mind of another Classis of Superstitions which might be invented contrary to the Faithfulness and Simplicity of the School of Christ to the illaqueating of mens consciences and misplacing their dependences upon Creatures more then the Creator and to the extinguishing of that comfortable inward sense of his invisible but omnipotent Omnipresence by interposing these vain and visible Objects which have neither force nor allowance for those uses they pretend to I mean the Exorcizing or Enchanting if you will of certain Natural Elements without any warrant of holy Scripture to endue them with a Supernatural power As if for example the Priest should pretend by the Exorcizing of the Creature of Salt by the living true and Holy God to make it become an Holy and Exorcized Salt for the health of both Body and Soul to as many of the believers as receive it and for the chasing away of every evil Phantasm and unclean Spirit by the aspersion thereof and so by the Exorcizing of the Creature of Water in the name of the Holy Trinity to endue it with a virtue of chasing away the Devil and Diseases and every disquieting thing out of an house by the sprinkling thereof and should recommend the use thereof for the besprinkling their chambers ever and anon therewith as also their sick folks their fields and vineyards for health and increase The Exorcizing of Wax-candles into a virtue of putting to flight the Prince of darkness with all his Retinue and of making them run away with fear and trembling from what-ever place they are lighted in The Exorcizing of the Creature of Oil by God the Father Omnipotent the Creator of all things that whosoever uses it the Troups of the Devil may be put to flight and that he may never be bit by the old Serpent Also the Exorcizing of Herbs or the Boughs of Trees the Exorcizing of Bells and the Priestly Vestments Is it not apparent that all these and as many more else as can be intented of this nature are mere Juggles and Impostures 2. But the Imposture would be more grateful and complete if we had some fine thing consecrated that were more portable and yet of a more universal influence as also more durable and permanent then most of the former And therefore the shape of some holy Plant or Animal thus exorcized would be of sovereign use and content the Rose of Sharon or the Lily of the valleys the Dove or Lamb whose names are sacred to every Christian eare Wherefore a Golden Rose impregnated with joy and gladness from the Benediction of the holy High-priest of this Church and full of the fragrancy of remission of sins increase of faith though the effect be never found Divine protection and all prosperity were a Posie to wipe the Nose of a Prince withall And so the gentle Lamb made of some more flexible matter and elegantly limb'd suppose out of Wax but exorcized into powers and virtues little inferiour to that Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world as being made able by a certain sacred Exorcism or Benediction to preserve them that bear it about with them from all the assaults of the Flesh the World and the Devil from Pestilence Famine and sudden Death from all perils by Land and by Sea from Lightning from Tempests and from Abortion were a Present for an Emperor or Emperess Several such Instances as these might be excogitated all which I must pronounce to be against the faithful plainness and true power of the Gospel of Christ and to entrench upon the Reverence of the Name of God and to be a trespass of the Third Commandment Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain 3. Against which Precept I make account those Forms of Conjuration do evidently offend that are found in Books of Magick as in Cornelius Agrippa and Petrus de Abano where those Divine appellations Jah El Adonai Elohim Elohe Zebaoth Elion Sadai and the like are made the Elements of their vain and reprobate Art Which is a manifest argument that the Priest's Exorcization in the Names of God and his holy Attributes does not excuse him from the guilt of Enchantment since the Magicians themselves use the Names of the true God therein And as for the more general Notion of Enchantment Agrippa defines it to be nothing but The conveiance of a certain mirificent power into the thing enchanted by virtue of the words and breath of the Enchanter Nor will the phrases or passages of Scripture excuse the Priest from this impiety since this is both prescribed and practised by these Magicians Their Pentacles which they hang about their necks when they conjure which they forsooth for greater grace call the Pentacles of Solomon are adorned and fortified with such transcriptions out of holy Scripture Whence it is plain if any one would take notice of all the special Characters of such an Apostate Church as I am a-describing he could not omit amongst other Titles to brand them with the name of Enchanters or Sorcerers 4. Which they might deserve upon other scores which we have already intimated as in that they teach people certain Prayers in an unknown Tongue which they direct them to say for such and such purposes For what are these but Charms And the making of Jesus of Nazareth who was above sixteen hundred years ago crucified at Jerusalem upon the uttering a few words personally to appear flesh and bloud and bones all mantled over with the thin cloathing of certain Panaceous Species or loosely-hanging Accidents is a piece of Magick above the Witch of Endor's and all the Historical records of Necromancy in the world All which pretensions being so Epidemical or general in this Church we do characterize who can miss of notifying them by the style of a Society of Magicians or Enchanters For in that they are mere Pretences and have no real effect will not excuse the desert of so goodly a Title the profession and endeavour giving the Practisers sufficient right thereto As he that has been casting his Angle a good part of the day into the River and brings home no Fish may yet be rightly saluted Mr. Fisherman or Mr. Angler at his return though not without some kind of Scommatism at the bottom And he that professes Physick and has it may be as yet cured none but such as would have recovered as well without him though killed many is notwithstanding by all men termed a Physician And generally what men affectedly pretend to though they cannot perform it may justly by way of Scommatical reproach be entered into the particulars of their character for the making up the whole tale of their shame and reproof 5. What grounds they might make shew of for such Incantations as these I must confess I cannot so easily find For the Bloud of the Paschal Lamb wherewith the Israelites sprinkled the lintel and two side-posts of their doors was not charmed first to convey a virtue
what is so Histrionical or Stage-play-like is serious in any thing but in what the other Stage-players are which is in the emungeing the people of their money Wherefore it would not be any wonder to see these better-spirited Christians abhor from these shews as being so perfectly opposite to the ancient plainness and simplicity of the Primitive Teachers who as our Saviour himself spake and did all things bonâ fide and did not distance themselves from their flocks and charges by any garish pomp and multitude of sanctimonious dressings but being even as they were in a manner saving that they were greater Examples of Faith of Humility of Brotherly kindness of Contempt of the world of Patience and of power of Speech and effectual Exhortation and Conviction of mens minds for the corroborating their belief and inflaming their affections with the love of true righteousness and holiness which was an unimitable and indeleble Character of their Christian Priesthood kept and commanded the hearts of the Believers by this Authority of the Spirit discovering it self in the power of Reason and sincere Rhetorick and sealed and tied all close to them by that indissoluble cord of a reverential and respectfull Love which accru'd to them by the purity and unexceptionableness of their conversation they teaching as it was said of our Saviour with Authority and not as the Scribes who taught but did not 9. The reflexion upon which excellent Patterns will strongly tempt the better-spirited people to look upon these Sacerdotal pomps and disguises as a kind of Superstitious and Hypocritical Mummery and to urge them in the earnestness of their zeal to condescend to approach nearer to them and to lay aside their Masks and Vizards and to deal faithfully and apertly and to declare to them the Truth of Christ and the Good will of God as it is revealed in his Word for they profess they are willing to embrace it and to follow it may they but understand it nay they are hungry and thirsty after it but find no food nor comfort in dumb shows which if they will refuse to doe they are those that cannot admire this way but rather abhor it and must leave it and seek such Pastours as will deal with them in plainness and simplicity of heart For assuredly such gross and worse then Judaical Corruptions in a Church would force the most serious Believers to forsake the Community thereof and drain it as much as is possible of the sincerest and best-disposed people of Christendom And this I think is no small nor contemptible Mischief the departure of Lot being a fore-runner of the raining fire and brimstone upon Sodom 10. But I have not yet evolved all the intangling Superstitions that may lie wrapt up into these Religious or consecrated Vestments and Habits For it is not impossible but that they may befool the credulous with the belief of some miraculous virtue abiding in them by the power of Consecration or Benediction of the Priest or Bishop As that for example they have the virtue of recovering men from Diseases of fraying away the Devil and chasing him out of the possessed of procuring remission of sins both to Guilt and Punishment by the putting them on and of saving a soul from Damnation and sending her safe to the blisses of Paradise So wonderfull power lies hid under these religious Habiliments Which conceits notwithstanding are so ridiculously groundless that he deserves to be laught at that would seriously goe about to confute them 11. But some small pretence for the truth of them may haply be fetched from that passage in the Acts concerning the miraculous virtue of the body of S. Paul That from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs Acts 19. and aprons and the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them and from the virtue of Christ's garment the touch of whose hemme cured the woman of her Bloudy issue But we are to consider That Christ was the Son of God and Paul a chosen vessel and those first times were choice and peculiar times of the Church that required such miraculous assistances from God for the planting of the Christian Faith that Miracles are for the unbeliever not for those that already believe and that those cloaths came from or hung upon such bodies as were really anointed with the Holy Ghost and that in a full measure not rubbed or smeared in the hands or on the shaven crown with a little ointment that gives only an extrinsecal Sanctity fills no man with the Holy Spirit much less to such height that he can work Miracles Wherefore to make the people believe that the Habits of either Priests or Monks have any such virtue in them is nothing but an abuse of them into a mighty opinion of the Sanctity of those persons the touch of whose very Cloaths is of so great virtue and Sanctity I say the End of this Imposture is nothing else but the extolling and magnifying the Priest and other Religious Orders of the Church unless this esteem carry along with it also some pecuniary advantages 12. But the evil consequence is the cheat of the people into a feebleness of spirit and a neglect I say not of the advice of the Physician but of his counsel who speaks to us to buy of him white rayment that we Rev. 3. may be cloathed and that the shame of our nakedness may not appear or that of S. Paul to put on the whole armour of God to be strong in the Ephes. 6. 11. Lord and in the Power of his might to gird our loyns about with Truth and to put upon us the breast-plate of Righteousness to take unto us the shield of Faith and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit For this furniture assuredly is infinitely more powerfull against the approach of the Devil or diseases then all the holy Habiliments that the Wardrobe of the Church can produce and will sooner quench all the fiery darts of the wicked then whole pots of Holy-water squirted against him CHAP. XVIII 1. Of the Enchanting or Exorcizing of Water Oyl 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 1. THE mention of Holy-water puts me in
worldly impurities 3. It is nobly concluded of Caelius Secundus Curio against Floribellus Neque enim vera Dei cognitio verúsque cultus unius aut Familiae aut Gentis aut Sectae propria esse potest sed quicunque sensu immortalitatis tanguntur ii ad se eandem pertinere existimare debent Poterat quidem Judaeorum Gens Circumcisionem externam Aaronis Familia Sacerdotium alias item Ceremonias sibi jure quodam vendicare sed divinam internam Circumcisionem vivas illas animi verásque Hostias aeternas Naturae leges quas in hominum animis Jova Opt. Max. à principio insculpserat omnium mortalium sententiis comprobatas sibi nec Judaei nec Graeci nec Romani nec ulla praeterea Natio quasi propria vendicare potuerunt And immediately after speaking more particularly of Christian Religion as it is revealed in the Scripture Ac nè illud quidem verè dici potest quod quidam putant summam Religionis quasi Haereditariam ad unum aliquem venisse sic ut pro libidine sua interpretari addere demere mutare statuere abrogare aliquid in ea possit Neque enim idcirco Leges divinitus latae sunt Religióve patefacta quò in eam mortales jus haberent sedut omni studio curâ labore diligentiâ colerent ejúsque dignitatem tuerentur 4. Wherefore as concerning those Eternal and Immutable Rules of Divine Reason which God has engraven upon every mans Spirit and come in as freely as the Light of the Sun into their natural eyes and without which what-ever Prophecies there are or Instructions in the Holy Writ it were impossible for us to be ascertained of the Truth of them or indeed of any meaning in them I say upon pretence of an imperious Infallibility to deface these Divine Characters of the Soul or to command them silence or to give them the Lie would be an act of the most notorious False-prophet and most contradictious to the Prophetick Office of Christ whether you respect his Humanity or Divinity that can ever manifest himself in the world 5. As for example If this impudent Oracle should declare That one and the same individual Body can be in several places at one and the same moment of time yea in infinite places in a manner and at vast distances at once That that may be made or created which is already in being That the real and sensible mode of a Subject may subsist separate from that Subject as suppose Motion or Hardness where there is nothing moved or hard That what we have assurance of by all our Senses and by the Senses of all men constantly the Object being at a due distance and the Medium fitted and the Organs rightly disposed may notwithstanding all this be false That the same Body at the same time may be bigger and lesser then it self but an inch distant from me and a thousand miles distant from me at once That one and the same person may be many thousand miles absent from himself and that he may both sit still and make a journey to himself at the same time That an entire organized