HERESIOGRAPHY OR A description of the Hereticks and Sectaries of these latter times By E. Pagitt The second Edition with some Additions as in the Folio following MATH 15. 17. Beware of false Prophets which come to you in Sheeps 〈◊〉 but inwardly are ravening Wolveâ— 1 TIM 4. 1. Now the Spirit speaketh expresly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing Spirits and doctrines of Divils Speaking lyes in hypocrisie having their conciences seared with a hot Irâ—n Imprimatur J A. CRANFORD LONDON Printed by VV. Wilson for Iohn Marshall and Robert Trot and are to be sold at their shops in Corn-hill over against the Exchange and under the Church of Edmond the King in Lombard street 1645. The names of the Sects viz. Anabaptists page 1. Brownists 48. Semi-separatists 75. Independents 76. Familists 81. Adamites 91. Antinomians 94. Arminians 10. 8 Socinians 122. Antitrinitarians 124. Millenaries 126. Hethringtonians 127. Anti-sabbatarias 128. Traskites 130. Jesuites 132. Muncerians 32. Apostolikes 33. Separatists 33. Catharists Enthusiasts Liberi Hutites Augustinians 34 Bewkeldians Melchiorites Georgians Menonists Pueris Similes Servetians 35 Libertines Denkians Semper orantes Deo-relicti Monasterienses Plunged Anabapt 36. Barrowists 69. Wilkinsonians Johnsonians 70 Ainsworthians Robinsonians Lemarists 71. Castalian familists 89 Grindletonians Familists of the mourtains 90. Of the valleyes Scattered flocke Caps Order c. The Addition The sum â—f a Treatise of Mâ— Johnsons a-against Anabaptists 44 Of the Pelagins 138 Soule-sleepers 139 Denyers of the Scriptures 141 Expecters or Seekers Divorsers 142 Of the Papists 143 The Papists compared with other Hereticks 147 A Postscript 154 An Extract of the Acts of the National Synod of the reformed Churches of France 195 To the Right Honourable Thomas Atkin Lord Major of the Citie of London and to the Right Worshipfull Sir Nicholas Raynton Isaac Penington Lievtenant of the Tower Sir lo Woollaston Iohn Glyn Recorder Sir Iohn Cordell Sir Thomas Soame Sir Iohn Gayr Sir Iacob Garrat Thomas Adams Io warner Iohn Tousâ— Abraham Reynardson Sir George Garraâ— Sir George Clerke Iohn Langham Thâ—mas Andrewes Iohn Foulke Iames Bunce William Gibbs and Richard Chambers Sheriffes Samuel Warner Wâ—lliam Barkely Thomas Foote Iohn Kendricke Thomas Culhâ—m Simon Edmonds Aldermen of the said Citie RIght Honourable and Right Worshipfull whereas I have lately published a Christianography or a description of many great Churches of Christians in the world some of which are for extent larger then the Church of Rome in Europe for time more ancient for succession as continual for faith more sound who believe with us the church of God to be Catholike as it is in the Apostles Creed and not as it is set downe in the new Trent Creed confined to Rome who renounce the Popes Supremacie some of them excommunicating him for a Schismatick and Heretick Who receive the holy Communion in both kindes they all drinke of Christs cup and abhor the Romish decree made contrary to Christs Institution Who make no Images to be worshipped Who doe not acknowledge the figment of Purgatory nor use any Prayers to be delivered from the fained paines thereof Who have their Prayers in their owne tongue and mutter them not in latine as the Romists doe Who forbid not Marriage the prohibiting of which is called by St. Paul the Doctrine of Divells Their Priests may and doe marry Who hold not popish Transubstantiation Who prohibite not Lay-men the reading of the holy Scriptures commanded by Christ himselfe Who doe not joyne with Christs Intercession the suffrages of Saints nor with his Justification the merit of workes nor with the Satisfaction Papall Indulgences These points with some others which the ambition and avarice of the Romists hath lately hatched they renounce with us This worke I purposing to perfect and consummate to the glory of God the great profit of the Church establishing of mens consciences they seeing the unity and agreement of the holy Churches in the world with us Behold suddenly a numerous company of other Hereticks stole in upon us like the locusts Rev. 9. As the unpure Familists who blasphemously pretend to be Godified like God whereas indeed they are divellified like their Father the Divell The illuminated Anabaptists who blasphemously affirme the baptisme of children to be the marke of the Beast and to come from Anti-christ The Donatisticall Brownists who in times past hid themselves in holes now lift up their heads and vent openly their errors infecting our people The Antinomians who teach as I find such a faire and easie way to heaven viz. That a man need not be troubled by the law before faith and that faith is not a going out of himselfe to take hold of Christ but onely a discerning that Christ is his and that after this such a man must see nothing in himselfe have nothing doe nothing need no sorrow nor repentance nor bee pressed to duties need never pray unlesse moved by the Spirit If hee fall into sin never the more disliked of God nor his condition the worse and that hee must abide in the height of comfort though hee fall into grosse sin The novelty of this