SOME CURSORY REFLEXIONS Impartially made upon Mr. Richard Baxter His WAY of Writing Notes ON THE APOCALYPSE And upon his Advertisement and Postscript BY PHILILICRINES PARRHESIASTES Dan. 12. 10. Many shall be purified and made white and tried But the wicked shall do wickedly and none of the wicked shall understand but the wise shall understand LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in St. Paul's Church-yard 1685. THE PREFACE READER THat thou mayst not misinterpret what is well-meant nor think me over-severe in exposing the odd and indeed impious Carriage of R. B. in his manner of demeaning himself in his Pretence of Writing Notes upon the Apocalypse I will give thee a brief Account what moved me to make these Reflexions on this surprising Performance of his I did deeply resent the gross Injury he has done First To the Spirit of Prophecy in the Holy Scriptures and consequently to the whole Church of Christ to which it is to be a Guide and is indeed a marvellous strong Bulwark against Atheism and Infidelity Secondly and more peculiarly To the Church of England And lastly To that Industrious and Faithful Member thereof Dr. H. M. who has so sincerely laid out his Pains having no Bribe in his Hand from any Party but the meer Moments of Naked Truth to sway him in explaining the Visions of the Apocalypse and Daniel and that as for the good of the Church in general so particularly for the just Interest of the Church and Crown of England as well against all Fanatical Fury as against all the Finenesses of Rome And what an enormous Outrage the first is we may easily conceive from hence That by the same slight that he slurs the Intelligibleness of the Visions of the Apocalypse all the Prophecies of the Scripture may be slurred and made useless as having no certain Sense at all because Men have presumed to expound them differently Which plainly is to destroy the main Strength and Glory of our Christian Religion and that Support which is in such an extraordinary way peculiar to it no Religion in the World being so confirmed by Completion of Prophecies as it is Which Completion of Prophecies does not onely strengthen the Christian Religion but is an assured sign of the Truth of Natural Religion also That there is a God and Providence and Spirits or Angels and an Immortal Spirit in Man and a Life to come All which Advantages R. B. gives away in an unaccountable Freak of Scepticism and an affected professing after an operose proposing of the diverse Interpretations of Writers on the Apocalypse that he knows not which is true The sense of which dealing to any man that is not shallow witted must needs seem an Ostentation of his singular Nasuteness that when others are such Fools as to think they understand these Prophecies he discerns that they are plainly Unintelligible and so in an overweening conceit of his own Perspicacity and Discernment proudly tramples upon all the Learned and Pious Endeavours of such as have attempted to find out the genuine sense of these Holy Oracles of God Would any one take the pains so operosely to set out his own Ignorance to the World in good earnest but that his blind and haughty Heart did project therein an esteem to himself of a peculiar Knowledge viz. That nothing at all is to be known in Scripture Prophecies His ineptness to which Studies it 's likely made the doughty Rationalist divert to other Theories and employ his fiery unquiet Spirits to the framing a Method of Theology and so to entertain young Students with a Sack stuffed full of an infinite Number of dry Chips sine succo sanguine unless besprinkled here and there with the Blood of Priscian ' s broken Pate But this is something extra oleas Let us pass to the second Injury propounded And this is against the Church of England whom he could not but know to be an express Declarer against the Idolatries of the Church of Rome as is plain out of the Homilies and to apply some Visions of the Apocalypse to the Case Which is very rationally done it seeming incredible if not impossible that that Book of Visions setting out the State of the Christian Church from its Beginning to the End of the World should omit the Visionary noting of such an huge Degeneracy in the Church as Idolatry and bloody Persecution for not submitting thereto Whence our Church of England observing Visions so easily and naturally interpretable that way could not miss of applying them to the Present State of Things and declare the Church of Rome Babylon out of which God's People are warned to depart Which Voice is a most plain and solid Iustification for our separating from the Church of Rome Now for R. B. to make it such an heinous thing to interpret any of the Apocalyptick Visions against such gross Enormities of the Roman Church and to make such a Tragical deal ado about it as if it were such an Inflamer of the Rage of the Romanists that they would destroy all those that presumed to make any such Application this Demeanour of his seemed to me to proceed out of a malicious Pique against our Church as if he would cry Hallow to the Pontificians to worry the Church of England and devour it Which as it is a salvage Injury to our Church so it is a gross Indignity offered to our English Romanists who are Men of a more humane spirit and not prone to take any more offence at our Churches conceiving their Church to be