Body may be wholly in every part thereof all of it in the Eye and consequently every part in every part the comely parts in those on which Nature has bestowed less comeliness That an entire Body may be divided and yet not into two parts suppose but into two wholes and both the same with the divided Entire body That the same Body may be now at Athens and after at Thebes and yet not pass any medium direct or circuitous to come thither That a man may swallow every atom of his own body at once into his belly limbs back belly head and mouth and all That one and the same individual person may be of different ages at once above thirty years old and yet not above three hours old at the same time That Religious Worship even that which is Latria may be given to Images and yet without Idolatry That Christ may satisfie for the faults of men and yet they remain obnoxious to the penalties due for those faults with several others of that kind I say whosoever upon pretence of being Prophet-general to the world should lift up his head on high and utter such Infallible Contradictions as these in the name of the Lord of Hosts or such oracular Definitions as must be false unless these be true we need not spend time in asking him Art thou he or do we look for another but may assuredly conclude that he is that expected eminent False-prophet who does Antichristianly oppose himself against the Spirit of Truth which Christ has imparted to the world partly by writing those immutable and infallible Rules of common Reason in the Souls of men and partly by those Holy Writings which he has left to his Church recorded by inspired men and Prophets and lastly by a special converse with more holy and sanctified Souls to whom he does in a more certain and assured way then ordinary impart his Spirit of Illumination as appears out of what we have cited out of the Book of Wisedom and might be proved out of sundry other places of the Canonical Scripture 6. And now whereas such a False-prophet as this has nothing to defend himself from the suspicion of being an Impostor but the peremptory and impudent bearing men down that he is Infallible it is but seasonable to appeal here to the world Whether it be not infinitely more likely that this one man or company of men or succession of either doing no real Miracles to extort belief nor living better nor so well as other men should be fallible and subject to error or given to deceit then that the above-cited absurd Conclusions should be true For neither he nor they can be Infallible if these be real Falsities as undoubtedly they are 7. Adde unto all this That if this Pseudo-prophetick Power should serve the true Prophets of Christ and faithful Witnesses as the false Prophet did Micaiah strike them on the cheeks nay cruelly persecute them and kill them dealing so with them as the Jews did of old with our dear Lord and Master who complained But now you seek to kill me a man that has Joh. 8. 40. told you the Truth which I have heard of God would they not prove themselves to be that Jerusalem that has become an Harlot and of whom our Saviour has predicted That it cannot be that a Prophet perish out of Luk. 13 33. Jerusalem she must be the Executioner O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee art not thou that mystical City of Hypocrites the false House of God Sodom and Aegypt where our Lord also was crucified as well as the Prophets before him and his holy Witnesses after him For the false Jerusalem the adulterate Church is ambitious to monopolize to her self the trade of bloud and of slaying of the Prophets and Witnesses
for us That he might purchase to himself a glorious Church not having Ephes. 5. 27. spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without â—…mish Which being the very End of Christ's coming into the world of the suffering all those hardships during his pilgrimage here on Earth and of submitting himself to the shamefull and unexpressibly-painfull Death of the Cross for any to oppose supplant or any ways to defeat this so serious and earnest design of his by any countenanced method or constitution of things would certainly be Antichristian in the highest measure Let us now therefore consider distinctly and articulately the most material ways of opposing or supplanting this design laying before us in view such depraved Laws Constitutions or Practices in a Church as tend to the extinguishing the Divine Life in general or are more particularly directed against the Root or Branches thereof namely either against Faith that is to say the belief of the Summe of Christianity or else against those inestimable Graces of Humility Purity and Charity 2. For the depainting of this Opposition against the Divine Life in general I need not put my pencil into any new colours Those multifarious ways of Idolatry and Superstition which I have noted in the first Book I. ch 12 17 18 c. and second Limb of Antichristianism and which carrie mens minds out to external exercises that profit nothing but elude the right intention of Zeal and Devotion which should better our spirits and make us more inwardly and vitally holy and righteous these do certainly of their own accord lay asleep or suffocate the Life of God in the Soul and like false food either poison or starve it Those Oppositions also that were against the Offices of Christ the vilifying his Law the removing it from the eyes of the people or the reading of it and their publick Service in an unknown Tongue the interpreting his serious Commands for slight Advices left to our pleasure to follow or forbear false Glosses put upon the Oracles of God by pretended infallible Interpreters the defeating that mighty Engine of Obedience to Christ which is the affectionate Meditation upon his Death and Passion his direfull Sufferings for us by diverting of our Thoughts and distracting them by several insignificant Objects pety Advocates and Patrons that run away with our Devotions and rob Christ of his honour and our Souls of the chief means of their Sanctification and Salvation These with several other particulars I might instance in are plain Antichristian Assaults and Oppugnations of the Divine Life in general and tend to the sweeping of all away before them 3. To which you may adde those ungodly surmises That it is sufficient to number over our Devotions without defixing our Mind upon what we say and that a more hovering and general attention will serve the turn our particular Thoughts wandring to what else we please That the Sacraments confer Grace ex opere operato it being the very difference betwixt the Sacraments of the old Covenant and the new that the former confer Grace ratione operis operantis the latter ratione operis operati and That any inward good Motion is not requisite in him that receives the Sacraments What can more relaxate those earnest breathings and hearty aspirings of our Souls towards a real renovation of our natures into true holiness and righteousness then such corrupt conceits as these 4. The feeding also the people with dumb shows instead of searching their Consciences and exciting their zeal by intelligible Exhortations or Forms of Devotion that will re-minde them of their duty and imprint upon them the sense of such holy things as they stand in want of and inflame their desire after them this also would be a defrauding of the Divine Life of that food which it should be increased and nourished by As also would be that conceit generally of all Acts of Religion that the duty of the Act is done if the Act be but externally done be the Principle what it will though it neither proceed from nor reach to that fountain of life which ought to be ebullient in every Regenerate Christian and without which no man can reasonably esteem himself regenerate Certainly such Opinions Customes and Usages as these must needs wear out true and living Holiness out of the World 5. And yet we may conceive a further Antichristian poison that will wonderfully damp and benumme men in all their endeavours after true Sanctity and that is easy Absolution and slight Penance after formal Confession For Confession which is so rigorously extorted by this Antichristian Church I am now describing being accompanied with a conceit that upon their Absolution and performance of imposed Penances they are then right and straight and in as secure a condition as if they had never sinned the just chastisements of their offended Consciences being slaked by the soft and false interposal of the Priest's pretended Authority to absolve where God has bound as certainly every one is bound over to that eternal doom at the last day let the Priest pretend the power of loosing him here as much as he will and he shall answer for what he has done in the flesh which no Absolution nor Penance can clear him from unless he really forsake his wicked ways and become a sincere Convert to God I say from this constitution of things touching Absolution and Penance it must needs follow that the raines will be let loose on the necks of all men they being given to understand what a slight thing it is to sin against God when they can have their reconcilement upon such easy terms Whenas it would be a greater awe upon mens spirits to let them be condemned or acquitted by their own Consciences being so well assisted by the Word of God and the Light of Reason and Nature to lay the Law against them and never to leave urging them till they have emerged into a competent sincerity of heart Which when they have arrived to Christ within them and his Word without them will absolve them and give them peace of mind and if need be they may also receive Absolution from some sober and faithfull Priest whose honesty and exemplarity of life has fitted him for so serious a function as I have intimated above where I had slipt aforehand into this Argument 6. But the most outrageous Antichristian effort against the Divine Life would be the persuasion that upon the paying of certain tolerable summes of mony and doing some slight superstitious performances or other they shall obtain by virtue of the supreme Ecclesiastick Authority plenary Indulgences and Pardons for vast numbers of years and the certainty of freeing of themselves or their friends from Purgatory As for example suppose that some Churches or if you will many may have purchased from the Ecclesiastick Sovereignty a perpetuity of plenary Indulgence so that he that prays before such an Altar in this Church
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
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
some part That it is not an Absolute Inconditionate Promise to the Whole is plain in that the parties of Christendom differ so much in matters of Belief as they do But if it be to some part where is the nomination of that part in these Promises whereby their Right of Interpreting may appear to the world There is no Particular Church specified there neither Greek nor Roman neither Muscovian nor Armenian nor that of Prester John nor any other Church else Whence it is plain that no Particular Church can have any claim or right to any such privilege 6. Again suppose some Particular Church had a Promise how does it appear that the Promise is Inconditionate to this Particular Church and that it is not upon supposal that they will seriously and sincerely apply their mind to find out the Truth and purifie their Souls from all those worldly and sensual impediments thereto For this spirit of Infallibility cannot lodge in a body that is subject unto sin For Purity of heart and life is the very Light and Crystalline Organ the very Eye of the Soul and to think of a privilege of Infallibility without Holiness is like the imagining of a promise to see without Light or Eyes Wherefore it is such an Hypocritical conceit that a man cannot well tell whether it be more to be lamented or laughed at for a Church to pretend that God has an irresistible design of making them Infallible to every Punctilio of Controversie and yet not of making them Holy and Good But it is a sign they contemn or abhor Goodness as being contrary to their corrupt natures but desire the privilege of Infallibility as being agreeable to their natural pride and the boast thereof an instrument to bring about all their deceitful devices And therefore we might adde to this That it is questionable whether the Promise be to any Church visible but to such as the Apostles were chosen sanctified and faithful Regenerate men for none but these are truly the Church of Christ and if he make his Promise good onely to such as are his true Church it is sufficient 7. Moreover be this Promise Conditionate or Inconditionate we cannot but be sure that this Infallibility is not Universal as to all Objects whatsoever And therefore to meddle with such things as are not necessary to Salvation nor really edifying were to go beyond their Warrant or Commission and thereby to forfeit or at least to have no benefit of the promised Assistence 8. But let us particularly examine the Texts of Scripture themselves The first whereof infers no more then this That the Church of Christ shall never cease to be that Death shall never be able to prevail against her neither to extirpate her in this world or hinder her of a glorious Immortality in the world to come For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death or Abolition or The state of the dead But this may be true of the Church though it were not Infallible So weak is this first Allegation 9. As for the second it were well for the Alledgers if it were onely weak for it is strong against themselves and makes much for our Hypothesis who conceive this Infallibility to be Conditional For reade the whole Context entire and it runs thus If ye love me keep my Commandments and I will ask the Father c. which implies there is a Condition That they must love Christ and keep his Commandments if they expect that Spirit which will abide with them for ever that is as long as they lived for so the word ordinarily signifies in Scripture And it is further added that it is such a Spirit as the World cannot receive Which therefore does strongly imply that it resides not in those who are worldly and carnally-minded Which Conditionality of the Promise is also infinuated in the third place alledged When the Spirit of Truth is come he will Lead you or guide you into all Truth that is he will lead you as a Man not hale you or drag you as a Stone or a brute Beast which is not a free Agent So that we see plainly that this Infallibility is Conditional where-ever it is And though I doubt not but the Condition being performed the Promise will be made good to all men as far as it is necessary to their Salvation yet these places are not the best that may be produced to that purpose the Promise being not General here but directed to certain particular men in such circumstances as it is evident that it is meant to them in particular and does not infer any succession For the men that he speaks to there he decyphers to be such as he was present with and should be put in mind by the Paraclet what he had said to them when present such Joh. 14. 16 17. as were sorrowful upon the occasion of his departure with other like circumscribing circumstances that cannot belong to any succession of men but were proper to the Apostles to whom he then spake 10. As indeed Infallibility it self seems a Promise most proper to them they being to lay the Foundations of the Church and to build the House of God which they having done in terms plain enough as to all things necessary to Salvation the Promise of Infallibility needs reach no further the Church for ever hereafter being safe provided she keep but close to what is plainly delivered by the first Founders of her nothing else need be obtruded upon Believers by way of Infallible imposition 11. And as for that fourth citation where the Church seems to be called The Pillar and Ground of Truth If we admit of Cameron and Capellus 1 Tim. 3. 15. their ingenious conjecture upon the place viz. That The Pillar and Ground of Truth is to be disjoyned from the precedent words by a Colon at least and understand also what follows without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness to be onely a Parenthetical Elogium of the Mystery of the Gospel into which the Apostle was transported upon consideration of those weighty Points thereof which he was a-delivering God manifest in the Flesh c. so that The Pillar and Ground of Truth may be 1 Tim. 3. 16. the Preface to the grand Points of the Christian Truth which that Parenthesis being seposed do immediately follow according as it was usual with the Jews to prefix before such Fundamentalls of knowledge the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fundamentum Columna Sapientia this passage will be wholly disâ—…bled from making any shew of proof for what it was alledged 12. But if you will adjoyn this Title to the Church it was the Ephesian Church where Timothy resided which has vanished long agoe And what other Church then unless every Particular Church can urge this place for Infallibility which experience of contradicting one another does openly confute Besides that the style it self of Ground and Pillar may not
