Godliness 2 Tim. 3.5 and thereby 2 Tim. 3.5 saith the Apostle they shall turn the Grace of God into wantonness that is turne the true Service of God into vain jangling and a foolish senceless prating and so probably prove themselves to be just like Jannes and Jambres that resisted Moses who was their chief Governour and King in Jeshuron and like Corah Dathan and Abiram that as the Prophet saith angred Moses in their Tents and Aaron the Saint of the Lord Psal 106.16 and so despised rebelled and would have destroyed both the Civil Magistrate and the Ecclesiastical Governours of Gods Church which Offices themselves desired and aimed at and would have obtained if God by his fearful Judgment had not prevented them And according to these Prophesies and Predictions That all the aforesaid things came to pass according as they were foreshewed and the like 1. Of Deceivers and Corrupters of Gods Truth 2. Of a Faithful Reformation of all in-crept Errours and Abuses And 3. Of a Faithless Apostasie and Rebellion against the Reformers of the same and the Defenders of Gods Service by a company of Hypocritical Zealots we find by the successes saith one and I think very right that all these things happened just as they were fore-shewed by the Apostle as in other places so likewise in this our Church of Ingland For after that the Pope and the Church of Rome had fallen away from some Points of the true Faith Arise Evans in his voice from Heaven p. 18 19. and had privily as I shewed before brought in divers Errours Abuses and Superstitions which defiled the Purity and blemished the Beauty of our Church as of many other particular Churches besides Martyn Luther steps up and falls out with the Pope for and about the Sale of his Indulgences by his Factor Tercelius whom the Pope then employed for that business and then he bitterly inveigheth against his Holiness for this and the other Corruptions of the German Church that were no less as they said than centum gravamina a hundred grievances Fasciculus rerum extendarum King Hen. the 8. writes against Luther which were presented to Pope Adrian the 6th with an earnest desire of a speedy redress as you may find it in fasciculo rerum expetendarum Hereupon King Henry the 8. it may be in Requital of the Popes favour that granted him a dispensation to marry his Brothers Wife writes a Book against Luther and therein blames him very much for apostatizing and starting aside from his Mother the Church of Rome and contrary to his Faith and Oath and all good manners so eagerly to oppose and so bitterly to rail against his holy Father the Pope and so to the uttermost of his Learning that was both an understanding wise and Learned King he defends the Faith together with the Corruptions of the Roman Church or rather maintaines the Errours and Superstitions of that Church together with so much of the true Faith as the Pope and the Church of Rome did then profess King Hen. 8. his double recompence for his book against Luther 1. Recompence and for this Royal Engagement of the King against Luther the King receives a double Recompense 1. The one from Luther his great Antagonist 2. The other from the Pope his dear Client For 1. Luther in the heat of his Fury and the heighth of his German spirit railes as much against the King and calls him as I read it in his own Book and not out of any other Transcriber asinissimus Rex an unseemly term as I conceive for a poor Monk to give to so great a King and as I said none of the meanest Clerks as he had formerly done against the Pope which bitter Invectives against a Father in the Church and the Patriarch of all the Western Churches Tilenus exeges pag. 29. Aphor. 104. p. 20. as the Primitive Counsels term him qui in ordine primus fuit inter Patriarchas primum ordine in Apostolorum collegio eum esse non inviti concedimus saith Tilenus and such uncivil behaviour towards Kings Luther blamed for his too much bitternesse and unseemly terms Matth. 11.29 that are the Lords Anointed be they what they will when I read not upon the credit of others but in his own Tractates as I thought very well of many things that he wrote so I should have thought much better of all the rest but that I conceived so much bitterness mingled with such a measure of Gall and Vinegar as dropped from his Pen not against the sins but against the Persons of men could not be distilled from the spirit of God which is a Spirit of Meekness and Lowliness as our Saviour testifieth But 2. 2. Recompence The Pope for this Scholastick Defence of the Faith of the Roman Church by the King which the Pope himself should have done by his Pen and desired the King to have assisted him by his Sword gives to him and to his Successors the Kings of Ingland the just good and honourable Title of Defender of the Faith that is the True and Christian Faith or the Faith of Gods Elect which was pretended to be then in Rome and is now defended by the King And though King Henry obtained this Eulogy this Title and this Authority upon a wrong ground because he defended a wrong Faith yet as Jacob got the blessing upon an untrue suggestion that he was his father Isaac's eldest son even his first-born Esau but being once gotten he still retained it So did the King Genes 27.19 when he fell out with the Pope and fell from the Pope about his divorce from Queen Katherine which the Pope upon good grounds would not admit still retain that Title How the Faith was defended in Ingland and especially the truth and substance of that Title and maintained the same as a King with his sword which he had gained as a Priest with his pen and so did his son and his Successor after him Edward the 6th continue a royal defender of the true faith and when Queen Mary would have remitted the Title and permitted the faith to be undefended and the truth to be corrupted in this Kingdome the witnesses of Christ his Gospel the holy Martyrs of our Church Cranmer Latymer Ridley 3 reverend Bishops and the rest of those holy Champions stood up and defended the same unto death with the sheding of their blood and the loss of their dearest lives And after Queen Maries time Q. Elizabeth like another Deborah with the advice and assistance of all the godly Bishops and the best of all the Divines in her Kingdom concluded and set forth the Articles of our Church and that perfect form of Godliness the Liturgy and book of common prayer and service of God which they composed with a free liberty from her majesty at home and without any fear either of Pope or any other forraign Authority abroad And this faith
Him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven and not without great cause and a very just reason for it even in any mans judgement for that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the word that St. John useth here and which our Saviour useth there in the place before cited What 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth doth signifie as the learned Criticks do witness not a bare and simple denial of some truth but a treacherous rebellious and unnatural revolt from ones lawful Prince or Master and a revolt accompanied with such a malice against his person that the revolter resieth never satisfied with any thing but in the bloud and utter destruction of the person denied for so St. Peter tels the Jews that had crucified Christ that God had glorified his Son Jesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom you have delivered and denied that is that he should live before Pilate when he was determined to let him go that he should live 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but you denied the Holy and Just that is you denied that Pilate should let him live and were never satisfied untill you had him crucified and so the Antichrist denieth Christ or Jesus to be the Christ and never leaves to prosecute and persecute the Christ not Jesus but the Christ whom he denieth Jesus to be untill he brings the Christ as the Jews did before bring Jesus down to the dust and unto death and so becomes the man of the sin that S. Paul had spoken of before unto his Thessalonians 2 Thes 2. that is the murderer in the transcendent and vilest kind and manner of man-killing And here also you must observe Another special observation that the Apostle doth not say This great Lyar denieth Jesus to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Son of God because this denial maketh not the Antichrist for so Arius the grand Heretick denied him to be and yet he is not said to be the Antichrist because he confessed and believed that he was the Christ neither doth the Apostle say The Antichrist denieth not Christ to be Jesus but denieth Jesus to be the Christ That this great Lyar is the Great Antichrist because he denieth Jesus to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Saviour of men or the Redeemer of Mankind for so his Name Jesus signifieth and so the Jews the Mahometans and all the Infidels deny him to be and yet they are not said for this denial to be the Antichrist though hereby they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and do absolutely deny to beleeve in him as in their Jesus and their Saviour as the Antichrist doth profess that he is the Jesus that is the Saviour both of himself and of all other men that do beleeve in him and therefore he is not said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Adversary or denier of Jesus but he is said to be the great Lyar and the Antichrist because he would make the World to beleeve that he loves Jesus and beleeves in Jesus and is the best Christian in the World and yet absolutely and peremptorily denieth Jesus to be the Christ Therefore we must take some pains to untie this knot and beg the assistance of Gods Spirit to explain this mystery Mark well this Aenigma that may seem as a Riddle unless we examine it very well to know why the denial of Jesus to be the Christ maketh the Antichrist and the Antichrist to be the great Lyar because he denieth Jesus to be the Christ and how it can be that he which beleeveth in Jesus that he is his Saviour and the true Messias that saves all mankind and as he saith that this his Jesus is Christ and his Christ should notwithstanding be the Antichrist and in all his sayings and profession but a great Lyar because he denieth Jesus to be the Christ he saith he is Christ and beleeveth in him as in his Christ and yet denieth him to be the Christ or to be Christ therefore we may well demand with Nicodemus Joh. 3. How can these things be I say very well or if they were not the great Antichrist could not be the great Lyar. But for the clearing of these points I confess that I must plough with E. H. E. H de Antichristo p. 82. and in his Proface to the Reader p. 3. his Heifer that gave mea the first inckling of the discovery of the truth of this double dealing of the Antichrist where he hath most truly and learnedly though briefly explained the sence and meaning of the Apostle and discovered the apparent great lye of the Antichrist in saying and unsaying affirming and denying the same thing at a breath that must needs make him a Lyar if any thing makes him for as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ signifieth anointed and Jesus was anointed to be both a King and a Priest for so the wise men say Where is he that is born the King of the Jews Simul natus Mat. 2.2 simul Caesar He was a King as soon as ever he was born and Pilate wrote upon his Cross Jesus of Nazreth King of the Jews Joh. 19.19 so that when his enemies bereaved him of his life yet they could not deprive him of his royal and Kingly Office and the more firmly to ascertain us of his Priestly Office The Lord sware and will not repent Psal 110.4 thou art a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchizedech which was not like the Order of Aaron that was to be determined and to have an end but was an everlasting Order to continue a Priest for ever for these two Offices only were the chiefest and the ordinary Offices whereby the Lord ruled the people and governed the Church of the Jews these were the ordinary Rulers of that Commonwealth and therefore these two Offices of Kings and Priests That the Kings and the Priests only were ordinarily anointed 1 Reg. 19.16 and v. 19. were the only usual and accustomed Offices that were anointed in that Church and among that People for the Prophets were an extraordinary Calling and extraordinarily anointed and that but once as I find in all the Scripture and that anointing also not with oyle materially as the Kings and the Priests were but by the casting on of Elijah's Mantle upon Elisha which was termed an anointing of him but the other two were usually anointed with material Oyle And these two Offices of a King and a Priest are the Offices whereby Jesus redeemeth and saveth and also guideth and ruleth his whole Church and without which Offices he could not be a Jesus either to purchase and save or to rule and to instruct his Church and therefore whosoever denieth Jesus to be a King and a Priest denieth him to be the Christ and though he should confess him and beleeve him to be his Jesus and his Saviour yet he cannot save him if he be not the Christ that is anointed to be both
' Ο ΑÎΤΙΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ The Great ANTICHRIST REVEALED Before this time never discovered AND Proved to be neither Pope nor Turk nor any Single Person nor the Succession of any one Monarch or Tyrant in any Policie BUT A collected pack or multitude of Hypocritical Heretical Blasphemous and most scandalous wicked men that have fulfilled all the Prophesies of the Scriptures which have forespoken of the coming of the great Antichrist and especially have united and combined themselves together by a solemn League and Covenant to slay the two witnesses of God Moses and Aaron as Christ interpreteth them They have Moses and the Prophets Luke 16.29 that is The supreme Magistrate of the Common-wealth and the chief Pastors and Governours of the Church of Christ And the Christian world is requested to judge Whether the Assembly of Presbyterians consulting at Westminster Together with the Independents Anabaptists and Lay-Preachers be not the false Prophet and the mystical soul of that great Antichrist And Whether the prevalent Faction of the long Parliament termed of late the Rump Parl. and their Adherents that killed the two witnesses of Jesus Christ 1. Charles the first King of Great Britain and in him civilly all his Magistrates 2. William Laud Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and civilly all the suppressed Bishops and silenced Preachers of these 3 kingdoms be not the grosse and visible body of the same Antichrist By Gr. Williams L. Bishop of Ossory Impii homines qui dum volunt esse mali nolunt esse veritatem qua condemnantur mali August Me me adsum qui feci in me convertite ferrum Virg. Jehovae Liberatori London Printed at the charge of the Authour 1660. A strong faith fenced with a golden helmet Need not fear the beast his hatchet But his wicked deeds will ring And shew the prayses of the King Whom the cruell beast hath kill'd And all the Prophesies fulfill'd Of our blessed Saviour Christ Touching the accursed Antichrist The Authours Protestation I Call God to be my witnesse and heaven and earth to testifie against me if I aym at any thing or desire any thing by the publishing of these books but the glory of God the true service of Jesus Christ and the good the peace and the happinesse of the Church of Christ and the people of these Kingdomes without envie to any mans good or hatred to any mans person or the ambition and desire of any place profit or preferment for that I thank God I have learned in any state to be contented Et contemnere contemni The Authours Prayers which Morning and Evening he useth to say to Almighty God and to his Saviour Jesus Christ The Authours first addresse to Almighty God Our Father which art in Heaven c. O Eternal Almighty Lord God our good God sweet Saviour Jesus Christ Holy and blessed Spirit glorious Trinity three persons and one God have mercy upon us most miserable sinners have mercy upon us most miserable sinners O Lord God pardon and forgive us all our sins those great and many sins that we have most hainously committed against thy divine Majesty Lord enter not into judgement with us thy servants for no flesh is righteous in thy sight and deal not not with us according to the multitude of our transgressions but according to the multitude of thy mercies and compassion do away our offences and give us thy grace that ever hereafter we may serve thee in holinesse and righteousnesse all the dayes of our life make us truly thankfull unto thee for all those mercies and favours and loving kindnesses that thou hast continually so graciously and so mercifully bestowed upon us for thou hast created us after thine own image thou hast redeemed us with the precious blood of thy dear Son Jesus Christ and thou hast called us and sanctified us in some measure with the graces of thy most blessed Spirit thou hast delivered us out of all our troubles from all dangers and from the hands of all that hate us from the snare whereunto we were fallen and from those dangerous Sea-voyages wherein we had utterly perished if thou hadst not most mercifully preserved us thou hast given us meanes and maintenance whereby we were inabled to serve thee and thou hast restored the same to us again when we had utterly lost it thou hast given us faith to believe in thy Son Jesus Christ hope to attain to eternal life love and charity both towards thee and our neighbours for thy sake repentance for our former sins and a resolution ever hereafter to lead a holy and a godly life thou hast blest us in all our wayes prospered all our journeys delivered us from all evill helped us in all our necessities preserved us in health and restored thy servants to life when they were at the point of death for all which and for all other thy mercies and loving kindnesses both spiritual and temporal we heartily praise thy glorious name and magnify thee with all our souls we honour thee we blesse thee we praise thee we thank thee and we will magnify thee for the same for ever and ever And we do most humbly beseech thee of thy goodnesse O Lord to continue still thy loving kindnesse towards us and to preserve us still from all evill and mischief from all sin from the crafts and assaults of the devil from thy wrath and from everlasting damnaation save and defend us from shame reproach and discredit in this world from violent and sudden death and from the malice and hatred of all our enemies O let them never prevail against us let them never have the upper hand over us and let them not say There there so would we have it neither let them say We have devoured them but be thou with us be our helper and defender be our shield and our buckler be our strong Tower whereunto we may alwayes resort and we will not fear what man can do unto us We pray thee also good God give me wisdom and understanding O Lord I beseech thee give me wisdom and understanding memory boldnesse and utterance help and assist me at all times and in all places to preach thy holy word for the glory of thy name and the benefit of thy people And as thou hast helped and assisted me the last time and all other times heretofore for which I do heartily praise and thank thy glorious name so I do most humbly beseech thee to help and assist me the next time and at all other times hereafter that I may set forth thy praise and glory blesse O Lord the holy Catholick Church blesse and preserve thy servant Charles that is our lawful King and all the servants of Jesus Christ that are with him comfort them now after the time thou hast chastised them and for the years wherein they have suffered adversity give them patience to endure whatsoever thou layest upon them and in thy good time deliver them out of all their troubles and restore them to their
with their adherents to repentance and to forsake the courses that heretofore they have most wickedly walked in 2. To disswade all others from adhering to them or approving of their unjust proceedings 3. To perswade the godly seruants of Jesus Christ that have suffered so much and such indignities at the hands of the beast and his assassinates to continue constant in their former resolutions and not to be dejected for any adversity or to approve and affect the prosperity of the beast and to imbrace the doctrine of the false Prophet 4. That as our predecessors recorded the truth of those things that happened in their times to us which otherwise we should never have known so likewise we should deliver the truth of what we have seen done in our time to our posterity that the sad condition of the Church and especially of the witnesses of Jesus Christ in these dayes of the Antichrist might be made known to after-ages that as Johns disciples said to Christ so the disciples of Christ might demand in like manner of the Antichrist Art thou he that should come or shall we look for another and I suppose none can give a better answer then what our Saviour gave to the Jewes in the like case The works that I do testifie of me so the works that these men of our time have dones shall testify unto all posterities what they are for as Demodocus said of the Milesians that they were no fooles but they did the same things that fooles do so if these men of our time say they are not the Antichrist yet I believe the world seeth they did and still do the very same things that the holy men of God prophesied the great Antichrist should do And this is all that I do and no more in this whole book 1. To shew you out of the holy Scripture of the old and new Testament what the great Antichrist should do when he should come into the world 2. To set down what is seen done by the men of our time the prevalent faction of the long Parliament and their adherents together with the Presbyterians Independants and Lay-preachers to continue their names and their memories to the generatons that are to come which is all that shall be left of them when they have left their pomp behind them and shall carry nothing with them but the deeds that they have done And as Queen Hester said so say I if for this I perish I perish yet the truth is great and will prevail and continue true when the greatest tyrants shall be reduced to dust and ashes And in the Interim I do professe that I neither fear the sharpest sword of the bloodiest tyrant nor the most virulent tongues or malicious pens of the most railing Rabsheca quia nec melior si laudaverint nec deterior si vituperaverint because the praise of men makes me not one jot better nor the aspersions and dispraise of enemies one title worse then I am and my conscience tells me that I have so lived Ut nec pudet vivere nec piget mori as that I am neither ashamed to live nor afraid to die And if any man shall blame me for any acrimonie or bitternesse that he findeth in this book I call God to record that it proceeded not as I said before out of any excessive sense that I ever conceived of any particular injury that was done unto my self when as I found my friends favourable enough to me and granting me more then I expected from them nor out of any hatred or malice to any one of all the Presbyterians Independants or Lay-preachers or to any other of all the long Parliament men when as very many of them were my best Patrons and my singular good friends that offered me great preferments which I would have accepted if my conscience had not utterly disliked of their wayes but whatsoever gall or vinegar hath distilled from my pen it proceeded only out of the vehemencie of the zeal which I bear to the true service of God and the love that I had to the piety and goodnesse of our good King and especially the extream hatred that I conceived against the injustice impieties and evil doings of the men anatomized in this book for my faith is that although heretofore many particular tyrant heretick and wicked man might be noted out of Histories that perhaps might be worse and more detestable then any one of these men here meant yet that such a pack such a society and such a multitude of wicked hereticks tyrants and malefactors that combined and were like sworne brethren to effect such un-heard-of mischiefs injustice and impieties as they have done the sun in above 5000. years revolution never saw the like except that wicked councill which condemned the Son of God to death And therefore seeing we are fallen into such times wherein Nec vitia nostra nec eorum remedia ferre possumus I may justly say quis iniqui Tam patiens orbis tam ferreus ut teneat se c Who can hold his tongue at the sight of such doings And old Chaucer saith The words must be of kinne unto the deeds And the wisest Writers do loath to trimme up vices in Vertue 's raiment and we that are rude know not how to call a spade otherwise then a spade Rudes sunt populi Macedonum Scapham vocant Scapham as King Philip of Macedon answered a Traytor whom he had pardoned and complained that the people called him a Traitor And though I earnestly desired to be moderate in my expressions yet the height of that wickednesse which I found acted could not otherwise with all my rhetorick be set forth in any fairer terms unto my Readers Ο ' ΑννιχÏιστος The GREAT ANTICHRIST REVEALED Before this time not Discovered CHAP. I. To what end Christ foretels the Afflictions and Persecutions of his Church that her greatest Persecution should be in the time of the great Antichrist and of the strange Persecution and extream Cruelty Oppression and Injustice that have been lately acted against Gods servants in these parts and in our daies by the Ministers of the Antichrist OUR blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ out of his great and infinite love to his Church forertels her of the many troubles afflictions and persecutions that his best servants and her chiefest members should finde and must undergo here in this world To what end Christ foretels the persecutions of his Church amongst the sons of men to this end that she might earnestly pray to God he would be pleased either to avert them from her or to strengthen her with patience most constantly to endure them and still to keep her garments clean and her conscience undefiled in the midst of this froward and crooked generation Euseb Eccles Histor. l. 4. c. 5. l. 5. c. 1. And after this prediction of our Saviour Christ St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles and Eusebius Socrates and others
