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
Vestments would vie in number with the Vestments of Aaron the High-priest and imitate also his in Analogie his Breast-plate his Ephod his Robe his broidered Coat his Mitre and Girdle and the Bishops not content with these should adde for the further adorning themselves as if they had a mind to out-doe the Ceremonial Habiliments of Aaron himself six more holy Ornaments nay I will suppose nine more besides the consecrating of these Priests with holy oyl on their shaven Crowns and in their hands which become thereby so sanctified that the more devout would eagerly and zealously kiss the hand of the Priest strait after his Ordination hoping thereby to partake more fully of his devotedness and sanctity What were this I say but to Judaize under Christianity and to illaqueate the minds of men with such Superstitions as our Saviour Christ came to set them free from Which intimation is sufficient to shew the Falsness and groundlesness of such an Oeconomy in the Church 5. But as for the pretence for such kind of Aaronical Ornaments I can imagine none unless it be the imitation of the Levitical Laws which is a very bad one those Laws being to be abolished by Christ. Besides that the Robes of Aaron were of a more * Appendix to the Defence of the Philosophick Cabbala Ch. 5. Sect. 2 3 4. profound and important signification then to be imitated upon any slight or superficial design as well they as other Mosaical figures being prescribed according to a certain Pattern exhibited by God in the Mount which being the shadows of things to come do naturally vanish in this Meridian and Vertical Sun-shine of the Gospel And therefore to bring in so many New shadows is to reenvelop the Church with darkness and divert us from the rightly understanding of the meaning of the Old which assuredly were all Types of that more full knowledge of Jesus Christ and of that inward and Spirituall Sanctity we have in him But that advantage which this erroneous Priesthood might seek to it self herein is this That by these Histrionical disguises and peculiar adornings they may become more honourable in the eyes of the People who are much struck with outward shews I mean the simpler sort of them and that their Persons may be accounted very holy whose Ordination is with such pompous Ceremonie and whose sacred Unction makes it in some sort to vie with the Coronation of Princes Could they be more through-paced in the imitation of that great high-Priest of the Jews and adorn themselves with what in analogie should answer to his * See the Preface General to the Collection of my Philosophicall Writings Sect. 3. Urim and Thummim that is Illumination of mind and Sincerity of heart that indeed would be an happy emulation and would absolve them from an over-rigorous pursuance of the rest 6. But so it is according to our Hypothesis that instead of so great a good there follow these Inconveniences That this Sacerdotal Pomp and Gayness to those Priests that understand the nature of Christianity is both a Scandal and a Burthen to those that do not rellish Christianity in the right sense of it it is to them an occasion of insufferable pride and conceitedness and of great security and neglect of those true and indispensable endowments of the Christian Priesthood of that Anointing 1 John 2. 27 which will teach them all things even that of the Holy Spirit of God which is not lodged in consecrated Garments but in those purer habits of the Mind in the Inward man wholy and throughly dedicated to God by perfect and real abrenunciation of himself and of the flesh the world and the Devil by entirely giving up ones self to the sincere Love of God and of his Neighbour to Purity and Sobriety of life and to unfeigned Humility and Self-denial Which real Accomplishments should be the Foundation of respect to the Christian Priesthood not those exteriour Ornaments that may be the covers of a Beast or Devil And lastly for the People themselves As some are liable to be miserably deceived by those external Pomps so others to be much offended I mean those who are more seriously set upon the real duties of Christianity and find their wholesome appetite mock'd not fed with those outward shews in the publick Service of God 7. Which we shall better understand if we make a more plenary representation of their Publick worship and adde to the Consecrated Garments of the Priest the dedicating of an unknown Tongue to their Publick Prayers and Offices to the great disedification of the People What spectacle could one behold more Antichristian To see a man in those Sacerdotal disguises all of them consecrated and dedicated to the purpose himself having had both Head and Hands anointed with holy oyl standing in an anointed Church and at anointed Altar with his anointed Chalice and other anointed Utensils whose Church-yard is holy by the consecration and benediction of sprinkled Holy-water for the frighting the Devils from hanting that consecrate ground and molesting the sleep of the bodies of the Dead nay whose very Bells of his Steeple are Christned and Chrismatized for the chasing away the foul fiends out of the Aire at the departure of a Soul by their tolling or ringing To see him in his holy postures now at the one end of the Altar now at another now turning his face toward the people now his back-side one while holding up his hands another while holding them down another while a-cross at his breast now making with his hand a single Cross now two or three Crosses together now sitting then standing and another while stooping and kissing the holy Altar now speaking aloud then muttering to himself in a lower tone but always in a tongue that is not at all understood by the People To see I say such a Sight as this and to compare it with that of our Saviour The hour cometh when the true worshippers John 4. shall worship the Father in Spirit and in truth for the Father seeketh such to worship him It would necessarily extort from the Spectatour this just Censure That these are either false-false-worshippers or our Saviour's prediction not true or else the completion thereof past in the simplicity of the Primitive times or rather that if he would find these true Christian worshippers he must seek them somewhere else for here is neither Spirit nor Truth nor intelligible language but all more dark and blind and dumb then in the very Midnight-shadows of the Mosaical Dispensation 8. And therefore as I was a-going to conclude as the more sottish people will be liable to be even brutishly amazed and amused by this unintelligible and unedifying pomp and spectacle and be made the more obnoxious to all the Frauds and Tyrannies of this Unchristian though over-much Anointed Priesthood so the more nasute will be tempted to look upon it but as a kind of circumforaneous Masking or Mumming nor easily be persuaded that
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
