God and which had not worshipped the Beast neither his Image neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years But the rest of the dead lived not again untill the thousand years were finished This is the First Resurrection Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the First Resurrection on such the second death hath no power but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years There was never any Book penned with that artifice as this of the Apocalypse as if every word were weighed in a balance before it was set down which is manifest out of other places as well as this In which I conceive a double design is aimed at a prediction of a proper Resurrection of the Witnesses to the Truth by their deaths and of a Political Resurrection to the true and Apostolical Church that does survive upon Earth The former are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter those that worshipped not the Beast c. which if they were not distinct from the other it had been better to have omitted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to have read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Wherefore this is the first intimation that there are two Orders of men there set down The one that suffered death for the cause of the Gospel The other that are still alive but resolute Opposers of the Beast But there is also a second hint in the following words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They lived and reigned The Spirit of God seems on set purpose to make choice of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might not bear too hard toward the sense of a literal Resurrection and so urge the Reader too forcibly to understand both these Orders above distinguished to be Candidates of a real and literal Resurrection at this time And therefore he uses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in reference to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will naturally implie a literal Resurrection and in reference to the other no literal Resurrection they being not supposed naturally dead but merely a living upon Earth and reigning there with Christ which is their Moral and Political Life and Resurrection The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall reign with Christ in Heaven and those other with Christ on Earth he being universal Prince over both Churches and therefore neither Heaven nor Earth is here mentioned that the sense may be accommodated to either the reigning with Christ in Heaven or in Earth according to the distinct capacities of the persons And the like caution is used in the prefiguration of the time of which there is no necessity to conceit that it signifies just a thousand years literally but that it signifies at least a thousand years and certainly not more then there are daies in that thousand nor in likelihood near so many But the signification is rather Symbolical as the ten daies are chap. 2. v. 10. And ye shall have the tribulation of ten daies that is the utmost extent of tribulation beyond which there is nothing further as there is no number beyond Ten by which therefore must be meant death And that is the reason why presently is added Be thou faithfull unto death and I will give thee the Crown of life So this thousand years upon earth is a symbol of the Churches stable duration to the end of the world that there shall no Politie flourish beyond it it being a Cube whose root is Ten. And the application of it to the reigning of the children of the Resurrection with Christ in heaven discovers the unshaken stability and endless duration of that celestial Kingdome also beyond which absolutely there is nothing at all But the rest of the dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lived not again The using of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has plainly respect to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and intimates that their Resurrection was real and literal to which others should not attain till after the Thousand years upon earth After which it is plainly said that there is a general Resurrection and that all the dead do rise ver 12 13 14. Wherefore this general Resurrection being literal and real it is too too harsh and violent to understand this First Resurrection mentioned in this fifth verse to be only Figurative and Mystical But understanding it literally that which follows has a wonderfull natural and easie sense Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first Resurrection which he speaks thus in the singular number one would think on purpose to keep men off from conceiting he means it of the successive body of the Church during the thousand years 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon these the second death has no power namely The lake of fire ver 14. into which Hades or the whole region of mortality is cast the Earth being all on fire But blessed are those that have part in the First Resurrection for they are sped already safe having obtained those celestial bodies that do certainly exempt them from this Fate For these and all such as God shall afterward make partakers of this blessed kind of Resurrection are naturally free from the reach of the second death But they shall be priests of God and of Christ and reign with him not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for sureness and for distinction sake simply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is They shall be holy sacred and divine persons and live with Christ in his immutable and everlasting Kingdome in Heaven for ever and ever This I conceive to be the most easie and natural sense of this place and that the Personal Reign of Christ upon Earth and of his holy Martyrs is a very rash and groundless and unsafe conceit fit for nothing but heat and tumult both of phansie and action Nor do I think it necessary that the Sons of this first Resurrection should at all appear to us their celestial bodies into which they are vivificated being naturally invisible and therefore a kind of miracle for us to see them and no more necessary then the exhibiting those Souls to view which Christ carried to Heaven in triumph after his Resurrection which yet he did not exhibit to the sight of the world And if he doe here I can imagine no better end then that of Mr. Mede's that it may be for a sign or beckening to the Jews to help on their Conversion but I can affirm nothing of these things Only I am well assured that if Christendome were once well purged of all her Idolatries foolish and contradictious opinions and wicked practices it would be a very great Miracle if the Jews could be kept off from being converted 7. Wherefore in brief to conclude seeing the truth of Mr. Mede's Synchronisms as far as respects this present subject is
to so great a piece of Folly as to fansy this mistaken Wight so Sacred and Divine a person as to be prophesied of in the Holy Scriptures But the places that are alledged are so weakly and ineptly applied that it is a further confirmation of their being strangely hood-winked and held down with an over-bearing effascination and witchcraft For how vain a thing is it to make this Man that Angel that preached the Everlasting Gospel whenas that Angelical Preachment was at least seven or eight hundred years before he lived according to all those Interpreters that have endeavoured to give a solid and coherent account of S. Iohn's Prophecy But this is more then I need attempt or it may be can be done to confute this assertion by Chronological demonstration It is sufficient to note that it is groundless a mere phansy unbacked by Reason and Argument whenas on the contrary there is evident Reason against it This person whom they so much adore being rather a Decryer of the Everlasting Gospel then a Preacher of it as shall appear in due time 2. The Second conceit of his being prophesied of in Scripture is fixt upon that of S. John 1. verse 21. where they would have him to be That Prophet viz. an eminent Prophet distinct from Elias and Christ. But it is very discernable how weak an Alledgement this is For first if there were such an eminent Prophet expected distinct from Elias and Christ it does not follow it is he And then again this expectation of the Jewes is no Divine Testimony And thirdly as some Interpreters have noted they expected him before the coming of Elias as Elias before the coming of Christ. Others understood by That Prophet the Prophet Ieremie who is styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Prophet of God And lastly amongst the rest that excellent Critick and pious Interpreter Castellio renders it simply a prophet the sense being At least art thou a Prophet See Castellio upon the place So many weaknings are there of this groundless Fiction of his being prophesied of in this place of Scripture 3. But I shall produce a Third place and that of his own chusing Acts 17. where God is said to have appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead This shameless Enthusiast does not stick to apply to himself this place as if he were the man prophesied of therein Whenas it is manifest it is meant of the Person of Christ whom God had corporeally raised from the Grave as a palpable Pledge and Assurance that the World should be judged by him according to the Scriptures Math. 25.31 But supposing the meaning to be that which this fanatick Boaster would have it see what sense it will make with the preceding verse which would be this That God now commands all men every where to repent namely because 1500 years hence he will raise up H. Nicolas from the dead in a moral sense who shall judge the world by his doctrine What Bedlam Madness is this to vent such Expositions of the Holy Writ upon pretence of higher Inspiration then ever was yet in the World The Apostle's exhortation would be as wild sense as if one should earnestly cry unto the people walking in Paul's to run out of the Church as fast as they can because it is ready one thousand five hundred years hence to fall down upon their heads 4. That I may not omit any places that they alledge I will adde also 1 Cor. 13. v. 9 10. For we know in part and we prophesy in part But when that which is perfect is come then that which is imperfect shall be done away And Hebr. 6. v. 1 2. Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ let us go on unto perfection not laying again the foundation of Repentance from dead works and of Faith toward God of the doctrine of Baptisme laying on of hands and of the Resurrection of the dead and of the Eternal judgement From these two places they are wont to gather that the Doctrine of Christ is imperfect and a more perfect Doctrine was to come which is say they the Doctrine of Hen. Nicolas Which argument is as weak and frivolous as blasphemous For it is plain that in the former place he compares not any Doctrine to be set on foot on earth with the present Doctrine of Christ and knowledge of the Apostles but the condition of the knowledge of the Christian Church in this life with that which she shall have in Heaven and therefore he saith Now I know in part but then I shall know even as I am known What does S. Paul mean that he shall know nothing clear till H. Nicolas his time O the madness and impudence of these giddy Interpreters And to the latter Text What would they have us to let go our Christian Creed under pretence of a new Doctrine which is more perfect Yea certainly they would so as will appear more plainly anon But how shamefully they abuse this Scripture to that execrable end is evident from the following verse And this will we do if God permit That is The Apostle himself will deliver that doctrine of Perfection he mentions in the first verse and therefore it is no Prophecy of the Doctrine of H. Nicolas but a more exquisite Declaration of the excellency of Christs Priesthood which is too long and too accurate to fill a short Creed But what pittiful shifts are these deluded Fanaticks put to when they have no better Alledgements then these for their rebellious Errours against Christ 5. I shall conclude my examination of their grounds of believing this Fanatick so great and eminent a Prophet with something a more trim conceit of his followers whereby they would countenance their high opinion they have of him which is hinted also from himself namely That the Series of Times and Providence seem to give witness to the mighty Professions he makes of his own Ministry For as there was for a time a Service of the Law under God the Father and then a Service of the Belief under Christ the Son so likewise the Holy Ghost must have his turn and have his Service and what Service can that be but the Service of the Love To which I answer That if they speak this in good earnest in reference to the three Hypostases of the ever-Blessed Trinity it is plain that that Mystery was not communicated to the World under the Law of Moses but concealed in the hidden Cabbala among the Wise men and Prophets not to be published till Christ for the better clearing and fitter recommending the Theory of his Union with the Eternal Word With the appearance therefore of Christ with whom all the fulness of Divine Wisdome was to be imparted to men a distincter knowledge of the Deity and clearer assurance of
