of Latin or Greek by what they sound nearest in English This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle speaks and quite to forget where we are or what we are about The second Rule That Interpretation that keeps one tenour of sense of the same words in one and the same Vision especially is to be preferred before that which varies backward and forward and takes the same word in as many different senses as it occurs in different places of the Vision To be in many tales is accounted an infallible sign of a false story and to vary the Interpretation of the same word in one and the same Vision without any account or reason is as great a demonstration of fraud and forcedness in the Interpretation and that the Interpreter was biassed by some design or interest and that he has done violence to the Text for his own advantage As for example If one should interpret that Iconism of a Beast one while to signifie a Kingdom or Empire another while some single Person of that Empire and then again some grand Vice thereof were not this a mere botch in comparison of interpreting this Beast of such a Kingdom or Body Politick in every place of the Vision I might instance in other such like shufflings but this one intimation shall suffice The third Rule That Interpretation that does concern the affairs of Religion and the Church of God and is of the greatest use and serviceableness to us is a more likely Interpretation and to be preferred before that which less respects us but seems to make the Spirit of God to have predicted things with little or
yet is Agreement VI. Both the Beasts are said to rise out of the Sea Agreement VII They are both ordained to destruction as not being that Kingdome of the Saints that is to last for ever and ever Agreement VIII Of both these restored Beasts it is said that they whose Names are not written in the Book of Life shall worship them and wonder after them Agreement IX The Seven Heads in each Beast are Idolatrous Heads Agreement X. The Beasts are slain or exterminated out of Being in the Sixth Head restored or revived in the Seventh Agreement XI The ten Horns in neither Beast did actually reign in S. John's time Agreement XII The ten Horns in each Beast begin their reign with the Beast Agreement XIII The ten Horns in each Beast give their strength to the Beast Agreement XIV The Beasts in each Vision make warre with the Saints Agreement XV. The Saints in each Vision overcome the Beast at last Agreement XVI The Faith and Constancy of the Saints is exercised by both the Beasts Agreement XVII The time of each Beast is said to be determined by God and to be predicted by his holy Prophets Agreement XVIII The Seat of this Seven-headed Beast is not set down but left free in either Vision though the Seat of the Whore and the Two-horned Beast be determined which has an admirable correspondence with the Event 5. These be the two Parallelisms of Agreements concerning the latter whereof I dare affirm that it is so exact and adequate that the Parallels betwixt the Seven-headed Beast in the Thirteenth Chapter and the Seven-headed Beast in the Seventeenth exhaust all in each Chapter concerning that Beast The former Parallelism is not so accurate the Original of the Two-horned Beast being parallel to nothing in the Whore and the Destruction of the Whore parallel to nothing in the Two-horned Beast as he is there described Wherefore there is that peculiar in the Vision of the 17. Chapter that it treats also of the judgement of the two-horned Beast or the Whore according to the very title of the Vision I will shew thee the judgement of the great Whore But this is no argument at all against the Identity of their persons especially the Two-horned Beast being also to be destroyed and at the same time with the Whore as it is easie to be made out by the Apocalyptick Synchronisms And as for the omission of the Original of the Whore to parallel the Original of the Two-horned Beast that is no argument against their Identity neither Indeed if there had been an Original assigned to the Whore different from that of the Two-horned Beast it had been something but this bare omission signifies nothing but the art and accuracy of the very out-side of these Visions which keep a Decorum in all things And therefore because it was not so seemly nor sutable to say a Woman rose out of the Earth though Brutes did so Gen. 1. 24. the mention of her Original was fairly declined 6. But whenas a lesser number of Agreements in each Parallelism provided there were nothing contrary could not but have been a strong presumption of the Identity of the Subjects of the Visions in each Chapter I mean That the Two-horned Beast and the Whore are one and the Seven-headed Beast in each Chapter the same how fully assured must we needs be of these Identities the Agreements of these two Parallelisms those passages onely excepted of which I have given so fair an account perfectly exhausting the whole substance of each Chapter Which that it may be more plainly discerned I shall expose to your eies the whole XVII Chapter and to every Verse in order subjoin what is parallel to it in the XIII For we shall see it will imbibe the whole Chapter Apoc. Chap. 17. 1. And there came one of the seven Angels which had the seven Vials and talked with me saying unto me Come hither I will shew unto thee the judgement of the great Whore that sitteth upon many Waters Chap. 13. Most of this first verse of this Seventeenth Chapter of the Apocalyps is but Introductory to the Vision no part of the Vision it self and therefore there needs no Parallel to it in this Thirteenth Chapter But how the Whore's being placed upon many waters may seem to comply with one of our Parallels I shall note in its due place when I come to give a Joint-Exposition of these two Chapters Chap. 17. 2. With whom the Kings of the Earth have committed a fornication and the Inhabitants of the Earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication Chap. 13. 11. And he spake as a a Parallelism 1. Agreement 1. Dragon 12. And causeth the Earth and them that dwell therein to worship the a first Beast whose deadly wound was healed 14. Saying to them that dwell on the Earth that they should make an a Image to the Beast who had the wound by the sword and did live Chap. 17. 3. So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness and I saw a Woman * sit upon a a scarlet-coloured beast full of names of b blasphemie having c seven heads and ten horns Chap. 13. 15. * Par. 1. Agr. 2. And he had power to give life to the Image of the Beast that the Image of the Beast should speak 2. And the Beast that I saw was like unto a a Paral. 2. Agr. 2. Leopard and his feet were as the feet of a Bear and his mouth as the mouth of a Lion 5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and b Paral. 2. Agr. 2. Blasphemies 6. And he opened his mouth in b blasphemy against God to blaspheme his Name and his Tabernacle and them that dwell in Heaven 1. And I saw a Beast having c Parall 2. Agr. 1. seven heads and ten horns Chap. 17. 4. And the Woman was arraied in a purple and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls having a golden b cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication Chap. 13. 12. And he exercizeth a Par. 1. Agr. 3. all the power of the first Beast before him 13. And he doth great b Par. 1. Agr. 4. wonders so that he maketh fire to come down from Heaven on the Earth in the sight of men 14. And deceiveth them that dwell on the Earth by those b miracles which he had power to doe in the sight of the Beast Chap. 17. 5. And upon her forehead was a name written a Mystery Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth Chap. 13. 11. And I beheld another Beast coming out of the Earth and he had two horns like a a Par. 1. Agr. 5. Lamb and he spake like a Dragon Chap. 17. 6. And I saw the Woman drunken with the a bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus and when I saw her I wondred
5. c. 17. Molinaeus all these were imitations of the Imperial Power and Dignity So exactly may he be said to exercise all the power of the first Beast before him And is yet still more palpably true in that he takes away all power in Ecclesiastick affairs from the Emperour and will exercise it solely himself not to adde that by virtue of this entire Ecclesiastick Power he has wrested even the Civil Power of the Empire out of the Emperour's hands in a very great measure so awful a thing has been the Pope's thunder of Excommunication And this is sufficient to make good the third Agreement of my first Parallelism 3. Having a golden Cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornications Where Grotius upon the word Abominations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he In Viso quidem intelligendo humor foetens in re verò Dii falsi quos Graeci vocant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Hebrews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore the filthiness of her Fornications is the same with the former they all signifying the Idolatry of the Roman Hierarchy And as we have already demonstrated in the foregoing Chapter that this Whore is not understood of Rome Pagan so this Circumstance amongst others agrees very naturally thereto For this Woman with her Cup in her hand implies she is the beginner not of an health but of this damnable Pollution of Idolatry and that whereas the Empire had grown chast and cold to this folly and madness through the power of the pure Gospel of Christ this Woman by this Incentive this Virus amatorium would inflame their spirits again with new lustful motions after Idols and make them goe a-whoring from their God 4. But there is something further observable in this golden Cup wherein the force of its bewitchery may consist For that it is an enchanted Cup or a Philtrum I have abundantly made good under that Title in my Prophetick Alphabet and not onely Mr. Mede but Cornelius à Lapide and Cha. 8. Sect. 2. Alcazar interpret it to that sense The latter of whom besides the filthiness of the Composition as the ashes of Toads and of mens brains hanged at the Gallows addes also Cantiones execranda verba Charms and direful words which must needs therefore be conceived to be Magical and of a miraculous power Analogical to which is that Chap. 13. concerning V. 13. 