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
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
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
should have free remission of all his sins past and security from punishment But this is a small matter Suppose that such a piece of Devotion at some other Altars and in some other Churches would procure the pardon of sin and punishment for twenty thirty fifty or an hundred thousand years and that the saying of such and such Prayers at such an Altar would deliver a Soul out of Purgatory that the bowing at the Name of Jesus may procure toties quoties twenty years pardon that the mere stooping to kiss a Cross on the pavement of a Church an Indulgence or Pardon for all a mans sins that the pattering over so many Prayers especially if there be the weight of some consecrated Medal as an Agnus Dei or the like annexed to them will save a Soul out of Purgatory that one Salutation of the Blessed Virgin shall gain eighty years pardon that the saying a certain short Prayer devoutly looking on the Picture of Christ shall obtain ten thousand days of Pardon and the saying of others no less then ten hundred thousand years and for but the looking on a certain Crucifix six thousand years of Pardon These intimations would be infinite I have produced so much already as implies such a Constitution in a Church as nothing can be more opposite to or destructive of that Life and Holiness Christ came to plant in the World and therefore cannot but be judged very soully Antichristian 7. The Falseness and unjustifiableness of these proceedings I need not goe about to evince they being so damnable at first sight nor point at the Fraud it being so conspicuous which is as I have above intimated in like cases the emunging of the people of their mony And the Mischief is here the Opposition or Extinction of the Divine Life as it will be likewise in the Root and Branches So that we need hereafter note no other Mischiefs then will be comprized in the Subject we shall be upon the Mischiefs being expressed in the very Titles of the Argument Which I thought fit here to note once for all and would proceed to the delineating of the next Limb of Antichristianism did there not one consideration more offer it self to my mind that would help to make the state of the Church very Stepdame-like to any offers toward growth and increase in life and Godliness Which supposition is this 8. Let us imagine that either a mighty party of the Ecclesiasticks had plotted it so or the Ambition of one Bishop with some few adherents being back'd with opportunities and wanting no wit policy nor industry had brought it about to be so that he and his Successours should be declared and by a very considerable part accepted for the Universal Bishop of the World should be esteemed of an Authority more sacred high and glorious then of any Emperour or Potentate upon earth that there should be substituted under him several Orders some of very high degree which should be as it were so many Ecclesiastick Princes equal in a manner for Pomp and Splendour to the Kings of the Earth besides Patriarchs Metropolitans and many other very rich and illustrious Ranks of the Priesthood the Church in the interim abounding with sundry sorts of very creditable and profitable Preferments to bear out all Why thus far you will say is very good news and it were desirable it were so indeed That Religion being the most Sacred and precious thing in the world those that are in a more special manner the Supporters and Pillars thereof should be the most richly splendid and adorned 9. I do confess so a man would think at first sight For it seems but a respect to God whose Servants they are by a more peculiar dedication But by the same reason our Churches should be as well the most splendid as the most ample Buildings especially there being no danger of infecting these walls of stone with either the sense of Pride or any other uncomely Passion But suppose that these pretended living Stones of the Temple of God were as unexcitable to Pride or Lust as the dead Stones of the walls of a Church though this extreme glory and pomp and excessfull affluency of the World might doe them no hurt as to their Manners yet I believe they would profess they found little good in it unless it were in being Treasurers for the Poor which would be something a Secular employment or in giving testimony to the World that Christian Happiness consists not in these things which yet the World would not think them serious in unless they did actually quit them And for the external pomp and splendidness of their own Persons it is credible they would declare that if the Houses of God I mean the external Churches were at least decently if not in some case gloriously adorned their eyes could better view that and with more pleasure then any Imperial Ornaments on their own head and back which they could not well see without the help of Looking-glasses This would be a greater pleasure to them as also to see no poor but such as were wholesomely and handsomely apparrell'd not so squalidly and forlornly that they appear as ungratefull Eye-sores in Providence But to make rich Miters and costly Habiliments for a S. Peter or S. Paul were not indeed to make a Coat for the Moon but which is as ridiculous to make a golden Cope for the Sun as if his native splendour did not out-shine all such artificial Ornaments The gorgeousness of Apparrel may make the person that wears it to be gazed or stared upon but unspotted Holiness and Vertue will make the possessour thereof truely reverenced and adored 10. This excessive Grandeur therefore in the Governours of the Church though they were as holy as the Apostles themselves would not seem necessary nor requisite nor it may be at all desirable But as for those that are not of such an Apostolical Spirit as the generality of the world are not or rather very few are that of S. John having continued true in all ages in a manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The whole world lies soaked in wickedness in these this glorious setting out 1 John 5. 19. this fair and glittering Morning will assuredly very suddenly prove a foul Day There being therefore such Temporal prizes to be aimed at such several sorts and degrees of Dignities to the very top of the highest Sovereignry over the world all mens spirits will be inflamed with the desire and pursuit of what lies so temptingly in their view and that hellish fire of Ambition will be the very life and soul of the Church all her activity and motion deriving it self from that hatefull Principle Whence it will follow that nothing but the name of Spirituality will be left the minds of the Clergie being totally drawn off from meditating what is true holy and edifying and quite drown'd and immerst in the affairs of the world For such are also Ecclesiastick Preferments when they are sought
Also Christ's Handkerchief and the Shirt which the blessed Virgin made for him as likewise the Cradle in which he was rocked 15. Furthermore the Virgin Mary's Veil with which she used to cover her head her Comb her Hair her Girdle her Needles sowing-Thread and Work-basket nay the very House in which she dwelt and wrought transported as I said before out of Palestine into Italy by the hands of Angels The Reed with which they smote Jesus the Rope with which they haled him to execution the very Sponge also with which the Jews gave him vinegar mingled with gall to drink and some of the Coin for which Judas betrayed him nay the very Lantern he used in that work of darkness and the Dice wherewith the Souldiers play'd for Christ's seamless Coat Moreover the pure Bloud of Christ and the Milk of Mary his Mother kept in glasses The Pillar also at which Christ was whipped and the Stairs or Steps on which he went up into the Judgment-Hall and some of the Thorns wherewith he was crowned An Image of the Virgin Mary made by S. Luke to which an Angelical Statue of Marble was seen often to bow The paring of the nails of a living dead Crucifix and the lively Picture of Christ made by himself by the pressing onely of a Napkin to his face when he sweat 16. What would the world say to the credibility of three Tuns of Teeth from the Jaws of one Saint to the producing of the very Dagger and Shield with which S. Michael fought with the Devil and a Feather that might then haply fall out of one of the Angel's Wings What to the shewing of the Skull of a Saint's head at one place his Hair in another his Jaw-bone in another his Forehead in a fourth and yet his whole Head in a fifth What to the Fore-skin of Christ shewn also in five several places at once What to some dozens of Nails wherewith Christ was nailed to the Cross and as many pieces of the Cross as would load a Cart to carry them and as many glasses of the Virgin 's Milk as would fill all the vessels in a countrey-dairy How can such gross Impostures as these but wipe the Priests lips clean of all credit and belief and cast the world into desperate Atheism and Infidelity 17. But eighthly and lastly The Incredible of all Incredibles and the greatest Impossibility of all Impossibilities were that pretended Mystery of Transsubstantiation which being urged with the like necessity and assurance of Truth that any thing is urged by this Antichristian Church whose Picture I am a-drawing will doe the most fatal execution upon the Christian Faith that any thing imaginable can doe For supposing this the most Fundamental Article of their Creed or if you will the most precious and the most seriously-urged Fundamental of them all and the very hindge of almost all their publick Devotion and God-service if this break all must fall to the ground For if the Church be found shamelesly false in so important a Point as this it does immediately follow that she will be believed in nothing Wherefore they whose belief was either wholly or mainly supported by the seeming greatness of her Authority this failing by the easy discovery of so gross a Falsehood and yet by her most earnestly and most seriously avowed for Truth the Faith of every such man must also necessarily fail unless by some special grace of God assisting his conference with the persons or writings of some better-instructed Christians which he may haply meet with in this vast Wilderness he wanders in he be stopt from splitting himself a-pieces from this dangerous precipice he stands on and from the plunging himself into the mire of Atheism and Unbelief 18. For undoubtedly if he have no other help but this Pseudo-christian Synagogue though he may be awed by their external lash from professing his Infidelity yet it will be impossible for him to hinder the tacit growth of it in his own Soul but he will naturally disgust and disclaim all hearty commerce with Religion and even loath it as a pack of lies Wherefore it is impossible but this congregation of Impostours and Deceivers which I am setting forth in the truest colours I can should swarm with multitudes of grown and obdurate Atheists For the Imposture we speak of now being so signal and the discovery so easy and obvious how can it chuse but be discovered even by multitudes of people For the account comes onely to this Whether it be more likely that the Church for her own advantage which I perceive she does every-where eagerly and stiffly pursue may knowingly and wittingly impose upon me or at least mistake in her own judgment of the Infallibility whereof I have no proof but her own boast when it is in the mean time her Interest to boast so I say the account comes onely to this Whether it be more likely that she may practise fraud or fall into a mistake out of some blind Superstition or that by the uttering of Five words a Priest should have such a power as to turn a piece of Bread into a Man the Bread according to all my Senses being as much Bread as it was before Which is a double Miracle and greater then ever was yet done in the world considered but thus far and almost as great a Miracle that any one should believe it 19. But there are still greater I cannot say Miracles but downright Impossibilities As first That this Bread is not turned into a Man that was to be but that was already in being Which is the hardest Non-sense that can be offered to the mind of man to think upon And yet in the second place the Bread is so turned into a Man that is to say into the Man Christ that he is entirely in every place where this consecrated Bread seems to be that is in thousands of places at once at very large distances Which is as perfect a Contradiction as any can be proposed That one and the same Body should be entirely distant from it self For how can it be One being thus divided from it self since Unity consists in Indivision and Self-Unity certainly is Self-Indivision Wherefore if there be one Self at Oxford suppose and another at Cambridge at the same time it is impossible it should be one and the same Person their distance or division demonstrating them two distinct ones And thirdly and lastly From this false supposition That one and the same Body may be at the same time in several places it will also follow That one and the same Person or Body may be at the same time wholly within it self and wholly without it self wholly above it self and wholly beneath it self on the right hand of it self and on the left hand of it self That it may be One Body and yet many Bodies at once or rather no Body but a Spirit or to speak more truly Nothing That one and the same Person may meet himself and complement
