the number and circumstances of his sins So little pretence can there be from hence of this Injunction But if he profess his sorrow and resolution of amendment and by reason of some weakness or melancholy cannot lay such fast hold upon the Promise of remission upon unfeigned Repentance without this visible and palpable seal set thereto of Sacerdotal Absolution I do not see but a Priest anointed with the Spirit of Christ and full of holy compassion to a penitent member of his Church may rightfully and profitably by that Authority which was derived upon the Apostles and their Successours and by that divine power that assists the sincere exercise of his Ministery seal to him the Remission of his sins by pronouncing his Absolution and so restore to peace his disquieted Mind his sins being as certainly pardoned as if Christ himself in person had absolved him he in such a case as this assuredly ratifying in Heaven whatever is here transacted upon Earth Which I suppose Grotius himself will not deny nor conceive at all clashing with his interpretation of S. John he not pretending those he mentions the only occasions of remitting or retaining of sins but the most notable 7. And as this Voluntary Confession in general to the Priest in order to the Penitent's Absolution is usefull and commendable so likewise a Voluntary unbosoming a mans self in a more particular way to such an one as he could trust and can presume fit and able for his office to the end that he may have a more perfect understanding of the state of his Soul and thereby administer more sutable and effectual counsel is a thing questionless of very good consequence 8. But to extort from every Believer every year or oftener a punctuall enumeration of all his transgressions in thought word and deed with all their circumstances were but a vile and disingenuous pretence of insinuating into all mens bosoms for the getting out their secrets of which the Priest may make his private advantage or communicate to the Churchpoliticians such matters as will tend to the strengthening of their distinct Interest which is The conserving or promoting that Honour Wealth and Power which they affect in the World And truely by this means the secrets not of this man or that woman but of whole Families and Cities nay of whole Provinces and Kingdoms and of all Christendom may flow together into that common Cistern or if you will Sea of Ecclesiastick Intelligence which is the very Eye of Action and the Soul of Conduct in all affairs 9. But though this would be a sweet morsel to this Pseudo-Clergy we are now describing it would be sour sauce to the Laiety not only in that it is a foul badge of an inevitable bondage upon them to be constrained upon pain of Damnation at least once by the year to cast themselves down upon the ground before them that are so many fathom sunk into the Earth themselves and to reproach themselves by ripping up their own faults accurately and punctually before such as they have no assurance of either their Candour Judgment or Friendship and for a man to balk his own Priest in this case would be to brand him and so make one of his chiefest neighbours his greatest enemy I say besides the external slavery of the business and the doing of a Ceremonie which may goe so much against the hair even with good and ingenuous spirits a man may be obnoxious to very great dangers and mischiefs For he that has the office of hearing men thus accurately and necessarily accusing themselves once a year at least has a greater opportunity of injustly defaming them by some tacit insinuations or somewhat expresser notices then is fit to be put into the hand of any man that is not a Saint upon Earth of which sort we suppose in this Polity we speak of extremely few 10. Interrogatories also from such Confessours may in greatest likelihood prove to young men and women Lessons of sin and lust and the knowing of the secrets of Families the seeds of infinite contentions betwixt Neighbours and also betwixt those of the same Families For it will be a hard thing for those that by this Shriving of persons know much of their Interest or disinterest to hold their itching fingers from acting or intermedling in their affairs or their other prurient parts from the soliciting the Chastity of such parties as they find hopefull and coming or not to be officious Intelligencers or Game-finders for such as pursue the pleasures of Venus Besides that the vainness of their Penances which yet must needs look like the right value of the Sin may harden men into a conceit that there is no great hurt in sinning and teach them to esteem the transgressing of the Law of God as a thing slight cheap and trivial Whereas if the only Penance of sin were the pain of forsaking it urged upon them from the certain expectation of that most direfull Judgment to come though no other condition but that were annexed to Absolution it would make men more sensibly feel the weight of sin and make them make the greater speed to get from under the burthen of it But to draw to an end 11. That also will pinch very hard especially upon the more Intellectual or Rational complexions namely To be bound in their Conscience upon pain of Damnation to hold whatsoever the Church professes to be true while she in the mean time obtrudes such things upon mens belief as have no ground neither in Reason nor Scripture For even in things that are disputable either way it is the fate of some men notwithstanding to be in a manner invincibly inclined to conceive this part to be true rather then the other What struggling and conflicting therefore must he undergoe to hold to the Authority of the Church against such strong and fatal sentiments of his own Mind But if the Church should be thus Dogmatical not only in things that may according to the sense of the generality of men be either way but conclude and require the belief of such things as are point-blank against either Scripture or Reason and are impossible according to the Faculties of all men who are unprejudiced to be true as That one and the same Body may be wholy and entirely in a thousand places at once and at a thousand miles distance betwixt all those places That we may worship a graven Image and the like how unevenly must these conditions of Salvation sit upon the spirit of him that is not a mere sot What reciprocations of belief and misbelief of hope and despair of Salvation must such an one be tortured with that holds that his share in eternall bliss depends upon the hearty belief of the truth of the Church in all things when what she propounds according to all his Faculties is not only unlikely but impossible to be true CHAP. XXII 1. The dreadfull Figment of Purgatory 2. That by this affrightfull Fable
with great admiration Chap. 13. 15. And he had power to give life to the Image of the Beast that the Image of the Beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the Image of the Beast should be a Par. 1. Agr. 6. killed Chap. 17. 7. And the Angel said unto me Wherefore didst thou marvell I will tell thee the Mystery of the Woman and of the Beast that a carrieth her which hath the b seven heads and ten horns Chap. 13. 11. And I beheld another Beast coming up out of the Earth and he had a Par. 〈◊〉 Agr. 7. two horns 1. And I saw a Beast having b Par. 2 Agr. 1. seven heads and ten horns Chap. 17. 8. The Beast which thou sawest a was and is not and shall ascend out of the b bottomless pit and goe into c perdition and they that dwell on the Earth shall d wonder whose names were not written in the Book of life from the foundation of the world when they behold the Beast that e was and is not and yet is Chap. 13. 2. And the a Par. 2. Agr. 3. Dragon gave him his power and his seat and great authority 4. And they worshipped the a Dragon that gave power to the Beast c. See also verse 3. 1. And I stood upon the sand of the Sea and I saw a Beast b Par. 2. Agr. 6. rise up out of the Sea 10. He that leadeth into c Par. 2. Agr. 7. captivity must go into captivity he that killeth with the sword must be c killed with the sword 3. And all the world d Par. 2. Agr. 8. wondred after the Beast 8. And all that dwell upon the Earth shall worship him whose names are not d written in the Book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world 3. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to a Par. 2. Agr. 3. death and his deadly wound was a healed 14. Saying to them that dwell on the Earth that they should make an c Par. 2. Agr. 5. Image to the Beast which had the wound by the sword and the Beast revived 15. And he had power to give life to the c Image of the Beast insomuch that the Image of the Beast should speak Chap. 17. 9. And here is the mind that hath wisedom The seven Heads are the a seven Mountains on which the Woman sitteth Chap. 13. 11. And I beheld another Beast coming up out of the Earth and he had a Par. 1. Agr. 8. two horns like a Lamb but spake as a Dragon Chap. 17. 10. And they are seven Kings five are fallen and one is and the a Par. 2. Agr. 10. other is not yet come and when he cometh he must continue a b Par. 2. Agr. 4. short space Chap. 13. 1. Having a seven heads and upon his heads the name of a blasphemy 3. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death and his deadly wound was b healed Chap. 17. 11. And the Beast that was and is not even he is the eighth and is of the a Par. 2. Agr. 9. seven and goeth into b Par. 2. Agr. 7. perdition Chap. 13. 1. Having seven heads and upon his heads the name of a blasphemy 10. He that killeth with the sword must be b killed with the sword Chap. 17. 12. And the ten Horns which thou sawest are ten Kings which have received a no kingdom as yet but receive power as kings a one hour with the Beast Chap. 13. 1. Having seven heads and ten horns and upon his horns ten a Par. 2. Agr. 11 12. crowns Chap. 17. 13. These have one mind and shall a give their strength and power to the Beast Chap. 13. 1. I saw a Beast rising out of the Sea a Par. 2. Agr. 13. having ten horns Chap. 17. 14. These shall make a war with the Lamb and the Lamb shall b overcome them for he is Lord of lords and King of kings and they that are with him are c called and chosen and faithfull Chap. 13. 4. Who is like to the Beast who is able to make a Par. 2. Agr. 14. war with him 7. And it was given him to make a War with the Saints and to overcome them 16. And he causeth all both small and great rich and poor free and bond to receive a mark in their right hand or on their foreheads 17. And that no man may a buy or sell save he that has the mark or the name of the Beast or the number of his name 10. He that leadeth into captivity shall b Par. 2. Agr. 15. go into captivity he that killeth with the sword shall be b killed with the sword Here is the patience and c Par. 2. Agr. 16. faith of the Saints Chap. 17. 15. And he saith unto me The waters which thou sawest where the Whore sitteth are a peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues Chap. 13. 7. And power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations 12. And I beheld another Beast come out of the Earth and he had a Par. 1. Agr. 7. two horns like a Lamb and he exercizeth a all the power of the first Beast before him Chap. 17. 16. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the Beast these shall hate the Whore and shall make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire Chap. 13. There is nothing in this Thirteenth Chapter answering to the 16. verse of the other but that verse answers punctually to the main Title of the Vision which is The judgment of the great Whore But that this defect is no prejudice to the certainty of our Parallelism I have already noted Chap. 17. 17. For God has put in their hearts to fulfill his will and to agree and give their Kingdom unto the Beast untill the a words of God shall be fulfilled Chap. 13. 5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies and power was given unto him to continue a Par. 2. Agr. 17. forty and two months Chap. 17. 18. And the Woman which thou sawest is that great City which a Par. 1. Agr. 9. reigneth over the Kings of the Earth Chap. 13. 18. Here is Wisedom let him that hath understanding count the Number of the Beast for it is the number of a man and his number is a six hundred threescore and six 7. Thus you see the Two Visions of the Thirteenth Chapter wholy imbibed into the Vision of the Seventeenth excepting the Original of the Two-horned Beast of which I have given an account already And that it is naturally drunk in not dash'd in by force will appear from that joint-Exposition which I shall make of these two Chapters together interpreting those verses or parts of verses of the Thirteenth which I have subnected to each verse of the