14. the Two-horned Beast that he doth great wonders even so much that he maketh fire to come down from Heaven and so deceiveth them Par. 1. Agr. 4. that dwell on the Earth by those miracles that he had power to doe in the sight of the Beast that is to say in the sight of the Empire which he seduced into Idolatry by these Miracles and so re-introduced the Image of the slain Beast by this seduction Whence it is plain That the Magick and the Miracles of the Whore and of the Two-horned Beast tended to one end the reviving of Idolatry again in the Empire according to the fourth Agreement of our first Parallelism 5. But one chief Charm that was used over this Magical Cup undoubtedly are those powerful and affrightful words of Excommunication that Menace of committing men to Hell-fire if they did not submit to these Idolatrous Institutes of the Church This Thunder from that Roman Vejovis did not sowre but sweeten this Cup and make it goe off with a great deal of pleasure it looking so like the Cup of salvation to those that drank it when it was so authoritatively and terribly declared that those that refused it should undoubtedly perish This is that main Spell that did invigorate the virtue of this Potion and made the Whore's Paramours lie more close in her bosom when they were terrified with such ineffable danger and misery that should befall them out of it Which pretended power being neither lawful nor natural but above the limits of Nature what can it be justly deemed but Magical or Diabolical And this is that very same power which is plainly and apertly figured out in those words of the 13 Chapter where the Two-horned Beast is said to make fire come down from Heaven which I have already in my Prophetick Alphabet plainly Chap. 6. Sect. 14. proved to be a very significant Iconism of Excommunication 6. And there is nothing more frequent in the mouths of all men then the Pope's Thunderbolt of which they have conceived so miraculous an effect that the people at Paris were made generally to believe that it had so blasted the Hereticks that their very faces were grown black and ugly as Devils their eyes and looks ghastly their breaths noisom and pestilent as Sir Edwin Sandys has recorded in his Europae Speculum Erasmus also runs much upon this Metaphor in his Colloquies and the Popes themselves glory in it And as if the people were not quick enough to understand the similitude without some visible Ceremonie the Pope casts down burning Fire-brands from aloft at a certain solemn Excommunication And lastly Nauclerus uses this phrase of being thus Thunder-struck three or four times within the compass of a page or two And the Popes themselves look upon them whom they have Excommunicated tanquam fulmine afflatos and so speak of them as Paraeus has also observed upon the place So that there is not room left for the least Hesitation whether Excommunication be not alluded to in that miraculous bringing down fire from Heaven 7. But whereas it is said That he deceiveth them that dwell on the Earth by reason of those Miracles which he had power to doe I must confess I think other Miracles may also be glanced at of which there is abundance boasted of by the Roman Church themselves by which they would confirm several sorts of Idolatries practised amongst them Which may be attributed as many of them as are true to the great activity and desire of their Priests to promote Idolatry who thereby invite the Devil to play such pranks at their Images or Altars or in their Coemeteries But to return to the Magick-Cup 8. We have considered the contents of it and that supernatural Magick infused into the Liquor thereof But the very Metall of the Cup which is Gold has also its significancy and bears with it a meaning of a more natural Magick that attracts all Quid non mortalia pector a cogis Auri sacra fames Wherefore that great Affluency of Riches Honours and Preferments that are to be had in the Roman Church is no small part of this intoxicating Potion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nay indeed has made the Inhabitants of the Earth drunk the fumes of Ambition and Covetousness possessing their Brains especially theirs of the Roman Clergie who are not enriched with these Golden gifts of the Church but upon the condition of assisting and abetting the Idolatry thereof This Cup therefore I conceive may also be an Emblem of
Universal Bishop and has for a long time laid claim to and exercised this power to say nothing of his high insultations over the Caesarean Majesty and his usurping as well his Rights as wearing the Imperial Ensigns I say this Idolatrous Hierarchy growing so big in time in these Western parts of the Empire and their power shrivelling up or melting away so much in the Eastern and not continuing in nor advancing to that gross measure of Antichristianism that is found in the other the Spirit of God has accordingly more strongly stamped the mark of discovery on the Western Hierarchy then on the Eastern and because that See lays claim to an Universal Jurisdiction has made Old Rome I mean the whole Hierarchy whose Head is seated there to be this Great Whore For he saith The Woman which thou sawest is that great City which now reigneth over the Kings of the Earth For it is the present Tense and spoken in S. John's time when there was no Seven-Hilled City that reigned over the Kings of the Earth but Old Rome And therefore of necessity it is she 2. But besides that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies in the present Tense and is all one as if one should say quae nunc regnat it is farther observable that if it were not determined to this sense it would rather be a Nugation if a man may speak it with reverence then an Interpretation and would be added to no purpose as being of an uncertain sound and not able to signify any thing but what was said before For in that she is said to whore with the Kings of the Earth and to ride the Beast and to sit upon Peoples and Multitudes and Nations and Tongues this already amounts to as much as the reigning over the Kings of the Earth Wherefore this Adjection must have this peculiar in it that in saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it implies that that City was meant that ruled the world in S. John's time and therefore is the Seven-Hilled Rome But why do I goe about so industriously to prove that which our very Adversaries do not deny as Ribera and Cornelius à Lapide who both acknowledge Old Rome here meant and Alcazar also and Bellarmine upon particular evincement from this verse The words of Bellarmine are Neque enim alia Civitas est quae Joannis tempore imperium habuerit super Reges terrae quà m Roma notissimum est supra septem montes Romam adificatam esse Which two things joyn'd together is a Demonstration that Rome in Italy here is meant and no other City 3. The sense therefore of the Verse may be clearly delivered in this short Paraphrase The Woman which thou sawest riding on the Beast that was and is not and yet is is that great City which now ruleth over the Kings of the Earth that is to say it is Rome whose Inhabitants though flowing successively are accounted one and the same City because included within the same walls or buildings as that is accounted one and the same River that flows betwixt the same banks though the same Water does not continue for a day together This Woman then which S. John saw riding the Empire under the last Head thereof upon the pretence of being the true Catholick and Apostolick Church though indeed become an Apostatized Harlot this Woman I say is that very City that great City that great Roman State or Polity that now rules over the Kings of the Earth saith the Angel to S. John But where or from whence could that be but from Rome the Imperial City Whence it is evident that the Roman Catholick Church as she calls her self which rules the world from the Seven Hills is to be understood as being look'd upon as one and the same Woman this new Roman Hierarchy succeeding and being seated as much in the same City that is as much within the Roman walls as that ancient Polity was Which is as easy to conceive as if one should prophesy of a certain River that it should run bloud three hundred years hence and then should adde that this River is that River that now discharges it self with seven mouths into the Mediterranean For it is evident that this must be understood of the waters of Nilus and yet not of those that flow now but those that shall flow three hundred years hence And as we would say that this very River Nilus that runs now into the Mediterranean is the River that will run tinctured with bloud three hundred years hence though the water is not the same now and then nor of the same Quality so might it be said in S. John's time that that very City meaning the Power or Polity there which then ruled the world would ride the Beast that was and is not and yet is so many Ages after though the Polity be no more the same then the water of Nilus now running is the same with the bloudy water which is foretold shall flow within his banks three hundred years hence So easy and natural is the Expression of the Angel in this last verse and so manifest the determination of the Woman's Seat to Old Rome accordingly as it has come to pass 4. And that the Vision of the Two-horned Beast may keep perfect pace with this of the Whore for the same reasons which I have already here alledged the Seat of the Two-horned Beast is likewise at last restrained to Rome as the onely See of the Universal Head of the Pseudo-prophetick Body Which restriction is discoverable as well by the Numeral Name of the Beast as by numbering that Number comprised in his Name The former Computation is observed by Bishop Dounham to be cavilled against by some as Cabbalistical But he proves it plainly enough out of Irenaeus that this kind of Computation is Traditionary even from S. John himself De Antichrist lib. 6. cap. 4. And though a many Pseudo-Cabbalists have brought the very name of Cabbala into a suspectedness yet I must confess that I think the fame thereof was not raised upon nothing but that there was such an hidden way of delivering the great Arcana of knowledge and that part thereof was the Symbol of Numbers which is frequent in this Book of the Apocalyps as well as continual in the first Chapter of Genesis Not to take notice that that very Expression of Alpha and Omega seems to be Cabbalistical there being frequent mention with them of Aleph lucidum and Aleph tenebrosum concerning which Robert Flud who pleased himself in diving into these depths so far as his bucket would reach Habetis saith he Aleph Meâ—…eorolog Cosmic lib. 4. cap. 3. Cabbalistarum tenebrosum in lucidum conversum omnia creans coelúmque terram informans consequenter habetis Alpha Omega Principium Finem This is answerable to that verse of Orpheus concerning God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which Plato calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I doubt not but was the doctrine
reason Grotius has to exile S. John into Patmos in Claudius his time for Claudius his expelling the Jews from Rome falls short of banishing John into Patmos by many degrees For first Grotius was to prove that by Jews are meant Christians in that place For there are no contemptible reasons to induce one to believe that the Jews not the Christians are meant there First Because the Christians sought a Kingdom above not on the Earth but the Jews ran mad after such a Christ or Messias as would make them Masters of the World and therefore they onely could seem dangerous in Rome as whose Tumults tended to an Earthly Booty Secondly In the Acts this Edict of Claudius is mentioned as touching the Jews onely and Aquila and Priscilla as being Jews for there is not the least intimation of their being Christians are said to depart from Rome to Corinth Thirdly The fresh remembrance of Tiberius his Edict against the Accusers of Christians might have still that influence upon the mind of his Successors that so suddenly no such harsh Sentence should pass against them especially they being a people as I said whose thoughts were on Heaven did not lie at catch for things on Earth And lastly None of the Ancients ever taxed Claudius for any injury done to the Christians whenas if they had been banished and S. John himself confined to Patmos which had been a very severe punishment and to flesh and bloud little less tolerable then death undoubtedly the Infamie of so great a Cruelty would have been transmitted to Posterity by the Church and Claudius not escaped the brand of a Persecutor Nor do those words of Suetonius prove the Edict to belong to the Christians Claudius Judaeos impulsore Chresto tumultuantes Româ expulit but onely that there was an Edict against the Jews For who can believe any weight in his asserting that they tumultuated impulsore Chresto whenas Christ was not then alive on Earth much less at Rome to incense the Jews into Tumults unless it was that the Jews were occasionally vext at the Christians in Rome and made a great deal a-doe at their acknowledging such a Messias as was crucifi'd and therefore of whom there was no hope of serving their turn for the regaining of their liberty and making them great men in this world Wherefore there being such a stir with the Jews concerning their Chrestus or Messias against the Christians uncertain Fame might make Suetonius