with the Israelites through the Red Sea by Night The Name or Colour also of the Sea may not unlikely be alluded to in this Description Red being not an improper Epithet of Fire There may be also still a more Mystical meaning of this Sea mingled with fire the Spirit with the Bloud of Christ which for brevity sake I pass over and will onely adde a short Paraphrase upon the verse I first cited 3. In the street of the great City which spiritually is called Sodom and Aegypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is ordinarily rendred where also our Lord was crucified which is very good and easie sense if we referre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the great City and read which is spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt Parenthetically but if we referre it to or rather joyn it with Sodom and Aegypt the sense seems more harsh unless we understand an Ellipsis the supply whereof would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the street of the great City which is spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt and the City where our Lord was crucified that is the Prophet-murthering Jerusalem which certainly is alluded to be this Ellipsis how it will And the meaning of the Text I conceive to be this That that great Body Politick which pretends to be the Catholick Church though so grosly Apostatized from the Apostolick Doctrine and Practice is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius speaks Spiritually or Mystically called Sodom Aegypt and the City where Christ was crucified with just reproach to their contrary Pretences As if the Spirit of God should speak thus Whereas this degenerate Church of Rome by boasting of their Profession of vowed Coelibate and perpetual Virginity would make show of being that true Virgin-Company and the holy and chast Spouse of Christ and of the Lamb I do pronounce them a Nest of unclean Birds as foul as Sodom and as polluted as Gomorra And whereas they would pretend to be the onely Church of my Son Christ who hath declared that if the Son make you free then are you free indeed and to be that Jerusalem that is free and is the Mother of all true Believers I do proclaim to all the World that they are Spiritually or Mystically that very Land of Aegypt and House of Bondage wherein my People are oppressed and tired out with tedious Superstitious and burthensome Observances that serve for nothing but to uphold the Pomp and Pride of that Spiritual Pharaoh and his unmerciful Task-masters a Tyrannical and Idolatrous Clergy And lastly whereas they would make men believe that they are that Holy City which is a Refuge and Protection to the Saints of God and a Shelter from Persecution where all tears shall be wiped from their eies that New Jerusalem that descended from Heaven which they were if they were what they boasted the true visible Church of Christ they are indeed a succession of that old Jerusalem the superstitious and burthensome Scribes and Pharisees who were the Crucifiers of my Son Jesus as these are to this very day of his true Members who himself accordingly as he has told them is persecuted so often as they are persecuted And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may respect as well the Members of Christ as himself notwithstanding it is the first Aorist For that is a good Note of Grotius his and a true one Aoristi sine designatione tempor is designant quod fieri solet And therefore here is intimated by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the often-Persecution of Christ in his true Members under this power of Antichrist For Crucifixion by a Diorism signifies any kind of Persecution Jerusalem therefore literally is not here understood under the disguise of Sodom and Aegypt which would not be any such mystical or spiritual meaning but a mere Synecdoche such as every School-boy understands but that Great City which is a Polity of men that pretend to be the onely true Catholick Church though so miserably Apostatized from the Faith This City in such a mystical sense as I have declared is called Sodom Aegypt and that Jerusalem that kills the Prophets and crucifies our Lord in persecuting his Members But the thing that we note now especially is their being called Aegypt for keeping the People of God in such Spiritual Slavery and Bondage 4. Which Slavery and Vassallage we may conceive also to be glanced at in the figure of the Whore of Babylon that rides upon the Beast For that this Imperious Clergy of Rome is so called seems not onely for that Babylon looks like the first Precedent of Idolatry in worshipping Belus but for their Tyrannical Pride and holding the people in such a forcible Captivity from under which no man might withdraw himself and make back toward Jerusalem and the true Temple of God but he exposed himself to the Cruelty of this bloudy Whore that sits as a Queen and saies she shall never see sorrow The Beast also being said to be rid by the Whore insinuates a kinde of beastly droyling and slavery the Christian Empire has groaned under for so many Ages Which that it might be more like a Beast an Horse or Mule that has no understanding they endeavoured to keep as ignorant as they could that the People might be the more patiently Priest-rid as the phrase is and carry their Riders with more ease and safety 5. These are the chiefest strictures that do occurre to my minde in the Prophetick Visions that are applicable to this second member of Antichristianism and that onely in this general way That of S. Paul is more particular Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats but so easie to be understood that the naming thereof is sufficient And therefore I shall pass to the next branches of Antichristianism those Oppositions that would run down the Sacred Offices of Christ as he is King Prophet and Priest The grand Injury against the last of which is this The making other Mediatours besides Christ and giving them Religious worship which is predicted in S. Paul and Daniel in those places we have already produced and expounded touching the Daemons or Mauzzim or else the suppressing or slighting the chief use of the Death of Christ which is a comfortable ease of Conscience from all suspicion of God's displeasure or fear of punishment in the other world for want of satisfaction for our misdeeds here so long as we have repented of them sincerely and have amended our lives according to the word of Christ. Which abuse is one grand piece of that Slavery and Bondage that the People of God are held under in this Spiritual Aegypt and therefore is generally prefigured in that Type we have already explamed and also in the Whore of Babylon according to what we have above intimated So that we may pass over this Office of Christ and proceed to his Kingly and Prophetick Office 6. The Opposition to the latter whereof is plainly predicted in the mention of the False-Prophet in the Apocalyps
what is so Histrionical or Stage-play-like is serious in any thing but in what the other Stage-players are which is in the emungeing the people of their money Wherefore it would not be any wonder to see these better-spirited Christians abhor from these shews as being so perfectly opposite to the ancient plainness and simplicity of the Primitive Teachers who as our Saviour himself spake and did all things bonâ fide and did not distance themselves from their flocks and charges by any garish pomp and multitude of sanctimonious dressings but being even as they were in a manner saving that they were greater Examples of Faith of Humility of Brotherly kindness of Contempt of the world of Patience and of power of Speech and effectual Exhortation and Conviction of mens minds for the corroborating their belief and inflaming their affections with the love of true righteousness and holiness which was an unimitable and indeleble Character of their Christian Priesthood kept and commanded the hearts of the Believers by this Authority of the Spirit discovering it self in the power of Reason and sincere Rhetorick and sealed and tied all close to them by that indissoluble cord of a reverential and respectfull Love which accru'd to them by the purity and unexceptionableness of their conversation they teaching as it was said of our Saviour with Authority and not as the Scribes who taught but did not 9. The reflexion upon which excellent Patterns will strongly tempt the better-spirited people to look upon these Sacerdotal pomps and disguises as a kind of Superstitious and Hypocritical Mummery and to urge them in the earnestness of their zeal to condescend to approach nearer to them and to lay aside their Masks and Vizards and to deal faithfully and apertly and to declare to them the Truth of Christ and the Good will of God as it is revealed in his Word for they profess they are willing to embrace it and to follow it may they but understand it nay they are hungry and thirsty after it but find no food nor comfort in dumb shows which if they will refuse to doe they are those that cannot admire this way but rather abhor it and must leave it and seek such Pastours as will deal with them in plainness and simplicity of heart For assuredly such gross and worse then Judaical Corruptions in a Church would force the most serious Believers to forsake the Community thereof and drain it as much as is possible of the sincerest and best-disposed people of Christendom And this I think is no small nor contemptible Mischief the departure of Lot being a fore-runner of the raining fire and brimstone upon Sodom 10. But I have not yet evolved all the intangling Superstitions that may lie wrapt up into these Religious or consecrated Vestments and Habits For it is not impossible but that they may befool the credulous with the belief of some miraculous virtue abiding in them by the power of Consecration or Benediction of the Priest or Bishop As that for example they have the virtue of recovering men from Diseases of fraying away the Devil and chasing him out of the possessed of procuring remission of sins both to Guilt and Punishment by the putting them on and of saving a soul from Damnation and sending her safe to the blisses of Paradise So wonderfull power lies hid under these religious Habiliments Which conceits notwithstanding are so ridiculously groundless that he deserves to be laught at that would seriously goe about to confute them 11. But some small pretence for the truth of them may haply be fetched from that passage in the Acts concerning the miraculous virtue of the body of S. Paul That from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs Acts 19. and aprons and the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them and from the virtue of Christ's garment the touch of whose hemme cured the woman of her Bloudy issue But we are to consider That Christ was the Son of God and Paul a chosen vessel and those first times were choice and peculiar times of the Church that required such miraculous assistances from God for the planting of the Christian Faith that Miracles are for the unbeliever not for those that already believe and that those cloaths came from or hung upon such bodies as were really anointed with the Holy Ghost and that in a full measure not rubbed or smeared in the hands or on the shaven crown with a little ointment that gives only an extrinsecal Sanctity fills no man with the Holy Spirit much less to such height that he can work Miracles Wherefore to make the people believe that the Habits of either Priests or Monks have any such virtue in them is nothing but an abuse of them into a mighty opinion of the Sanctity of those persons the touch of whose very Cloaths is of so great virtue and Sanctity I say the End of this Imposture is nothing else but the extolling and magnifying the Priest and other Religious Orders of the Church unless this esteem carry along with it also some pecuniary advantages 12. But the evil consequence is the cheat of the people into a feebleness of spirit and a neglect I say not of the advice of the Physician but of his counsel who speaks to us to buy of him white rayment that we Rev. 3. may be cloathed and that the shame of our nakedness may not appear or that of S. Paul to put on the whole armour of God to be strong in the Ephes. 6. 11. Lord and in the Power of his might to gird our loyns about with Truth and to put upon us the breast-plate of Righteousness to take unto us the shield of Faith and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit For this furniture assuredly is infinitely more powerfull against the approach of the Devil or diseases then all the holy Habiliments that the Wardrobe of the Church can produce and will sooner quench all the fiery darts of the wicked then whole pots of Holy-water squirted against him CHAP. XVIII 1. Of the Enchanting or Exorcizing of Water Oyl Salt Wax-candles c. with a general intimation of the Mischief thereof 2. Of the Exorcizing of a Golden Rose and Lamb of Wax 3. That the using of the Name of the true God in these Exorcisms does not hinder but that they may be properly termed Enchantments 4. Other Instances of their being Charmers and Magicians with an Anticipation of an Objection 5. The Falshood Fraud and Mischief of these Exorcisms 6. The derivation or distribution of these Exorcized Elements into several Superstitious uses 7. Of the supposal of the Infant 's being possess'd and of Baptismal Spittle 8. Of Extreme Unction and other Superstitious practices upon the dying man 9. As also upon his Corps laid out 10. The Fraud and Mischief of these practices 1. THE mention of Holy-water puts me in
the number and circumstances of his sins So little pretence can there be from hence of this Injunction But if he profess his sorrow and resolution of amendment and by reason of some weakness or melancholy cannot lay such fast hold upon the Promise of remission upon unfeigned Repentance without this visible and palpable seal set thereto of Sacerdotal Absolution I do not see but a Priest anointed with the Spirit of Christ and full of holy compassion to a penitent member of his Church may rightfully and profitably by that Authority which was derived upon the Apostles and their Successours and by that divine power that assists the sincere exercise of his Ministery seal to him the Remission of his sins by pronouncing his Absolution and so restore to peace his disquieted Mind his sins being as certainly pardoned as if Christ himself in person had absolved him he in such a case as this assuredly ratifying in Heaven whatever is here transacted upon Earth Which I suppose Grotius himself will not deny nor conceive at all clashing with his interpretation of S. John he not pretending those he mentions the only occasions of remitting or retaining of sins but the most notable 7. And as this Voluntary Confession in general to the Priest in order to the Penitent's Absolution is usefull and commendable so likewise a Voluntary unbosoming a mans self in a more particular way to such an one as he could trust and can presume fit and able for his office to the end that he may have a more perfect understanding of the state of his Soul and thereby administer more sutable and effectual counsel is a thing questionless of very good consequence 8. But to extort from every Believer every year or oftener a punctuall enumeration of all his transgressions in thought word and deed with all their circumstances were but a vile and disingenuous pretence of insinuating into all mens bosoms for the getting out their secrets of which the Priest may make his private advantage or communicate to the Churchpoliticians such matters as will tend to the strengthening of their distinct Interest which is The conserving or promoting that Honour Wealth and Power which they affect in the World And truely by this means the secrets not of this man or that woman but of whole Families and Cities nay of whole Provinces and Kingdoms and of all Christendom may flow together into that common Cistern or if you will Sea of Ecclesiastick Intelligence which is the very Eye of Action and the Soul of Conduct in all affairs 9. But though this would be a sweet morsel to this Pseudo-Clergy we are now describing it would be sour sauce to the Laiety not only in that it is a foul badge of an inevitable bondage upon them to be constrained upon pain of Damnation at least once by the year to cast themselves down upon the ground before them that are so many fathom sunk into the Earth themselves and to reproach themselves by ripping up their own faults accurately and punctually before such as they have no assurance of either their Candour Judgment or Friendship and for a man to balk his own Priest in this case would be to brand him and so make one of his chiefest neighbours his greatest enemy I say besides the external slavery of the business and the doing of a Ceremonie which may goe so much against the hair even with good and ingenuous spirits a man may be obnoxious to very great dangers and mischiefs For he that has the office of hearing men thus accurately and necessarily accusing themselves once a year at least has a greater opportunity of injustly defaming them by some tacit insinuations or somewhat expresser notices then is fit to be put into the hand of any man that is not a Saint upon Earth of which sort we suppose in this Polity we speak of extremely few 10. Interrogatories also from such Confessours may in greatest likelihood prove to young men and women Lessons of sin and lust and the knowing of the secrets of Families the seeds of infinite contentions betwixt Neighbours and also betwixt those of the same Families For it will be a hard thing for those that by this Shriving of persons know much of their Interest or disinterest to hold their itching fingers from acting or intermedling in their affairs or their other prurient parts from the soliciting the Chastity of such parties as they find hopefull and coming or not to be officious Intelligencers or Game-finders for such as pursue the pleasures of Venus Besides that the vainness of their Penances which yet must needs look like the right value of the Sin may harden men into a conceit that there is no great hurt in sinning and teach them to esteem the transgressing of the Law of God as a thing slight cheap and trivial Whereas if the only Penance of sin were the pain of forsaking it urged upon them from the certain expectation of that most direfull Judgment to come though no other condition but that were annexed to Absolution it would make men more sensibly feel the weight of sin and make them make the greater speed to get from under the burthen of it But to draw to an end 11. That also will pinch very hard especially upon the more Intellectual or Rational complexions namely To be bound in their Conscience upon pain of Damnation to hold whatsoever the Church professes to be true while she in the mean time obtrudes such things upon mens belief as have no ground neither in Reason nor Scripture For even in things that are disputable either way it is the fate of some men notwithstanding to be in a manner invincibly inclined to conceive this part to be true rather then the other What struggling and conflicting therefore must he undergoe to hold to the Authority of the Church against such strong and fatal sentiments of his own Mind But if the Church should be thus Dogmatical not only in things that may according to the sense of the generality of men be either way but conclude and require the belief of such things as are point-blank against either Scripture or Reason and are impossible according to the Faculties of all men who are unprejudiced to be true as That one and the same Body may be wholy and entirely in a thousand places at once and at a thousand miles distance betwixt all those places That we may worship a graven Image and the like how unevenly must these conditions of Salvation sit upon the spirit of him that is not a mere sot What reciprocations of belief and misbelief of hope and despair of Salvation must such an one be tortured with that holds that his share in eternall bliss depends upon the hearty belief of the truth of the Church in all things when what she propounds according to all his Faculties is not only unlikely but impossible to be true CHAP. XXII 1. The dreadfull Figment of Purgatory 2. That by this affrightfull Fable