wealth honour and sensual pleasures 9. This is a competent Draught of the second Limb of Antichristianism which consists In the heaping together a number of trouble some and unwarrantable Superstitious conceits and observances whereby the yoke of Christ would be made far more grievous then the dispensation of Moses yea whereby the Servitude of Christians would be little inferiour if not greater then the slavery of the Israelites in the Land of Aegypt and in that house of bondage as it is styled peculiarly in the Scripture And therefore I think this particular constitution of things which I have described may very well goe for a confiderable Member of Antichristianism BOOK II. CHAP. I. 1. The Positive Ends of the Gospel which the rest of the Limbs of Antichristianism do oppose 2. That to lay claim to a Right of Infallible Interpretation of the Laws of Christ is a supplanting of his Kingly Office 3. An instance of that danger in the Glosses of the Pharisees 4. Several places of Scripture alledged to prove the Church Infallible 5. The first general Answer to these Allegations by demanding whether the Promise of Infallibility be to the Whole Church or to Part. 6. The second by demanding whether the Promise be Absolute or Conditional 7. A third That the Promise cannot be Universal touching all Objects that may be considered 8. A particular Answer to the first place of Scripture 9. An Answer to the second and third 10. Infallibility a Promise onely to the first Founders of the Christian Church 11. What the meaning of The pillar and ground of truth 12. A further exposition of that passage of Paul to Timothy 13. That if understood of the Universal Church it may be meant onely of it in the Apostles times 14. And that the like may be said of the last allegation 1. WE have now done with those Members of Antichristianism that oppose the Privative Ends of the Gospel of Christ which were The removing of Idolatry and the Burthen of Superstition out of the world we come now to the Positive End thereof which in general is The Advancement of the Divine Life and this either Personally in Christ or by way of propagation in his Members the Church Those Divine Honours and Offices the Person of Christ is advanced to and are most obvious to take notice of are those of King Priest and Prophet the opposing or supplanting of which cannot but be so many abhorred parts of this wicked Antichristianism whose Image we are now setting out in its genuine colours 2. As concerning the first therefore of these Suppose any man or company of men under pretence of being the true Visible Church successively descending from Christ and his Apostles should take upon them to be the Infallible Interpreters of the Law of Christ and teach that all men were to embrace and to submit to their Glosses seem they never so harsh never so improbable nay if you will never so impossible and declare it a mortal sin for any to doubt of their determinations in this kind This surely were a plain opposing or utter supplanting of the Kingly Office of Christ and the quite taking away His exercise of Sovereignty which cannot otherwise be exercised then by Commands and Decrees which when a King has published if another have power to interpret them any way as he pleases the Kingly power will really be in the Interpreter and not in the King I say this pretended right and power of Infallibly interpreting does in very truth make the Interpreter King and the King a Shadow or Cypher Assuredly no Earthly Prince would think himself truly Sovereign over his people if all the Injunctions and Edicts he made were not to bear the easie natural sense which he intends them in but to be drawn to some other meaning by any exception or evasion or any forcible interpretation that some forein Potentate should put upon them Wherefore whosoever pretends a Right and Infallibility in the interpreting the Law of Christ does in effect make Christ no Law-giver and consequently no King nor Governour in his Church then which what can be more grossly Antichristian 3. Cui jus est interpretandi hujus Sententia pondus habet legis Divinae is a saying which although * In his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Erasmus has put into the mouth of a mean person yet is a great Truth And our Saviour knew and has noted the mischievous abuse of this presumption so plainly in that instance of the Pharisees who could interpret away the force of that Command Honour thy Father and thy Mother by saying it was Corban that it is impossible he should allow of any visible Interpreter with such an unlimited Right as some contend for to the abuse of his Church and the taking his Kingly Office out of his own hands For he has there observed That the Matth. 15. 6. Pharisees had made the word of God of none effect through their Traditions that is to say through their Exceptions Qualifications and Interpretations of it 4. I but they will pretend that Christ will make his Church Infallible and if they be so he himself will really reign in them they interpreting alway according to his mind And that he has made his Church Infallible they will pretend to appear plainly out of such places of Scripture as these * Matth. 16. That the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her and again * Joh. 14. I will ask the Father and he will give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of truth which the World cannot receive c. again * Joh. 16. When he the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth To which adde that of S. Paul to * 1 Tim. 3. 15. Timothy where he seems to call the Church the Pillar and Ground of Truth And lastly that to the * chap. 4. Ephesians where Christ is said to have given some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ till all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the Head even Christ. Let these passages then be their Letters patent their grand pretended Commission of Infallibly interpreting and never erring in any Determinations or Conclusions and we shall easily discover that it is a mere pretence 5. For I demand whether this Promise of Infallibility be to the Whole visible Church in succession or
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
signifie certain performance but the duty what they ought to perform As when the Apostles are called the Light of the world and the Matth. 5. 13 14. Salt of the earth which onely signifies what they ought to be not what they were necessitated to be For those that ought to be thus may notwithstanding hide their Talent or grow unsavoury through their own fault as it fared in Judas and in all his succession of false Apostles which call themselves the Servants but are the betrayers of the Lord Jesus 13. But lastly Suppose that the Church then in general were here understood it does not follow That because that Primaeval and Apostolical Church should by a peremptory design of Providence have engraven upon it or exhibit to the world as Articles of belief nothing but what was true that the Church in succession should always doe the like For there was a prime care taken that the first establishment of the Church should be in truth and solidity but that being done which was sufficient for the after-carrying on the affairs of the Church in a right way by free Agents the success should afterwards lie upon their industry and fidelity at least so far as that by no miraculous and supernatural force they should be assisted or driven on to keep things pure and intemerate And that was sufficient for the Church I think which is thought sufficient for every particular man namely That the Christian Doctrines and Precepts being faithfully laid down in the Evangelists and other Writings of the Apostles they might that usual Grace of God which is not irresistible assisting them frame their lives and beliefs accordingly in those things that are plain And all are so that are necessary to Salvation Which Rule if it had been kept to no Error had crept into the Church to this very day 14. Which last Answer will contribute something towards an Answer to the last place alledged for it