phrase it so as he has but this Inspection into the Genius of the Jews might cause Claudius to expel them out of the City it may be in favour of the Christians as well as for his own security This passage in Suetonius is so far from determining this Edict to the Christians that Orosius gives this judgment of it Utrùm Oros. lib. 7. cap. 6. contra Christum tumultuantes Judaeos coërceri comprimi jusserit an etiam Christianos simul velut cognatae religionis homines voluerit expelli nequaquam discernitur So little assurance is there that Claudius did any evil at all to the Christians by that Edict mentioned in Suetonius 6. But suppose that Decree reached the Christians also at Rome it is but an arbitrarious surmise to think it reached to other parts of the Empire and if to other parts of the Empire it is not a Confinement as I have above hinted but a Banishment at large from some one certain place and then onely of such it is most likely as were in Tumults or at least from such Towns where they might have caused Tumults which was most unlikely in the place where S. John resided the sweetness and peaceableness of whose spirit would tempt any discreet Governour to retain him for the better keeping things in peace And yet so extravagant is this supposition that he is the onely man that is thus sharply dealt with nor can they produce an example of any one else thus banished in Claudius his time and yet all the Apostles certainly were busie enough in doing their duties to propagate Christianity in the Empire 7. I but you will say this Record of Claudius his expelling the Jews from Rome being seconded with the Testimony of Epiphanius who affirms him banished into Patmos under the same Emperour is such a double cord as will not easily be broken Which I would the easilier grant if they had any strength at all single as I have shew'd the first has none and shall doe the like for the second There are two places alledged out of Epiphanius The one Haeres 51. Sect. 33. where speaking of S. John he writes thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But these words are not spoken definitively of S. John's being in Patmos in Claudius Caesar's reign but onely that he was in Patmos and did prophesie there but for the time he says it was at the farthest in Claudius his reign for that is the meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it was the soonest that he could be thought to prophesie in Patmos as an Exul there but he does not say absolutely he prophesied then So that it is a more lax and conjectural Affirmation concerning the time and onely says that it is the utmost distance within which he may be thought to have prophesied not denying but that the time of his Prophesying might be later suppose in Domitian's time Of which Petavius is so confident that he writes over against Imperante Claudio in the Text this short Marginal Note Mendosè pro Domitiano he taking it for granted that Epiphanius speaks more definitively then I think he does And I believe both Grotius and others that cite the place to the same purpose with him were aware of such a sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I have hinted which made them leave it out of their Citation as weakening the force thereof Nor is it any Argument that Epiphanius does dogmatically define that S. John prophesied in Claudius his time because if he was not perswaded of that opinion he would have followed the ordinary one as being fitter to use against the Montanists that would derogate from the truth of the Apocalyps by reason of the Epistle to the Church of Thyatira which they pretend to be wrote before there was any Church there for then the later written the better But supposing the Father uncertain which was true and not assured but that the Montanists would prove that there was no Church as yet at Thyatira in Domitian's time neither were there any likelihood that â—…e would peremptorily pitch upon Domitian's reign rather then of the other or rather not decline both and betake himself to some other Answer as indeed he does For he seems to be in love with the Objection thus circumstantiated he gaining so much as he conceives upon the Objectors as by their own Supposition to make them acknowledge S. John or the Author of this Book of Visions to be really endued with the Spirit of Prophecie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
of the Prophecie which speaks of a 1 Political not Moral Power over the Nations and of a thing as 2 new But that the Roman Empire had such a large Dominion was true in the reigns of the fore-going Emperours as well as in his 6. In the eighth here he makes the Beast whom all whose names are not in the Book of Life do worship to be in one Exposition Domitian and that to 1 worship him is to imitate him in Idolatry and Cruelty which is a very insipid sense and without example in this case and such as himself seems out of conceit with And therefore in his after-Exposition Domitian is not the Beast but Idolatry as if to 2 worship Idolatry were a more tolerable phrase But there must needs be this shifting and fridging when an Interpretation sits so uneasie on a Text as this does 7. In the tenth If any one strike with the sword he shall perish by the sword This he applies to Domitian who was stabbed by Stephanus But it seems to be 1 most natural to conceive the menaces of leading into captivity and perishing by the sword spoke concerning the same party And therefore Captivity being not understood of Domitian that being smitten by the sword is not understood of him but that the Prophecie concerns a Body Politick and not a Single Person For the 2 Patience and Faith of the Saints seems also to imply a larger exercise of these vertues then the term of three years and an half would urge them to as also there seems to be an Intimation of being 3 freed from their troubles after this Beast is vanquished but if Domitian be he not the smallest part of them are over by his death there being no fewer then eight grievous Persecutions behind Not to suggest that there was a greater affliction upon the Christians in Nero's time then in Domitian's whom Tertullian calls onely Portionem Neronis And therefore the Faith and Patience of the Saints were most exercised then Which further betrays the groundlesness and arbitrariousness of Grotius his Exposition 8. In the eleventh here he makes the Beast with two Horns like a Lamb to be Art Magick and the Two Horns themselves to be Abstinence from Meats and Chastity or Abstinence from Women Which he would have to be an imitation of Christianity and therefore to be called the Horns of a Lamb. But in that this Beast is said to speak like a Dragon that it is imply'd that what he utters is for the honour of the Devil In which Interpretation there are these flaws 1. That the Beast is an Art and not a Body Politick which is against the Laws of the Prophetick style 2. That the Horns are simulated Vertues not Political powers seated in some men or other which is the genuine meaning of Horns in the phrase of the Prophets and which is to be found first before we adjoyn any other secondary sense to the Type 3. Vowed Coelibate and Abstinence from Meats are so far from being the characteristical Vertues of Christianity that they are disavowed by her as being either Parts or Signs of the Great Apostasie that was to seize the Church 4. There seems plainly intimated a strange contradiction and opposition in the Property of this Beast That it looking so Christian-like should speak for the Devil but if this Beast were Magick it were strange if it did not speak the language of the Dragon Lastly The times which Grotius fixes this Prophecie to namely of Domitian and Trajan do not agree with his conceit these Emperours being no favourers of Magick but the former rather a persecutor of it and of that very Apollonius whom he conceives to be especially pointed at in this Prophecie 9. In the twelfth he makes the Two-horned Beast's exercising all the power of the former Beast before him to signifie that Magick also had her Sacrifices as well as Idolatry But truly Magick though it had Sacrifices yet they were clancular ones as being so horrid and execrable And Philostratus makes it his business several times to clear Apollonius from that suspicion Which is a sign that Magick had not so open an exercise of its abhorred Sacrifices as this Text would import if Grotius his Interpretation were true Plinie calls them Sacra Prodigiosa and tells us that this sacrificing of men was taken away by a Decree of the Senate bestowing this Epiphonema upon the Roman State for so doing Non satis aestimari Histor. Natur. lib. 30. cap. 1. potest quantum Romanis debeatur qui sustulere monstra in quibus hominem occidere religiosum erat mandi verò etiam saluberrimum And this certainly is properly that Magick which was distinguishable from Pagan Idolatry simply so called which worshipped and invoked the Devil as well as the Magicians but such as the Roman Idolatry would not suffer her to exercise her power in her sight upon any pretence Nor did Apollonius exercise any such power who being a Pythagorean abhorred all bloudy Sacrifices whatsoever 10. In the thirteenth he interprets the bringing down fire from Heaven of that Lightning which happened at Apollonius his birth and of that glimpse of Light that Achilles Ghost gave at his departure after Apollonius his conference with him by night at his Sepulchre Which is a very frigid Exposition For why should that Lightning which happened at Apollonius his birth be imputed to him as an effect of his Magick 1 who was neither capable then of being a Magician nor any thing else Besides that he was born before this Prophecie as Grotius himself must needs according to his own account acknowledge and admit and therefore upon 2 that ground the Interpretation is impossible That glimpse of Light also which Achilles Ghost gave at his parting that it should be the causing fire to fall from Heaven is altogether incredible 3 for this glimpse of Light was upon Earth where the Ghost was did not fall from the Skie besides it was in 4 private as the story in Philostratus will prove not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in the face or view of the world 11. In the fourteenth he interprets the making of an Image to the Beast of Apollonius his boasting that he had raised up the Ghost of Achilles in favour of Idolatry But who ever expounded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is to make an Image Picture or Statue to raise a Ghost For supposing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would signifie so as Umbrae in Latine of which notwithstanding I dare say there is no example yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would not be good sense forasmuch as these Umbrae are not made by Magical Evocations but made onely to appear 2. He would not have said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which ordinarily signifies no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if it were a boast of something done already and not a precept or command to doe something 3. If the sense were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it would
