back to their Gallaecian Matron whom by many miracles and especially the destroying a Dragon that miserably infested those parts they at last made Convert to the Faith who thereupon commanded her Images to be broken the Altars to be demolished and her own Idol-Temple being cleansed and purged to be dedicated to the honour of S. James by which means Christianity mightily prevailed and triumphed over Idolatry in all those Countries This is the summ of the Account call it Romance or History which I do not desire to impose any further upon the Readers faith than he shall find himself disposed to believe it I add no more than that his Body was afterwards translated from Iria Flavia the place of its first repose to Compostella Though a Learned person will have it to have been but one and the same place and that after the story of S. James had gotten some footing in the belief of men it began to be called ad Jacobum Apostolum thence in after-times Giacomo Postolo which was at last jumbled into Compostella where it were to tire both the Reader and my self to tell him with what solemn veneration and incredible miracles reported to be done here this Apostle's reliques are worshipped at this day Whence Baronius calls it the great store-house of Miracles lying open to the whole World and wisely confesses it one of the best arguments to prove that his Body was translated thither And I should not scruple to be of his mind could I be assured that such Miracles were truly done there The End of the Life of S. James the Great THE LIFE OF S. JOHN S. IOHN Evangelist Having lived to a great age he died at Ephesus 68 years after our Lords Passion and was Buried neere that City Baron St. John put into a Cauldron of boyling oyl Joh. 21.21 22. Peter saith Lord what shall this man do Jesus saith unto him if I will that he carry till I come what is that to thee 1 Pet. 4.12 Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you as though some strange thing hapned to you His kindred and relations whether eminent for Nobility The peculiar favours conferred upon him by our Saviour His lying in our Lord's Bosom His attending at the crucifixion Our Lord 's committing the Blessed Virgin to his care The great intimacy between Him and Peter How long he resided at Jerusalem Asia theEast His being sent prisoner to Rome and being put into a Caldron of boiling Oil by the command of Domitian His banishment into Patmos Transportation what kind of punishment Capitis Diminutio what His writing the Apocalypse there The tradition of his hand wherewith he wrote it being still kept there His return to Ephesus and governing the affairs of that Province His great Age and Death The fancy of his being still alive whence derived by the Ancients The Tradition of his going alive into his Grave and sleeping there Several counterfeits pretending themselves to be S. John His Celibacy whether he was ever married His humility His admirable love and charity and hearty recommending it to the last His charity to mens Souls His endangering himself to reclaim a debauched young man His singular vigilancy against Hereticks and Seducers His publick disowning Cerinthus his company Cerinthus who and what his principles The Heresie of Ebion what Nicolaitans who whence their Original An account of Nicolas the Deacon's separating from his Wife The vile principles and practices of his pretended followers S. John 's writings His Revelation Dionysius Alexandrinus his judgment concerning it and its Author Asserted and proved to be S. John ' s. The ground of doubting what His Gospel when and where written The solemn preparation and causes moving him to undertake it The subject of it sublime and mysterious Admired and cited by Heathen Philosophers It s Translation into Hebrew His first Epistle and the design of it His two other Epistles to whom written and why not admitted of old His stile and way of writing considered The great Encomium given of his writings by the ancient Fathers 1. SAINT John was a Galilean the son of Zebedee and Salome younger Brother to S. James together with whom he was brought up in the Trade of Fishing S. Hierom makes him remarkable upon the account of his Nobility whereby he became acquainted with the High-Priest and resolutely ventured himself amongst the Jews at our Saviour's Trial prevailed to introduce Peter into the Hall was the only Apostle that attended our Lord at his Crucifixion and afterwards durst own his Mother and keep her at his own house But the nobility of his Family and especially that it should be such as to procure him so much respect from persons of the highest rank and quality seems not reconcileable with the meanness of his Father's Trade and the privacy of his fortunes And for his acquaintance with the High-Priest I should rather put it upon some other account especially if it be true what Nicephorus relates That he had lately sold his Estate left by his Father in Galilee to Annas the High-Priest and had therewith purchased a fair house at Jerusalem about Mount Sion whence he became acquainted with him Before his coming to Christ he seems for some time to have been Disciple to John the Baptist being probably that other disciple that was with Andrew when they left the Baptist to follow our Saviour so particularly does he relate all circumstances of that transaction though modestly as in other parts of his Gospel concealing his own name He was at the same time with his Brother called by our Lord both to the Discipleship and Apostolate by far the youngest of all the Apostles as the Ancients generally affirm and his great Age seems to evince