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
perused without prejudice may be discerned with facility and be acknowledged by them that are inwardly convinced without any slights or tergiversations to the glory of God's name the peace of his Church and the advancement of the Kingdom of his Son Jesus Amen CHAP. V. 1. Instances of several specious pieces of Idolatry introducible into Christian Religion 2. The overmuch streightening 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 further argues that more general sense of Idol 8. That an Idol and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Non-Deus is all one in the estimate of God 1. LET us begin then with the delineation of the first member of this hideous Mystery opposite to the first branch of the Scope of the Gospel of Christ which was The ridding of the world of the impure worship of Idolatry I say therefore if in stead of those manifold Idolatrous worships in Paganism there were introduced upon pretence of the greater honour to God and Christ and the better instruction of the people the Religious worship of the Cross as also the Image of God the Father Son or Holy Ghost the devotional invocation of the blessed Virgin or any other Saints or Angels the worshipping of their Pictures or Images and the doing Divine honours accordingly as it was practised toward the Roman Emperours to a mere man upon account of his being the Vicar General of Christ and Oecumenical Head of his Church upon Earth and lastly the adoration of the consecrated Bread in the Eucharist upon the imagination that it is transsubstantiated into the very body of Christ I say where these things are brought into the Church as true Doctrine and laudable Practice they will not fail to make up one Limb of Antichristianism and that a principal one too For the Doctrine is not true nor the Practice allowable but gross and palpable Idolatry one of the most abhorred sins the Scripture takes notice of as you shall easily understand after I have with all possible caution searcht out the true Notion and definitive nature thereof 2. This term Idolatry though nothing is more frequent in the mouths and writings of men yet there is nothing of so unsettled and fugitive a signification For some to excuse or palliate their grosly-disallowable Rites and Practices in Christian Religion have restrained the sense of the word to such narrow limits that according to their nice distinctions and restrictions the foulest Paganism will scarce be found guilty of Idolatry Others whether out of a fright and abhorrency of so detestable a crime or out of an over-factious disgust and detestation of the contrary party have so stretched the signification of the word beyond the natural meaning thereof that not only harmless but even laudable circumstances of Divine worship appointed by Authority will not fail to be stigmatized by them with that odious and reproachful name whose zeal and passionate unskilfulness in amoving this grand errour out of the Church has had an answerable ill success in that they have not so much wrought a cure as changed the disease and bartered away one great evil for several others of something a lower form such as Scandal rash and unjust Censure and Superstition which are very evil and undesirable distempers in the Church of Christ and the necessary Authours and Fomenters of unnecessary Schisms And indeed if I had said only that they had changed Idolatry into Superstition it had been enough and all it including the rest For Superstition being properly a Fear of displeasing God in such things as neither do oblige him nor offend him arising out of an opinion of the good or evil of those things that are indifferent Those that either out of ignorance or some worse principle ingender in the minds of men a superstitious aversation from such harmless and allowable actions must needs make them obnoxious to Scandal and tempt them to rash and unjust Censures 3. Wherefore as well to excuse the innocent as to discover the guilty I shall endeavour exactly to set out the bounds of this great sin of Idolatry that thereby we may know when it is committed and when not when it may be called by that so hatefull name and when again it is Injustice and Uncharitableness so to term this or that action of Religious worship 4. That the name or guilt of Idolatry is not to be restrained to the worship of an Idol only is plain out of ordinary consent of Speech when we discourse of Idolatrous Nations that worship the Sun Moon and Stars not considering whether they make any Images to them or no. For these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these conspicuous and sensible Deities as Origen contr Cels. lib. 〈◊〉 they are termed by the Greeks may easily be conceived to have allured the rude people to adore them before they had either art or leisure to build Temples and erect Statues to them From whence that Caveat is given by God to his own people in Deuteronomie Take ye therefore Ch. 4 v. 15 19. good heed unto your selves for you saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire lest you corrupt your selves and make you a graven Image c. And lest you lift up your eyes to Heaven and when you see the Sun and the Moon and the Stars even all the hoast of Heaven should be driven to worship them and serve them So strongly enticing have they been to mankind to bestow Religious worship on them These were the first Objects that gain'd the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being in perpetual Motion as Philo has observed which appellation was afterwards derived upon all other Deities whatsoever And Maimonides also lays the first foundation of Idolatry in these 5. But Nations sufficiently civilized as namely the Persians made Herodot lib. 1. c. 131. shift to be Idolaters without carved Images or Idols For they sacrificed on the tops of Mountains to the visible Heaven under the name of Jupiter as also to the Sun Moon and Earth to the Fire Water and Winds all sensible Objects but worshipped without any sensible figure or representation And yet I think no man learned or Idiot will stick to style this Nation Idolatrous As neither the ancient Romans who worshipped their many Gods without the use of any Idol or Image for near two hundred years together as both Varro and Plutarch affirm 6. Wherefore Idolatry is
and foul Lust and bloudy Wrath and Zeal for those Idols of Fornication as it fares in enraged Gallants in the behalf of their Mistresses must rule and over-run all The crasseness I say of these Superstitions leaves the mind unmortified and unilluminated but raises a zeal for them both ignorant bloudy and barbarous Which methinks is a sad condition for any Soul to be found in 4. But that this bestial Rage accompanies the love of Idols to omit several Examples in Scripture is a Truth largely writ and testified by the bloud of those innumerable companies of the primitive Martyrs who with so much reproach and so many kinds of tortures were put to death for despising or opposing the ancient Pagan Idolatry as is confessed by all And Idolatry whether Pagan or Christian will naturally dispose them that are really devoted to it to the like cruel fury and madness And though the cruelty of Bear or Wolf seems more the mischief of them that suffer by them then the evil of those beasts themselves yet for that Circe that metamorphoses men into these salvage shapes few or none do doubt but that she injures their humane bodies What a mischievous Circe then is Idolatry that transforms the Mind into such beastly salvageness 5. And as for Uncleanness that it is so close an attendant upon the worship of Idols is also a Truth very often intimated in holy Scriptures as in the Epistle to the Romans where the Apostle expresly affirms that Ch. 1. 26 27. because the Heathen changed the truth of God into a lye and worshipped and served the Creature more then the Creatour or rather besides the Creatour for this cause God gave them up to vile affections the women changing the natural use into that which is against nature and the men likewise leaving the natural use of the women and burning in their lust one toward another men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompence of their errour that was meet Also in the first Book of the Kings upon the mentioning of the building of Ch. 14. 24. high places and Images presently is subjoined That there were also Sodomites in the Land c. The places are so many and so obvious where even unnatural uncleannesses are link'd together with Idolatry that it would be needless as well as tedious to recite them And therefore it is a very suspicable thing that where Idolatry seizeth most on the Church of Christ all manner of uncleanness will there be most rife also 6. But methinks I am too favourable in my charge against Idolatry while I seem to restrain the Mischief of it only to Uncleanness and Cruelty For the Authour of the Book of Wisdom does not stint the effects thereof to these but enlarges them also to Dissimulation Theft Unfaithfulness Tumults Perjury and what not * Ch. 14. 16 27. For the worshipping of Idols saith he not to be named is the beginning cause and end of all evil And S. Paul in the above-named Epistle makes it the fountain of all manner of vices and wickednesses which he doth not rashly but very rationally conclude For even as they did not like to retain God in their Rom. 1. 28 29. knowledge so God saith he gave them over to a reprobate mind to doe those things that are not meet Being filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness full of envy murther debate deceit malignity whisperers back-biters haters of God despightfull proud boasters men of evil machinations disobedient to parents devoid of judgement covenant-breakers without natural affection implacable unmerciful So great a deluge of wickedness breaks in upon men by their being addicted to Idolatry For Apostatizing from God by this hainous sin God also forsakes them as the Apostle intimates And besides The sottishness of Idolatrous worship that calls out the Affections to such gross and unfitting objects does naturally lay the sense of better things asleep and extinguish the true life of Religion which is the renewing the Mind into the Image or similitude of God and Christ which consists in an holy and peaceable love and in a pure chast and unpolluted spirit unspotted of the vain desires of this present world Whence the introduction of Idolatry into the Church of Christ must needs be the overflowing it with all manner of vice and wickedness But that consideration belongs rather to the next point The Mischief that redounds to the Church from Idolatry to which I shall immediately pass after I have but briefly intimated one Mischief more which falls upon the Idolater himself and of which I think he will be most sensible and it is only this That he shall have his portion in the Lake that burneth with Rev. 21 〈◊〉 fire and brimstone which is the second Death that is to say that eternal Death and destruction that will assuredly attend all such enemies of God 7. The Mischief that accrues to the Church from Idolatry I have partly hinted already namely that it is the most likely way to debauch her with all other manner of vices and does ipso facto transform her who should approve herself the pure Spouse of Christ into the abhorred condition of an Harlot To which you may adde those great agonies and aggrievances of spirit that the true members of Christ are cast into by beholding such abominable practices besides their personal unsafety and danger of barbarous persecutions and those hard trialls and disquieting solicitudes that naturally will attempt them as they are men consisting of mortal flesh and liable to all the evils it exposes them to and finally the actual injuries reproaches imprisonments and multifarious Deaths that would fall upon the sincerest part of the body of Christ for opposing or refusing to partake with others in their Idolatrous Abominations 8. And yet this is not all There is still a very grand Mischief behind and exceeding considerable done to the Church by this fearfull sin of Idolatry and that is The hinderance of her spreading and propagating herself in the world It is part of our Christian Faith as we make profession of it in the Nicene Creed That there is One Catholick and Apostolick Church Which implies that the Church has a right to be Catholick to be universally spred over the face of the Earth and that the true and proper Character of this Catholick Church is to be Apostolical That whatsoever Nation or People or part of any Nation or People profess that Doctrine and Discipline which was delivered by Christ and his Apostles become immediately thereby part of the Catholick Church and those that profess and enjoyn Doctrines and practices that are Anti-Apostolical run the hazzard of losing the true title of Catholick and of making themselves indeed no part of the Church of Christ. And certainly Idolatry is as Anti-Apostolical as contrary to the Apostolick Doctrine as any thing can be Wherefore the introduction thereof into the Church of
Christ is the rescinding so many Souls from the body of the Church as are persuaded to entertain it Whence it is manifest that Idolatry is as it were a Gangrene in the body of Christ and eats so much away from it as it seizes upon 9. But this is not the sole Mischief of this kind done to the Church by Idolatry viz. The streightning the extent thereof by the divulsion of those that were her true members but as considerable as this is The prevention or hinderance from making them members that otherwise might be persuaded thereto For it is very visible that letting in of Idolatry into the Church of Christ will for ever while it there continues exclude both Jew and Turk out of it who are deservedly so great abhorrers of Idolatry To say nothing of the Idolatrous Heathens themselves to whom it would be ridiculous to preach as the Apostles did to turn from dumb Idols to serve the living God whenas they might easily see aforehand that it would be but the turning from their wonted Idols to the serving of new ones It is a fearfull thing therefore to profess the Church Catholick and yet by introduction of Idolatry to streighten it at home and hinder the propagation of it abroad by such horrible Scandals 10. Which is not only a Mischief to the Church herself in curbing her growth and eclipsing her glory but a sad disaster to the whole World which is the the last evil issuing therefrom it being to them the most certain pledge of everlasting happiness to become members of the Catholick Church of Christ of which there is little hope in either Jew Turk or Heathen that are consciencious while this stumbling-block is in their way and that they cannot profess Christianity without the allowance and practice of Idolatry Which in my apprehension ought to be reputed a very sad calamity upon Earth Thus we have seen a competent Description of the First main Limb of Antichristianism namely Idolatry brought into the Church of Christ under pretence of honour to him and the Saints with a discovery of the Falseness and Unwarrantableness of that Doctrine and Practice and the gross Fraud and grand Mischiefs that accompany it CHAP. XVII 1. That a multitude of slight Observances may amount to an intolerable burthen 2. That no Religious observance can be slight while it has an obligation upon the Conscience 3. Though this general estimate of the burthen of Superstition from obligation of Conscience and multitude of Observances might suffice yet he will adde a more particular Draught of this Limb of Antichristianism 4. Of Anointings and of the Multiplicity of Sacerdotal Ornaments 5. The pretence and Self-endedness in these Ornaments and Anointings 6. The Mischief arising from these kind of Ceremonies to Priest and People 7. A more full description of their Publick Service 8. That respect to the Priest is better sought and more certainly found in the Power of Life and Doctrine then in any Histrionical Pomp 9. Which is so unsatisfactory to the serious that it may hazzard their departure 10. The Opinion of a miraculous power in religious Vestments 11. The Falseness and Fraud of this Opinion 12. The ill consequence thereof 1. THE next Limb of Antichristianism is The burthening and entangling mens minds with Scrupulosities in either unnecessary or hurtfull Observances and Opinions laying an equal or greater yoke on Believers by reason of the Multitude of these Rites and Superstitious conceits then Judaism it self did upon the people of the Jews and thereby frustrating that End of Christ's coming which was To put a period to such burthen some and unprofitable Ordinances and to conciliate to himself a Church that should worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth Which Burthensomness as I have already intimated may arise merely from the multitude of these Ceremonies though the things may seem slight considered singly and in themselves as Feathers that are singly light may by their number grow heavier then a masse of Lead And what a man may sometime doe out of Idleness or wantonness to wit stoop to take up a straw or to divide clay or dirt into Squares or Oblongs yet to be kept close to this task how little different is it from that vile Aegyptian bondage of being condemned to the perpetual making of bricks or gathering of stubble 2. Besides that every toy to which there is once a Religious obligation girds hard with those that are serious and consciencious And such followers Christ expects and therefore neither he nor his Apostles would burthen them with any thing but what was necessary But we are exhorted rather to stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ has Gal. 5. 