to it for his cure as the Israelites in the Wildernesse as often as they were bit with the fiery flying Serpents were to look up unto the Brazen Serpent which Moses had erected in their Camp And those that make no use of the benefit thereof I should suspect them to be no Israelites but a genâ—ration of Vipers or Serpents themselves to whom the poison of Sin is so congenerous that it is their nature and pleasure no pain at all to them so that they desire no cure but flee from the Crosse as Scorpions do quit the place where a Telesme is erected against them 7. But our Saviour Christ knew the power and efficacy of his Passion so well that he made a speciall provision for the Commemoration of that often which it was fit he should suffer but once This we usually call the Eucharist or the holy Communion A Solemnity never to be antiquated till our Saviour return again to judgement visibly in the clouds of Heaven as S. Paul intimateth 1 Cor. 11.26 For as often as you eat this bread or drink this cup you do shew the Lords death till he come For the solid use of it cannot cease till then when all is accomplished For so long as men are to have any growth in Godlinesse or are to animate themselves to any holy designes or sin is to be encountred with or thanks to be given for the victories of the Cross the holy Eucharist cannot possibly cease For the most proper Preparation for the receiving of the Sacrament is a serious Meditation on the Passion of Christ which is commemorated therein The consideration whereof what mighty power and efficacy it has for the vanquishing and subduing of all manner of sins and corruptions I have given sufficient intimation So that every Celebration of the Communion should be as it were a repeated Resolution and corroborated Conspiracy in the bloud of the New Covenant to do our utmost against all the Powers of Sin of Darkness and of the Devil and this upon the sense of that great Love and Loialty we owe to our dear Saviour and Soveraign Iesus Christ who died for us and poured out his own bloud to glue and cement us to himself and to one another So that the Mystery of Christian Religion is a Mystery of the deepest and dearest Friendship and of the most indissoluble Union of Affection that can possibly be excogitated Wherein neither Distance of Place nor Time can make any division but it holds together Heaven and Earth and bindes what is past to what is present and actuates and invigorates what is present to a prosperous and successful bringing on that which is to come Thus it is with all those that are true Christians and do really communicate in the bloud of Christ They have one Minde and one Heart they have one Vote and one Interest which is the Advancement of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world in Truth and Holiness and that Christian Peace Faith and Love may flourish even to the ends of the Earth CHAP. XVII 1. The sixth Gospel-Power is the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. The priviledge of this Demonstration of the Soul's Immortality above that from the Subtilty of Reason and Philosophy 2. The great power this consideration of the Soul's Immortality has to urge men to a Godly life 3. To wean themselves from worldly pleasures and learn to delight in those that are everlasting 4. To have our Conversation in Heaven 5. The Conditions of the Everlasting Inheritance 6. Further enforcements of duty from the Soul's Immortality 1. THe sixth Gospel-Power is the Contemplation of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ in respect of which stupendious event the Apostle has declared how it is Christ Jesus that has abolished death and brought Life and Immortality to light through the Gospel For truly whatsoever Traditions there were amongst the Iewish Rabbins whatever Disquisitions or Conclusions amongst the Philosophers whether Platonists or Aristoteleans concerning the Soul's Immortality they were either so uncertain and fallacious in themselves or so subtil and unintelligible to the People that they could not satisfie the World concerning this so important a matter And if a man should write never so accurately and Apodictically of this point the use thereof would reach but to a few namely such as are of a very patient and comprehensive Spirit that have leisure and take delight in perusing of subtil and close-wrought contextures of Reason which to most men is a toilsome and tedious thing And when a man has writ and read all he can of this Subject and has met with the very best and most Demonstrative arguments for the Conclusion yet for use and service the Recollection of them is voluminous and cumbersome as well as the Collections from them doubtful and fallible at least to them that are not fully masters of their Reason But as the Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour is certain as known to be de facto by abundance of Witnesses so is the Remembrance and Representation of it to our mindes at once and strikes strong upon our Phansie and reaches our Reason with that powerful conviction that believing this we cannot any longer doubt of either the Existence of God or our own Immortality And if we once be but well assured of the Existence of God and of our own Immortall state after this Life methinks this alone should be able to lift us above all the Snares that Satan has laid in this