Selected quad for the lemma: head_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
head_n	beast_n	empire_n	horn_n	2,682	5	10.3706	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61105	The vvay to everlasting happinesse: or, the substance of christian religion methodically and plainly handled in a familiar discourse dialogue-wise: wherein, the doctrine of the Church of England is vindicated; the ignorant instructed, and the faithfull directed in their travels to heaven. By Benjamin Spencer, preacher of the word of God at Bromley neer Bow in Middlesex.	Spencer, Benjamin, b. 1595?	1659 (1659)	Wing S4945; ESTC R222156	362,911	329

Censer Levit. 16.12 and Heb. 9.4 This vessell pertained only to the High Priest all the other were of brasse Num. 16.39 and then to be used when he entred into the most holy once in a yeare Lev. 16.2 12 13. This no doubt signified the meritorious obedience of Christ through which all the praiers of Saints is offered and accepted of God Rev. 7.2 Haymo in Apoc. v. 1. We find him therefore set forth by an Angell comming up from the East called also the Angell of the Covenant Rev. 8.3 having a golden Censer full of odours to offer up with the praiers of all Saints The cloud of this incense may signifie the cloud of praiers offered up by the cloud of faithfull witnesses Heb. 12.1 which being dissolved by the Sun of righteousnesse falleth down in drops of grace and blessings upon the Church So the fiering of the odours with those coles which were taken from the Altar only signifieth that one only spirit of God which can only set our devotions on a flame And Gods revealing himselfe in that cloud of incense may well mind us of the assurance the faithfull have to meet with God in their praiers when they meet with one heart in devotion to glorifie God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 15.6 Mathe. How was the hope of Gods promise continued beside by Covenant and Types Phila. I told you by promises and prophecies Mathe. Which are they Phila. Those that concern Christs Nativity Death and Resurrection and Ascension The first promise of him was in Paradise The seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head i. his crafts and policies to hinder mans happinesse And this Christ did by acting contrary to Satan as setting up humility against pride and truth against falsehood the one was seen in his birth Luke 2.7 and the other in his answer to Satans temptations Mat. 4. For this seed of the woman was Christ born in the fulnesse of time Gal. 4.4 A full time indeed for now was the scepter departed from Judah to Herod who was but a Proselyte and a stranger sprung from an Idumean and Arabian woman and so old Jacobs prophecie fulfilled Gen. 49.10 that then should Shiloh come i. one sent to save or the sonne of the Secundine to shew his virgin-birth A full time it was also in regard of the world of men who were now grown ripe and to a full age to take possession of Gods promises of Christ in whom they were to be made heires though before they lived under Tutors and governors of legall ceremonies Yea a full time too in respect of the course of heaven if Astronomers may be beleeved who say that the stars were now come to their proper periods and stations and so there might have been a full end of all But God that Christ might be fully known grants the world a new lease and makes Christ the Landlord of these last times by giving him the heathen for his inheritance c. Psal 2. by their beleeving his Gospell Mathe. But before you proceed make it appear to me 1. That the Scepter was not gone from Judah till now 2. What necessity of Christ to be born of a Virgin Phila. I answer That you are rightly to understand Judahs Scepter For by Judah must be understood not only the whole body of the Jewes but also the Tribe royall assigned by Jacob to regality which before nor a great while after was not so For at first from Adam to Moses Gen. 9.25 the fathers of the family executed Princely and Priestly office among their own people as Noah cursed Cham and Abraham banished Hagar and Ismael Gen. 21.10 Judah judged Thamar to be burned Gen. 38.24 But in Moses this prerogative did cease and was transferred to Moses and Aaron being of the Tribe of Levi Moses was as King Deut. 33.5 and Aaron as Priest So Joshua was a Duke and Captain Generall Aug. de eivit Dei l. 18. c. 22. After him succeeds Judges which for the time they held exercised absolute authority and their state lasted about 329. years In the interegnum or space of time between one Judges decease and anothers election matters were