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
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
safely render it full of Daemons in Mr. Mede's sense that is full of the superstitious and Idolatrous worship of the Souls of the Saints departed besides other Idolatries committed in the manner of worshipping the due Object of our Religion God and Christ since the Empire has become Pagano-Christian Nor is the Beast in the Thirteenth Chapter less remarkable for this foul sin For as the Scarlet Beast was full of names of blasphemy dappled as it Par. 2. Agr. 2. were with those black Titles so Grotius makes the Leopard spotted with various objects of Idolatry Pardalis varii coloris animal sic Idololatria Romana Deos habebat mares foeminas mari-foeminas maximos medioximos minimos vario vultu vario habitu variâ potestate And does the Pagano-Christian Idolatry fall any thing short Has it not its He-Saints and She-Saints to which they give Religious worship Do they not profess a Dulia and Hyperdulia as well as Latria which bids fair towards the Heathens Dii Minimi and Medioximi Has it not some Saints famous for inflicting particular mischiefs and others for doing this or that particular good some Saints of one aspect and dress and others of another Have not some one office and others another as shall be seen more punctually hereafter But the Blasphemy that is the Idolatry of this Beast is more copiously recorded and more expresly v. 5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies that is to say an Authority decreeing gross Idolatries to the reproach of the living God whose name he is said to blaspheme in the following verse and his Tabernacle and them that dwell in Heaven To blaspheme God viz. by worshipping him by Images or by giving Religious worship to others which is onely due to him and thereby vilifying him and making him no better then a Creature To blaspheme the Tabernacle of God that is the Body of Christ in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily as the Apostle speaketh by pretending that a piece of Bread which they put into See my Idea of Antichrist Book 2. Ch. 5. Sect. 2 3. that foul prison whither a mans phancy is loath to descend is the very Body of Christ even that Body so full of stupendious glory which certainly is wretchedly eclipsed while a morsel of Bread is avowed to be really it and is adored towards accordingly And lastly To blaspheme them that dwell in Heaven namely the Saints by declaring they are so ambitious See Idea of Antichristianism Book 1. Ch. 16. Sect. 2. and rebellious against God that they do not onely accept but would extort Religious worship from men by deaths and imprisonments and various pressures and afflictions which this bloudy Beast does execute against the sincere members of Christ having first branded them with the odious Nick-name of Hereticks pretending herein their Zeal and Honour to the Saints while they are really by these courses very highly reproached and blasphemed as cruel and inhumane against men as well as rebellious and treacherous against God So wonderfully true and significant is this Character of Blasphemy upon the Beast and so plainly have we made out the second Agreement of the second Parallelism 5. Having seven Heads and ten Horns So Chap. 13. And I saw a Beast rise up out of the Sea having seven Heads and ten Horns Which Par. 2. Agr 〈◊〉 is a palpable evidence of the first Agreement of our second Parallelism What is meant by these seven Heads and ten Horns we shall understand anon Ver. IV. And the Woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls That Purple and Scarlet is an Imperial colour we have already noted and is here again allowed by Grotius on this 4. verse But here it is seasonable to observe That as the Beast which is the whole Roman Empire was allowed to be called a Scarlet Beast though that Wear was peculiar to the Heads of the Empire I mean the Emperours themselves or the Senate so this Whore may be said to be arrayed in purple and scarlet that is the Roman Hierarchy or whole Body of that Clergy though this colour should belong onely to the Head or at least those higher Governours of this Body next to this chief Head And such are the Robes and Habits of the Roman Cardinals as is well known And for the Gold and precious Stones and Pearls it does plainly refer to the Pope's Triple Crown of Gold glistering with rich gemms and precious stones as also to the pearls of his rich Cope c. Which shews that this Vision hath a more peculiar regard to the Church of Rome properly so called though it may cast a lighter glance on the whole Idolatrous Clergy of the Empire But this Head of the Roman Hierarchy with his purple Cardinals are so Emperour-like and of such a Senatorious splendour that it is manifest that there is an affectation of Imperial power in the Pope himself his Crown and Vestments being so plainly Imperial And though the colour of the Beast and the Seventh Head distinct from this Mitred Head implies there is an Emperour to be acknowledged distinct from the Pope yet this Hieroglyphick does plainly signifie that the Pope does play the Emperour as well or more then he Which does admirably agree with the known event of things and is plainly foretold also in the 13. Chap. v. 12. And he exerciseth all the power of the first Beast before him that Par. 1. Agr. 3. is to say He plays the Emperour as much or more then He. Which must be understood of this Two-horned Beast most especially as residing at Old Rome who timely challenged the right of Universal Bishop and had it early conferred upon him by the bounty of Phocas the Emperour and after so out-topp'd the Emperours that he made himself greater then they though I do not stick to confess with Grotius that neither they nor their Empire has yet ceased to be accordingly as the Prophecie it self may seem to testifie there being a Seventh Head of this Beast distinct from the Head of the Two-horned Beast or the Whore 2. But that this Two-horned Beast viz. the chief and most eminent part of him does exercise all the power of the first Beast before him is to admiration Par. 1. Agr. 3. fulfilled in the Pope's playing the Emperour As in wearing not onely a single Mirre as Bishop but a Triple Imperial Diadem as if he were Emperour His purple Vestments also and crimson pantofles his Title of Dominus Deus noster his Senate of purpurate Cardinals his making Kings and Princes kiss his feet his receiving Tribute even from the remotest parts of the Empire his Canonizing of Saints with the joint suffrages of the Cardinals his sending of his Legats to Princes his Revenue out of Stews c. of which and others of the like nature you may be informed more punctually in * Molin Var. Lib
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
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
Antichristian what could be more serviceable or seasonable then to draw such a true and genuine Idea of Antichristianism as that that Church which compared with it will appear to bear so near a resemblance thereto may be for the future ashamed to call us Schismaticks for not Communicating with her and our selves being so fully assoiled from all blemish of what ever is really and truly Antichristian may shame the Sectaries for their Schismaticalness in refusing to Communicate with a Church that is so apparently pure and Apostolical 9. The weightiness of which design I hope may excuse the And that his zeal for her Safety may well excuse this unexpectedness of his appearing again in publick unexpectedness of my appearing again in publick For if Croesus his Son as has been ingeniously apply'd in the like case at the seeing of a Souldier make at his Father with a drawn sword forced himself of a sudden out of his natural dumbness into this articulate vociferation against the Murtherer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 surely all men will think fit forasmuch A. Gel. Noct. Attic. lib. 5. cap. 9. as my dumbness or silence is not natural but a kind of Pythagorick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 arbitrariously imposed upon my self that I should make no scruple to break it upon so indispensable an occasion as the succouring my Mother the Church in so great a jeopardy not being reached at by one hand onely but thrust at on either side or rather as the Psalmist complains being compassed about with her enemies as with a swarm of Bees Psalm 118. But that she may timely quench or extinguish them like the fire of thorns as is said in the same place by the overflowing of the pure waters of the Sanctuary or which is all one destroy them not by the weapons of any Carnal warfare but in the might of the Lord and by the Power of his Spirit ought to be the earnest desire and ardent prayer not of my self onely but of every dutifull Son of so excellent a Mother 10. This is a brief but true account of the Scope and purpose of my writing this Treatise and therefore I am very confident that The summary Conclusion there is no man that is an hearty lover of the Church of England or a due resenter of the common Rights and just Security of Mankind but will be a candid accepter and approver of my pains H. M. A MODEST ENQUIRY INTO THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY BOOK I. CHAP. I. 1. That the Mystery of Iniquity or Antichristianism implies the secret undermining of the Ends of Christianity by such a Power as pretends to be Christian. 