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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	age_n	king_n	year_n	5,586	5	5.0533	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50525	The apostasy of the latter times in which, according to divine prediction, the world should wonder after the beast the mystery of iniquity should so farre prevaile over the mystery of godlinesse, whorish Babylon over the virgin-Church of Christ, as that the visible glory of the true church should be much clouded the true unstained Christian faith corrupted the purity of true worship polluted, or, The gentiles theology of dæmons i.e. inferiour divine powers, supposed to be mediatours between God and man : revived in the latter times amongst Christians in worshipping of angels, deifying and invocating of saints, adoring and templing of reliques, bowing downe to images, worshipping of crosses, &c : all which together with a true discovery of the nature, originall, progresse, of the great, fatall and solemn apotisy are cleared : delivered in publique some years since upon I Tim. 4. 1,2,3 / by Joseph Mede ...	Mede, Joseph, 1586-1638.; Twisse, William, 1578?-1646.	1641 (1641)	Wing M1590; ESTC R22768	121,369	171

still to acknowledge him and to be cald Christians though by their Idolatry and spirituall whoredomes they denied the Lord that bought them i. e. whom they profest to be their Redeemer just as Israel for the like is said to have forsaken the Lord their God that brought them out of the Land of Egypt here therefore the case of both is alike let us also see the rest You ask where was the true Church we speake of in Antichrists time I ask likewise where was the company of true worshippers in Ahabs time was it not so covered and scattered under the Apostate Israelites that Elias himselfe who was one of it could scarce finde it I am very jealous saith he for the Lord God of hoasts because the children of Israel have forsaken thy Covenant throwne downe thy Altars and slaine thy Prophets with the sword and I even I alone am left and they seeke my life to take it away 1 Kings 19.14 yet the Lord tells him verse 18. I have yet left me 7000. in Israel all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal and every mouth which hath not kissed him yet I trow these 7000. were not outwardly severed from the rest of Israel but remained still externall members of the same visible body with them But you will except that the true and unstained Church in Judah was still visible and apparent I aske you then where was the company of the true worshippers of Jehovah in Manasses time the worst time of all others when the ten Tribes were carried captive and but Judah and Benjamin only left and they as far as the eye of man can see wholly and generally fallen from the Lord their God to all maner of Idols and Idolatries like unto the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel when in the Temple it selfe the only place where the true God was to be worshipped legally were Idolatrous Altars erected even in the house whereof the Lord had said In this house and in Jerusalem will I put my name for ever even in this house this holy house were Idols and graven Images erected and in both Courts Altars to Baalim the Sunne the Moone and the whole hoast of heaven the like whereof never had beene untill that time Besides also who is able to name the man almost 50 yeeres together that remained a faithfull servant and true worshipper of the living God in the midst of this hideous profanation Nor is it easie to be conceived how it was possible all that time to offer any legall sacrifice without Idolatry when Gods owne Temple and house was made a den of Idols nay his Altar the onely Altar of Israel destroyed to make roome for Altars erected to Idols as may be gathered 2 Chron. 33.15 16. where was the true Church of Israel now or had the Lord no Church at all yes certainely he had a Church and a company which defiled not their garments a company I say but not visibly distinguished from the rest of their nation but hidden as it were in the midst of that Apostate body and yet knowne together with the rest to be Israelites and people of Jehovah but knowne to God only and themselves to be true Israelites and faithfull servants to Jehovah their God And that such a company there was and a strong party too though not seene appeared presently upon the death of Manasses and his wicked son when Josiah began to reign at eight yeares of age for they then prevailed even in the Court it selfe and so brought up the King that even yet while he was young in the eighth yeare of his reigne he began to seek after the Lord God of David his father and in the twelfth yeare to make a publick and powerfull reformation such as the like was never done before him Could all this have been done so soon and by a King so young in yeares and to carry all before it like a torrent unlesse there had beene a strong party which now having a King for them began quickly to shew themselves and to sway the state though before they were hardly to be seene When therefore our adversaries ask us where our Church was before Luther we see by this what we have to answer OF the two first particulars of the foure whereby the great Apostasie of Christian beleevers is here deciphered I have spoken sufficiently viz. first for the kind and quality thereof it should be a new Doctrine of Daemons secondly that for the persons revolting they should not be all but some Now I am to speak of the third the time when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the