concluded and expressed in our 39 Articles to which all Ministers subscribed and this uniformity of Gods worship thus purged from all abuses errors and Superstitions and so perfectly composed by all those holy men for the honor and service of God was fully authorized by the Queen and all the Parliaments that were convened and held in her time to be observed without any omission or alteration in all Churches as you may see by the Act prefixed before the Book of common Prayer And afterwards it was continued and preserved by that wise and learned King K. James and above all and more strictly than all by that ever blessed King and glorious Martyr of Jesus Christ Charles the 1. that defended the true faith and this true form of serving God against all opposers both the superstitious Papists and the apostate Puritanes and Separatists even to the loss of his life And I presume all good Protestants will yield unto me and I am perswaded That the Church of Ingland in King Charles his raign was the purest Church on earth that the Pope and his Cardinalls if they would speak according to their consciences could not deny but that the Church of Ingland as it was purged from Idolatry and Superstition and established in such purity of Doctrine and excellency of Discipline in the raign of King Edward the 6th and especially in Queen Elisabeths time and so continued in the raign of King James and King Charles was the truest and the purest Church unless they did except their own Church that way-fared and was militant here on earth where the faith of Gods elect might infallibly be found the service of God was rightly observed and was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Temple the House and the Church which he hath purchased and wherein he dwelleth And So E. H. truly confesseth that amongst all the reformed Churches E. H. in his Preface to the Reader the Church of Ingland hath alwayes been esteemed the purest as being most conformable to primitive purity and the word of God both in Doctrine and Discipline B. Montague in apello Caesarem c. 5. p. 47 48. And this appears even from the pens of the heads of other reformed Churches as Bucer Melancthon Calvin Camerarius Beza Zanchius Molinaeus Casaubon Sergevil Saravia and others who many of them confess in plain words and all by consequence conclude that the Church of Ingland of any particular national Church in the world cometh nearest to the apostolick rule for though all the Churches that protested against the superstitious tenents and errors of the councill of Trent and the Church of Rome have borne the name of reformed Churches yet neither all nor any of them all are indeed well and perfectly reformed when as many of them are corrupt in many points of Doctrine as I could shew you amongst the Calvinists and especially the Lutheran Churches that maintain that foul error of the ubiquity of the humanity of Christ their consubstantiation of his body in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and their many mistakes about the communication of the Properties of both his natures as Danaeus sheweth most excellently against Chemnitius and most of them are deficient in the rule of primitive Government not any one of them indeed following the Apostles Discipline And the reason of their deficiency is The reason of the deficiency of the Reformation of the other reformed Churches because that in the French and German Churches and the Churches beyond the Seas the Reformers of them by reason of the innumerable number of their potent enemies and the civil broyles and diffentions that were then in those parts and especially the want of a King in Israel that is a supream Monarch in some of those places over the people which made way for every one of the vulgar sort to do as we read in the Book of Judges what seemed right in his own eyes Judges 21.25 were constrained to do what they might and not what they would have done what could be effected and not what they desired to be performed But the Church of Ingland not by popular or any one particular mans reformation as John Knox that furious puritane did in the Church of Scotland but by a national Synod of all the Bishops and best Divines called by the King and confirmed by the King Peers and Commons of the whole Kingdome reformed her self not as other Churches did tumultuarily but with a great deal of advice diligence and deliberation that so it might be effected as the Apostles left it as the sacred rule required and as it was premonstrated it should be performed and weeded from all the dross the tares and the darnells that should spring to choak the pure wheat And therefore seeing the Church of Ingland until these late times was the truest and the purest reformed Church on earth it is conceived and I do believe it that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Antichrist should arise not out of Rome that hath corrupted many truths and superadded many errors and Superstitions upon the fundamentalls of our Religion and is as yet unreformed nor out of Constantinople which hath likewise apostatized from the true faith of Christ and doth still continue unreturned to Christ from their false Prophet nor out of Hierusalem as some men do most fondly dream but out of this Church this very Church of great Brittain For as heretofore Speed l. 6. cap. 45. Camden britan pag. 74. Euseb in vita Constant. Zechar. 10.11 this Iland of great Brittain brought forth Constantine the son of Helen the daughter of King Coylus which was the best instrument that ever the Church of Christ had to further and to honor the Christian Religion as Eusebius sheweth the same at large And as according to the Septuagint the Prophet saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath passed through the narrow sea with affliction and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down and the scepter of Aegypt shall depart away which may signifie that Christ hath first of all purged this Church that lyeth within the narrow seas and hath made the purest Reformation here that was made in any place by the afflictions and sufferings of the aforenamed Martyrs in Queen Maries dayes and hath thereby brought down the pride of the Pope and of the Roman Church that were then as powerfull as the Assyrians were when the Prophet wrote the same and hath driven away his usurpation and freed us from his tyranny as the Israelies were delivered from the bondage of the Aegyptians so the devil bearing an inveterate hate and infinite malice against this Iland more than against any other place The 2. special Reasons why the devil beareth a greater malice to this Iland more than to any other place for these two grand services that it did to God 1. The toleration of the Christians to profess their faith in peace and the Plantation of the Church of Christ to encrease
and multiply by the means of Constantine And 2. The Reformation of this Church better then any other Church by the means of those holy Martyrs and godly Bishops that did the same he was fully resolved to be revenged upon this Church of Great Brittain Therefore as not long after Constantines times he stirred up the Picts the Scots the Danes and the Saxons to punish plague and tyrannize over the poor Brittains as it appeareth by the lamentable address that they made unto the Romans for their aid and help against their enemies for the first good service they had done to the honor of God How the devil revengeth the good service that this Iland did to Christ so immediately after that those godly Reformers of this Church had rooted out those evil weeds of Errors and Superstition that the Devil had planted therein he stirred up Penry Martin Marprelate Cartwright Broughton and divers others that in Q. Maryes dayes fled beyond seas to save their lives and there suckt that transmarine poyson that infected both their own and many other mens soules to make invectives against our Church far worse and more bitter than all the Actions that Cicero did against Verres or his Philippicks against M. Antonius to revenge the second good service that this Iland had done to Christ And these that were reasonable good Schollars but fiery mad and furious men did through their violent proceedings get so many Proselites and Disciples after them that as S. Bernard saith of the former Hereticks in a very short space numeri eorum multiplicati sunt super numerum they increased like the rats of Egypt that do super-faetare beget young ones before they be delivered of their old brood And this grand host of his Instruments the Devil perswaded and egged them forward to prosecure their enterprise and never to give over and desist untill they should effect these 3 things The three especial things that the devil perswaded his instruments to effect 1. Unking the Kingdome and make it like the Israelites after the time of the Judges that every man might do what seemed right in his own eyes 2. Unbishop the flock of Christ that the foxes wolves and other savage beasts the Hereticks and Scismaticks might destroy them at their pleasure and so 3. To unchurch this formerly pure and famous Church of great Brittain and to cause it totally to apostatize from the true faith of Gods elect to be divorced from Christ and to be no wayes answerable to the usual and right definition of a true visible Church to which the infidels and unbelievers being converted might be incorporated And then after that they had more than desperately opposed their King and risen up against the pious Defender of the true faith he perswaded them that if he would not consent to defile that faith to abolish the right form of Gods worship to corrupt the Christian Religion and to destroy the witnesses of Christ the governors and upholders of Gods truth in this so well reformed Church with fire and sword to war against him and never leave untill they should bring him to a bitter death and a glorious martyrdome and after that they had like Jannes and Jambres withstood their Governors and cashiered their Bishops and supprest the Articles and Liturgy of the Church he perswaded them to fill the same Church with damnable Heresies not privily as the Apostle saith the former Hereticks would do but most openly How Satan perswaded his instruments to fill the Church with all impiety and villany in the sight of the sun and at last as our Saviour saith out of Daniel to bring the abomination of desolation that is such abominable blasphemies heresies errors and absurd opinions among the people and such wicked deeds of perjury oppression pride lasciviousness and the like corruptions of Gods true service that do more highly provoke the wrath of God than all the sinnes of ignorance negligence or infirmity and cause him to bring utter ruine and desolation upon any Kingdome to stand in the holy place that is in the Churches Chappels and all other consecrated and holy places that were dedicated for the true service of God and for the people of God that did formerly truly and holily serve the Lord in those places And this the Devil did to this end videlicet That so the Kingdome being without a King the flock of Christ without Pastors and the Church of Christ without her Discipline and true Doctrine he might raise that cruel beast which S. John saw rising out of the sea from these narrow seas and bring up the great Antichrist out of this pure Church of great Brittain to root out the true service of God to be the plague of his servants and the death of his saints and to be fully revenged on this Iland for the twofold displeasure it had done to him before Now whether Satan hath by his Instruments done all this or not I leave it to the wise and judicial impartial Reader to determine it only I finde that Mr. Alexander Rose in his animadversions against Mr Hobbs his Leviathan p 18 Alexander Ross saith the Instruments of Satan brought such abominable blasphemies heresies errors and absurd opinions among the people more in these few years than were all the time hitherto since christianity was imbraced which is a shreud suspicion if not an infallible proof that the great Antichrist is come amongst us CHAP. III. That the Antichrist is no single Person but a Collected Multitude of men Who those men might be Of the Grand Apostasie whereof the Apostle speaketh that made way and opened the Door wide for the Antichrist to enter in That it is neither the Apostacy of the Prime Hereticks nor of the East Churches nor of the Roman Church but of some purely Reformed Particular Church supposed to be and demanded if it be not the Church of Great Brittain BUT here it is a great Question among the Learned Whether the Antichrist be one sing le Person or else a multitude of men either succeeding one another or collâ—cted together whether this Great Antichrist be one single and singular Person or a certain Polity Kingdom or Multitude of men Hyperius saith Est multitudo aliqua diversi sibi invicem succedentes qui unum quodammodo Antichristi vastum corpus efficiunt It is a multitude of men succeeding one another which after a sort do all make up the vast Body of the Antichrist and so saith Tilenus and all those that would have the Pope to be the Antichrist Brightman saith the Antichrist must be understood to be a wicked Kingdom Rule or Dominion which he affirmeth to be not the Kingdom of Ingland which in his time indeed could not be but the Papacy the Roman Hierarchy and the Rule and Dominion of the Pope Tilenus exeg de Antichristo p. 9. Achor is 66. in Italy France Spain or wheresoever his Jurisdiction reacheth and Mr. Mede Mr. Potter and
speaketh evidently that in the later times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 4.1 some shall depart from the faith and so in Acts 21.21 it is said they heard of thee quod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that thou teachest a defection or discession from Moses that is from the lawes and Ordinances of Moses and so Theodoret calleth this apostasie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a secession and departure from God which is the last step and period of our rebellion against the King or civil Magistrate And this falling away from God and from Gods service must be of such men as formerly have made shew to be the true subjects unto their Governors and the Professors of the Gospel of Christ and the obedient children of his Church because apostasie or rebellion is a falling away off and from that which we either were or seemed to be before as subjects that pretend obedience and not strangers of another kingdome are said to rebell against their Governors This Apostafie is of such as have professed the Gospel which strangers never acknowledged to be their Governors but as Julian was termed the Apostata because that during all the time of his Predecessor Constantius he professed himself a Christian and afterwards when he himself came to be the Emperor he renounced the faith of Christ fell into the Heathenish idolatry and persecuted all the best Christians and therefore this Apostasie cannot be ascribed to Caius Caligula as some think because that he being bred up in Idolatry cannot be said to depart from the worship of the true God which he never professed nor can it indeed be ascribed to any manner of men The Turks and Papists cannot be guilty of this Apostasie but to such as have receded and departed from that faith and service of God which they professed or seemed to profess before and therefore also the Turks that are bred in the Mahometan Religion and the Papists that are misled up in idolatry and superstition cannot be guilty of this apostasie nor be said to apostatize and to depart from the true faith and service of God because they never had it nor profest it for how can he be said to depart from the truth that never knew nor understood the truth or how can any man be said to depart and recede from London that never was in London therefore it is most certain that this apostasie is a discession and departure from that true faith and service of God Object which men professed or seemed to profess before E. H. de apostas pag. 36. cornel â—lapide in loc And whereas E. H. and some others say that this Apostacy whereof the Arostle speaketh here 2 Thes 2.3 must be understood of an universal and a general Apostasie universalis defectis as Cornelius à lapide termes it an universel falling away that is of all the particular national Churches in the world both the Western and the Eastern Churches because the Apostle speaks indefinitely and limiteth not the apostasie to this or that particular Church Solut. I answer with the leave of so great and so learned a Clerk as Cornel. à lapide is that as here the Apostle intendeth not to speak of the Antichrists in general when as then Eusebius l. 3. c. 7. l. 4. c. 14. Apoc. c. 2. Clemens Alexand Stromat lib. 3. in his time there were many Antichrists as St. John sheweth such as were the Ebionites Cerinthians Marcionites Nicholaitans and the like but he speaketh of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a particular Antichrist that should be an Antichrist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a more eminent egregious Antichrist than all other precedent or subsequent Antichrists whatsoever were or should be so he meaneth here by this Apostacy not every petty apostacy or single Heresie or any small and little stubbornness of some particular Churches that should fall away and rebel against their Governours and Teachers and so make a defection from some Points of the true Faith or corrupt the Profession and Faith of Christ by their evil Manners and wicked Conversations as in St. Pauls time the Church of Corinth did by denying the Resurrection prophaning the Lords Supper and suffering the incestuous Corinthian to communicate amongst them which was no small apostasie And in St. Johns time the Churches of Asia did not much less than the Church of Corinth fall away from the Truth but the Apostle would have us to understand that the Day of the Lord shall not come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 until there shall come that falling or the falling away first that is such and so great so eminent and so full a falling away and so foul a rebellion against their Governours and from the Faith of Christ and the true Service of God as the like rebellion and falling away from the Truth and specially from the right worshipping of God was never known before in any Church Greek or Latine Eastern or Western Church nor ever shall the like be seen after it until the day of Christ his coming And this the Particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Apostle â—peaketh of some particular eminent rebellion and apostasie of some particular well reformed Church and not of a general apostasie of the Catholick Church against which the gates of Hell shall never prevail Mat. 16.18 set before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth sufficiently shew unto us that as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth deâ—gn and particularize some great transcendent Antichrist so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth shew a particular and a most egregious foul and enormous Apostasie and so the meaning of the Apostle in few words seems to be this that before the day of the Lord that is the great day of Judgment there shall arise a grand rebellion against the Governours of the people and against the Pastors and Discipline of the Church and a huge apostasie defection and falling away from the true Faith of Christ and especially from the form of wholsom Doctrine and the right worship and usually accustomed and received Service of God And then when you see such an unnatural rebellion as the like was scarce ever known if ever and such a corruption of the true Doctrine of Christ and opposition to the chief Governours of the Church as the like was never seen in any age nor found in any other Church nor read in any History the whole Church of Christ and all the Servants of God then in being may know for certain that an exceeding great Antichrist greater than any of all the other former Antichrists that were seen before will arise in that Church which formerly was the best and purest Reformed Church of all other Reformed Churches though now it doth recede and thus apostatize from the Faith of Christ and her own former purity And after the Coming and appearance of that Great Antichrist and the Tragical Acts that he shall do within a while and some short space best known to God how long