2. The inconvenience of describing Antichrist from Circumstantial characters and leaving out the Essential parts of the Description 3. The two general Principles of which Antichristianism does consist 4. The right Artifice of drawing the true Idea of Antichristianism with a distribution of the Draught into the two most general strokes thereof 1. THat the Iniquity of that Mystery we are about to speak of is not open Prophaneness or plainly confessed Wickedness is evident from the very Title in that it is said to be Mysterious covering it self under some shadow or show of Equity or Godliness Which kind of Mystery though it may in some way or measure work in or undermine any Religion at large that was instituted for the real Worship of God and for a Fence against Atheism and Prophaneness yet it cannot be doubted but that by that Mystery of Iniquity that Christians so often have in their mouths is meant such a Mystery as is directed to the defeating the Purpose and enervating the Power and Efficacy and to the hiddenly-undermining the very Foundations of that Religion which is called Christian For which reason they also call this Mystery of Iniquity Antichristianism and style the chief Authour and underpropper thereof be it one single person or body of men by the name of Antichrist whether you understand thereby one that opposes Christ or one that puts himself in the place of Christ pretending to act for but indeed acting against the true Interest of his Kingdom 2. The noise of these words and phrases hath filled Christendom with their Echo for some Ages together But I do not remember that the hottest pursuers after this strange Beast no not they that had thought they had found him and taken him have left so perfect and essential a Description of his nature prescinded from external circumstancâ—… that a man may have a due and full apprehension wherein this Mystery of Antichristianity does really consist and therefore have left the world liable to think those things essential to this Mystery which are not and those not to appertain to it that do As if in the description of a Bear they should be carefull not to omit his collar and ring at his nose and yet leave out some integral parts of the body But such imperfect and indistinct representations as these tend to nothing but the raising mens passions against things that are in themselves innocent and the conniving at those that are truly vicious and hurtfull As if for example a man should declare in gross the Turk Antichrist or the Pope not expressing what it was that did really constitute them such The effect thereof would only be this namely without any further examination to congratulate our selves that we are neither Turks nor Papists though we may really have no small measure of the Mystery of Iniquity in us for all that and to take offence at the sight of a Turbant a Crosier or a Miter or other things that have as little or less hurt if it be possible then these because they are found amongst the Turks or Papists And yet methinks the most furious Reformers should not have so little wit in their wrath as to think the Reformation incomplete till with Mattocks and Spades they have dug down the seven Hills at Rome and flung the earth with shovels towards the four winds of Heaven for all that seems the most obvious circumstantial Characteristick of the Whore of Babylon be that Whore who she will that is to be found in the Scripture 3. We see it therefore very requisite that we may not quarrel with shadows to seek out and propose such a Delineation of Antichristianism as may let goe innocuous circumstances and take in what is truely and essentially Antichristian nor make any thing a part of the Mystery of Iniquity that has not any iniquity in it as we cannot well any confessed Wickedness but as it is the effect of some pretended Holiness In these two things therefore in general does this Mystery of Iniquity or Antichristianism consist First In the instituting of such Laws or autoritatively teaching such Doctrines and promoting or commanding such Practices as naturally defeat and frustrate the true scope and purpose of the Gospel of Christ. And then Secondly In the doing this with such artifice and so fair pretences that
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
Sacerdotum praeparatur exercitus Which is a sign that in Gregory's judgment Antichrist was not to be born of the Tribe of Dan but of the Tribe of Levi whom we will further suppose to lay about him for the obtaining of this Levitical Sovereignty and for the advancement of his Episcopal Chair successively in some such manner as follows 3. First he will pretend that it is unfit that the visible Catholick Church being One should not be united under One visible Head Which reasoning yet though it make a pretty show at first sight being closely lookt into will vanish into smoke For this is but a quaint concinnity urged in the behalf of an impossibility For the erecting such an Office for one man which no one man in the world is able to perform implies that to be possible which is indeed impossible Whence it is plain that the Head will be too little for the Body which therefore will be a piece of mischievous Asymmetry or Inconcinnity also No one Mortal can be a competent Head for that Church which has a right to be Catholick and to over-spread the face of the whole Earth There can be no such Head but Christ who is not mere Man but God invested in Humane nature and therefore is present with every part of his Church and every member thereof at what distances soever But to set some one Bishop over the whole Church were to suppose that great Bishop of our Souls absent from it who has promised he will be with her to the end of the World and you may be sure not an idle Spectatour but a carefull Feeder and Governour of their Souls who do really believe in him and unfeignedly obey him 4. Nor does the Church Catholick on Earth lose her Unity hereby for she is under One common Head of the whole Church as well Triumphant as Militant which to come nearer to the Objection is a Visible Head of his Church to those that can approach his Court in that glorious Metropolis in Heaven where undoubtedly he is to be seen sitting on his Sapphire Throne in great Majesty and Glory and where his true Subjects in a small space of time may either see him themselves or at least converse with them that have frequent recourse unto him and wait in his presence And no man I think will say that any large Empire has an Invisible Head because the Emperour himself has placed his Palace in the chiefest Province of his Empire and never comes within the view of some parts of his Dominion and multitudes of men never see him as never having the opportunity of visiting those parts where the Emperour's Court is Whereas Jesus Christ the Head of his Church was seen here on Earth for a good space as also visibly to travel hence into the higher Regions of his Kingdom and in due time will visibly return hither again to take account of the Administratours of his Affairs in these lower Provinces Wherefore Christ is a more visible Head in his large Empire then any Emperour in his So evident is it that there wants no One Visible Head of the Church besides Christ himself 5. But yet notwithstanding all this this ambitious Patriarch I describe will bear the world in hand that it is very fit there should be One visible Head of the Church Universal which should succeed Christ or rather some one whom he would pretend to be Prince of the Apostles and that his Seat is that Apostolical Seat and that there is a necessity for Unity in the Church and for slaking all controversies there should be some one such though the Plea to any indifferent man cannot but seem very weak and frivolous For â—…as I have already intimated the Church will be sufficiently One by being under that One Head Christ Jesus and under One Law which is the Word of God which has been already proved sufficiently plain in all things necessary to Life and Salvation But for other things whether Ceremonies or Conceits they do not at all break the Unity of Christ's Kingdom but it will be truly and conspicuously his so long as it professes the Faith of his Apostles let them otherwise use what difference of Rites they will or differ as much as they can in unnecessary Opinions provided always that none of these Rites or Opinions be really and plainly against the Apostolical Doctrines which are the universal and irreversible Law of Christ's Empire upon Earth For thus the Church-Catholick being in this sort variegated in Externals will yet be visibly the Spouse of Christ though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though cloathed with a Vestment of various flower-work and colours 6. But for this high-flown Patriarch to pretend that his Seat is this Infallible and All-decisive Apostolical Seat is a Plea that can have nothing solid at the bottom For if there had been any such Prelation of some one of the Apostles over the rest it were of that great Moment if ending of Controversies in all succeeding Ages be of that Moment that it would have been recorded in the Scripture and would have ended or prevented all disceptations amongst the Apostles themselves or any others concerning them But quite contrary S. Paul declares that he is in nothing inferiour to the chiefest Apostles which plainly implies an Equality 2 Cor. 12. amongst them all Besides if it were so that some one Apostle had an Authority or Headship over the rest and had once his Residence in such a particular See it does not follow that he that succeeds him in that See should succeed him in that Headship or at all in his Apostleship but onely in his Bishoprick Nor is it credible that if this Prime and Oecumenical Apostle had designed his immediate Successour to the same latitude of Jurisdiction that the claim should not be made and acknowledged by the Universal Church in those more innocent and morigerous times Of so little weight are such pretences as these 7. But if such pretty Sophisms will not serve the turn since Ambition has inflamed the Patriarch's spirits he will leave no stone unmoved to accomplish his desire and what Sophistry cannot doe must be effected though by the coursest methods of either Worldly or Infernal policy That they may therefore obtain this absolute Ecclesiastick Sovereignty the Successours in this pretended prime Apostolical See we will suppose to stick at nothing But that they will forge or counterfeit Canons of Authentick Councils and make them speak for the Supremacy of their Patriarchate that they will countenance abet or allow Treasons and Murthers though upon Emperours and Emperesses Kings and Queens and their whole Posterity by some intrusted Instrument of State whose ambition instigated him thus bloudily to assassinate his Liege Sovereign that he might succeed him in his Kingdom or Empire Whereupon notwithstanding by parasitical fawning conniving or allowing nay by congratulating the success of so beastly an enterprize these eager Candidates for the Ecclesiastick Empire will not stick to