prefigured by the City of Babylon than we do take at their deeming us Hereticks which is as Criminal a Reproach as can be charged upon any Person But though these be the Terms of Theological Disputants on each Side yet Neighbourliness and Good-nature washes them out of the remembrance of both And the fair Interpretation of these two severe Terms Babylon and Heretick may be onely this That the one Party is resolved never to return into Babylon out of which God's People are bid to depart nor the other to forsake Rome for danger of becoming Hereticks till God shall give better Light But in the mean time though they cannot join in a Religious Society nothing hinders but that they may accord in common Offices of Civility and Humanity and of hearty Neighbourliness one towards another And now thirdly and lastly For the Injury done to Dr. H. M. besides what he suffers in common with the Church of England there seems a particular Spite vented against him in R. B. his demeaning himself thus in what he has writ in reference to the Apocalypse he moving a many sleeveless Questions unseasonably to ensnare him and entangle him When as there is none of them but if wilful blindness and natural ineptitude to these things be no bar R. B. might fully satisfie himself out of what the Doctor has already written But that which R. B. seems to desire to perstringe most in the
the most useful Visions and indeed all in a manner casting away also the Prophetical Sense of the Seven Churches into a meer sapless and useless Unintelligibleness Let him scape the Plagues as well as he can he will certainly incur the loss of all the precious Promises recorded in this Book To the 4 fourth I answer It is meer Sophistry and such as whereby all Philosophy and Religion would be taken out of the World There is the Christian Religion the Jewish the Mahometan and Pagan Here any Three disagree from the Fourth therefore they are all Uncertain or False But besides this there is a general Consent of Protestant Interpreters touching those Visions that concern the Corruptions of the Papacy viz. That they are concerned therein though some expedite the matter better than others And Grotius his way and Dr. Hammond's is meer Novelty and they may be both excused for so strangely straining their Wits for such Glosses For Passion edges the Invention Hatred as well as Love And Grotius was deeply sensible of what he suffered from the States of Holland and Dr. Hammond more highly and nobly concerned for that Outrage which was done to the most Vertuous and Pious King and best Constituted Church in the World To which Villany and Misery the Vulgar Expositions of the Apocalypse were made use of which frighted the good Doctor into another way But the usual Protestant way well rectified does infinitely more Service to the Crown of England and the Church than such forced incredible Glosses such as R. B. himself is able to confute though he be so staggering that he can stand to nothing To the 5. fifth That men should confess their uncertainty when they think themselves uncertain I easily admit But I do not think it fair that any trouble themselves much less the World with what they are conscious to themselves is a meer Conjecture For this makes but a rumble and babble in the Minds and Mouths of Men and makes them think because they read much and write much they are learned and knowing when there is nothing but Noise and empty Fancy and Ignorance at the bottom Assured Knowledge and useful is the firm Food of the Soul Uncertain Fancies and Opinions are no more than superfluous and noxious Humours in a bloated Body For my part I should make a conscience in abusing the World with such Trash And therefore the Doctor has openly declared especially for the main and most useful Parts of his Exposition of the Apocalypse that to him it is most certain and undoubted Knowledge And his Confidence thereof he hath publickly professed both at the end of his Epilogue annexed to his Exposition of the Apocalypse and also in his Preface to his Exposition of the Visions of Daniel Sect 42. And he hath invited and provoked all that he could to find what Flaws they could in his Expositions And how he hath quit himself against S. E. the Remarker let the World judge and also how well he further makes good what he hath writ by his Paralipomena Prophetica Every one is bound before he publishes a thing to study the Point so throughly that he can discern whether it will amount any further than to a Conjecture or whether it is a firm and solid Truth and then if it be also useful to impart it to the World and the more useful with the greater expression of confidence he being assured of the Truth And the Doctor 's Exposition of the Apocalypse being so apparently useful for the shewing the Excellency of the Constitution of the Church of England it being the most choice part of the Completion of the Prophecy of the Rising of the Witnesses a Church that had the Honour to be so learnedly defended by the Royal Pen of King IAMES the First of Blessed Memory and to be witnessed to by the Sacred Blood of that Glorious Martyr King CHARLES the First the most Pious and Vertuous Prince that ever sway'd Scepter in Christendom a Church renowned for singular Loyalty and Love of Monarchy insomuch that King CHARLES the Second whose late Death we all still lament though we are