living near LXX years after our Saviour's suffering 2. THERE is not much said concerning him in the Sacred story more than what is recorded of him in conjunction with his Brother James which we have already remarked in his life He was peculiarly dear to his Lord and Master being the Disciple whom Jesus loved that is treated with more freedom and familiarity than the rest And indeed he was not only one of the Three whom our Saviour made partakers of the private passages of his life but had some instances of a more particular kindness and favour conferred upon him Witness his lying in our Saviour's bosom at the Paschal Supper it being the custom of those times to lie along at meals upon Couches so that the second lay with his head in the bosom of him that was before him this honourable place was not given to any of the Aged but reserved for our Apostle Nay when Peter was desirous to know which of them our Saviour meant when he told them that one of them should betray him and durst not himself propound the question he made use of S. John whose familiarity with him might best warrant such an enquiry to ask our Lord who
in it from all servile labours and to attend the Duties and Offices of Religion a type of that rest that remains for the People of God Their monthly Festivals were the New-moons wherein they were to blow the Trumpets over their Sacrifices and Oblations and to observe them with great expressions of joy and triumph in a thankful resentment of the blessings which all that Month had been conferred upon them Their Annual Solemnities were either ordinary or extraordinary Ordinary were those that returned every Year whereof the first was the Passover to be celebrated upon the Fourteenth day of the first Month as a Memorial of their great deliverance out of Egypt The second Pentecost called also the Feast of Weeks because just seven Weeks or fifty days after the Passover Instituted it was partly in memory of the promulgation of the Law published at Mount Sinai fifty days after their celebration of the Passover in Egypt partly as a thanksgiving for the in-gathering of their Harvest which usually was fully brought in about this time The third was the Feast of Tabernacles kept upon the Fifteenth day of the Seventh Month for the space of Seven days together at which time they dwelt in Booths made of green Boughs as a memento of that time when they sojourn'd in Tents and Tabernacles in the Wilderness and a sensible demonstration of the transitory duration of the present life that the Earthly house of our Tabernacle must be dissolved and that therefore we should secure a building of God an house not made with hands Eternal in the Heavens These were the three great solemnities wherein all the Males were obliged to appear at Jerusalem and to present themselves and their offerings in testimony of their homage and devotion unto God Besides which they had some of lesser moment such as their Feast of Trumpets and that of Expiation The Annual Festivals extraordinary were those that recurr'd but once in the periodical return of several years such was the Sabbatical year wherein the Land was to lye fallow and to rest from ploughing and sowing and all manner of cultivation and this was to be every seventh year typifying the Eternal Sabbatism in Heaven where good men shall rest from their labours and their works shall follow them But the great Sabbatical year of all was that of Jubilee which returned at the end of seven ordinary Sabbatick years that is every fiftieth year the approach whereof was proclaimed by the sound of Trumpets in it servants were released all debts discharged and mortgaged Estates reverted to their proper heirs And how evidently did this shadow out the state of the Gospel and our Lord 's being sent to preach good tidings to the meek to bind up the broken-hearted to preach liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord that they might lift up their heads because their redemption drew nigh 8. LASTLY They had Laws concerning the persons by whom their publick worship was administred and here there was appointed an High-Priest who had his proper offices and rules of duty his peculiar attire and consecration ordinary Priests whose business was to instruct the people to Pray and offer sacrifice to bless the Congregation and judge in cases of Leprosie and such like at their Ordination they were to be chosen before all the people to be sprinkled with the water of Expiation their Hair shaved and their Bodies washed afterwards anointed and sacrifices to be offered for them and then they might enter upon their Priestly ministrations Next to these were the Levites who were to assist the Priests in preparing the Sacrifices to bear the Tabernacle while it lasted and lay up its Vessels and Utensils to purifie and cleanse the Vessels and Instruments to guard the Courts and Chambers of the Temple to watch weekly in the Temple by their turns to sing and celebrate the praises of God with Hymns and Musical Instruments and to joyn with the Priests in judging and determining Ceremonial causes they were not to be taken into the full discharge of their Function till the thirtieth nor to be kept at it beyond the fiftieth year of their age God mercifully thinking it fit to give them then a Writ of Ease whose strength might be presumed sufficiently impaired by truckling for so many years under such toilsom and laborious ministrations Though the Levitical Priests were types of Christ yet it was the High-Priest who did eminently typifie him and that in the unity and singularity of his office for though many Orders and