the Love sect 3. and 7. See him also upon the Beatitudes sect 6. And it is no wonder we hear nothing of that Reconciliation made by the Cross of Christ for he does plainly aver sect 34. That the true being in the Love is that peace with God and man mentioned Ephes. 2.14 and the true Testament that standeth fast for ever And Exhortation chap. 12.44 Remission of sins is gained only by submitting to the House of the Love The same that David George boasted of his doctrine Therefore my beloved children change ye not nor turn away your selves from the House of Love For there is in the same the stool of grace to an everlasting remission of sins over all such as cleave thereon and to a peace and rest of the life to all such as humble them there-under By such slips and omissions as these those that are not very dull of perception may easily spel out his meaning Which yet is more clear by other places of his Evangely chap. 13. Where he setleth the Everlasting Priesthood not upon Christ's person but makes this Kingly Priest no person at all but a thing a state or condition of him and his followers here upon earth And therefore he calls there this mystical Christ The Lords Sabbath The seventh day in the Paradise of God The perfection c. And chap. 22. he makes the entrance of Christ into heaven and his visible ascending up thither and sitting at the right hand of God and sending down the holy Ghost at the day of Pentecost which was a real effect of his eternal Priesthood and Intercession with God for his Church nothing but the appearing of him according to the Spirit out of the Heavenly Being in their Minds or Souls upon which he sent down his Spiritual or Heavenly Powers Wherefore this Mystical Christ is the only high Priest that he acknowledgeth and will allow him no otherwise then in this mystical and spiritual sense to be an everlasting and true Christ of God See the place of which you will assure your self I have given the right sense if you compare it with chap. 26. sect 10 11 12. where he more plainly affirms That it is the upright being of the Love Christ after the Spirit which he calls the true light which is that high Priest that abideth for ever at the right hand of God in the Heavenly Being Which phrase Heavenly Being alwaies signifies morally or mystically with him and means something within us And yet he has the impudence to alledge Acts 1. v. 11. where Christ is said to ascend into Heaven literally and naturally so called his disciples gazing upon him as he went up Thus you see how industriously nay how madly and rashly he shuffles out the Humane person of Christ from his Priestly Office every where And as he will have the Heaven or most Holy within us so will he have his Sacrifice and Passion within us too Introduct chap. 8.38 Where doe any now saith he keep the Supper of Christ where they break distribute and eat the bread which is the true Body of Christ to a remembrance of Christ that he hath suffered in us for the sins cause the death of the Cross and so his death is published till he come in his glory Where it is plain that the Crucifixion of Christ is a mystery in us and it is insinuated a duty too For the Body and the Flesh of Christ is Christ according to the History Which Christ according to the Flesh is to be slain in us if we celebrate the Passeover aright and thus we must publish his death till he come in glory that is in the Spirit 4. And truely no other is his glorious coming to judgment with this Sect then this Mystical and Spiritual coming which was the second part I intended to pursue which I question not but I shall make as clear as noon-day Of this there are so many Testimonies and so pregnant that the only fear is of being too copious in the proof of this matter Revel Dei cap. 7. There his illuminate Elders together with his Family of Love are the Heavens in which Christ the Son of God comes gloriously and triumphantly to judgment to reign with God and his righteousness everlasting upon earth Which plainly excludes the ending of the World and that coming of Christ that all Christians expect And chap. 15. sect 6. he affirms that in this Eighth day which is the day of the Spirit of Love all the dead that are deceased in the Lord Iesus Christ do rise from the death and all Generations of Heaven and Earth do become judged in the judgement of God with equity Again in his Introduct Chap. 1. he saith That now the true glorious God who is the Resurrection and the Life revealeth his Saints out of his bosome where since the time they fel asleep they have rested untill this day of the Love because they should now in these last times in the resurrection of the righteous be manifested with Christ in glory to a righteous judgement of God on the earth And chap. 12. he there also affirms That in this day of the Love there appear and come to us livingly and gloriously all God's Saints which in times past died and fell asleep in God And chap. 22. there he also tells us how that in sure and firm hope of everlasting life the upright believers have rested in the Lord Iesus Christ till the appearing of his coming which is now in this day of the Love revealed out of the heavenly Being with which Iesus Christ the former Believers of Christ who were fallen asleep rested or died in him are now also manifested in glory being raised from the dead to the intent that they should reign alive with him over all his enemies To which you may add what he has wrote chap. 16. in his Prophecy of the Spirit of Love Make you to flight make you to flight yea get you now all out of the way ye enemies of the Lord and of his service of the Love and give the Lord with his holy ones the roome yet shall ye not escape the vengeance of God For he saith the Lord cometh to judge betwixt the Family of the Love and the rest of the world where-through the Earth is now moved the Heavens troubled the Elements melt with heat and the token of the coming of the Son of man appears in Heaven with which rumour or rushing noise of the power of God and his holy ones the last trumpet doth also presently give forth her sound through whose blast of her vehement sound and through the appearing of the coming of Christ the dead shall stand up and arise unto the judgement of God who having revenged the bloud of his holy ones that the sinners have spilt and shed upon the earth he puts this pure Family in peaceable Possession thereof that they may reign there-over or judge the same with righteousness from henceforth world without
World who have ever and anon had new Instances of Apparitions and Communications with evil Spirits and fresh occasions of executing the Laws they had made against Witches and wicked Magicians 4. I should now pass to the second head I propounded could I abstain from touching a little upon the circumstances of the Birth of that famous Corrival of our Saviour Apollonius Tyaneus whose story writ by Philostratus though I look upon it as a mixt business partly true and partly false yet be it what it will be seeing it is intended for the highest Example of Perfection and that the Heathen did equalize him with Christ you shall see how ranck his whole History smells of the Animal Life and how hard a thing it is either in actions or writings to counterfeit that which is truly holy and divine For which end I shall make a brief Parallelisme of the Histories of them both in the chief matters of either that the Gravitie and Divinitie of the one and the Ridiculousness and Carnality of the other may the better be discerned 5. As in this very First point is plain and manifest which is dispatched in a word For in that Philostratus writes how Apollonius was of an ancient and illustrious Pedigree of rich Parents and descended from the founders of the City Tyana where he was born is not this that which is as sweet as honey to the Natural man and such as an holy and divine Soul would set no esteem upon Like to this is his Mother's being waited upon by her Maidens into a Meadow being directed thereto by a Vision where while her servants were straying up and down making of posies and chaplets of flowers O what fine soft pompous doing is here and her self disporting her self in the grass she at last falls into a slumber the Swans in the mean time rangeing themselves in a row round about her dancing and clapping their wings and singing with such shrill and sweet accents that they filled the neighbouring places with their pleasant melody they being as it were inspired and transported with joy by the gentle breathings of the fresh and cool Zephyrus whereupon the Lady awaking is instantly delivered of a fair Child who after his Fathers name was called Apollonius 6. The amenity of the story how gratefull and agreeable it is to flesh and bloud But how ridiculous is that dance and rountlelay of the musical Swans compared with that Heavenly Melody of the holy Angels at the Nativity of Christ For that if it could be true is but a ludicrous prodigie and presignification that Apollonius would prove a very odde fellow and of an extraordinary strein and serves only for the magnifying of his person But this is a grave and weighty indication of the Goodness of God and the Love of his holy Angels to men and a prediction of that peace and grace which should be administred unto them through Jesus Christ that was then born Behold said the chief Angel whose glorious presence surrounded the shepheards with light Behold said he I bring you good tidings of Great joy which shall be unto all people For unto you is born this day a Saviour which is Christ the Lord whereupon there was suddenly with this Angel a multitude of the heavenly Hoast praising God and saying Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men CHAP. III. 1. That whatever miraculously either happened to or was done by our Saviour till his Passion cannot seem impossible to him that holds there is a God and ministration of Angels 2. Of the descending of the Holy Ghost and the Voice from Heaven at his Baptisme 3. Why Christ exposed himself to all manner of hardship and Temptations 4. And particularly why he was tempted of the Devil with an answer to an Objection touching the Devil's boldness in daring to tempt the Son of God 5. How he could be said to shew him all the Kingdoms of the Earth 6. The reason of his fourty daies fast 7. And of his Transfiguration upon the Mount The three first reasons 8. The meaning of Moses and Elias his receding and Christ's being left alone 9. The last reason of his Transfiguration That it was for the Confirmation of his Resurrection and the Immortality of the Soul 10. Testimonies from Heaven of the Eminency of Christs person 1. WE have done with the Birth of Christ we proceed now to his Life wherein we shall consider only those things that extraordinarily happened to him or were miraculously done by him till the time of his Passion wherein nothing will be found impossible to them that acknowledge the Existence of God the active malice of Devils and the Ministery of Angels But that which I intend mainly to insinuate is the comeliness and sutableness of all things to so Holy and Divine a person which that it may the better appear I shall after shew the difference of this true example of solid Perfection Christ and that false pattern of feigned holiness in that Impostour Apollonius whom the later Heathen did so highly adore 2. The chief things that happened in an extraordinary way to Christ before his Passion are these Three 1. The descending of the Holy Ghost upon him in the shape of a Dove at his being baptized and the emission of a Voice from Heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased 2. The Temptation of the Devil upon his fasting and 3. His Transfiguration upon the Mount Concerning the First there is great reason for that Miracle For God having a design to set on foot the Divine life in the World by his Son Iesus Christ why should he not countenance the Beginning of his Ministery by some notable sign by which men might take notice that he was the Messias sent of God And Iohn the Baptist confesses himself assur'd thereof by this Indication And being there was to be some extraordinary appearance what could be more fit then this of a Dove a known embleme of Meekness and Innocency inseparable branches of the Divine life and Spirit and at what better time then when Iesus gave so great a Specimen of his Meekness and Humility as to condescend to be wash'd as if he had been polluted when he was more pure then light or snow and to be in the form of a disciple to Iohn when he was able to teach him and all the world the Mysteries of God Which may be noted to the eternal shame of our conceited Enthusiasts who phansying they have got something extraordinary within contemn and scorn the laudable Institutions of the Church which is an infallible argument of their Pride as this of our Saviour's Humility But while he humbled himself thus God did as highly advance him adding to this silent show an articulate voice from Heaven the better to assure the by-standers that he was the Messias the Son of God 3. As for his being tempted of the Devil it has the same meaning that the
