〈◊〉 〈◊〉 since they were then past not future and that this straining of this phrase is merely for this Exposition's sake which if it were seriously stuck to would make the Apocalyps utterly unintelligible and consequently unprofitable to the Church nay bring an unspeakable detriment thereto by depriving us of so illustrious a pledge of Divine Providence I think these things put together are of infinitely more moment to us for to adhere to that ordinary and ancient Interpretation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I nominated at first then to this novell one that has been but newly started merely for the countenancing such Expositions of the Apocalyps as are not onely extremely harsh and forced but utterly impossible This I hope is even more then enough to remove all prejudice to Truth that may lie upon any ones mind by reason of the mistaken sense of these words and inable him without any farther hesitancy to acknowledge the unexceptionable Perspicuity of those Expositions of the Apocalyps I have exhibited to his view CHAP. XXI 1. The marvellous Completeness of the Reformation of the Church of England in her Doctrines and Institutes 2. That she plainly condemns the Invocation of Saints for Idolatry 3. As also the Adoration of the Host where our Kneeling at the Communion is vindicated 4. Her condemning the Worshipping of Images 5. Her concluding the manner of the Papists worshipping Saints and Images to be plainly the same with that of Pagans 6. Her free and just censure touching the decking of their Images and making them Lay-mens Books 7. How perfectly she has freed us from that Aegyptian yoke we lay under in the time of Popery 8. The Celebration of Holy-days the keeping of Lent and the use of the Surplice in the sense of the Church of England fully vindicated from all imputation of Superstition or Antichristianism 9. That the use of the Surplice is not from any grounds at all of Policy in the Church but pure Charity with a vindication of the use of the Cross in Baptism 1. HAving thus clearly set out the true nature or Idea of Antichristianism as also plainly made good that such an Antichristianism or Antichrist as is delineated in that Idea is that very Antichrist which the Prophecies in the Holy Scriptures do prefigure or soretell we should now proceed to a more punctual Application of the said Idea and Prophecies to the State of the Church from such times as it fell into this Antichristian Lapse till this very day But that being something a more voluminous Design and less gratefull to my disposition who take far greater pleasure in the Vindication of an injured Friend then in raking into the unsavoury miscarriages of either a Stranger or professed Enemy I shal satisfy myself at least at this bout with that part of Application onely which concerns our Reformed Church of England whereby I do not doubt but to free her from all imputations or suspicions of being guilty of any point of true and real Antichristianism in any of her Doctrines or Institutes Whence it will appear how little she is concerned in this free and faithfull delineation thereof unless it be to give Almighty God most humble and hearty thanks who did so graciously assist those noble Hero's with resolution and judgment for the atchieving of so happy and marvellous a Reformation wherein nothing is left no member nor the least joynt or article of that odious and hatefull Image or Idea of Antichrist which we have described no frauds or falsifications of the Gospel of Christ for the Interest of a worldly Church and the feeding of the Priesthood by a trade of Lies and Impostures which would have made any ingenuous man ashamed to be found of the Order or Profession whenas how if no Prophaneness lurk in his soul he may well deem the Calling an ornament to his person And that this is not a boast but a real truth I sâ—…all briefly make good by running through all those limbs of Antichristianism whether opposing the Privative or Positive Ends of the Gospel which I proposed in my Idea 2. The first of the first kind whereof was Idolatry in the Invocation of Saints and Angels in the Worshipping of the Host and in the Adoration of Images Wherein though the Universal Practice of the Church of England does sufficiently clear her from such gross imputations yet I think it not amiss for her greater honour to bring into light her avowed and declared judgment concerning these matters that all the world may take notice how sound she is at the Core in these weighty points of Religion Touching therefore the Invocation of Saints That she does apertly condemn it appears in the Book of Articles where she calls it a fond thing Article 21. vainly invented and grounded upon no warrants of Scripture but that it is repugnant to the Word of God so far is it from being grounded thereupon And the second part of the Homily concerning Prayer is wholly spent in proving That we are to address our Prayers to none but to God himself Where there are excellent Arguments to that purpose and where she does plainly declare that Christ is our onely Mediatour and Advocate as also she does in the Liturgie for the cutting away all pretence for the praying to Saints and does smartly and at once conclude That Invocation is a thing proper to God which if we attribute unto the Saints it soundeth to their Reproach neither can they well bear it at our hands Which is equipollent to the judging of it Idolatry For what is Idolatry but the doing that worship to a creature which is proper to God And therefore she compares it with the Pagans offering sacrifice to Paul at Lystra And how the receiving of Divine honour must redound to the reproach of what-ever Creature receives it I have abundantly Book 1. Ch. 12. Ver. 3. Sect. 4. noted elsewhere I shall onely urge one place more which is very explicit and of great weight The argument runs thus Invocation or Prayer may not be made without faith in him on whom we call but we must first believe in him before we can make our prayer unto him whereupon we must onely and solely pray unto God For to say we should believe in either Angel or Saint or in any other living Creature were mere horrible Blasphemy against God This is a very remarkable passage and a Demonstration that the Invocation of Saints and Angels is flat Idolatry it so plainly implying the acknowledgement of that Excellency which is proper onely to God Nor can our holy Mother the Church be thought to deem it less Idolatry for calling it Blasphemy since all Idolatry is so and is several times called so in Scripture Book 1. Ch. 5. Sect. 11. as I have noted in his due place 3. Now for the second The worshipping of the Host which supposes the Bread trans substantiuted she is most declaredly against both the Opinion and Practice As in
the more Sacred and awe men off from either violently tearing it in pieces or more hiddenly and obliquely corrupting it by foisting in any old out-cast ware disallowed and rejected by our Pious and Judicious Reformers 13. But this is a Mantissa cast in over and above the bargain I had before finished my task which was briefly to prove and if I mistake not myself I have done it clearly and convincingly That the Heaven-inspired Prudence and Judgment of the Royal Heroical and Reverend Reformers of our Church of England have purged her and cleansed her from what-ever Doctrine or professed Practice may rightly and properly be deemed Antichristian and that she holds nor injoyns any thing that is contrary to the truly Catholick and Apostolick Faith Which just and seasonable Vindication of her joyntly considered with our free and faithfull Description of the true Nature and Idea of Antichristianism such as we have demonstrated to be predicted in the Prophecies of Holy Scripture will not fail I hope to prove for ever a Sovereign Remedy or safe Preservative of her against those two hatefull and destructive diseases of the Church of Christ Popery and Schism Which good effect of our labours God of his infinite mercy grant for the onely Merits of the Lord Jesus Amen The End of the Second Part. THE CONTENTS Of the First Part OF The Enquiry into the Mystery of Iniquity BOOK I. CHAP. I. 1. THAT the Mystery of Iniquity or Antichristianism implies the secret undermining of the ends of Christianity by such a Power as pretends to be Christian. 2. The inconvenience of describing Antichrist from Circumstantial characters and leaving out the Essential parts of the Description 3. The two general Principles of which Antichristianism does consist 4. The right Artifice of drawing the true Idea of Antichristianism with a distribution of the Draught into the two most general strokes thereof Fol. 1 CHAP. II. 1. The rooting out of Idolatry by the Messias prophesied of by Jeremy That all the Gods that made not Heaven and Earth should perish 2. An explication of that Prophecy and an assertion of our Saviour's right of being worshipped for ever as the Eternal Logos who made Heaven and Earth 3. Proofs out of the Psalms that the Messias was to root out Idolatry 4. Several places in the New Testament witnessing against Idolatry and Image-worship 5. That the Spirituality of Christian Religion indigitated by our Saviour does abundantly evidence the unlawfulness of Image-worship or of what Idolatry else soever 3 CHAP. III. 1. What is meant by Grace and Truth coming by Christ. 