Courses of inferior Priests and Ministers yet was there but one High-Priest There is one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus in the qualifications necessary to his election as to place he was to be taken out of the Tribe of Levi as to his person which was to be every ways perfect and comely and the manner of his Consecration in his singular capacity that he alone might enter into the holy of holies which he did once every year upon the great day of Expiation with a mighty pomp and train of Ceremonies killing Sacrifices burning Incense sprinkling the bloud of the Sacrifice before and upon the Mercy-seat going within the veil and making an attonement within the holy place All which immediately referred to Christ who by the sacrifice of himself and through the veil of his own flesh entred not into the holy place made with hands but into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us All which might be represented more at large but that I intend not a discourse about these matters 9. BESIDES the Laws which we have hitherto enumerated there were several other particular Commands Ritual Constitutions about Meats and Drinks and other parts of humane life Such was the difference they were to make between the Creatures some to be clean and others unclean such were several sorts of pollution and uncleanness which were not in their own nature sins but Ceremonial defilements of this kind were several provisions about Apparel Diet and the ordering Family-affairs all evidently of a Ceremonial aspect but too long to be insisted on in this place The main design of this Ceremonial Law was to point out to us the Evangelical state The Law had only a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things themselves the body was Christ and therefore though the Law came by Moses yet grace and truth the truth of all those types and figures came by Christ. It was time for Moses to resign the Chair when once this great Prophet was come into the World Ceremonies could no longer be of use when once the substance was at hand well may the Stars disappear at the rising of the Sun the Messiah being cut off should cause the Sacrifice and the Oblation to cease At the time of Christ's death the veil of the Temple from top to
honourably celebrated through the World infinitely beyond the glories of Alexander and the triumphs of a Pompey or a Caesar. But then how this should be done out of those few imperfect Memoires that have escaped the general shipwrack of Church-Antiquities and much more by so rude and unskilful a hand as mine appear'd I confess a very difficult task and next door to impossible These with some other considerations made me a long time obstinately resolve against it till being overcome by importunity I yielded to do it as I was able and as the nature of the thing would bear THAT which I primarily designed to my self was to draw down the History of the New Testament especially from our Lord's death to enquire into the first Originals and Plantations of the Christian Church by the Ministry of the Apostles the success of their Doctrine the power and conviction of their Miracles their infinite Labours and hardships and the dreadful Sufferings which they underwent to consider in what instances of Piety and Virtue they ministred to our imitation and served the purposes of Religion and an Holy Life Indeed the accounts that are left us of these things are very short and inconsiderable sufficient possibly to excite the appetite not to allay the hunger of an importunate Enquirer into these matters A consideration that might give us just occasion to lament the irreparable loss of those Primitive Records which the injury of time hath deprived us of the substance being gone and little left us but the shell and carcass Had we the Writings of Papias Bishop of Hierapolis and Scholar says Irenaeus to S. John wherein as himself tells us he set down what he had learnt from those who had familiarly conversed with the Apostles the sayings and discourses of Andrew and Peter of Philip and Thomas c. Had we the Ancient Commentaries of Hegesippus Clemens Alexandrinus his Institutions Africanus his Chronography and some others the Reader might expect more intire and particular relations But alas these are long since perish'd and little besides the names of them transmitted to us Nor should we have had most of that little that is left us had not the commendable care and industry of Eusebius preserv'd it to us And if he complain'd in his time when those Writings were extant that towards the composing of his History he had only some few particular accounts here and there left by the Ancients of their times what cause have we to complain when even those little portions have been ravish'd from us So that he that would build a work of this nature must look upon himself as condemn'd to a kind of Egyptian Task to make Brick without Straw at least to pick it up where he can find it though after all it amounts to a very slender parcel Which as it greatly hinders the beauty and completeness of the structure so does it exceedingly multiply the labour and difficulty For by this means I have been forc'd to gather up those little fragments of Antiquity that lie dispers'd in the Writings of the Ancients thrown some into this corner and others into that which I have at length put together like the pieces of a broken Statue that it might have at least some kind of resemblance of the person whom it designs to represent HAD I thought good to have traded in idle and frivolous Authors Abdias Babylonius the Passions of Peter and Paul Joachim