or how soon Christ will come to Judgment to make a final end of the Antichrist and to deliver his Servants out of all their troubles And this Author wrote a Book entituled The Grand Rebellion that they shall suffer by the Means and procurement of the Antichrist And so first the grand Rebellion will shew it self and the great Apostasie will appear then the great Antichrist will come and settle himself in the Church of Christ and he shall be revealed and made known not to all men no more than Christ was when he came into the world but to as many as the Spirit of God shall enlighten and open the eyes of their understanding to take notice of him that they may avoid him and not be seduced by him E. H. de Antichristo c. 6. pag. 101. to follow his pernicious waies as E. H. hath most truly declared And then as the Apostle saith the Day of the Lord will come and we may certainly expect it and believe it will not be long before he cometh Question Now it is demanded where in what Kingdom and in what Reformed Church or in what other Church this Grand Rebellion and huge apostacy hath happened and appeared And it is answered Respons That the apostacy here spoken of cannot be 1. The apostafie of the prime grand Hereticks 1. That this apostacy here spoken of cannot be meant of the apostasie of the prime grand Hereticks For though the Nicolaitans the Ebionites and the Cerinthians in the time of St. John and afterwards the Montanists Valentinians Arians Nestorians Eutychians and the succeeding Hereticks Manichaeans Pelagians Donatists and all the other Brood of the prime Hereticks fell into many most fearful errours and so rebelled against their Governours and drew many Disciples after them to make a defection from the true Faith and have by their apostasie and subtilty corrupted whole Churches and Congregations of Christ yet that their backsliding and apostasie cannot be said to be this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the grand Rebellion and the special great falling away from the Faith which the Apostle here speaketh of because their apostasie was not so general and so extensive from the most and the chiefest points of Faith as this is but each Heretick and each Sect of those Hereticks started aside from some particular point of the true Catholick and Christian Faith as Arius denied the Divinity of Christ Nestorius made Christ to subsist of two Persons and Eutiches on the other side to confute him confounded the true Properties of both Natures Manichaeus would have God to be the Author of evil or that there be two Gods the one good and the author of all goodness and the other evil and the author of all the evil that is Pelagius taught the too large extent of mans Free-will All the prime grand Hereticks far better than our present Presbyterians and others with the Stoicks ascribed all events to a fatal necessary and so the rest of those Heresiarchs defiled themselves and their Churches with some particular errour or with some very few at the most and yet still they retained the rest and the most points of the true Faith and especially the setled Form of Gods Service and defired alwaies to be in the Commnion and to keep the unity of the Catholick Church and they ever observed the right Government and Discipline of the Church none of all the Hereticks until Aerius nor after he was therefore condemned for an Heretick as Epiphan sheweth any other Heretick till this last Century produced a Brood of Aerius Proselites were ever found to deny the Episcopal Government of the same and they all generally retained the established Creeds and Articles of wholsom Doctrine Lyturgies Catechismes and the right manner of the Worship of God with that reverence and devotion as he ought to be worshipped though they started aside and apostatized from some particular points of the Foundation of the Catholick Faith And 2. 2. Nor the apostasie of the Eastern Churches The like may be said of all the Asiatick and Affrican Churches that succeeded them and were many of them corrupted by those grand Hereticks that they professed the Creeds observed the Lyturgies and reverenced their Governours as the Apostle enjoyneth and receded only like their Leaders from some few Points of the true Faith and therefore the grand apostacy here spoken of cannot be fastned nor applied to any of them And 3. As the Eastern Churches are free from this apostacy so the Church of Rome 3. Nor the apostasie of the Church of Rome and all the rest of her subordinate Western Churches though they have corrupted the Doctrine of Christ with many Errours Ceremonie and Superstitions yet because they retain the main Heads the true Scriptures the Catholick Creeds and the gross sum of the Christian Religion though mingled with many erroneous accessions and is therefore rightly compared to a field of goodly Wheat but very full of Tares and Darnels cannot be said to be guilty of this grand Rebellion and apostasie Reason 1 1. Because all their Errours and Superstititions are not so foul as those of the foresaid Hereticks and the additions which they agglutinate unto the Truth as a bad super-structure upon a good Foundation cannot be liable to this transcendent apostasie when as all the errours of the Church of Rome are rather Superstitions and additions of more Articles than ever the Apostles left or the Primitive Church professed to the true Faith and Catholick Creeds than a defection or discession and departure from the Faith and therefore that Church cannot be guilty of this apostasie and departure from the Faith but rather of creating a new Faith and new Articles of Faith which God never requireth us to believe Reason 1 2. Because the now Church of Rome of France Spain and other Churches under the Popish Jurisdiction did never profess all the Articles of our faith in the true and right sence as they ought to be believed and interpreted but they were born nursed and nusled in the errors and Superstitions that they are in continually and how can they be said to recede and depart from the faith and from the truth that never knew them nor profest them and therefore seeing they never were in the true faith they can no wayes be said to be guilty of this apostasie from the faith Object But you will say as E. H. doth and many others with him that when after Constantines time E. H. in the Preface of his book de Autic the Church began to be wealthy and as the envious said venenum intravit in Ecclesiam poison that is the poison of riches honors and authority especially after Phâ—cas his time that gave unto the Pope the title of universal Bishop entred into the Church and among the Clergy then the Monks brought tapers into the Church and they induced the trisagium that is sancte Deus sancte fortis sancte immortalis which as
the Monks say was first uttered by an Angel in the Cathedral Church of Canstantinople and about the year 605. Boniface the 8. usurpeth the Title of Universal Bishop and after that the Churches became Sanctuaries for malefactors holy-dayes were appointed Priests were forbidden to marry Latine-service was injoyned the Lyturgies were augmented the Pax was commanded to be kissed Images were adored the Saints were invocated and prayed unto which Mr Mede saith is the Doctrine of Daemons that makes the Apostasie which the Apostle speaks of 1 Tim. 4.1 2. Vestiments and other Church Utensils were consecrated Mr Mede in his Apostasie of the latter times the Emperours and other civil powers were shouldered out by the Pope and Church Indulgences were sold and abundance more of such absurdities were brought into the Church And when the godly Christians petitioned unto his Holiness the Pope The manifold Errors of the Church of Rome confirm'd by the Council of Treâ—t for a reformation of these abuses did not the Council of Trent confirm them Did it not in their first meeting Sess 3. decree that the vulgar Translation that hath some errors and much rude Latine in it should be authentical in all places and Sess 4. That original sin is so taken away by Baptisme that concupiscence or lust in renatis the regenerate is no sin untill they give consent unto it and Ses 5. That there remains in us a freedome of mans will to good which being excited and stirred up by grace concurs with grace to do the good we do and Sess 7. That seven Sacraments were to be received Vide etiam Tiâ—â—num exegesis de Antichristo pag. â—5 dâ—inceps And then at their second meeting in Bononia Sess 2. did they not establish the Doctrine of Transubstantiation And Sess 3. have they not made Penance and extream Unction two Gospel-sacraments or Sacramenta novae legis as they term them And 9 years after at their third meeting Sess 5. have they not impowered the Pope to mutilate the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist or Lords Supper and to take away the cup from the Laiety and Sess 6. have they not concluded the whole Masse to be a propitiatory Sacrifice both for the quick and the dead and Sess 8. Did they not give full power unto the Church to dispense with Gods Law in Levit. 18. concerning Marriages And at their last Sess Have they not confirmed the Doctrine of Purgatory invocation of Saints worshipping of images giving of Indulgences and preservation of Reliques And was there ever since Christ his time or could there be a greater and a more general extensive apostasie and departure from the truth and true faith than this where the Pope and his Faction have thus prevailed against the Protestants to put out the light of truth to corrupt the Gospel of Christ and to defile the service of God in this manner Respon To this great and bitter charge against the Church of Rome I answer That some men are so addicted to this Church that they see nothing to be evil in her but all truth and all to be imbraced without question and others are so transported with passion such hatred unto the Pope and such a prejudicate opinion of that Church that they think nothing good in her and nothing to be followed that she holdeth so that they are willingly ready to reject the Gospel as they do all Prayers and service the Papists use to God because they are approved by the Church of Rome it is an Argument sufficient to cast away all the service of God all good works and all the acts of Pieâ—y and Charity if they be but once perswaded they are Popery For my part The Authors resolution touching the Roman Church I do unfeignedly from my heart profess my self a true and right Protestant and an obedient Son of the Church of Ingland as it was reformed and the 39 Articles of our faith approved and confirmed in Q. Elizabeths time and so continued in King James and King Charles his time untill the Beast that ascendeth from the bottomeless pit I may mean the Devil endeavoured to remove our candlestick and to put out the light of Israel And for the Church of Rome I do perfectly and throughly hate and renounce all the errors and Superstitions of it and for her truths and good things that she holdeth and doth I do heartily love and embrace them and will therein joyn the right hand of fellowship and desire communion with them as a man that will not refuse a pearl because it was taken up from a dung-hill but for the aforesaid things and points that E.H. and others speak of and object against her I believe some of them may in some sence be justified some others not altogether so offensive as a groundless haâ—red against Popery makes them seem to be to such as Martial speaks of Non anto te Sabide nec possum dicere quare I love thee not ô Sabidus but why I cannot tell thee only this I can tell that I do not love thee Hoc tantum possum dicere non amo te I love thee not but why to tell thee I cannot Yet this I can tell for truth I love thee not And for most of them I confess they are either enormous or superstitious or some way or other justly offensive to Gods people and do sufficiently prove that the Church of Rome hath apostatized and receded from many points of the true Doctrine of Christ that her self had formerly professed especially when S. Mr. Mede in his Apostasie of the later times Plato in cratilo Apuleius de deo Socratis Plutarchus de defect oracul Paul wrote unto her and as that learned and worthy Divine Mr. Mede hath fully shewed how that Church hath backslided in worshipping Mahuzzims invocating of Saints and adoring of their Images and relicks so I confess the same to be a foul and mighty error and a great abuse of Gods service in them and not much inferior or less fault than the Gentiles adoring of their Deastri or Daemones which was the deifying of their deceased Heroes such as Hercules Romulus Numa Pompilius and the like were as Plato Apuleius Plutarch and others testifie the Heathens did Though notwithstanding I am so far from blaming S. Basil S. Chrysostome Fortunatus S. Gregory S. Hilary James Bishop of Nisibis Eucherius Theodoret and others that Mr. Mede chargeth to have done too undiscreetly to say no more for so much commending the holy Martyrs and calling them walls and fortresses and as Gregory Nyssen termes them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Guardians and Protectors of those Cities and places where those Martyrs were interred Mr. Mede's crimination of the Fathers answered that I do exceedingly approve their discretion and commend their wisedome and piety herein because those times were times of Persecutions and Christianity sought by the enemy of mankinde and his Instruments to be expunged and rooted out of the
world and therefore to encourage all the Christians to be constant in their Profession unto their death it was requisite to use all the Eulogies and praises that might well and rightly be given especially in the funeral Orations of the Martyrs unto those holy men that had so manfully fought the good fight of faith and so christianly died for the defence of the Gospel of Christ when as the contrary would have been a great disheartening of the weak Christians but these Eulogies a spur to inflame them to all readiness to undergo the like Martyrdome rather than to start aside from their Christian profession Neither do I see how those Eulogies and praises that these Fathers gave unto the Martyrs are any wayes contrary to the truth of our faith or the Word of God because we know that as the Prophet saith Psalm 116.15 right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints and no doubt but he hath some love and care of their dead bodies to preserve them from that spirit of malice and contempt that the Devil and his wicked assassinates bear against them and therefore as he preserved all that were in the ship for S. Paul's sake Act. 27.24 so he may be pleased to preserve others his servants with the preservation he extendeth and would have shewed to the bodies of his Saints and especially of his holy Martyrs the which he would have no wayes to be abused as the Prophet sheweth and doth exceedingly complain of them that give the dead bodies of Gods servants to be meat unto the fowles of the air Psal 79.2 and the flesh of his Saints to the beasts of the field as now I have seen it in many places how the hogs are rooting in their graves and the dogs gnawing the bones of Gods servants That the aforesaid Errors make not this Apostasie And I say that although the Roman Church hath failed in the Premises and erred in the points aforenamed yet all that doth not make this grand apostasie which the Apostle here speaketh of Reason 1 1. Because here in the Roman Church we finde no rebellion against their Governors but qui ducunt eam seducunt eam the leaders of that Church deceive the Church and so her apostasie is not so odious but the more excusable and the less abominable in the sight of God Reason 2 2. Because these Errors and Superstitions aforenamed and the like have only defaced but not nullified bespotted and polluted but not destroyed that Church which is now like unto a false woman that hath played the whore but is not divorced nor run away from her husband That the Church of Rome holdeth all the foundation and preservation of the Christian Religion for so long as they profess to believe as the three authentick Creeds that is the Apostles Creed the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed teach us and use the Lords Prayer and publish the ten Commandements and receive the two Gospel Sacraments that is Baptisme and the Lords Supper and retain the wholesome form and reverent manner of Divine worship and service of God with the rightly authorized and lawfully called Pastors and Governors and a dutifull submission to the established Discipline of the Church which things are both the foundation and preservation of the Christian Religion and which they say are all observed and performed in the Roman Church I believe no good Christian can deny her to be a true Church though not a pure Church of God because that while the foundation remaineth sure and undigged up all superstructures of wood hay stubble doth not evert and overthrow the whole edifice but is rather a going beyond Eccl. 7.16 17. than a going back from the faith of Christ like the being too righteous and not too wicked as Solomon speaketh that is the being too precise and making more sinnes than ever the Law of God made and not too prophane and so exceeding in the works of supererrogation and observing many other commandments of men besides the commandments of God Mr Mede P. 612. just as the precise Pharisees required the people to do in the time of Christ and Mr. Mede resolves Mr. Hartlib that the Roman Church hath not erred in the fundamental Articles of the Faith but in the assumentis which they added unto the foundation so likewise D. Crakenthorp B. Hall and most of our best Divines are of the same minde And therefore questionless the Church of Rome cannot be guilty of this grand rebellion and Apostasie here spoken of And 4. 4. Nor the falling away of the Protestants from the Church of Rome As the African and Afiatick Churches of the East under the Greek Patriarchs and the Europaean Churches of the West under the Pope of Rome are not liable to this grand Apostasie so neither can the Church of Rome nor any other Master of that Church say and say truly that the falling away of Luther Calvin Beza and the rest of the Protestants and protestant Churches from the Roman errors and superstitions and from their obedience to that Church can be this falling away and apostasie here spoken of because we with them and they with us do hold and profess the same 3 authentick Creeds that do contain the sum and substance of our Christian Faith and are agreeing in all or at least in most of the essential and fundamental points of the Christian Religion and the differences betwixt us in the most points that are of moment are not so capital but that for the most part a charitable construction and a right distinction might well and fairly reconcile most of them especially as they are held by the best Interpreters of the Scripture in that Church and by the most temperate and soberest Divines of our Church because as the Apostle saith charity is kinde and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 charity is not rash that is in her judgment no more than in her actions 1 Cor. 13. but beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things and endureth all things and the want of this divine grace of Charity maketh those faults that are indeed but mole-hils to appear like mountains and this want of charity is too too common a fault both among the popish and the Protestant writers which doth make the breach wider and the differences to seem far greater and far worse than indeed they are which made me often to pray that God would send more love betwixt us and suffer not the devil to send so much misprision and distaste betwixt us as there is Question And now the foresaid Churches being freed from being liable to this apostasie the question is What Church can be said to be found guilty of it What Church is guilty of this Apostacy and instead of answering it it is now demanded If this now present Church of great Britain be not liable to this charge of a grand Rebellion and apostasie such as the Apostle speaketh
