prejudice to thy judgement touching the Interpretation of Antipas and its signifying as much as one against the Pope because that learned and reverend Expositour Dr. Hammond has styled it a wanton and vain phancy in Mr. Brightman who presumed so to interpret it thou art to consider that this Censure of that Passage was not so much built upon any weakness in the Passage it self as that it was found in a farrago of Conceits that were not so well managed as to support and countenance one another And therefore for the general Mr. Brightman's Exposition of these Seven Epistles being not so convictive that judicious Doctour was the more bold to speak so slightly of this passage thereof Which if it had been accompanied with other parts of his Exposition of these Epistles that had had the like unexceptionablenesse it would never have been found fault with by so judicious a Writer as indeed there is no reason it should For no name can be so fit and significant for this purpose as this of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie one and the same thing as Eustathius and others from him usually do affirm And it is most certainly true that they are both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Hesychius speaks And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have exquisitely the same signification But to have found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this supposed Prophecy had been quite against the laws of the Apocalyptick style that is as regardfull of due Concealment as of certainty of Revealment So that so plain a Passage would have stood out very coursly and harshly above the rest of that smooth and delicate Contexture of these Visions and occasioned a too-early intelligence of the meaning of these Prophecies Besides that Antipapas is no proper name of any man and that the very literal Story requires it should be Antipas Wherefore the Indication both for sense and for sound in this word Antipas is as exquisite as considering the nature of the Apocalyptick style it either could or ought to have been So that he that would cavill at this interpretation must of necessity deny the Hypothesis and say there is no Propheticall sense at all of these Seven Epistles 9. Nor needest thou scruple at my applying that Passage of the Martyr Antipas to the Albigenses and Waldenses that were slain in the field as if they were not rightly termed Martyrs For he that can save his Life by renouncing the Truth and yet parts with it though it be in the field is rightly deemed a Martyr Which was the case of these men And that is remarkable for this purpose which Mr. Mede takes notice of That when Simon Earl of Monfort had routed them and made a great slaughter of them and that the Bishop of Tolouse there present took thereupon the opportunity of exhorting them to return to the Roman Church they seeing so plainly that the wrath of God was kindled against them for their Separation from the Church they answered in plain terms that they were the people of God overcome by the Beast Apoc. 13. 7. and knowing this to be their fate yet would not flinch from the Truth and therefore the Army returning upon them they had all their throats cut in the field Whence it is manifest that they were Martyrs properly so called according to our Definition thereof As there were also severall Antipas's in this Intervall that suffered Martyrdome in that way that thou canst not except against that is to say such as were merely passive and made no resistence Some of them are named by Mr. Brightman who if he had done as well on the other five Churches as he has on this of Pergamus and that of Thyatira his Exposition of the Seven Churches had been considerable 10. And lastly to arm thee against the authority of the above-named Venerable person touching the reason of the name of Thyatira as if it were as much as Thygatira a young Daughter for which he perstringes Mr. Brightman condemning the Conceit for a mere groundless Phancy I say it is not evident that he so much reprehends him for the Notation of the word as for the application of it to such a sense as he there expresses which is much different from that sense we have proposed and far more dilute But as for my self I must confesse I could not but conceit that the Notation of the word Thyatira was alluded to after I had read that Passage in Cornelius à Lapide on the Text which for thy fuller satisfaction I shall transcribe Verùm Strabo lib. 13. Plinius lib. 5. cap. 9. alii passim tradunt eam that is the City Thyatira primitùs nuncupatam à Seleuco filio Nicanoris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ob laetum nuncium natae sibi filiae unde nomen Thyatirae Thyatira ergò Graecè significat filiam quod aptè competit Jezebeli illici quae hîc arguitur This of Cornelius made me secure of the Authentickness of this Notation he so precisely qùoting Strabo and Pliny for the same And therefore I could not but persuade my self that the Church of Rome was here called Thyatira with some Allusion to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Had it not been for this I should have contented my self with the Allusion to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 onely But these Authorities made me search into the State of the Church of Rome in this Intervall