for the more undeniably convincing the guilty and for the clearing the innocent from all such unjust Aspersions The End of the First Part. SYNOPSIS PROPHETICA OR THE SECOND PART OF THE ENQUIRY INTO The Mystery of Iniquity CONTAINING A Compendious Prospect into those PROPHECIES of the Holy Scripture wherein The Reign of Antichrist or The notorious Lapse or Degeneracy of the Church in all those Points comprised in The Idea of Antichristianism is prefigured or foretold Theognis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 DANIEL 4. This matter is by the decree of the Watchers and the demand by the word of the Holy ones LONDON Printed by James Flesher for William Morden Book-seller in Cambridge M DC LXIV The PREFACE to the Reader READER I Am not ignorant under what manifold Prejudice The main Prejudices against this present Discourse this Performance I present thee with may lie it being a Treatise wholy spent upon the Interpretation of Prophecies and chiefly of Daniel and the Apocalyps For it is over-true that some men look upon such Attempts as very vain and frivolous having concluded with themselves aforehand that all Prophecies are inextricable Aenigms and Riddles utterly uncapable of any certain Solution Others whose Exception were more material if it were true have a conceit that the searching into Prophecies especially those of the Apocalyps and of Daniel tends to nothing else but Faction and Confusion to the trouble and dissettlement of the affairs of Christendome and to the hazard of the subversion of States and Kingdoms and the ruine and destruction of the Church of Christ. And haply there may be others who though they neither deem the obscurity of these Prophecies invincible nor the search into them dangerous nay rather of good use and great consequence yet are so well satisfied already concerning these things by those worthily-magnified Elucubrations of Mr Joseph Mede that they may in all likelihood judge any new Essays herein needless and superfluous With these three grand Prejudices I phansy my self incumbred in regard of the Nature of the Subject I write of besides what particular Exceptions men may be prone to make against any parts of the Performance it self But I do not despair of more then fully quitting my self of them all 2. For as touching the first I think there is no man that has the That the Divine Prophecies are not invincibly obscure and that it smells of Blasphemie and Prophaneness to pronounce them so fear of God before his eyes but he would be ashamed to stand to any such Assertion it verging so near upon Prophaneness and Impiety nay upon open Blasphemie against the Spirit of God as if he dictated such things to the holy Prophets as are not sense nor ever to be understood by any reader of them Can there be any thing more Scoptical against Divine Inspiration then this or more undermining the very foundations of Christian Religion But we need not labour very solicitously in confuting an Errour so universally condemned by all parties that are any thing serious in their Religion For the obscurest Books of Prophecy I mean those of the Apocalyps and Daniel are commented upon by Papists Protestants and Neuters whereby they have all set to their hands that the Visions are intelligible But whatsoever Obscurity there may be in them I think my present pains ought to be the more acceptable in that I have contributed so much to a clear and certain way of interpreting them laying down such assured Grounds and Rudiments as if a man carefully observe and find History applicable within the compass of these Laws he can no more fail of the right meaning of a Prophecy then he will of the rendring the true sense of a Latine or Greek Author keeping to the Rules of Grammar and the known Interpretations of Dictionaries Which Laws I having kept to my self so strictly and carefully I dare appeal to all the world if I have not demonstratively made out the sense of such Visions as I have undertaken to expound And for my own part I must freely profess that I found it no such hard thing to understand those Prophecies I have interpreted and am certainly persuaded that neither any such greatness of Parts nor Exuberancy of Learning as Integrity of heart and Unprejudicedness of mind is requisite to the understanding of these things For if that Spirit of life be once revived in a man he will by virtue of his Regeneration or new Birth not onely see with his eyes but feel with his hands the truth of these Mysteries None of the wicked shall understand but the wise Dan. 12. 10. shall understand namely as many as apply themselves to the search of such things who will also in the mean time be so prudent as not to prejudge what they never had yet opportunity carefully to examine 3. Now touching the second Surmise That the search into That the greater danger there is from false unskilful Interpretations of them the greater value there ought to be upon their labour that search out such as are exact and true these Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalyps tends to nothing but tumult and sedition in Christendom it is very rashly and unskilfully spoken I do not deny but that as it is said of Philosophy that a more superficial smattering therein may hazard a mans plunge into Atheism before he be aware so a slighter inspection into these Prophecies may incline some to a Fanatical unsettledness and a dream of a Fifth Monarchy sutable to the carnal Conceitedness of their own temerarious phancy But as a more full draught of Philosophical knowledge will again wash away that Atheistical foulness out of the Soul so I doubt not but a more through search into the meaning of these Divine Predictions will make a man of a more sober mind and root out of his spirit all those vain pretences to Innovation and Schism And therefore the pains that I have spent in a more full and through scrutiny into the meaning of these Prophetick Visions may I hope at least deserve mens Pardon if not challenge their Approbation as their due Reward sith what tends so much to peace and soberness can not unrightfully seem to challenge the reward of a due Approbation from men I say then if by a more careless search there has been framed such meanings of those Prophecies as bear any danger or inconvenience with them there was the greater necessity that some or other upon a more diligent perusal should dive into the true and genuine sense of them that that Divine truth which was revealed for the good of the Church might not by any mistake tend to her detriment and ruine As certainly such a conceit of the manner of introducing a Fifth Monarchy as some have imagined and entertain'd might cause much trouble and mischief in the affairs of Christendome The Foundation of which Errour with the evil Sequels thereof the Seventh Consectary of my Joint-Exposition does
some part That it is not an Absolute Inconditionate Promise to the Whole is plain in that the parties of Christendom differ so much in matters of Belief as they do But if it be to some part where is the nomination of that part in these Promises whereby their Right of Interpreting may appear to the world There is no Particular Church specified there neither Greek nor Roman neither Muscovian nor Armenian nor that of Prester John nor any other Church else Whence it is plain that no Particular Church can have any claim or right to any such privilege 6. Again suppose some Particular Church had a Promise how does it appear that the Promise is Inconditionate to this Particular Church and that it is not upon supposal that they will seriously and sincerely apply their mind to find out the Truth and purifie their Souls from all those worldly and sensual impediments thereto For this spirit of Infallibility cannot lodge in a body that is subject unto sin For Purity of heart and life is the very Light and Crystalline Organ the very Eye of the Soul and to think of a privilege of Infallibility without Holiness is like the imagining of a promise to see without Light or Eyes Wherefore it is such an Hypocritical conceit that a man cannot well tell whether it be more to be lamented or laughed at for a Church to pretend that God has an irresistible design of making them Infallible to every Punctilio of Controversie and yet not of making them Holy and Good But it is a sign they contemn or abhor Goodness as being contrary to their corrupt natures but desire the privilege of Infallibility as being agreeable to their natural pride and the boast thereof an instrument to bring about all their deceitful devices And therefore we might adde to this That it is questionable whether the Promise be to any Church visible but to such as the Apostles were chosen sanctified and faithful Regenerate men for none but these are truly the Church of Christ and if he make his Promise good onely to such as are his true Church it is sufficient 7. Moreover be this Promise Conditionate or Inconditionate we cannot but be sure that this Infallibility is not Universal as to all Objects whatsoever And therefore to meddle with such things as are not necessary to Salvation nor really edifying were to go beyond their Warrant or Commission and thereby to forfeit or at least to have no benefit of the promised Assistence 8. But let us particularly examine the Texts of Scripture themselves The first whereof infers no more then this That the Church of Christ shall never cease to be that Death shall never be able to prevail against her neither to extirpate her in this world or hinder her of a glorious Immortality in the world to come For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death or Abolition or The state of the dead But this may be true of the Church though it were not Infallible So weak is this first Allegation 9. As for the second it were well for the Alledgers if it were onely weak for it is strong against themselves and makes much for our Hypothesis who conceive this Infallibility to be Conditional For reade the whole Context entire and it runs thus If ye love me keep my Commandments and I will ask the Father c. which implies there is a Condition That they must love Christ and keep his Commandments if they expect that Spirit which will abide with them for ever that is as long as they lived for so the word ordinarily signifies in Scripture And it is further added that it is such a Spirit as the World cannot receive Which therefore does strongly imply that it resides not in those who are worldly and carnally-minded Which Conditionality of the Promise is also infinuated in the third place alledged When the Spirit of Truth is come he will Lead you or guide you into all Truth that is he will lead you as a Man not hale you or drag you as a Stone or a brute Beast which is not a free Agent So that we see plainly that this Infallibility is Conditional where-ever it is And though I doubt not but the Condition being performed the Promise will be made good to all men as far as it is necessary to their Salvation yet these places are not the best that may be produced to that purpose the Promise being not General here but directed to certain particular men in such circumstances as it is evident that it is meant to them in particular and does not infer any succession For the men that he speaks to there he decyphers to be such as he was present with and should be put in mind by the Paraclet what he had said to them when present such Joh. 14. 16 17. as were sorrowful upon the occasion of his departure with other like circumscribing circumstances that cannot belong to any succession of men but were proper to the Apostles to whom he then spake 10. As indeed Infallibility it self seems a Promise most proper to them they being to lay the Foundations of the Church and to build the House of God which they having done in terms plain enough as to all things necessary to Salvation the Promise of Infallibility needs reach no further the Church for ever hereafter being safe provided she keep but close to what is plainly delivered by the first Founders of her nothing else need be obtruded upon Believers by way of Infallible imposition 11. And as for that fourth citation where the Church seems to be called The Pillar and Ground of Truth If we admit of Cameron and Capellus 1 Tim. 3. 15. their ingenious conjecture upon the place viz. That The Pillar and Ground of Truth is to be disjoyned from the precedent words by a Colon at least and understand also what follows without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness to be onely a Parenthetical Elogium of the Mystery of the Gospel into which the Apostle was transported upon consideration of those weighty Points thereof which he was a-delivering God manifest in the Flesh c. so that The Pillar and Ground of Truth may be 1 Tim. 3. 16. the Preface to the grand Points of the Christian Truth which that Parenthesis being seposed do immediately follow according as it was usual with the Jews to prefix before such Fundamentalls of knowledge the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fundamentum Columna Sapientia this passage will be wholly disâ—…bled from making any shew of proof for what it was alledged 12. But if you will adjoyn this Title to the Church it was the Ephesian Church where Timothy resided which has vanished long agoe And what other Church then unless every Particular Church can urge this place for Infallibility which experience of contradicting one another does openly confute Besides that the style it self of Ground and Pillar may not
paternal chastisements to have restored in such a point of time as may for ever re-mind them of the end of their restitution namely That they may never fail with all faithfulness and diligence to witness to the Truth and to support propagate and emprove that saving Light of the Gospel which was * Namely since Popery first let into this Island by their Pious and Reverend Predecessors the first renowned Authors of so blessed a Reformation and keep it intemerate and incorrupt from all Papal impurities and adorn it with all sanctity of life and sobriety of conversation 18. Wherefore there is no reason at all for any Protestant Party to look That the Reformed part of Christendom is the real Fifth Monarchy and how perillous a Project that of Grotius is to reconcile the Protestant Churches to the Church of Rome before she be reconciled to the ancient Apostolick Church of the Primitive Ages upon the Apocalyps if rightly understood as such an affrightfull Mormo or Megaera and less for the English Church then any there being such illustrious Testimonies therein of her peculiar worth and precellency And as for the Roman Church herself though she be I must confess most sharply and satyrically reproved in some Visions there Ch. 17 18. and seems most dreadfully to be menaced yet I am well assured that none of those Comminations are meant in the harshest sense unless she will by her own obstinacy make them so but onely of a destruction of what is evil in her and of the Reformation of her from what is really and properly Antichristian But she is indeed there charged most plainly and apertly in the judgment of any one that is not wilfully blind with the highest Instances of Antichristianism to the end that she might Reform and repent and undergo no Destruction but what is her real Perfection As certainly it would be to be reduced to the Purity of the Primitive times or to take a Pattern from our Church which is already so conformable thereto Which free Advertisement to this so deeply apostatized Church of Rome I think is the greatest act of Charity that any member of Christ can doe for her But for us Protestants to reconcile to her before she be reconciled to the Primitive Church in those Symmetrall Ages thereof would be to rend our selves from Christ and his Church or at least to daub with untempered morter Associate your selves Oye people and ye shall Esay 8. 9. be broken in pieces gird your selves and ye shall be broken in pieces gird your selves and ye shall be broken in pieces So little good can there come of that Union that is founded in that which is so evil For to make the Church of Christ seem all of one piece by the Protestants conforming to the Church of Rome were indeed to make all Christendom one entire Field of Aegyptian Reeds for the fire of God's Jealousy to consume Such Counsells I say were not onely unskilfull and perillous but downright Treachery and Treason against the Empire of Christ and against the Princes of the Provinces thereof For it were the betraying of any Protestant Prince to the displeasure of God and wrath of the Lamb to persuade him to come again under the Laws and Religion of that Man of Sin and so to betray that trust Christ has committed to him by thus perfidiously surrendring part of his regained Empire into the hands of his declared enemie For I say the Reformed parts of Christendom are the Empire of Christ and the real Fifth Monarchy to the shame and reproach of those blind Enthusiasts that would tumultuously and rebelliously erect it where it already is not to be empaired by Revolts to Antichrist but to be propagated improved and enlarged by the ruine and destruction of his Kingdom Accordingly as Daniel has foretold touching the little Horn with the eyes of a man and a Dan. 7. 8. mouth speaking great things which I have demonstrated against Grotius to be meant of the Papacy That this Judgment shall sit and they shall take away his dominion to consume Dan. 7. 26. and destroy it unto the end So that according to the design of God the Papacy is to decay and consume after the rising of the Witnesses and that the Seventh Trumpet has once begun to sound For in it the Mystery of God is to be finished and the Seven Apoc. 10. 7. Vials to be poured on the Two-horned Beast or the False-Prophet Which Seventh Trumpet has begun to sound already and we are under the first Thunder thereof comprising the Seven Vials which are the Seven last Plagues and we are under the effusion of the Third of them And therefore to sound a retreat to Rome under the Conduct of Grotius or of any one else were to bid battel against Heaven and to harden our faces against the dreadfull Flashes and direfull Thunder-claps of the Almighty against whom there is neither Force nor Counsel neither can any man disannull his Judgment For who has Job 40. 9. an arm like God or who can thunder with a voice like him There are many devices in a mans heart nevertheless the Pro. 19. 21. Counsel of the Lord that shall stand SYNOPSIS PROPHETICA OR A compendious Prospect into the Prophecies in the Holy Scriptures touching the ANTICHRIST to come BOOK I. CHAP. I. 1. That the Antichristianism we have so punctually described in our Idea and is for the general so notoriously known to have over-run the Church is in truth a kind of Pagano-Christianism 2. That it is incredible that there should be no Divine Predictions of so considerable a Change 3. The ill-spent pains of those Interpreters who endeavour to obscure such Predictions by distorting them to other useless meanings 4. Whether this Great Antichrist be prophesied of in the Epistle of S. John under that very Name 5. That Barchocab if applicable at all to the Text may be a Type of this famous Antichrist 6. That the mention of those many Antichrists in S. John was occasioned from the fame of that Great Antichrist predicted in Daniel 7. That there is much-what the same reason of the slowness of Christians in discovering the true Antichrist as of the Jews in discovering the true Christ. 8. That a fraudulent and Hypocritical Opposer of Christ may be as real and considerable an Antichrist as an open Enemie as also S. John's description as easily applicable to him 9. The inept Niceness of declining the Name of Antichrist and that the Title was put upon this great Enemy of the Church by the ancient Fathers occasionally from this Epistle of S. John 10. Certain Considerations proposed touching the Obscurity of the Prophetick style 1. WE have sufficiently discovered to what a great measure the Church of Christ may degenerate or rather apostatize from the Purity of the Gospel into that abhorred condition of Antichristianism and yet retain the external Profession of Christianity using indeed the Name and