2. Farther testimonies of Scripture to evince that Christ came to ease men of the Judaïcal burthen of Ceremonies The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. That the Death of Christ upon the Cross was the solution of the Ceremonial Law of Moses 4. Farther proofs to the same purpose 6 CHAP. IV. 1. The Positive End of the Gospel summarily proposed 2. The several grounds of honour due to Christ and particularly of his Paternal Title 3. Both God the Father and Christ the Authors of our Regeneration and how the First Hypostasis being called Father does not exclude the Second from that Title in respect of his Church 4. The other Titles of Christ plain of themselves 5. The Divine life with its Root and Branches the Second part of the Positive scope of the Gospel 6. That such a Mystery as upon Religious pretences does really supplant all the grand Ends of the Gospel whether Privative or Positive is Mathematically manifest to be that notorious Mystery of Iniquity 7. The method of pursuing the particulars of this Mystery more largely 8. The Falsness Fraud and Mischief of every member of Antichristianism to be inquired into 9. The Author 's serious desire that the Truth of the Description may be perused without Prejudice and acknowledged without Tergiversation by them that are convinced 8 CHAP. V. 1. Instances of several specious pieces of Idolatry introducible into Christian Religion 2. The over-much streightning or widening the Notion of Idolatry taxed 3. The usefulness of giving a true Notion thereof 4 5. That it is not restrained to the worshipping of Idols properly so called 6. That any thing worshipped that is not God becomes ipso facto an Idol and of the Seventy's rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7. That they likewise render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they do also Baalim and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which farther argues that more general sense of Idol 8. That an Idol and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Non-Deus is all one in the estimate of God 11 CHAP. VI. 1. That the Israelites worshipped Jehovah in the Golden Calf proved out of Exodus 2. That Elohim though joyned with a verb of the plural number is understood of the true God with farther testimony out of the 106 Psalm that God was worshipped in that Calf and what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there signifies 3. That the Golden Calf was no figure of the Aegyptian Apis but a Cherub 4. Aaron's case of making the Golden Calf compendiously opened as also the ground of Tacitus his ridiculous errour discovered 5. That the Golden Calves in Dan and Bethel were two Cherubim set up for the worship of the God of Israel proved from Jeroboam's Politicks 6. Also from Jehu and Elias his zeal and the instruction of the Assyrian Colonies by an Israelitish Priest 7. That Micah's Ephod and Teraphim were also meant to the true God 8. And yet both he and the Israelites in the Wilderness Idolaters in their use of the Teraphim and Cherub in Divine worship 9. That Jeroboam was also an Idolater in setting up the Calves in Dan and Bethel proved out of Scripture 10. Other Testimonies to the same purpose and of the Idolatry committed in the Brasen Serpent 15 CHAP. VII 1. The worshipping that which is not God by an Image a third mode of Idolatry 2. Of the worshipping of an Image as such 3. How the vulgar sort of the Heathen came to take the very Idols themselves for Gods 4. What arguments used for the begetting an opinion of the residence of the Daemons near their Statues 5. What indications of their presence there and how awful the Images themselves became from thence 6. The conceit of the Daemon and dedicated Image's coalition into one person 7. And that the worshipping of this Complicate was a fourth Mode of Idolatry 20 CHAP. VIII 1. That the Heathen held one Supreme God the Maker of all things 2. Proclus his conceit of so uniting the Supreme Deity with a Magical Statue as that the Complicate becomes one visible and Supreme Godhead 3. Whether the worshipping of this Magical Complicate by him that is persuaded it is the visible Deity were Idolatry 4. Wherein the sinfulness of Idolatry does
second 10. A Demonstration out of Scripture and Grotius his own Concessions that this Second Epistle was wrote ten years after Caius his death as also that the fall of Simon Magus from his fiery Chariot was eight years before this Prophecy 445 CHAP. XX. 1. The Preeminence of this latter Interpretation above that of Grotius 2. A summary Proposal of the same 3. The first part of this Exposition the same with Grotius his and therefore confuted already The second enervated 4. The third confuted from a farther discovery of the improbability of Simon Magus his Story from his being sufficiently revealed before and from his not being found to sit in any Temple to receive Divine honours 5. That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not so good Syntax in the present case nor the wickedness of the Gnosticks a Mystery but open Impiety and Hostility against the Church 6. The harshness of interpreting whom in whom the Lord shall consume c. of two several Subjects the one to be destroyed by the breath of Christ's mouth the other by the brightness of his coming and that in distinct places and times 7. That if the History of Simon Magus had been true and the Application fit to this Prophecy the most ancient Fathers would not have failed to have hit upon it And that it might then have been a preludious Type to the great Antichrist to come 8. Brief Prophetick Strictures touching Antichristian Impurity 9. The Antichristian Cruelty predicted in the Vision of the King of Babyion and of the little Horn. 10. Also in the slain Witnesses and in the Two-horned Beast's causing the Ten-horned to kill as many as would not worship the Image of the Beast nor receive his Mark 11. In the Vision of the Angel with the third Vial and in the Declaration of the cause of the Whore's Ruine 12. And lastly in the Description of the Whore as drunk with the bloud of the Saints 13. That all the Members of Antichristianism in our Idea are prefigured in the Prophecies of the Holy Writ so expressly that so clear an evidence cannot be withstood for ever 14. That that ample Testimony of the Apocalyps cannot be evaded by the novel Exposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 450 CHAP. XXI 1. The marvellous Completeness of the Reformation of the Church of England in her Doctrines and Institutes 2. That she plainly condemns the Invocation of Saints for Idolatry 3. As also the Adoration of the Host where our Kneeling at the Communion is vindicated 4. Her condemning the Worshipping of Images 5. Her concluding the manner of the Papists worshipping Saints and Images to be plainly the same with that of Pagans 6. Her free and just censure touching the decking of their Images and making them Lay-mens Books 7. How perfectly she has freed us from that Aegyptian yoke we lay under in the time of Popery 8. The Celebration of Holy-days the keeping of Lent and the use of the Surplice in the sense of the Church of England fully vindicated from all imputation of Superstition or Antichristianism 9. That the use of the Surplice is not from any grounds at all of Policy in the Church but pure Charity with a vindication of the use of the Cross in Baptism 459 CHAP. XXII 1. The diametrical Opposition of our Church to that part of Antichristianism which would subvert the Regal and Prophetick Offices of Christ. 2. As also to that which strikes at his Sacerdotal Office 3. That she holds nothing against those other sacred Titles of Christ the Truth Life Light c. 4. A demonstrative Vindication of Episcopacy from the Imputation of Antichristianism out of the Apocalyps 5. What an Establishment that Book is if rightly understood to the Crown and Church of England 6. That no Papal nor Presbyterian Power is of right above the King no not in Causes Ecclesiastical 7. The judgement of our Church thereupon 8. The peculiar glory of our Church that she is so perfectly free from all Frauds and Impostures 9. Her freeness from Pride 10. From Antichristian Impurity 11. And from Cruelty 12. Her Reformation an eminent Speciminal Completion of the Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Two Witnesses 13. The usefulness of this Vindication of her for the suppressing of Popery and Schism 469 FINIS Errata PAG. 27. l. 45. for Contradiction r. Counterdistinction P. 130. l. 12. for Clergie r. Charge P. 132. l. 12. for more r. mere P. 141. l. 21. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 P. 204. l. 11. for this judgement r. the judgement P. 207. l. 21. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 P. 227. l. 33. for the presidency r. their presidency P. 241. l. 33. for Supreme be r. Supreme power be P. 246. l. 45. for vivet r. vivat P. 254. l. 28. for naturally by r. naturally by and for Israelism it r. Israelism it P. 284. l. 23. for Beast r. Boast P. 306. l. 19. for named r. noted P. 399. l. 37. for sight r. light P. 422. l. 34. for right use r. right use P. 429. l. 3. for Prophet-murthering Fornication r. Prophet-murthering Fornication P. 434. l. 8. for faign change r. faign to change