Person in his coming to Judgment that no tolerable Allegorie can elude them 3. That there will be a Resurrection of the dead in a natural not a moral sense at the same time is as evident from the very last words I cited For who but a mad-man will interpret the meeting of Christ in the air in a moral sense If it had been written in the Heavens they would have shuffled it off and said in the Heavenly being or Heavenly nature mystically understood But will they have the impudence not to acknowledg the aieriness and phantastry of their Mysteries of Incredulity when they must according to the same analogy be driven to say that we shall at the Resurrection meet Christ in the Aiery Being mystically understood But it is as false a gloss to interpret the doctrine of the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15. so as to exclude the Natural and Physical sense of it it being plain that such a Death and such a Resurrection is spoken of concerning us as is argued from the Death and the Resurrection of Christ who is said to die 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our sins which is impossible to be interpreted mystically Read from the first to the eleventh verse it is a plain History From whence the Apostle inferres that there is a blessed Resurrection or glorious Immortality in Body and Soul which Christ will bestow on all true believers at the last day As himself has promised over and over again in the sixth of S. Iohn's Gospel and I will raise him up at the last day Many other places there are to this purpose in Scripture which I willingly omit 4. The third and last is the Conflagration of the World of which I hold that of S. Peter an undeniable Testimonie But the Day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night in which the Heavens shall pass away with a noise and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat the Earth also and the works therein shall be burnt up The explication of which Prophecie Mr. Ios. Mede has set down with a great deal of caution and judgment To which I should wholy subscribe did I not believe that this execution of Fire were the very last visible judgment God would doe upon the Rebellious generations of Adam leaving them then to tumble with the Devils in unsupportable torment and confusion 5. And therefore I would expound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verse 13. But yet Notwithstanding or Nevertheless before this Conflagration of the Earth we expect a new Heaven and a new Earth in a Political sense in which Righteousness shall dwell Nor does that phrase verse 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 looking for hastning the coming of the Day of God warrant any one to restrain this Prophecie to a Moral meaning as if it were only high expressions signifying something in our own power and to be done by us For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be either an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and denote no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is with great earnestness and diligence to expect or if so be you take them for two several things and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must signifie hastning that sense is also consistent enough with our Interpretation For being the Day of the Lord is a day of great Joy and ample Remunerations to the Godly as well as of Destruction to the Wicked and suppose it also comes not till Righteousness has had its reign upon Earth we may well be exhorted by our prayers and conversations to hasten and accelerate as much as in us lies the coming of either 6. But that by no such mystical Interpretation as this the Earth can be excused from being burnt by a visible and palpable Fire is clear beyond all exception from the 5 6 and 7 verses of this Chapter Where the Apostle alledges against that usual Refuge and Security of Atheists to wit The sameness and immutableness of the Law of Nature and the order or course of things that all things are as they were from the beginning and ever will be so and that therefore God will never step out in such an extraordinary way to Iudgment To this the Apostle opposes that eminent Example of God's Vengance in bringing the Floud upon the old World and drowning the Earth in an immense Deluge of Water But the Heavens and the Earth which are now saith he are reserved unto fire against the day of Iudgment and perdition of ungodly men Were the Waters in Noah's time natural when God had a controversie with all flesh and shall the Fire that the world shall be destroyed with be spiritual But light-minded men whose hearts are made dark with Infidelity care not what Antick Distorsions they make in interpreting Scripture so they bring it but to any shew of compliance with their own Phansie and Incredulity 7. I know there be that would understand by this burning of Heaven and Earth the destruction of the City of Ierusalem But the description is too big by far for so small a Work and not likely to be understood of them it was intended as a comfort to it being so exceedingly well fitted to the Conflagration of the World and so disproportionated to the other Event Moreover it is manifest from the Scoffer's arguing against the Promise of Christ's coming ver 4. That nature keeps still the same course it did since the beginning that this Coming of Christ was not understood by them and consequently not by S. Peter of the burning of a City by war For such things have hapned often and so they might not think it improbable Ierusalem might be burnt in due time but of that final glorious coming of Christ to judge the World which Judgment the Conflagration of the Earth is to attend 8. And truly if a man will but weigh things without prejudice he shall find the main matter of these two Epistles to be nothing else but an Exhortation to grow perfect and established in all Christian Vertues from the hope of that excellent Reward that shall be bestowed at the appearing and coming of the Lord Jesus as you may see in this second Epistle the first Chapter For so an entrance shall be administred unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdome of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ. Which is parallel to that in his first where the Promise is an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away reserved in the Heavens and so on to the thirteenth verse Which verses doubtless no unbiassed judgment will ever understand of a delivery from any Temporal calamity much less the destruction of Ierusalem from which place those dispersed Jews were far enough removed as far as Pontus Cappadocia Asia Galatia Bithynia To say nothing that the so-carefull an Inculcation of that sad Theam of the fatal destruction of the holy City would not so much become the pen of this venerable Apostle nor the gust of them he wrote to being Jews by Nation
Truth whose Foundation is no less firm then what is built upon these undeniable Grounds That there is a God and a Perfect and Particular Providence That there are Angels and Spirits of men really distinct from their Bodies and That the one as well as the other are lapsable Which things I have demonstrated partly in this present Treatise partly in other Writings and I appeal to all the World if they have any thing solid to oppose against what I have writ Moreover That this Lapse of Men and Angels is their forsaking of the Divine Life and wholy cleaving to the Animal without any curb or bounds whereby as well the fallen Angels or Devils as Man himself are become as much as respects the inward life mere Brutes being devoid of that touch and sense of the Divine Goodness And therefore their Empire is generally merely like that of the Beasts according to Lust and Power where the stronger rules with Pride and Insolency over the weaker and so the Devils being a degree above men of more wit and power then they it naturally falls to their shares to tyrannize over Mankind who were in the same condemnation with themselves having become Rebels to God as well as they 3. And it is but a piece of Wisdome and Justice in that great Judge and Dramatist God Almighty to permit this to be for a season And therefore the generality of the World were to be for a time under the Religion and Worship of Devils who were wild and enormous Recommenders of the mere Animal life to the sons of men without any bounds or limits themselves in the mean time receiving that tribute of abused Mortals which was most agreeable to their Pride and Tyrannical natures that is Religious Worship and Absolute Obedience as I have proved by many Examples in History 4. And that God should stand silent all this time is no wonder partly from what I have intimated already and partly because he is out of the reach of any real injury in all this as also because the Object of this irregular Fury of both Men and Devils in which they please themselves so much is but the Effect of that one Power from whence are all things or some shred or shadow of the Divine Attributes For I have shewn fully enough That all the Branches of the Animal life are good and laudable in themselves and that only the Unmeasurable Love and Use of them is the thing that is damnable The great Rebellion therefore of both Men and Angels is but a phrantick dotage upon the more obscure evanid and inconsiderable operations or manifestations of that Power which hoots into all 5. In this low condition is held the Kingdome of Darkness who maugre all their Lawlesness and Rebellion do ever lick the very dust of his feet from whom they have revolted For there is no Might nor Counsell against the Eternal God but his Will shall stand in all That all-comprehending Wisdome therefore was not outwitted by these Rebels but she suffered them to introduce a Darkness out of which herself would elicite a more marvellous and glorious Light and let them prime the tablet with more duskish colours on which she was resolved to pourtray the most illustrious beauty that the eyes of man could desire to look upon 6. And that there is a Lapse of Men and Angels is very manifest That of Man is so plain that not only the better sort of Philosophers such as the Pythagoreans and Platonists but the making of Laws and appointing of Punishments and mens general confession of their Proneness to Vice and Wickedness doth abundantly testifie And that there are wicked Spirits or evil Genii as well as good the Religion of the Pagans and the Confession of Witches and the Effects of them in the possessed are a sufficient argument 7. Now that Wisdome as I have said that orders all things sweetly is not in the least measure baffled by this Misadventure of the fall of Angels and Men but looks upon it as fit fuel for a more glorious triumph of the Divine Life And that noted Aphorisme amongst the Pythagoreans who laid no Principles for mean ends comes in fitly here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Worser is made for the service and advantage of the Better And the Kingdome of Darkness no question by Him that rules over all is very dextrously subordinated to the greater advantage of the Kingdome of Light it yielding them a due exercise of all their Faculties in the behalf of the Divine life which God most justly does magnifie above all things as also a most successfull victorie and triumph So that the Period of Ages ought to end so exact a Providence attending things as a very joyfull and pleasant Tragick Comedie This the Reason of man will expect upon supposition that there is a God and Providence as most certainly there is both especially if one quality of Souls and Spirits be better and more precious then another and the Divine life the most lovely Perfection of all 8. Which is as true as touch to all that have once tasted the Excellency of it and the Ignorance of the blinde is no argument against the certain Knowledge of them that see For one Soul Angel or Spirit though they may be the same in Substance as all Corporeal things are the same in Matter may differs as much from another as Gold Diamonds and Pearls do from common Dirt or Clay or the most exquisite Beauty from the horriblest Monster That therefore that is base shall be rejected and that which is precious and noble shall be gathered up in that day that the Lord shall make up his Jewels 9. And that there will be such a visible Day of Vengeance wherein the whole Earth shall burn with the wrath of God not only the common Fame throughout all Ages and Places of the Final Conflagration of the World and natural Reasons in Philosophy but also a necessity of some universal palpable and sensible Punishment on impudently-prophane and Atheistical People is a warrantable Inducement to believe 10. The great Good therefore that does arise out of this Revolt of Men and Angels is a setting the Activity of the Creation at an higher pitch and making the Emanations of all manner of Life felt more to the very quick exciting and employing all the Faculties and Passions of Souls and Spirits in a greater degree of life and motion with more vigilancy and a more favoury sense of acquired enjoiments then if there had been no such opposition betwixt the Light and Dark Kingdomes 11. Now therefore though God may seem at first to give the Dark Kingdome and Animal life the start of the Divine yet he is in due time by some very effectual means so to raise up so to back and assist the Divine Life against the Powers of Darkness that she may be found to have very visible Victories against the usurpation of Satan over the sons of men Wherefore