were not asleep at so concerning a Sermon 6. Again 2 Cor. 5. v. 8. We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord. Here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 plainly intimates a going out of this Mortal Body not a change of it into an Immortal one therefore we may safely conclude that this courage and willingness of the Apostle to die implies an enjoyment of the presence of Christ after death before the general Resurrection Else why should he rather desire to die then to live but that he expects that Faith should be presently perfected by Sight as he insinuates in the foregoing verse But assuredly better is that enjoyment which is onely by Faith then to have no enjoyment at all as it must be if the Soul cannot operate out of this Body 7. A like Proof to this and further Confirmation of the Truth is that of Philipp 1.21 22 23 24. where the Apostle again professing his courage and forwardness to magnifie Christ in his body whether by life or by death uses the like Argument as before For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain But if I live in the flesh it will be worth my labour yet what I should chuse I wote not For I am in a strife betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needfull for you 8. The genuine sense of which Place is questionless this That while he lived his life was like Christ's upon Earth innocent but encumbred with much hardship and affliction bearing about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus but if he died he should then once for all seal to the Truth of his Martyrdome and not onely scape all future troubles which yet the love of Christ his Assistance and Hope of Reward did ever sustain him in but which was his great gain and advantage arrive to an higher fruition of him after whom he had so longing a desire But if to be with Christ were to sleep in his bosome and not so much as to be sensible he is there it were impossible the Apostles affections should be carried so strongly to that state or his judgement should determine it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so exceedingly much better especially his stay in the flesh being so necessary to the Philippians and the rest of the Church and what he suffered and might further suffer in his life no less a Testimony to the Truth then Death it self 9. Fourthly Those phrases of S. Peter 2 Pet. 1.13 Yea I think it meet so long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up and put you in remembrance Knowing that I must shortly put off this Tabernacle c. And so vers 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all likelyhood alludes to the same as if his Soul went out of the Body as out of a Tabernacle All these Phrases I say seem to me manifestly to indicate that there is no such necessary Union betwixt the Soul and the Body but she may act as freely out of it as in it as men are nothing the more dull sleepy or senseless by putting off their cloaths and going out of the house but rather more awakened active and sensible 10. Fifthly Hebr. 12. There God is called the Father of Spirits the Corrector and Chastiser of our Souls in contradistinction to our Flesh or Bodies and then vers 22. lifting us up quite above the consideration of our Corporeal condition he brings us to the Mystical mount Sion the City of the living God the Heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the Universal assembly and Church of the first-born which are inrolled in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to the Spirits of just men made perfect Now I demand what Perfection can be in the Spirits of these just men to be overwhelmed in a senseless Sleep or what a disproportionable and unsutable representation is it of this throng Theatre in Heaven made up of Saints and Angels that so great a part of them as the Souls of the Holy men deceased should be found drooping or quite drown'd in an unactive Lethargie Certainly as it is incongruous in it self so it is altogether inconsistent with the magnificency of the representation which this Author intends in this place 11. Sixthly Matth. 10.28 The life of the Soul separate from the Body is there plainly asserted by our Saviour Fear not them that kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul but rather fear him who is able to destroy both Body and Soul in Hell i. e. able if he will to destroy the life both of Body and Soul in Hell-fire according to the conceit of those whose opinions I have recited in my Treatise Of the Immortality of the Soul Book 3. chap. 18. or else miserably to punish or afflict both Body and Soul in Hell the torments whereof are worse then Death it self For as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perire signifie to be excessively miserable so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perdere may very well signifie to make excessively miserable But now for the former part of the verse but are not able to kill the Soul it is evident that they were able if the Soul could not live separate from the Body For killing of the Body what is it but depriving it of life wherefore if the Soul by the death of the Body be also deprived of life it is manifest that she can be killed which is contrary to our Saviour's Assertion CHAP. X. 1. A pregnant Argument from the State of the Soul of Christ and of the Thief after death 2. Grotius his explication of Christ's promise to the Thief 3. The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. How Christ with the Thief could be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Paradise at once 5. That the Parables of Dives and Lazarus and of the unjust Steward implie That the Soul hath life and sense immediately after death 1. WE have yet one more notable Testimony against our Adversaries Our Saviour Christ's Soul and the Thief 's upon the Cross did subsist and live immediately upon the death of the Body as appears from Luke 23.42 43. And he said unto Iesus Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdome And Iesus said unto him Verily I say unto thee This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise As if he should thus answer Thou indeed beggest of me that I would be mindfull of thee when I come into my Kingdome but I will not deferre thee so long onely distrust not the unexpected riches of my goodness to thee For verily I say unto thee That this very day shalt thou be with me in Paradise And there is no evasion from this Interpretation the Syriack as Grotius noteth interpointing betwixt I say unto thee and Today and all the Greek copies as Beza affirmes joyning
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
that they that obey it not shall be damned That Christ knew the very thoughts of mens hearts that he raised the dead that he healed men of incurable diseases that he gave sight to the blind and made the dumb to speak That the Apostles of Christ Matthew Peter and Paul healed one Habib Anaiar of the Leprosie at Antioch and raised the King's daughter from the dead as also gave sight to a childe that was born blinde And lastly three Preeminences the Alcoran gives to Christ which it gives not to any other Prophet to Abraham Moses no nor Mahomet himself The first is That he was carried up to Heaven bodie and soul where it is expresly added in Zuna that he shall return from thence to judge the world with righteous judgment The second That he shall be called The Word of God The third That he should be called The Holy Spirit of God These things you may read more at large in Iohannes Andreas his Confusio Sectae Mahometanae as also in others out of whom you may also add that the Turks have so venerable an esteem of S. Iohn's Gospel that they wear it next their bodies as an amulet when they goe to war to keep them from gun-shot 8. This I thought worth the noting partly that that Honour which is due to Christ may not be given to Mahomet of whom the best that can be said is only this That he did not so utterly pervert and deprave the mystery of the Gospel by either his ignorance political tricks or fanatical humours and whimsies but that there was so much of the substance and virtue thereof left as being seconded with the dint of the Sword was able enough to hew down the more gross Heathenish Idolatry chastise the disobedient Hypocritical Christians and ruine the external dominion of the Devil in the World and partly that we may discern what great hopes there are that in due time when the chief scandals of Christendome are taken away they being so far prepared already in their reverend opinion concerning our blessed Saviour the whole Turkish Empire may of a sudden become true Christians that which is vain and false among them having no better prop then the foolish and idle Visions false pretended Miracles and groundless fables of a mere wily phansifull and unclean Impostour whenas the pure Christian Religion comprehended in the Gospel is so solid sincere rational that no man that is master of his wits but may be throughly satisfied concerning the truth thereof CHAP. XIII 1. The Triumph of the Divine Life not so large hitherto as the overthrow of the external Empire of the Devil 2. Her conspicuous Eminency in the Primitive times 3. The real and cruel Martyrdoms of Christians under the Ten Persecutions a demonstration that their Resurrection is not an Allegorie 4. That to allegorize away that blessed Immortality promised in the Gospel is the greatest blasphemy against Christ that can be imagined 1. YOU see then how large the Success or Event of our Saviour's coming into the World is in reference to the external overthrow of the Kingdome of the Prince of this World that old Usurper over the sons of men If you demand of me how great the Triumph of the Divine Life has been in all this victory I must answer I could wish that it was greater then it is that it had been larger and continued longer but something has been done all this time that way too 2. For Faith in God through our Lord Jesus Christ and a firm Belief of a Life to come and the Effect of this Faith which is the very nature and Spirit of Christ dwelling in us consisting of Purity Humility and Charity