and I found many things abundantly answerable to the Title in the sense of this Notation Amongst which if thou chance to think my Reflexion upon the multitude of Monks or Friers in those days to bear the least strength with it consider but what Polydore Virgil writes of that one Order of Franciscans who as some others were the peculiarly-devoted to the blessed Virgin Totum terrarum orbem saith he una haec implevit Familia ut vulgus jam tum stupefactum suspicaretur non tam Pietatem quà m Otium Ignaviam interdum multis cordi esse And to have such swarms of men that had renounced their Virility and led an idle life and went gadding and gossipping up and down telling odd Stories to the people as old Wives and Nurses do to Children having most of them Chins as smooth as Womens and their Faces mob'd in Hoods and long Coats like Petticoats as if they had a greater ambition to appear the Pedissequae or Handmaids of the Virgin Mary whom the Doctours of that Church love to call the Daughter of God then the Men-servants and Souldiers of Jesus Christ who in this Epistle to the Church in Thyatira on purpose one would think to reproach the Roman Church for this Idolatrous Corrivalry or rather Prelation of the Virgin in religious Worship before Christ expresly calls himself the Son of God This I say must assuredly be a consider
in those days that my faithfull Martyr Antipas that is those plain-hearted and openly-professed enemies of the Pope and his adulterate and idolatrous Religion the Waldenses and Albigenses were so cruelly persecuted and murthered who were slain among you who stood out and yet escaped though in the very Synagogue of Satan that is to say in that Church which is a treacherous Adversary to all my true Members and a very bitter Censurer and Accuser of them for their not complying with the Laws of Wickednesse which she hath established and a worse Adversary then the Pagan Dragon before whom therefore my Church overcame in a few Ages This Satan I say is a more mischievous Enemy then that red Dragon by reason of his Cunning and Hypocrisie and his pretenses that he is for me when indeed he is against me and by reason of the abuse of my Authority in pretense against the Members of my true Church Wherefore I cannot but take notice where thou dwellest and how in that regard thou art in a worse condition then the Smyrnian Church her self who were onely to grapple with a professed Enemy but thou with both a malicious Enemy and a false and hypocritical Friend It is therefore well done of thee that thou holdest out in such hard and difficult Circumstances 6. This for the sense of that Verse in general But now particularly why the Waldenses and Albigenses that were persecuted in this Intervall of the Church should be called Antipas why Martyr why faithfull and why slain rather then burnt we shall briefly give this account And that a Company or successive Body of men is represented in the Prophetick style under one single person is so trivial that I need not note it Alcazar makes Jezebel mentioned in the next Epistle to be the Church of the Jewes Aretas the Sect of the Nicolaitans Dr. Hammond the Gnosticks But now that this one person should be called Antipas there is nothing more congruous to the Doctrine of the Waldenses and Albigenses who boldly preached that the Pope was Antichrist the Mass an Abomination the Host an Idol and Purgatory a Fable And Waldo the chief beginner of this Sect was of the same mind denying the Pope to be the Head of the Church or that he had any Authority over the Kings and Princes of the earth who depend immediately upon God alone Was not this an Antipas indeed then and exactly opposing the sovereign Paternity of his Holiness of Rome But they were faithfull because they did so plainly declare to the World such concerning Truths and Martyrs because they suffered death for so doing it being for the Cause of God and for the Interest of the Kingdome of Christ. And they are said to be slain suppose with the Sword or any weapon of War not burnt because Burning was more rare within this Intervall of the Church but they were slain in the field many hundred thousands of them A great number of the Waldenses that took Arms in Germany were cut in pieces in the year 1220 as Matthew Paris writes they being in such a disadvantageous place betwixt marish ground and the Sea that they could make no escape And Mr. Mede out of Petrus Perionius in his book of this Albigensian War intimates that near ten hundred thousand of them were slain in battel at times and that in France alone Wherefore slaying with the Sword is very Characteristically spoken here in this Epistle of the faithfull Martyr Antipas Burning as yet being in it self not so frequent and bearing no proportion at all to this vast number slain in the Field Whence this is a considerable note of distinction betwixt this present Intervall of the Church in Pergamus from that of her abode in Thyatira as we shall see in its due place 7. But I have a few things against thee because thou hast there them that hold the Doctrine of Balaam who taught Balac to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed unto Idols and to commit Fornication This is spoken to the whole Body of those that in their judgements did condemn both the Doctrine and Practices