doctrine takes so well or rather ill that multitudes of simple men and women dance after their Pipes they run after these men as if they were mad crowding the Churches filling their doors and windowes The Independents trouble also our poore Church who pretend that they have a perfect modell of Churchâ— government which Almighty God hath revealed to them which many like better then the government of the Reformed Churches being perswaded that in Independency they may have liberty to doe what they list having no government hoging to be as free as their Teachers who will have none at all The Arminians also an after-brood of the Pellagiant broach their erroneous opinions The Sabbatarians affirm the old Jewish Sabbath to be kept and not the Lords day The Anti-sabbatarians would have no perticular Sabbath at all but every day to bee a sabbath to a Christian man The Traskites who would have us observe many Jewish ceremonies VVe have also Millenaries who affirm that before the day of judgment Christ shal come down from heaven and reign with the Saints upon earth 1000. years in which time they shall destroy all the wicked binding their Kings in chaines and Nobles in linkes of iron VVee have Hetheringtonians who hold a hodg-podg of many heresies troubling our peoples brains VVe have also Socinians who teach that Christ dyed not to satisfie for our sins and also his Incasnation to be repugnant to reason not to be sufficiently proved by Scripâ—ture with many other abhominable errors Wee have Arians who deny the Deity of Christ. We have an Atheistical Sect who affirme that mens soules sleep with their bodies untill the day of Judgement Wee have Atheists too many as among others one was committed by a Justice of Peace who mock'd and jear'd at Christs Incarnation His Father was burnt at Thoelouze in
command the whole kind and therefore the holy Apostles baptized whole Families in which we find none excepâ—ed as St. Peter baptized Cornelius and his Family Acts 10. 48. St. Paul baptized the Jaylor and all that belonged unto him Acts 16. 33. Lydda and her houshold Acts 16. 15. The houshold of Stephanus 1 Cor. 1. 16 c. Again whereas our Lord commandeth Mark 10. Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not How properly can an Infant come unto Christ but by Baptisme Repent they cannot beleeve they cannot as the Anabaptists affirm But by baptisme they may come where the Minister in Christs stend receiveth them and blesseth them and why all this Of such is the Kingdome of God and therefore saith our Lord Forbid them not St. Peter saith Acts 2. 39. The promise is mad to you and your children and therefore be baptized To whom the promise is made and covenant let no man forbid baptisme which is the seal of the Covenant Again the faith of the Parents may warrant their Infants baptisme yea though they have but an hystoricall faith and not a justifying if they can credere ad baptismum though not adsalutem this faith maketh their children capable of baptisme many in the Apostles time were baptized having onely an historicall faith as Sâ—mon Magus and others Moreover these phrases Teach and baptize Repent and beleeve Beleeve be baptized are meant of such as were of riper years and made profession of the Christian faith or else the estate of Christian infants in the Gospel were much worse then the condition of the Israelitish Infants under the Law which to affirme is an horrible indignity offered unto Christ. Last of all most blasphemously they call baptisme of Christian mens children the mark of the Beast and to come from Antichrist and especially from Pope Innocent the third who lived about the yeare 1213. Learned Mr. Calvin affirmeth the baptisme of children to be a holy institution alwayes observed in Christ Church All the reformed Churches use it and it hath ben the practice of the universall Church The Greek Church who yearly excommunicate the Pope to whom St. Paul preched baptize their Infants as Gregory Nazianzen affirmeth And Origen who lived about the yeare 226 about 1000 yeares before Pope Innocent whom the Anabaptists would make the author of pedobaptisme The Russians who received the faith from St. Andrew the Apostle and account the Pope of Rome an Heretick hold a necessity of baptisme and put to death them that neglect and deride baptisme what would they doe with these men who blaspheme it The Abyssiâ—s or Ethiopians who received Christianity from St. Matthew the Apostle doe baptize their Infants viz. their male children at fourty dayes of age and their females at eighty The Armenian Christians to whom St. Barthoiomew preached the faith baptize their Infants Baronius writeth that these Christians had a thousand Bishops The Iacobites who are a numerous sort of Christians doe the same yea they mark their children with a hot Iron with the signe of the crosse alluding to the words of St. Iohn He shall baptize you with the holy Ghost and with fire The Cophtie or native Christians of Egypt to whom Saint Mark preached baptize their Infants these Christians have no communion with the Pope of Rome The Indians to whom St. Thomas brought the faith do the like The Matacasion Christians