and is on the right hand of God Angels and Authorities and Powers being made subject unto him There is a further enumeration of the Angelical classes Colos. 1. where the Apostle speaking of this high exaltation of the Person of Christ he intimates not only the Subjection of the Orders of Angels to him but their Reconciliation to God by him and as some would have it a fuller Confirmation of them in his favour vers 15. Who is the Image of the invisible God the First-born of every Creature For by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist And he is the Head of the body the Church He is the Beginning the First-born from the dead that in all things he might have the preeminence For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell And making peace through the bloud of his Crosse to reconcile all things by him unto himself whether they be things in Earth or things in Heaven So mighty and wonderfull was the result of the Humiliation of our Saviour and so clear and warrantable an Object is he of Divine Adoration 3. Thus is the Divine Life Triumphant in the Person of Christ the Head of his Church But another main design of the Gospel is That the Divine Life may be advanced in us that is that Faith in God through Christ that Humility Love and Purity may have their due growth in us here that thereby we may be fitted to receive that immortal Crown of Glory which he will bestow upon all true believers at the last day when he shall carry his whole Church with songs of Joy and Triumph into his celestial Kingdome That this is the main purpose of the Gospell I have already sufficiently proved and therefore need adde nothing in this place 4. The fourth and last Rule or Measure of Opinions is The Recommendableness of our Religion to those which are without that is to say We must have a special care of affixing thereto any of our own Inventions or Interpretations of Scripture for Christian Truths which may seem uncouth and irrational to strangers and such as are as yet disengaged For though those that by reason of their education have had full acquaintance with Christianity will adhere to their Religion though it may be corrupted with many false glosses and fond opinions of men as indispensably obtruded as the undoubted Scripture it self yet strangers that are free and unaccustomed to them will not fail to boggle at them and being offered to them also with equal Authority with the very Word of God they will be necessitated to fly back and to relinquish the Holy Truth by reason of the indissoluble intertexture of the gross falshoods they find interwoven with it A thing that is seriously to be considered by all those that bear any love to the Gospel and desire that it may be propagated and promoted in the World For certainly it was intended for a more general good and larger diffusion then has been hitherto by reason of its having fallen into faithless and treacherous hands who make it only an instrument of gaining wealth and power to themselves and of riding the people and not of gaining souls to God CHAP. IV. 1. The general use of the foregoing Rules 2. A special use of them in favour of one anothers persons in matters of opinion 3. The examination of Election and Reprobation according to these Rules And how well they agree with that Branch of the Divine Life which we call Humility 4. The disagreement of absolute Reprobation with the first Rule 5. As also with the third 6 And with the second and fourth 1. THese are the four main Rules which I conceive very usefull to examine either other mens Opinions or our own And if the heat of our spirits or the confidence of others would urge upon us pretended Truths for to admit of open falsities or forgeries for what advantage soever is intolerable that are not subservient to these designs above named we may well look upon them as idle curiosities and if they pretend also to Revelation or Inspiration that it is nothing but Madness and fanatick Delusion But if they do not only not promote but countermine those designs above mentioned they are to be looked upon then not as frivolous but dangerous and impious and so to be declined by all means possible And lastly though they appear such as may contribute something to those designs if followed and embraced yet I must adde also this caution that they are not to be forc'd so as that unless a man will profess them he must be accounted no good Christian. For they coming from a fallible and doubtfull hand they ought not in reason to infringe that undoubted right of Christian liberty the Scripture alone being full enough to perfect a Christian both in life and doctrine 2. There is also a further use to be made of these Rules in favour of one anothers persons though of different Opinions that is by taking notice what good they drive at as well as what evil they tend to which makes much for peace and brotherly kindness and may blunt the edge of eager and bitter zeal that makes the over-fervid Zelot think that he that is of a contrary opinion to him intends nothing but mischief by his opposite doctrine In examining therefore every Opinion we are to observe what design of the Gospel it agrees with as well as what it crosses And that the Use of our Rules may the better appear I shall now shew the practice of them by trying some few Opinions of no small note by this Touchstone For it were an endless business to examine all and needless because by these examples he that lists may examine the rest indeed any that either has been or ever will offer it self to the World in matters of Religion 3. The first that occurrs is such an Election and Reprobation that wholly excludes Free will The Controversie is so well known that I need not state it Applying this doctrine to the four Rules I have set down I find in the Third that it has some compliance with that choice branch of the Divine Life namely Humility and a submission of a mans self and all the World to the will of God It is the Lord let him doe what he pleases And that therefore a serious and humble Soul being much taken up and transported with this consideration may think of nothing else but take this Doctrine to be very Truth nay live and die in it and go to heaven when he has done Whence it were a piece of Satanical Fury to persecute any such Opinionist and want of Charity these living as well as other Christians not to bear as good affection to them as to