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
an appropriate Sign of the incommunicable Excellencies of God is also Idolatry and is to be referred to the first Instance 11. Seventhly and lastly To worship the Consecrated Bread in the Eucharist though upon full persuasion that it is transsubstantiated into the Body of Christ and so Hypostatically united with the Divinity is notwithstanding this opinion conceited of it a real act of Idolatry and is evidently referrable to the last Instance 12. All these acts or what other soever of the same nature that can be found though amongst Christians and upon the pretence of worshipping God and Christ are assuredly acts of Idolatry according to the undeniable Notion and Definition thereof which is The worshipping that which is not God by the appropriate Signes of Religious worship such as either use or the nature of the thing it self has made the proper Modes of our acknowledgement of the Divine Excellencies 13. And now that I have proved such acts as these Idolatrous I need not bestow any new pains to prove them unlawfull because all Idolatry is so according to the vote and sense of Scripture and of all men For to goe about to infer that some kind of Idolatry is lawfull because * 1 Ep. 4. 3. Peter mentions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as weak and foolish as if from the mentioning of Impious blasphemies against God one should infer that the party that spake so supposed that some blasphemies against God were not Impious Wherefore it is plain that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is added not by way of distinction but of aggravation or description as when we say Alba nix or Corvus niger which are not intended in common speech as notes of distinction of Crows or of the Snow into white and black but as Epithets denoting their nature The practice therefore of such actions as we have enumerated if they be introduced into the Christian Church will prove one Branch of Antichristianism and a chief one too and their doctrines that averre the warrantableness of them must be false and irrational CHAP. XIII 1. That the professing one only true God does not necessarily quit a People from the guilt or capacity of being Idolaters 2. That to exhibit such Modes of worship as are proper to the true God to a Creature though we take it for a Creature is Idolatry 3. That the Jews were Idolaters though they professed the only true God 4. That the belief of the Eucharistick Bread being the real Body of Christ does not excuse the adorer thereof from Idolatry 5. The case of the Heathen that worshipped the Sun and this of the Bread-worshippers compared 6. A solution of a Sophism the Authour once put upon himself in excuse of this Bread-worship 7. That their not thinking the Bread to be in the Eucharist does not excuse the worshippers of the Host from Idolatry 1. HAving thus evidenced the Falseness of the Mystery of Iniquity in this first point according to my professed method I shall proceed to the Fraud which as I have already intimated includes the fallacious pretences and excuses together with the Self-endedness of the drivers on of this impious Mystery And truly the pretences and shelters under which they would shroud themselves are very slender and scant but their Self-ends may be gross and palpable As methinks that would be a very poor plea for the Christians namely that they forsooth cannot possibly be Idolaters because they apertly and declaredly profess that there is only one true God of a nature infinitely excellent above any Creature and that therefore if they were Idolaters they should contradict themselves Wherefore no professours of Christianity though they did Religious worship to Saints to Angels to Images to Crosses to a piece of consecrated Bread could be Idolaters especially if they shamelesly stand out with it and out-face the world they are not so But the insufficiency of this excuse is too-too apparent if we consider how easy and ordinary a thing it is for men to contradict the profession of their own faith For how many are there even of those that do truly believe there is a life to come that do not live as if there were any such thing and so contradict their belief by their actions How many are there that professing a particular Providence of God and faith therein yet in time of streights do not depend thereon but divert to some unlawfull practice or doe some wicked action to relieve themselves in distress or secure themselves from danger How many that will zealously declaim against Cruelty and Injustice as things abhorted of God and man and yet are themselves notoriously Unjust and Cruel in the judgement of all the disinteressed though they themselves will make a more favourable construction of their own actions and will stand it out as stoutly for their justification as these professors of Christianity that they are no Idolaters It may so fare therefore that as the Apostle speaks to Titus men Tit. 1. 16. may profess to know God but in their works deny him They may say there is one only true God yet doe that Homage which is due to him alone unto this or that Creature without saying or intending that this Creature should be taken for the true God or that they doe that Religious worship to it as to the true God Which is such a piece of Idolatry as never was amongst the Heathens themselves nor can explicitely fall into the mind of a man no more then to believe contradictions while he thinks them so or conscienciously to goe against the dictates of his own conscience while he thinks those dictates to be true So plain is it that no people can conscienciously and devotionally give that worship which they think due to God alone unto that which they think is not the true God 2. But out of inadvertency ill education or accustomary Superstition it is not impossible but that not knowing or not taking notice that such or such Ceremonies or Modes of worship are properly due to the only true God they may use them in honour to that which is but a Creature or the Image of a Creature be it Saint or Angel nor can the remembring they are God's Creatures in this case secure a man from Idolatry For the mistake in the nature of the worship they perform to them does lapse them into Idolatry notwithstanding they conceive of the Object as of a Creature And Ignorance can be no excuse where there is opportunity of being better informed Nay Incest and Adultery must be accounted and called by us Adultery and Incest though practised in such countries as allow thereof and we must say they are a more unclean people then our selves 3. To which you may adde That the Church of the Jews were sometimes Idolaters and so declared by the Prophets of God though they had not cast away the knowledge nor acknowledgment of their Jehovah the only true God Why may not therefore Christians be Idolaters
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
signifie certain performance but the duty what they ought to perform As when the Apostles are called the Light of the world and the Matth. 5. 