wealth honour and sensual pleasures 9. This is a competent Draught of the second Limb of Antichristianism which consists In the heaping together a number of trouble some and unwarrantable Superstitious conceits and observances whereby the yoke of Christ would be made far more grievous then the dispensation of Moses yea whereby the Servitude of Christians would be little inferiour if not greater then the slavery of the Israelites in the Land of Aegypt and in that house of bondage as it is styled peculiarly in the Scripture And therefore I think this particular constitution of things which I have described may very well goe for a confiderable Member of Antichristianism BOOK II. CHAP. I. 1. The Positive Ends of the Gospel which the rest of the Limbs of Antichristianism do oppose 2. That to lay claim to a Right of Infallible Interpretation of the Laws of Christ is a supplanting of his Kingly Office 3. An instance of that danger in the Glosses of the Pharisees 4. Several places of Scripture alledged to prove the Church Infallible 5. The first general Answer to these Allegations by demanding whether the Promise of Infallibility be to the Whole Church or to Part. 6. The second by demanding whether the Promise be Absolute or Conditional 7. A third That the Promise cannot be Universal touching all Objects that may be considered 8. A particular Answer to the first place of Scripture 9. An Answer to the second and third 10. Infallibility a Promise onely to the first Founders of the Christian Church 11. What the meaning of The pillar and ground of truth 12. A further exposition of that passage of Paul to Timothy 13. That if understood of the Universal Church it may be meant onely of it in the Apostles times 14. And that the like may be said of the last allegation 1. WE have now done with those Members of Antichristianism that oppose the Privative Ends of the Gospel of Christ which were The removing of Idolatry and the Burthen of Superstition out of the world we come now to the Positive End thereof which in general is The Advancement of the Divine Life and this either Personally in Christ or by way of propagation in his Members the Church Those Divine Honours and Offices the Person of Christ is advanced to and are most obvious to take notice of are those of King Priest and Prophet the opposing or supplanting of which cannot but be so many abhorred parts of this wicked Antichristianism whose Image we are now setting out in its genuine colours 2. As concerning the first therefore of these Suppose any man or company of men under pretence of being the true Visible Church successively descending from Christ and his Apostles should take upon them to be the Infallible Interpreters of the Law of Christ and teach that all men were to embrace and to submit to their Glosses seem they never so harsh never so improbable nay if you will never so impossible and declare it a mortal sin for any to doubt of their determinations in this kind This surely were a plain opposing or utter supplanting of the Kingly Office of Christ and the quite taking away His exercise of Sovereignty which cannot otherwise be exercised then by Commands and Decrees which when a King has published if another have power to interpret them any way as he pleases the Kingly power will really be in the Interpreter and not in the King I say this pretended right and power of Infallibly interpreting does in very truth make the Interpreter King and the King a Shadow or Cypher Assuredly no Earthly Prince would think himself truly Sovereign over his people if all the Injunctions and Edicts he made were not to bear the easie natural sense which he intends them in but to be drawn to some other meaning by any exception or evasion or any forcible interpretation that some forein Potentate should put upon them Wherefore whosoever pretends a Right and Infallibility in the interpreting the Law of Christ does in effect make Christ no Law-giver and consequently no King nor Governour in his Church then which what can be more grossly Antichristian 3. Cui jus est interpretandi hujus Sententia pondus habet legis Divinae is a saying which although * In his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Erasmus has put into the mouth of a mean person yet is a great Truth And our Saviour knew and has noted the mischievous abuse of this presumption so plainly in that instance of the Pharisees who could interpret away the force of that Command Honour thy Father and thy Mother by saying it was Corban that it is impossible he should allow of any visible Interpreter with such an unlimited Right as some contend for to the abuse of his Church and the taking his Kingly Office out of his own hands For he has there observed That the Matth. 15. 6. Pharisees had made the word of God of none effect through their Traditions that is to say through their Exceptions Qualifications and Interpretations of it 4. I but they will pretend that Christ will make his Church Infallible and if they be so he himself will really reign in them they interpreting alway according to his mind And that he has made his Church Infallible they will pretend to appear plainly out of such places of Scripture as these * Matth. 16. That the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her and again * Joh. 14. I will ask the Father and he will give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of truth which the World cannot receive c. again * Joh. 16. When he the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth To which adde that of S. Paul to * 1 Tim. 3. 15. Timothy where he seems to call the Church the Pillar and Ground of Truth And lastly that to the * chap. 4. Ephesians where Christ is said to have given some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ till all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the Head even Christ. Let these passages then be their Letters patent their grand pretended Commission of Infallibly interpreting and never erring in any Determinations or Conclusions and we shall easily discover that it is a mere pretence 5. For I demand whether this Promise of Infallibility be to the Whole visible Church in succession or
Various ways of the improving this gainful persuasion 6. The unspeakable honour that seems to accrue to the Priest from this stupendious miracle 7. That it seems to give him a just claim to exemption from Civil jurisdiction and saves him the labour of endeavouring after Truth and Sanctity 8. That their Pretences for Idolatry though they be weak yet their Self-ends therein are palpable 51 CHAP. XVI 1. That Idolatry is the highest and most peculiar injury that can be committed against God 2. That giving Religious honour to Saints or Angels is really a reproaching them and blaspheming them 3. The exceeding great Mischief done to the Soul of man by Idolatry 4. That Idolatry turns men into bloudy Wolves and Bears 5. And is the Mother and Nurse of the foulest impurities 6. That it is the source of all manner of wickedness and eternal death to the Idolater 7. The great Mischiefs it doth to the Church of Christ. 8. How the Church is lessened by Idolatry at home 9. And the spreading thereof hindred abroad 10. And consequently the whole World injured thereby 55 CHAP. XVII 1. That a multitude of slight Observances may amount to an intolerable burthen 2. That no Religious observance can be slight while it has an obligation upon the Conscience 3. Though this general estimate of the burthen of Superstition from obligation of Conscience and multitude of Observances might suffice yet he will adde a more particular Draught of this Limme of Antichristianism 4. Of Anointings and of the Multiplicity of Sacerdotal Ornaments 5. The pretence and Self-endedness in these Ornaments and Anointings 6. The Mischief arising from these kind of Ceremonies to Priest and People 7. A more full description of their publick Service 8. That respect to the Priest is better sought and more certainly found in the Power of Life and Doctrine then in any Histrionical Pomp 9. Which is so unsatisfactory to the serious that it may hazard their departure 10. The Opinion of a miraculous power in Religious Vestments 11. The Falseness and Fraud of this Opinion 12. The ill consequence thereof 59 CHAP. XVIII 1. Of the Enchanting or Exorcizing of Water Oil Salt Wax-candles c. with a general intimation of the Mischief thereof 2. Of the Exorcizing of a Golden Rose and Lamb of Wax 3. That the using of the Name of the true God in these Exorcisms does not hinder but that they may be properly termed Enchantments 4. Other Instances of their being Charmers and Magicians With an Anticipation of an Objection 5. The Falshood Fraud and Mischief of these Exorcisms 6. The derivation or distribution of these Exorcized Elements into several Superstitious uses 7. Of the supposal of the Infant 's being possess'd and of Baptismal Spittle 8. Of Extreme Unction and other Superstitious practices upon the dying man 9. As also upon his Corps laid out 10. The Fraud and Mischief of these practices .. 65 CHAP. XIX 1. The burthen of Spiritual Cognation and excessive Numerosity of Holy-days 2. Perpetual abstinence from Flesh in some Religious Orders The Fraud and Mischief thereof 3. The burthen of vowed Coelibate 4. The more dangerous purposes thereof 5. The ordinary services done by the Monasticks to this Antichristian power we describe 6. That its establishment is much corroborated by the Interest of Monasteries 7. And enriched by being Heir to all professours of Coelibate 8. The great Mischiefs of Coelibate 9. Of Flagellation 10. The ineffectualness thereof Hypocrisie of the Penitent salvage Pride of his Church and the Mischiefs resulting therefrom 11. Of Pilgrimages and Jubilees 12. An enumeration of several other Antichristian Austerities 70 CHAP. XX. 1. The Burthen of afflictive Opinions 2. The distracting puzzles of a Soul intangled with multifarious Superstitions and Conceits 3. The illaqueations of Religious Vows 4. Intanglements arising from a Superstitious trust in certain surmised virtues in the Mass. 5. Vexatious Scrupulosities concerning the Intention of the Priest in administring the Sacraments 75 CHAP. XXI 1. Of the necessity of Anniversary Confession 2. Of Sacerdotal Absolution 3. What is meant by Binding and Loosing and to what manner of persons Remission of sins is committed 4. Erasmus his gloss upon that Text of S. John 5. As also Hugo Grotius his whence Auricular Confession and Absolution prove groundless 6. A voluntary Confession and in general useful in the Church in some circumstances and in order to particular Absolution from the Priest 7. As also a more particular Confession if voluntary 8. The Self-ends of this Church in exacting so punctual a Confession from men 9 10. The slavery and Mischief of such kind of Confessions 11. The infinite vexation to the consciencious and ingenuous from the obtruding upon them incredible and impossible Opinions 78 CHAP. XXII 1. The dreadful Figment of Purgatory 2. That by this affrightful Fable the whole Moles of Superstition hitherto described is made infinitely more weighty and burthensome 3. The Antichristian Doctrine of Christ his Satisfaction reaching onely to the freeing us from the Guilt of sin not the Punishment 4. The multifarious drudgery and slavery this Doctrine and that Figment of Purgatory casts men into 5. A confutation of the said Doctrine and Figment 6. That it is impossible that the sincerely-minded in this life should find either Hell or Purgatory in the other 7. That there is no ground for this Antichristian Purgatory in either Scripture or Fathers 8 The gross Fraud and grand Mischief of this Fiction 9. The conclusion of the description of this second Limme of Antichristianism 82 BOOK II. CHAP. I. 1. The Positive Ends of the Gospel which the rest of the Limms of Antichristianism do oppose 2. That to lay claim to a Right of Infallible Interpretation of the Laws of Christ is a supplanting of his Kingly Office 3. An instance of that danger in the Glosses of the Pharisees 4. Several places of Scripture alledged to prove the Church Infallible 5. The first general Answer to these Allegations by demanding whether the Promise of Infallibility be to the Whole Church or to Part. 6. The second by demanding whether the Promise be Absolute or Conditional 7. A third That the Promise cannot be Universal touching all Objects that may be considered 8. A particular Answer to the first place of Scripture 9. An Answer to the second and third 10. Infallibility a Promise onely to the first Founders of the Christian Church 11. What the meaning of The pillar and ground of truth 12. A farther exposition of that passage of Paul to Timothy 13. That if understood of the Universal Church it may be meant onely of it in the Apostles times 14. And that the like may be said of the last Allegation 87 CHAP. II. 1. That the safe conveyance of the Apostolick Writings down to us by the Church does not infer her Infallibility 2. That the Plainness of Scripture in points necessary to Salvation takes away the want of an Infallible Judge 3. That the Scripture not pointing to
the number and circumstances of his sins So little pretence can there be from hence of this Injunction But if he profess his sorrow and resolution of amendment and by reason of some weakness or melancholy cannot lay such fast hold upon the Promise of remission upon unfeigned Repentance without this visible and palpable seal set thereto of Sacerdotal Absolution I do not see but a Priest anointed with the Spirit of Christ and full of holy compassion to a penitent member of his Church may rightfully and profitably by that Authority which was derived upon the Apostles and their Successours and by that divine power that assists the sincere exercise of his Ministery seal to him the Remission of his sins by pronouncing his Absolution and so restore to peace his disquieted Mind his sins being as certainly pardoned as if Christ himself in person had absolved him he in such a case as this assuredly ratifying in Heaven whatever is here transacted upon Earth Which I suppose Grotius himself will not deny nor conceive at all clashing with his interpretation of S. John he not pretending those he mentions the only occasions of remitting or retaining of sins but the most notable 7. And as this Voluntary Confession in general to the Priest in order to the Penitent's Absolution is usefull and commendable so likewise a Voluntary unbosoming a mans self in a more particular way to such an one as he could trust and can presume fit and able for his office to the end that he may have a more perfect understanding of the state of his Soul and thereby administer more sutable and effectual counsel is a thing questionless of very good consequence 8. But to extort from every Believer every year or oftener a punctuall enumeration of all his transgressions in thought word and deed with all their circumstances were but a vile and disingenuous pretence of insinuating into all mens bosoms for the getting out their secrets of which the Priest may make his private advantage or communicate to the Churchpoliticians such matters as will tend to the strengthening of their distinct Interest which is The conserving or promoting that Honour Wealth and Power which they affect in the World And truely by this means the secrets not of this man or that woman but of whole Families and Cities nay of whole Provinces and Kingdoms and of all Christendom may flow together into that common Cistern or if you will Sea of Ecclesiastick Intelligence which is the very Eye of Action and the Soul of Conduct in all affairs 9. But though this would be a sweet morsel to this Pseudo-Clergy we are now describing it would be sour sauce to the Laiety not only in that it is a foul badge of an inevitable bondage upon them to be constrained upon pain of Damnation at least once by the year to cast themselves down upon the ground before them that are so many fathom sunk into the Earth themselves and to reproach themselves by ripping up their own faults accurately and punctually before such as they have no assurance of either their Candour Judgment or Friendship and for a man to balk his own Priest in this case would be to brand him and so make one of his chiefest neighbours his greatest enemy I say besides the external slavery of the business and the doing of a Ceremonie which may goe so much against the hair even with good and ingenuous spirits a man may be obnoxious to very great dangers and mischiefs For he that has the office of hearing men thus accurately and necessarily accusing themselves once a year at least has a greater opportunity of injustly defaming them by some tacit insinuations or somewhat expresser notices then is fit to be put into the hand of any man that is not a Saint upon Earth of which sort we suppose in this Polity we speak of extremely few 10. Interrogatories also from such Confessours may in greatest likelihood prove to young men and women Lessons of sin and lust and the knowing of the secrets of Families the seeds of infinite contentions betwixt Neighbours and also betwixt those of the same Families For it will be a hard thing for those that by this Shriving of persons know much of their Interest or disinterest to hold their itching fingers from acting or intermedling in their affairs or their other prurient parts from the soliciting the Chastity of such parties as they find hopefull and coming or not to be officious Intelligencers or Game-finders for such as pursue the pleasures of Venus Besides that the vainness of their Penances which yet must needs look like the right value of the Sin may harden men into a conceit that there is no great hurt in sinning and teach them to esteem the transgressing of the Law of God as a thing slight cheap and trivial Whereas if the only Penance of sin were the pain of forsaking it urged upon them from the certain expectation of that most direfull Judgment to come though no other condition but that were annexed to Absolution it would make men more sensibly feel the weight of sin and make them make the greater speed to get from under the burthen of it But to draw to an end 11. That also will pinch very hard especially upon the more Intellectual or Rational complexions namely To be bound in their Conscience upon pain of Damnation to hold whatsoever the Church professes to be true while she in the mean time obtrudes such things upon mens belief as have no ground neither in Reason nor Scripture For even in things that are disputable either way it is the fate of some men notwithstanding to be in a manner invincibly inclined to conceive this part to be true rather then the other What struggling and conflicting therefore must he undergoe to hold to the Authority of the Church against such strong and fatal sentiments of his own Mind But if the Church should be thus Dogmatical not only in things that may according to the sense of the generality of men be either way but conclude and require the belief of such things as are point-blank against either Scripture or Reason and are impossible according to the Faculties of all men who are unprejudiced to be true as That one and the same Body may be wholy and entirely in a thousand places at once and at a thousand miles distance betwixt all those places That we may worship a graven Image and the like how unevenly must these conditions of Salvation sit upon the spirit of him that is not a mere sot What reciprocations of belief and misbelief of hope and despair of Salvation must such an one be tortured with that holds that his share in eternall bliss depends upon the hearty belief of the truth of the Church in all things when what she propounds according to all his Faculties is not only unlikely but impossible to be true CHAP. XXII 1. The dreadfull Figment of Purgatory 2. That by this affrightfull Fable