they seek the praise and admiration of men by setting a badge of special Sanctity on themselves by their peculiar Habiliments and extravagant method of living I confess it were a miracle to me if this self-chosen Sanctity of theirs consisting in meats and drinks and abstaining from marriage and the like did not so puff them up in their carnal conceits that they may deservedly be look'd upon as the most genuine Subjects of this King of Pride 5. Besides that the very pretence to this By-course of Life may be very impudently turgent to the modest sense of any sober and truly-sanctified Christian who cannot but esteem it presumptuous to stand upon their own merits and plead their right to Heaven upon what they could any way doe here on Earth for so inestimable and ineffable a Reward What an high Luciferian Rant then were it in these Spiritual undertakers to pretend that they can doe not onely their own task but the tasks of others also In which pretence there is comprised two of the most hatefull Specimens of Pride that can be excogitated namely the vilifying of the all-sufficient Merits of Christ as if they were defectuous and not able to supply the wants of all men to whom God would be propitious but they must be eeked and patched out by the Supplements of such self-weening wretches and then an over-estimation and ridiculously-heightned conceit they have of their own Power Strength and Sanctimony that they can doe more and that by way of Merit then will serve their own turns or then God requires at their hands Whenas we are expressely taught by the Holy Scripture to say That when we have done all we can we are unprofitable Luke 17. 10. Eph 2. 9. servants and that Salvation is by Faith not by Works that no man may boast 6. Wherefore we will look upon this High-Priest and Universal Head of this Pseudo-christian Clergie together with all the several Religious Ranks and Orders under it and by devout acknowledgement sodered and cemented to it and influenced by it all plumped up with one common spirit of Pride and sense of Ruling and Domineering over the persons and consciences of the Laiety and highly conceited of themselves by reason of these carnal and external shews of Sanctity and Supereminency above the rest of the world which consists onely in Anointings in Habits in Abstinence from meat and the like which are poor and beggerly Elements but yet bloating and swelling with a secret poison those that relish them and esteem them and are interessed in the observation of them I say we will look upon all these from the highest to the lowest as one Body of one Head and altogether as one Man of sin who having one spirit and mind against the Law of God and Christ do exalt themselves against and above both though some in one manner others in another But they having one mind and will and joint consent are all accessory to all and are such a Draught and Representation of Antichristian Pride as nothing can be more or more absolute This is he that * Job 41. 3â—… beholdeth all high things and is the King of the children of Pride the highest and most notorious example of a proud and elated Polity as ever yet appeared in the World 7. And I think the Text it self may not be misapplied there being that great affinity betwixt Antichrist and the Devil And it may be greater betwixt him and some expressions of the Text describing the Leviathan then betwixt the said expressions and his corrival for the honour of being typified therein * Verse 15 16 17. His Scales are his Pride shut up together as with a close seal One is so near another that no aire can come betwixt them They are joyned one to another they stick together that they cannot be sundred Which we will suppose to be the very boast of this Pseudo-Christian Polity That they are as it were all of one piece firmly joyned each part to another though not by any tie of Ingenuity and Love but riveted and nailed together by the iron hand of Necessity and Tyrannicall Force Fear of extremity Joynt-Interest and Oaths of absolute Obedience to an Infallible Power holding them as close together as these brazen shields or sealed scales of the Leviathan And now if we consider the Head of this monster His Eyes are said to be * Verse 18. like the Eye-lids of the morning that is very lofty and supercilious splendid and glorious as we have already described the Pomp of this Superlative Head to be But * Verse 19 20 21. out of his mouth goe burning Lamps and sparks of fire leap out Out of his nostrills goeth smoak as out of a seething pot or caldron His breath kindleth coals and a flame goeth out of his mouth That is to say He sets all the world on Fire in his Pride and Wrath by his wicked Incendiaries and Emissaries that run like lightning at his command into all quarters of the Empire Or in a pretended Religious Rage against the opposers of his Sovereign Holiness he thunders out Excommunications against Princes and so kindles war and discord and involves all in flames and bloud And lastly to set out the obstinate Immutableness of this Polity in their Dogmatisms and their remorseless Martyring and torturing them that submit not to them it is said that * Verse 24. his heart is as firm as stone and as hard as the neather mil-stone But as it is said of Pharaoh King of Aegypt in the Psalms Thou brakest the Heads of Leviathan in pieces and gavest him to be Psalm 74. 14. meat to thy people in the wilderness namely to the Israelites to whom all things fell out in Types and Figures So * Chap. 26. 21. Esay has foretold that the time will come when the Earth shall disclose her bloud and shall no more cover her slain In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong Sword Chap. 27. 1. even with that sharp Sword that goeth out of his Mouth shall punish Leviathan the piercing Serpent even Leviathan that crooked Serpent and shall meet him in all his fraudulent windings and obliquities and shall slay the Dragon that is in the Sea that is to say that dwells betwixt the two Seas as Grotius interprets the watry Leviathan in the Psalms of Pharaoh King of Aegypt because his Dominion was extended betwixt two Seas In that day sing ye unto her A Vineyard of red wine I the Lord do keep it I will water it every moment lest any hurt it I will Verse 2 3 keep it night and day He will cause them of Jacob to take root Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit But this was Verse 6. an Excursion more then I intended CHAP. XII 1. An Antichristian Frame opposite to the Divine Grace of Purity described in general 2. That the Numerousness of
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
style represents under the figure of Animals or single Persons whether by the simple Appellation of Man or Woman or else such Conditions of man or woman as Whore Wife Witness or the like Now what Life and Spirit is to a natural Animal that is Rule and Power to figurative Persons or Animals in the Prophetick sense which are Bodies Politick And therefore as the loss of the one is the death of the one so the loss of the other is the death of the other And because there is a Spirit in all things even in those things that are inanimate the fading or vanishing of that spirit may be said analogically to be the Death of those things Instances are innumerable I will onely adde that as in the Hebrew Idiom not to be is to be dead so in analogie any thing that is not what it was namely any thing that is changed from its former condition this change thereof may goe for a kind of Death as Death is ordinarily said to be a Change 6. Desart That by Desart is meant Paganism Alcazar pronounces with great confidence speaking of the Woman in the wilderness In qua locutione notandum est per Desertum proculdubio figurari Gentilitatem For which opinion he produces a cloud of witnesses Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Ambrosius Basilius Hieronymus Gregorius Hilarius Hesychius c. The reason of which Hieroglyphick I conceive is this The Idolatry of the Pagans was much in Woods and Groves and on the tops of Mountains and wast places and the names of their Daemons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have reference to the fields and desarts Besides that Idolaters do not emerge above the pitch of the mere Animal life and their worship and devotion is little higher then that of the Elephant or Cercopithecus The Rapacity also and bloudy Cruelty of the Pagan Kingdoms farther fill out the congruity of the Type And consequently where such a condition of things is as this does typify that is to say whatever Kingdoms or Empires do paganize they do ipso facto become a Wilderness or Desart 7. Dragon The Hebrew word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifies Draco or Serpens and also Cetus as being the great Serpent or Dragon of the Sea And accordingly the Seventy render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it is a Figure of the Devil the ancient Cabbala of Moses may assure us and it may be though one be noted chiefly yet the Serpent there may have a Prophetick Henopoeia in it and signify the whole Principality of Satan that Kingdom of Darkness which has been ever in opposition against the Kingdom of God and therefore it is no wonder that those Kingdoms that have in such a special manner afflicted the Church have been represented under this Figure as Aegypt and the Roman Empire Awake awake put on strength O arme of the Lord awake as in the Esay 51. ancient days in the generations of old Art noâ—… thou he that hath cut Rahab that is Aegypt see Forerius and wounded the Dragon which is Pharaoh as Ezekiel plainly speaks out I am against thee Pharaoh King of Aegypt the great Dragon that lieth in the midst of the Chap. 29. Rivers And for that he lies thus in the Rivers he is called Leviathan as if he were a Water-serpent or a Whale Psalm 74. Thou brakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces and gavest him to be meat to thy people in the Wilderness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heads of the Leviathan as if this Leviathan as the Dragon in the Apocalyps had more Heads then one These considerations plainly intimate to us That the Seven-headed Serpent in the Apocalyps which is the Roman State or Kingdom is so represented not onely in regard of that old Serpentine form that tempted our first Parents but has a reflexion also upon that Tyrannical Kingdom of Aegypt which is typified under the image of a Dragon and Leviathan and that not only Rome Pagan has a share in this Type but Rome Pagano-Christian For all the Seven Heads are from the Body of the Dragon and the Beast that was and is not and yet is is as well the Dragon as not the Dragon and therefore is as well Aegypt and I wish I could not say more as the Church of God or the Kingdom of his Son Jesus 8. Drunkenness It is taken sometimes for the being so filled and intoxicated with the pleasures and affluences of this world as to be regardless and senseless of the things of God Esay 29. Stay your selves and wonder cry ye out and cry They are drunken but not with wine they stagger but not with strong drink For the Lord has poured upon you the spirit of deep sleep and hath closed your eyes the prophets and the rulers the seers hath he covered Such a remiss Stupor and Drunkenness does the prosperity of this world often cast men into Achmetes from the Indian Interpretations cap. 111. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any one dream he is drunk with wine riches and power will flow in to him proportionably to his dunkenness And he affirms the like in the following Chapter according to the sense of the Aegyptians and Persians There is also a Drunkenness from the Cup of Affliction which is often intimated in the Scriptures 9. Eagle Esay 40. 31. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as Eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not be faint And Exod. 19. 4. Ye had seen what I did to the Aegyptians and how I bare you on Eagles wings and brought you unto my self Artemidor lib. 2. c. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For poor men to dream they ride upon an Eagle it is good for it signifies they will be supported and well relieved by the rich Earth-quake So we usually turn the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but it signifies also more generally any shaking or concussion as Heb. 12. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the Author says this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the removing of those things that are shaken Hagg. 2. 21. Speak to Zerubbabel Governour of Judah saying I will shake the Heavens and the Earth and I will overthrow the Thrones of Kingdoms and I will destroy the strength of the Kingdoms of the Heathen This is a plain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The like ruine and overturning of things is set out but by what is the effect of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Earth-quake properly so called Jer. 4. 24. I beheld the Mountains and lo they trembled and all the Hills moved lightly Which verse 26 he interprets as Haggai before I beheld and lo the fruitful place was a Wilderness and all the Cities thereof were broken down c. Achmetes out of the Indian Persian and Aegyptian Onirocriticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Artemidor lib. 2. c. 46. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
man But there is no numbering of one Number given but by extracting of the Root 10. Wherefore as the Square-Root of 36. may rightly be conceived to detect that that famed Tetractys had a relation to the Hexameron of Moses and signified that every Day 's Creation had its Foeminine Principle as well as Masculine the First it self not excepted which is consonant to that Aphorism of the Jews Nulla virtus divina descendit sine indumento and to Moses his assimilating the First Day 's Creation to Light so the Square-Root of this Number of the Beast may also detect to whom this Vision of the Two-horned Beast doth belong And I have already shewed in my Mystery of Godliness that the Root of this Number is 25 and that Book 5. Ch. 16. Sect. 8. it does plainly agree with several substantial Observables concerning the Church of Rome and their City and that in a perfect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to 12 which is the Root of 144 the number of the Regiments that appear with the Lamb on Mount Sion Which things being sufficiently cleared in the said Treatise and may be more copiously understood out of Mr. Potter I shall spare to speak any thing farther of them in this place but wholly remit the Reader thither for satisfaction 11. In the mean time I will not stick to conclude that it is apparent Paral. 