for the poor by chearful Obedience to our Superiours and abundance of kindness and discreet condescensions one to another by unspotted Righteousness and an unshaken Peace by the removal of every unjust yoke by mutual forbearance and bearing up one another as living stones of that Temple where there is not to be heard the noise of either axe or hammer no squable or clamour about Formes or Opinions but a peaceable study and endeavour of provoking one another to love and good works Provided this be the Idea of those happy Ages to come the inculcating of this belief in my judgement cannot but be very useful it bearing along with it both a detection and reprehension of the degeneracy of the present Age and a warmth and encouragement to hasten those good times by endeavouring to correct our lives according to this Pattern we have of them 20. That also will be accounted a Defect by some that I have said no more of Publick worship and nothing at all of Church-government But I must again answer That it was beside my Scope to meddle with such things To which I may adde That the world is full of such Controversies and as much said already as either Wit or Zeal can excogitate My design was onely to represent Christianity in the Fundamentals thereof with that purity and clearness as might most of all conciliate belief and strengthen our Faith in the most necessary points such as concerned every private Christian to believe and to live accordingly to the end that though the iniquity of the times should have proved such that he knew not whither to turn him or whom to joine withall in any publick worship or profession yet he might rest satisfied in this that he was immutably grounded in the saving Truths of the Gospel and was able to give an account of his Faith to himself and to as many as were fit to receive it and living uprightly might not be affraid to find himself alone knowing that every single man is a Church if his Body once become the Temple of the Holy Ghost My onely solicitude therefore was to corroborate that Faith that is plainly propounded to us out of the Scripture which is sufficient to Salvation and to exalt that Life that has lyen dead and buried for these many Ages under a vast heap of humane Inventions useless and cumbersome Ceremonies and unpeaceable Opinions not at all doubting but that if the Life of Christ were once awakened in the world he that clothes the lilies of the field and adornes the birds of the aire with their severall comely and orderly-disposed colours will not be wanting to such a Church as has the principle of life in it self but that it will grow up into such an external forme and comeliness in all points as most befits and are the most proper results of those Vitall operations in it Whenas the best Externals without these are but as the skin of an Animal stuffed with wooll or straw 21. But besides that it was beyond my scope it was also above my abilities to give judgement concerning the curiosities of Church-government it depending upon studies too tedious and voluminous for the strength of my Body as also very little gratefull to the rellishes of my Mind whose Genius has irresistibly carried me captive into another country and a quite different scene of Speculations and Objects All therefore that I could with confidence and safety have pronounced is That in general Church-government and Discipline is as assuredly jure Divino as the Civil Magistrate and it may be should have adventured to adde That in a Christian polity the power of appointing and ordering things in the Church is lodged in the Supremacy of every such Body Politick and that all degrees Ecclesiastick are but Under-ministers to this Supreme Power who is Head of all next to Christ. That this Supreme Power is to regulate the affairs of the Church as near to the Prescripts and Practices of the Apostolick times as they can guesse unless those Practices and Prescripts may be conceived to have been founded upon such a constitution of the Church as is not in the present affairs of this or that part of Christendome which is concerned That if the External forme of Church-government were of such mighty consequence as that this ought to be called Antichristian that reputed jure Divino and that it were essential to a true Church to have such or such a kind of Government rather then another Christ would have left more express command and direction concerning it that the Church might not be liable to erre in so fundamental a matter That the main end of Church-government and Discipline is the countenancing and promoting the Christian Life and an holy observation of such Precepts of Christ as do not make men obnoxious to the secular Law by the transgressing of them to keep out also Idolatry and every errour or superstitious practice that tends to the supplanting or defeating the Power of the Gospel and that therefore we ought rather to be solicitous about managing this government to the right end then disturb the peace of the Church by over-scrupulous examination of the exteriour frame thereof That if Christ had left an exact Platforme of Government and the Church kept to it if the above-said end were not aimed at in the management thereof but in stead of being a countenance and encouragement to reall Godliness it should be directed to the upholding of useless or mischievous Opinions scandalous Ceremonies and ensnaring Inventions of men the more exactly they kept to this outward platforme of Christ the more plainly they would discover themselves to be Antichristian that is a pretended Christian power against the reall interest of Christ and that conjunction of the Horns of the Lamb with the voice of the Dragon would more evidently appear That Church-discipline and Government is as a Fort or Castle of excellent use if it be in the hands of the faithfull souldiery of Christ or as a safe Vessell for precious liquour or as restringent and corroborative Physick where there is an unexpected evacuation of the serviceable supports of life But if Traitours to the Kingdome of Christ get possession of this Castle poison be mingled with this precious liquour and foul and malignant humours be lodged in the Body it were more desirable the Castle were ruined the Vessell broken the Physick cast down the sink and the Body left free to the course of Nature then that things so hatefull and pernicious should be continued and conserved by them that is to say It were better that Christian Religion were left to support it self by the innate evidence of its own Truth then being sophisticated with vain lies and wicked inventions be forcibly maintained for other Ends then it was intended for nay be made to serve contrary Ends and prove a Mystery of tyranny and ungodliness and that therefore the first and chief point is to make