by re-introducing Idolatry again into the Empire and by Paganizing upon the Objects of Christianity Which may be also farther confirmed from the sixth Seal where Heaven and Earth seem to fall together and the whole Political Universe to be dissolved and yet the Roman Empire it self stood still in Being onely there was a change from Paganism to the Christian Faith Of which sixth Seal Mr. Mede himself notes thus I am verò Mutationis hujusce Objectum est Imperium Romanum at non quà politicè à Caesaribus gubernatum sed quà Satanae principi ejúsque Angelis Daemonibus religioso nomine subditum Wherefore it is evident that according to the Prophetick style this Fourth Idolatrous Monarchy may be destroyed by the mere extermination of Idolatry out of it again and whatsoever is Antichristian and that thereupon ipso facto the true Kingdome of the Saints of the most High begins though not an hair of any mans head falls to the ground nor any Prince or Subject be injured in any of their Rights or Possessions This Consectary is exceeding plain and as highly useful for the asswaging that furious heat in some kinde of Fanaticks that expect such a Kingdome of the Saints as the Jews did a Messias one that would serve their temporal Advantage But the love of the world has blinded both their judgements alike Consect VIII That no Exposition of the Seventeenth Chapter of the Apocalyps that makes not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Seventh King purely Christian can be true and perfect 7. This will easily appear if we consider that wonderful Harmony which is found upon this supposition betwixt the Thirteenth and Seventeenth Chapters where the Beast is said to be slain in one of them and to cease to be in the other to be the revived Image of the Beast in one and the Beast that was is not and yet is in the other That though there be eight Kings yet there are but seven Heads of the Beast which nothing can salve but this Hypothesis For while the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reigned the Beast was not But if that Head was not purely Christian but Idolatrous the Beast was still in Being and had eight Heads in the computation of the Angel himself But it is plain that there is supposed in the Beast a ceasing to be from those words Was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless Pit which that excellent Interpreter Mr. Mede has failed to give their genuine sense for want of this supposition For he saith it may be said of this Beast and that in S. John's time jam olim eam fuisse necdum See Preface Sect. 7 8 9. tamen natam esse which to an unprejudiced minde must needs sound very harshly applied to the words of the Text. For no man will say of a thing still in Being It was much less adde and is not Such an harshness as this grates so hard upon my senses that if I could not understand the Prophecy without such violence against the ordinary meaning of words I should be much dis-heartened from giving my assent But Mr. Mede has done so singularly well in other things that we may well excuse him in this Consect IX That the Whore of Babylon sits not now at Constantinople but that Old Rome is if we may so speak her Seat Imperial 8. The truth of this Consectary appears from several Conclusions in our Joint-Exposition 1. That the Whore of Babylon rides upon the Roman Empire and guides and governs it in matters of Religion which is not true of the Turk at Constantinople 2. The Whore sits upon that Seven-hill'd City that was as it were the Lady of the World in Saint John's time that is given as the surest character of her Seat which we know Constantinople then was not 3. The Name of the Beast is found to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Beast with two Horns being the same with the Whore it is plain that this Whore is seated in Italy And though Bishop Mountague has shewed his wit and pleasantry in finding the number 666 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet I think he did it onely to sport with his despised Opposers and to play upon their ignorance For how can 666 be supposed to be meant for the Name of Mahomet whose Name is wrote so variously in Greek Historians For in Nicetas he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Chalcocondylas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Joannes Cantacuzenus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Ducas Michael 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and lastly in Joannes Cananus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is no where called that I can meet with nor is it likely that his name would end in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that I suspect that it is onely a witty Commentum of the Bishop's to make himself merry withall 4. The famousness of the Seven Hills at Rome does so drown the notice of the other that it is not likely but they are though not onely yet chiefly aimed at in the description of the Seat of the Whore But if one of the Cities onely were aimed at it were intolerable to conceit that the Prophecy is so lubricous and defective as when there were two Cities the one exceeding famous for her Seven Hills the other so little famous that it is frequently question'd whether she has Seven Hills or no that it should understand this latter by the Seven-hilled City and not the former there being no intimation in the Text given to understand it of the latter or any way to determine it thereto 5. The Whore or Antichrist that sits on the Seven Hills was many hundred years as appears by the fourth Consectary before the Turk was Master of Constantinople which happened not passing two hundred years ago so that Antichrist it should seem sat a thousand years besides the cushion 6. Upon the fore-head of the Whore of Babylon is written Mystery but the Turk is an open and professed Enemy of Christians 7. And lastly The Whore or Antichrist is the debaucher of the Empire with Idolatry and the worshipping of Idols the Turk a destroyer of them So fond is their conceit that can imagine the Turk to be the Antichrist prefigured in the Apocalyps Consect X. That the Church of England or any other Protestant Churche's departing from the Church of Rome is no Schism 9. This is plain at first sight out of our Joint-Exposition Nor can it be Schism to doe that which it were a sin to omit the doing of or if that will not serve which we are exhorted to doe by the voice of God in the Apocalyps Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues Which is a Monition worth the Apoc. 18. 4. listening to for as many as tender their safety and salvation their security from sin
The meaning whereof may be nothing else but that they that are possessed of these Kingdoms may turn Saints that is Professours and Abettours of the pure and Apostolick Religion unsophisticated with the Idolatrous Inventions and Injunctions of Antichrist But however it were desirable that those that are over-ready to phansy themselves Saints if this Hypallage does not please them that at least they would imitate the modesty of the Expression of the Text and would not take Kingdoms before they be given them 5. Mr. Mede interprets this Vision of the Woman in the Wilderness in something a different sense from us paralleling the Israelites flight from Pharaoh into the Wilderness to the Woman's flight from the red Dragon and their liberty of serving Jehovah there after the Rites appointed by Moses to the liberty the Christians had to exercize their Religion their lapses also into Idolatry to the Idolatrous Apostasy of the Church of Christ in this condition and finally their 42 Journeys in the Wilderness mentioned Numb 33. to the 42 months the Woman is said to be in the Desert Which if they had been expresly set down in those termes and not onely equivalently in 1260 dayes or a time and times and half a time it had been the more pat and convincing But however his Interpretation is very plausible and handsome and may be one sense of the Type though not the onely sense For it is the property of these Prophetick Types to abound with Allusions But the state of the Church in the Wilderness being the same with that of her bondage in Aegypt as appears from Apocal. 11. in that respect I account that Interpretation I have given more passable or rather more Authentick Ver. 8. But I see no need that they should one exclude another the Reign of the Dragon being truly the Reign of Pharaoh over these new Israelites saving that this of the Dragon was more bloudy and the state of the Wilderness in which the Woman is hid being not onely a Revival of that bondage of Aegypt again but the restoring again also of the Dragon as Idolatrous in fabricating so lively an Image of him in this new Pagano-Christianism which the Apocalyptick Visions do so copiously predict 6. The third and last of these latter Synchronalls of the Book-Prophecy is the * Apocal. 14. 1. Virgin-Company the sealed Souldiers of the Lamb upon Mount Sion whose Description is admirable and mysterious For in that they are said to be 144 Chiliads or Regiments it is not the defining of their number but their nature or quality according to the use of the ancient Cabbala that describes the property of things by Numbers The Root therefore of 144 which is twelve plainly detects them to be the true disciples and successours of that Church that Christ founded in his twelve Apostles and that they had not adulterated the Christian Religion by any Idolatrous worship or unwarrantable Institutes of men but that they were faithfull to him whose name they bore on their fore-heads as the marked servants of God and of the Lamb and being bought with the price of his most precious bloud would not become the servants of men in any thing that was to the dishonour or disinterest of him that bought them That * Vers. 3. new Song also that the Harpers play upon their Harps before the Throne which none can learn but those 144 thousand what is it but the Joy of a pure Conscience before God and all his Holy ones and that ineffable pleasure of the Divine Spirit dwelling in them which none can be partakers of but the Sons of the new Birth who are redeemed from the Earth and set free in mind and affection from all the entanglements of this present World who have a simple and sincere heart and in whose mouth there is no guile but are upright and irreprehensible before the Throne of God Which is so transporting a condition and so unexpressible I mean this Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the holy Ghost that it is no wonder that it is said that none but those 144 thousand know what belongs to this Melody * Prov. 14. 10. The heart knoweth its own bitterness and a stranger does not intermeddle with its joy But this is an Excursion not so close to our present purpose 7. That which we are chiefly to observe is this That this Virgin-Company is a Synchronall that runs along in parallel Opposition to those that receive the Mark of the Beast and are professed Idolaters as this Expression of their Virginity in the sense of the Prophetick style plainly implies according to which These are they that have not defiled Apocal. 14. 4. themselves with women may fitly be understood Nor do they onely abstain from Idolatry themselves but also exhort others to make choice of a due Object of their Adoration to worship Him that made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and the Fountains of waters They denounce judgment Ver. 7 8 9. also against Babylon saying Babylon is fallen is fallen that great City because she made all Nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her Fornications And lastly a third Angel out of the same Company denounces most direfull and ever-durable torments to those that worship the Beast and his Image that is to say that submit themselves to that revived and enjoyned Idolatry which I have already so fully described Which commination I would have them seriously to consider that think it so indifferent a thing to be Papist or Protestant as if such Tragicall Menaces as these were mere Scare-crows and idle Mockeries CHAP. IX 1. Three more Prophecies predicting the Churche's Lapse into Idolatry As the Vision of the sixth Trumpet which is proved to respect the Roman Empire long after it became Christian. 2. That in this Vision the Greek and Latine Church are both apparently taxed of Idolatry and with Aggravations common to Pagans and them 3. That it appears from the same Vision of what great consequence it would be for Christendom to reform from this gross sin and that they are their best friends that plainly and freely rebuke them for it and for those other crimes reflected upon in this Vision 4. The Prophecy of Paul to Timothy proposed and the first part thereof expounded out of Epiphanius touching the Inspirers of this predicted Errour 5. As also that part that contains the Errour it self namely the worship of Daemons From whence it is plain the Prophecy concerns this notorious Lapse of the Church into Idolatry 6. As also from the Instruments of the Broaching this Errour 7. And from the mentioning of the Mystery of Godliness immediately before to which this Mystery of Iniquity is opposed 8. And lastly from the Times of the Lapse which are termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. Which is proved to be a proper Term of the Prophetick style denoting that Time and Times and half a Time which is the latter section of the continuance of