2. Agr. 9. partly from what I have delivered there and partly from what is added in this place That the Seat as well of the Two-horned Beast as of the Whore is at last in their respective Visions determined to Old Rome as being the most permanent and conspicuous Residence of the Apostatized Priesthood and such as by being so notorious an Instance of this Wickedness becomes a Measure and Rule of comparing and judging of the greatness of the Apostasy of other Churches by their nearer accession and agreement to this Queen of Harlots And therefore by intimating the Name Number and Seat of this chief part of the Apostatized Clergy it gives us the clear knowledge and fast apprehension of the whole corrupted Body and all the parts thereof where-ever and how long soever they be found within the Boundaries of the Roman Empire But when once they are swallowed up and washed off by some extraneous Power and fall under the Jurisdiction of some other Empire I must confess though we may judge these too by this measure I do not see how they then can so well be concerned or aimed at in these two Prophecies both the Two-horned Beast and the Whore being look'd upon as Riders and Guiders of the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns and therefore supposed within the Roman Empire Which is a plain cause why these Prophecies have laid so fast hold on the Church of Rome in the conclusion of them as if she were in a manner solely concerned For it was fit so to doe by reason of her Permanency in Duration as well as Eminency in wickedness Which may be one reason also why this body of the adulterate Clergy is called the Beast with two Horns because all those Patriarchates annumerated to the Greek Church were betimes swept away a new Empire overflowing them whenas the Patriarchate of Constantinople was free from this inundation till about two hundred years ago So faithful is the Spirit of Prophecy in the Prefiguration of Events as he may easily see that pleases to consult History In the mean time as I said it is manifest enough that the Seat as well of the Whore as the Two-horned Beast in each Vision is determined to Old Rome Which is the last Agreement of our first Parallelism 12. As the last of our second is That the Seat of the Seven-headed Par. 2. Agr. 1â—… Beast is left free in either Vision and not fixt to any Metropolis Indeed the Seven Heads of the Beast being also interpreted of the Seven Hills of Rome it is apparent that the Beast has some relation to that place and must have some Title or denomination from that City else why should the Beast's Heads have any thing to doe to typifie those Seven Hills But the Prophecy as it were datâ operâ declining the fixing the Imperial Seat of the Seven-headed Beast bestows that Privilege on the Whore assigns her the Seven-Hilled seat saying The seven Heads are seven Hills where the Whore sitteth Which is admirably agreeable to the event For indeed Rome has been the constant See of the Whore but the Seat of the Seven-headed Beast has been very changeable some time at Rome then at Constantinople and lastly in Germany 13. And thus we have seen the exquisite Congruity and Coincidence of all the parts of the Visions of these Thirteenth and Seventeenth Chapters one with another which though they be so accurately correspondent yet I must confess not altogether so adequately but that the Vision of the Whore bears a more press and close respect to the Church of Rome all along and besides the plain designment of her Seat which is common to both her gorgeous attire and bloud-thirstiness or rather her being so lavishly bloud-drunk as she is described seems to appropriate the Vision more peculiarly to her then the Greek Church Which Drunkenness as well as Gorgeousness of Apparrel though it be not all along the reign of the Whore yet according to the nature of these Prophetick Figures which exhibit the whole Succession of affairs under one joint show they were without any discrimination to be represented at once Which Consideration may take off any the like scruple in these Prophetick Schemes and Representations For what was done but for a while adorns those Images as much as what is permanent there being no mention of Succession of time but all represented at once 14. And therefore though that Inscription Mysterium upon the Pope's Crown which was questionless in imitation of the Inscription on Aaron's Mitre all his vestments and ornaments being so industriously imitated in the Pontifical Habiliments be now turned into Julius Pontifex Maximus yet it is not the less probable that it was glanced at in this Description of the Whore The truth of which Story Bishop Dounham does assert with all imaginable confidence Quod autem ait in fronte Meretricis De Antichristo lib. 1. cap. 7. scriptum fuisse nomen Mysterium id in Romano Pontifice completum esse pro comperto habemus Which passage is so confessed a truth that Lessius in his Answer to King James could not deny it Wherefore as our Saviour Christ's uttering that first verse of the twenty second Psalm My God my God why hast thou forsaken me intimated to the world that the whole Psalm was a Prophecy of his Passion so this first word of the Name of the Whore of Babylon on the Papal Tiara was an indication that the whole Name or Title belonged to the Pope with his Clergy and that they are this Great Whore that has made drunk the
with the Israelites through the Red Sea by Night The Name or Colour also of the Sea may not unlikely be alluded to in this Description Red being not an improper Epithet of Fire There may be also still a more Mystical meaning of this Sea mingled with fire the Spirit with the Bloud of Christ which for brevity sake I pass over and will onely adde a short Paraphrase upon the verse I first cited 3. In the street of the great City which spiritually is called Sodom and Aegypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is ordinarily rendred where also our Lord was crucified which is very good and easie sense if we referre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the great City and read which is spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt Parenthetically but if we referre it to or rather joyn it with Sodom and Aegypt the sense seems more harsh unless we understand an Ellipsis the supply whereof would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the street of the great City which is spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt and the City where our Lord was crucified that is the Prophet-murthering Jerusalem which certainly is alluded to be this Ellipsis how it will And the meaning of the Text I conceive to be this That that great Body Politick which pretends to be the Catholick Church though so grosly Apostatized from the Apostolick Doctrine and Practice is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius speaks Spiritually or Mystically called Sodom Aegypt and the City where Christ was crucified with just reproach to their contrary Pretences As if the Spirit of God should speak thus Whereas this degenerate Church of Rome by boasting of their Profession of vowed Coelibate and perpetual Virginity would make show of being that true Virgin-Company and the holy and chast Spouse of Christ and of the Lamb I do pronounce them a Nest of unclean Birds as foul as Sodom and as polluted as Gomorra And whereas they would pretend to be the onely Church of my Son Christ who hath declared that if the Son make you free then are you free indeed and to be that Jerusalem that is free and is the Mother of all true Believers I do proclaim to all the World that they are Spiritually or Mystically that very Land of Aegypt and House of Bondage wherein my People are oppressed and tired out with tedious Superstitious and burthensome Observances that serve for nothing but to uphold the Pomp and Pride of that Spiritual Pharaoh and his unmerciful Task-masters a Tyrannical and Idolatrous Clergy And lastly whereas they would make men believe that they are that Holy City which is a Refuge and Protection to the Saints of God and a Shelter from Persecution where all tears shall be wiped from their eies that New Jerusalem that descended from Heaven which they were if they were what they boasted the true visible Church of Christ they are indeed a succession of that old Jerusalem the superstitious and burthensome Scribes and Pharisees who were the Crucifiers of my Son Jesus as these are to this very day of his true Members who himself accordingly as he has told them is persecuted so often as they are persecuted And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may respect as well the Members of Christ as himself notwithstanding it is the first Aorist For that is a good Note of Grotius his and a true one Aoristi sine designatione tempor is designant quod fieri solet And therefore here is intimated by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the often-Persecution of Christ in his true Members under this power of Antichrist For Crucifixion by a Diorism signifies any kind of Persecution Jerusalem therefore literally is not here understood under the disguise of Sodom and Aegypt which would not be any such mystical or spiritual meaning but a mere Synecdoche such as every School-boy understands but that Great City which is a Polity of men that pretend to be the onely true Catholick Church though so miserably Apostatized from the Faith This City in such a mystical sense as I have declared is called Sodom Aegypt and that Jerusalem that kills the Prophets and crucifies our Lord in persecuting his Members But the thing that we note now especially is their being called Aegypt for keeping the People of God in such Spiritual Slavery and Bondage 4. Which Slavery and Vassallage we may conceive also to be glanced at in the figure of the Whore of Babylon that rides upon the Beast For that this Imperious Clergy of Rome is so called seems not onely for that Babylon looks like the first Precedent of Idolatry in worshipping Belus but for their Tyrannical Pride and holding the people in such a forcible Captivity from under which no man might withdraw himself and make back toward Jerusalem and the true Temple of God but he exposed himself to the Cruelty of this bloudy Whore that sits as a Queen and saies she shall never see sorrow The Beast also being said to be rid by the Whore insinuates a kinde of beastly droyling and slavery the Christian Empire has groaned under for so many Ages Which that it might be more like a Beast an Horse or Mule that has no understanding they endeavoured to keep as ignorant as they could that the People might be the more patiently Priest-rid as the phrase is and carry their Riders with more ease and safety 5. These are the chiefest strictures that do occurre to my minde in the Prophetick Visions that are applicable to this second member of Antichristianism and that onely in this general way That of S. Paul is more particular Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats but so easie to be understood that the naming thereof is sufficient And therefore I shall pass to the next branches of Antichristianism those Oppositions that would run down the Sacred Offices of Christ as he is King Prophet and Priest The grand Injury against the last of which is this The making other Mediatours besides Christ and giving them Religious worship which is predicted in S. Paul and Daniel in those places we have already produced and expounded touching the Daemons or Mauzzim or else the suppressing or slighting the chief use of the Death of Christ which is a comfortable ease of Conscience from all suspicion of God's displeasure or fear of punishment in the other world for want of satisfaction for our misdeeds here so long as we have repented of them sincerely and have amended our lives according to the word of Christ. Which abuse is one grand piece of that Slavery and Bondage that the People of God are held under in this Spiritual Aegypt and therefore is generally prefigured in that Type we have already explamed and also in the Whore of Babylon according to what we have above intimated So that we may pass over this Office of Christ and proceed to his Kingly and Prophetick Office 6. The Opposition to the latter whereof is plainly predicted in the mention of the False-Prophet in the Apocalyps
which is the same with the Two-horned Beast who is the Restorer of the wounded Beast that is of the Pagan Empire become Christian into a new kinde of Paganism and is said to work Miracles in the sight of the Beast wherewith he deceived them that dwell on the Earth and made them worship the Image of the Beast and receive the Mark of the Beast c. Chap. 13. Which things are so plainly said of the False-Prophet Chap. 19. 20. that there can be no doubt but the Two-horned Beast and the False-Prophet are the same And the Beast was taken and with him the False-Prophet that wrought Miracles before him with which he deceived them that received the Mark of the Beast and them that worshipped his Image Wherefore it is plain that the False-Prophet and the Two-horned Beast and consequently the Whore of Babylon are all one as I have above noted and that therefore the Roman Idolatrous Clergy that pretend to be such an infallible Church as if God did unfailingly inspire them in what-ever is concluded upon by their Pope or at least by him together with what they will call a General Council are figured out here by way of reproach to this boast of infallible Inspiration in this Title or Style of Prophet But for that they delude the world by false Doctrines and either Diabolical Miracles or cunning Cheats and Forgeries of Miraculous Effects the same Company of men is more ignominiously and openly branded for this Impiety by the prefixing that deserved Epithet of False 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The False-Prophet What can be more plain then this Or what a more wicked Opposition to the Prophetick Office of Christ then for one to take upon him to be his infallible Vicar-General of Christendome and yet to fill the world with Idolatry and Lies Which this Body of Pseudo-prophets have done in some measure more or less for about these 1200 years as is manifest from the last Consectary of our Joint-Exposition 7. Whence we may be sure that the true Prophets who speak according to the tenour of Apostolick Doctrine would have but a sad time of it and the Prophetick Office of Christ as he illuminates these by his Word and Spirit be opposed and resisted nay these Instruments of his contradicted and oppressed with all imaginable injury and violence accordingly as this Mystery of Iniquity should grow up in the Church which seems to have commenced about 400 years after Christ. Which Condition of the Church I conceive is prefigured in the Vision of the Two Witnesses whose mournful Prophecy in Sackcloth is Synchronal to the Reign of the False-Prophet as has been above demonstrated But the Description of things is such as comprises the Opposition to the Kingly Office of Christ as well as Prophetical as shall appear in our Explication of the Vision For for any one to take upon him to be the infallible Interpreter of the Law of a King is to give Laws for him and to despoil him of his Throne and Sceptre Or by what-ever other Device his Laws may be suppressed and kept from the People and other Laws put in their room this Kingly Office is plainly made nothing by it But that the Word of God contained in the Old and New Testament is thus dealt withall by this False-Prophet I have in my Idea of Antichristianism sufficiently declared CHAP. XII 1. An Explication of the Vision of the Witnesses Ver. III. The reason why they are Two Ver. IV V. Why Two Olive-trees and Candlesticks and what meant by their killing men by the fire that proceeds out of their mouths Ver. VI. That their power of shutting up Heaven from raining may be attributed to them onely by a Metalepsis 2. Or rather by a Zoopoeia of the second sort 3. According to which Figure they are said to smite the Earth with every plague of Aegypt And what the meaning of these Plagues may be Ver. VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The War and Death of the Witnesses what they mean Ver. VIII Aegypt and the fore-going Plagues fitly mentioned together Ver. IX The meaning of Three daies and an half and of the Bodies of the Witnesses lying unburied Ver. X. What meant by the Dwellers upon Earth Ver. XI What by the Spirit of God coming into the Witnesses Ver. XII That the true Witnesses do not invade Heaven but ascend thither when they are called Ver. XIII The Earth-quake City Fall of the City and the Slaughter of 7000 Names of men what they mean 2. That the Antichristian Opposition to the Regal and Prophetical Office of Christ is clearly prefigured in this Vision of the Two Witnesses 1. LET us now enquire what news of these Injuries in this Vision of the Two mournful Witnesses who complain not without a cause as well the Regal as Prophetick Office of Christ being so palpably opposed by that Man of sin We shall give a brief Explication of the Vision proceeding orderly from verse to verse beginning at the third and holding on till the fourteenth where the story of the Witnesses endeth Ver. III. And I will give unto my two Witnesses and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three score daies in Sack-cloth That these Daies are so many Years appears from the last Consectary of my Joint-Exposition That these Witnesses are Two is partly from the Types they allude to in the Old Testament and partly from the nature of the things they signifie The Types they allude to are Moses and Aaron Elias and Elisha Zerobabel and Jesua three several Pairs of holy men that are famous for their conduct of the People in such times as bear also analogy to these of the Two Witnesses whose Prophecy is during the Conculcation of the Outward Court of the Temple by the Gentiles that is while it is polluted with Idolatry as Moses and Aaron were over the Israelites in the Wilderness where they often lapsed into Idolatry to which the Woman in the Wilderness may haply allude Elias and Elisha in their Baalitical Apostasy and Zerobabel and Jesua when they were yet in the Captivity of Babylon There are also three Pair of things that may be fitly signified by these Two Witnesses Either the suppressed Magistracy and Ministry such I mean as answer in opposition to the Ten-borned Beast and False-Prophet and bear a resemblance with Moses and Aaron Zerobabel and Jesua or else the People of the Jews I mean such of them as are so sincere that were it not for the sway of Antichristianism in the world would be converted to Christ together with the Virgin-company of Christians or lastly which answers to these two last Witnesses the Old Testament and the New which may be added by an Henopoeia to the other Ver. IV. These are the two Olive-trees and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the Earth It is a plain Israelism alluding to that in Zachary Chap. 4. 11. What are these two Olive-trees upon the right sight of the Candlestick