consopite in both whence these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are called also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Achmetes the question is not concerning the Principle from whence or the manner how these divinatory Impresses come but what they represent or signifie which if it be granted that they prefigure rightly and unforcedly such or such things in Dreams it is manifest that they will doe the same in Visions For I speak of such Impresses as have not the nature of the Effects of Complexion or of any other natural Cause but of a mere Type or Prefiguration Wherefore it will not be impertinent to adjoyn sometimes the suffrage of these Onirocritical Writers to what weight we produce out of Scripture and from Reason for the interpreting of such Symbols or Iconisms as we shall comprise in our Prophetick Alphabet which I shall now exhibit to view 5. Angels There is such frequent mention of the Ministery of Angels in the Apocalyps and the Presidency there so prefixed to every thing that I cannot omit to take notice of this Scheme amongst the rest though peradventure it does not fall so right under the notion of an Icasmus they being rather the Instruments of Divine Providence then the Emblem of it But if we reflect upon their vulgar representation which doubtless took its ground from the Mosaick Cherubims how well they are appointed with wings for the quicker dispatch of those services that are expected of them they are not unsignificative of that Wisdom that is * Wisd. 8. said to be more quick and moving then any motion and to reach from one end to another mightily and sweetly to order all things But that Angels are in these Apocalyptick Visions so constantly and particularly set over every negotiation of Divine Providence is exceeding consonant to the sense of Daniel as in that great change of Nebuchadnezzar's condition which is said to come to pass by the decree of the Watchers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greeks would say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Excubitores or Vigiles by which are understood Angels and also to the sense of the ancient Cabbala that makes the number Seven a Symbol of the Sabbatism of God wherein he rests from his works and calls that number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in relation to this employment of these Excubitores or Vigiles these holy Angels whom God imploys in the administration of his Providence 6. Ascension into Heaven A Kingdom or Polity being so expresly resembled to the World or Universe as we shall see under that Title it is an easie Analogie to parallel the Heavens to the high Places and Dignities of it According to this sense is that of * Chap. 14. 12. Esay How art thou fallen from Heaven O Lucifer son of the morning For thou hast said in thy heart I will ascend into Heaven c. Aspiraveras ad summam dignitatem so Vatablus And Achmetes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Onirocrit c. 161. And in the following Chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And a little after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus Achmetes out of the writings of the Indians Persians and Aegyptians All which does expressly declare that Ascending into Heaven signifies the acquisition or increase of Political Dignities and Honours 7. Air. That the Air is taken for the place of the Empire of the Devil appears from Ephes. 2. And you who were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in times past you walked according to the course of this world according to the Prince of the power of the Air the spirit that now worketh in the children of Unbelief that is to say in Infidels such as have not submitted themselves to the Kingdom of God but serve Idols and walk after the lusts of their own mind Upon which place Drusius out of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sciendum à terra usque ad Expansum omnia plena esse turmis ac praefectis According to which opinion of the Hebrew Rabbins the Apostle again speaks Chap. 6. For we wrastle not against flesh and bloud but against Principalities against the Rulers of the darkness of this world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against those that hold fast the Rule of this lower world this dark caliginous Air 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against wicked Spirits or Devils in these Aereal places For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here is but to the same sense that Expansum is in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the space from the clouds downward as it is limited Gen. 1. Else how could these wicked Spirits be said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as both Peter and Jude declare of them But enough of this and the rather because where Air occurs in the Prophetick Visions in this sense we have spoke of it is rather an ordinary Metonymie then an Icasmus 8. Balance That a Balance should signifie Justice is obvious to any one to conceive it being a main Instrument of commutative Justice and a fit Emblem of exactly weighing out and sharing all things or rather dispensing all things accurately Achmetes out of the Indian Onirocriticks chap. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I omit to transcribe how he refers the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scales to the Ears of the Judge and the Weights in these Scales to the matter pleaded on both sides for him to ponder with an indifferent hearing And again in the same Chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and more particularly he descants upon the condition of the Scales and Beam but here is enough already to shew how confessed an Emblem a Balance is of Justice And he insinuates the same of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Measures 9. Beast What a plain resemblance there is betwixt a Body Politick and a living Creature S. Paul copiously declares 1 Cor. 12. And it is a thing easie to conceive that as in a Creature that has life there are distinctly-framed parts so ordered one in reference to another that they are all to be moved for the good of the whole by that power that resides in the Brain in virtue of the spirits pervading throughout so in a Polity that there are several Orders and Ranks of men held together by one common Law which is as the life and spirit of the Body Politick and to be moved and directed for the common good by the command and appointment of the Sovereign Power which is the Head of this Kingdom or Polity Wherefore it is no wonder that Men or Nations thus framed into a Body Politick which is called a Kingdom be represented in Daniel under the resemblance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 living Creatures but such as are rightly translated by the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ferae wild Beasts they being such that appear in those Visions Of which Grotius upon Dan. 7. where there is mention of the four great Beasts ascending out of the Sea Ideo Bestiae saith he quia Idololatrica erant Imperia ut notat hîc Jacchiades
But this is so easy an Iconism that it was needless to produce so many testimonies 10. Eclipses The Eclipses of the Luminaries what they mean will easily be understood if we consider what the Sun and Moon are in the Political Universe For certainly they are the highest Dignities in that Heaven Of which more under their proper Titles In the mean time it shall suffice briefly to note out of Achmetes that according to the Indian Persian and Aegyptian Onirocriticks If the Sun be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without brightness in such an hue I suppose as Virgil describes Cùm caput obscurâ nitidum ferrugine tinxit and without rays 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that inglorious obscurity and duskishness is referred to the person of the King and implies an imminution of his glory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if the Sun be eclipsed he will be afflicted and oppressed by war The same judgment they give of the Moon and of the Stars if they be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 See cap. 167 168. These things are too easie to insist upon and will be necessarily acknowledged it being once granted That the Universe is a Prophetick Emblem of a Kingdom or Polity as we shall clearly shew in its due place 11. Eye The light of the body saith our Saviour is the Eye And * Topic. l. 1. c. 14. Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Eye of the Soul is the Understanding or Intellect So that it is plain that the Eye is an Iconism of Knowledge as Darkness and Blindness is of Ignorance an expression frequent in the Scripture But there is also a peculiar fitness of significancy of humane Policy and Prospection in the Eye that Organ of the Body being not onely in the Head but the chief guide of it and the whole Body as being able to reach further by far and to act more quick then any other Sense whatsoever Wherefore Prospicere in longitudinem that is to say wisely to consult afore-hand for the rightly managing affairs and to contrive Counsels so as makes most for the future safety of things and for the advancement of the Interest of a State the Eye is a fit Emblem of this skill Which the Aegyptians seem to have intimated in that known Hieroglyphick of theirs A Scepter with an Eye on the top of it where it is plain that the Eye signified that Political skill prospection and counsel which is necessary in managing and ordering affairs of State for the greatest security and promotion of them And that Eyes signifie the administration of Divine Providence also seems to be intimated Zach. 4. 10. on which we have not here time to insist 12. Fishing Artemidor lib. 2. c. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To dream of catching fishes many and great is good and portends profit to all that dream so Achmetes c. 178. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. If any one dream that he catches fishes by angling in the Sea he shall find riches c. Fish dead in the Sea Artemidor lib. 2. c. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To seem to see Fishes dead in the Sea is not good for it signifies disappointment of our hope and that what we expect will not come to pass 13. Fire Fire is a various Symbol and signifies as well good as ill but always in a way of Consumption or Destructiveness but when it destroys that which is bad it is good The Holy Ghost it self is assimilated to Fire as the Baptist witnesses of Christ He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire such a Fire as is to burn up the chaff but save the wheat as is intimated Matth. 3. 11. in the place So Malac. 3. Who shall abide the day of his coming For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's sope And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and he shall purifie the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that is consume away their dross Manifold instances there are of this sense of Fire but it is needless to produce them But for Fire in the other destructive sense it is still more obvious I shall name one place for many Esa. 66. 15. For behold the Lord will come with fire and with his chariots like a whirl-wind to render his anger with fury and his rebukes with flames of fire For by fire and by sword will the Lord plead with all flesh and the slain of the Lord shall be many The fitness of the Fire 's signifying Consumption or Destruction Artemidorus has taken notice of lib. 2. c. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in the same Chapter he says it signifies if there be a considerable quantity of it in the Heavens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the incursion of Enemies and their coming from that part in what quarter of the Heaven it is seen And answerably to this Achmetes according to the sense of the Indians c. 159. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And of the Persians and Aegyptians c. 160. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And lastly he saith that if his Chariot appear to be set on fire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So destructive is the Symbol of Fire every-where and particularly denotes a destruction by war and hostility as is observable out of these citations 14. Fire from Heaven Fire from Heaven and Thunder may very well be the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Artemidorus speaks lib. 2. c. 8. But in allusion to Elias his bringing down fire from Heaven upon those Fifties that were sent to him from Ahaziah to apprehend him the fame of that eminent Miracle may make the bringing down Fire from Heaven pass into a Proverbial phrase for the doing exceeding great Miracles This may be good sense but we seek for an Icasmus Fire from Heaven therefore according to Artemidorus may signifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the commination of those that are in Authority and that very fitly Heaven being the place of Dignity in the Political Universe But nothing so minacious as that Fire or Lightning that goes before Thunder What therefore can be more significative of Excommunication then this especially if conceived to be vibrated from no inferiour Officer but from an Oecumenical Bishop the Head of the Church Catholick who is placed in the higher Regions of the Political Heaven Which Analogie will be still more exact if we consider what Artemidorus observes of Thunder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For Thunder and Lightning does not unite but disjoyns things that are united So does Excommunication that rives off a Member from the Church And there is still a further congruity that Excommunication should be called Thunder and Lightning or Fire from Heaven in that it is the commination of Hell-fire of which the destruction of Sodom was a Type which was burnt by fire from Heaven as Mr. Mede has judiciously observed And what is the last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