judged by the great Sanedrim or seventy Elders and so was at that time Aristocraticall Then from the surceasing of Judges began Kings of which Saul was first and David next by Gods especiall appointment Zepper leg mosaiea l. 3. c. 6 whose race held it as Kings till the Captivity of Babylon about 520. years From the Captivity of Babylon to the comming of Christ was about 536. years wherein the Jewes state was much confused For sometimes they were ruled by Deputies setled among them by the Persian Monarchs who had conquered the Babylonian whose last Monarch was Belshazzer Dan. 5.30 And Darius the Mede succeeds Dan. 6.1 and 9.1 and after him Cyrus his Kinsman and Lievetenant Generall of all his forces as appears Dan. 10.1 that he was King of Persia to which he translated the Kingdome of the Medes This great Potentate according to the prophecie of him Isa 44.28 sent the Jewes back from captivity to build Jerusalem and the Temple by his Edict Ezra 1.1 2. They were conducted by Zorobabel and others Ezra 1.2 together with Nehemiah and Seraiah and Mordecai The successors of Zorebabel by appointment of the Persian authority was Mesullam Hananiah Berechia and Hosadia all of the seed of David After their time as the Persian Bear had devoured the Assyrian Lyon Dan. 7.4 so the Grecian Leopard tramples down the Persian Bear This Leopard was the Greek Monarchy especially Alexander the Great shewed by the horn in the forehead of that Goat pushing the Persian Ram Dan. 8.5 6. which having done his Empire was divided into four heads as that beast had four heads and the other four horns which sprung up after the foremost horn was broken off together with a little blaspheming horn 1 Mach. 1.10 thought to figure out Antiochus Epiphanes as the other four horns figured Alexanders four Captains which divided his Empire Funcii chron● leg Seder Olam minus By Alexander and his successors were appointed ten Deputies more over Judea and they were also it is thought of Davids linage But by the Tyranny of Antiochus the land was much confounded 1 Mac. 2.1 cap. 3.1 so that the government devolved to Mattathias a Priest and his son for their zeale to the Law and their people Yet was not the scepter of government gone from Iudah that is from all Israel for these had the scepter of government among them though not residing in one man of Iudahs line principally But now Daniels fourth beast with ten horns the Roman Monarchy had trampled all the rest under and the Jewes were now become tributaries to Caesar Augustus and by favour of Anthony Herod the son of Antipater is made govern of of Judea but Augustus made him King and the Senate confirmed it Now was the full

Church but at last they beleeve it for God the Fathers sake whose voice they find speak in Scripture which is the foundation of true faith being the last principle into which faith can be resolved Mathe. Are there any other reasons to prove God beside Scriptures Phila. None better then Scripture to them that beleeve it but because many beleeve not the Scriptures as the Heathen denie the whole Bible and the Jewes halfe of it namely the N. T. therefore reason must be found to convince such The heathen know not the true God and the Jews know not God in Christ and so one worships a false God and the other the true God but in a false manner And we need not scruple at reason in this point because God gave reason before Scriptures and holy Reason before holy Writ to divers men which lead them to Religion and therefore though it be well proved to us out of the Old Testament that there is a God of the Jewes whom the very Heathen feared 1 Sam. 4.7 8. And also out of the New Testament that to us there is but one true God of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 8.6 by whom are all things and we by him And beside we know that nothing can testifie better of the truth of Gods being then the truth of Gods writing yet for other mens sakes who beleeve not the Scriptures and yet by reason may be induced to beleeve them it is good to urge reasons Now the first reason to perswade men that there is a God is Because it seems written in the minds of all nations by a naturall impression or mentall presumption which forceth rather to worship any thing for a god then no god at all Rom. 2. Cic. de Nat. De. lib. 1. p. 198. Cic. lib. 1. Tusc pa. 112. Rom. 1.2 which sheweth the first Commandement written in their hearts that they shall acknowledge a god though what god it is they know not and so they worship divers things for gods which are not so From hence it is that some have worshipped Sun and Moon