end So that the completion of all the Prophets ends in the Triumph of Familism the same which David George boasted of himself See also chap. 15. sect 5. Lastly in his Evangely chap. 35.8 Behold in this same day namely of the Love is the Resurrection of the Lords dead come to pass through the appearing of the coming of Christ in his Majesty according to the Scriptures And a little after sect 9. In which resurrection of the dead God sheweth unto us that the time is now fulfilled that his dead or the dead that are fallen asleep in the Lord rise up in this day of his judgement and appear unto us in Godly glory which shall also henceforth live in us everlastingly with Christ and reign upon the Earth Of which the plain sense is That the Souls deceased so many hundred years agoe are alive again in these of the Family of Love and shall reign everlastingly in them with the Mystical Christ on the Earth Which plainly excludes that other Iudgement or Resurrection in the Literal sense as I said before Again chap. 4. sect 15. For this cause our hope standeth now in this day very little on many of the Inhabitants of the world but we hope with joy much more on the appearing of the dead that die in the Lord or are dead in him to wit that they in their resurrection from the death shall livingly come unto and meet with us For all the dead of the Lord and members of Christ shall now live and rise with their Bodies and we shall assemble us with them and they with us to one body in Iesus Christ into one lovely Being of the Love and be altogether concordable in the Love and peace of Iesus Christ. CHAP. XVII 1. His perverse Interpretation of that Article of the Creed concerning Life everlasting 2. His misbelief of the Immortality of the Soul proved from his forcible wresting of the most pregnant Testimonies thereof to his Dispensation and Ministry here on Earth 3. Their interpreting of the Heavenly Body mentioned 2 Cor. 4. and the unmarried state of Angels to the signification of a state of this present Life 4. That H. Nicolas as well as David George held there were no Angels neither good nor bad 5. Further Demonstrative Arguments that he held the Soul of man mortall 6. How sutable his laying aside of the Person of Christ is to these other Tenets 7. That H. Nicolas as highly as he magnifies himself is much below the better sort of Pagans His irreverent apprehension of the Divine Majesty if he held that there was any thing more Divine then himself 1. FInally as for that Article of the Creed concerning Life everlasting his exposition is this We confess that the same everlasting life is the true Light of men and that God hath made and chosen him the man thereto that he should live in the same light everlastingly Where by him the man he means the succession of mankind as any one may know that is but a little acquainted with his manner of writing and by everlasting life and the true light of men he means the Light of the Love and the Service thereof which he presages shall abide for ever Which therefore he cals the house of God's dwelling the eternal rest of his holy ones the everlasting fast-standing Ierusalem the true and indisturbable kingdome full of all Godly Power Ioy and of all heavenly Beautifulness wherein the land of the Lord with fulness of Eternal life and lively sweetness is sung from everlasting to everlasting With such sweet Charms and pleasing enchantments does this grand Deceiver lull asleep his little ones into an utter oblivion and perfect misbelief of those precious Promises of Everlasting Happiness made to us by Christ who hath brought Life and Immortality to light 2. For that there is with no other Life but this nor any Immortality of the Soul or blessed Resurrection which consists in the Soul 's being invested with an Heavenly and Spiritual body according to the plain and literal sense of Scripture his gross abuse of those two main proofs thereof 1 Cor. 15. 1 Thes. 4. do plainly demonstrate which he does wildly distort as he doth the rest of the Scripture to a mere prediction of his Service of the Love in which he will have every thing of the last Day and of the Resurrection fulfilled that we may be sure that there is nothing else to be expected but this For in this the last trump sounds Christ appears in the Heavens being come to judgement those very Saints that in time past died and fell asleep in the Lord are now raised up in glory and that with their bodies and livingly come unto and meet with us according to that in 1 Thes. 4. and lastly these raised Saints that is the Family of Love shall thus reign with their mystical Christ upon earth for ever world without end What interpretation of Scripture can more accurately and radically take away all expectation of Christs personal coming to Judgement and the hope of a Blessed Immortality included therein by the resurrection of the dead then this of this bold Author Which we may be the better assured he intends in that his applications are so miserably forced and yet he has no better proofs then these for the ratifying of his Service of the Love For if he thought they did signifie that which all Christians think they do he could fancy no force at all in them for the establishing of his Doctrine but the orthodox meaning seeming to him utterly incredible makes him confident that he has found out the right sense if he deal bonâ fide and takes not the Scripture for a mere Fable which he may abuse as he pleases 3. For we may observe him using the same industry in eluding the force of such places as are plain for an Immortal state after this life even there where he may seem unconcerned if he held the Soul of man Immortal As that 2 Cor. 5. where the Promise of the Heavenly or Spiritual body is evidently set down as appears further out of the last verses of the precedent chapter and yet these Familists are not ashamed to expound it of the most holy of the true Tabernacle in their canting language whereby they mean the perfection of the Love a state in this life as you may see in their Mirabilia Dei. And in the Spiritual Land of peace That which is writ Luk. 20.35 concerning the children of the Resurrection that they are neither married nor given in marriage but are as the Angels of God he applies to the state of the Service of the Love and makes it fulfilled in his life Which is an Allegory so cross and crooked that nothing but an unbelief of the literal sense could ever have put a man upon the framing of it besides that scurvy intimation it bears along with it of community of wives the very same doctrine that David George is said to
misbeseeming their most serious thoughts which is the perfecting and finishing of the Redemption of the Godly VVe shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed and that for the better For whatever is mortal then shall put on Immortality and none of the Saints shall be worse clothed then in a Body of an Heavenly and Aethereal consistence This is that incorruptible crown of Glory of Life and of Righteousness which the Apostles mention and S. Paul expresly declares to be laid up for him against that day namely the Day of Iudgement Which the Lord the righteous Iudge shall give him at that day and not to him alone but to all those that love his appearing that is to say Whose affections and consciences are so sincere that they longingly expect when he will consummate and finish the happinesse of his Church and should be so far from fear that their hearts would exult for joy to hear the sound of the Trump and see the Sky grow bright by the overspreading of his Heavenly Camp in the Air. 2. This Meditation therefore reaching as well the unconverted as the converted it had been ill omitted of us And that it may take the better effect we are to suggest what will be able to break down or prevent such false and foolish Fortifications as the Minde of man may rear up against it to bear off the powerful Assaults it makes upon his Soul and Conscience These are chiefly two The one the long Intervall of time from hence to that Day which makes the terrour thereof little as things seem lesse the farther they are removed from our eyes The second is the hope that within so long a space they may have time to repent and be converted though they live as they lift in this life For they may prepare themselves for that Day in the other life which is to come But to the first I answer That the approach of this Day is very uncertain by reason of the obscurity of Prophecies and of the very Completions of them and is left so for the present exercise of the good and the perpetual vexation of the wicked both in this state of things and that which is to come His appearance therefore will be sudden like a Comet or blazing-Star which no man could tell when it would first appear but more terrible and minacious by farre not threatning the death of this or that Prince or the change of this or that State but the overturning of all States and Kingdoms and the burning up the Earth with all the Works and Inhabitants thereof with unquenchable Fire And that evil which a man does not know but may begin to morrow if duely thought upon cannot seem at a great distance but near at hand and ready to surprise him 3. To the other I answer That he that wilfully rejects the offers of Grace and Opportunities of becoming holy and good in This life he shall have no more priviledge in the other then the Devils themselves have who as S Iude expresly tels us are reserved in everlasting chains of Darknesse unto the Iudgement of the great Day who shall then inevitably undergo the Fate of Sodom and Gomorrha who are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal Fire And what manner of Persons these are Iude and Peter have both very graphically described such as had totally evaded all obligation to true Holinesse and Righteousnesse and were of an impure and foul conversation Filthy dreamers defiling the Flesh despising Dominion and speaking evil of Dignities Followers of Balaam perverting the truth for a reward Spots in the Christian Societies feeding themselves without fear Clouds without water blown about with every winde of false doctrine Fruitless Trees Raging waves of the Sea foaming out their own shame Wandring Starres to whom is reserved the blacknesse of darkness for ever No more hope of them therefore then of Lucifer and his accursed Accomplices And S. Peter pronounces the same sentence of them for they are plainly the same persons namely bold and daring spirits arrogant and self-conceited despising government and reproaching authority such as speaking great swelling words of vanity allure through the lusts of the flesh in much wantonnesse those that were clean escaped from them that live in errour Day-rioters having their eyes full of adultery that cannot cease from sin or forbear the recommending of the liberty thereof to others but beguile unstable souls Having their hearts exercised with crafty and covetous practises Wells without water Clouds carried about with Tempests adjudged to utter darkness for ever For with the Devils they are cast down into Hell and delivered up even as they to chains of darknesse to be reserved to the day of Iudgement 2 Pet. 2. So that there is no more hope of such impenitent Sinners that have laid waste their Consciences and wilfully neglected or resisted the manifold convictions clear illuminations and frequent offers of Grace and Assistance from the dispensations of the Gospel after this life then there is of those old Apostates the wicked spirits that are kept as Prisoners in Hell till that fearful and terrible Day of the Lord. 4. That Day of the Lord wherein all unbelieving Flesh shall tremble and every Face gather blackness For this will prove a day of Wrath indeed a day of Anguish and Distresse a day of Devastation and Desolatenesse a day of Darknesse and of Gloominesse a day of Clouds and of thick Darknesse a day of the Trumpet and Alarm against the fenced Cities and the high Towers not of Iudah only but against all the Nations of the Earth For the Lord himself will descend from Heaven to revenge him of his Enemies He shall take to him his Iealousie for compleat Armour and turn the whole Creation into weapons of his displeasure His severe wrath shall be sharpened for a sword and the World shall fight with him against the unwise Then shall the right-aiming Thunderbolts go abroad and from the Clouds as from a well-drawn Bow shall they fly to the mark And hail-stones of wrath shall be cast as out of a Stone-bow and the waters of the Sea shall boil and rage against them and hot scalding Flouds shall overflow them and drown them and they shall be blown about with fiery Windes and wearied out with the whirlwinde and they shall have no Peace nor Solace for ever The Moon and Stars shall withdraw their shining and the Sun shall be turned into bloud For nothing but Mists and Fogs and Stench nothing but sulphureous Vapours smoring Heat dark Clouds charged with horrid Thunder and Lightning immense Earthquakes and innumerable Eruptions of subterraneous Flames crackling Volcanoes smoaking Mountains high flakes and tortuous streams of Fire from burning Forrests and Woods lowd Shreeks and howlings of affrighted Men and Beasts grim and grisly Apparitions deep and dreadful Groans of tormented Ghosts nothing but such uncomfortable Objects as these shall fill up the Scene of
Reason who pretend not to dictate but demonstrate out of Scripture the Sleep of the Soul confidently suggesting to the better gaining Proselytes to their own that the contrary opinion is not Christian but Heathenish derived from the Philosophy of Plato which the Greek Fathers had imbibed and thence introduced into the Church of Christ. To the First of which I answer That our Adversaries Demonstrations for the Sleep of the Soul are but their own Imaginations and Dreams upon the mistaken Text. It is beside my scope to insist long on this matter I shall onely give you a tast of the weakness of the rest of their Arguments by proposing and refuting of those that seem the strongest Their main proof is from the whole tenor of the 15 of the 1 Cor. and more particularly from the 32 verse If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus what advantageth it me if the dead rise not Hence they think may certainly be concluded That the Soul before the Resurrection of the Body has not the Perception or Enjoyment of any thing otherwise the very Remembrance of those sufferings for Christ might be a solace for Paul when he was out of the Body 3. But to answer this Difficulty with the fuller satisfaction let us premise some few things to prepare the way to it As first That the Schemes of speech in Prophets and men inspired are usually such as most powerfully strike the Phansie and most strongly beat upon the Imagination they describing things in the most sensible palpable and particular representations that can be According to which Figure the General Resurrection is set off by mens awaking out of the dust of the Earth and coming out of the Graves when as yet many thousands have wanted Burial their bones rotting on the surface of the Earth and as many thousands have had their intombement in the Waters 4. Secondly That the Holy Writers do not pen down their Conceptions in so strict a Scholastick Method that they keep precisely and punctually to one Title but by a free vibration of Phansie give a touch here and a touch there according as they were moved and actuated by that Spirit that exhibits more to their Minds at once then their Tongue has leasure orderly and distinctly to utter and are more earnestly taken up in making good the main and most usefull scope of their discourse then to satisfie mens Curiosities in particular Niceties 5. Thirdly That many Words in Scripture have a lax and ambiguous sense and that therefore they are to be understood according as Circumstances and Likelyhood of Truth determine and that these Termes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are of that nature they sometimes signifying the raising up again of a Body out of the grave sometimes merely vivificating of the Body or recovering a Person to life other sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the