followers For it is too dilute and frigid a Gloss to make no more of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then to turn it off with a Posthac or Hereafter as if the term of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had not passed into a phrase of Art already and had not been defined long since by the Angel in Daniel or at least was not a necessary Consectary from Chap. 12. his Definition who being asked how long to the end of these wonders he held up his right hand and his left hand unto Heaven and sware by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time and times and half a time And being again asked by Daniel to declare more plainly when the end of those things should be he gives this Answer That the words are sealed till the time of the End which is so called as being that notable section of time that lies next to the end of the Fourth or Last Monarchy but presently after addes this hint to point him to this time of the End That from the time that the daily Sacrifice should be taken away and the Abomination that makes desolate set up should be 1290 days but that blessed he should be that came to the 1335 days 9. Now the end of those things Daniel enquired after reached as appears from the Text and general consent of Expositors even to the Day of Judgment however that phrase is to be understood Whence it is rational to conceive that Daniel's Prophecies reach through those four famous Monarchies or Kingdoms the Babylonian Persian Greek and Roman and that the Roman Kingdom conterminates or synchronizes with the fulness of time or the end of Times and Ages and being the Fourth and last division of this Sacred Kalendar of Prophecies as Mr. Mede calls it may rightly be termed the last times or last days in which the Messias was expected and came But after Christ's coming seeing there would be a very marvellous and notorious reign of Antichrist during this Fourth Monarchy or last time who is figured out in the Two-horned Beast and the Whore of Babylon which are of the Middle Synchronals of the Book-prophecie and which I have already demonstrated to begin about 400 years after Christ and that the time of their continuance is the same with a Time and Times and half a Time and that this is 1260 years it is evident that this share of time is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter times of these last or the time of the End as lying next thereto and the very times the Angel speaks of in this Chapter where he asserts with an Oath that those Wonders that is that prodigious Reign of Antichrist should continue for a time and times and half a time but that when he shall have accomplished to scatter Dan. 12. 7. the power of the holy people namely the Jews then all things spoken of shall be finished Which is the very same with that in the Apocalyps where the Angel swears by him that lives for ever that there should be no more time saving in the days of the voice of the seventh Angel Apoc. 10. 7. when he shall sound and the Mystery of God be finished as he has declared to his servants the Prophets alluding particularly to this of Daniel This is the right meaning of this passage of the Revelation according to common sense and Grammatical construction Which plainly shews that the Time and Times and half a Time end with the sixth Trumpet From which considerations it is evident to any one that is unprejudiced that this term of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a term of the Prophetick style the same with the Time of the End with an allusion to that Sacred Kalendar of Daniel consisting of the four Monarchies as being the latter section of the continuance of the last running on along with the Reign of Antichrist For so does the Church generally interpret that Time and Times and half a Time in Daniel 10. And that they do belong to the Reign of Antichrist even in our sense Mr. Mede has in my judgment most convincingly made good even from those numbers of 1290 days and 1335 days in his little Treatise of those Numbers which he calls Revelatio Antichristi Which were certainly given as a Key to open the truth of Daniel's Prophecies concerning the reign of that Man of sin and the time of his Discovery The words Dan. 12. 9. are closed up and sealed till the time of the End that is till these latter times but the wicked shall not then understand them but the wise shall and may be assured of them by this Key of Numbers of years from the Epocha of Antiochus his prophaning the Temple compared with the Event the first notable Instances of Revealing of this Man of sin The first of these Numbers from that Epocha ends in the year of our Lord 1120 the latter in the year 1165. For I have already so undeniably demonstrated that Days stylo Prophetico do signifie Years both in this Treatise and in my * Book 5. Ch. 15. Sect. 2. Mystery of Godliness that I think no man will doubt of it and that they cannot signifie Days here Mr. Mede has with no less evidence evinced Now the Event is exact to Admiration For in the year 1120 a true and perfect detection or description of Antichrist came forth and not till then as you may see by that compendious account which Mr. Mede has given thereof The ending of the other Period is also notable for the Waldenses and Albigenses in whose times the Mystery of Iniquity was more fully detected and by more numerous Companies protested against Whence they are said to be blessed that reach to those times by reason of the great clearness of the Light of the Gospel that shined forth nor less happy they that then also suffered for witnessing to it but certainly much more blessed by reason that their Reward should be greater and more singular For the Prophecie declares how things are in truth and reality and not according to the judgment or sentiments of the soft and false carnal mind See that judicious Author Mr. Mede for I cannot dwell upon these things I will onely adde for a farther assurance of Mr. Mede's Exposition that no other will hold water For it is not likely that these Numbers of Days should be any Interpretation of the Extent of the above-mentioned Time and Times and half a Time they both of them varying from the just measure of that Period and the sense also of that Aenigmatical expression being not so hard but that all hit on it and agree in it To which you may adde that the Epocha from Antiochus will not comply with this design and it is hard to make that Epocha signifie otherwise then literally with any credibility of meaning As also that this way the main difficulty about which Daniel was so solicitous will not be satisfi'd which was When this
miss-led into so bad an adventure The Son of man coming in the clouds of Heaven according to him is Populus Romanus nullum intra se habens regem When our Saviour Christ intimated to the high Priest that he was that Son of man that should come in the clouds of Heaven it seem'd so high an Arrogation that he rent his clothes and said he had spoken blasphemie And truly I think that neither Jew nor Christian can well acquit Grotius of that crime who attributes that which is the peculiar character of the Messias to a Prophane and Pagan people and that forsooth because they had no King as if they were ever the better for that But they had Kings at first and both in the Infancy of their Empire and afterwards they had a Supreme Power so great and imperial as may excuse them from the least shew of Contempt They had always over them a Sovereignty so that they could not be deemed the Son of man for any such private condition For the Summa Potestas is the Summa Potestas under what name or form soever and of the same real grandeur Besides that they were a most glorious and victorious people before Antiochus his time So that it is a very dilute and sapless conceit of Grotius to apply the phrase of the Son of man to them for any inconsiderableness in them or obscurity For they were not so in the times of Antiochus 6. Again the Kingdom of the Son of man and the Stone cut out without hands are all one both in truth and according to Grotius his own Concession But this Stone is Christ and his Kingdom as being Heavenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing erected not by humane power but by the power and Spirit of God That this is the meaning of without hands is the general vote of Interpreters S. Jerom Irenaus Justin Epiphanius S. Augustin Theodoret and several others Where think you does Grotius take shelter now Why This Figure which is so appropriate to Christ and mentioned of him so often in the New Testament This Stone must be cast away as if it were neither precious nor a Corner-stone and be bestowed again on a Pagan people the Romans For so Grotius does not stick to profess Idem Lapis Filius hominis and he made the Son of man before the people of Rome But can a man believe that the Original or Success of that people was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing brought to pass by the special power and Spirit of God and not more humano according to the usual course of the World and that not of the best kind their beginnings being helped on by a rabble of Ruffians and Robbers 7. No but that is not Grotius his gloss you will say Let us therefore hear what it is Lapis abscissus de monte sine manibus according to him is Exercitus populi qui suae esset spontis nullique regi pareret cujus populi origo à monte nempe Palatino In which there is nothing sound nor solid For was this Roman Army any thing more suae spontis in that they had not a Kingly Government at Rome That Supreme Power of Consuls and Senatours was as directive and coactive as if it had been Regal So that the motion of this Army was never the more spontaneous for this Again The Stone cut from the mountain without hands implies that it was then spontaneously divided from the Mountain when it is said to be cut thence But when the Romans first issued from mount Palatine yea so soon as they were populus Romanus Regal Government was amongst them it being the first Government of this People and therefore they were not then Populus suae spontis according to Grotius his Conceit so that he cannot bring both ends together And lastly To interpret Mountain here in a literal sense is unskilfully done and not according to the analogy of the Prophetick style nor the very intimation of the present Text which says the Little stone became a great Mountain itself and filled the whole Earth Wherefore this Mountain signifying not literally but politically there is no question but the other does so too and that the Stone is in some sense homogeneall to this rocky Mountain Whence the sense is plainly this That out of the great Mountain that is the Roman Empire there should be a People raised not by humane power or policy but by the Spirit of God and the preaching of the Gospel by Jesus Christ and his Apostles which should be a peculiar people to him and become the Subjects of his Kingdom that is to say That the Church of Christ should be cut out of the Roman Empire without humane help This is a most easy and undistorted sense and against which there cannot be made the least Exception 8. Fourthly which I have already intimated above The Ten Horns of the Fourth Beast with iron teeth and the Ten toes of the iron leggs of the Statue signify the same thing Wherefore it is plain sith the Ten toes imply a Coexistence of the Ten Horns by reason of the coordination of their Site that there must be Ten Kings together in the Fourth Kingdom But in the Kingdom of the Seleucidae and Lagidae there were not Ten Kings together all at once Therefore that Kingdom is not the Fourth 9. Fifthly Antiochus Epiphanes part of this Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae is said to rise up in the latter time of the Kingdom of the Successours of Alexander Dan. 8. 22 23. Wherefore this Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae has expired near two thousand years ago But the Kingdom of the Fourth Beast reaches even to the Day of Judgment Dan. 7. 9 10. And I beheld till the thrones were cast down and the ancient of days did sit His throne was like the fiery flame and his wheels as burning fire A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him thousand thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him the Judgment was set and the Books were opened c. That this is the Description of the Day of Judgment is the general Opinion of both Christians and Jews and answers exactly to the Lake of fire and the opening of the Books Apocal. 20. which Grotius himself does interpret of the Last Day Whence we may safely conclude that the Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae is not the Fourth Kingdom as having ceased so long before that time though we understood the Day of Judgment in the sense of the Rabbins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 According to which the meaning of I beheld till the thrones were set and the Books were opened is this That the Prophet Daniel had a prospect even to the utmost end of that great Day But he begins more particularly at the beginning of that Day in the eleventh verse But this I have onely noted by the bye 10. Sixthly and lastly Alexander's Kingdom and that of his Successours