1. made us free and not to suffer our selves to be brought under the bondage of any servile and unprofitable burthens of Superstition And our Saviour Christ rebuking the Pharisees tells them plainly that they worshipped God in vain while they taught for Doctrines the commandments Mark 7. of men Forasmuch as laying aside the Commandments of God they held the Traditions of men as the washing of pots and cups and brazen vessels and the like Wherefore if our Saviour Christ was so tender in the behalf of his Disciples that he would not have them superstitiously ensnared no not in so commendable and easy an observance as the washing of the hands ever before they did eat certainly it is utterly against his mind to have his followers intangled and enthralled in an innumerable multitude of less usefull Ceremonies Which be their natures what they will yet if by their numerosity they equallize the burthen of the Judaical Rites this general estimate is sufficient to discover it to be no inconsiderable Limb of Antichristianism in what Church soever such an enormity shall appear 3. Which I speak not as if I found it beyond my skill to pourtray this Limb of Antichristianism more articulately with stronger sinews and more full and solid muscles Such a draught therefore of Ritual Ordinances and Dogmatical Observances I will now draw as I dare appeal to any indifferent judge whether it will not prove an eminent part of that Mystery that opposes and defeats the purposed Ends of the coming of Christ into the world which assuredly were to free his followers from Sin and Superstitious slavery 4. And truly observing how tender and carefull our Saviour is in keeping off the least taint of Superstition from his Disciples about washings and eatings of meat and how expresly he affirms to them in that excellent parable That nothing that enters into a man defiles the man it will be Mark 7. easy thence to infer that much less any thing that hangs upon him or is about him can Sanctifie or make him holy Whence in the first place though I do not lay the greatest stress on it If we should suppose the Christian Priests to heap to themselves several sorts of Consecrated Garments for greater Ornament and Sanctimonie insomuch that every Priest's
to Paul from Heaven and so appointing him to be an Apostle did proclaim to all the World that he would Infallibly assist him and that therefore what was imparted to the World by him should be a Law irreversible to Christendom Whence the nulling of the Authority of S. Paul's writings were the abrogating of the very Law of Christ which were a most rebellious and blasphemous Enterprise against the Sovereignty of Christ himself 4. But there is also another way of undermining or subverting the Rule and Sovereignty of the Son of God and that is An undervaluing his Laws in proportion of Penalties laid upon the transgression of them and of some slighter humane Ecclesiastick Institutes As surely these would be very Antichristian Instances of this kind namely If Absolution for him that kills his Father or lies with his Mother should be five or six times Cheaper then of him that takes two Orders in one day or is Ordained without Letters dismissory or that to be Ordained out of the set times of the year should have a penalty ten times greater then Lying with a mans own Mother or if you will but equal to the deflouring of a Virgin the lying with a mans own Sister Murther Perjury Sacrilege Simonie revealing Confession keeping a Concubine lying with a woman in the Church but equal I say to all these nine put together What could vilifie the indispensable Law of God and Christ more then to make so many transgressions and so hainous less then that trifle of humane Tradition To Ordain onely at such times of the year 5. Again That were likewise a very conspicuous vilification of the Word of God if instead thereof there were read in the Churches finelydevised Fables to entertain the People withall As if they were wiser then the Wisdom of God himself and could entertain the people more edifyingly with incredible and ridiculous stories then with the Discourses of Christ Jesus and sober and easily-intelligible histories of truth that Divine Providence has recorded for the instruction of his Church 6. Dispensations also against the Law of Christ whether written in the Word of God or comprised in the sacred Law of Nature which is but the Transcript of that Law in the Eternal Logos Christ according to his Divinity were also an Antichristian defeating of Christ's Rule and Sovereignty as also would be the Interpretation of the serious Injunctions of Christ as if they were not Praecepta but Consilia not Commands but Advice left to us to follow if we would or to let alone if we pleased whenas Christ plainly declares that he that breaks the least of these Matt. 5. Commandments and teaches men so to doe shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven What then would it be to dispense with Perjury Treason Murther Incest Adultery Sodomie and other such hainous crimes What were it but the utter taking away the Law of Christ and destroying his Kingdom upon Earth The Fraud and Self-endedness of which easy Anarchy is onely to fill the net full though it be of rotten sticks and durt so long as out of this durt they can extract Silver But the Mischief is that the Riches of this false Church would flow and rise with the height of the Abominations and Transgressions of rich sinners till a deluge of wrath wash away this deluge of sin But those in the interim that are so foolish to believe these Dispensations and think they are come into a fair liberty of spirit having found so facil ghostly Fathers will thereby most certainly become the Bond-slaves of sin which in the conclusion will as certainly deliver them up to Eternal Death 7. But what plea or pretence will you say may there be made of acting Religiously while they act thus enormously in letting the raines loose to all manner of wickedness to them that will goe to the price thereof Why yes This Antichristian Power might pretend that all that Power which is in Christ though it be plainly a casting Christ out of his Royall Throne is derived upon him or them as his Successours But Christ being the absolutely-Supreme Power may doe as he will dispense with his own Laws as he pleases Wherefore this Antichristian power pretending to be or have the very same power may dispense with the Laws of Christ as it pleases especially for the enriching the Church for all such Interest is pious Which yet is such an Imagination that nothing can be more Treasonable against the Regal Office of Christ nor more destructive of his Kingdom 8. The effect of which villanous Principle would also certainly appear in this Synagogue of Satan or Antichrist and we should find Laws and Institutes quite contrary to the Laws and Decrees of the Son of God As certainly such as these would be namely Sundry sorts of Idolatry such as I have instanced in already and need not repeat and have noted the Frauds Book I. ch 12. and fetches in the practice of them The teaching for Doctrines the commandments of men which is expresly against our Saviour's own command and of which I have given sundry examples in my * Book I. ch 17 18 19 20 21 22. second branch of Antichristianism The with-holding the Cup from the Laiety notwithstanding the Institution of the Lord's Supper by Christ himself does so plainly injoyn the communicating both of Bread and Wine Drink you all of this and S. Paul again following the Example of Christ Let a man examine himself Matt. 26. 27. and so eat of this bread and drink of this cup which indefinite command 1 Cor. 11. 28. surely includes all But the drinking of the Cup being made the Privilege of the Priest it magnifies his condition hugely and makes the poor Laiety feel and acknowledge their distance how unholy and how removed from God they are in comparison of the Priesthood This would be the true Reason though they might pretend for I think they have nothing better to pretend the length of the Lay-mens beards which I suppose they would rather cut off then be cut short in their share of so holy a Sacrament Again The serving of God in the Church in an unknown Language praying to him and praising him and reading the Scripture in a Tongue the people understand not is evidently against the directions of S. Paul 1 Cor. 14. in this particular and against that more universal and indispensable Law Let all things be done to edifying As also the worshipping of Angels 1 Cor. 14. 26. Coloss. 2. 18. which the same Apostle does expressely speak against and likewise the forbidding to marry and the abstaining from meats upon a Religious 1 Tim. 4 3. account with several other such All which being expressely against the Commands or Laws of Christ it were a most reproachfull and Traitorous affront to him the true Head of the Church and a plain declaring against the Right of his Sovereignty thus to make any Laws or Institutes so
therefore they erring in the apprehension of the Excellency of that Object to which Divine worship is due as if it were so mean that there could be many such did not direct their worship to him but to a phancy or Idol of their own making to which they profanely attributed the name of Jehovah For the true Jehovah was not so vile a Being as there could be any partakers of Divine honour with himself And so it is with Christ who is the same true God blessed for ever He that gives Divine honour which is due to him alone unto Saints or Angels disclaims his Divinity and makes him but as one of them This would be one Antichristian way of undermining his Godhead by equallizing mere Creatures unto him 7. But there is another way or rather the same way but in an higher degree and consequently more Antichristian and that is the preferring that which is but a mere Creature though a blessed and glorious one before him or above him As for example if either Fraud or blind Devotion should exalt the ever-blessed Virgin not onely to that Divine honour of having Temples and Altars erected to her with Prayers and Invocations of her as in the worship of the rest of the Saints and Angels but that these Honours should be done much more frequently and more magnificently to the Virgin Mary then to Christ himself that is to say that there should be more Temples and Altars and more sumptuous erected to her then to Christ Jesus more Devotions Prayers and Offerings made to her then to him a greater acknowledgement of mercy and goodness from her then from him who poured out his Life in the bitter Agonies of his bloudy Passion for the Salvation of the World and lastly be ascribed unto her a Superiority and Authority over Christ to command him to doe this or that by virtue of that duty he owes unto her Certainly if this be not against the Divinity of Christ nothing can be thus to make him inferiour to a deceased woman even him that is perfect God as well as perfect Man For it is plainly to un-deify him if I may so speak and to declare him to be no God at all Which is as Antichristian an outrage against the Divinity of Christ as can be imagined For who is Antichrist if he be not that denies the Father and the Son 1 John 2. 22. who is one and equal with the Father And who denies the Godhead of both Father and Son but he that pronounces the Mother of Christ according to the flesh to be greater then them both as certainly she is if she be greater then either 8. The Fifth Title is The Everlasting Father The Seventy translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meaning I suppose the world under the Messias The efficacy of which Title I conceive the Mystery of Regeneration to reflect upon Christ regenerating us into his own Image by the inward working of his Eternal Spirit All things that the Father hath John 16 15. are mine and it is no wonder he being one with the Father therefore said I that he the Spirit shall take of mine and shew it unto you Wherefore Christ regenerating the World which was to come by the operation of his Eternal Spirit he was rightly and fitly styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Father of the World to come or if you will The everlasting Father as being so in his own Essence and begetting Children to endless Eternities Of this Mysterie he treated in his converse upon Earth with his secret disciple Nicodemus Unless a man be born from above he cannot enter into John 3. 5 7. the Kingdom of God Marvel not that I said unto thee that we must be born from above The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but thou knowest not from whence it comes nor whether it goes so is every one that is born of the Spirit No unregenerate man is acquainted with the sense of the first rise and motion of the Spirit nor understands whither those actions and speeches tend that proceed therefrom But it is so with these as is said in the Apocalyps of the hundred forty four thousands who by virtue of their new birth sung a new Song which none could learn but the hundred forty four thousands Chap. 14. which were redeemed from the Earth by being born from above as our Saviour spake to Nicodemus These are the true Israelites in whose mouth is found no guile and who by the guidance of that Spirit by which they are regenerate follow the Lamb wheresoever he goes 9. Wherefore Christ being to his true Church so real a Father by a true and living Regeneration and Renovation of their Minds by his Spirit into such holy sentiments as appertain to all those that are indeed the Sons of God to treat them so as if they were mere Images made of wood or stone or rather dead matter to be carved upon and have the inscription of any thing that a pretended Infallible Power shall be pleased to engrave upon them this is an high Antichristian affront against the Paternity of Christ as if he did not beget living Children who have as certainly the sense of discernment in Spiritual things as any Animal birth has in Natural but that the number of his Elect were but a certain Tale of billets brick or stone to be hewen or carved or any way ordered according to the petulancy and imperiousness of a self-willed Power who under a pretence of an infallible and unfailing succession that must be in the Church has stept into the place of Christ. Maxima debetur puero reverentia is most true concerning every child of God For there is that Divine sense in them against which whatsoever is unholy and unsavoury will grate very hard and unpleasantly and what is false will be found by them very disharmonious both to those immutable Principles of Truth in their unprejudiced minds and also to the written Oracles of God which were penned down by the same Spirit by which this genuine off-spring of Christians are regenerated Wherefore as I said to use these as if there were no life no spirit no sense or discernment in them but that they must as passively without any Conviction or Appeal to any thing in themselves bear the Dictates of this usurping Power we describe as a Table-book or Paper-book which is irresistibly writ upon by that hand that pleases is an enormous Injury against Christ as he is the Everlasting Father and holy Regeneratour of his true Church into his own life and likeness But to murther and massacre these Children of his because they do so stoutly and exactly Patrissare so conscienciously and carefully tread in their Father's steps and witness his Truth to the world I leave to any man to judge if there can be imagined any thing more hellishly Antichristian against the Paternity of Christ then that For what can be more hostile and