this sound constitution was very much in the Church in the Primitive times even then when they had no succour nor support from the hands of men nay when they were cruelly handled by them they chusing rather to be banish'd imprisoned tortured and put to any manner of death then to deny him who had redeemed them with his most precious Bloud and had prepared a place of Eternal happiness for them with himself in Heaven 3. Here Faith and the Divine Life was very conspicuously victorious and triumphant in that in the eyes of all the world it set at nought all the cruel malice of the Devil and the terrour of death it self in the most ghastly vizard he could put on as you may see innumerable Examples in the Ten bloudy Persecutions under the Heathen Emperours Which History must needs make a man abominate such light-headed and false-hearted Allegorists that would intercept the Hopes of a future life by spirituallizing those passages in Scripture that bear that sense into a present Moral and Mystical interpretation as if the Gospel and the precious Promises therein conteined reached no further then this life we now live upon Earth 4. Which is the highest reproach and blasphemie that can be invented against Christ Iesus as if he were rather a Betraier then a Saviour of Mankind and that he was more thirsty after humane bloud then those Indian Gods we have spoken of who were so lavish thereof in their sacrifices and as if it were not Love and dear Compassion towards us that made him lay down his life but hatred and a spightfull plot of making myriads of men to be massacred and sacrificed out of affection to him that thus should betray them Wherefore whosoever interprets the New Testament so as to shuffle off the assurance of Reward and Punishment after the death of the Body is either an arrant Infidel or horrid Blasphemer CHAP. XIV 1. The Corruption of the Church upon the Christian Religion becoming the Religion of the Empire 2. That there did not cease then to be a true and living Church though hid in the Wilderness 3. That though the Divine life was much under yet the Person of our Saviour Christ of the Virgin Mary c. were very richly honoured 4. And the Apostles and Martyrs highly complemented according to the ancient guize of the Pagan Ceremonies 5. The condition of Christianity since the general apostasie compared to that of Una in the Desart amongst the Satyrs 6. That though this has been the state of the Church very long it will not be so alwaies and while it is so yet the real enemies of Christ do lick the dust of his feet 7. The mad work those Apes and Satyrs make with the Christian Truth 8. The great degeneracy of Christendome from the Precepts and Example of Christ in their warrs and bloudshed 9. That though Providence has connived at this Pagan Christianism for a while he will not fail to restore his Church to its pristine purity at the last 10. The full proof of which Conclusion is too voluminous for this place 1. WE have given a light glance upon the condition of the Primitive Church before Christianity became the Religion of the Empire what change would be wrought then a man might
nearer at hand This invention of Gun-powder foreseen by that Providence that inspired Iohn and not vainly pointed at in these Visions but for the better assurance of what time they belong to is again intimated in that it is said that the heads of the horses were as the heads of Lions which Grotius gives this short account of Rictus equorum sanguinolenti qualis Leoni post devoratas pecudes as if these did eat flesh to bloudy their jaws withall else where is the lion-like representation in them more then in others I rather therefore conceive that their heads are compared to the heads of Lions because of the terrour of the noise dreadful like the roaring of a Lion when the horsemen discharged togeâ—her against the enemy For presently follows and out of their mouths came fire and smoke and brimstone all were breathed out together from their jawes at once To which Grotius his application of the Falaricae is not to be compared as any one that considers their nature and the manner of flinging them will deprehend at first sight Mr. Mede's exposition also of the Serpentine tails of the horses is both more handsome and more important 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The tails of the horses were as if they had been half a Serpent clap ' to and hanging out with his head Which is an Embleme of that sad after-clap of their victory over men The Devil then that old Serpent being ready to parlie with them and to seduce them to Mahometisme And lastly his interpreting of the worship of Daemons and Idols in the proper sense and applying it to the residue of the Romane Empire infected with what we call Papal Superstition and Idolatry I could wish it were not so fit and appropriate as it is The application of these two last Trumpet-Visions is so particular and exquisite that though they were not necessarily enforced by virtue of his Synchronisms it would be very hard to doubt of them Which would make a man eager to consider the meaning of the Seventh and Last Trumpet-vision which consists of loud praises to God in Heaven for that the kingdomes of the world are become the kingdomes of our Lord and of his Christ. This Grotius interprets of the liberty the Christians had to profess their Religion at Ierusalem when the Jews were all banished thence But the Vision certainly is farre too bigge for so small a matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is very hard to interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the plural number of Iudaea onely And besides how doth Christ reign for ever there whenas his Subjects are now such miserable thrals to the Turk If he had taken the great power to himself in that place he has lost it again if this sense of Grotius be true But it is plain this Seventh Trumpet appertains to the recovery of the Church out of Apostasy by the appearing of the Temple of God and the Ark of the Covenant in Heaven which is a figure of the Political power that pure and Apostolick men will be advanced to For the Temple signifies the Church in its pure condition while it was Symmetral to the Angelical or Divine measure vers 1. But the appearing of the Ark of the Covenant thus in Heaven is accompanied with Lightnings and Voices and Thunders and Earthquakes and great Hail As is intimated also by the very title of the Seventh Trumpet it being a Trumpet of Woe to the wicked and unbelieving answerably to the Seven Thunders that filled the space of the Seventh Trumpet while that mighty and illustrious Angel roars like a Lion and is justly conceived to represent our Saviour Christ the Lion of the Tribe of Iuda who being once stirred up will never cease pursuing the prey till he has brought all under his feet Death it self not excepted 6. But we return to those things that are Synchronal to the six first Trumpets Which Visions though they be more then any Synchronals besides yet they have all a very near cognation or manifest colligation one to another The general Summary of the condition of the times they point out is the Apostasie or Degeneracy of the Church which yet is never conceived so ill but that there were some pure and Apostolick Christians in it and therefore to represent the two sorts of Professors of Christianity there are two sorts also of Visions Those of the Whore of Babylon the Ten-horned Beast and the Two-horned Beast relating to the Degeneracy of Christendome the Two Witnesses mourning in sackcloth the Virgin Company the sealed of the Lamb to those that kept their Purity in the Church All these synchronize with the six first Trumpets out of which is blown the wrath of God upon the Romane Empire as is but just by reason of their Apostasie as it is also equal with God to protect his own then And therefore the Company of the Lamb are sealed and marked to be kept from the common calamities This general Apostasy also could not have crept in if the Ecclesiastick and Secular Power had not conspired and therefore there is the Two-horned Beast as well as the Ten-horned Against which are opposed the Two mourning Witnesses the one sustaining the person of the unpolluted Priest the other of the faithful Magistrate And this Apostasy consisting much in gross Idolatry and vain Superstition which according to Scripture-language is termed Whoredome this State is set out also by the Vision of the Whore of Babylon to which is opposed the Virgin Company There are yet Two Visions behind which are not properly to be referred to this sort or that but each of them to both namely the Woman in the Wilderness and the Outward Court and holy City trodden down by the Gentiles Which Visions have the insinuation of both Piety and Profaneness in them at once The truly pious part of the Church being signified by the Woman but by the Wilderness the salvageness and brutishness of the rest of Christendome they being wholy given up to the Animal Life By the Outward Court and holy City is noted the Sanctity of the Christian Church set apart from the rest of the world but by the being trodden down by the Gentiles the imitation of Pagan worship introduced by the general Apostasy of Christendome So that you see by what a strong tie from the very nature of the Things themselves these Eight Synchronal Visions are held together with in one time 7. Let us now consider Grotius his chief mistakes or defects in interpreting of them As in those of the Two Witnesses and of the outward Court and holy City being trodden down by the Gentiles for forty two months which is saith he for about three years and an half This City he interprets of Aelia built by Adrian which therefore in that regard is not to be looked upon as holy as indeed the City of
already shewn in my interpretation of the fourth and fifth verses of the Twentieth chapter and that it was both the Doctrine of the Apostles and Practice of the Church while it was Symmetral to obey the Magistrate and live peaceably under him though he were an Heathen how much more then are they to obey them that are Christians That Superiour and Inferiour are as natural in a people as Head and Feet in an humane body and that therefore no man can decry Government but out of madness or some villainous design to enthrall others at last under the yoke of their own lawless Fury That there are Kings and Governours under the renewed state of things in the Millennium as appears Revel 21. v. 24. and that no frame of Government can be evil where Governours rule by a good law And lastly That to make any thing essentially evil or good that is in it self indifferent and left so by Christ and his Apostles is a fundamental Transgression against the Law of the New Ierusalem whose Foundation and Structure is all upon Twelve But instead of convincing them by what is true to endeavour to stop their fury by imposing upon them by false Glosses is the next way to imbolden them the more and make them contemn the authority of them that should guide them and instruct them For the prefiguration of the Apostasie of the Church and her Recovery out of it which may be done at least without changing any Temporal Powers and Superiorities is a thing so plain that it cannot be hid 4. A third Use of the Apocalypse is the Answering a very crooked Objection both from the Iew and Atheist For seeing things have been so ill for so many Ages of the Church together that the World has grown Pagan again after a manner and that the Turk has also swallowed so great a part of the Church surely there is no true Religion at all nor Providence will the Atheist say and the Iew at least that their Messiah is not yet come Idolatry having in