signifie certain performance but the duty what they ought to perform As when the Apostles are called the Light of the world and the Matth. 5. 13 14. Salt of the earth which onely signifies what they ought to be not what they were necessitated to be For those that ought to be thus may notwithstanding hide their Talent or grow unsavoury through their own fault as it fared in Judas and in all his succession of false Apostles which call themselves the Servants but are the betrayers of the Lord Jesus 13. But lastly Suppose that the Church then in general were here understood it does not follow That because that Primaeval and Apostolical Church should by a peremptory design of Providence have engraven upon it or exhibit to the world as Articles of belief nothing but what was true that the Church in succession should always doe the like For there was a prime care taken that the first establishment of the Church should be in truth and solidity but that being done which was sufficient for the after-carrying on the affairs of the Church in a right way by free Agents the success should afterwards lie upon their industry and fidelity at least so far as that by no miraculous and supernatural force they should be assisted or driven on to keep things pure and intemerate And that was sufficient for the Church I think which is thought sufficient for every particular man namely That the Christian Doctrines and Precepts being faithfully laid down in the Evangelists and other Writings of the Apostles they might that usual Grace of God which is not irresistible assisting them frame their lives and beliefs accordingly in those things that are plain And all are so that are necessary to Salvation Which Rule if it had been kept to no Error had crept into the Church to this very day 14. Which last Answer will contribute something towards an Answer to the last place alledged for it seems onely to contain a description of a special provision of God for the rightly settling his Truth in the first Ages of the Church To which purpose he appointed not onely Pastours and Teachers which Functions continue still but Apostles having a particular mission from Christ himself who breathed into them the Spirit of Truth as also Prophets and Evangelists men in a special manner inspired and assisted to erect the Fabrick of the Church according to the will and purpose of Christ who then in an extraordinary manner did supervise all by a miraculous assistence of his Spirit And therefore what-ever was wrote for the publick use of the Church while any of those unto whom our Saviour Christ said that the Spirit should abide with them for ever which should lead them into all Truth were alive or was approved by them is really of certain and infallible authority but what-ever after-Inventions or Super-additions there were in the Church they are to be measured by this unerring Rule These unerring Pastors therefore and Teachers Apostles Prophets Evangelists were not a promise to all Successions but an extraordinary gift as the Text it self imports which Christ at that time namely at his solemn Coronation or Triumph ascending above all Heavens that he Eph. 4. 10. might fill all things cast down as a Royal Largess upon his Church for the speedy completement of her for her growing up into the unity of the Faith and Knowledge of Christ and that she might not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine but adhere to that onely that was delivered by those Heavenly-inspired and miraculously-assisted Ministers of the Gospel The acknowledgement whereof I conceive had been the onely sure means to keep the Church in Unity for ever whenas the pretending to an Infallibility in the succeeding Church where indeed it was not and the taking upon them thereupon to impose things with equal authority to the Apostles themselves would naturally prove the fountain of all Error Schism and Confusion CHAP. II. 1. That the safe conveyance of the Apostolick Writings down to us by the Church does not infer her Infallibility 2. That the Plainness of Scripture in points necessary to Salvation takes away the want of an Infallible Judge 3. That the Scripture not pointing to any Infallible Judge nor any faithful Keeper of Traditions does ipso facto declare her self the onely sufficient Guide 4. That there is not onely no want of an Infallible Judge but better there should be none 5. That the want of Infallibility does not take away the Authority of the Church it being the duty of every person in things really disputable to compromise with her 6. That though a Visible Judge be necessary in Civil causes yet it is nothing so in Points of Religion 7. That every private man has not onely a liberty but a command to judge for himself in matters of Faith 8. The said Right or Privilege demonstrated also by Reason 9. That the Reason or Judgment of every private man is not a private Spirit in that reproachful sense that some speak it 10. That the claim to a right of judging for ones self in points of Faith does not make a man superiour to his Church 11. Nor yet equal 12. Nor implies that he thinks himself wiser then his Church but rather more careful of his own eternal Concerns 13. That it is not his private Wisdom he sticks to but the Wisdom of God known to all that are not wilfully blind 14. That the Church is not Infallible proved from the Example of the Jewish Church 15. That there is the same reason of the Christian. 16. That the want of an Infallible Interpreter is no such loss to the common people 17. That their assurance of the truth of the Scriptures by the Spirit is a Tenet not so superciliously to be exploded as some make shew of 18. That this Spirit is properly the Spirit of Faith distinguishable from that of Knowledge and Wisdom 19. The notorious Fraud and excessive Mischief of this pretence of Infallibility 1. BUT being worsted thus in Scripture they will pretend Demonstrations in Reason upon the presumption they are the true visible Church successively descended from Christ and his Apostles that Infallibility is for ever intailed upon them As first That unless the Church were successively Infallible we could have no certain and Infallible belief of the Holy Scriptures which are avouched to be such by the Church But I briefly answer That supposing this successive Church were a trusty undoubted Conveyer of the Copies of the Holy Scriptures uncorrupted yet it doth not follow that they must be Infallible Interpreters of these Scriptures no more then the faithful conveyance of Plato's and Aristotle's Writings to all posterity implies that the Conveyers thereof are Infallible Interpreters of them For they might preserve the Writings of either by a diligent comparing of Copies upon every transcription besides that there might be a special watchfulness of Providence over these Holy Writings for the conservation of
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
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 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
contrary to those himself has established 9. As were also the nulling at any time what-ever binds according to the Universally-known Laws of God and Nature For these are the Laws of Christ as he is the Eternal Logos And therefore where any are bound by solemn Oath in publick Contracts or Covenants lawfully taken or are legitimately married and have committed no offence that might void the bonds of Wedlock to pretend to have a power to dispense with or to null these Contracts and Oaths or to legitimate such Marriages as are contrary to the Laws of God and Nature This also would certainly be a manifest affronting the Sovereignty of Christ and the Power thus practising would discover it self plainly Antichristian 10. And lastly to fill up the measure of this abhorred Limb of Antichrist which we are depainting If this pretended Infallible Power should commit cruel slaughters and massacres upon the true Subjects of Christ such as are innocent and guiltless of any wrong against any man according to the Law of God and Nature but are as I said really the true subjects of Christ were not this practice palpably Antichristian Which sentence against them would be very hard if it should run but thus Let them be put to death without mercy though they be the true Subjects of Christ Jesus How Devillishly Antichristian then must that Act be that condemns them to death for that very thing that makes them the true Subjects of Jesus Christ that is to say because they faithfully adhere