Perionius Peter de Natalibus and such like I might have presented the Reader with a larger not a better account But besides the averseness of my nature to falshoods and trifles especially in matters wherein the honour of the Christian Religion is concern'd I knew the World to be wiser at this time of day than to be imposed upon by Pious frauds and cheated with Ecclesiastical Romances and Legendary Reports For this reason I have more fully and particularly insisted upon the Lives of the two first Apostles so great a part of them being secur'd by an unquestionable Authority and have presented the larger portions of the Sacred History many times to very minute circumstances of action And I presume the wise and judicious Reader will not blame me for chusing rather to enlarge upon a story which I knew to be infallibly true than to treat him with those which there was cause enough to conclude to be certainly false THE Reader will easily discern that the Authors I make use of are not all of the same rank and size Some of them are Divinely inspir'd whose Authority is Sacred and their reports rendred not only credible but unquestionable by that infallible and unerring Spirit that presided over them Others such of whose faith and testimony especially in matters of fact there is no just cause to doubt I mean the genuine Writings of the Ancient Fathers or those which though unduly assign'd to this or that particular Father are yet generally allowed to be Ancient and their credit not to be despis'd because their proper Parent is not certainly known Next these come the Writers of the middle and later Ages of the Church who though below the former in point of credit have yet some particular advantages that recommend them to us Such I account Symeon Metaphrastes Nicephorus Callistus the Menaea and Menologies of the Greek Church c. wherein though we meet with many vain and improbable stories yet may we also rationally expect some real and substantial accounts of things especially seeing they had the advantage of many Ancient and Ecclesiastick Writings extant in their times which to us are utterly lost Though even these too I have never called in but in the want of more Ancient and Authentick Writers As for others if any passages occur either in themselves of doubtful and suspected credit or borrowed from spurious and uncertain Authors they are always introduced or dismissed with some kind of censure or remark that the most easie and credulous Reader may know what to trust to and not fear being secretly surpriz'd into a belief of doubtful and fabulous reports And now after all I am sufficiently sensible how lank and thin this Account is nor can the Reader be less satisfied with it than I am my self and I have only this piece of justice and charity to beg of him that he would suspend his censure till he has taken a little pains to enquire into the state of the Times and Things I Write of And then however he may challenge my prudence in undertaking it he will not I hope see reason to charge me with want of care and faithfulness in the pursuance of it THE CONTENTS THE Introduction The Life of S. Peter SECT I. Of S. Peter from his Birth till his first coming to Christ. Page 1. SECT II. Of S. Peter from his first coming to Christ till his being call'd to be a Disciple 7. SECT III. Of S. Peter from his Election to the Apostolate till the confession which he made of Christ. 10. SECT
earnestly exhorting her and calling her by her Name bad her to be mindful of our Lord. Such says he was the Wedlock of that blessed couple and the perfect disposition and agreement in those things that were dearest to them By her he is said to have had a Daughter called Petronilla Metaphrastes adds a Son how truly I know not This only is certain that Clemens of Alexandria reckons Peter for one of the Apostles that was Married and had Children And surely he who was so good a man and so good an Apostle was as good in the relation both of an Husband and a Father SECT XI An Enquiry into S. Peter's going to Rome Peter ' 's being at Rome granted in general The account of it given by Baronius and the Writers of that Church rejected and disproved No foundation for it in the History of the Apostolick Acts. No mention of it in S. Paul ' s Epistle to the Romans No news of his being there at S. Paul ' s coming to Rome nor intimation of any such thing in the several Epistles which S. Paul wrote from thence S. Peter ' s first being at Rome inconsistent with the time of the Apostolical Synod at Jerusalem And with an Ancient Tradition that the Apostles were commanded to stay Twelve years in Judaea after Christ ' s death A passage out of Clemens Alexandrinus noted and corrected to that purpose Difference among the Writers of the Romish Church in their Accounts Peter 's being XXV years Bishop of Rome no solid foundation for it in Antiquity The Planting and Governing that Church equally attributed to Peter and Paul S. Peter when probably came to Rome Different dates of his Martyrdom assigned by the Ancients A probable account given of it 1. THOUGH it be not my purpose to swim against the Stream and Current of Antiquity in denying S. Peter to have been at Rome an Assertion easilier perplexed and entangled than confuted and disproved yet may we grant the main without doing any great service to that Church there being evidence enough to every impartial and considering man to spoil that smooth and plausible Scheme of Times which Baronius and the Writers of that Church have drawn with so much care and diligence And in order to this we shall first enquire whether that Account which