of the Church of Rome But these may be cast into three sorts such as notwithstanding this Judgement still held Communion with her and pretended they did well in so doing those that separated from her Communion and those that not onely separated but suffered death for so doing These last were the Martyr Antipas above named the first the Balaamites here reproved that were of a more Gnostick-like temper too much leaning towards the Flesh thinking themselves wiser then the other in not exposing themselves for their judgement in Religion Ye do well indeed saith he in declaring against the Enormities of the Papal Church and in condemning them in your own thoughts and Consciences but this I take ill of you that ye permit some of you the Doctrine of Balaam to take effect that is by communicating with this Church of Rome in her idolatrous Eucharist and by eating her Deus Panaceus ye commit spiritual Fornication and become guilty of Idolatry To eat things sacrificed to Idols is one mode of Idolatry but by a Propheticall Diorism it signifies Idolatry in general That ye indulge this liberty to your selves or others is to cast a Stumbling-block before the Children of Israel and to occasion and encourage many to adhere to the Roman Communion when they ought to separate from her that there be no prejudice done to my true Church nor Dis-interest to my Kingdome 8. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans which thing I hate That also is a fault amongst some of you that you do not possesse your Vessels in that holinesse and sanctity ye ought to doe and though you can discover the spiritual Fornications of Pergamus and their Luciferian Pride yet ye are not so pure and clean as ye ought to be and free from the Lusts of the flesh which Vice is here noted by Nicolaitism dioristically as Idolatry in general before by eating things sacrificed to Idols Flesh and bloud is over-prone to think little ill of such things because they are so natural and pleasing but I declare a pertly unto you that it is a thing that I hate Be ye holy even as I am holy Repent or else I will come unto thee quickly and will fight against them with the Sword of my mouth Amend these faults left I come to you suddenly in Judgement Haply by the more sedulous activity of the Lords of the Inquisition whose reign was most chiefly in the following Intervall as also of other Judicatures the Pragmaticalnesse of whose Agents will be more then ordinarily ready to discover every one that dissembles his Religion and the frequent terrour of being burnt alive at the Stake will more effectually suppresse the flames of all Wantonnesse and Lust. And as I will come to you thus in Judgement unlesse ye repent so I am
a mere Creature and that a very sorry one too and therefore must be gross Idolatry by the twenty-first and twenty-second Conclusions of the second Chapter 3. But now that their Doctrine of Transubstantiation is false after we have proposed it in the very words of the Council we shall evince by undeniable Demonstration Per consecrationem Panis Vini conversionem fieri totius substantiae Panis in substantiam Corporis Christi totius substantiae Vini in substantiam Sanguinis ejus quae conversio convenienter propriè à Sancta Catholica Ecclesia Transubstantiatio est appellata And a little before cap. 3. Si quis negaverit in venerabili Sacramento Eucharistiae sub unaquaque specie sub singulis cujusque speciei partibus separatione factâ totum Christum contineri Anathema sit In which passages it is plainly affirmed that not onely the Bread is turned into the whole Body of Christ and the Wine into his Bloud but that each of them are turned into the whole Body of Christ and every part of each as often as division or separation is made is also turned into his whole Body Which is such a contradictious Figment that there is nothing so repugnant to the Faculties of the humane Soul 4. For thus the Body of Christ will be in God knows how many thousand places at once and how many thousand miles distant one from another Whenas Amphitruo rightly expostulates with his Servant Sosia and rates him for a Mad-man or Impostour that he would go about to make him believe that he was at home though but a little way off while yet he was with him at that distance from home Quo id malúm pacto potest fieri nunc utî tu hîc sis domi And a little before in the same Colloquie with his Servant Nemo unquam homo vidit saith he nec potest fieri tempore uno homo idem duobus locis ut simul sit Wherein Amphitruo speaks but according to the common sense and apprehension of all men even of the meanest Idiots 5. But now let us examine it according to the Principles of the learned and of all their Arts and Sciences Physicks Metaphysicks Mathematicks and Logick It is a Principle in Physicks That that internall space that a Body occupies at one time is equal to the Body that occupies it Now let us suppose one and the same body occupy two such internall places or spaces at once This Body is therefore equal to those two spaces which are double to one single space wherefore the body is double to that body in one single space and therefore one and the same body double to it self Which is an enormous Contradiction Again in Metaphysicks The Body of Christ is acknowledged one and that as much as any one body