the Lord of Hosts with Thunder and Earth-quake and great noise with storm and tempest and the flame of devouring fire And Job 39. 25. He smelleth the battel afar of the thunder of the Captains and their Chariots It is very frequently used of God's discomfiting of the enemies of his Church 1 Sam. 2. 10. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces out of Heaven shall he thunder upon them Again chap. 7. v. 10. And as Samuel was offering up the burnt-offering the Philistins drew near to battel against Israel but the Lord thundered with a great thunder that day upon the Philistins and smote them untill they came to Beth-car Which whether it be understood figuratively here or naturally by an Israelism it will be an Image or Figure of the deliverance of the Church from her Enemies to all posterity David also describes his deliverance from his enemies after this manner Psal. 18. The Lord thundered in the Heavens and the Highest gave his voice hail-stones and coals of fire Yea he sent out his arrows and scattered them and he shot out lightnings and discomfited them 4. But there is also another more Mystical signification of Thunder Prophecy or Revelation from God being signifi'd thereby by way of allusion to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Filia vocis which is one kind of Prophecy Such was that voice from Heaven testifying of our Saviour Christ Matth. 3. 17. as also Joh. 12. 28. where the people that stood by said It thundered See Drusius upon the place But besides this Thunder has of it self a significancy of Prophecy the one being the Voice of Heaven and called the voice of God the other an Oracle from God But there is yet another sense that Thunder may be capable of as namely of some special and signal Promulgation of the Gospel to a people that has not yet either heard of it assented to it or rightly believed it and this by an allusion to the Law given to the Israelites in Thunder and Lightning not to say with some respect to the manner of God's witnessing out of the clouds to his Son Christ and declaring of him in a voice of * Joh. 12. 28 29. Thunder that he had glorifi'd him and would glorifie him again See Fire 5. Time That a Time and Times and half a Time in Daniel signifies three years and an half we have the suffrage of Grotius and indeed no Interpreters that I know dissent But this Figure of speech is referrible to none of the Prophetick Schemes which I have set down but is a mere Synecdoche Generis as Hour is indeed a Synecdoche Speciei when it is put for an indefinite short time as it is sometimes As 1 Thess. 2. 17. But we brethren being taken from you for a short time c. The Greek has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Also Philem. 15. For perhaps he therefore departed for a season that thou mightest enjoy him for ever For a season is in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This use of an Hour in the ordinary style is as I said but a Synecdoche Speciei but in the Prophetick style there is a Diorismus in it But as for a Day when it is taken for a Year it is an Icasmus there being a Circuit of the Sun in each and therefore they bear a similitude one to another From whence it will follow that if one Day will stand for one Year then in proportion one Month of days will stand for Thirty years 6. But that numbering by Months is appropriate to the works of Darkness as reflecting upon the Circuits of the Moon which is the Governess of the Night and numbering by the courses of the Sun appropriate to the works of Righteousness is as I have noted already an observation of Mr. Mede's and is exactly true in the Apocalyps where the continuing of the Beast and the prophaning of the holy City by the Gentiles is reckoned by Months but the Prophecy of the Witnesses as also their undergoing that Martyrdom and their lying unburied by Days The abode of the Woman in the Wilderness is also numbered by Days and by a time and times and half a time which according to this curiosity of Appropriation must of necessity signifie three Solar years and an half of which notwithstanding they fall short near twenty days But Modicum nec curat Praetor nec Propheta is better here applied then as Grotius applies it And hence it is demonstrable that there is a concealed or tacit latitude of twenty years at least in these 1260 days which are the same with a Time and Times and half a Time and that the first measure may be an Icad But because the Sixty sounds and that is silent in this Number it is not improbable but an Hexecad might if need were be taken for the first measure or Divisor of 1260. But that 1260 days is a Diorismus I have expresly taken notice of above 7. Trees That Trees according to their several bigness and procerity signifie several degrees of men is plain from that of Zacharie chap. 11. Open thy doors O Lebanon that the fire may devour thy Cedars Houl O Firre-tree for the Cedar is fallen because all the mighty are spoiled Houl O ye Oaks of Basan for the forest of the Vintage is come down Those few words All the mighty are spoiled are a certain Key to the Parable and shew that the Prophecy does not point at Trees but Men and therefore Vatablus and other Interpreters do interpret it accordingly That Proverbial Iambick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sounds to this sense and the Onirocriticks of Nicephorus give a further and clearer suffrage thereto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Achmetes according to the doctrine of the Persians Indians and Aegyptians does largely insist upon these Iconisms applying several sorts of Trees to several qualities of persons See Onirocrit cap. 151. Which yet he does more copiously and particularly cap. 200. And lastly cap. 165. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which purpose he also speaks in the following Chapter Vintage See Wine-press Water That Waters may be the Hieroglyphick of Words and Speech or of that Doctrine that is conveyed by them appears from Prov. 18. 4. The words of a mans mouth are as deep waters and the well-spring of wisedom as a flowing brook Also chap. 15. 28. The heart of the righteous studieth to answer but the mouth of the wicked poureth out evil things But never so bad as when it poureth out such speeches as tend to strife and contention which is like the cutting a bank in the Sea and over-flowing all Whence it is that the Wise man gives that wholesome advice Leave Prov. 17. 14. off contention before it be meddled withall for the beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water See other significations of Water in River and in Sea 8. White-clothing By comparing Nicephorus with Astrampsychus White-clothing should signifie that honour and chearfulness that arises from a
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
of the Beast or these Makers of the Image of the Beast as such began with the Beast And they are I mean this Beast and the Pseudo-prophet who is typified by the Whore and the Two-horned Beast both of them at once taken and cast alive into the lake of fire burning with Brimstone Apocalyps 19. 20. Wherefore this Ten-horned Beast restored being as was above proved Synchronal to the Woman in the Wilderness to the two Witnesses and to the Treading under foot the Holy City or Outward Court it is manifest that the Whore of Babylon also and the Two-horned Beast are Synchronal to them they being all Synchronal to the Ten-horned Beast restored And that in summe the Woman in the Wilderness the Ten-horned Beast restored which is the same with the Beast that was and is not and yet is or the Image of the Beast the Holy City or Outward Court troden under foot by the Gentiles the Mourning Witnesses the Two-horned Beast the Whore of Babylon that all these six are Synchronal one to another 7. Of the Synchronism of the Virgin-Company with the Whore and consequently with the other five of these six see Mr. Mede It is not a thing that can be stuck upon by reason of the necessary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the great congruity that Christ should have his marked Souldiers which are the Regiments of the Lamb on Mount Sion as soon and as long as there were such as bore the Mark of the Beast which is supposed all along his reign seeing the receiving this Mark is nothing but an open profession of what party one is or at least an appropriation to that party Of those true Members and marked or sealed Souldiers of Christ there is mention in the Seventh and Fourteenth Chapters of the Apocalyps in both which places the Number is the same namely 144 Chiliads or Regiments and they are said to be sealed or marked upon the fore-head Affliction and Patience and at last a joyful Victory over their Enemies is the fate of them both They are both an Apostolick Company and abhorring from Idolatry in that they are called Virgins in the fourteenth Chapter and in that there is such caution in the ranging of the twelve Tribes in the seventh that they have the precedence that are most notorious for their zeal against Idolatry and Dan and Ephraim quite excluded the number for their special obnoxiousness in that crime as you may see more at large in Mr. Mede For that these twelve Tribes are understood of Christians and not of Jews no man will doubt that considers how full of Israelisms the Apocalyps is every-where insomuch as that false Christians are called counterfeit Jews Revel 2. 