of that is such a rebellion as Corah Dathan and Abiram stirred up against Moses and Aaron and such a discession and falling away from the true faith and the right service of God which they formerly professed as neither leaves the fundamentals of Christian Religion undigged up or unshaken nor the appearance of a true visible Church among the people For that all the people of Ingland were very faithfull and loyal Subjects and most respectively obedient unto their Governors both their Kings and their Bishops That the people of Ingland were good subjects true believers and right worshippers of God during all the raign of Q. Elizabeth King James and many years of King Charles as any Nation under heaven I think I do verily believe no man can justly deny So likewise that all the subordinate Clergy did ex animo subscribe and unfainedly profess to uphold and maintain the 39 Articles of the Church of Ingland and the established Discipline thereof and did accordingly for well nigh a century of years use to teach the people to believe that Doctrine and to observe that discipline as the true Christian Faith and the right Government that Christ and his Apostles for the preservation of that faith hath left unto his Church and also that the people and Congregations throughout all this Kingdome had the true faith preached unto them and the right service of God the 3 authentick Creeds repeated the Lords Prayer used the 10 Commandments published the 2 blessed Sacraments administred and all the other prayers and service of God that the Governors of Gods Church prescribed were observed practised and professed by them I am very sure and consident hereof and I believe no man will gainsay the same And therefore this Church had and did profess the true faith and Doctrine of Christ and did use to serve God rightly and to be obedient to their Governors both Magistrates and Ministers for many years according to the form prescribed unto them And you may remember how you read in Revel 6.9 that the soules which S. John saw under the altar and cryed to God to avenge their blood on them that dwell on the earth are said to be slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held and why I pray you doth the holy Ghost make such a distinction betwixt the word of God and the testimony which they held but to shew unto us that these soules had collected out of the Bible which containeth all the word of God the chiefest heads and points that are to be known believed and practiced for the true worship of God and their own Salvation and so compiled an abstract of Gods word into another book which is here called their testimony and that is the communion Book or Book of Common-prayer and publick service of God which is sometimes called the Book of life Revel 22.19 and ch 20.21 as Revel 20.12 and Revel 22.19 where you may observe how mention is there made of 2 special Books and the one is termed the book of this prophesie which is the word of God and the other is termed the book of life because the sum and the substance of all that is in the Bible which is the word of God and which is necessary to attain unto Eternal life is contained in this book of their testimony for which book and the constant practice of Gods service according to this book as well as for the other book of the word of God those faithfull soules were slain and it is well known the Presbyâ—erians caused the Parliament to destroy us for the testimony that we held of these Books but the Answer that God gives unto these slaughtered soules may serve for a sufficient comfort unto us yet this gives occasion to demand Whether the prevalent faction of the long Parliament and their adherents the Sectaries of these 3 Kingdomes have not hereby resisted their Governors whom formerly they had so religiously observed and rebelled warred killed and beheaded both Moses and Aaron that is the supreme Magistrate and the chief Priest I leave it for my Reader to determine And whether the Assembly of Divines at Westminster and all their followers and Adherents contrary to their former oathes practices and profession have not generally apostatized and totally relapsed and fallen away from the most essential and most material points of our Christian Religion and from all the right service of God which themselves formerly taught and observed and have led their Congregations after them to the same apostasie let the observers of our new teachers what Doctrines are now taught and what service is now used in every Church judg hereof For I read it in Arise Evans Arise Evans in his Voice from heaven pag. 15. that you may easily finde it every foolish man gets up into the Pulpit and poureth out his folly and so now the false Christs and false Prophets do appear for the Independant saith here is Christ the Presbyterian saith loe here is Christ but the Anabaptist saith no he is not amongst you but here is Christ with us 1 Cor. 1.13 and so all the other Sectaries crie and have as the Apostle saith divided Christ And you may consider what Tilenus saith Vetus Ecclesia primis temporibus solo Apostolorum quod vocant symbolo ex sacris literis excerpto contenta erat The ancient Church in the first times was contented only with that faith which they call the Aposties Creed that is taken out of the holy Srciptures this was the faith of the Christians in the Apostles time and this was the sun and the substance and the abstract of all the whole Scripture for so much as concerned the saving faith and this faith contained in this Creed is the Faith of Gods elect and sufficient to save all the elect people of God though afterwards for the suppression of those Hereticks that sprang up to corrupt the same formulam illam per novas formulas ex iisdem sacris litteris collectas luculentius copiosius explicuerunt episcopi The Bishops and he saith not the Presbyters did more fully and more clearly out of the same sacred Scriptures explain that form of faith by other new formes as the point in question Tilenus exegesis pag. 57. aphoris 169. and controverted by the Hereticks did require as First in the Council of Nice then in the Constantinopolitan after in the Ephesine and at length in the Chalcedon Council And the whole Catholique Church and all the particular Churches of God the Greek Church and the Latine Church and every other particular national Church of the world have ever professed to observe and to retain this form of faith thus left to us by the Apostles and thus explained by the reverend and godly Bishops in these Councills and never to discede from the same And yet now That our new Preachers have and do recede from the true faith and the right service of
God I would have all wise men to consider whether the Presbyterians Independants and all the brood of our new and lay-Preachers have not moved and preswaded the long Parliament to suppress the Governors of the Church and to lay aside the ancient Discipline and Government thereof and have they not themselves abandoned and cast off not only the Apostles Creed and the other 2 authentick Creeds so that you shall seldome or never hear any one of all three repeated by the Minister to any of their Congregations but also the Lords prayer the 10 Commandements and all the whole former service of God which was formerly used in the Church and is now wholly neglected and seldome or never used to be read and practiced to be done by these men unto the people which in divers Parishes have not had the holy Sacraments in many years administred unto them Et non ignota cano And the Reason hereof is What Pope did ever cast away the whole publick service of God as I conceive it because the service-book as we term it that is the Book of common Prayer that containeth these 3 Creeds and the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue and the form of the Administration of the Sacraments and all the other Prayers that are the principal and most essential parts of Gods publick service is so straitly prohibited and rejected And the Disciples of these new masters and the Adherents of that long Parliament tore the Bibles threw down the fonts The enormities that were done by the disciples of the Presbyterians cast away all crosses spoyled all pictures prophaned the Churches and did many other sacrilegious and outragious things whereby as many men conceived the whole reformation of this Church is nullified and the apostasie that is here spoken of by the the Apostle is fully come to pass and accomplished and they pray that there may never come to any national Church as they hope there shall not come a greater apostasie and falling away both from the truth of faith and the service of God than this is whereof the like as many good men and great Schollars do believe hath never been hitherto by the worst and the most dangerous Sect of Hereticks Because the Church being as the Scripture testifieth acies crdinata Bellarm. de Ecclesia milit cap. 2. like an army that is well ordered under their lawful Commanders Or as Bellarm. saith Coetus hominum ejusdem christianae fidei professione colligatus sub regimine legitimorum Pastorum ac pracipuè unius Christi in terris Vicarii Romani Pontificis In stead of which last Sentence I say sub legitime regimine or regimine legitimorum Pastorum And they are no lawfull Pasters nor Ministers of Gods Church that have not their lawfull Ordination and go no further that is a Company of men gathered together and professing the same Christian Faith under the rule and government of their lawful Governours the true and lawful Government being dissolved and the Governours suppressed and the Symboles of our Faith rejected the true Doctrines corrupted and the right Service of God cast away and the like enormities that are used do eradicate the foundation and not only pollute but also destroy and unchurch the Church of Christ and make it not to be as it should be visible here on earth and do provoke the Lord to leave his Habitation and to remove our Candlestick to another place For you may remember what the Prophet Zechary saith I took unto me two staves Zech. 11.7 the one I called Beauty the other I called Bands and I fed the Flock this flock is the Church of God and the two staves are the Doctrine and the Discipline of the Church the Doctrine is the Beauty and the Discipline is the Bands and preservation thereof and therefore when the Discipline is rejected and rebelled against the Doctrine must needs then be corrupted with Heresies and Errors and the service of God neglected and prophaned For as a Garden or Vineyard which the Church of God is Esa 5. cannot be kept undestroyed from the wilde boar and the beasts of the field without their fence so no more can the beauty of the Church the service of God nor indeed the Church herself be preserved without her bands which are the Lawes Canons and Discipline of the Church and therefore the Devil instigateth all his instruments to break these bands asunder and to cast away the cords from them Psal 2.3 And so you may remember we presently found that when the Bishops the Governors of our Church that preserved the Discipline which was the fence and the hedg of Christ his vineyard to keep out the foxes that is the Hereticks and Schismaticks out of the Church and the hoops of Gods barrel to keep in the wine Judges 9.13 that cheareth God and man that is the true Doctrines of faith and the right service of God were thrown down nay thrown away and the Government of this our Church dissolved by that long Parliament which never happened to the Church of Rome then instantly the beauty of this Church which formerly for learning Doctrine Cant. 2.1 and Discipline was the flower of all the Churches in Christendome as the rose of Sharon and the lilly of the valies became quite defaced and the Church her self became Lo-ammi her whole usual service was rejected the service-book Hos 1.9 that was the rule of Gods worship broken all to pieces and straightly prohibited to be used the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue seldome or never repeated the fundamental points of our faith either corrupted or omitted to be taught and all sorts of damnable long-buried Heresies were revived preached and printed in every place whereby our well-reformed and lately glorious Church became like an Army routed a barrel unhooped and a vineyard unfenced and then filled with all corruptions both of life and doctrine to make way for the man of sin as John Baptist did to Christ to enter in And to shew the enormities of these times more plainly I will out of their own mouth and from their own books quote unto you what a Presbyterian Tho. Hall in his Book intituled The pulpit guarded in Eâ—ist dedicat Domino Joâ—nr Trap pastoride Bello-vado as I conceive him to be saith Vetus est illa oratoris quarela proveniebant oratores novi stulti adolescentuli prâ—veniunt hac nostra tempestate non oratores sed aratores novi stulti fabri ferrarii aerarii lignarii rastris quam rostris aptiores pistores nunc pastores textores tonsores sutores sartores coquinarii cupedinarii milites mulieres puelluli puelluiae c. necnon quamplurimi alii ejusdem furfuris quos vulgo vocamus Gifted brethren hem lingua utendum est belluina ne belluae ist a nos dilacerent and whom I pray you doth this man mean should be the beast and these beasts that he speaks of and is afraid
to betorn in pieces by them unless he means those locusts that assisted and adhered to the long Parliament but Mr Hall to make good his charge sets down the names of their Preachers in margine as Paul Hobson a Taylor and Rice a Tinker and Lambe a Soap-boyler and Symmes a Shoemaker and Oates a Weaver and Web a Souldier and Heath a Coller-maker and Field the bodies-maker and Green a Felt-maker and Potter the Smith and Spencer a Coach-man and Durance the Wash-ball-maker and Debner the Cooper that can neither write nor read besides many women-preachers and he quoteth Edwards Edwards in his gangraena part 2. pag. 81. another Presbyterian in his Gangraena part 2. page 81 and 88. and in the 1 page of his Book he nameth Lawrence Williams a Naylor publick Preacher Tho. Hinde a Plowright publick Preacher Tho. Palmer a Baker Preacher Sergeant Oakes a Weaver Preacher and Humfrey Rogers lately a Bakers boy publick Preacher and how many more such Preachers might he have found if he had further searched into Ingland and Ireland so many as I think would fill a Volume of no small size And if these brave Preachers be not the false-Prophet and the Preachers of the Antichrist I know not who shall be the Prophets of Christ so my good Presbyterian ex tuo ere out of thine own mouth and from your own books I believe it is apparent that these men sprung from the proceedings of the long Parliament and the Adherents of it and ch 19.20 are the false Prophet spoken of in the Revelat. 16.13 and the second Beast that the Apostle saw arising out of the earth and is as the soul and the very life of the Antichrist and of which Prophet the same Tho. Hall saith All their Preachers women boyes or men From Master Calamy to Mistress Venne Are perfect Popes in their own Parish grown For to out-goe the story of Pope Joan Their women preach too and are like to be The whores of Babylon as much as she And all the preaching of these men and these women Preachers is but a tyrotarichon and hotch-potch of all errors Heresies and Blaspemies as Alexander Ross in his Animadversions upon Mr Hobbs his Leviathan and Edwards in his Hell broke loose and his Gangraena do partly shew unto you what stuffe they bring and what manner of men they are how blinde and how ignorant and yet how impudent they be for who so bold as blinde bayard A Story shewing how an impudent preaching Trooper affronted and disturbed a reverend and learned Bishop in his Sermon And here I must crave leave to tell you a story and some doings belonging to this business quorum pars magna fui and an eye-witness of the same my self Not long ago a grave and a reverend Bishop that had been a Doctor of Divinity admitted in Cambridg Oxford and Dublin of above 40 years standing and well known for his learning and abilities in many Kingdomes travelling from Ireland towards London came on the Saturday night to a Gentlemans house of good quality and his special good friend which then told the Bishop how they had for their Parson and Preacher a man that as they were informed had been a Trooper in the Parliaments Army and he only preached unto them and received their Tythes but did neither baptize their children not bury their dead nor deliver the Sacrament of the Lords Supper nor let them have any other service of God but to preach or expound some Chapter and thus they had been for 7 or 8 years without any of these things but what they procured by some of their neighbour Ministers and he desired the Bishop that he would bestow a Sermon upon the Parishioners on the morrow which was the Lords day the Bishop answered that he loved not that any man should intrude himself into another mans charge but if they would send unto their Preacher and he gave way to it he would willingly preach the next day which the Gentleman did that night and the Preacher was contented the Bishop should have the place but when the Bishop had done his Prayer and read his Text in Nehem. 8.2 and 3. and divided the same and had past over the 1 part that the Preacher was Ezra the priest and thereupon shewed That none should prefume to intrude themselves to do the publick Offices of Gods service in the Church of God but they that were lawfully called as was Aaron and then had entred upon the 2. part the place were Ezra preached which was in the street before the water-gate and thereupon shewed that either in the time of plague or war or persecution or sailing at sea or demolition of Gods Temple as now the Temple of Solomon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and was not as yet fully re-edifyed or the like just occasion the Preacher might pray and preach as Christ and his Apostles did in any place but when neither of these nor any other exigent like unto these did require it he said the Church that was appointed and consecrated as Solomon did the Temple for Gods publick service was the fittest and the enjoyned place for the Preacher to preach and pray and the people to come to hear and to do the service of God and as he was amplifying this point the more at large because on that very day the Preacher had moved the Parishioners according to a brief from the Lord Protector to a liberal contribution towards the repairing of a famous neighbour Church that was ruined by the warrs the Preacher steps out of his seat among the people and opening his book said The Bishop preached lies and false Doctrine unto them which he would prove to be so and read a place of Scripture that was nothing at all against the Bishops Doctrine and after he had for a good space stood in confuting the Bishop and the Bishop silent all that while and had made an end of his confutation the Bishop demanded if he would now give him leave quietly to go on and to make an end of his Sermon the Parson and his Disciples answered he had preached false Doctrine and lies enough already and therefore he must come down and proceed no further which the Bishop presently did and the Parson got up into the pulpit but thereupon the Gentlemen and the Parishioners on the one side and the Parsons Proselites and Disciples on the other side rose up in a tumult and very bitterly out-bearding and chiding one another so that the Bishop was mightily afraid they would have gone together by the ears and have done some great mischief and had much adoe for a very great while to perswade them and to entreat them for Gods sake on all sides to be quiet And this tumult ended the Gentlemen and the better sort of the Parishioners that were much offended and grieved for this affront that was done unto the Bishop resolved to prefer a Bill of inditement against the Parson and his
Jerem. 3.22 as the Lord saith that backsliding Israel hath justifyed her self more than treacherous Judah so have these men given way to the Roman Church to justifie her self more than the now English Church because these men did not purge our Lyturgy and weed the errors and faults that they pretended to be found in our service Book but did wholly reject it and cast it quite away and never brought any other in the room thereof And the Roman Church can never be taxed with the like proceedings when as they often mended their Missalls and Breviaries but never quite exploded any of them and the Reformers of our Church did the like which is indeed a reformation and the other a rejection of Gods worship And if these things do not make up the grand rebellion and the huge Apostacy that the Apostle here speaketh of I only wonder at it and leave it to better Judges than I am to determine it CHAP. IV. Of the Literal and Mystical Babylon That Rome is a Babylon That neither the great Babylon in Assyria nor old Rome nor Constantinople which was called new Rome is that Babylon spoken of Rev. 17. and where the Antichrist seateth himself but that is to be mystically and not literally understood for some City of confusion and what the Prophet Daniel intimateth the Antichrist should do by the doings of Antiochus that was the most lively type of the great Antichrist in his rebellion against his Superiours and his persecution of Gods People the Jews 2. THE Antichrist well perceiving the Apostasie 2. That the Antichrist will set up his throne in the City of Babylon the relapse and falling away of the true and purest Reformed National Church from her Lawful Government and from the true Faith of Christ and the right Service of God by her rebellion both against the civil Magistrates and the spiritual Pastors thereof begins to shew himself and finding the door so wide opened entreth upon the stage and will establish his Court and set up his Throne and principal Seat of his Residence as the Scripture sheweth in the City of Babylon Jer. 50.14 And therefore the Prophet Jeremy saith Put your selves in array against Babylon round about all ye that bend the Bow shoot at her spare no arrowes cap. 51.8 for she hath sinned against the Lord And all the children of God are charged not to go to Babylon but to get out of her because she came in remembrance before God Rev. 18.4 c. 16.19 c. 18.5 c. 14.8 c. 18.3 And he determined to destroy her and to give unto her the wine of the fierceness of his wrath for that her sins have reached unto Heaven and she hath made all Nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her Fornication But here the question is what Place or what City is to be understood by this great and glorious proud City of Babylon which is so sinful and from which we are commanded to flee away and to fight against her For the better understanding of which point what Place is specially meant by this Babylon spoken of Rev. 17. Babylon taken two manner of waies you must remember that the Scripture speaketh of a two-fold Babylon or of Babylon two manner of waies that is 1. Literally 2. Mystically And 1. For the Literal Babylon 1. We find two Great Cities specially of this Name the one in Egypt 1. Literally 1. The Assyrian Babylon not to be understood here Justin l. 1. Herodot l. 1. the other in Chalde That of Egypt was the lesser and less famous than the other which was the Greater and far the more glorious City whereof the Poet saith Atque superba foret Babylon spolianda Trophaeis Ausoniis Which was not that Babylon which is in Egypt but that ancient and famous Babylon which Nimrod founded Ninus enlarged Semiramis walled about Nebuchadnezzar amplified Nitocris beautified and enriched and Cyrus reduced to his obedience For this Old Babylon the Metropolis of Assyria That the Assyrian Babylon excelled all other Cities in four respects and the Seat of the Assyrian Emperors for many years might for Four special things That is 1. For Strength and Bigness 2. For commodious Scituation 3. For the pregnant wits of her Inhabitants 4. For the puissance and the might of her Kings compare with any one City in all the world For 1. After the death of Nimrod and his Son Ninus her chief Foundress 1. For strength Coelius Rhodigin antiquit lâ—ct l. 8. c. 12. Semiramis the Wife of Ninus that was a Woman of more than Masculine Wit and Courage whose Garb of wrapping her head in Lawn after the death of her Husband the Persians imitate to this very day did first surround this City with walls of 32 foot thick and 50 cubits high betwixt the Turrets the Towers being raised 10 cubits higher Plin. l. 8. c. 26. and in compass the walls were 355 Stadia and every Stadium being 139 Paces Or according to Plinie's description of it the breadth of the wall was 50 foot Julius Solinus c. 69. and the heighth of it 200 each foot containing 3 fingers breadth more than our ordinary measure and in circuit it was 60000 paces so bigge that Aristotle thought it might have an equal dimension with all Peloponesus because that when it was first taken by Cyrus the furthest part of the City knew not in three daies after what had happened 2. 2. For scituation For the Scituation of this City the great and famous River Euphrates that was of a stadium broad brought his Channel through the midst of it and it was so arched over and adorned with such beautiful pensil Gardens that it seemed afar off to be like a wood upon the top of a mountain and the Lands about this City were so exceeding fruitful that the ground commonly produced 200 for one and somtimes more Gen. 10.9 c. 11.2 as Caelius and Curtius write for Nimrod that was the mightiest hunter living would have the finest and the best place that could be found even the very Plain of Shennar 3 For the Wits and Ingenuity of her Breed her wisdom and her knowledge were such and so great Es 47.10 that as Esayas testifieth they caused her to fall and to say with the Poet Ingenio perii qui miser ipse meo Mine own too much wit hath undone me For this City had the honour to produce the first Teachers of Astronomy and they were so expert therein that neither the Indian Gymnosophists nor the Egyptian Priests and Magicians were any waies comparable unto them as you may observe it out of Daniel c. 2. v. 2 4 10. And this City likewise bred the first Inventers of that curious Art of working with needles those rare and specious works Josh 7.21 that were done of divers colours which enticed Achan the Israelite to hide the gay and goodly Babylonish Garment 4.