in Africa affirme children dying without baptisme to be deprived of eternall beatitude The Melchites one of the greatest fort of Christians in the Orient as Boterus affirmeth do the same The Nestorians under the Patriarch of Muzal who as Cardinall Vitriacus affirmeth are more numerons with the Iacobites then the Christians of the Latin and Greek Church doe the same These account the Pope of Rome a reprobate Bishop The Circassians Mengrellians Georgians Maronites Cephalians with all the orthodox Christians in the Universe baptize their Infants Erasmus wondreth what evill Devill entred them who forbid the baptisme of children used by the holy catholick Church for above 1400. years Also the Britains to whom Simon Zelotes preached have alwayes baptized their children and have honourably esteemed of that Sacrament administred to their children until some of these hereticks fled hither out of Germany where they burnt hanged and drowned men of that Sect till they had suppressed them They came into England about the year 1535. and as they could be found we did the like to them burning some and banishing others but since the yeare of our Lord 1640. they have crept out of their holes lift up their heads chalenge our Divines to publick disputations preach in our Churches publish their blasphemies print their bookes seducing multitudes of people And moreover to speak of the curelty of these Sectaries who depriving Infants of baptisme put them all out of the estate of grace We read of Herod the Tyrant who destroyed all the children in Bethlehem and the coasts thereof is not this a far more cruell sentence to set all infants in no better state then Pagans and Infidels without Christ Aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel as strangers from the convenant of promise having no hope and without God in the world Can any sober Christian but think this to be a barbarous cruelty It is not lawfull to take childrens bread and give it to dogs but these conclude children to be no better then dogs The Propher Elisha wept when he lookâ— upon Hazael fore-seeing that â—e should dash the Infants of Israel against the wall Hazael thought himselfe worthy to be so esteemed if ever he should â—â—e any such things And certainly thus to deprive Infants of baptisme is a more cruell act then to dash their bodies against stones Let these men also consider how much they provoke Christs displeasure against themselves he was greatly displeased with his Disciples for forbidding little children to come to him and one day they shall find him much more displeased with them who with great violence oppose the bringing of children to Christ in this holy Sacrament and with wrong injury and slander prosecute the Ministers of Christ who administer this Sacrament to Infants condemning theâ—â—or Ministers of Antichrist yea condemning all Churches â—or Antichristian who will not cast their children out of â—be covenant of grace The Lord open their eyes that they may see their errour and repent of it To conclude the baptismâ— of children is commanded in holy Scripture the holy Apostle baptized whole families the ancient â—athers testifie the same the holy Catholick Church of God alwayes used it Let not the Devill enter into the heart of any man to belâ—â—ve a fâ—â—acick unlearned mechanick man not an Angel from hâ—aven that teacheth a contrary doctrine What greater mischiefe can the Devill and his Imps do then to make a schisme in the Church and rob Almighty God of all his Lambsâ— and cut off so many millions of
is not for a Christian to name their opinions It hope that our Governours will drive these also from our Folds as they doe the Popish Emissaries It is fit for all that are Christians to avoyd all those who speake against Christ and to account them as the enemies of God and corrupters of soules Postscript SInce the publishing of this Heresiography I have been abused above measure not onely with reviling language in the streets as I goe but also in my estate some Sectaries of my Parish denying now to pay me any thing at all affirming that they are to maintaine the Minister of their owne Congregation And that which troubleth them is my defence of Tithes and the Ordinance of Parliament for the true payment of them The non-payment whereof is one of the chiefe inducements that the Brownists and some other Sectaries have to entise the silly people and to poyson them with their other errors which they learnt from the Anabaptists who taught also that Christian men were to pay no rent nor submit to any government for which the German Princes rooted them out of their Dominions Now these latter Hereticks daring not to forbid payment of rent nor Magistracy raile altogether upon the payment of Tithes and the Ordinance for Tithes lately set out by Parliament And some of them in a scandalous Libell among other things affirme Doctor Featlies Divell to be transmigrated into old Ephraim Pagitt would to God I had his learning who is altogether for fat Tithes c. I pray God keep the divell out of them A learned man writeth That if a man should binde himselfe to the Divell to doe his uttermost in supplanting the kingdome