9. I know the blasphemie of them that say they are Jews and are not but are the Synagogue of Satan It is manifest therefore that the 144 thousand sealed Servants of God in the seventh Chapter and the 144 thousand in the fourteenth Chapter are the same Apostolick or Virgin-Company Which is of marvellous great use to take notice of forasmuch as it will hence be evident that the six first Trumpets are Synchronal to our first six Synchronals they being all Synchronal to these 144 thousand sealed Souldiers or Virgin-Regiments of Christ. 8. That our first six Synchronals are Synchronal to these 144 Regiments has been already proved in that they and five of the six synchronize with the Whore That the Series of the first six Trumpets is Synchronal to them is thus demonstrated For they begin with the first Trumpet and continue to the end of the sixth That they begin with the first Trumpet appears from Chap. 7. For after the effect of the sixth Seal whenas the Procedure should have been to the seventh which is the Seal of the Trumpets there is a suspension awhile till these 144 thousand be sealed and so fore-armed against the evils of the Trumpets but they being once sealed the seventh Seal is opened and the seven Angels appear with their Trumpets c. That the 144 Regiments in their condition of warfare and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to their opposites that war under the mark of the Beast terminate at the expiring of the sixth Trumpet is plain in that the mournful condition of the Witnesses which synchronizes with this warfaring condition of the Virgin-Company ends at the ending of the sixth Trumpet Chap. 11. 14. The second Woe is past that is to say the sixth Trumpet is past which is spoken immediately upon the ascending up of the Witnesses to Heaven and the great Commotion of things that befell at the same hour Wherefore the 144 Virgin-Regiments that were sealed at the beginning of the first Trumpet terminate as to their conflicting condition at the end of the sixth And thus you see that according as it is in Mr. Mede's Scheme of Synchronisms the Company of the 144 thousand out of the twelve Tribes of Israel sealed with the Seal of God in their fore-head is as it were the communis Terminus of all those Synchronals on this side and that side thereof as namely of the Series of the six first Trumpets on one side and then of our six first Synchronals on the other namely the Ten-horned Beast restored the Whore the Two-horned Beast the two mournful Witnesses the treading under foot the outward Court or Holy City and the Woman in the Wilderness 9. So that we have a safe and fast grasp of the whole succession of things in these Prophetick Visions having laid hold on this middle part so strongly that they cannot wriggle from us but it will be easie for us to discover the necessary order of the rest For the six first Seals must needs go before the seventh and the Battel betwixt Michael and the Dragon before the Wounding or slaying of the Beast and the Restoring of him Whence it will follow partly from the Nature of the things and partly from their Order that they are Synchronal I mean the Series of the first six Seals and the Battel of Michael with the Dragon And that the Inward Court of the Temple whâ—…h the Angel found Symmetral or Commensurable to his Reed is also Synchronal to the six first Seals may appear from hence in that the Symbol is so significative of the condition of those times For in that bloudy war of the Dragon the Saints of God willingly sacrificed their own lives for his cause which is most fitly set out by the Altar of Holocausts placed in the Inward Court of the Temple and answers very plainly and palpably to the Vision of the fifth Seal where the Souls of the slain are said to cry for vengeance from under the Altar Apoc. 6. 9. 10. But besides this Chap. 11. the Visions begin again from the first Epocha of time that the Seals do whence the Inward Court must be exquisitely Synchronal to the first six Seals being the Outward Court began with the seventh Now that there begins a new Series of Prophecies from the
the Book of Articles Trans substantiation cannot be proved Article 28. by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many Superstitions Whence she rightly and demonstratively concludes that the Sacrament is not to be carried about lifted up nor worshipped For there is none that can worship the Host upon presumption that it is Christ to whom Divine worship is due but he is ipso facto an Idolater as I have proved elsewhere more at large And again in the same Book she does expresly declare That the Sacrifices of Masses in the which it is commonly Article 31. said that the Priest does offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt are blasphemous Fables and dangerous Deceits The truth of which is easy to be understood out of what we have written in our Idea of Antichristianism touching Idolatry and the Abuse of Christ's Person and Office in this enormous Errour And in the Homily concerning the Sacrament she expresly taxes the Popish Masses with Idolatry imputing it to the ignorance of the nature of the Lord's Supper What hath been the cause of this gross Idolatry but the Ignorance thereof what has been the cause of this mummish Massing but the Ignorance thereof And a little after Let us therefore so travail to understand the Lord's Supper that we be no cause of the decay of God's worship of no Idolatry of no dumb Massing of no hate and malice c. To all which you may adde what is annexed in our Liturgie at the end of the Communion viz. That the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithfull Christians And the natural Body and Bloud of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places then one Which Rubrick is interserted in our Liturgie with unexceptionable Judgment and Fidelity and does fully reach the end of its Intersertion For no man I think can be so grosly ignorant or so openly malicious as to pretend that after this so plain Declaration of our Church either himself or any one else can become guilty of Idolatry by that humble posture of Kneeling at the receiving of the Sacrament 4. And lastly touching the Adoration of Images there can be nothing more seriously protested against by any Church then this enormous wickedness is by ours To omit how she has perstringed them in the Book of Articles she does expresly bind the worshippers of them under a curse in her Liturgie in the Form of Commination Cursed is the man that maketh any carv'd or molten Image to worship it And in her Homily against the Peril of Idolatry with a passionate but unexceptionable and judicious zeal she does copiously inveigh against the very having of Images in Churches I mean such as are in any capacity of being worshipped nay against the very making of the Image of God or any of the Persons of the Holy Trinity yea of Christ himself forasmuch as he is truly God contending that no Image can be made of Christ but a lying Image as the Scripture peculiarly Homily against the Peril of Idolatry Part 3. calls Images Lies for Christ is God and Man Seeing therefore for the Godhead which is the most excellent part no Image can be made it is falsly called the Image of Christ. Wherefore Images of Christ be not onely Defects but also Lies Nor does she stick here but urges the argument and truly not without judgement against the Images of Saints whose Souls the most excellent part of them can saith she by no Images be represented and expressed But concerning the having such Images in Temples she doth with an holy Jealousy peremptorily contend and inculcate that it is plainly against the Second Commandment adding this reason For they being set up have been be and ever will be worshipped and thereupon become abominable Idols nothing different from those of the Heathen they being made of the same matter with them and men having the same conceits of the Saints they are made to and of their offices as the Heathen had of their Deities they worshipping them also with the same Rites and Ceremonies And to shew they have the same opinion of their Saints that the Pagans had of their several Gods she compares such Saints as are made Guardians of Kingdoms to their Dii Tutelares such as Belus was to the Babylonians Osiris and Isis to the Aegyptians Vulcan to the Lemnians the Guardian Saints of Cities to their Dii Praesides such as Apollo was to Delphos Minerva to Athens Juno to Carthage and Quirinus to Rome and lastly their Templed Saints to Jupiter in the Capitol and Diana in the famous Temple of Ephesus And touching one and the same Saints having Images in several places she parallels our Lady of Walsingham our Lady of Ipswich and our Lady of Wilsdon to Venus Cypria Venus Paphia and Venus Gnidia to their Sea-Gods Neptune Triton Nereus and Venus S. Christopher S. Clement and the Blessed Virgin to Vulcan and Vesta Gods of the Fire S. Agatha And then intimating that as in ancient Paganism the Affairs of Love of War of Diseases in men and beasts were assigned to several Deities so to several Saints in the Popish Religion she at last breaks out into this zealous Exclamation Where is God's Providence and due honour in the mean time who saith The Heavens be mine and the Earth is mine the whole world and all that in it is I give victory and I put to flight Except I keep the City the Watch-man waketh but in vain that keepeth it Thou Lord shalt save both man and beast But we have left him neither Heaven nor Earth nor Water nor Countrey nor City Peace nor War to rule and govern neither men nor beasts nor their diseases to cure That a godly man might justly for zealous Indignation cry out O Heaven and Earth and Seas what madness and wickedness against God are men fallen into What dishonour doe the Creatures to their Creatour and Maker namely in reposing a religious trust in those Saints they invoke to these purposes which can belong to none other but God himself 5. And as touching the manner of their worshipping these Images and Saints What meaneth it saith she that they after the manner of the Gentile Idolaters burn Incense offer up gold to Images hang up crutches chains and ships legs arms and whole men and women of wax before Images as though by them or Saints as they say they were delivered from Lameness Sickness Captivity or Shipwreck Is not this COLERE IMAGINES to worship Images so earnestly forbidden in God's Word And a little after more fully and vehemently Wherefore when we see men and women on heaps to goe on Pilgrimages to