to the indispensable Laws of their Lord and Master And in what a state of manifest Hostility against Christ's true and faithful Subjects must this Power be that so professes and practises that if they could find out any of them and that if it lay in their power to destroy them they would root them from off the face of the earth or attempt to subdue them by all imaginable penalties and cruelties by imprisonments tortures fire and faggot and what not And all this which makes the crime infinitely more execrable under a pretence of doing service to Christ Jesus whose dearest and sincerest Members they thus barbarously persecute and destroy This one Limb alone of Antichristianism I mean this vafrous and bloudy Treason against the holy Majesty of Christ and his true and living Members has such a weight of wickedness with it that it is even enough of it self to make almost an entire Antichrist CHAP. IV. 1. Sundry particular Oppositions against the Prophetick Office of Christ which may be the Characters of that grand Pseudo-prophet that was to come into the world 2. That the Spirit of Prophecy is not to be monopolized by any one person but is free 3. An Excerpt out of Caelius Secundus Curio to that purpose 4. The silencing the Dictates of those common Notions implanted in humane Souls the highest affront to the Prophetick Office of Christ that can be 5. Several Absurdities propounded as Instances of that Tyranny over the immutable Principles of humane Understanding with the detection of that eminent False-prophet thereby 6. That it is infinitely more likely that this pretended Prophet should be fallible then the fore-going Absurdities true 7. That the slaying of the Prophets 8. Together with the above-mentioned Oppositions against the Prophetical Office of Christ make up a conspicuous Limb of Antichristianism 1. BUT we will further consider this Antichristian Opposition in respect to Christ's Prophetical Office Where we shall dispatch very briefly several of those practices against the Kingly Office of Christ equally reflecting upon his Prophetical As first The pretending the holy Oracles of God are so obscure that the people can make nothing of them and then upon that pretence violently with-holding them from them upon pain of death not to meddle with them against the mind of the Church This would make Christ a Prophet without Predictions or Instructions as I have noted above which therefore would be a grand injury to him as he is that great Prophet of God sent into the world The prohibiting also the Reading of such Expositions of Scriptures as are writ by plain and sincere followers of Christ who have interpreted with skill and faithfulness the more useful places of Holy Writ This also would be an Antichristian resistence of him in his Prophetick Office but that the utter stifling of the Spirit of Prophecy in his true Members if they could persuade them that there is already an Infallible Prophet and Interpreter whose sole meaning is the true sense of the Scripture and that Scripture it self is nothing without it and that none has either Authority or Capacity to interpret but he What an egregious Pseudo-prophet then think you would this be who takes upon him to speak nothing but Oracles and Infallible truth while he speaks and defines and acts such things as I have hitherto described Multifarious Idolatries Insupportable Superstitions and most impudent Annulments of the plain and express Laws and Doctrines of Christ Who therefore ever can if this great Pseudo-prophet do not prove the famed Antichrist indeed that monopolizes the Right of Prophesying to himself alone that he may the better deceive the whole world and will be Infallible that is to say unfailingly inspired that this extravagant boast may the more palpably discover him to be that eminent False-prophet that Christendom has so long expected and feared 2. Such a pretended Monopoly of the power of Prophesying as this is diametrically opposite to that liberty of the Spirit of Prophecy which is the Gift of Christ the Eternal Wisedom of God which is excluded no where but out of a wicked and polluted heart out of every Soul that is subject unto sin otherwise that Spirit is so described in the Book of Wisedom that it is not in the power of any Potentate to confine it to himself For it is a lover of that which is good quick which cannot be letted or Chap. 7. v. 22 c. hindred ready to doe good kind to man stedfast sure having all power overseeing all things and going through all understanding pure and subtil Spirits For Wisedom is more moving then any motion she passeth and goes through all things by reason of her pureness For she is the breath of the power of God and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty therefore can no defiled thing touch her For she is the brightness of the everlasting light the unspotted mirrour of the power of God and the Image of his goodness And being but one she can doe all things and remaining in her self she maketh all things new and in all Ages entring into holy Souls she makes them friends of God and Prophets What one man therefore or company of men can pretend that the Gift of Prophesying is entailed on them onely unless they were the onely pure and undefiled Or rather what ground or assurance have they that themselves can prophesy aright they living in sin in luxury and in all
the Cunning and Industry of Secular Princes and if all those Doctrines and Duties which were most urged and most frequently came into practice were of such a nature as did plainly tend to the either Honour Power or Profit of the Priesthood This I say would strike very far towards the making the World Infidels or believers of nothing but this That the Summe of our Religion is but a witty Invention of so many fictitious Stories Doctrines Precepts and Ceremonies which would serve to hamper the Consciences of men and make the World more Governable but so shaped out by the Priests as made most for their worldly advantage And such we have already described the Tenents and Doctrines of this Church to be continuedly displaying the Frauds and Self-endedness of all their Errours and Mispractices and need not here again repeat them 4. Thirdly This also would oppose the Christian Faith To make the nature of it such that it must be always doubtfull Of which I must confess I know not what may be the fetch unless it be to keep mens Minds as some deceitfull Physicians and Surgeons do their Bodies in such an unsound and valetudinarious condition that they may have the more frequent recourse to them and depend the more upon them or because they mixe some things in Religion necessarily to be believed which it is impossible they should be firmly believed by any but fools And thus the true and solid points of Christianity such as have sufficient evidence to convince any maâ—… of Reason must be reputed obscure and uncertain for being found in the company of such gross Falsities or Uncertainties which yet pretend to an equal right of entire reception with the clearest Truths And further It is no wonder that such a Church as places whatever certainty there is of Faith upon her own Infallibility as if that were the ground of it should derive both an opinion and profession of the Uncertainty of Belief upon her Nurselings they having no better ground then what we have so plainly demonstrated already to be hollow and ruinous But it is their onely Shift and Refuge to make their Infallibility the ground of Belief the matters they propose to be believed having no recommendation either from Scripture or their own nature to be embraced And therefore things being thus uncertain at the bottom upon their Principles they must instead of a firm and solid Faith be content with an obscure and uncertain one Which is indeed the destroying of Christian Faith and the substituting of a more vertiginous fluctuation of mind in lieu thereof 5. Fourthly That Principle also tends to the ruining of Faith which supposes That without right Succession of Bishops and Priests there is no true Church and therefore no true Faith and that this Succession may be interrupted by the misordination or misconsecration of a Priest or Bishop the persons thus ordained or consecrated being Atheists or Jews or ordained by them that are so or do out of malice not intend what they ought in the Sacrament of Orders as some call it Which were a conceit able to turn all men Scepticks concerning their state in Religion but is a Position absolutely against