that Wicked one be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of bis coming That Wicked one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Lawless one who exalts himself above the Laws of God and Christ and can dispense with them as he pleases whose destruction is by the preaching of the Gospel and by the victorious evidence of Truth by clear and convictive Reason divulged to the world by such as speak by the Spirit of God and by a Principle of Life within them For their mouth is the mouth of God and their breath as a flaming Torrent to consume the ungodly Deceiver The remainder of this Prophecy we have expounded already and therefore need not renew our Exposition in this place No Prophecy can be more expresly applicable to any Event then this is to the Papal Power and Imposture The Effect therefore being already in the world who can doubt but that this is the Prediction of it especially we having the common suffrage of Antiquity that it is to be understood of one that is to appear after the breaking of the Roman Empire into pieces If any one ask Tertullian who this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that hindered the revealing of Antichrist is he shall have this round answer from him Quis nisi Romanus Status cujus in decem reges abscessio dispersa Antichristum superinducet tune revelabitur Iniquus Accordingly as the faithful Servants of Christ have found to their great sorrow and affliction 2. This Man of Sin therefore is that little Horn with the eyes of a man in it both expressions intimating the humane Policy of the Papal Power that King diverse from the ten as being an Ecclesiastick Prince and rising up behinde them to over-grow them and over-top them by his policy Whom S. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lawless man as Daniel makes him a changer of Times and Laws as not being content to be kept in and bounded by those that were already though they were the Sanctions of God and of his Christ. In that Horn also is a mouth speaking great things and that against the most High that is treasonable words against the Sovereignty of God and Christ as this Man of Sin does this Papal Body exalting their Head the Pope above every thing that is called God or is worshipped And lastly as the little Horn in Daniel is to be burnt by the fiery stream issuing from before that dreadful Judge so is this Man of Sin to be consumed by the Spirit of the mouth of the Lord and by the fiery brightness of his coming Which considerations may assure us that one and the same Person is aimed at in the little Horn in the seventh of Daniel and that prosperous King in the eleventh that exalts and magnifies himself above every God they both agreeing in this present Prophecy of the Man of Sin and Son of Perdition So plain is it that this Prophecy is not to be understood of either Cains or Simon Magus as Grotius groundlesly conceits whose Opinion I will now examine because the name of that Authour bears so much sway with some men otherwise it were scarce worth the pains of perusing CHAP. XIX 1. A summary Proposal of Grotius his Exposition of the foregoing Prophecy 2. That the coming of Christ in this Prophecy cannot be understood of the Destruction of Jerusalem 3. Nor Apostasy attributed to Caius nor he said to sit in the Temple of God nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fit so well with Vitellius 4. That Caius his purpose of placing his Scatâ—…e in the Temple was no Mystery of Iniquity but gâ—…oss Prophaneness 5. Grotius his ridiculous luxation of the sense of the Prophecy in making Caius the Man of Sin and Son of Perdition concealed by Vitellius his standing in the way and yet upon Vitellius his removal not Caius but Simon Magus to be the man revealed and destroyed 6. That in all likelihood the Story of Simon Magus is a Fiction and from what Occasion 7. That if it were true it is not so applicable this wicked man Simon being not consumed by the Spirit of Christis mouth but onely his Coach and Horses 8. That Grotius makes Paul prophesy of things past his Epistle being written ten years after Caius his death with a fâ—…ll Answer to Grotius his first Argument to the contrary 9. An Answer to the second 10. A Demonstration out of Scripture and Grotius his own Concessions that this Second Epistle was wrote ten years after Caius his death as also that the fall of Simon Magus from his fiery Chariot was eight years before this Prophecy 1. THE summe of Grotius his Exposition of this Second Chapter of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians is this First He interprets the coming of Christ of the destruction of Jerusalem Secondly The Apostasy or Falling away and the Revealing of the Man of Sin he understands of Caius Caligula who indeed was a very impious Emperour and would have had his own Statue set in the Temple of Jerusalem Thirdly The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he will have to be Lucius Vitellius President of Syria and consequently of Judaea who was a friend to the Jews and therefore in his time not so seasonable for Caius to make the motion of setting his own Statue in the holy Temple Fourthly By the working of the Mystery of Iniquity he understands the persuasions of Helicon and other Aegyptian Impostors who were great with Caius and were preparing the way to this grand piece of Impiety Fifthly But when he that letteth is taken out of the way that is Lucius Vitellius who as yet hindered Caius from this impious purpose of placing his Statue in the Temple at Jerusalem then shall that Wicked one be revealed who has dealt under-board hitherto with his Conspirators Helicon and the rest Caius certainly you will say no Simon Magus saith Grotius Was there ever such a ridiculous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any serious interpretation of Authors much less of Holy Scripture Sixthly and lastly But this is because the rest of the Prophecy seems to speak of a Conjurer or Magician such as Simon Magus was famed to be whom at Rome riding in the air with his fiery Chariot and Horses Peter by his prayers to Christ made fall to the ground And thus was Simon consumed by the Spirit of the Lord's mouth and by the brightness of his coming as Grotius would have it 2. This is a brief account of his Exposition in which there is scarce one sound Joynt For as for the first which understands the coming of Christ of the destruction of Jerusalem Whosoever considers that this Epistle is really the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians as I shall hereafter prove and that in the * Ch. 4. v. 15 16 17. foregoing Epistle he speaks of the final coming of Christ which is joyn'd with the Resurrection of the dead and
S. Paul declare it to them they would ever be drawn to be accessary thereto by breaking off this compliance which was so strong a bank against the inundation of Gnosticism and Persecution of the Church And touching the fifth There is somewhat the like exception that was against Grotius his Exposition that seems to make any thing concealed a Mystery which is a false notion of the word For an open and plain Opposition or Renunciation of Christianity intended but concealed which is the supposed case here is no more a Mystery then hidden Murther and Adultery as I said before 6. And as for the sixth and last It seems somewhat harsh and strained to understand that execution that is done by the Spirit of the mouth of the Lord to appertain to Simon Magus at Rome and that destruction wrought by the brightness of his coming to belong to the Gnosticks involved in the destruction at Jerusalem especially if we consider that there was no Coalition of Simon Magus and the Gnosticks into one Body Politick but that they seemed rather to descend from the Nicolaitans as Baronius intimates and so have no reference one to another Besides that the Text says continuedly Whem the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming Which is nothing else but the bright flame and fiery Spirit issuing out of his mouth according to that description in Esdras and upon one and the same Object which is this Man of Sin the same with the little Horn in Daniel which is after this manner to be destroyed 7. To all which you may adde That if the History of what is here applied be true and that the coming of the Lord be to be understood of the destruction of Jerusalem and not of the last Judgment it is a wonderfull thing that the first Fathers of the Church who had a nearer prospect into those â—…ansactions of the world could not discern the Completion of the Prophecy in Simon Magus and the Gnosticks but that we that stand at the farthest distance from the events should be the quickest-sighted in discerning their Applicability to the Prophecy But I have already intimated enough to shew the improbability that this should be the main meaning of this Prediction of S. Paul But if I could believe that the condition of Simon and the Gnosticks was in some sense here perstringed as I must confess this pious and judicious Interpreter has bid very fair towards the Credibility of it I should look upon them as a preludious Type to the great Antichrist and should think that passage For the Mystery of Iniquity does already work to be understood of them as it may though the rest of the Prophecy be in many things unapplicable to Simon and belong onely to the great Antichrist indeed of whom this Magician may be onely a Type or Figure and truly not an unsignificant one For as he is a Magician so is that great Antichrist an egregious Sorcerer and the Head of a numerous Society of Sorcerers and Enchanters Again As Simon gave the name and first example of that wicked fin of Simonie so these pretended Successours of Peter both they and their Body Ecclesiastick have notoriously imitated that example of Simon in buying and selling Spiritualities Thirdly Part of Simon 's and the Gnosticks Apostasy was Judaizing while they made a show of Christianity And how much Antichrist with his Adherents do Judaize in Ceremonies and in boasting of Works and dead Formalities is conspicuous to all the world Fourthly Simon and the Gnosticks were notorious for filthiness and uncleanness And so has been the great Antichristian Synagogue Head and Members Fifthly Though Simon and the Gnosticks were thus grosly obnoxious in life and conversation yet they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extraordinary pretenders to and boasters of the certainty of their Knowledge in the Divinest matters and great esteemers thereof And is not this the special Character of the Pope and his Church that they pretend to be even infallibly wise and accurately orthodox in knowledge and opinion but are as foully negligent and as scandalonsly conniving at all debaucheries of life Sixthly Simon and the Gnosticks were opposers and persecuters of the true Church So is the Papal Hierarchy with the Instruments thereof Seventhly The Followers of Simon polluted themselves with Idols And so doe the Adherers to the Headship of Rome Eighthly and lastly Simon exalted himself above every thing that is called God and received Divine Honours in his own Person upon Earth Which is also notorious in the Roman Bishop So that while such things as these were acting in the world and by such as made some show of Christianity S. Paul might well say of that great Mystery of Iniquity That it is already on foot that it is in some sense acting already namely in Simon and his Followers as a Type and Prelude to the strange pranks of the great Antichrist and that there wants nothing but the removing of that great Obstacle at Rome the Western Caesareate and then that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 himself that great Antichrist indeed will shew himself of whom Simon is but the Figure See Ch. 18. Ver. 7. This Exposition is something more plausible then that there of Alcazar who understands the Mystery of Iniquity already working of pure Paganism but whether it may be the chiefest of all I leave to the judicious to consider In the mean time I think I have sufficiently cleared the truth of those main Prophecies in Scripture that concern the enormous Haughtiness and Pride of Antichrist which is so apparently opposite to the first branch of the Divine life Humility and Lowliness of Spirit 8. The next is Purity whose Opposite is Uncleanness The Predictions of the Causes that carry to that Vice I have touched already But as for the Vice it self it being so inseparable a Concomitant of Idolatry which is Spiritual Adultery or Fornication I conceive the Spirit of Prophecy for that very reason was the more sparing in particular Prefigurations or Predictions thereof But I do not doubt but that it is concerned in that description of the great City Apocal. 11. And their bodies shall lie in the street of the great City which is spiritually called Sodom c. And how unclean a City Sodom was no man can be ignorant of Again those that are excluded out of the Holy City which is so perfectly opposite to this City called Sodom they are called Dogs and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abominable by which as I have above noted out of Grotius are understood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abusers of themselves with Man-kind Whoremongers also are named in the same Catalogue But of these Texts I have spoke sufficiently in my Idea of Antichristianism In that the Church is said to become a * Apocal. 12. Wilderness it may be also an Intimation of the excess of those Actions of the Animal life that proceed from Cruelty
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
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.