13 14. Salt of the earth which onely signifies what they ought to be not what they were necessitated to be For those that ought to be thus may notwithstanding hide their Talent or grow unsavoury through their own fault as it fared in Judas and in all his succession of false Apostles which call themselves the Servants but are the betrayers of the Lord Jesus 13. But lastly Suppose that the Church then in general were here understood it does not follow That because that Primaeval and Apostolical Church should by a peremptory design of Providence have engraven upon it or exhibit to the world as Articles of belief nothing but what was true that the Church in succession should always doe the like For there was a prime care taken that the first establishment of the Church should be in truth and solidity but that being done which was sufficient for the after-carrying on the affairs of the Church in a right way by free Agents the success should afterwards lie upon their industry and fidelity at least so far as that by no miraculous and supernatural force they should be assisted or driven on to keep things pure and intemerate And that was sufficient for the Church I think which is thought sufficient for every particular man namely That the Christian Doctrines and Precepts being faithfully laid down in the Evangelists and other Writings of the Apostles they might that usual Grace of God which is not irresistible assisting them frame their lives and beliefs accordingly in those things that are plain And all are so that are necessary to Salvation Which Rule if it had been kept to no Error had crept into the Church to this very day 14. Which last Answer will contribute something towards an Answer to the last place alledged for it seems onely to contain a description of a special provision of God for the rightly settling his Truth in the first Ages of the Church To which purpose he appointed not onely Pastours and Teachers which Functions continue still but Apostles having a particular mission from Christ himself who breathed into them the Spirit of Truth as also Prophets and Evangelists men in a special manner inspired and assisted to erect the Fabrick of the Church according to the will and purpose of Christ who then in an extraordinary manner did supervise all by a miraculous assistence of his Spirit And therefore what-ever was wrote for the publick use of the Church while any of those unto whom our Saviour Christ said that the Spirit should abide with them for ever which should lead them into all Truth were alive or was approved by them is really of certain and infallible authority but what-ever after-Inventions or Super-additions there were in the Church they are to be measured by this unerring Rule These unerring Pastors therefore and Teachers Apostles Prophets Evangelists were not a promise to all Successions but an extraordinary gift as the Text it self imports which Christ at that time namely at his solemn Coronation or Triumph ascending above all Heavens that he Eph. 4. 10. might fill all things cast down as a Royal Largess upon his Church for the speedy completement of her for her growing up into the unity of the Faith and Knowledge of Christ and that she might not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine but adhere to that onely that was delivered by those Heavenly-inspired and miraculously-assisted Ministers of the Gospel The acknowledgement whereof I conceive had been the onely sure means to keep the Church in Unity for ever whenas the pretending to an Infallibility in the succeeding Church where indeed it was not and the taking upon them thereupon to impose things with equal authority to the Apostles themselves would naturally prove the fountain of all Error Schism and Confusion CHAP. II. 1. That the safe conveyance of the Apostolick Writings down to us by the Church does not infer her Infallibility 2. That the Plainness of Scripture in points necessary to Salvation takes away the want of an Infallible Judge 3. That the Scripture not pointing to 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 compromise 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 Privilege 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 Wisdom he sticks to but the Wisdom 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 Wisdom 19. The notorious Fraud and excessive Mischief of this pretence of Infallibility 1. BUT being worsted thus in Scripture they will pretend Demonstrations in Reason upon the presumption they are the true visible Church successively descended from Christ and his Apostles that Infallibility is for ever intailed upon them As first That unless the Church were successively Infallible we could have no certain and Infallible belief of the Holy Scriptures which are avouched to be such by the Church But I briefly answer That supposing this successive Church were a trusty undoubted Conveyer of the Copies of the Holy Scriptures uncorrupted yet it doth not follow that they must be Infallible Interpreters of these Scriptures no more then the faithful conveyance of Plato's and Aristotle's Writings to all posterity implies that the Conveyers thereof are Infallible Interpreters of them For they might preserve the Writings of either by a diligent comparing of Copies upon every transcription besides that there might be a special watchfulness of Providence over these Holy Writings for the conservation of
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
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
might have heard of Barchocab But there being no mention of any one famous Impostour above the rest in our Saviour's Predictions in Matthew it is very suspicable that this rumour was raised out of the Prophecy of Daniel touching that little mischievous Horn which certainly is a Prophetick Figure of that eximious Antichrist that was to come 5. The same Author also interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Barchocab and renders it Quis potest esse major impostor and I believe very rightly For it were a dilute business for the Apostle to describe Antichrist onely by the bare denial of Jesus his being the Christ that great King Priest and Prophet sent of God to whom all Nations should flow For such Antichrists are all Infidels which are innumerable Wherefore such a Denier of Christ is here intimated as by playing the Impostour and by making of himself Christ or by putting of himself into the place of the true Christ which is Jesus denies Jesus to be the Christ and so by denying him denies him that sent him and witnessed of him that he was his beloved Son whom all should hear Such an Antichrist was Barchocab especially who by making himself the Messias did thereby plainly deny that Jesus was he But as there were eximious Types of Christ amongst the people of the Jews and such as one and the same Prophecies touch as well as Christ himself so it is obvious to conceive that there might also Antichrists arise among the said people to whom all things befell in figures which were Types of the famous Antichrist in the Christian Church and that one and the same Text might point at both as it is not hard to conceive that this does For as for that great Antichrist which I have described in my Idea of Antichristianism it is plain that he puts Jesus out of his Kingly Priestly and Prophetick Office usurping all that himself or conferring it upon others as is there copiously declared Wherefore he making himself so absolute an Head of the Church he does ipso facto cut off Jesus from being Head of the same and thereby discovers himself to be that notorious Antichrist in Christendom And by denying that Jesus is that Supreme King Priest and Prophet to whom all are to listen and obey whose Decrees and Words are an immutable Law he does thereby deny also the Father that sent him as much as any other Antichrist amongst the Jews can be imagined ever to have done For which of them was ever said to have professed himself an Atheist 6. Which things duely considered will inable us with ease to understand also the meaning of what is writ in the fourth chapter of this Epistle of S. John where he saith That every spirit that confesses that Jesus is the Messias come in the flesh is of God and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus is the Messias come in the flesh is not of God and this is that spirit of Antichrist which you have heard shall come and is now already in the World The vulgar Latine hath it Et hic est Antichristus de quo audîstis quoniam venit nunc jam in mundo est Which implies they read not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of which Antichrist you have heard that he shall come And he addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like that of S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the futurity of a more notorious Antichrist is not excluded in neither place In this of S. John Grotius again understands the Impostour Barchocab but the Ancients even the Romanists themselves the famous Antichrist of the Fathers Whence it is confessedly true both from Grotius and the Romanists that such a Denier of Jesus his being the Messias or Christ come in the flesh is understood as is an Impostour and boasts himself to be that Christ whereby he denies Jesus to be him as I have noted upon the former Text. And the sense of both may be this namely That whereas those to whom S. John wrote had received a rumour or fame of that eximious Antichrist that was to come into the world in the last time occasioned I doubt not from Daniel's Prophecies of the little Horn and of that King of pride that would exalt himself above all the Event of these Prophecies being further off though at last certainly to come he fixes their minds upon such Antichrists as were nearer at hand and though but the Types and Figures of that great Antichrist to come some Ages after yet of more concernment to them to take notice of but in the interim describes Antichrist so that though it does more palpably point at these Types of the future Antichrist yet the Description more narrowly searched into takes fast hold also on that great Antichrist himself forasmuch as it is implied that it is one who by way of imposture puts himself into the place of Jesus who