latter times For the easier understanding whereof we must know that speeches of last times in Scripture meane sometimes a continuation or length of time sometimes an end of time A continuation of time I meane as when we say the winter is the last time or season of the yeare or old age the latter time of life neither of them being the very end but a space of time next the end which therefore in respect of some whole systeme of time whereof it is the last part is truly termed the last time thereof Mans life is a systeme of divers ages the last space whereof is the last time of life The yeare is a systeme of foure seasons and therefore the last season thereof winter may be cald the last time of the yeare But by an end of time I meanethe very expiring of time as the last day of December is the end or last time of the yeare the moment when a man dies is the last time i. e. the end of his life Now in the New Testament when by mention of last time is meant an end or terminus temporis I observe it to be exprest in the singular number as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being foure times mentioned in the sixth of John and once in the eleventh is in every one of them meant of the day of the resurrection at the end of the world I will raise him up saith our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 John● 39 40.44 54. And Marthae of her brother Lazarus I know saith she he shall rise againe in the resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the last day John 11.24 So 1 Pet. 1.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the last time is used in the selfe same sense being spoken of the incorruptible inheritance reserved in heaven and to be revealed saith the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the last time in all which is meant the end of the world But in 1 John 2.18 we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the last houre Little children it is the last houre where no doubt he meaneth an end of some time but not an end of the world which was then afarre off but an end of their time to whom he then wrote his Epistle i. e. an end of the Jewish state and religion which was then at the very doore

event was past he concludeth thus Ergo dicamus quod omnes Scriptores Ecclesiastici tradiderunt in consummatione mundi quando regnum destru●ndum est Romanorum decem futuros reges qui orbem Romanum inter se dividant undecimum surrecturum esse Regem parvulum qui tres reges de decem regibus superaturus sit in quo totus Satanas habitaturus sit corporaliter Who these three Kings were which this horne displanted to make himselfe elbow-roome you shall heare more anon but I will not conceale what I have heard of another exposition which fits our turne for the beginning of the Apostasie no lesse than that of the Fathers namely that by ten kingdomes may be meant the full plurality of the Romane Provinces so much whereof as three is of ten should have the Imperiall power rooted out of them and fall under the Dominion of the Antichristian Horne who should act the soveraignty of the latter times or the last soveraignty of that kingdome Now it is most true that the Popes Patriarchdome in the West holds just that scantling of the ancient Territory of the Roman Empire which a man may judge by his eyes or compasses in a Mapp and yet I preferre the other exposition before it To come up to an issue It is apparent by all that hath bin said that these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with that wicked soveraignty which should domineer in them was to take beginning from the wound the fall the ruine the rending in pieces or rooting up of the Imperial soveraignty of the City of Rome when that City should cease to be the Lap of that soveraignty which the Casars once held over the Nations and many new upstart Kings should appeare in the place and Territory of that once one Empire then should the Apostasie be seen and the latter times with that wicked one make their entrance Now in what age this fell out I think no man can be ignorant who hath but a little skill in Historie But you will say The Imperiall soveraignty of old Rome fell not all at once but had divers steps and degrees of ruine so that the doubt will be notwithstanding from which of these steps of the fall thereof these latter times must be reckoned I answer From any of them For as the Imperiall soveraignty fell by degrees so the Apostasie under the lattermost soveraignty grew up also by degrees and for every degree which the ruinous Empire decayed was the rising sonne of perdition a degree advanced Secondly all the maine and evident degrees of the Empires ruine fell in the compasse of an age and the knowledge and observation of that age onely within which the times of this fall were comprehended was sufficient both to warn them which then lived that that which was to come was then a comming and to informe us who now live that it is already come Now which were these maine and evident degrees of the Empires falling and at what time I will tell you as soon as I have removed an usuall mistake in this businesse which is to reckon the time of the Empires ruine and so likewise the Apostasie attending onely from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or full heigth thereof but this is too much against reason and not agreeable to the course wee otherwise use in the like for as when we reckon the age of a man we reckon not from the time since he came to mans estate but from his birth so should we doe here for the times of the man of sinne I say not we should begin to count