and to punish those that would observe them as the adherents of that Parliament did if I knew him I should verily believe him to be the great Antichrist But as the Prophet David complaineth of the Jews that they kept not the Covenant of God and would not walk in his law but soon forgate what he had done and the wonderfull works that he had shewed for them Psal 78.12 so we may justly complain of all those the spawn and offspring of the Presbyterian assembly and adherents of that long Parliament that not only forget the due observation of these holy times but also forbid and inhibit and in many places reprove correct and punish their Christian brethren for their religious observation of these good dayes and the performance of these holy duties which they owe to God for his great blessings Yet I hope that with all their subtlety and authority that vote them down they shall never be able to suppress them no more than Antiochus was to abolish the Jewish feasts because the holy Ghost saith the little horn that was the type of the Antichrist when he came to be great Daniel 7.25 and to the height of his power did but think to change the times and was not able to change them because the godly Jews observed all their festival times and holy dayes notwithstanding all the inhibition of Antiochus to the contrary and all the tortures that they endured for observing them So I hope all good Christians and true Saints will observe these their feasts and holy dayes and upon no termes either of fear flattery or gain omit on these times to do their service and holy duties unto God nor shew themselves less thankfull to God for the true substance than the Jews were for the types and shadowes of that substance But I remember Sanders Sanders in demonst Ansel in Apoc. c. 7. ex Irenaeo l. 5. Hypolit in orat de fine seculi Gen. 49.17 Jerem. 8.16 Bellar. de Rom. Pontif. l. 3. c. 12. Anselmus and some others out of Irenaeus and Hippolitus do think that the Antichrist shall be a Jew of the Tribe of Dan because old Jacob saith Dan shall be a serpent by the way an adder in the path that biteth the horse heels so that his rider shall fall backward and the Prophet Jeremy saith the snorting of his horses was heard from Dan and especially because that the Angel in the Revelat. c. 7. where 12 thousand are sealed out of every Tribe of Jacob leaves out the Tribe of Dan for that the Antichrist as these men suppose should arise from that Tribe and Bellarmine saith it is very probable the Antichrist shall be a Jew And whether these men that refuse and forbid the observance of the festival times and dayes of Christ be Danites or no I cannot tell but I am sure they are like Jewes not only in the Jewish precise and ceremonious observation of the Sabbath that was to be sanctified for the remembrance of our creation and the prophanation of these holy Christian feasts that we keep for the remembrance of our redemption but also in many other things that do obliterate and blot out the memorial of the greatest benefits that Christ hath done for us and the chiefest points of our Christian Religion Therefore if the promoting of Judaism the suppressing of the adiutaments and helps to understand and to preserve the main heads of Christianity be a note and property of the Antichrist let our Assembly of Presbyterians and the members of that long Parliament with their adherents that think to change these times take heed they be not found to be the Antich Object But these men will object against the observation of these Feasts and especially of Christmas that they know not on what day of the month he was born and therefore why should they observe the 25th day of December for the day of his Nativity Or if it be true that he was born on that day yet they have no Precept in all the Scripture that they should cease from their vocation and keep that for an holy day Respons To the first part of this Objection I shall but briefly answer by demanding of thee To the first part of the Objection Why dost thou with all other Churches in Christendom observe the year of our Lords Incarnation when the Angel saluted Mary and the Word begâ—n his Incarnation in the womb of the blessed Virgin to begin on the 25th day of March if thou doubtest that he was not born on the 25th of December Dost thou think she went either more or less time with her Child than the usual and natural time of other women And therefore if thou wilt change the day of his birth change the day of his Incarnation in the wombe of his mother and let the year of our Lord in all our deeds and writings be altered and begin on another day which thou knowest to be a surer time of his Incarnation than the 25th day of March for why should all our evidences be false and erronious Or if thou my good Presbyterian dost not think the 25th of December to be the day of his Nativity why dost thou not inform us for certain on what day of the month he was born that we may not neglect the duty because we are not sure of the day But you think it a sufficient excuse wholly to neglect the duty because you doubt of the day And yet it might be a sufficient reason to satisfie any reasonable man besides that John Baptist who was born on the 24th of June that then was the longest day in the year and just six months before the birth of Christ as the Angel informed Mary tells us plainly that according to the daies of their birth Christ must encrease and he must decrease that the whole Church of God have unanimously observed this day constantly for the day of Christ his birth and why shouldst thou think that Christ would all this while suffer his Church to be deceived herein or that thou shouldst be wiser than the whole Church hath been for so many Ages together Solut. To the second part of the Objection To the second part of thine Objection that thou hast no Precept in Scripture to observe this day I confess it and how many things dost thou not only in natural businesse and ordinary affairs but also in and about the Service of God that thou hast no Precept for them in all the Scriptures For where hast thou any Precept to keep the first day of the week for the Sabbath To receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper once every month To preach twice every Lords day To build a Church in such and such a place To make the Sermon so long as thou dost The People to meet in Church twice a day and no more And the Service to be on such hours and no other And the like For though God accepteth of no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
of 1200 and 60 dayes that make three years and a half just so long as Christ Preached after he was Baptized among the Jewes and at the end of those 1200 and 60 dayes they should be slaine by the Antichrist about one moneth before the Antichrist should be destroyed and it is a wonderfull thing to consider how many Papists are led away with the belief of these fictions of which I will not stand to confute and to shew their Vanity for that Bibliander and Chytraeus have sufficiently answered to these places Chytraeus in c. 11. Apoc. Math. 11.14 and have fully shewed howthese were the mistakes of those Fathers and but meere fancies of the Papists when our Saviour tels us plainly that Iohn Baptist was the Elias which was for to come and which the Jewes dreamed as the Papists do should be Elias the Tisbite that was taken up to Heaven in a Fiery Charet Exposition 2 Dr. Hammond in Apoc c. 11. Eusebius l. 4. c. 6. Others by these two Witnesses do understand two Bishops of Hierusalem wherof the one was Bishop over the Converted Jewes and the other of the Gentile Christians and these Berchochabas a Seditious and Rebellious Jew whereof Eusebius writeth did kill in the civil dissention of the Jewes as some Authors testifie but as unlikely as the former fiction of the Papists Reason 1 And the acts of the Apostles seem not to intimate any such thing but rather the clean contrary 1. Because we cannot yield that there were two Bishops of Hierusalem one of the Converted Jewes and another of the Gentile Christians as if they meant to make two distinct and severall Churches which might produce a great division and bring many Inconveniences betwixt the Jewish Christians and the Gentiles whereas now the partition Wall betwixt Jews and Gentiles was broken down and as both people were to have but one chief Shepheard that is Jesus Christ so they were to have but one fold and one Deputy Shepheard that is one Bishop under Christ in one City though I deny not but there might be subordinate Presbyters and Deacons under that Bishop to assist him to instruct the people and to Govern the Church Reason 2 2. Because the Revelation is not of known things that were already past for that is not properly a Revelation but a Narration of things especially things publickly done and not concealed but it is of things that were to come to pass and though Berchochabas was supprest by Rufus in the time of the Emperor Adrian about the 130 year of Christ yet it is thought that these men which are supposed to be two Bishops were slain long before this Revelation was shewed unto St. Iohn and not unlikely because Eusebius nameth 15 Bishops of Hierusalem that succeeded one another before Xistus that was but the sixth Bishop of Rome after the Apostles and lived about the beginning of Adrians time Reason 3 3. Because it is manifest that Berchochabas cannot be understood by the Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit and the great Antichrist which is here said to kill the two witnesses because none of the notes and marks of that Beast under which notes the antichrist is described in the Scriptures do any wayes agree with Berchochabas for he never apostatized and fell away from Christ whom he never professed neither did he ever sit in the Temple of God as God nor wrought any signes or wonders nor went about his work slily mysteriously as the Antichrist doth but he went about his design openly and plainly aperto marte with armed Troops and therefore he cannot be understood to be the killer of these two witnesses nor these witnesses to be those two supposed Bishops of Hierusalem Exposition 3 Francisc Junius in loc Others by these two witnesses do understand it generally of the Ministers and Preachers of Gods word that are expressed by the number of two because of their weakness contemptibleness and fewness according to our Saviours words The harvest indeed is great but the labourers are few and yet they are two that they might the better assist one another and especially Deut. 19.13 2 Cor. 13.1 Mat. 18. v. 16. to confirm the Testimony of one another unto all other men according as the Law requireth that by the mouth of two or three Witnesses every word might be made good unto men as the Apostle sheweth But I can see no reason that all the Ministers and Preachers of Gods word should be expressed by the number of two when as though in the beginning when Christ spake it the number of the Apostles and Disciples were but very few yet the Psalmist prophesying of the succeeding time of the Gospel after the day of Pentecost saith that God gave the word and great was the Company of the Preachers and they could not be weak and contemptible during the time of their prophesying and before the coming of the Antichrist because they were the two Olive Trees and the two Candlesticks that stand before the God of the Earth and if any man hurt them that is during the time of their Prophesie Apoc. c. 11.4.5 fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies and therefore our last translation addeth for the explanation of the point the word power unto the Text saying and I will give power unto my two witnesses and they shall prophesie that is Apoc. c. 11.3 during the time alotted them 1200 and 60 dayes so that none shall be able to hinder them Exposition 4 Others do conceive that by these two witnesses we may better understand the two Testaments that is the holy Scriptures of the old and new Testament whereof our Saviour saith Search the Scriptures for they testifie of me John 5.39 and thus do they expound them that make the Pope to be the Antichrist because he hath supprest the Scriptures both of the old and new Testament and hath offered violence and so killed the true sence and meaning of these two Testaments For the violence that the Pope and his Cardinalls and the whole Church of Rome have offered unto the holy Scriptures I cannot and I will not go about to excuse them neither do I think that they can excuse themselves but though the two Testaments are witnesses of Christ and do bear witness of him yet because they are but a dead letter and so dead witnesses as are the Heavens and all the works of God the witnesses of God though the Scriptures truly expounded are by far the clearer and the surer witnesses of him but being turned like a nose of wax by the Hereticks as they are very often I assure my self they are not here meant by these witnesses because they cannot properly nor indeed any wayes be said to be killed when the truth may onely be wounded and for a time suppressed but never killed and quite extinguished quia magna veritas prevalet as Zorchabel proveth and it is but an idle shift