not secure from but did actually fall into very great Errours 15. And the Christian Church has no greater assurance but if Avarice Pride and Sensuality seize upon the Guides thereof she may also fall into as great errours and blindnesses The Apostle saith Let him that stands take heed lest he fall And it might have been a seasonable 1 Cor. 10. 12. warning to the Church of Christ betimes which was not onely tottering but almost universally lapsed into that over-spreading Heresy of Arrianism to reflect upon herself that while she does stand she stands upon her good behaviour and that she is not so Infallibly wise but that she may be surprised with Errour and over-run therewith unless true and unfeigned Holiness clear her eyes and keep her from being benighted in such mists of darkness And truly if she was above twelve hundred years agoe so obnoxious to Errour it is high time for her to awake and consider if after so many Ages of ease and wealth and honour and affluency of all things she has not grown fat and kicked and cast the Commandments of God behind her back and brought in a mere carnal Law of her own devising more sutable to the will of the flesh and to the carrying on of her own worldly Interest But it is sufficient in this place to have demonstrated She may erre in what she has erred to define is beyond the scope of my present discourse 16. We have fully defeated that Figment of pretended Infallibility whose downfall our opposers have no colour to bewail unless in the behalf of the common people who are illiterate as if they would hereby be made uncapable of any certainty of Belief and consequently of Salvation by reason they have no Infallible grounds to build on this of the Church being taken away But they may remember that we have already acknowledged sufficient certainty in that which the Universal Church agrees in and has agreed in in all Ages and that is the Scripture Such an Universal Tradition as the Scripture has is acknowledged a firm Foundation which the Church may be unfailing conveiers of down to posterity without being infallible Interpreters thereof The unfailingness of which conveiance notwithstanding I must confess may be a more intricate business then what every Vulgar man can make out to himself though infinitely less hard then to prove That the Church that would appropriate him to their Community is Infallible Nay I must confess I do not know how it were possible that a Church should so much as prove it self a Church much less an Infallible Church without the Scripture And therefore the belief of the Scripture seems to be the most immediate of all as * Cael. Secund. Curio against Floribellus he says well Nam qui de fide authoritate Divinarum Scripturarum dubitat quomodo quaeso credet Ecclesiae quae nullam habet sine eadem Scriptura authoritatem 17. And therefore I cannot explode that by any means which is so superciliously derided by some namely That it is the Spirit of God that does assure us of the Truth of Scriptures more then any thing else whatsoever For our Saviour Christ saith None cometh to me but whom my John 6. ch 10. Father draweth My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me Wherefore there is a discerning Spirit in those that appertain to Salvation whether it be the Voice of God and Christ or no. For the true Shepherd goeth before and the sheep follow him because they know John 10. 4 5. his voice but they follow not a stranger but flie from him because they know not his voice as our Saviour discourses most excellently I say therefore the Voice the Call or Whistle if you will of the true Shepherd are the Holy Scriptures which by an immediate sense they are assured to be the Call of the Shepherd and are at this day to them that belong to the election of God as the Voice of Christ and his Apostles when they were upon Earth the power of whose speech assisted by the Spirit did lead men captive into that Faith that worketh Salvation And without all question the same Word of Salvation still which is in those Holy Records seriously and zealously urged by men of a sincere faith and upright belief without any mingling of it with humane devices will have the same effect upon the multitude and as many as are fitted will be wone to an unshaken belief of the Truth of Christianity as it is exhibited to us in the Holy Scriptures For they of themselves have the light and life and very breath of Christ and his Apostles wrapt up in them to the exciting the vulgar sort to a firm and lively Faith though many subtil Sophisters of the Kingdom of darkness might by crafty and perverse Reasoning intangle them and non-plus them in outward discourse And therefore they are kept safe in the belief of the Scripture by the power of that Spirit in them in virtue whereof there is that indissoluble harmonie and concord betwixt their spirits and the Scripture though they cannot defend themselves by humane Literature nor by the acuteness of Reason and depths of Philosophy 18. Which Spirit residing in them and giving them this solid and firm discernment betwixt the Testimonie of God and the Traditions and Doctrines of men I think I may safely and properly call the Spirit of Faith as it is considered nakedly in it self and separate from the Spirit of Knowledge and of Wisedom Which distinction of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Origen of old has taken notice of in his book against Celsus Lib. 6. upon that Text of S. Paul And truely I think the Gloss is marvellous solid namely That the chiefest and greatest Gift of the Spirit is that Divine Wisedom whereby a man is in a great measure able to comprehend the reasons and more deep Philosophical grounds of the Truth of the Christian Mystery The next is Knowledge suppose of Antiquity History the comparing of Prophecies and helps of the exteriour humane literature the liberal Arts and Languages The third is Faith which is also comprised in the other but is a Gift which is as well general as more necessary whose nature is such as I have described already namely An immediate adherence to the word of Truth comprised in the Scripture through the power of that Spirit that resides in sincere and well-meaning Souls that have a savoury and sensible fear of God and are ready to goe where he calls them For these by an ineffable Sympathy of their hearts with the veracity of the voice of Christ sounding in the Scriptures will be sure to follow their true Shepherd's call though they turn off from the voice of the stranger and Hireling who comes not into the Sheepfold but to rob and kill and steal Whence we further see that this pretended Infallibility of the Church in reference to
perused without prejudice may be discerned with facility and be acknowledged by them that are inwardly convinced without any slights or tergiversations to the glory of God's name the peace of his Church and the advancement of the Kingdom of his Son Jesus Amen CHAP. V. 1. Instances of several specious pieces of Idolatry introducible into Christian Religion 2. The overmuch streightening or widening the Notion of Idolatry taxed 3. The usefulness of giving a true Notion thereof 4 5. That it is not restrained to the worshipping of Idols properly so called 6. That any thing worshipped that is not God becomes ipso facto an Idol and of the Seventy's rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7. That they likewise render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they do also Baalim and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which further argues that more general sense of Idol 8. That an Idol and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Non-Deus is all one in the estimate of God 1. LET us begin then with the delineation of the first member of this hideous Mystery opposite to the first branch of the Scope of the Gospel of Christ which was The ridding of the world of the impure worship of Idolatry I say therefore if in stead of those manifold Idolatrous worships in Paganism there were introduced upon pretence of the greater honour to God and Christ and the better instruction of the people the Religious worship of the Cross as also the Image of God the Father Son or Holy Ghost the devotional invocation of the blessed Virgin or any other Saints or Angels the worshipping of their Pictures or Images and the doing Divine honours accordingly as it was practised toward the Roman Emperours to a mere man upon account of his being the Vicar General of Christ and Oecumenical Head of his Church upon Earth and lastly the adoration of the consecrated Bread in the Eucharist upon the imagination that it is transsubstantiated into the very body of Christ I say where these things are brought into the Church as true Doctrine and laudable Practice they will not fail to make up one Limb of Antichristianism and that a principal one too For the Doctrine is not true nor the Practice allowable but gross and palpable Idolatry one of the most abhorred sins the Scripture takes notice of as you shall easily understand after I have with all possible caution searcht out the true Notion and definitive nature thereof 2. This term Idolatry though nothing is more frequent in the mouths and writings of men yet there is nothing of so unsettled and fugitive a signification For some to excuse or palliate their grosly-disallowable Rites and Practices in Christian Religion have restrained the sense of the word to such narrow limits that according to their nice distinctions and restrictions the foulest Paganism will scarce be found guilty of Idolatry Others whether out of a fright and abhorrency of so detestable a crime or out of an over-factious disgust and detestation of the contrary party have so stretched the signification of the word beyond the natural meaning thereof that not only harmless but even laudable circumstances of Divine worship appointed by Authority will not fail to be stigmatized by them with that odious and reproachful name whose zeal and passionate unskilfulness in amoving this grand errour out of the Church has had an answerable ill success in that they have not so much wrought a cure as changed the disease and bartered away one great evil for several others of something a lower form such as Scandal rash and unjust Censure and Superstition which are very evil and undesirable distempers in the Church of Christ and the necessary Authours and Fomenters of unnecessary Schisms And indeed if I had said only that they had changed Idolatry into Superstition it had been enough and all it including the rest For Superstition being properly a Fear of displeasing God in such things as neither do oblige him nor offend him arising out of an opinion of the good or evil of those things that are indifferent Those that either out of ignorance or some worse principle ingender in the minds of men a superstitious aversation from such harmless and allowable actions must needs make them obnoxious to Scandal and tempt them to rash and unjust Censures 3. Wherefore as well to excuse the innocent as to discover the guilty I shall endeavour exactly to set out the bounds of this great sin of Idolatry that thereby we may know when it is committed and when not when it may be called by that so hatefull name and when again it is Injustice and Uncharitableness so to term this or that action of Religious worship 4. That the name or guilt of Idolatry is not to be restrained to the worship of an Idol only is plain out of ordinary consent of Speech when we discourse of Idolatrous Nations that worship the Sun Moon and Stars not considering whether they make any Images to them or no. For these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these conspicuous and sensible Deities as Origen contr Cels. lib. 〈◊〉 they are termed by the Greeks may easily be conceived to have allured the rude people to adore them before they had either art or leisure to build Temples and erect Statues to them From whence that Caveat is given by God to his own people in Deuteronomie Take ye therefore Ch. 4 v. 15 19. good heed unto your selves for you saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire lest you corrupt your selves and make you a graven Image c. And lest you lift up your eyes to Heaven and when you see the Sun and the Moon and the Stars even all the hoast of Heaven should be driven to worship them and serve them So strongly enticing have they been to mankind to bestow Religious worship on them These were the first Objects that gain'd the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being in perpetual Motion as Philo has observed which appellation was afterwards derived upon all other Deities whatsoever And Maimonides also lays the first foundation of Idolatry in these 5. But Nations sufficiently civilized as namely the Persians made Herodot lib. 1. c. 131. shift to be Idolaters without carved Images or Idols For they sacrificed on the tops of Mountains to the visible Heaven under the name of Jupiter as also to the Sun Moon and Earth to the Fire Water and Winds all sensible Objects but worshipped without any sensible figure or representation And yet I think no man learned or Idiot will stick to style this Nation Idolatrous As neither the ancient Romans who worshipped their many Gods without the use of any Idol or Image for near two hundred years together as both Varro and Plutarch affirm 6. Wherefore Idolatry is
the Sheep 9. But there is yet an harder burthen that Superstition may invent and be either added to some of the Monastick Orders or imposed as Penance or voluntarily inflicted on a mans self out of a blind intoxicating zeal the practice being applauded by this not Mother but Stepdame Church and it is in a word Flagellation or Whipping a mans self cruelly and bloudily for a Religious satisfaction or else for Merits A custom so harsh and salvage that it is more befitting the Altar of Diana Taurica then the Temple of Christ and has no precedent unless in those Religions which were of the Devil 's own setting up whose sport was his Tyrannizing over poor despised Mankind Such a Pastour as this is not onely a clipper but a flayer of his Sheep and exquisitely opposite to his Spirit who promised his followers that his yoke should be easie and his burthen light 10. But such hardships as these as they make a shew in the flesh so they tend nothing to the right chastising and subduing of the corruptions of the spirit and are but like the whipping the Cart and letting the Horses go free That chastisement that reaches to amendment of life and the bringing the Inward man under the obedience of Christ is a resolute denial of acting any of the suggestions of the flesh This will wound the sinning principle more home and will really heal the Soul in the conclusion But the other cannot well be countenanced but upon an Hypocritical affectation of a pompous kind of Severity wherein this false Church may ostentate her own power over the minds and bodies of men and take a secret joy in the relish of this wonderful Empire she has got over the World even to a vile kind of bondage and vassalage But in the mean time such American cruelties as these may well hazzard the life or health of the abused Penitents and will not fail to bring a very loathsom reproach upon the School of Christ making it look like salvage Paganism and the Synagogue of the Devil 11. That also were a kind of Paganical injury put upon deceived Souls and a great wearisomness and drudgery to the Body to be ingaged in long Pilgrimages to salute this or that Saint's Image for better reconciliation But the Offerings tend to the enriching of that Church and the Resort of Pilgrims to the enriching of the Town and thereby to the conciliating of the affections of the Towns-men to so gainful a Religion But in the mean time the Pilgrims affairs at home are left at sixes and sevens his Children to the sole government of his Wife and his Wife to the oversight of the Ghostly Father and what other humane Visitants shall put in for her comfort in her Husband's absence To Pilgrimages might be added Jubilees at the great Metropolis of this Apostatized Church which though not so frequent yet at their celebration would be frequented from the remotest parts of Christendom with multitudes of devout Strangers upon belief of pardon of their sins for so holy a voiage But the end and inconveniences of this Solemnity would be much the same with those of Pilgrimages saving that this is more peculiarly designed for the replenishing of the High-priest's coffers 12. It were an endless business to reckon up all the manners of Superstitious molestations which might be invented for the bodies of deceived and inslaved Christians under the pretence of fulfilling the Laws of Christianity and of the Church Such as Going a considerable way bare-footed and bare-headed The putting themselves into cold congeling Springs the water gushing upon their bare breasts The rolling themselves in beds of Ice and Snow The creeping upon their bare knees on flinty Causeys to the cutting of their skin and flesh and making all run with bloud The wearing of hair-cloth next their skin and a girdle of nails and needles with many such like tragical extravagancies concerning which I have nothing new to take notice of but that they are quite contrary to the ingenuous Spirit that breaths in true Christianity and as I said before do too much assimilate the Religion of Christians to the bloudy Superstitions of barbarous Pagans CHAP. XX. 1. The Burthen of afflictive Opinions 2. The distracting puzzles of a Soul intangled with multifarious Superstitions and Conceits 3. The illaqueations of Religious Vows 4. Intanglements arising from a Superstitious trust in certain surmised virtues in the Mass. 5. Vexatious Scrupulosities concerning the Intention of the Priest in administring the Sacraments 1. BUT to let pass these incommodations of the Body Christianity may be made very uneasie and uncomfortable by several rackings and distractings of the Mind by unnecessary Obligations of the Conscience by entangling Conceits and Opinions which also being innumerable it were to no purpose to go about to reckon up all But some few obvious ones I shall venture to name such as The supposed duty of worshipping the Cross the Images or Reliques of Saints The conceit of communion of Merits The intanglement of Vows A superstitious trust in the Eucharist and in the power of the Priest's Intention in that and other Sacraments The belief of the necessity of Auricular Confession and of the Assent to every of the smallest points of Doctrine held by the Church though there be no footsteps thereof in the Scripture nor any ground in Reason The excruciating fear of a worse then Pagan Purgatory and finally the necessity of Penal Satisfaction and Merit A man may pronounce these words without blistering his tongue but if he once imbibe them as Principles obliging the Conscience and be superstitiously intangled in them he will sleep as uneasily by reason of the unsettledness of his Mind as if his bed were strowed with chopped hairs or pulverized glass There is no redemption of the quiet of his Spirit but by taking of a lusty draught of that Soporiferous potion that will make him repose himself wholly on the faith of his Priest to say and to doe just as he will have him without any disquisition or reasoning and so to metamorphose himself from a rational cautious Man into a mere passive Ass for the false Prophet to ride upon 2. But if he were seriously set to promote his own happiness upon the account of his own judgment and diligence how would he be distracted in the multiplicity of the Objects of his Devotion For if it be so meritorious to visit the Shrine of one Saint it will be the neglect of his own Salvation to omit another And if the Saints be so ambitious as to be pleased by our Religious Invocation of them the invoking one may it not bring upon us the displeasure of the rest who are pretermitted And if I make one of them my Patron why may I not suspect that I have thereby made the rest mine Enemies by slighting them were they thus desirous of Divine Honours as we conceit them And as concerning their holy Reliques that are offered to be kissed by