Law of Christ and the plain Dictates of the Scripture but against the most indispensable and indeleble Rules of Nature and of Reason and against the common and universally-acknowledged Rights of Mankind Be it that thou thy self scarce believest that there is a God much less any thing to come after this Life and therefore hast a Conscience free to any Religion be it never so wicked or foolish and canst laugh at the imperious Impostures of the Priest when thou hast done But canst thou be assured that thy Children will be such that the Wife of thy bosome will continue such if she be so for the present Canst thou promise for thy most intimate Friend which is as dear to thee as thy self nay canst thou promise for thy self that God may not so powerfully strike thy Conscience some time or other as to convert thee to the true knowledge of himself and of his Son Jesus Now I tell thee compendiously and at once That the Contexture of this Antichristianism which I oppose is a mere Train or Net laid or spread for the Life of thy self thy Friend thy Wife and Children None can be in knowledge and judgment the professedly-faithful Servants of God and of his Christ but they are ipso facto made obnoxious to the bloudy salvageness of this Antichristian Monster But suppose thine own Conscience not yet awakened canst thou be so devoid of natural Affection or whilst thou talkest so loud of Generosity degenerate so much below the very brute Creatures as not to be affected may deeply and unsupportably afflicted at the haling of thy Wife out of thy Bosome and the pulling of thy Friends and of thy Children out of thy Arms and committing them to noisome Prisons and after a sad and tedious durance in these foul Cells to have them brought out in the fight of the People to the most opprobrious and torturous Death that ever is inflicted on any Malefactours that is to say not onely to have thy most intimate Friend thy dear Parents or thy Children but thy Wife herself as if she were a Witch or a Poisoner of her Husband to be burnt at the Stake yea though with child the birth breaking forth by the merciless Midwifery of the parching Flames and all this Cruelty exercised upon them because they will not sin against God and their own Conscience Which holy Sensibilitie of spirit and awfull Reverence of the Deity though thou according to the grosness of thy Philosophy maiest conceive a weakness in them yet it being such a blemish as even in thine own judgment bears no badge of dishonour upon it nay is exceeding honourable in the prosperous and as tenderly and feelingly pitied in the afflicted and calamitous it cannot one jot abate the endearedness of thy affection to thy suffering Friends in this case the Loveliness of their Personages the discreet Obligingness of their Carriages and their constant Faithfulness and Serviceableness in all Duties and Affairs having impressed so deep a character of Love and Esteem in thee as cannot easily be obliterated Can therefore the opposing of so barbarous a constitution of things as this and so grievous and insufferable to thine own sense and in thine own judgement be upon any pretence accounted ignoble or inglorious and not rather highly Generous and Heroical unless all the Acts of Hercules and his celebrious victories over those destroying Monsters of his Age must be reputed but the petty Exploits of some pitifull Pedant or Histrionical Whiffler Nay on the contrary we may safely pronounce That he that has not an hearty loathing and abhorrency from so ugly and odious a Frame of things as I have described in this Idea is not onely in a state of Unregeneratedness and utterly devoid of the Life of God and consequently uncapable of eternal Salvation but even sunk below the nature of a Man and become not onely uncivil but either stupid and sottish or else of a temper plainly salvage and inhumane 7. But though Antichristianism described in your Idea will some farther urge be thus Impious and Tragical a business That this Idea of Antichristianism is not a mere Idea but a true Transcript out of History yet in the mean time we are to remember that it is but an Idea and therefore to have our affections thus raised up against mere shadows is as foolish and furious as the Caunii their beating the empty Aire with their clubs crying out * Herodot lib. 1. cap. 172. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when there was no Object before their eyes to pursue But I need not give any new notice that our Enquiry into this Mystery is professedly modest in more respects then one And yet I cannot dissemble but that this Antichristian frame of things is so far emerged above the condition of a mere Idea that it is in the main strokes thereof plainly prophesied of in the Holy Writ which I think I have made good with evidence no less then Mathematical in a Discourse touching that matter And Divine prediction you know is a very safe pledge of future existence Nay the Series of time is so prefigured and the continuance so determinately measured out that I may safely adde that it has been more then an Idea for some Ages and keeping my self still within the bounds of modesty may farther averre that it is so far from being a mere Idea that it is a lively Image or faithfull Transcript out of History of what has been too often too much and too long in Christendom And therefore to have declared who is most concerned therein had been needlessly to have imitated the bungling practice of the ancient ignorant Painters who not being able to draw their Pictures lively enough were fain to write under one This is a Bear and under another This is an Horse or a Lion or what-ever other Animal it was intended for 8. And upon the same account I must confess I thought it That he could excogitate nothing that made more for the Interest of the Church of England then the draught of this Idea needless expressly here to pronounce who is not concerned therein But to prevent all misapprehensions and to stop the mouths of Ignorance and Malice aforehand I have at the end of the above mentioned Discourse not onely declared but proved That the Church of England is not concerned in this Delineation nay have fully vindicated her from all suspicion of Antichristianism Which I wish I could with as good conscience doe for that Imperious Lady of Rome whom I cannot deny but to be most concerned in this Description But for our own Church I do profess that I could not excogitate any thing which I could think in my own judgment made more for her Interest then the framing of this Idea For considering how she is laid at by the Romanists on one hand and the Sectaries on the other corroding undermining and wearing her away on both sides the Romanists pretending her Schismatical the Sectaries
hands of our Lady instead of our Lord Jesus who is God every-where ready to save that precept from the Priest would be flatly against the express Commandment of God and it would prove a sad Catastrophe of his life to the dying man to spend his last breath in so foul a sin as Idolatry 9. But however as if all had been rightly performed the Body may be laid out in a decent manner and a Crucifix put in the hand of the deceased resting upon his breast or at least his hands be laid a-cross in stead of a Crucifix and Holy-water be duely sprinkled upon him which what-ever virtue it may have to chase the Devil from the Corps yet it will scarce wash his Soul clean from that last sin he committed nor guard the house from being haunted with Birds of several colours and feathers that ever smel out a comfortable refection from the fall of every such Carcass So great a pother and clatter may Superstition make as well at the Exit as Entrance of men into this mortal life 10. In the midst of such Formalities as these I must confess the Priest cannot but seem a man of marvellous might and power to the ignorant by-standers such as have been nuzzl'd up in the belief of these Superstitions he administring such present and conspicuous Remedies for the comfort of the sick as the Fiend-fraying Holy-water the Images of the Blessed Virgin and Tutelar Saint holy Wax-candles and the like guarding the very Corps by the power of the Cross and the sprinkling of that Exorcized Element from all the incursions of the Enemie and every evil Phantasm But the dying person what benefit he can take by the having his mind distracted and called out to these dead shows I must confess I understand not nor can conceive but that they are an hinderance to that more pure and collected passage of the Soul into bliss and are to the spectatours of these Solemnities the occasion of neglecting those better and more inward Amulets against the terrour of Death and fear of the Devil Such I mean as the Renovation of their Minds into the Living Image of Christ and the triumphing over the power of Sin through the taking up his Cross in the mortifying all our evil concupiscences in our life-time and the arriving thereby to the comfortable joyes and refreshments of the Spirit and to a permanent and habitual sense of the Mercy of God through a lively Faith in Christ Jesus wherein we cannot miss of the assurance of the remission of our sins which are the most saving and most holy Waters that we can solace our selves with or ease the grief and agonie of our minds withall the most precious Oyl or Balsam that can be poured upon an afflicted conscience The breathing after which excellent condition is naturally stopped and stifled by a vain belief in these external shows and by the relying on these multifarious Enchantments of a Superstitious and imposturous Priesthood who would bear men in hand that they can carry a Soul through safe to Heaven by exorcized Elements and Magical Artillery levied against the external assaults of the Devil not considering in the mean time that the radication and growth of sin and disobedience makes the Soul herself in a manner become a Devil and will necessitate her to undergoe the fate of that accursed crue CHAP. XIX 1. The burthen of Spiritual Cognation and excessive Numerosity of Holy-days 2. Perpetual abstinence from Flesh in some Religious Orders The Fraud and Mischief thereof 3. The burthen of vowed Coelibate 4. The more dangerous purposes thereof 5. The ordinary services done by the Monasticks to this Antichristian power we describe 6. That its establishment is much corroborated by the Interest of Monasteries 7. And enriched by being Heir to all professours of Coelibate 8. The great Mischiefs of Coelibate 9. Of Flagellation 10. The ineffectualness thereof Hypocrisie of the Penitent salvage Pride of his Church and the Mischiefs resulting therefrom 11. Of Pilgrimages and Jubilees 12. An enumeration of several other Antichristian Austerities 1. BUT we have leapt thus from one extreme of mans life to the other whenas there are several things yet to be considered which may make the middle space thereof tedious and entangled may be unnecessary hinderances to him in his affairs of the World may be sore afflictions and vexations to his Body or disturb his Mind with grievous and sad perplexities I will hint only some few Instances of each As for example if persons by being Witnesses at a Christening should contract thereby such a Cognation as though it be Spiritual yet according to the Canons of this Church we describe should hinder Marriage betwixt all the Kindred of the child that is Christened and their own what streightness must these conceits cause in the marrying of a son or daughter whole Neighbourhoods necessarily contracting such Spiritual Affinities by doing Christian offices one for another The plot whereof could be nothing else but to drain mens purses of mony for the procuring of dispensations from unnecessary Laws and restrictions The Number also of Holy-days may be so many and the observation of them so superstitiously and so strictly commanded that it may be an unspeakable burthen to the generality of the people who live by their labour and must starve when they cannot work But the design is the same as before For multitude and frequency of Transgressours brings in Mulcts and Fees to the Ecclesiastick Officers though the smallest penalties must be very cruel that are wrung from poor Labourers that have but from hand to mouth 2. Again suppose a considerable number of men were tied up to the Abstinence from flesh all the days of their lives by a religious or rather Superstitious Rule they are under in such sort that death were more eligible unto them then to tast of Flesh by reason of that hold their Vow had taken upon their consciences What an Iron yoke would this be upon so many Christian Souls How moped and frantick must such Monastick severities of diet of lodging and watching make several of them that are entangled in the slavish fetters of this Babylonish Captivity For which there is no pretence but that they are so good-natured that they are resolved to merit not only for themselves but for others and that many such Rivulets concurring together may fill up that Treasure of Merits which the Church must have the keeping of to sell at a good rate to those Virgins that want oyl to their Lamps This is the publick Fraud but the private is a certain Hypocrisie in these men whereby they often shake off the indispensable yoke of Christ and the Rule of his Word by over-valuing of or craftily hiding themselves under the self-chosen Sanctity of these Antichristian Rules And a further Mischief is that the conceit of meriting thus for themselves and others puffs them up with pride and insolence and makes them thereby more abominable then they who are
not secure from but did actually fall into very great Errours 15. And the Christian Church has no greater assurance but if Avarice Pride and Sensuality seize upon the Guides thereof she may also fall into as great errours and blindnesses The Apostle saith Let him that stands take heed lest he fall And it might have been a seasonable 1 Cor. 10. 12. warning to the Church of Christ betimes which was not onely tottering but almost universally lapsed into that over-spreading Heresy of Arrianism to reflect upon herself that while she does stand she stands upon her good behaviour and that she is not so Infallibly wise but that she may be surprised with Errour and over-run therewith unless true and unfeigned Holiness clear her eyes and keep her from being benighted in such mists of darkness And truly if she was above twelve hundred years agoe so obnoxious to Errour it is high time for her to awake and consider if after so many Ages of ease and wealth and honour and affluency of all things she has not grown fat and kicked and cast the Commandments of God behind her back and brought in a mere carnal Law of her own devising more sutable to the will of the flesh and to the carrying on of her own worldly Interest But it is sufficient in this place to have demonstrated She may erre in what she has erred to define is beyond the scope of my present discourse 16. We have fully defeated that Figment of pretended Infallibility whose downfall our opposers have no colour to bewail unless in the behalf of the common people who are illiterate as if they would hereby be made uncapable of any certainty of Belief and consequently of Salvation by reason they have no Infallible grounds to build on this of the Church being taken away But they may remember that we have already acknowledged sufficient certainty in that which the Universal Church agrees in and has agreed in in all Ages and that is the Scripture Such an Universal Tradition as the Scripture has is acknowledged a firm Foundation which the Church may be unfailing conveiers of down to posterity without being infallible Interpreters thereof The unfailingness of which conveiance notwithstanding I must confess may be a more intricate business then what every Vulgar man can make out to himself though infinitely less hard then to prove That the Church that would appropriate him to their Community is Infallible Nay I must confess I do not know how it were possible that a Church should so much as prove it self a Church much less an Infallible Church without the Scripture And therefore the belief of the Scripture seems to be the most immediate of all as * Cael. Secund. Curio against Floribellus he says well Nam qui de fide authoritate Divinarum Scripturarum dubitat quomodo quaeso credet Ecclesiae quae nullam habet sine eadem Scriptura authoritatem 17. And therefore I cannot explode that by any means which is so superciliously derided by some namely That it is the Spirit of God that does assure us of the Truth of Scriptures more then any thing else whatsoever For our Saviour Christ saith None cometh to me but whom my John 6. ch 10. Father draweth My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me Wherefore there is a discerning Spirit in those that appertain to Salvation whether it be the Voice of God and Christ or no. For the true Shepherd goeth before and the sheep follow him because they know John 10. 4 5. his voice but they follow not a stranger but flie from him because they know not his voice as our Saviour discourses most excellently I say therefore the Voice the Call or Whistle if you will of the true Shepherd are the Holy Scriptures which by an immediate sense they are assured to be the Call of the Shepherd and are at this day to them that belong to the election of God as the Voice of Christ and his Apostles when they were upon Earth the power of whose speech assisted by the Spirit did lead men captive into that Faith that worketh Salvation And without all question the same Word of Salvation still which is in those Holy Records seriously and zealously urged by men of a sincere faith and upright belief without any mingling of it with humane devices will have the same effect upon the multitude and as many as are fitted will be wone to an unshaken belief of the Truth of Christianity as it is exhibited to us in the Holy Scriptures For they of themselves have the light and life and very breath of Christ and his Apostles wrapt up in them to the exciting the vulgar sort to a firm and lively Faith though many subtil Sophisters of the Kingdom of darkness might by crafty and perverse Reasoning intangle them and non-plus them in outward discourse And therefore they are kept safe in the belief of the Scripture by the power of that Spirit in them in virtue whereof there is that indissoluble harmonie and concord betwixt their spirits and the Scripture though they cannot defend themselves by humane Literature nor by the acuteness of Reason and depths of Philosophy 18. Which Spirit residing in them and giving them this solid and firm discernment betwixt the Testimonie of God and the Traditions and Doctrines of men I think I may safely and properly call the Spirit of Faith as it is considered nakedly in it self and separate from the Spirit of Knowledge and of Wisedom Which distinction of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Origen of old has taken notice of in his book against Celsus Lib. 6. upon that Text of S. Paul And truely I think the Gloss is marvellous solid namely That the chiefest and greatest Gift of the Spirit is that Divine Wisedom whereby a man is in a great measure able to comprehend the reasons and more deep Philosophical grounds of the Truth of the Christian Mystery The next is Knowledge suppose of Antiquity History the comparing of Prophecies and helps of the exteriour humane literature the liberal Arts and Languages The third is Faith which is also comprised in the other but is a Gift which is as well general as more necessary whose nature is such as I have described already namely An immediate adherence to the word of Truth comprised in the Scripture through the power of that Spirit that resides in sincere and well-meaning Souls that have a savoury and sensible fear of God and are ready to goe where he calls them For these by an ineffable Sympathy of their hearts with the veracity of the voice of Christ sounding in the Scriptures will be sure to follow their true Shepherd's call though they turn off from the voice of the stranger and Hireling who comes not into the Sheepfold but to rob and kill and steal Whence we further see that this pretended Infallibility of the Church in reference to