his age from his conception for that we use not in other things but from the time he was first editus in lucem when he first began to appeare in the world and so likewise the fall of the Empire and the Apostasie not from the time they were consummate but from the time they first evidently appeared as therefore I hold their opinion the best and most agreeable to truth who begin the 70 yeeres of the Jewish captivity in Babylon not from the consummation thereof under Zedekiah when the City and Temple were utterly rased for that is impossible there being not 60 yeeres in all betweene the nineteenth of Nebuchadnezzar and the last of Cyrus but from the beginning thereof under Jehojakim eighteen yeers before or at the most but from Jehojakim So are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Romane state to begin when the Empire first began to fall and not when it was utterly rooted up Take for another example that computation of the time allotted to the calamity of the Jewes under Antiochus which I the rather alledge because he is commonly counted for a type of Antichrist the beginning of that 2300 evenings and mornings or six yeeres or somewhat more than a quarter which that calamity was to continue from the beginning thereof untill the Temple should again be cleansed Dan. 8.13 14. was not to be reckoned from the heigth thereof when the daily sacrifice should be taken away for thence it is but three yeers 1 Mac. 1.54 c. with c. 4.52 but from the beginning of the transgression which occasioned this desolation and is described 1 Mac. 1.11 c. so likewise the end of the kingdome of the Greekes wherein this calamity was to happen is not to be counted onely then when Aemilius the Consul had quite finished the conquest of Macedon for this points out onely the heigth of that calamity but from the beginning of the last fatall warre which put an end to that kingdome which was about some three yeeres and an halfe before and jumps with the beginning of the transgres●ion of desolation as the finishing of the conquest doth with the taking away of the daily sacrifice But leaving this let us returne againe and see which were these maine and evident degrees of the Empires downfall and when they befell which I suppose may not unfitly be sampled by those of the Babylonish captivity As therefore the Babylonish captivity had three steps or degrees the first in the dayes of Jehojakim when Daniel went captive the second under Jehoiachim or Jechonias when Ezechiel went captive the last under Zedekiah when the Temple and City were wholly razed and consumed so omitting the Politicall change under Constantine the chiefe and principall moments of the ruine of the Empire by the sword and by the sword the Beast had his deadly wound Apoc. 13.14 may fitly be reduced unto three 1 The first was presently after the death of Julian the last of heathen Emperours about the yeere 365. ominously marked with that universall stupendious and never but then sampled earthquake whereby the waters of the Sea were rolled out of their channels and left ships hanging upon the tops of houses From this time forwards all the nations on every side seeme as it were with one consent to have conspired the ruine of the Empire Now that terrible and fatall storme of

to a poore widow a hog her onely hog which a Wolfe had taken away from her And when as afterward in signe of thankfulnesse she brought the hogs head and feet boiled to the Martyr in prison he blessing her spake in this maner Woman in this habit celebrate my memoriall and no good thing shall ever be wanting in thy house from my God yea and if any other imitating of thee shall in like manner celebrate my memoriall he shall receive an everlasting gift from my God and a blessing all the dayes of his life When he comes to suffer he makes him pray to God thus Heare me thy servant and whosoever shall have recourse to this thine Altar he meanes himselfe and whosoever shall have swallowed a bone or prickle or be vexed with any disease or be in any affliction necessity or persecution grant Lord to every one his hearts desire as thou art gracious and mercifull for thou art to be glorified now and evermore When he had thus prayed saith he Christ descended from heaven in a cloud and overshadowed him and our Saviour said unto him O my beloved Champion I will not onely doe this but that also which thou diddest request for the widow and will blesse also every house which shall celebrate thy memory and I will fill their store-houses with all good things for this thy glorious confession and thy faith which thou hast in me Saint Catharine whom he calls Aecatharina a Martyr of Alexandria under Maximilianus he makes to pray thus at her Martyrdome Grant unto those O Lord who through me shall call upon thy holy Name such their requests as are profitable for them that in all things thy wondrous works may be praised now and evermore But above all the rest Marina's prayer whom we Latines call Saint Margaret is compleat and for the purpose she suffered under Dioclesian and thus she prayed if your dare beleeve Simeon And now O Lord my God whosoever for thy sake shall worship this Tabernacle of my body which hath fought for thee and whosoever shall build an Oratory in the name of thy handmaid and therein offer unto thee spirituall sacrifices oblations and prayers and all those who shall faithfully describe this my conflict of Martyrdome and shall read and remember the name of thy handmaid give unto them most holy Lord who art a lover of all the good and a friend of soules remission of sinnes and grant