them from any material blemishes as being so exceeding necessary for the continuance of those Truths that were published by such men as accordingly as I have already intimated were Divinely and Infallibly inspired And that there were such Writings sufficient for the conveyance of the knowledge of Christ written by them that were infallible Witnesses of the Truth and that we may be assured that those which commonly bear the Title of them are they I have without any recourse to the Infallibility of the Church so plainly demonstrated in my Explanation of the Book 7. chap. 10 11. Mystery of Godliness that I think it needless to say any thing further of it in this place 2. In the second place they will pretend That the Church must be Infallible or else there will want an Infallible Judge of Controversies nay there will not be so much as any Authority in the Church to order the affairs thereof But the Answer is easie and brief That there is no want of any such Infallible Judge and therefore not of the Churche's Infallibility for the Scripture is a Sufficient Rule of Faith to all that have understanding whether Learned or unlearned in things necessary to Salvation and That the belief and practice of these will carry a man to Heaven The Spirit of God therefore is the onely Infallible Judge here and has declared as plainly as any successive Judges can in those things that are necessary to Life and Salvation what is to be believed and to be done Which if we believe and practise in particular and do also in general and implicitly believe and stand in a readiness to obey the rest of the Scripture when the sense thereof appears to us we are in a safe condition and need not doubt but it will go well with us in the other State For it is manifest that what is necessary is plain in the Word of God to all men otherwise Salvation were not sufficiently revealed to the world and what we above recited out of St. Paul were not true nor the Providence of God sufficiently watchful in the laying the first Foundations of his Church 3. For if the Scripture were not a Sufficient Infallible evidence of all necessary Truths God would have afterwards raised other persons of Apostolical purity in conversation and with the like power of working Miracles to have made a Supplement to the former which yet was never done or else those other necessary Truths taught indeed by the first Apostles but not written by them had been committed to Tradition which had been a very lubricous and perillous way and unlikely to be taken by Divine Providence But if any such way had been taken certainly the Scripture it self in which all men are agreed would have pointed it out to us as also if there had been any Interpreter instituted that there might be infallibly communicated to us what remains necessary to our eternal safety But the Scripture being silent herein it openly declares it self to be Sufficient to all such as with sincerity and care apply themselves to the understanding of it as certainly every man considering that his eternal Salvation lies upon it will be enforced to doe in his own behalf whenas if others interpret for him they may doe it more remissly or more fraudulently 4. Besides that it is a very unskilfull and inept desire that there should be any such Infallible Judge that has concluded all Controversies to our hands already For that would prevent or forestall that privacy and peculiarity of converse which God has with those Souls that are more dear to him who does in a special manner assure them of such Conclusions as are not to be reached at by every hand But when the Infallible Determination of the Church has passed all mens assurances will be alike and God will have as it were given the staff out of his own hands Wherefore there being no external Infallible Judge for the Interpreting obscure places in Scripture God's right of his dispensing his special favours is preserved and men of a more devout and Intellectual spirit are divinely employed and earnestly engaged to extraordinary piety and holiness that they may win the favour of that inward Infallible Interpreter even of that Holy Spirit which the World cannot receive and by the light of his assistence be inabled to reach the true sense of those Writings which himself dictated to the Apostles and other Holy men of God 5. And lastly That the want of Infallibility will take away the Authority of the Church is a very weak Inference For her Authority is entire in the urging those Truths and Duties in Scripture that are plain to all men even to such as do not in the least dream that they are Infallible And those that are thus plain are such as are the most useful for our safe conduct to Heaven And for those Doctrines that be more obscure if they be withall useful and edifying as also Rites and Ceremonies the Church has Authority though she be not Infallible to declare them and appoint them Let all things be done decently and in order But how she is to behave her self to Dissenters having spoke of that more copiously elsewhere 2 Cor. 14. 40. I shall not here so much as touch upon it I will onely adde That in things that are really disputable I conceive it is the duty of every one whatever his private judgment and inclinations otherwise would be to compromise with the Authority of the Church and for Peace and Order sake to be concluded by their Determinations 6. Now what has been already suggested will serve to null or enervate a third Sophism For it seems a plausible Objection against the Scripture alone being sufficient to guide us and rule us without a publick Infallible Interpreter That this were as if one should contend that the Law alone in Civil matters were sufficient without a publick Judge For besides what we above insinuated That a plain Law and such we averre the Scripture to be in matters necessary to Salvation may want no Judge where the Conscience finds it self upon pain of Damnation obliged to understand it aright we further suggest That the urging or pressing of the Law of Christ by a publick Minister Interpreter or Declarer of the sentence of his Law so far as it is plainly his to all unprejudiced Understandings as well unlearned as learned is not denied by those that contend that the Scripture is the sole Rule of Faith And for my own part as I said before in places that are not thus plain if such Interpretations be made as are not repugnant to other plain Texts of Scripture but tend to the promotion of the Ends of the Gospel which I have elsewhere specified I hope no man shall offend God but doe his dutie to the Church in compromising with them in their sentiments of things in such circumstances as these For they are supposed conscienciously and in the Fear of
not secure from but did actually fall into very great Errours 15. And the Christian Church has no greater assurance but if Avarice Pride and Sensuality seize upon the Guides thereof she may also fall into as great errours and blindnesses The Apostle saith Let him that stands take heed lest he fall And it might have been a seasonable 1 Cor. 10. 12. warning to the Church of Christ betimes which was not onely tottering but almost universally lapsed into that over-spreading Heresy of Arrianism to reflect upon herself that while she does stand she stands upon her good behaviour and that she is not so Infallibly wise but that she may be surprised with Errour and over-run therewith unless true and unfeigned Holiness clear her eyes and keep her from being benighted in such mists of darkness And truly if she was above twelve hundred years agoe so obnoxious to Errour it is high time for her to awake and consider if after so many Ages of ease and wealth and honour and affluency of all things she has not grown fat and kicked and cast the Commandments of God behind her back and brought in a mere carnal Law of her own devising more sutable to the will of the flesh and to the carrying on of her own worldly Interest But it is sufficient in this place to have demonstrated She may erre in what she has erred to define is beyond the scope of my present discourse 16. We have fully defeated that Figment of pretended Infallibility whose downfall our opposers have no colour to bewail unless in the behalf of the common people who are illiterate as if they would hereby be made uncapable of any certainty of Belief and consequently of Salvation by reason they have no Infallible grounds to build on this of the Church being taken away But they may remember that we have already acknowledged sufficient certainty in that which the Universal Church agrees in and has agreed in in all Ages and that is the Scripture Such an Universal Tradition as the Scripture has is acknowledged a firm Foundation which the Church may be unfailing conveiers of down to posterity without being infallible Interpreters thereof The unfailingness of which conveiance notwithstanding I must confess may be a more intricate business then what every Vulgar man can make out to himself though infinitely less hard then to prove That the Church that would appropriate him to their Community is Infallible Nay I must confess I do not know how it were possible that a Church should so much as prove it self a Church much less an Infallible Church without the Scripture And therefore the belief of the Scripture seems to be the most immediate of all as * Cael. Secund. Curio against Floribellus he says well Nam qui de fide authoritate Divinarum Scripturarum dubitat quomodo quaeso credet Ecclesiae quae nullam habet sine eadem Scriptura authoritatem 17. And therefore I cannot explode that by any means which is so superciliously derided by some namely That it is the Spirit of God that does assure us of the Truth of Scriptures more then any thing else whatsoever For our Saviour Christ saith None cometh to me but whom my John 6. ch 10. Father draweth My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me Wherefore there is a discerning Spirit in those that appertain to Salvation whether it be the Voice of God and Christ or no. For the true Shepherd goeth before and the sheep follow him because they know John 10. 4 5. his voice but they follow not a stranger but flie from him because they know not his voice as our Saviour discourses most excellently I say therefore the Voice the Call or Whistle if you will of the true Shepherd are the Holy Scriptures which by an immediate sense they are assured to be the Call of the Shepherd and are at this day to them that belong to the election of God as the Voice of Christ and his Apostles when they were upon Earth the power of whose speech assisted by the Spirit did lead men captive into that Faith that worketh Salvation And without all question the same Word of Salvation still which is in those Holy Records seriously and zealously urged by men of a sincere faith and upright belief without any mingling of it with humane devices will have the same effect upon the multitude and as many as are fitted will be wone to an unshaken belief of the Truth of Christianity as it is exhibited to us in the Holy Scriptures For they of themselves have the light and life and very breath of Christ and his Apostles wrapt up in them to the exciting the vulgar sort to a firm and lively Faith though many subtil Sophisters of the Kingdom of darkness might by crafty and perverse Reasoning intangle them and non-plus them in outward discourse And therefore they are kept safe in the belief of the Scripture by the power of that Spirit in them in virtue whereof there is that indissoluble harmonie and concord betwixt their spirits and the Scripture though they cannot defend themselves by humane Literature nor by the acuteness of Reason and depths of Philosophy 18. Which Spirit residing in them and giving them this solid and firm discernment betwixt the Testimonie of God and the Traditions and Doctrines of men I think I may safely and properly call the Spirit of Faith as it is considered nakedly in it self and separate from the Spirit of Knowledge and of Wisedom Which distinction of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Origen of old has taken notice of in his book against Celsus Lib. 6. upon that Text of S. Paul And truely I think the Gloss is marvellous solid namely That the chiefest and greatest Gift of the Spirit is that Divine Wisedom whereby a man is in a great measure able to comprehend the reasons and more deep Philosophical grounds of the Truth of the Christian Mystery The next is Knowledge suppose of Antiquity History the comparing of Prophecies and helps of the exteriour humane literature the liberal Arts and Languages The third is Faith which is also comprised in the other but is a Gift which is as well general as more necessary whose nature is such as I have described already namely An immediate adherence to the word of Truth comprised in the Scripture through the power of that Spirit that resides in sincere and well-meaning Souls that have a savoury and sensible fear of God and are ready to goe where he calls them For these by an ineffable Sympathy of their hearts with the veracity of the voice of Christ sounding in the Scriptures will be sure to follow their true Shepherd's call though they turn off from the voice of the stranger and Hireling who comes not into the Sheepfold but to rob and kill and steal Whence we further see that this pretended Infallibility of the Church in reference to
worldly impurities 3. It is nobly concluded of Caelius Secundus Curio against Floribellus Neque enim vera Dei cognitio verúsque cultus unius aut Familiae aut Gentis aut Sectae propria esse potest sed quicunque sensu immortalitatis tanguntur ii ad se eandem pertinere existimare debent Poterat quidem Judaeorum Gens Circumcisionem externam Aaronis Familia Sacerdotium alias item Ceremonias sibi jure quodam vendicare sed divinam internam Circumcisionem vivas illas animi verásque Hostias aeternas Naturae leges quas in hominum animis Jova Opt. Max. à principio insculpserat omnium mortalium sententiis comprobatas sibi nec Judaei nec Graeci nec Romani nec ulla praeterea Natio quasi propria vendicare potuerunt And immediately after speaking more particularly of Christian Religion as it is revealed in the Scripture Ac nè illud quidem verè dici potest quod quidam putant summam Religionis quasi Haereditariam ad unum aliquem venisse sic ut pro libidine sua interpretari addere demere mutare statuere abrogare aliquid in ea possit Neque enim idcirco Leges divinitus latae sunt Religióve patefacta quò in eam mortales jus haberent sedut omni studio curâ labore diligentiâ colerent ejúsque dignitatem tuerentur 4. Wherefore as concerning those Eternal and Immutable Rules of Divine Reason which God has engraven upon every mans Spirit and come in as freely as the Light of the Sun into their natural eyes and without which what-ever Prophecies there are or Instructions in the Holy Writ it were impossible for us to be ascertained of the Truth of them or indeed of any meaning in them I say upon pretence of an imperious Infallibility to deface these Divine Characters of the Soul or to command them silence or to give them the Lie would be an act of the most notorious False-prophet and most contradictious to the Prophetick Office of Christ whether you respect his Humanity or Divinity that can ever manifest himself in the world 5. As for example If this impudent Oracle should declare That one and the same individual Body can be in several places at one and the same moment of time yea in infinite places in a manner and at vast distances at once That that may be made or created which is already in being That the real and sensible mode of a Subject may subsist separate from that Subject as suppose Motion or Hardness where there is nothing moved or hard That what we have assurance of by all our Senses and by the Senses of all men constantly the Object being at a due distance and the Medium fitted and the Organs rightly disposed may notwithstanding all this be false That the same Body at the same time may be bigger and lesser then it self but an inch distant from me and a thousand miles distant from me at once That one and the same person may be many thousand miles absent from himself and that he may both sit still and make a journey to himself at the same time That an entire organized Body may be wholly in every part thereof all of it in the Eye and consequently every part in every part the comely parts in those on which Nature has bestowed less comeliness That an entire Body may be divided and yet not into two parts suppose but into two wholes and both the same with the divided Entire body That the same Body may be now at Athens and after at Thebes and yet not pass any medium direct or circuitous to come thither That a man may swallow every atom of his own body at once into his belly limbs back belly head and mouth and all That one and the same individual person may be of different ages at once above thirty years old and yet not above three hours old at the same time That Religious Worship even that which is Latria may be given to Images and yet without Idolatry That Christ may satisfie for the faults of men and yet they remain obnoxious to the penalties due for those faults with several others of that kind I say whosoever upon pretence of being Prophet-general to the world should lift up his head on high and utter such Infallible Contradictions as these in the name of the Lord of Hosts or such oracular Definitions as must be false unless these be true we need not spend time in asking him Art thou he or do we look for another but may assuredly conclude that he is that expected eminent False-prophet who does Antichristianly oppose himself against the Spirit of Truth which Christ has imparted to the world partly by writing those immutable and infallible Rules of common Reason in the Souls of men and partly by those Holy Writings which he has left to his Church recorded by inspired men and Prophets and lastly by a special converse with more holy and sanctified Souls to whom he does in a more certain and assured way then ordinary impart his Spirit of Illumination as appears out of what we have cited out of the Book of Wisedom and might be proved out of sundry other places of the Canonical Scripture 6. And now whereas such a False-prophet as this has nothing to defend himself from the suspicion of being an Impostor but the peremptory and impudent bearing men down that he is Infallible it is but seasonable to appeal here to the world Whether it be not infinitely more likely that this one man or company of men or succession of either doing no real Miracles to extort belief nor living better nor so well as other men should be fallible and subject to error or given to deceit then that the above-cited absurd Conclusions should be true For neither he nor they can be Infallible if these be real Falsities as undoubtedly they are 7. Adde unto all this That if this Pseudo-prophetick Power should serve the true Prophets of Christ and faithful Witnesses as the false Prophet did Micaiah strike them on the cheeks nay cruelly persecute them and kill them dealing so with them as the Jews did of old with our dear Lord and Master who complained But now you seek to kill me a man that has Joh. 8. 40. told you the Truth which I have heard of God would they not prove themselves to be that Jerusalem that has become an Harlot and of whom our Saviour has predicted That it cannot be that a Prophet perish out of Luk. 13 33. Jerusalem she must be the Executioner O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee art not thou that mystical City of Hypocrites the false House of God Sodom and Aegypt where our Lord also was crucified as well as the Prophets before him and his holy Witnesses after him For the false Jerusalem the adulterate Church is ambitious to monopolize to her self the trade of bloud and of slaying of the Prophets and Witnesses
therefore they erring in the apprehension of the Excellency of that Object to which Divine worship is due as if it were so mean that there could be many such did not direct their worship to him but to a phancy or Idol of their own making to which they profanely attributed the name of Jehovah For the true Jehovah was not so vile a Being as there could be any partakers of Divine honour with himself And so it is with Christ who is the same true God blessed for ever He that gives Divine honour which is due to him alone unto Saints or Angels disclaims his Divinity and makes him but as one of them This would be one Antichristian way of undermining his Godhead by equallizing mere Creatures unto him 7. But there is another way or rather the same way but in an higher degree and consequently more Antichristian and that is the preferring that which is but a mere Creature though a blessed and glorious one before him or above him As for example if either Fraud or blind Devotion should exalt the ever-blessed Virgin not onely to that Divine honour of having Temples and Altars erected to her with Prayers and Invocations of her as in the worship of the rest of the Saints and Angels but that these Honours should be done much more frequently and more magnificently to the Virgin Mary then to Christ himself that is to say that there should be more Temples and Altars and more sumptuous erected to her then to Christ Jesus more Devotions Prayers and Offerings made to her then to him a greater acknowledgement of mercy and goodness from her then from him who poured out his Life in the bitter Agonies of his bloudy Passion for the Salvation of the World and lastly be ascribed unto her a Superiority and Authority over Christ to command him to doe this or that by virtue of that duty he owes unto her Certainly if this be not against the Divinity of Christ nothing can be thus to make him inferiour to a deceased woman even him that is perfect God as well as perfect Man For it is plainly to un-deify him if I may so speak and to declare him to be no God at all Which is as Antichristian an outrage against the Divinity of Christ as can be imagined For who is Antichrist if he be not that denies the Father and the Son 1 John 2. 22. who is one and equal with the Father And who denies the Godhead of both Father and Son but he that pronounces the Mother of Christ according to the flesh to be greater then them both as certainly she is if she be greater then either 8. The Fifth Title is The Everlasting Father The Seventy translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meaning I suppose the world under the Messias The efficacy of which Title I conceive the Mystery of Regeneration to reflect upon Christ regenerating us into his own Image by the inward working of his Eternal Spirit All things that the Father hath John 16 15. are mine and it is no wonder he being one with the Father therefore said I that he the Spirit shall take of mine and shew it unto you Wherefore Christ regenerating the World which was to come by the operation of his Eternal Spirit he was rightly and fitly styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Father of the World to come or if you will The everlasting Father as being so in his own Essence and begetting Children to endless Eternities Of this Mysterie he treated in his converse upon Earth with his secret disciple Nicodemus Unless a man be born from above he cannot enter into John 3. 5 7. the Kingdom of God Marvel not that I said unto thee that we must be born from above The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but thou knowest not from whence it comes nor whether it goes so is every one that is born of the Spirit No unregenerate man is acquainted with the sense of the first rise and motion of the Spirit nor understands whither those actions and speeches tend that proceed therefrom But it is so with these as is said in the Apocalyps of the hundred forty four thousands who by virtue of their new birth sung a new Song which none could learn but the hundred forty four thousands Chap. 14. which were redeemed from the Earth by being born from above as our Saviour spake to Nicodemus These are the true Israelites in whose mouth is found no guile and who by the guidance of that Spirit by which they are regenerate follow the Lamb wheresoever he goes 9. Wherefore Christ being to his true Church so real a Father by a true and living Regeneration and Renovation of their Minds by his Spirit into such holy sentiments as appertain to all those that are indeed the Sons of God to treat them so as if they were mere Images made of wood or stone or rather dead matter to be carved upon and have the inscription of any thing that a pretended Infallible Power shall be pleased to engrave upon them this is an high Antichristian affront against the Paternity of Christ as if he did not beget living Children who have as certainly the sense of discernment in Spiritual things as any Animal birth has in Natural but that the number of his Elect were but a certain Tale of billets brick or stone to be hewen or carved or any way ordered according to the petulancy and imperiousness of a self-willed Power who under a pretence of an infallible and unfailing succession that must be in the Church has stept into the place of Christ. Maxima debetur puero reverentia is most true concerning every child of God For there is that Divine sense in them against which whatsoever is unholy and unsavoury will grate very hard and unpleasantly and what is false will be found by them very disharmonious both to those immutable Principles of Truth in their unprejudiced minds and also to the written Oracles of God which were penned down by the same Spirit by which this genuine off-spring of Christians are regenerated Wherefore as I said to use these as if there were no life no spirit no sense or discernment in them but that they must as passively without any Conviction or Appeal to any thing in themselves bear the Dictates of this usurping Power we describe as a Table-book or Paper-book which is irresistibly writ upon by that hand that pleases is an enormous Injury against Christ as he is the Everlasting Father and holy Regeneratour of his true Church into his own life and likeness But to murther and massacre these Children of his because they do so stoutly and exactly Patrissare so conscienciously and carefully tread in their Father's steps and witness his Truth to the world I leave to any man to judge if there can be imagined any thing more hellishly Antichristian against the Paternity of Christ then that For what can be more hostile and