should have free remission of all his sins past and security from punishment But this is a small matter Suppose that such a piece of Devotion at some other Altars and in some other Churches would procure the pardon of sin and punishment for twenty thirty fifty or an hundred thousand years and that the saying of such and such Prayers at such an Altar would deliver a Soul out of Purgatory that the bowing at the Name of Jesus may procure toties quoties twenty years pardon that the mere stooping to kiss a Cross on the pavement of a Church an Indulgence or Pardon for all a mans sins that the pattering over so many Prayers especially if there be the weight of some consecrated Medal as an Agnus Dei or the like annexed to them will save a Soul out of Purgatory that one Salutation of the Blessed Virgin shall gain eighty years pardon that the saying a certain short Prayer devoutly looking on the Picture of Christ shall obtain ten thousand days of Pardon and the saying of others no less then ten hundred thousand years and for but the looking on a certain Crucifix six thousand years of Pardon These intimations would be infinite I have produced so much already as implies such a Constitution in a Church as nothing can be more opposite to or destructive of that Life and Holiness Christ came to plant in the World and therefore cannot but be judged very soully Antichristian 7. The Falseness and unjustifiableness of these proceedings I need not goe about to evince they being so damnable at first sight nor point at the Fraud it being so conspicuous which is as I have above intimated in like cases the emunging of the people of their mony And the Mischief is here the Opposition or Extinction of the Divine Life as it will be likewise in the Root and Branches So that we need hereafter note no other Mischiefs then will be comprized in the Subject we shall be upon the Mischiefs being expressed in the very Titles of the Argument Which I thought fit here to note once for all and would proceed to the delineating of the next Limb of Antichristianism did there not one consideration more offer it self to my mind that would help to make the state of the Church very Stepdame-like to any offers toward growth and increase in life and Godliness Which supposition is this 8. Let us imagine that either a mighty party of the Ecclesiasticks had plotted it so or the Ambition of one Bishop with some few adherents being back'd with opportunities and wanting no wit policy nor industry had brought it about to be so that he and his Successours should be declared and by a very considerable part accepted for the Universal Bishop of the World should be esteemed of an Authority more sacred high and glorious then of any Emperour or Potentate upon earth that there should be substituted under him several Orders some of very high degree which should be as it were so many Ecclesiastick Princes equal in a manner for Pomp and Splendour to the Kings of the Earth besides Patriarchs Metropolitans and many other very rich and illustrious Ranks of the Priesthood the Church in the interim abounding with sundry sorts of very creditable and profitable Preferments to bear out all Why thus far you will say is very good news and it were desirable it were so indeed That Religion being the most Sacred and precious thing in the world those that are in a more special manner the Supporters and Pillars thereof should be the most richly splendid and adorned 9. I do confess so a man would think at first sight For it seems but a respect to God whose Servants they are by a more peculiar dedication But by the same reason our Churches should be as well the most splendid as the most ample Buildings especially there being no danger of infecting these walls of stone with either the sense of Pride or any other uncomely Passion But suppose that these pretended living Stones of the Temple of God were as unexcitable to Pride or Lust as the dead Stones of the walls of a Church though this extreme glory and pomp and excessfull affluency of the World might doe them no hurt as to their Manners yet I believe they would profess they found little good in it unless it were in being Treasurers for the Poor which would be something a Secular employment or in giving testimony to the World that Christian Happiness consists not in these things which yet the World would not think them serious in unless they did actually quit them And for the external pomp and splendidness of their own Persons it is credible they would declare that if the Houses of God I mean the external Churches were at least decently if not in some case gloriously adorned their eyes could better view that and with more pleasure then any Imperial Ornaments on their own head and back which they could not well see without the help of Looking-glasses This would be a greater pleasure to them as also to see no poor but such as were wholesomely and handsomely apparrell'd not so squalidly and forlornly that they appear as ungratefull Eye-sores in Providence But to make rich Miters and costly Habiliments for a S. Peter or S. Paul were not indeed to make a Coat for the Moon but which is as ridiculous to make a golden Cope for the Sun as if his native splendour did not out-shine all such artificial Ornaments The gorgeousness of Apparrel may make the person that wears it to be gazed or stared upon but unspotted Holiness and Vertue will make the possessour thereof truely reverenced and adored 10. This excessive Grandeur therefore in the Governours of the Church though they were as holy as the Apostles themselves would not seem necessary nor requisite nor it may be at all desirable But as for those that are not of such an Apostolical Spirit as the generality of the world are not or rather very few are that of S. John having continued true in all ages in a manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The whole world lies soaked in wickedness in these this glorious setting out 1 John 5. 19. this fair and glittering Morning will assuredly very suddenly prove a foul Day There being therefore such Temporal prizes to be aimed at such several sorts and degrees of Dignities to the very top of the highest Sovereignry over the world all mens spirits will be inflamed with the desire and pursuit of what lies so temptingly in their view and that hellish fire of Ambition will be the very life and soul of the Church all her activity and motion deriving it self from that hatefull Principle Whence it will follow that nothing but the name of Spirituality will be left the minds of the Clergie being totally drawn off from meditating what is true holy and edifying and quite drown'd and immerst in the affairs of the world For such are also Ecclesiastick Preferments when they are sought
Sacerdotum praeparatur exercitus Which is a sign that in Gregory's judgment Antichrist was not to be born of the Tribe of Dan but of the Tribe of Levi whom we will further suppose to lay about him for the obtaining of this Levitical Sovereignty and for the advancement of his Episcopal Chair successively in some such manner as follows 3. First he will pretend that it is unfit that the visible Catholick Church being One should not be united under One visible Head Which reasoning yet though it make a pretty show at first sight being closely lookt into will vanish into smoke For this is but a quaint concinnity urged in the behalf of an impossibility For the erecting such an Office for one man which no one man in the world is able to perform implies that to be possible which is indeed impossible Whence it is plain that the Head will be too little for the Body which therefore will be a piece of mischievous Asymmetry or Inconcinnity also No one Mortal can be a competent Head for that Church which has a right to be Catholick and to over-spread the face of the whole Earth There can be no such Head but Christ who is not mere Man but God invested in Humane nature and therefore is present with every part of his Church and every member thereof at what distances soever But to set some one Bishop over the whole Church were to suppose that great Bishop of our Souls absent from it who has promised he will be with her to the end of the World and you may be sure not an idle Spectatour but a carefull Feeder and Governour of their Souls who do really believe in him and unfeignedly obey him 4. Nor does the Church Catholick on Earth lose her Unity hereby for she is under One common Head of the whole Church as well Triumphant as Militant which to come nearer to the Objection is a Visible Head of his Church to those that can approach his Court in that glorious Metropolis in Heaven where undoubtedly he is to be seen sitting on his Sapphire Throne in great Majesty and Glory and where his true Subjects in a small space of time may either see him themselves or at least converse with them that have frequent recourse unto him and wait in his presence And no man I think will say that any large Empire has an Invisible Head because the Emperour himself has placed his Palace in the chiefest Province of his Empire and never comes within the view of some parts of his Dominion and multitudes of men never see him as never having the opportunity of visiting those parts where the Emperour's Court is Whereas Jesus Christ the Head of his Church was seen here on Earth for a good space as also visibly to travel hence into the higher Regions of his Kingdom and in due time will visibly return hither again to take account of the Administratours of his Affairs in these lower Provinces Wherefore Christ is a more visible Head in his large Empire then any Emperour in his So evident is it that there wants no One Visible Head of the Church besides Christ himself 5. But yet notwithstanding all this this ambitious Patriarch I describe will bear the world in hand that it is very fit there should be One visible Head of the Church Universal which should succeed Christ or rather some one whom he would pretend to be Prince of the Apostles and that his Seat is that Apostolical Seat and that there is a necessity for Unity in the Church and for slaking all controversies there should be some one such though the Plea to any indifferent man cannot but seem very weak and frivolous For â—…as I have already intimated the Church will be sufficiently One by being under that One Head Christ Jesus and under One Law which is the Word of God which has been already proved sufficiently plain in all things necessary to Life and Salvation But for other things whether Ceremonies or Conceits they do not at all break the Unity of Christ's Kingdom but it will be truly and conspicuously his so long as it professes the Faith of his Apostles let them otherwise use what difference of Rites they will or differ as much as they can in unnecessary Opinions provided always that none of these Rites or Opinions be really and plainly against the Apostolical Doctrines which are the universal and irreversible Law of Christ's Empire upon Earth For thus the Church-Catholick being in this sort variegated in Externals will yet be visibly the Spouse of Christ though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though cloathed with a Vestment of various flower-work and colours 6. But for this high-flown Patriarch to pretend that his Seat is this Infallible and All-decisive Apostolical Seat is a Plea that can have nothing solid at the bottom For if there had been any such Prelation of some one of the Apostles over the rest it were of that great Moment if ending of Controversies in all succeeding Ages be of that Moment that it would have been recorded in the Scripture and would have ended or prevented all disceptations amongst the Apostles themselves or any others concerning them But quite contrary S. Paul declares that he is in nothing inferiour to the chiefest Apostles which plainly implies an Equality 2 Cor. 12. amongst them all Besides if it were so that some one Apostle had an Authority or Headship over the rest and had once his Residence in such a particular See it does not follow that he that succeeds him in that See should succeed him in that Headship or at all in his Apostleship but onely in his Bishoprick Nor is it credible that if this Prime and Oecumenical Apostle had designed his immediate Successour to the same latitude of Jurisdiction that the claim should not be made and acknowledged by the Universal Church in those more innocent and morigerous times Of so little weight are such pretences as these 7. But if such pretty Sophisms will not serve the turn since Ambition has inflamed the Patriarch's spirits he will leave no stone unmoved to accomplish his desire and what Sophistry cannot doe must be effected though by the coursest methods of either Worldly or Infernal policy That they may therefore obtain this absolute Ecclesiastick Sovereignty the Successours in this pretended prime Apostolical See we will suppose to stick at nothing But that they will forge or counterfeit Canons of Authentick Councils and make them speak for the Supremacy of their Patriarchate that they will countenance abet or allow Treasons and Murthers though upon Emperours and Emperesses Kings and Queens and their whole Posterity by some intrusted Instrument of State whose ambition instigated him thus bloudily to assassinate his Liege Sovereign that he might succeed him in his Kingdom or Empire Whereupon notwithstanding by parasitical fawning conniving or allowing nay by congratulating the success of so beastly an enterprize these eager Candidates for the Ecclesiastick Empire will not stick to
Truth of the Gospel for then their Power and Credit would fail in the world But it were the Interest of the Church of God they did so and therefore they are the worst enemies that can be doing more mischief under the colour of friendship then any declared enemy can Besides that there are pregnant proofs in the Scripture that Antichrist is to be a Christian in external Profession not a Pagan or any other Alien from the Church To the second That their not killing all that are called Christians shews that their Malice and Cruelty is more exquisitely opposed and directed against Christ in that their spight is onely against his true and sincere Members For those that are spared are not truly Christ's Servants but this High-priest's vassals or at least are taken to be so by him else they could not escape his sury so that his opposition to Christ is onely more judicious and adequate not less fierce nor malicious And to the last that they worship the Images or Persons not of Venus or Neptune or Mars but of the Blessed Virgin S. Peter S. Paul c. Suppose a mighty Potentate and as vertuous as mighty should put out severe Edicts against Adultery and carnal Fornication and that some guilty of the fact should apologize for themselves to their Prince on this wise It is true indeed Great Sir that we have committed Fornication but beseech you to take notice of the excusableness or justifiableness of the circumstances For we are not such gross and course-grain'd Fornicators as defile themselves with any Flesh but onely such as we have and that upon high desert a very great respect for and entire love to and that the rather for their near Relation to your Highness namely your Daughters Sisters and Neeces and others that are more near then ordinary Would not such an Apologie as this enrage the Prince with the greater wrath against their wicked Leudness How odious then and ridiculous would such a Plea be touching this Spiritual Fornication with the nearest Relations and Friends of our Blessed Saviour Can Spiritual Adultery which is Idolatry committed upon the Blessed Virgin upon S. John and others be more tolerable then upon Diana Apollo and other Mortals canonized by the Heathen Nay indeed would not this latter be but onely simple Fornication or Adultery there being no aversation in such unsanctified persons from the receiving of Divine honours but the former an execrable Rape they committing Idolatry or Spiritual Fornication against the wills of these Holy Saints they thus blaspheme and abuse So that I see not the least reason left to doubt but that I have decyphered the Idea of the most perfect and most detestable Antichristianism that can be 10. And thus having fully perfected the Draught of the Idea of Antichristianism I might according to the method I intimated make Application thereof to the state of the Church apostatized thereinto But because some men are so very hardly brought off to believe that any degeneracy of the Christian Church so long as they do still formally profess Jesus to be the Christ can amount to the production of that famous and signal Antichrist the Prophecies seem to point at whom they with all peremptoriness contend to be an open Denier of Jesus and as express an Assertor of himself to be the expected Messias no pretended Successor nor Disciple of the true Christ I think it very convenient before I proceed to the Application of my Idea of Antichristianism to make a more exquisite search into the Prophecies and thence to demonstrate as I hope with unexceptionable evidence That such an Antichrist for the main as is represented in that Idea is also prefigured or fore-told by the Holy Prophets that is to say such an one as doing such abominable villainies as I have instanced in yet professes himself to be Part nay Chief of the Body of Christ which is his Church For unless I doe this I know that such is the shuffling disposition of Ignorance and Falshood that they will think they can evade all by saying That I have indeed made an operose Description of A true Idea but not of The true Idea of Antichristianism such as my Title pretends to that is to say That the Church does indeed very naughtily and in some sense Antichristianly in these miscarriages but it will not amount to the making up the Antichrist properly and signally so called and pointed unto by the Predictions of the Prophets Which therefore we are necessitated to search into before we goe any further and are the more easily induced so to doe the Method being indifferently natural either way For the first intended Method was After this Description of the Idea of Antichristianism to make punctual Application thereof to the Apostatized condition of the Church to discover who is de facto that grand Antichrist and then to apply the Prophecies to the Events to shew that they also do indigitate the same that my Idea does discover My present purposed Method is After this Description of the Idea of Antichristianism to make search into the Prophecies to find out that their prefigurations of Antichrist are in the main strokes for neither are the Prophecies concerning Christ predictions of all his particular actions most manifestly answerable to the Idea we have given and that the Antichristianism which they foretell of is a Degeneracy or Apostasy of the Church still formally professing Christianity accordingly as we have described things in our Idea and then in the last place to make a more punctual Application of our Idea of Antichristianism thus justified by the agreeableness it hath with the Prophetick Predictions unto the Apostatized state of the Church for so many Ages to our own times Which will be a more plenarie eviction of the stupendious veracity of the Prophecies And it is as good and natural a method to prove the Truth of the Prophecies by the Fulness of the Events as to illustrate the Nature of the Events by the Application of the Prophecies But in the mean time there will be a necessity in this present search to have recourse unto Events in some sort or other for who can explain a Prophecie without any recourse to Events But all the History we need to have recourse to being either such as is distinct from any part of this Idea we have delineated and therefore to be brought into view in the interpreting of such passages as require it or else being but a general knowledge of those Limbs of Antichristianism I have described of which scarce any are ignorant or unpersuaded of for the main we may without the least confusion or obscurity partly by referring to this Idea in things that want no proof and partly by producing History where occasion requires apply our selves to our intended search into the Prophecies for a more full demonstration of the truth of our Idea of Antichristianism Which having finished we shall make a more punctual Application thereof