seems onely to contain a description of a special provision of God for the rightly settling his Truth in the first Ages of the Church To which purpose he appointed not onely Pastours and Teachers which Functions continue still but Apostles having a particular mission from Christ himself who breathed into them the Spirit of Truth as also Prophets and Evangelists men in a special manner inspired and assisted to erect the Fabrick of the Church according to the will and purpose of Christ who then in an extraordinary manner did supervise all by a miraculous assistence of his Spirit And therefore what-ever was wrote for the publick use of the Church while any of those unto whom our Saviour Christ said that the Spirit should abide with them for ever which should lead them into all Truth were alive or was approved by them is really of certain and infallible authority but what-ever after-Inventions or Super-additions there were in the Church they are to be measured by this unerring Rule These unerring Pastors therefore and Teachers Apostles Prophets Evangelists were not a promise to all Successions but an extraordinary gift as the Text it self imports which Christ at that time namely at his solemn Coronation or Triumph ascending above all Heavens that he Eph. 4. 10. might fill all things cast down as a Royal Largess upon his Church for the speedy completement of her for her growing up into the unity of the Faith and Knowledge of Christ and that she might not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine but adhere to that onely that was delivered by those Heavenly-inspired and miraculously-assisted Ministers of the Gospel The acknowledgement whereof I conceive had been the onely sure means to keep the Church in Unity for ever whenas the pretending to an Infallibility in the succeeding Church where indeed it was not and the taking upon them thereupon to impose things with equal authority to the Apostles themselves would naturally prove the fountain of all Error Schism and Confusion CHAP. II. 1. That the safe conveyance of the Apostolick Writings down to us by the Church does not infer her Infallibility 2. That the Plainness of Scripture in points necessary to Salvation takes away the want of an Infallible Judge 3. That the Scripture not pointing to any Infallible Judge nor any faithful Keeper of Traditions does ipso facto declare her self the onely sufficient Guide 4. That there is not onely no want of an Infallible Judge but better there should be none 5. That the want of Infallibility does not take away the Authority of the Church it being the duty of every person in things really disputable to compromise with her 6. That though a Visible Judge be necessary in Civil causes yet it is nothing so in Points of Religion 7. That every private man has not onely a liberty but a command to judge for himself in matters of Faith 8. The said Right or Privilege demonstrated also by Reason 9. That the Reason or Judgment of every private man is not a private Spirit in that reproachful sense that some speak it 10. That the claim to a right of judging for ones self in points of Faith does not make a man superiour to his Church 11. Nor yet equal 12. Nor implies that he thinks himself wiser then his Church but rather more careful of his own eternal Concerns 13. That it is not his private Wisdom he sticks to but the Wisdom of God known to all that are not wilfully blind 14. That the Church is not Infallible proved from the Example of the Jewish Church 15. That there is the same reason of the Christian. 16. That the want of an Infallible Interpreter is no such loss to the common people 17. That their assurance of the truth of the Scriptures by the Spirit is a Tenet not so superciliously to be exploded as some make shew of 18. That this Spirit is properly the Spirit of Faith distinguishable from that of Knowledge and Wisdom 19. The notorious Fraud and excessive Mischief of this pretence of Infallibility 1. BUT being worsted thus in Scripture they will pretend Demonstrations in Reason upon the presumption they are the true visible Church successively descended from Christ and his Apostles that Infallibility is for ever intailed upon them As first That unless the Church were successively Infallible we could have no certain and Infallible belief of the Holy Scriptures which are avouched to be such by the Church But I briefly answer That supposing this successive Church were a trusty undoubted Conveyer of the Copies of the Holy Scriptures uncorrupted yet it doth not follow that they must be Infallible Interpreters of these Scriptures no more then the faithful conveyance of Plato's and Aristotle's Writings to all posterity implies that the Conveyers thereof are Infallible Interpreters of them For they might preserve the Writings of either by a diligent comparing of Copies upon every transcription besides that there might be a special watchfulness of Providence over these Holy Writings for the conservation of
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
the Scripture is as well useless as false and much as if the Moon should take upon her to witness for the Sun that he sends out light which every one that is not blind will necessarily see though the Moon were under the Horizon So the holy children of God chosen and faithfull will feel and tast clearly see and discern that the Scripture is the Truth of God by that light which is in it that correspondeth with that Spirit derived from the Father of lights which he has shed into their hearts Which as I said is the Spirit of Faith and the sure portion of every Member of Christ whether they can make out things by Knowledge and deep Reason or no. And if they be assaulted by Cavillers it is their prudence to send such to their fellow-members to whom God has given also the Spirit of Knowledge or of Wisedome or it may be more prudent to let them goe as they came they being not worthy to give any the trouble of discourse who put questions not with design of being seriously edified and instructed in the Truth but for captiousness contention and a conceited hope of puzzling him by whom they make show as if they desired to be informed 19. The fraudulent End that this pseudo-Christian Church might drive at in this peremptory boast of Infallibility is very conspicuous as also the Mischievous events thereof For what could this tend to but the making this Antichristian power absolute that they might without any ones whinching decree and declare what-ever would tend to the encrease of their own honour and wealth seem it never so contrary to common Reason to the express Word of God and the Precepts of Christ For the sentence is Infallible let it look never so strangely and repugnantly to any Rule that we might think right Wherefore this Power might even doe what it pleases change Times and Laws even the Law of God it self and fling the house of God out at windows as the proverb is For who has any thing to say against that power which he is already persuaded is Infallible And to speak summarily and then which nothing greater can be said The Admittance of this Infallibility is the Exclusion of Christ from his Kingdom and Throne and the setting up a mere Mortal a masterless Man of sin or a pack of sons of Belial to sway his Sceptre for him in the world This alone is enough if it would take to supplant the Government of Christ upon Earth CHAP. III. 1. That the keeping the Law of Christ in an unknown Tongue is an undermining or opposing of his Sovereignty 2. As also the reproaching