as being the seven last Plagues 9. The same farther proved from the Song of the Harpers upon their victory over the Beast 10. And from the order of the Vision of the Vials as also from the appearing of the Temple out of which the Angels come after the sixth Trumpet and before any of the Vials be poured out 11. In what sense the Middle Synchronals are to be fulfilled at the Exit of the sixth Trumpet 12 A larger Declaration how all the Middle Synchronals expire together in what sense or degree soever they do expire 13. Of the commencing of the last Synchronals and what the time of the Millennium more eminently so styled 14. The serviceableness of the premising these orderly Synchronisms for his farther search into the Prophecies that foretel the Lapse of the Church into Antichristianism 377 CHAP. VIII 1. That there are Three more Middle Synchronals that foretel the Churche's Lapse into Idolatry As the Vision of the Outward Court troden down by the Gentiles 2. The Woman in the Wilderness What meant by Wilderness 3. A brief account of the sense of the whole Vision 4. That there is an Hypallage in her being said to flie into the Desart like that of Hades being cast into the Fire and of the Kingdom being given to the Saints in Daniel 5. That our Interpretation of the Woman in the Wilderness does not clash with Mr. Mede's though different from it 6. The third Synchronal the Virgin-Company The meaning of the Number of their Regiments and of the new Song which none could learn besides them 7. How the Vision of these Virgin-souldiers implies the Lapse of the Church into Idolatry 383 CHAP. IX 1. Three more Prophecies predicting the Churche's Lapse into Idolatry As the Vision of the sixth Trumpet which is proved to respect the Roman Empire long after it became Christian. 2. That in this Vision the Greek and Latin Church are both apparently taxed of Idolatry and with Aggravations common to Pagans and them 3. That it appears from the same Vision of what great consequence it would be for Christendom to reform from this gross sin and that they are their best friends that plainly and freely rebuke them for it and for those other crimes reflected upon in this Vision 4. The Prophecy of Paul to Timothy proposed and the first part thereof expounded out of Epiphanius touching the Inspirers of this predicted Errour 5. As also that part that contains the Errour it self namely the worship of Daemons From whence it is plain the Prophecie concerns this notorious Lapse of the Church into Idolatry 6. As also from the Instruments of the Broaching this Errour 7. And from the mentioning of the Mystery of Godliness immediately before to which this Mystery of Iniquity is opposed 8. And lastly from the Times of the Lapse which are termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. Which is proved to be a proper Term of the Prophetick style denoting that Time and Times and half a Time which is the latter section of the continuance of the Fourth Monarchy 10. That the course of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of the Reign of Antichrist is indigitated by thâ—…se Numbers of Days in the last of Daniel 387 CHAP. X. 1. Epiphanius his Exposition of the Prophecie of Paul to Timothy confirmed from the reference it has to that in Daniel 2. Grotius his miss-timing this Prophecie of Daniel and applying it to Antiochus how rash and groundless 3. A Confutation of his Application 4. The right timing this Prophecie by Calvin and Mr. Mede who both interpret it of the Roman State and Empire 5. A more particular account of the two first verses of the Prophecie Mr. Mede's way 6. As also of the third 7. And fourth 8. That the sense of this Prophecie so clearly accords with that of S. Paul that it is manifest he refers to it in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. That though this Interpretation of Mr. Mede be unexceptionable throughout yet the two first verses of the Prophecie may be otherwise expounded and more suitably to S. Paul's Prophecie in his Epistle to the Thessalonians 393 CHAP. XI 1. The Reasons of his Prolixity hitherto in the Predictions of the Idolatry of the Church and of his future Brevity in the rest of the parts of Antichristianism 2. The Second member of Antichristianism prefigured in the Apoc. 11. 8. Witnesses lying slain in the Streets of the great City called Aegypt 3. A short Paraphrase and Exposition upon that verse of the Apocalyps 4. That the same thing seems to be prefigured in the Whore of Babylon her riding of the Beast 5. What Predictions concern the Opposition to the Priestly Office of Christ. 6. That the Two-horned Beast and the False-prophet are all one and that both prefigure the Antichristian Opposition against his Prophetick Office 7. That the Affliction of the true Prophets of Christ is prefigured in the Vision of the Two Witnesses as also the Antichristian Opposition against the Kingly Office 398 CHAP. XII 1. An Explication of the Vision of the Witnesses Ver. III. The reason why they are Two Ver. IV V. Why Two Olive-Trees and Candlesticks and what meant by their killing men by the fire that proceeds out of their mouths Ver. VI. That their power of shutting up Heaven from raining may be attributed to them onely by a Metalepsis 2. Or rather by a Zoopoeia of the second sort 3. According to which Figure they are said to smite the Earth with every plague of Aegypt And what the meaning of these Plagues may be Ver. VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The War and Death of the Witnesses what they mean Ver. VIII Aegypt and the foregoing Plagues fitly mentioned together Ver. IX The meaning of Three days and an half and of the Bodies of the Witnesses lying unburied Ver. X. What meant by the Dwellers upon Earth Ver. XI What by the Spirit of God coming into the Witnesses Ver. XII That the true Witnesses do not invade Heaven but ascend thither when they are called Ver. XIII The Earth-quake City Fall of the City and the Slaughter of 7000 Names of men what they mean 2. That the Antichristian Opposition to the Regal and Prophetical Office of Christ is clearly prefigured in this Vision of the Two Witnesses 403 CHAP. XIII 1. That the little Horn in Daniel is a Type of that Power which should oppose the Regal Office of Christ. 2. That the Fourth Kingdom in Daniel is not that of the Lagidae and Seleucidae but the Roman proved from the universal Consent of Ecclesiastick Writers 3. From the eminency and greatness of the Fourth Kingdom 4. From the distance of time betwixt the Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae and the Kingdom of the Stone cut out without hands or the Kingdom of the Son of man which is also the Kingdom of Heaven or of God 5 Grotius his fond and profane Interpretation of the Son of man as if thereby were meant the People of Rome 6 The
any but that which is truly the Deity as I have noted in its due place 4. As for the places in the New Testament they are more copious and not less express The first is that in the Acts where when the Chap. 14. v. 14 15. Priest of Jupiter would have sacrificed to Paul and Barnabas at Lystra by reason of the great miracles he saw done they rent their cloaths and ran in amongst the people crying out and saying Sirs why do you these things We also are men of like passions with you and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God which made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and all things that are therein And what vanities are those from which they must turn but from the giving Acts 17. 29 30. of Divine honour to mere Creatures The same Apostle also at Athens in his Speech he made to them on Mars-hill reads them a very round lesson against Idolatry Forasmuch then as we are the off-spring of God we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto Gold or Silver or Stone graven by art and mans device And the times of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent Which exhortation certainly Paul made with the greatest earnestness that could be it being said verse the 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that his spirit was in a very sharp fit in a paroxysm of zeal when he saw the City of Athens so given to Idolatry Again in his first Epistle to the Corinthians he makes Idolatry the very Chap. 12. v. 2. Character of Gentilisme which Christ came to reclaim the world from Ye know that ye were Gentiles carried away to dumb Idols even as ye were led And elsewhere in the same Epistle he exhorts them more copiously and Chap. 10. v. 14 20 c. vehemently Wherefore my dearly-beloved flee from Idolatry The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to the Daemonia and not to God Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of the Daemonia Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy are we stronger then he And this was only about the meat sacrificed to these Daemons what had it then been to bow to their Idols He speaks also very smartly on this subject in his second Epistle to these Corinthians What fellowship hath righteousness Ch. 6. v. 14 16. with unrighteousness what communion hath light with darkness and what agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols And in his Epistle to the Galatians he plainly reckons up Idolatry amongst the grossest works of the flesh Murther Sorcery and Adultery And therefore accordingly Chap. 5. v. 20. in the Apocalyps Idolaters together with Murtherers and Sorcerers Chap. 21. v. 8. are threatned with the lake that burns with fire and brimstone and are shut with obscene Dogs out of the holy City And therefore assuredly Chap. 22. v. 15. S. John is in very good earnest in his dehortation from Idolatry in the 1 John 5. 20. close of his general Epistle And we know that the Son of God is come and has given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true through his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal life Little children keep your selves from Idols Amen From these places I think it is abundantly manifest That the divulging of the Gospel aimed at the taking away of Idolatry that sottish depravation of Religion out of the World 5. And we may be still the more assured of it by those words from our Saviour's own mouth The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father John 4. v. 23 24. seeketh such to worship him God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth Where Grotius and I think very truly interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sublatis ut ritibus ita locorum discrimine And surely the Christian worship being so pure as to abhor from the voluminousness of Judaizing ceremonies and the affixing of the residence of God to a consecrated place as in the Temple of the Jews Imagery and Idolatry must be abhorred infinitely more as infinitely more inconsistent therewith And if God may not be worshipped with an Image much less any thing that is not God either with an Image or without it CHAP. III. 1. What is meant by Grace and Truth coming by Christ. 2. Further Testimonies of Scripture to evince that Christ came to ease men of the Judaical burthen of Ceremonies The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. That the Death of Christ upon the Cross was the solution of the Ceremonial Law of Moses 4. Further proofs to the same purpose 1. BUT now That the grossness and carnality of the Judaical Ceremonies and the unprofitable burthen of them was to be done away by the coming of Christ which is the other point to be proved is very apparent out of several places of Scripture For the Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ that is to say The John 1 17. Law both Moral and Ceremonial was given by Moses but even that Moral Law was but such an one as could not give life as the Apostle Gal. 3. 21. speaks but the gracious assistance of the Spirit of God promised in the Gospel that does give life and strength to walk according to the will of God And then for the Ceremonial Law both it and indeed all things else happening to the Jews were but Types and Shadows but in Christ is the Truth They were not what they made a show to be and therefore in that sense may be said to be false so as he that says that the Image or Picture of a Man or Horse is a Man or Horse indeed pronounces false And therefore our Saviour speaks true when he saith Moses gave you not that bread from Heaven but my Father giveth you that true bread John 6. 31. from Heaven Whenas yet it is said of the Manna Psalm 78. He gave them bread from Heaven to eat But it being but a shadow of the true Vers. 25. bread from Heaven which is Christ it is said not to be the bread from Heaven As in the Epistle to the Hebrews the Law is said to have a Heb. 10. 1. shadow of good things to come and Paul to the Colossians Let no man judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of an holy-day or of the Coloss. 2. 16 17. new Moon or of the Sabbath which are a shadow of things to come but the body is Christ's So plain is it what is meant by Grace and Truth coming by Jesus Christ. For he is that Truth which was signified by the shadows of the Law and by him is