contrary to a Father then to murther his genuine children and for that very reason because they so lively resemble him and so faithfully adhere to their Father's vertuous practices and principles 10. I might adde also that the over-exercising of the Minds and Bodies of men in the multifarious observances of external Ceremonies and making them dance or trot from one Superstitious performance to another might be a disappointment of the Divine Birth as the over-much exercising of Women in dancing or what other feats of Activity or sore labour makes them often miscarry in that Child-bearing that is natural But I will not insist upon these things 11. The Sixth and last Title is The Prince of Peace In which Principality or Authority if any should claim succession and yet administer the Affairs of Christ's Church such a way as will naturally if not necessarily fill it full of broils and contentions this power would certainly beâ—… a supplanter of the Peaceable government of Christ and be the Author of an Antichristian Tyrannie and Confusion As for example If this usurping Power should coin new Articles of belief for their own benefit contrary to the known Principles of Scripture and Reason and require the profession of these from the Church of Christ as also appoint suspected Observances smelling rank of Idolatry and Superstition it were in a manner impossible but that it should cause vast rendings and tearings in the Church and fill the world full of strife and opposition Also if they should make it their business to define the sense of Scripture by a more determinate meaning then there were use of in the Church and put their Determinations and Expositions upon men as necessary points of belief This would also make much against the Peaceableness of the Church men being in a manner fatally propending to think this or that way in things that are not necessary to Salvation to be determined either There would needless violence therefore be done to the Consciences of men thereby to set the world on fire Whenas what is general is large and unitive and takes all in and gives them leave to live peaceably one by another without justling or crowding 12. But the Folly and Fraud of this curiosity would be the Endeavour of gaining or rather extorting respect from the people and of making their Function seem considerable and their Learning great and their Judgements unerrable and that they may feel their Authority and make others to feel it though to the discontent and dissettlement of the Church of Christ. As if their living exemplarily and urging the performance of what is plain in Scripture and keeping an orderly Discipline in those things would not gain them more respect and make them more honourable both in the eyes of God and man or as if they would not appear more infallible by insisting in his steps who is the Way the Truth and the Life then by grossely crossing this way or going out of it for some by-advantages of the World The discovery of which Frauds must needs make them odious to all men And lastly as for their having their Authority felt Christ has shewed them the way if they would follow it He taught as having authority and not as the Scribes for they say and Matt. 7. Chap. 23. doe not 13. This is one way of Antichristianizing against that sacred Title of Christ The Prince of Peace There is another more vile and execrable then that heart could imagine that is not acquainted with the depths of Satan and that is If this Antichristian power we describe should take upon them to absolve the Princes of Christendom from their Oaths and Covenants they make one to another upon their terms of Peace as also to absolve Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance to their Sovereigns were not this to break a-pieces all the bonds of Unity that not onely Religion but the Laws of Nature do afford thus to destroy the Sacredness of an Oath which is the end of all strife How then can that Heb. 6. 16. Power challenge a right of succession to the Prince of Peace which takes away the chiefest tie of Peace that humane affairs are capable of 14. And lastly that bloudy position of taking away mens lives for mistakes in Opinion when notwithstanding they are otherwise unblameable in faith and conversation and unfeigned professours of Christian Truths that are evidently revealed in the Word of God nay to take away their lives for not doing and holding things quite contrary to the express Word of God written both in our inward Souls and in the Holy Scripture as I have in several Instances declared in this description of Chap. 3. Sect. 8. Antichristianism What were this but to hang out the bloudy flag against the true Church of Christ and to proclaim open war against them to bid battel against them that are inrolled into the company of the Lamb and are the professed Souldiers of the Prince of Peace Whose opposers therefore in such a sort as I have intimated cannot but be that Apocalyptick Beast that makes war with the Saints or that Mother Chap. 13. 7. of Har lots who is drunk with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus So little doubt would there be of this last Opposition's proving an Antichristian Chap. 17. 6. Character of the deepest dye But of this subject more hereafter CHAP. VII 1. That any Constitution of things that naturally opposes and suppresses the Divine Life is Antichristian in the highest measure 2. Such as Idolatry Superstition and all the above-mentioned Oppositions to Christ's Offices and Titles 3. The opinion of a virtue in the Sacraments ex opere operato and of the needlessness of our attention to our Devotions 4. Dumb shows and the resting in the mere doing of a Religious duty be it from what principle it will 5. Easy Absolution and slight Penances 6. Plenary Indulgences purchased by money from Ecclesiastick Authority 7. A general note prefixed touching the Mischiefs of the several Oppositions against the Divine Life 8. The plausibility of the Supposition of an Ecclesiastick Power and Pomp more then Imperial 9. The weakness of the grounds for the said Supposition 10. The consequential Mischief thereof in driving the minds of Church-men from the study of Truth and Holiness 11. Yea in making them oppose every thing that is True and Holy if it oppose their designs of Ambition and Avarice 12. That such a Luciferian Power as this were the very ruine of the Kingdom of Christ upon Earth 13. And the turning of his Church into a mere Mart or Fair. 1. THus expressely and clearly have we delineated the Image of Antichrist in his opposing of Christ in his Offices and in running quite counter to the most Sacred Titles that do adorn his Person We come now to the Divine Life as it is propagable in the world and for which Christ was pleased to take our nature upon him and to lay down his life
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
after to satisfie the lust of the eyes the lust of the flesh and the pride of life 11. Nor will this mischief stop here I mean in the neglect of Holy and Divine Meditation and of either usefull or generous Enquiries after Truth but every one being exalted in the conceit and apprehension of his own place and dignity especially he whose Superiority is so vast as to pretend to be the Universal Bishop of Christendom and higher then all the Kings of the Earth they will be driven on so far with that furious spirit of Ambition that they will not onely neglect but oppose every thing that is sacred and holy if it stand in competition with any devised method of getting in Riches to the Church that they may Lord it and carry it out bravely every man in his respective Office and Dignity Wherefore the genuine Simplicity of Christian Religion shall be corrupted and adulterated and Laws and Articles devised by this Infallible Priesthood that are point-blank against the Laws of Christ and the immutable Rules of sound Reason The ears of all men will be filled with deceitfull Figments and gainfull Lies such as we have already produced many Instances of the Merits of Christ's Passion vilified and maimed Truth and Justice banished persecuted and oppressed the Old and New Testament made but a dumb and dead letter that has no sense nor information in it but all Dictates must be immediate from the Church that is resolved to dictate nothing that is against her worldly advantage that is to say The two Witnesses must be slain and their carcasses lie breathless in the streets otherwise those that dwell on the Earth not those that Apoc. 〈◊〉 are redeemed from the Earth and have their conversation in Heaven will not be able to rejoyce in such a measure and to send gifts to one another that is mutually support and promote one anothers Interest and merrily share the World amongst themselves 12. It is plain therefore that such a Luciferian Polity as this would of its own nature clash with the Kingdom of Christ and totally defeat that Grand design of the Gospel which is the Renewing of the World in true Righteousness and Holiness For thus even those which should be the Salt of the Earth will of all men become the most unsavoury every mans judgment being bribed by either the present possession or earnest expectation of such vast and extravagant Preferments of which there being so many degrees the minds of the ambitious will find no rest till they come to the highest that is possible and therefore will be necessarily entangled and taken up with worldly projects even as long as they live and that with great vehemence and sollicitude the Objects seeming so great and making so glaring a show in their phancies And Ambition and Pomp in all ranks rendring them indigent of Money no inferiour Candidate can attempt the corrupting of the Superiour Authority without success and every one betime will get as much of Church-preferment as he can to be able to buy more Wherefore by Law or Dispensation men shall be inabled to hold not onely many Benefices but Bishopricks besides other Dignities in the Church by which means no Shepherd will be able to attend his own flock but instead of feeding them with wholesome Doctrine will help the Devil to infuse the worst poison that can be conveyed into mens minds namely That the whole business of Religion is but a device to enrich the Priest Thus necessarily and unavoidably by their absence and silence will they preach and inculcate Atheism and Infidelity into their scandalized Clergie For if the Salt it self become thus unsavoury what better can become of that which it is to season Will not Leudness and Irreligion overflow all 13. To be short All mens minds upon the reckoning being inflamed with Pride and Ambition and no mans Ambition being to be served without mony the Temple of God will as in times past be filled with buyers and sellers and the Church become a very Mart or Fair the Ecclesiastick Polity a City of Merchan dises and every particular Church a Merchant's Ship or Vessel of Traffick amidst the populosity of the World which the Prophetick style resembles to many waters But I will harp no longer on this string I have already made a Description full enough of such a Constitution or Frame of the Church as would in an universal manner oppose or disappoint the planting or growth of the Divine Life whereby it does sufficiently shew it self to be extremely Antichristian CHAP. VIII 1. That such a Frame of things as naturally tends to the extinguishing of Faith is highly Antichristian 2. That A trade of Worldliness in the Spiritual Guides is one part of this Frame 3. And a Self-ended policy in all the Doctrines and Practices of this Church another 4. Thirdly The profession of uncertainty and obscurity in the Christian Faith 5. Fourthly The necessity of being in a Church where there is no Interruption by misordination 6. Fifthly The bearing men down that Dissent in any thing takes away certainty in all things 7 12. Sixthly Lying Miracles 13 16. Seventhly A rabble of incredible Reliques 17. Eighthly Transsubstantiation 18. How naturally it super-induces Atheism 19. What a bundle of Impossibilities it is 20. That the pretended Infallibility of the Church is infinitely too light to weigh against it 21. Nor can it be made credible by the countenance of feigned Miracles 22. Several Characters of them that are excluded the Holy City comprized in this present Limb of Antichristianism 1. WE will now proceed to those main parts of the Divine Life the Root and the Branches Where it is obvious to take notice that what deads the Root whereby the whole Tree must necessarily wither cannot but be Antichristian to the highest pitch Wherefore if I describe such a management of Affairs in the Church as naturally tends to the extinguishing of Faith which is the necessary Root of the other Divine Graces no man will doubt but that I have delineated a very considerable Limb of Antichristianism 2. Of which the first point is what we last of all touched upon Such a Frame of Government and such sublimities of Dignities as would lapse the Church and immerse it into the World and thereby make them that should be the Salt of the Earth an unsavoury masse and of a secular dead insipid spirit relishing nothing of the Kingdom of God but wholy taken up with the Profits and Promotions of this present life For they would thereby look so like Unbelievers themselves that they would stagger the faith of all those under them and make them think that there was nothing to be expected after this life because their Leaders and Guides lived so exactly according to that Principle That there is nothing to be expected hereafter 3. Secondly The Exquisiteness of their Order and Policy in managing the affairs of their Ecclesiastick Empire if it did surpass all