a manner filled all the Nations that profess him But to both we may answer That nothing has hapned in all this but what was foreseen by God and predicted plainly in these Visions of the Apocalypse to say nothing of what Daniel had more generally adumbrated before Which therefore is rather an Argument for Providence then against it and a demonstration of the Messiah's faithfull vigilancie over his Church rather then of his not yet having gathered one in the world For it is plain that Christ is the Author of those holy Visions and that the great Plagues that have fallen upon the Church either by the Turk or others have been by reason of their Apostasie from the Purity of the Apostolick Faith and Practice 5. A fourth Use and that an eminent one of the Apocalypse is to be as a clear Mirrour of both the Apostasie of the Church and of the Way of her Recovery The Apostasie of the Church is intimated more generally in the number of the Name of the Beast whose Root being 25 as the Root of the Number of the Apostolick Church 12 intimates that their Apostasie consists in the general of adding to the Root and Foundation of Christian Religion supernumerary Articles of their own invention and coining being not contented with the Essentials or Fundamentals of Faith which were clearly and plainly delivered by the twelve Apostles and are easily without any dispute and contest understood to be in the holy Scriptures I intimated also before from the Root of 666 being 25 resolvable also into 5 again That their Apostatical Religion was framed chiefly to gratifie and entertain the external Senses that it began there and ended there and let the Diviner and more heavenly motions of the Mind lie asleep But yet more particularly this Apostasie is indigitated by the Square 666 as if the poison of the sixth Head of the Beast that red bloudy Dragon that is cruel Persecution and Idolatry were spred through the body of the Apostatized Church Whose chief part the Two-horned Beast must needs be who made the whole Romane Empire very lively resemble the Beast whose deadly wound he healed that is the ancient Pagan Power But enough of this it being a Theam that will be over-eagerly listned to by some and obstinately without any consideration and reason rejected by others 6. But this Apocalyptick Glass is not only for the Romanist but all the Churches of Christendome to look their faces in and to consider how much they are still engaged or how far emerged out of this Lapse and Apostasie or whether they be quite emerged out of it or no. For I must confess I do much scruple the matter and that upon account of the 1260 daies wherein the Woman is in the Wilderness and the Witnesses mourn in sackcloth Concerning the Epocha of which daies the very highest Mr. Mede pitches upon is 365 namely from the death of Iulian which will end the 1260 daies Anno 1625. But many years before this were there the same different Churches that there are now Wherefore it is a sign that the Woman was not then nor yet is out of the Wilderness but that the true Church is still hid in these divisions of Churches and that all hitherto for the outward face of things is but a wilde Desart Moreover those Divisions of Churches which were made about an hundred years ago and which immediately became the Churches of this or that Polity if those Alterations then had been into a way purely Apostolical it had been plainly the enlivening of the Witnesses and the calling of them into Heaven many years before the expiration of the 1260 days Which is a strong presumption all is not yet right and that the Witnesses are not yet alive nor the Woman yet out of the Wilderness 7. Wherefore out of a due humility and modesty suspecting our selves not to have emerged quite out of this General Apostasy of the Church into which the Spirit of God has foretold she would be lapsed for 1260 years let us see if we can find out what Remainders of this Lapse are still upon us Which I suppose we shall be the more ready to acknowledge by how much more they shall be found to symbolize with that Church whom we justly judge to be so manifest an Apostate Now I demand Is not one Fundamental miscarriage in that Church That they make things Fundamental that are not and mingle their own humane Inventions with the infallible Oracles of God and imperiously obtrude them upon the people We are very sensible our selves of this in Ceremonies And are not uncertain and useless Opinions as arrant a ceremony as Ceremonies themselves which we so kick against and fly away from like wild horses Nay I may adde also That it will be hard to wash our hands clean from that other badge of the Beast Unchristian Persecution in points of Religion and that for differences where Christ himself has
much success in the Christian World and though I have faithfully and industriously discovered the matter unto you yet I must profess that I conceive it not in my power nor any ones else to prevent the sad effects thereof That can only be by a true and sincere Reformation of Heart and Minde into the ancient and Apostolick Life and Doctrine For there is nothing so recommendable to Mankinde as the Christian Faith in the native Plainness and Simplicity thereof nor any thing so horrible and detestable as that vizard that the Depravedness of Christendome has put upon it Which Face of things if it continue Atheism having seized on so great a Proportion it is prone to conjecture that what remains may be easily swallowed up of Familism or of some such parallel Plague of the Church and so the right Faith in Christ may quite be laid asleep never to awaken till there is no use thereof I mean till men be affrighted into a belief by an universal Thunder and Lightning from Heaven and the glorious Appearance of the Son of man in the Clouds to recompence the good and to adjudge the wicked to everlasting Fire For the Counsels of God as his Prophecies are two-handed and both of them in some cases have a meaning conditional But as I desire so I hope the best and it is a great ease to my minde that I have so freely declared what I conceive tends so much thereto BOOK VII CHAP. I. 1. That the Subject of the Third part of his Discourse is The Reality of the Christian Mystery 2. That the Reasonableness of Christian Religion and the constant Belief thereof by knowing and good men from the time it is said to have begun til now is a plain Argument of the Truth thereof to them that are not over-Sceptical 3. The Averseness of slight and inconsiderate Witts from all Arguments out of Prophecies with their chiefest Objections against the same 4. That the Prophecies of the Messias in the Old Testament were neither forged nor corrupted by the Jews 5. An Answer to their Objections concerning the Obscurity of Prophecies 6. As also to that from Free Will 7. That all Prophecies are not from the fortuitous heat of mens Phansies but by divine Revelation proved by undeniable Instances 8. A particular reason of true Prophets amongst the Iews with some Examples of true Prophecies in other places 9. A notable Prophecie acknowledged by Vaninus concerning Julius Caesar's being kill'd in the Senate 1. WE are come now to the Third Part of our Discourse wherein the doubtfull Dawnings of this great Mystery we are clearing up will break out into a fuller Light and the Progress of Truth will be like that of Righteousness that shineth more and more till perfect Day The Possible as also Reasonable Idea of Christianity which I have hitherto represented is but as the Seminal Forme of a Plant hid in the seed under ground but we shall now exhibit it as it were to sense shot up into open view and demonstrate That this Possible Idea has already arrived to a Real and actual Existence in the World Which being a matter of so great consequence we will not huddle it up at once nor yet make any steps more for pomp then for use and the fuller conviction of the Truth we are to prove 2. And truly the very first step I shall make or rather have partly made already I hope to any indifferent man will seem not a little considerable We have very amply and intelligibly declared how highly Reasonable the Frame of our Religion is how becoming and consistent all those things are that Christ is recorded to have done or suffered Add therefore to the Reasonableness of the thing it self the constant and perpetual Tradition thereof for true and that it has been so seriously believed in all Ages that as well the Learned as Unlearned as well the Noble as Ignoble have been ready nay have actually laid down their Lives for a witness thereof And methinks no man that is not over-Sceptical but this Consideration should fetch off his assent For the Fame of those things that are seriously reported and constantly believed by knowing and judicious men cannot rationally be called into question unless the things themselves affirmed seem unreasonable or else over-artificial and in too trim and cunning a dress of Reason That the things recorded are very Reasonable I have already demonstrated And how little of the cunning Artifice of either Logick or Rhetorick they partake of I dare appeal to any that peruse them Wherefore if any man persist in his Unbelief the impediment is not in the Mystery offered to him but in himself that has no desire it should be true either out of Pride as not being willing to find himself to have been ignorant hitherto of the true Religion or out of the love of either the Pleasures or Profits of this present World which the Belief of Christianity does naturally curb But we proceed to what is still more close and cogent That the Iews have for this many hundred years expected and do still expect him whom they call their Messias every one knows as also that this name Messias is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence our Religion is denominated Wherefore if I can prove That this Messias is already come and that Iesus whom we worship is that Christ I have then performed the Promise of the Third Part of my Discourse which is to prove That Christianity the Idea whereof I have hitherto described is not a mere Idea but a real Truth Which first I shall attempt from Prophecies after from History the comparing of both which together will be so strong an Argument that to the unprejudiced it cannot appear less then a perfect Demonstration 3. I know some are of so impatient and superficial a Spirit that they vilifie the very name or mention of Prophecies as arguments of no validity because they cannot find themselves at leisure to weigh the force of them But if they will rationally speak against them they must alledge some of these four Objections viz. That either they are often forged or at least corrupted by some wily Politicians to serve some State-design Or are so obscure that there is no certain sense or meaning of them Or if there be that it does not infallibly import that things thus predicted will surely come to pass there being so great dependance of the affairs of the World upon the actings of men Or lastly to strike home that there never was nor ever will be any Prophecies from any extraordinary Inspiration but that some men have very hot Phansies and their minds running on future things vent what they think and their Predictions like Dreams sometimes prove true sometimes false and that the report of those that have hapned true has begot that false perswasion of there being Prophets in the World 4. Such slight Considerations as these doe marvellously gratifie the Light-minded