inward sense and Reason As if a man could not feel in his own conscience whether he believed or not the Truths of Holy Scripture without he were first assured that he was a member of that Church that had an uninterrupted lawfull Succession of the Priesthood from the Apostles times till his own Whenas there is nothing more immediate to a man then inward sense which it is not in the power of any Sophistry ever to confute 6. Wherefore though this Position may be spightfully levelled against the Certainty of Faith yet the execution it can doe upon the considerate is very inconsiderable and small much like that peevish Supposition of the necessity of Unity of Opinion as if those Churches that did differ in any thing had the certainty of nothing An excellent Hypothesis indeed were it but true and such as would effectually recommend the usefulness of an Infallible Judge of Controversies if he could be had for love or mony by whom they might closely compact the parts of the Church Catholick together as with cramps of Iron But there is no such force in the Theorem which will of it self fall asunder into dust if we consider it can stand upon no other terms then what will supplant the truth of all Reason and Religion in the world the whole world being divided in their judgments and conclusions concerning both Whence it is plain that the Attempt though weak tends to the bringing in universal Scepticism in all things In which deluge the Christian Faith would be also drowned and perish with all other Truths there being no Ark left to take Sanctuary in and to be safe from the working and absorptive waves of this reciprocating Euripus 7. But sixthly and I shall now instance in what is not onely ill-meant but must needs have a successfull efficacy for making the World Atheists or Infidels and that is The glutting of them with lying Miracles and gulling of them with delusions and cousening devices call them pious Frauds or by what other fine names you please For the Falsehood being once discovered in such a Church as requires to be believed more upon their own Authority and Infallibility then upon the credibility of the matters which they propound I say if they once be taken tardy in Forgeries and guilefull Fictions in any points especially such as tend to their own profit how can this fail of shaking or rather ruining the whole Frame of belief to the very Foundations How ruinous then must the Christian Faith be where such Lies and Figments are frequent and almost as frequently discovered by those that are more nasute Certainly Atheism and Infidelity must break in upon such a Church as the Sea upon the cutting of the Banks 8. That I may the better be understood I will give you some brief Instances of these impudent Figments As for example If they should have the face to tell the people that such a Saint when his Head was struck off walked four or five mile with it in his hand onely resting himself every mile's end to take breath at his open weasen-pipe That another Saint being hospitably entertained at the expence of the lives of a Cow and a Calf restored them again to life and that they were both of them found the next day in their Master's Meadows That by another Saint the Devil was seen behind the Altar busily writing down mens sins in a parchment which being something too scant he stretched with his teeth and his hold slipping knocked his head against the wall That a certain She-Saint being swallowed by a Dragon she making a Crosse in the Dragon's belly burst him in pieces and so was delivered That a Bishop having cut off his own hand upon its being polluted by the kiss of some over-affectionate female it
was suddenly set on again and healed by prayers addressed to the Blessed Virgin The like whereof happened to another Saint whose legs were cut off at the knees and to the head of another which being cut off sprung up and grew on again but lopt off the second time by its fall gave the rise to a Fountain or Well And lastly that another She-Saint being by ropes to be haled to execution was so strong upon Crossing herself and calling upon the Virgin Mary that a whole Team of Oxen could not drag her to the place 9. But I have not yet done That also would be a delicious Figment concerning some Saints that they have had personal converse with the Virgin Mary and that she has been so kind to some that she has emptied her Breasts into their mouths on their sick beds to their unspeakable comfort It were likewise a good roosing miracle and bigger then belief that a certain Holy House of the Virgin 's should be carried out of Palestine into Italy by an invisible hand through the aire Surely the Angels of God would be very worthily employ'd in removing such stone-work and timber-work For a Crucifix also to take some fifty miles journey through the same element in a night were a pretty Figment to furnish out the Faith of Fools The speaking also of Crucifixes would help to make up the number of these either Delusions or Incredibilities 10. To which miraculous Loquacity you may adde those more silent fictions of Dreams The making of marriages betwixt Christ and some Women-Saints The making Images to rowl their eyes to weep also and â—…o swear The Histrionical Scenes of exorcizing upon compact betwixt the feignedly possessed and the Exorcist Fictitious Stories to set out the wodrous virtue of the Masse and great holiness thereof as That the first words that have been spoken by Infants have been To Masse To Masse That it has fed the absent when they have fasted twenty days struck the Chains miraculously from the legs of Captives That at every clinking of the mony at an Offertory in the bason a Soul leaps out of Purgarory That the Host being taken by one not fasting has transformed him into the shape of an Horse or Swine There might be also fine devices for the magnifying of the Holiness of the Priest in making such things as come from his body seem to have the virtue of scaring away the Devil As suppose the Devil be made to appear more impatient when the Priest's glove hose girdle or shirt be applied to any part of the possessed which may be ex pacto as well as in the conciliating the opinion of such virtues in the Image or Reliques of this or that Saint But how stupendiously Blessed and Holy must that Priest seem to be who could make the people believe that he was himself possessed with the Blessed Trinity And how Sacred must that She-Saint appear betwixt whom and Christ Jesus there was that dearness of affection that they wore one anothers Hearts interchangeably Christ's Heart being conveyed into her body and her Heart into his 11. The counterfeiting also of Apparitions were a trim way to cut off the belief of there ever having been any true ones And therefore it would be a very Antichristian piece of Knavery for any Priest to use any such jugglings under what pious pretence so ever As by putting on some Histrionical accoutrements to act the part of an Angel or of the blessed Virgin descended from Heaven in glory or of some Ghost from the Infernal parts with wan and ghastly looks and cold and earthly hands and in these disguises to visit the perplexed for either the corroborating of them in the belief of that Religion which they have already entertained or for the recommendation of that Religion they endeavour to proselyte them to Another Example of which kind would be the contrivance of moving Lights in Church-yards by fastning wax-Candles on the backs of live Crab-fishes which must be interpreted the unquiet Souls of them that are tortured in Purgatory and seek relief by the Prayers and Offerings of good people 12. To which you may adde the setting out the state of Purgatory with such extravagant Poetical Fabulosities as the roasting of Souls against the fire frying them in frying-pans the pulling them in pieces with hot pincers the flesh from the bone the baptizing them in flaming pitch and brimstone and scalding metalls their being bit by the venomous teeth of great Serpents their being transformed into black horses the pouring down melted Mony into their mouths and then forcing them to vomit it up again that it may be again poured in by these officious Fiends with many such incredible schemes of Torture from which there is appointed no deliverance but by Pardons Masses Oblations and the like that is to say without some worldly benefit accrewing to the Church Certainly such a description as this of Purgatory or a Third place must naturally engender a misbelief of all Three and