the whole Moles of Superstition hitherto described is made infinitely more weighty and burthensome 3. The Antichristian Doctrine of Christ his Satisfaction reaching only to the freeing us from the Guilt of sin not the Punishment 4. The multifarious drudgery and slavery this Doctrine and that Figment of Purgatory casts men into 5. A confutation of the said Doctrine and Figment 6. That it is impossible that the sincerely-minded in this life should find either Hell or Purgatory in the other 7. That there is no ground for this Antichristian Purgatory in either Scripture or Fathers 8. The gross Fraud and grand Mischief of this Fiction 9. The conclusion of the description of this second Limb of Antichristianism 1. AND now in the last place of all to make up the full weight of this Antichristian yoke and burthen suppose there were added the fear of a more then Pagan Purgatory as I said that is to say Suppose the Church should determine That no Souls unless such as are absolutely pure and perfect in this life of which rank there are either really none or if there were they would not be so immodest as easily to account themselves so should upon their departure out of this Body goe into any easefull or blessed condition but into a state little different from the torments of Hell saving that they are not perpetual but may be for many and many years unless some care be taken to relieve them and rescue them who are in this sad and dismal place which I suppose they would set out with all extremity of horrour to the rude people telling them of many sad and ghastly Apparitions who with wan countenances and mournfull tones have made known their extreme distress in this Infernal house of Correction and have implored their assistance in praying and paying for them as much as they could that they might find ease 2. Nor would they forbear the exaggerating this unsupportable calamity by all imaginable Mythologie as namely That the Souls of men were seen in a Vision by some holy man of God or other to be tortured in wonderfull manners some standing up to the knees others to the navell othersome to the arme-holes others to the very chin in a stream of fire and brimstone that others are run through with rods of Iron and roasted against the fire like Geese upon a spit the foul infernal Fiends in the mean time some blowing up the coals with their black mouths or to save their own breath with a large pair of brazen bellows others lading up the grease that fries out of these roasted Souls and pouring it upon them again scalding hot that others are scourged with whips of red-hot wires others fried in frying-pans others racked and turned round upon a wheel full of hot burning hooks that others had their bowells torn out with the fiery crooked stings of huge overgrown Toads and Serpents and lastly that others are put into vessels of hot scalding metalls These dismal chambers of Death re-echoing in the mean time from their hollow roof the mournfull howlings and hideous shriekings of these tormented Ghosts These or such like terrible fancies of things did they but imbue the minds of the people withall the belief of them certainly could not but screw the whole-rack of this burthensome Superstition which I have been all this time describing to the highest pitch that the wit of man can invent nor could the flames of this Purgatory fail to prove that very Fire in which these slaves and vassals of the Mystical Pharaoh and his hard Task-masters I mean that Apostate High-priest with the rest of his adulterate Hierarchy which I am delineating should droyl and sweat in for the finishing their imposed tales of brick to build these sons of pride their Pyramids and Palaces 3. Wherefore being stript and spoiled of all these comfortable succours that the true Faith in Christ Jesus does afford men and being made to believe that the Passion and Satisfaction of Christ takes away onely the Guilt of Mortal sins not the eternal Punishment but yet which is a great favour that by the power of the Keys this eternal Punishment is turned into temporary which every one is bound to undergoe and satisfie either in this life or that which is to come and that either in his own person or by some other that is He is bound to doe or suffer such things himself or others for him as the Church shall appoint or accept for satisfaction which also is to be understood of venial sins and lastly that the spots and filth of sin inhering in our Nature must wholy be purged out by Satisfactions and penalties which if it be not fully done in this life it must be perfected by the expiation of Fire in the other I say if the people should be deluded by such Antichristian Doctrine as this and have the sweet and easy yoke of Christ taken off from their neck which consists onely in sincerity to the best of our power to live according to the plain and indispensable Law of Christ and wherein we fail to be assured that both the Guilt and external Penalty is taken away through the intercession of him who is our Advocate with the Father and a perpetual propitiation for our sins but instead of this easy and ingenuous service should be fettered and held fast in that Aegyptian bondage we have described into what a world of slavery and drudgery would mistaken mortalls be haled 4. How would they be forced to bestir themselves by these hard Task-masters what trotting from Church to Church from Shrine to Shrine what howling and muttering before this Saint's Image and that Saint's Image what knocking of breasts and kissing of pavements what fastings and watchings not for correction but satisfaction what long stretching Pilgrimages from Country to Country and from one end of the Earth to the other what prayers and oblations to make the Image or at least the Priest to smile what kissing of unsavoury Reliques what Vows of Coelibate and Abstinence from meats what Flagellations and Excoriations of the Body what Nundinations of Pardons and Indulgences what awe and servility to the Priest what strict observation of Fasts and Festivalls what vexatious Scrupulosities about needless opinions what abject postures and rufull looks in forced Confessions what covering themselves with Religious habits what imprisoning and confining to Nunneries and Cloisters to Solitudes and Hermitages what creeping of dying men into Monks Cowls and rowling in beds of Ashes what besprinkling with Holy-water what Anointing and besmearing with enchanted Oyls what hastening to enroll themselves in this or that holy Fraternity to share in their merits what shaving and paring away of Childrens portions for hired Masses and Prayers to sing the dying mans Soul out of this imaginary Purgatory In fine what endless circuits of drudgery and labour of body and mind does this Aegyptian Tyrant put his slaves unto under the lash of this torturing conceit That the Death of Christ
is not for the Remission of Punishment but of Guilt and that he that would goe to Heaven must travel thither upon his own proper cost and charges must satisfie in his own person for his faults and corruptions in such ways as this adulterous Church has prescribed Which is no method of freeing Souls from the pains of Purgatory but of the inslaving them as I have said to a worse then Aegyptian bondage and condemning them to gather stubble and make bricks to work and drudge to hold up the wealth and magnificency of this imperious Pharaoh and his cruell Task-masters Which is a Servitude as abominable and Antichristian as can be invented or imagined For it does absolutely change the condition and nature of Christian Religion then which there is nothing more free and ingenuous and more professedly opposed to the yoke of the Mosaical Law into a poor pitifull ignorant and servile Pedagogie and makes it not only exceed the burthen of Moses but which I cannot too often inculcate the very bondage of Aegypt it self 5. But though this Figment of Purgatory would be a very profitable invention for the increasing of the wealth and power of this Pseudo-Clergie and bring vast revenues to their Church there being a like fear of it and desire to be rid of it in Princes and Peasants in Gentle and simple yet it cannot be denied by any but such as are past shame but that it is a mere Figment and has no grounds of truth at all in it nay is contrary to what is most certainly true For it is assuredly true and any good Christian may feel it to be so that Christ has satisfied as well in respect of Punishment as Guilt and it is perfect Non-sense that the sincerely-minded should be justified by the merits of Christ's Passion and the excellencie of his Person he being that innocent Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world that is to say in a Forensal sense be esteemed as Just and yet be handled or treated as Sinners For it is as if a man should be acquitted and yet punished for the same crime at the same Court then which nothing is more foolish or incongruous Wherefore it is manifest that there can no external punishment abide the Sincere soul after this life for I cannot pronounce any thing in the behalf of the unsincere but that Hell it self is their portion no fire no whips of Furies or Devils to afflict them no infernal Bailifs or horrid Pursivants of Purgatory to arrest them but they may pass free through all guards and scouts of the invisible Regions and not one dare to offer to molest them 6. And that he that was sincere-hearted in this life and did not onely believe in Christ but to the best of his power and skill followed his Precepts and had a real enmity against all the appearances of sin whensoever they assaulted him nor could be overtaken or overcome by the importunity of his Body without sorrow regret or indignation that this man should carry in himself any tormenting Hell or Purgatory in his freedom from the body is a thing impossible and unconceivable For he being freed from that with which he was so often forced to tugg and in the midst of his greatest conflicts his life being comfortable to him through the sense of his own sincerity and through the assurance of the Love of God in Christ Jesus what can Death be to such a man but Life from the dead He that in patience can possess his soul in a prison cannot fail to enjoy himself in the fresh aire and he that can walk upright in fetters may easily if he will dance for joy when he is out of them So little fear is there of any such Mormo's or Bug-bears to the sincere Christian when he has passed out of this mortal life 7. Some pretence indeed they may have for Purgatory from that passage in S. Paul If any mans work be burnt he shall suffer loss but himself 1 Cor. 3. 