so long as the Moon endureth And a little after in the same Psalm He shall spare the poor and needy and shall save the souls of the needy He shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence and precious shall their bloud be in his sight And in * Chap. 4â—… Esay it is said of him A bruised reed shall he not break and smoaking flax shall he not quench till he hath brought judgment into victory And again in the * Psal. 45. Psalms In thy majesty ride on prosperously because of truth meekness and righteousness and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things namely to break in pieces the Oppressour and to put the Fraudulent to open shame Also in * Chap. 9. Zacharie Rejoice greatly O daughter of Sion shout O daughter of Jerusalem Behold thy King cometh unto thee â—…e is just and having salvation lowly and riding upon an Ass and upon a Colt the foal of an Ass. And again in * Chap. 40. Esay He shall feed his Flock like a Shepherd he shall gather the Lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those that are with young And in another place more copiously describing the Kingdom of Christ * Chap. 11. With righteousness saith he shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness the girdle of his reins The Wolf also shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lie down with the Kid and the Calf and the young Lion and the Fatling together and a little Child shall lead them and the Cow and the Bear shall feed their young ones shall lie down together and the Lion shall eat straw like an Ox. And a sucking Child shall play on the hole of the Asp and the weaned Child shall put his hand on the Cockatrice den They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea To all which you may adde That Christ with his Church in the Revelation is all along represented under the Hieroglyphick of a Lamb that harmless and peaceable creature and in Daniel under the Type of a Man whenas the rest of the Kingdoms are typifi'd by wild Beasts Which intimates that the Kingdom of Christ is not a Kingdom of Belluine Ferocity but of Reason Humanity and tender Loving-kindness 3. According therefore to this Description of the Kingdom of Christ it is plainly a Kingdom of Peace and Love the Empire of that Divine vertue of Charity and discovers it self in the defending righting and easing of the poor in the lowliness and meekness of the Governours and in the truth and faithfulness of them in managing their affairs without any guile or deceit in the unity and friendly conversableness of people in the cessation of war and hostility and in the protection of the â—…aints of God from persecution and slaughter All these Happinesses are included in the Reign of Christ according to the above-cited predictions and are all of them the Effects of Charity as S. Paul has described that Grace from the excellent fruits thereof For Charity is kind full of acts of Humanity seeketh not her own much less what belongs to others either out of envy or covetousness 1 Cor. 13. Charity is not puffed up with pride and high-mindedness has no pleasure in unrighteousness or deceitfulness but rejoyceth in truth and faithfulness Charity does not easily think evil of men or unseemly behave her self out of the bad opinion she conceives of them in matters of Morality or Religion Charity is so far from exciting others to war that she is hardly provoked to anger but is patient and long-suffering so far from persecuting and murthering the good that she will not be over-severe to those that are no better then they should be For Charity beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things so far is she from persecuting imprisoning from racking and killing of innocent and good men that are endued with the true fear of God upon worldly Jealousies and Suspicions that is to say for fear the spreading of the Truth of the Gospel should bear down their usurped Empire of Idolatrous Tyranny and Superstition 4. Having therefore so clear a view of the nature and properties of Charity and of the condition of the Reign of Christ in his Church whose Dominion is founded in the Law of Love it will not be hard to draw the picture of an Antichristian Polity so far forth as it is opposite to this last Branch of the Divine Life which is that transcendent Grace of Charity Let us suppose therefore a company of men that pretend to succeed Christ and his Apostles who if they be his legitimate Successours they should succeed him also in the Graces of his Spirit to be quite contrary in the administration of the affairs of the Church to that Description of the Kingdom of Christ out of the Prophets and Psalms would not this of a truth prove a most palpable and remarkable Limb of Antichristianism 5. As suppose first for example Whereas our Saviour Christ is described as one that does redeem the souls of the poor and needy from oppression and wrong if the Frame of this Polity that his pretended Successours set up in the World were a yoke upon the most simple-meaning people greater then that of Judaism and a servitude and bondage more intolerable then that of Aegypt as I have above described it as both burthening and afflicting their Consciences and also wearying their Bodies and Book I. ch 19 20 21 22. emptying their Purses by mulcts for such offences as are neither against the Law of God nor any duty we any way owe to our Neighbour but onely against such Superstitious Institutes as were made by the Ignorance of some and the cunning Craft of others who multiply unnecessary Laws that they may enjoy the sweet of the Penalties and suck away the bloud and sustenance of the poor labouring-man as often as they catch him in these nets were not this point-blank contrary to that part of the Description of Christ's Kingdom that consists in the protecting and easing of the poor and oppressed 6. It were a very unchristian thing and a shreud sign that those were not the true and genuine Successours of Christ that did not prevail so much upon the Civil Government that vassalage and slavery and squallid and deplorable poverty should be chased away for the glory of the Gospel and the honour of the Kingdom of Christ which is supposed to be where-ever the Gospel is received But for these pretended hypocritical Successors to be Instruments and Assistants to the enslaving of the World for the partaking
of the spoil or rather to erect a Spiritual Polity to enslave all and bring the most insupportable Servitude of Body Soul and Estate such as Paganism could scarce ever shew the like certainly this must be very highly Antichristian For indeed what can be more salvagely oppressive in reference to the very Estates of men then to frame such a Religion upon the pretence of their Infallibility as is perfectly repugnant to the plain Word of God and immutable Rules of Reason depraving of things so for their own worldly advantage as I have already abundantly set out to bring in a more ample Revenue to feed the Pride and Luxury of this false Church And then when they have thus grossly perverted the Truth of God to declare that they who will not say Amen to their lies and forgeries have no more right to their own Estates then a Thief or Robber to what he has got by unlawful spoil and therefore accordingly not onely to hinder them from any employments of either profit or credit but disable them from making of Wills and their Heirs from inheriting their Estates and awing them from laying claim to their Patrimonies lest their Father's Heresie be intailed upon them whether they will or no. 7. To which Antichristian Barbarities you may adde also the scornful and cruel Penances they put upon them that do submit themselves to their Church making them go in procession in contemptible disguises or else enjoyning them to march in their shirts bare foot and bare leg and to whip their own bodies in the sight of the people as they go along How unlike nay how utterly contrary is this to that Meekness and Sweetness that is described in the Discipline and Government of the Kingdom of Christ But we need not insist upon these things we having treated sufficiently of them already 8. Now upon the second particular viz. that Humility and Lowliness which is also one fruit of Charity and by which the Person and Rule of our Saviour is described in the ancient Prophecies We have shewn the Antichristian Detestableness of the opposite to this Vertue already in the first Branch of the Divine Life and need adde nothing more thereto 9. The third character of Charity is her delighting in true and faithful dealing amongst men The opposites to which are easily discoverable To say nothing therefore of the manifold Frauds which we have already taken notice of all along in this our Description of Antichristianism this certainly must be very Antichristian and uncharitable namely To misrepresent mens Actions and Opinions in publick Speeches or Writings nay to invent notorious lies and fictions to the disparagement of mens Persons and Doctrines and suborn men to write them and divulge them to the world for truths Which is to doe so as was the custom of those who were under the Dragon that old Serpent and false accuser of the ancient primitive Christians whom they aspersed and calumniated as worshippers of the Sun because they put up their prayers with their faces towards the East as Man-sacrificers and as Eaters and Drinkers of humane flesh and bloud because of their calling the Eucharistick Bread and Wine the Body and Bloud of Christ they understanding it onely in a mystical or symbolical sense For professing with S. Paul There is neither Male nor Female in Christ but that both have equal admission into his eternal Kingdom That they had no regard of Sexes but were vile Sodomites and abusers of themselves with Mankind For meeting together to serve God in private in Grotts and Caves of the Earth for fear of persecution That they were Conspirators against the Roman State and Empire And lastly for their reverently receiving the Elements of Bread and Wine at their holy Communions That they were Worshippers of Ceres and Bacchus 10. In like manner we may imagine that this Pseudo-christian Church may raise such perverse Calumnies against the true members of Christ as namely traducing them for Atheists or at least Arrians because they will not acknowledge the Divinity of a consecrated piece of Bread reporting them as Manichees because they do not hold the power of the Church to be superiour to that of Emperours and Kings to make thereby but one Sovereignty in the Church but affirm the Secular Power independent thereon as if the holding these two distinct Powers were forsooth the holding the two Principles of the Manichees defaming them for Beesoneriders or Witches because they have by reason of hard persecution been driven to inhabit desert and mountainous places or upon their meeting more privately in houses by night to impute to them some such horrid and villainous practices as were reported of the primitive Christians that the Candle being put out they committed Incest and all manner of Uncleanness in the dark nay that they killed their own children in these concealed Assemblies of theirs To accuse them of reviling the Saints merely upon their professing it unlawful to invoke them or of blaspheming the Blessed Virgin because they hold it unfit to worship her To tax them of disobedience to the Magistrate onely because of their persisting in the sincere profession of that Faith that is consonant to the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles And lastly to father upon them what abominable actions they please and speaking without a Metaphor to gag the mouths of the thus accused and slandered that they may not answer for themselves to clear themselves in the audience of the people Nay to rack men till their very bowels break out of their belly to force them to acknowledge themselves or their party guilty of such villainous crimes as it is incredible their very persecutors should in good earnest suspect them of merely to get a pretence from such an extorted Confession to verifie their wicked Slanders to the world and to make the harmless and innocent professors of the Truth of the Gospel to be odious and hateful in the eyes of all men Certainly if this be not diametrically opposite to that part of Charity that discovers it self in true and faithful dealing nothing can be excogitated that is so CHAP. XIV 1. The nick-naming of the true Christians by the odious Title of Hereticks with their barbarous injuries thereupon 2. That Heresie and Schism are sins against the truly-Catholick and Apostolick Church 3. What is meant by One Catholick and Apostolick Church 4. What is that hainous sin of Heresie 5. What Schism 6. That while men are sincere members of the Apostolick Body they can be neither Hereticks nor Schismaticks 7. The Hypocritical and Schismatical Niceness of this Antichristian Church in forbearing to joyn in any Religious Duty with any member of the truly-Apostolick Body 8. Their fraudulent purpose in fostering this Schismatical Niceness and Unsociableness 1. BUt we will also take notice of that which will be so usually cast upon the Dissenters from this false Church that it will be scarce accounted any reproach done to them but rather civility
or justice and that is the so freely nick-naming them by the style of Hereticks and Schismaticks Which yet in their own judgment I suppose not to bear so little weight with it whenas their real estimate is discoverable by their proceedings they deeming an Heretick so odious or contemptible that he is not worthy of the common privileges of mankind and of that protection that the Laws of humane Society do afford men that he shall not have the security of a Promise though confirmed by Oath Faith not being to be kept with Hereticks Not to mention here that they have made the penalties of Heresie capital Which how justly though a man were an Heretick in the matters of Belief provided it were not out of Pride and conceitedness but out of invincible Ignorance I will not here discuss 2. It will be of greater use to consider what is real Heresie or Schism that the sincere and knowing Christian may not be reproached nor the less skilful affrighted with these Bug-bears Those that make so great a cry against the hainousness of these sins their Zeal and Rhetorick would be more usefully placed if they would be so faithful as to give us a right Notion of them otherwise while they pretend to be so industriously desirous of Peace and Unity in the Church they may but give greater occasion of Dissensions and Animosities For to make more things Heresies and Schisms then are is to create more quarrels then there need be I will acknowledge as soon as any that Heresie and Schism are very grievous crimes even of the deepest dye but then it must be truly Heresie or Schism not what-ever the peevishness or interest or prejudice of a domineering party will be pleased to call so under the pretence that they are that One Catholick Church from whose Doctrine be it never so false or corrupt for one to dissent must be Heresie and to separate from their communion be their practices never so Idolatrous Schism No certainly those high sins of Heresie and Schism are not against this or that particular Synagogue be they never so numerous but against that ancient and truly Catholick and Apostolick Church and he that sins against her Unity sins against his Creed which has taught us to say I believe one Catholick and Apostolick Church Which words because they may be abused to the making of the Church look less Catholick and One then it is I shall offer an easie resolution of the sense of them 3. I conceive therefore that the Object of our Belief in this Clause of the Creed are these three Propositions First That the Church of God wherein eternal Salvation is to be had is but One that is to say That a man cannot be saved in any Religion as some wantonly conceit but that there is one onely way of Salvation which is revealed to God's true Church under which all must come before they can be saved Secondly That this Church of God is now a Catholick Church not Topical or National as in the Commonwealth of the Jews but a Church that is by right to spread over the face of the whole Earth and is designed so to doe by Providence as is expressed in several passages of the Prophets From the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same my name shall be great amongst the Gentiles c. as * Chap. 1. Malachie has fore-told And David in the second Psalm Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession Thirdly and lastly That this One Catholick Church is neither to be stretched so wide as to be acknowledged there where the Apostolical Doctrine the Faith and Practice delivered and commanded by Christ or his Apostles is oppugned and contradicted and quite contrary Doctrines and Practices brought in nor to be made so narrow as that such companies of men should not be allowed to be part of this Catholick Church amongst whom notwithstanding the Apostolical Doctrines do obtain and Primitive Practices of the Church set on foot by the Apostles or Christ himself are in use That is to say The adequate Character of this One Catholick