which is the same with the Two-horned Beast who is the Restorer of the wounded Beast that is of the Pagan Empire become Christian into a new kinde of Paganism and is said to work Miracles in the sight of the Beast wherewith he deceived them that dwell on the Earth and made them worship the Image of the Beast and receive the Mark of the Beast c. Chap. 13. Which things are so plainly said of the False-Prophet Chap. 19. 20. that there can be no doubt but the Two-horned Beast and the False-Prophet are the same And the Beast was taken and with him the False-Prophet that wrought Miracles before him with which he deceived them that received the Mark of the Beast and them that worshipped his Image Wherefore it is plain that the False-Prophet and the Two-horned Beast and consequently the Whore of Babylon are all one as I have above noted and that therefore the Roman Idolatrous Clergy that pretend to be such an infallible Church as if God did unfailingly inspire them in what-ever is concluded upon by their Pope or at least by him together with what they will call a General Council are figured out here by way of reproach to this boast of infallible Inspiration in this Title or Style of Prophet But for that they delude the world by false Doctrines and either Diabolical Miracles or cunning Cheats and Forgeries of Miraculous Effects the same Company of men is more ignominiously and openly branded for this Impiety by the prefixing that deserved Epithet of False 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The False-Prophet What can be more plain then this Or what a more wicked Opposition to the Prophetick Office of Christ then for one to take upon him to be his infallible Vicar-General of Christendome and yet to fill the world with Idolatry and Lies Which this Body of Pseudo-prophets have done in some measure more or less for about these 1200 years as is manifest from the last Consectary of our Joint-Exposition 7. Whence we may be sure that the true Prophets who speak according to the tenour of Apostolick Doctrine would have but a sad time of it and the Prophetick Office of Christ as he illuminates these by his Word and Spirit be opposed and resisted nay these Instruments of his contradicted and oppressed with all imaginable injury and violence accordingly as this Mystery of Iniquity should grow up in the Church which seems to have commenced about 400 years after Christ. Which Condition of the Church I conceive is prefigured in the Vision of the Two Witnesses whose mournful Prophecy in Sackcloth is Synchronal to the Reign of the False-Prophet as has been above demonstrated But the Description of things is such as comprises the Opposition to the Kingly Office of Christ as well as Prophetical as shall appear in our Explication of the Vision For for any one to take upon him to be the infallible Interpreter of the Law of a King is to give Laws for him and to despoil him of his Throne and Sceptre Or by what-ever other Device his Laws may be suppressed and kept from the People and other Laws put in their room this Kingly Office is plainly made nothing by it But that the Word of God contained in the Old and New Testament is thus dealt withall by this False-Prophet I have in my Idea of Antichristianism sufficiently declared CHAP. XII 1. An Explication of the Vision of the Witnesses Ver. III. The reason why they are Two Ver. IV V. Why Two Olive-trees and Candlesticks and what meant by their killing men by the fire that proceeds out of their mouths Ver. VI. That their power of shutting up Heaven from raining may be attributed to them onely by a Metalepsis 2. Or rather by a Zoopoeia of the second sort 3. According to which Figure they are said to smite the Earth with every plague of Aegypt And what the meaning of these Plagues may be Ver. VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The War and Death of the Witnesses what they mean Ver. VIII Aegypt and the fore-going Plagues fitly mentioned together Ver. IX The meaning of Three daies and an half and of the Bodies of the Witnesses lying unburied Ver. X. What meant by the Dwellers upon Earth Ver. XI What by the Spirit of God coming into the Witnesses Ver. XII That the true Witnesses do not invade Heaven but ascend thither when they are called Ver. XIII The Earth-quake City Fall of the City and the Slaughter of 7000 Names of men what they mean 2. That the Antichristian Opposition to the Regal and Prophetical Office of Christ is clearly prefigured in this Vision of the Two Witnesses 1. LET us now enquire what news of these Injuries in this Vision of the Two mournful Witnesses who complain not without a cause as well the Regal as Prophetick Office of Christ being so palpably opposed by that Man of sin We shall give a brief Explication of the Vision proceeding orderly from verse to verse beginning at the third and holding on till the fourteenth where the story of the Witnesses endeth Ver. III. And I will give unto my two Witnesses and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three score daies in Sack-cloth That these Daies are so many Years appears from the last Consectary of my Joint-Exposition That these Witnesses are Two is partly from the Types they allude to in the Old Testament and partly from the nature of the things they signifie The Types they allude to are Moses and Aaron Elias and Elisha Zerobabel and Jesua three several Pairs of holy men that are famous for their conduct of the People in such times as bear also analogy to these of the Two Witnesses whose Prophecy is during the Conculcation of the Outward Court of the Temple by the Gentiles that is while it is polluted with Idolatry as Moses and Aaron were over the Israelites in the Wilderness where they often lapsed into Idolatry to which the Woman in the Wilderness may haply allude Elias and Elisha in their Baalitical Apostasy and Zerobabel and Jesua when they were yet in the Captivity of Babylon There are also three Pair of things that may be fitly signified by these Two Witnesses Either the suppressed Magistracy and Ministry such I mean as answer in opposition to the Ten-borned Beast and False-Prophet and bear a resemblance with Moses and Aaron Zerobabel and Jesua or else the People of the Jews I mean such of them as are so sincere that were it not for the sway of Antichristianism in the world would be converted to Christ together with the Virgin-company of Christians or lastly which answers to these two last Witnesses the Old Testament and the New which may be added by an Henopoeia to the other Ver. IV. These are the two Olive-trees and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the Earth It is a plain Israelism alluding to that in Zachary Chap. 4. 11. What are these two Olive-trees upon the right sight of the Candlestick
and upon the left side thereof And then ver 14. These are the two Anointed ones that stood by the Lord of the whole Earth Which Interpreters universally understand of Zerobabel and Jesua Ver. V. And if any one will hurt them fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies and if any man will hurt them he must in this manner be killed It is an Allusion to the story of Moses and Elias their bringing down fire upon their Opposers But here it is to be understood more Mystically of the Fire of the Spirit or of the Law of God proceeding out of their mouths whereby they convince the world Jer. 23. Is not my word like as fire saith the Lord and like an hammer that breaks a rock in pieces Ver. 19 Like that of the man out of the Sea 2 Esdras 13. whose voice whensoever it went out of his mouth all they burnt that heard it And again in Ver. 4. the same Chapter And lo as he saw the violence of the multitude that Ver. 9 c. came he neither lift up his hand nor held sword nor any instrument of war But onely I saw that he sent out of his mouth as it had been a blast of fire and out of his lips a flaming breath and out of his tongue he cast out sparks and tempests And they were all mixt together the blast of fire the flaming breath and the great tempest and fell with violence on the great multitude which was prepared to fight and burnt them up every one so that of a sudden of an innumerable multitude nothing was to be perceived but onely dust and smell of smoke Which is afterwards interpreted ver 38. And he shall destroy them without labour by the Law which is like unto Fire By this we may know what is meant by If any man will hurt them he must in this manner be killed And it was the word of the Lord to Zerobabel who is alluded to in these Witnesses Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts So plain is it that the weapons Zechar. 4. 6. of the Two Witnesses in the time of their mournful Prophecy are onely Spiritual Which is a thing worthy the noting and seriously considering Ver. VI. These have power to shut Heaven that it rain not in the daies of their Prophecy and have power over waters to turn them into bloud and to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they please In the days of their Prophecy that is to say of their mournfull Prophecy or in the days of their prophesying in sackcloth as is plainly to be understood out of the third verse It is a manifest Allusion to Elias his hindering it from raining in Ahab's time for three years and six months which is exactly the time of the Prophecy of these Witnesses namely 1260 days But the meaning must needs be more mysticall these days signifying years Wherefore by Rain is meant the distilling of that pure refreshing Doctrine of the Gospel unadulterated by the false Glosses of men which Heavenly drops descend not during the mournfull Prophecy of the Witnesses But this shutting up Heaven thus is ascribed to them not that they positively hinder the descent of this celestial dew but by a Metalepsis such as I have already observed in the Rider of the red Horse to whom power is said to be given to take peace from the Earth and that Apocal. 6. 