cannot better be done then by shewing the Reasonableness and important Usefulness of Christian Religion in the Historical sense thereof and in reference to the very Person of Christ our Saviour which I have I hope abundantly performed in this present Treatise and by discovering the Natural Causes and imposturous Consequences of Enthusiasme which I had done before in Enthusiasmus Triumphatus Which two Treatises I hope will prove two invincible Fortresses against all the force and fury of the Fanatical spirit 7. After this the bold impiety of this present Age engaged my Thoughts in a Subject of no less moment then the former For I saw that other abhorred monster Atheisme proudly strutting with a lofty gate and impudent forehead boasting himself the onely genuine offspring of true Wisdome and Philosophy namely of that which makes Matter alone the Substance of all things in the world This misshapen Creature was first nourished up in the stie of Epicurus and fancied it self afterward grown more tall and stout by further strength it seemed to have received from some new Principles of the French Philosophy misinterpreted and perverted by certain impure and unskilful pens Which unexpected confidence of those blind boasters made me with all anxiety and care imaginable search into the power of Matter and mere Mechanical motion and consider how far they might go of themselves in the production of the Phaenomena of the World But as for the Philosophy of Epicurus it seemed to me at the very first sight such a foolery that I was much amazed that a person of so commendable parts as P. Gassendus could ever have the patience to rake out such old course rags out of that rotten dunghill to stuffe his large Volumes withall But I must confess I did as much admire Des-Cartes Philosophy as I did despise the Epicurean who has carried on the power of Matter for the production of the Phaenomena of Nature with that neatness and coherence that if he had been as ignorant in other things as skilful in Mechanicks he could not but have fancied himself to have wone that crown that many wits have striven for that is the honour of being accounted the most subtil and able Atheist of both the present and past Ages This made me peruse his Writings with still more and more diligence and the more I read the more I admired his Wit but at last grew the more confirmed That it was utterly impossible that Matter should be the onely essential Principle of things as I have in several places of my Writings demonstrated And therefore having clearly vanquished this difficulty I betook my self with greater alacrity to the writing of my Antidote against Atheisme To which presently after I added my Threefold Cabbala as an Appendix to the same design being well advised what a homely conceit our high Wits have of the Three first Chapters of Genesis though they do betray their own ignorance by their mean opinion of them 8. And possibly then I had left off had not a dangerous Sickness that made me suspect that the time did near approach of quitting this my earthly Tabernacle urged me more carefully to bethink my self what reception I might have in the other world And praised be God such was the condition of my Soul though then much overrun with Melancholy that my presages concerning my future state were very favourable and comfortable and my desire was to be gathered to that body of which Iesus Christ is Head even he who was crucified at Ierusalem and felt the pangs of death for a Propitiation of the sins of the world who was then represented to me as visible a Prince and as distinct a person and head Politick as any King or Potentate upon earth And therefore being thus fully convinced with my self that He whose Life was ever to me the most sweet and lovely of any thing I could see or taste was indeed even in his Humane nature made a King and Priest for ever and constituted Soveraign over men and Angels my Heart was full of Ioy but withall accompanied with a just measure of shame that I had spoken hitherto so sparingly of his Royal Office and of the homage due to so Divine a Potentate whose Subject to my great satisfaction I found my self to be and whose presence I did not at all despair of approaching in due time to my eternal comfort and honour Which sense of things made me conceive a solemn Vow with my self if God gave me life to write this present Treatise Which occasion I thought fit not to conceal though I be much averse from speaking any thing over-particularly of my self that the high-flown Fanaticks of this Age may consider more carefully what I have writ and take heed how they either slight or revolt from their Celestial Soveraign But I thought it very convenient before I put in execution this great design to take again into consideration that other weighty Subject The Immortality of the Soul being better appointed and provided for the clearing of that Truth then I was when I first adventured upon the Theory And thus having fully convinced my self and I hope as many else as are capable of judging of the more choice and subtile Conclusions of Reason and Philosophy That there is a God and That the Soul of man is immortal which are the two main pillars upon which all Religion stands I advanced forward with courage having left no Enemy behind and betook my self with great confidence to the finishing and publishing of this present Treatise Of the Mystery of Christianity Which I look upon as the most precious and the most concerning piece of Wisdome that is communicable to the Soul of Man the very chief and top bough of that Tree of Knowledge whose fruit has neither poison nor bitterness And therefore being come to my journeys end I will here sit down with thanks and enjoy my self under this comfortable shade and do assure thee Reader that I am not likely to weary thy eyes with the descriptions of any further discoveries by my pen. 9. Onely that thou mayest view this with the better ease and satisfaction I shall according to my usual manner endeavour to remove all rubs of offence out of thy way by giving thee an account aforehand of whatever may seem to thee a considerable either Superfluity Defect or Aberration in my Performance not omitting to impart to thee the right and proper meaning of the very Title of my Discourse Thou must therefore expect from my terming of it An Explanation of the Mystery of Godliness not a mere verbal Exposition or Declaration what is signified therein but such an orderly Exhibition of the Truths thereof that the Scope of the Whole being understood the Reasonableness of the Particulars thereunto tending may clearly appear And the End to which all Parts of the Christian Mystery point at is the Advancement and Triumph of the Divine Life In the exaltation whereof God is the most