is the true Christ that King Priest and Prophet appointed by God to whom all must submit Which not onely Barchocab and such false Messiasses in the Jewish Common-wealth have done but he that has so made himself the Head of the Church as to null the Laws and Doctrines of Christ is deprehended to doe the like also 7. I must confess the Opposition and Intrusion of this grand Antichrist among Christians is more oblique and more subtil then the claim of those false Messiasses amongst the Jews but we are withall to take notice that the Christians Messias or Christ is more spiritual then what the Jews expected and therefore it is no wonder that their Antichrist be of another nature not a gross and violent Invader of the Empire of Christ but a more cunning Impostour and insinuating Hypocrite Nor are we to marvel that Christendom has been so slow-sighted in discovering this Antichrist after he was come the same thing happening to them that befell the Jews who could not discern their Messias when he daily conversed before their eyes For both these mistakes arose from a like prejudice and false prenotion of things the Jews decyphering in their minds such a Messias as should conquer Kingdoms for them and make them a rich and potent people upon Earth so crass and external a conceit had they of his Power and Office and the Christians prefiguring such an Antichrist as would cast away the external profession of Christ and directly and professedly oppose him in his Kingdom 8. But fraudulent and hypocritical Opposition is as true and a more mischievous Opposition then that which is open and direct And he that calls another Lord and King but professes a power of abrogating his Laws and of making what Laws he lists himself and of forcing this Prince's Subjects to obey them this man has really made himself King And therefore he that takes upon him the power to null the Laws of Christ and makes new ones of his own for the Rule of Christendom he in like
and the punishments thereof Consect XI That the Authority of neither Fathers nor Councils after 400 years from Christ or thereabout is of any validity to determine Controversies against the Protestant Churches touching those things which the Church of Rome and they disagree in 10. This naturally follows from the Epocha of Antichristianism falling about that time we mention After which the Church being supposed in some measure lapsed into that great Apostasy neither the Fathers Doctrines nor her Councils can have right to decide the Controversies betwixt the Papists and us so as authoritatively to testifie against us But it is observable that their Testimony will hold good against the Papists in such Points as they contradict them in because they are in that witnesses of the successive minde of the Church as yet unaltered by this growing Corruption or at least testify matter of fact against the false Pretences of the Popish Traditions Consect XII That all Visions that are Synchronal to this of the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns which is said to continue fourty two moneths have necessarily the extent of one thousand two hundred and sixty years 11. To be Synchronal is as much as to begin continue and end together Whence it is plain that that which is Synchronal to what continueth 1260 years must it self continue so many years But the 42 moneths of the Beast are 1260 years by the first Consectary Which is a plain Demonstration of the truth of this last The use of which Consectary is of very great moment for the detection of the falshood of such petty Expositions as some put upon those Visions which are Synchronal to this of the restored Beast For extend them but upon this measure of time and they will all crack and break into fitters and thereby which I would have thus timely taken notice of excuse me from any farther Confutation of them Wherefore it will be worth the while to take notice of all those Visions that are Synchronal to this of the restored Beast it being so necessary a Method to be assured of the right sense of them and to discern more certainly in what Prophecies of the Apocalyps those Lineaments of Antichristianism which I have noted in my foregoing Treatise are prefigured 12. In the mean time I need not I think re-minde my Reader that the Visions of these two Chapters which I have thus carefully interpreted do plainly foretel that grand part of Antichristianism which consists in Idolatrous worship how it should over-run the Empire by the seduction and activity of an Imposturous Clergy figured out in the Type of the Beast with two Lamb-like Horns but that would speak like the Dragon and re-introduce the Image of old Paganism again under the colour of a more heightned Devotion and Affection toward Christ the Blessed Virgin and the rest of the Saints and Martyrs As also in the Type of the Whore of Babylon who is called the Mother of Fornications and Abominations of the Earth that is of Idolatry and Pagan-like Worship who 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Kings of the Earth and all the Inhabitants thereof with the Cup of the filthiness of her Fornications that is seduces them to Idolatry Hoc enim est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idololatriae calicem as Grotius himself has interpreted it Wherefore these are two notable Predictions of the Apostasy of the Church into Heathenish and Idolatrous worship But I shall also produce others out of the same Book after I have prepared the way by making good certain Synchronisms thereunto appertaining CHAP. VI. 1. The Synchronism of the Whore the Two-horned Beast the restored Beast or the Beast that was and is not and yet is demonstrated out of our Joint-Exposition 2. To which the False-Prophet is also proved Synchronal the Virgin-Company the Two Witnesses the Woman in the Wilderness and the Outward Court as being either the fame Antistoechal or necessarily connected all along with them 3. Again in a more abstract way That the restored Beast the Woman in the Wilderness the Outward Court the Two Witnesses are of equal time 4. That the Woman in the Wilderness and the restored Beast begin together and therefore are Synchronal 5. That the restored Beast and Two Witnesses are Synchronal as ending together 6. That the Two Witnesses and Outward Court are Synchronal as both beginning and ending together And all these four Synchronal to the Whore and Two-horned Beast because the Two-horned Beast and the Whore are Synchronal to the restored Beast to which the other three are Synchronal 7. That the Virgin-Company and the Sealed out of the twelve Tribes are all one Company and therefore both Synchronal to the Whore by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consequently with the rest of the fix with whom She is Synchronal 8. That the said Sealed Virgin-Company is Synchronal to the Series of the first six Trumpets as being sealed immediately before the blast of the first Trumpet and as being Synchronal to the Mourning of the Witnesses which ceases at the end of the sixth Trumpet 9. The six first Seals the Fight of Michael and the Dragon and the Inward Court proved Synchronal 10. That the Vision of * Apocal. 11. measuring the Temple begins from the first Epocha indicated from the quality of the Person that holds in his hand the opened Book 11. From his supplying the place of the seventh Angel and the space of the seventh Trumpet with seven Thunders 12. From the suspending of the sound of the seventh Trumpet to make a Regression 13. From the newness or new condition of the Book in the Angel's hand 14. From the voice communing or talking with John from Heaven as in the beginning of the Prophecies of the Seals 15. From the bitterness of the Book in his belly From his being bid again to prophesy and that before many Kings and Peoples and Nations 16. From the Epocha of the Vision of the * Apocal. 12. ensuing Chapter 17. The Synchronism of the first six Seals with the Inward Court of weighty concernment 18. The Millennial Empire of Christ the Palm-bearing Company the New Jerusalem and the Ligation of Satan that they are all in some sense Synchronal to the Seventh Trumpet 1. THat the Beast with seven Heads in the Thirteenth Chapter is Synchronal with the Beast that carries the Whore in the Seventeenth is plain in that they are the very self-same Beast in every Respect as appears out of my Joint-Exposition That the Whore of Babylon also and the Two-horned Beast are the self-same Thing is made evident in the same Exposition and therefore they must be Synchronal unless one and the same thing can begin to be after it has continued in Being and continue after it ceases to be That the Whore or the Two-horned Beast is Synchronal to the Seven-headed with ten Horns in these two Chapters is evident in that the Two-horned Beast is the Reviver and Healer of this Seven-headed Beast or Restorer