4. there was given unto him a great sword whenas yet there is no more understood by it then that in his time there would be much killing one another So that the Effect is put upon the Sign when such a thing should be as in that vulgar verse Pallida Luna pluit rubicunda flat alba serenat 2. This is one warrantable sense and yet there is still a better If this shutting up of Heaven be attributed unto these two mournfull Witnesses not by a bare Metalepsis onely but by a Zoopoeia of the second sort such as I have above described wherein though the party to whom the Effects be attributed does not use any activity to produce them yet in some sense he has a causal Influence upon them as the absent Sun may be said to be the cause of Night and of all the Villainies committed under her shelter So the suppression and putting out of place these Witnesses is the cause of the shutting up of Heaven and of the scarcity of the pure Word amongst the people but cannot be attributed to the Witnesses themselves but onely by a Metalepsis or rather a Zoopoeia 3. According to which the turning water into bloud and the smiting the Earth with all plagues as often as they please is attributed to them namely by a Zoopoeia though they have no positive activity therein no more then the Sun in all the Murthers and Adulteries that are committed by his absence in the covert and concealment of the shady Night And therefore whereas it is added as often as they will it is but the height and sublimity of this Scheme and signifies no more then as often as opportunities are offered for such effects upon which the mournfull condition of these Witnesses have a consequentiall Influence though not an active And Will is attributed to them with as much reason and elegancy as the Activity it self and indeed according to necessary Analogie those occasional Consequences answering exactly to the occasional exertions of the Acts of the Will in him that is said properly to act and not by a Zoopoeia The Allusion is to Moses his smiting the Land of Aegypt with those ten Plagues The inflicting of which in a Mystery is ascribed to these two Witnesses while they are in this debased and dejected plight The sense therefore in brief is this That the Roman Empire in which is this Spiritual Aegypt that holds the people of God in bondage whether the Waters thereof be turned into Bloud by intestine warrs and broils or whether it no somely abound with Frogs that is with slimy salacious and venereous persons or be full of lazy and Lousy beggars a sordid and squalid poverty over-running the generality of men by reason of either the Oppression or ill Discipline of them that are in Power or men be infested and disquieted with the importunate Incursions of swarms of Gnats and Flies that is to say with the Numerosity of Superstitious Scrupulosities and vexatious Controversies of Polemical Theologie that sting and bite and disturb the minds and consciences of men to no purpose but for affliction and inquietude or the Beasts which the Platonists call our Bodies be plagued with Murrain that is be charged with foulness and corruption and with the noisom poison of the deadly sins or that the Multitude be unquiet as if enraged with angry Boils and Ulcers or the barbarous Nations from the North invade the Empire like a violent storm of Hail-stones or the Turk and Saracen from
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
fetches of wit whatsoever her abominable Enormities comprehended under those main Heads of Imposture Idolatry and Bloud-shed being as determinately and legibly set down in these Prophecies as the transaction of things past in any History And therefore the truth can be hid from none but such as either have not the leisure to understand the Prophetick style or are blinded with Prejudice and Interest Which I believe is so powerfull with some that it would make them hesitant and Sceptical even in Mathematical Demonstration But so manifest Eviction in so concerning a Truth as we have here cleared up I dare confidently pronounce will not be rooled off for ever 14. Sure I am that main Subterfuge that some so usually fortify themselves in wall fail them I mean those words in the very beginning of the Apocalyps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From which they would infer that no Events but such as were to come to pass within a short time after the Communication of these Prophecies are to be applied to them But this Scruple I have I think sufficiently answered in my Mystery of Godliness by intimating that the Inference is as unreasonable as if one upon the report that such a Comedie or Tragedie was to be acted within less then this half-quarter of an hour should conclude that all the Acts and Scenes thereof would not reach beyond that time whenas the sense is onely that the Comedie or Tragedie will begin to be acted within that time And therefore Cornelius à Lapide upon these words Quae oportet fierei citò apertly and judiciously glosses thus Hoc est quae citò incipient fieri licèt non citò finientur And Alcazar upon the same words Quasi diceret In hac Revelatione continentur quaedam quae citò oportet fieri alia quae non adeò citò implebuntur And it is Grotius his own note upon them Alia citiùs alia seriús But forasmuch as some of these Series of Visions which reach even unto the end of all things were suddenly to be fulfilled it is said at large touching the Subject of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As I suppose one would say of an Army that reached a quarter of a mile in length that this Army is at the very gates of the City whenas onely they that march first in rank are there Again Unless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signify which will be shortly a-doing not finished it is a perfect contradiction to the nature of some of the things that are foretold as the Reign of the Saints and the Ligation Apocal. 20. of Satan For the Continuance of these Events is predicted to be a thousand years Wherefore unless a thousand years be but a short space of time the Events foretold contradict the very Title of this Prophetick Volume were that the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is contended for Whence it is manifest that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not touching every Event signify which shall be finish'd but which shall be a-doing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thirdly For the signification of this Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how sudden how short a time must it denote who will define it For the Prophet Haggai when he saies Yet a little while and I will shake the Heaven Ch. 2. ver 6. and the Earth c. his Prediction pitches on a time about five hundred years distant from the time of the Prophecy Whence there is no necessity of seeking the completion of the Seals and Trumpets in the Destruction of Jerusalem It is therefore to be understood comparatively a little time as Grotius also interprets that of Haggai In which sense I would likewise understand that so-often-repeated saying in the Apocalyps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold I come quickly Which I believe has an especial eye to the Sixth Seal which is described like Apoc. 6 1â—… 13 14 15 16 17. the Day of Judgment but is indeed the Overthrow of the Dragon by Christ and his taking the Roman Empire into his own hands upon the Conversion of Constantine to the Christian Religion which was in a good deal less time then five hundred years and but a very little time indeed in comparison of the great atchievement which was compassed in it Fourthly The first Six Seals the Fight of Michael and the Dragon the Inward Court of the Temple all these Visions their Events I mean are finished within a less while then what Haggai calls little Fifthly The Outward Court of the Temple the Whore of Babylon the Two-horned Beast the Ten-horned Beast the two Witnesses the Virgin-Company the Woman in the Wilderness the Events also of all these Visions are in fieri within less then that time which the Prophet Haggai calls little The Trumpets also had begun to sound within that time But the Affairs of the Seven Churches might be of a far earlier Accomplishment and it may be accomplishable over and over again they being flying Prophecies and not so affixed to time and place as they seem and as the rest of the Visions are Which Grotius also has observed And this I think is sufficient to make good the Title of the Subject of these Prophecies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And no more then this is supposed or rather demonstrated in Mr. Mede's way of interpreting the Apocalyps Sixthly They themselves are fain to interpret some Prophecies of Events that fell out or are to fall out above twice five hundred years from the Prediction As the * Apocal. 20. loosing of Satan the Army of Gog and Magog the Siege of the beloved City the falling of fire from Heaven upon the Besiegers the General Judgment and the like Which are the more contradictious to their own Hypothesis because they make no such order or concatenation of Visions as Mr. Mede does And therefore it will be the harder to make them compliable with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But for the way that I am for where one thing so handsomely or necessarily hooks in another the first Thunder the seven Vials the last Trumpet the seven Thunders the last Seal the seven Trumpets and the first Six of these Trumpets their Synchronalls as the first Six of the Seals theirs the whole Volume of Visions in a manner is so of one piece and one thing follows another so continuedly that when the first Events begin to appear the whole Series may well be said to begin or to be a-doing and if quickly quickly So little Repugnancy has Mr. Mede's way with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And lastly Forasmuch as I have so plainly demonstrated that the Apocalyps was not communicated to S. John before Domitian's time and See Chap. 2. that therefore this Application of the Seals and Trumpets to the Destruction of Jerusalem is not onely harsh as any one may see in examining them but also impossible the Visions being since that Event and that therefore those Affairs cannot be of the number of those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
the Book of Articles Trans substantiation cannot be proved Article 28. by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many Superstitions Whence she rightly and demonstratively concludes that the Sacrament is not to be carried about lifted up nor worshipped For there is none that can worship the Host upon presumption that it is Christ to whom Divine worship is due but he is ipso facto an Idolater as I have proved elsewhere more at large And again in the same Book she does expresly declare That the Sacrifices of Masses in the which it is commonly Article 31. said that the Priest does offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt are blasphemous Fables and dangerous Deceits The truth of which is easy to be understood out of what we have written in our Idea of Antichristianism touching Idolatry and the Abuse of Christ's Person and Office in this enormous Errour And in the Homily concerning the Sacrament she expresly taxes the Popish Masses with Idolatry imputing it to the ignorance of the nature of the Lord's Supper What hath been the cause of this gross Idolatry but the Ignorance thereof what has been the cause of this mummish Massing but the Ignorance thereof And a little after Let us therefore so travail to understand the Lord's Supper that we be no cause of the decay of God's worship of no Idolatry of no dumb Massing of no hate and malice c. To all which you may adde what is annexed in our Liturgie at the end of the Communion viz. That the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithfull Christians And the natural Body and Bloud of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places then one Which Rubrick is interserted in our Liturgie with unexceptionable Judgment and Fidelity and does fully reach the end of its Intersertion For no man I think can be so grosly ignorant or so openly malicious as to pretend that after this so plain Declaration of our Church either himself or any one else can become guilty of Idolatry by that humble posture of Kneeling at the receiving of the Sacrament 4. And lastly touching the Adoration of Images there can be nothing more seriously protested against by any Church then this enormous wickedness is by ours To omit how she has perstringed them in the Book of Articles she does expresly bind the worshippers of them under a curse in her Liturgie in the Form of Commination Cursed is the man that maketh any carv'd or molten Image to worship it And in her Homily against the Peril of Idolatry with a passionate but unexceptionable and judicious zeal she does copiously inveigh against the very having of Images in Churches I mean