in order to particular Absolution from the Priest 7. As also a more particular Confession if voluntary 8. The Self-ends of this Church in exacting so punctual a Confession from men 9 10. The slavery and Mischief of such kind of Confessions 11. The infinite vexation to the consciencious and ingenuous from the obtruding upon them incredible and impossible Opinions 1. ABsolution puts me in mind of the pretence of necessity of Confessing once a year at least and that to the Priest of the Parish all a mans sins not onely actually committed but the very purposes desires or propensions to the committing of them Which might rightly be called Carnificina conscientiarum indeed and is as base a piece of servitude and to as ill purpose as if that all the modest Maids and grave Matrons in the Parish should strip themselves stark naked and in that manner humble themselves before their Priest once a year Which would look like a piece of unsupportable Tyranny And yet this extorted Confession upon pain of Damnation not to conceal any thing is not the stripping of a man to his naked body but the stripping him of his body that they may see his naked Heart and so by the force of this Superstition break into those secrets which it is the onely due privilege of God Almighty to be acquainted with who is the onely rightful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and can neither receive any hurt by seeing the most inward motions of his own handy-work nor will knowing whereof we are made doe us any but will judge with equity in all things nor will despise the work of his own hands 2. The pretence for this Confession is the necessity of Absolution by the Priest which if a man through his own neglect have not he must be undoubtedly damned But that any such Absolution is necessary unless upon the case of just Excommunication cannot be made out by either Scripture or Reason For when it is said to Peter to the Church or to the Apostles Whatsoever ye bind in earth shall be bound in heaven or Matth. 18. 18. Whatsoever ye loose in earth shall be loosed in heaven and Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain Joh. 20. 23. they are retained It is impossible the meaning should be Remit or Retain Bind or Loose whether right or wrong I will ratifie all above whatever the Successors of my Apostles shall doe nor shall any remission of sins be ratified without them though they succeed onely in the external profession and partake not of the same Spirit with their Predecessors Wherefore so large and accurate a Commission cannot belong to any but either to the Apostles themselves or to men of a true Apostolical spirit who are entirely of one mind with God and therefore can doe onely what is right It being so rare therefore and so difficult a thing to find such a Confessor it is an argument such an Absolution is not necessary For neither God nor Nature are wanting in necessaries But the Binding by Excommunication and the Loosing answering thereto is of another consideration and concerns the external Oeconomy of the Church 3. But to speak truly That phrase of Binding and Loosing above cited out of Scripture seems not so much to respect Persons as Things For it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whatsoever not whomsoever and reflects upon the known phrases of the Jews who called that which was declared unlawful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ligatum but that which was allowed as lawful they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 solutum And therefore that passage does not respect Absolution from sin but the making of Laws and Institutes for the Church by the Apostles which Christ says he would ratifie in Heaven But that other place Joh. 20. of remitting and retaining mens sins does undoubtedly respect Absolution from sin But mark to what manner of men this power is committed As my Father sent me so send I you now Christ was sent full of grace and of the power of the Holy Ghost and therefore he breathing upon them says Receive the Holy Ghost and did most certainly impart it to them And thereupon is derived upon them that authority Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained 4. Whence Erasmus excellently upon the place Qui ex his posterioribus cristas erigunt Tyrannidem quandam sibi vendicant cur non meminerunt eorum quae mox praecesserunt Toti turgemus mundano Spiritu tamen placemus nobis authoritate commissâ remittendi aut retinendi peccata Tuere authoritatem sed cura ut adsit Spiritus per quem Christus tribuit authoritatem Which implies that where this Spirit is not the Authority is not and that a man cannot rationally be either comforted by the remission or dismay'd by the retaining of sin when it is from such Ghostly Fathers as are devoid of the Spirit of Christ. 5. Moreover Hugo Grotius does soberly and with judgment I conceive interpret this place of Remission of sins by Baptism or Reception again into the Communion of the Church if any be lapsed after Baptism but the Retaining of sins to be Non-admittance of these into the Church who are not yet penitent Believers or the Excommunicating them out of it upon a lapse worthy so great a Censure But what is this to an Anniversary Absolution which must necessitate and squeeze out such an unnecessary and unreasonable Confession St. James saith Confess your sins one to another whose style was ill directed if it had been such an indispensable duty to confess unto the Priest and in such a manner as has been described so frequent so punctual This Anniversary Provolution therefore of a Penitent upon the floor at the feet of a formal Confessor with eyes and hands devoutly lifted up toward him sitting in his majesty is no part of true Christian Discipline but as Erasmus has well intimated a piece of Antichristian Tyranny it being a thing very loathsome and burthensome to be bound to unbosome a mans self to him of whose judgment friendship or fidelity we can have no assurance and very intolerable to be forced to speak of such things as we do not allow our selves to think of and that before such as we may probably â—…spect will conceive some sinful pleasure by the discourse of them 6. The Injunction therefore of such a punctual Confession has no ground at all in either Scripture or Reason For neither did the Apostles nor Christ himself require any such particular and complete enumeration of mens sins nor left in charge with their Successors to doe so And it is sufficient more generally to confess them with a serious profession of detesting and resolution of leaving them wherein if the Penitent will dissemble he may as well dissemble
signifie certain performance but the duty what they ought to perform As when the Apostles are called the Light of the world and the Matth. 5. 13 14. Salt of the earth which onely signifies what they ought to be not what they were necessitated to be For those that ought to be thus may notwithstanding hide their Talent or grow unsavoury through their own fault as it fared in Judas and in all his succession of false Apostles which call themselves the Servants but are the betrayers of the Lord Jesus 13. But lastly Suppose that the Church then in general were here understood it does not follow That because that Primaeval and Apostolical Church should by a peremptory design of Providence have engraven upon it or exhibit to the world as Articles of belief nothing but what was true that the Church in succession should always doe the like For there was a prime care taken that the first establishment of the Church should be in truth and solidity but that being done which was sufficient for the after-carrying on the affairs of the Church in a right way by free Agents the success should afterwards lie upon their industry and fidelity at least so far as that by no miraculous and supernatural force they should be assisted or driven on to keep things pure and intemerate And that was sufficient for the Church I think which is thought sufficient for every particular man namely That the Christian Doctrines and Precepts being faithfully laid down in the Evangelists and other Writings of the Apostles they might that usual Grace of God which is not irresistible assisting them frame their lives and beliefs accordingly in those things that are plain And all are so that are necessary to Salvation Which Rule if it had been kept to no Error had crept into the Church to this very day 14. Which last Answer will contribute something towards an Answer to the last place alledged for it seems onely to contain a description of a special provision of God for the rightly settling his Truth in the first Ages of the Church To which purpose he appointed not onely Pastours and Teachers which Functions continue still but Apostles having a particular mission from Christ himself who breathed into them the Spirit of Truth as also Prophets and Evangelists men in a special manner inspired and assisted to erect the Fabrick of the Church according to the will and purpose of Christ who then in an extraordinary manner did supervise all by a miraculous assistence of his Spirit And therefore what-ever was wrote for the publick use of the Church while any of those unto whom our Saviour Christ said that the Spirit should abide with them for ever which should lead them into all Truth were alive or was approved by them is really of certain and infallible authority but what-ever after-Inventions or Super-additions there were in the Church they are to be measured by this unerring Rule These unerring Pastors therefore and Teachers Apostles Prophets Evangelists were not a promise to all Successions but an extraordinary gift as the Text it self imports which Christ at that time namely at his solemn Coronation or Triumph ascending above all Heavens that he Eph. 4. 10. might fill all things cast down as a Royal Largess upon his Church for the speedy completement of her for her growing up into the unity of the Faith and Knowledge of Christ and that she might not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine but adhere to that onely that was delivered by those Heavenly-inspired and miraculously-assisted Ministers of the Gospel The acknowledgement whereof I conceive had been the onely sure means to keep the Church in Unity for ever whenas the pretending to an Infallibility in the succeeding Church where indeed it was not and the taking upon them thereupon to impose things with equal authority to the Apostles themselves would naturally prove the fountain of all Error Schism and Confusion CHAP. II. 1. That the safe conveyance of the Apostolick Writings down to us by the Church does not infer her Infallibility 2. That the Plainness of Scripture in points necessary to Salvation takes away the want of an Infallible Judge 3. That the Scripture not pointing to any Infallible Judge nor any faithful Keeper of Traditions does ipso facto declare her self the onely sufficient Guide 4. That there is not onely no want of an Infallible Judge but better there should be none 5. That the want of Infallibility does not take away the Authority of the Church it being the duty of every person in things really disputable to compromise with her 6. That though a Visible Judge be necessary in Civil causes yet it is nothing so in Points of Religion 7. That every private man has not onely a liberty but a command to judge for himself in matters of Faith 8. The said Right or Privilege demonstrated also by Reason 9. That the Reason or Judgment of every private man is not a private Spirit in that reproachful sense that some speak it 10. That the claim to a right of judging for ones self in points of Faith does not make a man superiour to his Church 11. Nor yet equal 12. Nor implies that he thinks himself wiser then his Church but rather more careful of his own eternal Concerns 13. That it is not his private Wisdom he sticks to but the Wisdom of God known to all that are not wilfully blind 14. That the Church is not Infallible proved from the Example of the Jewish Church 15. That there is the same reason of the Christian. 16. That the want of an Infallible Interpreter is no such loss to the common people 17. That their assurance of the truth of the Scriptures by the Spirit is a Tenet not so superciliously to be exploded as some make shew of 18. That this Spirit is properly the Spirit of Faith distinguishable from that of Knowledge and Wisdom 19. The notorious Fraud and excessive Mischief of this pretence of Infallibility 1. BUT being worsted thus in Scripture they will pretend Demonstrations in Reason upon the presumption they are the true visible Church successively descended from Christ and his Apostles that Infallibility is for ever intailed upon them As first That unless the Church were successively Infallible we could have no certain and Infallible belief of the Holy Scriptures which are avouched to be such by the Church But I briefly answer That supposing this successive Church were a trusty undoubted Conveyer of the Copies of the Holy Scriptures uncorrupted yet it doth not follow that they must be Infallible Interpreters of these Scriptures no more then the faithful conveyance of Plato's and Aristotle's Writings to all posterity implies that the Conveyers thereof are Infallible Interpreters of them For they might preserve the Writings of either by a diligent comparing of Copies upon every transcription besides that there might be a special watchfulness of Providence over these Holy Writings for the conservation of
them from any material blemishes as being so exceeding necessary for the continuance of those Truths that were published by such men as accordingly as I have already intimated were Divinely and Infallibly inspired And that there were such Writings sufficient for the conveyance of the knowledge of Christ written by them that were infallible Witnesses of the Truth and that we may be assured that those which commonly bear the Title of them are they I have without any recourse to the Infallibility of the Church so plainly demonstrated in my Explanation of the Book 7. chap. 10 11. Mystery of Godliness that I think it needless to say any thing further of it in this place 2. In the second place they will pretend That the Church must be Infallible or else there will want an Infallible Judge of Controversies nay there will not be so much as any Authority in the Church to order the affairs thereof But the Answer is easie and brief That there is no want of any such Infallible Judge and therefore not of the Churche's Infallibility for the Scripture is a Sufficient Rule of Faith to all that have understanding whether Learned or unlearned in things necessary to Salvation and That the belief and practice of these will carry a man to Heaven The Spirit of God therefore is the onely Infallible Judge here and has declared as plainly as any successive Judges can in those things that are necessary to Life and Salvation what is to be believed and to be done Which if we believe and practise in particular and do also in general and implicitly believe and stand in a readiness to obey the rest of the Scripture when the sense thereof appears to us we are in a safe condition and need not doubt but it will go well with us in the other State For it is manifest that what is necessary is plain in the Word of God to all men otherwise Salvation were not sufficiently revealed to the world and what we above recited out of St. Paul were not true nor the Providence of God sufficiently watchful in the laying the first Foundations of his Church 3. For if the Scripture were not a Sufficient Infallible evidence of all necessary Truths God would have afterwards raised other persons of Apostolical purity in conversation and with the like power of working Miracles to have made a Supplement to the former which yet was never done or else those other necessary Truths taught indeed by the first Apostles but not written by them had been committed to Tradition which had been a very lubricous and perillous way and unlikely to be taken by Divine Providence But if any such way had been taken certainly the Scripture it self in which all men are agreed would have pointed it out to us as also if there had been any Interpreter instituted that there might be infallibly communicated to us what remains necessary to our eternal safety But the Scripture being silent herein it openly declares it self to be Sufficient to all such as with sincerity and care apply themselves to the understanding of it as certainly every man considering that his eternal Salvation lies upon it will be enforced to doe in his own behalf whenas if others interpret for him they may doe it more remissly or more fraudulently 4. Besides that it is a very unskilfull and inept desire that there should be any such Infallible Judge that has concluded all Controversies to our hands already For that would prevent or forestall that privacy and peculiarity of converse which God has with those Souls that are more dear to him who does in a special manner assure them of such Conclusions as are not to be reached at by every hand But when the Infallible Determination of the Church has passed all mens assurances will be alike and God will have as it were given the staff out of his own hands Wherefore there being no external Infallible Judge for the Interpreting obscure places in Scripture God's right of his dispensing his special favours is preserved and men of a more devout and Intellectual spirit are divinely employed and earnestly engaged to extraordinary piety and holiness that they may win the favour of that inward Infallible Interpreter even of that Holy Spirit which the World cannot receive and by the light of his assistence be inabled to reach the true sense of those Writings which himself dictated to the Apostles and other Holy men of God 5. And lastly That the want of Infallibility will take away the Authority of the Church is a very weak Inference For her Authority is entire in the urging those Truths and Duties in Scripture that are plain to all men even to such as do not in the least dream that they are Infallible And those that are thus plain are such as are the most useful for our safe conduct to Heaven And for those Doctrines that be more obscure if they be withall useful and edifying as also Rites and Ceremonies the Church has Authority though she be not Infallible to declare them and appoint them Let all things be done decently and in order But how she is to behave her self to Dissenters having spoke of that more copiously elsewhere 2 Cor. 14. 40. I shall not here so much as touch upon it I will onely adde That in things that are really disputable I conceive it is the duty of every one whatever his private judgment and inclinations otherwise would be to compromise with the Authority of the Church and for Peace and Order sake to be concluded by their Determinations 6. Now what has been already suggested will serve to null or enervate a third Sophism For it seems a plausible Objection against the Scripture alone being sufficient to guide us and rule us without a publick Infallible Interpreter That this were as if one should contend that the Law alone in Civil matters were sufficient without a publick Judge For besides what we above insinuated That a plain Law and such we averre the Scripture to be in matters necessary to Salvation may want no Judge where the Conscience finds it self upon pain of Damnation obliged to understand it aright we further suggest That the urging or pressing of the Law of Christ by a publick Minister Interpreter or Declarer of the sentence of his Law so far as it is plainly his to all unprejudiced Understandings as well unlearned as learned is not denied by those that contend that the Scripture is the sole Rule of Faith And for my own part as I said before in places that are not thus plain if such Interpretations be made as are not repugnant to other plain Texts of Scripture but tend to the promotion of the Ends of the Gospel which I have elsewhere specified I hope no man shall offend God but doe his dutie to the Church in compromising with them in their sentiments of things in such circumstances as these For they are supposed conscienciously and in the Fear of