after to satisfie the lust of the eyes the lust of the flesh and the pride of life 11. Nor will this mischief stop here I mean in the neglect of Holy and Divine Meditation and of either usefull or generous Enquiries after Truth but every one being exalted in the conceit and apprehension of his own place and dignity especially he whose Superiority is so vast as to pretend to be the Universal Bishop of Christendom and higher then all the Kings of the Earth they will be driven on so far with that furious spirit of Ambition that they will not onely neglect but oppose every thing that is sacred and holy if it stand in competition with any devised method of getting in Riches to the Church that they may Lord it and carry it out bravely every man in his respective Office and Dignity Wherefore the genuine Simplicity of Christian Religion shall be corrupted and adulterated and Laws and Articles devised by this Infallible Priesthood that are point-blank against the Laws of Christ and the immutable Rules of sound Reason The ears of all men will be filled with deceitfull Figments and gainfull Lies such as we have already produced many Instances of the Merits of Christ's Passion vilified and maimed Truth and Justice banished persecuted and oppressed the Old and New Testament made but a dumb and dead letter that has no sense nor information in it but all Dictates must be immediate from the Church that is resolved to dictate nothing that is against her worldly advantage that is to say The two Witnesses must be slain and their carcasses lie breathless in the streets otherwise those that dwell on the Earth not those that Apoc. 〈◊〉 are redeemed from the Earth and have their conversation in Heaven will not be able to rejoyce in such a measure and to send gifts to one another that is mutually support and promote one anothers Interest and merrily share the World amongst themselves 12. It is plain therefore that such a Luciferian Polity as this would of its own nature clash with the Kingdom of Christ and totally defeat that Grand design of the Gospel which is the Renewing of the World in true Righteousness and Holiness For thus even those which should be the Salt of the Earth will of all men become the most unsavoury every mans judgment being bribed by either the present possession or earnest expectation of such vast and extravagant Preferments of which there being so many degrees the minds of the ambitious will find no rest till they come to the highest that is possible and therefore will be necessarily entangled and taken up with worldly projects even as long as they live and that with great vehemence and sollicitude the Objects seeming so great and making so glaring a show in their phancies And Ambition and Pomp in all ranks rendring them indigent of Money no inferiour Candidate can attempt the corrupting of the Superiour Authority without success and every one betime will get as much of Church-preferment as he can to be able to buy more Wherefore by Law or Dispensation men shall be inabled to hold not onely many Benefices but Bishopricks besides other Dignities in the Church by which means no Shepherd will be able to attend his own flock but instead of feeding them with wholesome Doctrine will help the Devil to infuse the worst poison that can be conveyed into mens minds namely That the whole business of Religion is but a device to enrich the Priest Thus necessarily and unavoidably by their absence and silence will they preach and inculcate Atheism and Infidelity into their scandalized Clergie For if the Salt it self become thus unsavoury what better can become of that which it is to season Will not Leudness and Irreligion overflow all 13. To be short All mens minds upon the reckoning being inflamed with Pride and Ambition and no mans Ambition being to be served without mony the Temple of God will as in times past be filled with buyers and sellers and the Church become a very Mart or Fair the Ecclesiastick Polity a City of Merchan dises and every particular Church a Merchant's Ship or Vessel of Traffick amidst the populosity of the World which the Prophetick style resembles to many waters But I will harp no longer on this string I have already made a Description full enough of such a Constitution or Frame of the Church as would in an universal manner oppose or disappoint the planting or growth of the Divine Life whereby it does sufficiently shew it self to be extremely Antichristian CHAP. VIII 1. That such a Frame of things as naturally tends to the extinguishing of Faith is highly Antichristian 2. That A trade of Worldliness in the Spiritual Guides is one part of this Frame 3. And a Self-ended policy in all the Doctrines and Practices of this Church another 4. Thirdly The profession of uncertainty and obscurity in the Christian Faith 5. Fourthly The necessity of being in a Church where there is no Interruption by misordination 6. Fifthly The bearing men down that Dissent in any thing takes away certainty in all things 7 12. Sixthly Lying Miracles 13 16. Seventhly A rabble of incredible Reliques 17. Eighthly Transsubstantiation 18. How naturally it super-induces Atheism 19. What a bundle of Impossibilities it is 20. That the pretended Infallibility of the Church is infinitely too light to weigh against it 21. Nor can it be made credible by the countenance of feigned Miracles 22. Several Characters of them that are excluded the Holy City comprized in this present Limb of Antichristianism 1. WE will now proceed to those main parts of the Divine Life the Root and the Branches Where it is obvious to take notice that what deads the Root whereby the whole Tree must necessarily wither cannot but be Antichristian to the highest pitch Wherefore if I describe such a management of Affairs in the Church as naturally tends to the extinguishing of Faith which is the necessary Root of the other Divine Graces no man will doubt but that I have delineated a very considerable Limb of Antichristianism 2. Of which the first point is what we last of all touched upon Such a Frame of Government and such sublimities of Dignities as would lapse the Church and immerse it into the World and thereby make them that should be the Salt of the Earth an unsavoury masse and of a secular dead insipid spirit relishing nothing of the Kingdom of God but wholy taken up with the Profits and Promotions of this present life For they would thereby look so like Unbelievers themselves that they would stagger the faith of all those under them and make them think that there was nothing to be expected after this life because their Leaders and Guides lived so exactly according to that Principle That there is nothing to be expected hereafter 3. Secondly The Exquisiteness of their Order and Policy in managing the affairs of their Ecclesiastick Empire if it did surpass all
Sensuality Luxury and Affluency and to be drunk therewith to abound with worldly felicity even to an Insensibility of better things and to a besotted security and contentedness with the present enjoyments of this Life This also may be one sense of this intoxicating Cup besides what I have touched upon before Ver. V. And upon her forehead was a Name written Which Interpreters have rightly noted to allude to the custom of some impudent Harlots who had their names written upon their foreheads as appears from that in Seneca Nomen tuum pependit in fronte pretia stupri accepisti manus quae Diis datura erat sacra capturas tulit 2. Mystery Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth All which Inscription I conceive is the Name of the Whore For the Scripture often makes long Names even a whole Sentence as I shall have occasion more fully to note anon I say the very word Mystery is part of the Name And the sense of the whole is That the Name of the Whore is Mystical Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots or rather the Mother of Fornications 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so some Copies which the Vulgar Latin follows and Grotius best approves of and best fits with what follows and of the Abominations of the Earth that they may be both Abstracts And Mystical here signifies the same that Spiritual elsewhere in the Apocalyps Which is spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt as Chap. 11. v. 8. Cornelius à Lapide has also compared them and it is the Great City there too which is so called Wherefore let any one judge if Mystical or Spiritual Babylon can be understood of Rome Pagan or whether it is likely that the Spirit of God should prefix the term Mystery to an Inscription that hath no more in it then a dry Synecdoche For if Rome Pagan be understood it is no more but putting one Pagan Idolatrous and Persecutive City for another With which certainly so profound and venerable a Preface as Mystery cannot well suit 3. Wherefore it must be understood of a Christian City or Polity Idolatrizing and debauching others with Idolatry And the meaning of the Mystery must be this Even that that Hierarchy which should over-spread the Empire pretend to be the pure and unadulterate Apostolick Church and be generally believed to be so nay to be that City from Heaven the foundations of whose Walls are twelve with the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb inscribed upon them that City wherein God will wipe away all tears from the eyes of his servants where there shall be no more death nor sorrow nor crying nor any more pain that is to say no more bloudy Persecutions Pressures nor Tortures of the faithful Servants of Christ as Grotius well interprets it and lastly that City wherein there is no Temple that is to say no Object towards which we bow besides the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb who alone is worshipped with Religious worship I say the Mystery is this That that Occumenical Hierarchy or Body of the Clergie that boast themselves to be this pure and Apostolick City as being of an unerring judgment should indeed be the very City Babylon it self which in stead of being so chast a pattern of Purity of Worship were Sacrificers to the dead and the Adorers or Worshippers of Bel and the Propagators of the worship of the Baalim that is to say of the worship of Daemons or false Gods through the world infecting therewith even the very Jews themselves the peculiar people of God and in stead of being a Protection and Refreshment to the Servants of the true God held them in a long and sad Captivity casting them that would not bow to the Image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up into an hot fiery Furnace This is the Mystery and yet a very true one For it is over-manifest of this Pseudo-christian Hierarchy that they have debauched the professed People of God with various kinds of Idolatry and have held them captive a long time under an hard servitude and besides other tortures and persecutions have burned thousands of the faithful servants of Christ with Fire and Fagot Wherefore it is a Mystery indeed that she that so boldly professes her self the City of God and had the luck to be believed so generally to be so should in truth be found to be that bloudy and Idolatrous Babylon 4. And because she boasts her self also to be the Catholick as well as the Apostolick Church she is farther adorned with the Title of Great as well as of Babylon and is at once styled Babylon the Great the vast extent of that City which they that have made the most frugal computation reckon 360 or 380 Stadia in compass Pliny and Herodotus 480 being a fit Symbol of their pretence to Catholickness or Universality And lastly because she will pretend to be the Spouse of the Lamb and be called Our Mother the Church the Spirit of God in reproach to this false Beast has styled her the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth 5. Which style does plainly discover that this City Babylon is not Rome Heathen but a Polity Christian. For Rome Heathen was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius reads it the Mother that is the Author and Dispenser of Idolatry over the face of the Earth for the Nations were Idolatrous of themselves without her and she rather a Learner and Receiver of their Idolatries which she increased as she advanced her Trophees as it may appear by that promissory Charm which Macrobius sets down used by Saturnal lib. 3. cap. 9. the Romans when they had hopes of taking a City calling out thereby the Tutelary Gods of the Place and promising them Temples and Solemnities at Rome Wherefore the Title of Mystery prefixed to the Name of the Whore or rather it being a part of it and which easily answers to that Mystery of Iniquity the Apostle speaks of jointly considered with this part of the 2 Thess. 2. 7. Name The Mother of Fornications and Abominations of the Earth does evidently agree with our Demonstration in the foregoing Chapter that proved it necessary to understand by Babylon not Rome Heathen but a State of the Church degenerating into Heathenism and Idolatry Which lying deeper then that every man can discover it at first sight as being coloured and gilded over with fair pretences of magnifying Christ and his Apostles and the rest of the Saints especially the Virgin Mary the Mother of Christ is rightly called a Mystery In which this Whore and the Two-horned Paral. 1. Agr. 5. Beast do exactly agree For his having Horns like a Lamb is that outward pretext of Succession from Christ and his Apostles and of having a power from them to rule and discipline the Church according to the mind of Christ to his Honour and for his interest which they pretend in every thing But his speaking like a Dragon bespeaks him
man But there is no numbering of one Number given but by extracting of the Root 10. Wherefore as the Square-Root of 36. may rightly be conceived to detect that that famed Tetractys had a relation to the Hexameron of Moses and signified that every Day 's Creation had its Foeminine Principle as well as Masculine the First it self not excepted which is consonant to that Aphorism of the Jews Nulla virtus divina descendit sine indumento and to Moses his assimilating the First Day 's Creation to Light so the Square-Root of this Number of the Beast may also detect to whom this Vision of the Two-horned Beast doth belong And I have already shewed in my Mystery of Godliness that the Root of this Number is 25 and that Book 5. Ch. 16. Sect. 8. it does plainly agree with several substantial Observables concerning the Church of Rome and their City and that in a perfect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to 12 which is the Root of 144 the number of the Regiments that appear with the Lamb on Mount Sion Which things being sufficiently cleared in the said Treatise and may be more copiously understood out of Mr. Potter I shall spare to speak any thing farther of them in this place but wholly remit the Reader thither for satisfaction 11. In the mean time I will not stick to conclude that it is apparent Paral. 2. Agr. 9. partly from what I have delivered there and partly from what is added in this place That the Seat as well of the Two-horned Beast as of the Whore is at last in their respective Visions determined to Old Rome as being the most permanent and conspicuous Residence of the Apostatized Priesthood and such as by being so notorious an Instance of this Wickedness becomes a Measure and Rule of comparing and judging of the greatness of the Apostasy of other Churches by their nearer accession and agreement to this Queen of Harlots And therefore by intimating the Name Number and Seat of this chief part of the Apostatized Clergy it gives us the clear knowledge and fast apprehension of the whole corrupted Body and all the parts thereof where-ever and how long soever they be found within the Boundaries of the Roman Empire But when once they are swallowed up and washed off by some extraneous Power and fall under the Jurisdiction of some other Empire I must confess though we may judge these too by this measure I do not see how they then can so well be concerned or aimed at in these two Prophecies both the Two-horned Beast and the Whore being look'd upon as Riders and Guiders of the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns and therefore supposed within the Roman Empire Which is a plain cause why these Prophecies have laid so fast hold on the Church of Rome in the conclusion of them as if she were in a manner solely concerned For it was fit so to doe by reason of her Permanency in Duration as well as Eminency in wickedness Which may be one reason also why this body of the adulterate Clergy is called the Beast with two Horns because all those Patriarchates annumerated to the Greek Church were betimes swept away a new Empire overflowing them whenas the Patriarchate of Constantinople was free from this inundation till about two hundred years ago So faithful is the Spirit of Prophecy in the Prefiguration of Events as he may easily see that pleases to consult History In the mean time as I said it is manifest enough that the Seat as well of the Whore as the Two-horned Beast in each Vision is determined to Old Rome Which is the last Agreement of our first Parallelism 12. As the last of our second is That the Seat of the Seven-headed Par. 2. Agr. 1â—… Beast is left free in either Vision and not fixt to any Metropolis Indeed the Seven Heads of the Beast being also interpreted of the Seven Hills of Rome it is apparent that the Beast has some relation to that place and must have some Title or denomination from that City else why should the Beast's Heads have any thing to doe to typifie those Seven Hills But the Prophecy as it were datâ operâ declining the fixing the Imperial Seat of the Seven-headed Beast bestows that Privilege on the Whore assigns her the Seven-Hilled seat saying The seven Heads are seven Hills where the Whore sitteth Which is admirably agreeable to the event For indeed Rome has been the constant See of the Whore but the Seat of the Seven-headed Beast has been very changeable some time at Rome then at Constantinople and lastly in Germany 13. And thus we have seen the exquisite Congruity and Coincidence of all the parts of the Visions of these Thirteenth and Seventeenth Chapters one with another which though they be so accurately correspondent yet I must confess not altogether so adequately but that the Vision of the Whore bears a more press and close respect to the Church of Rome all along and besides the plain designment of her Seat which is common to both her gorgeous attire and bloud-thirstiness or rather her being so lavishly bloud-drunk as she is described seems to appropriate the Vision more peculiarly to her then the Greek Church Which Drunkenness as well as Gorgeousness of Apparrel though it be not all along the reign of the Whore yet according to the nature of these Prophetick Figures which exhibit the whole Succession of affairs under one joint show they were without any discrimination to be represented at once Which Consideration may take off any the like scruple in these Prophetick Schemes and Representations For what was done but for a while adorns those Images as much as what is permanent there being no mention of Succession of time but all represented at once 14. And therefore though that Inscription Mysterium upon the Pope's Crown which was questionless in imitation of the Inscription on Aaron's Mitre all his vestments and ornaments being so industriously imitated in the Pontifical Habiliments be now turned into Julius Pontifex Maximus yet it is not the less probable that it was glanced at in this Description of the Whore The truth of which Story Bishop Dounham does assert with all imaginable confidence Quod autem ait in fronte Meretricis De Antichristo lib. 1. cap. 7. scriptum fuisse nomen Mysterium id in Romano Pontifice completum esse pro comperto habemus Which passage is so confessed a truth that Lessius in his Answer to King James could not deny it Wherefore as our Saviour Christ's uttering that first verse of the twenty second Psalm My God my God why hast thou forsaken me intimated to the world that the whole Psalm was a Prophecy of his Passion so this first word of the Name of the Whore of Babylon on the Papal Tiara was an indication that the whole Name or Title belonged to the Pope with his Clergy and that they are this Great Whore that has made drunk the