World to entangle us 2. Mortality one would think if well considered might give us some check from too eager pursuit of Honours and Riches from worldly Plots and Designes as also for fear of diseases that accelerate death from over-lavish Indulgence to Sensuality and Intemperance But the Certainty of a Life to come the condition whereof shall be such as our Demeanour here layes the seeds of whether for Happinesse or Misery and that in a measure unspeakably above what happens or can happen in this life this consideration must have such virtue in it if we duly meditate upon it that it should win us with all willingnesse to forsake all the unlawful Pleasures and Projects of this transient World to get some sure Interest in that which is to come and not to trust all in one bottom if any thing at all I mean in the leaking vessel of this mortal Body which is ever and anon ready to sink or topple over and so to drown all the hopes we placed in it Wherefore as ye heard out of Saint Peter we are like Strangers and Pilgrims in this life to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the Soul that our Minds going out impolluted of the Foulness and Contagion of this defiled Earth they sojourn in may be received into the happy Society of just men made perfect as the Author to the Hebrews speaks Whenas if they go out foul and impure their Reception must be accordingly
say they exhibit to the eyes of the Epoptae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being part as it were of this Solemnity Tertullian's mistake is not quite so wide as they would make it but the peoples eyes were befool'd with the sight of them both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saies Theodoret and Clemens gives a reason of it because Ceres after her long travail in seeking Proserpina being weary and very sad sate in that heaviness on a certain stone the Greeks call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ovid translates it Saxum triste the sad stone Hic primùm gelido sedit maestissima saxo Illud Cecropidae nunc quoque TRISTE vocant The Goddess being in this disconsolate condition one Baubo saith Clemens an old countrey-woman offered her to drink but the Goddess being overcome with sadness and refusing it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and afterward it should seem more chearfully took off her Cup. 4. Thus filthy and impure is the Religion of the Pagans all over whose nasty Ceremonies had not been recorded by the pens nor uttered by the mouths of the holy Fathers had not necessity done violence to their modesty Nor will I detain you any longer in so unsavoury a subject though we might travail further in this mire relating to you the unclean customes of Candu in Tartary where they prostitute their Sisters their Daughters nay their own Wives to strangers by way of honour to their Idols Of Calecut in Malabar where the King strains courtesie with the High Priest and will needs have him reap the primitiae of the pleasures of his new-married Bride in that City also is there a Temple dedicated to the Ape an animal of noted lechery Of Narsinga where women prostitute themselves to get mony for their Idols Of the whole Continent of America where besides that their common Lust and Venery has no bounds they also offer their Daughters to be deflowred by their Priests and dedicate young Boyes to Sodomy particularly at Old Port and Puna in Peru where the Devil so far prevailed in their beastly devotions as Purchas relates out of Cieza that there were boyes consecrated to serve in the Temple and at the times of their Sacrifices and solemn Feasts the Lords and principal men abused them to that detestable filthiness and generally in the Hill-countreys the Devil under shew of holiness had brought in that vice For every Temple or principal house of Adoration kept one man or two or more which were attired like women even from the time of their childhood and spake like them imitating them in every thing with whom under pretext of Holiness and Religion their principal men on principal daies had that hellish commerce But enough and too much of the foulness of the Pagan Superstition CHAP. XIII 1. The bloudy Tyranny of the Devil in his cruel Superstitions The whipping of the prime youth of Lacedaemon at the Altar of Diana 2. The sacrificing to Bellona and Dea Syria with the Priests own bloud The bloud of the sick vow'd to be offered in Cathaia and Mangi with other vile and contemptuous abuses of Satan 3. Other scornful and harsh misusages in Siam and Pegu. Men squeezed to death under the wheels of an Idols Chariot in the Kingdom of Narsinga and Bisnagar 4. Foul tedious Pilgrimages in Zeilan together with the cuttings and slashings of the flesh of the Pilgrim 5. Whipping eating the earth plucking out eyes before the Idol in New-Spain with their antick and slovenly Ceremonies in Hispaniola 6. The intolerable harshness of their Superstitious Castigations in Mexico and Peru. 7. That these base usages are an infallible demonstration of the Devil's Hatred and Scorn of Mankind 1. HAving given you a competent view of the Misgovernment of the Prince of this world in the lawless extravagancies of unclean Lust we shall now consider his cruel insolencies and despightful usages of contemned mankind which we may call the Bloudy Tyranny of the Devil over men And there are not