though they still profess they worship the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent the very same God once incarnate of the Virgin Mary and so living amongst men upon Earth 4. And particularly concerning the Adoring of the Bread in the Eucharist upon a belief that it is the very Body of Christ a Christian could not defend himself from the imputation of Idolatry neither by the general plea before nor by the proper plea to this case namely That he that thus adores it does verily believe it to be the Body of Christ or his corporeal presence I say he cannot clear himself from being guilty of real Idolatry For his Ignorance is not his excuse no more then before For the sense of his Excuse is only this That he gives this Divine worship to the seeming Bread because he verily believes it to be God and therefore a due Object of this worship and that he gives no more worship then he thinks is due to the Object If there be any sense in the Reason and Faculties of a man this is the sense of their Plea which if it be sound and just we doe very unjustly to accuse any Nations or persons in the world of committing Idolatry that were serious in the action For can they devoutly or seriously doing it conceive at the same time they doe their divine worship to an undue Object and that that Object is not capable of as much Religious worship as they doe to it 5. There was infinitely more reason that the Pagans should take the Sun to be that true and Eternal God that made and governs all things as he is professed to be in the fragments of their Liturgies then that any Christian should imagine a piece of consecrated Bread to be so And I question not but that the ancient Heathen did as firmly believe the Sun to be God as any Christian can believe the Eucharistick Bread to be the Body of Christ But yet notwithstanding I think it never came into any Christian mans mind to doubt but that the worshippers of the Sun were Idolaters How then is it possible but that a Bread-worshipping Christian upon the same terms must be an Idolater too there being nothing intrinsecal that can excuse the one but it will excuse the other also And as for the mitigation of the fault of either side from any exteriour circumstances I briefly adde That the glorious lustre of the Sun his comfortable warmth his notable effects and vast influence upon the world was a far stronger inducement and more unavoidable to make the Pagans think him to be God then Hoc est corpus meum or any gloss thereon by the Fathers of the Church could justly be to make any Christian believe that the Eucharistick Bread is the real Body of Jesus Christ. Besides that as Murther and Adultery may have several degrees of aggravation the fact being still the same so let the Circumstances be more or less aggravable as much as men may imagine them yet the act we speak of is certainly Idolatry 6. I must confess time was when I marvellously pleased my self in phansying I had found out so clear an evidence as I then thought to prove that the adoring of the Host as it is called was not Idolatry in them that believed that it was the very Body of Christ. For I thought it as pardonable a mistake as I my self once committed when I was a boy in asking a waggish cosin of mine blessing For in the dusk of the evening he having by chance placed himself in the Chair where my Father used ordinarily to sit I passing by to goe up to bed out of mistake begged according to the custome of children his benediction thinking it was my Father but he rewarding my blind devotion with a ludicrous blessing and loud laughter I presently found my errour I know not how far I have transgressed the Laws of decorum in telling this trivial story of my self but I hope the Reader will pardon this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it being so serviceable for my present purpose Now the Charitable use I sometime made of this mistake of mine was this That as I had not the least intention of begging a blessing or doing any act of a filial duty to that unfit person that then sate in the Chair but to my Father only and that therefore though a stranger had occupied the place yet that duty was directed intended and indeed done to him alone though he was not there to receive it So I charitably concluded and the imposing so upon my self was a great ease to my mind being exceeding loath to find any more miscarriages in the world in the Christian world especially then needs must that if a man did Divine Adoration to the Host he being fully persuaded it was the Body of Christ that Adoration did no more pass to the Host then my asking blessing did to him I never intended it for but that as this latter was entirely directed to my Father so the former did entirely pass to the person of Christ. This imposement upon my self was a great ease and pleasure to the charitableness of my nature so long as I thought more carelesly upon the matter But after making it my business to enquire more accurately into these things I found that saying of Solomon over-true That he that encreaseth wisdom encreaseth sorrow Nor can I apologize for this mistake on this sort but I must also thereby excuse all the Idolaters in the World that were serious in their Idolatry For undoubtedly they always took themselves to have a due Object of their worship and what is Idolatry but the not having a due Object thereof Wherefore if thinking we have will excuse us from Idolatry no devout and serious Idolater was ever guilty of the sin which is an enormous contradiction Besides there is a great difference betwixt a sudden surprizal inevitable for one single action and a constant repetition of the same mistakes and still greater if we consider what a loud warning there has been given in these latter ages against this so palpable errour of Transsubstantiation men having strained their voices and called to them not only ad ravim usque but till they have spit bloud and spilt their own lives by freely and faithfully testifying against that Idolatrous falshood And therefore where men either take up or persist in this gross errour in the ill effect thereof it must be now unexcusable Idolatry in the judgment of all men that believe the Eucharistick Bread not to be the Body of Christ of which Truth there is as great a certainty as of any one thing in the world 7. Nor lastly would that Evasion serve their turn if they should contend that they cannot be said to adore the Bread because they do not think it there For the case is much-what the same with the former and needs no new answer But I demand Whether is it less Idolatry to adore the Accidents
and foul Lust and bloudy Wrath and Zeal for those Idols of Fornication as it fares in enraged Gallants in the behalf of their Mistresses must rule and over-run all The crasseness I say of these Superstitions leaves the mind unmortified and unilluminated but raises a zeal for them both ignorant bloudy and barbarous Which methinks is a sad condition for any Soul to be found in 4. But that this bestial Rage accompanies the love of Idols to omit several Examples in Scripture is a Truth largely writ and testified by the bloud of those innumerable companies of the primitive Martyrs who with so much reproach and so many kinds of tortures were put to death for despising or opposing the ancient Pagan Idolatry as is confessed by all And Idolatry whether Pagan or Christian will naturally dispose them that are really devoted to it to the like cruel fury and madness And though the cruelty of Bear or Wolf seems more the mischief of them that suffer by them then the evil of those beasts themselves yet for that Circe that metamorphoses men into these salvage shapes few or none do doubt but that she injures their humane bodies What a mischievous Circe then is Idolatry that transforms the Mind into such beastly salvageness 5. And as for Uncleanness that it is so close an attendant upon the worship of Idols is also a Truth very often intimated in holy Scriptures as in the Epistle to the Romans where the Apostle expresly affirms that Ch. 1. 26 27. because the Heathen changed the truth of God into a lye and worshipped and served the Creature more then the Creatour or rather besides the Creatour for this cause God gave them up to vile affections the women changing the natural use into that which is against nature and the men likewise leaving the natural use of the women and burning in their lust one toward another men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompence of their errour that was meet Also in the first Book of the Kings upon the mentioning of the building of Ch. 14. 24. high places and Images presently is subjoined That there were also Sodomites in the Land c. The places are so many and so obvious where even unnatural uncleannesses are link'd together with Idolatry that it would be needless as well as tedious to recite them And therefore it is a very suspicable thing that where Idolatry seizeth most on the Church of Christ all manner of uncleanness will there be most rife also 6. But methinks I am too favourable in my charge against Idolatry while I seem to restrain the Mischief of it only to Uncleanness and Cruelty For the Authour of the Book of Wisdom does not stint the effects thereof to these but enlarges them also to Dissimulation Theft Unfaithfulness Tumults Perjury and what not * Ch. 14. 16 27. For the worshipping of Idols saith he not to be named is the beginning cause and end of all evil And S. Paul in the above-named Epistle makes it the fountain of all manner of vices and wickednesses which he doth not rashly but very rationally conclude For even as they did not like to retain God in their Rom. 1. 