Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	beast_n	image_n	worship_v	2,681	5	9.5773	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50525	The apostasy of the latter times in which, according to divine prediction, the world should wonder after the beast the mystery of iniquity should so farre prevaile over the mystery of godlinesse, whorish Babylon over the virgin-Church of Christ, as that the visible glory of the true church should be much clouded the true unstained Christian faith corrupted the purity of true worship polluted, or, The gentiles theology of dæmons i.e. inferiour divine powers, supposed to be mediatours between God and man : revived in the latter times amongst Christians in worshipping of angels, deifying and invocating of saints, adoring and templing of reliques, bowing downe to images, worshipping of crosses, &c : all which together with a true discovery of the nature, originall, progresse, of the great, fatall and solemn apotisy are cleared : delivered in publique some years since upon I Tim. 4. 1,2,3 / by Joseph Mede ...	Mede, Joseph, 1586-1638.; Twisse, William, 1578?-1646.	1641 (1641)	Wing M1590; ESTC R22768	121,369	171

THE APOSTASY OF THE LATTER TIMES In which according to divine prediction the world should wonder after the Beast the Mystery of Iniquity should so farre prevaile over the Mystery of Godlinesse whorish Babylon over the virgin-Church of Christ as that the visible glory of the True Church should be much clouded the True unstained Christian Faith corrupted the purity of true worship polluted OR THE GENTILES THEOLOGY OF DAEMONS i. e. inferiour divine powers Supposed to be mediatours between God and man Revived in the LATTER TIMES amongst Christians in worshipping of Angels deifying and invocating of Saints adoring and templing of Reliques bowing downe to Images worshipping of Crosses c. All which together with A true discovery of the Nature Originall Progresse of the great fatall and solemn Apo●tasy are cleared Delivered in publique some years since upon 1 Tim. 4.1 2 3. By IOSEPH MEDE B. D. and late Fellow of Christs Colledge in Cambridge 1 Iohn 5.21 Little children keep your selves from Idols LONDON Printed by Richard Bishop for SAMUEL MAN dwelling at the signe of the Swan in Pauls Church-yard 1641. The Preface to the Reader VIno vendibili non opus est suspensâ hederâ A cup of good wine will be known where it is without an Ivy bush such is the following discourse and so I am perswaded it will approve it self unto all unpartiall and judicious Readers Many yeers agoe I was acquainted with it by the Authors own hand For such was his scholasticall ingenuity I found him most free in communicating his studies right like unto the description of the Scholar in Chaucer Sounding in morall vertue was his speech And glady would Learne and gladly teach And sometimes he dealt plainly with me in telling me the reason why and that was because he found me so inquisitive after his meditations whereas those with whom he familiarly conversed were nothing so The truth is I was exceedingly taken with his notions for he had a Critical wit and affected to correct common errours and herein he seemed to me exceeding happy Demonstrating not onely acutenesse of wit and clearnesse of conceipt but solidity of judgment And therfore from the first time that I grew acquainted with him I made bold to improve my acquaintance to the uttermost of mine owne advantage scholasticall encouraged thereunto by his facility and ready condescension to my requests 2 The beginning of our familiaritie was occasioned by a rumour spread of his opinion concerning the glorious Kingdome of Christ here on earth which many hunderd yeeres agoe was cryed downe as the Errour of the Millenaries and Augustine himselfe though confessing that at first he liked the same yet sheweth how that afterwards he was taken off from it and upon what ground And it seemed wondrous strange to us that such an opinion should after so many hundred yeeres be revived and that in so strange a manner as now we finde both amongst us and amongst outlandish Divines Neverthelesse my selfe being firmely set upon studies of another nature I had no great edge so much as to hearken to it much lesse to take it into consideration But a friend in the Countrey sometimes urged me to write to an acquaintance in London and to entreate him to enquire of Master Mede whether he were of the same opinion with Piscator and Alstedius concerning the first resurrection and the glorious kingdome of Christ. And hereupon shortly after word was sent me that he did agree with Piscator in this that some shall rise a thousand yeeres before others but he differed from him in this that Piscator thought this Reign of Christ should be in heaven but I said Master Mede agree rather with Alstedius and conceive that the thousa●d yeeres