therein For we traffick not in Legendary Lies and false Miracles against the Sacred Title of Truth nor desire to keep the people ignorant of the Scriptures and to hold them in darkness against the Sacred Title of Light nor trespass against the Sacred Title of Life by making our Religion consist of dumb shows and heaps of dead Rites and Ceremonies nor derogate from the Divinity of Christ by giving Religious worship to Saints and Angels nor offend against his Paternity by making his Children a company of stocks and stones and by taking away the judgement of discretion from them and forcing them to believe as the Church believes right or wrong with Scripture or against it and are so farre from injuring the life of any Child of God by any captious and wicked Sanction that we profess nothing requisite to Salvation but what is plain in Scripture as appears from what has been already produced out of the Articles of the Church Which alone will also vindicate her from any imputation of the following points of Antichristianism against the Peace of Christ's Kingdome And for absolving Princes from their Oaths what Church unless that of Rome ever pretended to so blasphemous a Power 4. The next Antichristian Opposition and which occurrs in the next Chapter is that against the Divine Life in general Such as Idolatry and all manner of Superstition dumb Shows speaking in an unknown Tongue substituting silly Penances instead of real Repentance and Amendment of life all which our Church is so plainly and professedly against in her Articles and Homilies every-where and so acknowledgedly that I will not give my self the trouble of Citation Some not so well minded may peradventure be over-inclinable to imagine the Episcopal Office and Revenues to have a greater propinquity with that Hypothesis at the end of this Chapter then any indifferent man can possibly judge For he must be very ignorant of the Constitution of Christendome that does not plainly discern that in that Hypothesis it is the Papal Hierarchy that is perstringed and adumbrated which is done again more fully and particularly in the ninth and tenth Chapters For for my own part though I do not know the accurate values of the several Bishopricks of this Nation yet considering the largeness of their Dioceses and the great burthen as well of care as expensiveness in conscientiously executing the Function truly I cannot imagine them so great but that the weight of the Office will weigh down every-where the value of the Revenue and we reade in the Gospel that * Luk. 10. 7. the work-man is worthy of his hire And concerning the Office and Dignity itself it cannot sink into my minde that that Order of the Church which was instituted and in practice in those Ages thereof which were Symmetral can with any face or conscience be judged Antichristian And that the Church was Symmetral for about four hundred years after Christ is a demonstrable Consectary from my Joint-Exposition and that Joint-Exposition so convincingly evident that no Interpretation of any Scripture can be more 5. Whence I cannot but wonder that any true Son of the Church of England should be so shie of the Apocalyps or so fearful of it that they durst not touch it without a pair of Mittens of Grotius his making for fear it should bite them that is to say unless it be unfolded or rather folded up in Grotius his fond and groundless Explications For there is not any Book in the World that makes more for the establishment of the Crown and Church of England then this Holy Book of the Apocalyps if rightly and solidly understood A thing which that wise and sagacious Prince King James of blessed memory had discovered betimes and accordingly made use of it against the Usurpations of the Church of Rome And truly I finde nothing in the Apocalyps though the style seems Mysterious and Aenigmatical but what is very rational and look upon it as the most faithful and Philosophical writing that ever was penned A tast whereof we have in that Catalogue of the evil characters of them that are excluded the Holy City wherein bloudy and inhumane Zeal as also vain and imposturous Superstition is so plainly perstringed The former in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Murtherers the latter in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Sorcerers Exorcists or Enchanters and lying Legendists and in fearful intimidated spirits that are superstitiously inclined to submit to the delusions and lies of such shameless Deceivers These doth our faithful Redeemer of Souls who deals bonâ fide with Man-kinde to rescue their abused minds from the Tyranny and burthen of Superstition note with a mark of Infamy and Condemnation So fast a friend is the Lord Jesus to Humanity to Equity to Truth and Reason 6. And not to insist upon those passages of the Apocalyptick Visions that imply it which are more then one or two either there is the greatest Equity and Reason in the world that every Christian Prince should next under Christ be Supreme Head over all that part of his Church over which he is King or Sovereign over Clergy as well as Laiety in Causes Ecclesiastical as well as Civil and that not any Papal or Presbyterian Power should be above him as our English Episcopacy does most justly and professedly submit unto him For why should any Clergy-men expect of a Prince who has received like precious Faith with themselves to fall in his Power by becoming a Christian Which is as unjust as it were ridiculous to phansy that every proper man should be bound to remit so much of his natural stature as would make him goe lower then the Priest that baptized him For Christianity does not take away Nature nor Power but rightly employs it Could any of the Pagan Emperours think you have been brought over to the Christian Faith if the Bishop of Rome would have laid claim to the Headship of the Empire so farre as it became the Church of Christ or would they not have suspected the preaching the Kingdome of Heaven a trick of the Priests to make themselves Lords of the Earth No certainly a Prince once become Christian that is a Believer and Professour of the Apostolick Faith comprised in the Word of God in those plain and generally-confessed Points of our Religion is a Person so Sacred that nothing can mount above him for Headship in his own Dominions For the anointing of the Spirit whereby we believe to Salvation is infinitely more holy then any external Sacerdotal oil whatsoever Why may not then so sacred a Fountain be the Head and Influencer of the whole Church Or whether is Christ greater as he is Priest or King of Saints Or who had the preeminence in the Polity of the Jews the Kings or High-Priests of Israel And was not that Polity a Type or Figure of the Church of Christ The plain Law of Christ is indeed immutable and it ought to be so no
ancient as Christianity it self and runs through not onely part but all those Symmetral Ages of the Church So manifest is it that there is not left in the frame of our English Church any thing of its own nature Antichristianly opposing that Heavenly and Christian Grace of Humility But if we come to take view of Persons who can help it but that a Lay-man may be proud as well as a Clergy-man and a Presbyter as soon as a Bishop So that all would be Antichristian upon this score 10. And it is as evident that there are none of those Oppositions against that celestiall Grace of Purity noted in the twelfth Chapter to be found in our Church And not so onely but I think we may without vanity provided it be done with humble thankfulness to Almighty God who inspired our Heroical Reformers with such exquisite prudence and judgment glory in that excellent and fit constitution of things in our Universities Where none are tied up to the Vows of Coelibate nor confined to separate and solitary cells to be shewn disguised in some uncouth habit with circumcised crowns and moaped or bloated looks as they are wont to shew strange Animals through their several grates at the Tower but live under more free and manly Laws and ingenuous Exercises without either the lash or hypocrisy of Superstition and are appointed to spend their time in such things as may adorn their Souls with real Knowledge and Vertue where also there is an honest and frugal Provision made for them that list to lay their Bodies as well as bury their Minds in the dust of an Academie Which if either Nature or some Diviner power has fitted them for it they may doe with honour and if they be weary of a single life they may leave the University when they will without the least reproach Which ingenuous and Christian freedom in my judgment is infinitely to be preferred before the Superstitious Slavery and Hypocrisy of the Roman Monasteries where people are caged up and imprisoned like so many Captives of the King of Babylon or so many Bond-men or Bond-women of that Mystical Pharaoh to work out imaginary stuff to fill the Churche's Treasury of Merits which are vended for ready money to encrease the Revenue and to support the Pomp of this magnificent Tyrant of Aegypt 11. Lastly Concerning those most Antichristian Oppositions against that transcendent Grace of Charity Our English Church is so far from opposing it that she is exemplary in it condemning the Doctrines and Practices of that worst of Churches no more then needs must and courting the adverse party to her Communion by all lawfull accommodations and compliances in her publick Service if by any means she may gain some of them over to the Truth Whereas on the other side that imperious Woman on the Seven Hills sits like a Queen to whom every one must bow but she neither bend nor condescend to any thing but stands as stiff as a Marpesian Rock for the maintaining her own Humour and Interest though never so point-blank against the Eternal Laws of God and Right Reason Then for that bloudy and butcherly Decree of killing of Hereticks namely such as hold against the Tenents of that Church though those Tenents of this Church be plainly repugnant to express Scripture How contrary to this Antichristian and Diabolical Spirit is the Doctrine of our Church of England who as I have above noted has declared That no Article 20. Church has authority to decree any thing against Holy Writ nor to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation besides it as you may see in the Book of Articles Nor can they justly frame any excuse for their abominable Cruelty from the Sanguinary Laws of this Realm against Priests and Jesuites For what a vast difference is there when the one suffer as Traitors to their Liege Sovereign the other because they will not be Traitors and Rebels to God and the Lord Jesus Christ for every Idolater is so And no man can submit to the Church of Rome but he must ipso facto submit to Idolatry 12. Verily while I consider what an honest and faithfull Spirit breaths in the Book of Homilies and other Writings of our Church and how exquisitely and perfectly we are set free from all that Imposture and Wickedness that can properly be styled Antichristian by the wise management and solid and sound judgment of our renowned Reformers and how that men of this Integrity of mind and soundness in the Faith were then advanced into Power in Church and State by the Sovereign Authority I cannot withhold from declaring that I do not at all doubt but that the Reformation of our English Church into such a condition as I have briefly represented was one eminent Speciminall Completion of the Prophecy of the rising of the Two Witnesses and of that Voice from Heaven that is to say of the Sovereign Power saying unto them Come up hither For every tittle of the Prophecy is exactly applicable to the Event as any one may find that will try Besides that so notable a providence as the Protestant Reformation is no-where prophesied of if not in that Vision For the Vials are none of them within the Sixth Trumpet as the Vision of the Witnesses is but all within the Seventh as I have above plainly enough proved nor they expressive of the first Reformation in the chief Circumstances thereof nor any Vision else save this of the Resurrection of the Witnesses Nor know I any thing that should make a man hesitate unless it be that the Witnesses are said to be raised up after three Days and an half that is to say three Times and an half whenas our Reformation fell within these Times namely in the last Half of a Time But no Observation can be more trivial then this That the designation of Time divided into parts unless some intimation determinate it to one sense may signify either such a space of time fully finished or else expiring in the last division thereof As if one should say Post triduum mortis resurrexit Christus no man can understand that of Christ's being dead three entire days And so Aliquot post menses may as well be rendred Within some months after as After some months And the Seventy do expresly translate that in Genesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ch. 38. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whenas the genuine sense is within three months cùm tertius mensis ageretur as the Marginal Exposition has it in Vatablus Whence it is evident that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not imply the time fully run out but that the last part thereof must then be current And so it is in this Prophecy our Reformation happening in the last Half-Time or Half-Day So easily is this Scruple removed And therefore the Application so fit to the Event that I doubt not but this Vision was a Prediction of it Which therefore should make our Reformation
Libamen Suffitus which he calls Venerationis Signa quae consensus Gentium Divini cultûs esse propria voluit and so has not only afforded us Examples but a Rule how to find out proper Signes of Divine worship namely that at least those are such that consent of Nations has made so And I think it seasonable here because some do so rashly appropriate Sacrifice to that which they call Latria as if this signe of Religious worship were adequately proper to God others communicable to other Objects to take notice that if they mean by Sacrifice the Mactation of living Creatures that manner of worship not being in use amongst Christians it must needs enhance the nature of other Signes of Religious worship and make them the more apparently incommunicable to any created Object which yet were really so though this case were not But this only by the bye 2. Vows also and Oaths Grotius acknowledges to be part of this kind of Worship as also The praying for the Holy Spirit for Remission of sins and for Eternal life These then according to him are not to be asked of an Angel though he were visibly present To which I will make bold to adde the Religious invocation of any Angel or Spirit absent or invisible For as because God is the only giver of Eternal life of Remission of sins and of the Holy Spirit he that asks so high things of any Creature acknowledges the incommunicable Excellencies of God in that Creature so also he that invokes any invisible Angel Saint or Spirit does in like manner acknowledge an Omnisciency and Omnipresency in this Saint or Angel which are the incommunicable Excellencies of God 3. Nay I adde further That the asking of such things as are in the power of a creature to give as suppose a fit medicine for such or such a malady or assistance in danger upon the way in a journey if the one be asked suppose of Aesculapius in a Temple and at an Altar consecrated to his Ghost and the other of Hercules at one dedicated to his these petitions of such feasible good offices yea and if you will begged of these Ghosts or Daemons present there and visible and there is the same reason in Saints and Angels would not fail notwithstanding to be Idolatry the Consent of Nations having made the erecting and dedicating Temples and Altars for Prayers Vows and Sacrifices a Sign of Divine worship and it was you know the formal worship of the most High God the God of Israel while the Temple stood whose residence was conceived more peculiarly upon the Cherubims which were concealed from the eye of the People that they might not commit Idolatry with them 4. But the Gentiles very depravedly used this circumstance of Religious worship and made their addresses towards the open Images or Statues of Divine residence consecrated to that purpose where the God was to receive their Offerings and Prayers So that though all Nations at all times did not use this representation of the Divine residence by Images yet where it was in use which was exceeding general it is manifest that it was part of the Divinest worship and such as they used towards the Highest Numen And seeing that this manner of Divine presence or visible Residence by Images was not only used in the worship of the inferiour Daemons but of such as were styled Dii coelestes whom assuredly they could not think exiled from Heaven to assist at these earthly Statues it is a sign that the Image it self was reckoned for the visible presence of the Deity they did adore and consequently that this representation of the presence of the Deity whether the Deity be personally there present or no is that which by Consent of Nations has passed into an ordinary mode of Divine worship Nor can the erection of Temples Altars or other Symbols of Religious worship to them that are not Gods make these cease to be such Signes or Symbols For then since they all have been after that manner abused there would be no signes of Divine worship left at all But rather on the contrary we are to conclude that whatever things were consecrated to the worship or honour of the God of Israel that to consecrate the like to that which is not God is an invading his right and a manifest act of Idolatry 5. Hymns also and Incurvations as they may be framed will be unavoidably Signes of Divine worship as namely if this Incurvation be made to any particular invisible power while he is invisible for it is an acknowledgement of one of the incommunicable Excellencies of God viz. his Ubiquity For we may bow any where to the invisible God because he is every where but to bow to any particular Angel or Spirit while he is invisible is incongruous because he is not every where Therefore he that does this worship to him as congruous does therewith interpretative acknowledge by that act an Ubiquity in him and thereby becomes an Idolater Incurvation also towards an Image erected to any Creature especially in a Temple or on an Altar yea though removed from both were a sign of Religious worship or service by infallible definition Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them that is to say Thou shalt not doe the service of Incurvation nor any other Religious service to them For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Service is Cultus religiosus of which Incurvation in such circumstances is assuredly one kind I mean exhibited either to an invisible power or to its visible representation in an Image Concerning the latter whereof Consent of Nations has also made it an appropriate Sign of Religious worship especially in a Temple as I noted before And now for Hymns I say the framing of a Song to the praise of any created Being suppose Sun Moon or Daemon if there be such Epithets therein as signifie the incommunicable Excellencies of God as if one should begin O Sol Omnipotens or O Luna Omniscia this would certainly not fail to be the giving of Divine worship to the Sun and Moon upon which account Martial seems to me not a flatterer only of Domitian but an Idolater in that Hendecasyllabon Edictum Domini Deique nostri Wherein he writes after Domitian's own copy who taught his Ministers of State this Epistolar form Deus Dominus noster sic fieri jubet Which if it might be more tolerable in Pagan Kingdoms where Dii usually amounted to no more then Angeli amongst us yet in Christian Nations where God is an incommunicable name as the Author of the Book of Wisdom intimates the calling of any man God cannot but be Idolatry or Blasphemy 6. But not the less Idolatry for being Blasphemy sith every Idolatry is so For Idolatry by giving the appropriate Signes of the acknowledgement of the Divine Excellency to a vile Creature and every Creature is so in respect of God does equalize that Creature unto God and consequently makes God as vile as that