God to have interpreted the Scripture and not for their own ends or carnal satisfaction in any thing And questionless in this case they can shew their Commission and that they act by Authority Let all things be done to edification 1 Cor. 14. 26. But that because every Civil controversy must be determined by a Judge therefore there must be an Infallible determinative Judge of all the nice and unprofitable controversies that emerge amongst Christians about Scripture and Religion is but a weak and lame Illation For Civil controversies cannot be undecided without injury to some party but no man is injured by not having those unprofitable at least unnecessary questions determined for they may hold their several opinions without wronging one another if they will but keep to that known Law of Christ that Royal Law of Charity Nay the deciding such controversies by a pretended Infallible Judge were a vast wrong to one party it galling their consciences and streightning their liberty and making the way to Heaven narrower then Christ has made it For so does this Infallible Judge that imposes his Determinations on men upon pain of eternal Damnation But God of his infinite wisedom and mercy has not given the least Intimation for any such Usurpation And therefore this Infallible Judge being not appointed by God and being unappointable by man the Scripture alone and not these pretended Infallible decisions must be the Rule of our belief 7. The fourth and last pretence is That unless the Sense of Scripture be determined by the Infallibility of the Church every private Spirit must be Judge of the meaning thereof nay and which is worse be Judge of the Church and thereby superiour to the Church then which nothing can be more wild and extravagant This seems a big difficulty at first But I answer That every particular man should judge for himself he has a Commission from the very Word of God nay I may say a Command As where he is bid to try 1 Thess. 5. 21. all things and to hold that which is good as also not to believe every 1 John 〈◊〉 spirit but to trie the spirits whether they be of God and in another place to be ready to give a reason of his Faith The Beroeans also are commended 1 Pet. 3. Acts 17. for searching the Scripture and trying whether the things that Paul even an inspired and chosen vessel of God had taught them were true or no. But for any one man or any company of men to be appointed by God Authoritatively and absolutely to be Judges for others in matters of Faith and Religion we do not find any where in Scripture or in Reason any such Commission given unto them but we are rather admonished to take heed how we be led hoodwinkt by any lest the blind Matt. 15. 14. leading the blind both fall into the ditch 8. But not Scripture onely but Reason it self does plainly commissionate private Spirits as they call them to judge for themselves For these pretenders to Infallibility doe it onely upon the boast that they are the true successive Church from the Apostles But unless they will be above all measure ridiculous they must convince the Reason of him whom they would make a Proselyte to their Church that their Church is that true and Apostolical one For to say so without proof is a madness to be hooted at by all men But to goe about to prove it is to appeal to the private Reason of him they would convince And if he be a Christian already though not of their Church the common acknowledged Principles are the Holy Scriptures in arguing from which the Disputant appeals to him he would bring over if his Interpretation or Allegation of them be not true But if he be an Infidel or Pagan he is to use Reasons to prove the Truth and Authority of the Scriptures themselves Which is still an appeal to the conscience of him that is to be gained to the Church whether what is offered to him be true or false And that which is offered to him being the whole Christian Faith for that is it which makes a true Church it is plain that his Reason and Conscience is appealed unto whether the whole Summe of the Credenda in Christianity is not true That is to say Though the Church and he that argues in the behalf of the Church have already judged and firmly concluded that the Christian Faith is a true Faith in the whole and in every part and make no appeal from their own judgment in reference to themselves yet in reference to the party they would convince they appeal to him if the grounds of their Belief be not solid and so imply and acknowledge that he is Judge for himself in these affairs call that in him a private spirit or what you please 9. But I do not know but it may be too reproachfully called a private spirit at least in the sincere and simple-hearted who have no private designs but to know the Will of God and to doe it and it is the Will of God all men should doe so and the spirit of man * Prov. 20. is said to be the Lamp of the Lord and that which judges according to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common notions of Reason in all men and has not lost the * Psell. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those common characters and ingenuous sentiments of Indispensable Truth and Morality which the Father of lights has of old sealed upon the Soul and which are hardly obliterated quite in any and are necessarily continued and that vigourously in the sincere I say such a Life or Spirit as this judging in a man is very hardly to be called a private spirit it judging according to the Universal sense of humane Nature and so as every one judges when he is unbiassed Nay if this will not serve I say that the Judgement which is thus made is the Judgement of that Universal King and Law-giver the Eternal Son of God it is his sentence in these cases but writ in the tables of our hearts and pronounced by our mouths as by the Praeco of a Court. So far is it from being the Judgement of a mere private spirit But that rather is the Judgement of a private spirit though it should bear the Title of an Infallible Church which is decreed not according to the plain Texts of Scripture so as all unprejudiced men would certainly understand them nor according to those indeleble Characters of Truth which Christ the Eternal Logos has writ in the Rational Souls of all mankind but according to partial Interest and depraved desires The sentence of Thousands nay of Millions of such Judges is more the verdict of a private spirit then the Judgement of the meanest private man that pronounces from such Principles as I have declared 10. Now for that odious imputation of making a mans self Superiour to the
the Scripture is as well useless as false and much as if the Moon should take upon her to witness for the Sun that he sends out light which every one that is not blind will necessarily see though the Moon were under the Horizon So the holy children of God chosen and faithfull will feel and tast clearly see and discern that the Scripture is the Truth of God by that light which is in it that correspondeth with that Spirit derived from the Father of lights which he has shed into their hearts Which as I said is the Spirit of Faith and the sure portion of every Member of Christ whether they can make out things by Knowledge and deep Reason or no. And if they be assaulted by Cavillers it is their prudence to send such to their fellow-members to whom God has given also the Spirit of Knowledge or of Wisedome or it may be more prudent to let them goe as they came they being not worthy to give any the trouble of discourse who put questions not with design of being seriously edified and instructed in the Truth but for captiousness contention and a conceited hope of puzzling him by whom they make show as if they desired to be informed 19. The fraudulent End that this pseudo-Christian Church might drive at in this peremptory boast of Infallibility is very conspicuous as also the Mischievous events thereof For what could this tend to but the making this Antichristian power absolute that they might without any ones whinching decree and declare what-ever would tend to the encrease of their own honour and wealth seem it never so contrary to common Reason to the express Word of God and the Precepts of Christ For the sentence is Infallible let it look never so strangely and repugnantly to any Rule that we might think right Wherefore this Power might even doe what it pleases change Times and Laws even the Law of God it self and fling the house of God out at windows as the proverb is For who has any thing to say against that power which he is already persuaded is Infallible And to speak summarily and then which nothing greater can be said The Admittance of this Infallibility is the Exclusion of Christ from his Kingdom and Throne and the setting up a mere Mortal a masterless Man of sin or a pack of sons of Belial to sway his Sceptre for him in the world This alone is enough if it would take to supplant the Government of Christ upon Earth CHAP. III. 1. That the keeping the Law of Christ in an unknown Tongue is an undermining or opposing of his Sovereignty 2. As also the reproaching and vilifying his Law 3. Their fraudulent pretence of hiding the Scriptures with a vindication of their Usefulness and Excellency 4. The vilifying of the Laws of Christ by setting far less penalties upon the transgression of them then of the inconsiderable Institutes of the Church 5. That their rigid Impositions are against the Kingdom of Christ as also the reading of Legends instead of his Law in Churches 6. The dispensing also with the Divine Laws The Fraud and Mischief thereof 7. The Treasonable pretence of this Power 's being absolute by right of succession in Christ's seat 8. The evil effect of this pretence discoverable in several Institutes contrary to the written Laws of Christ 9. As also in nulling those Laws he has given as he is the Eternal Word 10. The bloudy opposing the Sovereignty and Kingdom of Christ in murthering his faithfull Subjects 1. BUT there are other ways also of lifting the Government from off Christ's shoulders As first Suppose They should keep the Law of God in an unknown Tongue and not let any one reade it in the language they understood nay be so carefull that the very Prayers that are used in publick and the celebration of the holy Eucharist should be unintelligible lest the power of some passages of Scripture that may occurre in the publick Service should unhindge men from the blind obedience they are held in under this Antichristian Usurpation 2. To which you may adde what indeed might better have preceded a Revilement of the Law of Christ as a Book full of nothing but dangerous obscurities a Lesbian or Leaden Rule to be bended any way a Nose of wax a dead letter a Farrago of casuall or occasionall Writings which were penned not by any Divine appointment but onely as fortuitous Exigences moved the Prophets or Apostles to write them And where they would speak most modestly to say it is an insufficient Law or Rule and therefore must be made up by Institutes of their own invention or what they will please to obtrude upon the world for Traditional doctrines and usages I say thus to Revile the Law of Christ is to null it and thereby to null his Sovereignty over his Church and to betray it into the hands of a stranger to deal with them as he pleases and to change Times and Laws and Customes in such sort that there may be nothing sound left in Christianity that may any way thwart the Interest of these Usurpers 3. In brief therefore thus it may be They may pretend the Scripture obscure all over because it is so in some places But we have already sufficiently urged that there is enough clear of it to enlighten the single-hearted in the way of eternal Salvation But upon the pretence of the uncertain sense of some passages they may remove all away that those passages that would plainly discover and reprove their false doctrines and practices might not come into the sight of the people For as a Father has well noted Verbum Dei est Lucerna ad quam fur deprehenditur and our Saviour Christ of old They hate the light because their deeds are evil But that Imputation of the Scripture's being writ occasionally it is as weak as impious and blasphemous As if the Spirit of God would not assist the Apostles most when occasion called for it or as if he were to study how to inspire them and illuminate them and could not doe it extempore or upon emergent occasions but would be taken unprovided These things savour of gross carnality and ignorance of the very nature of God and his holy Spirit which Christ promised should not fail to be with them for ever for the right settling of the affairs of the Church that is to say that it would not desert them so long as they lived and acted in the Ministery and service thereof Which therefore must make the Scripture very precious and of inestimable value to all sincere Believers Wherefore any one Paragraph of the Epistles of S. Paul to whom Christ appeared and called to from Heaven and commissioned to be an Apostle to lay the Foundation and first structure of his Church ought to be preferred before many thousands of pretended Infallible Councils who could never shew any such extraordinary Commission to prove themselves Infallible For God by that miraculous appearing
to Paul from Heaven and so appointing him to be an Apostle did proclaim to all the World that he would Infallibly assist him and that therefore what was imparted to the World by him should be a Law irreversible to Christendom Whence the nulling of the Authority of S. Paul's writings were the abrogating of the very Law of Christ which were a most rebellious and blasphemous Enterprise against the Sovereignty of Christ himself 4. But there is also another way of undermining or subverting the Rule and Sovereignty of the Son of God and that is An undervaluing his Laws in proportion of Penalties laid upon the transgression of them and of some slighter humane Ecclesiastick Institutes As surely these would be very Antichristian Instances of this kind namely If Absolution for him that kills his Father or lies with his Mother should be five or six times Cheaper then of him that takes two Orders in one day or is Ordained without Letters dismissory or that to be Ordained out of the set times of the year should have a penalty ten times greater then Lying with a mans own Mother or if you will but equal to the deflouring of a Virgin the lying with a mans own Sister Murther Perjury Sacrilege Simonie revealing Confession keeping a Concubine lying with a woman in the Church but equal I say to all these nine put together What could vilifie the indispensable Law of God and Christ more then to make so many transgressions and so hainous less then that trifle of humane Tradition To Ordain onely at such times of the year 5. Again That were likewise a very conspicuous vilification of the Word of God if instead thereof there were read in the Churches finelydevised Fables to entertain the People withall As if they were wiser then the Wisdom of God himself and could entertain the people more edifyingly with incredible and ridiculous stories then with the Discourses of Christ Jesus and sober and easily-intelligible histories of truth that Divine Providence has recorded for the instruction of his Church 6. Dispensations also against the Law of Christ whether written in the Word of God or comprised in the sacred Law of Nature which is but the Transcript of that Law in the Eternal Logos Christ according to his Divinity were also an Antichristian defeating of Christ's Rule and Sovereignty as also would be the Interpretation of the serious Injunctions of Christ as if they were not Praecepta but Consilia not Commands but Advice left to us to follow if we would or to let alone if we pleased whenas Christ plainly declares that he that breaks the least of these Matt. 5. Commandments and teaches men so to doe shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven What then would it be to dispense with Perjury Treason Murther Incest Adultery Sodomie and other such hainous crimes What were it but the utter taking away the Law of Christ and destroying his Kingdom upon Earth The Fraud and Self-endedness of which easy Anarchy is onely to fill the net full though it be of rotten sticks and durt so long as out of this durt they can extract Silver But the Mischief is that the Riches of this false Church would flow and rise with the height of the Abominations and Transgressions of rich sinners till a deluge of wrath wash away this deluge of sin But those in the interim that are so foolish to believe these Dispensations and think they are come into a fair liberty of spirit having found so facil ghostly Fathers will thereby most certainly become the Bond-slaves of sin which in the conclusion will as certainly deliver them up to Eternal Death 7. But what plea or pretence will you say may there be made of acting Religiously while they act thus enormously in letting the raines loose to all manner of wickedness to them that will goe to the price thereof Why yes This Antichristian Power might pretend that all that Power which is in Christ though it be plainly a casting Christ out of his Royall Throne is derived upon him or them as his Successours But Christ being the absolutely-Supreme Power may doe as he will dispense with his own Laws as he pleases Wherefore this Antichristian power pretending to be or have the very same power may dispense with the Laws of Christ as it pleases especially for the enriching the Church for all such Interest is pious Which yet is such an Imagination that nothing can be more Treasonable against the Regal Office of Christ nor more destructive of his Kingdom 8. The effect of which villanous Principle would also certainly appear in this Synagogue of Satan or Antichrist and we should find Laws and Institutes quite contrary to the Laws and Decrees of the Son of God As certainly such as these would be namely Sundry sorts of Idolatry such as I have instanced in already and need not repeat and have noted the Frauds Book I. ch 12. and fetches in the practice of them The teaching for Doctrines the commandments of men which is expresly against our Saviour's own command and of which I have given sundry examples in my * Book I. ch 17 18 19 20 21 22. second branch of Antichristianism The with-holding the Cup from the Laiety notwithstanding the Institution of the Lord's Supper by Christ himself does so plainly injoyn the communicating both of Bread and Wine Drink you all of this and S. Paul again following the Example of Christ Let a man examine himself Matt. 26. 27. and so eat of this bread and drink of this cup which indefinite command 1 Cor. 11. 28. surely includes all But the drinking of the Cup being made the Privilege of the Priest it magnifies his condition hugely and makes the poor Laiety feel and acknowledge their distance how unholy and how removed from God they are in comparison of the Priesthood This would be the true Reason though they might pretend for I think they have nothing better to pretend the length of the Lay-mens beards which I suppose they would rather cut off then be cut short in their share of so holy a Sacrament Again The serving of God in the Church in an unknown Language praying to him and praising him and reading the Scripture in a Tongue the people understand not is evidently against the directions of S. Paul 1 Cor. 14. in this particular and against that more universal and indispensable Law Let all things be done to edifying As also the worshipping of Angels 1 Cor. 14. 26. Coloss. 2. 18. which the same Apostle does expressely speak against and likewise the forbidding to marry and the abstaining from meats upon a Religious 1 Tim. 4 3. account with several other such All which being expressely against the Commands or Laws of Christ it were a most reproachfull and Traitorous affront to him the true Head of the Church and a plain declaring against the Right of his Sovereignty thus to make any Laws or Institutes so