Bellarmine and Baronius give us of Peter's being at Rome be tolerably reconcileable with the History of the Apostles Acts recorded by S. Luke which will be best done by briefly presenting S. Peter's Acts in their just Series and order of Time and then seeing what countenance and foundation their Account can receive from hence 2. AFTER our Lord's Ascension we find Peter for the first year at least staying with the rest of the Apostles at Jerusalem In the next year he was sent together with S. John by the command of the Apostles to Samaria to preach the Gospel to that City and the parts about it About three years after S. Paul meets him at Jerusalem with whom he staid some time In the two following years he visited the late planted Churches preached at Lydda and Joppa where having tarried many days he thence removed to Caesarea where he preached to and baptized Cornelius and his Family Whence after some time he returned to Jerusalem where he probably staid till cast into prison by Herod and delivered by the Angel After which we hear no more of him till three or four years after we find him in the Council at Jerusalem After which he had the contest with S. Paul at Antioch And thence forward the Sacred Story is altogether silent in this matter So that in all this time we find not the least footstep of any intimation that he went to Rome This Baronius well foresaw and therefore once and again inserts this caution that S. Luke did not design to record all the Apostles Acts and that he has omitted many things which were done by Peter Which surely no man ever intended to deny But then that he should omit a matter of such vast moment and importance to the whole Christian World that not one syllable should be said of a Church planted by Peter at Rome a Church that was to be Paramount the seat of all Spiritual Power and Infallibility and to which all other Churches were to vail and do homage nay that he should not so much as mention that ever he was there and yet all this said to be done within the time he designed to write of is by no means reasonable to suppose Especially considering that S. Luke records many of his journeys and travels and his preaching at several places of far less consequence and concernment Nor let this be thought the worse of because a negative Argument since it carries so much rational evidence along with it that any man who is not plainly byassed by Interest will be satisfied with it 3. BUT let us proceed a little further to enquire whether we can meet any probable footsteps afterwards About the year Fifty three towards the end of Claudius his Reign S. Paul is thought to have writ his Epistle to the Church at Rome wherein he spends the greatest part of one Chapter in saluting particular persons that were there amongst whom it might reasonably have been expected that S. Peter should have had the first place And supposing with Baronius that Peter at this time might be absent from the City preaching the Gospel in some parts in the West yet we are not sure that S. Paul knew of this and if he did it is strange that in so large an Epistle wherein he had occasion enough there should be neither direct nor indirect mention of him or of any Church there founded by him Nay S. Paul himself intimates what an earnest desire he had to come thither that he might impart unto them some spiritual gifts to the end they might be established in the Faith for which there could have been no such apparent cause had Peter been there so lately and so long before him Well S. Paul himself not many years after is sent to Rome Ann. Chr. LVI or as Eusebius LVII though Baronius makes it two years after about the second year of Nero when he comes thither does he go to sojourn with Peter as 't is likely he would had he been there No but dwelt by himself in his own hired house No sooner was he come but he called the chief of the Jews together acquainted them with the cause and end of his coming explains the doctrine of Christianity which when they rejected he tells them That henceforth the Salvation of God was sent unto the Gentiles who would hear it to whom he would now address himself Which seems to intimate that however some few of the Gentiles might have been brought over yet that no such harvest had been made before his coming as might reasonably have been expected from S. Peter's having been so many years amongst them Within
that if any vented Epistles under his name the cheat might be discovered by the Apostles own hand not being to them and this brings me to the last consideration that shall conclude this Chapter 11. THAT there were some even in the most early Ages of Christianity who took upon them for what ends I stand not now to enquire to write Books and publish them under the name of some Apostle is notoriously known to any though but never so little conversant in Church-Antiquities Herein S. Paul had his part and share several supposititious Writings being fathered and thrust upon him We find a Gospel ascribed by some of the Ancients to him which surely arose from no other cause than that in some of his Epistles he makes mention of my Gospel Which as S. Hierom observes can be meant of no other than the Gospel of S. Luke his constant Attendant and from whom he chiefly derived his intelligence If he wrote another Epistle to the Corinthians precedent to those two extant at this Day as he seems to imply in a passage in his first Epistle I have wrote unto you in an Epistle not to keep company c. a passage not conveniently appliable to any part either in that or the other Epistle nay a Verse or two after the first Epistle