28 29. knowledge so God saith he gave them over to a reprobate mind to doe those things that are not meet Being filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness full of envy murther debate deceit malignity whisperers back-biters haters of God despightfull proud boasters men of evil machinations disobedient to parents devoid of judgement covenant-breakers without natural affection implacable unmerciful So great a deluge of wickedness breaks in upon men by their being addicted to Idolatry For Apostatizing from God by this hainous sin God also forsakes them as the Apostle intimates And besides The sottishness of Idolatrous worship that calls out the Affections to such gross and unfitting objects does naturally lay the sense of better things asleep and extinguish the true life of Religion which is the renewing the Mind into the Image or similitude of God and Christ which consists in an holy and peaceable love and in a pure chast and unpolluted spirit unspotted of the vain desires of this present world Whence the introduction of Idolatry into the Church of Christ must needs be the overflowing it with all manner of vice and wickedness But that consideration belongs rather to the next point The Mischief that redounds to the Church from Idolatry to which I shall immediately pass after I have but briefly intimated one Mischief more which falls upon the Idolater himself and of which I think he will be most sensible and it is only this That he shall have his portion in the Lake that burneth with Rev. 21 〈◊〉 fire and brimstone which is the second Death that is to say that eternal Death and destruction that will assuredly attend all such enemies of God 7. The Mischief that accrues to the Church from Idolatry I have partly hinted already namely that it is the most likely way to debauch her with all other manner of vices and does ipso facto transform her who should approve herself the pure Spouse of Christ into the abhorred condition of an Harlot To which you may adde those great agonies and aggrievances of spirit that the true members of Christ are cast into by beholding such abominable practices besides their personal unsafety and danger of barbarous persecutions and those hard trialls and disquieting solicitudes that naturally will attempt them as they are men consisting of mortal flesh and liable to all the evils it exposes them to and finally the actual injuries reproaches imprisonments and multifarious Deaths that would fall upon the sincerest part of the body of Christ for opposing or refusing to partake with others in their Idolatrous Abominations 8. And yet this is not all There is still a very grand Mischief behind and exceeding considerable done to the Church by this fearfull sin of Idolatry and that is The hinderance of her spreading and propagating herself in the world It is part of our Christian Faith as we make profession of it in the Nicene Creed That there is One Catholick and Apostolick Church Which implies that the Church has a right to be Catholick to be universally spred over the face of the Earth and that the true and proper Character of this Catholick Church is to be Apostolical That whatsoever Nation or People or part of any Nation or People profess that Doctrine and Discipline which was delivered by Christ and his Apostles become immediately thereby part of the Catholick Church and those that profess and enjoyn Doctrines and practices that are Anti-Apostolical run the hazzard of losing the true title of Catholick and of making themselves indeed no part of the Church of Christ. And certainly Idolatry is as Anti-Apostolical as contrary to the Apostolick Doctrine as any thing can be Wherefore the introduction thereof into the Church of
History of Christ and his Apostles but introducing thereupon such a face of Idolatry and Heathenish Superstition and barbarous Cruelty against the true Servants of Christ that by those whose judgments are more free and piercing such a state of the Church cannot but be deemed rather a Revival of Paganism then an uninterrupted Succession of true Christianity in the world or to use the softest language that the truth of the thing will admit of it cannot be judged pure and unadulterate Christianity but a kind of Pagano-Christianism the Pagan Rites Idolatries and Superstitions being practised upon Christian Objects and this Paganism in this pretended Christianity being maintained with as ferine cruelty as Paganism it self was in the time of the Heathen Emperours It remains now according to our proposed Method to search into the holy Oracles to find out Whether such a kind of Antichristianism as I have described be not prefigured therein and Whether so horrible a Mutation in the Church of Christ which for the general it is apparent even in the judgements of all that are not wilfully blind has for these many Ages seized upon the Church was not predicted of old by the Prophets or Apostles or by both 2. For it seems to me a wonderfull thing and incredible That God who was so carefull and watchfull over the Church of the Jews foretelling their Captivities and Returns out of Captivity and fore-advertising them in a manner of all their affairs of Importance by the mouths of his Prophets sometimes many hundred years before should leave the Church of Christ for so great a number of Ages without Ephod and without Teraphim without Prophets or timely Predictions what things would betide her in the decursion of so long a space as twelve or thirteen hundred years together to let her be bewildred thus in so endless a Night and leave her floating upon the waves without any Cynosura to stear by Wherefore I do not doubt but Christ has been so faithfull to his Spouse that he has left some Oracular Records wherein a man may reade if he come with unprejudiced eyes in a very legible Character the state and condition of the Church and this grand Apostasy of it with the most notorious circumstances thereunto appertaining that is to say He shall find in a manner all those Heads of Antichristianism which I have insisted upon intimated some way or other and charged upon that Church especially which History has found so guilty thereof 3. Which thing I being so fully persuaded of in my own judgement cannot without a great measure of grief or indignation reflect upon the misspent pains of some learned Pens who have endeavoured to pervert all those illustrious Prophecies whether in Daniel the Apocalyps or other places that do forewarn the people of God of this grand Degeneracy of the Church unto some other sense and meaning though never so forced and frivolous though never so strained and inconsiderable thereby obscuring both the glorious Providence of God of whose watchfulness over his Church the true and easy sense of these Prophecies is a most ample witness as also hindering that benefit which was to accrue to us by the right understanding of these holy Prefigurations and Predictions which if rightly interpreted would be of wonderfull great virtue for the reclaiming of the world and converting of Christendom to that ancient and Apostolick purity as well in Practice as Doctrines from which they have so long time swerved Wherefore out of a due sense of the Honour of God and the Interest of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus I hold it fit to bring into view all those Prophecies as well of the Old as New Testament that have been by the Ancients understood of this Antichristian Apostasy and with an unprejudiced freedom and impartiality to unfold the meaning of them Which I hope I shall doe with that plainness and simplicity of evidence offering so unforced so easy and so natural a sense of things and so coherent with undubitable Principles that there is no man that is not grosly prejudiced but will receive full satisfaction concerning the true meaning of these Divine Oracles 4. I must confess that it is hard to produce any Text of Scripture wherein this Apostatized state of the Church is undoubtedly foretold under the very Name of Antichrist though that Name be found more then once in the Epistles of S. John But though some do yet I dare not contend that this Antichrist or Antichristianism which I have hitherto described is so clearly pointed at in every one of those places Not onely Grotius but Mr. Mede himself understands those Antichrists of the Pseudo-christs that our Saviour foretells of in Matthew which should start up before and after the destruction of Jerusalem which was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the last hour of the Jewish Commonwealth But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is indifferently rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Fourth Kingdom in Daniel being the last the time of that Kingdom may be also intimated by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whence that in S. John * 1 Ep. 2. 18. My little children it is the last hour and as you heard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that that famous Antichrist will come even now there are many Antichrists whereby we know it is the last hour may bear this sense upon supposition the Prediction is somewhat Elliptically set down That the last time in Daniel's Kalendar of his Four Kingdoms that is to say the last Kingdom was then a running on which is the Roman during which Kingdom the Little horn which here is called Antichrist shall come upon the stage This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he that famous Antichrist whom you may have heard of out of Daniel but this is a greater distance off Wherefore to speak what more pressly concerns you Even now there are many Antichrists which not Daniel but our Saviour foretold of whereby again we know it is the last hour but I mean not of the Four Kingdoms of Daniel but of the Jewish Commonwealth according as our Lord has predicted Or more briefly thus My little children it is the last hour that is to say the last Kingdom of the Four namely the Roman and as you have heard that that famous Antichrist will then come viz. in that last hour so also now in the last hour of the Jewish Polity there are many Antichrists whence we may gather it is the last hour thereof these many Antichrists according to prediction attending this last hour as that one famous Antichrist that In some such sense as this I do confess that that Antichrist or Antichristianism which I have hitherto treated of may be by very Name intimated in this Text of Scripture though I shall quarrel with no man that would interpret it otherwise Grotius expounds this famous Antichrist of whom they
yet is Agreement VI. Both the Beasts are said to rise out of the Sea Agreement VII They are both ordained to destruction as not being that Kingdome of the Saints that is to last for ever and ever Agreement VIII Of both these restored Beasts it is said that they whose Names are not written in the Book of Life shall worship them and wonder after them Agreement IX The Seven Heads in each Beast are Idolatrous Heads Agreement X. The Beasts are slain or exterminated out of Being in the Sixth Head restored or revived in the Seventh Agreement XI The ten Horns in neither Beast did actually reign in S. John's time Agreement XII The ten Horns in each Beast begin their reign with the Beast Agreement XIII The ten Horns in each Beast give their strength to the Beast Agreement XIV The Beasts in each Vision make warre with the Saints Agreement XV. The Saints in each Vision overcome the Beast at last Agreement XVI The Faith and Constancy of the Saints is exercised by both the Beasts Agreement XVII The time of each Beast is said to be determined by God and to be predicted by his holy Prophets Agreement XVIII The Seat of this Seven-headed Beast is not set down but left free in either Vision though the Seat of the Whore and the Two-horned Beast be determined which has an admirable correspondence with the Event 5. These be the two Parallelisms of Agreements concerning the latter whereof I dare affirm that it is so exact and adequate that the Parallels betwixt the Seven-headed Beast in the Thirteenth Chapter and the Seven-headed Beast in the Seventeenth exhaust all in each Chapter concerning that Beast The former Parallelism is not so accurate the Original of the Two-horned Beast being parallel to nothing in the Whore and the Destruction of the Whore parallel to nothing in the Two-horned Beast as he is there described Wherefore there is that peculiar in the Vision of the 17. Chapter that it treats also of the judgement of the two-horned Beast or the Whore according to the very title of the Vision I will shew thee the judgement of the great Whore But this is no argument at all against the Identity of their persons especially the Two-horned Beast being also to be destroyed and at the same time with the Whore as it is easie to be made out by the Apocalyptick Synchronisms And as for the omission of the Original of the Whore to parallel the Original of the Two-horned Beast that is no argument against their Identity neither Indeed if there had been an Original assigned to the Whore different from that of the Two-horned Beast it had been something but this bare omission signifies nothing but the art and accuracy of the very out-side of these Visions which keep a Decorum in all things And therefore because it was not so seemly nor sutable to say a Woman rose out of the Earth though Brutes did so Gen. 1. 24. the mention of her Original was fairly declined 6. But whenas a lesser number of Agreements in each Parallelism provided there were nothing contrary could not but have been a strong presumption of the Identity of the Subjects of the Visions in each Chapter I mean That the Two-horned Beast and the Whore are one and the Seven-headed Beast in each Chapter the same how fully assured must we needs be of these Identities the Agreements of these two Parallelisms those passages onely excepted of which I have given so fair an account perfectly exhausting the whole substance of each Chapter Which that it may be more plainly discerned I shall expose to your eies the whole XVII Chapter and to every Verse in order subjoin what is parallel to it in the XIII For we shall see it will imbibe the whole Chapter Apoc. Chap. 17. 