such as are in any capacity of being worshipped nay against the very making of the Image of God or any of the Persons of the Holy Trinity yea of Christ himself forasmuch as he is truly God contending that no Image can be made of Christ but a lying Image as the Scripture peculiarly Homily against the Peril of Idolatry Part 3. calls Images Lies for Christ is God and Man Seeing therefore for the Godhead which is the most excellent part no Image can be made it is falsly called the Image of Christ. Wherefore Images of Christ be not onely Defects but also Lies Nor does she stick here but urges the argument and truly not without judgement against the Images of Saints whose Souls the most excellent part of them can saith she by no Images be represented and expressed But concerning the having such Images in Temples she doth with an holy Jealousy peremptorily contend and inculcate that it is plainly against the Second Commandment adding this reason For they being set up have been be and ever will be worshipped and thereupon become abominable Idols nothing different from those of the Heathen they being made of the same matter with them and men having the same conceits of the Saints they are made to and of their offices as the Heathen had of their Deities they worshipping them also with the same Rites and Ceremonies And to shew they have the same opinion of their Saints that the Pagans had of their several Gods she compares such Saints as are made Guardians of Kingdoms to their Dii Tutelares such as Belus was to the Babylonians Osiris and Isis to the Aegyptians Vulcan to the Lemnians the Guardian Saints of Cities to their Dii Praesides such as Apollo was to Delphos Minerva to Athens Juno to Carthage and Quirinus to Rome and lastly their Templed Saints to Jupiter in the Capitol and Diana in the famous Temple of Ephesus And touching one and the same Saints having Images in several places she parallels our Lady of Walsingham our Lady of Ipswich and our Lady of Wilsdon to Venus Cypria Venus Paphia and Venus Gnidia to their Sea-Gods Neptune Triton Nereus and Venus S. Christopher S. Clement and the Blessed Virgin to Vulcan and Vesta Gods of the Fire S. Agatha And then intimating that as in ancient Paganism the Affairs of Love of War of Diseases in men and beasts were assigned to several Deities so to several Saints in the Popish Religion she at last breaks out into this zealous Exclamation Where is God's Providence and due honour in the mean time who saith The Heavens be mine and the Earth is mine the whole world and all that in it is I give victory and I put to flight Except I keep the City the Watch-man waketh but in vain that keepeth it Thou Lord shalt save both man and beast But we have left him neither Heaven nor Earth nor Water nor Countrey nor City Peace nor War to rule and govern neither men nor beasts nor their diseases to cure That a godly man might justly for zealous Indignation cry out O Heaven and Earth and Seas what madness and wickedness against God are men fallen into What dishonour doe the Creatures to their Creatour and Maker namely in reposing a religious trust in those Saints they invoke to these purposes which can belong to none other but God himself 5. And as touching the manner of their worshipping these Images and Saints What meaneth it saith she that they after the manner of the Gentile Idolaters burn Incense offer up gold to Images hang up crutches chains and ships legs arms and whole men and women of wax before Images as though by them or Saints as they say they were delivered from Lameness Sickness Captivity or Shipwreck Is not this COLERE IMAGINES to worship Images so earnestly forbidden in God's Word And a little after more fully and vehemently Wherefore when we see men and women on heaps to goe on Pilgrimages to
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
the more Sacred and awe men off from either violently tearing it in pieces or more hiddenly and obliquely corrupting it by foisting in any old out-cast ware disallowed and rejected by our Pious and Judicious Reformers 13. But this is a Mantissa cast in over and above the bargain I had before finished my task which was briefly to prove and if I mistake not myself I have done it clearly and convincingly That the Heaven-inspired Prudence and Judgment of the Royal Heroical and Reverend Reformers of our Church of England have purged her and cleansed her from what-ever Doctrine or professed Practice may rightly and properly be deemed Antichristian and that she holds nor injoyns any thing that is contrary to the truly Catholick and Apostolick Faith Which just and seasonable Vindication of her joyntly considered with our free and faithfull Description of the true Nature and Idea of Antichristianism such as we have demonstrated to be predicted in the Prophecies of Holy Scripture will not fail I hope to prove for ever a Sovereign Remedy or safe Preservative of her against those two hatefull and destructive diseases of the Church of Christ Popery and Schism Which good effect of our labours God of his infinite mercy grant for the onely Merits of the Lord Jesus Amen The End of the Second Part. THE CONTENTS Of the First Part OF The Enquiry into the Mystery of Iniquity BOOK I. CHAP. I. 1. THAT the Mystery of Iniquity or Antichristianism implies the secret undermining of the ends of Christianity by such a Power as pretends to be Christian. 2. The inconvenience of describing Antichrist from Circumstantial characters and leaving out the Essential parts of the Description 3. The two general Principles of which Antichristianism does consist 4. The right Artifice of drawing the true Idea of Antichristianism with a distribution of the Draught into the two most general strokes thereof Fol. 1 CHAP. II. 1. The rooting out of Idolatry by the Messias prophesied of by Jeremy That all the Gods that made not Heaven and Earth should perish 2. An explication of that Prophecy and an assertion of our Saviour's right of being worshipped for ever as the Eternal Logos who made Heaven and Earth 3. Proofs out of the Psalms that the Messias was to root out Idolatry 4. Several places in the New Testament witnessing against Idolatry and Image-worship 5. That the Spirituality of Christian Religion indigitated by our Saviour does abundantly evidence the unlawfulness of Image-worship or of what Idolatry else soever 3 CHAP. III. 1. What is meant by Grace and Truth coming by Christ. 2. Farther testimonies of Scripture to evince that Christ came to ease men of the Judaïcal burthen of Ceremonies The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. That the Death of Christ upon the Cross was the solution of the Ceremonial Law of Moses 4. Farther proofs to the same purpose 6 CHAP. IV. 1. The Positive End of the Gospel summarily proposed 2. The several grounds of honour due to Christ and particularly of his Paternal Title 3. Both God the Father and Christ the Authors of our Regeneration and how the First Hypostasis being called Father does not exclude the Second from that Title in respect of his Church 4. The other Titles of Christ plain of themselves 5. The Divine life with its Root and Branches the Second part of the Positive scope of the Gospel 6. That such a Mystery as upon Religious pretences does really supplant all the grand Ends of the Gospel whether Privative or Positive is Mathematically manifest to be that notorious Mystery of Iniquity 7. The method of pursuing the particulars of this Mystery more largely 8. The Falsness Fraud and Mischief of every member of Antichristianism to be inquired into 9. The Author 's serious desire that the Truth of the Description may be perused without Prejudice and acknowledged without Tergiversation by them that are convinced 8 CHAP. V. 1. Instances of several specious pieces of Idolatry introducible into Christian Religion 2. The over-much streightning or widening the Notion of Idolatry taxed 3. The usefulness of giving a true Notion thereof 4 5. That it is not restrained to the worshipping of Idols properly so called 6. That any thing worshipped that is not God becomes ipso facto an Idol and of the Seventy's rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7. That they likewise render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they do also Baalim and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which farther argues that more general sense of Idol 8. That an Idol and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Non-Deus is all one in the estimate of God 11 CHAP. VI. 1. That the Israelites worshipped Jehovah in the Golden Calf proved out of Exodus 2. That Elohim though joyned with a verb of the plural number is understood of the true God with farther testimony out of the 106 Psalm that God was worshipped in that Calf and what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there signifies 3. That the Golden Calf was no figure of the Aegyptian Apis but a Cherub 4. Aaron's case of making the Golden Calf compendiously opened as also the ground of Tacitus his ridiculous errour discovered 5. That the Golden Calves in Dan and Bethel were two Cherubim set up for the worship of the God of Israel proved from Jeroboam's Politicks 6. Also from Jehu and Elias his zeal and the instruction of the Assyrian Colonies by an Israelitish Priest 7. That Micah's Ephod and Teraphim were also meant to the true God 8. And yet both he and the Israelites in the Wilderness Idolaters in their use of the Teraphim and Cherub in Divine worship 9. That Jeroboam was also an Idolater in setting up the Calves in Dan and Bethel proved out of Scripture 10. Other Testimonies to the same purpose and of the Idolatry committed in the Brasen Serpent 15 CHAP. VII 1. The worshipping that which is not God by an Image a third mode of Idolatry 2. Of the worshipping of an Image as such 3. How the vulgar sort of the Heathen came to take the very Idols themselves for Gods 4. What arguments used for the begetting an opinion of the residence of the Daemons near their Statues 5. What indications of their presence there and how awful the Images themselves became from thence 6. The conceit of the Daemon and dedicated Image's coalition into one person 7. And that the worshipping of this Complicate was a fourth Mode of Idolatry 20 CHAP. VIII 1. That the Heathen held one Supreme God the Maker of all things 2. Proclus his conceit of so uniting the Supreme Deity with a Magical Statue as that the Complicate becomes one visible and Supreme Godhead 3. Whether the worshipping of this Magical Complicate by him that is persuaded it is the visible Deity were Idolatry 4. Wherein the sinfulness of Idolatry does