else in the world Now the Metaphysicall Notion of one is to be indivisum à se both quo ad partes and quo ad totum as well as divisum à quolibet alio But the Body of Christ being both in Heaven and without any continuance of that body here upon Earth also the whole body is divided from the whole body and therefore is entirely both unum and multa which is a perfect Contradiction 6. Thirdly in Mathematicks The Council saying that in the separation of the parts of the Species that which bears the outward show of Bread or Wine that from this Division there is a parting of the whole divided into so many entire Bodies of Christ the Body of Christ being always at the same time equal to it self it follows that a part of the Division is equal to the whole against that common Notion in Euclide That the Whole is bigger then the Part. And lastly in Logick it is a Maxime That the Parts agree indeed with the Whole but disagree one with another But in the abovesaid Division of the Host or Sacrament the Parts do so well agree that they are entirely the very same individuall thing And whereas any Division whether Logicall or Physicall is the Division of some one into many this is but the Division of one into one and itself like him that for brevity sake divided his Text into one Part. To all which you may adde that unlesse we will admit of two Sosia's and two Amphitruo's in that sense that the mirth is made with it in Plautus his Comedy neither the Bread nor the Wine can be transubstantiated into the intire Body of Christ. For this implies that the same thing is and is not at the same time For that individual thing that can be and is to be made of any thing is not Now the individual Body of Christ is to be made of the Wafer consecrated for it is turned into his individual Body But his individual Body was before this Consecration Wherefore it was and it was not at the same time Which is against that fundamental Principle in Logick and Metaphysicks That both parts of a Contradiction cannot be true or That the same thing cannot both be and not be at once Thus fully and intirely contradictious and repugnant to all Sense and Reason to all indubitable Principles of all Art and Science is this Figment of Transubstantiation and therefore most certainly false Reade the ten first Conclusions of the brief Discourse of the true Grounds of Faith added to the Divine Dialogues 7. And from Scripture it has not the least support All is Hoc est corpus meum when Christ held the Bread in his hand and after put part into his own mouth as well as distributed it to his Disciples in doing whereof he swallow'd his whole Body down his throat at once according to the Doctrine of this Council or at least might have done so if he would And so all the Body of Christ Flesh Bones Mouth Teeth Hair Head Heels Thighs Arms Shoulders Belly Back and all went through his Mouth into his Stomach and thus all were in his Stomach though all his Body intirely his Stomach excepted was still without it Which let any one judge whether it be more likely then that this saying of Christ This is my Body is to be understood figuratively the using the Verb substantive in this sense being not unusual in Scripture as in I am the Vine The seven lean Kine are the seven years of Famine and the like and more particularly since our Saviour speaking elsewhere of eating his flesh and drinking his bloud says plainly that the words he spake they were spirit and they were truth that is to say a spiritual or aenigmaticall truth not carnally and literally to be understood And for the trusting of the judgement of the Roman Church herein that makes it self so sacrosanct infallible the Pride Worldliness Policy multifarious Impostures of that Church so often and so shamelesly repeated and practised must needs make their Authority seem nothing in a Point that is so much for their own Interest especially set against the
undeniable Principles of common Sense and Reason and of all the Arts and Sciences God has illuminated the Mind of man withall Consider the twelfth Conclusion of the above-named Treatise together with the other ten before cited Wherefore any one that is not a mere Bigott may be as assured that Transubstantiation is a mere Figment or enormous Falsehood as of any thing else in the whole world 8. From whence it will unavoidably follow and themselves cannot deny it that they are most grosse and palpable Idolaters and consequently most barbarous Murtherers in killing the innocent Servants of God for not submitting to the same Idolatries with themselves Costerus the Jesuite speaks expresly to this Point and consonantly I think to the Suppositions of the Council viz. That if their Church be mistaken in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation they ipso facto stand guilty of such a piece of Idolatry as never was before seen or known of in the world For the errours of those saith he were more tolerable who worship some golden or silver Statue or some Image of any other Materials for their God as the Heathen worshipped their Gods or a red Cloth hung upon the top of a Spear as is reported of the Laplanders or some live Animal as of old the AEgyptians did then of these that worship a bit of Bread as hitherto the Christians have done all over the world for so many hundred years