abundantly comforted in so Gracious a Successor was heard to say That the Church of England-Men were the best Subjects in the World and lastly such a Church as our present Gracious Soveraign King IAMES the Second whom God grant a Long Peaceful and Prosperous Reign over us though for our Sins I fear of the other Religion Himself yet has graciously promised to maintain and support this doing of His Own most Noble and Free Mind which was the onely thing that could with Reason and Equity be desired But thus has His Heroical Spirit found the Opportunity to remonstrate to the World His Right to the Crown not onely by Lineal Descent but Personal Merit I say therefore That the Doctor 's Exposition of the Apocalypse tending to the winning of Men to such a Church as this where not onely Truth and Purity of Worship but Loyalty and Monarchy is secured against Republicanism Blood and Rebellion so that he has disarm'd the Fanaticks from either Pretense of Right or Hints of Time to plot their mischievous Designs he having demonstrated the 1260 days to be passed and the Rising of the Witnesses but a partial Fall of Antichristianism Which things tend naturally as I conceive to the keeping of the Crowns of Monarchs on their Heads and their Heads on their Shoulders And therefore I say the matter being of so mighty moment I hope R. B. will excuse his Novice who yet is somewhat older than himself though he write 70. whom he would tutour and instruct if he cannot be so demure and modest as he would have him to be in matters that are so plain to him and of so mighty importance for the Peace and Security of Princes against the Fanatical Rabble who are as mad against Iesus Christ's Vicegerents as the Iews were against Iesus himself who would have no King but Caesar nor these any Monarchs but a fictitious King Iesus of their own and domineering Presbytery or shattered Anarchy I will not be so uncharitable as to think R. B. seeing the Fanatical sort of Men so disappointed by the Doctor 's Exposition from hatching any Evil against the Church of England and Monarchy out of the Apocalypse has been so peevish as to represent the Book as much as in himself lies utterly unintelligible that because they can breed no Mischief our of it it may prevent its doing any Good The thing looks over-suspiciously on it But I leave that to the search of his own Conscience The latter part of his fifth Particular concerns not the Doctor whose Expositions are onely for the evincing of Truth and the convincing of the Conscience against Killing and Slaying by the Arm of Flesh. He is for no Division as to Civil Society nor for Re-union of Protestants with Papists in Religion till they be better Reformed in Doctrine and Worship But R. B. expresses
Doctor is his great confidence of the Truth of his Interpretations in the most concerning Visions Which R. B. his unacquaintedness with clearness of Conception makes him the more wonder at For certainly those that conceive things clearly and distinctly will be confident of the Truth they discover whether they will or no. But men that have a turbid and tumultuary Fancy and Conception may read much and write much and be certain of nothing when they have done or if they seem to themselves so to be may prove grosly deceived as undoubtedly R. B. was in his making the Soul of Man Fire Which Dream of his and all men dream waking till their pure Intellectual Faculties be sufficiently excited out of the dull Sopour they are held in by this Terrestrial Body proceeded in all likelihood from the furious fiery Complexion of his very Body and over-heated Spirits and I wish the Annotator's Digression that exposes R. B. his Folly in medling with Theories he was not able to master may not have stuck in his Stomach and so instigated him to take this opportunity of Revenge But as for the Doctor 's Confidence and his profession thereof in Matters that tend so much to the good of Mankind to the good of the Church in general and more particularly to the good of the Church and Monarchy of England I shall sufficiently consider that and the Reasons thereof in my Reflexions and my Preface has run out further already than I intended But by this time I hope I have declared enough to prepare thee with candour to peruse what I have cursorily writ for the justly exposing the rude and vile Dealings of R. B. with the Prophecies of Scripture with the Church of England and particularly with the Doctor a faithful and dutiful Son thereof that what of Mirth or Satyr or Sharpness of Reproof thou meetest with thou mayst be the less surpris'd thereby but interpret all things candidly And if thou chance to be pleased I freely tell thee It is more than I my self am who take no pleasure in such Contrasts but Necessity extorted it from him who is an earnest Lover of Truth and Sincerity and a professed Foe to all Hypocrisie and Guile But in the mean time as thou art also a Lover of Truth From his Study in Alethopolis March 28. A. D. 1685. Thy Hearty Friend and Humble Servant Phililicrines Parrhesiastes ERRATA PAg. 3. l. 20. for Corruption read Corruptions Ibid. l. 29. for ch v. 1. r. ch 1. v. 1. p 4. l. 18. for Names r. Pains p. 9. l. 11. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 11. l. 11. for have an r. have made an p. 19 l. 22. for the World r. this World SOME CURSORY REFLEXIONS c. The ARGUMENT The Occasion of Parrhesiastes his Writing these Reflexions R. B. his preferring an affected ignorant Pride before humble and useful Knowledge The Weakness and Ignorance in his Performance on the Apocalypse a flat Contradiction to the Physiognomy of his Picture before his Book Not want of Sagacity but Rashness and Laziness has made R. B. such a puzzled Creature in the Meanings of the Apocalypse An Apologie for R. B. his bringing in several Interpretations on the Apocalypse while ignorant himself where the Truth lies His Discretion in not deciding his Iudgment being so grosly faulty where he does The onely commendable good Stroke in his Notes on the Apocalypse The Disease of Scripturiency in R. B. taken notice of His indigested Reading of many Writers on the Apocalypse and disingenuous Presumption in flurring them before he understood them His unskilful denying the Calling of the Jews A swarm of crawling Difficulties that the Exposition of Dr. H. M. is unconcerned in Some approvable Passages in R. B. his Advertisement His absurd if not impious Humour in acknowledging the Degeneracy of the Church to the height and yet denying it to be predicted in the Apocalypse Seven unapprovable Particulars noted in the said Advertisement An Answer to the said Particulars Certain Passages in his Postscript The Tediousness of his Writings His uncharitable Conceit of the Pontificians as if they bore such an ill mind against the Church of England for the interpreting some part of the Apocalypse of the Degeneracy of their Church That this looks like a mischievously intended Dog-trick in R. B. against our Church His courting of Mr. Gadbury to cast his Nativity by dropping in the mention of David Blundel and Pope Jone in his Postscript Mr. Foulis his Opinion of the Story of that Female Pope That the Church of England ' s Cause depends not on such Trifles A serious Advertisement to R. B. his Followers and to all other Sectaries AFter I had the Opportunity of perusing in MS. Dr. H. More his Paralipomena Prophetica so it hapned that a Friend of mine gave me notice and also procured me the sight of what Mr. Baxter had done upon the Revelations of whom I having heard heretofore what a confident Man he was of the unintelligibleness of that Book though I was assured of the Vanity of that Confidence yet I thought he had studied that Sacred Writing with that Care and Searchingness that he was able to find such Flaws in what Mr. Mede and Dr. More have writ that it might give the Doctor just occasion to enlarge his Paralipomena in clearing such shrewd Difficulties as R. B. was able to propose and rectifie if any thing were amiss in the Doctor 's Interpretations by what R. B. had searched out by his anxious Diligence But things have fallen out quite contrary to my expectation there being nothing either in his Notes on the Revelation or in his Advertisement or his Postscript offered as Difficulties but such as with reading either Mr. Mede or the Doctor if R. B. his Parts be not very low sunk he might easily satisfie himself in But I perceive it was never his Intent to be satisfied in these Studies preferring an affected ignorant Pride before humble and useful Knowledge nay before the Glory of God and a due Acknowledgment of his Care and Providence over his Church in setting out the State thereof from the Beginning of it to the End of the World which is incredible but he should do in this Volumn of Visions the Apocalypse which begins with the Church and reaches to the Day of Judgment according to R. B. his own acknowledgment Wherefore that there should be no Visions touching the great Degeneracy of the Church and of the late Reformation from such gross Corruptions which R. B. himself confesses that they deserved greater Punishments than the Beast and False Prophet mentioned in the Revelations Advertis p. 10. is a thing incredible altogether nay I may say impossible Nor can all the Wars Persecution and Victories of the Church prefigured in this Book be restrained to the Pagan Empire and the Times of the Primitive Christians A thing which
Natural and Genuine Sense of the said Chapter all along and of whom R. B. himself gives this Testimony that he is a person of great Judgment Piety Integrity and Meekness Humility I suppose he means and he should have remembred in the perusing his Notes on this Chapter that God resisteth the Proud and gives Grace and Wisdom to the Humble and Meek The want of which made R. B. impatient of being better instructed by his Iunior But that a Man so operosely and affectedly professing himself for Peace and Love should be content that God should be so irreconcileably in Wrath toward the Nation of the Iews as to leave them in the lurch for ever after so many splendid Predictions and Promises by his Prophets is a sign that there is little in the bottom of that Principle in him but that it is onely an Hypocritical boast thereof But I have run out further on this Theme than I intended R. B. his crude Indigestion of the many Books he has read has filled the fifth sixth seventh eighth and part of the ninth Page of his Advertisement with a number of Objections first bred in his Brain and after scattered on the Paper like so many little crawling Worms or Serpents but such as can sting none but himself or such as are as ignorant or more ignorant than himself They are about the Whore and the Beast and