the late persecution of the Christians under the Long Parliament how Gangraena-like it spread it self beyond Decius or Dioclesians Tyranny and almost in these parts like Adams sin that went over all so did their Persecution run over all the most Faithful Sons of the Church and the Loyal Subjects of these Kingdoms And I would faign know what Busiris or Phalaris Dionysian Dioclesian or Nero or John Vasilowic the great Russian Tyrant or what other Tyrant of the world hath ever undone so many worthy men without once questioning them for any fault or charging them with any Crime that they had done or who did ever attempt to destroy so many only for being ill affected to their evil deeds But now The unparallel'd Persecution and cruelty of the prevalent Faction of the long Parl. being thus afflicted destitute and deprived of all their Means how shall all these these thousands of most worthy men live These men that were not brought up to work and used not to dig and are ashamed to beg and therefore without a great measure of Gods Grace to support them and to sanctifie their Afflictions they might fall into desperate conditions They will answer as one of them did to me and like as the High Priests the Crucifiers of our Master Christ answered Judas What is that to us Let them live how they list or let them perish sic periere ruinae and so for them they shall all utterly perish And therefore I may well demand what Tyrant did ever live since the day that God created the Heavens What King What Pope What Hildebrand * That is Gregory the 7th that was one of the worst Popes of Rome What Hel-brand What Turk What Jew What Man What Devil would besuch an Apollyon as to cut off not all the necks of the Heathenish Romans with that bloudy Emperor who wished that they all had but unum Collum one neck that so he might chop it off uno ictu with one blow but all those good Christians and the Faithful Servants of God uno halitu with one Vote one Breath and one Act which was an Axe indeed and was laid to the root of every Tree that bare the good fruit of Faith and Obedience in these Kingdoms Surely I think none could have devised such a Plot so full of mischief so far beyond the Sicilian Vespers and Gunpowder Treason and so void of Humanity and stuffed up with all cruelty and abominable Impiety especially if you consider the large extent and the evil Consequents thereof except the infernal Apollyon the great Destroyer of Christianity and the Hellish Misanthropos that laboureth continually to root out all the Christian Faith and the true Service of God out of the world did unmoveably reside in their hearts to prompt them and to spur them on unto the same or else that Beelzebub the chief of the Devils would send a pack of his Prime Captains and best Instruments out of Hell to root out all the true Servants of Jesus Christ For if you compare this our last persecution and afflictions under the Long Parliament with the former Persecutions of the Heathen Tyrants or the Arian Kings which they brought upon the Church you shall find 1. That there was but one Nero one Dioclesian one Constantius and one Julian in all the world at one time to persecute the Christians that were spread over all the world but here amongst us we suppose to have I know not how many hundred Dioclesians and Julians together at one time in one City to vex and persecute the Christians of one poor little Island 2. The Forme◠Tyrants persecuted them for their Disloyalty as they alledged unto their Emperors and Governours which was most false as appeareth by the Apologies of Tertullian Minutius Foelix and others But we were persecuted for being Faithful and Loyal unto our King and to our Governours as all the Kingdom knoweth CHAP. II. That neither the Pope nor the Turk is the great Antichrist that the Antichrist when he should come into the world should arise out of the Truest and Purest Reformed Church on Earth which was the Church of Ingland in King Charles his time being fully reformed of those Errors and Abuses that should creep and had crept into the Church which other Reformed Churches had not so perfectly purged And wherefore they did it not and could not do it THE serious consideration of the former things What moved the Author to enter upon this discourse of the great Antichrist and the sad condition of the Distressed Persecuted Members of Christ and the Testimony of the foresaid Authors touching the Persecution that should happen in the time of the Great Antichrist which I conceived to be now so visibly seen and so universally spread through the Subtilty and Cruelty of the Prevalent Faction of the Long Parliament have moved me to settle my Thoughts upon the search of those Texts of Holy Scripture wherein the holy Prophets and the blessed Apostles had treated and foretold us of the coming of the Great Antichrist and the sufferings of the Saints and true Servants of God in his time and under his unjust and cruel Government and to pray to God most earnestly and constantly night and day for the help of his Grace and assistance of his Holy Spirit to guide me to the true and right understanding thereof And then by reading the best Authors that I could find to explain those obscure Mysteries and to further me to undertake the same I found and saw I. Many good and probable Arguments produced by Luther Calvin Beza 1. That many learned Authors do hold the Pope or Papacy to be the Antichrist Balaeus de vit Pontif. l. 3. Jun. in Apocal. cap. 12. Thomson in the arraignment of Antichrist pag. 90 91. Brightman in Apoc. Downam de Antichristo l. 10. c. 3. 4. Thomson pag. 77. Junius Chytraeus Tilenus Maresius and our own Countrymen Powel Whitaker Brightmen Downam Thomsom Mede and others very Learned Protestants and worthy men to prove that either the Tyrannical State and Polity of the Papacy is that Great Antichrist as some would have it or else Series Paparum the Succession of Popes from Boniface the 3d in Phocas his time that usurping Emperor who got to the Imperial Throne by the Murder of his own Master Mauritius and his Wife and his Brother and his Children and gave to the Pope the Preheminency and the Title of Universal Bishop about the year 605 as Balaeus saith Or from Boniface the 8th that seduced and imprisoned his Predecessor Celestine the 5th about the year 1294 as Junius saith Or else from Vitellianus the Musical Pope about the year 666 as Thomson saith to this present Pope is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Antichrist spoken of by St. Paul in 2 Thes 2.8 and by St. John in Revel 13.1 And that Rome is the place of his abode and the proper Seat of him as Brightman Downham
sprang up in the Apostles times and of whom and the like 1 John 2.18 It is confessed that the Pope is an Antichrist but not the great transcendent Antichrist S. John saith And now there are many Antichrists each one of them an Antichrist and such indeed are all Antichrists more or less according as their opposition is more or less unto Christ his Church and his Gospel and no doubt but the Pope and Papacy oppugneth Christ corrupteth his truth and oppresseth his Church in very many things and therefore he cannot be denied to be an Antichrist and one of them that are great Antichrists But though these things do sufficiently prove the Pope and Papacy to be an Antichrist and a very great Antichrist too yet they come too short to prove him to be the great eminent egregious transcendent and especially designed Antichrist which the Scripture saith should come before the end of the world and I never saw yet any Arguments alledged by the best of the aforesaid Authors B. Montague in his apello Caesarem pag. 143. that was sufficient to evince him to be the same nor indeed as Bishop Montague saith That I could not sufficiently answer at least-wise to mine own satisfaction to hinder my belief therein And though the Synod of Gappe and Mr. Powel and some other rigid Puritans of Ingland transported with the height of their zeal to a prejudicate opinion against the Pope do put it amongst the Articles of their Faith to believe him and his Hierarchie to be that great transcendent Antichrist yet I am sure that The Church of Ingland hath not determin'd the Pope to be the great Antichrist neither learned Zanchius nor Grynaeus nor Faius nor any of the most learned and more moderate Divines of Ingland do think him to be the same neither is it the Doctrine of our Church when as no Synod of ours hath resolved it nor any one of all our Convocations assented to it as learned and reverend B. Montague well observeth And although S. Peter calleth Rome as it was then in his time Ethnick idolatrous and full of confusion Babylon yet quia de cet Scripturam proprie accipere How the Scriptures ought to be expounded ubi non cogit fides ad tropos descedere because it ought to be an infalible Rule which all Divines should immutably observe That the holy Scripture is to be taken and expounded properly where the Analogy of Faith doth not compel us to recede unto Tropes and figures as here it doth when S. Peter wrote this Epistle but not so when Rome became all Christian and was rather Hierusalem then Babylon And because I see Bellarmines Arguments to prove the Pope not to be that great and long expected Antichrist unsufficiently answered The main Reasons why we cannot believe the Pope to be the great Antichrist and the answers unsatisfactory to many men notwithstanding all the endeavours of Bishop Downham and others of our best learned men to do the same and especially because that although many of the marks signes and actions of the great Antichrist may be rightly applicable and properly belonging to the Pope yet seing none can be truly said to be that very Antichrist but he that shall have all the marks tokens and characters of that Antichrist and shall by his actions fulfill all the Prophesies and Predictions that are foretold us in the Scripture the great Antichrist should do and all the markes and actions foretold us of that great Antichrist are no wayes applicable to the Pope nor fulfilled by the Pope as in the prosecution and sequel of this Discourse I shall make it as clear as the light to any impartial man that is not peevishly transported and obstinately wedded to his own groundless opinion and for many other reasons that in the explication of those Scriptures that speak of him I shall hereafter set down unto you all the men in the world shall never make me believe that the Pope E. H. de Antic pag. 81. 2. That many other learned men do believe the Turk to be the great Antichrist or succession of Popes or popish state and Polity is that great enormous Antichrist that should come into the world or that the city of Rome is or must be the proper seat and throne of that Antichrist and so E.H. in his Treatise de Antichristi Pag. 81. saith these very same words that I do 2. As the foresaid Authors concluded the Pope and Papacy to be that great Antichrist so many other learned men and great Divines finding the invalidity of the former mens Arguments and the insufficiency of their reasons to confirm their Opinion and to justifie their allegation to prove the Pope to be Antichrist have thought the Turk to be the same that should come into the world to destroy the flock of Christ and they do judg Constantinople to be that Babylon which is prophesied and spoken of in the Revelation to be the seat and throne of that bloody beast ever since Mahomet the 2. took the City of Constantinople and turned the great and famous Church of San-sophia in anno 1455. to be for the service of the false Prophet Mahomet Mahomet who he was that was the son of Abdalla a Merchant in Mecca of Arabia and was born post-humus in anno 571. as the Lord Verulam collecteth And that learned Bishop Montague setteth down 10 special reasons that might prove his Successor and upholder of his Blasphemies the great Turk and his wicked tyrannical state and Polity directing all his Lawes and Practices ex diametro to oppose the state and Kingdome of Christ and to oppress his servants to constitute and to be that great Antichrist rather and far more likely than the Pope as to abbreviate the same unto you Reason 1 B. Montague his 10 Reasons to prove the Turk Antichrist 1. In his Apostacy whether you understand it from the Doctrine and Gospel of Christ or from the Rom. Empire for both himself and all his Sectaries have relapsed from Christ and Apostatized from the Profession of his name and have received the mark and stamp of the Beast and he is much more interessed in the Rom. Empire than the Pope is or then any of the Popes that ever was Reason 2 2. For his deceiving signes and wonders from the first Mahomet to the present Turk the stories are most manifest how he and all his took that course to deceive the people and to make himself to be believed and to be esteemed a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some great one like Simon Magus the which thing secundum literam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was never personally verified in any Pope of Rome to this day as it was in that false prophet who is amongst all his followers accounted the great power of God and their Saviour to these very times Reason 3 3. For the number of the beast whether you take it from the time of his rising