is directly opposed to it all that can be said in the case is that it long since perished the Divine providence not seeing it necessary to be preserved for the service of the Church Frequent mention there is also of an Epistle of his to the Laodiceans grounded upon a mistaken passage in the Epistle to the Colossians but besides that the Apostle does not there speak of an Epistle written to the Laodiceans but of one from them Tertullian tells us that by the Epistle to the Laodiceans is meant that to the Ephesians and that Marcion the Heretick was the first that changed the title and therefore in his enumeration of S. Paul's Epistles he omits that to the Ephesians for no other reason doubtless but that according to Marcion's opinion he had reckoned it up under the title of that to the Laodiceans Which yet is more clear if we consider that Epiphanius citing a place quoted by Marcion out of the Epistle to the Laodiceans it is in the very same words found in that to the Ephesians at this Day However such an Epistle is still extant forged no doubt before S. Hierom's time who tells us that it was read by some but yet exploded and rejected by all Besides these there was his Revelation call'd also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or his Ascension grounded on his ecstasie or rapture into Heaven first forged by the Cainian Hereticks and in great use and estimation among the Gnosticks Sozomen tells us that this Apocalypse was owned by none of the Ancients though much commended by some Monks in his time and he further adds that in the time of the Emperor Theodosius it was said to have been found in an under-ground Chest of Marble in S. Paul's house at Tarsus and that by a particular revelation A story which upon enquiry he found to be as false as the Book it self was forged and spurious The Acts of S. Paul are mentioned both by Origen and Eusebius but not as Writings of approved and unquestionable credit and authority The Epistles that are said to have passed between S. Paul and Seneca how early soever they started in the Church yet the falshood and fabulousness of them is now too notoriously known to need any further account or description of them SECT IX The principal Controversies that exercised the Church in his time Simon Magus the Father of Hereticks The wretched principles and practices of him and his followers Their asserting Angel-worship and how countermin'd by S. Paul Their holding it lawful to sacrifice to Idols and abjure the Faith in times of persecution discovered and opposed by S. Paul Their maintaining an universal licence to sin Their manners and opinions herein described by S. Paul in his Epistles The great controversie of those times about the obligation of the Law of Moses upon the Gentile Converts The Original of it whence The mighty veneration which the Jews had for the Law of Moses The true state of the Controversie what The Determination made in it by the Apostolick Synod at Jerusalem Meats offered to Idols what Abstinence from Bloud why enjoyned of old Things strangled why forbidden Fornication commonly practised and accounted lawful among the Gentiles The hire of the Harlot what How dedicated to their Deities among the Heathens The main passages in S. Paul 's Epistles concerning Justification and Salvation shewed to have respect to this Controversie What meant by Law and what by Faith in S. Paul 's Epistles The Persons whom he has to deal with in this Controversie who The Jew 's strange doting upon Circumcision The way and manner of the Apostles Reasoning in this Controversie considered His chief Arguments shewed immediately to respect the case of the Jewish and Gentile Converts No other controversie in those times which his discourses could refer to Two Consectaries from this Discourse I. That works of Evangelical Obedience are not opposed to Faith in Justification What meant by works of Evangelical Obedience This method of Justification excludes boasting and entirely gives the glory to God II. That the doctrines of S. Paul and S. James about Justification are fairly consistent with each other These two Apostles shewed to pursue the same design S. James his excellent Reasonings to that purpose 1. THOUGH our Lord and his Apostles delivered the Christian Religion especially as to the main and essential parts of it in words as plain as words could express it yet were there men of perverse and corrupt minds and reprobate concerning the Faith who from different causes some ignorantly or wilfully mistaking the doctrines of Christianity others to serve ill purposes and designs began to introduce errors and unsound opinions into the Church and to debauch the minds of men from the simplicity of the Gospel hereby disquieting the thoughts and alienating the affections of men and disturbing the peace and order of the Church The first Ring-leader of this Heretical crue was Simon Magus who not being able to attain his ends of the Apostles by getting a power to confer miraculous gifts whereby he designed to greaten and enrich himself resolved to be revenged of them scattering the most poisonous tares among the good wheat that they had sown bringing in the most pernicious principles and as the natural consequent of that patronizing the most debauched villainous practices and this under a pretence of still being Christians To enumerate the several Dogmata and damnable Heresies first broached by Simon and then vented and propagated by his disciples and followers who though passing under different Titles yet all centred at last in the name of Gnosticks a term which we shall sometimes use for