the right Spirit or Dispensation of Elias for the better discovering all false Pretenders thereto Apoc. 10. 3. and yet know neither his Spirit nor their own nor what times they are in nor doe that office which is proper for Elias to doe which is to testify that the Lord is come and as the holy Baptist pointed at Christ at his First coming and said Behold the Lamb of God so to indigitate his Second coming saying Behold the Lion of the Tribe of Juda even that mighty Angel whose face is as the Sun with a Rainbow over his head crying with a loud voice as when a Lion roareth and discharging his seven thunders upon the Earth The Series of which undoubtedly commenced upon the Protestant Reformation For then began the Judgment to sit and the dominion of the Dan. 7. 26. little Horn to be taken away to consume and to destroy it to the end What Monsters of Enthusiasts therefore are they that kick against the sentence and authority of those holy Benchers or Heavenly Witnesses of God whom he raised up to judge the Deceiver and to settle Truth upon Earth dividing themselves from that Church that is the real and genuine Spouse of Christ so approved by these very Witnesses which God raised from the dead What a goodly Specimen do those high-flown Boasters give of their Elias like Spirit who though they imitate something of the Wind Earthquake and Fire that appeared before that great Prophet yet are utterly unacquainted with that still and small voice in which alone the Lord was heard to speak This Rending and Tearing this Faction and Siding is the fruit of the Flesh and not of the Spirit Nor was Elias zealous about any thing but the indispensable Laws of God Nor is his office to divide but to cement and make up the Breaches of the Church of Christ to reconcile the People to their Governours and their Governours to the People according as it is written * Behold I will send you Elijah the Mal. 4. 5. Prophet and he shall turn the heart of the Fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their Fathers lest I come and smite the Earth with a curse Wherefore whatsoever Dispensation drives not on an healing and uniting design in the true Church of Christ is not the Spirit of that expected Elias which some dream of but a second game of Antichrist contrived abetted and promoted by his cunning Incendiaries upon whom that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dothâ—…stick and will be raging at least till the Fifth Vial. But this is more then I meant to speak in this place 14. Now concerning Grotius and my confuting him onely and sometimes something smartly As for the former it is not wholy true for That he has not confuted Grotius onely in this Treatise with an Apologie for doing of it sometimes something sharply I have also confuted Ribera the best of the Roman Expositours upon the Seventeenth of the Revelation nor have I declined any Interpreter that I could find to speak any thing considerable which is not already confuted in my confutation of these And for my Smartness against Grotius I believe I shall appear so to none but such as make an Idol of him which they will doe most that least understand or have read least of his Expositions of Daniel and the Apocalyps touching the Controversy in hand For I dare pronounce to all the World that there was never any thing more weak and groundless as I have made it abundantly clear in the ensuing Discourse And I think it is not at all unseemly to resist him with some kind of Zeal who had grown up to that boldness in his contrived Interpretations as to trample under feet the Sacred Titles of Christ under which he is peculiarly prophesied of in the Divine Oracles and that in those very Prophecies themselves See Grotius his Annot. in Dan. 2. 34 45. and chap. 7. 13. and to cast them as unholy to a Pagan Nation the People of Rome merely to cover the shame of that Body of men who are so hideously lapsed and apostatized from the Truth and being fast to one party and loose to another to drive the sincere Protestant into a net under a colourable show of Reconciliation and to expose again the innocent Lambs of Christ's flock to the merciless teeth of that devouring Wolf of Rome And yet as smartly as I have dealt with him I have onely expressed my admiration that a Person otherwise so Learned should fall into such unparallel'd Weaknesses and Extravagancies in interpreting these Prophecies of Scripture nor have given the least intimation that gifts had blinded the eyes of the wise or that he had followed the way of Balaam the son of Bosor who loved the wages of unrighteousness but that he had been tempted in that way and how far he accepts the condition one may in some sort observe in the Epistle of Du-vair to him and his answer thereunto and what other transactions there might be God and his own Conscience best know But in the interim it cannot be unknown to any that will search into the truth but that some very great Biass must have been clapp'd upon so good a Judgment as Grotius his to make him capable of running so extremely much out of the way 15. I have elsewhere imputed it to the excess of Candour and Humanity The vindication of himself from the imputation of Uncharitableness for applying certain Visions usually understood of Antichrist to the Church of Rome in him and the love of Peace and Unity and I spoke as I thought and am loath to unthink it again and may sooner tire my self and my Reader then satisfy either by searching into the hidden principles of another mans actions and therefore I shall dismiss that for ever It will be more to the purpose to vindicate my self from the imputation of the want of Charity then to accuse him of the excess thereof or of any other Passion For it is alledged in the last place that I have taken to my self a very uncharitable kind of liberty to apply those Prophecies to so great a share of Christendom as the Roman Church that have been by ancient Interpreters and are by the Romanists themselves understood of Antichrist To which I freely and ingenuously answer and as in the presence of him before whom all mens hearts lie open that I take no more pleasure in the finding of those Antichristian Tokens upon the Church of Rome then I should in discovering so many Plague-spots upon my dearest Friends or Relations so that I am not conscious to my self of the least touch of Uncharitableness in this matter But if the Laws of Charity be so strictly to be observed as certainly they are let us take that method which is approved by the voice of all men and has passed into a Proverb of Charitie 's beginning at home and be as tender of the Protestant Churches in such things
as they maintain with truth as the Papists are of their own party even in their obtruded Falsities and Deceits It may therefore more rightfully be imputed to my fidelity to the true Church of Christ then Uncharitableness to the Church of Rome that I again bring into play with all due advantages this common Assertion of the Protestants touching the Great Antichrist Which appearing to me so solid and unexceptionable a truth I should be conscious to my self of the highest degree of Uncharitableness to the precious memory of the first Reformers those Witnesses whom Divine Providence so miraculously raised from the dead if I did not what in me lies for the maintaining their Credit in so grand a Point wherein they cannot seem to fail but with infinite dishonour to themselves and an irreparable prejudice to the Protestant Cause For as there is no Doctrine wherein the Romanists and we differ more true so there is none any thing near so potent for the bearing off all their assaults against us as this of their Church being that City of Babylon which the People of God are expressly commanded to come out of lest they partake of her sins and of her plagues Which that Apoc. 18. 4. wise Prince King James of ever-glorious memory knew full well and accordingly kept entire those Primitive Sentiments of the Protestant Reformation or rather adorned them and improved them by his Royal Pen as also did those singularly Devout and Learned Prelates Bishop Andrews and Bishop Jewell and several other Pious and Learned Bishops of our Church Nor will I omit how explicit our Church herself is touching this point in her Homily of the Peril of Idolatry as also in that against Rebellion Which illustrious witnesses to so concerning a Truth it were both uncivil and unjust to either suspect or accuse of Uncharitableness And for my own part I cannot but farther adde having such an apprehension of things as I have and so great encouragement from those Heroical Examples in whose footsteps I insist for the main in my Prophetick Interpretations that I should think my self not onely Unfaithfull to the true Church of Christ and to the Interest of his Kingdom which Charity will never betray but Uncharitable also even to the Church of Rome herself if I should not use this liberty of prophesying against her which I have or rather of interpreting Prophecies for her just Reproof and Amendment Stultorum incurata pudor malus ulcera celat That saying is true as well of him that conceals the sore of his friend when the disclosing thereof tends to the healing of it as of him that conceals his own sore And her own professed Nurslings either cannot or dare not use these Scripture Reproofs to her they being either blinded with her Lustre or terrifi'd by her Cruelty Whence it must be some good Samaritan Stranger that must work her cure But if it be Uncharitableness to speak some few hard words against her though never so true what Barbarity would it be to expose her to the greatest hardships of Fortune that humane Affairs are obnoxious to as suppose to betray her to the successfull Rage and Ravin of the overflowing Turk would that be such a piece of indearing Kindness and Charity And yet surely those doe so to her that sow pillows under her Elbow that sooth her up and call her my Sister and my Mother and say there are no considerable miscarriages in her whenas she stands guilty of all those sins that are reckoned up Revel 9. 20 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 multifarious Idolatries bloudy Persecutions Conjuring or Enchanting defiled Coelibate and pious Frauds or wicked Policies with Impenitency added to them all For these sins have the Locusts and Euphratean Horsemen the Turks and Saracens laid wast the Eastern Church and yet it is Uncharitable to admonish the Latine Church thereof which is much more guilty of these high miscarriages yea and that in such a time as the Mahometan Forces have fallen so grievously upon the disspirited Empire and have made all fly before them To give a stop to whose fury for the future I am confident nothing can be more effectual then the Reformation of the Roman Church according to the Word of God and the first Primitive Ages or to speak more compendiously according to the platform of our excellent English Reformers For this would put a new life and spirit into Christendom and make her grow young and strong again and able to repulse the Turkish forces for ever with Victory And truely the whole summe of what may seem either so affrightfull or distastfull in my old Orthodox Protestant way of interpreting the ensuing Prophecies to either the Church of Rome her self or any of her hidden friends or well-willers is but to reduce the whole Western Church to that unexceptionable Purity and Beauty that our Royal and Reverend Reformers through the special assistence of God did reduce this of ours But if this be of such excellent purpose must it not be to very great purpose to make the Church of Rome sensible that she wants this Reformation And is there any thing that can convince her more of that want then that her enormous miscarriages are so plainly depainted as most certainly they are in those Visions we have explained in this Treatise nay are very stingingly and satyrically set out by the Spirit of God on purpose to awake the Christian World out of this deep Sopour or Lethargie For it must be some such rousing Rebuke that can wean or reclaim that Church from so inveterate errours rooted in Custom and founded in a sweet bewitching Interest not to be parted withall upon any easy terms Which power of the Light of the true meaning of these Prophecies that obnoxious Church does plainly acknowledge herself sensible of in her hiding herself as well as she can from the convictive perstringency of them and in getting men to palliate her deformities with all possible art and to shelter off the searching gleams and piercing Lustre of these veracious Visions by their false and adulterate Glosses Which is the greatest Uncharitableness and Disser vice that can possibly be done unto her thus to lull her asleep to be surprised by the irresistible wrath of God and to expose her to the fury of his Jealousy Wherefore had she not better cease to take Sanctuary in such forced and incredible misinterpretations of Scripture and letting go those false shifts reform herself according to that Platform which has so manifest approbation from the Divine Oracles in a sense not onely credible but true 16. For it is demonstratively true by the second Consectary of my Joint-Exposition That the Church was not grown Antichristian till How well the Protestant Reformation is attested to out of the Apocalyps especially that of our English Church And what were the main hinderances to the Authour from the applying so illustrious an Event to the Prediction about 400 years after Christ As also
from the proportion of the Outward Court to the Inward that it was Symmetral till about that time Which approvable Ages of the Church were the Pattern of our English Reformation Besides that as I have already intimated the said Reformation is an eminent Speciminal completion of the Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Witnesses So that the Rectitute thereof is ratified as well from those Visions that prefigure the Recovery of the Church as from those that signify her primaevall Purity Nor can those Perstrictions of the less perfect condition of things which I elsewhere have noted touching the Reformed Churches be rightly conceived to concern our English Church both because it had disappeared in a manner when I penned that Treatise as also because of her special immunity from those Imputations as may appear from my Vindication of her at the end of this present Discourse And as for the whole Protestant Reformation I must freely and ingenuously confess I had something a lesser value for it then it does deserve being born down by the authority of our best Interpreters into a belief that we were not yet past the Sixth Trumpet much less had advanced any thing in the Seventh According to which supposition some things have passed my Pen in the Mystery of Godliness which I here take the opportunity of recalling judging it with Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Etbic Nicom lib. 1. cap. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which duty is more indispensable in Theologie Though here I must confess I do not so much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mistake being not originally mine but others Which yet I the more easily swallowed down by reason of my Computing the Woman's abode in the Wilderness and the mournfull condition of the Witnesses by Days and not by Semi-Times as the Three days and Half did indigitate By the former of which Computes the Woman could not be come out of the Wilderness nor the Witnesses be rose from the dead till about this time But reckoning by Semi-times the Protestant Reformation will very easily and naturally be a Speciminall Completion of the Prophecy of their Resurrection it plainly happening in the last Half-Day or Semi-Time according to prediction Nor does the Prophecy require any greater accuracy of Compute then so Which I confess is a great ease to my mind in the Apprehension of things For examining the Frame of our Church and finding it such as I have represented it in the two last Chapters of this Book it was so near to what according to my best Judgment I could desire and had hinted at in some passages of my Mystery of Godliness that methought it fared so with me in this matter as it did once with a musing companion of mine and myself in a short Journey we took together when we asked the way to a certain Town we were to go to even then when we had already unawares got into the midst of it The Reddition is very easy and obvious But nothing then puzzled me but my compute by Days as I said instead of Semi-times which hindred me from rightly applying so illustrious an Event to the Prediction But correcting that errour as also a false surmize that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies the full expiration of the time to which it is prefixed the Application of the Prophecy proved very easy to me nor do I at all doubt but that it is a Prediction of the Protestant Reformation in Christendom in general Of which notwithstanding this of the Church of England seems the most noble Specimen and the Resurrection of the Witnesses and their Ascension more high more full more orderly and more answerable to the Vision here then any where else that I know 17. And as if Providence had a more special eye to this Church A peculiar Attestation to the Church of England in the Completion of the Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Witnesses above the rest of the Reformed Churches and to the Platform of the Reformation thereof then to any other as it indeed seems to me to exceed all the rest in several main Respects as in her moderation in the Cinq-Points her perfect freeness from all manner of superstitious and imposturous Opinions and Usages her declaredness concerning things indifferent and apert profession of them to be such and her Loyal Obsequiousness to the Sovereign Power with others of the like nature which at least joyntly considered make her condition peculiar so she seems to me also to have a more full and peculiar privilege in her being witnessed to from above then any of the rest have For beside her Resurrection in the East Reformation which fell within the last Semi-time and is common to her with the rest she has had of late after she was suppressed and in a manner extinct for so many years together another most glorious and unexpected Resuscitation to life our Zerobabel and Jesuah that is to say that Regal and Episcopal Power of England which were the first Founders and Establishers and are now the present Restorers and Upholders of so well a constituted Church being so happily and providentially restored again to the Nation What is this but another Resurrection from the dead to the slain Witnesses and a second Testimonie from Heaven to the Sacredness and Inviolableness of our English Reformation and that beyond all cavil and exception it falling out not within the last Semi-Time at large as the former did but just at the expiration thereof or if you will of the 1260 Days For taking a fit Epocha for the matter in hand which concerns the purely Christian and Antichristian Periods of the Church and I think there can be none more fit then that year wherein so many were converted to the faith at Antioch insomuch that the Church was then first called Christian which was the fourtieth year from the Nativity of Christ if we adde to these fourty years 360 the time of the Churche's continuing Symmetral and 1260 the time of the mournfull Prophecy of the Witnesses or of their Political Death the very last year of the whole summe is the year 1660 Which therefore must be the last year of the Witnesses sad and calamitous condition And lo to the admiration of the whole world in the very self-same year is the restoring of our English Protestant Regal and Episcopal Power our Moses and Aaron do not onely stand upon their feet but ascend into Heaven in a cloud the whole world looking up and wondring at them Can there be a more fit fulfilling of the Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Witnesses then this or a more ample Testimonie to the Excellency of our English Reformation such as I have decyphered at the end of this Book then this completion of the Prophecy or lastly a more urgent obligation from Divine Providence upon these so miraculouslyrevived Witnesses for the perfecting of Faith and Holiness Whom God seems on purpose after his