of the Antichrist or the Babylon that is meant in Rev. 17. and some other Places of the Holy Scripture from which we are commanded to go out lest we should be partakers of her Plagues For they do nimium haerere cortici too much adhere and stick to the Letter and outward bark of the Text that do so expound it Whereas the meaning of the Holy Ghost is more mystical and spiritually to be understood for the great and spacious confused City of this world that as the Church of Christ is Civitas Dei the City of God whereof S. Aug. wrote 22 Books which he styled de Civitate Dei and is typified and signified in many places of the holy Scripture by Hierusalem the City of peace that is at unity within it self and by that little City that hath but few men within it when as our Saviour saith his flock is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a little flock which a little City would well contain so the Synagogue of Satan Ecclesia malignantium the congregation of the wicked is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that very great City that sits like a Queen to tyrannize over Gods Servants and is no less than the whole world and can be no less to contain the whole Army of Satan when as caetus impiorum the congregation of the ungodly is a mighty multitude and therefore must have a great and a very large City to inhabit And because the Citizens of this world are as the Citizens of Hierusalem were when Titus besieged it at odds among themselves and yet agreeing to rob and slay all the good and godly men that were amongst them until Titus for their wickedness had destroyed them all And as the builders of Old Babylon were when God confounded their Language of several minds and dispositions so that when the one called for a stone the other brought him clay and when he called for Mortar he brought him Bricks until at last they brought both their work and themselves unto confusion so are the Citizens of this great Metropolis of several desires and ambitions the one hunting after wealth the other after honours another filled with malice and aimes at nothing more than revenge and yet all of them agree to persecute the poor helpless man to kick against their Governours to despise their Teachers and to rob their Brethren until they do confound all things both the Servants and Service of God and at last themselves by an utter ruine and a most fearful confusion therefore their city is termed Babylon And so I say that neither of the three forenamed Cities nor any other one material City of the world can be here in the Apostles sense understood by this great City of Babylon but rather that City whereof the Fellow of whom the Philosopher demanded what Countryman he was answered that he was Civis hujus mundi The Reasons of the foresaid Exposition a Citizen of the great City of this world And this I say for these special Reasons Reason 1 1. Because neither of the three forenamed Cities nor any other one City of the world hath made the Kings of the Earth and all Nations drunk with the wine of her Fornication as this City of Babylon is said to have done For neither old Rome corrupted all Nations with her heathenish and Idolatrous Service of her many gods nor new Rome hath spread her Mahometan Religion over all the parts of the earth nor especially the Pope defiled all the Regions of Christendom much less then all Nations with his Superstitions But the great City of this world I may freely speak it without a figure hath bewitched intoxicated and made all the Nations of earth drunk with the sweet wine of the vanities and pleasures thereof none can deny it quia totus mundus in maligno positus Reason 2 2. Because all that had ships in the Sea that is all the Merchants that traded to bring commodities from one Nation to another were not all made rich by either of the three forenamed Cities or by any other one City of the world whatsoever as the Holy Ghost saith they were all made rich by this Babylon but all the Merchants that had ships and were at any time or in any place made rich were inriched by the great City of this world Reason 3 3. Because the City of Babylon that is here in the Revelation meant is said to have killed the holy Apostles and Prophets of God and though S. Peter and S. Revelat. c. 18. 20. Paul are recorded to have been killed at Rome yet neither Rome nor Constantinople nor the Assyrian nor the Egyptian Babylon nor any other one City of the world did ever see any or if any certasnly not many of those holy Prophets that God sent unto the Israelites and were killed not by any of the foresaid Cities but by the Jews and in Jerusalem and by the Citizens of this world that have indeed killed all the holy Apostles and Prophets that were killed and do still continue Ribera in Apoc. 18.20 to kill the best servants of Jesus Christ even as our Saviour foretelleth us in the world not in Rome nor in Constantinople but in the world you shall have tribulation because the world hateth you as it hated me before you and therefore Ribera demandeth rightly quem apostolum aut quem Prophetam persecuta est Ecclesia Romana seu Roma papalis ut Sancti debeant laetare de ejus paenis which of all the Apostles or of all the Prophets did the Church of Rome since Rome became Christian persecute and kill Revel 18.24 that the Saints should rejoce at her Punishments Reason 4 4. Because it is expresly said that in that Babylon which is there meant was found the blood of Prophets and of Saints and of all that were slain upon the earth mark this of all that were slain upon the earth and tell me how this can be refered to any one City of the world but only to the great City of this world and so is literally true without Trope or figure and why should we run to figures when the sence is true in the letter Reason 5 5. Because of many other particulars that you may finde in the 17 and 18 Chapters of the Revelation and elsewhere in the Scriptures ascribed to this great City of Babylon which without tropes and figures and many other shifts can no wayes be referred or applyed either to old Rome or new Rome or to any other one city whatsoever but may properly without stretching or any violence offered unto the Text be applyed to the great City of this world And therefore by this Babylon that is spoken of in Revel 17. and elswhere and said to be the seat of the Antichrist I conceive that we are to understand not Rome as J.W. and all the rest that make the Pope to be the Antichrist and would rather bring the Holy Ghost to mean as they think then submit
Opinions and vomited forth the Blasphemies of the old hereticks and chiefly of the Anthropomorphites Sabellians Nestorians Sadduceans Alexander Ross in the Epistle to the Reader before his animadversions Arabeans Taceans or Euchratites Manichaeans Mahometans and others the like wicked Hereticks All which Errors Heresies and Blasphemies the said Rosse hath observed and quoted the very Chapters where they were to be found and seen in the said Leviathan and hath in his animadversions most religiously and learnedly like a good Servant of Christ confuted the same to whom I refer my Reader to be more fully satisfied in every point And so the Reverend Bishop Hall hath somwhat shewed the Errors Heresies Blasphemies Bishop Hall in his revelation unrevealed Absurdities and Confusions that sprang amongst us and these Sectaries have brought into this Church of Christ And so likewise no doubt but many other Divines have observed and confuted the Blasphemie of these Beasts that have so divided the seamless Coat of Christ and brought such a confusion into his Church And letting pass the multiplicity of errors dissentions and absurd conclusions that have now lately crept into these Dominions about the Government of the Commâ—â—-wealth when some would have it a Monarchy others no Monarchy some desire it to be Aristocratical others Democratical and others Anarchical no Government at all If all the foresaid errors and all other sorts of heresies and blasphemies be not the undeniable marks and notes and the Causers of the greatest confusion and division that can be among Christians in the Faith and Doctrine that they do profess and if every Parish-Priest in order or without order becoming absolute like a Pope in every Congregation without any subordination to superiour Governours as the Independant Anabaptists and Lay Preachers would have it doth not breed the greatest confusion that can be in the Discipline and Government of the Church I leave it to any wise man to determine it and to judge whether the Popes Traditions or the Turkes Alcoran or the Jews fabulous Targum can bring more Sects and divisions and cause greater confusion among the people than these Sectaries and Hereticks have scattered and produced in our Church Objection But here it may be some Presbyterian will object against me for making the Region of division and confusion to be that great City of Babylon that is spoken of in the Revelation and is the place and City where the Antichrist shall enthrone himself and say to me as S. Bernard doth in the like case to Abaylardus that answered him quod omnes Patres sic ego autem non sic that although all the Fathers thought so as S. Bernard said yet he thought not so therefore that I must with Acetâ—erigere mihi scalam set up a Ladder for my self alone to ascend and climb up to the high top of this great Mystery the understanding of what place is meant by this Babylon Author Romae ruinae finalis Anno 1666 when as most of the Expositors of this Point and Place both old and new Papists and Protestants as you may see them produced in heaps by the author of Romae ruina finalis Anno Domini 1666. which is dedicated inclitissimo D. O. Protectori do by Babylon there spoken of literally understand the City of Rome and no other place but Rome and I expound it not so grammatically as they do for any special place or City but altogether mystically for the great City of this world and especially for that part of the world where most errors heresies divisions and confusions are spread and do infest both the Church and Common-wealth And why should I think to be believed before all the rest Or what revelation have I had to understand it better than they did Respon To this I answer 1. That the Particulars of the Person time place and other adjuncts of the great Antichrist are tendered unto us every where in the Scriptures as Prophesies and as Mysteries sealed up obscure and not manifested nor to be understood many times by the Prophets themselves until they be fulfilled and are made known by evident and plain event which as I said before is the best exposition upon all Prophesies And therefore as Bishop Morton saith in excuse of the Fathers concerning their erring in this very case of the Antichrist the ignorance or mistaking of those things Bishop Montagu in his apello Caes c. 5. p. 146. which cannot possibly be understood before the time of their accomplishment in the last daies can no waies be held prejudicial to the wisdom and judgment of the Fathers of former times nor the receding from them can be said to be a fault or presumption in us when we see things otherwise fulfilled than they thought Tilenus exeges de Antichristo 73. p. 21. because as Tilenus saith very well aliud est latentem Antichristum non posse agnoscere aliud revelatum nolle adspicere it is one thing not to know the Antichrist while he lieth hid before he cometh into the world or to know the place or time of his coming before he cometh for so neither the Fathers of old nor the Protestants of latter years though never so learned could rightly and infallibly discern either who he was or at what time and in what place he should arise untill they saw him and it is another thing to refuse to know him or to take notice both of him and of the place where he is when he plainly appeareth and is made manifest to as many as are willing to take notice of him Dr. Hackwill in his Preface to his Book of Gods Providence 2. I say with Dr. Hakewel that sometimes an error and mistaking of a point hath been conceived and delivered by some man of note and worth both for learning and judgment and then the same error hath by the succeeding Schollers been generally imâ—taced and received for a truth sine judicio as Mr. Calvin saith in the like case anâ— without further search or discussion into the nature and ground of the matter and in such a case we ought to accept and follow a late and newly delivered truth and recede from the old and ancient error though never so generally imbraced by the former Authors rather than to continue in a generally received error because truth whensoever and by whomsoever discovered is to be received and preferred before error how anciently or how generally soever it hath been delivered §. 3. The Antichrist will accomplish and fulfill all the Prophesies and do all the things that are foretold us should be done by the Antichrist and that being but an insipid speech to say mallem cum Socrate errare quam cum aliis verè sentire 3. The Antichrist having seen the rebellion and apostacy of the Church and now growing strong by the division and confusion that is both in the Church and State wherein he inthroneth himself as in the seat of his Majesty