mind of another Classis of Superstitions which might be invented contrary to the Faithfulness and Simplicity of the School of Christ to the illaqueating of mens consciences and misplacing their dependences upon Creatures more then the Creator and to the extinguishing of that comfortable inward sense of his invisible but omnipotent Omnipresence by interposing these vain and visible Objects which have neither force nor allowance for those uses they pretend to I mean the Exorcizing or Enchanting if you will of certain Natural Elements without any warrant of holy Scripture to endue them with a Supernatural power As if for example the Priest should pretend by the Exorcizing of the Creature of Salt by the living true and Holy God to make it become an Holy and Exorcized Salt for the health of both Body and Soul to as many of the believers as receive it and for the chasing away of every evil Phantasm and unclean Spirit by the aspersion thereof and so by the Exorcizing of the Creature of Water in the name of the Holy Trinity to endue it with a virtue of chasing away the Devil and Diseases and every disquieting thing out of an house by the sprinkling thereof and should recommend the use thereof for the besprinkling their chambers ever and anon therewith as also their sick folks their fields and vineyards for health and increase The Exorcizing of Wax-candles into a virtue of putting to flight the Prince of darkness with all his Retinue and of making them run away with fear and trembling from what-ever place they are lighted in The Exorcizing of the Creature of Oil by God the Father Omnipotent the Creator of all things that whosoever uses it the Troups of the Devil may be put to flight and that he may never be bit by the old Serpent Also the Exorcizing of Herbs or the Boughs of Trees the Exorcizing of Bells and the Priestly Vestments Is it not apparent that all these and as many more else as can be intented of this nature are mere Juggles and Impostures 2. But the Imposture would be more grateful and complete if we had some fine thing consecrated that were more portable and yet of a more universal influence as also more durable and permanent then most of the former And therefore the shape of some holy Plant or Animal thus exorcized would be of sovereign use and content the Rose of Sharon or the Lily of the valleys the Dove or Lamb whose names are sacred to every Christian eare Wherefore a Golden Rose impregnated with joy and gladness from the Benediction of the holy High-priest of this Church and full of the fragrancy of remission of sins increase of faith though the effect be never found Divine protection and all prosperity were a Posie to wipe the Nose of a Prince withall And so the gentle Lamb made of some more flexible matter and elegantly limb'd suppose out of Wax but exorcized into powers and virtues little inferiour to that Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world as being made able by a certain sacred Exorcism or Benediction to preserve them that bear it about with them from all the assaults of the Flesh the World and the Devil from Pestilence Famine and sudden Death from all perils by Land and by Sea from Lightning from Tempests and from Abortion were a Present for an Emperor or Emperess Several such Instances as these might be excogitated all which I must pronounce to be against the faithful plainness and true power of the Gospel of Christ and to entrench upon the Reverence of the Name of God and to be a trespass of the Third Commandment Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain 3. Against which Precept I make account those Forms of Conjuration do evidently offend that are found in Books of Magick as in Cornelius Agrippa and Petrus de Abano where those Divine appellations Jah El Adonai Elohim Elohe Zebaoth Elion Sadai and the like are made the Elements of their vain and reprobate Art Which is a manifest argument that the Priest's Exorcization in the Names of God and his holy Attributes does not excuse him from the guilt of Enchantment since the Magicians themselves use the Names of the true God therein And as for the more general Notion of Enchantment Agrippa defines it to be nothing but The conveiance of a certain mirificent power into the thing enchanted by virtue of the words and breath of the Enchanter Nor will the phrases or passages of Scripture excuse the Priest from this impiety since this is both prescribed and practised by these Magicians Their Pentacles which they hang about their necks when they conjure which they forsooth for greater grace call the Pentacles of Solomon are adorned and fortified with such transcriptions out of holy Scripture Whence it is plain if any one would take notice of all the special Characters of such an Apostate Church as I am a-describing he could not omit amongst other Titles to brand them with the name of Enchanters or Sorcerers 4. Which they might deserve upon other scores which we have already intimated as in that they teach people certain Prayers in an unknown Tongue which they direct them to say for such and such purposes For what are these but Charms And the making of Jesus of Nazareth who was above sixteen hundred years ago crucified at Jerusalem upon the uttering a few words personally to appear flesh and bloud and bones all mantled over with the thin cloathing of certain Panaceous Species or loosely-hanging Accidents is a piece of Magick above the Witch of Endor's and all the Historical records of Necromancy in the world All which pretensions being so Epidemical or general in this Church we do characterize who can miss of notifying them by the style of a Society of Magicians or Enchanters For in that they are mere Pretences and have no real effect will not excuse the desert of so goodly a Title the profession and endeavour giving the Practisers sufficient right thereto As he that has been casting his Angle a good part of the day into the River and brings home no Fish may yet be rightly saluted Mr. Fisherman or Mr. Angler at his return though not without some kind of Scommatism at the bottom And he that professes Physick and has it may be as yet cured none but such as would have recovered as well without him though killed many is notwithstanding by all men termed a Physician And generally what men affectedly pretend to though they cannot perform it may justly by way of Scommatical reproach be entered into the particulars of their character for the making up the whole tale of their shame and reproof 5. What grounds they might make shew of for such Incantations as these I must confess I cannot so easily find For the Bloud of the Paschal Lamb wherewith the Israelites sprinkled the lintel and two side-posts of their doors was not charmed first to convey a virtue
hands of our Lady instead of our Lord Jesus who is God every-where ready to save that precept from the Priest would be flatly against the express Commandment of God and it would prove a sad Catastrophe of his life to the dying man to spend his last breath in so foul a sin as Idolatry 9. But however as if all had been rightly performed the Body may be laid out in a decent manner and a Crucifix put in the hand of the deceased resting upon his breast or at least his hands be laid a-cross in stead of a Crucifix and Holy-water be duely sprinkled upon him which what-ever virtue it may have to chase the Devil from the Corps yet it will scarce wash his Soul clean from that last sin he committed nor guard the house from being haunted with Birds of several colours and feathers that ever smel out a comfortable refection from the fall of every such Carcass So great a pother and clatter may Superstition make as well at the Exit as Entrance of men into this mortal life 10. In the midst of such Formalities as these I must confess the Priest cannot but seem a man of marvellous might and power to the ignorant by-standers such as have been nuzzl'd up in the belief of these Superstitions he administring such present and conspicuous Remedies for the comfort of the sick as the Fiend-fraying Holy-water the Images of the Blessed Virgin and Tutelar Saint holy Wax-candles and the like guarding the very Corps by the power of the Cross and the sprinkling of that Exorcized Element from all the incursions of the Enemie and every evil Phantasm But the dying person what benefit he can take by the having his mind distracted and called out to these dead shows I must confess I understand not nor can conceive but that they are an hinderance to that more pure and collected passage of the Soul into bliss and are to the spectatours of these Solemnities the occasion of neglecting those better and more inward Amulets against the terrour of Death and fear of the Devil Such I mean as the Renovation of their Minds into the Living Image of Christ and the triumphing over the power of Sin through the taking up his Cross in the mortifying all our evil concupiscences in our life-time and the arriving thereby to the comfortable joyes and refreshments of the Spirit and to a permanent and habitual sense of the Mercy of God through a lively Faith in Christ Jesus wherein we cannot miss of the assurance of the remission of our sins which are the most saving and most holy Waters that we can solace our selves with or ease the grief and agonie of our minds withall the most precious Oyl or Balsam that can be poured upon an afflicted conscience The breathing after which excellent condition is naturally stopped and stifled by a vain belief in these external shows and by the relying on these multifarious Enchantments of a Superstitious and imposturous Priesthood who would bear men in hand that they can carry a Soul through safe to Heaven by exorcized Elements and Magical Artillery levied against the external assaults of the Devil not considering in the mean time that the radication and growth of sin and disobedience makes the Soul herself in a manner become a Devil and will necessitate her to undergoe the fate of that accursed crue CHAP. XIX 1. The burthen of Spiritual Cognation and excessive Numerosity of Holy-days 2. Perpetual abstinence from Flesh in some Religious Orders The Fraud and Mischief thereof 3. The burthen of vowed Coelibate 4. The more dangerous purposes thereof 5. The ordinary services done by the Monasticks to this Antichristian power we describe 6. That its establishment is much corroborated by the Interest of Monasteries 7. And enriched by being Heir to all professours of Coelibate 8. The great Mischiefs of Coelibate 9. Of Flagellation 10. The ineffectualness thereof Hypocrisie of the Penitent salvage Pride of his Church and the Mischiefs resulting therefrom 11. Of Pilgrimages and Jubilees 12. An enumeration of several other Antichristian Austerities 1. BUT we have leapt thus from one extreme of mans life to the other whenas there are several things yet to be considered which may make the middle space thereof tedious and entangled may be unnecessary hinderances to him in his affairs of the World may be sore afflictions and vexations to his Body or disturb his Mind with grievous and sad perplexities I will hint only some few Instances of each As for example if persons by being Witnesses at a Christening should contract thereby such a Cognation as though it be Spiritual yet according to the Canons of this Church we describe should hinder Marriage betwixt all the Kindred of the child that is Christened and their own what streightness must these conceits cause in the marrying of a son or daughter whole Neighbourhoods necessarily contracting such Spiritual Affinities by doing Christian offices one for another The plot whereof could be nothing else but to drain mens purses of mony for the procuring of dispensations from unnecessary Laws and restrictions The Number also of Holy-days may be so many and the observation of them so superstitiously and so strictly commanded that it may be an unspeakable burthen to the generality of the people who live by their labour and must starve when they cannot work But the design is the same as before For multitude and frequency of Transgressours brings in Mulcts and Fees to the Ecclesiastick Officers though the smallest penalties must be very cruel that are wrung from poor Labourers that have but from hand to mouth 2. Again suppose a considerable number of men were tied up to the Abstinence from flesh all the days of their lives by a religious or rather Superstitious Rule they are under in such sort that death were more eligible unto them then to tast of Flesh by reason of that hold their Vow had taken upon their consciences What an Iron yoke would this be upon so many Christian Souls How moped and frantick must such Monastick severities of diet of lodging and watching make several of them that are entangled in the slavish fetters of this Babylonish Captivity For which there is no pretence but that they are so good-natured that they are resolved to merit not only for themselves but for others and that many such Rivulets concurring together may fill up that Treasure of Merits which the Church must have the keeping of to sell at a good rate to those Virgins that want oyl to their Lamps This is the publick Fraud but the private is a certain Hypocrisie in these men whereby they often shake off the indispensable yoke of Christ and the Rule of his Word by over-valuing of or craftily hiding themselves under the self-chosen Sanctity of these Antichristian Rules And a further Mischief is that the conceit of meriting thus for themselves and others puffs them up with pride and insolence and makes them thereby more abominable then they who are
God to have interpreted the Scripture and not for their own ends or carnal satisfaction in any thing And questionless in this case they can shew their Commission and that they act by Authority Let all things be done to edification 1 Cor. 14. 26. But that because every Civil controversy must be determined by a Judge therefore there must be an Infallible determinative Judge of all the nice and unprofitable controversies that emerge amongst Christians about Scripture and Religion is but a weak and lame Illation For Civil controversies cannot be undecided without injury to some party but no man is injured by not having those unprofitable at least unnecessary questions determined for they may hold their several opinions without wronging one another if they will but keep to that known Law of Christ that Royal Law of Charity Nay the deciding such controversies by a pretended Infallible Judge were a vast wrong to one party it galling their consciences and streightning their liberty and making the way to Heaven narrower then Christ has made it For so does this Infallible Judge that imposes his Determinations on men upon pain of eternal Damnation But God of his infinite wisedom and mercy has not given the least Intimation for any such Usurpation And therefore this Infallible Judge being not appointed by God and being unappointable by man the Scripture alone and not these pretended Infallible decisions must be the Rule of our belief 7. The fourth and last pretence is That unless the Sense of Scripture be determined by the Infallibility of the Church every private Spirit must be Judge of the meaning thereof nay and which is worse be Judge of the Church and thereby superiour to the Church then which nothing can be more wild and extravagant This seems a big difficulty at first But I answer That every particular man should judge for himself he has a Commission from the very Word of God nay I may say a Command As where he is bid to try 1 Thess. 5. 21. all things and to hold that which is good as also not to believe every 1 John 〈◊〉 spirit but to trie the spirits whether they be of God and in another place to be ready to give a reason of his Faith The Beroeans also are commended 1 Pet. 3. Acts 17. for searching the Scripture and trying whether the things that Paul even an inspired and chosen vessel of God had taught them were true or no. But for any one man or any company of men to be appointed by God Authoritatively and absolutely to be Judges for others in matters of Faith and Religion we do not find any where in Scripture or in Reason any such Commission given unto them but we are rather admonished to take heed how we be led hoodwinkt by any lest the blind Matt. 15. 14. leading the blind both fall into the ditch 8. But not Scripture onely but Reason it self does plainly commissionate private Spirits as they call them to judge for themselves For these pretenders to Infallibility doe it onely upon the boast that they are the true successive Church from the Apostles But unless they will be above all measure ridiculous they must convince the Reason of him whom they would make a Proselyte to their Church that their Church is that true and Apostolical one For to say so without proof is a madness to be hooted at by all men But to goe about to prove it is to appeal to the private Reason of him they would convince And if he be a Christian already though not of their Church the common acknowledged Principles are the Holy Scriptures in arguing from which the Disputant appeals to him he would bring over if his Interpretation or Allegation of them be not true But if he be an Infidel or Pagan he is to use Reasons to prove the Truth and Authority of the Scriptures themselves Which is still an appeal to the conscience of him that is to be gained to the Church whether what is offered to him be true or false And that which is offered to him being the whole Christian Faith for that is it which makes a true Church it is plain that his Reason and Conscience is appealed unto whether the whole Summe of the Credenda in Christianity is not true That is to say Though the Church and he that argues in the behalf of the Church have already judged and firmly concluded that the Christian Faith is a true Faith in the whole and in every part and make no appeal from their own judgment in reference to themselves yet in reference to the party they would convince they appeal to him if the grounds of their Belief be not solid and so imply and acknowledge that he is Judge for himself in these affairs call that in him a private spirit or what you please 9. But I do not know but it may be too reproachfully called a private spirit at least in the sincere and simple-hearted who have no private designs but to know the Will of God and to doe it and it is the Will of God all men should doe so and the spirit of man * Prov. 20. is said to be the Lamp of the Lord and that which judges according to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common notions of Reason in all men and has not lost the * Psell. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those common characters and ingenuous sentiments of Indispensable Truth and Morality which the Father of lights has of old sealed upon the Soul and which are hardly obliterated quite in any and are necessarily continued and that vigourously in the sincere I say such a Life or Spirit as this judging in a man is very hardly to be called a private spirit it judging according to the Universal sense of humane Nature and so as every one judges when he is unbiassed Nay if this will not serve I say that the Judgement which is thus made is the Judgement of that Universal King and Law-giver the Eternal Son of God it is his sentence in these cases but writ in the tables of our hearts and pronounced by our mouths as by the Praeco of a Court. So far is it from being the Judgement of a mere private spirit But that rather is the Judgement of a private spirit though it should bear the Title of an Infallible Church which is decreed not according to the plain Texts of Scripture so as all unprejudiced men would certainly understand them nor according to those indeleble Characters of Truth which Christ the Eternal Logos has writ in the Rational Souls of all mankind but according to partial Interest and depraved desires The sentence of Thousands nay of Millions of such Judges is more the verdict of a private spirit then the Judgement of the meanest private man that pronounces from such Principles as I have declared 10. Now for that odious imputation of making a mans self Superiour to the