whipping themselves on the naked shoulders and taking up earth and eating it In Peru they lay prostrate on the ground before their Idols the more Zealous not sparing to pluck out their own eyes in a blinde devotion In Hispaniola when they sacrific'd they were wont to thrust a consecrated hook down their throats to fetch all out of their stomachs which done they sate round their Idol in an antick posture wry-necked and cross-legged praying for the acceptance of their Sacrifice 6. The Priests and religious at Mexico were wont to rise at Midnight having cast incense before their Idol to retire into a large place where many lights were burning and there with lancets and bodkins to pierce the calves of their legs near to the bones anointing their Temples with the bloud They would also slit their members in the midst in a frantick pursuance of a thankless Chastity They whipp'd themselves also with cords full of knots besides their tedious and destructive fastings These sad Ceremonies they also used in Peru where they swinged themselves with stinging Nettles and struck themselves over the shoulders with hard stones These and the like abuses that you may meet withall in Writers which Satan has put upon Mankind are a demonstration of his great contempt and hatred of us But we shall come nearer now to make good that charge which our Blessed Saviour who came to destroy his dominion most justly has laid upon this Usurper That he was a Murderer from the beginning which is most evident from that execrable custome of Sacrificing of men to him under what account or title soever which was an abomination practised of old in most parts of the World as the Testimony of Historians will make good CHAP. XIV 1. Men sacrificed to the Devil in Virginia Peru Brasilia They of Guiana and Paria also eat them being sacrificed The Ceremony of these Sacrifices in Nicaragua 2. The hungry and bloud-thirsty Devils of Florida and Mexico 3. Their sacrificing of Children in Peru with the Ceremony of drowning a Boy and a Girle in Mexico 4. The manner of the Mexicans sacrificing their Captives 5. The huge numbers of those Sacrifices in Mexico and of their dancing about the City in the skin of a man new flay'd 6. And in New-Spain in the skin of a woman 1. THE knowledge of this is fresh concerning the Americans as that they in Virginia sacrificed Children to the Devil as also in Peru for the health and prosperity of the Ingua and for success in war The same they doe in Brasilia The People of Guiana of Paria and other adjacent parts do not only sacrifice men but some of them after feed upon the sacrifice The Priests of Nicaragua as Purchas relates out of Gomara after the Ceremony of a mournful sound and going thrice about their Captives of a sudden rip up their Breasts with certain knives of flint and then after the distribution of the Body to the King their high Priest and him that took the Captive in war they set their Heads upon Trees under which they sacrifice also other men and children 2. In Florida the Devil appears to them and complains that he is thirsty But nothing quenches his thirst but the bloud of men Acosta relates of the Mexicans that their Priests would tell their Kings that their Gods died for hunger the meaning whereof was that they must forthwith go out to war to get Captives for Sacrifices to their Gods 3. In Peru at the Inauguration of their new Ingua they sacrificed two hundred children they either cut off their necks anointing themselves on the face with their bloud or drowned them and so buried them with certain Ceremonies And the Mexicans also are reported at a Feast which they keep in their Canaoes on the Lake to drown a Boy and a Girl to keep the Gods of the Lake company They of Peru would also sacrifice Virgins out of their Monasteries as the same Author writes and ordinarily any Indian of Quality and those too of mean sort would sacrifice their first-born to redeem their own life when the Priest pronounced that they were mortally sick 4. The Mexicans indeed if Acosta does not them overmuch right sacrificed only Captives to their Idols But they were unmercifully lavish of the bloud of their conquered enemy their Sacrifices being often repeated and they sacrificing at least forty or fifty at a time making them to ascend to the top of an high Terras in the Court of the Temple where the chief Priest as also his assistants being clad in most ugly and diabolical dresses to astonish the people opened the Breast of the Captive with a wonderous dexterity pull'd out the Heart with his hands and shew'd it smoaking to the Sun to whom he did offer this heat and fume of the Heart and then cast it at the Idols face and with a spurn of his foot tumbled the Body of the Sacrifice down the stairs of the Temple 5. So prodigal was their abominable Religion of humane bloud that some daies they have sacrificed five thousand or more and in divers places above twenty thousand as Acosta relates from the reports of the Indians There is one nasty piece of Cruelty that he saies was used in Mexico which was the flaying of a Slave and apparelling another man with his skin who was to go dancing and leaping through all the houses and market-places of the City to beg money for the Idols and they that refused to give he was to give them a â—lap on the face with the bloudy corner of the skin 6. This is ill enough but that something worse in New-Spain where they flay'd a woman and covered a man with her skin who was to dance about the streets two daies together So despightfully Cruel and Tyrannical has the Rule of the Devil been in the New-found Pagan world and yet we shall not finde him much better in the Old For there we shall also finde him a bloud-thirsty murderer in most of the parts thereof CHAP. XV. 1. The sacrificing of Children to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom 2. That it was not a Februation but real Burning of them That this custome spread from Syria to Carthage 4. Further Arguments thereof with the mistake of Saturn being called Israel rectified by Grotius And that Abraham's offering up Isaac was no occasion at all to these execrable sacrifices 5. Sacrificing of men in Britain Lusitania France Germany Thrace and in the Isle of Man 6. In sundry places also of Greece as Messene Arcadia Chios Aulis Locri Lacedaemon 7. That the Romans were not free neither from these salvage sacrifices 8. To which you may add the Cimbrians Lituanians Aegyptians the Inhabitants of Rhodes Salamis Tenedos Indians Persians c. 1. SYria is famous or rather fouly infamous for that cruel God of the Ammonites Moloch to whom they sacrificed their Children burning them in the fire This was as in other places so also done in the Valley of Hinnom so called