and vilifying his Law 3. Their fraudulent pretence of hiding the Scriptures with a vindication of their Usefulness and Excellency 4. The vilifying of the Laws of Christ by setting far less penalties upon the transgression of them then of the inconsiderable Institutes of the Church 5. That their rigid Impositions are against the Kingdom of Christ as also the reading of Legends instead of his Law in Churches 6. The dispensing also with the Divine Laws The Fraud and Mischief thereof 7. The Treasonable pretence of this Power 's being absolute by right of succession in Christ's seat 8. The evil effect of this pretence discoverable in several Institutes contrary to the written Laws of Christ 9. As also in nulling those Laws he has given as he is the Eternal Word 10. The bloudy opposing the Sovereignty and Kingdom of Christ in murthering his faithfull Subjects 1. BUT there are other ways also of lifting the Government from off Christ's shoulders As first Suppose They should keep the Law of God in an unknown Tongue and not let any one reade it in the language they understood nay be so carefull that the very Prayers that are used in publick and the celebration of the holy Eucharist should be unintelligible lest the power of some passages of Scripture that may occurre in the publick Service should unhindge men from the blind obedience they are held in under this Antichristian Usurpation 2. To which you may adde what indeed might better have preceded a Revilement of the Law of Christ as a Book full of nothing but dangerous obscurities a Lesbian or Leaden Rule to be bended any way a Nose of wax a dead letter a Farrago of casuall or occasionall Writings which were penned not by any Divine appointment but onely as fortuitous Exigences moved the Prophets or Apostles to write them And where they would speak most modestly to say it is an insufficient Law or Rule and therefore must be made up by Institutes of their own invention or what they will please to obtrude upon the world for Traditional doctrines and usages I say thus to Revile the Law of Christ is to null it and thereby to null his Sovereignty over his Church and to betray it into the hands of a stranger to deal with them as he pleases and to change Times and Laws and Customes in such sort that there may be nothing sound left in Christianity that may any way thwart the Interest of these Usurpers 3. In brief therefore thus it may be They may pretend the Scripture obscure all over because it is so in some places But we have already sufficiently urged that there is enough clear of it to enlighten the single-hearted in the way of eternal Salvation But upon the pretence of the uncertain sense of some passages they may remove all away that those passages that would plainly discover and reprove their false doctrines and practices might not come into the sight of the people For as a Father has well noted Verbum Dei est Lucerna ad quam fur deprehenditur and our Saviour Christ of old They hate the light because their deeds are evil But that Imputation of the Scripture's being writ occasionally it is as weak as impious and blasphemous As if the Spirit of God would not assist the Apostles most when occasion called for it or as if he were to study how to inspire them and illuminate them and could not doe it extempore or upon emergent occasions but would be taken unprovided These things savour of gross carnality and ignorance of the very nature of God and his holy Spirit which Christ promised should not fail to be with them for ever for the right settling of the affairs of the Church that is to say that it would not desert them so long as they lived and acted in the Ministery and service thereof Which therefore must make the Scripture very precious and of inestimable value to all sincere Believers Wherefore any one Paragraph of the Epistles of S. Paul to whom Christ appeared and called to from Heaven and commissioned to be an Apostle to lay the Foundation and first structure of his Church ought to be preferred before many thousands of pretended Infallible Councils who could never shew any such extraordinary Commission to prove themselves Infallible For God by that miraculous appearing
therefore they erring in the apprehension of the Excellency of that Object to which Divine worship is due as if it were so mean that there could be many such did not direct their worship to him but to a phancy or Idol of their own making to which they profanely attributed the name of Jehovah For the true Jehovah was not so vile a Being as there could be any partakers of Divine honour with himself And so it is with Christ who is the same true God blessed for ever He that gives Divine honour which is due to him alone unto Saints or Angels disclaims his Divinity and makes him but as one of them This would be one Antichristian way of undermining his Godhead by equallizing mere Creatures unto him 7. But there is another way or rather the same way but in an higher degree and consequently more Antichristian and that is the preferring that which is but a mere Creature though a blessed and glorious one before him or above him As for example if either Fraud or blind Devotion should exalt the ever-blessed Virgin not onely to that Divine honour of having Temples and Altars erected to her with Prayers and Invocations of her as in the worship of the rest of the Saints and Angels but that these Honours should be done much more frequently and more magnificently to the Virgin Mary then to Christ himself that is to say that there should be more Temples and Altars and more sumptuous erected to her then to Christ Jesus more Devotions Prayers and Offerings made to her then to him a greater acknowledgement of mercy and goodness from her then from him who poured out his Life in the bitter Agonies of his bloudy Passion for the Salvation of the World and lastly be ascribed unto her a Superiority and Authority over Christ to command him to doe this or that by virtue of that duty he owes unto her Certainly if this be not against the Divinity of Christ nothing can be thus to make him inferiour to a deceased woman even him that is perfect God as well as perfect Man For it is plainly to un-deify him if I may so speak and to declare him to be no God at all Which is as Antichristian an outrage against the Divinity of Christ as can be imagined For who is Antichrist if he be not that denies the Father and the Son 1 John 2. 22. who is one and equal with the Father And who denies the Godhead of both Father and Son but he that pronounces the Mother of Christ according to the flesh to be greater then them both as certainly she is if she be greater then either 8. The Fifth Title is The Everlasting Father The Seventy translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meaning I suppose the world under the Messias The efficacy of which Title I conceive the Mystery of Regeneration to reflect upon Christ regenerating us into his own Image by the inward working of his Eternal Spirit All things that the Father hath John 16 15. are mine and it is no wonder he being one with the Father therefore said I that he the Spirit shall take of mine and shew it unto you Wherefore Christ regenerating the World which was to come by the operation of his Eternal Spirit he was rightly and fitly styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Father of the World to come or if you will The everlasting Father as being so in his own Essence and begetting Children to endless Eternities Of this Mysterie he treated in his converse upon Earth with his secret disciple Nicodemus Unless a man be born from above he cannot enter into John 3. 