a few Examples thereof we shall not omit to produce such as are on this side Murther and yet are manifest arguments of that Envy and Scorn he bears to man As the whipping of the prime youth of Lacedaemon before the face of their friends at the Altar of Diana a custome so barbarous that Thespesion the chief of the Gymnosophists thought fit to object it to Apollonius that great Reformer of Paganism But he is fain to excuse the Lacedaemonians as doing that which was the more tolerable the Scythian Goddess rigidly exacting of them the effusion of mans bloud at her Altar 2. The sacrificing to Bellona was with the Priests own bloud which was also done to Dea Syria by hers at the Fire-Feast where also young men in a superstitious rage who after ran through the City with that in their hand which they had cut off from their body and cast into some house or other thereby to oblige them to give them their womanish habit and attire dismembred themselves in honour to the Goddess The sick in Cathaia and Mangi as is recorded by Paulus Venetus were taught to vow the offering of their bloud to their Idol if they recovered And what had less pain but more contempt and scorn with it the Priest used to besprinkle his congregation before he dismissed them with bloud milk earth and cowes-dung 3. In Siam the Religious Orders are held under very hard lawes it being death to speak to a woman and to drink wine no less then stoning That also is a base abuse of the people in Pegu as Purchas relates out of Gasp. Balby who drink the water wherein the Priest has wash'd himself In the kingdome of Narsinga and Bisnagar there is an Idol to which they make long Pilgrimages and when they appear before him come with their hands bound or with ropes about their necks or with knives sticking in their arms or legs or else cut their flesh and cast the pieces into the Idol's face The Idol being drawn in solemn procession the more Zealous of the people lye in the way to be squeezed to death by the wheels as both Balby Odoricus and Linschoten write I might add other examples of this kinde but I will not overmuch transgress my proposed Method not intending for the present to speak of any cruelties of Satan but such as are on this side Murther 4. In Zeilan they make Pilgrimages of incredible tediousness For having travailed many hundred miles they are fain to wade near twenty miles together in stinking mire besides their clambering up an Hill of many miles ascent by the help of ropes and hooks and bushes that they are to take hold of and when they are got up to the top and have fed their eyes with the print of his foot that was their ancient Law-giver they compleat their penance with pricking and cutting their own flesh 5. In New-Spain they sought pardon of their Idols by
the Love sect 3. and 7. See him also upon the Beatitudes sect 6. And it is no wonder we hear nothing of that Reconciliation made by the Cross of Christ for he does plainly aver sect 34. That the true being in the Love is that peace with God and man mentioned Ephes. 2.14 and the true Testament that standeth fast for ever And Exhortation chap. 12.44 Remission of sins is gained only by submitting to the House of the Love The same that David George boasted of his doctrine Therefore my beloved children change ye not nor turn away your selves from the House of Love For there is in the same the stool of grace to an everlasting remission of sins over all such as cleave thereon and to a peace and rest of the life to all such as humble them there-under By such slips and omissions as these those that are not very dull of perception may easily spel out his meaning Which yet is more clear by other places of his Evangely chap. 13. Where he setleth the Everlasting Priesthood not upon Christ's person but makes this Kingly Priest no person at all but a thing a state or condition of him and his followers here upon earth And therefore he calls there this mystical Christ The Lords Sabbath The seventh day in the Paradise of God The perfection c. And chap. 22. he makes the entrance of Christ into heaven and his visible ascending up thither and sitting at the right hand of God and sending down the holy Ghost at the day of Pentecost which was a real effect of his eternal Priesthood and Intercession with God for his Church nothing but the appearing of him according to the Spirit out of the Heavenly Being in their Minds or Souls upon which he sent down his Spiritual or Heavenly Powers Wherefore this Mystical Christ is the only high Priest that he acknowledgeth and will allow him no otherwise then in this mystical and spiritual sense to be an everlasting and true Christ of God See the place of which you will assure your self I have given the right sense if you compare it with chap. 26. sect 10 11 12. where he more plainly affirms That it is the upright being of the Love Christ after the Spirit which he calls the true light which is that high Priest that abideth for ever at the right hand of God in the Heavenly Being Which phrase Heavenly Being alwaies signifies morally or mystically with him and means something within us And yet he has the impudence to alledge Acts 1. v. 11. where Christ is said to ascend into Heaven literally and naturally so called his disciples gazing upon him as he went up Thus you see how industriously nay how madly and rashly he shuffles out