in the town stocking after him and heightening his intoxication by their apish injuries But I will not insist upon this 3. Secondly It is not so strange that there should be a greater number of possessed in Christs time then now because since Christianity the power of the Devil is much more curbed For it is plain that where Paganisme rules the persons of men are more subject to the cruelty of the Devil As appears by what is recorded in History concerning the Inhabitants of several Countries as of Madagascar where the Devil afflicts them bodily in Florida he astonishes them with dreadfull Apparitions and cuts their very flesh off in his approaches they of Guiana are beat black and blew by him and the Brasilians so grievously tormented that they are ready to dy for fear upon the very thought of him The Apostate Jews that they fell under his power is the opinion of their own Rabbins and the primitive Christians delivered to Satan felt to their smart the rigour of his lash All which may go for a sufficient proof That the profession of Christianity and the worship of the true God in that way that he will be worshipped is a personal protection from the gross assaults of the Devil 4. A man might adde further That not onely they that are duly excommunicated by the Church are made obnoxious to his Tyranny but also those that revolt of themselves and deny the Lord that bought them by their misbelief of the sacred History of the Gospel and the Personal office of Christ even of him that died betwixt two thieves at Ierusalem As is notoriously apparent in some of the forlorn and giddy-headed Sects of these times amongst whom I dare say a man may find out a greater number of true Daemoniacks then Christ and his Apostles are said to cure 5. For to what more rationally then to the possession of these deceiving Spirits can be attributed those wild extasies they are in their falling down dead the swelling of their bodies and foaming at the mouth their neglectedness sordidness and abhorring from all order and humanity their antick postures gestures one going in the open Marketplace with his head lift on high and his arms spread out roaring and mouthing out fanatical denunciations and another following him at the heels with a soft sneaking pace his head hanging down as if his nose bled and his hands pressing his navel as if he were troubled with the Belly-ach others creeping on all four like brute beasts and wallowing and tumbling on the ground like dogs or swine Others taken with the expected power they lay vacant for were hurried on in a very swift pace on tip-toes with their hats inverted on their heads and yet not falling off and their arms stretched directly upwards with their fore-fingers pointing to the Zenith and this for so long a space as no ordinary man could doe the like 6. Adde to this their being troubled with Apparitions their fearfull and hideous howlings and cryings their wild and extatical singings and frantick dancings their running naked through Towns into Churches and private houses their violent and irresistible shakings to the utter weakening of nature and making their very bodies sore and all this transacted by a Power or Spirit which themselves confess distinct from themselves which also speaks distinctly and audibly in them and uses their arms and hands to the beating their head and body which imposes upon them very absurd commands macerating most killing some with fasting tyrannizing over them all in every thing almost as much as the Devil does over the poor Indians 7. Creeping crouching licking the dust eating of Butterflies feeding of nought but crums and bones such as we fling to dogs Cabbage stalks and leaves of Coleworts scattered and cast away by the Market-women these are smaller services of that imperious fiend within them But this new guest countermanding the allowable voice of Nature so as scarce to suffer a man to take four and twenty hours rest in five and twenty daies to condemn him to the guidance of every foolish fly that comes in his sight and so to adjudge him to hold his leg so long and so close to the fire the fly guiding him the time that it was scorched from the knee to the foot in such grievous manner that it was not to be cured in less then a quarter of a year these are more severe and rigid services of that infernal Task-master Besides that ever and anon this inward voice and sometimes outward utters very audibly to them some place or other of Scripture to a ridiculous abuse and prophanation of it and not that only but enforces the poor captivated vassal in scorn and contempt of the person of Christ to act some remarkable passages in his story such as his Death and Triumph at Ierusalem the former by Iames Milner and Iohn Toldervy the latter by Iames Naylor who had his horse led in triumph by two women trudging in dirt at his entring Bristol with Holy Holy and Hosanna's sung to him by the Fanatical company that attended him garments also in some places being strowed in the way Such wild tricks as these are these deluded Souls made to play to make sport for those aerial Goblins that drive them and actuate them 8. I might enlarge further upon this matter but this short glance at things might be enough to induce any indifferent man that can at all believe That there is any such thing as Witches and possession of Evil Spirits not easily to mistrust but that the distemper of this present Age has been such and it may be still is that if there were any such Venerable person as could command them from under this Power by which many of them are so madly actuated there would plainly prove a more plentifull harvest of Daemoniacks in these times then in our Saviour's and a number more besides Iohn Gilpin and Iohn Toldervy would acknowledge themselves to have been possessed by the Devil But at least we will gain this reasonable Observation from our Digression we have made which will be succedaneous to what we mainly aim'd at viz. That if one Age be so exceeding Fanatical above another why may not one Age be as much more Daemoniacal then another 9. Thirdly Such distracted and Epileptical persons as also Daemoniacal would not be talked of unless they were miraculously cur'd which not happening in other Ages they are not so much taken notice of Fourthly Our Saviour going from place to place and his fame flying further then the motion of his person he was likely to meet with and to have brought to him more of such persons by far from the Pagan nations about him then otherwise at any time could in any likelihood have been taken notice of though there were in other parts of the World and in other Ages as many 10. Fifthly Those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so called in the Scripture there is no need to take them all in