c. 3. as some say otherwise called Belus by the Gentiles or of Belus the son of Nimrod as others say for an idol to be worshipped well nigh 2000 years after man was made yet our saviour saith he was a murderer from the beginning John 8.44 because it was he that murdered our first parents and made them liable unto death in paradise and it was he that taught Cain to kill his own brother Abel 5. It is not only one but it is also the first and the greatest one of those crying sins 5. The greatest of the 4 crying sinnes Revel 6.9 10. that are onely so called in the Scriptures because they do continually crie and call for vengeance against the transgressors and say with the soules of them that were slain for the word of God How long O Lord holy and true doest thou not judg and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth for the other three crying sins that is Sodomy oppression and detaining of our servants wages they are but parts and parcels of this great crying sin of murder because that in Sodomy that seed is spilt which might have been the matter and substance of the humane flesh and blood and by the other two that is oppression and wages detained from the labourers the life of the oppressed and poor labouring man is made to languish and to be shortened by little and little for want of means because the life of man and the means to maintain that life are like ens bonum voces convertibiles equivalent and therefore the wise man saith The bread of the needy is their life he that defraudeth them thereof is a man of blood but in murder and the killing of a man root and branch and all the tree seed and fruit is wholly destroyed and cut down all at once 6. It is a sin which produceth that irregularity 6. An irregular sin that although the sinners should truly repent and have their sinnes pardoned by God which is but seldome seen that they do yet they cannot promoveri be advanced or proceed on in Gods favour and be so acceptable in Gods service and for to do him service 1 Chron. 28.3 as any other sinners may be upon their repentance as it appeareth plainly by what the Lord saith unto David that otherwise was a man according to Gods own heart and had heartily repented and made 7 paenitential Psalmes for his murder thou shalt not build an house for my name because thou hast been a man of war and hast shed blood not only the blood of Urias but also very likely the blood of others that were innocent in the wars as Souldiers use to do many times slay the righteous with the wicked 7. 7. A sin worse than Adams sin Gen. 4.11 12. The odiousness of this sin is seen by the punishment that the most just God imposed on this sin For when Cain slew his Brother the Lored said unto him the voice of thy Brothers blood crieth unto me that is the voice of the bloods of thy Brother for so it is in the Original that thou hast spilt that is of all the bloud and progeny that should have sprung from Abel to have replenished the earth if thou hadst not spilt it doth most justly require that I should take vengeance on thee therefore thou art cursed from the earth And this his curse was so great and of so large extent that it reached to the very earth that bare him up and therefore the Lord addeth when thou tillest the ground it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strongth a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth the which seems to be a far heavier sentence inflicted upon him so killing his brother then that which was imposed upon Adam for offending Gods own Majesty though there was a straight charge and a Commandment sub poena The punishment of Cains murder heavier than the punishment of Adams sin given to Adam that he should not eat of the forbidden tree lest he die and as yet no precept given to forbid the shedding of mans blood For 1. God doth not say to Adam thou art cursed for thy sin but cursed is the ground for thy sake but unto Cain he saith thou arâ— cursed from the ground as if he had said the curse shall not fall to the ground but it shall light upon thine own head 2. He doth nor say to Adam when thou tillest the ground it shall not yeild her strength unto thee but thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee that is naturally and of it self which if thou hadst not sinned would of it self have brought thee all sweet and pleasant fruits shall now bring thee nothing else but weeds and noysom flowers but unto Cain he saith when thou tillest the ground and manurest it and usest all the art and skill that thou canst to make it fruitful yet it shall not yield her strength unto thee so that the unfruitfulness of a well tilled and well manured ground is the punishment of Cains murder and an additional curse to that which was formerly imposed upon Adam 3. He doth not say to Adam that he should be a vagabond and have no resting-place upon the earth Gen. 3.19 but that he should eat his bread in the sweat of his face until he should return to the earth but unto Cain he saith a Fugitive and a Vagabond shalt thou be in the earth And therefore Cain that knew well enough his Fathers censure before and now hearing his own sentence so far exceeding his Fathers punishment crieth out Gen. 4.13 my punishment is greater than I can bear And yet it is no marvel that the punishment of this sin of murder should seem greater than the punishment of Adams sin or indeed of any other sin whatsoever for in nature Why the punishment of this sin is so great let reason shew you who doth offend you most he that disobeyeth your voice and breaks your Command or he that seeks by all that he can to take away your life And in Adams sin and so in all other sins that are but the transgressing of Gods Command there seems to be a leaving of the Being of God or the suffering of God still to be a God as in the great sin of Idolatry though we make an Idol which is a thing that hath no being in the world as St. Paul saith to be our God and fall down and worship that no being with that worship which belongeth to the true God yet we do not thereby seek to annihilate and to destroy the Being of the true God we only rob him of his honour but we seek not to take away his life we leave him still to be a God though we serve him not But in the murdering or killing of a man we do what lieth in us to destroy and to bring to nothing the very Essence and being of God because we deface
the Son and by rejecting and denying Christ that is the Son they reject and deny him that sent him that is the Father and so by denying hindering and suppressing these substitute officers of Christ that they shall not live to execute their office they reject and deny both the Father and the Son because these master and servant Christ and his Deputies as Kings and their Embassadours are Relatives and so indissolubly knit together that you can neither oppose suppress nor deny the one without the other and therefore quia per latera nostra Christus petitur because Christ is thrust at and wounded through our sides that are his servants Act. 9.4 he saith unto Saul Why persecutest thou me when he neither did nor meant any hurt to the person of Christ that was in heaven but abused and persecuted his servants that were on earth which is the true meaning of the Apostle in this place or otherwise if you expound these words literally of him that by denying the Son to be essentially one God with the Father denyeth the Father to be a God because the Father and the Son are so essentially one that no man can deny the one but he must deny the other then cannot this speech of the Apostle be properly applyed to the Antichrist because that if such a denyer of the Son to be one with the Father be the Antichrist you may finde many thousands of the Antichrists in the world But of such as profess to honor the person of Christ Let the Reader judge whether this be fulfilled in the long Parliament that is in heaven and yet quite deny suppress and extinguish his Deputies and Officers that should execute the Offices of Christ here on earth we shall finde none but the great Lyar that is the Antichrist will do the same And whether the long Parliament did thus deny the Father and the Son by denying them that the Son hath sent as the denyal of him whom the Father hath sent is a denyal of the Father as well as of the Son let the judicious Reader judge 2. 2. Way The great Lyar may be said to deny the Father and the Son when he professeth to believe in the Father and the Son and yet denyeth with the Arians Nestorians Eutychians and other old Hereticks the termes and rejecteth the notions and expressions whereby we come to understand and make the people likewise to have some competent measure of knowledg in the great Mystery of the holy Trinity how the Father and the Son and so the Holy Ghost are the only true God as our Saviour saith John 17.3 John 17.3 the which thing the Pope never did I am sure of it But whether the long Parliament Divines and their Proselites the false prophet 1 John 2.19 and the Independant Apostata's that are such Antichrists as the Apostlespeaks of that went out from us and were not of us and such sons of the Church Whether the Assembly of Presbyterians and Parliament Preachers may not be said to deny the Father and the Son let the Reader judge as S. Bernard speaks of Filii nequam filii scelerati qui scaeviunt in matrem do not thus deny the Father and the Son when they reject and refuse the words Essence person unity Trinity and the like words that totidem syllabis cannot be found in the Scriptures and do likewise cashier and exclude from Gods service the Gloria Patri Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost and cast away from all use that most excellent Hymn Te Deum laudamus te Dominum confitemur and others the like holy Hymnes and expressions of our Faith which S. Ambrose S. Augustine and other godly men and after them the whole Church of God Penes quam norma loquendi that hath the power to coin words to explain the truth have ever used to bring her children to some understanding and a competent measure of knowledge in that great and ineffable mystery of Godliness which is the unity of the Godhead in the Trinity of persons and è contra the Trinity of persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost in the unity of Essence or Godhead and to make the weaker Christians and the weaker Divines the better able to answer and to confute those wicked Hereticks that are alwaies ready to arise as now they do to deny the truth of these holy Mysteries let the wise and experienced Divines judge hereof For the Apostle meaneth not as I said before that he which in plain termes and with spen mouth denyeth the being or the God-head of the Father and of the Son is the Lyar and the Antichrist but as the crafty fool that durst not say it openly yet cunningly and secretly saith in his heart There is no God Psal 53.1 and 14.1 is a meer Atheist though he never uttereth that atheistical wickedness with his mouth so are they meer Antichrists and great Lyars that say they do believe these Mysteries and yet secretly and maliciously deny the Father and the Son though not directly yet by infallible consequences when they deny those notions and expressions whereby we come to know the Father and the Son though they profess the contrary in their words which makes them to be the Lyar because they say one thing and do another that is still the propertie of the Antichrist to do just so as they do And therefore Let the Presbyterians think of this and repent seeing he is the Antichrist that denyeth the Father and the Son as the Apostle saith and that he which denyeth and rejecteth them that are sent denieth and rejecteth him that sent them as our Saviour testifieth and that they also which deny the notions and expressions whereby we come to know the Father and the Son do by consequence and in very deed whatsoever they say to the contrary deny the Father and the Son it must needs follow that the deniers and suppressors of them that are sent by Christ and the diniers of those notions and the rejectors of those expressions whereby we come to know the Father and the Son must be the great Lyar and the Antichrist from which charge though I accuse them not yet I know not how the Assembly of the long Parliaments presbyterian Divines will excuse themselves and be quitted cum surrexerit ad judicandum Deus when the Son of God shall call them to an account for it let them think of it in the interim For What is to be understood by the name of the Lord our God as he that denieth my name whereby I am made known denieth me and he that denieth his own name denieth himself because his name is the chiefest note that makes him known and as when the Lord saith Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain because his name is that which chiefly makes him known to us and by his name there all Divines