transubstantiation shewed three waies is from the old received Faith of the Church and from the Divine Truth of God I shall briefly shew unto you 1. From the Holy Scriptures 2. From the Ancient Fathers 3. From pure and sound reason And a threefold cord is not easily broken For 1. Christ told his Disciples 1. From the Scriptures John 14.3 v. 28. Mark 16.19 Acts 7.56 Acts 9.4 Acts 3.21 before his passion that he must leave the world and go to his Father as he was man And St. Mark saith that after his resurrection he was taken up into Heaven and sitteth on the right had of God And so Saint Stephen saw him in heaven standing on the right hand of God and Saint Paul heard him from Heaven saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou me And St. Peter saith that the Heavens must receive or contain or hold him until the times of restitution of all things that is until the last day the day of Judgment How then can he be corporally present here on earth and be still residing in Heaven But to make the Point more clear John 6.53 our Saviour saith except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his Blood ye have no life in you that is none can attain unto eternal life but only those that do eat the flesh of the Son of man and do drink his bloud but all the Patriarchs Fathers and Prophets of the Old Testament and all those Christians that are baptized and die before they receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper The Fathers of the old Testament could not eat the natural flesh of Christ could not nor cannot eat the very natural flesh of the Son of man For as yet in the time of the Fathers of the Old Testament he had not assumed his Body and therefore either all those Fathers can have no life or else our Saviour meaneth it of a spiritual eating of his flesh by the mouth of Faith and not of any carnal eating of him by the mouth of our Bodies But to deny eternal life to these Fathers is most absurd and injurious unto them therefore our Saviours meaning must needs be granted to be of a spiritual eating of his flesh and no thanks to grant it For the Apostle proves it saying that they did ali eat the same spiritual meat 1 Cor. 10.3 4. and they did all drink the same spiritual drink that is as we do now for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ whose flesh they did thus spiritually eat that so they might have eternal life And St. Aug. in Johan tract 26. Aug. expounds it in the same manner saying visibilem cibum hoc est Manna spiritualiter intellexerunt spiritualiter esurierunt spiritualiter gustaverunt they understood that visible meat that is the Manna spiritually they hungred after it spiritually and they did eat the same spiritually And of all Christian Children and others that are baptized and die before they receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the same Father saith nulli est aliquatenus ambigendum tunc unumquemque fidelium corporis sanguinis Domini participem fieri quando in baptismate efficitur membrum Christi Aug de Symbol fidei ad catech to 9. no man ought any way to doubt but that every one is then made partaker of the body and blood of our Lord when by Baptism he is made a member of Christ Therefore the words of Christ are not to be understood of any oral eating of his flesh or drinking of his blood 2. 2. From the Fathers The whole stream of the first Fathers of the Christian Church are against this new-found Doctrine of Transubstantiation of the bread into the flesh of Christ and of the wine into his blood and for the spiritual eating of the flesh of Christ and the spiritual drinking of his blood For Origen saith si secundum literam sequaris id quod dictum est Origen in Levit hem 7. nisi manducaveritis carnem filii hominis non habebitis vitam in vobis litera illa occidit if you follow the letter of that which is said except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man ye have no life in you that letter killeth for it is the Spirit that giveth life the flesh profiteth nothing Theoder Dialog 7. And Theodoret saith Christus naturam panis non mutat Christ changeth not the nature of the bread So Tertullian contra Marcionem l. 4. August contra Adamant Manich. to 6. c. 12. in epist 221. Cyprian de coena Domini Hesichius in Levit. l. 3. c. 2 Amb. de Sacrament l. 1. c. 5. Chrys in Johan Tract 25 26. And all the rest that write of this Point are of the samâ— minde and do expound it in the same manner And so many of the Popish Writers themselves do either ingenuously confess or else tacitely yield unto this very truth for Pope Gelasius saith non desinit esse substantia vel natura panis vini the substance or nature of the bread and wine doth not cease to be and Roffensis yieldeth that the very presence of Christs body in the Masie Fisher Bishop of Roches cont Capt. Babylon Tonst de Euch. l. 1. Pag 65. Ar. Mont. in Luc. 22. cannot be proved by any place of Scripture and therefore sure we need not believe it for any truth and Tonstall confesseth it was no heresie to deny the Doctrire of Transubstantiation before the Council of Lateran And Arias Montanus upon the words of our Saviour this is my body saith it is no more but my body is sacramentally contained in this Sacrament and this we do all affirm and accursed be he that denieth it for we say with Clemens Alexandrinus that duplex est sanguis Domini alter carnalis quo redempti sumus alter spiritualis quo scilicet unctisumus and so the fiesh or body of Christ is understood to be 1. Carnally or corporally in heaven 2. Mystically and spiritually in the Sacrament and in the first sence none did or can eat him but in the second sence all the godly men have and do and will eat him and drink him nam hoc est bibere Jesu sanguinem incorruptionis domini participem esse for this is to eat the flesr of Christ and to drink the blood of Jesus to be partakets of the incorruption of our Lord as S. Clemens saith and as S. August August in Johan saith credere in Christum est manducarc panem vivum to believe in Christ is to eat the bread of life which is the flesh of Christ 3. Reason it self disproveth 3. From reason 1. Reason John 3.9 and is fully against this their doctrine of Transubstantiation For 1. If the bread upon the pronouncing of those words this is my body be turned into the flesh of Christ then the Apostles did eat his body and yet saw it whole and intire before their
Why the Lord raiseth these Idol-shepherds Verse 3. the crie of the good shepherds and faithfull Pastors of Gods Church for their contempt their rejection and suppression for as the Apostle saith that because men receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved therefore God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie that they all might be damned who believe not the truth 2 Thess 2.10 11. Luke 13.34 but have pleasure in unrighteousness so because the people rejected the true shepherds and as our Saviour saith killed the Prophets and stoned them that were sent unto them for Zachary was stoned with stones by the command of King Joas in the Court of the House of the Lord Micheas was thrown down by king Joram to break his neck because he had rebuked him for the sinnes of his Father Amos was very often persecuted by Amasias and his son struck him with a club on the temple of his head Dorotheus de vitis Prophetarum and so killed him Isaias was sawed asunder in two parts under King Manasses Jeremy was stoned by the people at Taphnis in the land of Egypt Ezekiel judged the two Tribes of Dan and Gad in Babylon and because he reproved them for their wickedness one of them slew him Urias the son of Simei was killed by Joachim Jeremy 26.23 and his carkasse thrown where the common sort of people were buried and so the rest of Gods faithfull Prophets were rejected persecuted and suppressed Therefore the just God as a just reward of this unjust dealing with the true shepherds raiseth up the foolish and the idol-shepherds and as he faith by the Prophet Michah if a man walk with the winde and lie falsely he shall be the Prophet of this people Ver. 13. The 2. Reason that moved the Lord to raise up these idol-Shepherds is said to be the roaring of the young Lions Micah 2. Verse 11. which I take to be the harsh and thundering threatnings of the new-sprung domineering Lords against the old faithfull shepherds to cause the people to reject them and to adhere unto their young Teachers because it is said v. 5. Verse 5. that their possessors slay them and hold themselves not guilty but think they do very well herein and they that thus sell the people say blessed be the Lord for I am rich that is in Gods favour and their own shepherds that is their new young shepherds pitty them not but think that they are in a far better condition then ever they were before Therefore the Lord saith I will not feed you and I will no more pitty you Ver. 6. that is Verse 6. you that are thus seduced by your Possessors the young roaring Lions and your new Teachers that are the Chaplains of those Lions but that that dieth let it die and that that is to be cut off let it be cut off and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another Verse 9. Vers 9. And yet such is the great love of God and his pitty towards his elect that he Vers 4 biddeth his good old shepherds and his true Prophets to feed the flock of the slaughter Ver. 4. Vers 7 and that is the poor of the flock as the Prophet explains it Ver. 7. or those that are despised and as it were appointed for the Slaughter by the young roaring Lions The two staves of the true and old Preachers Vers 7. and the foolish new shepherds And therefore the true Prophets and good old shepherds do take unto them 2 staves the one they call beauty and the other they call hands and they feed the flock that is the poor of the flock that are willing to be fed by them So you see the raiser of this foolish and idol-shepherd and the reason why he raiseth him 2. Time when the foolish idol shephere is raised then 2. For the time when God raiseth him you may observe that it is after the breaking of the Prophets 2 staves beauty and bands and 1. The staff of Beauty signifieth the true Doctrine of the Church and the faithfull exposition and teaching of the law of God and 2. The staff of bands is the good discipline and the right Government of the people that bindeth them together in the unity of Faith and perfect charity among themselves and hindereth them to straggle and to fall out into divers Sects and factions Verse 10 And if you do observe it you shall finde that when the staff of beauty was cut in sunder that is when the true exposition of the Law of Moses and the true Prophets was corrupted by the false glosses of their new Teachers When Christ was bought and sold Verse 12. This was fulfilled by the long Parliament Verse 14. that were the Scribes Pharisees and Sadduces then presently their King their Priest their Prophet and their good shepherd Jesus Christ was bought and sold by them for they weighed for his price 30 pieces of silver a goodly price that he was prized at of them for I heard of some that when the staffe of beauty was broken and the truth of Gods word corrupted by false teachers sold a far Meaner Man for a far greater price And was not our King bought and sold and murdered when our staff of beauty was broken to pieces and were not our Bishops suppressed when our staff of Bands was chopt asunder by the beast and the false Prophet Iet my Reader judge But when their King and their Good Shepherd is thus bought and sold then presently the other staff When the foolish shepherd riseth Verse 15. What is the Instrument of the foolish Shepherd Verse 16. even Bands that is the Discipline and Government of the Church is cut asunder and when both these staves are broken then the foolish shepherd with his instrument is to guide and to feed the flock for so the Lord now saith unto the Prophet take unto thee yet the instrument of a foolish shepherd And what is the Instrument of a foolish shepherd I cannot guess it to be any other than his Pipe wherein he takes great delight to be alwaies piping and prating unto his flock thinking that his piping is a sufficient discharge of his whole duty and so wholly neglecteth the Office of a good shepherd which is set down v. 16. And therefore as the children that sit in the Market place and call one to another Luke 7.32 The practice of the foolish and new Shepherds saying we have piped unto you and ye have not danced so we may say that these foolish shepherds do pipe all day unto the people and yet the people dance not after them because they lead not the dance they do nothing but pipe or as our Saviour tels us they say and do not and therefore their piping is no better than vain jangling So you see the time when God raiseth this foolish and Idol Shepherd when the staffe of
Kingdoms 4. The judgment of the Idol shepherd So the right eye i.e. the understanding of divine things shall be taken from the Antichrist though his left eye shal be quick-sighted enough in all worldly things and tore their clawes i. e. their strength and power all to pieces I think I may say this without question 4. Tâ—e Lord denounceth the Judgment of this Foolish Idol shepherd saying Wo to the Idol shepherd that leaveth the flock and much more wo to him that thus spoileth the flock the sword shall be upon his arm and upon his right eye his arm shall be clean dried up and his right eye shall be utterly darkned And so it fell out accordingly to this Idol shepherd the Scribes and Pharisees and the rest of the false Prophets of the Jews for though they thought themselves safe and had done all things well when they had broken the two staves of Beauty and Bands and had bought and sold their King Priest and Prophet and had put to death the true Bishop of their soules Jesus Christ yet the just God that is slow to anger and of great patience and was formerly forty years grieved with this generation when their Fathers tempted him proved him and saw his works forty years after this direful tragedy And so this Beast for doing as the Jews did kill his King and his Bishop let him fear the like judgment as the Jews had executeth this very judgment upon this Idol shepherd as Josephus ben Gorion and Josephus the Son of Mathathias 1.7 de Bello Judaico setteth down the same at large and in his 18th Book of Antiquit. he confesseth the same to be for their malice against their King Jesus Christ and the killing of the holy Apostle St. James that was Bishop of Hierusalem And this much shall serve to be spoken of the foolish Idol shepherd of the Jews that the Lord raised in the time of Christ and was the Type of the great Antichrist who in all the foresaid particulars did or will imitate this his Predecessor so far as the type doth agree with the thing typified So that I need not spend any longer time to tell you what the Prophet sheweth the great Antichrist that is here exprest under the title of the Idol shepherd should do when the Lord should raise him and for our sins send him amongst his flock because you have heard many points of his lewd and foolish pranks already in the doings of his type that was the Idol shepherd of the Jews that the Lord raysed for their sins in the time of Christ And you may see The a Staves never broken in any Church till now in the Church of Ingland as I said before how this Prophesie is now and never till now fulfilled since the type in the time of Christ for 1. As Christ the king of the Jews was bought and sold and crucifyed when the staff of beauty was broken so Charles our King was bought and sold and beheaded when the true Doctrine of faith and true obedience to our Governors were corrupted and this staff of beauty broken all to pieces 2. The time that the Antichrist should rise The Antichrist must be those new raised Preachers that do cohere with this foolish and idâ—l shepherd of the Jews As when the staff of bands was broken the Lord raised this foolish and idol Shepherd among the Jews so when our Bishops and Governors were supprest and their Discipline which is the staff of bands was broken all Sects increased all errors and heresies appeared and the great Antichrist manifested himself unto the world and did as he is here typified by the doings of this foolish and idol shepherd But now that which is more considerable to be understood is to know who is or should be the great eminent and transcendent Antichrist that is here typified by this Idol-shepherd I know the Divines of Gappe and the most of our Presbyterians are as sure as Gabriel Powel was that believed iâ— as he believed the Apostles Creed that the Pope is that great Antichrist and therefore when other matters fail them they fill their Sermons with exclamations against the Pope and deal with him as the Collier did with the Major of London when he came to High-gate and yet I am as sure that they are altogether mistaken in their faith and knowledg herein for though the Pope should be The Pope is an idol-shepherd yet not meant here tipified by this idol-shepherd as he is an Antichrist and a foolish Idol-shepherd as many others of our Presbyterians be and doth imitate this Idol-shepherd of the Jewes in all or most of the foresaid particulars as the little or no good that he doth to the flock of Christ and the great honor and service that he expecteth from all the Kings and Princes of the earth yet there are many other signal Characters notes and acts of the great Antichrist exprest in other places of the holy Scripture which are no wayes coherent and applicable to the Pope which I could shew unto you but that nunc non est narrandi tempus But then you will demand of me Who is that Antichrist if the Pope be not the Antichrist I answer that as S. Augustine saith satius est dicere quid not sit Deus Yet by Gods help I shall hereafter tell you whom I take him to be quam quid sit Deus for God is not the Sun he is not the Moon he is no created substance and I erre not in any of these answers so I say tutius est dicere quis non est Antichristus quam quis est Antichristus and he is not the Pope I am sure of it but I am sure he is a foolish and an idol shepherd whosoever he be yet not the Pope because these have not as yet happened unto the Pope for that his strength and power are not clean taken away though much diminished neither is the knowledge and Doctrine of the Roman Church utterly or totally perverted and the truth of Christian Religion quite extinguished nor yet the right way of serving God wholly corrupted as I shewed unto you before but whether the power and strength of the Long Parliament be not mouldred away from a mountain to a mole-hill and themselves vanish away like smoak let those members that are yet unnihilated answer it or if they be not yet come to nothing how long they are like to continue let my Reader judge 2. The next testimony of the Old Testament 2. The prophesie of Daniel under the person of Antiochus that is said to have any reference to the Antichrist and his doings is found in the Prophesie of Daniel But St. Paul tels us that to the Jews and Fathers under the Law omnia in figura contingebant illis all things happened and fell out to them in types and figures and most of those types and figures that were delivered unto them reached no further than
and to punish those that would observe them as the adherents of that Parliament did if I knew him I should verily believe him to be the great Antichrist But as the Prophet David complaineth of the Jews that they kept not the Covenant of God and would not walk in his law but soon forgate what he had done and the wonderfull works that he had shewed for them Psal 78.12 so we may justly complain of all those the spawn and offspring of the Presbyterian assembly and adherents of that long Parliament that not only forget the due observation of these holy times but also forbid and inhibit and in many places reprove correct and punish their Christian brethren for their religious observation of these good dayes and the performance of these holy duties which they owe to God for his great blessings Yet I hope that with all their subtlety and authority that vote them down they shall never be able to suppress them no more than Antiochus was to abolish the Jewish feasts because the holy Ghost saith the little horn that was the type of the Antichrist when he came to be great Daniel 7.25 and to the height of his power did but think to change the times and was not able to change them because the godly Jews observed all their festival times and holy dayes notwithstanding all the inhibition of Antiochus to the contrary and all the tortures that they endured for observing them So I hope all good Christians and true Saints will observe these their feasts and holy dayes and upon no termes either of fear flattery or gain omit on these times to do their service and holy duties unto God nor shew themselves less thankfull to God for the true substance than the Jews were for the types and shadowes of that substance But I remember Sanders Sanders in demonst Ansel in Apoc. c. 7. ex Irenaeo l. 5. Hypolit in orat de fine seculi Gen. 49.17 Jerem. 8.16 Bellar. de Rom. Pontif. l. 3. c. 12. Anselmus and some others out of Irenaeus and Hippolitus do think that the Antichrist shall be a Jew of the Tribe of Dan because old Jacob saith Dan shall be a serpent by the way an adder in the path that biteth the horse heels so that his rider shall fall backward and the Prophet Jeremy saith the snorting of his horses was heard from Dan and especially because that the Angel in the Revelat. c. 7. where 12 thousand are sealed out of every Tribe of Jacob leaves out the Tribe of Dan for that the Antichrist as these men suppose should arise from that Tribe and Bellarmine saith it is very probable the Antichrist shall be a Jew And whether these men that refuse and forbid the observance of the festival times and dayes of Christ be Danites or no I cannot tell but I am sure they are like Jewes not only in the Jewish precise and ceremonious observation of the Sabbath that was to be sanctified for the remembrance of our creation and the prophanation of these holy Christian feasts that we keep for the remembrance of our redemption but also in many other things that do obliterate and blot out the memorial of the greatest benefits that Christ hath done for us and the chiefest points of our Christian Religion Therefore if the promoting of Judaism the suppressing of the adiutaments and helps to understand and to preserve the main heads of Christianity be a note and property of the Antichrist let our Assembly of Presbyterians and the members of that long Parliament with their adherents that think to change these times take heed they be not found to be the Antich Object But these men will object against the observation of these Feasts and especially of Christmas that they know not on what day of the month he was born and therefore why should they observe the 25th day of December for the day of his Nativity Or if it be true that he was born on that day yet they have no Precept in all the Scripture that they should cease from their vocation and keep that for an holy day Respons To the first part of this Objection I shall but briefly answer by demanding of thee To the first part of the Objection Why dost thou with all other Churches in Christendom observe the year of our Lords Incarnation when the Angel saluted Mary and the Word begâ—n his Incarnation in the womb of the blessed Virgin to begin on the 25th day of March if thou doubtest that he was not born on the 25th of December Dost thou think she went either more or less time with her Child than the usual and natural time of other women And therefore if thou wilt change the day of his birth change the day of his Incarnation in the wombe of his mother and let the year of our Lord in all our deeds and writings be altered and begin on another day which thou knowest to be a surer time of his Incarnation than the 25th day of March for why should all our evidences be false and erronious Or if thou my good Presbyterian dost not think the 25th of December to be the day of his Nativity why dost thou not inform us for certain on what day of the month he was born that we may not neglect the duty because we are not sure of the day But you think it a sufficient excuse wholly to neglect the duty because you doubt of the day And yet it might be a sufficient reason to satisfie any reasonable man besides that John Baptist who was born on the 24th of June that then was the longest day in the year and just six months before the birth of Christ as the Angel informed Mary tells us plainly that according to the daies of their birth Christ must encrease and he must decrease that the whole Church of God have unanimously observed this day constantly for the day of Christ his birth and why shouldst thou think that Christ would all this while suffer his Church to be deceived herein or that thou shouldst be wiser than the whole Church hath been for so many Ages together Solut. To the second part of the Objection To the second part of thine Objection that thou hast no Precept in Scripture to observe this day I confess it and how many things dost thou not only in natural businesse and ordinary affairs but also in and about the Service of God that thou hast no Precept for them in all the Scriptures For where hast thou any Precept to keep the first day of the week for the Sabbath To receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper once every month To preach twice every Lords day To build a Church in such and such a place To make the Sermon so long as thou dost The People to meet in Church twice a day and no more And the Service to be on such hours and no other And the like For though God accepteth of no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