very same with the Jewes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius observes which signifies nothing else but Eternal life or a Blessed Immortality Others enlarge the Signification further and make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Conservation in Being And Death seeming to us so dangerous a passage as if we were in hazard of either falling asleep or sliding into a Non-subsistence Divine Conservation because we begin then a new state of life is not unfitly termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as giving us as it were a new Subsistence setting us upon our feet again and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as keeping us awake when we seemed in danger of letting go all functions of life Which meaning of the words a late Interpreter handsomely makes good comparing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 9.17 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exod. 9.16 which the Seventy render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The manner of which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Conservation is excellently set out by this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may imply a kinde of jogging or stirring up which is used to recover or prevent ones falling into a swoon and God is the grand Author of Life and Motion as the Apostle speaks 6. Fourthly and lastly That the Corinthians being a people given notoriously to the pleasures of the Flesh there is no question to be made but the Temptations of the place had also drawn away some Members of the Church there at Corinth and made them also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now there being nothing that does so much extinguish all Hopes and Apprehensions of a Life to come as Carnal and Sensual pleasures it is very likely that those corrupted members fell away in their own judgments from the belief of any Reward after this life and so with Himeneus and Philetus or with the David-Georgians and our modern Nicolaitans allegorized away the real meaning of the Resurrection or the Blessed Immortality into a mere moral sense under pretence whereof they might ostentate themselves more Spiritual and knowing Christians then the rest and yet with less fear and remorse of conscience indulge to themselves all loosness and liberty of enjoying every tempting pleasure of this mortall life 7. Wherefore to the present Argument I answer in general out of this last and the foregoing Premiss That the purpose of the Apostle in this 15 to the Corinthians is to shew That there is a Life after the death of this Body and a Blessed Immortality to be expected A palpable pledge whereof was God's raising of Christs body out of the grave and exhibiting him alive to his Disciples Which was a Sign very significant and expressive of the thing this Blessed Immortality mainly consisting in being clothed with those Heavenly Ethereal and Paradisiacal bodies which Christ will bestow upon those that belong to him at the last day 8. Out of the First I answer That though S. Paul speak in such a Phrase as fixes our Imagination on the Earth only as is plain from that comparison of seed sown and rotting in the ground for men sow not seed upon the Water yet in whatsoever Element the Souls or Bodies of the Saints be found Earth Water or Air nay though we should grant with some that sundry Souls of holy men act in Aery vehicles in this interval betwixt their Death and the Day of Judgment yet it is no more prejudice to them then to those that are found alive in the flesh For none are excluded from the enjoyment of their glorified bodies 9. Out of the Second and Third I answer That S. Paul might very well have Three conceptions vibrating in his minde while he wrote concerning this Mystery the one more Simple and General of the Life and Subsistency of the Soul out of this Earthly Body the other more Special of a Blessed Immortality and the Third most Determinate of all which represented the manner of this Blessedness in being invested with glorified bodies And out of this General I shall direct a
Virginia Mexico Peru and Brasilia But it would be as tedious as needless to harp so long on one string by so voluminous an Induction and it is more warrantable to be sparing then over-lavish in so copious and confessed a matter Whoever reads those Writers which are numerous enough that can inform them in this inquiry he will assuredly find That the Religion of the Heathen reached no further then the Objects of the Animal life and that though they may go under several names yet that they are the same things every where viz. Wrath Lust and Sensuality or such things as are in subserviency to these as Corn Wine and other Requisites for the necessities or delights of Man as also those Powers that have an influence upon these as the Sun Moon and Stars Fire Water Air and the like 8. We may adde to these Inanimate things Eminent persons whom they could not but acknowledge as their great Benefactors Such were their Law-givers Kings and Commanders that fought their battels successfully the first Inventours of Arts or any useful contrivance for the convenience of life Wherefore the most subtil defenders of the worship of the Pagans let them elude the charge of Idolatry as well as they can or Polytheism yet they can never avoid the imputation That their serving of God in the Heathens Ceremonies is not any thing more then the acknowledging that Power that is able to gratifie or grieve the Spirit of the mere Natural Man CHAP. VIII 1. That Judaism also respected nothing else but the Gratifications of the Animal life as appears in all their Festivals 2. That though the People were held in that low dispensation yet Moses knew the meaning of his own Types and that Immortality that was to be revealed by Christ. 3. That their Sabbaths reached no further then things of this life 4. Nor their Sabbatical years and Iubilees 5. Nor their Feasts of Trumpets 6. Nor their Feast of Tabernacles 7. Nor their Pentecost 8. Nor lastly their Feast of Expiation 1. AND truly that the absolute Transcendency of the Christian Religion may be the better understood I cannot here omit that Iudaism does very much symbolize with Paganism in this point we are upon For though the Iewes were very right and orthodox in this in that they did direct their worship to that One and only true God that made Heaven and Earth and is the Author and Giver of every good gift and that without the offence and scandal of Idolatrous worship yet under this dispensation of Moses he seems openly to promise nothing more to the people of the Iewes then the present enjoyments of this Natural life nor threatens any thing but the plagues thereof as seems manifest Deuteronomy 28. where the Blessings of obedience to Moses his Law and the Cursings of disobedience are largely set down 2. Not but that I can easily believe that Moses himself understood the Mystery of Immortality and the Promise of those Eternal joyes to be revealed by the Messias in the fulness of time as also the meaning of all the Types that refer unto him and that his Successors also in that nation their Holy Men or Prophets had some measurable Knowledge thereof But my meaning is that the Generality of the Iews were locked up in this lower kind of Dispensation and that Moses his Law in the Externals thereof drives at no higher then thus as is apparent from all the Festivals thereof they none of them concerning any thing more then the enjoyments and conveniences of this present life 3. For as for their Sabbaths they were but a Memorial of the Creation of this visible world the belief whereof the Sadducees embraced as well as others though they denied that there was either Angel or Spirit for there is not any mention of the Creation of any such thing in the external letter of Moses and therefore the Appearances of Angels they look'd upon as only present Emanations from God which ceased as he disappeared 4. And for their Sabbatical year as also the year of Iubilee which was celebrated at the end of seven times seven years besides that they are not without a reflection upon the Creation of the World which was compleated at the seventh day wherein therefore God rested the other reasons according to the Text of Moses reach no further then the things of this present life For as concerning the Sabbatical year the Precept runs thus Six years thou shalt sow thy land and gather the fruits thereof but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lye still that the poor of thy people may eat in like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard and with thy olive-yard And for the Iubilee it is evident that it had a secular use for the releasment of Servants and restoring of lands to their first owners who were necessitated to sell them Those Feasts therefore were instituted in order to a Political good 5. Their Feasts of Trumpets and their New-Moons seem indeed to have an higher use to call the people together to hear the Law but I told you before that the Blessings and Cursings of the Law were merely Temporal And for their Sacrifices of Thanksgiving and of Atonement they were in reference to what is Good or Evil to this life of the Flesh. 6. Their Feast of Tabernacles was instituted in remembrance that the Children of Israel dwelt in Tabernacles and Boothes when God brought them out of the land of Aegypt As also their Passeover was a more particular representation of the manner of their delivery out of the hands of the Aegyptians as you may see Exodus the 12. 7. Their Pentecost that is the fiftieth day after the Passeover in this they offered two wave-loaves as upon the second day of the Passeover they offered a sheaf of the first fruits of their Harvest so that those Solemnities respected merely the Fruits of the Earth 8. And lastly as for the Feast of Expiation wherein the Scape-goat carried away the sins of the people and the evils deserved thereby into the wilderness being as I have already intimated that those plagues or evils denounced in Moses his Law be but of a secular consideration it is plain that this particular Ceremony in the Religion of Moses in the letter thereof reaches no further then the Pleasures or Aggrievances of this mortal life It being reserved for Christ alone to bring the most certain and most comfortable News of that Eternal Joy which we shall be made partakers of with him for ever in the Heavens who was to abolish Death and to bring Life and Immortality to light through the Gospel as S. Paul speaks CHAP. IX 1. The Preeminency of Judaism above Paganism 2. The Authors of the Religions of the Heathen who they were 3. How naturally lapsed Mankind fals under the superstitious Tyranny of Devils 4. The palpable effects of this Tyranny in the Nations of America 5. That that false and wilde Resignation in the Quakers does
concerning the Contempt of Death that he so gravely imparts to Damis and Demetrius encouraging them to suffer any thing for the cause of Philosophy hypocritical and ridiculous So whifling and ludicrous is every thing of Apollonius if compared with that solid Truth and real Excellency that is discoverable in Christ. BOOK V. CHAP. I. 1. Of the Resurrection of Christ and how much his eye was fixed upon that Event 2. The chief Importance of Christ's Resurrection 3. The World excited by the Miracles of Christ the more narrowly to consider the Divine quality of his Person whom the more they looked upon the more they disliked 4. Whence they misinterpreted and eluded all the force and conviction of all his Miracles 5. Gods upbraiding of the World with their gross Ignorance by the raising him from the dead whom they thus vilified and contemned 6. Christ's Resurrection an assurance of man's Immortality 1. WE have done with the Passion of Christ we come now to his Resurrection and Ascension and First his Resurrection Concerning which it is observable That our Saviour's eye was fix'd upon nothing more then it He prophesying of it in his life-time under that Parable of destroying the Temple and then raising of it up within three daies meaning the Temple of his body as also in the application of that strange Accident that befell Ionas For as Jonas was three daies and three nights in the Whales belly so the son of man should be three daies and three nights in the belly of he Earth He deferred also the divulging of his Transfiguration in the mount till his Resurrection as not being of any such efficacy to beget Faith in the people till this also had happened unto him 2. Now the grand importance of this so wonderfull an Accident consists chiefly in these Three things First In that it is a very eminent Triumph of the Divine life in the Person of Christ. Secondly In that it is so plain an assurance of a blessed Immortality And Thirdly In that it is so sure a Seal and so clear a Conviction of the truth and warrantableness of all the Miracles Christ did in his life-time 3. That our Saviour Christ was the most illustrious Example of the Divine life that ever appeared in the world cannot be denied by any but such as are blinde and have no eyes to behold that kind of splendour But that the judgement of the world might be the more notoriously baffled God assisted this Divine worth with many strange Miracles that they might more fixedly and considerately contemplate this so holy and lovely a person But the more it seems they looked upon him the more they disliked him the whole World being so deeply lapsed into the Animal life the Jews themselves not excâ—pted that they had no knowledge nor relish of the Divine Nay they had an Antipathy against him as the wise man expresses it He is grievous unto us even to behold His life is not like unto other mens his waies are of another fashion He was made to reprove our thoughts 4. Wherefore they having so settled an hatred against him all the Miracles that he did or whatsoever happened miraculously unto him did but set a more venemous edge of their spleen against him From whence it was easie for them to misinterpret and elude every thing imputing his casting out Devils to a contract with Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils The Testimony from Heaven That he was the Son of God to the delusion of evil Spirits that