of Christ he could not attempt it any way more directly then in driving the Ministers to such straits and difficulties that having not convenient and necessary maintenance they must either give over their callings or devoyd of courage and comfort in sorrow exercise the same by occasion whereof others shall be discouraged from the study of Divinity nothing desirous to buy poverty so deare Such as I have said before doe not onely occidere Presbyteros kill Christs Ministers But also with Julian Presbyterium the very Ministery of Christ. Yea they strike at the root of Gods Service at Christs Priesthood going about to destroy the Ministry and Seminary of Gods Church But for the payment of Tithes which they so blaspheme the Ministers have to them a double right First by speciall reservation of Almighty God Secondly by humane donation For the first men have soules as well as bodies and God hath provided for them both as in the week he allowed six days for the body and sanctified the seventh for the soule so of mens goods he alloweth nine parts for the Body and reserveth a tenth for the soule to maintaine his Ministers to beget them unto God and teach them his knowledge a tenth part he precisely enjoyned that mans covetousnesse should not rob his Ministers which some would doe if the quota pars were lest to their discretions The reservation of Tithe is set downe in expresse words Levit. 27. 30. All the Tithe of the land whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree it is the Lords it is holy to the Lord. All none excepted is noâ— hereafter shall be but now is and hath been As the Sabbath was observed before the fourth Commandement was promulgaâ—â—d Exod. 20. So Tithes were paid long before this reservation to the Levites You may read of Abraham paying Tithe to Melchisedech and of lacob promising to pay them And now God reserving them to himselfe and establishing them upon the Levites so we have a succession of them unto Christ. Now hath not Christ a Priest-hood and that more excellent then Melchisedechs or the Levites Melchisedech blessed Abraham But in our High Priest all the Nations of the earth are blessed The Apostle telleth us as Chrysostome affirmeth that Christ received Tithe from Levi by Abraham father of the faithfull who paying Tithe to Melchisedech shadowed out the faithfull paying Tithe to Christ. For Abraham payed Tithe not to the Priest that offered Leviticall Sacrifices of Bullocks and Goats but of Bread and Wine setting â—orth to what Priests we must pay Tithes to Hath not Christ our High Priest a Priest-hood yes and why should not Tithes bee due to his Priest-hood are his Priests to serve for nothing he telleth us himselfe that the Labouâ—er is worthy of his wages How dare any man deny Tithes to Christs Priest-hood tell me is Christs Priest-hood lesâ—e deserving than Aarons or Melchisedechs or hath he lost his right or hath Christ lesse care of the Ministers of of the Gospell then was taken for the Priests of the Law Saint Paul saith they are worthy of double honour Or hath Christ renounced his right in Tithes no you may read of his expresse allowance of them Matth. 23. 23. It is his Ordinance 1 Cor. 9. 3. Doeâ—ce not know that they which wait at the Altar are partakers with the Altar So hath God ordained that they which preach the Gospell should live of the Gospell God hath ordained saith the Aposâ—le where can we finde aâ—y other ordinaâ—ce The Apostles sâ—â—teth downe the difference between the Leviâ—â—call Priests and Christ Heb. 7. 8. They under the Tabernacle take Tithes of them who dyed but here he taketh them that liveth for ever In which Text he sheweth that Tithes are not Leviticall and a mutable maintenance but the eternall maintenance of Gods service used before the Law when the Priest-hood was in the Father of the Family stated on not first invented sor Levi during the Levites service and when the body came which was Christs and Levi with all his Typicall service was to be abolished then ceased not Tithes in right although in practise they were not paid by Pagans but were transferred to Christ and to his Ministers for their maintenance yea to the Priest-hood of Christ who liveth for ever Let these Sectaries shew any one Sillable in all the holy Scriptures in which Tithes are Ceremoniall as the Sacrifices were which were types and figures of Christs Sacrifice which he offered once for all and in him determined Or where Christ or his Apostles may but seeme to have abrogated abolished or changed them or why the Law for Tithes should be more abolished then the Law for the Sabbath The service of God continuing why should not the maintenance thereof continue To conclude as the Christians so also the Mahometans who are much more numerous than the Christians pay their Tithes with great conscience the detention of them is one of the grand sinnes which the two inquisitor Angels of their Law doe examine soules after death viz. Whether they have payd their Tithes without fraud as witnesseth Ioannes Baptist a Alfaqui who had been a Mahometan Priest The wisedome of Almighty God the practise of all ages the example of Patriarks Abraham and Iacob