1. And there came one of the seven Angels which had the seven Vials and talked with me saying unto me Come hither I will shew unto thee the judgement of the great Whore that sitteth upon many Waters Chap. 13. Most of this first verse of this Seventeenth Chapter of the Apocalyps is but Introductory to the Vision no part of the Vision it self and therefore there needs no Parallel to it in this Thirteenth Chapter But how the Whore's being placed upon many waters may seem to comply with one of our Parallels I shall note in its due place when I come to give a Joint-Exposition of these two Chapters Chap. 17. 2. With whom the Kings of the Earth have committed a fornication and the Inhabitants of the Earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication Chap. 13. 11. And he spake as a a Parallelism 1. Agreement 1. Dragon 12. And causeth the Earth and them that dwell therein to worship the a first Beast whose deadly wound was healed 14. Saying to them that dwell on the Earth that they should make an a Image to the Beast who had the wound by the sword and did live Chap. 17. 3. So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness and I saw a Woman * sit upon a a scarlet-coloured beast full of names of b blasphemie having c seven heads and ten horns Chap. 13. 15. * Par. 1. Agr. 2. And he had power to give life to the Image of the Beast that the Image of the Beast should speak 2. And the Beast that I saw was like unto a a Paral. 2. Agr. 2. Leopard and his feet were as the feet of a Bear and his mouth as the mouth of a Lion 5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and b Paral. 2. Agr. 2. Blasphemies 6. And he opened his mouth in b blasphemy against God to blaspheme his Name and his Tabernacle and them that dwell in Heaven 1. And I saw a Beast having c Parall 2. Agr. 1. seven heads and ten horns Chap. 17. 4. And the Woman was arraied in a purple and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls having a golden b cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication Chap. 13. 12. And he exercizeth a Par. 1. Agr. 3. all the power of the first Beast before him 13. And he doth great b Par. 1. Agr. 4. wonders so that he maketh fire to come down from Heaven on the Earth in the sight of men 14. And deceiveth them that dwell on the Earth by those b miracles which he had power to doe in the sight of the Beast Chap. 17. 5. And upon her forehead was a name written a Mystery Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth Chap. 13. 11. And I beheld another Beast coming out of the Earth and he had two horns like a a Par. 1. Agr. 5. Lamb and he spake like a Dragon Chap. 17. 6. And I saw the Woman drunken with the a bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus and when I saw her I wondred
sense corrupting Christianity with the illicite Doctrines and practices of Idolatry For how can Rome Pagan that past under the first Six Heads sit upon the Beast that was and is not and yet is that is to say upon that Beast that had no existence before pure Christianity had become the Religion of the Empire but was afterwards to succeed that State as a sad Corruption thereof under the Seventh Head Rome Pagan therefore sate upon the Beast under the succession of the Six first Heads onely At which onely time it could rightly be said of the Beast and simply That he is But the incorrupted Christianity being once made the Religion of the Empire at that time it might rightly be said That the Beast was but is not but that he was again to ascend out of the Abyss and then after a certain considerable duration of time utterly to perish But during the time of that corrupted Condition when Christian Religion became Paganish and Idolatrous it might rightly be said of the Empire then That it is the Beast that was and is not and yet is But the Whore is said to ride this very Beast Wherefore it is not ancient Rome but the Pagano-Christian Harlot or the Roman Hierarchy which is the Whore that rides the Beast in this Vision 15. Nor can the Vision be understood of Paganism grosly so termed that should again over-run the Roman Empire a little before the End of the World under a Chimaerical Antichrist then to appear as some are willing to phansy for a shuffle but is to be interpreted of an Antichristianism that has already seized it forasmuch as it is said that the truly Christian Caesars shall continue but * Revel 17. a short time Which implies that the Antichristian State will continue a long time in comparison thereof Wherefore if this Antichristian State is not come but all is well and that Pagano-Christian Idolatry has not entred from the reign of Constantine to this very day the Reign of Antichrist will be at least three or four thousand years long Which is so monstrous a consequence and so point-blank contrary to Scripture that the Position must be necessarily false that infers it 16. Wherefore we may safely conclude That the main Subject of the Vision in this 17 th Chapter of the Apocalyps as also of that in the 13 th which is in a manner the very same with this is the State of the Roman Empire corrupted and degenerated from the true and pure Christianity into a Paganish and Idolatrous condition by reason of the false direction and guidance of those of the Roman Hierarchy that took upon them to rule the Empire in matters of Religion But withall That this Idolatrous condition both in the Hierarchy and Empire after a certain Period of time shall be changed and true Christianity overflow all again and Idolatry never again revive This is the Summary Account of these Visions We will now fall upon the Exposition of every Particular of each Chapter whereby this general Account may be still more convincingly demonstrated CHAP. XII 1. The Scope and Order of his Joint-Exposition Ver. I. What is meant by Whore 2. What by her Greatness 3. That she is not Rome Heathen but Rome Pseudo-christian Ver. II. Who the Kings of the Earth and what their Drunkenness 2. The first Agreement of the first Parallelism made good Ver. III. That the Two-horned Beast and the Whore's being in the wilderness might have made one of the Agreements of the first Parallelism 2. The second Agreement of the first Parallelism 3. What meant by the scarlet colour of the Beast 4. The second Agreement of the second Parallelism 5. The first Agreement of the second Ver. IV. The Woman 's purple and scarlet and precious stones and pearls what they signify 2. And how plainly the third Agreement of the first Parallelism is evinced 3. What is meant by the Cup of abominations in the hand of the Whore 4. That it is a Philtrous Cup with an inference therefrom of the truth of the fourth Agreement of the first Parallelism 5. The chief charm used in the mingling of this Philtre 6. Fire from Heaven Excommunication 7. Other Miracles for the promoting Idolatry 8. What the golden Cup signifies in respect of the Metall Ver. V. The names of Whores inscribed on their forcheads 2. That the whole sentence is the Whore's Name and how ridiculous it is to understand by Mystery a mere Synecdoche 3. The Interpretation of these parts of her name Mystery and Babylon 4. As also of Babylon the Great the Mother of Fornications 5. A demonstration of the fifth Agreement of the first Parallelism 6. The different Rise of the Two-horned Beast from Others 1. IN this Joint-Exposition though I shall not be wanting in other Particulars my main drift shall be to note out and confirm the Agreements of the two Parallelisms I have above delineated And for brevity sake without any farther Analyse I shall guide my Exposition by the Order of the Verses of the Seventeenth Chapter passing from verse to verse and comparing those out of the Thirteenth which I have subjoined with what is comprized in each Verse of the Seventeenth accordingly as I have above intimated Ver. I. The Judgment of the Great Whore that sitteth upon many waters The Judgment or Condemnation of the Great Whore the Punishment to which she is sentenced is a special part of this Vision and therefore bears the Title of the whole I need not here insist upon what I have so fully instructed my Reader in in my Doctrine of the Prophetick Schemes How in the Prophetick style a Body Politick or a Multitude of Persons and their Succession is represented under one Individual shew or shape whether Belluine or Humane which Scheme we called Henopoeia And Ch. 3. Sect. 7. therefore he will easily understand that the Whore is no single or particular Woman but a Type of a Body Politick which being called a Whore implies their Idolatrousness as I have abundantly made good in the Explication of that Icasme in my Prophetick Alphabet Ch. 9. Sect. 9. 2. And that she is said to be that Great Whore it may either signify the height of her Whoredom or the extent of her Jurisdiction the latter whereof is agreeable to her being placed upon many waters The Greek has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems to be demonstrative and emphaticall pointing at the whole Roman Empire For that is those many waters indeed a great Sea or Ocean in the Prophetick style Whence I conceive the Great Whore to be the Roman Hierarchy in a larger sense understanding thereby the whole Body of the Idolatrous Clergy throughout the Roman Empire though I do not doubt but that this imputation will more notoriously concern one part then another more the Roman then the Greek Church and then especially when the Bishop of Rome had once got the Title of Universal
invincible circumstances and inviting opportunities which God by his permissive or more positive Providence brings into the world to try or rather discover what is in the hearts of the wicked and which he is well assured will naturally take effect in those that are lapsed into this lower Fate are look'd upon as Suggestions or Transmissions and Motions upon the hearts of men from God himself and that by such a providential frame of affairs of his allowing at least if not contriving the minds of men are determinated to act thus or thus And no other way then this need we understand touching Pharaoh's heart being hardened by God the grand cause whereof was his permitting the Magicians to emulate if not equalize the Miracles of Moses for the most part for so the Text runs And the Magicians did so with their Inchantments and Pharaoh's heart was hardened And it is as easie to conceive that it might be permitted to the Pseudo-prophetick Beast by the officious Assistence of the Powers of Darkness to doe such Miracles and use such ways of imposing upon the Ten Kings as would certainly enough determine them to the Idolatrous Religion of the Empire But that they were thus certain to be deceived is the fault of their own lapse and of the after-Consequences of it not any Injustice in God 3. But it is here seasonable to consider lest that School of false Prophets sacrifice too much to their own Nets and too lavishly applaud the marvellous pitch of their own policy and the policy of their predecessours how the Romish Politicians have hitherto rowed in a manner with the stream and how God has winked at the times of this Ignorance But let them be assured that the Night is far spent and the Day is at hand wherein God will no longer wink nor men be so universally asleep and in so deep a sopor but that they will be easily awaken'd by that voice of S. Paul commanding all men every where to repent or if you will of John the Baptist Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand For there is no other prevention of that dreadfull and peremptory judgement against the Great Whore who being lulled in security by long and fatal successes saith in her heart I sit as Queen and am no widow and Apoc. 18. 