would lapse them into Idolatry His feeding the multitudes in the Wilderness to Witchcraft and Sorcecery and his raising of men from the dead to the nature of some Lethargical or obstupifying disease that may seem to make a man devoid of life for four daies together The Eclipse of the Sun indeed was a very strange thing if the darkness was in the Sun it self but they might remember at least from the relations of others that it was strangely obscured for a whole year together about the death of Iulius Caesar and so interpret this at the Passion as a mere casual coincidence of things or that some delusive Spirits intercepted the light of the Sun in favour of the great Magician whom they thought just to crucifie betwixt those other two Malefactors 5. But he whom they numbred amongst the transgressours and took to be the vilest of men because he was not recommended by any thing that the Animal life likes and applauds as Nobleness of Birth the power of popular Eloquence Honour Wealth Authority high Education Beauty Courtship Pleasantness of Conversation and the like he is I say notwithstanding this general contempt from men very highly prized by him who is the infallible Judge whose waies are not as our waies nor his thoughts as our thoughts But that he might conform our apprehensions to his own raised Iesus Christ from the dead bringing that passive contemptible Divinity that lodged in him into a deserved victory and triumph exprobrating to the blind world the ignorance of that Life that is most dear and precious to himself making him alive whom they maliciously killed and preparing a way to an universal Homage for him who was universally scorned and became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the off-scouring of all though his Spirit Life and Nature was of more worth then all the things of the World beside 6. Nor is this Resurrection of Christ only a particular honour and high Testimony given to the person of Christ who was so splendid an Habitation of the Divine life but it is also an assurance of a blessed Immortality to all those that will adventure to follow his Example that their labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. And therefore he is not said here to rise alone but in token of what a general concernment his Resurrection was the Monuments of some lately-deceased Souls flew open and themselves appeared to several in the Holy City Which things were a palpable Prohetical prefiguration of that blessed Immortality that Christ has purchased for all men that believe in him and obey him CHAP. II. 1. The last End of Christ's Resurrection the Confirmation of his whole Ministry 2. How it could be that those chief Priests and Rulers that hired the Souldiers to give out that the Disciples of Christ stole his body away were not rather converted to believe he was the Messias 3. How it can be evinced that Christ did really rise from the dead and that it was not the delusion of the some deceitfull Daemons 4. The first and second Answer 5. The third Answer 6. the fourth Answer 7. The fifth Answer 8. The sixth and last Answer 9. That his appearing and disappearing at pleasure after his Resurrection is no argument but that he was risen with the same Body that was laid in the grave 1. THE last End of Christ's Resurrection is the Confirmation of his whole Ministry For assuredly the Jews dealt with him as with some
Soul upon the out-side of his Body as a shirt or surplice which done they examine him whether he believe in the Law of Mahomet with a deal of other stuff to that purpose That also is a wonderfull fine fiction of his That when he was four year old the Angel Gabriel took him by the hand and led him behinde a Hill and there with a sharp rasor cut up his breast and took out his Heart which having cleansed of a black speck he after put it in again But it is evident from the effect that the Angel did not use his incision-knife for the best advantage for preventing of those so many and so enormous acts of Adultery which Mahomet was famous for or it may be the meaning is that that black speck being taken out he was then impeccable I mean in that Fanatick sense that doe what he would he could not sin no not though he lay with his own Mother or murthered his Father a wilde conceit of some Enthusiasts of these daies 4. It would be an endless labour to record all the Follies of this Prophet the most judicious whereof is his Pretense to Miracles For he that has neither Miracles nor can feign any what face has he to profess himself a Prophet The first Miracle he pretends to we have mentioned already which was the cleansing of his Heart of the black spot which makes men obnoxious to be assaulted by the Devil as the Mahometans conceive The second happened when he was seventeen years old when a Cloud like a Canopy kept over his head in an hot day as he travailed with his masters Camels To these you may adde his being saluted by an Angel in the cave and spoken to by Stones and Trees and brute Creatures with this compellation Haile MAHOMET the Messenger of God as also the weeping of a dry trunk of a Palm-tree at his departure and exile from Mecha 5. But the Three most notable Miracles are still behind The First whereof is the cleaving of the stock of a Tree by Mahomet's stumbling at it as he was walking with his eyes devoutly looking up unto Heaven For the Tree clove of it self to give the holy Prophet passage but when he was gone by presently grew together again The Second is the cluttering of Trees together to keep the Sun off from him and the retiring of them every one to his own place at his command in Zuna Mahomet more particularly affirms that on a day he doing the necessities of Nature in an open place he commanded two Trees to come to him to keep off the heat of the Sun from him which they did immediately their roots being torn out of the Earth and that he commanding them to return the Trees obeyed and were fastened into the Earth in their own place as before But the last and most notable Miracle which equally argues his Ignorance of Nature as well as the Wildness of his Phansie is his dividing of the Moon into two parts and making one part goe into one of his sleeves and the other into the other and both of them to come out at his neck and then soadering of both parts together and so restoring her to the same place in Heaven from whence by his prayer he made her to descend Of which Miracles this is briefly to be noted That as some of them are not possible so none of them that are are pretended to be done before witnesses and that most of them are very foolish and ridiculous 6. These things are recorded by a very grave and pious person and a true and sincere Christian so far as I can discern Iohannes Andreas the son and successour of Abdalla a Mahometan Priest a man throughly-well skill'd in the Religion and Law of Mahomet who after his conversion to Christianity wrote a Book and in my apprehension with a great deal of honesty and judgment concerning the Imposture of Mahometism out of which I have recited what you have heard and might adde much more both out of him and other Writers But this will suffice to demonstrate Mahomet to be such as I have characterized him and make us by such comparison as these the better understand and the more sensibly relish the Sobriety Decency and unexceptionable Solidity of our own Religion CHAP. XI 1. Three main Consequences of Christ's Apotheosis 2. of the Mission of the Holy Ghost and the Apostles power of doing Miracles 3. The manner of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them at the day of Pentecost 4. The substantial Reasonableness of the circumstances of this Miracle 5. The Symbolical meaning of them 6. What was meant by the rushing winde that filled the whole house 7. What by the fiery cloven tongues 8. A recital of several other Miracles done by or happening to the Apostles 9. The Congruity and Coherence of the whole History of the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles argued from the Success 1. AFter our something-long but needfull Digression to view the false and unsound waies that Mahomet David George and his Fanatical fellow of Amsterdam would lead men in we return now to that faithfull way and true guide Iesus Christ whose Resurrection Ascension and Apotheosis we having passed through we shall now proceed to the Three last things we propounded all which are very natural and suitable Consequences of his Apotheosis his sitting and ruling of the world at the right hand of the Father And they are these His sending of the Holy Ghost at the day of Pentecost and enabling his Apostles and Disciples to doe Miracles The great Success of their Endeavours in the World they being thus assisted by so Miraculous a power And Christ's visible return into the World to judge the quick and the dead 2. The First of these which is The Mission of the Holy Ghost and the enabling of his Apostles to work Miracles it was not only fitting to be performed as being first promised by Christ while he was with them here on Earth but also needfull to have been done though it had not been promised that when they went out to preach the Gospel to the Nations they might not seem wholly ridiculous and contemptible in propounding such vain and incredible things as they would seem to the World and such as had some kind of blemish or reproach with them recommending to them one for the Son of God whom the Jews had crucified for a Malefactor betwixt two thieves Certainly if an extraordinary power had not assisted them and they could not have done something beyond Nature they would have been laughed at and hissed out of every place they came to But having this supernatural assistance both their own Faith was the more firmly rooted thereby they finding that Iesus approved himself to the utmost to be all that with his Father which he professed himself to be and they were so exceedingly encouraged and emboldened through this sensible presence of the Deity going along with them that no dangers nor affronts
Lamb being summed up in this number in the very beginning of that Chapter that immediatly follows the mention of the number of the Beast and being made up of twelve times twelve Chiliades as appears chap. 7. how unexceptionable a warrant and assurance is it that the numbring of the number of the Beast must be the finding out of the Root of his number also and that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lies not betwixt 144 and 666 so much as betwixt 12 and 25 and that as 12 is the number of the pure and Apostolick Church so 25 of the lapsed and Antichristian This is the clear and unbyassed reason of the thing in Abstracto let it light where it will But it lights so pat upon the Romish Hierarchy that a man cannot but be amazed at so exact a Providence For this lucky and learned Writer has out of History made it even over-clear that Twenty Five is a character as essentially interwoven into the Hierarchy of Rome as Twelve is into the State of the new Ierusalem And those six main things that this holy City is set out by in the Apocalypse namely 1. Twelve Gates 2. Twelve Angels at the Gates 3. Twelve Tribes written on the Gates 4. Twelve Foundations with names written on them 5. Twelve thousand Furlongs the solid measure of the City 6. Twelve manner of fruits of the Tree of life have their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exactly in the Roman Hierarchy and City viz. 1. Five and twenty Gates whether taken literally or mystically for Churches to baptize in 2. Five and twenty Angels that is Pastors 3. Five and twenty Titles or Parishes 4. Five and twenty Cardinals 5. Five and twenty thousand Furlongs the Perimeter of which Cube is the circuit of Rome as the Perimeter of the Cube twelve thousand Furlongs the circuit of Ierusalem 6. Five and twenty Articles of the Creed which should be the food of the Tree of life to all believers In these essential matters and in many other things beside has he evidently shown how exactly the root of 666 is applicable to the Roman Hierarchy to whose Treatise I must refer thee for further satisfaction Which thou canst not fail of if thou be free from prejudice and furnished but with a tolerable insight in Geometry and Arithmetick The greatest and most obvious Objection against his interpretation is That 666 is not a perfect Square number as 144 is For they will demand if 25 be the number aimed at why was not the express number of the Beast rather 625 the exact square of 25 or why not any other number betwixt 625 and 676 as well as 666 To which I briefly answer That as it was not expressed by the Root but by the Square for concealment sake so for the same reason not by the perfect Square there being so smart a clang of the Root it self at the end of it which might have hindred the completion of the Prophecy and awakened them into an over-great caution how they affected the number of 25 it being so considerable a part of the number of the Beast and might have betrayed or discovered the mystery of numbring it also too soon to the world And for the numbers betwixt 625 and 676 I demand why not 666 as well as any of the rest For having once passed by the true Square for which there was so good reason any modest man might judge the choice of the rest free and indifferent But besides that there may want no exactness in this mystery the number 666 bears along with it very important significations and very apposite to the matter it is applied to As that noted by Mr. Mede That the Idolatrous poison of the Sixth head is signified thereby pervading all the body of this Antichristian Beast That also of Grotius is ingenious Senarius numerus res hujus mundi significat ut Septenarius res seculi melioris So that by this account both the outside and inside of this number of the Beast is worldly carnal and sensual For the Root also viz. 25 intimates the same nature the Root of that Root being Five an Hieroglyphick of Sensuality and stupid adhesion to the Objects of the outward Senses which are the chief faculties of the Soul that are caressed and emploied in the Romane Religion There their Religion begins and there it ends as it is in this number 25 which is made by 5 into it self and ends in 5 again This is the circuit of their superstitious