end why these sinfull murderers do thus kill those eminent persons expressed by our Saviour Christ in the Parable of the husbandmen that killed the Kings son that he being the heir and being killed the inheritance might be their own and they should rule and raign as Kings and have all for themselves that was their chiefest aim for they had learnt their Poetrie to make every Verse true that endeth with semper tibi proximus esto As Cum fueris faelix The covetous and ambitious mans Poetry semper tibi proximus esto Si fueris Romee semper tibi proximus esto Si fueris alibi semper tibi proximus esto Si tibi sint nati semper tibi proximus esto Si tibi sint nulli semper tibi proximus esto and the like So their hate their malice and their murder was not for the love of justice to have sin punished but for the love of themselves that they might have the pleasure and the profit for their iniquity And now having passed through these Particulars and seen the highest step and staff of this ladder of homicide and the worst degree or kinde of murder I say the sin of the Antichrist is like the sin of the Jews in the condemnation of Christ The sin of the Jews condemning Christ what it was which was an usurpation by Inferiors and Subjects as the Jews were to Christ of the highest Court and throne of justice and thence judicially and most unjustly to condemn to death and accordingly to kill and murder the most eminent person their superior placed over them by God to be their King to rule them their Priest and Prophet to pray for them and to instruct them and all this under the hypocriticall cloak and pretence of piety and Religion but indeed to this end that they might get the rule Government and Dominion into their own hands And I conceive the proper and peculiar sin of the Antichrist that the Apostle meaneth in this place The sin of the Antichrist like unto the sin of the Jews to be just like unto the same and never committed either by the Pope or Turk or any other single person whatsoever when it is to be done by a court and a collected multitude of men which therefore maketh the sin the more odious and abominable in the sight of God and of all good men And if in all Aquinas Summes or Antoninus his Titles or in all the Tomes of Abulensis or the mighty Comments of Cornelius à lapide or the painfull Works of Alstedius or the Summes of Vices by Peraldus or in and among all the beastly sinnes that Azorius in his moral Institutions setteth down or as the Prophet Jeremy saith Jerem. 2.10 Passe over to the Isles of Shittim and see send unto Kedar and consider diligently and see if there be such a thing or if you can finde in any Author divine or humane a sin more injurious to man and more odious and abominable in the sight of God than this thus committed by the Jews against Christ and by the Antichrist against the 2 witnesses of Christ then will I retract mine Assertion and submit my self to the correction of the Presbyterians for misinterpreting this place and mistaking this sin here meant by our Apostle But to justifie my Collection you may remember how angry the Lord was Numb 16.32 and how terribly he punished Corah Dathan and Abiram with such a punishment as the like is not found in all the book of God for despising their Superiors and Governors and refusing to yield obedience to Moses and Aaron in but giving spitefull and scandalous words unto them and saying when Moses called them we will not come up Numb 16.12 14. how angry then and what punishment think you would the Lord have inflicted on these rebellious Subjects if they had most wickedly and thus hypocritically as I now shewed you killed Moses and Aaron by a formal judiciary judgment of a whole Court of justice And to make it plain and evident that this man-killing is the notorious and proper peculiar sin of the Antichrist by which as by a plain and singular character he might be known to be the Antichrist when he came into the world the holy Ghost saith that when the two Witnesses of Christ the Supream Magistrate E. H. de Antic p. 76. and the chief Pastor of Gods people as some of the best Interpreters say have finished their testimony that is according to the time determined by God the Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit that is the Antichrist as all Interpreters do confess shall make war against them Revel 11.7 and shall overcome them and kill them that is in manner and form as I shewed to you before because no other kind of killing them The sin of Antichrist proved to be the foresaid sin of man-killing could have been so odious and so abominable in the sight of God And the Apostle here in 2 Thes 2.3 doth inrimate as much in the very next words that do immediatly follow the man of sin by calling him presently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the child of perdition or the son of destruction or of the destroyer which I find only ascribed to Judas that betrayed Christ and delivered him to death and to the Antichrist that brought the witnesses of Christ to death and so both Judas and the Antichrist are rightly termed the sons of destruction both actively and passively 1. Actively in destroying and bringing others to destruction as Judas did Christ and the Antichrist the Witnesses And 2. Vide Maresium in dissertat de ontichristo pag. 50. Passively in destroying themselves as Judas did in hanging himself and the Antichrist will do for so unjustly delivering his King and his Master to be destroyed And so you have seen what sin is the notorious proper and peculiar sin of the Antichrist the murdering of the Witnesses 2. 2. Who hath committed this sin that is the sin of the antichrist Neither the Pope nor the turk We are now to enquire whom we can find if we can find any that hath committed and thus committed as I shewed you this sin And here I must tell you it is far safer to tell you who did it not than to name to you who hath done it But I am sure that neither the Pope nor the Turk hath done it neither could they do it Reason 1 1. Because it was to be done by Inferiours and Subjects against their Superiours and Governours as the Jews did against Christ and Corah Dathan and Abiram against Moses and Aaron that were their Rulers and their Teachers and the Pope hath no superiour Pastor to instruct him nor the Turk any Emperor or King to command him Reason 2 2. Because it was to be done by a collected multitude and a High Court of Justice the highest Court in the Kingdom where it should be done and therefore neither by the Pope nor
Army and for their service unto the Antichrist capita hominum heads of the people and ring leaders of the seduced multitude Where by the way you may yet take notice of the great malice of Satan against Christ and the great power of the Antichrist against the witnesses of Christ that he should have such a number of men of note to assist him to overthrowe the Servants of Christ for though among 600 thousand men that came out of Egypt Exod. 12.37 there were but 250 men that rose up and rebelled against Moses and Aaron yet here is 7000 men of renown that stand up and fight and are slain for the Antich to withstand the witnesses and to hinaer them to obtain their Offices and places and if so many men of note be slain what a multitude of other inferiour men of no note may be slain and of others that fight and assist the Antichrist against the witnesses are not slain But it may be the number of 7000 doth signifie as I said a great many That the number of 3.7 and 10. do very often signifie many because the number of 3 and of 7 and of 10 hath very often none other importance then a great deal or a great many as in St. Jude the Lord commeth with ten thousand of his Saints so in St. Matth. 12.45 and in St. Luke 8.2 the number of 7 betokeneth many and so I rather conceive the meaning of these words 7000. men were slain to be that a great many were slain and not that the just and full number of 7000 men were to be slain in that commotion And it may be likewise conceived that all these 7000 or great many names of men that were to be slain or annihilated and undone in that commotion are not all of the Antichrist his party but rather so many and such a great number should be slain of both parties which is the likeliest interpretation Yet howsoever whether you understand the words literally for the full number of 7000 men or mystically for a great many * Or 7 that should be in the stead of 7000. The love of Christ to his servants and his power to desend them greater then the malice and power of Satan to hurt them or whether you understand them all of both parties or all of the Antichrist party you may here observe a greater love of Christ unto his witnesses then the malice of Satan can be against them and the power of Christ far greater and better able to protect and to set up his witnesses and to overthrowe their enemies then the Antichrist can possibly have to destroy them or to hinder their restauration for to the comfort of the witnesses and of all others the Servants of Christ St. Cyprian that was himself a Martyr and a faithfull witness of Christ saith most truly that non plus valet addejiciendum terrena paena quam ad erigendum divina tutela the Lamb that standeth on Mount Sion is far more able to protect us then the roaring Lion is to overthrowe us and Christ is far more powerfull to raise his witnesses then the Antichrist is or can be to hinder their rising and therefore were the Souldiers of the Antichrist and the followers of the beast 70 times 7000. And I demand if the adversaries of the King and Bishops be not affighted to see them restored yet they should be subdued and slain in this Earthquake rather then the witnesses of Christ should be hindered to ascend up into Heaven and to be restored to their offices and places for so the Angel testifieth that the witnesses ascended up in a Cloud unto Heaven and 7000 heads or names of men were slain in the Earthquake and the remnant were affrighted as well they might to see how gracious the Lord is to assist his servants and how powerfull to overthrow his adversaries that will oppose and suppress his witnesses and they that is the witnesses gave glory to the God of Heaven which is indeed the God of his Church more especially then he is the God of any other place or people whatsoever And then saith the Angel When the second woe shall passe away when the witnesses are restored and their enemies subdued the second woe shall be past and the Saints and servants of Christ will give thanks and prayse unto God as they have most just cause to do as for all things else so likewise more especially for overthrowing their enemies and restoring the witnesses of Christ to erect and build up the Temple of God by serving God with the right service and preaching his word truly unto the people as you see they do from this 14. verse unto the end of this Chapter But lest the restored witnesses A good lesson both for the King and Bishops and the Church and the rest of Gods Servants should grow secure after they had overcome these great troubles that with great constancy they had passed through they must still be exercised and trained up in gymnatio patientiae in the School of afflictions and therefore the Angel addeth that although the second woe be past when the witnesses are restored and the 7000 men slain yet behold saith the Angel and consider it well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the third woe cometh quickly And this woe I take to be the last woe that shall fall upon the Sons of men The last woe upon whom and when to fall and under which the Lord God will powre out the 7 last vialls of his wrath upon the Antichrist and his adherents and upon the false Prophet and upon all prophane worldlings and wicked Hypocrites and in some respects upon very many of the true Servants of God and the witnesses of Jesus Christ as failing in the same Ship and being commorants in the same City among the wicked and perhaps soiled in some measure with the manners and evill practices of the world and therefore must partake in some kind of the plagues and punishments that God powreth down like rain upon the wicked and then that is after the powring out the Vials of Gods wrath the mystery of God which he hath declared to his servants the Prophets shall come to an end and be fully finished as the Angel testifieth to our Evangelist Revel c. 10. v. 6. 7. c. 10. v. 6 7. And this mystery of God I conceive to be with the favour of them that think the contrary not the restauration and calling of the Jewes and the other ten Tribes of Israel as Dr. Willet E. H. and some other learned men do imagin The fictions of the Presbyterians and Jesuites in mistaking this mystery of God 1 Tim. 3.16 nor the reformation of the relapsed gentile Churches and the destruction of the Papacy Turcisme and Mahometisme as others of our late Presbyterians do as fondly conceit nor yet the overthrowe of the Popish Antichrist set forth by Sanders Bellarmine and others but the great mystery of
conceive more agreeable to the meaning of the Holy Ghost then her Son and the Dragons eating of it would be a speedy devouring of her Child whether it were Male or Female so the Dragon was watching this woman and is still watching to devoure every Child of the Church Male or Female And in the fifth verse the Angel saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 V. 5. The diversity of opinions who this Child should be and the woman brought forth a man Child who was to rule the Nations with a rod of Iron and the Child was caught up to God and to his Throne where we are past the plaine and are come into the Wilderness wherein the way is not so easie to be found out when we do find so many pathes and such a great diversity of opinions among the learned who is meant by this Man child and what is to be conceived of his birth and of his taking up to the Throne of God Rupertus de victoria verbi dei l. 9. c. 28. l. 12. c. 2. Math. 2.16 c 4.1 for some Interpreters by the Birth of this Man child do understand the Birth of Jesus Christ in the Jewish Synagogue of the Blessed Virgin whom the red Dragon the Devill by Herod his grand instrument sought immediately to destroy as soone as ever he was borne as St. Mathew sheweth and also tempted him as soon as ever he was Baptized as the same Evangelist declareth But against this E. H. doth rightly oppose E. H. de Apostasia pag. 44. that the Revelation is not of known things that are past but as the Angel saith of things that must shortly come to pass and the incarnation or Birth of Christ of the Virgin Mary was not to come the same being already past well nigh an 100. years before and therefore though we deny not but the Dragon sought to destroy Christ as Rupertus saith as soon as ever he was brought forth out of his Mothers Womb yet we say that cannot be the meaning of this place which is to be understood of another Child that is to be borne of another Woman E. H. Lococitato By this Child understandeth the great Constantine and therefore E. H. and some other Authors do understand this woman to be the Primitive Church of the Christians groaning to be delivered from under the bloody Tyranny of the Red Dragon that is from the cruel dealing and sad condition that she sustained under the Pagan and persecuting Emperours and the Lord delivering her from those Tyrants by raising up Constantine who as they say is the Man-child that the Church then brought forth a good Christian to rule the Nations with a Rod of Iron that is to subdue Licinius and Maxentius and the Nations that adheared to them with his Victorious Sword and he was caught up to God when he was converted from an Infidell to become a Christian and he was placed in Gods Throne when he attained to the Imperiall Majesty The which exposition The former exposition rejected though it seem very probable and plausible yet cannot I yield unto it to be the meaning of the Holy Ghost in this place because this woman doth not crie to be delivered from her enemies that were without her but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having in her belly that is a Child within her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 she cryed by reason of her child birth pain which the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that cometh from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to bring forth a Child from whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth properly signifie dolor parturientis the very pangs and pain of bringing forth the Child into the world and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that comes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 torqueo to be grieved or vexed and wrested with pain doth make it manifest that she cryed not to be delivered from her enemies but to be delivered of her child that she had in her womb and would faign have him to be brought forth into the world That Constantine is not the Man-child here meant Neither can I see any reason to perswade me to yield that this man-child should signifie Constantine the great Reason 1 1. Because this woman which signifieth the Church was not as then before Constantines time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 circumcinctasole cloathed or girded and compassed about with the great light of the Sun that is fully inlightened and instructed with the Doctrine of Christ and the many points of particular truths of Christian Religion nor can we finde her to be thus inlightned untill the time of Theodosius alter the death of Valens and Gratian which was about the year of Christ 382 when those great lights The woman not cloathed with the Sun till 382. that God then raised in his Church to expell the foggy mysts of errors and clouds of heresies that were formerly raised by the Hereticks and still pestered the Church St. Hierome St. Ambrose St. Augustin St. Basil Bishop of Caesaria that for his great learning and wisdom was rightly termed Basilius Magnus great St. Basill Gregory Nazianzen that for his excellent skill and knowledge in Divinity was styled Theologus the Divine as the writer of these Revelations is called John the Divine Epiphanius Cyrillus Bishop of Hierusalem When the Bishops were like Stars and when like the Sun and many more most worthy men of great learning and piety made the truth of the Gospel of Christ that was left unto us by the Evangelists and Apostles to shine in the Church as the Sun in the Firmament that formerly while those hereticks that Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius and St. Augustine record troubled the Church and darkned the truth of the Gospel the said truth shined but as the light of the Starres and therefore during those times of the grand Hereticks the very Angels of the seven chiefest Churches of Asia that is the Bishops and prime Pastors of those Churches Revelat. 1.20 were called seven Starres for the seven Starrs are the Angels of the seven Churches saith the Holy Ghost and the twelve Apostles are compared unto twelve Starres as I shewed to you before and the Church could not be inlightned with the light of the Sun when her chief teachers were but Starres and shined to her but as Starres though the light which these Starres sent forth was the light which they received from the Sun that is the Sun of righteousness as the Prophet calleth him but in the year 382. and about that time Reignolds Devitis Imperat. fol. 115. was the flourishing time of the learned when the Doctrine of Christ did shine as the Sun saith Reignolds Reason 2 2. Because that although the Church like the woman that is with Child is pained before the time of birth yet is she most of all tormented when the child is nearest to be born so the Church had her pangs in those that she brought forth in the
persecution of the woman v. 16. he moved the earth to help this distressed woman and to open her mouth and to swallow up the flood which the Dragon had cast out of his mouth v. 16 Where you may see and should consider it How the senceless creatures do their service unto God how the senceless creatures are obedient Instruments to do their service unto God both to punish the wicked and to help the godly as the raging Sea was a wall of defence unto the Israelites on every side and a grievous gulf to devoure Pharaoh and all his Host so here the dead earth that opened her mouth to swallow up Dathan and to cover the Congregation of Abiram for their wickednesse doth now likewise according to the letter open her mouth to swallow up the flood that the Dragon had caest after the Woman to preserve her from being ruined by that flood But here we are to inquire what is meant by this earth that hath a mouth to be opened for the defence and preservation of the woman and it is strange unto me that so learned a man Mr. Mede pag. 47. as Mr. Mede should by the earth understand the Bishops and Doctors that were gathered together in the generall Counsells because I cannot remember any place of Scripture where the Godly Religious and spirituall men are expressed and are to be understood by the earth because that although all flesh is Grass and every man is but dust and ashes and therefore the Prophet saith O Earth Earth Earth hear the Word of the Lord yet being regenerated and filled with the graces of Gods spirit and having their thoughts and their desires mounted up from the earth and their Conversation in Heaven they are never termed Earth but as the Church here and in many other places is called Heaven so are they stiled spiritual men though their bodyes be nothing but earth And therefore I conceive the meaning of the words to be that God in the time of this persecution of the Woman â— 12.10 v. 7. and affliction of his Church inspired some men and moved them that otherwise were as earthly and as worldly minded as any others What is meant by the earth that helped the the Woman though not altogether so malicious and so bloody as the rest to open their mouthes and to out vote the worser and most spitefull sort of the instruments of the Dragon that they should not utterly destroy all the Children of the Woman and Servants of God but should suffer them to live which the more virulent party would have quite extinguished and to let them compound for their Estates that they might have some small livelihood to support them Whether this also was not fulfilled in and by the long Parliament let the Reader judge Prov. 16.7 after all their plundering and persecution and so God dealeth with them that serve him and continue constant to discharge their duties that as the Prophet speaketh he maketh their enemies to become their friends and to be their helpers as here the very worldlings do open their mouthes and make speeches to preserve many of Gods Children And whether such a thing as this happened not in the last long Parliament I leave it to my judicious Reader to consider it Therefore the Dragon not satisfied with all the former miseries of the Woman and all the persecutions of her Children which hitherto they had suffered but his wrath being still inraged to see any help or comfort afforded to the Woman he spurs and instigates his instruments the beast and his associats to make war with the remnant of the Womans seed which keep the Commandements of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ v. 17. v. 17. that is the Dragon moveth the beast to be incensed and inraged against those that after the death of the Witnesses and the small relief and breathing time Who are meant by the remnant of the Womans seed that some members of the Church have had will not submit themselves to do the service which the Dragon by the beast prescribeth and yeeld themselves to be seduced by the false Prophet which are the Angels of the Dragon but will constantly adhere to Gods right service and the established forme of Gods Worship and continue faithfull observers of the Lawes discipline and doctrine of the slaine Witnesses And is not this also fulfilled let the ejected Ministers judge of it these now must beare the brunt and malice of the beast the poore and small remainder of the true and faithfull Servants of God which notwithstanding all their persecution and deprivation and all other sufferings whatsoever will keep the Commandements of God and have therefore the Testimony of Jesus Christ that they are Gods faithfull Servants and not such as will turne with every blast of wind and be carryed away with a little worldly preferment And thus I have run over this 12th Chapter of the Revelation and have in a plaine stile set downe what I conceive to be the true meaning of the same how the Holy Ghost therein sheweth the state and condition of the Church of Christ from the time of that Godly Emperour Theodosius about the year 382. for the space of 1200. and 60 years which ended about the year 1642. about which time after the first Woe is past by the invasion of the Turkish and Mahometan Tyrants into Christendome and the defacing of the Christian Churches and defiling the true Faith in the East Empire the Dragon as the Holy Ghost here saith should more maliciously begin by the Ministery of his chiefest instrument the great Antichrist his greatest and sorest persecution against the Church of Christ expressed here under the person of this Woman that hath these floods of waters sorrowes and afflictions thrown after her the which persecution according to the old adage si longa sit afflictio levis est si gravis brevis est if thy trouble be long it is but light if great it is short quiae nullum violentum est perpetuum because no violent thing is able to continue very long because it should be so great and so grievous the spirit of God tells us it should continue but for a short space and a few years and when the same shall be ended and fully expired the second woe shall be past and then after the end of this bloody persecution and the expiration of this second woe the third and last woe saith the Angel is quickly to be expected and shall not long be deferred before it commeth and this last woe shall be poured out in a full measure upon the Turks and Mahometans the supplanters of the Easterne Churches and upon the Antichrist and his adherents the great persecutors of the true reformed protestant Church and upon the Popish superstitious and Idolatrous Corrupters of the rest of the Westerne Churches and upon the false Prophet the Chapleins of the Antichrist and upon all other Hypocriticall