chief Prelate were killed about the same time by the same persons and for the same cause as it seemes the two witnesses of Christ were to be and our King and Bishops were for the pretence of fear of bringing in Popery as here it did 1. The King which is the supreme Magistrate and 2. The Bishop which is the chief Praelate Pastor of the People should be killed about the same time by the same persons and indeed upon the matter for the same cause whatsoever pretences should be alledged the which cause is shewed to be the malice of the Dragon to the woman and her Child and to slay the witnesses And I do verily believe that if learned Junius Beza and others the like wise and learned men had lived in these times and had seen the things that were and are done in these dayes of the last Century of years among Protestants and in the best reformed Churches they would have interpreted this and many other parcels of Scriptures far otherwise then they have done and no marvel nor any disparagement to their learning and wisdom because as I said before Prophesies and Predictions mystically set down are not perfectly understood untill they be fully accomplished and fulfilled And therefore as the Holy Ghost had set down in the 11th Chapter how the two witnesses of Gods truth and the Governours of his Church should be used persecuted and killed by the Ministers of the Antichrist the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit so here in the 12th Chapter he sheweth how the Church her self and all her members should be molested afflicted and persecuted by the Serpent that had formerly seduced her out of Paradise and now followeth her into the Wilderness makes Warre against her and throwes a whole flood of miseries and mischiefs upon her to see if he can utterly destroy her and being exceedingly vexed and filled with wrath that the woman should be any wayes helped as she was by the earth and earthly members that opened their mouthes to speak for the innocent Children of the woman and thereby swallowed up many of those bitter waters that the Dragon had spued upon her that all the Servants of Christ and the observers of the witnesses should not be wholly and irrecoverably destroyed he goeth about to make warre with the remnant of the womans seed and yet it is not said that he made this warre with the remainder of the womans seed after the death of the witnesses because they were so few that they were not able to warre with him but he went about to make warre with them and to that end 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he stands upon the Sands of the Sea for these words are the conclusion of the 12th Chapter and not the beginning of the 13th Chapter and they are to be referred to the Dragon and not to St. John as our English Translation mistakes it and the meaning is that the Dragon intending to prosecute this warre against the remainder of the faithfull Christians that observed the witnesses and did their duties in the service of God as they ought to do and so kept the Commandements of God and had the Testimony of Jesus Christ that they were 〈◊〉 true and faithfull servants stands upon the Sands that is upon the rest of the Preachers of Gods word and those faithfull Clergy-men and other zealous and conscionable Christians that used and observed the right form of divine service or the right mazner of serving God Who are meant by the Sands upon which the Dragon standeth which the faithfull and slain witnesses of Christ had prescribed and obeyed their Governours and submitted themseives to the Discipline and to the uttermost of their abilities justified and defended the same Government which the true Governours of Gods Church had ordained and he trezdeth and trampleth these Sands under his feet for as the Sands are placed by God to keep in the Seas within their bounds that they should not overflowe the Lands so is the Lawes and Discipline of the Church and those faithfull Ministers and others that observe the same a stop and a bridle to refrain the people and to hinder them from passing over the bounds of equity and piety and though the Discipline and sentence of the Church seemes but a weak fence to keep out the wild beasts and to retain in the fold of Christ his sheep and of little force like a paper bullet to terrifie the wicked from any evill yet as the Sands that are but of a small substance do notwithstanding keep in the raging Seas and as the twigs that tie the hoopes of a Hogs-head or Tun are but very small and yet are the preservatives of the Wine so are the Lawes and Discipline of the Church though not capitall nor bloody yet sufficiently able like the Sands to suppress the raging waves of wickedness from all the Children of the Church How the Dragon stands upon the Sands But now saith the Angel the Dragon stands upon these Sands treads down all holy orders rageth against all the Discipline of the Church throwes the observers of them out of their Churches deprives them of their livings stops their mouthes with terrors and threatnings and as he had formerly slain the witnesses so now he raiseth the windes stirreth up storms and all the Tempests that he can Judge if this also be not fulfilled in the time of the long Parliament to blow away these Sands that adhered to the witnesses and endeavoured to keep in and to restraine the waters of the Seas and the wickedness of the people from overflowing and wheresoever these windes do blow and these Sands are stood upon I pray God to give them patience to overcome these stormy winds and Tempests Amen CAP. III. The three principall enemies of Gods Church Satans 1000 years imprisonment when begun and when ended when the Christian Religion tryumphed over the Idolls of the Gentiles and over all the Gods of the Heathens that the beast signifieth the great Antichrist and a pack or confederacy of most wicked men from whence it sprung of the seven heads of the beast what they are handled at large and the Authours opinion of the seven Kings and the eighth that is the beast and the Antichrist 3. AFter that the Angel which Christ sent unto St John had informed him of those sad accidents that should befall unto the witnesses in the 11th Chapter and the state and condition of the Church of God under the person and title of the woman for the space of 1200 and 60 years and the persecutions that she must undergo after the end and expiration of those years that began as I shewed unto you about 382. and ended in or about 1642. in the 12th Chapter he proceedeth in this 13th Chapter to shew unto him the Instruments that the red Dragon raiseth up and the Devill useth to become the murtherers of the witnesses and the persecuting enemies of Gods Church and I
the holy City under foot as the Holy Ghost setteth down the time in the self same phrase c. 11.2 But Mr. Mede excepts against this time of three years and a half because all the things that are to be acted in the time of the Beast could not be performed in so short a time as that 1. Ten Kingdoms to be founded in that time 2. Peoples and Nations and Tongues to become to serve the Beast 3. To make war with the Saints and to overcome them 4. Mr. Medes exception against the continuance of the Beast three years and a half Sixfold The foresaid exceptions answered To cause all that dwell upon the earth to worship the Beast 5. The whore of Babylon to ride the Beast so long that all Nations shall drink the wine of her fornication and the merchants that had ships should grow rich by trading with her And 5. That the time of the Beast followed immediately after him that is said to continue but a short space c. 17.10 therefore if the time of the Beast be but three years and a half how short must the other that preceded him be or doth not this expression of his precedents short space imply that the other which is the Beast should continue a long space when the Holy Ghost doth insert so singular a note of difference to the time of the former from the time of the latter To which I answer that all the things requisite to be acted in the time of the Beast may very well be accomplished as we see it already acted within three years and a half for 1. There is no such thing to be done as the founding or setting up of 10. 1. Exception answered Kingdoms as I shewed to you before But Mr. Mede produceth many Authours of the old Fathers to prove that the Beast should rise when 10. Kings should spring out of the Roman Empire and that was in Anno 456. when Gensericus took the City of Rome I confess that divers of the ancient Fathers supposing that the Roman Empire was that 2 Thes 2. which the Apostle meaneth to be the lette which hindered the rising of the Antichrist and therefore prayed in their Liturgies that the Roman Empire might long continue Tertul. in apolog cap. 32. Aug. de civit dei l. 20. c. 19 that the coming of the Antichrist might be deferred and be long before it came did imagin that when the Empire should be shared among 10. Kings the Beast would then shew himself as you may see in St. Hierome in Dan c. 7. and ad Ageruchiam de monogamia and in Ireneus l. 5. c. 21. 25. and others But the Roman Empire being not the thing that hindered the rising and the manifesting of the man of sin that is the Beast who is the Antichrist it followeth not that the Beast must then rise when the Empire falls to be divided among those 10. E. H. de Antichristo part 3 p. 114 Kings for the stop and remora that hindered the man of sin to be revealed is clearly and sufficiently proved by E. H. to be not the Roman Empire but the two witnesses that were as a Serpentine barre in his way that he could not rise and tyrannise over Gods flock untill they were killed and you know when they were killed as I have shewed to you before 2. I say that peoples and Nations and Tongues 2d Exception answered might well serve the Beast in a lesse time then three years and a half as we see they have done to the long Parliament 3. He might as Antiochus that was his type did warre with the Saints 3d Exception answered and overcome them in that or lesse then that time and the issue of that Parliaments Warre ending much about that time proves this to be true 4. He might by an hyperbolicall speech which is not unusuall in the Scripture 4th Exception answered cause all that dwell on the Earth that is to cause abundance of people and most of his Neighbour Nations to worship him that is to reverence and to respect him to send Embassadors unto him and to court him for otherwise all that dwell on the Earth will never worship him nor reverence him as the true Servants of Christ that never did nor ever will and therefore by all that dwell on the Earth we must understand all the earthly minded men or else as the Evangelists say Matth. 3.5 Mark 1.5 there went out to John Baptist all Judaea and all the Region round about Jordan that is most of the people of those parts or a great many out of all the parts of Judaea and this we have seen done in lesse then three years to the long Parliament 5. It is not requisite that Babilon or the Whore should ride the Beast 5th Exception answered so long as Mr. Mede saith neither doth the Text alot any time nor determine how long the Whore should ride the Beast but saith I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured Beast c. 17 3. 5. And I will tell thee the mystery of the woman verse 7. and the Beast that carrieth her and this doth not shew but that the Whore which signifieth the superstitious and Idolatrous Church might be of a long continuance and yet that she hath not rid the Beast all that while for I do not find that the beginning of the Whore and of the Beast do synchronize and are of the same time but that the Whore began to play the harlot that is the Church began to apostatize long before the Beast rose out of the Sea and when the Beast did rise and began to appear then the Whore began to ride him the meaning of which riding I shall hereafter declare unto you 6. I say that the precedent Kings continuance is termed a short space 6th Exception answered not in opposition to the long space of the Beast but for the consolation of those distressed Christians that suffered under that seventh King and I shewed you that Julian which I conceive to be understood by that seventh King continued not in all his whole Reign and likely not so much in persecuting the Saints above three years which certainly is but a short space neither doth it follow that because this is said to continue a short space it implieth that the other shall continue a long space nor that the Holy Ghost doth insert this as a singular note of difference of the formers time Why the Holy Ghost saith the Antichrist should continue a short space from the time of the latter but that the spirit of God for the comfort of his Servants foretells them that as well this as the other shall continue but a short space God having alwayes this respect to his Children Si languor longa sit levis est Si gravis brevis est when their afflictions are long as the Israelites vexation in Egypt and in Babilon was then are they but light and when