performances that reach not the rectifying of the inward but are mere fruitless though bewitching entertainments of the outward man And lastly the above-cited Author 's own account is not only very witty but equally solid in my judgment concerning the nearer approximation of the Root of 666 taking in the fraction to 26 then to 25 that both these numbers may have a pretence to be the Root For thereby the number 666 does more exquisitely and unavoidably figure out the Papal Hierarchie By its Root 25 the twenty five Cardinals in distinction to the Pope an Head above them By 26 the twenty five Cardinals with the Pope who pretends also when he pleases to be one of the Cardinals But he adds also another reason of this number which is not rashly to be rejected That as 144 being a perfect Square sets out the figure of the Area of Ierusalem so the most perfect figure of 666 has the same proportion of length and breadth that the figure of the Area of Rome These argumentations will seem very strange and odd to such as are not so much as acquainted with the first rudiments of Arithmetick and Geometry or at least have not taken notice that the ancientest and best Wisdome has been hid in the Symbols of Numbers which is notorius in Pythagoras his School But he that seriously considers what small sense can be made by a Philosopher of the Six daies Creation and God's resting on the Seventh without this key of the natures of Numbers and Figures will be enforced to confess That there is one supreme Wisdome that has ever attended the Church and the holy Scriptures from end to end which in the abstrusest mysteries thereof has been pleased to make use of a method of concealment which is Numeral or if I may so speak Cabbalistical 9. The last Synchronals are those that are contemporary to the Seventh Trumpet and commence at the ending of the Sixth and end at the day of Iudgment properly so called that immediately leads to Hell or Paradise These Synchronals are the Ligation of Satan the blessed Millennium or Reign of Christ with his Saints upon Earth the Bride of the Lambe the New Ierusalem and the Company of Palm-bearers The connaturality of the things comprized under this Synchronism I have hinted already I shall only here bring Grotius his Expositions of the chief of them into view The Bride of the Lamb he interprets of Constantine's Family and Retinue wherein he commits a
as well as Christians to neither of which capacities could that fearfull destruction of their City be so comfortable a contemplation whenas it drew tears from our Saviour's eyes though at a greater distance of time And his great solicitude that they should have these things alwaies in remembrance after his death is a sign that what he insists upon is a matter of more consequence and longer continuance then what respects the Burning of the City 9. Furthermore the Argument whereby he would set on these things upon the Spirits and belief of them he wrote to that he was an Eye-witness of the glorious Transfiguration of Christ when his person appeared in that splendour which might become a glorified body such as himself will appear in at his return to Judgment makes it still more reasonable that that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that powerful coming of Christ there mentioned is his Final coming in Glory when he shall change our vile bodies into the similitude of his glorious bodie according to the working of his mighty power This chief Article therefore of the Christian Faith in which all Christians are the most highly concerned was that which the Apostle did press so earnestly and carefully upon them before his departure which was the chief Prop of their Faith and Patience and which he affirmed from a special experiment of his own in that glorious Transfiguration on the Mount where Moses and Elias talked with Christ which was a most certain argument of the Soul's Immortality to be no cunningly-contrived fiction but a certain Truth both from what he saw there before his eyes and what he heard discoursed at that holy meeting Where the Passion of Christ was treated of and the exceeding glorious consequences of it of which the greatest of all is his last Return to Judgment when he shall consummate the Happiness of all Believers with everlasting glory and so restore the Creation to a perfect recovery into what they had fallen from and punish the obstinate with eternal Fire Which things being declared without the circumstance of the series of Time it was easie for those three Auditors on the Mount to conceive them to be very shortly to come to pass and therefore to make that Enquiry of Elias his coming first according as their Scribes taught them out of Malachi if simply the Appearance of Elias and his going away again contrary to their expectation and desire did not put them upon that question 10. But that the glorious Coming or powerfull Presence of Christ which he so solicitously would ascertain them of is not his coming to destroy Ierusalem appears further from the nineteenth verse of this Chapter where after he has endeavoured to establish them in the belief of that main Article from the resplendent Transfiguration of the person of Christ of which he was an Eye-witness on mount Tabor as also as Ear-witness of that voice from Heaven This is my beloved Son and of that precious Promise that he was to be the Performer of at the last day which Transfiguration was a visible pledge of his being invested into that supereminent office of the glorious Judge of the quick and the dead and had recommended to them also the Prophecies of the Old Testament as a light that shines in the dark to give some direction yet he insinuates further that they shall have a more clear and firm assurance of this so concerning a Truth the day dawning and the day-star arising at length in their hearts Which is very harsh to applie to any thing but to the more clear conviction by the Spirit of God in their Souls of the truth of this Promise of an Eternal Reward of that Crown of a blessed Immortality to be given at Christ's Return to Judgment at the last day These and such like considerations make it seem to me utterly incredible that by this Fiery Destruction should be understood the burning of Ierusalem and not the Conflagration of the Earth and by the Appearing and Coming of Christ so often mentioned in these Epistles his Vengeance on the Iewes and not his final Return to judge the whole World a supposition in my apprehension far more agreeable to the weight and gravity of this Apostles style Thus much by the way for the rescuing of these two excellent Epistles to that more natural and more solemn and useful sense they were ever understood in till of late though I must confess they have not depraved the meaning of the seventh verse of the last Chapter of the second Epistle it being indeed impossible to interpret it otherwise then of the burning of the World which alone is sufficient for our present purpose 11. We might adde several other passages as well in the Prophets as in the Apocalypse and other places that tend to the same purpose with this of S. Peter for the proving of this final Judgment of God by Fire as also such places of Scripture elsewhere as implie that there is some notorious Punishment reserved for the Devils which shall be inflicted upon them at last For when and upon what occasion can it begin so fitly as at the Conflagration of the World That there is a certain horrible torment in store for them is plain from Matth. 8.29 Art thou come to torment us afore the time and 2 Pet. 2.4 as also Ep. of Jude ver 6. where the Devils are said to be reserved in chains of Darkness unto the Iudgment of the great Day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That God has confined them to this lower Region of caliginous Air as to a dark Prison till the great Assizes as some very judiciously expound it With which places if you compare that last Malediction or severe sentence of our Saviour against the wicked Goe ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels it will be very easie to infer what this final Punishment is and when and how it will begin But we need not insist upon these things we having sufficiently proved the point already CHAP. II. 1. The Fitness and Necessity of Christ's visible Return to Iudgment 2. Further arguments of his Return to Iudgment for the convincing of them that believe the Miraculousness of his Birth his Transfiguration his Ascension c. 3. Arguments directed to those that are more prone to Infidelitie taken out of Historie where such things are found to have hapned already in some measure as are expected at Christ's visible Appearance 4. That before extraordinary Iudgments there have usually strange Prodigies appeared by the Ministry of Angels as before great Plagues or Pestilences 5. As also before the ruine of Countries by War 6. Before the swallowing down Antioch by an Earthquake 7. At the firing of Sodome and Gomorrha 8. And lastly before the destruction of Jerusalem 1. IT remains now that we shew That these Three main Circumstances of Christ's coming to Judgment which we have proved to be contained in the Mystery of our Religion are
laws of Nature could be disturbed or that this huge Fabrick wherein we are contained and surrounded by the breaking of that league amongst the Elements and division of the celestial Compages could tumble down And not content with this furious opinion alone they join and stitch to it old wives fables They affirm that they shall rise again after death and live after the being turned into embers and ashes I know not upon what confidence they can thus believe one anothers lies You would think they were men started out of their Graves already A twofold mischief and double madness to denounce destruction to the Heavens and Starres which we leave in the same condition that we find them and to promise Eternity to our selves once dead and extinct who as we are born into the world so we die But the double sting of this twofold Jear is easily pulled out and that indeed concerning the Resurrection already we having plainly shewed That that mysterie implies nothing more then this That the same individual Persons shall be revivificated body and soul and made happy with Eternal life But the same individual Person does not involve any necessity of the same numerical body as has been shewn at large 2. The very point and sting of this Scoff against the Conflagration is also a presumptuous mistake as well as that against the Resurrection though I deny the possibility of neither and it lyes in these words ipsi Mundo cum sideribus suis minantur incendium ruinam moliuntur Such a clatter as this indeed though some of the Pagan Philosophers as Lucretius and Seneca are not affraid to admit yet might well scare the more sagacious from giving assent to it But the Conflagration of the World according to the truth thereof in the Christian Mystery is limited with more modest and credible bounds it not concerning the Starry Heavens unless you will call these Heavens Starry that are the receptacle of Sublunary Comets and falling Starres So that all the destruction that is threatned by the better-knowing Christians is onely to the Globe of the Earth and the circumjacent Aire with all the garnishings of them which shall be burnt up and destroyed But the Aire and Earth shall continue Aire and Earth still but with such alteration as this terrible Burning shall work upon them 3. That this is possible many things may induce us to believe which are to be found as well in the Earth as in the Aire For what of the Earth is not combustible The exteriour turfy part is ordinary fewel and Stones themselves are calcined into lime and chalk by fire And the Pyrenean mountains betwixt France and Spain took fire so whether from thunder or by certain Shepheards that the Gold and Silver mines ran streaming down for many days together From which accident some will have these Hills to have their name from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying Fire Besides there are many Mines of Minerals in the Earth that do not onely yield to the power of Fire but covet it in a manner and catch at it as Naphtha Sulphur and Bitumen to say nothing of sundry sorts of Coals vast Woods and Wildernesses which are so combustible that the mere excesse of the heat of the Aire has sometimes set them on fire as it hapned in several places Anno 1474. 4. We may adde to all this in how many places of the Earth there are found actual Fires by Natures own kindling as if she kept house under ground and made several Hills her chimneys such as Vesuvius in Italy Aetna in Sicily Helga and Hecla in Islandia mountains so terrible for thunder flamings out of fire casting abroad stones ashes stink and smoak that the more phansifull conceit that Hell is begun there aforehand Which were more plausible if the Apparitions that are seen there were as true as they are said to be frequent 5. Plinie will furnish us with more instances of this nature as of Chimaera a Hill of Phaselis in Pamphylia the Hephaestian Mountains in Lycia Cophantus in Bactriana Near Hesperius a Mountain in Aethiopia the fields in the Night all glitter with light as also a certain piece of ground in Babylonia Nymphaeus a Mountain of Apollonia flings out Fire and Bituminous matter the fury whereof is increased by rain as also the fire of those ignivomous Mountains in Lycia and Pamphylia That Aeolian Iland Hiera near Italy was all on fire and the sea round about it for some days together which he reports as a known truth and an instance near at hand But he concludes with the burning of that high and vast mountain in Aethiopia called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The chariot of the Gods as the most famous example of this kind adding to all this short Epiphonema Tot locis tot incendiis rerum Natura terras cremat 6. And yet these Vulcanoes are not less frequent in America as Acosta writes and gives this description of them in general That they be rocks or pikes of very high mountains having upon their tops a plain and in the midst thereof a pit or great mouth which descends to the very foot of the Hill a thing very terrible to behold as he saies Out of those mouths is vomited smoak and sometimes fire and sometimes neither as it fares ordinarily with that of Arequipa as also with that of Mexico near the village of Angels which sends out smoak and ashes onely by fits but never fire and yet the Inhabitants are affraid it will sometime break out and burn all the Country 7. The Vulcanoes of Guatimalla are more terrible In the year 1586. almost all the City of Guatimalla fell with an earthquake This Vulcanoe had then for six months together day and night cast from the top and vomited as it were great flouds of fire a notable instance of what treasures of combustibles Nature is stored with As is also observable in the Vulcanoe of Quitto which cast such abundance of ashes that in many leagues compass thereabouts it darkned the light of the day 8. There are also other kind of Vulcanoes which never cast either smoak flame or ashes but in the bottome they are seen to burn with a quick fire never dying This imposed upon a greedy Priest and made him think it was nothing else but heaps of Gold melted in the fire which he thought to have fetched up by letting down an iron Kettle with chains But his device was not fire-proof his kettle and chain melting so soon as they approached near the bottome 9. But the greatest wonder of all is that which Acosta noteth of some Vulcanoes that for some hundred nay some thousands of years have cast out continually smoak fire and ashes These visible instances of particular burnings of the Earth are notable Presumptions that there are laid in in the hidden Mines of Providence such a provision of Combustible matter as will serve for that universal Conflagration we speak of when the day of