honoured as the Son of God Prayers offered unto him and in his Name and Praises sung unto him with all solemnity and devotion imaginable 3. And for the Duration of this his royal Priesthood it has continued already a faire time about one thousand six hundred years as may be infallibly gathered out of History And as appears from these ancient Prophecies of the Jews he is a Person so holy and sacred and upon whom the eyes of Providence have been in such a wonderfull manner fixed infinitely above any Person that ever was yet in the World that it is impossible that the Testimonies given of him should ever be obliterated by succession of Time nothing but an universal Conflagration being able to make an end of all the copies of the Jewish Oracles or of the Christian Gospel And therefore it is a thing beyond all Likelihood nay I may say all Possibility that this Honour and Kingdome of Christ upon Earth should ever cease till the Earth cease to have Inhabitants I do not deny but the insupportable Wickedness of the Christians their Faithlesness Ferocity and Uncleanness their accursed Hypocrisie and open Prophaneness may make this Kingdome of Christ very itinerant and to pass from one Nation to another People but it will ever be the Religion of some People and Nation or other Or if not there will at least be sincere Professors of his Name in several Nations and Kingdomes as in the persecuted estate of the Primitive Church which will certainly leaven the World again with the Christian Religion with more glory and purity then ever unless a fiery Vengeance from heaven step betwixt and Christ come again visibly so Judgement in the clouds 4. The thing therefore that I say is this That though a man should be so cautious forsooth and so crafty as that because these latter Ages have been guilty of so much Falseness and Forgery he will believe no Records of the Church at all no not so much as the Holy Gospels and the Epistles of the Apostles yet he may have sufficient assurance from the Prophecies of the Old Testament which unless he will be egregiously foolish and unreasonable he cannot have any pretense to suspect as supposititious That Christianity is no Fiction but a real Truth if he will but compare the Prophecies with the Events of things as they lye before his eyes and with the free Confession of those that are open Enemies to the Christian Religion I mean the Nation of the Iews 5. For the firmer belief whereof he may also help himself something from those strinklings that are found in prophane Writers For if thou wilt be so prodigiously melancholick and suspicious as to doubt whether there ever were such a man as Christ the very History of the Heathens may assure thee thereof they mentioning these things so timely as that there could be no errour about the existence of the Person they speak of whether he ever were in the World or no. For Plinie Tacitus Lucian and Suetonius all of them flourished so near the time of the taking of the City of Ierusalem viz. Plinie about twenty Tacitus thirty Lucian and Suetonius about forty or fifty years that they could not but have certain information whether he was a fictitious Person or real from the captive Iews who would not have failed to stifle a Religion they hated so if it had been but a Figment at the bottome Plinie in his Epistle to Trajan finds the Christian professours in good earnest even to death Whose dangerous and mischievous errour he might easily have confuted if the History of Christ had been but a Romance but he found them immovable nor could he help it Which constancy of theirs he calls pervicaciam inflexibilem obstinationem a Pervicacity and inflexible Obstinacy Which is ridiculous to think can befall men in a mere Fiction within the time that search may easily discover to be false and that they should stand out to the exposing of themselves to death and torture He writes in the same Epistle that he put two maid-servants on the rack Sed nihil aliud inveni quà m superstitionem pravam immodicam But I found nothing else saith he but a perverse and immoderate Superstition And of those that fear made desist from the profession of their Religion Affirmabant hanc fuisse summam vel culpae suae vel erroris quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere c. They affirmed that this was the sum of their either fault or errour that they were wont on a set day to meet together early in the morning before day-break and sing an hymne to Christ as to a God Which is a sign that betimes the Christians followed Christ not as a mere eminent Moralist that gave excellent precepts of life better then ever any did but that they held his Person truely Divine and adorable for some wonderful considerations or other 6. But this Inquisition and bloudy Persecution of the Christians began higher then Trajan's time to wit in Nero's who to smother that abominable act of his in firing the City of Rome did most salvagely punish the Christians as if they had been the Authors of it Tacit. Annal lib. 15. Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos quaesitissimis poenis affecit quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat Auctor nominis ejus Christus qui Tiberio imperitante per Procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat Repressaque in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpebat non modò per Judaeam originem ejus mali sed per Urbem etiam quò cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebranturque Igitur primò correpti qui fatebantur deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens haud perinde in crimine incendii quà m odio humani generis convicti sunt Et pereuntibus addita ludibria ut ferarum tergis contecti laniatu canum interirent aut crucibus affixi aut flammandi atque ubi defecisset dies in usum nocturni luminis urerentur Wherefore Nero to suppress the rumour of his own vile act by suborning false witnesses got those to be accused who being hatefull for their wickedness were commonly called Christians and punished them with exquisite tortures The Author of that Sect was one Christus who in the reign of Tiberius was put to death by Pontius Pilate the Deputy Which damnable superstition suppressed for a time broke out afresh not only in Judaea the first source of that Mischief but also in the City of Rome whither all villainous and shamefull things flow from all parts and are held in great esteem Wherefore they were first laid hold of that confessed themselves Christians afterward by their discovery a huge multitude were condemned not so much for being guilty of firing the City as that they were hated of all mankind They added also reproaches to their death clothing some of
and Miraculous in him Whence he could not escape having his Life and Death written by some Pen or other especially it being so certain he rose from the dead as it is 5. For the Jews having crucified him nothing could be more odious to them then that report of his Followers That God miraculously raised him from the dead whereby Christ was acquitted by a special hand of Providence of all their wicked aspersions and false accusations and themselves condemned of the highest crime they could imagine themselves capable of even the murdering of their Messiah Wherefore the attestation of that which would make them so odious and execrable even in their own eyes if it were true must needs make the Attestors thereof very hatefull to them and unsupportable and therefore raise against them all the mischief they possibly could Whence it is impossible that the Disciples of Christ should maintain so hainous a falshood no not if they had made no conscience of lying and yet still more impossible if we consider their Simplicity and Innocency a property in them of which I think it never came into the mind of any one to doubt I conclude therefore That a Person so plainly prefigured by ancient and sacred Prophecies so refulgent in miraculous Vertues and unheard-of Providences one who for the Wonders he did by the unbelieving Iews was accounted a Magician by the Heathen Philosophers and Atheists acknowledged a Worker of Miracles and by his own Followers proclaimed the expected Messiah and the onely-begotten Son of God whom he had miraculously raised from the dead after the Iews had crucified him I say That a Person thus wonderfully qualified above any that ever yet came into the World should fail of having his Life historically recorded is a thing farre more incredible then the greatest Miracle that ever was yet upon Record 6. And now in the second place That this History or Record of his Life and Death was timely enough written viz. while the Eye-witnesses of those things which he did or hapned to him were yet living is also very clear if we consider the great importance of compleating such an History in due time For certainly it could not but seem a matter of very weighty moment Christ being believed by his Disciples to be so holy and divine a Person as he was and that their faithful adherence to him was their onely assurance of Everlasting Life Which great Truth of a blessed Immortality they were evidently taught by that success their Messiah had upon earth which was as ill as could be he being so spightfully abused and crucified in so ignominious a manner whenas yet they might with the rest of the Iews have expected that he should have broke the Romane yoke and been a glorious and victorious Prince to their great advantage in this World But they saw that Providence waved this and by an high hand exalted him into another Kingdome raising him from the dead and taking him visibly into Heaven Which was so palpable a Demonstration of the Soul's Immortality and of a peculiar advantage to the followers of this great Favourite of the Almighty when they were to enter into that other state that the power of Conscience and the Sense of their own good in the other Life would make them very careful and officious to preserve the memory of their Divine Teacher who both shewed them the way to and the certainty of Immortal Happiness Which piece of Gratitude they were still more strictly bound to perform it being so obvious for them to look upon Christ as a publick gift of God to the World not to be restrained to that Age then present but to be transmitted to all Posterity nor confined within that little handful of Followers he left behind him but to be made known to all Israel nor could they long be ignorant but that the Gentiles also should have share in him especially upon his Rejection by the Jews and so he was to become the Light and Salvation of all Nations from Age to Age according to the Prophets 7. That this was the early sense of the Church concerning the knowledge of Christ for eternal Salvation the nature of the thing it self as I have already intimated doth plainly demonstrate For what meaning could they possibly make of God's raising him from the dead and visibly assuming him into Heaven but that he should be a palpable Pledge of that future Happinesse which was to accrue to them that would be his faithfull Adherents and Followers This questionlesse was the belief of the Apostles and all succeeding Christians as the Heathens themselves witnesse of them though in a jearing manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But being catechized and instructed be perswaded by me if you desire to live for ever This Theam is much insisted upon by the Apostle Paul every where in his Epistles Which though I may seem too hasty in naming so soon while I am but driving on a method to demonstrate That there are very timely Records of Christianity within the Ages of Eye-witnesses of the things that are recorded yet I think I have not done preposterously if we consider that there is a peculiar kind of Self-evidence in that Apostle's writings that they are not supposititious or fictitious It being in my judgement out of the power of man to imitate that unaffected fervour those natural and yet unexpected Schemes of high and serious zeal those parenthetical exundances of weighty sense and matter swelling out I had almost said beyond the bounds of Logical coherence that vigorous passion and elevation of spirit and yet all so unsuspectable of any humane artifice that we cannot but be assured that he that wrote these Epistles was throughly possessed and transported with the belief of the things he wrote I am sure I cannot but be assured and find my self in an utter incapacity of doubting thereof who yet am naturally as melancholy and suspiciou◠as other Mortals as I could prove by early specimens of this kind if modesty would permit me to parallel the follies and errours of my childhood with the mature conclusions of such as have affected the repute of being the great Wits of the World 8. Wherefore being so fully perswaded in my self and never meeting with any one that could have the face to deny but the Epistles of S. Paul were the Writings of one that was in very good earnest my appeal to them in this place for the sense and meaning of the first and Apostolick faith I could not hold unseasonable But it is evident in these Epistles that the Writer of them lived within the Age of the Eye-witnesses of the wonderful things that were either done by or hapned to Christ. Whence it plainly appears also That that sense of the Gospel which Paul declares in these Epistles was the first and most early meaning that the Apostles conceived concerning the Mystery of Christianity viz. That Christ's Passion was an