if the Doctrine of Transubstantiation be not true What can be a more full and expresse acknowledgement of the gross Idolatry of the Church of Rome then this if Transubstantiation prove an Errour Then which notwithstanding there is nothing in the world more certain to all the Faculties of a man as is manifest out of what has been here said And therefore the Romanists must be grosse Idolaters from the second third fourth seventh and ninth Conclusions of the first Chapter and from the fourth fifth eighth ninth twenty-first twenty-second and twenty-fifth of the second Chapter All these Conclusions will give evidence against them that they are very notorious Idolaters 9. And therefore this being so high and so palpable a strain of Idolatry in them touching the Eucharist or the eating the Body and drinking the Bloud of Christ wherein Christ is offered by the Priest as an Oblation and the People feed upon him as in a Feast upon a Sacrifice which is not done without Divine Adoration done to the Host according to the precept of their Church This does hugely confirm our sense of the eating of things offered unto Idols in the Epistles to the Churches in Pergamus and in Thyatira this worshipping of the Host being so expresly acknowledged by the Pope and his Clergy and in that high sense of Cultus Latriae which is due to God alone And therefore it is very choicely and judiciously perstringed by the Spirit of Prophecy above any other Modes of their Idolatry it being such a grosse and confessed Specimen thereof and such as there is no Evasion for or Excuse Hoc teneas vultus mutantem Protea â—odo CHAP. IV. The grosse Idolatry of the Romanists in the Invocation of the Saints even according to the allowance of the Council of Trent and the authorized practice of that Church 1. BUT we will fall also upon those Modes of Idolatry wherein the Church of Rome may seem less bold though indeed this one that is so grosse is so often and so universally repeated every-where in the Roman Church that by this alone though we should take notice of nothing farther Idolatry may seem quite to have overspred her like a noisome Leprosy But how-ever we shall proceed and first to their Invocation of Saints Touching which the Council of Trent declares this Doctrine expresly Sanctos utique unà cum Christo regnantes Orationes suas pro hominibus offerre bonúmque atque utile esse suppliciter eos invocare ob beneficia impetranda à Deo per Filium ejus Jesum Christum ad eorum orationes operam auxiliúmque confugere Where Invocation of Saints is plainly allow'd and recommended and besides their praying for us or offering up our Prayers to God it is plainly imply'd that there are other Aids and Succours they can afford if they be supplicated that is invoked with most humble and prostrate Devotion And the pretending that this is all but the way of procuring those good things we want from God the first Fountain and that through his Son Christ that makes the Saints the more exactly like the Pagans Dii medioxumi and the Daemons that negotiated the affairs of men with the highest Deity 2. I say then that though they went no farther then thus even this is down-right Idolatry which the Council of Trent thus openly owns and consequently the whole Church of Rome as appears from the third fourth fifth sixth and eighth Conclusions of the first Chapter as also by the fifth seventh eighth tenth eleventh twelfth thirteenth fourteenth fifteenth and twenty-fourth of the second But if we examine those Prayers that are put up to the Saints their Invocation is still the more unexcusable 3. Wherefore looking to the publick Practice of the Church of Rome authorized by the Popes themselves the Invocation of a Saint does not consist in a mere Ora pro nobis as people are too forward to phansy that the state of the Question though the mere invoking of them to pray for us would be Idolatry as is already proved but which is insinuated in the Council it self there are other more particular Aids and Succours that they implore of them and some such as it is proper for none but God or Christ to give Such as Protection from the Devil Divine Graces and the Joys of Paradise But as the things they ask of the Saints are too big for them to be the Disposers of so the Compellations of the Virgin Mary especially are above the nature of any Creature Whence this Invocation of Saints will appear a most grosse and palpable Mode of Idolatry in that Church As I shall make manifest out of the following Examples taken out of such pieces of Devotion as are not mutter'd in the corners of their Closets but are publickly read or sung with Stentorian Voices in their very Churches I will onely give the Reader a tast of this kinde of their Idolatry for it were infinite to produce all we might 4. And first to begin with the smaller Saints as indeed they are all to be reckoned in comparison of the blessed Virgin to whom therefore they give that Worship which they call Hyperdulia as they give Dulia to the rest of the Saints and Latria to God alone and to Christ as being God That Prayer to S. Cosmas and S. Damian is plainly a Petition to them to keep us from all Diseases as well of Soul as of Body that we may attain to the life of the Spirit and live in Grace here and be made partakers of Heaven hereafter O Medici