destruction of a nation Mat 24.5 For many shall come in my name saying I am Christ False teachers shall come and lest any should think their comming notwithstanding happily they shall not prevail it is added and shall deceive many Again verse 11. Many false prophets shall arise Forget not again what followeth and shall deceive many So verse 24. For there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signes wonders in so much that if it were possible they should deceive the very Elect. Hereunto if with some learned interpreters we understand by the end mentioned Mat 24. that famous period destruction of the Nation of the Jewes we may not unaptly annex that of the Apostle 1 John 2.18 in the judgment of some as attesting unto Mat 24.3 6 33 34 Namely that these grand-deceivers were fore-runners of the then ensuing misery of that nation Little children it is the last time as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come even now there are many Antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time The summ is that the doctrines of Devils audaciously disseminated by numerous false teachers pretending themselves to be immediately sent of God are SIGNAL or are signes of evill times in four respects i. e. They signifie four things 1. Greater light then Ordinary foregoing 2. The non-reception of that light by many in the love of it 3. The Judicial giving up of many non-recivers of the Trueth in the love of it to believe their lyes 4. Sometimes at least also a National Calamity impending when the prementioned iniquities are in Conjunction with other crying sinns without Repentance Sinning against the Gospel is very sinfull The Gospel is a constitution or effect tempered of the Grace of God and the blood of Christ ingredients neither of which are to be found in the Law So much as the Gospel excelleth the Law so much is sinning against the Gospel aggravated compared with sinning against the Law Sinning against the Gospel is yet heightned by circumstances that it is given to us after the transgression of the Law Given to some transgressors and not unto others Of them to whom it is given dispensed with greater light to some then to others What Nation gloryed in these priviledges above our own our selves being witnesses From the kind of sinning If the non-reception of the trueth in the love of it exposeth unto this vindictive deception according to what dreadfull degree shall they be counted obnoxious who persevere in scandals under the light Count it pleasure to riot in the day time yea fear not to commit that abomination in Israel of turning the grace of God into wantonness From the doctrine of free grace drawing a licence to sin to take their fill of lust and that without the guilt of sin without the conscience of sin yea with a pretended conscience of obedience In a word to feast the old man unto the highest with the blood of Jesus and compleat the mystery of iniquity by the mystery of the Gospel As the non-reception of the trueth of the Gospel is a fearfull sin so the fruit thereof is a fearfull evill Their unbelief is fearfull their belief is fearfull Vnbelief of the trueth is iniquity Belief of a ly is both iniquity folly The trueth they unbelieve is a trueth of the greatest wisdom The ly which they believe is an object of the greatest vanity To believe the trueth is a great mercy 1 Cor. 7.25 At one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithfull To believe a destructively is a great judgment 2 Thes 2.11 12. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a ly that they all might be damned who believed not the truth Not to believe Christ is to make him an Impostor remarkable is divine justice that the issue of such unbelief should be the believing of Impostors So legible is divine justice in that they who forsake the way of salvation should choose the way of damnation that the folly of that wisdom may be manifest whose wisdom is to disacknowledg the Wisdom of God and that the glory of that wisdom may be ever adored the contempt wherof delivereth the contemners unto such finall folly These lying Spirits with other like Pests howsoever inconsiderable despicable looked at as in themselves yet if looked at as messengers of Divine wrath witnesses of guilt and impenitence instruments of penalty and commissionated to do effectual execution they are now represented under a formidable aspect and become objects of great terrour God can plague Egypt with lice and make locusts wormes grashoppers a matter of horror unto Judah though there remained but wounded men amongst the Caldeans yet should they rise up every man in his tent burne this Citty with fire Alas t is sin that armes justice and disarmes the sinner When there is a concurrence of delinquency and authority the meanness of the executioner aggravates not extenuates the anguish of the malefactor What more formidable then a penall and vindictive-permission of a delusion-destructive Upon Gods willing the permission of sin sin falleth out infallibly Upon this antecedent Adam when all mankind was conteined in that one man yet in innocency is deceived sinneth