Questio But you will say what shall we do in this case when such men as have not been lawfully called shall come to preach unto us and to do the service of the Lord Solutio I answer that you should do as the Prophet Jeremy adviseth you and as our Saviour Christ counselleth you believe them not and because faith cometh by hearing the Prophet tells you thus saith the Lord of Hosts hearken not unto the words of these Prophets that speak visions of their own heart Jerem. 12.6 Matth. 24.26 Jerem. 23.16 John 10.5 What the Cocarrice useth to do and our Saviour saith my sheep will not follow a stranger neither will they know a strangers voyce but they will stop their ears as the Cocatrice that will not hear the voyce of the charmer charme he never so wisely but will lay one ear close unto the ground and stop the other ear with her tayle that she may not be charmed with his sweetest musick so should we deal with those Preachers that are not lawfully admitted to be the Ministers of Gods word for as a little Colloquiutida spoyled all the pot of pottage 2 Reg. 4.40 that the children of the Prophets cryed out mors in olla and a little poyson infects the whole messe of meat so a few dangerous errours are able to destroy many of the hearers of these Preachers And therefore as it is not safe to taste of a poysoned dish so it is dangerous to hear an heretical or schismatical Preacher and as the Lord demands of them quis requisivit haec who hath required these things at your hands Psal 50.16 and again why takest thou my lawes in thy mouth that is to preach them unto my people when as thou hatest to be reformed that is to go the right way to do thy work so Christ bids us to take heed how we hear Mark 4.24 and so consequently to take heed what we heare and whom we hear for as it is a fin in them to run to preach unbidden and unsent without a warrant and without commission so it is a sin in us to be partakers of other mens sins and we make our selves as guilty in hearing them as they are in preaching to us because they would not preach to us if we did not hear them and the same God that forbids them to preach that are unsent forbids us to bear them that are unauthorized for they that come in by the window and not by the dore that is the usuall accustomed and ordinary way to come to any house John 10. they are thieves and robbers saith our Saviour Christ and Chemnitius whom Brightman saith was prophesied of in the Revelation of Saint John to be the giver of a mighty wound unto the Antichrist saith certum est ex verbe Dei neminem in Ecclesia audiendum esse qui non legitimè sit vocatus it is certain out of the word of God that we ought to hear none in the Church which is not lawfully called Chemnit loc com de Eccles pag. 129.1 Clemens in epi ad Corinth de success ministrorum imo Ecclesia non debent nec possunt cum fructu audire eos qui non habent legitimae voeationis testimonia nay saith he the Churches ought not nor can they with any fruit hear them which have not the testimonials of their lawfull calling and if you look into Saint Clemens which lived about the year of Christ 113. you shall find him to be of the same mind and therefore the Church ordained that Priests and Deacons should not depart from one Diocesse to another without letters demissary from their Diocessans that the Churches might not be deceived by them but be sure of lawfull Ministers O but the people are glad to be eased and to be freed from those large Salaries and payments of their tythes and offerings which they were wont to pay to their old Pastors and do esteem it better to have the word of God brought unto them by these men that do it as the Apostles did it freely then by those that look so plentifully to be rewarded for it To this Saint August briefly answereth that neither the covetous worldling nor the miserable Christian shall go free but quod non capit Christus rapit fiscus Hag. 1.16 what the Minister of Christ shall not get the soldier and perhaps thine enemy will have and what they have by their exchange they may ere long well put it as the Prophet saith into a broken bagge But were it so that the soldiers and Lay-Elders would still continue and preach alwayes to them for nothing which I shall scarce believe yet I would desire all good Christians to remember what the Prophet David said unto Araunah when he offered as a King unto the King his ground and his oxen his instruments and his wheat 2 Sam. 24. 1 Chr. 21.24 to bestow them freely upon him to serve the Lord nay saith King David but I will buy them of thee at the full price neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord of that which cost me nothing because the Lord commandeth us to honour God with our riches and we ought not to love our gold better then the service of our God And so you see by their intrusion into this sacred function uncalled and unauthorised these Lay-Preachers are one especial head of Cerberus and a principal branch of this false Prophet And 2. 2. The inability of the Lay-Preachers proves them to be the false Prophet 1 Tim. 1.6 7. As their usurpation of this office and their false entrance into it is one main argument to prove the same so their ignorance and weaknesse to discharge this office is another argument to confirm it and Saint Paul speaking of such teachers telleth Timothy that before his departure divers had swarved from the true faith and had turned aside into vain jangling desiring to be teachers of the Law but understanding neither what they said nor whereof they affirmed and so now these Lay-Preachers of the Gospel whose office is as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth import to publish the glad tidings of salvation by Jesus Christ unto the people will be alwayes jangling in the harsh musick of the Law to bring men as they do many tender consciences into fearful desperation because as the Apostle saith they understand not the right use of the Law The twofold reason why the Lay-preachers do misinterpret the Scriptures nor how to make the right application of it and so the do in like manner misapply the promises of the Gospel and pervert many places of the holy Scriptures and the reason hereof seems to be two fold 1. Their ignorance and want of arts languages and learning to search and to find out the truth 2. The obscurity and difficulty to understand the holy Scripture 1. Because they are ignorant and unlearned men 1. The wisdom of a learned man cometh
by opportunity of leisure and he that giveth his mind to the Law of the most high is occupied in the meditation thereof and will seek out the wisdom of all the ancient and be occupied in prophesies he will keep the sayings of the renowned men and where subtle parables are he will be there also he will seek out the secrets of grave sentences and be conversant in dark parables But how can he get wisdom that holdeth the plow and that glorieth in the goad that driveth oxen and is occupied in their labours and whose talk is of bullocks for he giveth his minde to make furrowes and is diligent to give the kine fodder so every carpenter and workmaster that laboureth night and day and they that cut and grave seales and are diligent to make great variety the smith also sitting by the anvill and confidering the iron work setteth his mind to finish it and watcheth to polish it perfectly and so the potter sitting at his work turneth the wheele about with his feete and fashioneth the clay with his arme and is diligent to make clean the furnace And all these and all others the like Tradsemen that trust to their hands shall not be sought for in Publick Counsell nor sit on the Judges Seat Ecclesiast 38. and 24. Vsque ad 34. fin cap. for they cannot understand the Sentence of judgement nor declare what is justice and therefore they shall not be found where parables are spoken saith the wise son of Syrach And if such lay men and tradesmen cannot understand justice and judgement in Civill matters nor find out the sayings aphorismes and parables of men how shall they be able to search out the deep things of God and to understand the Mysteries of the Holy Scriptures for 2. It is not an easie matter and of small labour and without learning 2. Because the Scaipture is full of obscurity and very hard to be understood to explaine the Scriptures to reconcile different Texts and seeming contradictions and to unfold the sence and mysticall meaning of the Holy Ghost as you may find by what the Apostles say in 1 Tim. 3.16 Heb. 5.11 and 2 Pet. 3.16 how difficult and hard a matter it is to expound the Great Mysteries of Godliness and how by reason of that difficulty the unlearned and unstable do wrest them to their own destruction for you may observe that although Christ taught the people in the plain yet he taught his Disciples in the Mount Luke 6.17 Matth. 5.1 Luke 5.3 4. and while the people stood on the shore he bids his Apostles to launch forth into the deepe to shew unto us that as Origen saith the Scripture consisteth of an outward barke which is soft and tender and may easily be plained and of an inward substance which is hard and tough and cannot so easily be squared or as S. Gregory saith that the Doctrine of Christ and the Mysteries of the Holy Scriptures are like the Ocean sea where a lamb may wade by the shore where the people stood and the Elephant may swimm in the deep where the Apostles launched forth to Teach us this Truth Many things in Scripture easie to be understood as the heads 1. To be done 2. To be believed that the meanest capacity the vulgar and lay people may understand out of the Scriptures what they should do as to fear God to Honour their Parents to obey the Magistrates not to kill not to commit adultery not to steal and the like and the chiefe necessary Heads of their Christian Faith as to believe in Jesus Christ that thorough him they shall have remission of their sins and Eternall life and that this truth is Sealed unto them by the blessed Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper and yet the strongest Head the greatest Wit and most exquisite Schollers may find there such depth as cannot easily be dived into but will soon swallow them up and like the Sun in his full strength dazle and confound their fight The reasons of the difficulty to explain and to understand the Scriptures 1. The diversity of Languages if they be not very carefull to go the right way and take great paines and earnestly pray to God for his helpe to understand the same And the reason of this difficulty to explain and to unfold the Scripture is manifold as 1. The diversity of Languages wherein the same was written and the great affinity of the Hebrew with the Syriac and the Chaldick tongue with the very many equivocall words of the Hebrew Language which made the Jewes themselves many times to mistake the meaning thereof as 1. When Christ said destroy this Temple John 2.19 Marck 14.58 and in three dayes I will raise it up they thought he spake it of the materiall Temple when he meant the Temple of his body and the same word signified both the one and the other 2. When he told his Disciples Matth. 19.24 Luke 19.25 it was easier for a Cammell to go thorough the eye of a needle then for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and this was a proverbiall speech among the Jewes when they spoke of any hard and unlikely thing to be done it was easier for a Cammell to go thorough the eye of a needle as Caninius observeth out of their Talmud and yet most men and many good interpreters and of no small learning have understood the word of that great and large fiz'd foure-footed beast called a Cammell whereas the word indeed quo hic utitur paraphrastes funem anchoratum significat which the Paraphrast saith our Saviour used signifieth a Cable rope which being untwifted may easily pass thorough an needles eye and so may the rich man enter into the Kingdom of Heaven if he disperseth his wealth and give them to the poore though as our Saviour saith it is easier for us to untwist the Cable rope then to perswade the rich men to part with their goods and give them to the poore or to any pious uses 3. When he cried out Math. 27.46 Eloe Eloe Lamasabacthany the Jewes said he calleth for Elias when as the words fignified My God My God why hast thou forsaken me 4. When John 20.16 after the resurrection of Christ Mary turned her selfe towards him and said Rabboli which is Master Tremelius saith that in this word either the letter Lamed is put for Nun and so Rabboli for Rabboni or else it is a composition of the Noune with the Pronoune and Rabboli is put for rabbonli and it is not properly any Hebrew word but a Chaldaic and Syriac and it is said to be an Hebrew word quia tunc temporis Syriaca lingua hebraeis esset vulgaris because that the Syriac Tongue was then common amongst the Jewes when they had lost the use of their own Tongue in their Captivity and had learned in that space of seventy yeares the Idiomes and the phrases of the Conquerors and the