make men think there is neither Heaven nor Hell after this Life but that all are but Figments and Inventions for the benefit of the Priest especially as I have already intimated these things being taught in that Church who make their own Credit and Authority the main if not onely prop of Faith 13. But I will also describe a seventh way which is marvellously effectual to extinguish the Christian Faith amongst men and that is A Rabble of incredible Reliques which might be obtruded upon their beliefs the reverential sight whereof bringing in aâ—…daily gain to the Church would be a plain demonstration they will not stick to lie for their advantage which if they doe very grossely and deprehensibly here how can it fail of ruining Faith in all other matters of Religion But this point is better understood by certain Instances As if for example they should pretend to shew that very Hay that was in the Cratch wherein our Saviour was lay'd and more then one Tail of the Asse on which he rode in Triumph to Jerusalem The Stones also that killed S. Stephen as well as the Arrows whereby S. Sebastian was wounded If they should pretend to shew the Virgin Mary's Smock as well as Joseph's Pantofles and Breeches some of the five Barly-loaves and two Fishes with which Christ fed five thousand men in the Wilderness some of the Bloud and Water that flowed out of his side at his Suffering as also some of that very Ground that Christ stood upon when he ascended into Heaven The Hair and Bloud of S. John Baptist and the Hair-cloath that he wore The Table upon which Christ ate his last Supper the Stool which he sate upon and the Towel wherewith he wiped his Disciples feet 14. The Picture of Christ painted upon a wall by the finger of God and another drawn by Nicodemus while the Jews were beating of him The Fore-skin also of Christ his Navel-string and Secundine in which he was wrapt in the Womb
Also Christ's Handkerchief and the Shirt which the blessed Virgin made for him as likewise the Cradle in which he was rocked 15. Furthermore the Virgin Mary's Veil with which she used to cover her head her Comb her Hair her Girdle her Needles sowing-Thread and Work-basket nay the very House in which she dwelt and wrought transported as I said before out of Palestine into Italy by the hands of Angels The Reed with which they smote Jesus the Rope with which they haled him to execution the very Sponge also with which the Jews gave him vinegar mingled with gall to drink and some of the Coin for which Judas betrayed him nay the very Lantern he used in that work of darkness and the Dice wherewith the Souldiers play'd for Christ's seamless Coat Moreover the pure Bloud of Christ and the Milk of Mary his Mother kept in glasses The Pillar also at which Christ was whipped and the Stairs or Steps on which he went up into the Judgment-Hall and some of the Thorns wherewith he was crowned An Image of the Virgin Mary made by S. Luke to which an Angelical Statue of Marble was seen often to bow The paring of the nails of a living dead Crucifix and the lively Picture of Christ made by himself by the pressing onely of a Napkin to his face when he sweat 16. What would the world say to the credibility of three Tuns of Teeth from the Jaws of one Saint to the producing of the very Dagger and Shield with which S. Michael fought with the Devil and a Feather that might then haply fall out of one of the Angel's Wings What to the shewing of the Skull of a Saint's head at one place his Hair in another his Jaw-bone in another his Forehead in a fourth and yet his whole Head in a fifth What to the Fore-skin of Christ shewn also in five several places at once What to some dozens of Nails wherewith Christ was nailed to the Cross and as many pieces of the Cross as would load a Cart to carry them and as many glasses of the Virgin 's Milk as would fill all the vessels in a countrey-dairy How can such gross Impostures as these but wipe the Priests lips clean of all credit and belief and cast the world into desperate Atheism and Infidelity 17. But eighthly and lastly The Incredible of all Incredibles and the greatest Impossibility of all Impossibilities were that pretended Mystery of Transsubstantiation which being urged with the like necessity and assurance of Truth that any thing is urged by this Antichristian Church whose Picture I am a-drawing will doe the most fatal execution upon the Christian Faith that any thing imaginable can doe For supposing this the most Fundamental Article of their Creed or if you will the most precious and the most seriously-urged Fundamental of them all and the very hindge of almost all their publick Devotion and God-service if this break all must fall to the ground For if the Church be found shamelesly false in so important a Point as this it does immediately follow that she will be believed in nothing Wherefore they whose belief was either wholly or mainly supported by the seeming greatness of her Authority this failing by the easy discovery of so gross a Falsehood and yet by her most earnestly and most seriously avowed for Truth the Faith of every such man must also necessarily fail unless by some special grace of God assisting his conference with the persons or writings of some better-instructed Christians which he may haply meet with in this vast Wilderness he wanders in he be stopt from splitting himself a-pieces from this dangerous precipice he stands on and from the plunging himself into the mire of Atheism and Unbelief 18. For undoubtedly if he have no other help but this Pseudo-christian Synagogue though he may be awed by their external lash from professing his Infidelity yet it will be impossible for him to hinder the tacit growth of it in his own Soul but he will naturally disgust and disclaim all hearty commerce with Religion and even loath it as a pack of lies Wherefore it is impossible but this congregation of Impostours and Deceivers which I am setting forth in the truest colours I can should swarm with multitudes of grown and obdurate Atheists For the Imposture we speak of now being so signal and the discovery so easy and obvious how can it chuse but be discovered even by multitudes of people For the account comes onely to this Whether it be more likely that the Church for her own advantage which I perceive she does every-where eagerly and stiffly pursue may knowingly and wittingly impose upon me or at least mistake in her own judgment of the Infallibility whereof I have no proof but her own boast when it is in the mean time her Interest to boast so I say the account comes onely to this Whether it be more likely that she may practise fraud or fall into a mistake out of some blind Superstition or that by the uttering of Five words a Priest should have such a power as to turn a piece of Bread into a Man the Bread according to all my Senses being as much Bread as it was before Which is a double Miracle and greater then ever was yet done in the world considered but thus far and almost as great a Miracle that any one should believe it 19. But there are still greater I cannot say Miracles but downright Impossibilities As first That this Bread is not turned into a Man that was to be but that was already in being Which is the hardest Non-sense that can be offered to the mind of man to think upon And yet in the second place the Bread is so turned into a Man that is to say into the Man Christ that he is entirely in every place where this consecrated Bread seems to be that is in thousands of places at once at very large distances Which is as perfect a Contradiction as any can be proposed That one and the same Body should be entirely distant from it self For how can it be One being thus divided from it self since Unity consists in Indivision and Self-Unity certainly is Self-Indivision Wherefore if there be one Self at Oxford suppose and another at Cambridge at the same time it is impossible it should be one and the same Person their distance or division demonstrating them two distinct ones And thirdly and lastly From this false supposition That one and the same Body may be at the same time in several places it will also follow That one and the same Person or Body may be at the same time wholly within it self and wholly without it self wholly above it self and wholly beneath it self on the right hand of it self and on the left hand of it self That it may be One Body and yet many Bodies at once or rather no Body but a Spirit or to speak more truly Nothing That one and the same Person may meet himself and complement