fruit of Godliness properly so called Nor can we applie our hearts seriously and sincerely to this kind of Godliness long but we shall find answers to our praiers and breathings after God beyond both our own expectation and the belief of others and therefore enjoying the victory through the Divine grace that is sufficient for us and getting so glorious a triumph over our lusts we finding our Souls transported with an high sense of thankfulness to our Redeemer and Benefactour who wants nothing of our retributions himself the stream of our affections is naturally driven downwards to his Church to the Saints that dwell upon earth and those that excell in vertue or at least pretend unfeigned endeavours after it And this is properly brotherly Kindness which carries our affections to those that profess the same Religion with our selves Which brotherly Kindness arises not only out of this consideration of thankfulness toward God but out of the very temper and condition of the Soul thus purified according to what S. Peter intimates that having purified our Souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit the end and result thereof is the loving our brethren Or else what serves this Purification for Shall Envy shall Hatred shall Lust shall Ambition shall Luxury shall those enormous desires and affections be cast out of the Soul by Sanctity and Purity that she may be but a transparent piece of ice or a spotless fleece of snow Shall she become so pure so pellucid so crystalline so devoid of all stains and tinctures of all soil and duller colours that nothing but still shadows and Night may possess that inward diaphanous Purity Then would she be no better then the nocturnall Air no happier then a statue of Alabaster All would be but a more cleanly sepulchre of a dead starved Soul But there is no fear of so poor an event upon so great preparations For Love and Desire are so essentiall to the Soul that she cannot put them off but change them She is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Psellus calls her an immaterial and incorporeal fire an unextinguishable activity and will catch at some Object or other And therefore if she has ceased to love the world and the Lusts of her own body she will certainly love the body of Christ the Church and study how to help them and advantage them Nor can she stop here but this pure and quick flame mounts upwards and is reflected again downwards and vibrates every way reaching at all Objects in Heaven and in Earth as natural fire enters all combustible matter And therefore in her pure and ardent speculations of the Godhead and his unlimited Goodness and also her observations of the capacity of the whole Creation of receiving good both from him and one another she overflowes those narrow bounds of brotherly Love and spreads out into that ineffably-ample and transcendently-divine grace and vertue universal Charity which is the highest accomplishment the Soul of man is capable of either in this life or that which is to come and thus at last she becomes perfect as her Father which is in Heaven is perfect 5. This is that most excellent way which S. Paul speaks so transportedly and triumphantly of 1 Cor. ch 13. Where having first numbred out the manifold Gifts that God bestowed upon his Church as Preaching Prophesying working of miracles gifts of healing and diversity of tongues he immediately breaks out in the rapturous commendations of Charity above all Though I speak with the tongues of men and of Angels and have not Charity I am become as a sounding brass and a tinckling cymball And though I have the gift of Prophecie and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have no Charity I am nothing And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned and have not Charity it profiteth me nothing And after he has raised our expectation and estimation of this Heavenly grace with these high words of his he does not as the vain Enthusiast does heat our phancies and leave our judgment in the dark but he does very distinctly and copiously describe to us the nature of this Divine vertue so that we may plainly know where to be and what to seek after and how to be satisfied whether we have attained to it or no. 6. Charity suffereth long and is kinde Charity envies not Charity vaunteth not it self is not puffed up doth not behave her self unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evill complies not with iniquity but rejoiceth with the truth Beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things This is a very full and lively description of Love and Charity and the character of the sweetest and Heavenliest perfection that is communicable to the nature of man and so warmly poured out from the sincere heart of this rich possessour of it the holy Apostle that it is to me more moving then all the canting language of the highest fanatical Pretenders to the profession of this Mystery 7. This is the highest participation of Divinity that humane nature is capable of on this side that Mysterious conjunction of the Humanity of Christ with the Godhead and therefore this is that whereby we become the Sons of God as S. Iohn has evidently declared in his 1. Epistle general ch 4. Beloved let us love one another for Love is of God and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is Love And vers 10. Herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins Beloved if God so loved us we ought also to love one another No man hath seen God at any time If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us And again vers 16. God is Love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him Several other Testimonies there are of the high estimate the true Church of Christ has of this holy Vertue of Love but what I have already cited is sufficient to shew how urgent the Precepts of the Gospel are for this excellent branch of the Divine life which we call Charity as also how inexcusably injurious impious and blasphemous to Christ those fanatical Impostors are that revolt from the Church superannuate Christ's offices and antiquate the Christian Religion under a pretence of an higher dispensation and Revelation upon which they have set the Title or Superscription of Love adorning themselves with the Churches colours that by this evil stratagem they may the more safely fall upon her and destroy her at least seduce the most simple and many times the best-meaning members of the Church from their true Head Christ Jesus who ransom'd them with his own most precious bloud Whose Soveraignty over
hadst rather call Love take heed that thou transgress not against Purity by declining into unclean fanatick Lust that foul ditch that many of our high-talking Enthusiasts have tumbled into and have been so blinded with the mire thereof that they have made it a principal fruit of their Illumination to doe those acts without shame or measure that both the Light of Nature and the Gospel of Christ has taught us to blush at Such circumspections as these thou art to use if thou wouldest stear thy course safely and if thou wilt be faithfull to thine inward Guide and deal uprightly in the holy Covenant thou wilt want no Monitor thy way shall be made so plain before thee that thou shalt not err nor stumble but arrive at last to the desired scope of all thy travails and endeavours to a firm Peace and unfailing Righteousness and shalt be filled with all the fulness of God BOOK X. CHAP. I. 1. That the Affection and esteem we ought to have for our Religion does not consist in damning all to the pit of Hell that are not of it 2. The unseasonable inculcation of this Principle to Christians 3. That it is better becoming the Spirit of a Christian to allow what is good and commendable in other Religions then so foully to reproach them 4. What are the due demonstrations of our Affection to the Gospel of Christ. 5. How small a part of the World is styled Christians and how few real Christians in that part that is so styled 6. That there has been some unskilfull or treacherous tampering with the powerfull Engine of the Gospel that it has done so little execution hitherto against the Kingdome of the Devil 7. The Author's purpose of bringing into view the main Impediments of the due Effects thereof 1. THE Fourth and last Derivative Property of the Mystery of Godliness which arises from the Usefullness thereof and that great concernment it is of in relation not only to this present and transitory but that future and everlasting Happiness of mankind is that Appretiation and high Value it deservedly wins or should win 〈◊〉 us Which is not to be expressed as usually is done by vilifying and reproaching all other Religions in damning the very best and most consciencious Turks Iews and Pagans to the pit of Hell and then to double lock the door upon them or to stand there to watch with long poles to beat them down again if any of them should offer to emerge and endeavour to crawl out This Fervour is but a false zeal and of no service to the Gospel To make it impossible to all men to scape Hell that are not born under or visibly converted to Christianity when they never had the opportunity to hear the true sound thereof For if Providence be represented so severe and arbitrarious it will rather beget a misbelief of all Religions then advance our own especially with all free and intelligent Spirits 2. And what need they tell such sad stories to them that hear the Gospel concerning them that hear it not nor ever were in a capacity of hearing it it touches not them but disturbs these that hear it and makes Divine Providence more unintelligible then before Were it not sufficient for their Auditors to understand That they that doe hear the Gospel and yet refuse it that they are indeed in a damnable condition the belief thereof being the very Touchstone of Salvation to them that it is offered to But if they will be curious which is no commendable quality they can onely adde That none shall be saved but by virtue of that Truth which is comprehended in the Gospel that is before they come under that one Head of the Church which is Christ Jesus there being no other Name under the Heavens whereby we can