the Humane person of Christ from his Priestly Office every where And as he will have the Heaven or most Holy within us so will he have his Sacrifice and Passion within us too Introduct chap. 8.38 Where doe any now saith he keep the Supper of Christ where they break distribute and eat the bread which is the true Body of Christ to a remembrance of Christ that he hath suffered in us for the sins cause the death of the Cross and so his death is published till he come in his glory Where it is plain that the Crucifixion of Christ is a mystery in us and it is insinuated a duty too For the Body and the Flesh of Christ is Christ according to the History Which Christ according to the Flesh is to be slain in us if we celebrate the Passeover aright and thus we must publish his death till he come in glory that is in the Spirit 4. And truely no other is his glorious coming to judgment with this Sect then this Mystical and Spiritual coming which was the second part I intended to pursue which I question not but I shall make as clear as noon-day Of this there are so many Testimonies and so pregnant that the only fear is of being too copious in the proof of this matter Revel Dei cap. 7. There his illuminate Elders together with his Family of Love are the Heavens in which Christ the Son of God comes gloriously and triumphantly to judgment to reign with God and his righteousness everlasting upon earth Which plainly excludes the ending of the World and that coming of Christ that all Christians expect And chap. 15. sect 6. he affirms that in this Eighth day which is the day of the Spirit of Love all the dead that are deceased in the Lord Iesus Christ do rise from the death and all Generations of Heaven and Earth do become judged in the judgement of God with equity Again in his Introduct Chap. 1. he saith That now the true glorious God who is the Resurrection and the Life revealeth his Saints out of his bosome where since the time they fel asleep they have rested untill this day of the Love because they should now in these last times in the resurrection of the righteous be manifested with Christ in glory to a righteous judgement of God on the earth And chap. 12. he there also affirms That in this day of the Love there appear and come to us livingly and gloriously all God's Saints which in times past died and fell asleep in God And chap. 22. there he also tells us how that in sure and firm hope of everlasting life the upright believers have rested in the Lord Iesus Christ till the appearing of his coming which is now in this day of the Love revealed out of the heavenly Being with which Iesus Christ the former Believers of Christ who were fallen asleep rested or died in him are now also manifested in glory being raised from the dead to the intent that they should reign alive with him over all his enemies To which you may add what he has wrote chap. 16. in his Prophecy of the Spirit of Love Make you to flight make you to flight yea get you now all out of the way ye enemies of the Lord and of his service of the Love and give the Lord with his holy ones the roome yet shall ye not escape the vengeance of God For he saith the Lord cometh to judge betwixt the Family of the Love and the rest of the world where-through the Earth is now moved the Heavens troubled the Elements melt with heat and the token of the coming of the Son of man appears in Heaven with which rumour or rushing noise of the power of God and his holy ones the last trumpet doth also presently give forth her sound through whose blast of her vehement sound and through the appearing of the coming of Christ the dead shall stand up and arise unto the judgement of God who having revenged the bloud of his holy ones that the sinners have spilt and shed upon the earth he puts this pure Family in peaceable Possession thereof that they may reign there-over or judge the same with righteousness from henceforth world without
Echo and daughter Iambe 5. The interpretation of his horns hairiness red face long beard goats feet and laughing countenance 69 CHAP. VII 1. That as the World or Universe was deified in Pan so were the parts thereof in Coelius Juno Neptune Vulcan Pluto Ops Bacchus Ceres c. 2. That the Night was also a Deity and why they sacrificed a Cock to her with the like reason of other Sacrifices 3. Interiour Manifestations that concern the Animal life namely that of Wrath and Love which are the Pagans Mars and Venus 4. Minerva Mercurius Eunomia c. Manifestations referred to the Middle life 5. The agreement of the Greeks Religion with the Romans as also with the Aegyptians 6. Their worship of the River Nilus c. 7. That the Religion of the rest of the Nations of the world was of the same nature with that of Rome Greece and Aegypt and reached no further then the Animal life 8. And that their worshipping of men deceased stood upon the same ground 71 CHAP. VIII 1. That Judaisme also respected nothing else but the Gratifications of the Animal life as appears in all their Festivals 2. That though the People were held in that low dispensation yet Moses knew the meaning of his own Types and that Immortality that was to be revealed by Christ. 