away not only the Image of God from his posterity but also sinneth mankind into the guilt of eternal death The woman which thou gavest to be with me gave mee of the tree and I did eat Upon a permission penal-corrective Peter falleth as shamefully before the temptation of a poor maid as he engaged confidently No merveil then if upon a permission penal-vindictive foregoing we read and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him i. e. the Beast whose names are not written in the book of the life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world And that Christ warneth us of the perill thereof as such which threatens to deceive if it were possible the very Elect. The strength of false prophecy lay not in the argument of the speaker but in the affection of the hearer My people love to have it so Jer. 5.32 The conjunction of a Judicial dispensation with a pleasing error an itching ear presents a sufficient reason why men otherwise rational are intoxicated with doctrines most irreligious irrational Why the success of false teachers at times hath been such as hath exceeded their own expectation Hence was the ground of that old saying of the Monk insulting over the peoples credulity Si mundus vult decipi decipiatur If the world will be deceived let it be deceived When the Duke of Saxony affected with Muncer's crying out under the severity of his tortures said unto him truely Muncer you indure at present but think also upon the ruine of so many poor people which at this day by occasion of your seduction are slain He answered after a laughing manner they would so have it Whether it were more wickedly done
shall see Satan in a chaine The first aspect presents all formidable as the product of Satans will which conteining the extirpation of all good with the introduction of all iniquity confusion misery upon supposition it should obtaine what can be superadded in the way of evill therunto The secōd represents every thing beautiful in its time it being an impossibillity that he whose wayes to his end are past finding out should do any thing in relation either to way or end incongruous or indecent unto him who is absolute perfection it self Look upon the spirit of error in it self it is like the Lyon roaring upon Sampson look upon it in the Promise 't is as the Carkass of the Lyon but behold there is a swarm of Bees and honey in the carcass of the Lyon In its own nature it is a flood of waters cast out of the mouth of the Serpent In the promise it is as the waters of Noah unto the freinds servants of the Trueth When I thought to know this it was too painfull for mee untill I went into the sanctuary of the Lord then understood I their end Psal 73.10 17. CHAP 3. Of the destructivenes of the Doctrine and Practice of the Quakers Vnto Religion the Churches of Christ and Christian States DIseases may well be concluded malignant and mortal at least in their next tendency when they seize vpon the vitalls and Spirits The doctrine under examination being censured according to this proportion will soon be found guilty of the charge The destructivenes of the doctrine of the Quakers unto Christian States appeareth from The nature of the Object they single out imediately to fight against viz The Trinity Christ The Scripture as the Rule of life Order both Civil especially as acknowledged in al Christian States with Power in matters of Religion Ecclesiastical as instituted in the Gospel The Spirit they are acted by The suitablenes of their doctrine unto discontented seditous factious and tumultuous spirits especially if pressed with poverty or a suffering condition The experience of the examples of their predecessors in Germany acted by the same principles Fundamentals in Religion are so denominated Principally properly so Christ is a foundation Mat. 16.16 Doctrinally so the Scripture is a foundation in that it holds forth the doctrine of life 1 Cor 3.10 11. Eph. 2.20 Practically so Order is according to some not ineptly said to be of the foundation in that it is requisite in the way of means for the preservation of what is fundamentall For the making good the first maine article of the charge the clearenes of the trueth of the heads instanced in as the four parts thereof their fundamentality with the contrariety of the doctrine-impleaded thereunto being manifest is necessary In order whereunto the Trinity and Scripture being some-what spoken to above and that of the Person of Christ in this place not calling for it it remaineth onely to demonstrate 1 The nature and necessity of order 2 That in their opposing the Magistrats as now established in Christian estate they oppose civill order 3. That the visible-politicall-Churches Church-Officers Church-worship administrations are Gospel-institutions appointed by Christ to continue to the end of the world Order is a divine disposal of superior inferior relations in humane or Christian societies distributing to each one respectively what is due thereunto There was Order directive in Innocencie order both directive and coactive is necessary in mans fallen estate Order is Gods way of lapsed