Church is that it rejects nothing of the Apostolical Doctrines and imitable Usages which were commanded by Christ or by his Apostles to the Church nor teaches or institutes any thing that is point-blank opposite thereto or to the Word of God to which Christ and his Apostles give testimony That therefore is the true Catholick Church in the whole and in every particular company of it which has for its visible Laws and Usages whereby it self becomes also visible the Laws and Usages of Christ and his Apostles and nothing contradictorious thereunto This I hope will be acknowledged by all men the most easie and genuine sense of this Article of the Christian Creed that the words are capable of 4. And hence I think a man may easily discover what that Heresie is that is justly to be deemed so hainous a sin namely That it is A Dissent from the Catholick Church even in those things that are in it Apostolical For by them alone they being entire and uncontradicted in her does she discover her self to be that One and onely Catholick Church of Christ. And this would be an hainous sin indeed against that Authority she has to instruct and imbue the world with this saving truth I say to dissent from any part of this Apostolick Doctrine out of a spirit of contradiction and self-conceitedness would be Heresie in the most loathsom circumstances that can be imagined And the next degree to this would be the dissenting from the Catholick Church in such things as they generally agree in though they be not expressly any part of the Apostolick Doctrine but in the mean time not plainly dissonant to the Word of God nor to the immutable Notions of humane Understanding And the third and last degree is to dissent from the determinations of a mans own particular National Church in the like circumstances with the former These seem to have something an over-near affinity with what we have defined most properly primarily to be Heresie But considering that even Oecumenical Councils themselves may erre and that Scripture in things necessary to Salvation is sufficiently plain and the Affairs and the Genius of particular Nations exceeding different and changeable and General Councils very hardly and slowly to be congregated I must not be over-hasty to call a Dissent here no not from an Oecumenical Doctrine or Usage by so harsh a denomination as Heretical there being no entrenchment made thereby upon the Apostolical Laws and Doctrines But to dissent from or not to subscribe to the determinations of what Church soever that are plainly repugnant to the Doctrines Apostolical were not onely not Heretical but Heroical especially if the Dissent is likely to beattended with any personal inconveniences to the Dissenter 5. And now for Schism there is much-what
the same judgment to be made hereon For it is plain that Schism truly so called is A Separation from the Catholick Church or from any National Church which is part thereof even then when she approves her self to be Catholick that is to say even then when she is Apostolick or though she be Apostolick and offer no Opinions and Usages but such as are conformable to the Usages and Doctrines of Christ and his Apostles To separate from the Church in such circumstances as these I confess were a great and damnable sin But for one to separate from the Church in other things upon an invincible suspicion that the consenting to or doing this or that were sinful and displeasing to God though those Opinions might be true and Practices harmless in themselves this I conceive though it make a man materially a Schismatick yet he is not formally so and he is rather to be pitied then reproached But if he separate from that part of the Church if it can be still a part of the Church that does so which imposes Opinions and Practices plainly repugnant to the Precepts of Christ and his Apostles Separation in this case need not be pitied nor ought to be reproached but highly commended and applauded And that voice will warrant them that calls for such sober Separatists Come out of her my people lest you partake of her Rev. 18. sins and of her plagues For the coming out here would be really the going in to the true Church and the standing still the abiding disjoyn'd therefrom as one speaks very smartly and truly Is Ecclesiae non jungitur qui ab Evangelio separatur 6. Wherefore from this true and determinate apprehension of things it is manifest how outrageously and Antichristianly uncharitable this false Church would be against the true Members of Christ in calling them Hereticks and Schismaticks and Renders and Tearers in pieces of the Unity of the Church whenas in truth they are so far from being Hereticks that they are the faithful Witnesses of Jesus and the onely sincere Members of the Apostolick Body and keep to that one foundation of which Christ is the chief corner-stone and are so far from being Schismaticks in their separation from such a Church as I have described where gross Idolatry and Superstition has overflown all that by separating they have redeemed themselves out of this Babylonish or Aegyptian Captivity and returned to that City that is at unity or one with it self and must never vary I mean that one and onely true Catholick Church as being truly Apostolick For if it be true That he is not joyned to the Church that is separate from the Gospel I think it will be true also that he that is sincerely joyned to the Gospel cannot be separate from the Church And therefore this noise of tearing and rending the Church is but a clamorous Accusation of men that feel their own usurped Power and Interest to shake as if it would break in sunder at this resurrection of the true Apostolick Church and Christ's recovering the Power into his own hands for the raising that promised and long-expected Kingdom of Righteousness upon Earth 7. And yet in the fourth place though this false Church be thus perfectly Antichristian as I have described grossely Idolatrous and wretchedly Superstitious and thus shrilly clamorous and querimonious against the rending of the Unity of the Catholick Church as she will phrase it notwithstanding all this we will suppose her so Hypocritically nice and scrupulous that she will not contaminate herself with joyning in Divine Service with those of the true and Apostolick Church though there be nothing in their Service but what is Apostolical no not so much as joyn in the Lord's Prayer or giving of thanks at meat nor say Amen to the shortest Ejaculation or Doxologie that occasion should put into the mouth of those that appertain to the Apostolick Body nor say Grace themselves for fear these Apostolicks should joyn with them or adde their Amen And yet forsooth this Synagogue of Deceivers is so zealous and industrious for the keeping up of the Unity of the Catholick Church as passes when in the mean time they are so full of rancour and railing against these Hereticks as they call them that they will style them and indeed any Church besides their own the Church of the Devil and pronounce that God is not God if he do not damn them and will forbid their Nurselings to so much as wish a Requiem for their Souls when they are departed this life 8. But this is but an Histrionical swaggering in comparison Their Devillish Fraud in the pursuance of this Unsociableness in any Divine duty betwixt them whom they please to term Hereticks and those of their own Church is conspicuous viz. for fear commerce in religious matters should give them the knowledge of the Truth who are held to this false Church by nothing but by believing of Lies I mean not onely such as were long agoe framed for the advantage of their Church but such misinterpretations and falsehoods as they possess their Nurselings with against those whom they call Hereticks whose Doctrines they falsify and traduce their carriage as they please and by this interdicting converse with them keep them in that vile opinion of them which they have infused by their base Calumnies Besides that by this scrupulosity in communicating with them in any Religious duty they ostentate the great Sanctity of their own Pharisaical Church as I intimated before and ingender an hatred and detestation of all that are opposite which plots and practices in those who talk so much for Peace and Unity in the Church is a double iniquity and the highest breach of Charity that comes not yet to blows But she was certainly the Whore that called so remorslesly for the dividing of the Child not the genuine Mother And that must be an Adulterate Church most assuredly that would have Christians differ wherein they profess themselves all agreed and clove in sunder wherein they would naturally joyn together and that is in the Apostolical Doctrines and Practices CHAP. XV. 1. What Incendiaries to War and Plotters of abhorred Murthers these falsely-pretended Successours of Christ are 2. Their Butcherly Cruelty to the Sheep of Christ's Fold 3. Instances of prodigious Barbarities upon them for their very faithfulness to their Saviour and Redeemer 4. The numerousness of them that thus suffer with some particular kinds of Cruelty 5. More Instances of this Diabolical Barbarity 6. All the Elements made Instruments of the wrath and fury of this Antichristian Power 7. Most beastly and unnatural Examples of this Antichristian Salvageness 1. BUT there are yet behind more palpable discoveries of this Antichristian contrariety to that Divine Vertue of Charity the Royal Law as I have already said of the Kingdom of Christ which is described from the Peace and Security of them that live under it That there shall none destroy in God's holy Mountain In
due to ride upon the necks of Princes And therefore every gainful sin and serviceable to this purpose shall be made a Law though never so point-blank against the Laws of God and Christ and all those sacred purposes of Christ's coming into the World shall be trode upon for a foot-stool to lift this pack of Impostours into the Throne that they may the better trample upon all the people of the Earth That is to say Whereas Christ by his Gospel came to silence idolatry throughout the world these Deceivers for their own advantage and profit will set up openly in their Churches as gross Image-worship as ever was amongst the Heathen Whereas Christ came to free the people of God from the yoke and burthen of Mosaical Ordinances these Oppressors of Mankind will load their bodies and Consciences with more numerous and tedious Superstitions and Ceremonies then eveâ—… Moses commanded and put them to a drudgery and slavery worse then the Aegyptian Task-masters did the children of Israel in their soarest bondage Whereas Christ was given to the world by his Father to be an absolute King from whose Decrees there can be no appeal nor any annulment of dispensation with his Laws a perfect High-priest who by the Sacrifice of himself once made and self-effectual Intercession is an all-sufficient Reconciler of us to God a Prophet and Teacher whose Instructions and Predictions are all infallible Oracles this King of Babylon for so I will call this Tyrannical Seducer with his Hypocritical Assistants shall pretend that Christ has given up his Kingdom to them and that they have the very same Power that Christ himself can dispense with or abrogate those Laws he has made or appoint Laws quite contrary to them oâ—… have authority to put what sense upon them they please which is the 〈◊〉 nulling of Christ's authority as he is Law-giver and King and the greatest Treason and the most contemptuous that can be committed against his Heavenly Majesty This false High-priest with his several Orders of levite as if that one offering of the Body of Christ which he himself made once were not sufficient for the atonement of the World nor yet his sole Intercession in virtue of his Infinite Merits and Passion available for our reconciliation with God pretend to the high dishonour and vilification of Christ's own offering himself up once to offer him up in their own hands really and bodily every day in a manner and as if the Intercession of Christ and his own inestimable Merits were of themselves maimed and defectuous clap to them to piece them out the Merits and Intercession of mere Mortals such as could merit for none but for themselves nor indeed have got to Heaven but upon the sole merits of their loving Saviour whom they are made thus to confront in his incommunicable Office And lastly This false Prophet with the rest of his devoted Impostours to the end that their own lies and misleadings of the people may not be discovered but withall to the unsufferable reproach of that great and true Prophet the Lord Jesus and the unspeakable injury of his cordial Followers withhold those lively Oracles delivered by him and his Apostles from the knowledge of men not without gross revilements and disparagements cast upon those Holy Writings then which nothing can be more outrageous against the Prophetick Office of Christ. 5. Again Whereas the Divinity of Christ is plainly and punctually and of set purpose asserted in Scripture to assure us of the allowableness of that Religious Worship we doe to him it being his peculiar Royalty or Prerogative as being not mere Man but God nay his Godhead being ascertain'd to us by that argument of Adoration due to him Worship him all ye gods yet this perfidious Antichristian Hierarchy will not stick to undermine this Prerogative and as much as in them lies to proclaim to the world that he is no more then mere Man for as if they had found an allowed instance of Men-worship in him they will give Religious worship to hundreds of Saints as well as to himself Whereas Christ is described in the Prophets as the Prince of Peace these falsely-pretended Successors of his or rather the Seed of Satan who was a man-hater and murtherer from the beginning will prove themselves Fomenters of dissentions and commotions and causers of embroilments of Nations and Kingdoms in War upon their politick and pragmatical Machinations for the unjust Interest of their own holy Crew Whereas Christ was the Light of the World these will study to keep the world in Ignorance that they may the better tyrannize over them and inslave them And whereas Christ professed himself to be the Truth these will make it their business to fill the world with Falsities and Lies so they be but so contrived as is most fit for the holding up their Interest Pomp and Power in the world 6. And thirdly and lastly Whereas the chief and most indispensable End of Christ's coming here upon Earth was to enliven the world with that Life which is truly Holy and Divine wherein are comprised those four Heavenly Graces of Faith Humility Purity and Charity as for the first This Pseudo-christian Church by reason of the multitude of their lying Miracles and gross Legends and falsified Reliques their incredible Stories of Purgatory and shameless Impossibility of Transsubstantiation all which tend to the Profit and Interest of these Seducers bring things to such a pass that if all the counsels of Hell were laid together they could not invent any thing more destructive of Christian Belief and more mischievously insinuating that Religion is onely a Fiction found out to inrich the Priest and make him powerful and honourable And then for Humility Their Supreme Patriarch being so very high and wrought to that high pitch by such frauds and forgeries by abetting and countenancing such Treasons Murthers and Villainies by raising such Seditions and Confusions in Christendom and this Sacerdotal Monarchy exercised with that haughtiness and unparallel'd pride this Supreme Levite so grossly and rudely treading upon the necks of Princes and making the greatest Emperours his foot-stool in his displeasure and his Sedan-men or Chair-carriers when he is at peace with them and the whole constitution of their Hierarchy in the several pomps and degrees thereof being rather a fiery rack of inflaming Ambition to set all mens spirits on the tenter-hooks in their reaching after the bewitching prizes which are ever flaring in their eyes then an allowable frame of a modest order of Government to keep up wholesome Discipline in the Church can we imagine any complexion of things more contrary to the Spirit of Humility then this And then again for Purity For this lofty High-priest to stoop so low as to set his Seal to the allowableness of Fornication by receiving an annual Tribute from the Whores of his Metropolis and to enjoyâ—… coelibate to his Priests as if he meant to drive them into the nets that these Nuns