or justice and that is the so freely nick-naming them by the style of Hereticks and Schismaticks Which yet in their own judgment I suppose not to bear so little weight with it whenas their real estimate is discoverable by their proceedings they deeming an Heretick so odious or contemptible that he is not worthy of the common privileges of mankind and of that protection that the Laws of humane Society do afford men that he shall not have the security of a Promise though confirmed by Oath Faith not being to be kept with Hereticks Not to mention here that they have made the penalties of Heresie capital Which how justly though a man were an Heretick in the matters of Belief provided it were not out of Pride and conceitedness but out of invincible Ignorance I will not here discuss 2. It will be of greater use to consider what is real Heresie or Schism that the sincere and knowing Christian may not be reproached nor the less skilful affrighted with these Bug-bears Those that make so great a cry against the hainousness of these sins their Zeal and Rhetorick would be more usefully placed if they would be so faithful as to give us a right Notion of them otherwise while they pretend to be so industriously desirous of Peace and Unity in the Church they may but give greater occasion of Dissensions and Animosities For to make more things Heresies and Schisms then are is to create more quarrels then there need be I will acknowledge as soon as any that Heresie and Schism are very grievous crimes even of the deepest dye but then it must be truly Heresie or Schism not what-ever the peevishness or interest or prejudice of a domineering party will be pleased to call so under the pretence that they are that One Catholick Church from whose Doctrine be it never so false or corrupt for one to dissent must be Heresie and to separate from their communion be their practices never so Idolatrous Schism No certainly those high sins of Heresie and Schism are not against this or that particular Synagogue be they never so numerous but against that ancient and truly Catholick and Apostolick Church and he that sins against her Unity sins against his Creed which has taught us to say I believe one Catholick and Apostolick Church Which words because they may be abused to the making of the Church look less Catholick and One then it is I shall offer an easie resolution of the sense of them 3. I conceive therefore that the Object of our Belief in this Clause of the Creed are these three Propositions First That the Church of God wherein eternal Salvation is to be had is but One that is to say That a man cannot be saved in any Religion as some wantonly conceit but that there is one onely way of Salvation which is revealed to God's true Church under which all must come before they can be saved Secondly That this Church of God is now a Catholick Church not Topical or National as in the Commonwealth of the Jews but a Church that is by right to spread over the face of the whole Earth and is designed so to doe by Providence as is expressed in several passages of the Prophets From the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same my name shall be great amongst the Gentiles c. as * Chap. 1. Malachie has fore-told And David in the second Psalm Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession Thirdly and lastly That this One Catholick Church is neither to be stretched so wide as to be acknowledged there where the Apostolical Doctrine the Faith and Practice delivered and commanded by Christ or his Apostles is oppugned and contradicted and quite contrary Doctrines and Practices brought in nor to be made so narrow as that such companies of men should not be allowed to be part of this Catholick Church amongst whom notwithstanding the Apostolical Doctrines do obtain and Primitive Practices of the Church set on foot by the Apostles or Christ himself are in use That is to say The adequate Character of this One Catholick Church is that it rejects nothing of the Apostolical Doctrines and imitable Usages which were commanded by Christ or by his Apostles to the Church nor teaches or institutes any thing that is point-blank opposite thereto or to the Word of God to which Christ and his Apostles give testimony That therefore is the true Catholick Church in the whole and in every particular company of it which has for its visible Laws and Usages whereby it self becomes also visible the Laws and Usages of Christ and his Apostles and nothing contradictorious thereunto This I hope will be acknowledged by all men the most easie and genuine sense of this Article of the Christian Creed that the words are capable of 4. And hence I think a man may easily discover what that Heresie is that is justly to be deemed so hainous a sin namely That it is A Dissent from the Catholick Church even in those things that are in it Apostolical For by them alone they being entire and uncontradicted in her does she discover her self to be that One and onely Catholick Church of Christ. And this would be an hainous sin indeed against that Authority she has to instruct and imbue the world with this saving truth I say to dissent from any part of this Apostolick Doctrine out of a spirit of contradiction and self-conceitedness would be Heresie in the most loathsom circumstances that can be imagined And the next degree to this would be the dissenting from the Catholick Church in such things as they generally agree in though they be not expressly any part of the Apostolick Doctrine but in the mean time not plainly dissonant to the Word of God nor to the immutable Notions of humane Understanding And the third and last degree is to dissent from the determinations of a mans own particular National Church in the like circumstances with the former These seem to have something an over-near affinity with what we have defined most properly primarily to be Heresie But considering that even Oecumenical Councils themselves may erre and that Scripture in things necessary to Salvation is sufficiently plain and the Affairs and the Genius of particular Nations exceeding different and changeable and General Councils very hardly and slowly to be congregated I must not be over-hasty to call a Dissent here no not from an Oecumenical Doctrine or Usage by so harsh a denomination as Heretical there being no entrenchment made thereby upon the Apostolical Laws and Doctrines But to dissent from or not to subscribe to the determinations of what Church soever that are plainly repugnant to the Doctrines Apostolical were not onely not Heretical but Heroical especially if the Dissent is likely to beattended with any personal inconveniences to the Dissenter 5. And now for Schism there is much-what
pretends that this Second Epistle was wrote before the First and in Caius his reign you see how distorted forced and incompliable his Exposition is to the Text the same falling out here that has in his other mistimings of Prophecy But to sweep all away at once I say that both these Epistles were wrote about the ninth or tenth year of the reign of Claudius that is so many years after Caius his death and that therefore Grotius makes Paul prophesy of things past That this is the constant tradition of the Church cannot be denied But this is not the first time that Grotius has broke all the bounds of modesty to reach at that which vanishes in his hand in the very grasping of it I know he has some pretences to prove the Second Epistle written before the First that he might phansy it written as early as he pleases but the arguments he draws out do cut his own fingers The first is from the Conclusion of this Second Epistle The Salutation of Paul with mine own hand which is the token in every Epistle So I write viz. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all Amen This written with Paul's own hand is his Mark or Token in every Epistle And yet Grotius would from hence infer that this Epistle was wrote first because there is no such mark in the fore-going Epistle there being those alive amongst the Thessalonians that knew his hand already But I answer First That the fore-going Epistle has this Mark. For does not it end with The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all Amen And this he said before is written with his own hand in every Epistle Wherefore the Mark is equal in both these Epistles Secondly Unless he had sent them some former Epistle with this Mark they could not argue that this was his by it Thirdly He did send an Epistle before this to them as appears from Ch. 2. 