grant therefore a Divine Shechina and a peculiar visible Glory of God which no creature can imitate residing in the Heavens which Presence he may manifest in many places at once if he please But whereever it discovers it self it is a most certain and infallible sign that God himself is in a special manner there Which ineffable and unimitable Glory is of this great consequence that the holy Saints and Angels receive commands from thence as from the very mouth of God are recreated more by that wonderfull lustre then we Mortals are by the light of the Sun and that it is an Oracle with whom they may consult and receive answers of clear and indubitable certitude and doe divine worship and honour to the external Substance and visible Presence of the Deity 4. At the Right side of this Glory might Christ in his humane shape be placed as at the Right hand of his Father that sent him into the world to whom also he praied with his eyes lift up to Heaven and to whom he said that he was to return when he left the Earth with whom also Steven saw him standing and comforting him at his Martyrdome whether his Visive facultie was in a wonderfull and stupendious measure fortified to discern so distant an Object or whether that Object was not so distant as the false conceits of some vain Philosophers would determine For for my own part I think that if the true Philosophy were known and rightly understood there would nothing more facilitate the belief of Christianity then it CHAP. V. 1. The Apotheosis of Christ or his Receiving of Divine Honour freed from all suspicion of Idolatry forasmuch as Christ is God properly so called by his Real and Physical union with God 2. The Real and Physical union of the Soul of Christ with God being possible sundry Reasons alledged to prove that God did actually bring it to pass 3. The vain Evasions of superficial Allegorists noted 4. Their ignorance evinced and the Apotheosis of Christ confirmed from the Immortality of the Soul and the political Government of the other World 5. That he that equalizes himself to Christ is ipso facto discovered an Impostour and Lier 1. THere is nothing therefore harsh or incongruous in the Session of Christ at the Right hand of God the Father the Mystery being fitly explained His 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will be found as Reasonable if rightly understood By his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I mean his Residence in Heaven and his receiving of Divine Honour and adoration from the Church In which there can be nothing suspicable unless there be any danger of Idolatry there where he that is truly God is worshipped The Apology of the Gentiles you have heard already and how far guilty they were of that miscarriage in the worshipping of Creatures under the pretense of their being only more eminent manifestations of that One Eternal Deity which they did adore But the immediate Object of our worship is not simply a Creature but God properly so called forasmuch as he is as Really and Physically united with God as our Soul is with our Body Now as a man is truly said to be a Body or a Corporeal substance because of the real or physical union of his Soul with the Body so Christ is truly and properly said to be God because his whole Humanity is joined with God This is a very easie and intelligible way of conceiving this Mystery neither does it implie any contradiction or inconsistency in it no more then is found in the natural Union of Soul and Body God being as able to find fitting means of really and vitally uniting the Soul of the Messias to himself as of uniting an Humane Soul to a Terrestrial Body 2. Now this which was in the power of God to doe we may be the better ascertained that he did doe it or is to doe it some time For I will not anticipate and fall upon the Third part of my Discourse before I come at it if we consider the Congruities thereof I have recited to you Examples of the Pagan Apotheoses how they did Divine honour to men that liv'd amongst them and were considerable to their Generations for several benefactions and gratifications of the Animal life whether they were the improvers of their pleasures or their profit Law-givers successfull Commanders in War or happie Inventours of some usefull things to supplie humane necessities Hence it came to pass that Venus Mercurius Zamolxis Mars Bacchus Ceres and others were deified by them Now there being so transcendent an advantage to accrew to Mankind by the coming of the Messias into the World and he being to suffer for the Sins of the people and so by his Death to vanquish the power of Death and to set open the gates of Heaven to all believers that that strong natural and at least pardonable propension in Mankind of exhibiting the highest honours they can to their most Heroical benefactors might not be frustrated and seem ever to be in vain as also that the great humiliation and reproachfull Passion that the Messias was to undergoe might be largely compensated and that that which is most lovely of all things and yet in the eyes of men most despicable I mean the Divine life might be exalted even in an outward Homage and Worship as high as ever the Animal life was in the World and that warrantably and without any guilt of Idolatry God when he sends the Messias into the World is so to communicate his own Nature to him or so really and physically to unite himself with him that he may be a lawfull Object of Divine worship Which he is if not only by a Moral adhesion or Political institution but by a Natural and Real union with the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he truly become the Son of God 3. We see then upon what warrantable and rational grounds the Messias is exalted to so high a pitch of honour God having made him supreme head over Men and Angels I speak of the very Person of Christ as well as his Nature For the shuffling and superficial Allegorist will acknowledg that the Divine Nature or upright Being as some of them call it is above all But that they are so shie of taking any notice of the Person of Christ is either out of ignorance in their understanding or out of a total misbelief of the History of Christ wherein is asserted the Existence of Angels and the Immortality of the Souls of men 4. Now if there be Angels and if the Souls of men subsist and act out of their Bodies they must also as I have already demonstrated in my preparative Assertions needs fall into Political order and government and therefore must have some Head over them Which here the Scripture does plainly assert to be Christ who is the Captain of our Salvation for to assist direct and encourage all the Powers of the Kingdome of light to defend themselves and rescue