7. shall see no sorrow then by casting away her Idols and by serving the living God Otherwise the stream of Fate and Providence will turn and that Doom shall be fulfilled upon her in the most unwelcome sense Therefore shall her plagues come in one day death and mourning and famine For strong is the Lord God that judgeth her For her time of prosperity is set as is plain by what follows in this present verse of this Seventeenth Chapter 4. Untill the words of God be fulfilled That is These Ten Kingdoms which were contributed to the making up the Ten-horned Beast which was to be rid by the Whore and be at her devotion will be in this subjection but such a time as is decreed by God and predicted by his Prophets So long indeed they will be her servants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till the words of God be fulfilled spoken by the mouth of the Prophet Daniel but no longer For in Daniel 7. it is plainly said of the little Horn that there takes upon him to change Times and Laws that is that makes what Festivals and Solemnities he pleases and for his own advantage appoints Laws and Institutes not onely new but grosly clashing with the known Laws of God that they shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time But then it presently follows But the Judgement shall sit and they shall take away his dominion to consume and to destroy it to the end This 17 th verse therefore gives a reason of the unexpected hatred and hostility of the Ten Horns against the Whore in the foregoing verse namely That their giving their Kingdoms to the Beast which is their professing of that Idolatrous Religion they were intoxicated with by the Whore that rides the Beast was to be but for a determinate time foretold by the Oracles of God but that Period expiring the Scene of things would fatally change and the doom of the little Horn or of the great Whore would be executed upon them And there is no kicking against Acts 9. the pricks as our Saviour told Saul out of Heaven And I wish those whom it most concerns would believe the voice and so become of Persecuters the true followers of Christ and living members of his body the truly Catholick and Apostolick Church and would cease to be the Body of an Harlot 5. But we may observe from the joint consideration of these two verses together That these Ten Kings their giving their Kingdoms to the Beast and their being in league with the Whore is all one For their being guided by this Whore makes the Empire Beast by making it Idolatrous And for these Ten Kingdoms though their Kings be called the Horns of the Beast as the four Successours of Alexander are called the four Horns of the Greek Empire divided into four shares yet these Kingdoms themselves may be look'd upon as the greatest share of the Body of the Beast while they are at the devotion of the Whore and profess her Idolatrous Religion Whence their flying upon the Harlot to consume her is ipso facto the dissolving or destroying the Beast that is the making the Empire to cease to be Idolatrous Wherefore it is plain that the continuance of this Ten-horned Beast is Par. 2. Agr. 17. said to be determined by God in this Chapter as well as in the Thirteenth where it is said that it is given unto him to continue fourty two months which is plainly three years and an half the same that a Time and Times and half a Time Whence the truth of the seventeenth Agreement of our second Parallelism is cleared Ver. XVIII And the Woman which thou sawest is that great City which reigneth over the Kings of the Earth The adjection of this last part of the Interpretation is of special consequence and very answerable to the event of things For this Idolatrous Hierarchy having at first as magnificent a Seat in the Oriental part of the Empire as the Occidental and both these Imperial Patriarchates being in a manner alike engaged and alike active or at least alike authoritative in the debauching of the Empire with Idolatrous doctrines and practices the Seat of the Great Whore is not restrain'd necessarily to one place more then another at first But because afterwards this Occidental Patriarchate did so much emerge above the other and exceed the other not onely in his peremptoriness and activity in keeping up and propagating Idolatry and is so foully besmeared or rather has been so swinishly drunk with the bloud of the Witnesses of Jesus but also besides all this did acquire to himself the Right and Title of
the seventh Trumpet are become the Kingdoms of Christ the Beast has lost his Kingdom and his 42 months are expired 3. Wherefore there is great caution to be used in understanding the Prophetick Expressions which always sound very high and lofty and express things so as most fills the mind and strikes the phancie whenas if they were set down strictly and restrainedly to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it would flat the Height and Majesty of the Style and make it lose its rapturous power with the Reader besides that considerable usefulness which such courageous and triumphant Expressions may carry along with them 4. Nor is this onely a possible meaning of the Expiration of the 42 months of the Beast with the sixth Trumpet but also very probable First because the Seventh Trumpet is one of the Woe-Trumpets and therefore signifies ruine and destruction in some sense or other The second Woe is past that is to say the prefiguration of it in such a sense as Ovid says Janus habet finem But it is plain that the effect of the sixth Trumpet may continue after the seventh is begun as the effects of the first Seal and first Trumpet do after the second are begun the succession in the effects of these parts of the Visions lying not always as the quarries of a Pavement but as the scales of Fishes one reaching over part of the other But this by the bye and behold the third Woe cometh quickly which is this seventh Trumpet which therefore is a blast of Destruction upon all the Powers that oppose the Kingdom of Christ Which supposes therefore that he is going on conquering and to conquer and that all the work is not done at the entrance of the seventh Trumpet but so much is behind that in all likelihood the 42 months of the Beast are not expired in any other sense then such as I have already defined 5. Which will appear more reasonable if in the second place we consider the seven Thunders which I doubt not but are the contents of the seventh Trumpet and the * Apoc. 10. 3. 4. Text says That that mighty Angel which Expositors ordinarily interpret to be Christ the Lion of the Tribe of Juda cried with a loud voice as when a Lion roareth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is and while he cried the seven Thunders uttered their voices Wherefore this roaring of the Lion of the Tribe of Juda all along those seven Thunders and the Distinction of the space of the seventh Trumpet into seven portions wherein certainly a state of War and of seven notable Battels and Victories or Judgments and Triumphs in some sense or other is understood does imply a vast Continent that de jure belongs to the Kingdom of Christ unsubdued at the beginning of the seventh Trumpet And therefore it is very reasonable that a very great share of the Roman Empire may be under the jurisdiction and guidance of the Two-horned Beast even at the first blast of the last Trumpet or within the sound of the first Thunder 6. Thirdly It is said of the Whore of Babylon who is adjudged to be burned that her smoke ascends 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to the remotest and utmost Ages of the world But there is no smoke but there must be some fire nor any fire but there will be matter combustible Wherefore that passage insinuates that something of this Whore will be left to be burning to the utmost Ages of the world even to the Ages of the last Trumpet And it is plain that while some Kings burn her others pity her such as had committed fornication with her and lament over her Apoc. 18. while they see the smoke of her burning Fourthly It seems more consonant to the Wisedom of God to continue these Antichristian Canaanites for a time partly for a foil to set off the purity and unspottedness the beauty and loveliness of the Apostolick Church and partly to be an excitement and exercise of their Zeal Vigilancy and all other Graces and Vertues 7. Fifthly and lastly The Epocha of the Middle Synchronals is so firmly fastened to the time of about 400 years from Christ both by the proportion of the short space of the seventh King's continuance in respect of the sixth and of the Inward Court in respect of the Outward as also of the exquisite fitness of Mr. Mede's Interpretation of the first Trumpet that there is no likelihood that the Remains of the 42 months or the 1260 years of the Reign of the Beast should suffice for such a Mutation of the Empire as will amount to any higher a sense of finishing his Continuance then I have given and Interpreters though Prophets write in Rapture and Ecstasie are bound to expound their Visions with caution and sobriety Unless the Affairs of Europe should break of a sudden as Olaus says the Frozen Ocean does and roars along like thunder with the crack of the Ice and then immediately sinks which is a miracle above belief I see no probability at all of any other sense of the stinting the Reign of the Beast to 42 months then I have already declared 8. The Consequence of which Conclusion will be that there is no ground left for placing the seven Vials before the seventh Trumpet and therefore it may justly be suspected a kind of Luxation to the Chronological Scheme of Prophecies which Mr. Mede has otherwise ingeniously and judiciously disposed Wherefore let every member take its right place and let the seven Vials either run parallel to the seven Thunders which then its likely were the rather suppressed because they were to be supplied by these let them run within the seventh Trumpet as the seven Trumpets within the seventh Seal for this appears the most easie natural and proportional disposing of them And they seem to claim the right of this posture in that they are called the * Apoc. 15. 1. seven last plagues wherein the wrath of God is finished or ended which would not be if they were not the Plagues of the last Trumpet Or else at least let them Synchronize with the first Thunder as the seven Thunders do with the last Trumpet Which I shall more determinately discourse of in its proper place 9. To all which you may adde what we find Apoc. 15. where there is mention made of those that have already got the victory over the Beast and like the Israelites escaped out of Aegypt and therefore having the Harps of God in their hands sing the Song of Moses the servant of God and the Song of the Lamb saying Great and marvellous are thy works Apoc. 15. 3 4. Lord God Almighty just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints Who shall not fear thee O Lord and glorifie thy Name For thou onely art holy for all Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy judgments are made manifest Which answers exactly to our supposition That there is onely at first some particular
The meaning whereof may be nothing else but that they that are possessed of these Kingdoms may turn Saints that is Professours and Abettours of the pure and Apostolick Religion unsophisticated with the Idolatrous Inventions and Injunctions of Antichrist But however it were desirable that those that are over-ready to phansy themselves Saints if this Hypallage does not please them that at least they would imitate the modesty of the Expression of the Text and would not take Kingdoms before they be given them 5. Mr. Mede interprets this Vision of the Woman in the Wilderness in something a different sense from us paralleling the Israelites flight from Pharaoh into the Wilderness to the Woman's flight from the red Dragon and their liberty of serving Jehovah there after the Rites appointed by Moses to the liberty the Christians had to exercize their Religion their lapses also into Idolatry to the Idolatrous Apostasy of the Church of Christ in this condition and finally their 42 Journeys in the Wilderness mentioned Numb 33. to the 42 months the Woman is said to be in the Desert Which if they had been expresly set down in those termes and not onely equivalently in 1260 dayes or a time and times and half a time it had been the more pat and convincing But however his Interpretation is very plausible and handsome and may be one sense of the Type though not the onely sense For it is the property of these Prophetick Types to abound with Allusions But the state of the Church in the Wilderness being the same with that of her bondage in Aegypt as appears from Apocal. 11. in that respect I account that Interpretation I have given more passable or rather more Authentick Ver. 8. But I see no need that they should one exclude another the Reign of the Dragon being truly the Reign of Pharaoh over these new Israelites saving that this of the Dragon was more bloudy and the state of the Wilderness in which the Woman is hid being not onely a Revival of that bondage of Aegypt again but the restoring again also of the Dragon as Idolatrous in fabricating so lively an Image of him in this new Pagano-Christianism which the Apocalyptick Visions do so copiously predict 6. The third and last of these latter Synchronalls of the Book-Prophecy is the * Apocal. 