for which they are to receive this deadly doome in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone But in the aforesaid time of a 1000 yeares all from 630 to a 1630. Satan was tyed that he cold not rayse any bloody persecution against the Church though it cannot be denied but that the Church at this time did now and then persecute some of her own Children as the Waldenses and our Murtyres in Queen Maryes dayes and some others in other places which as the Church saith was but debita correctio propter indebitam contumaciam when as in the Arke of Moses That the Church hath often wrongfully persecuted her own Children there must be kept as well Aarons Rod for to Chastise the froward as the Heavenly Manna to refresh the wearied though in very deed the Church shewed her self herein many times not to be infallible when she reproved the Righteous and winked at the Wicked and oftentimes condemned the Righteous with the Wicked and sometimes more severely then the Wicked so that of many a Son of the Church we might justly say with the Poet The Church of Rome severely taxed for her cruelty Crudelis mater magis an puer improbus ille Improbus ilie puer crudelis tu quoque mater The Church was more to be blamed for her cruelty then her Children for their insolency And therefore for these and for other the like sins of the Church When the Lord suffered the Beast and the false Prophet to arise and to persecute the Church Revel 20.4 Of the 1000 years the Church should rest in quiet that were now come like the sins of the Amorites to the height and deserving just punishments for these unjust dealings And so for other the like Delinquencies of the professors of the Gospel the Lord was provoked hereby to let Satan loose to whip his Children for these misprisions and stepping out of the Wildernesse out of their place to follow after the World and their worldly profit and then the Dragon being let loose he begins afresh to persecute the Church with Fire and Sword and sends this Beast with his Emissaries and Assassins to slay the two Witnesses of Christ to destroy the true Members of the Church and to ruine all that he can beside and then St. John seeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Beast rising out of the Sea the which Beast I am now to describe unto you But before I proceed to the description of this Beast I do think it most requisite that I should say somewhat more for the clearing of the time when the 1000. That Satans 1000 years binding and the Saints 1000 years Reigning are the same Papias that received this Doct. of the Chiliasts was a man of small judgment as Eusebius Witnesseth l. 3. c. 35. When the 1000 years began and when ended if you take them for a determinar or set time and not as Fulke Deodat and others take them for a long but an indesinite time which I think is the smest exposition years wherein those souls that were beheaded for the Witness of Jesus should live and Reign with Christ and Satan should be bound that he might not persecute the Church with any bloody persecution for the faith of Christ which are both to be done in the same 1000 years should both begin and end And first That the 1000 years wherein Satan should be bound from persecuting the Church and the 1000. years wherein the Saints should live and reign with Christ are the very same 1000 years and not as the Chiliasts or Millenaries dream that Christ shall come either in his own person as some of them grossly think or else by his Spirit as others of them the more moderate men do say and reigne with them yet on earth a 1000 years it is so fully and learnedly shewed by that worthy and learned Divine Dr. Hammond that doth so in most of all his Writings that he worthily deserves to be loved and honoured of all the Church that for me to say any more were but arenas in littus fundere to write Iliads after Homer to no purpose when better cannot be said and more need not be said then what that worthy Scholar hath set down on the 20th chap. of the Revelat page 997. and so likewise what the reverend Author of the Revelation unrevealed hath therein set down to shew the fond conceits of these Chiliasts which are very excellently discovered per totum But for the time when those 1000 yeares both for the one and the other i. e. Satans binding and the Saints reigning should begin and be determined I shall humbly crave leave to dissent both from him and from all others that do subscribe to his opinion for whereas he conceiveth the same to begin either in 455. when by the Wars of Alaricus in 410. and of Attalas in 451. and of Gensericus in 455. Heathenisme and Idol Worship was fully destroyed in Rome and Christianity became Victorious over it And to end when Mahomet the second took Constantinople in 1455. or as some say in 1453. or else as he rather thinks they began in 311. or thereabouts when Constantine receiving the Christian faith concluded the persecutions of the Church and by an imperiall decree proclaimed Liberty and immunities to Christianity and ended about 1311 when the Ottoman Family began to flourish and to over-run Greece and to bring Mahometisme into Asia though Mariana inclines rather to the other opinion that his Imprisonment began after Rome was taken by the Goths and after Momillus that was termed Augustulus the last Emperor of the West was driven away by Odoacer the King of the Heruli which was about 477. and so must end in 1477. I answer The former opinion answered and rejected that although Constantine for this time freed the Church from all Heathenish persecutions and then immediately the two Olive Trees and the two Candlesticks to whom were given indeed before on the day of Pentecost such gifts as inabled them to instruct and to inlighten the Church with a very good and competent measure of true light were now furnished with a larger measure and with such abilities as were sufficient to inlighten her with the light of the Gospel and to feed her in the Wilderness that is to governe her in a far better manner then ever they did or cold do before and though after this in the time of Theodosius about 382 they were fully inabled to inlighten her with the great and glorious light of the Sun yet was not Satan bound all this while nor a good while after this for when he saw how by the Ministery of these two Olive Trees the two Witnesses of Christ that were now so well furnished with abilities to build the Temple that the Angel commanded to be measured the Church began to bring forth Christ most plentifully in her Children and was like to do the same more and more he sought to devoure this Child That the Church
worthy of credit assure me they are for what Blasphemy in the world can there be greater then to make the Holy Spirit of God that flieth from deceit and dwelleth not in the body that is subject unto sin to be the foul Spirit of Darkness and the Author mover and promoter of such most horrid and execrable acts acts never acted by any Christians and but seldome if ever known by the worst of Pagans and never before adventured or invented as I conceive to be justifiable by the most impudent of all the Hereticks And besides all this have not their Assembly and Preachers Wisdome 1.5 as I told you before by consequent and in effect denyed the Father and the Son and so the Holy Ghost which is amor nexus spiritus patris filij Let the Reader judge what Blasphemous acts the Assembly of Divines and the adherents to the Parliament did and have they not obliterated and cashiered some of the chiefest heads and maine points of the long received truths of our Christian Religion and did not that Parliament Authorize that Apostate assembly and countenance the swarms of their lay-sword-Preachers to discountenance the 39 Articles of our Church to dispute about the expunging of the fift Article of the Apostles Creed to Antiquate the Lords Prayer out of the Church Service for fear that if they should use to say the same they should quench the Spirit as if the spirit of Christ would be offended with the Prayer of Christ and to turne out the long setled service of God and the book of Common-prayer out of the Church to give way as one saith well to a long-winded extemporary non-sence and Blasphemous repetitions Such Blasphemies as never were in the Church of Rome are broached in the books and Sermons of the Presbyterians and most sawcy expostulations with God in the steed thereof which is the readiest way to introduce Athiesme and to abrogate Christianity out of the world which is the desire of the Dragon and the proper work of the Antichrist And therefore the Religion of the Fauterers and adherents to that Parliament being but a meer complication and a syncretisme or rather a sink and common sewer of all errors Heresies and Blasphemies may we not well say that upon the heads thereof there is not onely the name but in the plurall number the names of Blasphemy especially if I should set down which would swell to a huge Volume all the Blasphemous tenents that some of their members many of their Preachers and more of their adherents have broached scattered and printed throughout these three Kingdomes since the unhappie birth of that most unhappy Parliament to most of the Kings most Loyall Subjects and so you see how this Appendix of the Beast may be said to cohere with that long Parliament Fiftly It is said v. 2. that this Beast was like a Leopard 5. The Beast was like a Leopard Jun. in annotat in loc As after the 2d Pun warr Maced Grec syria caeteraque omnia quasitorrente sequnta sunâ— Dan. 7.6 Vt loquitur florus l. 2. c. 7. Diodorus siculus de success Alexandr 2. and Junius following his former exposition saith this ought to be understood of the Roman Empire that was like a Leopard propter velocitatem by reason of their swiftness and speedy expeditions and their extraordinary successes to subdue their Enemies when their Generalls might say with Caesar veni vidi vici assoone as I came I overcame all the adversaries that opposed me whereby they have suddenly prevailed to inlarge their dominions over the better part of the then known world But indeed that Empire cannot be understood by this Leopard for Daniel speaking of the four great Empires of the world saith that the third Beast which betokened the Macedonian or Greek Empire was like a Leopard that is propter velocitatem by reason of the sudden increase and speedy inlargement thereof when Alexander the great did most suddenly in less then 10 years space subdue the Persian Monarchy and brought under his subjection the most part of the visible Dominions of the world and his Empire was as suddenly divided when he bequeathed the same to the Worthyest of his Captaines and almost as quickly againe translated unto the Romans and therefore I say that not the Roman Empire Eodem c. v. 7. 23. which was the fourth beast in Daniels Vision and had Iron teeth and stamped the residue of the Kingdomes with the feet of it but the beast that is the Antichrist which was typified by the little horne that came up among the hornes of the fourth beast â— v. 8. that Daniel saw is here likened to a Leopard and that not only propter velocitatem for the great speed that he maketh in all his actions but also in respect of all the other chief properties of the Leopard which is observed to be 1. The three properties of the Leopard Velox very swift 2. Crudelis very Cruel 3. Maculosus very much spotted And so was that many-headed beast that our Evangelift saw And truly I may justly demand if that these three properties of the Leopard might not be perfectly seen in the long Parliament The parallel for 1. 1. The great speed of the Parliament Were they not most swift in their expeditions and executions and subduing all that have opposed them either Domestick and homebred Enemies or any other forreigne foes and have they not conquered these three Kingdomes and prevailed more in less then ten years space then either the Warlike King of Sweden or any other King or Common-wealth if you consider all circumstances since Alexanders time 2. 2. The cruelty of the Parliamen As they were most speedy in their actions so I may demand if they were not as cruel in their executions and more cruell then all the examples that ever I found in any History to parallel them more cruel as it is conceived then John Vasilowich that was the greatest Tyrant of Russia and as they say greater then any other former Tyrant and yet he never persecuted any man as these men did onely for being loyall Subjects unto their King and faithfull Servants unto their God though we might say of Vasilowich that Saevior est tristi Busiride Saevior illo Qui falsum lento torruit igne bovem And therefore when I duly weigh the decenniall slaughters practised in these Christian parts by those that profest themselves to be the best Saints on earth especially when I consider not the bloudy killing of men but the many deaths that in a lingring death they have imposed on many good men and the piece-meale taking away of the lives of many quos oderunt gratis whom they hated without cause but only for seeking to do them the greatest good and to prevent the greatest evil that can be imagined from falling on them I cannot choose but cry out with the Poet O mites Diomedis equi Busiridis arae
before they do not onely reject and deny the notions expressions and meanes whereby we make God known unto his people which is a Negative Blasphemy but also positively forsweare themselves by receding from that Promisory Oath which they took when they entred into Holy Orders and were made Ministers and by Preaching unto the Congregations such palpable Blasphemies as made my haires to stand and my heart to tremble when once I heard one of their prime Doctors Preaching to a great and honourable Assembly and also by the publick Lectures and printed books of the Presbyterians and the determinations of their Assembly at Westminster and their Associats and Proselites wherein you may hear and read such Doctrines touching free will And yet this horrible Doctrine is still Preached by the Presbyters and originall sin the irrespective and absolute decree of election and reprobation and the inevitable consequents of these and of abundance more of the like deep points of Divinity that they have broached as are more Blasphemous and more injurious and derogatory to the mercy and justice and truth of God then are any of the Blasphemous Errors and Heresies of the ancient and grand Hereticks Bishop Montague in his appeâ—lo caesarem Dr. Taylor in his vindication of the divine attri butes N. N in his prefatory cp to the examination of Tilenus as both learned Bishop Mountague and Dr. Taylor and many others have most fully and abundantly declared unto you and I being too large already must at this time pass them over and for the further clearing of this point referr my reader only to Mr. Edwards his collection of their Blasphemous Tenents in his Gangraena and the book intituled Hell broke loose 2. Consider and inquire how often hath that long Parliament it self Blasphemed the blessed name of God I meane not by their Idle vaine and customary swearing from which they do very well to refraine their Tongues and some of the adverse party do very ill to use it but that which is far worse by their solemne Vowes Oaths and Protestations deliberately made in the presence of God and men and wilfully unmade againe at their own pleasure when they saw that it made and served for their profit Sr. Walter Raleigh in his Preface to the Hustory of the world Comenti quidam non sunt qui crimina mundi omnia pertractent de tertora petunt proh pudor in Christam linguae temeraria dirae teia vibrant summo nil nocitura Deo Sebastianus Brant as if Oaths and Vowes were but as Lewis the 11th King of France was wont to say they were toys to deceive fools or as Apples and Nuts and other like things and Babies to beguile Children and therefore he was wont to wear a leaden God in his Cap and after he had put to death any one whom be hated or falfified his Oath or promise that he had made and sworne to any man he would take his God and kiss him and say that if he forgave him that fault he would do it no more meaning that fact that was already done but the like should usually come very soon after and did not that Parliament think and do the like with their Oaths their Vowes and their Protestations for you may inquire how often have they sworn to be true subjects and to bear faith and true alleageance to the beheaded King to his Heirs and to his lawfull successors and how many Protestations have they made to the same purpose and how often have they falsified their faith and broken this their Oath So inquire how solemnly have they sworn to live and dye with the Earse of Essex and when they suspected and thereupon disliked him how suddenly did they disoblige themselves from that knot and did choose Sr Thomas Fairfax in his roome So inquire how Religiously as it seemed with hands lifted up towards Heaven they swear and make a solemne Covenant to preserve the Kings person and yet by leaving the Clause of Preservation out of Sr. Thomas Fairfax his Commission do they not tacitly Authorize him in the apprehension of wise men to kill their King if he can which is not much less in War then a command and afterwards have they not killed and murdered him most barbarously indeed then inquire how have they Voted and Vowed and sworn at large Consider whether these doings be not to Blaspheme the blessed name of God to profess and to maintaine the true Protestant Religion and yet presently have not they contemned if not condemned and renounced the three authentick Creeds neglected the Lords Prayer rejected the reading and terrified the Readers of the Decalogue as they are set forth in our Lyturgy and cashiered the 39. Articles of our Church which I believe was the true Protestant Church and all these forenamed things were the partes constitutivae essentiall parts of the Protestant Religion that did onely discriminate the Protestants from the Papists because we protested thus to believe and these things to defend which the Papists rejected and condemned for Heresies and then to pass over many other things of less moment inquire how solemnly have they covenanted and sworn to unite themselves by an everlasting indissoluble League with their holy Brethren of Scotland and how often have they termed that Combination against their King in their Papers and Declarations a most blessed union and a most happy association that is as they meant for their own end to subdue and to overthrow the King and yet presently after they had attained their end how eagerly did they rail on them as on a most perfidious Nation as perjured as false confederates and of less credit then the Punick faith and how violently have they afterwards Warred to subdue them or destroy them which is indeed one of the best acts that ever they did to render vengeance unto them and a just reward of their unjust dealings and most perfidious disloyall confederating with them against their own King and which without question was a work proceeding from the hand of God who is most just in all his works and holy in all his wayes that as the wise man saith they might know that wherewithall a man sinneth by the same also shall he be punished Wisd 11.15.16 as the Idolaters that worshipped Serpents void of reason and vile beasts had a multitude of unreasonable beasts sent upon them for vengeance And what mysticall art what tropologicall sence or what subtle Scotus or any Sophister more subtle then he can with any distinction salve this their doings and a thousand such like jugling tricks of theirs from flat and literal perjury a gross blaspheming of the name of God I cannot with all mine understanding any wayes imagine for to swear the preservation of the King in the House and to give leave and to wink at the killing of him in the field to swear to be faithfull to him and to his Heires and yet to cut off his Head and to do