5 7. the Kingdom of God Marvel not that I said unto thee that we must be born from above The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but thou knowest not from whence it comes nor whether it goes so is every one that is born of the Spirit No unregenerate man is acquainted with the sense of the first rise and motion of the Spirit nor understands whither those actions and speeches tend that proceed therefrom But it is so with these as is said in the Apocalyps of the hundred forty four thousands who by virtue of their new birth sung a new Song which none could learn but the hundred forty four thousands Chap. 14. which were redeemed from the Earth by being born from above as our Saviour spake to Nicodemus These are the true Israelites in whose mouth is found no guile and who by the guidance of that Spirit by which they are regenerate follow the Lamb wheresoever he goes 9. Wherefore Christ being to his true Church so real a Father by a true and living Regeneration and Renovation of their Minds by his Spirit into such holy sentiments as appertain to all those that are indeed the Sons of God to treat them so as if they were mere Images made of wood or stone or rather dead matter to be carved upon and have the inscription of any thing that a pretended Infallible Power shall be pleased to engrave upon them this is an high Antichristian affront against the Paternity of Christ as if he did not beget living Children who have as certainly the sense of discernment in Spiritual things as any Animal birth has in Natural but that the number of his Elect were but a certain Tale of billets brick or stone to be hewen or carved or any way ordered according to the petulancy and imperiousness of a self-willed Power who under a pretence of an infallible and unfailing succession that must be in the Church has stept into the place of Christ. Maxima debetur puero reverentia is most true concerning every child of God For there is that Divine sense in them against which whatsoever is unholy and unsavoury will grate very hard and unpleasantly and what is false will be found by them very disharmonious both to those immutable Principles of Truth in their unprejudiced minds and also to the written Oracles of God which were penned down by the same Spirit by which this genuine off-spring of Christians are regenerated Wherefore as I said to use these as if there were no life no spirit no sense or discernment in them but that they must as passively without any Conviction or Appeal to any thing in themselves bear the Dictates of this usurping Power we describe as a Table-book or Paper-book which is irresistibly writ upon by that hand that pleases is an enormous Injury against Christ as he is the Everlasting Father and holy Regeneratour of his true Church into his own life and likeness But to murther and massacre these Children of his because they do so stoutly and exactly Patrissare so conscienciously and carefully tread in their Father's steps and witness his Truth to the world I leave to any man to judge if there can be imagined any thing more hellishly Antichristian against the Paternity of Christ then that For what can be more hostile and
or justice and that is the so freely nick-naming them by the style of Hereticks and Schismaticks Which yet in their own judgment I suppose not to bear so little weight with it whenas their real estimate is discoverable by their proceedings they deeming an Heretick so odious or contemptible that he is not worthy of the common privileges of mankind and of that protection that the Laws of humane Society do afford men that he shall not have the security of a Promise though confirmed by Oath Faith not being to be kept with Hereticks Not to mention here that they have made the penalties of Heresie capital Which how justly though a man were an Heretick in the matters of Belief provided it were not out of Pride and conceitedness but out of invincible Ignorance I will not here discuss 2. It will be of greater use to consider what is real Heresie or Schism that the sincere and knowing Christian may not be reproached nor the less skilful affrighted with these Bug-bears Those that make so great a cry against the hainousness of these sins their Zeal and Rhetorick would be more usefully placed if they would be so faithful as to give us a right Notion of them otherwise while they pretend to be so industriously desirous of Peace and Unity in the Church they may but give greater occasion of Dissensions and Animosities For to make more things Heresies and Schisms then are is to create more quarrels then there need be I will acknowledge as soon as any that Heresie and Schism are very grievous crimes even of the deepest dye but then it must be truly Heresie or Schism not what-ever the peevishness or interest or prejudice of a domineering party will be pleased to call so under the pretence that they are that One Catholick Church from whose Doctrine be it never so false or corrupt for one to dissent must be Heresie and to separate from their communion be their practices never so Idolatrous Schism No certainly those high sins of Heresie and Schism are not against this or that particular Synagogue be they never so numerous but against that ancient and truly Catholick and Apostolick Church and he that sins against her Unity sins against his Creed which has taught us to say I believe one Catholick and Apostolick Church Which words because they may be abused to the making of the Church look less Catholick and One then it is I shall offer an easie resolution of the sense of them 3. I conceive therefore that the Object of our Belief in this Clause of the Creed are these three Propositions First That the Church of God wherein eternal Salvation is to be had is but One that is to say That a man cannot be saved in any Religion as some wantonly conceit but that there is one onely way of Salvation which is revealed to God's true Church under which all must come before they can be saved Secondly That this Church of God is now a Catholick Church not Topical or National as in the Commonwealth of the Jews but a Church that is by right to spread over the face of the whole Earth and is designed so to doe by Providence as is expressed in several passages of the Prophets From the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same my name shall be great amongst the Gentiles c. as * Chap. 1. Malachie has fore-told And David in the second Psalm Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession Thirdly and lastly That this One Catholick Church is neither to be stretched so wide as to be acknowledged there where the Apostolical Doctrine the Faith and Practice delivered and commanded by Christ or his Apostles is oppugned and contradicted and quite contrary Doctrines and Practices brought in nor to be made so narrow as that such companies of men should not be allowed to be part of this Catholick Church amongst whom notwithstanding the Apostolical Doctrines do obtain and Primitive Practices of the Church set on foot by the Apostles or Christ himself are in use That is to say The adequate Character of this One Catholick Church is that it rejects nothing of the Apostolical Doctrines and imitable Usages which were commanded by Christ or by his Apostles to the Church nor teaches or institutes any thing that is point-blank opposite thereto or to the Word of God to which Christ and his Apostles give testimony That