3. That their Sabbaths reached no further then things of this life 4. Nor their Sabbatical years and Iubilees 5. Nor their Feasts of Trumpets 6. Nor their Feast of Tabernacles 7. Nor their Pentecost 8. Nor lastly their Feast of Expiation 74 CHAP. IX 1. The Preeminency of Judaism above Paganism 2. The Authors of the Religions of the Heathen who they were 3. How naturally lapsed Mankind fals under the superstitious Tyranny of Devils 4. The palpable effects of this Tyranny in the Nations of America 5. That that false and wilde Resignation in the Quakers does naturally expose them to the Tyranny of Satan 6. That their affectation of blinde impulses is but a preparation to Demonical possession and a way to the restoring of the vilest Superstitions of Paganism 76 CHAP. X. 1. The Devil 's usurped dominion of this world and how Christ came to dispossess him 2. The largeness of the Devil's dominion before the coming of Châ—ist 3. The Nation of the Iews the light of the world and what influence they might have on other Nations in the mâ—dst of the reign of Paganisme 4. That if our Hemisphere was any thing more tolerable then the American it is to be imputed to the Doctrine of the Patriarchs Moses and the Prophets 5. That this Influence was so little that all the Nations besides were Idolaters most of them exercising of obscene and cruel Superstitions 78 CHAP. XI 1. The villanous Rites of Cybele the Mother of the Gods 2. Their Feasts of Bacchus 3. Of Priapus and the reason of sacrificing an Ass to him 4. Their Lupercalia and why they were celebrated by naked men 5. The Feasts of Flora. 6. Of Venus and that it was the Obscene Venuâ— they worshipped 7. That their Venus Urania or Queen of Heaven is also but Earthly lust as appears from her Ceremonies 8. That this Venus is thought to be the Moon Her lascivious and obscene Ceremonies 79 CHAP. XII 1. Of their famous Eleusinia how foul and obscene they were 2. The magnificency of those Rites and how hugely frequented 3. That the bottome thereof was but a piece of Baudery held up by the Obscene and ridiculous story of Ceres and Baubo 4. Of their foul superstitions in Tartary Malabar Narsinga and the whole Continent of America 82 CHAP. XIII 1. The bloudy Tyranny of the Devil in his cruel Superstitions The whipping of the prime youth of Lacedaemon at the Altar of Diana 2. The sacrificing to Bellona and Dea Syria with the Priests own bloud The bloud of the sick vow'd to be offered in Cathaia and Mangi with other vile and contemptuous abuses of Satan 3. Other scornful and harsh misusages in Siam and Pegu. Men squeezed to death under the wheels of an Idols Chariot in the Kingdome of Naisinga and Bisnagar 4. Foul tedious Pilgrimages in Zeilan together with the cuttings and slashings of the flesh of the Pilgrim 5. Whipping eating the earth plucking out eyes before the Idol in New-Spain with their antick and slovenly Ceremonies in Hispaniola 6. The intolerable harshness of their Superstitious Castigations in Mexico and Peru. 7. That these base usages are an infallible demonstration of the Devil's Hatred and Scorn of Mankind 84 CHAP. XIV 1. Men sacrificed to the Devil in Virginia Peru Brasilia They of Guiana and Paâ—ia also eat them being sacrificed The Ceremony of these-Sacrifices in Nicaragua 2. The hungry and bloud-thirsty Devils of Florida and Mexico 3. Their sacrificing of Children in Peru with the Ceremony of drowning a Boy and a Girle in Mexico 4. The manner of the Mexicans sacrificing their Captives 5. The huge numbers of those Sacrifices in Mexico and of their dancing about the City in the skin of a man new flay'd 6. And in New-Spain in the skin of a woman 86 CHAP. XV. 1. The sacrificing of Children to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom 2. That it was not a Februation but real Burning of them 3. That this custome spred from Syria to Carthage 4. Further Arguments thereof with the mistake of Saturn being called Israel rectified by Grotius And that Abraham's offering up Isaac was no occasion at all to these execrable sacrifices 5. Sacrificing of men in Britain Lusitania France Germany Thrace and in the Isle of Man 6. In sundry places also of Greece as Messene Arcadia Chios Aulis Locri Lacedaemon 7. That the Romans were not free neither from these salvage sacrifices 8. To which you may add the Cimbrians Lituanians Aegyptians the Inhabitants of Rhodes Salamis Tenedos Indians Persians c. 87 CHAP. XVI 1. Four things still behind to be briefly touch'd upon for the fuller Preparation to the understanding the Christian Mystery as First the Pagan Catharmata The use of them prov'd out of Caesar 2. As also out of Statius and the Scholiast upon Aristophanes 3. That all their expiatory Men-sacrifices whatsoever were truly Catharmata 4. The Second their Apotheoses or Deifications of men The names of several recited out of Diodorus 5. Of Baal-Peor and how in a manner all the Temples of the Pagans were Sepulchres Their pedigree noted by Lactantius out of Ennius 6. Certain examples of the Deification of their Law-givers 90 CHAP. XVII 1. The Third Observable The Mediation of Demons 2. This Superstition glanced at by the Apostle in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that Daemons are the Souls of men departed according to Hesiod 3. As also according to Plutarch and Maximus Tyrius 4. The Author's inference from this position 92 CHAP. XVIII 1. The Fourth and last thing to be noted namely their Heroes who were thought to be either begot of some God or born of some Goddess the latter whereof is ridiculous if not