be saved as the Apostle has declared But how the consciencious Iews Pagans and Turks that seemed not to die Christians may be gathered to this Head it will be a becoming piece of Modesty in us to profess our Ignorance 3. Certainly it were far better and more becoming the Spirit of the Gospel to admit and commend what is laudable and praise-worthy in either Iudaisme Turcisme or Paganisme and with kindness and compassion to tell them wherein they are mistaken and wherein they fall short then to fly in their faces and to exprobrate to them the most consummate wickedness that humane nature is lapsable into in matters of Religion and thus from an immoderate depression of all other Religions to magnifie a mans own Which is as ridiculous a Scheme of Rhetorick in my apprehension as if one should compare Solomon with all the natural fools in the world and then vaunt how exceeding much he out-stripped them all in Wisdom or Helena with all the ugly deformed Females that ever were and so argue the excellency of her Beauty because she so far surpassed these mishapen wretches which in my judgment is a very small commendation 4. But such demonstrations of our affections as these are very sorry and injudicious He that professes he believes the Truth of the Gospel and has entred into this New Covenant if he will give a solid testimony of his sincere affection to it indeed he must doe it by his life and conversation For if he like it and believe it he must needs follow the counsel conteined in it which if he do closely and faithfully he will finde it of that unspeakable excellency and important concernment that he cannot rest quiet in reaping the fruit thereof himself but will be truly desirous that the same good may be communicated if it were possible to all the world 5. And truly for my own part when I seriously consider with my self and undeniable clearness and evidence of Truth in the Gospel of Christ above all the Religions in the world and the mighty and almost irresistible power and efficacy that lies in it for the making of men holy and vertuous I cannot but with much fervencie of desire wish it were further spred in the World and am much amazed that it has made no further progress then it has For as Brerewood has probably collected in his Enquiries Pagan Idolatry still possesses two thirds of the known world Mahometisme one fifth part and Christianisme but a sixth And what is a thing more deplorable a very great part of the Christian Church has been overrun with the Turk and does lie at this very day in miserable bondage under him And that there may be nothing wanting to encrease wonderment even those parts of the world that are purely Christian as to Title so great share of them whether they go under the name of Reform'd or Catholicks are tainted with so gross Hypocrisy such open Prophaneness and professed Atheisme amongst their own Crews and loose Conventicles that it is something hard to finde a cordial Christian in the most pretending Churches of Christendome that does not deny his profession either in heart or practice or in both
Angels of light and fit to enter into the presence of God if they be but neatly elegantly trimm'd up in these fine ornaments of Orthodoxality â—esotted fools blinde and carnal that think to recommend themselves to the Majesty of Heaven by being array'd in these motly coats this strip'd stuff of their own spinning While they thus affect the favour oâ— God by opinionative Knowledge how do they betray their gross Ignorance For how can that which is more pleasing to the natural man nay I may say to the Devil himself then to a regenerate Soul how can that render any one acceptable to God And yet in all the Divisions of the Churches they lay the greatest stress upon this bear the greatest zeal toward it recommend it the most vehemently to the people who following the example of their Pastours if they be but busie hot in these rending points they think themselves fully possest of the life of Christ and that they are very choicely religious though in the mean time Charity to their neighbour be cold they have attain'd to no measure of true Righteousness and Holiness Herein chiefly lies the mystery of Hypocrisy in all the Churches of Christendome counting all pious that are but zealous for the waies and opinions of their Sect and those that are not for it be they never so unblameable and cordial Christians they are either hated as Hereticks or at best pitied for poor Moralists mere Natural Men. 5. These are the most general and very potent Impediments for the hindring the Gospel of taking that effect which it would otherwise have in the Christian World and for making most of the professours of Christianity Hypocrites that is such as make a great show of Godliness but deny the power thereof which should mainly appear in our duty to our Neighbour and in a sober and just conversation doing all things as in the sight of God Now this Hypocrisy in Professours begets Prophaneness Atheisme and Unbelief in such persons as naturally have not so strong propension to matters of Religion that is to say that have not so superstitious a Complexion as to be tied to Religion upon any termes in any dress and from any kinde of Recommenders of it For their natural Nasuteness suggests that if there be any Religion at all most certainly it is not to be divided from sound Morality to which truly both the Prophets Apostles and Precepts of Christ do plentifully witness But they observing that they that make the greatest noise about Religion and are the most zealous therein do neglect the Laws of Honesty and common Humanity that they can easily invade other mens rights that they can juggle dissemble and lie for advantage that they are proud and conceited and love the applause of the People that they are envious fierce and implacable that they are unclean and sensual that they are merciless and cruel and care not to have Kingdomes to flow in bloud for the maintaining of their Tyranny over the consciences of poor deluded Souls when yet the contest is nothing but about hay and stubble the combustible superstructures of Humane Invention of which every vainglorious Superstitionist that would make a show in the flesh has cast on his handfull if not his arm-full for the hiding and smothering of the indispensable Truths of the Gospel and to put men into perplexities and labours for that which is not bread to rack their heads with Nonsense Contradictions and Impossibilities to weary out their bodies with the thankless toyle of endless and needless Ceremonies and to carry out their heart to toyes and trifles and so make them neglect the holy and weighty commands of our Saviour which are intelligible to all men and in some measure approved by all such as are To deal as we would be dealt with To love our neighbours as our selves and the like I say those that are not of so religious a Complexion naturally but have wit and sagacity enough to smell out the Corruptions and discern the Incoherences of the Actions of Professors making observation of these things are by this Scandal exceedingly tempted and very hardly escape the being quite overcome by so perverse a Scene of pretended Piety to think that the whole Business of Religion is nothing but Humour and Madness or at the best but a Plot to enrich the Priest and keep the People in awe 6. This is one great Scandal and effectual counterplot against the power of the Gospel the Vilifying and despising of Moral honesty by those that are great Zelots and high Pretenders to Religion This does advance Atheisme and Prophaneness very much But there is another Miscarriage which I have hinted at already as Epidemical and Universal and at least as effectual to this evil purpose as the former There is scarce any Church in Christendome at this day that does not obtrude not only Falshoods but such Falshoods that will appear to any free spirit pure Contradictions and Impossibilities and that with the same Gravity Authority and Importunity that they doe the holy Oracles of God Now the consequence of this must needs be fad For what knowing and consciencious man but will be driven off if he cannot profess the truth without open asserting of a gross lie If he sees good wine poured out of one bottle but rank poison out of another into the same cup who can perswade him to drink thereof This is a heavy sight to the truly-Religious but the joy and triumph of the Prophane who willingly take this advantage against the whole Mystery of Piety as if there were no truth at all in it because that so gross Falshoods are urg'd upon them with the same Indispensableness with the same Solemness Devoutness as those things that were it not for the serious Impudence of the Priest in other open falsities might pass with them for true But they being not at leisure to perpend things to the bottom but it may be not altogether indisposed to believe a faithfull report from an honest man they finding the Relater foully tripping in some things that he so earnestly urges discredit the whole Narration and so become perfect Atheists and Unbelievers though for their own security they juggle with the Juglers that is comply and doe outward reverence and devotion though they cannot but laugh in their sleeves at either the Ignorance or cunning Deceitfulness of their Ghostly Leaders 7. And that I may not seem to slander the state of Christendome I mean of the whole visible Church in what Nation soever under Heaven if we may believe Historians there is none neither Greek nor Roman neither Lutheran nor Calvinist but will be found guilty of this fault I shall particularize in some one thing in all The Greek as well as the Roman hold Transsubstantiation the Lutheran Consubstantiation things that have no ground in Scripture and are a palpable contradiction to Reason And yet not more contradictious then Absolute Reprobation according as our rigid
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
Solomon in defining her to be the true Mother that could not endure that the Child should be divided and killed And whatever Church is cruell and remorsless in either Temporall persecution or the Eternall damnation of such men as believe in Christ according to the plain and easie meaning of the Scripture and live accordingly she may approve her self to be an imperious Harlot but no discerning spirit will ever take her for the true Mother that new Ierusalem which is the Spouse of Christ or Wife of the Lamb. Wherefore those are very weak Christians that are so low-belled by this terror as to be taken up and captivated by the Church of Rome and acknowledge her the mother-Church by force of that Argument that demonstrates the contrary to say nothing of their disingenuous abuse of the Charity of the Reformed Churches But for my own part I confess that for sureness I had rather exercise my Charity in wishing them Converts from Popery then express any great confidence of their being safe in that Religion Not that it is possible for me who cannot infallibly demonstrate to my self that all that lived under Paganisme are certainly damned to imagine that all that have gone under the name of Papists have tumbled down into Hell But the case is much like that in Shipwrack on the sea or Pestilence in a City where we will suppose not a house free no man can pronounce that it is impossible that such or such a person should escape nor that any of them are in any tolerable safety The danger is alike to them that adhere to the Apostate Church for though there be a possibility of some mens being saved by an extraordinary or miraculous Providence they breaking through all those impediments and snares that are laid in their way and attaining to a Dispensation