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
The like significancy is also acknowledged in the Onirocriticks Artemidor lib. 2. c. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The like he saith also c. 41. which have some similitude with that in Daniel But to come nearer to the point concerning Hail Achmetes out of the Indian Persian and Aegyptian Onirocritical Solutions c. 191. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But yet more particularly of Hail and more to our present purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If one dream that Hail falls on a place he may expect a through and sudden incursion of the enemie And further 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if he dream that the Hail hurt the stemms or stalks of the Corn accordingly as they are broken in the same proportion will the slaughter of men be upon the place 3. Harvest That cutting down Corn is significative of the death of men appears by that Apparition of twelve men seeming to mow the Corn-fields with sithes in Merchia upon which a pestilence followed But that mortality that is by war is still more fitly expressed thereby Achmetes out of the Indian Onirocriticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If a King dream he sees harvest reaped in his own Countrey he will suddenly hear of the slaughter of his people This similitude is also used in Scripture Jer. 15. 33. The daughter of Babylon is like a thrashing-floor it is time to thrash her yet a little while and the time of her Harvest shall come But Harvest sometimes has a more auspicious sense as in that of our Saviour John 4. 35. Behold I say unto you Lift up your eyes and look on the fields for they are white already to Harvest And he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit to life eternal that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together 4. Head That the Head of a Beast in these Prophetick Figures signifies that Person or those Persons in whom the Supreme Power resides is as infallibly to be concluded as the fourth Proportional in Arithmetick three Numbers being given For we have three terms of the Analogie here also viz. a Kingdom and the Sovereignty thereof and a Beast which is the Prophetick figure of a Kingdom Wherefore we cannot miss to say As a Kingdom is to the Sovereign Power thereof so is this Prophetick or figurative Beast to the Head thereof and alternately As the Kingdom to the Beast so the Sovereign Power of the Kingdom to the Head of the Beast Whence we see plainly that the Head of a Beast answers to the Supreme Power and that whether the Supreme Power be in one single Person or in many For as the Power abstractedly is not considered so neither the Persons abstracted from their Power but both in concreto make up this Head Politick And therefore if the Supreme be not but in many those many are the Head and not the less one Head for consisting of many persons no more then the Body is less one Body for consisting of many persons Nay if a man should follow the Symmetry of his Phancy rather then his Reason a Head of many persons to a Body of a vast multitude of persons would look more elegantly and proportionably then one single person As if a Beast were made of little wax bullets sticking together a head of one bullet put to it would not look so conformably as an head of many bullets such as the whole body consisted of 5. Heaven and Earth By Heaven and Earth is understood the Universe as Grotius has rightly noted upon Genesis and abundantly proved upon 2 Pet. 3. 13. But that by Heaven and Earth the Prophets sometime understand a Political Universe that is a Kingdom or Polity there needs no further proof thereof then what is found in Esay ch 51. 15. I am the Lord thy God that divided the Sea whose waves roared the Lord of Hoasts is my Name And I have put my words in thy mouth and have covered thee in the shadow of my hand that I might plant the Heavens and lay the foundations of the Earth and say unto Sion Thou art my people that is to say to make them that were but scattered persons and slaves in Aegypt before a Kingdom or Polity to be governed by their own Laws and Magistrates Again chap. 65. 17. For behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth and the former shall not be remembred nor come into minde But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that I create for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy Upon which Text Forerius Decrevi enim novum Orbem condere by which he means the Kingdom of Christ upon Earth that is his Church According to which sense also he interprets For as the new Heavens and the new Earth which I shall make shall remain before me so shall your Esay 66. 22. seed and your name remain Quam diu duraret novus Orbis i. e. Regnum Dei Ecclesiae c. And Grotius also though he look a-scue and is very shie himself best knows the reason at these places that have been mentioned yet he cannot abstain from interpreting the new Heaven and the new Earth Apocal. 21. of the state of the Church upon Earth And Dr. Hammond upon 2 Pet. 3. doth expresly acknowledge the new Heaven and the new Earth there mentioned to have a Political sense Which notion was worth the clearing because this general Analogie will make us the better understand what the parts of the Universe figuratively signify as to be called up into Heaven or cast down to the Earth and the like 6. Horn. Horn also signifies the Supreme Power of a Body Politick which is resembled to a Beast it being the highest part of the Beast and the Defender of his body It is the interpretation of the Angel in Daniel The great Horn is the first King And the ten Horns are interpreted ten Kings by the Angel in the Apocalyps For they were the height and summity of their respective Kingdoms though in some sort subordinate to the seventh Head of the Beast 7. Horse There is no express interpretation of that Animal in Scripture But a generous Horse with his Rider does naturally emblematize Rule and Command Which may seem also hinted to us from that of Psalm 45. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is Prosper and ride which the Seventy turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prosper and reign But an Horse signifies also any success or fortune of him that rides on him So Achmetes out of the Indian Interpretations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. If one dreams that he rides on Pharas which is a generous Steed which goes orderly and obediently he shall obtain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 honour and renown proportionable to the Beast he rides on And so after he descants on the largeness thickness and length of the tail declaring that his power and train shall be answerable but if bob-tailed or thin of hair it signifies defect of power The halting of
5. c. 17. Molinaeus all these were imitations of the Imperial Power and Dignity So exactly may he be said to exercise all the power of the first Beast before him And is yet still more palpably true in that he takes away all power in Ecclesiastick affairs from the Emperour and will exercise it solely himself not to adde that by virtue of this entire Ecclesiastick Power he has wrested even the Civil Power of the Empire out of the Emperour's hands in a very great measure so awful a thing has been the Pope's thunder of Excommunication And this is sufficient to make good the third Agreement of my first Parallelism 3. Having a golden Cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornications Where Grotius upon the word Abominations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he In Viso quidem intelligendo humor foetens in re verò Dii falsi quos Graeci vocant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Hebrews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore the filthiness of her Fornications is the same with the former they all signifying the Idolatry of the Roman Hierarchy And as we have already demonstrated in the foregoing Chapter that this Whore is not understood of Rome Pagan so this Circumstance amongst others agrees very naturally thereto For this Woman with her Cup in her hand implies she is the beginner not of an health but of this damnable Pollution of Idolatry and that whereas the Empire had grown chast and cold to this folly and madness through the power of the pure Gospel of Christ this Woman by this Incentive this Virus amatorium would inflame their spirits again with new lustful motions after Idols and make them goe a-whoring from their God 4. But there is something further observable in this golden Cup wherein the force of its bewitchery may consist For that it is an enchanted Cup or a Philtrum I have abundantly made good under that Title in my Prophetick Alphabet and not onely Mr. Mede but Cornelius à Lapide and Cha. 8. Sect. 2. Alcazar interpret it to that sense The latter of whom besides the filthiness of the Composition as the ashes of Toads and of mens brains hanged at the Gallows addes also Cantiones execranda verba Charms and direful words which must needs therefore be conceived to be Magical and of a miraculous power Analogical to which is that Chap. 13. concerning V. 13. 14. the Two-horned Beast that he doth great wonders even so much that he maketh fire to come down from Heaven and so deceiveth them Par. 1. Agr. 4. that dwell on the Earth by those miracles that he had power to doe in the sight of the Beast that is to say in the sight of the Empire which he seduced into Idolatry by these Miracles and so re-introduced the Image of the slain Beast by this seduction Whence it is plain That the Magick and the Miracles of the Whore and of the Two-horned Beast tended to one end the reviving of Idolatry again in the Empire according to the fourth Agreement of our first Parallelism 5. But one chief Charm that was used over this Magical Cup undoubtedly are those powerful and affrightful words of Excommunication that Menace of committing men to Hell-fire if they did not submit to these Idolatrous Institutes of the Church This Thunder from that Roman Vejovis did not sowre but sweeten this Cup and make it goe off with a great deal of pleasure it looking so like the Cup of salvation to those that drank it when it was so authoritatively and terribly declared that those that refused it should undoubtedly perish This is that main Spell that did invigorate the virtue of this Potion and made the Whore's Paramours lie more close in her bosom when they were terrified with such ineffable danger and misery that should befall them out of it Which pretended power being neither lawful nor natural but above the limits of Nature what can it be justly deemed but Magical or Diabolical And this is that very same power which is plainly and apertly figured out in those words of the 13 Chapter where the Two-horned Beast is said to make fire come down from Heaven which I have already in my Prophetick Alphabet plainly Chap. 6. Sect. 14. proved to be a very significant Iconism of Excommunication 6. And there is nothing more frequent in the mouths of all men then the Pope's Thunderbolt of which they have conceived so miraculous an effect that the people at Paris were made generally to believe that it had so blasted the Hereticks that their very faces were grown black and ugly as Devils their eyes and looks ghastly their breaths noisom and pestilent as Sir Edwin Sandys has recorded in his Europae Speculum Erasmus also runs much upon this Metaphor in his Colloquies and the Popes themselves glory in it And as if the people were not quick enough to understand the similitude without some visible Ceremonie the Pope casts down burning Fire-brands from aloft at a certain solemn Excommunication And lastly Nauclerus uses this phrase of being thus Thunder-struck three or four times within the compass of a page or two And the Popes themselves look upon them whom they have Excommunicated tanquam fulmine afflatos and so speak of them as Paraeus has also observed upon the place So that there is not room left for the least Hesitation whether Excommunication be not alluded to in that miraculous bringing down fire from Heaven 7. But whereas it is said That he deceiveth them that dwell on the Earth by reason of those Miracles which he had power to doe I must confess I think other Miracles may also be glanced at of which there is abundance boasted of by the Roman Church themselves by which they would confirm several sorts of Idolatries practised amongst them Which may be attributed as many of them as are true to the great activity and desire of their Priests to promote Idolatry who thereby invite the Devil to play such pranks at their Images or Altars or in their Coemeteries But to return to the Magick-Cup 8. We have considered the contents of it and that supernatural Magick infused into the Liquor thereof But the very Metall of the Cup which is Gold has also its significancy and bears with it a meaning of a more natural Magick that attracts all Quid non mortalia pector a cogis Auri sacra fames Wherefore that great Affluency of Riches Honours and Preferments that are to be had in the Roman Church is no small part of this intoxicating Potion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nay indeed has made the Inhabitants of the Earth drunk the fumes of Ambition and Covetousness possessing their Brains especially theirs of the Roman Clergie who are not enriched with these Golden gifts of the Church but upon the condition of assisting and abetting the Idolatry thereof This Cup therefore I conceive may also be an Emblem of