15. Therefore brethren stand fast and hold the traditions you have been taught whether by word or our Epistle Wherefore this Mark can be no demonstration of priority for so it had been before that other that really precedes it which is a contradiction And Grotius himself does not deny but the Epistle here mentioned was before this but humoursomly and groundlesly pretends it to be lost rather then to be the First Epistle according to Canon Fourthly This first according to the Canon of the Church is this very Epistle mentioned ch 2. 15. as appears from the subject of this second Chapter which plainly is nothing else but a clearing up his meaning concerning the coming of Christ of which he had wrote in the fore-going Epistle ch 4. 13. to the end and ch 5. 1 2 3. where there are such expressions as if the Resurrection and the last Judgment were near at hand even hanging over their heads And therefore fifthly and lastly Paul does so solicitously give them notice that this Second Epistle is his and that they may be sure of it from his known Mark written as in every of his Epistles with his own hand that they might by his authority be quieted by whose through the mistake of his meaning they were so perplexed and troubled So plainly does this Allegation of Grotius make against himself 9. His second argument for the priority of this Second Epistle is this That the Christians at Thessalonica were so few when S. Paul wrote that they did not make a Church or Presbytery could not make a number sufficient to constitute an Authoritative Church And his reason is Quòd homines non ex regula viventes Apostolus hîc non excommunicari praecepit quod justi coetûs fuerit sed vitari quod jus singulorum est For answer to which I shall onely set down the words of the Apostle ch 3. 14 15. And if any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may be ashamed Yet count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother The words in the Original are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The former occurrs 1 Cor. 5. 11. But now I write unto you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to keep company if any that is called a brother be a fornicator c. with such an one not to eat Which is an explication of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where Grotius his own Note is Hebraeis mos erat cibum communem non sumere cum eo qui erat in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with him that was excommunicated So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies Excommunication and shews that the Christians in Thessalonica were a Church as Paul also styled them when he wrote this Second Epistle to them And for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is there not in the first to the Thessalonians ch 5. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet Grotius acknowledges that there was then a Church in Thessalonica properly so called Whence it is plain that he has no reason at all to change the order of these Epistles and that therefore constant Tradition and the Authority of the Church must take place and that the Second must be the Second Epistle in the Churche's sense that is to say written after the First As appears also from those innate Arguments I produced in answer to the first Reason of Grotius 10. But the First Epistle according to Grotius his own acknowledgement was written after Paul had been at Thessalonica and Paul had not been at Thessalonica before that Synod which was held at Jerusalem by the Apostles as appears from Acts ch 15 16. and the whole Series of the History of the Apostles Nor was this Synod of the Apostles at Jerusalem held till fourteen years after the Conversion of S. Paul as appears Galat 2. 2. where Grotius himself acknowledges that Paul then went up to that meeting Nihil credibilius reperio quà m notari hîc illud ipsum Pauli iter cujus mentio Act. 15. 2. But after this journey to Jerusalem Paul chose Silas that is Sylvanus and Timotheus as appears Act. 15. 40. 16. 1. to be his Companions whose names are prefixed to the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians as well as to the First Wherefore both the Second and the First were written fourteen years 〈◊〉 Paul's Conversion and consequently about the tenth year of Claudius his Reign that is to say about ten years after Caius his death and about eight years after Peter had broke Simon Magus his leggs by making him fall from his fiery Chariot For Grotius out of Jerome and others places that miraculous feat in the second year of Claudius So that he makes Paul prophesy of things past as well by the Application of Simon Magus his story as the story of Caius to this Prediction touching the Man of Sin and Son of Perdition CHAP. XX. 1. The Preeminence of this latter Interpretation above that of Grotius 2. A summary Proposal
long Superstitious Pilgrimages exiled from Wife and Children to salute a dead Statue or Image at Rome Compastella or Jerusalem Whose Soul or Body injured by rash and foolish Vows of either Sacerdotal or Monastick Coelibate or whose Wives or Daughters abused by the Hypocritical Professours of the same Whose bosome broke open and rifled by extorted auricular Confessions to the sport of a Profane or Hypocritical Priest and to the clandestine prejudice of the Penitent Whose minde besotted or distracted by the secure belief or unavoidable dissettledness in incredible and even impossible Opinions Is any modest Matron now dismay'd with that Melancholick conceit that she is big with a Child and Devil at once and that that soul Fiend whose proper place is Hell as often as she is pregnant must kennel in her womb Is any man made such a Sot as to creep into a Monk's Coul to shelter himself from the wrathful presence of God or to kiss the Tail of an Ass to be reconciled to his triumphant Rider For in some place saies that Homily is the Tail of the Ass which our Lord Jesus Christ saâ—…e on to be kissed and offered unto for a Relique breaking out thereupon into this just and zealous Exclamation O wicked impudent and most shameless men the devisers of these things O silly foolish and dastardly Daws and more beastly then the Ass whose tail they kissed that believe such things Where I cannot but again note how fitly these Idolatries and Superstitions are resolved into a dastardliness and cowardliness of Minde and how correspondently to the description of those who are excluded the Holy City in the Apocalyps whose first character is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fearful not in regard of that fear which seizes the faint-hearted in warre but of those affrightments that befool men in Religion and is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men whose spirits are cow'd and intimidated by the power of Superstition But to proceed or rather to break off for it were both tedious and unnecessary to repeat all those Particulars I have insisted on in the Description of this limb of Antichristianism Their crouching to exorcized Crosses Their having the light of Reason extinct or drown'd in Holy-Water or enchanted Oils their eyes dimm'd or dazled with the Histrionical Pomp of the masking Vestments of their Priests and their Faith abused to the imagining a wonder-working virtue in them by their being enchanted or consecrated as also in several other exorcized Materials The unseasonable trouble of Extreme Unction and the nasty besmearing the tender Nose and Ears of the Infant in Baptism The vexatious colluctations betwixt the injured Body and illaqueated Conscience about abstaining from meats The Numerousness and Superstition of the Observations of Saints-days The stripping of the Souls of men of the most comfortable fruits of Christ's Suffering making them believe that his Satisfaction reaches not to the sheltering them from the Punishment of sin but from the Guilt onely and lastly The affrighting them out of their wits by that hideous Figment of an Hellish Purgatory and excoriating their Bodies by barbarous and Pagan-like Processionary Flagellations I demand concerning these and what-ever else looks any thing like either an Antichristian Imposition or Imposture belonging to this Second limme of Antichristianism whether the Care and Fidelity whether the unbiassed Judgement and Piety of our Royal and Reverend Reformers have not quite cast them out as the dirt and dung of Superstition 8. I but you will say we do still celebrate Saints-daies and do still