of Second causes partly Natural partly free Agents amongst whom the highly-exalted and supereminently-divine Soul of Iesus is the chief we discover a power able to effect more then we have declared concerning the Conflagration of the Earth And when this will suffice how over-evidently are we assured of the feisableness of this Atchievement from what S. Peter has suggested concerning the absolute power of the Word of God by whom all things are and who is a perpetual Spectatour of his Works For the spirit of the Lord filleth the world as the Wise man speaks and that which containeth all things has knowledge of the voice And it is as true that all things lye open to his sight and that the Earth is alwayes under the present eye of God Wherefore he that perpetually looks on is it hard to conceive that at last at some solemn period of time he may in a special manner step out into action if need so require and he be invoked thereunto 7. Wherefore the Faithful being gathered from all the corners of the Earth and carried up to Christ their Saviour and joyning with his Legions of Light there being then left in the Earth and in the inferiour Parts of the Aire none but obdurate Adherents to the dark Kingdome which shall now be made more externally dark then ever black pitchy clouds covering the whole face of the Sky and making Night fall upon the Inhabitants of the World even at mid-day in the midst of this sad silent and louring aspect of the Heavens He that in the flesh was heard and answered by Thunder when he prayed saying Father glorifie thy name shall by the same interest in the Eternall God cause such an universal Thunder and Lightning that it shall rattle over all the quarters of the Earth rain down burning Comets and falling Starres and discharge such claps of unextinguishable fire that it will do sure execution whereever it falls so that the ground being excessively heated those subterraneous Mines of combustible Matter will also take fire which inflaming the inward exhalations of the Earth will cause a terrible murmur under ground so that the Earth will seem to thunder against the tearing and ratling of the Heavens and all will be filled with sad remugient Echoes Earthquakes and Eruptions of fire there will be every where and whole Cities and Countries swallowed down by the vast gapings and wide divulsions of the ground Nor shall the Sea be able to save the Earth from this universal Conflagration no more then the Fire could preserve her from that overspreading Deluge for this fiery Vengeance shall be so thirsty that it shall drink deep of the very Sea nor shall the water quench her devouring appetite but excite it For such is the nature of some Fires as history every where testifieth 8. Wherefore the great channel of the Sea shall be left dry and all Rivers shall be turned into smoak and vapour so that the whole Earth shall be inveloped in one entire cloud of an unspeakable thickness which shall cause more then an Aegyptian darkness clammy and palpable to be felt which added to this choaking heat and stench will compleat this External Hell a place of Torment appointed not onely for the prophane Atheist and Hypocrite but also for the Devil and his Angels where their pain will be proportionated according to the untamedness of their Spirits and unevenness of their perverse Consciences CHAP. X. 1. The main Fallacies that cause in men the Misbelief of the Possibility of the Conflagration of the Earth 2. That the Conflagration is not only possible but reasonable The first Reason leading to the belief thereof 3. The second Reason the natural decay of all particular structures and that the Earth is such and that it grows dry and looses of its solidity whence its approach to the Sun grows nearer 4. That the Earth therefore will be burnt either according to the course of Nature or by a special appointment of Providence 5. That it is most reasonable that Second way should take place because of the obdurateness of the Atheistical crew 6. That the Vengeance will be still more significant if it be inflicted after the miraculous Deliverance of the Faithful 1. I Hope by this time we have prevailed so far as to perswade the Possibility of the Conflagration of the World in that sense we have explained it And truly I know nothing that should keep a man from assenting to it as possible but that dull Fallacie whereby we conclude That nothing can be done but what we have seen done or phansie we could doe our selves And this is the reason that makes the Atheist misbelieve Creation because he himself can make nothing but out of prejacent Matter and a settled course of things causes so deep an impression in our Senses that we can hardly phansie they will ever alter Which makes some men never think of Death especially if they have never been sick a flattering impossibility by reason of so long continuance of life stealing into their hopes as if they should never die And therefore that great Monarch was fain to have one to rub up his memory every day with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Remember that thou art mortal Well may we phansie then such unalterable Laws of Nature as shall secure the Earth from such a destruction as we speak of when we are led unawares into so favourable a conceit of our own life or fortune after we have for a competent time been well settled in either as not at all to think of the mutability of our condition Wherefore I hope any one that is aware of this ordinary Fallacie will easily recover himself into so much use of his Reason as not to conclude the Conflagration of the Earth impossible because he knows not how to burn it himself or that it will alwaies continue unburnt because it has been unburnt thus long 2. But that which I drive at is to shew that the belief of a Christian is not only of things possible but reasonable which I have in some sort made good already by discovering the manifold treasures of the fiery and combustible principles in Heaven and Earth to which I add further First That Providence ordering all particular corporeal things by number weight and measure it is reasonable that the continuance of this present stage of things be numbred that is have its number of years set so that there be a full pause or Period a last Exiit and Plaudite to this Tragick Comedie 3. Secondly Whatever particular corporeal structure has a Beginning unless it be a Body inacted with a glorified Spirit will also have an End naturally of it self and that which will have an End is subject to decaying And for my own part I question not but that the Earth is of such a nature and that it waxes old by degrees will grow more more dry steril in succession of Ages whereby it
believe any other Service or Information but what is administered by the Elders in the house of the Love enjoins them to give up their Understandings wholy to the Eldest of the Family and to give ear to none else but the Teachers of his own Sect. Nay he will not so much as suffer them to appeal to the Light that is within them nor to judge themselves nor be judged by their own Consciences but only by the Elders of the house of the Love concerning whom they must not have the least suspicion of Errour or Unfaithfulness Which is the greatest Tyranny and Slavery upon the Soul of man that can be devised and a shrewd Indication that those Elders will approve and advise things against express Scripture Reason and Conscience And thus is many a poor simple Lamb catched out of the Fold of Christ and carried quite away without recovery into the thickest and remotest Woods and darkest Caverns or Dens to be devoured by this white Wolf who by his gracious speeches heart-melting insinuations soft-soothing language that is oiled and perfumed with nothing but Love first intices the little ones after whom his mouth most of all waters to a great esteem of himself and then utterly extinguishes in them to their Eternal Destruction all that Faith they had in the Person and Promises of our ever-blessed Saviour Which he does by intercepting all aid that the use of Reason and the Knowledge of the Scripture could administer giving them such hard language as we have above recited the civilest aspersion he bestows being the Imagination of the Knowledge but magnifying himself and his Service of the Love that is his own Doctrine above whatever yet appear'd to the sons of men as you shall now hear 4. For he sets himself above Abraham Moses David and all the Prophets above Iohn the Baptist yea above the Person of Christ himself For indeed he will allow that the service of the Fathers in the Covenant of Circumcision until Moses was the Forefront of the true Tabernacle and that Moses in figures and shadows set out the true being of the true sanctuary of God in the Spirit and that to David and the Prophets was shewn the true Being in the Spirit of their sight That Iohn the Baptist was a Preparation by Repentance to an entrance into the Holy of the true Tabernacle and that this Holy of the true Tabernacle is the Service of Christ in the Belief But the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy this he reserves to himself and his Service of the Love Wherein as he boasts is the Perfection of Life the Completion of all Prophecies from the beginning of the World the righteous Judgment of God the Throne of Christ before which all things must needs be manifested the perfect Being of the Godhead and the true Rest of the chosen of God He calls also this his Service of the Love the Last Day and the Perfection and Conclusion of all the works of God Whereby he would intimate it to be an everlasting Seventh day or Sabbath And yet he will have it also the Eighth Day as if he affected an holy-day beyond that of God himself and a time beyond Eternity 5. Again in his Prophecie of the Spirit of Love he sets himself highest in the enumeration of the Three principal Services namely the Service of the Law under God the Father the Service of the Belief under Christ the Saviour and the Service of the Love under the Holy Ghost The affectation of which office he learnt of his master David George as is noted by them that have wrote of these Enthusiasts I omit to speak of lesser Encomiums of his doctrine as That it is the last Trump that sure word of Prophecie that his day of the Love is that new day that the Lord has made abundant in clearness and full of Eternal joy the new Ierusalem descending from Heaven and the Inheritance of the Right-perfection We will conclude all with what he writes in his Revelation of God Behold presently in this day is the Kingdome of the God of Heaven and his Righteousness the godly Majesty and his Glory as also the salvation of Christ and the eternal life appeared in perfect Clearness with great Triumph and Ioy The Resurrection also of the dead the cleansing of the Earth the blessing of all Generations the righteous Iudgment of God the Glorious coming of Christ with all the thousands of Saints and the everlasting Condemnation of all ungodly in the hellish Fire What therefore can you expect more then is accomplished in his Service of the Love and what greater Person can there be then he who sets so glorious a Dispensation on foot on the earth Let us therefore take notice what he makes himself in the midst of this Glory and Pomp which he sets out 6. As if it were a small thing for him to be raised from the dead and to be anointed with the holy Ghost he boasteth further that God has sealed in him the Dwelling of his Glory and of his Holy Name and elsewhere that he is Godded with God and consubstantiated with the Deity and expresly in his Evangely Chap. 34. he declares how God has manned himself with him and Godded him with his Godhead to a living Tabernacle a House for his dwelling and to a seat of his Christ the seed of David and how the Judgment-seat of Christ is revealed out of Heaven from the right hand of God and that on the same Judgment-seat of Christ there sitteth one meaning himself in the Habitation of David which judgeth uprightly thinketh upon equity and requireth righteousness and that through him God will judge the compass of the Earth This in his Introduction to the Glass of Righteousness is the right Messias the high Priest for ever in the most holy the noble King of Israel and Iuda that possesses the seat of his Father an everlasting peaceable Prince over the house of Iacob according to the promises But you 'l say this cannot be understood of H. Nicolas but of Christ according as he has wrote elsewhere that there is in his Communialty of the Love a true Iudge Iesus Christ our Lord and King which executes the right Iudgment of his Father according to the truth But we are also to understand that This Christ that sits on the throne of his Father David is the eldest Father of the Family of Love as appears out of his Evangelium Cap. 31. sect 14. and 16. Which places compared with what has been recited it is clear that H. Nicolas is this Christ on the seat of David for his life-time and which is still worse and the seed of endless Madness and Blasphemie that this wild Presumption of the eldest in the Family being the very Christ from Heaven returned to judge the World with equity will be entailed upon their Successors for ever And that the appearance of this Christ may be the more glorious