plainly declared to have it in Ovid's Fasti Rursus aquam tangit Temesaeáque concrepat aera Fastor lib. 5. Et rogat ut tectis exeat umbrasuis And that the sound of Brass Pans or Cymbals or be they what they will was superstitiously thought by the Heathen to have a power against Witchcraft and Enchantment which are the effects of that evil Fiend Tibullus seems to intimate in that Distich Cantus à curru Lunam deduceretenta Lib. 1. Eleg. 8. Et faceret si non aera repulsa sonent How near this comes to the Popish Superstition of driving away evil Spirits by the jangling of baptized Bells I leave to any to judge 12. And now for their Festivals What was Pope Boniface the Eighth's instituting a Jubilee every hundredth year but an imitation of the Romans Ludi Seculares For otherwise if he had imitated Moses fifty years had been the Periodical distance of that Festival But to note what is more general singing and dancing and drinking and reeling were usual concomitants of all the Pagan Holy-days Immemores nostri festas duxere choreas And again in the same Poet Pars pedibus terram pulsant carmina dicunt Tibullus also describes their Festivals from idleness and drinking till they stagger Vina diem celebrent non festâ luce madere Lib. 2. Eleg. 〈◊〉 Est pudor errantes malè ferre pedes Which Erasmus in his Colloquies sadly complains to be the mode of the celebrating of the Feasts of the Saints in the Church of Rome in his time It was a custome among the Pagans in the solemnization of the Feasts of their Gods Deos induere as Tertullian's phrase is for some one or other to sustain the person or act the part of that God whose Feast they celebrated That this custome also obtained in the Church of Rome in the Festivals of their Saints I have been particularly informed some one acting the part of the Saint to entertain the people with Pass-time or a kinde of superstitious Merriment See Polydore Virgil de Rerum Inventoribus lib. 5. c. 2. 13. But to descend to and lightly pass over some few particular Festivals of the Heathens The fetching in of May as they call it by the game some youth of both Sexes what is it but an imitation of the Romans Floralia as Polydore has also observed apud quos saith he sic Flora cunctorum De rerum Invent lib. 5. ca. 2. fructuum Dea mense Maio lascivè colebatur The Cerealia of the Pagans were celebrated in the night the Priests running up and down with Torches in their hands In imitation of this Superstition Polydore saith that in Umbria and other parts of Italy on the evening before the Lib. 5. cap. 2. Calends of March boies kindle fires in the field and run up and down upon the lands with Torches of dry Reeds ut precantes foecunditatem agrorum tum terrâ jam foetum parturiente In their Palilia Ovid's precept is in his Fasti Fastor lib. 4. Pastor oves saturas ad prima crepuscula lustret Unda priùs spargat virgáque verrat humum But this is but a Preparation to the Lustration of the Sheep the chief Ceremony is behinde Caerulei fiant puro de sulphure fumi Tactáque fumanti sulphure balet ovis Which Lustration by Fumigation the Friars of S. Antony have changed into the sprinkling of Holy-Water not upon Sheep onely but Horses and Oxen at a set time of the year But they both agree in the superstitious expiation or lustration of dumb Creatures The leaping over certain Fires they make on S. John Baptist's day is a more exact imitation of the old Pagans leaping over their Fires at the above-named Palilia or Festival of Pales Móxque per ardentes stipulae crepitantis acervos Trajicias celeri strenua membra pede And this Roman Hierophanta Ovid tells the reason of it presently after Omnia purgat edax ignis So that it is plain that such customes as these that have been retained in the Church of Rome are but the footsteps of the Heathenish Superstitions and Purifications Of which Baptismal Spittle it self seems to be a clear instance as may appear from that passage in Persius Ecce avia aut metuens Divûm matertera cunis Exemit puerum frontémque atque uda labella Infami digito lustralibus antè salivis Expiat urentes oculos inhibere perita Tunc manibus quatit c. Such marvellous virtue did the old Women of Rome deem to be in Spittle against Witchery and the approach of the Devil which Ceremony they performed in the Dies Lustricus of the child which is also called Dies Nominalis they giving the child his Name that day that this Saliva lustralis may the more completely answer to the Baptismal Spittle in the Roman Church But this by the bye In the ancient Saturnalia the Masters waited on their Servants entertaining them with good chear as L. Accius records in his Verses per agros urbésque ferè omnes Exercent epulis laeti famulósque procurant Quisque suos From which Polydore notes that the custome at Christmas of making De rerum Invent lib. 5. ca. 2. some one Servant a Master of Misrule to whom both his Master and his Servants should obey took its Original In the Quinquatria minora or Ludi Megalenses men ran up and down in Vizards madly and lasciviently Polydor. de Invent rerum lib. 5. cap. 2. committing many immodesties This wildness continued but a day or two in that ancient Roman Festival but it is not onely imitated but out-stripp'd in the Romish Church in their Carnaval that madness of committing outrages in Vizards as if they could hide themselves under them from the sight of God not lasting two daies but two continual moneths in some places At which time also they indulge excessively to themselves the intemperance of eating and drinking as if they intended to make their bodies Cellars and Store-houses against the approaching Fast of Lent that they might the better hold out against that Siege Whence this Carnaval seems a conjoyning of those two leud Pagan Solemnities together I mean their Ludi Megalenses and Bacchanalia The foul and abominable miscarriages of which Festivals in unclean and impudent gestures and all manner of obscenities of words or actions though they be so great and so various as it is above imagination to conceive to an ordinary man without the reading of the story of these Pagan Enormities yet as History from Eie-witnesses of the Pagano-Christian Bacchanalia does assure us this New Romanism has out-gone Old Rome in all manner of impudent vileness in this Festival So that the Beast is not onely restored but grown stronger in this Joint I might goe on and observe what is answerable in the Church of Rome to the Vinalia Robigalia Terminalia Parentalia Proserpinalia and other Feasts of the Gentiles but this wood is so wide that I may easilier
have been said also to continue the sense in the following verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as any one will acknowledge that does but observe the contexture of the whole sentence Lastly whereas this conjuring up the Ghost of Achilles was to revive the Beast who had the deadly wound as Grotius intimates this clashes with what was acknowledged before that this wound was healed in reedifying the Capitol Nor can this healing be naturally understood of any more then the first-mentioned wound which the Beast received in the Battel with Michael But Grotius distrusting the fitness of this Exposition upon second thoughts forges another to adde to it namely That the Disciples of Apollonius caused a Statue to be erected to him But if this be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apollonius will prove the Seven-headed Beast because the Image is erected to him 2. Grotius produces no History that attests that certain Magicians Disciples of Apollonius gave any such order 3. That expression Saying to them that dwell upon Earth is too big for the private Instructions of any Disciples of Apollonius to one single Town or some few persons therein Lastly it is but a lank business to take notice of one single Statue for Idolatry when there were already innumerable numbers of them in the Empire 12. In the fifteenth he interprets the Two-horned Beast's giving life or breath to the Image so that it would speak of Apollonius his Confabulation with Achilles Ghost or of his Statue's speaking But suppose his Statue did speak which yet Philostratus who made it his business by travel and enquiry to know where Apollonius was buried does not mention it is not presently to be imputed to Magick since that Idol-garrulity is often noted in History without any such reflexion 2. That Image that is here said to speak is said to give in charge that they that would not worship the Image of the Beast should be killed but there is no record of any such Edict from either the Ghost of Achilles or the Statue of Apollonius that they that would not worship their Images should be killed 3. But if the worshipping of the Image of the Beast be understood of the Universality of Images or Idols besides that it is exceeding hard and extravagant to change that settled sense of this word in which it had been used thrice before that also will want proof that either the Statue of Apollonius or Spectre of Achilles ever gave any command that they that would not worship Images should be killed 13. In the sixteenth and seventeenth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems most naturally to be spoken of the Image of the Beast in the fore-going verse of whom it was said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was either the Ghost of Achilles or the Statue of Apollonius here of a sudden Magia is understood which is but an harsh shift But this Magia it is that makes all ranks of men to enter into some Religious Society or other and in token thereof to receive either the mark of this or that God as of a Thunder-bolt for Jupiter an Ivy-leaf for Bacchus an Helmet for Mars a Trident for Neptune or the Names of such Gods or the Number comprised in their names or else not to be permitted to buy or sell. But against this I urge That the Mark of the Sealed is not a visible puncture or stigmatism and therefore it 's likely that in a Book so Symbolical as the Apocalyps is the Mark of the Beast does not signifie so grossly and literally 2. These Fraternities or Societies were not the procurement of Apollonius his Magick in Trajan's time they being in use long before Lastly it is not credible nor is there any History to make it good that no Pagan could buy nor sell unless he had some such sacred Stigmatism upon his body So inadequate and groundless is this part of Grotius his Interpretation 14. In the eighteenth he makes Ulpius Trajanus to be him to whom the Number 666 belongs but very groundlessly nay against all reason For it is a mere mistake in him to think that the Number is understood of the number of any mans name whatsoever because it is expresly said that it is the Name of the Beast And Ribera takes away all occasion of any such errour interpreting For it is the Number of a man according to the mind of Aretas or at least according to what he thought should have been his mind as well as his own in quite another sense Numerus enim proprius hominis est intellectum habentis ac ratiocinantis est numerare 2. If it were the Number of a man it being intended for the note of one most signally wicked and mischievous to the Church why must it fall to Trajan's share when there were Emperours far worse then he or rather when he was so very good an Emperour and not so cruel a Persecutor of the Christians as several others were but one that easily desisted being once rightly informed of things who gained so much on the Christians themselves that they thought he got to Heaven and amongst the Heathens made up part of that auspicious Acclamation of the Senate to their Caesars Felicior Augusto Melior Trajano 3. What a leap is this to leave all the Seven Heads of the Beast and pitch upon one that has not been in play all this while 4. That also is very weak and suspicable to find this number in his Praenomen or Fore-name and not in his Name 5. But far worse to fall short or rather to misreckon in the account for assuredly in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 write the final Sigma as you will it being still a Sigma it will have no other valor then 200 whence the whole summe of the Name will not be 666 but 860 as any one may see that will reckon For that Sigma even in the end signifies 200 is plain in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and several other examples This is most certainly true and there is no subterfuge at all to avoid it as Maresius Grotius his Antagonist has fully made good against him as he has indeed every where in a manner worsted him though Grotius so unseemly contemns him trampling him down into the durt under that uncivil Nick-name of Borborita 6. The Mark the Name and the Number belong all to one wherefore if the Number be Trajan's the Mark must be his also But might no body buy nor sell who had not his mark on their hand or fore-head 7. Here is wisedom let him that has understanding count the Number of the Beast is such a Preface as implies another sort of numbering then the mere summing up the Numeral Letters of a Name into one summe 8. To what purpose was this setting down the number 666 for the denoting of the Emperour Ulpius Trajanus it never entring into any ones head that this number reflected upon him till Grotius hit upon it and mist it both at once 9.
and the punishments thereof Consect XI That the Authority of neither Fathers nor Councils after 400 years from Christ or thereabout is of any validity to determine Controversies against the Protestant Churches touching those things which the Church of Rome and they disagree in 10. This naturally follows from the Epocha of Antichristianism falling about that time we mention After which the Church being supposed in some measure lapsed into that great Apostasy neither the Fathers Doctrines nor her Councils can have right to decide the Controversies betwixt the Papists and us so as authoritatively to testifie against us But it is observable that their Testimony will hold good against the Papists in such Points as they contradict them in because they are in that witnesses of the successive minde of the Church as yet unaltered by this growing Corruption or at least testify matter of fact against the false Pretences of the Popish Traditions Consect XII That all Visions that are Synchronal to this of the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns which is said to continue fourty two moneths have necessarily the extent of one thousand two hundred and sixty years 11. To be Synchronal is as much as to begin continue and end together Whence it is plain that that which is Synchronal to what continueth 1260 years must it self continue so many years But the 42 moneths of the Beast are 1260 years by the first Consectary Which is a plain Demonstration of the truth of this last The use of which Consectary is of very great moment for the detection of the falshood of such petty Expositions as some put upon those Visions which are Synchronal to this of the restored Beast For extend them but upon this measure of time and they will all crack and break into fitters and thereby which I would have thus timely taken notice of excuse me from any farther Confutation of them Wherefore it will be worth the while to take notice of all those Visions that are Synchronal to this of the restored Beast it being so necessary a Method to be assured of the right sense of them and to discern more certainly in what Prophecies of the Apocalyps those Lineaments of Antichristianism which I have noted in my foregoing Treatise are prefigured 12. In the mean time I need not I think re-minde my Reader that the Visions of these two Chapters which I have thus carefully interpreted do plainly foretel that grand part of Antichristianism which consists in Idolatrous worship how it should over-run the Empire by the seduction and activity of an Imposturous Clergy figured out in the Type of the Beast with two Lamb-like Horns but that would speak like the Dragon and re-introduce the Image of old Paganism again under the colour of a more heightned Devotion and Affection toward Christ the Blessed Virgin and the rest of the Saints and Martyrs As also in the Type of the Whore of Babylon who is called the Mother of Fornications and Abominations of the Earth that is of Idolatry and Pagan-like Worship who 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Kings of the Earth and all the Inhabitants thereof with the Cup of the filthiness of her Fornications that is seduces them to Idolatry Hoc enim est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idololatriae calicem as Grotius himself has interpreted it Wherefore these are two notable Predictions of the Apostasy of the Church into Heathenish and Idolatrous worship But I shall also produce others out of the same Book after I have prepared the way by making good certain Synchronisms thereunto appertaining CHAP. VI. 1. The Synchronism of the Whore the Two-horned Beast the restored Beast or the Beast that was and is not and yet is demonstrated out of our Joint-Exposition 2. To which the False-Prophet is also proved Synchronal the Virgin-Company the Two Witnesses the Woman in the Wilderness and the Outward Court as being either the fame Antistoechal or necessarily connected all along with them 3. Again in a more abstract way That the restored Beast the Woman in the Wilderness the Outward Court the Two Witnesses are of equal time 4. That the Woman in the Wilderness and the restored Beast begin together and therefore are Synchronal 5. That the restored Beast and Two Witnesses are Synchronal as ending together 6. That the Two Witnesses and Outward Court are Synchronal as both beginning and ending together And all these four Synchronal to the Whore and Two-horned Beast because the Two-horned Beast and the Whore are Synchronal to the restored Beast to which the other three are Synchronal 7. That the Virgin-Company and the Sealed out of the twelve Tribes are all one Company and therefore both Synchronal to the Whore by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consequently with the rest of the fix with whom She is Synchronal 8. That the said Sealed Virgin-Company is Synchronal to the Series of the first six Trumpets as being sealed immediately before the blast of the first Trumpet and as being Synchronal to the Mourning of the Witnesses which ceases at the end of the sixth Trumpet 9. The six first Seals the Fight of Michael and the Dragon and the Inward Court proved Synchronal 10. That the Vision of * Apocal. 11. measuring the Temple begins from the first Epocha indicated from the quality of the Person that holds in his hand the opened Book 11. From his supplying the place of the seventh Angel and the space of the seventh Trumpet with seven Thunders 12. From the suspending of the sound of the seventh Trumpet to make a Regression 13. From the newness or new condition of the Book in the Angel's hand 14. From the voice communing or talking with John from Heaven as in the beginning of the Prophecies of the Seals 15. From the bitterness of the Book in his belly From his being bid again to prophesy and that before many Kings and Peoples and Nations 16. From the Epocha of the Vision of the * Apocal. 12. ensuing Chapter 17. The Synchronism of the first six Seals with the Inward Court of weighty concernment 18. The Millennial Empire of Christ the Palm-bearing Company the New Jerusalem and the Ligation of Satan that they are all in some sense Synchronal to the Seventh Trumpet 1. THat the Beast with seven Heads in the Thirteenth Chapter is Synchronal with the Beast that carries the Whore in the Seventeenth is plain in that they are the very self-same Beast in every Respect as appears out of my Joint-Exposition That the Whore of Babylon also and the Two-horned Beast are the self-same Thing is made evident in the same Exposition and therefore they must be Synchronal unless one and the same thing can begin to be after it has continued in Being and continue after it ceases to be That the Whore or the Two-horned Beast is Synchronal to the Seven-headed with ten Horns in these two Chapters is evident in that the Two-horned Beast is the Reviver and Healer of this Seven-headed Beast or Restorer