that Grace which was not afforded by the Law namely the Quickning Spirit of God the peculiar promise of the Gospel Wherefore the Truth it self the body of the Sun of Righteousness being now risen with healing in his wings it is time for obscure Shadows and dark Types to fly away 2. And hence it is that S. Paul so stoutly exhorts the Galatians not to be held in bondage any longer within these shady coverts Nevertheless Gal. 4. 30. what saith the Scripture Cast out out the Bond-woman and her son For the son of the Bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the Free-woman So then Brethren we are not children of the Bond-woman but of the Free Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoak of bondage that is to say neither with Circumcision nor any other useless and burthensome ceremony And again upon the same subject he speaks very triumphantly in the above-mentioned Epistle to the Colossians in the same Chapter from the 8 verse to the verse before recited In which paragraph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Coloss. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hand-writing of Ordinances seems most naturally to be understood of Ceremonial ordinances that these were nailed to his Cross and nulled by his death but for that Law which is purely Moral and Eternal and the observation whereof is the perfection of Humane nature he came not to destroy it but to rescue it and perfect it by clearer glosses Which interpretation agrees the best both with the matter in hand which are Ceremonial ordinances which the Apostle speaks of Traditions of men and Rudiments of the World and also with the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in verse 20. If you be then dead with Christ from the Rudiments of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why as living in the world are ye subjected to ordinances to the decrees and ceremonial impositions of men As it follows immediately Tast not touch not handle not which he calls the Commandments and doctrines of men and not unlike those he mentions in his first Epistle to Timothy Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats which in one sense of the Text he seems to term the seducing Chap. 4. v. 3. doctrines of Devils as suggested by them over whom Christ is said to triumph here under the name of Principalities and Powers by virtue of his Cross and so treading them down is supposed to trample upon their ordinances those Doctrines of Devils which they enviously and insultingly entangled poor mankind withall And little better then such would the Judaical Ceremonies themselves be accounted when having been once abrogated by God through Christ they are again re-inforced by new imposers For that zeal that is inspired into men for the driving on superstitious ordinances and practices contrary to the command of Christ and the honour of the Gospel may be rationally conceived to come from Satan the active enemy of the Church of Christ. 3. Like to this of the Colossians is that of the Ephesians For he Chap. 2. 14. is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us having abolished in his flesh that is by his flesh crucified on the Cross as before the law of commandments contained in ordinances which answers to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hand-writing of ordinances in the former And by both these places it is evident That the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross was the solution of all the Ceremonies of Moses Law according as the Prophet Daniel had Dan. 9. predicted and That the everlasting Righteousness should take place a Religion that would instruct us to worship God in spirit and in truth and therefore should stand for ever there being none more perfect to succeed 4. And according to this tenour of the Gospel S. Peter as well as S. Paul is very earnest upon the point in that debate at Jerusalem whether Act. 15. 10. the converted Gentiles should be circumcised where he concludes his speech in this manner Now therefore saith he why tempt ye God to put a yoak upon the neck of the disciples which neither our Fathers nor we were able to bear namely ob ingentem illum numerum praeceptorum ritualium as Grotius has noted and superadded And S. Paul is so zealous for the casting out the Bond-woman and her child that he tells the Galatians roundly Behold I Paul say unto you that if you be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing So industriously did the Apostles of Gal. 5. 2. Christ fling off from the Church that wearisome burthen of the Rites and Ordinances of the Mosaical Law And thus we are sufficiently assured of the Privative End of the Gospel namely That it was to eradicate Idolatry from amongst the Nations and to null the Law of Moses in all the Ritual or Ceremonial ordinances thereof as a troublesome and useless incumberment upon Christianity and the Churches of God CHAP. IV. 1. The Positive End of the Gospel summarily proposed 2. The several grounds of honour due to Christ and particularly of his Paternal Title 3. Both God the Father and Christ the Authours of our Regeneration and how the First Hypostasis being called Father does not exclude the Second from that Title in respect of his Church 4. The other Titles of Christ plain of themselves 5. The Divine life with its Root and Branches the Second part of the Positive scope of the Gospel 6. That such a Mysterie as upon Religious pretences does really supplant all the grand Ends of the Gospel whether Privative or Positive is Mathematically manifest to be that notorious Mystery of Iniquity 7. The method of pursuing the particulars of this Mystery more largely 8. The Falsness Fraud and Mischief of every member of Antichristianism to be enquired into 9. The Authour 's serious desire that the Truth of the Description may be perused without Prejudice and acknowledged without Tergiversation by them that are convinced 1. THE Positive Scope of the Gospel as I said and have elsewhere proved is The exaltation of the Divine life which is either by giving all due honour and obedience to Christ in whom this life did so eminently reside or by promoting the increase thereof both intensively and extensively in his members that it may rise to a due height where it is and get footing amongst those where it is not that the whole Mass of Mankind if it were possible might be leavened not with the leaven of Hypocrisie but with the sincere doctrine and enlivening spirit of the Gospel of Christ. 2. That Honour and Homage we owe to the Person of Christ is to be considered chiefly in these five respects As he is our King As he is our Priest As he is our Prophet As he is God Blessed for ever and As he is in a particular manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
omission of this warning it is said that his Bloud shall be upon the Prophet And chap. 14. 19. even natural death where there is no effusion of bloud is so expressed Or if I send pestilence into the land and pour out my fury upon it in bloud to cut off from it man and beast Upon which Grotius rightly out of the Chaldee Paraphrast Omne mortis immaturae genus Sanguis Hebraeis Bloud therefore signifies Death and bloudy dead because as it is written In the bloud thereof is the life thereof And answerably to this * Onirocrit c. 103. Achmetes according to the sense of the Aegyptians and Persians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the letting out his bloud must be his death and in Analogie the destroying the strength of any thing or that power or virtue whereby it is what it is is the death of that thing not considering whether it be animate or inimate 13. Bow and Arrows They naturally signifie the aiming at some thing and the hitting the mark the enjoying the scope of our enterprises But it may more peculiarly refer to Victory in war and the rather because they are warlike weapons Achmetes out of the Onirocriticks of the Aegyptians and Persians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Onirocrit 249. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If a man dream he holds in his hand Bow and Arrows he shall victoriously insult over his enemies Buildings Achmetes according to the sense of the Indian Interpreter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If one dream he is in an house of Marble or Stone it imports long life and riches where thieves cannot break through nor steal Burial For a dead body to be unburied it may have a two-fold signification either of a more infamous death or of hope of recovering into life According to the first is that of Ecclesiasâ—…es If a man beget an hundred Chap. 6. 3. children and live many years and his soul be not filled with good and also that he have no burial I say that an untimely birth is better then he Otherwise not to be buried may signifie onely that what the Vision portends will not be quite finished Burial being the consummation of all even of Death it self Whence Leonas Syrus dreaming that he was dead but not buried Artemidorus interprets it of that Event viz. that he was Artemidor lib. 4 c. 84. victorious but not crown'd But Menander of Smyrna dreaming also that he was buried was also crowned Victor at the Olympick Games Wherefore not to be buried in Visions that portend good is bad in those that portend bad is good And Achmetes expresly according to the sense of the Indian Interpreters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If there be any thing wanting whereby the Interrement is hindered it signifies hope of recovery to life CHAP. VI. 1. Candle 2. Character 3. Clouds of Heaven 4. Crown of precious Stones 5. Darkness Day Death 6. Desart 7. Dragon a figure of the Devil according to the ancient Cabbala and then of the chief Polities that oppose the Church 8. Drunkenness 9. Eagle Earth-quake 10. Eclipses 11. Eye an Hieroglyphick of Counsel and Prudence 12. Fishing Fish dead in the Sea 13. Fire the different significations thereof 14. Fire from Heaven its exact significancy of Excommunication 15 16. Flesh two notable significations thereof 17. Floud Fornication Frogs 18. Gemms and precious Stones God 1. CAndle Candle seems to signifie the prosperous state of things in this world Job 18. Yea the light of the wicked shall be put out and the spark of his fire shall not shine The light shall be dark in his Tabernacle and his candle shall be put out And chap. 29. O that I were as in months past as in the days when God preserved me when his candle shined upon my head and by his light I walked through darkness The like prosperous success the Psalmist also denotes by the same figure Psal. 18. For thou wilt light my candle the Lord my God will make my darkness to be light in his Song of thanksgiving for his deliverance out of the hand of Saul Astrampsychus and Nicephorus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Artemidorus lib. 2. c. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Candle seen burning bright in the house portends good the increase of riches and plenty Lastly Achmetes according to the meaning of the Aegyptians and Persians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in the same Chapter again he saith That the lighting up of Lights signifies joy and chearfulness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the extinction of them against a mans will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 affliction and distress from a mans enemies proportionable to the darkness 2. Character That Servants and Souldiers received Marks upon their foreheads and hands whereby it might be known to whom they did belong is a piece of indisputable Antiquity there being sufficient testimony thereof in Authours See what is congested in Mr. Mede and Grotius upon Apocal. 13. But in the Prophetick style it does not imply that there is any visible mark in the hand or on the head of those that are said to be marked but onely that there is an open profession of belonging to them whose mark they are said to receive For they are onely Types of Propriety and are no more to be conceived to be really impressed upon them that are said to bear them then those whole Kingdoms of men that are called Beasts in the Prophetick style are to be imagined to be metamorphozed into Bears or Leopards For all these are Typical Attributes not Real 3. Clouds of Heaven In the Scripture-phrase they seem to signify Power and great Glory Achmetes Chap. 194. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the mind of the Persians and Aegyptians And Chap. 162. according to the Aegyptians Persians and Indians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And again in the same Chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The sense of all which is this That the riding upon the Clouds and ascending into Heaven signifies honourable prosperity and success against our enemies and enlargement of power and dignity 4. Crown of Gemms and precious Stones Achmetes out of the Onirocriticks of the Indians Chap. 247. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where the force of the Interpretation bears most upon the Gemms or precious Stones they being the Emblems of Riches Height and Honour They have also a more Mystical meaning in this very Chapter and signify 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the brightness of Divine doctrine or Truth But Chap. 248. they are onely interpreted of worldly things according to the mind of the Aegyptians and Persians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. Pearls and precious Stones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he has got abundance of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shall find proportionable riches and honour 5. Darkness See Candle and Eye Day See Time Death Death is a dissolution of Body and Soul and therefore properly belongs onely to a natural Animal but by Analogie may be transferred to all Bodies Politick which the Prophetick