and feet of Malefactors were pierced with nails whereby they were fastned to the Cross. Nor ought the various readings of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 weaken the perfectness of this prediction For when they have made the best they can of it yet are they whether they will or no forced to acknowledge that there is some special execution or mangling done on the hands and feet by the sense of the Text. But that it is just so as we ordinarily interpret it the suffrage of the most learned of the Jews themselves as Iacob Ben Chaiim Moses Hadarsan and the Seventy do sufficiently confirm To which also the Exposition of the Chaldee Paraphrast Aquila and the Masora contribute something To which we may add that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without another word is not sense and that there might by some neglect first be a change of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which sound both alike and then of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are writ almost like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having no difference but of bigness and that not much and therefore are very often confounded This is more likely then the leaving out a whole word which they that read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do That allegation also of Grotius against this reading does not want its weight namely that the similitude of the Lion is used but three verses before and therefore not likely to be used again so soon especially it being mentioned also some four verses after Lastly the Event ought to make an end of this Critical controversie with those that are not prejudiced And though it will not stop the mouths of the contumacious yet it will chear the hearts of those that are pious and rational with the pleasure of the contemplation of so punctual a Providence over the affairs of men CHAP. XIII 1. That if the Gospel of Christ had been false and fabulous it would not have had that success at Jerusalem by the preaching of the Apostles 2. The severity also of the Precepts and other hardships to be undergone would have kept them off from being Christians 3. As also the incredibleness of the Resurrection of Christ and of our being rewarded at the Conflagration of the World 4 5. The meanness also and contemptibleness of the first Authours would have turned men off nor would they have been listned to by any one if the Resurrection of Christ had not been fully ascertain'd by them 6. Which the Apostles might be sure of being only matter of Fact nor is it imaginable they would declare it without being certain of it by reason of the great hazards they underwent thereby 1. I Might note other remarkable Particulars out of this Psalme and other places that do contribute to the more punctual characterizing the Person of Christ but I have already exceeded the limits of my own design which was to engage in these things only so far as might suffice to demonstrate the Reality of the Mystery we treat of Which when we have confirmed by one Argument more and answered an Objection or two we shall then put an end to this Third part of our Discourse The last Argument therefore is briefly this A Religion so unassisted by men nay so opposite to them both their natural Belief and Interest could never have spred it self so in the World if it had been false and fabulous and not really true at the bottome How mightily it spred it self appears out of the History of the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles as also out of the Epistles of S. Paul even then when the greatest opposers of it the Jews were upon the spot to whom it was necessary for them first to preach it and who had opportunity to enquire diligently touching the matter of Fact of every thing that was alledged by the Apostles after the Passion of Christ as done by him or hapning to him or done by themselves after they had received the Gift of the Holy Ghost according to promise and wrought such Miracles as he did There were many thousands of the Jews converted whom it is impossible to imagine at least all of them and the more inquisitive and nasute might have undeceived the rest to have been so supine and careless as not to enquire diligently into things in a matter of so great importance as their Eternal Salvation and of so present dammage and loss to them that they forfeited the favour of all their countriemen and unavoidably charged them and their Rulers with the most impious Crime that ever Mortals could commit 2. But the Success rested not here but reached out of Iudaea into all parts of the Romane Empire there being gained innumerable companies of Believers every where till at last Nations and Kingdomes and Sceptres and in a word the whole Roman Empire became Christian. This is the Truth of the story which no man can deny and that this story could not be true unless the Christian Religion be true also I mean those miraculous things which are recorded of Christ and his Apostles is further demonstrable as well from the harshness as the incredibility of the Doctrine of this Religion as also the weakness and contemptibleness of the first Founders and Disseminators of it For whether we consider the Precepts of Christianity they are very strict and severe very unkind and unwelcome to flesh and bloud such as the Animal life cannot at all relish nor entertain unless some extraordinary thing be adjoined that forces admittance Self-denial Mortification the putting a man in a way of necessary or very probable persecutions and afflictions from without besides the renouncing of those pleasures that no external power hinders him of can be no acceptable news to the natural man Besides the Scoffs and Reproaches of the world that would undoubtedly follow their change of Religion Which change could not but seem still more grievous and intolerable in that it was to be whole and entire from the present Superstition they were educated in which they were utterly to renounce Whence their hazard and infamie could not but be greater 3. In the undergoing of which hardships they had nothing to sustain themselves but the belief of such things which a man would think might startle them most of all that is their Reward after this life no other waies ascertained to them but by the rising of one from the dead after he had been three daies buried which was exhibited to them as a pledge of that blessed Resurrection which those that embraced the Christian doctrine should enjoy at the burning of the World and turning the Earth into ashes and cinders A thing so incredible to humane wit that no man unless he was really convinced by some infallible way that it was so indeed could ever admit of or abstain from denying with an addition of scoffs and derision as it fell out with the
Epicureans and Stoicks Acts 17.18 Wherefore without all controversie the first embracers of Christianity entertained it upon no other terms but manifest proof of Eye-witnesses and the Evidence of such persons as they saw very faithful and serious and as had the effect of this great power of God that raised Iesus Christ from the dead manifestly residing upon themselves whereby they were able to doe Miracles as is also recorded in the Acts of the Apostles 4. Now for the First Authours and Founders of this Religion how weak and contemptible they were as to worldly concernments appears plainly from hence that they were not recommended to the World either for their nobility of Birth or skill in humane Arts and Sciences nor had they any secular power to assist them nor any force of arms to either overcome others or defend themselves for all they were exposed to so great and imminent dangers perpetually Our Saviour himself was but of mean Parentage a Carpenters Son crucified betwixt two thieves as a hainous Malefactor What therefore can there be imaginable that should move his Apostles and Disciples to adhere to him so faithfully after his death and to expose themselves to all manner of jeopardies all manner of sufferings whippings imprisonments long journies tortures and death it self What should cause them to disturb their own peace so and the peace of all men if there were not some very miraculous thing at the bottom and such as was worthy to alarme all the World What message could they have brought to those several Nations they travailed to that themselves would not be ashamed of carrying if it had been only so That the Jews had crucified one Iesus the Son of Ioseph a Carpenter betwixt two thieves at Ierusalem who yet was a very good and Just man It may be so would the Gentiles say More shame for them what is that to us But this man was the promised Messiah and did very strange Miracles cast out devils healed all manner of diseases and was declared the Son of God by an audible voice from the Heavens As for the Miracles you mention would the Gentile reply we have heard strange things done by those that are called Magicians and we had no acquaintance with the party you speak of to discern whether he was so good as you pretend For mens Judgments are ordinarily partial out of affection and friendship and it is strange that if he were so good as you make him and declared from the clouds to be the Son of God that God would suffer him so ignominiously to die betwixt two Thieves on the Cross. Which is a sign that if he did any Miracles they were but from such powers as are subject to the Magistrate and through that faithfull Providence that attends the affairs of men can doe nothing when the Magician is apprehended imprisoned and condemned Truly if there had been no more then this in the Story it seems impossible that the Cause should have had such Success as it has had 5. Wherefore certainly the First Preachers of the Gospel added to all this to the admiration and astonishment of the hearers That this Iesus whom the Jews had thus crucified was by the miraculous hand of God raised out of the grave the third day That after his Resurrection he conversed with his disciples both apart and together That he was seen of above five hundred at once That he staid upon earth for fourty daies and was seen visibly afterward to ascend into Heaven Which things as they were above all expectation marvailous and did if they were true fully argue not only the Innocency but transcendent Divinity of the Person of Iesus so were they so incredible that none could believe them especially to their present peril unless from such as were Eye-witnesses of the same and could send them to many more that were Eye-witnesses and of unsuspected integrity of life or for the better compendium shewed that they were true messengers sent from God by some Signs or Miracles they did upon the spot 6. This therefore was the main of their message which was nothing but matter of Fact which themselves knew certainly to be true and seriously and earnestly declared it to the World not by any Art or Eloquence For the Apostles were but poor illiterate persons Fishermen Publicans and the like had no other weapons to win men to the Faith but by a simple though earnest and serious narration of those things they knew for certain and did avouch with that confidence that they gave up their ease livelihood and lives for a pledge of the truth thereof Which Testimonie could not possibly be false it being as I said before concerning matter of Fact namely the Resurrection of Christ wherein so many could not be deceived Nor is it imaginable how they should goe about to deceive others against their own Consciences or without sufficient knowledge in a thing that gained them nothing but perpetual Hatred and ill will Imprisonments Tortures and Death In the mean time by these poore contemptible Instruments that had neither Political power on their side but were oppressed by it nor had any Art nor Eloquence excepting only Paul who yet made use of neither and by succession of such as they had converted within a few Ages all the World in a manner swarmed with Christians of all qualities and degrees noble and ignoble learned and unlearned though invited thereto by no secular advantage but rather being perpetually exposed to misery and persecution All which things seriously considered together with the exactness and perspicuity of Prophecies concerning the Messiah cannot but seem to any indifferent judge a Demonstration for the Truth of Christian Religion no less certain then Mathematical CHAP. XIV 1. Objections of the Jews against their Messiah's being come answered 2. A pompous Evasion of the Aristotelean Atheists supposing all Miracles and Apparitions to be the Effects of the Intelligences and Heavenly bodies 3. Vaninus his restraint of the Hypothesis to one Anima Coeli 4. His intolerable pride and conceitedness 5. A Confutation of him and the Aristotelean Atheisme from the Motion of the Earth 6. That Vaninus his subterfuge is but a Sel-contradiction 7. That Christianitie's succeeding Judaisme is by the special counsel of God not by the Influence of the Starres 8. Cardanus his high folly in calculating the Nativity of our Saviour with a demonstration of the groundlesness of Vaninus his exaltation in his impious boldness of making Mahomet Moses and Christ sidereal Law-givers of like Authority 9. That the impudence and impiety of these two vain glorious Pretenders constrains the Authour more fully to lay open the frivolousness of the Principles of Astrology 1. THE Objections we were a mentioning are from two hands from the Iew or from the Atheist That from Iew is chiefly this That the condition of the times under Christ is not conformable to what is prophesied concerning the times of the Messiah There is not that