mans wel-doing wel-being It is the forme of societies Formes are essential without which things cannot be By Order plurality is formed into and subsists in unity Without it plurality is but an heap Neither nature nor society whether humane or christian no not so much as a family can stand without order Ephe. 1.22 1 Cor 12.19 If all were one member i. e. if there were no order where were the body Order is a divine preservative of Trueth Peace and Communion The good of Order is further intelligible by the evill of confusion James 3.16 As confusion is not farr from every evill work so order hath a tendency to every good work Order without action is negligence action without order is presumption Action without knowledg is reprehensible and order unprofitable but Order Action Vnderstanding perfect bodies Politick The great good which is in order is the cause why the wicked one so restlesly oppugneth it The working of Satan against Order is a policy against a policy The policy of hell against the Policy of heaven Whilest we remember that God is the God of Order it is not hard to discern the maligning therof as proceeding from the Serpent For God is not the author of confusion but of peace as in all the Churches of the Saints 1 Cor 14.33 34. In Ecclesiasticks it is a maxime indispensable in Paul's motion Let all things be done decently and in Order 1 Cor 14.40 Doing nothing is more eligible then doing without order Many times there is not so much good in the matter done as there is evill in that it is disorderly done In Civills in case of non-administration wickedness reignes Judges 17.6 In case of mal-administration incorrigible in the Magistrate the Psalmist cryeth out that the foundations of the earth are out of course Psal 82.5 Such a foundation then is Order as it being cast down what shall the Righteous do Their Opposition to Civil Order is thus evinced That doctrine which denyeth obedience unto the order of Magistracy in its due subject Exod. 18.21 interpretatively and in effect denyeth the order of Magistracy i. e. Civil order But their doctrine denieth Obedience unto the order of Magistracy in its due subject Therefore their doctrine denyeth the order of Magistracy i. e. Civil order That they deny obedience unto the order of Magistracy in its due subject witness both their scripts behaviour wherin they deny obedience unto all Christian Magistrates who are not of their own mind Their pernicious principles herein from the execution of which the good hand of God hath hitherto restrained them are notoriously palpable in the practise of Storke Mancer their Predecessors About 1521. Nicholas Storke a ring-leader amongst a company of mutinous and seditious persons pretended to immediate visions and thereupon preached that there should come a new world wherein should dwell Righteousness therefore they ought to exterminate all the wicked withall the Princes unbelieving Magistrates from the earth They faith the Author called all those unbelievers which were not of their faith faction In Alstad a Town in the Earledome of Manifield one of the 4. Estates in upper Saxonie Thomas Mancer enrolls the names of them which were entered into league with him and by solemn Oath promised assistance to dispatch the wicked Prince to substitute new ones They saith the same Author generally accounted all Superiours wicked The being of Magistracy is from God immediately There is no
in a needy condition seduced the inferiour sort especially such as were pinched with penury into a perswasion that it was lawfull for them to help themselves Thereby procuring an insurrection of Sixty thousand for the while carrying all before them commiting diverse murthers many outrages unto the entering awing of London the terrour of the King jeopardy of the whole Realme Iohn Woll is pestilent but Iohn of Leyden is much more pestilent The strength of this temptation lyeth not in the reason of it but in it's compliaance with corruption Such is man's propensness to the world that where it offers it self he is apt to hasten to it though by a way which inferreth the perdition of the soul No marveil if that Religion which hath made the way to salvation and to the worlds enjoyment both the same and quick easy be much followed though not for Religion sake yet for the worlds sake Howsoever Becold might smile in his sleeve at the fallacy of his Religion yet therein he found sweet in that it promoted him from a Tayler of Leyden to be King of Jerusalem yea of the whole earth and that all Princes must obey him had their revelations prevailed To possess our hearts the more throughly with the pestilence of the heterodoxie impleaded consider the dismall effects which have followed upon the practices of such who have acted according to these principles Caspar Swenckfield an eloquent but unlearned man spread his errours about 1520. The confession of the Divines of Mansfield condemneth him Anno 1555 and testifieth that he hath troubled the church thirty yeares About 1522 Nicolas Storke of whom before rejects the Scriptures as being a carnal literal Rule holds forth revelations thereupon the