the Scripture is as well useless as false and much as if the Moon should take upon her to witness for the Sun that he sends out light which every one that is not blind will necessarily see though the Moon were under the Horizon So the holy children of God chosen and faithfull will feel and tast clearly see and discern that the Scripture is the Truth of God by that light which is in it that correspondeth with that Spirit derived from the Father of lights which he has shed into their hearts Which as I said is the Spirit of Faith and the sure portion of every Member of Christ whether they can make out things by Knowledge and deep Reason or no. And if they be assaulted by Cavillers it is their prudence to send such to their fellow-members to whom God has given also the Spirit of Knowledge or of Wisedome or it may be more prudent to let them goe as they came they being not worthy to give any the trouble of discourse who put questions not with design of being seriously edified and instructed in the Truth but for captiousness contention and a conceited hope of puzzling him by whom they make show as if they desired to be informed 19. The fraudulent End that this pseudo-Christian Church might drive at in this peremptory boast of Infallibility is very conspicuous as also the Mischievous events thereof For what could this tend to but the making this Antichristian power absolute that they might without any ones whinching decree and declare what-ever would tend to the encrease of their own honour and wealth seem it never so contrary to common Reason to the express Word of God and the Precepts of Christ For the sentence is Infallible let it look never so strangely and repugnantly to any Rule that we might think right Wherefore this Power might even doe what it pleases change Times and Laws even the Law of God it self and fling the house of God out at windows as the proverb is For who has any thing to say against that power which he is already persuaded is Infallible And to speak summarily and then which nothing greater can be said The Admittance of this Infallibility is the Exclusion of Christ from his Kingdom and Throne and the setting up a mere Mortal a masterless Man of sin or a pack of sons of Belial to sway his Sceptre for him in the world This alone is enough if it would take to supplant the Government of Christ upon Earth CHAP. III. 1. That the keeping the Law of Christ in an unknown Tongue is an undermining or opposing of his Sovereignty 2. As also the reproaching and vilifying his Law 3. Their fraudulent pretence of hiding the Scriptures with a vindication of their Usefulness and Excellency 4. The vilifying of the Laws of Christ by setting far less penalties upon the transgression of them then of the inconsiderable Institutes of the Church 5. That their rigid Impositions are against the Kingdom of Christ as also the reading of Legends instead of his Law in Churches 6. The dispensing also with the Divine Laws The Fraud and Mischief thereof 7. The Treasonable pretence of this Power 's being absolute by right of succession in Christ's seat 8. The evil effect of this pretence discoverable in several Institutes contrary to the written Laws of Christ 9. As also in nulling those Laws he has given as he is the Eternal Word 10. The bloudy opposing the Sovereignty and Kingdom of Christ in murthering his faithfull Subjects 1. BUT there are other ways also of lifting the Government from off Christ's shoulders As first Suppose They should keep the Law of God in an unknown Tongue and not let any one reade it in the language they understood nay be so carefull that the very Prayers that are used in publick and the celebration of the holy Eucharist should be unintelligible lest the power of some passages of Scripture that may occurre in the publick Service should unhindge men from the blind obedience they are held in under this Antichristian Usurpation 2. To which you may adde what indeed might better have preceded a Revilement of the Law of Christ as a Book full of nothing but dangerous obscurities a Lesbian or Leaden Rule to be bended any way a Nose of wax a dead letter a Farrago of casuall or occasionall Writings which were penned not by any Divine appointment but onely as fortuitous Exigences moved the Prophets or Apostles to write them And where they would speak most modestly to say it is an insufficient Law or Rule and therefore must be made up by Institutes of their own invention or what they will please to obtrude upon the world for Traditional doctrines and usages I say thus to Revile the Law of Christ is to null it and thereby to null his Sovereignty over his Church and to betray it into the hands of a stranger to deal with them as he pleases and to change Times and Laws and Customes in such sort that there may be nothing sound left in Christianity that may any way thwart the Interest of these Usurpers 3. In brief therefore thus it may be They may pretend the Scripture obscure all over because it is so in some places But we have already sufficiently urged that there is enough clear of it to enlighten the single-hearted in the way of eternal Salvation But upon the pretence of the uncertain sense of some passages they may remove all away that those passages that would plainly discover and reprove their false doctrines and practices might not come into the sight of the people For as a Father has well noted Verbum Dei est Lucerna ad quam fur deprehenditur and our Saviour Christ of old They hate the light because their deeds are evil But that Imputation of the Scripture's being writ occasionally it is as weak as impious and blasphemous As if the Spirit of God would not assist the Apostles most when occasion called for it or as if he were to study how to inspire them and illuminate them and could not doe it extempore or upon emergent occasions but would be taken unprovided These things savour of gross carnality and ignorance of the very nature of God and his holy Spirit which Christ promised should not fail to be with them for ever for the right settling of the affairs of the Church that is to say that it would not desert them so long as they lived and acted in the Ministery and service thereof Which therefore must make the Scripture very precious and of inestimable value to all sincere Believers Wherefore any one Paragraph of the Epistles of S. Paul to whom Christ appeared and called to from Heaven and commissioned to be an Apostle to lay the Foundation and first structure of his Church ought to be preferred before many thousands of pretended Infallible Councils who could never shew any such extraordinary Commission to prove themselves Infallible For God by that miraculous appearing
of God But this may seem too vehement an Excursion 8. The thing that I contend for is this That that Polity that usurps this Authority to themselves and does all these indignities injuries and cruelties and uses all these unlawful means which I have noted for the stifling of the Spirit of Truth insomuch that Christ neither in his own person nor in those Holy Records he has recommended to the world nor in his living Instruments which he extraordinarily directs and assists is permitted to admonish and inform men what is the right way and what those indispensable duties to be done that that Polity I say that behaves it self thus does therein notoriously Antichristianize that is oppose Christ in his Prophetick Office as much as any Antichrist can doe and that the being thus minded and acting after this manner is an undoubted and conspicuous piece of the crassest Antichristianism CHAP. V. 1. That the pretence of repeating the Oblation of the real Body of Christ is a derogation to the Exceilency of Christ's Priesthood 2. Fuller Aggravations of this wicked affront 3. A prevention of a subterfuge 4. Another more dangerous assault against the Priesthood of Christ and the main end of his Suffering 5 6. The making the Bloud of Christ available to take away the Guilt of sin onely and not the Punishment how salvagely Antichristian 7. Further Aggravations of this despightful piece of Antichristianism 8. That there can be nothing more fundamentally Antichristian then it 9. That the crime considering the circumstances seems worse then that of Judas with the Fraud of this wickedness 10. As also the great Mischief thereof 11. Injuries against the Mediatourship of Christ. 12. An Answer to some slight pretences 13. A further confutation of such Antichristian errors and mispractices 14. The Fraud and Mischief of multiplying Mediators 15. A special Mischief done thereby to our growth in grace and holiness 1. LEt us now decypher what Antichristian opposition may be made against the Sacerdotal Office of Christ. There is one main and signal Privilege of the Priesthood of Christ which is apparently and expresly set down by the Author to the Hebrews and look'd upon as a special Dignity and Perfection thereof Hebr. 9. Nor yet that he should offer himself often as the High-priest entreth into the holy place every year with the bloud of others For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself And as it is appointed for men once to die but after this the judgment So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many c. And again chap. 10. And every Priest standeth daily ministring and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins But this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever which a little before he calls the offering of his Body once for all sat down at the right hand of God c. Which words do plainly declare That the Excellency of that true Offering of that Eternal High-priest when he offered up his Body to his Father to reconcile the World unto God is such as that it needs no repetition Salvation being perfected in that one act of Christ as to the matter of Propitiation for sins Whence it would follow That the pretending that Christ is really and actually offered up as a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the quick and the dead by the hands of the Priest in the celebration of the Eucharist were a foul derogation to the Perfectness of that one Oblation of our Transcendent High-priest Christ Jesus when he offered himself up to his Father for an Atonement for the sins of the whole World I say this presumptuous conceit of offering him up really and bodily in every celebration of the Lord's Supper were an hainous Antichristian affront against the Sacerdotal Excellency of Christ 2. Which Figment is still the more vile if we consider with what course abuses of the Person of Christ and with what villainous and barbarous injuries it must necessarily be conceived to be accompanied How often by the mere power of that Quinque-verbal charm we above mentioned he must be forced to fall into the hands of sinners though uttered with no devotion toward him at all for else the whole company might be constrained to commit the grossest Idolatry imaginable even as gross as the most barbarous Nations ever did commit But if he come into the Priest's hands he is betrayed into worse usages then Jeremie that was let down into the miry Dungeon A mans fancy would abhor to follow whither they send that which they say is the King of Glory the living and real Body or Person of Christ. Which horrid and nasty servitude he is put to not once or twice nor in one of these stinking miry prisons at once but in many thousands at the same time and weekly nay it may be daily for many hundreds of years together What despight and mockery therefore would it be for to keep their Churches clean and adorned to burn Incense and sweet Odours to have all things lightsome and splendid against the Lord whom they seek come into his Holy Temple and yet as soon as he is come not to permit him to have the common enjoyment of these sumptuous preparations but as it were in mockery and despight as I said to clap him up into a dungeon more foul and miry then that of the afflicted Prophet and when he is more gently entreated yet to enclose him in a Pyx like a reprieved prisoner that they may afterwards let him out occasionally into the tainted mouths and bodies of expiring men As if Christ prophesied false upon the Cross when he said It is finished when there was such an inexhausted Residue of loathsome drudgery behind for him to undergo 3. These things are very ugly and unworthy which though they be not in the power of any man to doe against Christ yet in that they profess to doe them they acknowledge they would doe them if they could and therefore do really vilifie him and reproach him as they that hang up or otherwise execute an escaped Criminal in effigie declare their mind as much as if they had really executed it upon his person But this horrid reproach against the Person of Christ is still the more aggravable if they be so barbarously serious in imprinting it on the minds and beliefs of men that they will lay violent hands on them that deny it and slay them Can a man excogitare a more industriously-managed Blasphemy against that Holy Tabernacle of the Godhead the Body of the Lord Jesus then this or desire a firmer proof of their readiness to use the Body of Christ so coursely and cruelly if they could when they do not stick to murther those that deny it to be in their power so to doe though they had never so great a mind to doe
for us That he might purchase to himself a glorious Church not having Ephes. 5. 27. spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without â—…mish Which being the very End of Christ's coming into the world of the suffering all those hardships during his pilgrimage here on Earth and of submitting himself to the shamefull and unexpressibly-painfull Death of the Cross for any to oppose supplant or any ways to defeat this so serious and earnest design of his by any countenanced method or constitution of things would certainly be Antichristian in the highest measure Let us now therefore consider distinctly and articulately the most material ways of opposing or supplanting this design laying before us in view such depraved Laws Constitutions or Practices in a Church as tend to the extinguishing the Divine Life in general or are more particularly directed against the Root or Branches thereof namely either against Faith that is to say the belief of the Summe of Christianity or else against those inestimable Graces of Humility Purity and Charity 2. For the depainting of this Opposition against the Divine Life in general I need not put my pencil into any new colours Those multifarious ways of Idolatry and Superstition which I have noted in the first Book I. ch 12 17 18 c. and second Limb of Antichristianism and which carrie mens minds out to external exercises that profit nothing but elude the right intention of Zeal and Devotion which should better our spirits and make us more inwardly and vitally holy and righteous these do certainly of their own accord lay asleep or suffocate the Life of God in the Soul and like false food either poison or starve it Those Oppositions also that were against the Offices of Christ the vilifying his Law the removing it from the eyes of the people or the reading of it and their publick Service in an unknown Tongue the interpreting his serious Commands for slight Advices left to our pleasure to follow or forbear false Glosses put upon the Oracles of God by pretended infallible Interpreters the defeating that mighty Engine of Obedience to Christ which is the affectionate Meditation upon his Death and Passion his direfull Sufferings for us by diverting of our Thoughts and distracting them by several insignificant Objects pety Advocates and Patrons that run away with our Devotions and rob Christ of his honour and our Souls of the chief means of their Sanctification and Salvation These with several other particulars I might instance in are plain Antichristian Assaults and Oppugnations of the Divine Life in general and tend to the sweeping of all away before them 3. To which you may adde those ungodly surmises That it is sufficient to number over our Devotions without defixing our Mind upon what we say and that a more hovering and general attention will serve the turn our particular Thoughts wandring to what else we please That the Sacraments confer Grace ex opere operato it being the very difference betwixt the Sacraments of the old Covenant and the new that the former confer Grace ratione operis operantis the latter ratione operis operati and That any inward good Motion is not requisite in him that receives the Sacraments What can more relaxate those earnest breathings and hearty aspirings of our Souls towards a real renovation of our natures into true holiness and righteousness then such corrupt conceits as these 4. The feeding also the people with dumb shows instead of searching their Consciences and exciting their zeal by intelligible Exhortations or Forms of Devotion that will re-minde them of their duty and imprint upon them the sense of such holy things as they stand in want of and inflame their desire after them this also would be a defrauding of the Divine Life of that food which it should be increased and nourished by As also would be that conceit generally of all Acts of Religion that the duty of the Act is done if the Act be but externally done be the Principle what it will though it neither proceed from nor reach to that fountain of life which ought to be ebullient in every Regenerate Christian and without which no man can reasonably esteem himself regenerate Certainly such Opinions Customes and Usages as these must needs wear out true and living Holiness out of the World 5. And yet we may conceive a further Antichristian poison that will wonderfully damp and benumme men in all their endeavours after true Sanctity and that is easy Absolution and slight Penance after formal Confession For Confession which is so rigorously extorted by this Antichristian Church I am now describing being accompanied with a conceit that upon their Absolution and performance of imposed Penances they are then right and straight and in as secure a condition as if they had never sinned the just chastisements of their offended Consciences being slaked by the soft and false interposal of the Priest's pretended Authority to absolve where God has bound as certainly every one is bound over to that eternal doom at the last day let the Priest pretend the power of loosing him here as much as he will and he shall answer for what he has done in the flesh which no Absolution nor Penance can clear him from unless he really forsake his wicked ways and become a sincere Convert to God I say from this constitution of things touching Absolution and Penance it must needs follow that the raines will be let loose on the necks of all men they being given to understand what a slight thing it is to sin against God when they can have their reconcilement upon such easy terms Whenas it would be a greater awe upon mens spirits to let them be condemned or acquitted by their own Consciences being so well assisted by the Word of God and the Light of Reason and Nature to lay the Law against them and never to leave urging them till they have emerged into a competent sincerity of heart Which when they have arrived to Christ within them and his Word without them will absolve them and give them peace of mind and if need be they may also receive Absolution from some sober and faithfull Priest whose honesty and exemplarity of life has fitted him for so serious a function as I have intimated above where I had slipt aforehand into this Argument 6. But the most outrageous Antichristian effort against the Divine Life would be the persuasion that upon the paying of certain tolerable summes of mony and doing some slight superstitious performances or other they shall obtain by virtue of the supreme Ecclesiastick Authority plenary Indulgences and Pardons for vast numbers of years and the certainty of freeing of themselves or their friends from Purgatory As for example suppose that some Churches or if you will many may have purchased from the Ecclesiastick Sovereignty a perpetuity of plenary Indulgence so that he that prays before such an Altar in this Church
of Venus may never want trading to fill the world with Monasticks and to set light by all kinds of debauchery so that the Laws of the Church be observed is the most effectual method imaginable to make Christendom a Cage of unclean birds and so quite to wither or lop off that Branch of the Divine Life which we call Purity And now lastly for Charity What can be more contrary thereto then to interweave into Law or Religion not onely what is naturally unjust but barbarously cruel not onely killing those who are innocent but torturing to death with the most salvage torments even those who are the most dear and faithful members of Christ and even for that very reason because they approve themselves to be so and that which will make the Barbarity of these Successours of the Devil still more odious they ensnaring men in the point of that Mystery which was the Pledge of the greatest Love of Christ that could be expressed and was intended for the most endearing and agglutinating Cement of all those that are called by his Name that they should upon this very score be united to one another with the sincerest love and affection that is possible Now therefore that this sacred Pledge of Love and Amity and Unity in the Church I mean the Sacramental Body and Bloud of Christ which is a lively Commemoration of that ineffable Love of his to his Church in laying down his Life for us should be made the main Engine and Artifice of entrapping and afterwards of cruelly torturing and butchering his most faithful Members what more horrid more execrable and more Antichristian Abuse can there be of our Lord Jesus or what Hostility against him more damnable or Diabolical Nay what conspiracy against Humane Nature can be more tragical or direful or what so palpable a plot to make Mankind mere slaves and vassals and to take away from them that Privilege by which alone they are distinguishable from brute Beasts 7. Suppose there were a numerous crew of odly-habited people inhabiting a certain vast Wood or Wilderness that would give themselves some phantastick Title to make the better show of Sanctity as suppose The Knights of the Holy Grove or The Priests of the Infallible Spirit or the like and should take up a resolution amongst themselves to be accounted Unerring in whatsoever they unanimously averred for true and should agree together and determine for the gainful vending of so marvellous a commodity that there is so great virtue in such a form of certain Magical words which they know how to use that if one of their Sacred Order speak them over any of those pure white round Pebbles which easily are found in Rills and Brooks straight-way this little Stone though it retain still the same colour magnitude figure and hardness that it had before yet so wonderful is the mystery is most assuredly turned into an Eagle whence this kind of stone also is called the Eagle-stone Upon which supposition let us further imagine that these Infallible Knights meeting as it is usual Travellers upon the way and declaring this wonder-working power of their Order and shewing them one of these stones and having said the charm over it protesting that it is really become an Eagle though it be not visibly changed at all from what it was before may sometimes light upon some honest plain-hearted passenger that may flatly deny the Exploit and contend that the inchanted Stone is no Eagle but a Stone still Whereupon we will suppose that these Knights of the Holy Grove blowing their Bugles will cause whole Swarms of that Sacred Order to come out of the Wood who shall avouch upon the Honour of their Infallible Knighthood that the Miracle is really performed and that which this incredulous Stranger contends to be still a Stone is in very truth that Royal Bird of Jupiter But that such should be the honest stoutness and plain-heartedness of the environed Stranger that notwithstanding all this he should persist in his former opinion alledging that he cannot believe that to be an Eagle wherein he can discern neither bill nor taions head nor foot wing nor tail bone nor flesh but is in every thing as much Stone as before and that therefore they shall never perswade him of this Magical Transmutation there being no proof thereof but their own Testimony and that point-blank against the manifest evidence of Sense and Reason Whereupon if these Knights of the Grove putting on a grim Vizard of enraged Zeal in behalf of their own Traffick and Reputation should fall upon this innocent man and slay him seizing upon what he has his Mony Cloaths and Gelding as lawful Booty would not these Knights or Priests of the Infallible Spirit be accounted in the judgment of all the world a pack of bloudy Impostours a crew of High-way-men coâ—…spiring to rob and spoil honest Passengers that goe that way 8. What then shall we think of those numerous Swarms of this pretended Infallible Church we have described that will be ready to quarrel with any Christian passenger in his pilgrimage through the Wilderness of this World if he deny the Transsubstantiation of a round white Wafer into a perfect Man when a Priest has said certain words over it though the Wafer upon the most exquisite examination of our Senses be not changed one jot from what it was before Yet upon the boast of the Infallibility of this Church a man must believe it against all Sense Scripture and Reason or else die the most cruel kind of death that Malefactors are ever put to Who cannot but look upon such a pack of men as these as not onely Antichristian but Anti-humane tanquam jur atos humani generis hostes an accursed company of bloudy Thieves and Robbers and sworn conspirators against the sons of Adam who with might and main endeavour to maul them and martyr them to subdue them and enslave them both Body and Soul and more cruelly to tyrannize over them then it is fit for any man to doe over brute Beasts Can any thing be imagined more Antichristian then this or more contrary to that noble and Divine Spirit of Charity and sweet Benignity that was so conspicuous in the Lord Jesus Christ who is so frequently in Scripture styled the Son of man as to whom appertains that expected Kingdom of Peace of holy Love and of Humanity 9. Wherefore from this short draught I think one may discern that I have given a very true and faithful Idea of that which is real and essential Antichristianism and truly I think to the highest pitch imaginable For to excuse the matter in saying that this Pseudo-christian Church does not openly deny Christ or his Gospel does not persecute every one that bears the name of a Christian and lastly does not set up Images to the Deities of the Pagans Mars Venus and the rest to these I briefly answer To the first That it were not their Interest to deny the whole