Ierusalem ceased so to be when the Jews had ceased to be God's people The trampling the holy City he interprets of the building of a Temple there to Iupiter Capitolinus As if that Temple stood but three years and an half But he would terminate these years from the beginning of the building of this Temple to the sedition of Barchochab but brings no History to make good his device and if he could make this time of Barchochab good it were yet good for nothing unless he could also pull down the Temple at the three years and an half 's end The Two Witnesses he would have the Two Churches in Aelia the one speaking Hebrew the other Greek as if the Spirit of God divided these into Two that professed one faith and were of one mind not distinguished in any thing save in outward language The bodies of these slain Witnesses lying in the streets of the great City three days and an half this he interprets of the oppression and persecution by Barchochab which certainly was very short if but three days and an half long neither does he here bring any proof of History nor is it probable that divine Prophecy would affect the preciseness of half a day or three days and an half in such a general prefiguration of things as the Apocalypse is Besides how unlikely is it that Ierusalem that had now lost all its glory and power should be styled by the name of the great City The chiefest ground that they have to think so is that expression as if our Lord was crucified there But I answer that our Lord in a literal sense was not crucified either in Sodome or Aegypt which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immediately referres to nor in a spiritual sense more in Ierusalem then in the rest of the Roman Empire Wherefore this City is nothing else but the degenerate Polity of the Apostate Church where Christ is persecuted as he complained to Saul in his true and living members Where also Christ according to the Spirit that is the Divine life is rightly said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be crucified not in the time past only but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indefinitely was is and will be crucified so long as this power of Apostasy holds up For the Praeter Tense in Prophecy is very usual for the Future But if any one disrelish this more Mystical sense I shall substitute that of Mr. Mede's which the coursest Literalist cannot evade namely that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is understood the Extent of the whole Romane Empire within which Christ was literally crucified See Mr. Mede upon the Text. The Vision of the Woman crowned with twelve starres which number signifies the pure and Apostolical Church her being in the wilderness 1260 days he interprets of the extinguishing the Church to outward sight at least at Rome by the Miracles and Sorceries of Simon Magus which yet is a suspected History and her appearing onely in the country and villages which are but as a Desart in respect of the populosity of that renowned City But the time of 1260 days he makes out by no History To say nothing how this interpretation depends on another very harsh one namely the expounding And her child was caught up unto God and to his throne of the disappearing of the Church by the seductions of Simon Whenas to be carried up to the throne of God surely signifies Magistracy as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Magistrates As is intimated also in the foregoing part of the verse that he should rule the nations with a rod of iron The Vision of the Whore sitting upon the Scarlet Beast with seven heads and ten horns and if you will of the Beast coming out of the sea Chap. 13. For we may put them together they being the same according to Grotius his own confession This Beast he makes the Sin of Idolatry Which is quite out of the way of interpreting Prophetick Schemes where Beasts signifie Kingdomes or Dominions as is plain out of Daniel But the Ten horns he will allow to be Ten kings in which he were right if he had acknowledged a body fit to bear them The Seven heads he makes the seven Caesars Claudius Nero Galba Otho Vitellius Vespasian Titus But if the Caesars be heads there must be more heads then seven for there were four Caesars before Claudius and I think thirty after Titus that were not Christians But Claudius saith he is the first that banished the Christian Teachers Which act was yet so inconsiderable that the First persecution was fixt on Nero and the other Nine noted persecutions were after Titus the last of them raging a little before Constantine the Great So that there is a juster reason that this Beast should have above thirty heads then but seven Again in this Beast which the Prophet Iohn resembles to a Leopard in his body and to have the feet of a Bear and the mouth of a Lion he will have Claudius who before was one of the heads of the Beast now to be the Body thereof and Domitian who is later then the last of these Seven Caesars and so in order more like the Tail to be the Mouth of the Beast and in chap. 17. to be the Beast it self So much of forcedness and incoherency is there in the making out this false Hypothesis That also is harsh in my judgement the making presently one of these Heads which were before Caesars to be the Capitol at Rome though it be said to be wounded to death that by the stroke of a sword and to be healed also which methinks are very unnaturally applicable to a Hill or a Tower He pretends he has hit the time of the forty two months this Beast should make warre but he referrs to no History and Helvicus affixes the beginning of the Second persecution to the Tenth of Domitian's reign Whence it will not be Three years and an half but rather Six years that he wars against the Saints But the chiefest artifice of his misinterpretation is upon Chap. 17. of the Revelation Where the Beast that was and is not and is to ascend out of the bottomless pit and to go into perdition he again applies to Domitian making nothing of transfiguring a single Head into a whole Beast But the description is more accurate vers 10 c. The seven heads are seven kings five are fallen and one is and the other is not yet come and when he cometh he must continue a short space And the Beast that was and is not even he is the eighth and is of the seven and goeth into perdition And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings which have received no kingdome as yet but receive power as kings one hour with the Beast The five kings here that are fallen saith Grotius are Claudius Nero Galba Otho and Vitellius which how fond a conceit it is I have already demonstrated And one is