bordering neighbours that were either the Chaldeans Tremel in Joh. 20.16 or the Syrians and this saith Tremelius non tantum hic observari debet ought not onely to be observed here but in many other places of the New Testament where these words that are properly Chaldic or Syriac are said to be Hebrew words 2. 2. The not pointing of the Scriptures In Scriptura divina dictiones Syllaba puncta mysteria indicant divina Hieron in Epes c. 3. Basilius l. sexto c. 1. The not pointing and especially the mispointing of the Scripture-Writings made many doubts and brought many errors even amongst the greatest Scholers for the Hebrewes at first used no points at all in their writings and then the Transcribers mispointing the same made it to be mistaken and misunderstood of the readers which is easily done when the pointing thereof is done amiss as Edwardum occidere noli timere bonum est and his keeper read it Edwardum occidere noli timere bonum est and so the misplacing of a comma the least of all points made the King to loose his life the Highest of all men so the Oracle saying Ibis redibis nunquam mala morte peribis and the man reading the sentence of the Oracle thus Ibis redibis uunquam per bella peribis made him to miscarry because of his mis-reading it and the Poet wittily writing to a faire Lady said Women are Vertuous Noble and Excellent Who can prove that they do offend Dayly to please their husbands they do intend Never to displease them they do purpose commonly such qualities have women And the husband who knew his wives qualities better then the Poet read the very same verses thus Women are Vertuous Noble and Exceilent Who can prove that they do offend Dayly to please their husbands they do intend Never to displease them they purpose commonly such qualities have women And so it is in the mispointing of the Holy Scriptures as in Act. 1.25 the placing of the comma at the word fell from whence Judas by transgression fell sheweth the meaning of the Holy Ghost to be that Matthias might go to his own place that is to his own proper Diocesse and allotted jurisdiction but the omitting of that comma which is but a small point made many Great Scholars to commit a foule error by referring the last sentence unto Judas that he might go to his own place that is the place which God had determined for him for his punishment and he had justly deserved which is hell as if God ab initio had decreed this place for him but could not in justice send him thither untill he had fallen from his Ministery by his transgression Which is the Doctrine of the Presbyterians which is derogatory to the goodness and justice of God and far from the meaning of the Holy Ghost that referreth this clause unto Matthias and the words from whence Judas by his transgression fell betwixt two comma's are to be read as if they were inclosed within a parenthesis And this reading of the place thus pointed teacheth two things 1. It freeth God from the imputation of injustice or hard dealing 1. To free God from the imputation of injustice All things past and to come are present with God that otherwise the Hereticks from this place might with some colour object against God for preparing hell for men before ever they sinned which he never did but as he is a pure act with whom there is neither prius nor posterius but foreseeth all things and acteth all things that either were or are or shall be as things present without any aspect either backward or forward whereby things to come with God are said to be as if they were already past 2. This sheweth how the Apostles themselves 2. That the Apostles though their Commission was generall yet had they their peculiar jurisdiction Galat. 2.7 8 9. Dorothaeus de vitis Apostol Abdias Histor. Apestol l. 7. Petrusde nat l. 3. c. 149. Hieron catalog Eccles Scriptor Titus 2.11 whose commission was so generall as to go in universum mundum over all the world yet notwithstanding to avoid confusion they agreed to have their commissions limitted and a proper Diocesse and a peculiar jurisdiction assigned to each of them as the Gospell of the Circumcision unto St. Peter and of the uncircumcision unto St. Paul and St. Andrew was assigned to Preach unto the Scythians and Sogdians Philip to the Phrygians Bartholomeus to the Indians Thomas to the Parthians Matthew to the Ethiopians c. and so the lot fell upon Matthias that he might take part of the Ministery of the Apostles and go to discharge that Ministery in his own proper place and Diocesse which the Holy Ghost should assign unto him and which was Macedenia as Petrus de natalibus writeth or about the Haven of Hyssus in Ethiopia as St. Hierom saith So in Titus 2.11 some read the grace of God which briugeth salvation unto all men hath appeared and from thence they conclude that Christ hath purchased universall Grace and salvation for all men as well for Judas as for St. Peter but others read it the grace of God which bringeth salvation unto all men hath appeared from whence they conclude that Christ brought onely to the true believers the grace of salvation which by the Publique Preaching of the Gospell appeareth to be offered unto all men but he offereth not as he purchased not the same for all which were it so it were but a meere collusion which is farr from the meaning of God and yet you see Which is the deceitfull Doctrine of the Presbyterians 1 Pet. 3.19 that the very selfe same words are made to be of very far different sence and all by the placing or mis-placing of a comma And so the like difference if not greater arose amongst the greatest Scolars about the right pointing and thereupon the interpreting of that place of St. Peter in the 1 Peter 3.19 and both the mispointing and misinterpreting thereof hath brought forth that spurious Doctrine of the Popish purgatory that brings onely a gaine unto the Teachers but no Comfort at all unto the believers And I might collect abundance of such mispointings both in the Greek and Laetine copies of the Bible besides what may be found in the Hebrew Chaldie and Syriac 3. The confounding of names 3. The confounding of names when as some men having two or three names and the same name being far unlike it selfe when it is translated to another Language doth require a great deale of pains study and care to find out the right persons that are meant under those different names and the neglect of that care and diligence hath produced many doubts and bred some errors amongst the best Authors 1. Chron. 9.4 as where in 1. Chron. 9.4 it is said that in Hierusalem dwelt Vthai the son of Amihud the son of Omri the son of Imri the son of Bani of
said unto Abraham 6. The Scripture phrases and the manner of speech 6. The Scripture phrases that the Hebrews used is not an easie matter to be understood as where Naaman said to Elisha when the Prophet refused to receive his gifts shall there not then I pray thee be given to thy servant two mules burthen of earth whereupon 2 Reg. 5.17 many men and I heard some Preachers expounding it so in the Pulpit did think that Naaman meant hereby two Mules load of silver Habac. 2.6 which he calleth earth as the Prophet calleth gold red or thick clay to shew the baseness of the best kind of worldly wealth as if he should say seeing thou wilt receive nothing at my hands then I beseech thee let me bestow it upon thy servant which Exposition is far enough from the true sense of Naamans words Naamans words mistaken by many and much further from his meaning for he meant no such thing but his thoughts were far better and his meaning more religious none otherwise then shall there not be given to thy servant that is to me who for the favour that thou hast done me do professe my self to be thy servant two Mules burthen of this earth of Jurie that I may carry the same into Syria and therewith erect an Altar there unto the God of Israel for so the words immediatly following do make this exposition most plain because saith he thy servant that is not Gebazai but himself whom in a complement used commonly among the Jews as many now likewise amongst us use to do he calleth his servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto any other god but unto the Lord thefore I pray thee let me carry two Mules load of this your earth to build him an Altar otherwise if he had meant let me give two mules load of silver to Gebazai what sence or coherence had been in his reason that he alleadgeth for his desire because thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice to any God but to the Lord the Prophet might have answered 2 Reg. 5.18 no more he did heretofore which Naaman did in the house of Rimmon So when Benhadad King of Syria sent Hazael unto Elisha to inquire whether he should recover from his disease or not and Elisha said unto him go say unto him that is to Benhadad thou shalt certainly recover howbeit The Lord hath shewed unto me that he shall surely die and if this was the meaning of the Prophet 2 Reg. 8.10 as the words seem to intimate what can you make of it but that Elisha teacheth Hazael how to tell a fair lie and to say to his Master Benhadad he shall recover when the Prophet tells him he knew that he should surely die therefore Tremellius translates it abi dic non omnino revalesces Particula negant cum antecedente verbo in Prosodia conjâ—â—ngitur Euphoniae causa Tremel grammat l. 4. c. 8. Origen in Rom. c. 1. nam ostendit mihi Jehova eum omnino moriturum go tell him thou shalt not altogether recover for the Lord hath shewed unto me that he shall altogether die and he addeth that the negative particle is joyned with the antecedent verb in the Prosodie euphoniae gratia onely for the better sound sake to make the speech seem the sweeter the which manner of speech saith he is often used in the Hebrew language as we have shewed in our Grammar l. 4. c. 8. And so in the New Testament we find the like difficulty in the phrases thereof as Origen hath observed upon the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and others upon these words in the first Chapter of Saint Johns Gospel verse 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translators turned right according to the words and grace for grace the sence of which words hath puzled many of the best interpreters but from the use and nature of the phrase they are now found to fignifie nothing else but that of his fulnesse we have all received and thanks be to him for that grace and great favour towards us otherwise the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and would be such a tautalogie as cold never he brought to good sence according to the Geneva Notes upon that place and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 often signifieth thanks as well as grace 7. 7. The visions of the holymen of God The visions of Ezekiel Daniel and especially of S. John in the Revelation and of the rest of the Prophets and Apostles I hope will be acknowledged as divers of the most learned Fathers have ingenuously confessed to be of a greater depth and harder to be understood then can be easily fathomed by every unskilfull Seaman or unartificial and unlearned tradesman 8. 8. The predictions of the Prophets The Prophesies and predictions of the Prophets are no lesse obscure then their visions as Aquinas saith they are not understood sometimes of the Prophets themselves nor infallibly of any other though never so learned untill the time come that we see they are fulfilled as the prophesie of the Antichrist 2 Thes 2.3 the man of sin and the child of perdition which is the beast that ascended from the bottomlesse pit some understood it of Nero others thought he was Domitian and many conceived him to be Dioclesian that was one of the bloodiest of the persecutors and after that Mahomet and his successors Prophesies never certainly and infallibly known untill they be sulfilled the great Turk must be the beast and that great Antichrist and now of late our new Presbyterians will needs have him to be none other then the Pope and at last he is found by some others to be none of these but nearer home and of a higher pitch and greater wickednesse then any of them so hard it is to unvaile the face of many a prophesie and therefore it is most truly said of Irenaeus satius est expectare impletionem prophetiae quam temere divinare it is a safer course and a surer way to expect the fulfilling of a prophesie then rashly to expound it to be fulfilled and if it be so for the best Divines 9. The divine Majesty that shineth in the Scriptures Dan 4.19 Acts 26.29 what think you then of these lame and Lay-Preachers when they shall undertake to expound dark Prophesies 9. The divine Majesty that shineth in the expressions of the holy Scriptures sheweth that it is not for every mechanick to trade therein for you may observe in it such civil complements as that of Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar and that of Saint Paul to Agrippa and the like and also such eloquence such tropes and figures that neither Demosthenes among the Greeks Dan. 4.19 Acts 26.29 nor Cicero among the Latines nor all the Schooles of Athens can equalize the excellency and the exact language of the holy Scriptures as Paesor truly sheweth when as no Orator could speak purer Greek then the pure