some worshipped Beasts Serpents some the Images of Men some Crocodiles some Devils under strange shapes of Satyrs whose upper part was manlike and the under part like a Goat the Aegyptians worship * Shor-apis an Oxe head the Bramenes of India worship the first thing they meet in the morning as the god of the day Orteli Cosm So in Baida they worship a piece of a red clout tied to a crosse-stick like a banner some worship a Crosse as the god of raine This may be some old traditions of the Crosse antiquated I would they that understand their language would bring that God to them whom they ignorantly worship as Paul did to the Athenians it would prove a happy voiage I know the Papists use some endeavours among them to little purpose till they have convinced their understanding and so they do but draw them from one superstition to another and can give as little reason for one as the other yea I beleeve the subtill Indian observing the Idolatry of the Papists think their own Religion to be as good as the Papists Mathe. How comes men to be so sottish Phila. Through ignorance and immoderate passions of love and fear For as through ignorance some worshipped Fortune and Vices as contumely and impudence as did the Athenians Clem. Rom. l. 5. Recog others Flora and Priapus as did the Romans some worshipped Nymphae and Hymen and Mons Veneris which words signifie the secret parts of womens bodies fo which they made gods and goddesses as some inamoured Gallants do of their mistresses And thus the Devill hath taught men to debase themselves even unto hell Isa 57.9 So by fear men worshipped Serpents and Crocodiles and other hurtfull creatures as the Indians do the Devill for fear he should harm them others worshipped the Images of both under certain shapes called Telesmes which were made to defend them from something they feared So Love erected strange Idols As those that passionately desired to preserve the memory of their friends did after their death set up an Image of them which in processe became a sanctuary for offenders Dioph. Laced in Antiq. as did the Image of Synophanes son which he set up in love of his memory to which Image his servants offered incense and did fly to it for pardon of their offended master and upon reliefe would offer it gifts of thankfulnesse From hence came superstition the end whereof was Cicero that their friends might be superstites or survivors when they were dead that is kept in memory after death So Ninus set up the Image of Belus his father in his new built City Niniveh which became a sanctuary to all kind of offenders and in processe of time came to be religious worship Sophocles which even some heathen Poets confuted From Belus came Baal so often named in Scripture signifying Lord as Baal-Sephon Exod. 14.1 the Lord of the watch Tower and Baal Berith the Lord of the Covenant Judg. 8.33 and Baal-zebub the Lord of flies Dan. 3.1 And it is very likely that Nebuchadnezzars golden Image Dan. 2.38 was to be a memoriall of himselfe because Daniel had told him that he was the head of Gold but God crossed his purpose by the delivering of the three children from the fiery furnace However his Babylonians set up their god Bel which is very likely that they had brought from the Assyrians by conquest Mathe. But in what times did this false worship arise Phila. Certainly it arose first in Cain's posterity of whom it is said Gen. 4.26 Then began men to call on the name of the Lord where the Hebrew word huchar signifieth to prophane as Num. 30.2 And Jewish Rabbies so take it R. D. Kimchi though the Chaldee Paraphrase doth not for they say that then they began to call men by the name of gods and lords and placed the souls of their famous men in the stars and called the images here on earth by the name of god and began to give them divine worship This being a prophaning of that true Religion which was held in the family of Sheth you find in the fifth of Genesis men are ranked into two sorts sons of God and sons or daughters of men but when these sons of God of the line of Sheth married with the daughters of men which were of Cain and became infected with their Idolatry god drowned the world Yet this Idolatry ceased not but after the flood it began again in the race of Nimrod Belus and Ninus who were all Idolized by their followers placing their souls among the stars and erecting their Images here upon earth to which when they did sacrifice they beleeved that thereby the souls departed Elat in Symp. were called to their Images and took cognisance of their cases and then like patrons sollicited them before