more tolerable to phansie that Sign his Exaltation But now to appoint places of exaltation to other Planets as Taurus to the Moon Libra to Saturn is a mere running the Wild-goose chase from one single hint to matters where there is nothing of like reason or experience So likewise because they had some intimation to make Leo the House of the Sun his heat being then most sensible and Cancer the House of the Moon because then she would be most vertical to us they have without either fear or wit bestowed Houses two apiece upon the rest of the Planets though there be neither reason nor effect answerable And lastly for Aspects in all likelihood the sensible varieties of the Phases of the Moon in Opposition Trine and Quartil gave them first occasion to take notice of Aspects and then another thing happening though independent on the course of the Moon namely that every seventh day in an acute Disease is Critical and that there are usually at those returns the greatest stirrs and alterations in the Patient and the Quartil Aspect of the Moon happening also about seven daies from the Conjunction and then about seven daies more she being in Opposition this natural circuit of Fermentations in acute Diseases has given them occasion to slander the Moon in those cases and for her sake to reproach the aspects of Opposition and Quadrature in all the rest of the Planets Such small hints as these are the solidest foundations of the phantastick structure of Astrology Which we shall now something more nearly lay battery to and so shatter it that it shall not so much as find room in the Imaginations of men 8. To begin therefore with the First of their Principles I have set down That they prefer the Planets before the Fixt Starrs I mean those so remote ones that they seem but about the bigness of the greater Starrs is without all reason the Planets being but heaps of dead matter much like that of the Earth and having no light but what they reflect from the Sun For that which seems to be the innate light of the Moon is but the reflexion of the Sun's beams from the Earth Wherefore their activity and influence may justly seem less then that of the Fixt Starrs which shine not with borrowed but innate light And for their powerfull penetrating into the Bowels of the Earth that is a mistake arising from the supposed influence of the Moon on the Flux and Reflux of the Sea even when she is on the other side of the Earth to which with the like fallacious inference I have answered already But then for the Qualities of the Planets where they define the Sun to be hot and moist rather then drying but Mars hot and parching dry and Saturn dry and cold what will not these impudent Impostours dare to obtrude upon us when they will vent such stuff as is liable to confutation by our very Senses For does not our very Sense tell us that the Sun is the most hot and drying Planet that is His heat it is and not that of Mars that withers the grass and flowers and parches the tops of Mountains and even rosts the Inhabitants of the Earth when they expose their bodies to his more direct raies But what Faculty could ever inform us that Mars was such a parching and heating Planet and Saturn so cold Assuredly he that will expose his head to their Acronychal raies which are most potent and shall profess he feels more cold from one and heat from the other then he does from the other parts of Heaven will approve himself as mad as that old Dotard that pretended that he could as often as he listned plainly hear the Harmony of the Celestial Sphears All the Planets are opake Bodies and whatever their colour is are as cold as Earth For neither yellow nor red clay cast any more heat then white nor has any soil any sensible influence but what is drawn in by the nose which sometimes proves wholesome and savory and sometimes ofâ—ensive But how our Star-gazers Proboscides should be drawn out to that length as to smell out the different virtues of the Planets I can no way understand Wherefore the pronouncing of Mars hot and dry and Saturn cold and dry c. is a shameless foolery and a demonstration of the vanity of the rest of their allotments of the first qualities to the Planets And since from these they are reputed Benign or Malign Masculine or Feminine and the like all this part of their pretended Science is but a Rhapsody of Fooleries also 9. To the Second of the Earth's being so pervious to the influence of the Starrs and Planets I say First That it is a Principle without proof as I have already evinced and then Secondly If I give them it they will be fain to vomit it up again it being destructive to their whole Art For if the raies and influence of the Stars and Planets have free passage through the body of the Earth the whole Ceremonie of erecting a Scheme for such a Longitude and Latitude is needless nay as to the Heavens the fates of all men would be alike For that hidden influence which governs all would reach to all points from all parts of Heaven at once 10. Thirdly Concerning the division of their Signs into mobilia and fixa and hicorporea The mobilia are the Equinoctial and Solstitial Signs The latter whereof might deserve better the name of fixa then mobilia And in my apprehension the Tempers of the Year might as well be said to be begun suppose the cold in Sagittarius and fixed in Capricorn and the heat in Gemini and fixed in Cancer as begun in Capricorn and fixed in Aquarius c. But we will wink at small matters That of the fiery earthy watry and aiery Trigons is more notorious and I cannot but smile when I read the Effects of them As for example in Physick as Dariot has set down the Moon and Ascendent in the Fiery Signs comfort the virtue attractive in the Earthy Signs the retentive the Aiery the digestive and the Watery the expulsive Would any man dare to administer Physick then without consulting the precepts of Astrology Also in Husbandry that 's a notable one of Sir Christopher's who tells us how we may cause a Plant to shoot deep into the Earth or higher into the Air by setting of it at such an aspect of the Moon Namely if the Moon be in the Earthy Triplicity the root will shoot more downward into the Earth if in the Aiery more upward into the Air. Which is a rare Secret Now to omit the groundless and arbitrarious division of the Zodiack into these four Trigons of which there is only this one hint that I can imagine namely the fitness of Leo for one part of the fiery Trigon the Sun being most hot in that Sign From which little inlet all the four Elements flew up into Heaven and took their places