to his Sonne if they had him what I know not and to swear and protest they did all that they did for the ease benefit and liberty of the Subjects and yet to inslave them to their own arbitrary wills and to lay such heavy loads upon them such yoaks of Iron upon their necks and such immeasurable Taxes upon all sorts of people as the like was never known in this Kingdom nor that ever I read in any of all our Chornicles and worse as I believe then what Rehoboam imposed on them that for his indiscretion did most undutifully rebel and revolt from him I know not how either all the dispensation of the Pope or all the addition of their abrogative to their legislative power that they claimed can salve the same from the grievous wound of apparant perjury and high blasphemy against the name of God done and done over and over a tribus ad centum I know not how many times and done alwayes as men conceived to this end not to blind God which I think they knew saw their thoughts and I am sure hated all these doings but to deceive the simple people that they might not perceive their intentions nor see their ends but that being vailed with these deceitfull impostures they might be drawn on by these religious cords to follow and to assist them as the people followed Absolon with a simple heart to work their pernitious ends And therefore I read of a wise man that said he did much wonder what wise man would pawn his soul upon these mens Consciences that as he avouched made no Conscience so frequently to break their own solemn Oaths or who but mad men would hazard their fortunes to maintain these mens cause that had neither cause nor reason for what they did I omit to set down their other blasphemies which were more secret in the Tenets of their faith against the truth of our Christian Religion because these are not so visible and yet are so many as would make a volume of themselves But let them be as secret as they will they may be sure Non te latuerit O supreme Jupiter horum malorum quisquis autor extitit that as the Heathen man could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Authours of such transcendent wickedness cannot hide themselves from the sight of the all-seeing God but their perjuries and blasphemies so often so secretly and so hypocritally done whensoever they do it are laid in store with God and sealed up amongst his Treasures and if they speedily do not repent they may speedily perish everlastingly and because these sins besides their other sins are so great and so many Deut. 32.24 their repentance must not be little nor slight but as St. Peter when he denied his Master though he killed him not went out and wept bitterly so must they have many bitter teares of most sorrowfull souls to wash away these fearfull sins which they committed to destroy their Master and so many of their Pastors and Brethren and for the sweet desire of bearing Rule if they desire to live for ever which I do heartily pray God to give them grace to do And so you see how the blasphemy of the Beast against God though no doubt but is applicable to the Turk and to the Pope yet by this that I have shewed you may be more agreeable to the long Parliament and rather meant here by the Holy Ghost to be applied to them then either to Pope or Turk as many men do conceive 2. 2. The blasphemy of the beast against Gods Tabernacle It is said that the Beast opened his mouth and truly he opened it very wide 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to blaspheme the Tabernacle of God i. e. saith Mr. Mede the humane nature of Christ but not right for though I deny not the humane nature of Christ to be the Tabernacle or the Temple of the God head John 2.19 1 Cor. 3.16 v. 17. Mr. Mede pag. 59. according as our Saviour saith distroy this Temple and I will raise it up in three dayes as are also the bodies of the Saints as St. Paul testifieth know you not that ye are the Temple of God and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you yet I do much marvel that Mr. Mede would have it so understood in this place onely to transfer this blasphemy to signifie the Idolatry of the Romanists in adoring the consecrated bread of the Eucharist as the humane nature of Christ when as the blasphemy of this Beast against God was spoken of before and the spirit of God would not so suddenly expresse idem per idem and therefore to blaspheme the Tabernacle of God here signifieth to blaspheme the place where God by his speciall grace and favour resideth and dwelleth to protect his Servants as it were under the shadow of his wings and to cherish them as the Hen cherisheth her Chickins which the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is derived of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 habito or commoror to dwell doth properly betoken for so by the Tabernacle of God in the old Testament is every where understood the Tabernacle that Moses reared in the Wilderness quod Josephus vocat templum portatile Josephus antiquitat l. 3 c. 5. aliquando Sanstuarium appellatur Godwin in Synop l. 1. Sect. 25. c. 2. untill the dayes of Solomon and after that Solomon built that glorious Temple in Hierusalem the same was the Tabernacle of God or Gods dwelling place amongst the Jewes and so it was alwayes deemed by all the Prophets and Servants of God under the old Testament and the materiall Churches that were edified dedicated and consecrated for the Christians to meet and to serve the Lord in them are as they were ever accounted by all the Fathers and Doctors of the Church the Tabernacles of God under the New Testament Yet I deny not but that by a metaphor the Tabernacle may sometimes signifie caetum Dei the company of Gods servants that meet together in Gods House Psal 84.1 to pray and to praise the Lord as where the Prophet saith quam dilecta sunt Tabernacula tua Domine O how amiable are thy dwellings thou Lord of Hosts for this was spoken before the Temple was built Considenti in latibulo excelsi saith Tremel by a Synechdoche it is sometimes taken for those that dwell in tents or Tabernacles as it is in Ps 91.1 and in Psal 92.12 but in neither of these wayes can it be taken here because these dwellers in Gods House are immediately set down in the next words and sometimes by a Catachresis it is used for any dwelling place as where the Prophet saith that God slew all the most principal in tabernaculis vel tentoriis Chami Psal 78.51 in the dwellings of Ham but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Tabernacle of God can signifie nothing else but the place Psal 26.8 which is set apart and consecrated for Gods
ordinarily and alwayes when he came to the Temple Matth. 21.14 and opportunity offered him so to do and St. Matthew saith that the blind and the lame came to him in the Temple and he healed them and so must we come to him into his Temple if we desire to be healed of our infirmities and so the Apostles and Disciples of Christ after his ascention into Heaven met and worshipped God in the Temple Act. 2.46 c. 5.25 and when the Christians began to be multiplied they presently erected Churches and consecrated them for Gods service as you may see in 1 Cor. 11.22 and from the 14th Chapter of the said Epistle where the Apostle bids the women to be silent in the Church which must not be understood of any other House or Congregation but the Congregation that meeteth for Gods service in Gods House And because that place was set apart from all prophane uses for to pray to God and to preach unto the people and to do all other exercises of Religion as administring the Sacraments catechizing the youths collecting the alms for the poor and the like services of the Lord and was hallowed and sanctified by the prayers of the Bishop onely for that end and that God hath promised his more speciall presence for our help and assistance in a most speciall manner in that House more then in any other place 2 Chron. 6. as you may see by Solomons prayer therefore the true Saints and servants of God did ever honour and reverence this very place of Gods Worship more then any Chamber of presence of the greatest Monarch in the World and none but prophane Atheists wicked Hereticks and the members and adherents of this Beast that are worse then the worst of worldlings have ever abused prophaned or blasphemed these materiall Churches whereof the Prophet saith holiness becometh thy house for ever for Though originally In what sence all things are alike holy and in respect of their own nature all places are alike holy and so are all persons all dayes and all meates and so all other things that are ejusdem speciei of the same kind they are all alike holy and there is no difference nor any more Sanctity or Holiness in the one then in the other being all alike Holily created by God Yet if we consider Gods designation of any of these things and the Sanctification In what sense some things are more holy then others For the further clearing of this point I desire the Reader to look into Mr. Mede's learned Discourse de sanctitate relativa and his answer to Dr. Twisse pag 660 and in Levit. 19.30 of the same by the appointment of God for such and such uses in the service of God then you shall find a great deale of difference betwixt the one and the other and a great deale of a relative accidentall Holiness in and belonging to the one more then to the other otherwise what difference will you make betwixt the common bread that we eat of the finest Wheat Flower and the most Holy and Blessed bread of the Holy Eucharist or the Lords Supper but the Sanctifying of it by Prayers for this use to be the Body and Blood of Christ this makes the difference so that now after the consecration of it with the words of Christ hoc est Corpus meum we cannot without prophaneness and a mighty offence give the same to Doggs or unbelieving Jewes or any other that we know to be altogether unworthy of it as we can give the other bread that is made of the same lump to either of these without any offence or what difference is there betwixt one day and another but because the Lord designed the 7th day to be set apart for his Service and hallowed it for that end therefore it is more Holy then all the other six dayes and so are the dayes and feasts that are appointed by the Church to honour God in them as the Commemoration of Christs Nativity Circumcision Resurrection Ascention and other dayes of Thanksgiving for some speciall blessings and extraordinary favours that as on those dayes we have received from God which none will prophane but the neglectors of Gods honour and the prophaners of his Service So what difference or what Holiness is there naturally betwixt one man and another but when the Lord chooseth one before another to be his Servant to be sent as his Embassador to Preach his Word and to administer his Sacraments and causeth him to be consecrated or hallowed by Prayers and impositions of hands for that purpose there is a great deale of difference betwixt them and much additionall Holiness in the one more then in the other in so much that our Saviour saith of these men he that receiveth you receiveth me Luc. 10.16 Zech. 2.8 and he that despiseth you despiseth me and the Lord saith of them he that toucheth you toucheth the Apple of mine eye and you see this difference in the Embassadors and other Officers of Kings Princes and Potentates whom we honour and reverence more then others because they are deputed and Authorized to be the Judges Sherifs or other Officers of the Kingdome where they are designed so to be and so likewise what difference or what Holiness is there in one place more then in another in the Church ground more then in the Barne floore surely not any at all originaliter in respect of themselves but when such a piece of ground is designed and dedicated for Gods Service and consecrated by Prayers for that purpose and God promiseth his presence to be more especially there for our comfort then in any other ordinary place then certainly there is a great deale of difference and a great deale of Holiness in that place and Consecrated ground more then in any other common ground whatsoever Therefore Jacob said of the place where God shewed his presence to him Gen. 28.17 this is Gods house and the gate of Heaven and the Lord said unto Moses Exod. 3.5 pull off thy shoes from thy feet for the place where thou standest is Holy ground and why was that ground more Holy then any other ground not in respect of any innate Holiness but because the Lord revealed himself there to Moses more then in any other place and I pray you look what the Spirit of God injoyneth us to do when we come into Gods House Eccles 5.2 for if we make no difference of these things but that every man that will may intrude himself to do the Service which God requireth to be done by another and he may do that Service any where in any one place as well as in another in a Common Barne as well as in a Holy Church then surely we need not observe any time when any one day is as good and as Holy as another the Munday as well as the Lords day and so confounding persons times and places we shall confound all Religion and
Lords Table though Christ admitted Judas whom he knew far better then these men do know those whom they reject and cast away and we can and ought to do no more to the lewdest offenders but to shew them the danger of the unworthy receivers and exhort them to repent and to believe in Christ and upon the confession of their faults and profession of their Faith and repentance we ought to believe them to be Gods children and receive them among the Faithfull and leave them all for Christ to judge which of the guest doth want his wedding garment Yet we confess That the Apostles had two manner of gifts 1. Extraordinary it is true that the Apostles had a double qualification 1. The one extraordinary which was requisite for the planting of a new Church and that consisted chiefly in these two things 1. Infallibility of the Doctrine which they taught 2. A powerful working of miracles to confirm that doctrine and to win the hearers to give credit and to believe the same And when the Churches were converted these graces determined and ceased with the Apostles 2. Ordinary which were either 2. The other was ordinary which was requisite for the instructing guideing and ruling of the Church so long as the Church should continue till Christ should come to judgement And these graces that were thus requisite for the continuance of the Church in the service of God were likewise of two sorts 1. Common 1. Common to the Apostles and Presbyters and Deacons as reading the Scriptures preaching or expounding the word administring the Sacraments provision for the poor and other like christian duties 2 Proper which the Apostles reserved unto themselves 2. Proper which consisted in two things and to the Bishops that were to be their successors to guide and to govern the Church after them And this proper qualification of the Apostles which they left as peculiar to the Bishops that were to succeed the Apostles was and is likewise two-fold 1. Ordination 1. Ordination of Presbyters and Deacons to read the word and to preach and to administer the Sacraments and to do all the other common duties of the Church 2. Jurisdiction which was twofold 1. The lesser censure 2. The greater censure 2. Jurisdiction in censuring those that were refractory and walked disorderly in the Church and this Ecclesiasticall censure is either 1. The lesser which is a debarring of the offendor from the Lords Supper 2. The greater censure which was by such an excommunication as excluded the offender quite from the Churh and was not received into it untill he had satisfied the Church by his confession of his fault and repentance shewed for the scandall he had given Now such is the pride and ambition of every Presbyterian that he would have nothing left proper unto the Bishop but that all must be common as well to him as to the Bishop How the Presbyterians do usurp the authority of the Bishop he cannot indure to be excluded or debarrd from any thing but cryeth out as Corah Dathan and Abiram did against Moses and Aaron that the Bishops take too much upon them And therefore 1. They usurp and assume unto themselves the office of ordination and do make Priests themselves the which boldnesse of theirs I intend not to stand now to confute but do assure the people Lay-preachers and tradesmen to execute the Ecclesiastical function have as good authority and calling as the new Presbyterian Priests that the Priests of their making have no better calling nor authority to enter upon that sacred function then he that is made a Judge or a Justice of Peace to rule the countrey by a company of high-way thieves and robbers and the Lay-preachers be they what they will husband-men or trades-men Taylors Shoemakers or Weavers or the like may as lawfully and perhaps more blamelesly do all the service of the Church as any of them that have their ordination from these Presbyters 2. They usurp the jurisdiction over the Church as well as the ordination of the Priests unto themselves and they are more rigid in their censures that are also more illegally done then either Bishop or Pope See the translation of Grallae pag 69. to pag. 90. and you shall find how these Presbyterian censures do exceed the tyranny of the Pope who exercised their discipline and censures in open Court in forma juris and secundum allegata probata when the Presbyterians do it secundum beneplacitum as it seemeth good in their own eyes because they have the discerning spirit to know who are worthy to be received and who ought to be excluded both from Christ and from the Church of Christ And yet I do not wonder so much that the Presbyters should be so ambitious to lay hold of this authority as I do admire that the people should be so foolish as to hate us for telling the truth unto them for their own benefit and shewing the other mens iniquity But I remember a story that Sir Thomas Moore tells us of two famous Philosophers that by their great skill in astronomy foresaw that at such a constellation A pretty story of Sir Thomas Moor. there would fall such a shower of pestiferous rain upon the earth that all the men which scaped not the drops of that rain should presently prove frantick and be distracted of their sences whereupon those Philosophers concluded that they would hide themselves in a Cave untill that shower was passed over and so they did and all things succeeded as they expected for when they came out of their hole where they were hidden they found all the people like mad-men playing the Anticks and therefore they being sober thought to do them good by advising them to leave their fooleries and to follow after sobriety but the mad people told the Philosophers that they themselves were mad and they would take a course with them for saying that they were out of their wits and knew not what they did and so they laid hold on the Philosophers and beat them and they had much adoe to escape from these mad people with their lives this was the reward they had for their well-wishes and desire to do those mad people good to guide them and to direct them in the right courses I wish it may not be so with us that the people prove not themselves like those upon whom that fatal shower descended and that they would not deal with us It is easier to find few wise men then to find many wise men for telliug the truth of these mens doings for their good as those mad men did with those Philosophers And I would the people that are so affected to the Presbyterian government would consider whether it be as easie to find ten thousand wise and sober moderate men as to finde out ten The Kings and Emperours heretofore were very careful to make choice of the best and wisest men that
which was thought so invincible that no humane power could dissolve them yet as you have seen the breath of their own generall without one blow given without one drop of blood spilt did blow away that indissoluble conceived Parliament whose members now are metamorphosed from cruell Tygers to most timorous Hares that flye away from the noyse of the hunters And thus as the Psalmist saith like as the smoak perisheth so did the Lord drive away that cruell companie and herein the Lord our God did a work to his poor servants worthy of everlasting thanks and praise for remembring us when we were in troubles delivering us out of our distresses and therefore I may well say with the Psalmist O that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness shew the wonders that he doth for the children of men specially for this favour to dissipate scatter so many hundred tyrants that would have intailed the masterie both of Church kingdoms upon them selves and their successors for ever to perpetuate the slaverie of these nations far worse then the Athenians under the thirtie tyrants Justin l. 5. versus finem 2. The final and totall destruction of the Antichrist when to be 2. Though we acknowledge a three-fold advent or coming of Christ The 1. In humilitie when the word was made flesh The 2. In power when by his Spirit he doth powerfully regenerate his elect and protecteth them from all their enemies and destroyeth their ungodly adversaries and his despisers at his pleasure And The 3. In glorie and Majestie when he commeth to judge both the quick and the dead But for The 4. Comming that the Chiliasts or Millenaries dream of to overthrow the Antichrist in his owne person and after that to convert the Jews and then to reign a 1000 years with his Saints here on earth it is such a fiction as is not worthie to be thought on and brings so many erronious consequents with it as are not fit to be imbraced by any Christian and though some learned Divines do hold and understand the destruction of the Antichrist to be by the second comming of Christ that is his powerful comming by his spirit which shall utterly destroy this beast and leave not one Limb of him to remain and that not by the faithfull preaching of the Gospel which the Antichrist shall put down and instead thereof raise flattering and false Prophets and Parasites to countenance him in his impieties but by some powerfull strength that Christ by his Spirit shal work in the hearts of his servants beyond our capacities to conceive how as Moses saith One man should chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight that shall rise against the Antichrist to overthrow him yet wee finde two words in this expression of the Apostle which assure me that his utter destruction cannot be referred to any other coming of Christ That the utter ruine and totall destruction of the beast is not to be till the day of the last judgment then to his third and glorious comming to the last judgement For 1. The Apostle saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom the Lord will destroy and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth to abolish to make to cease to be and inanem reddere and to render him void the word being compounded of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ocior to be at rest and is a word seldome found in classick Authors Two words proving the same but often in the writings of S. Paul as Rom. 7.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but now soluti sumus we are loosened or as the Syriac hath it aboliti sumus wee are abolished from the law and in Gal. 5.4 he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exclusi estis separati à Christo you are made void and separate from Christ whosoever are justified by the law saith Beza and in 1. Cor. 15.26 he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the last enemie qui abolebitur saith Tremellius or qui aboletur saith Beza which shall be abolished and quite taken away that it be no more is death so here the Apostle by this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meaneth that the Lord at his appearance wil exclude separate abolish and quite take from himselfe and from his chosen saints and servants this wicked Antichrist and all his ungodly adherents that they be no more And this seperation of the goats from the sheep and of the tares and darnel from the Wheat is not made untill Christ shall set the Goats on his left hand and shall say unto them Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire because the tares shall not be weeded and rooted up nor the wicked be made to cease to be but shall remain as the Canaanites among the Israelites and as the hereticks Why the limbs of Antichrist shall be still suffered to remain among the faithful that being once sprung were never quite rooted out of the Church but their proselytes remained more or less in one place or other continually to be as thorns in the sides of Gods children to exercise their patience and to make them more watchfull over themselves and their own wayes while they walk and wander among such briars so shall the members of the Antichrist remaine amongst us and the final and total destruction and abolition of the beast and the quite taking away of all his Limbs head and feet root and branch that is the utter ruine of the Antichrist and all his followers and adherents cannot be understood to come to passe untill Christ shall come at the last day to make an end of them and to evacuate and bring to nothing both them and their devices plots and successes and to render vengeance unto them according to their just deferts 2. The other words that shew the Antichrist shall not be quite abolished 2. The other word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and destroyed till the coming of Christ to judgement are that the Lord shall destroy him that is quite take him away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the brightness of his coming saith our translation revelatione adventus sui by the revelation of his Coming saith Tremellius or illustri adventu suo saith Beza by his illustrious or glorious coming and this coming of Christ thus exprest can be no otherwise understood than of the last coming to judgement for though each and every of the three comings of Christ be illustrious and glorious in some respects yet the proper titles and the usuall Epithets of each coming are that his first coming The coming of Christ to judgment is properly called his glorious coming Math. 16. is called his humble coming or his coming in humilitie his second coming is stiled his gracious coming or his coming by his spirit to offer his grace unto us all and his third comming is termed his glorious coming when he cometh in the glorie of