1â—… shall be saved but yet so as by fire which is the only place in Scripture which makes any show for them But yet if it were meant of a Purgatory-fire after this life it will not at all serve their purpose as neither those several passages of the Fathers do which seem to make this way which would be too prolix a business to enter into But the interpretation which Scaliger and Hugo Grotius give of the place is so genuine and natural and so little inferring any such Purgatory-fire that this ground will prove very lubricous to the builders upon it For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Scaliger and Grotius expound thus That he shall escape but so as out of the hot fire it being nothing but a proverbial expression signifying the great danger he will be in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est preverbiale ad significationem summi periculi So that the sense is nothing but this He will hardly escape the dreadfull judgment of God As for Origen's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the like expressions of the Fathers they will never establish such a Purgatory as these Masters of mischief would erect in the Universe who make sure that no man may doe any thing meritorious in this condition nor make any progress in grace and holiness for all the very Fire is called Purgative For this would beat down the price of Pardons and Indulgences make men careless of hiring Masses for the dead and take away all that costly sollicitude from friends for their deceased kindred if they were conceived to be in a capacity by their own demeanour and carefull management of their affairs in the other world to wind themselves out of trouble 8. But how weak soever their Proofs were for Purgatory their Motives thereto would be very strong this Figment making all the rest of their Frauds take more certain effect with men they being hereby affrighted into a facil and foolish good humour of parting with any thing even to the impoverishing of themselves and their posterity so that those may be satisfied who pretend they have the Keys of this prison of Purgatory and may be persuaded either to excuse them from ever entering into it or if they must enter into it to deliver them out of it as timely and speedily as may be But the grand Mischief of this cheating Invention is a blasphemous affront to the Merits and Satisfaction of our dear Saviour and a Tyrannicall oppression of the consciences of the simple but so great a scandal to the more nasute that it were a strong temptation to them to misbelieve the whole summe of Religion or any state at all of the Soul after death but that she is mortal and perishes these false Apostles having abused the belief of the Doctrine of her survival after the death of the Body so grossely and rancidly merely to the advancing their own estates in this life and to the wallowing in
Also Christ's Handkerchief and the Shirt which the blessed Virgin made for him as likewise the Cradle in which he was rocked 15. Furthermore the Virgin Mary's Veil with which she used to cover her head her Comb her Hair her Girdle her Needles sowing-Thread and Work-basket nay the very House in which she dwelt and wrought transported as I said before out of Palestine into Italy by the hands of Angels The Reed with which they smote Jesus the Rope with which they haled him to execution the very Sponge also with which the Jews gave him vinegar mingled with gall to drink and some of the Coin for which Judas betrayed him nay the very Lantern he used in that work of darkness and the Dice wherewith the Souldiers play'd for Christ's seamless Coat Moreover the pure Bloud of Christ and the Milk of Mary his Mother kept in glasses The Pillar also at which Christ was whipped and the Stairs or Steps on which he went up into the Judgment-Hall and some of the Thorns wherewith he was crowned An Image of the Virgin Mary made by S. Luke to which an Angelical Statue of Marble was seen often to bow The paring of the nails of a living dead Crucifix and the lively Picture of Christ made by himself by the pressing onely of a Napkin to his face when he sweat 16. What would the world say to the credibility of three Tuns of Teeth from the Jaws of one Saint to the producing of the very Dagger and Shield with which S. Michael fought with the Devil and a Feather that might then haply fall out of one of the Angel's Wings What to the shewing of the Skull of a Saint's head at one place his Hair in another his Jaw-bone in another his Forehead in a fourth and yet his whole Head in a fifth What to the Fore-skin of Christ shewn also in five several places at once What to some dozens of Nails wherewith Christ was nailed to the Cross and as many pieces of the Cross as would load a Cart to carry them and as many glasses of the Virgin 's Milk as would fill all the vessels in a countrey-dairy How can such gross Impostures as these but wipe the Priests lips clean of all credit and belief and cast the world into desperate Atheism and Infidelity 17. But eighthly and lastly The Incredible of all Incredibles and the greatest Impossibility of all Impossibilities were that pretended Mystery of Transsubstantiation which being urged with the like necessity and assurance of Truth that any thing is urged by this Antichristian Church whose Picture I am a-drawing will doe the most fatal execution upon the Christian Faith that any thing imaginable can doe For supposing this the most Fundamental Article of their Creed or if you will the most precious and the most seriously-urged Fundamental of them all and the very hindge of almost all their publick Devotion and God-service if this break all must fall to the ground For if the Church be found shamelesly false in so important a Point as this it does immediately follow that she will be believed in nothing Wherefore they whose belief was either wholly or mainly supported by the seeming greatness of her Authority this failing by the easy discovery of so gross a Falsehood and yet by her most earnestly and most seriously avowed for Truth the Faith of every such man must also necessarily fail unless by some special grace of God assisting his conference with the persons or writings of some better-instructed Christians which he may haply meet with in this vast Wilderness he wanders in he be stopt from splitting himself a-pieces from this dangerous precipice he stands on and from the plunging himself into the mire of Atheism and Unbelief 18. For undoubtedly if he have no other help but this Pseudo-christian Synagogue though he may be awed by their external lash from professing his Infidelity yet it will be impossible for him to hinder the tacit growth of it in his own Soul but he will naturally disgust and disclaim all hearty commerce with Religion and even loath it as a pack of lies Wherefore it is impossible but this congregation of Impostours and Deceivers which I am setting forth in the truest colours I can should swarm with multitudes of grown and obdurate Atheists For the Imposture we speak of now being so signal and the discovery so easy and obvious how can it chuse but be discovered even by multitudes of people For the account comes onely to this Whether it be more likely that the Church for her own advantage which I perceive she does every-where eagerly and stiffly pursue may knowingly and wittingly impose upon me or at least mistake in her own judgment of the Infallibility whereof I have no proof but her own boast when it is in the mean time her Interest to boast so I say the account comes onely to this Whether it be more likely that she may practise fraud or fall into a mistake out of some blind Superstition or that by the uttering of Five words a Priest should have such a power as to turn a piece of Bread into a Man the Bread according to all my Senses being as much Bread as it was before Which is a double Miracle and greater then ever was yet done in the world considered but thus far and almost as great a Miracle that any one should believe it 19. But there are still greater I cannot say Miracles but downright Impossibilities As first That this Bread is not turned into a Man that was to be but that was already in being Which is the hardest Non-sense that can be offered to the mind of man to think upon And yet in the second place the Bread is so turned into a Man that is to say into the Man Christ that he is entirely in every place where this consecrated Bread seems to be that is in thousands of places at once at very large distances Which is as perfect a Contradiction as any can be proposed That one and the same Body should be entirely distant from it self For how can it be One being thus divided from it self since Unity consists in Indivision and Self-Unity certainly is Self-Indivision Wherefore if there be one Self at Oxford suppose and another at Cambridge at the same time it is impossible it should be one and the same Person their distance or division demonstrating them two distinct ones And thirdly and lastly From this false supposition That one and the same Body may be at the same time in several places it will also follow That one and the same Person or Body may be at the same time wholly within it self and wholly without it self wholly above it self and wholly beneath it self on the right hand of it self and on the left hand of it self That it may be One Body and yet many Bodies at once or rather no Body but a Spirit or to speak more truly Nothing That one and the same Person may meet himself and complement
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
which theme having spoken sufficiently in my Description of the Second Limb of Antichristianism it was enough to mention it onely here CHAP. X. 1. The wicked Method of raising the Power of this Supreme Pastour to this height a demonstration of the excess of Ambition 2. His blasphemous usurpation or acceptation of the Divine Titles 3. His barbarous insultation over Excommunicated Kings and Emperours 4. The excess of Homage done to him by the greatest Personages 5. His exalting himself above God in point of Jurisdiction 6. His elation of himself above him in point of Honour or Precedency 7. Other Instances of that kind of Pride 8. His exaltation of himself above God even in the very House of God literally so called 1. WE have already wrought up this Image of Antichristianism in the power of One particular Priest or Patriarch so high as that by hook or by crook he has wriggled himself into the pretence if not possession of Absolute Sovereignty over all the Potentates of Christendom Which being acquired by such wicked means it must needs be that a more then Hellish Fire of Ambition lies at the bottom which will betray it self yet more fully in these visible flames namely Certain exorbitant Titles and Prerogatives this Son of Pride is adorned with His barbarous insultations over subdued Princes and Emperours and the extravagant Homages and Services done to his person in publick Solemnities 2. As for example What can be more blasphemously Antichristian then to suffer himself to be decked with the spoils of the Divine Attributes To be styled Our Lord God Optimum Maximum Supremum Numen in terris A God on Earth A visible Deity To have declared that his Tribunal and that of God is all one That his Power is absolute That what he does he does as God and not as Man and That all must submit to his Decree as being infallible That he is all and above all That he has the disposing of Kingdoms can pull down one and set up another That he can doe all that God can doe clave noâ—… errante That he can change the nature of things make something of nothing make Injustice Justice and Wrong Right That all Laws are in his breast That he can dispense with the Canons of the Apostles and with the New Testament it self That he is the Cause of Causes That it is Sacrilege to doubt of his Power That he has a Dominion over Angels Purgatory and Hell That he is the Monarch of the world and exceeds the Imperial Majesty