them pr●pitiation and mercy according to the measure of their faith and let not the revenging hand come neere them nor the evill of famine nor the curse of pestilence nor any grievous scourge nor let any incurable destruction either of body or soule betide them And to all those who shall in faith and truth adhere to my house her Oratory or Chappell or unto my name and shall unto thee O Lord offer glory and praise and a sacrifice in remembrance of thine Handmaid and shall aske salvation and mercy through me grant them O Lord abundant store of all good things for thou alone art good and gracious and the giver of all good things for ever and ever Amen While she was thus praying with her selfe saith Simeon behold there was a great earthquake yea and the Lord himselfe with a multitude and host of holy Angels standing by her in such sort as was perceptible to the understanding said Be of good cheare Marina and feare not for I have heard thy prayers I have fulfilled and will in due time fulfill whatsoever thou hast asked even as thou hast asked it Thus saith Simeon who neverthelesse in the very entrance of this his tale of Marina or Margaret complains much forsooth that not a few of these narrations of the acts of Martyrs were at the beginning forgot yea profaned as he saith more truly than he was aware of Evidentissimis Daemoniorum doctrinis Besides he calls I know not what narration of the Virgins Martyrdom in that sort corrupted dictio Daemoniaca but for his own part he would reject all counterfeit fables and tels us nothing but the truth which how honestly he hath performed and what touchstone he used let the Reader judge Baronius I am sure is quite ashamed of him who though he can be sometimes content to trade with not much better ware yet this of Simeons he supposes will need very much washing and cleansing before it be merchantable But for the better understanding of this mystery of iniquity and what necessity there was of such desperate shifts when time was ye shall know that this Simeon lived towards the end of that time of great and long opposition against Idolatry in the Greeke and Easterne Churches by divers Emperours with the greatest part of their Bishops Peeres and people lasting from about the yeere of our Lo●d 720 till after 840 that is 120 yeers which was not against Images onely though they bore the name but the worship of Saints and their reliques the state whereof shall not be amisse to represent out of such records of Antiquity as our Adversaries themselves have been pleased to leave us if it be but for their sake who so often ask us whether there were ever any of our religion before Luther Let us therefore hear what Writers of their own sect such as then lived and were eye-witnesses will tell us Leo Isaurus saith Theophanes miscel lib. 21. cap. 23. erred not onely about the respective adoration of venerable Images but about the intercession of the most chast Mother of God and all the Saints whose reliques also the most wicked man abominated like unto his masters the Mahumetans This was the first of those Emperours the next was Constantinus whom they sirnamed Copr●nimus of whom the same Author ibid. cap. ult speaks as followeth This pernicious saith he inhumane and barbarous Emperour abusing his authority tyrannically and not using it lawfully at the very beginning made an Apostasie from God and from his undefiled Mother and from all his Saints Again lib. 22. c. 4● Vpon the twenty sixth yeere of his reign he shewed himself wicked beyond the frenzie of the Mahumetans to all that were Orthodox so he calls Idolaters under his Empire Bishops Monks Laymen and others his subjects every where as well by writing as by speech banishing at unprofitable the Intercession of the holy Virgin and Mother of God and of all the Saints through which all succour is conveyed unto us and causing their holy reliques to be rejected and despised and if the reliques of any notable Saint soveraigne both to body and soule were knowne to lie any where and wer● as the manner is honoured by those which were religious presently he threatned such as these with death as wicked doers or else with banishment proscriptions and torture As for the reliques acceptable to God and esteemed by the possessours as a treasure they were taken from them from thence forward to be made hatefull things Again cap. 48. of the next yeere If

one getting a fall or being in pain chanced to utter the usuall language of Christians saying O Mother of God help me or were found keeping vigils c. he was adjudged as the Emperours enemy and stiled Immemorabilis unworthy of memory this was a title of infamy Again cap. 54. anno regni 31. If one were found to have a relique but to keep that is though he worshipped it not yet neverthelesse did Lichanodraco the Emperours President burn it and punish him that had it as a wicked doer Thus farre Theophanes Heare now what the Author of the Acts of Monk Stephen whom the same Emperour made one of their Martyrs for patronizing Idols can tell us heare what he saith of the great Councell of Constantinople held in this Emperours reigne against Images O Christ how should I not admire thy lenity To that height did those most impodent tongues yet further break out that they were not afraid to utter that monstrous and impious speech viz. that the very Virgin Mother of God her selfe was now after her death unavailable and no use to be made of her nor could she help or protect any one The same Author thus deplores the state of those times abusing the words of Psalme 79. O God the heathen are come