contrary to those himself has established 9. As were also the nulling at any time what-ever binds according to the Universally-known Laws of God and Nature For these are the Laws of Christ as he is the Eternal Logos And therefore where any are bound by solemn Oath in publick Contracts or Covenants lawfully taken or are legitimately married and have committed no offence that might void the bonds of Wedlock to pretend to have a power to dispense with or to null these Contracts and Oaths or to legitimate such Marriages as are contrary to the Laws of God and Nature This also would certainly be a manifest affronting the Sovereignty of Christ and the Power thus practising would discover it self plainly Antichristian 10. And lastly to fill up the measure of this abhorred Limb of Antichrist which we are depainting If this pretended Infallible Power should commit cruel slaughters and massacres upon the true Subjects of Christ such as are innocent and guiltless of any wrong against any man according to the Law of God and Nature but are as I said really the true subjects of Christ were not this practice palpably Antichristian Which sentence against them would be very hard if it should run but thus Let them be put to death without mercy though they be the true Subjects of Christ Jesus How Devillishly Antichristian then must that Act be that condemns them to death for that very thing that makes them the true Subjects of Jesus Christ that is to say because they faithfully adhere to the indispensable Laws of their Lord and Master And in what a state of manifest Hostility against Christ's true and faithful Subjects must this Power be that so professes and practises that if they could find out any of them and that if it lay in their power to destroy them they would root them from off the face of the earth or attempt to subdue them by all imaginable penalties and cruelties by imprisonments tortures fire and faggot and what not And all this which makes the crime infinitely more execrable under a pretence of doing service to Christ Jesus whose dearest and sincerest Members they thus barbarously persecute and destroy This one Limb alone of Antichristianism I mean this vafrous and bloudy Treason against the holy Majesty of Christ and his true and living Members has such a weight of wickedness with it that it is even enough of it self to make almost an entire Antichrist CHAP. IV. 1. Sundry particular Oppositions against the Prophetick Office of Christ which may be the Characters of that grand Pseudo-prophet that was to come into the world 2. That the Spirit of Prophecy is not to be monopolized by any one person but is free 3. An Excerpt out of Caelius Secundus Curio to that purpose 4. The silencing the Dictates of those common Notions implanted in humane Souls the highest affront to the Prophetick Office of Christ that can be 5. Several Absurdities propounded as Instances of that Tyranny over the immutable Principles of humane Understanding with the detection of that eminent False-prophet thereby 6. That it is infinitely more likely that this pretended Prophet should be fallible then the fore-going Absurdities true 7. That the slaying of the Prophets 8. Together with the above-mentioned Oppositions against the Prophetical Office of Christ make up a conspicuous Limb of Antichristianism 1. BUT we will further consider this Antichristian Opposition in respect to Christ's Prophetical Office Where we shall dispatch very briefly several of those practices against the Kingly Office of Christ equally reflecting upon his Prophetical As first The pretending the holy Oracles of God are so obscure that the people can make nothing of them and then upon that pretence violently with-holding them from them upon pain of death not to meddle with them against the mind of the Church This would make Christ a Prophet without Predictions or Instructions as I have noted above which therefore would be a grand injury to him as he is that great Prophet of God sent into the world The prohibiting also the Reading of such Expositions of Scriptures as are writ by plain and sincere followers of Christ who have interpreted with skill and faithfulness the more useful places of Holy Writ This also would be an Antichristian resistence of him in his Prophetick Office but that the utter stifling of the Spirit of Prophecy in his true Members if they could persuade them that there is already an Infallible Prophet and Interpreter whose sole meaning is the true sense of the Scripture and that Scripture it self is nothing without it and that none has either Authority or Capacity to interpret but he What an egregious Pseudo-prophet then think you would this be who takes upon him to speak nothing but Oracles and Infallible truth while he speaks and defines and acts such things as I have hitherto described Multifarious Idolatries Insupportable Superstitions and most impudent Annulments of the plain and express Laws and Doctrines of Christ Who therefore ever can if this great Pseudo-prophet do not prove the famed Antichrist indeed that monopolizes the Right of Prophesying to himself alone that he may the better deceive the whole world and will be Infallible that is to say unfailingly inspired that this extravagant boast may the more palpably discover him to be that eminent False-prophet that Christendom has so long expected and feared 2. Such a pretended Monopoly of the power of Prophesying as this is diametrically opposite to that liberty of the Spirit of Prophecy which is the Gift of Christ the Eternal Wisedom of God which is excluded no where but out of a wicked and polluted heart out of every Soul that is subject unto sin otherwise that Spirit is so described in the Book of Wisedom that it is not in the power of any Potentate to confine it to himself For it is a lover of that which is good quick which cannot be letted or Chap. 7. v. 22 c. hindred ready to doe good kind to man stedfast sure having all power overseeing all things and going through all understanding pure and subtil Spirits For Wisedom is more moving then any motion she passeth and goes through all things by reason of her pureness For she is the breath of the power of God and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty therefore can no defiled thing touch her For she is the brightness of the everlasting light the unspotted mirrour of the power of God and the Image of his goodness And being but one she can doe all things and remaining in her self she maketh all things new and in all Ages entring into holy Souls she makes them friends of God and Prophets What one man therefore or company of men can pretend that the Gift of Prophesying is entailed on them onely unless they were the onely pure and undefiled Or rather what ground or assurance have they that themselves can prophesy aright they living in sin in luxury and in all
contrary to a Father then to murther his genuine children and for that very reason because they so lively resemble him and so faithfully adhere to their Father's vertuous practices and principles 10. I might adde also that the over-exercising of the Minds and Bodies of men in the multifarious observances of external Ceremonies and making them dance or trot from one Superstitious performance to another might be a disappointment of the Divine Birth as the over-much exercising of Women in dancing or what other feats of Activity or sore labour makes them often miscarry in that Child-bearing that is natural But I will not insist upon these things 11. The Sixth and last Title is The Prince of Peace In which Principality or Authority if any should claim succession and yet administer the Affairs of Christ's Church such a way as will naturally if not necessarily fill it full of broils and contentions this power would certainly beâ—… a supplanter of the Peaceable government of Christ and be the Author of an Antichristian Tyrannie and Confusion As for example If this usurping Power should coin new Articles of belief for their own benefit contrary to the known Principles of Scripture and Reason and require the profession of these from the Church of Christ as also appoint suspected Observances smelling rank of Idolatry and Superstition it were in a manner impossible but that it should cause vast rendings and tearings in the Church and fill the world full of strife and opposition Also if they should make it their business to define the sense of Scripture by a more determinate meaning then there were use of in the Church and put their Determinations and Expositions upon men as necessary points of belief This would also make much against the Peaceableness of the Church men being in a manner fatally propending to think this or that way in things that are not necessary to Salvation to be determined either There would needless violence therefore be done to the Consciences of men thereby to set the world on fire Whenas what is general is large and unitive and takes all in and gives them leave to live peaceably one by another without justling or crowding 12. But the Folly and Fraud of this curiosity would be the Endeavour of gaining or rather extorting respect from the people and of making their Function seem considerable and their Learning great and their Judgements unerrable and that they may feel their Authority and make others to feel it though to the discontent and dissettlement of the Church of Christ. As if their living exemplarily and urging the performance of what is plain in Scripture and keeping an orderly Discipline in those things would not gain them more respect and make them more honourable both in the eyes of God and man or as if they would not appear more infallible by insisting in his steps who is the Way the Truth and the Life then by grossely crossing this way or going out of it for some by-advantages of the World The discovery of which Frauds must needs make them odious to all men And lastly as for their having their Authority felt Christ has shewed them the way if they would follow it He taught as having authority and not as the Scribes for they say and Matt. 7. Chap. 23. doe not 13. This is one way of Antichristianizing against that sacred Title of Christ The Prince of Peace There is another more vile and execrable then that heart could imagine that is not acquainted with the depths of Satan and that is If this Antichristian power we describe should take upon them to absolve the Princes of Christendom from their Oaths and Covenants they make one to another upon their terms of Peace as also to absolve Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance to their Sovereigns were not this to break a-pieces all the bonds of Unity that not onely Religion but the Laws of Nature do afford thus to destroy the Sacredness of an Oath which is the end of all strife How then can that Heb. 6. 16. Power challenge a right of succession to the Prince of Peace which takes away the chiefest tie of Peace that humane affairs are capable of 14. And lastly that bloudy position of taking away mens lives for mistakes in Opinion when notwithstanding they are otherwise unblameable in faith and conversation and unfeigned professours of Christian Truths that are evidently revealed in the Word of God nay to take away their lives for not doing and holding things quite contrary to the express Word of God written both in our inward Souls and in the Holy Scripture as I have in several Instances declared in this description of Chap. 3. Sect. 8. Antichristianism What were this but to hang out the bloudy flag against the true Church of Christ and to proclaim open war against them to bid battel against them that are inrolled into the company of the Lamb and are the professed Souldiers of the Prince of Peace Whose opposers therefore in such a sort as I have intimated cannot but be that Apocalyptick Beast that makes war with the Saints or that Mother Chap. 13. 7. of Har lots who is drunk with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus So little doubt would there be of this last Opposition's proving an Antichristian Chap. 17. 6. Character of the deepest dye But of this subject more hereafter CHAP. VII 1. That any Constitution of things that naturally opposes and suppresses the Divine Life is Antichristian in the highest measure 2. Such as Idolatry Superstition and all the above-mentioned Oppositions to Christ's Offices and Titles 3. The opinion of a virtue in the Sacraments ex opere operato and of the needlessness of our attention to our Devotions 4. Dumb shows and the resting in the mere doing of a Religious duty be it from what principle it will 5. Easy Absolution and slight Penances 6. Plenary Indulgences purchased by money from Ecclesiastick Authority 7. A general note prefixed touching the Mischiefs of the several Oppositions against the Divine Life 8. The plausibility of the Supposition of an Ecclesiastick Power and Pomp more then Imperial 9. The weakness of the grounds for the said Supposition 10. The consequential Mischief thereof in driving the minds of Church-men from the study of Truth and Holiness 11. Yea in making them oppose every thing that is True and Holy if it oppose their designs of Ambition and Avarice 12. That such a Luciferian Power as this were the very ruine of the Kingdom of Christ upon Earth 13. And the turning of his Church into a mere Mart or Fair. 1. THus expressely and clearly have we delineated the Image of Antichrist in his opposing of Christ in his Offices and in running quite counter to the most Sacred Titles that do adorn his Person We come now to the Divine Life as it is propagable in the world and for which Christ was pleased to take our nature upon him and to lay down his life
or justice and that is the so freely nick-naming them by the style of Hereticks and Schismaticks Which yet in their own judgment I suppose not to bear so little weight with it whenas their real estimate is discoverable by their proceedings they deeming an Heretick so odious or contemptible that he is not worthy of the common privileges of mankind and of that protection that the Laws of humane Society do afford men that he shall not have the security of a Promise though confirmed by Oath Faith not being to be kept with Hereticks Not to mention here that they have made the penalties of Heresie capital Which how justly though a man were an Heretick in the matters of Belief provided it were not out of Pride and conceitedness but out of invincible Ignorance I will not here discuss 2. It will be of greater use to consider what is real Heresie or Schism that the sincere and knowing Christian may not be reproached nor the less skilful affrighted with these Bug-bears Those that make so great a cry against the hainousness of these sins their Zeal and Rhetorick would be more usefully placed if they would be so faithful as to give us a right Notion of them otherwise while they pretend to be so industriously desirous of Peace and Unity in the Church they may but give greater occasion of Dissensions and Animosities For to make more things Heresies and Schisms then are is to create more quarrels then there need be I will acknowledge as soon as any that Heresie and Schism are very grievous crimes even of the deepest dye but then it must be truly Heresie or Schism not what-ever the peevishness or interest or prejudice of a domineering party will be pleased to call so under the pretence that they are that One Catholick Church from whose Doctrine be it never so false or corrupt for one to dissent must be Heresie and to separate from their communion be their practices never so Idolatrous Schism No certainly those high sins of Heresie and Schism are not against this or that particular Synagogue be they never so numerous but against that ancient and truly Catholick and Apostolick Church and he that sins against her Unity sins against his Creed which has taught us to say I believe one Catholick and Apostolick Church Which words because they may be abused to the making of the Church look less Catholick and One then it is I shall offer an easie resolution of the sense of them 3. I conceive therefore that the Object of our Belief in this Clause of the Creed are these three Propositions First That the Church of God wherein eternal Salvation is to be had is but One that is to say That a man cannot be saved in any Religion as some wantonly conceit but that there is one onely way of Salvation which is revealed to God's true Church under which all must come before they can be saved Secondly That this Church of God is now a Catholick Church not Topical or National as in the Commonwealth of the Jews but a Church that is by right to spread over the face of the whole Earth and is designed so to doe by Providence as is expressed in several passages of the Prophets From the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same my name shall be great amongst the Gentiles c. as * Chap. 1. Malachie has fore-told And David in the second Psalm Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession Thirdly and lastly That this One Catholick Church is neither to be stretched so wide as to be acknowledged there where the Apostolical Doctrine the Faith and Practice delivered and commanded by Christ or his Apostles is oppugned and contradicted and quite contrary Doctrines and Practices brought in nor to be made so narrow as that such companies of men should not be allowed to be part of this Catholick Church amongst whom notwithstanding the Apostolical Doctrines do obtain and Primitive Practices of the Church set on foot by the Apostles or Christ himself are in use That is to say The adequate Character of this One Catholick Church is that it rejects nothing of the Apostolical Doctrines and imitable Usages which were commanded by Christ or by his Apostles to the Church nor teaches or institutes any thing that is point-blank opposite thereto or to the Word of God to which Christ and his Apostles give testimony That therefore is the true Catholick Church in the whole and in every particular company of it which has for its visible Laws and Usages whereby it self becomes also visible the Laws and Usages of Christ and his Apostles and nothing contradictorious thereunto This I hope will be acknowledged by all men the most easie and genuine sense of this Article of the Christian Creed that the words are capable of 4. And hence I think a man may easily discover what that Heresie is that is justly to be deemed so hainous a sin namely That it is A Dissent from the Catholick Church even in those things that are in it Apostolical For by them alone they being entire and uncontradicted in her does she discover her self to be that One and onely Catholick Church of Christ. And this would be an hainous sin indeed against that Authority she has to instruct and imbue the world with this saving truth I say to dissent from any part of this Apostolick Doctrine out of a spirit of contradiction and self-conceitedness would be Heresie in the most loathsom circumstances that can be imagined And the next degree to this would be the dissenting from the Catholick Church in such things as they generally agree in though they be not expressly any part of the Apostolick Doctrine but in the mean time not plainly dissonant to the Word of God nor to the immutable Notions of humane Understanding And the third and last degree is to dissent from the determinations of a mans own particular National Church in the like circumstances with the former These seem to have something an over-near affinity with what we have defined most properly primarily to be Heresie But considering that even Oecumenical Councils themselves may erre and that Scripture in things necessary to Salvation is sufficiently plain and the Affairs and the Genius of particular Nations exceeding different and changeable and General Councils very hardly and slowly to be congregated I must not be over-hasty to call a Dissent here no not from an Oecumenical Doctrine or Usage by so harsh a denomination as Heretical there being no entrenchment made thereby upon the Apostolical Laws and Doctrines But to dissent from or not to subscribe to the determinations of what Church soever that are plainly repugnant to the Doctrines Apostolical were not onely not Heretical but Heroical especially if the Dissent is likely to beattended with any personal inconveniences to the Dissenter 5. And now for Schism there is much-what