Victory and restrained Reign of Christ to some Nations or Kingdoms which being a pledge of future successes that Acclamation was in Heaven The Kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ. Of which this Song of the Harpers may be the truest Comment All Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy judgments are made manifest Not that they are come already but will assuredly fall under his subjection Here is the first espial of the * Vers. 5. Temple of the Tabernacle in Heaven whither also the Witnesses did ascend 10. But after this is the effusion of the seven Vials as is plain out of the order of things in the Text whether you take notice of those Middle Synchronals which are set out by the time of their continuance as * Apoc. 13. 5. that of the restored Beast to which is added presently the * Chap. 14. Virgin-Company as running in a parallel opposition thereto after which this Song of Moses follows as a Thanksgiving for those first Victories over the Beast or consider the Temple opened in Heaven which in order follows after this Song and out of which the Angels come that have the seven Vials For from both it is intimated that the Vials run all up into the seventh Trumpet Which is farther still to be confirmed from Chap. 11. where the Temple of God is also opened in Heaven and the Ark of the Covenant mentioned as here and a compendious Symbolical Periphrasis of wrath and vengeance so that it is hugely reasonable to conceive they mean the same thing But that appearance Chap. 11. of the Temple and Ark is after the seventh Trumpet began to sound Therefore the seven Vials are within the blast of the seventh Trumpet 11. In short and yet to reach to the bottom of this present business it is of exceeding great moment to take notice that the seven Middle Synchronals of the Prophecies of the opened Book have their fulfilling either quoad speciem or quoad gradus as to the kind or as to the degrees in the same kind one degree being sufficient for the fulfilling of the Prophecies quoad speciem and that one of these Synchronals cannot be fulfilled quoad speciem or quoad gradus but ipso facto they are all fulfilled they being so intimately united one with another As for example Suppose that but in one State or Kingdom in Christendom the Church has become purely Apostolical in Doctrine and Discipline in Life and Conversation it follows from hence that quoad speciem the Reign of the Beast is expired that is that there is one Specimen or Instance of this specifick Event namely of such an Expiration of the Rule of the Beast as brings along with it the Resurrection of the Witnesses and the Succession of the Kingdom of Christ in the place Which if it fall out at or towards the expiration of the 42 months and from a fit Epocha the Prophecie is truly fulfilled in all circumstances quoad speciem in this first Example but may proceed farther and farther afterwards in Degrees or Latitude But the thing that I contend for is this That this first way of fulfilling is onely aimed at in these Middle Synchronals of the Prophecies of the opened Book and that the Degrees are reserved for the Vials in the last Trumpet 12. And what I instanced in the Reign of the Beast must be true of all the rest That their fulfilling that contemporizes with the first six Trumpets and terminates upon the first blast of the seventh is a fulfilling onely quoad speciem or quoad esse not quoad gradus which are reserved for the seventh Trumpet And my reason is Because all these seven Synchronals are so nearly united or signifie so much one and the same that they must necessarily advance or be retarded together As for example We cannot conceive the Whore of Babylon burnt in any one Kingdom that is the Clergy to cease to be Idolatrous and Antichristian and to become purely Apostolick in Doctrine and Discipline but we may be sure that the Civil Magistrate ceases there to be Antichristian too and that the Ten-horned Beast in this place has finished his fourty two months the Two-horned Beast also vanishes as being one and the same with the Whore the Witnesses break off their mournful Prophecie as having here nothing to complain of the Outward Court is in this part cleansed of the Pollution of the Gentiles that trod it under foot the Woman is here no longer hid in the Wilderness amongst brutish Idolaters but appears as a glorious City upon an Hill to attract the eyes of the Nations unto it and lastly the Marked or Sealed Virgin-Regiments lose their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place and instead of fighting Souldiers become a College of peaceful Priests clothed in white and are before the Throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple Thus jointly will these Middle Synchronals ever be fulfilled be it more or less whether barely quoad speciem or repeatedly quoad gradus the first fulfilling conterminating with the Entrance of the seventh Trumpet the other advancing in it to the effusion of the last Vial. 13. And what is worthy our observation those last Synchronals we have above noted namely The Millennial Reign of Christ The Palm-bearing Company The new Jerusalem and The binding of Satan do commence in such a way and proportion as these Middle Synchronals expire But that special and most eminent Epocha of the Ligation of Satan as also of the Millennial Empire I conceive commenceth not till after the seventh Vial and the * Apoc. 20. 3. Devil 's being let loose again for a little time is to be placed somewhat before the voice of the seventh Thunder wherewith the whole Earth is to be set on fire and Death and Hell to be all of a flame thereby But the intermediate space is the Millennium eminently so styled 14. This I believe is the truest and safest apprehension we can have of the Series of things in the Apocalyptick Visions Which having thus competently cleared I shall with the greater satisfaction to my self and to others I hope proceed to the producing such passages out of this Prophetick Volume as predict the several kinds of Lapses of the Church into Antichristianism for we now know whereabout to seek for them namely among the Middle Synchronals of either Prophecie which reach from about the four hundredth year after Christ to these very Ages CHAP. VIII 1. That there are Three more Middle Synchronals that foretel the Churche's Lapse into Idolatry As the Vision of the Outward Court troden down by the Gentiles 2. The Woman in the Wilderness What meant by Wilderness 3. A brief account of the sense of the whole Vision 4. That there is an Hypallage in her being said to flie into the Desart like that of Hades being cast into the Fire and of the Kingdom being given to the
Saints in Daniel 5. That our Interpretation of the Woman in the Wilderness does not clash with Mr. Mede's though different from it 6. The third synchronal the Virgin-Companie The meaning of the Number of their Regiments and of the new Song which none could learn besides them 7. How the Vision of these Virgin-souldiers implies the Lapse of the Church into Idolatry 1. BEsides those notable and leading Prophecies of the Idolatry of the Church in the Thirteenth and Seventeenth Chapters of the Revelation there are farther Intimations of the same Lapse in other places Indeed no less then six of the seven Middle Synchronals of the Prophecies of the opened Book are Predictions of this Idolatrous state of the Church Three of which we have done withall namely the Whore of Babylon the Two-horned Beast and the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns The first of those three behind is the Outward Court or Holy City troden under foot by the Gentiles for the space of 42 months Which Apoc. 11. Outward Court or Holy City that it is to be understood of those that make a visible profession of Christianity in the world appears from the evidence of the Synchronisms that of the Temple or Inward Court reaching from the beginning of the Church to the time of its Lapse into such a Condition as was not commensurable to the Reed of the Angel and therefore rejected The Court that is without the Temple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cast it out so the words signify But the Outward Court belongs to the Inward and the Jews having been cast off long before it is plain from hence that all this is understood of Christendom Nor is it any more wonder that the Jewish Temple or Courts thereof should typify the Christian Church then that their Tribes did Chap. 7. For this is but an usual Israelism Wherefore Christendom being the Scene of these Transactions and it being presently after added concerning this Outward Court that it is given to the Gentiles and that they shall tread under foot the Holy City fourty two months which Holy City and Outward Court is in a maâ—…ner the same thing the very Camp of Israel being the Outward Court in the Wilderness and this Outward Court the Receptacle of the People of Israel at their solemn times of worship when the Temple was built as Mr. Mede has well observed it is evident Christendom was to be over-run with Gentilism that is with Paganism the life and soul whereof is Idolatry so long a time forasmuch as the Holy City or Outward Court is supposed here in being that is to say a people that do profess Christianity and are externally dedicated to God but in the interim are over-grown with an Heathenish kind of Superstition and Idolatry And in that this Outward Court is said to be given to the Gentiles that is answerable to what is wrote in Ch. 17. For God has put it into their hearts Ver. 17. to fulfill his will and to agree and give their Kingdom unto the Beast untill the words of God shall be fulfilled So fatal as I may so speak does this Apostasy of the Church seem to be and so little reason have those great Politicians of Italy to sacrifice to their own Nets as I have above noted and impute all to their own wit when they have apparently hitherto rowed with the stream But the times are coming wherein they will find the course of things turned and their Resistence of a due Reformation a fighting against God Which is worth their observing that they may take up in due time 2. The next of those latter Synchronalls is The Woman in the Wilderness namely That Woman that * Apocal. 12. 1. wears upon her head a Crown of twelve Starrs whose glory it is to be that pure and Apostolick Church uncontaminated with after-Superstitions and Idolatries that Woman that is said * Vers. 2. to travail in birth and was pained to be delivered and after long throes and pangs that is to say sharp persecutions at last * Vers. 5. brought forth a Male-childe that should rule the Nations This Woman not changing place herself is notwithstanding said * Vers. 14. to have the wings of an Eagle given her whereby she fled into the Wilderness there to be secured from the persecution of the old red Dragon which is the bloudy Pagan Powers of the Roman Empire as yet unconverted to Christianity And indeed by being thus escaped though but into a Wilderness she was sheltred from them But in that she is said to be in a Wilderness it is an intimation that she is hid and blended amongst them that under the outward profession of Christianity did again Paganize in their Superstitious and Idolatrous Worship as you may understand out of the acknowledged meaning of Wilderness in the Prophetick-Alphabet For that Men not a mere Solitude of Trees and Beasts is understood by Wilderness is plain also out of that in the Evangelist The voice of one crying in the wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths straight Which he spoke not to Beasts Matt. 3. 3. and Trees but to Men whom these resemble when they are wholly taken up in the functions and delights of the mere Vegetal and Animal nature of which Superstition and Idolatry is one part as I have above intimated 3. The sense therefore of this Prophecy is this That the pure and Apostolick Church though sheltered therewithall for a time from the red Dragon was over-run with a kind of Christiano-Paganism from one side to the other from the East wing to the West wing of the Eagle or Roman Empire which because it had its Eastern and Western Caesars is figured with two wings and that with greater facility then the Leopard in * Chap. 7. 6. Daniel with four which signified the quadripartition of the Greek Empire into four parts This therefore intimates the Greek Church as well as the Latine to be culpable in this matter of Idolatrous worship correspondently to what I have said of the two Horns of the Beast that they intimate the two Imperial Patriarchates that of Rome and the other of Constantinople the two chief Summities of the Idolatrizing Clergie This I doubt not but is the meaning of the Woman in the Wilderness though it seems something hard that she is said to fly into this Desert this Desert rather coming upon or over-running her in the thing signified 4. But it is an Hypallage of which this is no solitary Example but like that of casting Hades into the lake of fire and brimstone whenas that fire is rather cast into Hades at the Conflagration of the world by Thunder and Lightening 2 Figure even needlesly affected for Elegancy sake by Poets Brutium ponto feriente Corum Such an Hypallage as this I suspect also to be in Daniel ch 7. where he speaks of the Kingdoms under the whole Heaven being given to the Saints of the most High
Spirit speaketh expresly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of Devils speaking lies in Hypocrisy having their conscience seared with an hot-iron forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats c. It should be rendred Through the Hypocrisy of them that speak lies having their conscience seared with an hot-iron c. as any one that understands Syntax must needs acknowledge for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot agree in Grammar nor Devils and Seared consciences in usual phrase or sense There cannot be a better Gloss upon the first part of this Prediction then what Epiphanius has occasionally wrote upon it in his sharp reproof of the Collyridians who gave Divine worship to the Virgin Mary offering up a Cake or Cracknell to her They did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that Father speaks from whence they were called Collyridians Of which Idolatry he saies certain women in Arabia were the first Inventours who came out of Thrace thither and there practised this nefarious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I the more willingly take notice of because Idolatry is so often styled by that name in the Apocalyps and at last concludes thus fully and roundly upon the whole matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which last words do plainly import that this Apostasy here is understood of giving religious worship to Daemons that is to say to the Souls of men deceased And it is observable that Chrysostom and Theophylact read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Erasmus has noted upon the place if any one like that word better then the other But Epiphanius seems to understand the same thing by both that is the Souls of dead men religiously worshipped which he compares with the Baalim worshipped by the Israelites as the Psalmist complains They joyned themselves to Baal-Peor and ate the offerings of the dead Wherefore in brief according to the mind of Epiphanius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal. 106. 2â—… which we render seducing spirits are erroneous and fallacious Doctrines or Prophecies as Grotius also ordinarily interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inspired into mens minds by the Devil For so he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Diabolical Inspiration and Doctrine taught by the unclean Spirit to pollute the worship of God This respects those words in the Text Giving heed to seducing spirits whereby he would have the Original of these wicked Doctrines noted 5. But then the Matter or Object of them to be couched in that more definitive expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is not Doctrines of Devils as taught and suggested by them for that he had touched before but Doctrines of Damons that is to say concerning Damons or the worshipping of the Dead answerably to the Israelites worshipping the Baalim which the Psalmist intimates to be the Souls of men deceased 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Epiphanius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For that Prophecy is fulfilled in these Collyridians viz. Some shall depart from sound doctrine giving head to fabulous stories and doctrines concerning Daemons For that this Genitive may be a Genitive of the Object as well as of the Agent any one will grant And that Epiphanius understands it in that former sense is plain both from his prefixing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which fabulous stories are not conceived to be told by the Daemons but of them and also from what immediately follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For he saith there will be those that will worship the dead c. Which yet the Apostle does not say unless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Doctrines concerning Daemons which are the Souls of men deceased as I have elsewhere sufficiently intimated Wherefore it is plain from the Exposition of Epiphanius that this Prediction of S. Paul is very applicable to the Apostasy of the Church of Rome for their giving Divine honour unto the Saints which is apparently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to worship the dead 6. Which will still be found more exquisitely to fit them of Rome if we consider by what external means this Daemon-worship is promoted For these that are said to depart from the faith that is from the sound doctrine of it as Epiphanius has interpreted it and to Apostatize into the Idolatrous worship of Daemons are said to doe this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through the Hypocrisy of tellers of lies the Apocalyps calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that make lies that is to say that feign Legends of the Miracles of their Saints or Daemons and in deed doe it so impudently as if they made no conscience of those pious frauds and fables whence it is said that they have their consciences seared with an hot-iron What can be more expressive of the Greek and Roman Legendaries then this and yet there is still a more particular character added Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats Whom can this Character fit so well as the Orders of Monks into whose Societies no man could be admitted but upon strict observation of these laws They prohibited any one that would be of their Fraternity to marry and enjoyn'd them also to abstain from certain meats These things are so solidly and copiously made out in Mr. Mede's Apostasy of the Latter times that I need adde nothing more but a Recommendation of that Treatise to the Reader There is scarce any Prophecie falls more fitly upon any Event then this does upon the Church in those times when she had lapsed into this Daemon-worship by the seduction of a fraudulent and superstitious Clergy 7. Thirdly The summary Description of the whole Mystery of Godliness preceding so immediately before in the very last Verse of the foregoing Chapter me-thinks there is a congruity that this immediate Digression into the mention of a Lapse from the purity of this Mystery should be of no petty concernment the perstringing of a few Pythagorizing Christians or such as might leave Christianity to follow Apollonius of which notwithstanding I do not remember any particular stories but a more solemn and notorious Apostasie of the Church of Christ and the converting of that great Mystery of Godliness immediately before mentioned into a Mystery of Iniquity as it is else-where called For that expression of Some shall depart from the Faith is no barâ—…e at all to this meaning as Mr. Mede has demonstratively made good by many and sufficient Examples where some is said of the greatest part and in a manner of the whole people as you may see in the above-named Treatise 8. Fourthly and lastly The Preface to this Prediction Now the Spirit speaketh expresly that in the latter times c. seems not onely too big but too determinate another way then to comply with what Grotius would put us off with namely a glance at Apollonius and his