14. 1. Virgin-Company the sealed Souldiers of the Lamb upon Mount Sion whose Description is admirable and mysterious For in that they are said to be 144 Chiliads or Regiments it is not the defining of their number but their nature or quality according to the use of the ancient Cabbala that describes the property of things by Numbers The Root therefore of 144 which is twelve plainly detects them to be the true disciples and successours of that Church that Christ founded in his twelve Apostles and that they had not adulterated the Christian Religion by any Idolatrous worship or unwarrantable Institutes of men but that they were faithfull to him whose name they bore on their fore-heads as the marked servants of God and of the Lamb and being bought with the price of his most precious bloud would not become the servants of men in any thing that was to the dishonour or disinterest of him that bought them That * Vers. 3. new Song also that the Harpers play upon their Harps before the Throne which none can learn but those 144 thousand what is it but the Joy of a pure Conscience before God and all his Holy ones and that ineffable pleasure of the Divine Spirit dwelling in them which none can be partakers of but the Sons of the new Birth who are redeemed from the Earth and set free in mind and affection from all the entanglements of this present World who have a simple and sincere heart and in whose mouth there is no guile but are upright and irreprehensible before the Throne of God Which is so transporting a condition and so unexpressible I mean this Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the holy Ghost that it is no wonder that it is said that none but those 144 thousand know what belongs to this Melody * Prov. 14. 10. The heart knoweth its own bitterness and a stranger does not intermeddle with its joy But this is an Excursion not so close to our present purpose 7. That which we are chiefly to observe is this That this Virgin-Company is a Synchronall that runs along in parallel Opposition to those that receive the Mark of the Beast and are professed Idolaters as this Expression of their Virginity in the sense of the Prophetick style plainly implies according to which These are they that have not defiled Apocal. 14. 4. themselves with women may fitly be understood Nor do they onely abstain from Idolatry themselves but also exhort others to make choice of a due Object of their Adoration to worship Him that made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and the Fountains of waters They denounce judgment Ver. 7 8 9. also against Babylon saying Babylon is fallen is fallen that great City because she made all Nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her Fornications And lastly a third Angel out of the same Company denounces most direfull and ever-durable torments to those that worship the Beast and his Image that is to say that submit themselves to that revived and enjoyned Idolatry which I have already so fully described Which commination I would have them seriously to consider that think it so indifferent a thing to be Papist or Protestant as if such Tragicall Menaces as these were mere Scare-crows and idle Mockeries CHAP. IX 1. Three more Prophecies predicting the Churche's Lapse into Idolatry As the Vision of the sixth Trumpet which is proved to respect the Roman Empire long after it became Christian. 2. That in this Vision the Greek and Latine Church are both apparently taxed of Idolatry and with Aggravations common to Pagans and them 3. That it appears from the same Vision of what great consequence it would be for Christendom to reform from this gross sin and that they are their best friends that plainly and freely rebuke them for it and for those other crimes reflected upon in this Vision 4. The Prophecy of Paul to Timothy proposed and the first part thereof expounded out of Epiphanius touching the Inspirers of this predicted Errour 5. As also that part that contains the Errour it self namely the worship of Daemons From whence it is plain the Prophecy concerns this notorious Lapse of the Church into Idolatry 6. As also from the Instruments of the Broaching this Errour 7. And from the mentioning of the Mystery of Godliness immediately before to which this Mystery of Iniquity is opposed 8. And lastly from the Times of the Lapse which are termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. Which is proved to be a proper Term of the Prophetick style denoting that Time and Times and half a Time which is the latter section of the continuance of
are said to ascend up to Heaven in a cloud it seems an Allusion to Christ's Ascension after his Crucifixion which is also alluded to here in the eighth verse And the time of Christ's mournfull Prophecy before his Resurrection was about Three years and an half if we may believe Chronologers to make the Allusion still more perfect Ver. XIII And the same time there was a great Earth-quake and the tenth part of the City fell and in the Earth-quake were slain seven thousand Names of men and the Remnant were affrighted and gave glory to the God of Heaven That an Earth-quake signifies Political Commotions and change of affairs is obvious to any one to note But that the City here mentioned should be understood not of a City of brick or stone but a Polity has not been so easy for every one to hit on But I conceive it is plain enough that this City is the very City mentioned in the eighth verse which is called the great City and this great City is the Whore of Babylon and the Whore of Babylon is nothing but the body of the Idolatrous Clergy in the Empire who appertain to the seventh or last Head of the Beast which is an Head of Blasphemie as well as the six first that is to say an Idolatrous Head Whence we may understand what is meant by these Seven thousand Names of men For neither seven nor thousand signify any determinate number though by a pleasant Diorismus they seem to doe so but onely the nature or property of those Names of men that are said to be slain namely That they are Titles Dignities Offices or Orders of men belonging to the State of Christendom as under the Seventh Head that is become Idolatrous and Antichristian And in that this Number Seven is multiplied into a Thousand it signifies a perfect and durable nulling all such Offices and Orders of men Which if Mr. Mede had taken notice of it would have saved him the labour of making out the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and also the solicitude touching the proportionableness of the Number of the slain For no men at all here are necessarily implied to be slain but onely all Antichristian Offices and Fraternities to be dissolved and abrogated and things to be reduced to the purity of the first four hundred years For to slay by a Diorismus signifies nothing else but a causing a thing to cease to be This I little question but is the true meaning of this place And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will have a sense marvellous coincident therewith But that there is any design upon the brick and stone the walls and buildings of Rome either in this present Vision or any other in the Apocalyps I do profess my self for the present so dim-sighted as not to discover the Papal Polity by an Hylasmus not the material City being understood in all the denunciations against her so far as I see yet So that if she be to be burnt or sack'd or sunk by Earth-quakes it may be but a By-Accident and not directly pointed at nor prefigured in the Apocalyptick Visions But if such a thing should happen in such circumstances as should in a special and peculiar way fit with some of these Prophecies it will be therein comprised by an Henopoeia of the second sort as I have intimated in my Prophetick Schemes But be this how it will I make no question but this thirteenth verse of the Chapter we are upon concerns mainly if not onely the Idolatrous Clergy it self But it is said of the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the remnant that they were indeed affrighted and amazed but gave glory to the God of Heaven as being just in his judgments 2. Out of what I have written here and in my Mystery of Godliness I think it is evident enough that that Antichristian Opposition that is made Book 5. Ch. 17. Sect. 8. against the Prophetick and Regal Office of Christ is clearly prefigured in this Vision of the Two Witnesses who are said to lie slain in the street of the great City during the Conculcation of the Outward Court of the Temple by the Gentiles And truly though some please themselves in conceiting this Vision such an invincible puzzle I cannot but prosess that the fense thereof seems to me as clear as the Meridian Sun And for that special Knot therein imagined to lie in the eighth verse how these Witnesses can be understood of Christendom their bodies being said to lie dead in the City where our Lord was crucified which must be Jerusalem I have already intimated that this City is called the old Jerusalem spiritually or mystically as well as Sodom and Aegypt And if any one have an heart to hear for it requires no great labour of the head to understand it the brief and plain sense of this verse is this That these Two Witnesses shall lie despoiled of all Respect and Power in the Precincts of the Jurisdiction of that Church which hitherto has always been the greatest and is now very large indeed consisting of mere formal carnal and Hypocritical Professours of the worship of the true God in which Church our Lord also was crucified What can be more easy and plain then this For it onely supposes that this carnal Hypocritical Witness-slaying Church of the Christians is one succeeding City Synagogue or false Church with the formal Hypocritical Prophet-murthering Church of the Jews Which is a plain truth whether this Prophecy suppose it or no. But we proceed CHAP. XIII 1. That the little Horn in Daniel is a Type of that Power which should oppose the Regal Office of Christ. 2. That the Fourth Kingdom in Daniel is not that of the Lagidae and Seleucidae but the Roman proved from the universal Consent of Ecclesiastick Writers 3. From the eminency and greatness of the Fourth Kingdom 4. From the distance of time betwixt the Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae and the Kingdom of the Stone cut out without hands or the Kingdom of the Son of man which is also the Kingdom of Heaven or of God 5. Grotius his fond and profane Interpretation of the Son of man as if thereby were meant the People of Rome 6. The like extravagancy in his interpreting the Stone cut out without hands of the same People 7. The unsoundness of that conceit more particularly discovered 8. The Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae farther proved not to be the Fourth Kingdom from the Coexistence of the Ten Kings according to Type 9. From their vastly-differing Periods the one ending according to Daniel presently after Antiochus the other not before the Day of Judgment 10. From Daniel's making the great Horn the first King in the Third Kingdom and four lesser to grow up after him on the same Goat's Head 11. From the four Heads of the Leopard which are the four Successours of Alexander in this Third Beast or Kingdom and from Daniel's reckoning Antiochus in the latter end of