therefore is the true Catholick Church in the whole and in every particular company of it which has for its visible Laws and Usages whereby it self becomes also visible the Laws and Usages of Christ and his Apostles and nothing contradictorious thereunto This I hope will be acknowledged by all men the most easie and genuine sense of this Article of the Christian Creed that the words are capable of 4. And hence I think a man may easily discover what that Heresie is that is justly to be deemed so hainous a sin namely That it is A Dissent from the Catholick Church even in those things that are in it Apostolical For by them alone they being entire and uncontradicted in her does she discover her self to be that One and onely Catholick Church of Christ. And this would be an hainous sin indeed against that Authority she has to instruct and imbue the world with this saving truth I say to dissent from any part of this Apostolick Doctrine out of a spirit of contradiction and self-conceitedness would be Heresie in the most loathsom circumstances that can be imagined And the next degree to this would be the dissenting from the Catholick Church in such things as they generally agree in though they be not expressly any part of the Apostolick Doctrine but in the mean time not plainly dissonant to the Word of God nor to the immutable Notions of humane Understanding And the third and last degree is to dissent from the determinations of a mans own particular National Church in the like circumstances with the former These seem to have something an over-near affinity with what we have defined most properly primarily to be Heresie But considering that even Oecumenical Councils themselves may erre and that Scripture in things necessary to Salvation is sufficiently plain and the Affairs and the Genius of particular Nations exceeding different and changeable and General Councils very hardly and slowly to be congregated I must not be over-hasty to call a Dissent here no not from an Oecumenical Doctrine or Usage by so harsh a denomination as Heretical there being no entrenchment made thereby upon the Apostolical Laws and Doctrines But to dissent from or not to subscribe to the determinations of what Church soever that are plainly repugnant to the Doctrines Apostolical were not onely not Heretical but Heroical especially if the Dissent is likely to beattended with any personal inconveniences to the Dissenter 5. And now for Schism there is much-what
the right Spirit or Dispensation of Elias for the better discovering all false Pretenders thereto Apoc. 10. 3. and yet know neither his Spirit nor their own nor what times they are in nor doe that office which is proper for Elias to doe which is to testify that the Lord is come and as the holy Baptist pointed at Christ at his First coming and said Behold the Lamb of God so to indigitate his Second coming saying Behold the Lion of the Tribe of Juda even that mighty Angel whose face is as the Sun with a Rainbow over his head crying with a loud voice as when a Lion roareth and discharging his seven thunders upon the Earth The Series of which undoubtedly commenced upon the Protestant Reformation For then began the Judgment to sit and the dominion of the Dan. 7. 26. little Horn to be taken away to consume and to destroy it to the end What Monsters of Enthusiasts therefore are they that kick against the sentence and authority of those holy Benchers or Heavenly Witnesses of God whom he raised up to judge the Deceiver and to settle Truth upon Earth dividing themselves from that Church that is the real and genuine Spouse of Christ so approved by these very Witnesses which God raised from the dead What a goodly Specimen do those high-flown Boasters give of their Elias like Spirit who though they imitate something of the Wind Earthquake and Fire that appeared before that great Prophet yet are utterly unacquainted with that still and small voice in which alone the Lord was heard to speak This Rending and Tearing this Faction and Siding is the fruit of the Flesh and not of the Spirit Nor was Elias zealous about any thing but the indispensable Laws of God Nor is his office to divide but to cement and make up the Breaches of the Church of Christ to reconcile the People to their Governours and their Governours to the People according as it is written * Behold I will send you Elijah the Mal. 4. 5. Prophet and he shall turn the heart of the Fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their Fathers lest I come and smite the Earth with a curse Wherefore whatsoever Dispensation drives not on an healing and uniting design in the true Church of Christ is not the Spirit of that expected Elias which some dream of but a second game of Antichrist contrived abetted and promoted by his cunning Incendiaries upon whom that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dothâ—…stick and will be raging at least till the Fifth Vial. But this is more then I meant to speak in this place 14. Now concerning Grotius and my confuting him onely and sometimes something smartly As for the former it is not wholy true for That he has not confuted Grotius onely in this Treatise with an Apologie for doing of it sometimes something sharply I have also confuted Ribera the best of the Roman Expositours upon the Seventeenth of the Revelation nor have I declined any Interpreter that I could find to speak any thing considerable which is not already confuted in my confutation of these And for my Smartness against Grotius I believe I shall appear so to none but such as make an Idol of him which they will doe most that least understand or have read least of his Expositions of Daniel and the Apocalyps touching the Controversy in hand For I dare pronounce to all the World that there was never any thing more weak and groundless as I have made it abundantly clear in the ensuing Discourse And I think it is not at all unseemly to resist him with some kind of Zeal who had grown up to that boldness in his contrived Interpretations as to trample under feet the Sacred Titles of Christ under which he is peculiarly prophesied of in the Divine Oracles and that in those very Prophecies themselves See Grotius his Annot. in Dan. 2. 34 45. and chap. 7. 13. and to cast them as unholy to a Pagan Nation the People of Rome merely to cover the shame of that Body of men who are so hideously lapsed and apostatized from the Truth and being fast to one party and loose to another to drive the sincere Protestant into a net under a colourable show of Reconciliation and to expose again the innocent Lambs of Christ's flock to the merciless teeth of that devouring Wolf of Rome And yet as smartly as I have dealt with him I have onely expressed my admiration that a Person otherwise so Learned should fall into such unparallel'd Weaknesses and Extravagancies in interpreting these Prophecies of Scripture nor have given the least intimation that gifts had blinded the eyes of the wise or that he had followed the way of Balaam the son of Bosor who loved the wages of unrighteousness but that he had been tempted in that way and how far he accepts the condition one may in some sort observe in the Epistle of Du-vair to him and his answer thereunto and what other transactions there might be God and his own Conscience best know But in the interim it cannot be unknown to any that will search into the truth but that some very great Biass must have been clapp'd upon so good a Judgment as Grotius his to make him capable of running so extremely much out of the way 