Victory and restrained Reign of Christ to some Nations or Kingdoms which being a pledge of future successes that Acclamation was in Heaven The Kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ. Of which this Song of the Harpers may be the truest Comment All Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy judgments are made manifest Not that they are come already but will assuredly fall under his subjection Here is the first espial of the * Vers. 5. Temple of the Tabernacle in Heaven whither also the Witnesses did ascend 10. But after this is the effusion of the seven Vials as is plain out of the order of things in the Text whether you take notice of those Middle Synchronals which are set out by the time of their continuance as * Apoc. 13. 5. that of the restored Beast to which is added presently the * Chap. 14. Virgin-Company as running in a parallel opposition thereto after which this Song of Moses follows as a Thanksgiving for those first Victories over the Beast or consider the Temple opened in Heaven which in order follows after this Song and out of which the Angels come that have the seven Vials For from both it is intimated that the Vials run all up into the seventh Trumpet Which is farther still to be confirmed from Chap. 11. where the Temple of God is also opened in Heaven and the Ark of the Covenant mentioned as here and a compendious Symbolical Periphrasis of wrath and vengeance so that it is hugely reasonable to conceive they mean the same thing But that appearance Chap. 11. of the Temple and Ark is after the seventh Trumpet began to sound Therefore the seven Vials are within the blast of the seventh Trumpet 11. In short and yet to reach to the bottom of this present business it is of exceeding great moment to take notice that the seven Middle Synchronals of the Prophecies of the opened Book have their fulfilling either quoad speciem or quoad gradus as to the kind or as to the degrees in the same kind one degree being sufficient for the fulfilling of the Prophecies quoad speciem and that one of these Synchronals cannot be fulfilled quoad speciem or quoad gradus but ipso facto they are all fulfilled they being so intimately united one with another As for example Suppose that but in one State or Kingdom in Christendom the Church has become purely Apostolical in Doctrine and Discipline in Life and Conversation it follows from hence that quoad speciem the Reign of the Beast is expired that is that there is one Specimen or Instance of this specifick Event namely of such an Expiration of the Rule of the Beast as brings along with it the Resurrection of the Witnesses and the Succession of the Kingdom of Christ in the place Which if it fall out at or towards the expiration of the 42 months and from a fit Epocha the Prophecie is truly fulfilled in all circumstances quoad speciem in this first Example but may proceed farther and farther afterwards in Degrees or Latitude But the thing that I contend for is this That this first way of fulfilling is onely aimed at in these Middle Synchronals of the Prophecies of the opened Book and that the Degrees are reserved for the Vials in the last Trumpet 12. And what I instanced in the Reign of the Beast must be true of all the rest That their fulfilling that contemporizes with the first six Trumpets and terminates upon the first blast of the seventh is a fulfilling onely quoad speciem or quoad esse not quoad gradus which are reserved for the seventh Trumpet And my reason is Because all these seven Synchronals are so nearly united or signifie so much one and the same that they must necessarily advance or be retarded together As for example We cannot conceive the Whore of Babylon burnt in any one Kingdom that is the Clergy to cease to be Idolatrous and Antichristian and to become purely Apostolick in Doctrine and Discipline but we may be sure that the Civil Magistrate ceases there to be Antichristian too and that the Ten-horned Beast in this place has finished his fourty two months the Two-horned Beast also vanishes as being one and the same with the Whore the Witnesses break off their mournful Prophecie as having here nothing to complain of the Outward Court is in this part cleansed of the Pollution of the Gentiles that trod it under foot the Woman is here no longer hid in the Wilderness amongst brutish Idolaters but appears as a glorious City upon an Hill to attract the eyes of the Nations unto it and lastly the Marked or Sealed Virgin-Regiments lose their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place and instead of fighting Souldiers become a College of peaceful Priests clothed in white and are before the Throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple Thus jointly will these Middle Synchronals ever be fulfilled be it more or less whether barely quoad speciem or repeatedly quoad gradus the first fulfilling conterminating with the Entrance of the seventh Trumpet the other advancing in it to the effusion of the last Vial. 13. And what is worthy our observation those last Synchronals we have above noted namely The Millennial Reign of Christ The Palm-bearing Company The new Jerusalem and The binding of Satan do commence in such a way and proportion as these Middle Synchronals expire But that special and most eminent Epocha of the Ligation of Satan as also of the Millennial Empire I conceive commenceth not till after the seventh Vial and the * Apoc. 20. 3. Devil 's being let loose again for a little time is to be placed somewhat before the voice of the seventh Thunder wherewith the whole Earth is to be set on fire and Death and Hell to be all of a flame thereby But the intermediate space is the Millennium eminently so styled 14. This I believe is the truest and safest apprehension we can have of the Series of things in the Apocalyptick Visions Which having thus competently cleared I shall with the greater satisfaction to my self and to others I hope proceed to the producing such passages out of this Prophetick Volume as predict the several kinds of Lapses of the Church into Antichristianism for we now know whereabout to seek for them namely among the Middle Synchronals of either Prophecie which reach from about the four hundredth year after Christ to these very Ages CHAP. VIII 1. That there are Three more Middle Synchronals that foretel the Churche's Lapse into Idolatry As the Vision of the Outward Court troden down by the Gentiles 2. The Woman in the Wilderness What meant by Wilderness 3. A brief account of the sense of the whole Vision 4. That there is an Hypallage in her being said to flie into the Desart like that of Hades being cast into the Fire and of the Kingdom being given to the
with the Israelites through the Red Sea by Night The Name or Colour also of the Sea may not unlikely be alluded to in this Description Red being not an improper Epithet of Fire There may be also still a more Mystical meaning of this Sea mingled with fire the Spirit with the Bloud of Christ which for brevity sake I pass over and will onely adde a short Paraphrase upon the verse I first cited 3. In the street of the great City which spiritually is called Sodom and Aegypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is ordinarily rendred where also our Lord was crucified which is very good and easie sense if we referre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the great City and read which is spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt Parenthetically but if we referre it to or rather joyn it with Sodom and Aegypt the sense seems more harsh unless we understand an Ellipsis the supply whereof would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the street of the great City which is spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt and the City where our Lord was crucified that is the Prophet-murthering Jerusalem which certainly is alluded to be this Ellipsis how it will And the meaning of the Text I conceive to be this That that great Body Politick which pretends to be the Catholick Church though so grosly Apostatized from the Apostolick Doctrine and Practice is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius speaks Spiritually or Mystically called Sodom Aegypt and the City where Christ was crucified with just reproach to their contrary Pretences As if the Spirit of God should speak thus Whereas this degenerate Church of Rome by boasting of their Profession of vowed Coelibate and perpetual Virginity would make show of being that true Virgin-Company and the holy and chast Spouse of Christ and of the Lamb I do pronounce them a Nest of unclean Birds as foul as Sodom and as polluted as Gomorra And whereas they would pretend to be the onely Church of my Son Christ who hath declared that if the Son make you free then are you free indeed and to be that Jerusalem that is free and is the Mother of all true Believers I do proclaim to all the World that they are Spiritually or Mystically that very Land of Aegypt and House of Bondage wherein my People are oppressed and tired out with tedious Superstitious and burthensome Observances that