man upon earth may dispense with one tittle thereof But for authorizing Interpretations Opinions and the Rites and Ceremonies of Religious Worship either this is in a Christian Prince's power and not in the Priest's or else his Kingdome and safe administration thereof is not in his power For all these things according to the Eternal Law of Nature and of Reason are to be in the hand of him that is Supreme Governour and it is a contradiction to his Supremacy if it be not so For he that holds the rains of the Souls of men rules their whole Persons and the strongest rains are those of Religion And therefore if any Power distinct from the Kingly pretend to the right of ordering the affairs of Religion farther then his allowance and liking that Power is really the King and the King himself a precarious Power to be blown about and blown out of his Throne by the false breath of these pretenders to the Headship of the Church as often and as violently as they please Wherefore as the plain and confessed Law of Christ is immutable so what is doubtful and merely Ritual is to have its interpretation change or continuance at the judgement and discretion of every Christian Prince who has most justly and necessarily the power of accommodating such things to the peace composure and prosperity of his Kingdome Nor have the Ecclesiastick Powers any right in an immutable and essential manner to affix to the Christian Religion any thing that is not expresly and declaredly comprised therein according to the Divine Authority of the Scriptures For it is an high wrong to that Religion which is to be Everlasting and Universal to be bound and fettered with either Rites or Opinions that are but Temporary or Topical or that the Errours and Mistakes of dark Antiquity should become as a Law of the Medes and Persians to more serious and clear-sighted Posterity or what was fetched up upon some transitory emergency that all the importunities and necessities of after-Affairs of the Church or any parts thereof should not be able to conjure it down again for the making the Gospel more freely to run and be glorified 7. And therefore most apertly and judiciously has our Church declared in her Homily of Fasting That God's Church ought not neither may it be tied to any order now made or hereafter to be made and devised by the authority of Man but that it may lawfully for just causes alter change or mitigate those Ecclesiastical Decrees and Orders yea recede wholly from them and break them when they tend either to Superstition or to Impiety when they draw the people from God rather then work any edification in them And in the Book of Articles she again plainly asserts That it is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places Article 34. one or utterly alike for at all times they have been diverse and may be changed according to the diversity of Countries Times and mens manners so that nothing be ordain'd against God's Word And lastly in the close of that Article Every Particular or National Church hath authority to ordain change and abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained onely by Mans authority so that all things be done to edifying Which Affairs of so dispensable and changeable a nature if they could be ordered by a power distinct from and independent of the Supreme Power of any Christian Nation and affecting and relishing a private Interest of their own what wilde commotions and confusions might they cause in a Christian State while they gore and spurre up the Ass to goe that way where he sees the Angel of the Lord with a drawn sword to drive him back Wherefore it is most safe and just that in all preter-Essentials to Christian Religion the Supreme Magistrate in every Christian Nation have the allowing or disapproving of them and that no Rites nor Opinions pass into Decrees but by his Authority that the Priesthood may not be able as they ought to be so faithful to their Prince as not to be willing to teach or decree any thing against his Interest whose Subjects they are or against the Safety Peace and Prosperity of the whole State of which they are but part and therefore ought to have no power to doe any thing independently of the Prince who is the Common Father of his whole Countrey and whose Interest is the good and welfare of all Who therefore must needs be the Head of the Church over all Causes and Persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil as our Church does plainly acknowledge that vital Influence may indifferently flow from him into all the members of his Dominions But this is a point that might have been more seasonably deferr'd till we came to the Antichristian Opposition to the first branch of the Divine Life which is Humility and which the superlative Pride of the Papal Supremacy does so apparently affront But that there is not the least smutt of Antichristianism in Episcopacy itself I have already abundantly evinced 8. Now concerning those Oppositions that be made against Faith the Root of the Divine Life our Church is so plainly free from them as any one may perceive that pleases but to recount them that it is enough merely to intimate so much Onely I cannot let go this seasonable opportunity of triumphing in her behalf in that she is so throughly reformed from that notorious though subtle and slim piece of Antichristianism I mean that Self-ended Policy in those Doctrines and Practices which are so many in the Church of Rome and so profitable and yet Our Heavendirected Reformation has perfectly refined us and cleansed us from them all The consideration whereof must needs make our Mother the Church of England look very lovely and amiable to every ingenuous and discerning eye who cannot but bless God for that due judgment and faithfulness which he put into our Royal and Reverend Reformers and must be a great satisfaction to every honest Priest or Minister of our Church that he neither feeds himself nor the people with Lies after the manner of the Roman Priesthood nor puts one morsell of bread into his mouth filched from the Laiety by fraud and imposture and that as he labours in the Gospel so he lives by the Gospel and not by Figments and cunningly-devised Fables 9. Those Oppositions also against that Divine Grace of Humility which are specified in the ninth tenth and eleventh Chapters that our Church is cleared from them it is more apparent to any one that considers them then that I need give my self the trouble of particularly making it out The Pope's Supremacy is not onely declared against but sworn against as is very just and right And though there be peculiar Habits for Clergy-men yet as I have noted above our Church does professedly declare there is no Holiness in any such things but that they are for decency and distinction And distinction betwixt Laiety and Clergy is as
like extravagancy in his interpreting the Stone cut out without hands of the same People 7. The unsoundness of that conceit more particularly discovered 8. The Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae farther proved not to be the Fourth Kingdom from the Coexistence of the Ten Kings according to Type 9. From their vastly-differing Periods the one ending according to Daniel presently after Antiochus the other not before the Day of Judgment 10. From Daniel's making the great Horn the first King in the Third Kingdom and four lesser to grow up after him on the same Goat's Head 11. From the four Heads of the Leopard which are the four Successors of Alexander in this Third Beast or Kingdom and from Daniel's reckoning Antiochus in the latter end of this Succession 12. That the little Horn does of necessity appertain to the Roman Kingdom become Ten-horned and Pagano-Christian at once 13. That it is of equal duration with the Whore and Two-horned Beast and at least coincident in time with them and the Beast restored 14. From which Equality and Coincidence be is discovered to be the Whore or Two-horned Beast 15. That the Patriarch of Rome is more especially concerned in this Type 16. The exquisite Applicability of the Characters of this Horn to the said Patriarch 17. The Application of those Characters that more particularly concern his opposing the Regal Office of Christ. 410 CHAP. XIV 1. The Vision of the Rider of the white Horse Apocal. 19. proposed 2. A general account of that Vision 3. What meant by the white Horse what by the flammeous eyes of his Rider 4. What by his Name known onely to himself 5. What by his garment dipp'd in bloud and that this as also the precedent Characters are applicable to Christ's Body the Church 6. The meaning of the Sword coming out of his mouth 7. And of the treading the Wine-press of God's wrath 8. The meaning of the Inscription upon his thigh in reference to himself 9. As also in respect of his Church to which it is applicable As also the treading of the Wine-press and the Sword coming out of his mouth 419 CHAP. XV. 1. That the rest of the Sacred Titles of Christ are referrible to the Prophecies we have already treated of 2. As likewise all the Oppositions to the Divine life in general saving that of turning the Church into a City of Merchandises 3. Which seems predicted in the Lamentation over the Ruines of Babylon Apoc. 18. Ver. 11. The meaning of the eleventh twelfth and thirteenth verses Ver. 14. Of the fourteenth fifteenth and sixteenth Ver. 17. Of the seventeenth eighteenth nineteenth and twentieth Ver. 21. The Exposition continued from the twentieth to the end of the Chapter 423 CHAP. XVI 1. This mystical sense of the burning of Babylon confirmed out of his Joint-Exposition and from Alcazar's Interpretation and that the same is prefigured in the destruction of Tyre 2. How lively the Patriarch of Rome is typified in Ezekiel by the King of Tyre 3. Another Vision to the same purpose in the same Prophet 4. A third Vision in Esay concerning Esay 23. Tyre typifying Rome Pagan Christian and then Pagano-Christian Ver. 18. That Tyre that is Rome will be reformed from her Pagano-Christianism and become purely Christian again and Apostolick according to this Vision 6. That these Visions of Tyre must needs have a farther meaning then what literally concerns that City 7. An Exposition of the eighteenth verse of the last Vision comprising the Prediction of the Reformation of Rome Pagano-Christian 8. What is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a general reflexion upon the appositeness of these four last Prophecies for the setting out the Merchandising of the Church of Rome in the management of her Ecclesiastick Affairs 429 CHAP. XVII 1. Their lying Legends perstringed in S. Paul's Prophecie of the Latter times 2. A more full Prefiguration of that Antichristian Opposition that is against Faith in part of his Prophecy of the Man of Sin 3. A clear Exposition of that part of the Prophecy 4. Strictures in the Apocalyptick Visions to the same purpose 5. The Pride of the Bishop of Rome prefigured in the King of Tyre as also his Downfall and how 6. His gorgecus splendour set out both in the King of Tyre and in the Whore of Babylon 7. The Pride and Downfall of this Patriarch typified in the King of Babylon The meaning of the twelfth and thirteenth verses Ver. 14. The meaning of the Prophecy from the fourteenth to the nineteenth verse Ver. 20. An Explication of the twentieth verse 10. Farther Prefigurations of the Papal Pride in the Whore and the little Horn. 11. An easy and genuine Exposition or Paraphrase of the thirty sixth and the thirty seventh verses of the eleventh Chapter of Daniel wherein the Impious Self-elation of the Bishop of Rome is clearly foretold 12. That the sense of the two following verses of this Prediction may be still the same with Mr. Mede's 435 CHAP. XVIII 1. That the truth of the foregoing Paraphrase may be assured out of Saint Paul's Prophecy of the Man of Sin The three first verses thereof interpreted Ver. 4. Wherein this Man of Sin exalteth himself above all that is called God and what it is to snew himself to be God Ver. 5. The meaning of to be revealed in his time and what that is that withstandeth Ver. 7. The Mystery of Iniquity doth already work how to be understood and who the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ver. 8. What is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what the meaning and manner of his destruction with an intimation of the exquisite Applicability of this Prophesy to the Papal Power and Imposture 2. A short Parallel betwixt the little Horn in Daniel and this Son of Perdition 441 CHAP. XIX 1. A summary Proposal of Grotius his Exposition of the foregoing Prophecy 2. That the coming of Christ in this Prophecy cannot be understood of the Destruction of Jerusalem 3. Nor Apostasy attributed to Caius nor he said to sit in the Temple of God nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fit so well with Vitellius 4. That Caius his purpose of placing his Statue in the Temple was no Mystery of Iniquity but gross Prophanevess 5. Grotius his ridiculous luxation of the sense of the Prophecy in making Caius the Man of Sin and Son of Perdition concealed by Vitellius his standing in the way and yet upon Vitellius his removal not Caius but Simon Magus to be the man revealed and destroyed 6. That in all likelihood the Story of Simon Magus is a Fiction and from what Occasion 7. That if it were true it is not so applicable this wicked man Simon being not consumed by the Spirit of Christ's mouth but onely his Coach and Horses 8. That Grotius makes Paul prophesy of things past his Epistle being written ten years after Caius his death with a full Answer to Grotius his first Argument to the contrary 9. An Answer to the