Sensuality Luxury and Affluency and to be drunk therewith to abound with worldly felicity even to an Insensibility of better things and to a besotted security and contentedness with the present enjoyments of this Life This also may be one sense of this intoxicating Cup besides what I have touched upon before Ver. V. And upon her forehead was a Name written Which Interpreters have rightly noted to allude to the custom of some impudent Harlots who had their names written upon their foreheads as appears from that in Seneca Nomen tuum pependit in fronte pretia stupri accepisti manus quae Diis datura erat sacra capturas tulit 2. Mystery Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth All which Inscription I conceive is the Name of the Whore For the Scripture often makes long Names even a whole Sentence as I shall have occasion more fully to note anon I say the very word Mystery is part of the Name And the sense of the whole is That the Name of the Whore is Mystical Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots or rather the Mother of Fornications 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so some Copies which the Vulgar Latin follows and Grotius best approves of and best fits with what follows and of the Abominations of the Earth that they may be both Abstracts And Mystical here signifies the same that Spiritual elsewhere in the Apocalyps Which is spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt as Chap. 11. v. 8. Cornelius à Lapide has also compared them and it is the Great City there too which is so called Wherefore let any one judge if Mystical or Spiritual Babylon can be understood of Rome Pagan or whether it is likely that the Spirit of God should prefix the term Mystery to an Inscription that hath no more in it then a dry Synecdoche For if Rome Pagan be understood it is no more but putting one Pagan Idolatrous and Persecutive City for another With which certainly so profound and venerable a Preface as Mystery cannot well suit 3. Wherefore it must be understood of a Christian City or Polity Idolatrizing and debauching others with Idolatry And the meaning of the Mystery must be this Even that that Hierarchy which should over-spread the Empire pretend to be the pure and unadulterate Apostolick Church and be generally believed to be so nay to be that City from Heaven the foundations of whose Walls are twelve with the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb inscribed upon them that City wherein God will wipe away all tears from the eyes of his servants where there shall be no more death nor sorrow nor crying nor any more pain that is to say no more bloudy Persecutions Pressures nor Tortures of the faithful Servants of Christ as Grotius well interprets it and lastly that City wherein there is no Temple that is to say no Object towards which we bow besides the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb who alone is worshipped with Religious worship I say the Mystery is this That that Occumenical Hierarchy or Body of the Clergie that boast themselves to be this pure and Apostolick City as being of an unerring judgment should indeed be the very City Babylon it self which in stead of being so chast a pattern of Purity of Worship were Sacrificers to the dead and the Adorers or Worshippers of Bel and the Propagators of the worship of the Baalim that is to say of the worship of Daemons or false Gods through the world infecting therewith even the very Jews themselves the peculiar people of God and in stead of being a Protection and Refreshment to the Servants of the true God held them in a long and sad Captivity casting them that would not bow to the Image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up into an hot fiery Furnace This is the Mystery and yet a very true one For it is over-manifest of this Pseudo-christian Hierarchy that they have debauched the professed People of God with various kinds of Idolatry and have held them captive a long time under an hard servitude and besides other tortures and persecutions have burned thousands of the faithful servants of Christ with Fire and Fagot Wherefore it is a Mystery indeed that she that so boldly professes her self the City of God and had the luck to be believed so generally to be so should in truth be found to be that bloudy and Idolatrous Babylon 4. And because she boasts her self also to be the Catholick as well as the Apostolick Church she is farther adorned with the Title of Great as well as of Babylon and is at once styled Babylon the Great the vast extent of that City which they that have made the most frugal computation reckon 360 or 380 Stadia in compass Pliny and Herodotus 480 being a fit Symbol of their pretence to Catholickness or Universality And lastly because she will pretend to be the Spouse of the Lamb and be called Our Mother the Church the Spirit of God in reproach to this false Beast has styled her the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth 5. Which style does plainly discover that this City Babylon is not Rome Heathen but a Polity Christian. For Rome Heathen was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius reads it the Mother that is the Author and Dispenser of Idolatry over the face of the Earth for the Nations were Idolatrous of themselves without her and she rather a Learner and Receiver of their Idolatries which she increased as she advanced her Trophees as it may appear by that promissory Charm which Macrobius sets down used by Saturnal lib. 3. cap. 9. the Romans when they had hopes of taking a City calling out thereby the Tutelary Gods of the Place and promising them Temples and Solemnities at Rome Wherefore the Title of Mystery prefixed to the Name of the Whore or rather it being a part of it and which easily answers to that Mystery of Iniquity the Apostle speaks of jointly considered with this part of the 2 Thess. 2. 7. Name The Mother of Fornications and Abominations of the Earth does evidently agree with our Demonstration in the foregoing Chapter that proved it necessary to understand by Babylon not Rome Heathen but a State of the Church degenerating into Heathenism and Idolatry Which lying deeper then that every man can discover it at first sight as being coloured and gilded over with fair pretences of magnifying Christ and his Apostles and the rest of the Saints especially the Virgin Mary the Mother of Christ is rightly called a Mystery In which this Whore and the Two-horned Paral. 1. Agr. 5. Beast do exactly agree For his having Horns like a Lamb is that outward pretext of Succession from Christ and his Apostles and of having a power from them to rule and discipline the Church according to the mind of Christ to his Honour and for his interest which they pretend in every thing But his speaking like a Dragon bespeaks him
Universal Bishop and has for a long time laid claim to and exercised this power to say nothing of his high insultations over the Caesarean Majesty and his usurping as well his Rights as wearing the Imperial Ensigns I say this Idolatrous Hierarchy growing so big in time in these Western parts of the Empire and their power shrivelling up or melting away so much in the Eastern and not continuing in nor advancing to that gross measure of Antichristianism that is found in the other the Spirit of God has accordingly more strongly stamped the mark of discovery on the Western Hierarchy then on the Eastern and because that See lays claim to an Universal Jurisdiction has made Old Rome I mean the whole Hierarchy whose Head is seated there to be this Great Whore For he saith The Woman which thou sawest is that great City which now reigneth over the Kings of the Earth For it is the present Tense and spoken in S. John's time when there was no Seven-Hilled City that reigned over the Kings of the Earth but Old Rome And therefore of necessity it is she 2. But besides that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies in the present Tense and is all one as if one should say quae nunc regnat it is farther observable that if it were not determined to this sense it would rather be a Nugation if a man may speak it with reverence then an Interpretation and would be added to no purpose as being of an uncertain sound and not able to signify any thing but what was said before For in that she is said to whore with the Kings of the Earth and to ride the Beast and to sit upon Peoples and Multitudes and Nations and Tongues this already amounts to as much as the reigning over the Kings of the Earth Wherefore this Adjection must have this peculiar in it that in saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it implies that that City was meant that ruled the world in S. John's time and therefore is the Seven-Hilled Rome But why do I goe about so industriously to prove that which our very Adversaries do not deny as Ribera and Cornelius à Lapide who both acknowledge Old Rome here meant and Alcazar also and Bellarmine upon particular evincement from this verse The words of Bellarmine are Neque enim alia Civitas est quae Joannis tempore imperium habuerit super Reges terrae quà m Roma notissimum est supra septem montes Romam adificatam esse Which two things joyn'd together is a Demonstration that Rome in Italy here is meant and no other City 3. The sense therefore of the Verse may be clearly delivered in this short Paraphrase The Woman which thou sawest riding on the Beast that was and is not and yet is is that great City which now ruleth over the Kings of the Earth that is to say it is Rome whose Inhabitants though flowing successively are accounted one and the same City because included within the same walls or buildings as that is accounted one and the same River that flows betwixt the same banks though the same Water does not continue for a day together This Woman then which S. John saw riding the Empire under the last Head thereof upon the pretence of being the true Catholick and Apostolick Church though indeed become an Apostatized Harlot this Woman I say is that very City that great City that great Roman State or Polity that now rules over the Kings of the Earth saith the Angel to S. John But where or from whence could that be but from Rome the Imperial City Whence it is evident that the Roman Catholick Church as she calls her self which rules the world from the Seven Hills is to be understood as being look'd upon as one and the same Woman this new Roman Hierarchy succeeding and being seated as much in the same City that is as much within the Roman walls as that ancient Polity was Which is as easy to conceive as if one should prophesy of a certain River that it should run bloud three hundred years hence and then should adde that this River is that River that now discharges it self with seven mouths into the Mediterranean For it is evident that this must be understood of the waters of Nilus and yet not of those that flow now but those that shall flow three hundred years hence And as we would say that this very River Nilus that runs now into the Mediterranean is the River that will run tinctured with bloud three hundred years hence though the water is not the same now and then nor of the same Quality so might it be said in S. John's time that that very City meaning the Power or Polity there which then ruled the world would ride the Beast that was and is not and yet is so many Ages after though the Polity be no more the same then the water of Nilus now running is the same with the bloudy water which is foretold shall flow within his banks three hundred years hence So easy and natural is the Expression of the Angel in this last verse and so manifest the determination of the Woman's Seat to Old Rome accordingly as it has come to pass 4. And that the Vision of the Two-horned Beast may keep perfect pace with this of the Whore for the same reasons which I have already here alledged the Seat of the Two-horned Beast is likewise at last restrained to Rome as the onely See of the Universal Head of the Pseudo-prophetick Body Which restriction is discoverable as well by the Numeral Name of the Beast as by numbering that Number comprised in his Name The former Computation is observed by Bishop Dounham to be cavilled against by some as Cabbalistical But he proves it plainly enough out of Irenaeus that this kind of Computation is Traditionary even from S. John himself De Antichrist lib. 6. cap. 4. And though a many Pseudo-Cabbalists have brought the very name of Cabbala into a suspectedness yet I must confess that I think the fame thereof was not raised upon nothing but that there was such an hidden way of delivering the great Arcana of knowledge and that part thereof was the Symbol of Numbers which is frequent in this Book of the Apocalyps as well as continual in the first Chapter of Genesis Not to take notice that that very Expression of Alpha and Omega seems to be Cabbalistical there being frequent mention with them of Aleph lucidum and Aleph tenebrosum concerning which Robert Flud who pleased himself in diving into these depths so far as his bucket would reach Habetis saith he Aleph Meâ—…eorolog Cosmic lib. 4. cap. 3. Cabbalistarum tenebrosum in lucidum conversum omnia creans coelúmque terram informans consequenter habetis Alpha Omega Principium Finem This is answerable to that verse of Orpheus concerning God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which Plato calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I doubt not but was the doctrine
Ivory precious stone brass iron or marble nor any other sacred Utensils for of this latitude of signification is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the use of the word occurres in the Byzantine History where Images of silver and gold are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Achmetes Chap. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But to proceed No trafficking any longer in Aromatick odours oyls or ointments for sacred Unctions No man will participate any longer of her Panis benedictus nor tast of her idolized Wafer made of the finest flour nor sip of the wine of her Chalice though they would offer it to the Laiety The tithe Calf and Lamb also with his consecrated wool shall fail nor shall there be any more Redemption of Souls out of Purgatory by Masses hired for money The Merchandise also of Horses Chariots and Slaves shall cease in that day The Greek has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which three words being in the Genitive Case alone amongst all the rest nor yet in regimine intimates that they must goe together and make up one thing Which I conceive to be the Equippage of some of those greater Dignities in this Mystical Babylon and to be a Key to the meaning of the rest of these Commodities that they are to be understood some such way as I have interpreted them and would interpret these not Horses Chariots and Slaves but Horses Coaches and Lacquays to run by them in querpo which is uncouth to be set to sale thus joyntly if it were literally meant Wherefore the sense is That the Merchandise of such Dignities in their Church as whose Equippage is to goe with their Coach and Horses and Lacquays to run by them that this Merchandise will fail also amongst the rest in the ruine and desolation of Babylon Ver. 14. And the fruits that thy soul lusteth after are departed from thee and all things that were dainty and goodly are departed from thee and thou shalt finde them no more at all That is to say Those great and opime Preferments and Dignities which thy ambitious and worldly minde so longingly hankers after For these are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Poma desiderii as the Vulgar Latine has it the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those fat and fair Objects that make their mouths run a-water so in this full Babylonish Market where every thing is to be had for Money and nothing without it 15. The Merchants of these things which were made rich by her shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment weeping and wailing 16. And saying Alas alas that great City that was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls for in one hour so great riches are come to nought The sense is As well the Buyers as Sellers of Spiritual Preferments who had thriven on the trade shall be very sorry to see the ruine of that Polity that sustained them but not be able to help it and shall magnify the great Pomp and Splendour of the Whore amidst their lamentations over their own losses For it is observable that this sixteenth verse is the very same in a manner with the fourth of the preceding Chapter where the Raiment of the Whore is described Which is understood of the Pope the Cardinals and other Grandees of that Idolatrous Church Ver. 17. And every Ship-master and all the company in Ships and Sailers and as many as trade by Sea stood afar off 18. And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning saying What City is like unto this great City 19. And they cast dust on their heads and cried weeping and wailing saying Alas alas that great City wherein were made rich all that had Ships in the Sea by reason of her costliness for in one hour is she made desolate If we consider what Sea signifies stylo prophetico the multitudes of men upon Earth Analogy will easily lead us to the understanding of what may be intimated by Ships namely consecrated Houses disjoyned from the rest as Ships are usually separate in the Sea It seems therefore to give a glance at the Babylonish Churches abused to gainful Idolatries and Superstitions where they sell the use the sight or possession of several consecrated things exchange Souls out of Purgatory for money and do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 turn the very Word of God into an adulterate piece of Ware or Merchandise It might haply seem something too phanciful to imagine that these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Naves Mercatoriae have any allusion to that known term of Church-Architecture the Nave of the Church and yet Mr. Mede thought that in the Vision of the Goat which stood for the Greek Empire there is an Allusion to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence the Aegeadae which are the Macedonians are named Nor is there any Improbability to anticipate the Objections of those who deservedly have a great respect and reverence for places consecrate to Divine worship that Christ who complained that the Jews had made the Temple at Jerusalem a Den of thieves should in this Vision being as highly provoked rebuke as severely in saying these men of Babylon have turned his Churches which stand for better uses into so many Ships of deceitful and cunning Merchants See the Prophetick Alphabet And they cast dust on their heads c. These three verses do plainly allude to and are in a manner a Transcript of the Vision of the Destruction of Tyre in * Ch. 27. 29 c. Ezekiel And all that handle the ear the Mariners and all the Pilots of the Sea shall come down from their Ships they shall stand upon the land And shall cause their voice to be heard against thee and shall try bitterly and shall cast up dust upon their heads they shall wallâ—… themselves in the ashes And they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee and girâ—… themselves with sâ—…ck-cloth and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee and lament over thee saying What City is like Tyrus like the destroyed in the midst of the Sea Which is like this concerning Babylon Alas alas the great City c. What City is like to this great City And so like passages there are both in this Vision of Ezekiel and in Esay Ch. 23. that I must confess I suspect these also to be Prophecies of the same thing especially considering that the Whoredome of Tyrus is so much upbraided to her in those Prophecies as it is here to Babylon in this For in one hour is she made desolate that is to say Suddenly and unexpectedly is she a-making desolate For she may be a long while a-burning and not set on fire on all places at once as I have intimated above But that these Sea-men should set up so piteous a note and lamentation the cause is plain their trade and livelihood is gone For they