serve for nothing but to uphold the Pomp and Pride of that Spiritual Pharaoh and his unmerciful Task-masters a Tyrannical and Idolatrous Clergy And lastly whereas they would make men believe that they are that Holy City which is a Refuge and Protection to the Saints of God and a Shelter from Persecution where all tears shall be wiped from their eies that New Jerusalem that descended from Heaven which they were if they were what they boasted the true visible Church of Christ they are indeed a succession of that old Jerusalem the superstitious and burthensome Scribes and Pharisees who were the Crucifiers of my Son Jesus as these are to this very day of his true Members who himself accordingly as he has told them is persecuted so often as they are persecuted And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may respect as well the Members of Christ as himself notwithstanding it is the first Aorist For that is a good Note of Grotius his and a true one Aoristi sine designatione tempor is designant quod fieri solet And therefore here is intimated by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the often-Persecution of Christ in his true Members under this power of Antichrist For Crucifixion by a Diorism signifies any kind of Persecution Jerusalem therefore literally is not here understood under the disguise of Sodom and Aegypt which would not be any such mystical or spiritual meaning but a mere Synecdoche such as every School-boy understands but that Great City which is a Polity of men that pretend to be the onely true Catholick Church though so miserably Apostatized from the Faith This City in such a mystical sense as I have declared is called Sodom Aegypt and that Jerusalem that kills the Prophets and crucifies our Lord in persecuting his Members But the thing that we note now especially is their being called Aegypt for keeping the People of God in such Spiritual Slavery and Bondage 4. Which Slavery and Vassallage we may conceive also to be glanced at in the figure of the Whore of Babylon that rides upon the Beast For that this Imperious Clergy of Rome is so called seems not onely for that Babylon looks like the first Precedent of Idolatry in worshipping Belus but for their Tyrannical Pride and holding the people in such a forcible Captivity from under which no man might withdraw himself and make back toward Jerusalem and the true Temple of God but he exposed himself to the Cruelty of this bloudy Whore that sits as a Queen and saies she shall never see sorrow The Beast also being said to be rid by the Whore insinuates a kinde of beastly droyling and slavery the Christian Empire has groaned under for so many Ages Which that it might be more like a Beast an Horse or Mule that has no understanding they endeavoured to keep as ignorant as they could that the People might be the more patiently Priest-rid as the phrase is and carry their Riders with more ease and safety 5. These are the chiefest strictures that do occurre to my minde in the Prophetick Visions that are applicable to this second member of Antichristianism and that onely in this general way That of S. Paul is more particular Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats but so easie to be understood that the naming thereof is sufficient And therefore I shall pass to the next branches of Antichristianism those Oppositions that would run down the Sacred Offices of Christ as he is King Prophet and Priest The grand Injury against the last of which is this The making other Mediatours besides Christ and giving them Religious worship which is predicted in S. Paul and Daniel in those places we have already produced and expounded touching the Daemons or Mauzzim or else the suppressing or slighting the chief use of the Death of Christ which is a comfortable ease of Conscience from all suspicion of God's displeasure or fear of punishment in the other world for want of satisfaction for our misdeeds here so long as we have repented of them sincerely and have amended our lives according to the word of Christ. Which abuse is one grand piece of that Slavery and Bondage that the People of God are held under in this Spiritual Aegypt and therefore is generally prefigured in that Type we have already explamed and also in the Whore of Babylon according to what we have above intimated So that we may pass over this Office of Christ and proceed to his Kingly and Prophetick Office 6. The Opposition to the latter whereof is plainly predicted in the mention of the False-Prophet in the Apocalyps
ancient as Christianity it self and runs through not onely part but all those Symmetral Ages of the Church So manifest is it that there is not left in the frame of our English Church any thing of its own nature Antichristianly opposing that Heavenly and Christian Grace of Humility But if we come to take view of Persons who can help it but that a Lay-man may be proud as well as a Clergy-man and a Presbyter as soon as a Bishop So that all would be Antichristian upon this score 10. And it is as evident that there are none of those Oppositions against that celestiall Grace of Purity noted in the twelfth Chapter to be found in our Church And not so onely but I think we may without vanity provided it be done with humble thankfulness to Almighty God who inspired our Heroical Reformers with such exquisite prudence and judgment glory in that excellent and fit constitution of things in our Universities Where none are tied up to the Vows of Coelibate nor confined to separate and solitary cells to be shewn disguised in some uncouth habit with circumcised crowns and moaped or bloated looks as they are wont to shew strange Animals through their several grates at the Tower but live under more free and manly Laws and ingenuous Exercises without either the lash or hypocrisy of Superstition and are appointed to spend their time in such things as may adorn their Souls with real Knowledge and Vertue where also there is an honest and frugal Provision made for them that list to lay their Bodies as well as bury their Minds in the dust of an Academie Which if either Nature or some Diviner power has fitted them for it they may doe with honour and if they be weary of a single life they may leave the University when they will without the least reproach Which ingenuous and Christian freedom in my judgment is infinitely to be preferred before the Superstitious Slavery and Hypocrisy of the Roman Monasteries where people are caged up and imprisoned like so many Captives of the King of Babylon or so many Bond-men or Bond-women of that Mystical Pharaoh to work out imaginary stuff to fill the Churche's Treasury of Merits which are vended for ready money to encrease the Revenue and to support the Pomp of this magnificent Tyrant of Aegypt 11. Lastly Concerning those most Antichristian Oppositions against that transcendent Grace of Charity Our English Church is so far from opposing it that she is exemplary in it condemning the Doctrines and Practices of that worst of Churches no more then needs must and courting the adverse party to her Communion by all lawfull accommodations and compliances in her publick Service if by any means she may gain some of them over to the Truth Whereas on the other side that imperious Woman on the Seven Hills sits like a Queen to whom every one must bow but she neither bend nor condescend to any thing but stands as stiff as a Marpesian Rock for the maintaining her own Humour and Interest though never so point-blank against the Eternal Laws of God and Right Reason Then for that bloudy and butcherly Decree of killing of Hereticks namely such as hold against the Tenents of that Church though those Tenents of this Church be plainly repugnant to express Scripture How contrary to this Antichristian and Diabolical Spirit is the Doctrine of our Church of England who as I have above noted has declared That no Article 20. Church has authority to decree any thing against Holy Writ nor to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation besides it as you may see in the Book of Articles Nor can they justly frame any excuse for their abominable Cruelty from the Sanguinary Laws of this Realm against Priests and Jesuites For what a vast difference is there when the one suffer as Traitors to their Liege Sovereign the other because they will not be Traitors and Rebels to God and the Lord Jesus Christ for every Idolater is so And no man can submit to the Church of Rome but he must ipso facto submit to Idolatry 12. Verily while I consider what an honest and faithfull Spirit breaths in the Book of Homilies and other Writings of our Church and how exquisitely and perfectly we are set free from all that Imposture and Wickedness that can properly be styled Antichristian by the wise management and solid and sound judgment of our renowned Reformers and how that men of this Integrity of mind and soundness in the Faith were then advanced into Power in Church and State by the Sovereign Authority I cannot