reigne of Christ shall be on earth Yet herein he differed from Alstedius that whereas Alstedius was of opinion that the thousand yeers reigne of Christ should be after the day of judgment Master Medes opinion was that it should be in Durante die judicii in an● during the day of judgement which day of judgement should continue a thousand yeeres beginning with the ruine of Antichrist and ending with the destruction of cog and Magog And that Camerarius writing upon Plato's Alcinous testifies that the Rabbines among the Iews write that the seventh thousand yeeres shall be the great day of judgement or the judgement of the great day And Hierome upon the sixty fifth chapter of Esay confesseth that it was a tradition among the Jews that the Messias should reigne a thousand yeeres in new Jerusalem 3. When I heard this my Spirit was stirred up in me to lay aside for a while my ordinary studies and to take this into consideration and I prayed Master Mede to give me leave to propose my reasons against this opinion of his And the truth is the improbability of it seemed very pregnant unto naturall reason and diverse arguments that way offered themselves which seemed to be of very difficult if at all possible solution And over and above it seemed very contradictious to diverse plaine passages of holy Scripture Master Mede very redily enterteyned the motion and prescribed me a time after which he should be at leasure for me and in a letter after this in his familiar manner asked me saying when come your Queries I accepted his courteous answer and sent up unto him first and last twelve arguments against that opinion of his and at the first I sent him ten with an answer devised by my selfe to nine of them for so I had promised him namely that I would bethinke my wits of what possibly might bee said in the solution of them according to the straitnesse of my invention leaving it to him to approve or correct or adde as he thought good And whereas I could devise nothing at all in answer to my tenth argument he sent me a large answer thereunto in three sides of a sheet of Paper whereby I well percieved that my best arguments had been known to him and examined before I devised them 4. After this I came acquainted with many discourses upon the same argument one Printed at Hanow in Germany De die novissimo Of the last day a few onely were Printed Two copies and no more were brought into England Master Mede bought them both and sent me one of them to Copy it out which we did After this no lesse then seven manu-scripts were sent me from one Divine treating of this and other mysteries Now here I cannot but confesse my corruption for I received them by way of a bribe And indeed I was to doe him a favour which yet was never done the death of a speciall Friend preventing it and I dealt plainly wiih him and told him I would not sell my favours Gratis I would be well payd for them And therefore whereas I heard he had strange notions upon the Revelation and touching the mysteries of the first resurrection and Christs Kingdome I looked to be see'd with the communication of

Scripture followes that use of speech and useth no number indefinitely but those which the use of speech had made such as 1.10.1000 but mixt and compound numbers as these are 3 ½. 42.1260 are neither in the Hebrew nor I think in any other language used indefinitely Our adversaries would have them literally understood for three single yeers and a half as though it were an History and not a Prophesie but besides the use of prophesie to reckon dayes for yeers I think it would trouble any man to conceive how so many things as should be performed in this time should be done in three single yeeres and a halfe 1 Ten kingdomes founded at the same time with the Beast 2 Peoples and multitudes of nations and tongues to serve and obey him 3 To make warre with the Saints and overcome them 4 To cause all that dwell upon the earth to worship him 5 Babylon to ride the Beast so long that all nations shall drinke of the wine of her fornication the Kings of the earth commit fornication with her yea the Merchants and all those that had ships in the sea to grow rich by trading with her Me thinks all this should ask much more than three yeeres works or foure either To which I adde moreover that that state of government soveraignty or seigniory or what you will of the Beast under which the whore should ride him followeth immediately upon a former which in comparison is said to last but a short space Rev. 17.20 But if the Antichristian state should continue but three yeers and a half literally taken how short must the time of that foregoing King or soveraignty be which should occasion the Holy Ghost to insert so singular a note of the difference thereof from that which followed that it should continue but a short space doth not this imply that the next