keep Lent Surplices are still worn and the Cross in Baptism still in use But to these I easily and briefly answer For the charge is slight and trivial and cannot reach to the least touch of Antichristianism For as for the Saints-daies in our Church they are neither many whereby the Observation of them may become burthensome nor are they Idolatrously or Superstitiously observed there being no Religious worship done to the Saints no Temple nor Altar dedicated to them nor Prayers directed to them but onely an honourable mention made of their Vertues for our Christian Imitation In which thing our Church is very explicite joyning authority with S. Austin and declaring That neither Temples nor Churches ought to be builded or made for Martyrs or Saints but to God alone and that there ought no Priests to be appointed for Martyr or Saint but to God alone as you may see in the second part of the Homily against Peril of Idolatry And he that reads what order she gives for the keeping of these Festivals in her Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical will but betray his Impiety in gain-saying so Religious a Purpose For her Injunction is that these Daies be kept in hearing the Canon 13. Word of God read and taught in private and publick Prayer in acknowledging their offences to God and amendment of the same and in reconciling themselves charitably to their Neighbours where displeasures have been in oftentimes receiving the Communion of the Body and Bloud of Christ in visiting the poor and sick using all godly and sober Conversation And now concerning Lent that our Church puts a snare upon no mans Conscience in difference of Meats is plain out of what we meet with in that eminent Prelate Bishop Jewel in The Defence of his Apology a Part 2. Ch 14. divis 1. Book appointed for every Church by publick Authority where he cites that excellent saying out of Tertullian Deus ventre non colitur nec cibis quos Dominus dicit perire in secessu naturali lege purgari Nam qui per escas Dominum colit prope est ut Dominum habeat ventrem suum He whose Religion is so carnal is but a degree above them that make their Belly their God And in the same Page he speaks from himself and in plain English We weigh not the choice of Fish or Flesh but the burthen of the Minde and the snare of the Conscience The Church herself also doth declare in the Homily of Fasting That there is no Holiness at all in Meats and that it is in itself indifferent whether Lent be kept by eating of Fish or by abstaining from all manner of food till night and then to eat without any choice or difference of meats and that keeping of Lent by abstinence from Flesh is grounded merely upon Policy and thereupon appointed by the Magistrate for the increasing of Victuals Beeves and Sheep for the greater plenty and better provision for the Poor and furnishing out our Navies and for the enriching the Sea-coast-Towns by Fishing and making them more populous and better provided for to repulse the Enemy at any Invasion Which is a very honest and solid account for our celebrating Lent by abstinence from Flesh-meats and feedding on Fish and devoid of all Popery and Superstition And thirdly touching the Pompous Histrionical Vestments of Priests no man can condemn them more heartily or deride them more wittily then our Church
man upon earth may dispense with one tittle thereof But for authorizing Interpretations Opinions and the Rites and Ceremonies of Religious Worship either this is in a Christian Prince's power and not in the Priest's or else his Kingdome and safe administration thereof is not in his power For all these things according to the Eternal Law of Nature and of Reason are to be in the hand of him that is Supreme Governour and it is a contradiction to his Supremacy if it be not so For he that holds the rains of the Souls of men rules their whole Persons and the strongest rains are those of Religion And therefore if any Power distinct from the Kingly pretend to the right of ordering the affairs of Religion farther then his allowance and liking that Power is really the King and the King himself a precarious Power to be blown about and blown out of his Throne by the false breath of these pretenders to the Headship of the Church as often and as violently as they please Wherefore as the plain and confessed Law of Christ is immutable so what is doubtful and merely Ritual is to have its interpretation change or continuance at the judgement and discretion of every Christian Prince who has most justly and necessarily the power of accommodating such things to the peace composure and prosperity of his Kingdome Nor have the Ecclesiastick Powers any right in an immutable and essential manner to affix to the Christian Religion any thing that is not expresly and declaredly comprised therein according to the Divine Authority of the Scriptures For it is an high wrong to that Religion which is to be Everlasting and Universal to be bound and fettered with either Rites or Opinions that are but Temporary or Topical or that the Errours and Mistakes of dark Antiquity should become as a Law of the Medes and Persians to more serious and clear-sighted Posterity or what was fetched up upon some transitory emergency that all the importunities and necessities of after-Affairs of the Church or any parts thereof should not be able to conjure it down again for the making the Gospel more freely to run and be glorified 7. And therefore most apertly and judiciously has our Church declared in her Homily of Fasting That God's Church ought not neither may it be tied to any order now made or hereafter to be made and devised by the authority of Man but that it may lawfully for just causes alter change or mitigate those Ecclesiastical Decrees and Orders yea recede wholly from them and break them when they tend either to Superstition or to Impiety when they draw the people from God rather then work any edification in them And in the Book of Articles she again plainly asserts That it is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places Article 34. one or utterly alike for at all times they have been diverse and may be changed according to the diversity of Countries Times and mens manners so that nothing be ordain'd against God's Word And lastly in the close of that Article Every Particular or National Church hath authority to ordain change and abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained onely by Mans authority so that all things be done to edifying Which Affairs of so dispensable and changeable a nature if they could be ordered by a power distinct from and independent of the Supreme Power of any Christian Nation and affecting and relishing a private Interest of their own what wilde commotions and confusions might they cause in a Christian State while they gore and spurre up the Ass to goe that way where he sees the Angel of the Lord with a drawn sword to drive him back Wherefore it is most safe and just that in all preter-Essentials to Christian Religion the Supreme Magistrate in every Christian Nation have the allowing or disapproving of them and that no Rites nor Opinions pass into Decrees but by his Authority that the Priesthood may not be able as they ought to be so faithful to their Prince as not to be willing to teach or decree any thing against his Interest whose Subjects they are or against the Safety Peace and Prosperity of the whole State of which they are but part and therefore ought to have no power to doe any thing independently of the Prince who is the Common Father of his whole Countrey and whose Interest is the good and welfare of all Who therefore must needs be the Head of the Church over all Causes and Persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil as our Church does plainly acknowledge that vital Influence may indifferently flow from him into all the members of his Dominions But this is a point that might have been more seasonably deferr'd till we came to the Antichristian Opposition to the first branch of the Divine Life which is Humility and which the superlative Pride of the Papal Supremacy does so apparently affront But that there is not the least smutt of Antichristianism in Episcopacy itself I have already abundantly evinced 8. Now concerning those Oppositions that be made against Faith the Root of the Divine Life our Church is so plainly free from them as any one may perceive that pleases but to recount them that it is enough merely to intimate so much Onely I cannot let go this seasonable