withhold from declaring that I do not at all doubt but that the Reformation of our English Church into such a condition as I have briefly represented was one eminent Speciminall Completion of the Prophecy of the rising of the Two Witnesses and of that Voice from Heaven that is to say of the Sovereign Power saying unto them Come up hither For every tittle of the Prophecy is exactly applicable to the Event as any one may find that will try Besides that so notable a providence as the Protestant Reformation is no-where prophesied of if not in that Vision For the Vials are none of them within the Sixth Trumpet as the Vision of the Witnesses is but all within the Seventh as I have above plainly enough proved nor they expressive of the first Reformation in the chief Circumstances thereof nor any Vision else save this of the Resurrection of the Witnesses Nor know I any thing that should make a man hesitate unless it be that the Witnesses are said to be raised up after three Days and an half that is to say three Times and an half whenas our Reformation fell within these Times namely in the last Half of a Time But no Observation can be more trivial then this That the designation of Time divided into parts unless some intimation determinate it to one sense may signify either such a space of time fully finished or else expiring in the last division thereof As if one should say Post triduum mortis resurrexit Christus no man can understand that of Christ's being dead three entire days And so Aliquot post menses may as well be rendred Within some months after as After some months And the Seventy do expresly translate that in Genesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ch. 38. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whenas the genuine sense is within three months cùm tertius mensis ageretur as the Marginal Exposition has it in Vatablus Whence it is evident that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not imply the time fully run out but that the last part thereof must then be current And so it is in this Prophecy our Reformation happening in the last Half-Time or Half-Day So easily is this Scruple removed And therefore the Application so fit to the Event that I doubt not but this Vision was a Prediction of it Which therefore should make our Reformation
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
a Decreer of Idolatrous practices and a publisher of Doctrines of Adulterate Worship Whence the fifth Agreement of our first Parallelism is manifest both the Whore and the Two-horned Beast being found Introducers of Idolatry under pretence of promoting Christianity 6. That was the meaning of the Lamb-like Horns and Dragon's speech of the Two-horned Beast But concerning his rising up out of the Earth which is peculiar to him other Beasts being described both in Daniel and the Apocalyps to rise out of the Sea the Winds also bustling against one another on the surface thereof in those four Beasts in Daniel this discovereth this Beast to be quite of another kind getting up not by War nor by power of the Sword as the Potentates of the world doe but in a more still and concealed way and from a meaner condition Cui origo privata Apoc. 13. 11. non publica saith Grotius and he addes further Mos est Hebraeorum vocare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 populum terrae And Molinaeus also upon the Text Sic Latini homines novos ex sordibus provectos ad nobilitatem opes vocant Terrae filios ipsáque Scriptura dicit Deum attollere humilem expulvere Which how true it is of the Whore and the Two-horned Beast every one knows CHAP. XIII Vâ—…r VI. What is meant by the Martyrs of Jesus 2. The sixth Agreement of the first Parallelism Ver. VII That the Woman is not Rome Heathen demonstrable from the Beast that carries her 2. That she rides the whole Empire 3. That the Two Horns of the Beast are the Two Imperial Patriarchates but by an Henopoeia may glance also at the Power of Binding and Loosing and at the Horns of the Episcopal Mitre 4. The seventh Agreement of the first Parallelism 5. The first Agreement of the second Ver. VIII What is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. That the end of the Vision of the Beast in this Chapter is to represent the Empire in that Succession wherein it is Pagano-Christian 3. That the prolixity of the Title hinders not but that it may be called the Name of the Beast 4. The meaning of the Name 5. That the Angel having considered the whole Successions of the Roman Kingdom or Empire fixed his mind on that time the Empire was purely Christian and why And that is thence appears what succession of the Beast's time is understood 6. As likewise from his name a little varied into Was is not and yet is Whence the fifth Agreement of the second Parallelism is also evinced 7 8. How the Angel came to give the Beast these Names And that there is an Ellipsis in the Angel's saying The Beast which thou sawest was and is not c. 9. That the Name Was and is not and shall ascend c. signifies the successive Order in being not the actual being or not being of the Beast with a confirmation thereof out of Alcazar 10. A plain Eviction from the Name Was is not and yet is that Was and is and is not do not signifie actual Existence or Non-existence but order of Existence and Similitude 11. That Is not and yet is would neither be good sense nor any elegancy unless the Laws of a right Contradiction were closely touched on in this mysterious Assertion 12. And yet that an absolute Sameness in either Essence or Qualification could not be under this affirmation and negation without falsity Whence Similitude is necessarily intimated thereby 13. That the certainty of the meaning of this Title Was is not and yet is confirms the sense of the former and demonstrates a latitant Ellipsis in the Application of these Names of the Beast which is farther argued from other considerations 14. Why he interprets the Re-existence or Image of the Beast of the Empire 's becoming Idolatrous again rather then of the Revival of its ancient Polity in the Pontifical Power 15. The third Agreement of the second Parallelism 16. The sixth Agreement 17. The seventh 18. The eighth Agreement 19. The third Agreement again noted with a Confirmation therefrom of the above-mentioned Ellipsis 20. That near Resemblance stands for Identity in common elegancy of speech Whence The Beast that was is not and yet is and the Image of the Beast is again evinced to be all one and the fifth Agreement of our second Parallelism thereby farther confirmed Ver. VI. ANd I saw the Woman drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus that is to say with the bloud of the Saints which were the Martyrs of Jesus Which were not Martyrs for the Doctrine of this or that seducing Spirit or false Teacher who might besot them with a foolish confidence and hardy resolution of laying down their life to witness to a Lie cunningly contriv'd for the Interest Advantage of the Inventours of it No these were the close followers of the Lamb Jesus Christ and trode in his footsteps onely and in the footsteps of them that faithfully followed him I mean the Apostles according to their own direction Be ye followers of me as I am of Christ. And him they did follow through prosperity and adversity through good report and 1 Cor. 11. 1. evil report through life and death it self 2. Whose Death is imputed here to the Whore because she by her counsel and animation stirs up the Seven-headed Beast to this Murther and Bloud-shed Accordingly as it is said of the Two-horned Beast that he gave life and animation to this revived Beast and made this breathing Image speak and cause as many as would not worship that is obey and submit to the commands of the Image of the Beast even in those things wherein it was the slain Beast's Image viz. in Idolatry that they should be killed Which is plainly the sixth Agreement of our first Parallelism Ver. VII I will tell thee the mystery of the Woman and of the Beast that carrieth her Which Mystery of the Woman he unlocks by unfolding first the order and succession of the Beast that carrieth her for that is a demonstration that it is not meant of Rome Pagan as I have clearly proved in the eleventh Chapter of this Book and consequently that the meaning of this Mystery of the Whore's Title which displays her nature is such as I have declared upon the Fifth verse in the fore-going Chapter 2. Here we shall onely note that her riding of the Beast implies her to be such a Polity as had the Governance of the whole Empire was not confined to one part thereof As he that rides an Horse is not conceived to ride one part of him and leave the other unridden but to ride the whole So the Whore rides the whole Beast that is the whole Empire as well Oriental as Occidental Which agrees with the description of the Two-horned Beast whom I conceive to be so depainted in the Vision because of the two Imperial Patriarchates the one at Rome the other at