of Venus may never want trading to fill the world with Monasticks and to set light by all kinds of debauchery so that the Laws of the Church be observed is the most effectual method imaginable to make Christendom a Cage of unclean birds and so quite to wither or lop off that Branch of the Divine Life which we call Purity And now lastly for Charity What can be more contrary thereto then to interweave into Law or Religion not onely what is naturally unjust but barbarously cruel not onely killing those who are innocent but torturing to death with the most salvage torments even those who are the most dear and faithful members of Christ and even for that very reason because they approve themselves to be so and that which will make the Barbarity of these Successours of the Devil still more odious they ensnaring men in the point of that Mystery which was the Pledge of the greatest Love of Christ that could be expressed and was intended for the most endearing and agglutinating Cement of all those that are called by his Name that they should upon this very score be united to one another with the sincerest love and affection that is possible Now therefore that this sacred Pledge of Love and Amity and Unity in the Church I mean the Sacramental Body and Bloud of Christ which is a lively Commemoration of that ineffable Love of his to his Church in laying down his Life for us should be made the main Engine and Artifice of entrapping and afterwards of cruelly torturing and butchering his most faithful Members what more horrid more execrable and more Antichristian Abuse can there be of our Lord Jesus or what Hostility against him more damnable or Diabolical Nay what conspiracy against Humane Nature can be more tragical or direful or what so palpable a plot to make Mankind mere slaves and vassals and to take away from them that Privilege by which alone they are distinguishable from brute Beasts 7. Suppose there were a numerous crew of odly-habited people inhabiting a certain vast Wood or Wilderness that would give themselves some phantastick Title to make the better show of Sanctity as suppose The Knights of the Holy Grove or The Priests of the Infallible Spirit or the like and should take up a resolution amongst themselves to be accounted Unerring in whatsoever they unanimously averred for true and should agree together and determine for the gainful vending of so marvellous a commodity that there is so great virtue in such a form of certain Magical words which they know how to use that if one of their Sacred Order speak them over any of those pure white round Pebbles which easily are found in Rills and Brooks straight-way this little Stone though it retain still the same colour magnitude figure and hardness that it had before yet so wonderful is the mystery is most assuredly turned into an Eagle whence this kind of stone also is called the Eagle-stone Upon which supposition let us further imagine that these Infallible Knights meeting as it is usual Travellers upon the way and declaring this wonder-working power of their Order and shewing them one of these stones and having said the charm over it protesting that it is really become an Eagle though it be not visibly changed at all from what it was before may sometimes light upon some honest plain-hearted passenger that may flatly deny the Exploit and contend that the inchanted Stone is no Eagle but a Stone still Whereupon we will suppose that these Knights of the Holy Grove blowing their Bugles will cause whole Swarms of that Sacred Order to come out of the Wood who shall avouch upon the Honour of their Infallible Knighthood that the Miracle is really performed and that which this incredulous Stranger contends to be still a Stone is in very truth that Royal Bird of Jupiter But that such should be the honest stoutness and plain-heartedness of the environed Stranger that notwithstanding all this he should persist in his former opinion alledging that he cannot believe that to be an Eagle wherein he can discern neither bill nor taions head nor foot wing nor tail bone nor flesh but is in every thing as much Stone as before and that therefore they shall never perswade him of this Magical Transmutation there being no proof thereof but their own Testimony and that point-blank against the manifest evidence of Sense and Reason Whereupon if these Knights of the Grove putting on a grim Vizard of enraged Zeal in behalf of their own Traffick and Reputation should fall upon this innocent man and slay him seizing upon what he has his Mony Cloaths and Gelding as lawful Booty would not these Knights or Priests of the Infallible Spirit be accounted in the judgment of all the world a pack of bloudy Impostours a crew of High-way-men coâ—…spiring to rob and spoil honest Passengers that goe that way 8. What then shall we think of those numerous Swarms of this pretended Infallible Church we have described that will be ready to quarrel with any Christian passenger in his pilgrimage through the Wilderness of this World if he deny the Transsubstantiation of a round white Wafer into a perfect Man when a Priest has said certain words over it though the Wafer upon the most exquisite examination of our Senses be not changed one jot from what it was before Yet upon the boast of the Infallibility of this Church a man must believe it against all Sense Scripture and Reason or else die the most cruel kind of death that Malefactors are ever put to Who cannot but look upon such a pack of men as these as not onely Antichristian but Anti-humane tanquam jur atos humani generis hostes an accursed company of bloudy Thieves and Robbers and sworn conspirators against the sons of Adam who with might and main endeavour to maul them and martyr them to subdue them and enslave them both Body and Soul and more cruelly to tyrannize over them then it is fit for any man to doe over brute Beasts Can any thing be imagined more Antichristian then this or more contrary to that noble and Divine Spirit of Charity and sweet Benignity that was so conspicuous in the Lord Jesus Christ who is so frequently in Scripture styled the Son of man as to whom appertains that expected Kingdom of Peace of holy Love and of Humanity 9. Wherefore from this short draught I think one may discern that I have given a very true and faithful Idea of that which is real and essential Antichristianism and truly I think to the highest pitch imaginable For to excuse the matter in saying that this Pseudo-christian Church does not openly deny Christ or his Gospel does not persecute every one that bears the name of a Christian and lastly does not set up Images to the Deities of the Pagans Mars Venus and the rest to these I briefly answer To the first That it were not their Interest to deny the whole
Truth of the Gospel for then their Power and Credit would fail in the world But it were the Interest of the Church of God they did so and therefore they are the worst enemies that can be doing more mischief under the colour of friendship then any declared enemy can Besides that there are pregnant proofs in the Scripture that Antichrist is to be a Christian in external Profession not a Pagan or any other Alien from the Church To the second That their not killing all that are called Christians shews that their Malice and Cruelty is more exquisitely opposed and directed against Christ in that their spight is onely against his true and sincere Members For those that are spared are not truly Christ's Servants but this High-priest's vassals or at least are taken to be so by him else they could not escape his sury so that his opposition to Christ is onely more judicious and adequate not less fierce nor malicious And to the last that they worship the Images or Persons not of Venus or Neptune or Mars but of the Blessed Virgin S. Peter S. Paul c. Suppose a mighty Potentate and as vertuous as mighty should put out severe Edicts against Adultery and carnal Fornication and that some guilty of the fact should apologize for themselves to their Prince on this wise It is true indeed Great Sir that we have committed Fornication but beseech you to take notice of the excusableness or justifiableness of the circumstances For we are not such gross and course-grain'd Fornicators as defile themselves with any Flesh but onely such as we have and that upon high desert a very great respect for and entire love to and that the rather for their near Relation to your Highness namely your Daughters Sisters and Neeces and others that are more near then ordinary Would not such an Apologie as this enrage the Prince with the greater wrath against their wicked Leudness How odious then and ridiculous would such a Plea be touching this Spiritual Fornication with the nearest Relations and Friends of our Blessed Saviour Can Spiritual Adultery which is Idolatry committed upon the Blessed Virgin upon S. John and others be more tolerable then upon Diana Apollo and other Mortals canonized by the Heathen Nay indeed would not this latter be but onely simple Fornication or Adultery there being no aversation in such unsanctified persons from the receiving of Divine honours but the former an execrable Rape they committing Idolatry or Spiritual Fornication against the wills of these Holy Saints they thus blaspheme and abuse So that I see not the least reason left to doubt but that I have decyphered the Idea of the most perfect and most detestable Antichristianism that can be 10. And thus having fully perfected the Draught of the Idea of Antichristianism I might according to the method I intimated make Application thereof to the state of the Church apostatized thereinto But because some men are so very hardly brought off to believe that any degeneracy of the Christian Church so long as they do still formally profess Jesus to be the Christ can amount to the production of that famous and signal Antichrist the Prophecies seem to point at whom they with all peremptoriness contend to be an open Denier of Jesus and as express an Assertor of himself to be the expected Messias no pretended Successor nor Disciple of the true Christ I think it very convenient before I proceed to the Application of my Idea of Antichristianism to make a more exquisite search into the Prophecies and thence to demonstrate as I hope with unexceptionable evidence That such an Antichrist for the main as is represented in that Idea is also prefigured or fore-told by the Holy Prophets that is to say such an one as doing such abominable villainies as I have instanced in yet professes himself to be Part nay Chief of the Body of Christ which is his Church For unless I doe this I know that such is the shuffling disposition of Ignorance and Falshood that they will think they can evade all by saying That I have indeed made an operose Description of A true Idea but not of The true Idea of Antichristianism such as my Title pretends to that is to say That the Church does indeed very naughtily and in some sense Antichristianly in these miscarriages but it will not amount to the making up the Antichrist properly and signally so called and pointed unto by the Predictions of the Prophets Which therefore we are necessitated to search into before we goe any further and are the more easily induced so to doe the Method being indifferently natural either way For the first intended Method was After this Description of the Idea of Antichristianism to make punctual Application thereof to the Apostatized condition of the Church to discover who is de facto that grand Antichrist and then to apply the Prophecies to the Events to shew that they also do indigitate the same that my Idea does discover My present purposed Method is After this Description of the Idea of Antichristianism to make search into the Prophecies to find out that their prefigurations of Antichrist are in the main strokes for neither are the Prophecies concerning Christ predictions of all his particular actions most manifestly answerable to the Idea we have given and that the Antichristianism which they foretell of is a Degeneracy or Apostasy of the Church still formally professing Christianity accordingly as we have described things in our Idea and then in the last place to make a more punctual Application of our Idea of Antichristianism thus justified by the agreeableness it hath with the Prophetick Predictions unto the Apostatized state of the Church for so many Ages to our own times Which will be a more plenarie eviction of the stupendious veracity of the Prophecies And it is as good and natural a method to prove the Truth of the Prophecies by the Fulness of the Events as to illustrate the Nature of the Events by the Application of the Prophecies But in the mean time there will be a necessity in this present search to have recourse unto Events in some sort or other for who can explain a Prophecie without any recourse to Events But all the History we need to have recourse to being either such as is distinct from any part of this Idea we have delineated and therefore to be brought into view in the interpreting of such passages as require it or else being but a general knowledge of those Limbs of Antichristianism I have described of which scarce any are ignorant or unpersuaded of for the main we may without the least confusion or obscurity partly by referring to this Idea in things that want no proof and partly by producing History where occasion requires apply our selves to our intended search into the Prophecies for a more full demonstration of the truth of our Idea of Antichristianism Which having finished we shall make a more punctual Application thereof
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For if they say there was not a Church at Thyatira in being at that instant when S. John wrote they plainly declare that S. John did prophesie and intimated afore-hand that there would be one Wherefore Epiphanius found little reason why he should from the state of the present Controversie chuse the ordinary opinion rather then that which is accounted his own 8. The other place of Epiphanius is Haeres 51. Sect. 12. where he tells us how S. John was impelled and constrained to write the Gospel by the instigation of the Holy Ghost though he very much declined it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet he was forced by that impulse and that in his old age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he was more then ninety years old after his return out of Patmos which happened in Claudius his time Where there is this adjection of the mention of his return from Patmos as a confirmation of the grandevity of the Apostle at that time Now let us see what service this Magnus testis Historiarum diligentissimus Inquisitor as Grotius calls him as well as he does Petavius who so plainly contradicts him in this very point can doe this learned Interpreter in the present case For this passage if there had been any force in the former does quite obtund it it shewing Epiphanius not at all diligent in Chronologie as Alcazar has also well observed in making S. John above ninety years old in Claudius his time whenas the common Tradition of the Church is that he was very young when he entred upon his Apostleship S. Jerom saith that Christ chose him when he was but a youth or child Baronius makes him just twenty five years old at the Passion of our Saviour The Scripture it self implies also that he was but young in that Christ says to his Mother concerning John Woman behold thy son which should imply that he was at least as young as our Saviour Christ he being himself born of the Virgin when she was but of the age of fifteen as Nicephorus relates out of an Epistle of Euodius Bishop of Antioch But by Epiphanius his Chronologie S. John would be at least twenty years older then the Blessed Virgin concerning whom notwithstanding Christ says to John Behold thy Mother And which is still worse if S. John was ninety years old when he came out of Patmos under the reign of Claudius it will run the Nativity of Christ near fourty years back and place it long before Cyrenius was Governour of Syria forasmuch as all men conceive S. John to be at least as young as our Saviour if not much younger Which Absurdities detect Epiphanius not to be so great and unexceptionable a Witness in History as Grotius would make him And therefore Petavius again peremptorily sets down in the Margin over against Epiphanius his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sub Cocceio Nerva Joannes revocatur ab exilio Which certainly is the truth and agrees with that time of S. John's age which Epiphanius allots to him when he wrote the Gospel For supposing him to be born about the same time our Saviour was or a little later this writing of the Gospel will fall into the years of Nerva or at least some few years after Domitian according as you shall finde it set down in Chronologies 9. But supposing Epiphanius his Testimony of value in this case the same Epiphanius that witnesses John in Patmos under the reign of Claudius witnesses him out again in the same reign which as I have * Sect. 4. already noted spoils Grotius his Project who would have S. John prophesy in Vespasian's time else all the fat is in the fire as touching the Interpretation of the Seventeenth Chapter of the Apocalyps But I think I have plainly proved that there can be nothing gained out of Epiphanius for establishing Grotius his conceit these Passages of the Father being either but Conjectures or Inadvertencies or else some lapses of the Scribe who wrote it seems more glibly the name of Claudius then of the other two Emperours as it might appear in that second Citation S. John being indeed about that age when he came out of Patmos in Cocceius Nerva his time but not in Claudius's 10. So that Grotius has not so much as one Witness to countenance his new Invention and if he had had this one what is one to the whole stream of Antiquity and of the Churches Nay what is Epiphanius his Testimony compared with the Testimony of that one single Father Irenaeus he living two hundred years nearer S. John's time then Epiphanius and who expresly asserts in Eusebius that the Apocalyps was imparted to S. John at the end of Domitian's reign For speaking of the Name of the Beast he writes thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If the name of the Beast had been openly to be divulged at this time it would have been told by him that saw those Visions which under one collective Title are called The Apocalyps For they were seen not long since at the end of Domitian 's reign 11. This I doubt not but is the genuine sense of these words and that he speaks not of the Vision of the Beast alone under that name of the Apocalyps but of the whole body of Visions so called Otherwise for distinctness sake he would have said not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 especially considering Apocalypsis had then passed into a known Title of this volume of Visions Besides that the Name of the Beast was not seen by S. John but the Number of his Name And therefore whereas the Latine has it Antichristi nomen per ipsum utique editum fuisset qui Apocalypsin videret neque enim ante multum temporis visum est I should easily believe that visum got in for visa by the oscitancy of the Scribe For unless the Interpreter of Irenaeus had understood qui Apocalypsin videret of the whole Collection of Visions and not of the Beast onely and his Name he would have rather said Revelationem and for sureness have added ejus to make the sense more distinct and determinate qui Revelationem ejus videret And lastly suppose this Testimony proved onely that the Vision of the Thirteenth Chapter of the Revelation was seen at the end of Domitian's reign which I have not the least conceit of it will not serve Grotius his turn since this of the Seventeenth Chapter is later both by order of situation in the Apocalyps and also by nature For it being the plainest Vision concerning the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns that was exhibited to S. John and containing in it a Key for the right understanding the other it ought to come last the Comment being naturally later then the Text according to common sense and reason 12. Wherefore seeing there is no proof at all that Claudius persecuted the Christians much less that he exiled John into Patmos but that Domitian was a notorious Persecuter and