for the more undeniably convincing the guilty and for the clearing the innocent from all such unjust Aspersions The End of the First Part. SYNOPSIS PROPHETICA OR THE SECOND PART OF THE ENQUIRY INTO The Mystery of Iniquity CONTAINING A Compendious Prospect into those PROPHECIES of the Holy Scripture wherein The Reign of Antichrist or The notorious Lapse or Degeneracy of the Church in all those Points comprised in The Idea of Antichristianism is prefigured or foretold Theognis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 DANIEL 4. This matter is by the decree of the Watchers and the demand by the word of the Holy ones LONDON Printed by James Flesher for William Morden Book-seller in Cambridge M DC LXIV The PREFACE to the Reader READER I Am not ignorant under what manifold Prejudice The main Prejudices against this present Discourse this Performance I present thee with may lie it being a Treatise wholy spent upon the Interpretation of Prophecies and chiefly of Daniel and the Apocalyps For it is over-true that some men look upon such Attempts as very vain and frivolous having concluded with themselves aforehand that all Prophecies are inextricable Aenigms and Riddles utterly uncapable of any certain Solution Others whose Exception were more material if it were true have a conceit that the searching into Prophecies especially those of the Apocalyps and of Daniel tends to nothing else but Faction and Confusion to the trouble and dissettlement of the affairs of Christendome and to the hazard of the subversion of States and Kingdoms and the ruine and destruction of the Church of Christ. And haply there may be others who though they neither deem the obscurity of these Prophecies invincible nor the search into them dangerous nay rather of good use and great consequence yet are so well satisfied already concerning these things by those worthily-magnified Elucubrations of Mr Joseph Mede that they may in all likelihood judge any new Essays herein needless and superfluous With these three grand Prejudices I phansy my self incumbred in regard of the Nature of the Subject I write of besides what particular Exceptions men may be prone to make against any parts of the Performance it self But I do not despair of more then fully quitting my self of them all 2. For as touching the first I think there is no man that has the That the Divine Prophecies are not invincibly obscure and that it smells of Blasphemie and Prophaneness to pronounce them so fear of God before his eyes but he would be ashamed to stand to any such Assertion it verging so near upon Prophaneness and Impiety nay upon open Blasphemie against the Spirit of God as if he dictated such things to the holy Prophets as are not sense nor ever to be understood by any reader of them Can there be any thing more Scoptical against Divine Inspiration then this or more undermining the very foundations of Christian Religion But we need not labour very solicitously in confuting an Errour so universally condemned by all parties that are any thing serious in their Religion For the obscurest Books of Prophecy I mean those of the Apocalyps and Daniel are commented upon by Papists Protestants and Neuters whereby they have all set to their hands that the Visions are intelligible But whatsoever Obscurity there may be in them I think my present pains ought to be the more acceptable in that I have contributed so much to a clear and certain way of interpreting them laying down such assured Grounds and Rudiments as if a man carefully observe and find History applicable within the compass of these Laws he can no more fail of the right meaning of a Prophecy then he will of the rendring the true sense of a Latine or Greek Author keeping to the Rules of Grammar and the known Interpretations of Dictionaries Which Laws I having kept to my self so strictly and carefully I dare appeal to all the world if I have not demonstratively made out the sense of such Visions as I have undertaken to expound And for my own part I must freely profess that I found it no such hard thing to understand those Prophecies I have interpreted and am certainly persuaded that neither any such greatness of Parts nor Exuberancy of Learning as Integrity of heart and Unprejudicedness of mind is requisite to the understanding of these things For if that Spirit of life be once revived in a man he will by virtue of his Regeneration or new Birth not onely see with his eyes but feel with his hands the truth of these Mysteries None of the wicked shall understand but the wise Dan. 12. 10. shall understand namely as many as apply themselves to the search of such things who will also in the mean time be so prudent as not to prejudge what they never had yet opportunity carefully to examine 3. Now touching the second Surmise That the search into That the greater danger there is from false unskilful Interpretations of them the greater value there ought to be upon their labour that search out such as are exact and true these Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalyps tends to nothing but tumult and sedition in Christendom it is very rashly and unskilfully spoken I do not deny but that as it is said of Philosophy that a more superficial smattering therein may hazard a mans plunge into Atheism before he be aware so a slighter inspection into these Prophecies may incline some to a Fanatical unsettledness and a dream of a Fifth Monarchy sutable to the carnal Conceitedness of their own temerarious phancy But as a more full draught of Philosophical knowledge will again wash away that Atheistical foulness out of the Soul so I doubt not but a more through search into the meaning of these Divine Predictions will make a man of a more sober mind and root out of his spirit all those vain pretences to Innovation and Schism And therefore the pains that I have spent in a more full and through scrutiny into the meaning of these Prophetick Visions may I hope at least deserve mens Pardon if not challenge their Approbation as their due Reward sith what tends so much to peace and soberness can not unrightfully seem to challenge the reward of a due Approbation from men I say then if by a more careless search there has been framed such meanings of those Prophecies as bear any danger or inconvenience with them there was the greater necessity that some or other upon a more diligent perusal should dive into the true and genuine sense of them that that Divine truth which was revealed for the good of the Church might not by any mistake tend to her detriment and ruine As certainly such a conceit of the manner of introducing a Fifth Monarchy as some have imagined and entertain'd might cause much trouble and mischief in the affairs of Christendome The Foundation of which Errour with the evil Sequels thereof the Seventh Consectary of my Joint-Exposition does
the right Spirit or Dispensation of Elias for the better discovering all false Pretenders thereto Apoc. 10. 3. and yet know neither his Spirit nor their own nor what times they are in nor doe that office which is proper for Elias to doe which is to testify that the Lord is come and as the holy Baptist pointed at Christ at his First coming and said Behold the Lamb of God so to indigitate his Second coming saying Behold the Lion of the Tribe of Juda even that mighty Angel whose face is as the Sun with a Rainbow over his head crying with a loud voice as when a Lion roareth and discharging his seven thunders upon the Earth The Series of which undoubtedly commenced upon the Protestant Reformation For then began the Judgment to sit and the dominion of the Dan. 7. 26. little Horn to be taken away to consume and to destroy it to the end What Monsters of Enthusiasts therefore are they that kick against the sentence and authority of those holy Benchers or Heavenly Witnesses of God whom he raised up to judge the Deceiver and to settle Truth upon Earth dividing themselves from that Church that is the real and genuine Spouse of Christ so approved by these very Witnesses which God raised from the dead What a goodly Specimen do those high-flown Boasters give of their Elias like Spirit who though they imitate something of the Wind Earthquake and Fire that appeared before that great Prophet yet are utterly unacquainted with that still and small voice in which alone the Lord was heard to speak This Rending and Tearing this Faction and Siding is the fruit of the Flesh and not of the Spirit Nor was Elias zealous about any thing but the indispensable Laws of God Nor is his office to divide but to cement and make up the Breaches of the Church of Christ to reconcile the People to their Governours and their Governours to the People according as it is written * Behold I will send you Elijah the Mal. 4. 5. Prophet and he shall turn the heart of the Fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their Fathers lest I come and smite the Earth with a curse Wherefore whatsoever Dispensation drives not on an healing and uniting design in the true Church of Christ is not the Spirit of that expected Elias which some dream of but a second game of Antichrist contrived abetted and promoted by his cunning Incendiaries upon whom that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dothâ—…stick and will be raging at least till the Fifth Vial. But this is more then I meant to speak in this place 14. Now concerning Grotius and my confuting him onely and sometimes something smartly As for the former it is not wholy true for That he has not confuted Grotius onely in this Treatise with an Apologie for doing of it sometimes something sharply I have also confuted Ribera the best of the Roman Expositours upon the Seventeenth of the Revelation nor have I declined any Interpreter that I could find to speak any thing considerable which is not already confuted in my confutation of these And for my Smartness against Grotius I believe I shall appear so to none but such as make an Idol of him which they will doe most that least understand or have read least of his Expositions of Daniel and the Apocalyps touching the Controversy in hand For I dare pronounce to all the World that there was never any thing more weak and groundless as I have made it abundantly clear in the ensuing Discourse And I think it is not at all unseemly to resist him with some kind of Zeal who had grown up to that boldness in his contrived Interpretations as to trample under feet the Sacred Titles of Christ under which he is peculiarly prophesied of in the Divine Oracles and that in those very Prophecies themselves See Grotius his Annot. in Dan. 2. 34 45. and chap. 7. 13. and to cast them as unholy to a Pagan Nation the People of Rome merely to cover the shame of that Body of men who are so hideously lapsed and apostatized from the Truth and being fast to one party and loose to another to drive the sincere Protestant into a net under a colourable show of Reconciliation and to expose again the innocent Lambs of Christ's flock to the merciless teeth of that devouring Wolf of Rome And yet as smartly as I have dealt with him I have onely expressed my admiration that a Person otherwise so Learned should fall into such unparallel'd Weaknesses and Extravagancies in interpreting these Prophecies of Scripture nor have given the least intimation that gifts had blinded the eyes of the wise or that he had followed the way of Balaam the son of Bosor who loved the wages of unrighteousness but that he had been tempted in that way and how far he accepts the condition one may in some sort observe in the Epistle of Du-vair to him and his answer thereunto and what other transactions there might be God and his own Conscience best know But in the interim it cannot be unknown to any that will search into the truth but that some very great Biass must have been clapp'd upon so good a Judgment as Grotius his to make him capable of running so extremely much out of the way 15. I have elsewhere imputed it to the excess of Candour and Humanity The vindication of himself from the imputation of Uncharitableness for applying certain Visions usually understood of Antichrist to the Church of Rome in him and the love of Peace and Unity and I spoke as I thought and am loath to unthink it again and may sooner tire my self and my Reader then satisfy either by searching into the hidden principles of another mans actions and therefore I shall dismiss that for ever It will be more to the purpose to vindicate my self from the imputation of the want of Charity then to accuse him of the excess thereof or of any other Passion For it is alledged in the last place that I have taken to my self a very uncharitable kind of liberty to apply those Prophecies to so great a share of Christendom as the Roman Church that have been by ancient Interpreters and are by the Romanists themselves understood of Antichrist To which I freely and ingenuously answer and as in the presence of him before whom all mens hearts lie open that I take no more pleasure in the finding of those Antichristian Tokens upon the Church of Rome then I should in discovering so many Plague-spots upon my dearest Friends or Relations so that I am not conscious to my self of the least touch of Uncharitableness in this matter But if the Laws of Charity be so strictly to be observed as certainly they are let us take that method which is approved by the voice of all men and has passed into a Proverb of Charitie 's beginning at home and be as tender of the Protestant Churches in such things
but Fire from Heaven To which destruction whoever do take upon them to adjudge men may very well be said to bring down fire from Heaven upon them which that Thunder-bolt of Excommunication does threaten 15. Flesh. By Flesh is understood in Scripture whatsoever is opposite to the Spirit and I mean in a Moral or Mystical way and that is all to be consumed by the Spirit and by Fire But more particularly Flesh signifies sometimes that which they vulgarly call Carnal Ordinances in some such sense as that is meant by S. Paul Are ye so foolish having begun in the Gal. 3. 3. spirit are ye now made perfect by the flesh Where he speaks of the Law of Moses And the Author to the Hebrews more expresly who speaking Chap. 7. v. 16. of Christ and comparing of him with the Mosaick Aaron Who is made saith he not after the Law of a carnal commandment but after the power of an endless life And still nearer to our purpose chap. 9. ver 10. where he speaks of a service which stood onely in meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal Ordinances imposed on them untill the time of Reformation By Flesh therefore may be understood all the external Ordinances and Institutes that men have rashly heaped upon Christianity whether merely useless or else Superstitious and Idolatrous for these are to the spirit of Christianity as the over-load of a fulsome and over-grown and unwholesome Flesh to the spirit of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 16. But there is another sense of Flesh taken much notice of in the Onirocriticks Artemidor lib. 3. c. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not good for a rich man to dream he eats his own flesh for it signifies the utter wasting of his riches or substance Achmetes c. 283. according to the Indian Persian and Aegyptian Interpreters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Like that of the Israelites eating the flesh or the Leviathan in the Wilderness for the Leviathan or Dragon is the King of Aegypt And again c. 285. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And lastly according to the Indians c. 87. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And compendiously and at once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Flesh is universally referred to gold and riches in the interpretation of Visions or Dreams 17. Floud See Water Fornication See Whoredom Frogs A Frog is an Hieroglyphick of Imperfection saies * Hieroglyph lib. 29. Pierius according to the sense of the Aegyptian Priests and he makes as if the occasion thereof was the observation of the half-finished generation of this Animal out of the slime of Nilus which he casts up in his overflowing after which this Creature is seen half-formed part Frog part Mud as * Lib. 1. Hieroglyph 25. Horus Apollo also expresly affirms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But in that it is thus gendred of filth and mire I should look upon it as a fit Emblem of that Wisedom which is not from above but is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Earthly Animal or Sensual and Devillish and is accompanied with bitter zeal and strife in the heart as the Apostle intimates just before and contrary to that Wisedom which is from above which is first pure not bemired with worldly lusts then peaceable not breeding contention nor full of words and brawlings like the importunate narsh and disharmonious Coaxations of Frogs so called in the Greek from that very ungratefull noise as if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the shrilness and asperity of the noise they make much less forward to war and bloudshed or to the instigating of Princes and men in Power thereunto which the hoarse and harsh Coaxation of these Creatures may be a fit Symbol of and the rather if these Trumpeters to war be conceived to be such men as are as soft and unwarlike as these naked and slimy Animals no more fit to fight then they but be onely Trumpeters to war and confusion and that for their own Interest the zealous declamations and vociferations they make being in behalf of themselves as all the noise the Frog makes is with its tongue turned inwards towards its one gullet Whence that Creature seems a very lively Emblem of such Wretches as these Artemidor lib. 2. c. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ranae homines impostores scurras significant which has no small affinity with our larger description of them 18. Gemms and precious Stones See Crown God In the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Magistrates as well as God as appears from several places of Scripture And Artemidorus has taken notice of the Analogie even from the highest Antiquity lib. 2. c. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quicquid dominatur vim habet Dei And again lib. 3. c. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any rich man dream he is made a God it prognosticates a very great Principality For Princes are in a power of doing good and hurt in a manner equal to the very Gods CHAP. VII 1. Hail the signification thereof according to Scripture 2. And the ancient Onirocriticks 3. Harvest the evil and auspicious sense thereof 4. Head how clearly significative of Sovereign Power whether in Many or One. 5. Heaven and Earth 6. Horn. 7. Horse Islands 8. King and Kingdom 9. That Kinds or Sorts of things are sometimes expressed as if Individualls of the same Kind 10. Leopard Locusts 11. Male-childe Mark Measure Mill Month Moon 12. Mountain the several significations thereof 1. HAil Whenas Winds and Storms signify Political Commotions and Warres as is acknowledged by Grotius and all other Interpreters that they doe as in Daniel 7. 2. where the Four winds of Heaven are said to strive upon the great Sea well may a storm of Hail signify War and Incursion of the enemie and especially if they come from the North the congeledness of this Meteor bearing upon it the character of that Quarter Two eminent Examples of this Prophetick Figure we have in Esay The first Ch. 28. Behold the Lord hath a mighty and strong One which as a Tempest of Hail and destroying storm as a floud of mighty waters overflowing shall cast down to the Earth violently The crown of Pride the Drunkards of Ephraim shall be troden under feet Haec significant saith Forerius hostium adventum qui universum regnum Israel devastaturi erant But it is so plain it wanted no interpretation The other example is Esay ch 30. And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard and shall shew the lighting down of his arme with the indignation of his anger and with a flame of devouring fire with scattering and tempests and hail-stones For with the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down c. that is to say The forces of the Lord will come against Assur like Thunder and Lightening and Hail So plain is it that an Hail-storm is significative of the incursion and assault of an enemie according to the style of Scripture 2.