above the Church they live in as haply some under Paganisme did yet it cannot be denied but that the Oeconomie of that Church naturally tends to the betraying of Souls to Eternall destruction that falling out which our Saviour said of old of the Pharisees They compass sea and land to make one profelyte and when he is made he becomes twofold more the child of the devil then themselves For he will not stint his Hypocrisie in Religion by the measure of their gain that invented the forme and submit to it for their End but for his own namely that he may excuse himself from all reall holiness by keeping to the observation and profession of their vain inventions And thus are the Commandements of God made of none effect by their Traditions In brief the whole frame of that Church is fashioned out so near to the ancient guise of Idolatrous Paganisme or else to the liveless and ineffectual forme of Judaisme both which Christ appeared on purpose to destroy as either contrary or ineffectuall to Salvation and does explicitly recommend to the world a pure and spirituall worship that we should worship the Father in Spirit and in truth or lastly is so full of Contradictions and Impossibilities in their feigned Stories and imperiously-obtruded Opinions that the natural result of being born under such a Religion or of turning to it is either to become a besotted Superstitionist to believe or do any thing that others will have him to do which is a sign the Spirit of Regeneration has not yet passed upon him and that there is no life nor light in him or else which is too frequent to turn down-right Atheist it being so grosly discernable that the Tenents of their Church are impossible and their Practices fraudulent fitted chiefly for filthy lucre and their Ceremonies useless thankless and ridiculous And therefore if any be saved in the Church of Rome they are such as are not truely of it but above it and fend for themselves as well as they may by some pardonable sleights of Prudence accompanied with an impregnable innocency of Spirit and readiness of doing all possible good they can they sparing their own lives and liberties upon no other account then that and out of a perswasion that he that commanded them to be wise as Serpents as well as innocent as Doves has given them no commission inconsiderately and to no purpose to betray themselves into the power of his usurping Enemy But for others that are perfect Papists and swallow down all that Church proposes to them without chewing or distasting any thing it is a Demonstration there is no Principle of life in them but that they are like dead earthen pitchers which receive poison and wholesome liquors with a like admittance And if there be no principle of life there is no seed of Salvation in a man For it is most certainly true and the Scripture it self doth witness to it That unless a man be born from above he cannot see the kingdome of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit This is the new Creature that is created in wisdome righteousness and true holiness The first of which the Church of Rome expunges in that it gives no leave to a man never so regenerate to judge for himself but he must say as the Church sayes right or wrong and for the other two all their superstitious Ceremonies put together adde nothing to them but rather stifle and sufflaminate them Again S. John tell us That he that hates his brother is in the dark and walketh in the dark and knows no whither he goes But others may know it as appears by another saying of the same Apostle Every one that hates his brother is a murderer and no murderer hath eternall life abiding in him But on the contrary he affirms That Love is of God and that he that loveth is born of God and knowes God Now to apply the Case to these Rules If Love be an essential Character of a Regenerate soul and Hatred of Errour Darkness and Eternal Death or to come yet closer If Hatred it self be Murder what will Murder it self be added thereunto And if any thing be Murder I demand whether this be not namely to take away the life of a member of Iesus Christ who does fully and freely profess the Ancient and Apostolick Faith according to the Letter or History of the New Testament and does seriously compose his life according to the Precepts therein contained and does onely declare against and reject the Contradictious Opinions and Idolatrous Practices that have no ground at all in Scripture nor Reason but are quite contrary to both I say if this be no Murder there is no Murder in the world and how guilty the Church of Rome is of this Crime all the world knowes Wherefore this being one of the Principles of that bloudy Church and he that is a perfect Papist being of one mind and suffrage with his Church in all things for she will be held no less then Infallible 't is apparent that no through-paced Papist can ever go to
heaven while he is such this murderous disposition being a demonstration that he is not born of God but of him that was a murderer from the beginning For Love being the very Heart and Center of Regeneration if there be no Antipathie in us against that which is so contrary to the deepest Principle of the Divine life it is a sign there is none of that Life in us Wherefore this Hypothesis of Mr. Mede cannot be made harsh or odious by the Opposer's surmise there being a capacity of being saved in such as I have above described though of the Papall denomination which are as it were the Woman in the wilderness And for that incapacity of being saved in the other there wants no Apocalypse to reveal the certainty thereof Nor do I know a more uncharitable opinion in the World then that which promises them Salvation that are so far from Charity themselves that they are professedly persecuters and murderers of the innocent nay of the sincere and faithful members of Christ. 27. But the Subtilty of our Adversaries is such that they will reply That there are as many snares and impediments in the Reformed Churches to true Holiness if not to all Holiness in the Opinions of Solifidianisme and Eternall Decrees and as great a demonstration of their utter insensibility of that Principle of the Divine love into which every true Christian is regenerated in their doctrine of Absolute Reprobation and inevitable damnation of innumerable myriads of men Providence determining them upon all the wayes and means thereto as in the Romanists either censuring all out of their Church to be in a state of perdition or in their inflicting a Temporal death upon them that gainsay the Articles of their Church For what is this in comparison of being content that all the World in a manner should be adjudged to everlasting torments for doing such things as they were from all Eternity decreed to do nor could any way possibly avoid it This Objection I must confess is very shrewdly levelled at the mark nor can I well undertake within the narrow limits of my now almost-ended Preface to make a full and direct Answer to the things themselves Onely I shall return thus much First That all of the Reformed Churches are not Solifidians nor hold any thing concerning the Divine Decrees inconsistent with either the Goodness of God or the Advancement of Godliness and that for my own part I am one of that number And then Secondly They that do do not profess themselves infallible in their opinion nor judge others to be in a damnable condition that are not of it and therefore do not low-bell men into their own errour by either uncharitable censurings or bloudy persecutions nor become incorrigible themselves upon pretence of Infallibility but are in a fair way of acknowledging the Truth when it shall be rightly and advantageously proposed Thirdly Their errours are not so many nor managed with that meditated craft and design as in the old Apostate Church they being not invented to serve some avaritious or ambitious end but fallen into if I may so speak by chance upon reading some passages of Scripture that looked upon alone may seem to favour their Conclusions and by reason of the obscurity of the things themselves such as have puzled contemplative men in all Ages and Places And fourthly and lastly If they have made their own Inventions and argumentative Conclusions Articles of Faith it is because they are not yet sufficiently cleansed from the corruption they contracted under the Mother of Apostasy which mainly consists in this in adding the fallible deductions of humane Reason to the infallible Articles of the ancient and Apostolick Faith So that whatever hazard of Salvation there is in the Reformed Churches it is by reason that they do still Romanize and do not clear up into a certain and uncontroverted Apostolick purity exhibiting nothing for Fundamentals but what is expresly so in the Text it self without the slipperyness of humane Ratiocination Which certainly as it is their Duty so is it also their greatest Interest and the most effectuall way for Peace and Righteousness upon Earth 28. As for that abusable Opinion of Imputative Righteousness that I have shewn my dissatisfaction touching that point which ordinarily the worst of men most of all build upon though I do not deny but well-meaning and piously-disposed persons may also heedlesly take up the forme I hope the judicious will not misconstrue it nor take it ill that I have been so free and faithful as to discover the danger and groundlesness of this overmuch Idolized doctrine For indeed it is a very Idol that is Nothing as the Apostle describes an Idol to be I mean nothing of it self but a mere Phrase if you prescind it from what is comprized in Remission of sins through the bloud of Christ shed upon the Cross. For this Remission of sins contains in it such a reconciliation with God that we are safe from all the Effects of his wrath both concerning this state and that which is to come that is to say we shall not be punished by his withholding his Grace from us here or that Glory which is expected in the other Life For these deprivements being the results of sin if we were not secured from them our sins were not remitted which is against the Hypothesis Now I appeal to the judgement and conscience of the most zealous assertour of Imputative Righteousness if he can find any thing more comprized therein then such a remission of sins as we have defined and whether when he talks of being cloathed with Christs righteousness in this imputative sense he can understand any thing but being as it were armed and defended from the wrath of God and all the ill consequences thereof For if this Righteousness we are thus cloathed with were a Righteousness that really kept us suppose from Envy from Drunkenness from Adultery and made us Charitable Sober and Chast it were not then imputative but inherent From whence it plainly appears that if you prescind it from remission of sins through the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross this Phrase of Imputative Righteousness has no signification at all and that therefore there is no loss or damage done to our Religion if it be not accounted a distinct Article from the remission of sins in the bloud of Christ. For it cannot afford any true and useful sense distinct there-from nay I may say any that is not very mischievous and dangerous and such as tends to that loathsome and pestilential errour of Antinomianisme But if you will understand by it Remission of sins I do again appeal to the sagacious if there may not yet be a great deal of fraud and hypocrisie in making choice of such an Expression as does easily insinuate to over-many a needlesness of seriously endeavouring to be really righteous we being so warmely secure by the imputation of anothers and does omit such circumstances