extirpation of the Magistrate with a renovation of the world wherein Righteousness should dwell Out of this school came Muncer About 1524 arose Thomas Muncer who in his letters stiled himself Thomas Muncer the servant of God with the sword of Gideon against the ungodly He cryeth down books and the letter of the Scripture saying the Spirit was Leader and Rule to believers Amongst other things he teacheth parity amongst men rejection of Dignities Community of goods that all the world should abide in the liberty wherein it was at first created Of his dangerous attempt in Alstad to destroy the Princes innovate the Government change the times we heard also before In Mulhuisen an Imperial Citty in the Province of Turingia he so wrought upon the people that they changed their old Magistrates chose new ones of Muncer's way whence arose many troubles Many people leavened with his doctrine defist from their ordinary Labour when they had need of any thing they took from those who had it whether they would or not In Swaben Francony the husbandmen labourers take up armes to the number of Forty thousand they drove away the Nobles imprisoned some according to the French Historiographer they slew many of the Nobility sacked burnt their Castles fortresses as the fetters of their liberty At last he Henry Pfeiffer pretending a vision from heaven gather forces with a numerous companie take the field fight with the princes are taken put to death 1525. In these tumults of Muncer were slaine first last fifty thousand of the people according to some one hundred thousand About 1533 John Becold an Hollander of Leyden by occupation a Taylor commeth to Munster a Citty in Westphalia with one Cniperdoling where with their adherents followers having gotten some advantage into their hand Command is given that such who were not rebaptised should be put to death as Pagans and wicked but these troubles were issued by composition In February 1534 contary to their Faith promise they secretly fill the Citty with their own party In the beginning they talked of nothing but spirit Holiness they said it was not lawfull for a Christian to be a Magistrate and that it was not lawfull to bear armes But after they had gotten power into their hands then it was lawfull to seize the publick armes to take the Town-house to choose Magistrates to their mind to reject those who were ordained of God to thrust themselves into their places They that before cryed Repent Repent now change their voyce and cryed Depart Depart if you will not die Pillaging stripping honest people of all they had forcing them out of house Citty with their wives and little ones all that were not of their mind without regard to age or sex Where saith the Author are those fair speeches now which were wont to be in their mouths Do not resist evil He that will take away thy coat give him thy cloak also They command Community of all goods upon pain of death they abolish Schooles and Courch-assemblies Spanhem historic Narrat Cap. 2. yea so far saith Spanhâ—mius proceeded the madness of this villanous fellow meaning John of Leyden that by the craft of a gold-smith of Warrendorp suborned by him who feigned a revelation inspiration and the blockishness of the bewitched people This scum of the earth was set upon a Kingly throne excercised a stage-player-like Kingdom in an oppressed Citty prepared himselfe Princely furniture and attendants useth all manner of cruelty with whoredoms murders unheard-of tyrannie distributed amongst his followers Principalities Dukedoms at his pleasure by his messengers every where stirring up the country-people to mutinie and rebellion yea attempted such mischiefs as will scarce find Credit with posterity ascribing to himself this frantick title John King of new-Jerusalem King of righteousness over the whole world Upon a Revelation of one of their Prophets Henry Hilvers viz that three rich Citties Amsterdam Deventer Wesel were given to them they attempt to take Amsterdam May 10 1535. and that so unexpectedly wilâ—ly and resolutely as that the Citty was not saved out of their hands without some danger and much bloodshed At Munster the King provideth a great Supper the people sit down to the number of four thousand the King Queen Courtiers wait upon the table Supper almost finished the King gave unleavened bread to all saying Take eat declare the death of the Lord. Then the Queen presented the Câ—p saying Drink declare the death of the Lord. Afterwards the King Queen waiters supped as they were at supper the King ariseth saying he had a commission from the father Accuseth a souldier which had been taken that he was a Traitor as Judas and with his own hand haveing cut off his head returneth to sit down at the table by way of merriment reciting what he had done King Becold beheads Elise one of his Queens and wives in the market-place because she had said that she did not believe it was pleasing to God that the people should thus perish through famine At length Becola Chipperdoling and Cretchting being taken with the Citty which they held till June 25. 1538. were tortured with burning pincers