followers For it is too dilute and frigid a Gloss to make no more of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then to turn it off with a Posthac or Hereafter as if the term of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had not passed into a phrase of Art already and had not been defined long since by the Angel in Daniel or at least was not a necessary Consectary from Chap. 12. his Definition who being asked how long to the end of these wonders he held up his right hand and his left hand unto Heaven and sware by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time and times and half a time And being again asked by Daniel to declare more plainly when the end of those things should be he gives this Answer That the words are sealed till the time of the End which is so called as being that notable section of time that lies next to the end of the Fourth or Last Monarchy but presently after addes this hint to point him to this time of the End That from the time that the daily Sacrifice should be taken away and the Abomination that makes desolate set up should be 1290 days but that blessed he should be that came to the 1335 days 9. Now the end of those things Daniel enquired after reached as appears from the Text and general consent of Expositors even to the Day of Judgment however that phrase is to be understood Whence it is rational to conceive that Daniel's Prophecies reach through those four famous Monarchies or Kingdoms the Babylonian Persian Greek and Roman and that the Roman Kingdom conterminates or synchronizes with the fulness of time or the end of Times and Ages and being the Fourth and last division of this Sacred Kalendar of Prophecies as Mr. Mede calls it may rightly be termed the last times or last days in which the Messias was expected and came But after Christ's coming seeing there would be a very marvellous and notorious reign of Antichrist during this Fourth Monarchy or last time who is figured out in the Two-horned Beast and the Whore of Babylon which are of the Middle Synchronals of the Book-prophecie and which I have already demonstrated to begin about 400 years after Christ and that the time of their continuance is the same with a Time and Times and half a Time and that this is 1260 years it is evident that this share of time is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter times of these last or the time of the End as lying next thereto and the very times the Angel speaks of in this Chapter where he asserts with an Oath that those Wonders that is that prodigious Reign of Antichrist should continue for a time and times and half a time but that when he shall have accomplished to scatter Dan. 12. 7. the power of the holy people namely the Jews then all things spoken of shall be finished Which is the very same with that in the Apocalyps where the Angel swears by him that lives for ever that there should be no more time saving in the days of the voice of the seventh Angel Apoc. 10. 7. when he shall sound and the Mystery of God be finished as he has declared to his servants the Prophets alluding particularly to this of Daniel This is the right meaning of this passage of the Revelation according to common sense and Grammatical construction Which plainly shews that the Time and Times and half a Time end with the sixth Trumpet From which considerations it is evident to any one that is unprejudiced that this term of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a term of the Prophetick style the same with the Time of the End with an allusion to that Sacred Kalendar of Daniel consisting of the four Monarchies as being the latter section of the continuance of the last running on along with the Reign of Antichrist For so does the Church generally interpret that Time and Times and half a Time in Daniel 10. And that they do belong to the Reign of Antichrist even in our sense Mr. Mede has in my judgment most convincingly made good even from those numbers of 1290 days and 1335 days in his little Treatise of those Numbers which he calls Revelatio Antichristi Which were certainly given as a Key to open the truth of Daniel's Prophecies concerning the reign of that Man of sin and the time of his Discovery The words Dan. 12. 9. are closed up and sealed till the time of the End that is till these latter times but the wicked shall not then understand them but the wise shall and may be assured of them by this Key of Numbers of years from the Epocha of Antiochus his prophaning the Temple compared with the Event the first notable Instances of Revealing of this Man of sin The first of these Numbers from that Epocha ends in the year of our Lord 1120 the latter in the year 1165. For I have already so undeniably demonstrated that Days stylo Prophetico do signifie Years both in this Treatise and in my * Book 5. Ch. 15. Sect. 2. Mystery of Godliness that I think no man will doubt of it and that they cannot signifie Days here Mr. Mede has with no less evidence evinced Now the Event is exact to Admiration For in the year 1120 a true and perfect detection or description of Antichrist came forth and not till then as you may see by that compendious account which Mr. Mede has given thereof The ending of the other Period is also notable for the Waldenses and Albigenses in whose times the Mystery of Iniquity was more fully detected and by more numerous Companies protested against Whence they are said to be blessed that reach to those times by reason of the great clearness of the Light of the Gospel that shined forth nor less happy they that then also suffered for witnessing to it but certainly much more blessed by reason that their Reward should be greater and more singular For the Prophecie declares how things are in truth and reality and not according to the judgment or sentiments of the soft and false carnal mind See that judicious Author Mr. Mede for I cannot dwell upon these things I will onely adde for a farther assurance of Mr. Mede's Exposition that no other will hold water For it is not likely that these Numbers of Days should be any Interpretation of the Extent of the above-mentioned Time and Times and half a Time they both of them varying from the just measure of that Period and the sense also of that Aenigmatical expression being not so hard but that all hit on it and agree in it To which you may adde that the Epocha from Antiochus will not comply with this design and it is hard to make that Epocha signifie otherwise then literally with any credibility of meaning As also that this way the main difficulty about which Daniel was so solicitous will not be satisfi'd which was When this
Christian again and Apostolick according to this Vision 6. That these Visions of Tyre must needs have a further meaning then what literally concerns that City 7. An Exposition of the eighteenth verse of the last Vision comprising the Prediction of the Reformation of Rome Pagano-Christian 8. What is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a general reflexion upon the appositeness of these four last Prophecies for the setting out the Merchandising of the Church of Rome in the management of her Ecclesiastick Affairs 1. THat there must be some such Mystical sense as this in the general of the Burning of Babylon and of this Lamentation over her my Joint-Exposition does make good it being manifest there that the Whore of Babylon and the Two-horned Beast are all one and that consequently not a City but a Polity is understood thereby And Alcazar himself interprets this desolation not in a literal sense but mystical understanding thereby the Conversion of Rome Pagan to Christianity as I do of Rome Pagano-Christian to the pure and Apostolick Christianity again Which seems to be intimated in the Vision of Tyre which in the Mystery is the same with the burning of Babylon And the Spirit of God seems of set purpose to point us thereto by the transplanting so entirely the Phrases of the Visions of Tyre in Ezekiel and Esay into this Apocalyptick Vision of Babylon as if he had a minde that we should take notice of a fourth Appellation of this Mystical City that it is as well Tyre as Sodom Aegypt and Babylon But whereas Alcazar would have Rome Pagan understood by Tyre I conceive that in Ezekiel Rome Pagano-Christian in Esay both Rome Pagan Christian and Pagano-Christian is typified as we shall briefly see and it is not out of our way these Mystical Merchandises being still concerned therein 2. Behold then how lively that High Priest at Rome is set out first in Ezekiel under the Type of the King of Tyre Chap. 28. Ver. 2. Son of man say unto the Prince of Tyre Thus saith the Lord God Because thine heart is lifted up and thou hast said I am a God I sit in the seat of God in the midst of the Seas yet thou art man and not God though thou set thine heart as the heart of God Is not this plainly he that sits betwixt the Seas in Italy and exalts himself above every thing that is called God But this belongs more properly to that part of Antichristianism that is opposite to the Divine Grace of Humility 3. Behold thou art wiser then Daniel there is no secret that they can hide from thee This is onely a Diorismus but sets out the pretended Infallibility and unerring Inspiration of that grand Pseudo-prophet at Rome as it may also glance at their exquisite cunning and sagacity and general Intelligence for the management of their Affairs And some interpret the Text of Political Wisedom wherein Daniel was also eximious And indeed the very pretence of Infallibility in Divine things is in this False Prophet onely a Trick of Policy and the direction of their whole frame of Policy entirely carried to the getting of Power and Riches In pursuance whereof they will not stick to alter null or abrogate the Laws Institutes and Decrees of God himself Which some would phansy to be alluded to in the name of Daniel which signifies the judgment of God as if they could make Laws and Decrees more judiciously then He whenas they are nothing but politick Contrivances for getting of Wealth as I said and is plainly intimated in the following verse 4. With thy wisedom and with thy understanding thou hast gotten thee riches and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures 5. By thy great wisedom and by thy traffick hast thou encreased thy riches and thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches This is that Mysticall trade which we have already taken notice of in the foregoing Vision of the Ruine of Babylon The following verses to the tenth are a Commination of his destruction at the end whereof it being added Thou shalt die the death of the uncircumcised c. it implies that this King of Tyre in the Prophetick style is a Jew which in the Apocalyptick Visions sounds as much as Christian whether in profession or in truth Which is a farther Intimation of the Mystical meaning of this Prophecy 3. But these things are still farther cleared in the following Vision in the same Chapter Vers. 12. Son of man take up a lamentation upon the King of Tyre and say unto him Thus saith the Lord God Thou sealest up the full summe of wisedom and perfect in beauty That is to say There is no policy nor splendour of Empire to be compared with that of the Bishop of Rome 13. Thou hast been in Eden the Garden of God every precious stone was thy covering the Sardius Topaz and the Diamond the Beryll c. Adorned like the Whore of Babylon for precious Stones and Jewels as well he may the Whore and He being in signification one and the same thing But in that he is said to be in the Garden of Eden what can be more sutable to the pleasantness and deliciousness of Italy which is accounted the Garden or Eden of Europe 14. Thou art the anointed Cherub that covereth and I have set thee so thou wast upon the holy Mountain of God thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire The sense is Thou art look'd upon as the Infallible Oracle of Christendom for from the Cherubims did God speak and thou art also that High Priest walking in his Sacerdotal Vestments upon which were those glistering stones that shone like fire and were an Emblem of the * See the Appendix to the Defence of my Philosophick Cabbala Chap. 5. Sect. 3. Sun according to the ancient Cabbala Which height of Dignity though thou mayest be forward to ascribe to thy self and thy own activity and policy yet thou art to know that all power is from me and that it is by my strength that thou standest 15. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created till iniquity was found in thee That is to say There was no evil nor defect in thee from thy being created Bishop of Rome for Episcopacy is of my Institution untill thou didst degenerate into Superstition and Idolatry and forsookest the first Apostolick laws of thy Creation and broughtest that sad Apostasy upon Christendom 16. By the multitude of thy Merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence and thou hast sinned Therefore will I cast thee as profane out of the Mountain of God and I will destroy thee O covering Cherub from the midst of the stones of fire By the multiplying of thy merchandises such as I have described in the foregoing Vision of Babylon thou committest injustice these are thy * Apocal. 9. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hast laid violent hands on those that
speak against these ungodly tradings and hast slain the Witnesses of the Truth Wherefore thou shalt sit no longer on Seven-hilled Rome which is holy for the profession of the name of my Son Christ but I will bring thee down who pretendest to be universal Oracle and High Priest over Christendom and strip thee out of thy Sacerdotal Raiments that glister with precious Stones like Fire and thus I will destroy thee 17. Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty thou hast corrupted thy wisedom by reason of thy brightness I will cast thee to the ground I will lay thee before Kings that they may behold thee 18. Thou hast defiled thy Sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities by the iniquity of thy traffick therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee it shall devour thee and I will bring thee to ashes upon the Earth in the sight of all them that beheld thee The summe hereof is this The greatness and splendour of the See of Rome the pursuit and affectation thereof in her and proportionally in the rest of the Grandees of that Clergy made them corrupt their Policy with wicked Principles so that they defiled their Sanctuaries that is to say the Christian Churches with such Idolatrous and Superstitious worship as made most for their own gain I mean with such like iniquity of their traffick as I have already intimated in the Vision of Babylon Mass-money Oblations to Saints and their Images and the like Wherefore this King of Tyre is as the Whore of Babylon which is a Type of the same thing condemned to be burnt to ashes by a fire which shall break forth from the midst of him as it is said of the Whore that the ten Horns which were Principalities of her own Jurisdiction should hate her and eat her flesh and burn her with fire 4. The Vision is so naturally applicable to the same that the Whore of Babylon is and so hardly applicable in some passages to the King of Tyre that it is no small assurance but that the chief Scope of the Prophecy respects rather the Bishop of Rome then the Tyrian Prince Of which we may be farther assured by that other Prophecy to the same sense in * Esay 23. Esay where Forerius conceives not onely Rome Pagan to be spoken of as Alcazar but says expresly that John seems to understand Civitatem Antichristianorum by this City of Tyre in Apocal. 18. though he names not the City ver 19. Alas alas that great City wherein were made rich all that had ships in the Sea And with Forerius and Alcazar joyn'd together I conceive by Tyre to be understood Rome become Antichristian the Antichristian Hierarchy thereof being pointed at as it is in Babylon For S. John as I have above intimated has plainly directed us to this sense by transplanting the very self-same phrases into the Vision of Babylon As appears besides what we have already noted from the eighth verse of this Chapter Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre the Crowning City whose Merchants are Princes whose Traffickers are the Honourable of the Earth I omit to take notice how patly the Crowning City fits that Polity that in ordine ad spiritualia pretends to a right of taking off and putting on the Crowns of Kings and Emperours and have done it with the greatest insultation imaginable I onely note that the rest answers exactly to Apocal. 18. 23. Thy Merchants are the great men of the Earth as here Princes and the Honourable of the Earth How well these terms agree to the grandeur of the Pope and Cardinals and such great persons of that Church is obvious to every one to conceive But there is something more pleasant that follows and of a good Omen Verse 15. And it shall come to pass in that day that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years according to the days of one King after the end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as an Harlot Here is both good news and bad news in this verse For by Tyre is here meant as has been already suggested Idolatrous Rome who must be forgotten seventy years according to the days of One King which say I is one of the eight Kings in the Apocalyps Chap. 17. And by the Cabbalistical sense of the number 70 it is easily discovered who he is namely the Seventh King which is the Succession of the Christian Caesars as I have there noted the space of whose reign is not here intimated but their property by multiplying 10 into 7. Of which the Cabbalistical meaning is That during the whole reign of those Caesars for Ten is a Symbol of Totality Tyre should be forgotten that is the Polity of Rome should not be professedly Idolatrous but after this term then Tyre shall again sing as an Harlot as it follows Verse 16. Take an harp goe about the City thou Harlot that hast been forgotten make sweet melody sing many songs that thou mayest be remembred That is to say That the Roman Hierarchy after that time of the abrogation of Idolatry expired by fair pretences and bewitching speeches accommodating their harangues and exhortations with much harmony and agreeableness to the corrupt inclinations of the people shall by these plausible persuasions and other meretricious Ceremonies and sense-striking Invitations bring Idolatrous worship again into the Empire the will of God so far as I see being that it should be so as it follows Verse 17. And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years that the Lord will visit Tyre and she shall turn to her hire and shall commit fornication with all the Kings of the Earth And it shall come to pass The more determinate sense is For it shall come to pass otherwise it looks like a Tautologie Her Apostasy into Idolatry is here described like that of the Whore of Babylon with whom the Kings of the Earth are said to commit Fornication And whereas it is said For the Lord will visit Tyre that is answerable to that Apocal. 17. 17. For God has put in their hearts to fulfill his will Which Apostasy also begins as here after seventy years so there in the Apocalyps after the Seventh King But that which follows is most welcome Ver. 18. And her Merchandise and her hire shall be Holiness to the Lord it shall not be treasured nor laid up for her Merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the Lord to eat sufficiently and for durable clothing Here the Scene of things is again changed and that for the best For Interpreters generally agree that here is a Conversion to Christ. But S. Jerom and some of the Hebrew Writers understand it of the Conversion of the City Tyrus herself Alcazar of Rome Pagan But I conceive this Conversion to be of Rome Pagano-Christian to the ancient pure and Apostolick Christianity which the fitness of things as well in this Vision of Esay as those of Ezekiel seems sufficiently to assure us of