state wherin the whore should ride the beast was to continue a long space therefore 3 yeers a half historically taken cannot be the time of the Churches Apostasie and the Antichristian soveraignty of Rome and if it cannot be taken historically it must be taken prophetically every day for a yeer so 1260 dayes counted so many yeers shewes the extent of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be 1260 yeers Now for the second thing proposed the beginning of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Saint John tells us in the Revelation that his blasphemous Beast of 42 moneths continuance should succeed upon the mortall wound of the Caesarian or Imperiall soveraignty of Rome And Apoc. 17. the Idolatrous Beast which carries the great Whore upon his back should have a plurality of Kings start up at the same time with him who should agree to submit their power and kingdome unto this whore-ridden Beast and would not he also in the same chapter have us take notice that the Antichristian state of the Beast which was to come should be next to that of the Caesars which then reigned for the Angell there tels him that that state of the beast wherein the Whore should ride him which was then not in being but should afterward ascend out of the bottomlesse pit and goe into perdition that this state or head of the beast should succeed so immediately upon the sixth state or head viz. the Caesarian then reigning that howsoever in some respects it might be called an eighth yet should in very deed be but the seventh for how could it be otherwise when the Beast in the vision hath but seven heads and no more vide ver 8.10.11 Agreeable to this is Saint Pauls Epocha 2 Thes. 2.7 who tels us that as soone as the Imperiall soveraignty of Rome which then hindered should be taken out of the way then should that wicked one be revealed thus the Fathers generally expound it Hence was that custome in the Church in the most ancient times of it to pray in their Lyturgy for the lasting of the Roman Empire that so Antichrist might be long acomming Tertul. apol cap. 32. 39. Ad Scap. c. 2. Upon this ground Saint Jerome when ho heard of the taking of Rome by Alaricus the Goth presently expected the comming of Antichrist Ad Ageruchiam de Monogamia Qui tenebat saith he de medio sit non intelligimus Antichristum appropinquare Idem praefat l. 8. Comment in Ezec. Pascitur animus obliviscitur saeculi calamitatum quòd in extremo fine jam positum congemiseit parturit donec qui tenet de medio fiat pedes statuae quondam ferrei fragilitate digitorum fictilium conterantur Cadit mundus Cervix erect a non flectitur c. Thus he Postquam clarissimum terrarum omnium Lumen extinctum est imo Romani Imperii truncatum caput in una urbe totus orbis interiit as he elsewhere deplores that wofull calamity Praef. l. 1. Comment in Ezek. Answerable to that which Saint John told us Daniels Calendar also informes us that the hornish Tyrant who was to act the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should then begin to appeare when ten kings should arise in the fourth kingdome for the ten horns which at last he espied upon the Beasts head and observed a little horn with eyes a mouth to spring up amongst them displant three of them v. 8. the Angel v. 24. expounds to be ten kings which should arise out of that kingdome and another to wit Antichrist should arise behind them so it should be translated as the 70 doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which should be diverse from the first that is a King of another nature and should bring downe or humble three Kings and play those reax which follow in the Text. Thus the Fathers universally and from the utmost antiquity expound this Scripture Justin. Mart. Dialog cum Tryphone takes it for granted that this horne is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 qui iniqua in nos Christianos andebit Irenaeus scholar to Policarp l. 5. c. 21. aliis 25. saith Daniel novissimi regni finem respiciens id est novissimos decem reges in quo divideretur regnum illorum super quos filius perditionis veniet cornua dic●● dec●m ●asei bestiae c. Yea a little after hee tels us that Saint John in his ten Kings which should re-receive their kingdomes at one houre with the Beast expounds this of Daniel Manifestius adhuc d● novissimo tempore de his qui sunt in eo decem regibus in quos divid●tur quod nunc regna● imperium significavit Johannes Domini discipulus in Apocalypsi edisserens quae fuerint decem cornua qu● à Daniele visa sunt c. Nay Saint Jerome in his Comment upon this seventh chapter of Daniel will give us to understand that all the Ecclesiasticall Writers delivered this to be the true exposition for having there confuted Porphyrie who to derogate from the divinity of this prophesie would have it meant of Antiochus Epiphanes and therefore written when the