the greatest Doctors and best Scholars in Gods Church must follow Saint Augustines rule to understand Gods word S. Augustines rule how we may come to understand the Scriptures where he saith agant orando querendo legendo bene nivendo ut intellig ant that is earnestly pray to God for the assistance of his Spirit and diligently to search and seek by continual studies in the reading of Gods words and consulting with the best learned Authours which God hath given for our help and constantly to lead an upright and a holy life that God may be intreated by these means to enlighten their understanding that they may understand his revealed will And now all the premises considered I demand how dares the Lay-Preacher the rustick Plow-man and the City trades-man and the blood-thirsty souldier with their miry shoes upon their unwashen feet approach to that place of Gods presence which Moses himself while he was thus was forbid to do and there with defiled hands and prophane mouthes not rightly divide the word of God but most miserably to teare and Massacre the Holy Scriptures so shamelesly that it would make not onely our eares to tingle but also our hearts to tremble when we consider how the Divine Truth is abused and the Name of God blasphemed by these rude and ignorant Interpreters that are the best Seedes-Men in the World to sow the Tares of errors heresies and blasphemies among the pure wheat in the field of Gods Church because as St. Augustine saith hine ownes Hereses The premises teach three things dum Scripturae bonae intelliguntur non bene all heresies do spring from hence when the good Scriptures are ill interpreted So this that I have shewed of the difficulties of many places of the Scriptures and how hard it is to explaine and to reconcile them should teach us these three things 1. It should deterre and stop the presumptuous attempts of ignorant men from medling with the interpreting of Holy Mysteries 2. It should move all good people to love and honour all those learned Clergy that are able to Teach them the Truth and to unfold the Scripture truely unto them and not regard the bawling and barking of those whelpes that speake against Learning and Learned Men for if many of the Apostles were unlearned God inabled them with the gifts of Tongues and fitted them with learning Miraculously Act 14.12 2.1 2 3 4 c. and doth not that Miraculous descending of Learning and Languages upon the Apostles shew unto us how necessary Learning and Languages are for the Ministery or is the Learning of St. Paul any thing the worse because he had it not miraculously he needing it not so but in an ordinary way being brought up at the feet of Gamaliel so is Learning and the gift of Tongues now any thing the worse because we have it not as the Apostles had it miraculously but in an ordinary way as St. Paul had it and left more ample fruits of it unto the Church then most of them that had it miraculously But the truth is that Learning and the understanding of Arts and Tongues howsoever gotten in an ordinary or an extraordinary way miraculously or by industry it is from above and a speciall gift of God for so the Scripture saith the Lord hath given me the tongue of the Learned Esay 50.4 and therefore learning is not to be slighted nor these Lay-Preachers that want it to be regarded because the Scripture cannot be vnderstood nor the Divine Mysteries well expressed without a competent measure of Learning and Languages even as the Apostles themselves could not well do it untill they received the same miraculously 3. It doth in the second place make good my second Argument and sufficiently prove these Lay Preachers to be one of the heads of Cerberus and a speciall branch of this false Prophet here spoken of because of tâ—eir ignorance and want of good literature to inable them to expounâ—d the Scriptures Why the Presbyterians charge the Roman Clergy to be this false Prophet And neither of both these Arguments can be justly urged and applyed against the Roman Clergy to prove them to be this false Prophet as Junius and our Presbyterians would have them to be but as the Fox that being hunted for his knavery shewed a hare unto the hounds that the dogs running after the hare he might laugh in his sleeve and passe away so they by making the people to believe that the Priests and Jesuitâ—s are this false Prophet do think that themselves may pass unsuspected and to be taken for the true Ministers of Jesus Christ For though materialiter they of Rome may as they do Teach many points of false Doctrine yet formaliter The Roman Clergy are noâ— liable to these reasons that demonstrats this false Prophet they cannot be said to be this false Prophet modo forma as he is here described 1. Because they are by a successive unbroken line from the Apostles time lawfully called and Ordained by prayers and the imposition of the hands of those that have the Lawfull Power and Authority to ordain them none dares in that Church intrude himselfe into any of these Sacred Functions but such as are lawfully admitted into Holy Orders 2. The works of those Clergy men do sufficiently demonstrate they are no ignorants but learned enough in all arts and sciences if they had the grace to make a right use of their learning And here before I passe from this point you must know that we have now two sorts of Lay-Preachers 1. One without any Ordination And this 2. The other of a false Ordination And this False Ordination that is done only by other Presbyters without the Bishop is no Ordination at all no otherwise then when my Lord Chancellor makes one a Justice of Peace and that Justice of the Peace will presently take upon him to make others Justices of the Peace like himselfe and you know the Authority of such second Justices is of no validity because the one had no power to give it nor the other any right to use it and so it is with those Presbyters that are made onely by the Presbyters they are none other then meere Laicks 2. 2. The Independant another branch of the false Prophet Another head of Cerberus and a speciall branch of this false Prophet is the Independant and this Independant is but a bastard Presbyterian or an illegitimate child begotten of the luxurious seed of the Prtsbyterians and the frothy sperme of the fanatick people that disdains as much to be subject and guided by the Classis of the Presbyterians as the Presbyterians do kick against the Government of the Bishops and both the one and the other do spring from the same root of pride and ambition and they run the same way of disobedience and opposition to their lawfull Governors and they aime at the same end to be Masters and Rulers themselves and therefore
they could find to put these offices and the government of the Churches into their hands and they thought it well in such a kingdom as this of Ingland if they found 26. men that with the help and advice of their brethren their Deans and Prebends were sufficient to govern the Churches so wisely and so orderly as they ought to do it and do you think it is as easie to finde 6000. men that are fit to do it that you may place a Bishop in every Parish I think you will faile and your selves at last will see your own folly and smart for your mistaking when every Parish Priest will be as imperious over you as Hildebrand was over Henry the fourth But 2. Touching the working of strange miracles we say it was a great miracle 2. To work strange miracles 1 Reg. 17.23 Acts 9.4 John 11.44 that Elias did to raise the dead child of the widow of Sarepta and a great miracle that Saint Peter did to raise Dorcas an old widow that was dead to life again and it was a greater miracle that Christ did to raise up Lazarus out of his grave when he had been dead four dayes And yet besides their many meaner miracles that these Presbyters say they do they pretend if you will believe them to do things that are far more miraculous and greater wonders then any of these or them either that Moses or Elias or any other of all the Prophets or Apostles ever did for we are sure that neither of all those either did or could raise a soule dead in trespasses and sins to the life of grace but this being as it were a new creation it must be left alone to God for ever whose proper work it is to create a new heart and to renew a right spirit within us yet this beast and the disciples of this false Prophet do boast and brag unto the people of the multitude of Saints that they have begotten to God when as indeed they have of late seduced them to be as false and as rebellious as themselves What wonderful thing the Presbyters do Psalm 51.10 The discourse of a Presbyterian with the Authour Esay 53. â—â— And so one of them asked me where were the Seales of our Apostleship the signes and evidences of our Bishops and Prelatical mens ministery how many soules had they converted unto God and where were those converts whereby they might approve themselves unto the people to be the true Ministers of God as they could do by the confession of their Proselytes and I answered that I feared their converts were but perverted and that I conceived it was not in mans power to convert soules when as the Prophet cryeth who hath believed our report and again all day long have I stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and a gainsaying people and if it had been in mans poower to work faith in the hearts of the hearers then questionlesse Rom 10 1. c. 9.3 We have not the power to convert souls this great Prophet would have done it in the children of Israel and Saint Paul would have converted the Jewes his own brethren according to the flesh whom he did so dearly love as himself doth testify to have believed in Christ but we know that although the false Prophets may easily pervert men to disloyalty and wickednesse because the devill is alwayes ready to help them and natural men are prone to evill yet we cannot convert men to the true faith and to goodnesse Acts 15.19 unlesse the Spirit of God cooperateth with us to open the hearts of our hearers as he opened the heart of Lydia when the Apostle preached unto her because as Saint Hierom saith inanis est sermo docentis nisi intus sit qui docet the Preacher may say with the Prophet in vacuum laboravi I have laboured in vain if God by his spirit doth not preach unto the heart And therefore their wonderful brags of converting soules are but lying wonders not to be regarded by any man that regards the truth Psal 15.12 and these hornes are not the hornes of the Lamb but ungodly horns and the horns of the ungodly which as the Prophet saith shall be broken by the Lord all to pieces That the two horns may signifie the two Testaments Torres in sua Philosophia morali pag. 849. Texeda pag. 6. of his miracles unmasked Or else these two horns as Cornelius à lapide saith to whom I subscribe may signify the two testaments which are robora ornamenta Christi the strength and ornament of Christ and the language of the lambe which bring men to believe in Christ rather then then all the miracles of Christ for as Torres out of Lactantius saith non idcirco à nobis creditur Christus quia mirabilia fecit sed quia vidimus facta esse omnia quae nobis annuciata sunt vaticinio prophetarum Christ is not therefore believed by us because he wrought miracles which Vespasian did and the idolatets of China do and the false Prophets by our Saviours testimony may do but because we have seen all things accomplished which were foretold us of him by the Prophets The paralell This is infallibly fulfilled in the Paesbyterians And the beast layeth claim to these hornes and so of all the Preachers and Prophets Papists or Protestants it is well known that none pretend more love and more right to these hornes then the Presbyterians and the Independant and Lay-Preachers do for they reject all other learning and all authorities of Counsells Fathers Poets Orators Histories and all other Books and will allow of nothing but the pure book of the holy Scripture they will have none other horns but these which they say are the hornes of our Lamb and no Christian will denie them to be so nor gainsay the strength and authority of these hornes And yet as A lapide rightly observeth as I told you before of it A good obserservation of Cornel à lapide in loc this beast is said to have not the two hornes of the Lamb but two hornes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like to the horns of the Lamb and every Sophister can tell you that nullum simile est idem that which only is like a thing is not the thing and therefore though they cry out with the false Prophets of the Jewes os Domini loquutum est the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it for they preach nothing but Gospel and the pure Scriptures of the two Testaments and it is we and not they if you believe them that run to the puddles of humane authorities yet in very deed it is no such matter for the holy Ghost that best understandeth both the language of the Lamb and of this beast tells us plainly in the very next words that although their horns be like the horns of the Lamb yet in truth Why this second beast is said to speak like the Dragon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