into thine Inheritance thy holy Temple have they defiled and made Hierusalem an heape of stones The dead bodyes of thy servants have they given to be meat to the foules of the aire and the flesh of thy Saints unto the beasts of the earth that is sayth he the venerable and sacred reliques of the Martyrs quas partim igni partim mar● partim denique ô facinus orbi universo damnum ferens praecipitiis tradiderunt which they cast partly into the fire partly into the water O villanous act wherby the whole world is damnified partly threw down into precipices There is nothing yet in these relations will doe any man hurt by engendring a misconceit especially if hee remember the tale is told by malicious Adversaries that counterfeit reliques were plentifull in those dayes as well as now That Hezekiah brake in pieces that brazen Serpent made by Gods owne Commandement a holy monument and type of Christ when it was once abused to Idolatry After the death of this Emperour Constantine and his son who reigned not long after him the idolatrous faction under Constantine his nephew and the Queen mother Irene againe for some yeeres prevailed and that so farre as to pack a Councell the Bishop of Rome having a maine stroke therein whereby the former Councell of Constantinople was condemned and the worship of Images again established But Leo Armin●●s comming to the Empire the Orthodox part again prevailed as before they had done during the reigne of three Emperours more The last Emperour of the opposers of Idols was Theophilus the last Patriarch John and that to the very end the Idolatry of Saint-worship was opposed more or lesse as well as that of Images as may be gathered out of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the song of triumph which the Greeks used to sing the first Sunday in Lent for a memoriall of their last and finall conquest of the opposers of Images ever since that time where in the hymne of Theodorus Ode 8. I find this verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The sacred reliques of the Saints and their Images were not at all to be worshipped said most wickedly the renouncers of piety the barbarous L●zick and John This Iohn is that Patriarch of Constantinople which I said was the last of the opposers of Idols and is often mentioned in this song as is also Lezick but what he was in uncertaine But the whole story being delivered unto us onely by profest enimies if they should fasten no worse calumnies upon the opposite side than yet you have heard you would think perhaps that the Patrones of Idols then were farre more ingenuous to their Adversaries than we find their Successours now Heare therefore something of this kind also that you may see as they agreed with us in the same profession against Idols so did they also in suffering the like slanderous lyes from their Adversaries in discoursing whereof I shall be neerer to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than I was before In that great Councell of 338 Bishops held at Constantinople against Idols under Constantinus Copronymus were by some that wished well to Saint-worship though they consented against Images these two Canons inserted into the first draught of the definition of the Synod First if any one should not confesse the holy and ever blessed Virgin Mary truly and properly Deipara the Mother of God to be higher than any visible or invisible creature and with a sincere faith implores not her intercession let him be Anathema Secondly If any one shall not confesse all the Saints which have been from the beginning of the world untill now to be honourable before God both in soule and body or shall not entreat their prayers let him be Anathema which when the definition came to be read in the Councell the prevailing part of the Fathers caused to be blotted out whereupon that slander fastened on them by their enimies may seem to have taken the first hint as if forsooth by their rejecting these two foisted Canons they had therefore denied whatsoever was contained in them as that the Virgin Mary was Deipara or Mother of God or that the Saints were to be honoured so much as with that honourable title of Saints For Cedrenus would make us beleeve that this Emperour Constantine published a generall law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that none of the servants of God should in any wise be called Saints yea that such of their reliques as were found should be despised and their intercession not to be prayed for because said he they can availe nothing The prophane wretch added saith the same Authour Let no man pray for the intercession no not of Mary for she can doe him no good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 moreover that she could not be called Deipara the Mother of God Then he tels us that hee compared the blessed Virgin after she was delivered of Christ to a purse of gold after it is emptied of the gold that was once in it The same with Cedrenus almost word for word hath Suidas so that the one may seem to have been transcribed out of the other But Theosterictus one who lived at the same time whereas Cedrenus was more than 240 yeeres after seemes much more ingenuous for in his funerall Oration upon Nicetas a Confessour of those times whose Disciple he was relating otherwise the same things that Cedrenus and Suidas doth yet when he comes to the story of the purse he brings in the Emperor expresly calling the Virgin Mary Deipara but finds fault that he would not vouchsafe her the name Saint Ita Deiparen● Maria saith he neque enim sanctam dignabatur nominare illam saith