15. I have elsewhere imputed it to the excess of Candour and Humanity The vindication of himself from the imputation of Uncharitableness for applying certain Visions usually understood of Antichrist to the Church of Rome in him and the love of Peace and Unity and I spoke as I thought and am loath to unthink it again and may sooner tire my self and my Reader then satisfy either by searching into the hidden principles of another mans actions and therefore I shall dismiss that for ever It will be more to the purpose to vindicate my self from the imputation of the want of Charity then to accuse him of the excess thereof or of any other Passion For it is alledged in the last place that I have taken to my self a very uncharitable kind of liberty to apply those Prophecies to so great a share of Christendom as the Roman Church that have been by ancient Interpreters and are by the Romanists themselves understood of Antichrist To which I freely and ingenuously answer and as in the presence of him before whom all mens hearts lie open that I take no more pleasure in the finding of those Antichristian Tokens upon the Church of Rome then I should in discovering so many Plague-spots upon my dearest Friends or Relations so that I am not conscious to my self of the least touch of Uncharitableness in this matter But if the Laws of Charity be so strictly to be observed as certainly they are let us take that method which is approved by the voice of all men and has passed into a Proverb of Charitie 's beginning at home and be as tender of the Protestant Churches in such things
miss-led into so bad an adventure The Son of man coming in the clouds of Heaven according to him is Populus Romanus nullum intra se habens regem When our Saviour Christ intimated to the high Priest that he was that Son of man that should come in the clouds of Heaven it seem'd so high an Arrogation that he rent his clothes and said he had spoken blasphemie And truly I think that neither Jew nor Christian can well acquit Grotius of that crime who attributes that which is the peculiar character of the Messias to a Prophane and Pagan people and that forsooth because they had no King as if they were ever the better for that But they had Kings at first and both in the Infancy of their Empire and afterwards they had a Supreme Power so great and imperial as may excuse them from the least shew of Contempt They had always over them a Sovereignty so that they could not be deemed the Son of man for any such private condition For the Summa Potestas is the Summa Potestas under what name or form soever and of the same real grandeur Besides that they were a most glorious and victorious people before Antiochus his time So that it is a very dilute and sapless conceit of Grotius to apply the phrase of the Son of man to them for any inconsiderableness in them or obscurity For they were not so in the times of Antiochus 6. Again the Kingdom of the Son of man and the Stone cut out without hands are all one both in truth and according to Grotius his own Concession But this Stone is Christ and his Kingdom as being Heavenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing erected not by humane power but by the power and Spirit of God That this is the meaning of without hands is the general vote of Interpreters S. Jerom Irenaus Justin Epiphanius S. Augustin Theodoret and several others Where think you does Grotius take shelter now Why This Figure which is so appropriate to Christ and mentioned of him so often in the New Testament This Stone must be cast away as if it were neither precious nor a Corner-stone and be bestowed again on a Pagan people the Romans For so Grotius does not stick to profess Idem Lapis Filius hominis and he made the Son of man before the people of Rome But can a man believe that the Original or Success of that people was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing brought to pass by the special power and Spirit of God and not more humano according to the usual course of the World and that not of the best kind their beginnings being helped on by a rabble of Ruffians and Robbers 7. No but that is not Grotius his gloss you will say Let us therefore hear what it is Lapis abscissus de monte sine manibus according to him is Exercitus populi qui suae esset spontis nullique regi pareret cujus populi origo à monte nempe Palatino In which there is nothing sound nor solid For was this Roman Army any thing more suae spontis in that they had not a Kingly Government at Rome That Supreme Power of Consuls and Senatours was as directive and coactive as if it had been Regal So that the motion of this Army was never the more spontaneous for this Again The Stone cut from the mountain without hands implies that it was then spontaneously divided from the Mountain when it is said to be cut thence But when the Romans first issued from mount Palatine yea so soon as they were populus Romanus Regal Government was amongst them it being the first Government of this People and therefore they were not then Populus suae spontis according to Grotius his Conceit so that he cannot bring both ends together And lastly To interpret Mountain here in a literal sense is unskilfully done and not according to the analogy of the Prophetick style nor the very intimation of the present Text which says the Little stone became a great Mountain itself and filled the whole Earth Wherefore this Mountain signifying not literally but politically there is no question but the other does so too and that the Stone is in some sense homogeneall to this rocky Mountain Whence the sense is plainly this That out of the great Mountain that is the Roman Empire there should be a People raised not by humane power or policy but by the Spirit of God and the preaching of the Gospel by Jesus Christ and his Apostles which should be a peculiar people to him and become the Subjects of his Kingdom that is to say That the Church of Christ should be cut out of the Roman Empire without humane help This is a most easy and undistorted sense and against which there cannot be made the least Exception 8. Fourthly which I have already intimated above The Ten Horns of the Fourth Beast with iron teeth and the Ten toes of the iron leggs of the Statue signify the same thing Wherefore it is plain sith the Ten toes imply a Coexistence of the Ten Horns by reason of the coordination of their Site that there must be Ten Kings together in the Fourth Kingdom But in the Kingdom of the Seleucidae and Lagidae there were not Ten Kings together all at once Therefore that Kingdom is not the Fourth 9. Fifthly Antiochus Epiphanes part of this Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae is said to rise up in the latter time of the Kingdom of the Successours of Alexander Dan. 8. 22 23. Wherefore this Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae has expired near two thousand years ago But the Kingdom of the Fourth Beast reaches even to the Day of Judgment Dan. 7. 9 10. And I beheld till the thrones were cast down and the ancient of days did sit His throne was like the fiery flame and his wheels as burning fire A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him thousand thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him the Judgment was set and the Books were opened c. That this is the Description of the Day of Judgment is the general Opinion of both Christians and Jews and answers exactly to the Lake of fire and the opening of the Books Apocal. 20. which Grotius himself does interpret of the Last Day Whence we may safely conclude that the Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae is not the Fourth Kingdom as having ceased so long before that time though we understood the Day of Judgment in the sense of the Rabbins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 According to which the meaning of I beheld till the thrones were set and the Books were opened is this That the Prophet Daniel had a prospect even to the utmost end of that great Day But he begins more particularly at the beginning of that Day in the eleventh verse But this I have onely noted by the bye 10. Sixthly and lastly Alexander's Kingdom and that of his Successours