Spirit speaketh expresly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of Devils speaking lies in Hypocrisy having their conscience seared with an hot-iron forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats c. It should be rendred Through the Hypocrisy of them that speak lies having their conscience seared with an hot-iron c. as any one that understands Syntax must needs acknowledge for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot agree in Grammar nor Devils and Seared consciences in usual phrase or sense There cannot be a better Gloss upon the first part of this Prediction then what Epiphanius has occasionally wrote upon it in his sharp reproof of the Collyridians who gave Divine worship to the Virgin Mary offering up a Cake or Cracknell to her They did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that Father speaks from whence they were called Collyridians Of which Idolatry he saies certain women in Arabia were the first Inventours who came out of Thrace thither and there practised this nefarious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I the more willingly take notice of because Idolatry is so often styled by that name in the Apocalyps and at last concludes thus fully and roundly upon the whole matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which last words do plainly import that this Apostasy here is understood of giving religious worship to Daemons that is to say to the Souls of men deceased And it is observable that Chrysostom and Theophylact read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Erasmus has noted upon the place if any one like that word better then the other But Epiphanius seems to understand the same thing by both that is the Souls of dead men religiously worshipped which he compares with the Baalim worshipped by the Israelites as the Psalmist complains They joyned themselves to Baal-Peor and ate the offerings of the dead Wherefore in brief according to the mind of Epiphanius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal. 106. 2â—… which we render seducing spirits are erroneous and fallacious Doctrines or Prophecies as Grotius also ordinarily interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inspired into mens minds by the Devil For so he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Diabolical Inspiration and Doctrine taught by the unclean Spirit to pollute the worship of God This respects those words in the Text Giving heed to seducing spirits whereby he would have the Original of these wicked Doctrines noted 5. But then the Matter or Object of them to be couched in that more definitive expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is not Doctrines of Devils as taught and suggested by them for that he had touched before but Doctrines of Damons that is to say concerning Damons or the worshipping of the Dead answerably to the Israelites worshipping the Baalim which the Psalmist intimates to be the Souls of men deceased 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Epiphanius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For that Prophecy is fulfilled in these Collyridians viz. Some shall depart from sound doctrine giving head to fabulous stories and doctrines concerning Daemons For that this Genitive may be a Genitive of the Object as well as of the Agent any one will grant And that Epiphanius understands it in that former sense is plain both from his prefixing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which fabulous stories are not conceived to be told by the Daemons but of them and also from what immediately follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For he saith there will be those that will worship the dead c. Which yet the Apostle does not say unless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Doctrines concerning Daemons which are the Souls of men deceased as I have elsewhere sufficiently intimated Wherefore it is plain from the Exposition of Epiphanius that this Prediction of S. Paul is very applicable to the Apostasy of the Church of Rome for their giving Divine honour unto the Saints which is apparently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to worship the dead 6. Which will still be found more exquisitely to fit them of Rome if we consider by what external means this Daemon-worship is promoted For these that are said to depart from the faith that is from the sound doctrine of it as Epiphanius has interpreted it and to Apostatize into the Idolatrous worship of Daemons are said to doe this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through the Hypocrisy of tellers of lies the Apocalyps calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that make lies that is to say that feign Legends of the Miracles of their Saints or Daemons and in deed doe it so impudently as if they made no conscience of those pious frauds and fables whence it is said that they have their consciences seared with an hot-iron What can be more expressive of the Greek and Roman Legendaries then this and yet there is still a more particular character added Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats Whom can this Character fit so well as the Orders of Monks into whose Societies no man could be admitted but upon strict observation of these laws They prohibited any one that would be of their Fraternity to marry and enjoyn'd them also to abstain from certain meats These things are so solidly and copiously made out in Mr. Mede's Apostasy of the Latter times that I need adde nothing more but a Recommendation of that Treatise to the Reader There is scarce any Prophecie falls more fitly upon any Event then this does upon the Church in those times when she had lapsed into this Daemon-worship by the seduction of a fraudulent and superstitious Clergy 7. Thirdly The summary Description of the whole Mystery of Godliness preceding so immediately before in the very last Verse of the foregoing Chapter me-thinks there is a congruity that this immediate Digression into the mention of a Lapse from the purity of this Mystery should be of no petty concernment the perstringing of a few Pythagorizing Christians or such as might leave Christianity to follow Apollonius of which notwithstanding I do not remember any particular stories but a more solemn and notorious Apostasie of the Church of Christ and the converting of that great Mystery of Godliness immediately before mentioned into a Mystery of Iniquity as it is else-where called For that expression of Some shall depart from the Faith is no barâ—…e at all to this meaning as Mr. Mede has demonstratively made good by many and sufficient Examples where some is said of the greatest part and in a manner of the whole people as you may see in the above-named Treatise 8. Fourthly and lastly The Preface to this Prediction Now the Spirit speaketh expresly that in the latter times c. seems not onely too big but too determinate another way then to comply with what Grotius would put us off with namely a glance at Apollonius and his
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place that Lapse into Idolatrous worship which is Rebellion against God and Christ and that Man of Sin be revealed the Son of Perdition That this is to be understood of that signal Antichrist is the current Opinion of Antiquity yea of Alcazar Ribera and Bellarmine himself But we say that this Antichrist will prove the Pope with his Clergy For it is a ridiculous Defence to excuse it by saying that the Man of Sin must imply one single person whenas a Man as well as a Woman in the Prophetick style does easily signify not onely a Succession of single men but of a Body Politick by an Henopoeia and so does here the succession of lapsed Popes with their Clergy who are called the Son of Perdition because they are to be destroyed by the brightness of the coming of Christ and the power and Light of the Gospel Not by worldly power nor by might but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts Ver. 4. Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or what is worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God That the Bishop of Rome fulfilleth every tittle of this Prediction any one will see that does but cast back his eyes upon what we have wrote in our Idea of Antichristianism and what is generally known to all that have sipped but never so little of the History of the affairs of Christendom For it is plain from thence that he opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God in some eminent way or other For he opposeth and exalteth himself above Christ who is very God in all his Offices Regal Sacerdotal and Prophetical as I have abundantly shewn and therefore consequently above all the Saints Nay particularly he is set above the Saints and Angels as Bishop Dounham proves at large in his Treatise De Antichristo lib. 4. c. 4. And as for the Emperours he treads on their very necks and makes them his vassals kicks off their Crowns with his feet and with his feet sets them on again So plain is it that this Prince of the Crowning City does exalt himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say above all Powers whatsoever whether celestial or terrestrial amongst the latter of which are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Augusti the Roman Emperours An Hint is sufficient a more full Amplification of his enormous Pride is set down in the above-named Idea which yet is no more then what is obvious Idea of Antichristianism Book 2. Ch. 11. and notorious as well in common Fame as in History This passage in this verse does so expresly answer to that in Daniel ch 11. 36. He shall exalt himself and magnifie himself above every God that I doubt not but that the Apostle had a respect to that King of Pride there described and means here the same thing by the Man of Sin So that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Doing and accepting such things as if they did rightly belong to him would demonstrate that he were God but by so doing he does ostentare se Deum esse makes a shew as if he were God The Temple of God is here either materially to be understood and then it is plain how well it fits with the Pope's receiving honour sitting on the high Altar in S. Peter's Church at Rome after his Election and his being there adored or if it be understood Figuratively for the People that bear the Name of Christ and are dedicated to him here he sits too and rules as God infallibly uncontrollably antiquating or dispensing even with the Laws of God himself Ver. 5. Remember ye not that when I was with you I told you these things 6. And now you know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time That is to say what hindereth his revealing and shewing of himself to be in the world For all things are in the confused Potentiality of the Universe but hid as a Rose in winter but appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in their season But that which hindered this appearing of Antichrist was according to the general opinion of Antiquity the Entireness of the Roman Empire Till the breaking of the Empire into ten Kingdomes Antichrist was not to be and it may be not to appear in another sense till afterwards That this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Roman Empire Alcazar brings in plenty of witnesses out of Malvenda Tertullian Chrysostome Ambrose Jerâ—…e Austin Theophylact Oecumenius To which he addes Anselmus Hayâ—… Strabus Thomas Lyranus Cajetan Bellarmine Suarez and Pamelius Ver. 7. For the Mystery of Iniquity does already work onely he that now letteth will lett until he be taken away Tertullian and Chrysostome and most of the Expofitors as Alcazar does avouch understand this working of Iniquity in the Apostles time to be onely as a Type and Figure of that which should be under Antichrist That there was then something either actually in being or a-brewing that was a previous Representation of the state of the Church under Antichrist Alcazar would have it the Roman Paganism or worship of Idols But that was no Mystery of Iniquity But it may be he will say it may be a Type of that which when it came would be a Mystery and that a wonderful one that is the living Image of Paganism revived in Christianity and that therefore the future Mystery did work in its Type as well as was in its Type For the Empire revived into Idolatry is called the Beast that was and is not and yet is The conceit is not altogether extravagant But I am more inclinable to think that the Apostle might speak of something in Christianity already I mean in the Professours of it that bore some similitude with that of the great Antichrist that was to appear in his season that he might intend by this present working of the Mystery of Iniquity some miscarriage in some of the Christians or some propensions thereto in them as having got a great smack of the Antichristian Spirit and particularly of the spirit of contention for Rule and Priority Whether Simon Magus may not be here hinted at I shall consider in its due place But this Antichristian heat of Ambition must play at lesser games till the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till the Roman Emperour most properly so called namely he that has his Imperial Seat at Rome be removed or destroyed which Series of Casars ended in Augustulus After which the Pope plai'd his pranks in these Western parts of the Empire and gleaned much wealth and power to himself in the ruines thereof and at last grew visibly to the full pitch and stature of this Man of Sin or Antichrist Then he was big enough to be seen by them that were not blinde as it follows in the next verse Ver. 8. And then shall
that Wicked one be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of bis coming That Wicked one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Lawless one who exalts himself above the Laws of God and Christ and can dispense with them as he pleases whose destruction is by the preaching of the Gospel and by the victorious evidence of Truth by clear and convictive Reason divulged to the world by such as speak by the Spirit of God and by a Principle of Life within them For their mouth is the mouth of God and their breath as a flaming Torrent to consume the ungodly Deceiver The remainder of this Prophecy we have expounded already and therefore need not renew our Exposition in this place No Prophecy can be more expresly applicable to any Event then this is to the Papal Power and Imposture The Effect therefore being already in the world who can doubt but that this is the Prediction of it especially we having the common suffrage of Antiquity that it is to be understood of one that is to appear after the breaking of the Roman Empire into pieces If any one ask Tertullian who this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that hindered the revealing of Antichrist is he shall have this round answer from him Quis nisi Romanus Status cujus in decem reges abscessio dispersa Antichristum superinducet tune revelabitur Iniquus Accordingly as the faithful Servants of Christ have found to their great sorrow and affliction 2. This Man of Sin therefore is that little Horn with the eyes of a man in it both expressions intimating the humane Policy of the Papal Power that King diverse from the ten as being an Ecclesiastick Prince and rising up behinde them to over-grow them and over-top them by his policy Whom S. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lawless man as Daniel makes him a changer of Times and Laws as not being content to be kept in and bounded by those that were already though they were the Sanctions of God and of his Christ. In that Horn also is a mouth speaking great things and that against the most High that is treasonable words against the Sovereignty of God and Christ as this Man of Sin does this Papal Body exalting their Head the Pope above every thing that is called God or is worshipped And lastly as the little Horn in Daniel is to be burnt by the fiery stream issuing from before that dreadful Judge so is this Man of Sin to be consumed by the Spirit of the mouth of the Lord and by the fiery brightness of his coming Which considerations may assure us that one and the same Person is aimed at in the little Horn in the seventh of Daniel and that prosperous King in the eleventh that exalts and magnifies himself above every God they both agreeing in this present Prophecy of the Man of Sin and Son of Perdition So plain is it that this Prophecy is not to be understood of either Cains or Simon Magus as Grotius groundlesly conceits whose Opinion I will now examine because the name of that Authour bears so much sway with some men otherwise it were scarce worth the pains of perusing CHAP. XIX 1. A summary Proposal of Grotius his Exposition of the foregoing Prophecy 2. That the coming of Christ in this Prophecy cannot be understood of the Destruction of Jerusalem 3. Nor Apostasy attributed to Caius nor he said to sit in the Temple of God nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fit so well with Vitellius 4. That Caius his purpose of placing his Scatâ—…e in the Temple was no Mystery of Iniquity but gâ—…oss Prophaneness 5. Grotius his ridiculous luxation of the sense of the Prophecy in making Caius the Man of Sin and Son of Perdition concealed by Vitellius his standing in the way and yet upon Vitellius his removal not Caius but Simon Magus to be the man revealed and destroyed 6. That in all likelihood the Story of Simon Magus is a Fiction and from what Occasion 7. That if it were true it is not so applicable this wicked man Simon being not consumed by the Spirit of Christis mouth but onely his Coach and Horses 8. That Grotius makes Paul prophesy of things past his Epistle being written ten years after Caius his death with a fâ—…ll Answer to Grotius his first Argument to the contrary 9. An Answer to the second 10. A Demonstration out of Scripture and Grotius his own Concessions that this Second Epistle was wrote ten years after Caius his death as also that the fall of Simon Magus from his fiery Chariot was eight years before this Prophecy 1. THE summe of Grotius his Exposition of this Second Chapter of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians is this First He interprets the coming of Christ of the destruction of Jerusalem Secondly The Apostasy or Falling away and the Revealing of the Man of Sin he understands of Caius Caligula who indeed was a very impious Emperour and would have had his own Statue set in the Temple of Jerusalem Thirdly The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he will have to be Lucius Vitellius President of Syria and consequently of Judaea who was a friend to the Jews and therefore in his time not so seasonable for Caius to make the motion of setting his own Statue in the holy Temple Fourthly By the working of the Mystery of Iniquity he understands the persuasions of Helicon and other Aegyptian Impostors who were great with Caius and were preparing the way to this grand piece of Impiety Fifthly But when he that letteth is taken out of the way that is Lucius Vitellius who as yet hindered Caius from this impious purpose of placing his Statue in the Temple at Jerusalem then shall that Wicked one be revealed who has dealt under-board hitherto with his Conspirators Helicon and the rest Caius certainly you will say no Simon Magus saith Grotius Was there ever such a ridiculous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any serious interpretation of Authors much less of Holy Scripture Sixthly and lastly But this is because the rest of the Prophecy seems to speak of a Conjurer or Magician such as Simon Magus was famed to be whom at Rome riding in the air with his fiery Chariot and Horses Peter by his prayers to Christ made fall to the ground And thus was Simon consumed by the Spirit of the Lord's mouth and by the brightness of his coming as Grotius would have it 2. This is a brief account of his Exposition in which there is scarce one sound Joynt For as for the first which understands the coming of Christ of the destruction of Jerusalem Whosoever considers that this Epistle is really the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians as I shall hereafter prove and that in the * Ch. 4. v. 15 16 17. foregoing Epistle he speaks of the final coming of Christ which is joyn'd with the Resurrection of the dead and
dispatch with like brevity as in these former CHAP. XXII 1. The diametrical Opposition of our Church to that part of Antichristianism which would subvert the Regal and Prophetick Offices of Christ. 2. As also to that which strikes at his Sacerdotal Office 3. That she holds nothing against those other sacred Titles of Christ the Truth Life Light c. 4. A demonstrative Vindication of Episcopacy from the Imputation of Antichristianism out of the Apocalyps 5. What an Establishment that Book is if rightly understood to the Crown and Church of England 6. That no Papal nor Presbyterian Power is of right above the King no not in causes Ecclesiastical 7. The judgement of our Church thereupon 8. The peculiar glory of our Church that she is so perfectly free from all Frauds and Impostures 9. Her freeness from Pride 10. From Antichristian Impurity 11. And from Cruelty 12. Her Reformation an eminent Speciminal Completion of the Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Two Witnesses 13. The usefulness of this Vindication of her for the suppressing of Popery and Schism 1. I Demand therefore concerning those three known Offices of Christ Regal Sacerdotal and Prophetical is not our Church very faithful and sincere in this point and not at all guilty of such opposings and underminings of them as I have specified in my Idea of Antichristianism Does our Church pretend to be Infallible her self or so much as connive or consent to the pretended Infallibility of others Nay has she not plainly declared That general Councils for asmuch as they be an Assembly Article 2â—… of men whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God may erre and sometimes have erred even in things pertaining to God and that therefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scripture And in the fore-going Article she does affirm That it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary Article 20. to God's Word written and that she may not so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another and finally concludes That although the Church be a Witness and a Keeper of Holy Writ yet as she ought not to decree any thing against the same so besides the same ought she not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation To which effect she also speaks in another Article touching the Sufficiency of Article 6. Holy Scriptures Holy Scripture saith she containeth all things necessary to Salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation And again to the same purpose doth she speak in that excellent Exhortation to the reading and knowledge of Holy Scripture where with all earnestness she invites every one to the diligent perusing thereof declaring That in Holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought to doe and what to eschew what to believe and what to love and what to look for at God's hands at the length and tells us the best way for understanding of them in a Paragraph worthy to be written in letters of Gold toward the end of the first part of the Homily And in reading of God's Word saith she he profiteth not most always that is most ready in turning of the Book or in saying of it without-book but he that is most turned into it that is most inspired with the Holy Ghost most in his heart and life altered and changed into that thing which he readeth he that is daily less and less proud less wrathful less covetous and less desirous of worldly and vain pleasures he that daily forsaking his old vicious life increaseth in Vertue more and more And in the second part of the said Homily she heartens her Sons against those discouragements and stumbling-blocks which that false and treacherous Church casts in their way of pretended difficulty and obscurity exhorting them to pray to God for Assistence in reading the Scriptures assuring them that if they be sedulous and serious what they are at a loss in God will either send some pious and knowing person as he did Philip to the Eunuch reading the Prophets to instruct them or that Himself from above will give light into our minds and teach us those things that be necessary for us and wherein we be ignorant farther adding out of S. Chrysostom That humane and worldly wisdom or science is not so needful for the understanding of Scripture but the revelation of the Holy Ghost who inspireth the true meaning into them who with humility and diligence do search therefore And lastly she concludes That none be enemies to the reading of God's Word but such as either be so ignorant that they know not how wholsome a thing it is or else be so sick that they hate the most comfortable medicine that should heal them or so ungodly that they would wish the people still to continue in blindness and ignorance of God How diametrically opposite this Genius of our Church is to that Antichristian Spirit I have described in his opposings and underminings of the Regal and Prophetical Offices of Christ is obvious for any man to discern who listeth but to compare them 2. And now for his Sacerdotal Office which is injured and affronted in multiplying Mediatours in pretending to offer up the very Body of Christ in the Mass and in derogating from the virtue of that Sacrifice himself made for the sins of the world as if it reached not to the Punishment but to the Guilt onely and that every man must satisfie for himself in imposed mulcts and penances either here or in Purgatory As for the first we have already proved it to be contrary to the Doctrine of our Church And that one Article part whereof I have cited already against Transsubstantiation will assure us of her rejection of the two latter The offering of Christ once made saith she is that perfect Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world both original Article 31. and actual and there is no other Satisfaction for sin but that alone And then it follows Wherefore the Sacrifices of Masses in the which it was commonly said that the Priest did offer up Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits See also the Article of the Justification of Man and the Homily of Salvation and Good Works But this is so notorious a Doctrine in our Church that I need not insist any further upon the proof of her avowing of it 3. As for the Oppositions against the other Titles of Christ specified in the sixth Chapter of the second Book of my Idea of Antichristianism it is manifest that our Church is not concerned