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 since they were then past not future and that this straining of this phrase is merely for this Exposition's sake which if it were seriously stuck to would make the Apocalyps utterly unintelligible and consequently unprofitable to the Church nay bring an unspeakable detriment thereto by depriving us of so illustrious a pledge of Divine Providence I think these things put together are of infinitely more moment to us for to adhere to that ordinary and ancient Interpretation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I nominated at first then to this novell one that has been but newly started merely for the countenancing such Expositions of the Apocalyps as are not onely extremely harsh and forced but utterly impossible This I hope is even more then enough to remove all prejudice to Truth that may lie upon any ones mind by reason of the mistaken sense of these words and inable him without any farther hesitancy to acknowledge the unexceptionable Perspicuity of those Expositions of the Apocalyps I have exhibited to his view CHAP. XXI 1. The marvellous Completeness of the Reformation of the Church of England in her Doctrines and Institutes 2. That she plainly condemns the Invocation of Saints for Idolatry 3. As also the Adoration of the Host where our Kneeling at the Communion is vindicated 4. Her condemning the Worshipping of Images 5. Her concluding the manner of the Papists worshipping Saints and Images to be plainly the same with that of Pagans 6. Her free and just censure touching the decking of their Images and making them Lay-mens Books 7. How perfectly she has freed us from that Aegyptian yoke we lay under in the time of Popery 8. The Celebration of Holy-days the keeping of Lent and the use of the Surplice in the sense of the Church of England fully vindicated from all imputation of Superstition or Antichristianism 9. That the use of the Surplice is not from any grounds at all of Policy in the Church but pure Charity with a vindication of the use of the Cross in Baptism 1. HAving thus clearly set out the true nature or Idea of Antichristianism as also plainly made good that such an Antichristianism or Antichrist as is delineated in that Idea is that very Antichrist which the Prophecies in the Holy Scriptures do prefigure or soretell we should now proceed to a more punctual Application of the said Idea and Prophecies to the State of the Church from such times as it fell into this Antichristian Lapse till this very day But that being something a more voluminous Design and less gratefull to my disposition who take far greater pleasure in the Vindication of an injured Friend then in raking into the unsavoury miscarriages of either a Stranger or professed Enemy I shal satisfy myself at least at this bout with that part of Application onely which concerns our Reformed Church of England whereby I do not doubt but to free her from all imputations or suspicions of being guilty of any point of true and real Antichristianism in any of her Doctrines or Institutes Whence it will appear how little she is concerned in this free and faithfull delineation thereof unless it be to give Almighty God most humble and hearty thanks who did so graciously assist those noble Hero's with resolution and judgment for the atchieving of so happy and marvellous a Reformation wherein nothing is left no member nor the least joynt or article of that odious and hatefull Image or Idea of Antichrist which we have described no frauds or falsifications of the Gospel of Christ for the Interest of a worldly Church and the feeding of the Priesthood by a trade of Lies and Impostures which would have made any ingenuous man ashamed to be found of the Order or Profession whenas how if no Prophaneness lurk in his soul he may well deem the Calling an ornament to his person And that this is not a boast but a real truth I sâ—…all briefly make good by running through all those limbs of Antichristianism whether opposing the Privative or Positive Ends of the Gospel which I proposed in my Idea 2. The first of the first kind whereof was Idolatry in the Invocation of Saints and Angels in the Worshipping of the Host and in the Adoration of Images Wherein though the Universal Practice of the Church of England does sufficiently clear her from such gross imputations yet I think it not amiss for her greater honour to bring into light her avowed and declared judgment concerning these matters that all the world may take notice how sound she is at the Core in these weighty points of Religion Touching therefore the Invocation of Saints That she does apertly condemn it appears in the Book of Articles where she calls it a fond thing Article 21. vainly invented and grounded upon no warrants of Scripture but that it is repugnant to the Word of God so far is it from being grounded thereupon And the second part of the Homily concerning Prayer is wholly spent in proving That we are to address our Prayers to none but to God himself Where there are excellent Arguments to that purpose and where she does plainly declare that Christ is our onely Mediatour and Advocate as also she does in the Liturgie for the cutting away all pretence for the praying to Saints and does smartly and at once conclude That Invocation is a thing proper to God which if we attribute unto the Saints it soundeth to their Reproach neither can they well bear it at our hands Which is equipollent to the judging of it Idolatry For what is Idolatry but the doing that worship to a creature which is proper to God And therefore she compares it with the Pagans offering sacrifice to Paul at Lystra And how the receiving of Divine honour must redound to the reproach of what-ever Creature receives it I have abundantly Book 1. Ch. 12. Ver. 3. Sect. 4. noted elsewhere I shall onely urge one place more which is very explicit and of great weight The argument runs thus Invocation or Prayer may not be made without faith in him on whom we call but we must first believe in him before we can make our prayer unto him whereupon we must onely and solely pray unto God For to say we should believe in either Angel or Saint or in any other living Creature were mere horrible Blasphemy against God This is a very remarkable passage and a Demonstration that the Invocation of Saints and Angels is flat Idolatry it so plainly implying the acknowledgement of that Excellency which is proper onely to God Nor can our holy Mother the Church be thought to deem it less Idolatry for calling it Blasphemy since all Idolatry is so and is several times called so in Scripture Book 1. Ch. 5. Sect. 11. as I have noted in his due place 3. Now for the second The worshipping of the Host which supposes the Bread trans substantiuted she is most declaredly against both the Opinion and Practice As in
Images kneel before them hold up their hands before them set up Candles burn Incense before them offer up gold and silver unto them hang up ships crutches chains men and women of wax before them attributing health and safeguard the gifts of God to them or the Saints whom they represent as they rather would have it who I say can doubt but that our Image-maintainers agreeing in all Idolatrous Opinions outward Rites and Ceremonies with the Gentile Idolaters agree also with them in committing most abominable Idolatry Truly for my part I must confess I do not at all doubt of it and therefore from such passages as these and several other of the like nature scattered up and down in this excellent Homily of our Church concerning Idolatry and Images do think it an easie Task to prove such a state of the Church as is here described to be the very Image of the Beast foretold in Apoc. 13. 14. the Apocalyps as any man may discern out of my foregoing Discourse But I will give my self the trouble of transcribing one or two more passages as that upon that famous Act of the good King Hezekias in breaking a-pieces the Brazen Serpent when once abused to Idolatry though set up by the special commandment of God and so mysterious a Figure of our Saviour himself How think you saith she would that godly Prince if he were now living handle our Idols set up against God's commandment directly and being Figures of nothing but folly and for Fools to gaze on till they become as wise as the blocks themselves they stare on and so fall down like dared Larks in that gaze and being themselves alive worship a dead stock and stone gold or silver and so become Idolaters abominable and cursed before the living God 6. And again Now concerning excessive decking of Images and Idols with painting gilding adorning with precious vestures pearl and stone what is it else but for the farther provocation and enticement to spiritual Fornication to deck spiritual Harlots most costly and wantonly Which the Idolatrous Church understands well enough For she being indeed not onely an Harlot as the Scripture calleth her but also a foul filthy and withered Harlot for she is indeed of ancient years and understanding her lack of nature and true beauty and great loathsomness which of her self she hath doth after the custome of such Harlots paint herself and deck and tire herself with gold pearl stone and all kinde of precious Jewels that she shining with the outward beauty and glory of them may please the foolish phantasy of fond Lovers and so entice them to spiritual Fornication with her Where it is most manifest that the Church of England doth and that with truth and judgement intimate that that apostatized Church of Rome is prefigured in the Type of the Whore of Babylon accordingly as I have above demonstrated in this present Treatise And answerable to this just Censure is that which we may reade in the following Page Surely the Prophet Daniel in the eleventh Chapter declareth such sumptuous decking of Images with gold silver and precious stones to be a token of Antichrist's Kingdome Wherein undoubtedly allusion is made to those words of the Prophet And a God whom his Fathers knew not shall he Dan. 11. 3â—… honour with gold and silver and with precious stones and pleasant things which is consonant to that sense we have * Ch. 10. above delivered of that Prophecy And as touching that ordinary pretence for Images that they are the Lay-mens Books she doth roundly rebuke the Sophistry of so fond a Plea But away for shame with those coloured Cloaks of Idolatry of the Books and Scriptures of Images and Pictures to teach Idiots nay to make Idiots and stark Fools and Beasts of Christians Do men I pray you when they have the same Books at home with them run on Pilgrimage to seek like Books at Rome Compostella or Jerusalem to be taught by them Do men light Candles at Noon-day to their Books Do they burn incense offer up gold and silver and other gifts to them And a little after Wherefore call them what they list it is most evident by their deeds that they make of them no other Books nor Scriptures then such as teach most filthy and horrible Idolatry as the Users of such Books daily prove by continually practising the same O Books and Scriptures in the which the devillish School-master Satan hath penned the leud Lessons of wicked Idolatry for his dastardly Disciples the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Apocalyps and Scholars to behold reade and learn to God's most high dishonour and their most horrible damnation And at last she winding up towards a Conclusion determines thus True Religion then and pleasing to God standeth not in making setting up painting gilding clothing and decking of dumb and dead Images which be but great Puppets and Babies for old fools in dotage and wicked Idolatry to dally and play with nor in kissing of them capping kneeling offering to them incensing of them setting up candles hanging up legs arms or whole bodies of wax before them or praying and asking of them or the Saints things belonging onely to God to give But all these things be vain and abominable and most damnable before God all such not onely bestowing their money and labour in vain but with their pains and cost purchasing to themselves God's wrath and utter indignation and everlasting damnation both of body and Soul And a little after Wherefore God's horrible wrath and our most dreadful danger cannot be avoided without the destruction and utter abolishing of Images and Idols out of the Church and Temple of God Which to accomplish God put in the minds of all Christian Princes Amen Thus freely zealously and judiciously does our Church of England condemn the Roman Religion of gross Idolatry in all those Points which I have nominated in my Idea nor has she left or appointed any Usage or Ceremony that bears any similitude or has any affinity with that hainous Crime So clear is she from this First part of Antichristianism which is the polluting of the Church of Christ with a Pagan-like Idolatry 7. And now concerning that Second part of Antichristianism opposite to the Second Privative end of the Gospel which was the Removal of that Yoke of Judaical Institutes and Ceremonies in lieu whereof Antichrist brings in an heap and lurry of Superstitious Opinions Rites and Ordinances which prove a load more intolerable not onely then the Law of Moses but the Tyranny of Aegypt itself I demand has not the Church of England by the appointment of the Royall Power of the Nation freed us from this miserable bondage Whose patience is now set on the Tenter-hooks by attending of dumb shows or â—…ish Masses as they are rightly called in our Book of Homilies wherein the Unintelligibleness of the Tongue administers no life nor devotion to the hearer Whose limbs are now tired out with
dispatch with like brevity as in these former CHAP. XXII 1. The diametrical Opposition of our Church to that part of Antichristianism which would subvert the Regal and Prophetick Offices of Christ. 2. As also to that which strikes at his Sacerdotal Office 3. That she holds nothing against those other sacred Titles of Christ the Truth Life Light c. 4. A demonstrative Vindication of Episcopacy from the Imputation of Antichristianism out of the Apocalyps 5. What an Establishment that Book is if rightly understood to the Crown and Church of England 6. That no Papal nor Presbyterian Power is of right above the King no not in causes Ecclesiastical 7. The judgement of our Church thereupon 8. The peculiar glory of our Church that she is so perfectly free from all Frauds and Impostures 9. Her freeness from Pride 10. From Antichristian Impurity 11. And from Cruelty 12. Her Reformation an eminent Speciminal Completion of the Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Two Witnesses 13. The usefulness of this Vindication of her for the suppressing of Popery and Schism 1. I Demand therefore concerning those three known Offices of Christ Regal Sacerdotal and Prophetical is not our Church very faithful and sincere in this point and not at all guilty of such opposings and underminings of them as I have specified in my Idea of Antichristianism Does our Church pretend to be Infallible her self or so much as connive or consent to the pretended Infallibility of others Nay has she not plainly declared That general Councils for asmuch as they be an Assembly Article 2â—… of men whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God may erre and sometimes have erred even in things pertaining to God and that therefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scripture And in the fore-going Article she does affirm That it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary Article 20. to God's Word written and that she may not so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another and finally concludes That although the Church be a Witness and a Keeper of Holy Writ yet as she ought not to decree any thing against the same so besides the same ought she not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation To which effect she also speaks in another Article touching the Sufficiency of Article 6. Holy Scriptures Holy Scripture saith she containeth all things necessary to Salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation And again to the same purpose doth she speak in that excellent Exhortation to the reading and knowledge of Holy Scripture where with all earnestness she invites every one to the diligent perusing thereof declaring That in Holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought to doe and what to eschew what to believe and what to love and what to look for at God's hands at the length and tells us the best way for understanding of them in a Paragraph worthy to be written in letters of Gold toward the end of the first part of the Homily And in reading of God's Word saith she he profiteth not most always that is most ready in turning of the Book or in saying of it without-book but he that is most turned into it that is most inspired with the Holy Ghost most in his heart and life altered and changed into that thing which he readeth he that is daily less and less proud less wrathful less covetous and less desirous of worldly and vain pleasures he that daily forsaking his old vicious life increaseth in Vertue more and more And in the second part of the said Homily she heartens her Sons against those discouragements and stumbling-blocks which that false and treacherous Church casts in their way of pretended difficulty and obscurity exhorting them to pray to God for Assistence in reading the Scriptures assuring them that if they be sedulous and serious what they are at a loss in God will either send some pious and knowing person as he did Philip to the Eunuch reading the Prophets to instruct them or that Himself from above will give light into our minds and teach us those things that be necessary for us and wherein we be ignorant farther adding out of S. Chrysostom That humane and worldly wisdom or science is not so needful for the understanding of Scripture but the revelation of the Holy Ghost who inspireth the true meaning into them who with humility and diligence do search therefore And lastly she concludes That none be enemies to the reading of God's Word but such as either be so ignorant that they know not how wholsome a thing it is or else be so sick that they hate the most comfortable medicine that should heal them or so ungodly that they would wish the people still to continue in blindness and ignorance of God How diametrically opposite this Genius of our Church is to that Antichristian Spirit I have described in his opposings and underminings of the Regal and Prophetical Offices of Christ is obvious for any man to discern who listeth but to compare them 2. And now for his Sacerdotal Office which is injured and affronted in multiplying Mediatours in pretending to offer up the very Body of Christ in the Mass and in derogating from the virtue of that Sacrifice himself made for the sins of the world as if it reached not to the Punishment but to the Guilt onely and that every man must satisfie for himself in imposed mulcts and penances either here or in Purgatory As for the first we have already proved it to be contrary to the Doctrine of our Church And that one Article part whereof I have cited already against Transsubstantiation will assure us of her rejection of the two latter The offering of Christ once made saith she is that perfect Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world both original Article 31. and actual and there is no other Satisfaction for sin but that alone And then it follows Wherefore the Sacrifices of Masses in the which it was commonly said that the Priest did offer up Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits See also the Article of the Justification of Man and the Homily of Salvation and Good Works But this is so notorious a Doctrine in our Church that I need not insist any further upon the proof of her avowing of it 3. As for the Oppositions against the other Titles of Christ specified in the sixth Chapter of the second Book of my Idea of Antichristianism it is manifest that our Church is not concerned