And do they not make the Will of the Pope a Law Supremum Numen in terris at whose beck and nod all things are to be done right or wrong nay they cannot be wrong if he will have them Which is to make him have an heart like God indeed not onely an irresistible but infallible one Thus high has he clombe in the confidence of his own subtilty and policy But the terrible of the Nations shall draw their swords against the beauty of his wisdom and they shall defile his brightness saith the Prophet Which what it is in the literal sense is easy to understand and accordingly is applicable to the King of Tyre and may ex accidenti be also applicable to the destruction of Rome But it may also have a more Mystical sense And then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they render robustos gentium may signify nothing else but the zealous and resolute Assertours and Abettours of Truth then which nothing is more robustious and strong Great is Truth and mighty above all things Esdras 4. These stout Champions therefore shall draw their swords against the beauty of his wisedom that is to say They shall use the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God even that Sword that comes out of his mouth that rides on the white Horse which is unsophisticated Reason and Scripture against the finely-wrought subtilties whether Scholastick or Politick and all the plausible and goodly fair pretences of the Pontifician wisedom and the Glory of the Gospel shall darken the Seat of the Beast as the Sun-shine obscures or puts out the light of every artificial Fire Thus shall the Pontifician Power perish from the midst of the Nations 6. And then as for that more then Imperial Majesty and Splendour in the Pope's Habiliments it is said of this King of Tyre Every precious stone was thy Covering the Sardius the Topaz and the Diamond so as it is said of the Whore of Babylon that she was decked with gold and precious stones and pearles Which Pontifician Power though it be prefigured by the image of a Woman in the Apocalyps the better to set out the Meretricious Mysteries of that Church yet the Haughtiness thereof and more particularly that of the Pope seems also to be typified in the King of Babylon For is it possible that any one should doubt but that Babylon being such an acknowledged Type of the Antichristian Church the Head of this Antichristian Church is likewise typified in the King of Babylon 7. Let us hear therefore what Esay saith of this exalted Potentate in the fourteenth Chapter Verse 12. How art thou fallen from Heaven O Lucifer son of the Morning how art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the Nations 13. For thou hast said in thy heart I will ascend into Heaven I will exalt my Throne above the Stars of God I will sit also upon the Mount of the Congregation in the sides of the North. How every Nation is weakened by the power of the Pope we have adumbrated in our Idea of Antichristianism His ascending into Heaven stylo Prophetico and his exalting himself above the Stars of God which is the Stars of the greatest magnitude in this Heaven is as much as his clambering into Imperial Power and his advancing himself above all the Kings and Princes of the Roman Empire His sitting upon the Mount of the Congregation is his sitting in the Temple of God So that there seems to be a double Allusion both to the Mount of the Temple of God at Jerusalem and to the Mountains or if you will some one peculiar Mountain at Rome which is the chief City of the Church of Christ. This sitting upon this Mount of the Congregation or the Church of God is marvellously coincident with that Prophecy of his sitting in the Temple of God Nor is In the sides of the North put in for nothing though a thing of little moment in the letter for it seems to foretell that the Dominion of the Pope was to spread more notoriously Northward and we know he could never make any great business of the Southern Churches the African ever resisting him very stoutly Besides other considerations which for brevity I omit Ver. 14. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds I will be like the most High That is to say I will be above all Rule and Dominion I will be absolute uncontrollable infallible as God 15. Yet thou shalt be brought down to Hell to the sides of the pit 16. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and consider thee saying Is this the man that made the Earth to tremble that did shake the Kingdoms The meaning is Is this the man that did terrifie the world with his dreadful Thunder-claps of Excommunication and by the great Interest he had in the Princes of the Empire and by the power of his Clergy could unhindge and dissettle Principalities and Kingdoms by reason of the blindness and Superstition of the People 17. That made the world as a Wilderness and destroyed the Cities thereof that opened not the house of his Prisoners That is to say That filled the Empire with intestine Warres by his wicked Incendiaries and so brought great depopulations and destructions upon Cities rather then he would let goe those that he held captive in this Babylonish or Aegyptian Slavery Many of whom were most barbarously abused in the close Prisons of the Inquisition and treated with such Cruelty as exceeds all the Tragick stories of the bloudy and persecutive Infidels 18. All the Kings of the Nations even all of them lie in glory every one in his own house That is The Dynasties or Polities of the Nations the Secular Kingdomes and Powers have and shall expire with glory in comparison of thee and have an honourable Burial and Memorial 19. But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch as a carkass troden under foot The meaning is That the Pontifician Power shall not expire with any honour at all but the very Memorial thereof shall be abominable and execrable it shall not have that Kingly Burial whose dead Bodies were embalmed with Aromatick odours and Sepulchres adorned with goodly and splendid Artifice but shall be as a stinking Carkass cast into the high-way that offends the eyes and nostrills of every one that passes by So unsavoury a stench shall arise from the Records of this bloudy and Idolatrous Antichristian Polity as is intimated in this last verse Ver. 20. Thou shalt not be joyned with them in Burial because thou hast destroyed thy Land and slain thy People See Homily against Rebellion part 〈◊〉 6. That is to say As thou art a Power distinct from that of the Secular Powers and Potentates of the Earth so thy Fate shall be distinct and singular for thy Memorial shall be accursed and thy Name an hissing to Posterity And the reason is also singular Because thou hast destroyed thy Land and slain
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
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.
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