as much as the Sun does the Moon and That he is to be adored by all the Potentates of the Earth This is one blazing Eruption out of this infernal Aetna of Luciferian Ambition 3. The second was his haughty Insultation over Excommunicated and subdued Princes As for example It were most salvagely Antichristian for this Triumphant Patriarch after Excommunication and submission to his power thereupon to make one Emperour to wait some days together bare-foot and clad in Canvass with his Empress for Absolution at his gate and that in the midst of winter to make him resign his Imperial Ornaments and after all this to depose him and give his Empire to another To make another prostrate himself publickly in the Church and in this prostration to set his foot on the Emperour's neck as if he were crushing an Adder or Snake To crown another not with his hands but with his feet and then with the same feet to kick the Crown from off the Emperour's head To make one Prince resign his Crown and live some days as a private person and then upon condition of becoming a Vassal to his High-priestship to permit him to receive it again at his Legat's hands lowly kneeling at his feet To make another by way of penance to go creeping along his Holy-Highnesse's Palace upon his hands and knees with a Collar about his neck like a Dog To whip another stark naked in an open Cathedral every Monk or Religious person bestowing some number of lashes on him Certainly such gross usage as this of Emperours Kings and Princes cannot but be the Indication of a Pride and Elation of mind plainly Diabolical 4. But what speak we of Penances when we may draw so odious a Draught out of ordinary expected Homages and Observances We will therefore suppose that according to the known Ceremonies of this Sacerdotal Court when his Holy-Highness Universal Head of the Church will be something still higher by getting on Horse-back that the Emperour or King that is present must of duty hold his Stirrup as he gets up or if his will is upon some occasion to be transported in a Chair of State that the Emperour and King are to submit their neck to the yoke and take up this stately Man in his Chair on their shoulders When this grand Prelate also goeth to dinner the Emperour or King there present must have the honour imposed upon them to serve him with Water and a Towel to wash his anointed hands For which service they shall be permitted to sit down at Table after attendance till the first Course be served The Emperour's place also in an Oecumenical Council shall be at this High-priest's feet like a good son of Gamaliel And finally wheresoever this Oecumenical Patriarch goes the people shall fall down on their knees or if they doe not that Worship willingly and glibly be knock'd down upon them by his rigid Guard those grim extorters of the Adoration of this Idol 5. This tenour of Ceremonies will plainly place this High-priest many degrees higher then the Princes of the Earth be they Kings or Emperours or what other Potentates soever But we will now draw a stroke or two of such an Elation or Haughtiness of spirit in point of Ceremonie and Precedency as may make him justly seem to affect a Sovereignty above that of God himself Of which Affectation we have given substantial Examples as touching Power in that he was supposed to cancel the Laws of God and to substitute in their place some gainful Decrees of his own Which is a perfect exalting himself above God in point of Authority and real Jurisdiction 6. And for point of good Manners and Ceremony If we should imagine that those things which himself and his adherents give the highest Religious Worship to were yet cast lower then this Supreme Prelate were it not to take precedency of the most High God As for example if the Cross which they judge Latria due to were cast so low as this High-priest's feet were not he then higher then what the highest kind of Divine honour is due to But this you will say perhaps will but make him equal with God But the Host or consecrated Bread is already supposed to be esteemed by this Pseudo-Christian Church the very Body of Christ or his corporeal Person that is to say that where this is Christ true God is truly and corporeally present in his own Person as truly and really as
he is in Heaven If therefore this Person of Christ which is ordinarily called the Holy Sacrament should be less respected then the High-priest that consecrated it it is plain that he were exalted above it Wherefore for example If in solemn Processions this High-priest should appoint the Ceremonies in such sort as that this Sacrament that is to say according to them the real Person of Jesus should be placed amongst the less noble of the Pomp but the High-priest himself in the midst of the most illustrious Princes that Jesus Christ should be carried on an Horse but the High-priest on the shoulders of Kings and Potentates that a mean servant of the Sacrist shall lead the Horse that carries Christ Jesus but if the High-priest be on horse-back at that time some Prince or Emperour that the Canopy over Jesus Christ shall be carried onely by Citizens of the City but the Canopy of the High-priest by great Nobles or Embassadors Were not this plainly and palpably to take place of God Almighty himself and to be so proud an Oecumenical Patriarch as to prefer himself before the Eternal Father and Maker of the Universe 7. Which might be done also in more ordinary journeyings If this High-priest suppose should appoint Jesus Christ to ride on an ordinary Gennet led by an ordinary Stable-groom and to go before there is Precedency indeed but amongst the baggage of his Retinue Calones Lixas Curtesannas to be an Harbinger of his holy Highnesse's coming himself in the mean time marching fairly on accompanied with Patriarchs Archbishops Bishops and such like persons of Quality Surely this would suggest to any musing man a very deep conceit or profound meditation to wit how one and the same person according to his circumscribed bodily presence should at one and the same time ride on Horse-back here on Earth disgracefully and contemptibly amongst those Scullions and Curtesans and yet sit in a Throne of Majesty and Glory in the highest Heavens incircled with the Praises and Adorations of the Holy Angels But be that how it will it is in the mean time very manifest that this sublime Priest is so far out in good manners as well as in usurpation of real right of Jurisdiction that he does elate himself above God himself according to his own concession or doctrine of his Church in appointing thus to himself more honour then to the Itinerant Person of Christ. 8. To all which we might further adde this supposition also That this High-priest at his Inauguration into this Supreme Office might be placed upon the Holy Altar of Christ in some chief Church of his Metropolis the seet of his Chair of State trampling upon the Sacred Throne of the Body of Christ and there receive Adoration from his Ecclesiastick Princes and the gazing and amazed People But I think I have already drawn the Effigies of so perfect an Antichristian Pride that nothing need be added thereto nor the least scruple left but that he that exalts himself thus high cannot but be that Man of sin which 2 Thess. 2. sits in the House of God and exalts himself above all that is called God CHAP. XI 1. That the Pride of this Superlative Head will diffuse it self also into its Members 2. Further general Incentives to this Vice in this usurping Priesthood 3. Peculiar Incentives thereto in some great Dignities 4. The singularity of Habits and way of living in some Religious Orders an occasion of Pride 5. The pretence of meriting in these Orders an high and hateful Instance of this Vice 6. That such an elated Pseudo-Clergie as this might well go for that Man of sin that exalts himself above every thing that is worshipped 7. And be emblematized in the description of the Leviathan who is called the King of the children of Pride 1. NOr can we imagine the Head so diabolically proud but this poison must diffuse it self into all the Body and swell up all the Members thereof in some sort or other For though this High-priest have a great power over his Clergie themselves to tax them and fleece them yet they would all of them be not a little puffed up to conceit themselves parts of that Body whose Head is so transcendently raised above all the Princes of the Earth over whom he having once usurped the Tyranny and being warm and well settled in his power he may haply be the more easie and beneficial to his own Tribe Besides their being exempted from all Secular Powers must needs elate their minds and make them haughty and domineering and prone to be injurious they being able to recoil to such Judges as will be parties for them 2. Moreover the power of receiving Auricular Confession is a mighty subjugative and insulting Privilege over the poor prostrate Laiety at the feet of their Confessors And that distinctive Privilege of the Eucharistick Cup peculiar to the Priest must needs make the Lay-men lear or Iounge aloof off and look maimedly on 't as acknowledging so vast a distance betwixt them and the Priesthood All which things tend naturally to the swelling up of this Clergie How then can they bear that conceit of the power of creating their Creator and of being such Priests as offer the very Body of Christ for a propitiation and therefore in this regard may conceit themselves in some sense superiour to Christ himself These are common to the whole Body Sacerdotal 3. But there are also Considerations peculiar though to great numbers as those that are Sacerdotal Princes and great Persons in this Church have a peculiar instigation to this Vice For it were easie to phansy that this mighty High-priest may create Ecclesiastick Potentates under him which may be Co-assessors and sharers with him in this Spiritual Domination over the World he creating them with some such Form as this Estote Fratres mei Principes mundi which must needs set their spirits at an high pitch But many Ranks inferiour to these and yet equal to Secular Princes and Nobles such as may have the pomp or accommodation of * Rev. 18. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say of Horses and Coaches and Lackeys or Pages to attend them or run by them may make up a numerous company of these children of Pride who yet bearing the Titles of Pastours and Over-seers of the Flock of Christ oversee them in no other sense then of over-looking them they being placed so high above them that they have not any mind or ability to feed them but rather to flay them and Lord it over them 4. And lastly for those that are yet more numerous which we may suppose to have put on the vizard of a more peculiar Holiness listing themselves under the Title and Conduct of this or that Saint and making a show of Humility by wearing some uncouth and sordid Habit and seeming separate from the World by retiring into lazie and populous Monasteries and mortified to the pride and glory of it while