the like and he renders his Reason of producing these pretended Difficulties pag. 9. I mention says he what I have done to tell you why I understand not the Revelations But by this I plainly understand that he has not at all consider'd the Doctor 's Exposition of the Beast and the Whore though he pretends to have read his Books For not one of this numerous Fry or Swarm of Difficulties do in the least enervate his Exposition of the Apocalypse But he raises Difficulties against such Authors or Passages in them as are most obnoxious to delude and seduce the ignorant This seems to me very disingenuous Dealing But now from his tenth Page to the seventeenth there are miscellanious Matters scattered in him of a different Interpretation some better some worse The better sort are such things as these That Popes and Papists that allow all those things which he sets down as the Miscarriages charged on that Church pag. 10. are liable before God to greater Punishments than the Beast and False Prophet mentioned in the Revelations c. And That Love is Christ's Work and Character and Hatred the Devil 's and that we must avoid all unnecessary Division Wrath and Hatred And pag. 11. That we must not call every thing Antichristian that displeaseth us or that the Church of Rome has used or doth use And p. 15. To own Christ and his Gospel and to murder Thousands or Millions in his Name for not obeying the Pope in professing Transubstantiation is incomparably a more aggravated Crime than the most bloody Pagan Persecution was And p. 16. Christ has one diffused visible Church over the World and the Pope made another by Usurpation and Rebellion which was Regnum in Regno as any Rebel might do that could get Strength to set up a Party in Power to call himself King in some part of a Kingdom Such an Antichristianity as this says he I make no doubt but the Papacy became guilty of And I will insert here what he says in his Notes on 2 Thess. 2. I can easily see many and great Points in which Popery is contrary to the Word of God and I am most moved by such Moral Arguments as Dr. H. More useth in his Mystery of Iniquity he means that Part which is called Idea Antichristianismi But to return to his Advertisement pag. 16. where he says Let them prove that Popes have not been Antichrists that can it 's none of my Work But if you are never so sure that it is he indeed pull him not down by calling Truths Duty or Things lawful Antichristian nor by telling men that all Protestants are Idolaters or Antichristian if they forsake not the Communion of all our Parochial Protestant Churches that the Papists may re-enter into them as deserted Garrisons c. Now let any man judge what an Humorist this R. B. is who allowing that such things are found in the Papacy that may well furnish out an Antichrist and that are worse than Pagan as to the matter of Persecution and whose Constitution is such that those that act accordingly deserve greater Punishment than the False Prophet and the Beast mentioned in the Apocalypse and intimates that the Doctor 's Idea of Antichristianism is a right Representation of such Points of Popery as are contrary to the Word of God and yet will not acknowledge this strange Degeneracy of the Church to be prefigured in a Book of Prophecies the Apocalypse which was writ on purpose to set out the State of the Church from the Beginning thereof to the End of the World What can be more incredible As many as acknowledge the gross Superstitions Idolatries and most salvage Persecutions of the Church of Rome and yet deny that they are prefigured in the Apocalypse seem to envy Christ the Glory of so faithfully and punctually predicting the State of his Church and the Church yet unreformed such an excellent Help to her Reformation and the whole Church such a special Corroboration of their Faith in God and Christ and of a Divine Providence that watches over the Affairs of Men and of his Church especially and seem peevishly to obscure that Privilege that Christianity has above all other Religions in the World the Visions of Daniel and the Apocalypse clearly understood being the peculiar Strength and Glory of our Christian Religion And therefore I must consess it has raised my Zeal and Indignation against R. B. his mawkish Notes on the Apocalypse which look more like prophane Buffonry to rogue and abuse so Sacred a Writing than a Business of any edification to the People of God And for R. B. his Care that those things should not be called Antichristian that really were not so that was one of the Ends of the Doctor 's writing his Idea of Antichristianism as himself has declared in the very first Chapter thereof And what he speaks for Christian Love and against unnecessary Division O that Mr. Baxter had had those Sentiments about Forty years ago and that he had been as tender of unnecessary dividing from the so well constituted Church of England as he would now make shew he is from the Church of Rome certainly he might enjoy a more peaceful Conscience and serene Mind But I take no pleasure in raking into such a Sore The things I like not in some of these eight last Pages are such as these 1. He intimates p. 10. That they that interpret Babylon of Rome Papal turn Religion into Love-killing Faction and they that believe such an Interpretation hate and abhor all Romanists merely because they are such nor have