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
and Lust. But these Intimations shall suffice concerning this second Opposition to the Divine Life in the branches thereof 9. The third and last is that which is so conspicuously opposite to that last and best of the three Christian Graces Divine Love or Charity and that is the bloudy Antichristian Cruelty against the sincere Servants of Christ. Which is noted in several of those Visions we have already explained and therefore we need onely produce them As first that concerning the King of Babylon who was a Type of the Pope The reason of his Ruine in that Vision is declared to be his barbarous and Antichristian Cruelty Esay 14. Because thou hast destroyed thy Land and slain thy People that is to say the people of Christendom the Land over which thou challengest an Ecclesiastick Sovereignty as being the Vicar of Christ and yet dost most bloudily murther and martyr his truest and most faithfull Servants Again Dan. 7. The little Horn there which is a Figure of the same Pontifician Power is said to make war with and to wear out the Saints of the most High that is to consume them and destroy them with perpetual persecutions 10. A third Presignification is Apocal. 11. concerning the Witnesses The Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pâ—… shall make war against them and shall evercome them and kill them And their dead bodies 〈◊〉 lie in the street of the great City which is spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt where also our Lord was crucified Which is a description of perpetuall Opposition and Persecution taking away from the true Servants of God either their Honours Offices Goods or Lives So that the real and sincere Church of Christ which is his Body lieth during the treading under foot the Outward Court like a dead corps without Political life or power and also dreadfully wounded all over gore bloud by the cruel Murthers Martyrdoms and Massacres of the faithfull Members thereof Fourthly Apocal. 13. the Two-horned Beast is said to animate the Ten-horned when he had revived into the ancient Idolatrous form of Paganism to destroy as many as would not yield obedience to him even in his Idolatrous Commands And he had power to give life to the Image of the Beast that the Image of the Beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the Image of the Beast should be killed And that no man might buy nor sell save he that had the Mark or the Name of the Beast or the Number of his Name that is As many as would not profess themselves Roman Catholicks and thereby Paganize in Christianity should be famished and starved and not suffered to live So great is the Charity of this Tyramical and Antichristian Power towards the true members of Christ. But blessed are the dead that die in the Lord as it is said in the following Chapter concerning the Martyrdom of those that are murthered by this Pontifician Power 11. Fifthly That also is a Record of the Antichristian Roman Cruelty for the Vials are poured upon the Beast the Aegyptian Plagues upon the Antichristian Aegypt Revel 16. where the Angel of the third Vial which turns the Rivers into bloud speaks thus Thou art righteous O Lord which art and wast and shalt be because thou hast judged thus For they have shed the bloud of Saints and Prophets and thou hast given them bloud to drink for they are worthy Sixthly As the Ruine of the King of Babylon in Esay so the Ruine of the Whore of Babylon in S. John is imputed to this salvage and barbarous Antichristian Cruelty the murthering of the Saints of God The voice of Harpers and Musicians is heard no more in her no Crafts-man of any Craft is found any more in hâ—… the light of a Candle shines no more in her but she is left to utter darkness and desolation because in her was found the bloud of Prophets and of Saints and of all that were slain upon the Earth Murtherers also are particularly noted in both those Catalogues of them that are without the Holy City 12. Seventhly and lastly In the description of the Whore of Babylon which I have above plainly shew'd to signify the Church the Roman especially apostatized into Idolatry there is express and significant mention made of this odious branch of Antichristianism this bloudy Persecution of the true members of Christ. And the woman was arâ—…ied in purple and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls having a golden cap in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her Forâ—… And upon her forehead was a Name written Mystery Babylon the great the mother of Harlots and abominations of the Earth And I saw the 〈◊〉 drunâ—…n with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 and when I saw her I wondred with great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the gorgeous Pomp of the Pope and his Ecclesiastick 〈◊〉 the Cardinals and other great men as also on the coâ—…ly and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of their 〈◊〉 Altars and Temples how this Where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Ornaments Carpets and Laces of Aegypt how 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfumâ—…d her bed with Myrrh Aloes and Cinnamon with Incense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 odours if he have any skill in the Prophetick style he cannot say but this Prefiguration of the state of the Roman Church is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 and richness of it For thus is Idolatry begun to the world in this golden Cup and costly outside of things But this is not the only miscarrlage of this Church she is also drunk with the bloud of the 〈◊〉 and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus Grotius his gloss upon this part of the Text is very expressive and significant 〈◊〉 â—…am 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 despum aâ—…te evomente sanguinem ut ebrii 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saw the 〈◊〉 or enraged Woman foming at mouth with stained froth and vomiting bloud as drunk drâ—…s do wine Which must needs be a wonder to all her Spectatours that a woman so richly and so gloriously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be oâ—… 〈◊〉 â—…erine and salvage a nature Which admiration certainly â—…ust be â—…doubled upon them while they consider how this illustrious Queen professes herself to be the Catholick Church of Christ and Mother of Christendom and yet thus to froth at the mouth nay to foul her raiment by impotently easing of her stomack over-charged with the bloud of her own children But by being thus lavish of the life of her Infants she demonstrates herself not to be that Catholick Mother but a bloudy and treacherous Harlot accordingly as the Holy Ghost has inscribed upon her Forehead The Mother of Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth 13. Thus have we seen every member of Antichristianism comprised in our Idea as they are easily found in the Church of Rome so likewise expresly prefigured in the Writings of the holy Prophets as appertaining to her and that there is no eludng oâ—… evacuating so clear and perspicuous Testimonies by any
any Infallible Judge nor any faithful Keeper of Traditions does ipso facto declare her self the onely sufficient Guide 4. That there is not onely no want of an Infallible Judge but better there should be none 5. That the want of Infallibility does not take away the Authority of the Church it being the duty of every person in things really disputable to compromize with her 6. That though a Visible Judge be necessary in Civil causes yet it is nothing so in Points of Religion 7. That every private man has not onely a liberty but a command to judge for himself in matters of Faith 8. The said Right or Priviledge demonstrated also by Reason 9 That the Reason or Judgment of every private man is not a private Spirit in that reproachful sense that some speak it 10. That the claim to a right of judging for ones self in points of Faith does not make a man superiour to his Church 11. Nor yet equal 12. Nor implies that he thinks himself wiser then his Church but rather more careful of his own eternal Concerns 13. That it is not his private Wisedom he sticks to but the Wisedom of God known to all that are not wilfully blind 14. That the Church is not Infallible proved from the Example of the Jewish Church 15. That there is the same reason of the Christian. 16. That the want of an Infallible Interpreter is no such loss to the common people 17. That their assurance of the truth of the Scriptures by the Spirit is a Tenet not so superciliously to be exploded as some make shew of 18. That this Spirit is properly the Spirit of Faith distinguishable from that of Knowledge and Wisedom 19. The notorious Fraud and excessive Mischief of this pretence of Infallibility 92 CHAP. III. 1. That the keeping the Law of Christ in an unknown Tongue is an undermining or opposing of his Sovereignty 2. As also the reproching and vilifying his Law 3. Their fraudulent pretence of hiding the Scriptures with a vindication of their Usefulness and Excellency 4. The vilifying of the Laws of Christ by setting far less penalties upon the transgression of them then of the inconsiderable Institutes of the Church 5. That their rigid Impositions are against the Kingdom of Christ as also the reading of Legends instead of his Law in Churches 6. The dispensing also with the Divine Laws The Fraud and Mischief thereof 7. The treasonable pretence of this Power 's being absolute by right of succession in Christ's seat 8. The evil effect of this pretence discoverable in several Institutes contrary to the written Laws of Christ 9. As also in nulling those Laws he has given as he is the Eternal Word 10. The bloudy opposing the Sovereignty and Kingdom of Christ in murthering his faithful Subjects 102 CHAP. IV. 1. Sundry particular Oppositions against the Prophetick Office of Christ which may be the Characters of that grand Pseudo-prophet that was to come into the world 2. That the Spirit of Prophecy is not to be monopolized by any one person but is free 3. An Excerpt out of Caelius Secundus Curio to that purpose 4. The silencing the Dictates of those common Notions implanted in humane Souls the highest affront to the Prophetick Office of Christ that can be 5. Several Absurdities propounded as Instances of that Tyranny over the immutable Principles of humane Understanding with the detection of that eminent False-prophet thereby 6. That it is infinitely more likely that this pretended Prophet should be fallible then the foregoing Absurdities true 7. That the slaying of the Prophets 8. Together with the above-mentioned Oppositions against the Prophetical Office of Christ make up a conspicuous Limme of Antichristianism 106 CHAP. V. 1. That the pretence of repeating the Oblation of the real Body of Christ is a derogation to the Excellency of Christ's Priesthood 2. Fuller Aggravations of this wicked affront 3. A prevention of a subterfuge 4. Another more dangerous assault against the Priesthood of Christ and the main end of his Suffering 5 6. The making the Bloud of Christ available to take away the Guilt of sin onely and not the Punishment how salvagely Antichristian 7. Farther Aggravations of this despightful piece of Antichristianism 8. That there can be nothing more fundamentally Antichristian then it 9. That the crime considering the circumstances seems worse then that of Judas with the Fraud of this wickedness 10. As also the great Mischief thereof 11. Injuries against the Mediatourship of Christ. 12. An Answer to some slight pretences 13. A farther confutation of such Antichristian errors and mispractices 14. The Fraud and Mischief of multiplying Mediators 15. A special Mischief done thereby to our growth in grace and holiness 110 CHAP. VI. 1. The opposing of Christ in his three noted Offices how hainously Antichristian 2. An enumeration of other Titles of Christ. Opposition against him as he is the Truth 3. As he is the Light 4. As he is the Life 5 6. Opposition to his Divinity by equallizing Saints and Angels to him 7. Yea by preferring what is but a Creature before him 8 9 10. Opposition against his Paternal Title by injuries and cruelties to his children 11. Opposition to him as he is Prince of Peace 12. By needless Definitions in points of Opinion 13. By taking away the obligation of Oaths 14. By making war with the Saints 118 CHAP. VII 1. That any Constitution of things that naturally opposes and suppresses the Divine Life is Antichristian in the highest measure 2. Such as Idolatry Superstition and all the above-mentioned Oppositions to Christ's Offices and Titles 3. The opinion of a virtue in the Sacraments ex opere operato and of the needlessness of our attention to our Devotions 4. Dumb shows and the resting in the mere doing of a Religious duty be it from what principle it will 5. Easie Absolution and slight Penances 6. Plenary Indulgences purchased by money from Ecclesiastick Authority 7. A general note prefixed touching the Mischiefs of the several Oppositions against the Divine Life 8. The plausibility of the Supposition of an Ecclesiastick Power and Pomp more then Imperial 9. The weakness of the grounds for the said Supposition 10. The consequential Mischief thereof in driving the minds of Church-men from the study of Truth and Holiness 11. Yea in making them oppose every thing that is true and holy if it oppose their designs of Ambition and Avarice 12. That such a Luciferian Power as this were the very ruine of the Kingdom of Christ upon Earth 13. And the turning of his Church into a mere Mart or Fair. 124 CHAP. VIII 1. That such a Frame of things as naturally tends to the extinguishing of Faith is highly Antichristian 2. That A trade of Worldliness in the Spiritual Guides is one part of this Frame 3. And a Self-ended policy in all the Doctrines and Practices of this Church another 4. Thirdly The profession of uncertainty and obscurity in the Christian Faith 5.