Nor can it well but be expected when it is so evident that the People of the Jews was one great Sacrament or Type of the Church of Christ to come as is inculcated over and over again in the Apocalyps abounding so every-where with that Figure we have ventured to term Israelismus I say it cannot but be expected that those Nations that were Enemies to the Jews should also bear the Type of such as should be found the Enemies of the true Church of Christ and that the Prophets predicting things of them in reference to the first Completion which is Literal should in the exaltedness of their spirit be raised into such expressions as were more sutable to those whose Types they were then to them themselves in such sort as several Prophecies concerning Christ are framed and noted accordingly by Interpreters which are either purely Allegorical or Mixt of which I Book 7. Ch. 7. Sect. 2 3 4. have spoken in my Mystery of Godliness 6. And truly I think these two Visions of Tyre so perfect Predictions of Antichrist and his Fall that they deserve to be received into the number of the second kind there being that in them which will not sute with the first Completion of them Amongst which is Tyre's being called Whore and her being said to commit fornication with all the Kings of the Earth Which is no tolerable sense understood literally of Tyrus but easily and naturally understood of Rome Antichristian What à Lapide saies of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it signifies Caupona as well as Meretrix is but a poor subterfuge as if the Prophet for a verbal Jest's sake would reproach a City so highly for usefull trades and negotiations Besides though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signify as well Caupona as Meretrix yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies onely scortari And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must determine the sense of the other Esay 23. 17. Also the seventy years silence and ollivion is so unapplicable to Tyre literally as that Grotius though I cannot approve of his boldness is fain change the seventy years into seven as if the Text were corrupt which is an odd way of interpreting Scripture something like the cure of the Head-ach by decollation And when he has reduced these years to seven neither the life nor the reign of Salmanassar was seven years nor he King of that City Which yet according to common sense seems necessary to be understood Again The Prince of Tyre being threatened with the death of the Uncircumcised implies him a pretended member of the Church of God and more especially his being called the anointed Cherub and set out by the adornings of the High Priest and menaced to be cast out of the Mountain of God as profane and lastly reproved for defiling the Sanctuaries All these are more then Intimations that the King of Tyre is a Type of some great person who is Priest in the Church of God to whom this Vision chiefly does belong and will hardly be sense in some things if not understood of him 7. But I will not dwell any longer on this subject Let me onely give a brief Account of the sense of this last verse And her Merchandise that is to say Then or After this her Merchandise for of so lax a sense isâ—… as we noted upon Dan. 11. 36. her Merchandise and Hire shall be Holiness to the Lord. The meaning is Those Revenues and Preferments which Simony and other oblique and unjust administration of the affairs of the Church had made mere Merchandise as also that which had been the Hire of an Whore that is to say that had accrued to the Church of Rome by her Idolatrous and Meretricious Artifices shall be taken and made good use of laid out in the true and substantial service of God and be dedicated to him that is be appropriated to his real service It shall not be treasured nor laid up that is It shall not be raked together into a few mens hands to make them and their Families a Fortune they shall not seize upon it and possess it as their own for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may seem to intimate to satisfy their own either Luxury or Covetousness For her Merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the Lord that is They shall be for the Houshold of Faith such as walk as ever being in the sight and eye of God and have a reverential sense of his presence in all their Conversation for such as be of the Christian Faith not of the Antichristian Faction be they Laiety or Clergy To eat sufficiently That men may have sufficient sustenance that good Hospitality may be kept and that the poor and hungry may be satisfied 8. And for durable clothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It may signify either durable clothing or comely grave clothing such as becomes aged men Ut vestiantur veste honestâ decorâ qualis decet senes Presbyteros It is à Lapide's own gloss upon Vatablus his Interpretation Ad Operimentum senum By which I conceive this Prophecy perstringes the Luciferian Pride and splendid Pomp of the Pope and Cardinals and other Grandees of that Church predicting that that Revenue which is mis-spent upon this Antichristian vanity the times will come when it shall be better bestowed in Christian Hospitality and a common care of the whole Body of Christ that no man want due Food and honest Raiment neither Clergy nor Laiety But these are Excursions farther then I intended In the mean time I think I have made it exceeding plain as well out of the Apocalyps as out of these Visions of Ezekiel and Esay that that leud Trafficking and Merchandising in the Church of Rome as if she were a mere City of Trade is very lively and graphically prefigured in Tyre and Babylon CHAP. XVII 1. Their lying Legends perstringed in S. Paul's Prophecy of the Latter Times 2. A more full Prefiguration of that Antichristian Opposition that is against Faith in part of his Prophecy of the Man of Sin 3. A clear Exposition of that part of the Prophecy 4. Strictures in the Apocalyptick Visions to the same purpose 5. The Pride of the Bishop of Rome prefigured in the King of Tyre as also his Downfall and how 6. His gorgeous splendour set out both in the King of Tyre and in the Whore of Babylon 7. The Pride and Downfall of this Patriarch typified in the King of Babylon The meaning of the twelfth and thirteenth verses Ver. 14. The meaning of the Prophecy from the fourteenth to the nineteenth verse Ver. 20. An Explication of the twentieth verse 10. Farther Prefigurations of the Papal Pride in the Whore and the little Horn. 11. An easy and genuine Exposition or Paraphrase of the thirty sixth and the thirty seventh verses of the eleventh Chapter of Daniel wherein the Impious Self-elation of the Bishop of Rome is clearly foretold 12. That the sense of the two following verses of
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 since they were then past not future and that this straining of this phrase is merely for this Exposition's sake which if it were seriously stuck to would make the Apocalyps utterly unintelligible and consequently unprofitable to the Church nay bring an unspeakable detriment thereto by depriving us of so illustrious a pledge of Divine Providence I think these things put together are of infinitely more moment to us for to adhere to that ordinary and ancient Interpretation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I nominated at first then to this novell one that has been but newly started merely for the countenancing such Expositions of the Apocalyps as are not onely extremely harsh and forced but utterly impossible This I hope is even more then enough to remove all prejudice to Truth that may lie upon any ones mind by reason of the mistaken sense of these words and inable him without any farther hesitancy to acknowledge the unexceptionable Perspicuity of those Expositions of the Apocalyps I have exhibited to his view CHAP. XXI 1. The marvellous Completeness of the Reformation of the Church of England in her Doctrines and Institutes 2. That she plainly condemns the Invocation of Saints for Idolatry 3. As also the Adoration of the Host where our Kneeling at the Communion is vindicated 4. Her condemning the Worshipping of Images 5. Her concluding the manner of the Papists worshipping Saints and Images to be plainly the same with that of Pagans 6. Her free and just censure touching the decking of their Images and making them Lay-mens Books 7. How perfectly she has freed us from that Aegyptian yoke we lay under in the time of Popery 8. The Celebration of Holy-days the keeping of Lent and the use of the Surplice in the sense of the Church of England fully vindicated from all imputation of Superstition or Antichristianism 9. That the use of the Surplice is not from any grounds at all of Policy in the Church but pure Charity with a vindication of the use of the Cross in Baptism 1. HAving thus clearly set out the true nature or Idea of Antichristianism as also plainly made good that such an Antichristianism or Antichrist as is delineated in that Idea is that very Antichrist which the Prophecies in the Holy Scriptures do prefigure or soretell we should now proceed to a more punctual Application of the said Idea and Prophecies to the State of the Church from such times as it fell into this Antichristian Lapse till this very day But that being something a more voluminous Design and less gratefull to my disposition who take far greater pleasure in the Vindication of an injured Friend then in raking into the unsavoury miscarriages of either a Stranger or professed Enemy I shal satisfy myself at least at this bout with that part of Application onely which concerns our Reformed Church of England whereby I do not doubt but to free her from all imputations or suspicions of being guilty of any point of true and real Antichristianism in any of her Doctrines or Institutes Whence it will appear how little she is concerned in this free and faithfull delineation thereof unless it be to give Almighty God most humble and hearty thanks who did so graciously assist those noble Hero's with resolution and judgment for the atchieving of so happy and marvellous a Reformation wherein nothing is left no member nor the least joynt or article of that odious and hatefull Image or Idea of Antichrist which we have described no frauds or falsifications of the Gospel of Christ for the Interest of a worldly Church and the feeding of the Priesthood by a trade of Lies and Impostures which would have made any ingenuous man ashamed to be found of the Order or Profession whenas how if no Prophaneness lurk in his soul he may well deem the Calling an ornament to his person And that this is not a boast but a real truth I sâ—…all briefly make good by running through all those limbs of Antichristianism whether opposing the Privative or Positive Ends of the Gospel which I proposed in my Idea 2. The first of the first kind whereof was Idolatry in the Invocation of Saints and Angels in the Worshipping of the Host and in the Adoration of Images Wherein though the Universal Practice of the Church of England does sufficiently clear her from such gross imputations yet I think it not amiss for her greater honour to bring into light her avowed and declared judgment concerning these matters that all the world may take notice how sound she is at the Core in these weighty points of Religion Touching therefore the Invocation of Saints That she does apertly condemn it appears in the Book of Articles where she calls it a fond thing Article 21. vainly invented and grounded upon no warrants of Scripture but that it is repugnant to the Word of God so far is it from being grounded thereupon And the second part of the Homily concerning Prayer is wholly spent in proving That we are to address our Prayers to none but to God himself Where there are excellent Arguments to that purpose and where she does plainly declare that Christ is our onely Mediatour and Advocate as also she does in the Liturgie for the cutting away all pretence for the praying to Saints and does smartly and at once conclude That Invocation is a thing proper to God which if we attribute unto the Saints it soundeth to their Reproach neither can they well bear it at our hands Which is equipollent to the judging of it Idolatry For what is Idolatry but the doing that worship to a creature which is proper to God And therefore she compares it with the Pagans offering sacrifice to Paul at Lystra And how the receiving of Divine honour must redound to the reproach of what-ever Creature receives it I have abundantly Book 1. Ch. 12. Ver. 3. Sect. 4. noted elsewhere I shall onely urge one place more which is very explicit and of great weight The argument runs thus Invocation or Prayer may not be made without faith in him on whom we call but we must first believe in him before we can make our prayer unto him whereupon we must onely and solely pray unto God For to say we should believe in either Angel or Saint or in any other living Creature were mere horrible Blasphemy against God This is a very remarkable passage and a Demonstration that the Invocation of Saints and Angels is flat Idolatry it so plainly implying the acknowledgement of that Excellency which is proper onely to God Nor can our holy Mother the Church be thought to deem it less Idolatry for calling it Blasphemy since all Idolatry is so and is several times called so in Scripture Book 1. Ch. 5. Sect. 11. as I have noted in his due place 3. Now for the second The worshipping of the Host which supposes the Bread trans substantiuted she is most declaredly against both the Opinion and Practice As in
the more Sacred and awe men off from either violently tearing it in pieces or more hiddenly and obliquely corrupting it by foisting in any old out-cast ware disallowed and rejected by our Pious and Judicious Reformers 13. But this is a Mantissa cast in over and above the bargain I had before finished my task which was briefly to prove and if I mistake not myself I have done it clearly and convincingly That the Heaven-inspired Prudence and Judgment of the Royal Heroical and Reverend Reformers of our Church of England have purged her and cleansed her from what-ever Doctrine or professed Practice may rightly and properly be deemed Antichristian and that she holds nor injoyns any thing that is contrary to the truly Catholick and Apostolick Faith Which just and seasonable Vindication of her joyntly considered with our free and faithfull Description of the true Nature and Idea of Antichristianism such as we have demonstrated to be predicted in the Prophecies of Holy Scripture will not fail I hope to prove for ever a Sovereign Remedy or safe Preservative of her against those two hatefull and destructive diseases of the Church of Christ Popery and Schism Which good effect of our labours God of his infinite mercy grant for the onely Merits of the Lord Jesus Amen The End of the Second Part. THE CONTENTS Of the First Part OF The Enquiry into the Mystery of Iniquity BOOK I. CHAP. I. 1. THAT the Mystery of Iniquity or Antichristianism implies the secret undermining of the ends of Christianity by such a Power as pretends to be Christian. 2. The inconvenience of describing Antichrist from Circumstantial characters and leaving out the Essential parts of the Description 3. The two general Principles of which Antichristianism does consist 4. The right Artifice of drawing the true Idea of Antichristianism with a distribution of the Draught into the two most general strokes thereof Fol. 1 CHAP. II. 1. The rooting out of Idolatry by the Messias prophesied of by Jeremy That all the Gods that made not Heaven and Earth should perish 2. An explication of that Prophecy and an assertion of our Saviour's right of being worshipped for ever as the Eternal Logos who made Heaven and Earth 3. Proofs out of the Psalms that the Messias was to root out Idolatry 4. Several places in the New Testament witnessing against Idolatry and Image-worship 5. That the Spirituality of Christian Religion indigitated by our Saviour does abundantly evidence the unlawfulness of Image-worship or of what Idolatry else soever 3 CHAP. III. 1. What is meant by Grace and Truth coming by Christ. 2. Farther testimonies of Scripture to evince that Christ came to ease men of the Judaïcal burthen of Ceremonies The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. That the Death of Christ upon the Cross was the solution of the Ceremonial Law of Moses 4. Farther proofs to the same purpose 6 CHAP. IV. 1. The Positive End of the Gospel summarily proposed 2. The several grounds of honour due to Christ and particularly of his Paternal Title 3. Both God the Father and Christ the Authors of our Regeneration and how the First Hypostasis being called Father does not exclude the Second from that Title in respect of his Church 4. The other Titles of Christ plain of themselves 5. The Divine life with its Root and Branches the Second part of the Positive scope of the Gospel 6. That such a Mystery as upon Religious pretences does really supplant all the grand Ends of the Gospel whether Privative or Positive is Mathematically manifest to be that notorious Mystery of Iniquity 7. The method of pursuing the particulars of this Mystery more largely 8. The Falsness Fraud and Mischief of every member of Antichristianism to be inquired into 9. The Author 's serious desire that the Truth of the Description may be perused without Prejudice and acknowledged without Tergiversation by them that are convinced 8 CHAP. V. 1. Instances of several specious pieces of Idolatry introducible into Christian Religion 2. The over-much streightning or widening the Notion of Idolatry taxed 3. The usefulness of giving a true Notion thereof 4 5. That it is not restrained to the worshipping of Idols properly so called 6. That any thing worshipped that is not God becomes ipso facto an Idol and of the Seventy's rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7. That they likewise render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they do also Baalim and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which farther argues that more general sense of Idol 8. That an Idol and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Non-Deus is all one in the estimate of God 11 CHAP. VI. 1. That the Israelites worshipped Jehovah in the Golden Calf proved out of Exodus 2. That Elohim though joyned with a verb of the plural number is understood of the true God with farther testimony out of the 106 Psalm that God was worshipped in that Calf and what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there signifies 3. That the Golden Calf was no figure of the Aegyptian Apis but a Cherub 4. Aaron's case of making the Golden Calf compendiously opened as also the ground of Tacitus his ridiculous errour discovered 5. That the Golden Calves in Dan and Bethel were two Cherubim set up for the worship of the God of Israel proved from Jeroboam's Politicks 6. Also from Jehu and Elias his zeal and the instruction of the Assyrian Colonies by an Israelitish Priest 7. That Micah's Ephod and Teraphim were also meant to the true God 8. And yet both he and the Israelites in the Wilderness Idolaters in their use of the Teraphim and Cherub in Divine worship 9. That Jeroboam was also an Idolater in setting up the Calves in Dan and Bethel proved out of Scripture 10. Other Testimonies to the same purpose and of the Idolatry committed in the Brasen Serpent 15 CHAP. VII 1. The worshipping that which is not God by an Image a third mode of Idolatry 2. Of the worshipping of an Image as such 3. How the vulgar sort of the Heathen came to take the very Idols themselves for Gods 4. What arguments used for the begetting an opinion of the residence of the Daemons near their Statues 5. What indications of their presence there and how awful the Images themselves became from thence 6. The conceit of the Daemon and dedicated Image's coalition into one person 7. And that the worshipping of this Complicate was a fourth Mode of Idolatry 20 CHAP. VIII 1. That the Heathen held one Supreme God the Maker of all things 2. Proclus his conceit of so uniting the Supreme Deity with a Magical Statue as that the Complicate becomes one visible and Supreme Godhead 3. Whether the worshipping of this Magical Complicate by him that is persuaded it is the visible Deity were Idolatry 4. Wherein the sinfulness of Idolatry does