therein For we traffick not in Legendary Lies and false Miracles against the Sacred Title of Truth nor desire to keep the people ignorant of the Scriptures and to hold them in darkness against the Sacred Title of Light nor trespass against the Sacred Title of Life by making our Religion consist of dumb shows and heaps of dead Rites and Ceremonies nor derogate from the Divinity of Christ by giving Religious worship to Saints and Angels nor offend against his Paternity by making his Children a company of stocks and stones and by taking away the judgement of discretion from them and forcing them to believe as the Church believes right or wrong with Scripture or against it and are so farre from injuring the life of any Child of God by any captious and wicked Sanction that we profess nothing requisite to Salvation but what is plain in Scripture as appears from what has been already produced out of the Articles of the Church Which alone will also vindicate her from any imputation of the following points of Antichristianism against the Peace of Christ's Kingdome And for absolving Princes from their Oaths what Church unless that of Rome ever pretended to so blasphemous a Power 4. The next Antichristian Opposition and which occurrs in the next Chapter is that against the Divine Life in general Such as Idolatry and all manner of Superstition dumb Shows speaking in an unknown Tongue substituting silly Penances instead of real Repentance and Amendment of life all which our Church is so plainly and professedly against in her Articles and Homilies every-where and so acknowledgedly that I will not give my self the trouble of Citation Some not so well minded may peradventure be over-inclinable to imagine the Episcopal Office and Revenues to have a greater propinquity with that Hypothesis at the end of this Chapter then any indifferent man can possibly judge For he must be very ignorant of the Constitution of Christendome that does not plainly discern that in that Hypothesis it is the Papal Hierarchy that is perstringed and adumbrated which is done again more fully and particularly in the ninth and tenth Chapters For for my own part though I do not know the accurate values of the several Bishopricks of this Nation yet considering the largeness of their Dioceses and the great burthen as well of care as expensiveness in conscientiously executing the Function truly I cannot imagine them so great but that the weight of the Office will weigh down every-where the value of the Revenue and we reade in the Gospel that * Luk. 10. 7. the work-man is worthy of his hire And concerning the Office and Dignity itself it cannot sink into my minde that that Order of the Church which was instituted and in practice in those Ages thereof which were Symmetral can with any face or conscience be judged Antichristian And that the Church was Symmetral for about four hundred years after Christ is a demonstrable Consectary from my Joint-Exposition and that Joint-Exposition so convincingly evident that no Interpretation of any Scripture can be more 5. Whence I cannot but wonder that any true Son of the Church of England should be so shie of the Apocalyps or so fearful of it that they durst not touch it without a pair of Mittens of Grotius his making for fear it should bite them that is to say unless it be unfolded or rather folded up in Grotius his fond and groundless Explications For there is not any Book in the World that makes more for the establishment of the Crown and Church of England then this Holy Book of the Apocalyps if rightly and solidly understood A thing which that wise and sagacious Prince King James of blessed memory had discovered betimes and accordingly made use of it against the Usurpations of the Church of Rome And truly I finde nothing in the Apocalyps though the style seems Mysterious and Aenigmatical but what is very rational and look upon it as the most faithful and Philosophical writing that ever was penned A tast whereof we have in that Catalogue of the evil characters of them that are excluded the Holy City wherein bloudy and inhumane Zeal as also vain and imposturous Superstition is so plainly perstringed The former in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Murtherers the latter in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Sorcerers Exorcists or Enchanters and lying Legendists and in fearful intimidated spirits that are superstitiously inclined to submit to the delusions and lies of such shameless Deceivers These doth our faithful Redeemer of Souls who deals bonâ fide with Man-kinde to rescue their abused minds from the Tyranny and burthen of Superstition note with a mark of Infamy and Condemnation So fast a friend is the Lord Jesus to Humanity to Equity to Truth and Reason 6. And not to insist upon those passages of the Apocalyptick Visions that imply it which are more then one or two either there is the greatest Equity and Reason in the world that every Christian Prince should next under Christ be Supreme Head over all that part of his Church over which he is King or Sovereign over Clergy as well as Laiety in Causes Ecclesiastical as well as Civil and that not any Papal or Presbyterian Power should be above him as our English Episcopacy does most justly and professedly submit unto him For why should any Clergy-men expect of a Prince who has received like precious Faith with themselves to fall in his Power by becoming a Christian Which is as unjust as it were ridiculous to phansy that every proper man should be bound to remit so much of his natural stature as would make him goe lower then the Priest that baptized him For Christianity does not take away Nature nor Power but rightly employs it Could any of the Pagan Emperours think you have been brought over to the Christian Faith if the Bishop of Rome would have laid claim to the Headship of the Empire so farre as it became the Church of Christ or would they not have suspected the preaching the Kingdome of Heaven a trick of the Priests to make themselves Lords of the Earth No certainly a Prince once become Christian that is a Believer and Professour of the Apostolick Faith comprised in the Word of God in those plain and generally-confessed Points of our Religion is a Person so Sacred that nothing can mount above him for Headship in his own Dominions For the anointing of the Spirit whereby we believe to Salvation is infinitely more holy then any external Sacerdotal oil whatsoever Why may not then so sacred a Fountain be the Head and Influencer of the whole Church Or whether is Christ greater as he is Priest or King of Saints Or who had the preeminence in the Polity of the Jews the Kings or High-Priests of Israel And was not that Polity a Type or Figure of the Church of Christ The plain Law of Christ is indeed immutable and it ought to be so no
ancient as Christianity it self and runs through not onely part but all those Symmetral Ages of the Church So manifest is it that there is not left in the frame of our English Church any thing of its own nature Antichristianly opposing that Heavenly and Christian Grace of Humility But if we come to take view of Persons who can help it but that a Lay-man may be proud as well as a Clergy-man and a Presbyter as soon as a Bishop So that all would be Antichristian upon this score 10. And it is as evident that there are none of those Oppositions against that celestiall Grace of Purity noted in the twelfth Chapter to be found in our Church And not so onely but I think we may without vanity provided it be done with humble thankfulness to Almighty God who inspired our Heroical Reformers with such exquisite prudence and judgment glory in that excellent and fit constitution of things in our Universities Where none are tied up to the Vows of Coelibate nor confined to separate and solitary cells to be shewn disguised in some uncouth habit with circumcised crowns and moaped or bloated looks as they are wont to shew strange Animals through their several grates at the Tower but live under more free and manly Laws and ingenuous Exercises without either the lash or hypocrisy of Superstition and are appointed to spend their time in such things as may adorn their Souls with real Knowledge and Vertue where also there is an honest and frugal Provision made for them that list to lay their Bodies as well as bury their Minds in the dust of an Academie Which if either Nature or some Diviner power has fitted them for it they may doe with honour and if they be weary of a single life they may leave the University when they will without the least reproach Which ingenuous and Christian freedom in my judgment is infinitely to be preferred before the Superstitious Slavery and Hypocrisy of the Roman Monasteries where people are caged up and imprisoned like so many Captives of the King of Babylon or so many Bond-men or Bond-women of that Mystical Pharaoh to work out imaginary stuff to fill the Churche's Treasury of Merits which are vended for ready money to encrease the Revenue and to support the Pomp of this magnificent Tyrant of Aegypt 11. Lastly Concerning those most Antichristian Oppositions against that transcendent Grace of Charity Our English Church is so far from opposing it that she is exemplary in it condemning the Doctrines and Practices of that worst of Churches no more then needs must and courting the adverse party to her Communion by all lawfull accommodations and compliances in her publick Service if by any means she may gain some of them over to the Truth Whereas on the other side that imperious Woman on the Seven Hills sits like a Queen to whom every one must bow but she neither bend nor condescend to any thing but stands as stiff as a Marpesian Rock for the maintaining her own Humour and Interest though never so point-blank against the Eternal Laws of God and Right Reason Then for that bloudy and butcherly Decree of killing of Hereticks namely such as hold against the Tenents of that Church though those Tenents of this Church be plainly repugnant to express Scripture How contrary to this Antichristian and Diabolical Spirit is the Doctrine of our Church of England who as I have above noted has declared That no Article 20. Church has authority to decree any thing against Holy Writ nor to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation besides it as you may see in the Book of Articles Nor can they justly frame any excuse for their abominable Cruelty from the Sanguinary Laws of this Realm against Priests and Jesuites For what a vast difference is there when the one suffer as Traitors to their Liege Sovereign the other because they will not be Traitors and Rebels to God and the Lord Jesus Christ for every Idolater is so And no man can submit to the Church of Rome but he must ipso facto submit to Idolatry 12. Verily while I consider what an honest and faithfull Spirit breaths in the Book of Homilies and other Writings of our Church and how exquisitely and perfectly we are set free from all that Imposture and Wickedness that can properly be styled Antichristian by the wise management and solid and sound judgment of our renowned Reformers and how that men of this Integrity of mind and soundness in the Faith were then advanced into Power in Church and State by the Sovereign Authority I cannot withhold from declaring that I do not at all doubt but that the Reformation of our English Church into such a condition as I have briefly represented was one eminent Speciminall Completion of the Prophecy of the rising of the Two Witnesses and of that Voice from Heaven that is to say of the Sovereign Power saying unto them Come up hither For every tittle of the Prophecy is exactly applicable to the Event as any one may find that will try Besides that so notable a providence as the Protestant Reformation is no-where prophesied of if not in that Vision For the Vials are none of them within the Sixth Trumpet as the Vision of the Witnesses is but all within the Seventh as I have above plainly enough proved nor they expressive of the first Reformation in the chief Circumstances thereof nor any Vision else save this of the Resurrection of the Witnesses Nor know I any thing that should make a man hesitate unless it be that the Witnesses are said to be raised up after three Days and an half that is to say three Times and an half whenas our Reformation fell within these Times namely in the last Half of a Time But no Observation can be more trivial then this That the designation of Time divided into parts unless some intimation determinate it to one sense may signify either such a space of time fully finished or else expiring in the last division thereof As if one should say Post triduum mortis resurrexit Christus no man can understand that of Christ's being dead three entire days And so Aliquot post menses may as well be rendred Within some months after as After some months And the Seventy do expresly translate that in Genesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ch. 38. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whenas the genuine sense is within three months cùm tertius mensis ageretur as the Marginal Exposition has it in Vatablus Whence it is evident that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not imply the time fully run out but that the last part thereof must then be current And so it is in this Prophecy our Reformation happening in the last Half-Time or Half-Day So easily is this Scruple removed And therefore the Application so fit to the Event that I doubt not but this Vision was a Prediction of it Which therefore should make our Reformation
any Infallible Judge nor any faithful Keeper of Traditions does ipso facto declare her self the onely sufficient Guide 4. That there is not onely no want of an Infallible Judge but better there should be none 5. That the want of Infallibility does not take away the Authority of the Church it being the duty of every person in things really disputable to compromize with her 6. That though a Visible Judge be necessary in Civil causes yet it is nothing so in Points of Religion 7. That every private man has not onely a liberty but a command to judge for himself in matters of Faith 8. The said Right or Priviledge demonstrated also by Reason 9 That the Reason or Judgment of every private man is not a private Spirit in that reproachful sense that some speak it 10. That the claim to a right of judging for ones self in points of Faith does not make a man superiour to his Church 11. Nor yet equal 12. Nor implies that he thinks himself wiser then his Church but rather more careful of his own eternal Concerns 13. That it is not his private Wisedom he sticks to but the Wisedom of God known to all that are not wilfully blind 14. That the Church is not Infallible proved from the Example of the Jewish Church 15. That there is the same reason of the Christian. 16. That the want of an Infallible Interpreter is no such loss to the common people 17. That their assurance of the truth of the Scriptures by the Spirit is a Tenet not so superciliously to be exploded as some make shew of 18. That this Spirit is properly the Spirit of Faith distinguishable from that of Knowledge and Wisedom 19. The notorious Fraud and excessive Mischief of this pretence of Infallibility 92 CHAP. III. 1. That the keeping the Law of Christ in an unknown Tongue is an undermining or opposing of his Sovereignty 2. As also the reproching and vilifying his Law 3. Their fraudulent pretence of hiding the Scriptures with a vindication of their Usefulness and Excellency 4. The vilifying of the Laws of Christ by setting far less penalties upon the transgression of them then of the inconsiderable Institutes of the Church 5. That their rigid Impositions are against the Kingdom of Christ as also the reading of Legends instead of his Law in Churches 6. The dispensing also with the Divine Laws The Fraud and Mischief thereof 7. The treasonable pretence of this Power 's being absolute by right of succession in Christ's seat 8. The evil effect of this pretence discoverable in several Institutes contrary to the written Laws of Christ 9. As also in nulling those Laws he has given as he is the Eternal Word 10. The bloudy opposing the Sovereignty and Kingdom of Christ in murthering his faithful Subjects 102 CHAP. IV. 1. Sundry particular Oppositions against the Prophetick Office of Christ which may be the Characters of that grand Pseudo-prophet that was to come into the world 2. That the Spirit of Prophecy is not to be monopolized by any one person but is free 3. An Excerpt out of Caelius Secundus Curio to that purpose 4. The silencing the Dictates of those common Notions implanted in humane Souls the highest affront to the Prophetick Office of Christ that can be 5. Several Absurdities propounded as Instances of that Tyranny over the immutable Principles of humane Understanding with the detection of that eminent False-prophet thereby 6. That it is infinitely more likely that this pretended Prophet should be fallible then the foregoing Absurdities true 7. That the slaying of the Prophets 8. Together with the above-mentioned Oppositions against the Prophetical Office of Christ make up a conspicuous Limme of Antichristianism 106 CHAP. V. 1. That the pretence of repeating the Oblation of the real Body of Christ is a derogation to the Excellency of Christ's Priesthood 2. Fuller Aggravations of this wicked affront 3. A prevention of a subterfuge 4. Another more dangerous assault against the Priesthood of Christ and the main end of his Suffering 5 6. The making the Bloud of Christ available to take away the Guilt of sin onely and not the Punishment how salvagely Antichristian 7. Farther Aggravations of this despightful piece of Antichristianism 8. That there can be nothing more fundamentally Antichristian then it 9. That the crime considering the circumstances seems worse then that of Judas with the Fraud of this wickedness 10. As also the great Mischief thereof 11. Injuries against the Mediatourship of Christ. 12. An Answer to some slight pretences 13. A farther confutation of such Antichristian errors and mispractices 14. The Fraud and Mischief of multiplying Mediators 15. A special Mischief done thereby to our growth in grace and holiness 110 CHAP. VI. 1. The opposing of Christ in his three noted Offices how hainously Antichristian 2. An enumeration of other Titles of Christ. Opposition against him as he is the Truth 3. As he is the Light 4. As he is the Life 5 6. Opposition to his Divinity by equallizing Saints and Angels to him 7. Yea by preferring what is but a Creature before him 8 9 10. Opposition against his Paternal Title by injuries and cruelties to his children 11. Opposition to him as he is Prince of Peace 12. By needless Definitions in points of Opinion 13. By taking away the obligation of Oaths 14. By making war with the Saints 118 CHAP. VII 1. That any Constitution of things that naturally opposes and suppresses the Divine Life is Antichristian in the highest measure 2. Such as Idolatry Superstition and all the above-mentioned Oppositions to Christ's Offices and Titles 3. The opinion of a virtue in the Sacraments ex opere operato and of the needlessness of our attention to our Devotions 4. Dumb shows and the resting in the mere doing of a Religious duty be it from what principle it will 5. Easie Absolution and slight Penances 6. Plenary Indulgences purchased by money from Ecclesiastick Authority 7. A general note prefixed touching the Mischiefs of the several Oppositions against the Divine Life 8. The plausibility of the Supposition of an Ecclesiastick Power and Pomp more then Imperial 9. The weakness of the grounds for the said Supposition 10. The consequential Mischief thereof in driving the minds of Church-men from the study of Truth and Holiness 11. Yea in making them oppose every thing that is true and holy if it oppose their designs of Ambition and Avarice 12. That such a Luciferian Power as this were the very ruine of the Kingdom of Christ upon Earth 13. And the turning of his Church into a mere Mart or Fair. 124 CHAP. VIII 1. That such a Frame of things as naturally tends to the extinguishing of Faith is highly Antichristian 2. That A trade of Worldliness in the Spiritual Guides is one part of this Frame 3. And a Self-ended policy in all the Doctrines and Practices of this Church another 4. Thirdly The profession of uncertainty and obscurity in the Christian Faith 5.