confirmation of the truth of our Idea of Antichristianism therefrom 4. A summary Representation of this Idea in the Oppositions and Defeatments of the Privative Ends of the Gospel as also of those noted Offices of Christ. 5. Of his Divinity and other holy Titles 6. Of the Divine Life in Root and Branches 7. A Parable to set out the salvage Injustice and Cruelty of this Antichristian Synagogue 8. The Apodosis of the Parable 9. That we have set out the Idea of the most real and essential Antichristianism that can be with an Answer to what may be objected to the contrary 10. That it is that very Antichristianism that is foretold in the Prophets the clearing whereof necessitates us to an inspection into them before we make any punctual Application of our Idea to the Apostasy of the Church 173 The CONTENTS of the Second Part OR SYNOPSIS PROPHETICA BOOK I. CHAP. I. 1. THat the Antichristianism we have so punctually described in our Idea and is for the general so notoriously known to have everrun the Church is in truth a kind of Pagano-Christianism 2. That it is incredible that there should be no Divine Predictions of so considerable a Change 3. The ill-spent pains of those Interpreters who endeavour to obscure such Predictions by distorting them to other useless meanings 4. Whether this Great Antichrist be prophesied of in the Epistle of S. John under that very Name 5. That Barchocab if applicable at all to the Text may be a Type of this famous Antichrist 6. That the mention of those many Antichrists in S. John was occasioned from the fame of that Great Antichrist predicted in Daniel 7. That there is much-what the same reason of the slowness of Christians in discovering the true Antichrist as of the Jews in discovering the true Christ. 8. That a fraudulent and Hypocritical Opposer of Christ may be as real and considerable an Antichrist as an open Enemie as also S. John's description as easily applicable to him 9. The inept Niceness of declining the Name of Antichrist and that the Title was put upon this great Enemy of the Church by the ancient Fathers occasionally from this Epistle of S. John 10. Certain Considerations proposed touching the Obscurity of the Prophetick style 205 CHAP. II. 1. Why Prophecies are wrapt up in some considerable Obscurity 2. An indispensable necessity of these kinds of involutions in regard of mans Free will 3. As also in regard of the Enemies of the Church both Men and Devils 4. A recital of such Schemes and Figures wherein this Obscurity does most-what consist 5. What Diorismus is with several examples of Numeral Diorisms 6. That it seems most safe to expound the Rev. 9. 5 10. five months of the Locusts according to this Figure 7. The reason of the use of Numeral Diorisms 8. From whence also some light is offered toward the understanding the reason of the uncertain designation of Vers. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. Examples of Proportional Diorisms 10. As also of Specifical 211 CHAP. III. 1. Hylasmus what it is with the kinds thereof 2. Eximious Examples of each kind 3. What the first and chiefest kind of Henopoeia 4. That one single Beast signifies a Body Politick demonstrated out of Daniel 5. That a Succession of Individuals is represented by one Individual 6. That one individual Beast represents a Kingdom or Body Politick from its rise to its fall 7. That one single Man or Woman does also represent a Body Politick in the Prophetick style 8. The second kind of Henopoeia what it is 9. What Zoopoeia with Examples thereof 10. A second kind of Zoopoeia proved and illustrated from Examples 217 CHAP. IV. 1. Israelismus what it is 2. That the reason of the frequent use thereof is the Sacramentalness of the Jewish Church in reference to the Christian as appears in their Tabernacle and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. In the brasen Serpent Manna strucken Rock and fiery Law 4. In the High-priest's Robes in his entring alone once a year into the most Holy and in the Jews worshipping towards the Mercy-seat 5. In their bondage in Aegypt and in their escape through the Red Sea 6. What is properly a Prophetick Ellipsis 7. What the meaning of the Apocalyptick Book being written within and without 8. The difference of a Prophetick Ellipsis illustrated by example 9. Homonymia what it is and in what it differs from an Henopoeia of the second kind 10. What Metalepsis with the proof and examples thereof 11. Antichronismus what it is together with the rise thereof 12. That the three days and an half of the unburied Witnesses put for three times and an half is apparently resolvible into this Figure 13. What Icasmus is and that the frequency of the Figure does not so obscure Prophecies but that they are as intelligible as ordinary Heraldry 221 CHAP. V. 1. The great Usefulness of an Alphabet of Prophetick Iconisms 2. What the best way of attaining to the right sense of them 3. What weight the Onirocriticks of the Ancients may cast in toward the determining their meaning 4. That there is the same reason of the Signification and Interpretation of Dreams as there is of Visions provided they be merely Typical and not Complexional 5. Angels Their Ministery in all affairs of Providence a noted Supposition in the ancient Cabbala and in the Apocalyps 6. Ascension into Heaven 7. Air the special Region of Devils 8. Balances 9. Beast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idolatrous Kingdoms 10. The reason of the Lamb 's signifying one single Person and of wild Beasts noting Idolatry as well as Cruelty 11. Blasphemy That it signifies Idolatry made out both upon the account of Reason use of Scripture and Authority of Interpreters 12. Bloud 13. Bow and Arrows Buildings Burial 226 CHAP. VI. 1. Candle 2. Character 3. Clouds of Heaven 4. Crown of precious Stones 5. Darkness Day Death 6. Desart 7. Dragon a figure of the Devil according to the ancient Cabbala and then of the chief Polities that oppose the Church 8. Drunkenness 9. Eagle Earth-quake 10. Eclipses 11. Eye an Hieroglyphick of Counsel and Prudence 12. Fishing Fish dead in the Sea 13. Fire the different significations thereof 14. Fire from Heaven its exact significancy of Excommunication 15 16. Flesh two notable significations thereof 17. Floud Fornication Frogs 18. Gemms and precious Stones God 232 CHAP. VII 1. Hail the signification thereof according to Scripture 2. And the ancient Onirocriticks 3. Harvest the evil and auspicious sense thereof 4. Head how clearly significative of Sovereign Power whether in Many or One. 5. Heaven and Earth 6. Horn. 7. Horse Islands 8. King and Kingdom 9. That Kinds or Sorts of things are sometimes expressed as if Individualls of the same Kind 10. Leopard Locusts 11. Male-childe Mark Measure Mill Month Moon 12. Mountain the several significations thereof 240 CHAP. VIII 1. Nakedness Paradise 2. Philtre That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Virus amatorium 3.
as being the seven last Plagues 9. The same farther proved from the Song of the Harpers upon their victory over the Beast 10. And from the order of the Vision of the Vials as also from the appearing of the Temple out of which the Angels come after the sixth Trumpet and before any of the Vials be poured out 11. In what sense the Middle Synchronals are to be fulfilled at the Exit of the sixth Trumpet 12 A larger Declaration how all the Middle Synchronals expire together in what sense or degree soever they do expire 13. Of the commencing of the last Synchronals and what the time of the Millennium more eminently so styled 14. The serviceableness of the premising these orderly Synchronisms for his farther search into the Prophecies that foretel the Lapse of the Church into Antichristianism 377 CHAP. VIII 1. That there are Three more Middle Synchronals that foretel the Churche's Lapse into Idolatry As the Vision of the Outward Court troden down by the Gentiles 2. The Woman in the Wilderness What meant by Wilderness 3. A brief account of the sense of the whole Vision 4. That there is an Hypallage in her being said to flie into the Desart like that of Hades being cast into the Fire and of the Kingdom being given to the Saints in Daniel 5. That our Interpretation of the Woman in the Wilderness does not clash with Mr. Mede's though different from it 6. The third Synchronal the Virgin-Company The meaning of the Number of their Regiments and of the new Song which none could learn besides them 7. How the Vision of these Virgin-souldiers implies the Lapse of the Church into Idolatry 383 CHAP. IX 1. Three more Prophecies predicting the Churche's Lapse into Idolatry As the Vision of the sixth Trumpet which is proved to respect the Roman Empire long after it became Christian. 2. That in this Vision the Greek and Latin Church are both apparently taxed of Idolatry and with Aggravations common to Pagans and them 3. That it appears from the same Vision of what great consequence it would be for Christendom to reform from this gross sin and that they are their best friends that plainly and freely rebuke them for it and for those other crimes reflected upon in this Vision 4. The Prophecy of Paul to Timothy proposed and the first part thereof expounded out of Epiphanius touching the Inspirers of this predicted Errour 5. As also that part that contains the Errour it self namely the worship of Daemons From whence it is plain the Prophecie concerns this notorious Lapse of the Church into Idolatry 6. As also from the Instruments of the Broaching this Errour 7. And from the mentioning of the Mystery of Godliness immediately before to which this Mystery of Iniquity is opposed 8. And lastly from the Times of the Lapse which are termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. Which is proved to be a proper Term of the Prophetick style denoting that Time and Times and half a Time which is the latter section of the continuance of the Fourth Monarchy 10. That the course of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of the Reign of Antichrist is indigitated by thâ—…se Numbers of Days in the last of Daniel 387 CHAP. X. 1. Epiphanius his Exposition of the Prophecie of Paul to Timothy confirmed from the reference it has to that in Daniel 2. Grotius his miss-timing this Prophecie of Daniel and applying it to Antiochus how rash and groundless 3. A Confutation of his Application 4. The right timing this Prophecie by Calvin and Mr. Mede who both interpret it of the Roman State and Empire 5. A more particular account of the two first verses of the Prophecie Mr. Mede's way 6. As also of the third 7. And fourth 8. That the sense of this Prophecie so clearly accords with that of S. Paul that it is manifest he refers to it in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. That though this Interpretation of Mr. Mede be unexceptionable throughout yet the two first verses of the Prophecie may be otherwise expounded and more suitably to S. Paul's Prophecie in his Epistle to the Thessalonians 393 CHAP. XI 1. The Reasons of his Prolixity hitherto in the Predictions of the Idolatry of the Church and of his future Brevity in the rest of the parts of Antichristianism 2. The Second member of Antichristianism prefigured in the Apoc. 11. 8. Witnesses lying slain in the Streets of the great City called Aegypt 3. A short Paraphrase and Exposition upon that verse of the Apocalyps 4. That the same thing seems to be prefigured in the Whore of Babylon her riding of the Beast 5. What Predictions concern the Opposition to the Priestly Office of Christ. 6. That the Two-horned Beast and the False-prophet are all one and that both prefigure the Antichristian Opposition against his Prophetick Office 7. That the Affliction of the true Prophets of Christ is prefigured in the Vision of the Two Witnesses as also the Antichristian Opposition against the Kingly Office 398 CHAP. XII 1. An Explication of the Vision of the Witnesses Ver. III. The reason why they are Two Ver. IV V. Why Two Olive-Trees and Candlesticks and what meant by their killing men by the fire that proceeds out of their mouths Ver. VI. That their power of shutting up Heaven from raining may be attributed to them onely by a Metalepsis 2. Or rather by a Zoopoeia of the second sort 3. According to which Figure they are said to smite the Earth with every plague of Aegypt And what the meaning of these Plagues may be Ver. VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The War and Death of the Witnesses what they mean Ver. VIII Aegypt and the foregoing Plagues fitly mentioned together Ver. IX The meaning of Three days and an half and of the Bodies of the Witnesses lying unburied Ver. X. What meant by the Dwellers upon Earth Ver. XI What by the Spirit of God coming into the Witnesses Ver. XII That the true Witnesses do not invade Heaven but ascend thither when they are called Ver. XIII The Earth-quake City Fall of the City and the Slaughter of 7000 Names of men what they mean 2. That the Antichristian Opposition to the Regal and Prophetical Office of Christ is clearly prefigured in this Vision of the Two Witnesses 403 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