opportunity of triumphing in her behalf in that she is so throughly reformed from that notorious though subtle and slim piece of Antichristianism I mean that Self-ended Policy in those Doctrines and Practices which are so many in the Church of Rome and so profitable and yet Our Heavendirected Reformation has perfectly refined us and cleansed us from them all The consideration whereof must needs make our Mother the Church of England look very lovely and amiable to every ingenuous and discerning eye who cannot but bless God for that due judgment and faithfulness which he put into our Royal and Reverend Reformers and must be a great satisfaction to every honest Priest or Minister of our Church that he neither feeds himself nor the people with Lies after the manner of the Roman Priesthood nor puts one morsell of bread into his mouth filched from the Laiety by fraud and imposture and that as he labours in the Gospel so he lives by the Gospel and not by Figments and cunningly-devised Fables 9. Those Oppositions also against that Divine Grace of Humility which are specified in the ninth tenth and eleventh Chapters that our Church is cleared from them it is more apparent to any one that considers them then that I need give my self the trouble of particularly making it out The Pope's Supremacy is not onely declared against but sworn against as is very just and right And though there be peculiar Habits for Clergy-men yet as I have noted above our Church does professedly declare there is no Holiness in any such things but that they are for decency and distinction And distinction betwixt Laiety and Clergy is as
ancient as Christianity it self and runs through not onely part but all those Symmetral Ages of the Church So manifest is it that there is not left in the frame of our English Church any thing of its own nature Antichristianly opposing that Heavenly and Christian Grace of Humility But if we come to take view of Persons who can help it but that a Lay-man may be proud as well as a Clergy-man and a Presbyter as soon as a Bishop So that all would be Antichristian upon this score 10. And it is as evident that there are none of those Oppositions against that celestiall Grace of Purity noted in the twelfth Chapter to be found in our Church And not so onely but I think we may without vanity provided it be done with humble thankfulness to Almighty God who inspired our Heroical Reformers with such exquisite prudence and judgment glory in that excellent and fit constitution of things in our Universities Where none are tied up to the Vows of Coelibate nor confined to separate and solitary cells to be shewn disguised in some uncouth habit with circumcised crowns and moaped or bloated looks as they are wont to shew strange Animals through their several grates at the Tower but live under more free and manly Laws and ingenuous Exercises without either the lash or hypocrisy of Superstition and are appointed to spend their time in such things as may adorn their Souls with real Knowledge and Vertue where also there is an honest and frugal Provision made for them that list to lay their Bodies as well as bury their Minds in the dust of an Academie Which if either Nature or some Diviner power has fitted them for it they may doe with honour and if they be weary of a single life they may leave the University when they will without the least reproach Which ingenuous and Christian freedom in my judgment is infinitely to be preferred before the Superstitious Slavery and Hypocrisy of the Roman Monasteries where people are caged up and imprisoned like so many Captives of the King of Babylon or so many Bond-men or Bond-women of that Mystical Pharaoh to work out imaginary stuff to fill the Churche's Treasury of Merits which are vended for ready money to encrease the Revenue and to support the Pomp of this magnificent Tyrant of Aegypt 11. Lastly Concerning those most Antichristian Oppositions against that transcendent Grace of Charity Our English Church is so far from opposing it that she is exemplary in it condemning the Doctrines and Practices of that worst of Churches no more then needs must and courting the adverse party to her Communion by all lawfull accommodations and compliances in her publick Service if by any means she may gain some of them over to the Truth Whereas on the other side that imperious Woman on the Seven Hills sits like a Queen to whom every one must bow but she neither bend nor condescend to any thing but stands as stiff as a Marpesian Rock for the maintaining her own Humour and Interest though never so point-blank against the Eternal Laws of God and Right Reason Then for that bloudy and butcherly Decree of killing of Hereticks namely such as hold against the Tenents of that Church though those Tenents of this Church be plainly repugnant to express Scripture How contrary to this Antichristian and Diabolical Spirit is the Doctrine of our Church of England who as I have above noted has declared That no Article 20. Church has authority to decree any thing against Holy Writ nor to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation besides it as you may see in the Book of Articles Nor can they justly frame any excuse for their abominable Cruelty from the Sanguinary Laws of this Realm against Priests and Jesuites For what a vast difference is there when the one suffer as Traitors to their Liege Sovereign the other because they will not be Traitors and Rebels to God and the Lord Jesus Christ for every Idolater is so And no man can submit to the Church of Rome but he must ipso facto submit to Idolatry 12. Verily while I consider what an honest and faithfull Spirit breaths in the Book of Homilies and other Writings of our Church and how exquisitely and perfectly we are set free from all that Imposture and Wickedness that can properly be styled Antichristian by the wise management and solid and sound judgment of our renowned Reformers and how that men of this Integrity of mind and soundness in the Faith were then advanced into Power in Church and State by the Sovereign Authority I cannot withhold from declaring that I do not at all doubt but that the Reformation of our English Church into such a condition as I have briefly represented was one eminent Speciminall Completion of the Prophecy of the rising of the Two Witnesses and of that Voice from Heaven that is to say of the Sovereign Power saying unto them Come up hither For every tittle of the Prophecy is exactly applicable to the Event as any one may find that will try Besides that so notable a providence as the Protestant Reformation is no-where prophesied of if not in that Vision For the Vials are none of them within the Sixth Trumpet as the Vision of the Witnesses is but all within the Seventh as I have above plainly enough proved nor they expressive of the first Reformation in the chief Circumstances thereof nor any Vision else save this of the Resurrection of the Witnesses Nor know I any thing that should make a man hesitate unless it be that the Witnesses are said to be raised up after three Days and an half that is to say three Times and an half whenas our Reformation fell within these Times namely in the last Half of a Time But no Observation can be more trivial then this That the designation of Time divided into parts unless some intimation determinate it to one sense may signify either such a space of time fully finished or else expiring in the last division thereof As if one should say Post triduum mortis resurrexit Christus no man can understand that of Christ's being dead three entire days And so Aliquot post menses may as well be rendred Within some months after as After some months And the Seventy do expresly translate that in Genesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ch. 38. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whenas the genuine sense is within three months cùm tertius mensis ageretur as the Marginal Exposition has it in Vatablus Whence it is evident that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not imply the time fully run out but that the last part thereof must then be current And so it is in this Prophecy our Reformation happening in the last Half-Time or Half-Day So easily is this Scruple removed And therefore the Application so fit to the Event that I doubt not but this Vision was a Prediction of it Which therefore should make our Reformation
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
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