power and who carries himself as if he were God he is the man of sin the great Antichrist but the Popes of Rome are seated in the temple have subjected all rule and Authority to themselvs and behave themselves as if they were God therefore the Popes of Rome are the man of sin the great Antichrist Thirdly Antichrists Name is written in his forehead Rev. 17.5 Mystery Brocard a Venetian doth avouch it that the word Mystery is written in the Popes Mitre and many others who have been at Rome do profess to have seen it as Dr. Iames the late keeper of the Library at Oxford will further satisfie any man in his Dedicatory Epistle to his Treatise of the corruption of the Scriptures What mystery 't is that is written upon his forehead Saint Paul tell you 2 Thes 2.7 Mystery of iniquity As the Doctrine of the Gospel is a Mystery of Godliness so the Papacy is nothing else but a Mystery of iniquity The Pope pretends to be more for Christ then any man in the World Christs Vicar Christs Vicegerent the visible head of Christs Church Saint Peters successor to feed the flock of Christ and still he hath Christ in his mouth and who but Christ with him I tell you he pretends to be more for Christ then any man alive but let me tell you withall that there is no man alive so much against Christ as he is and therefore most properly called Antichrist which signifies both for and against Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek is pro as well as contra Ioh. 1.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Grace for Grace The great Antichrist is one that is pretendedly for Christ but is really against Christ which cannot be affirmed of the great Turk or of any other beside the Pope but of him it may most clearly That he bears the World in hand he is Christ greatest friend I need not prove I suppose we will all take that for granted but let me shew you how in truth he is Christs greatest Enemy in all points One mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus 1 Time 2.5 There are other Mediators says the Pope both for satisfacton and intercession for satisfaction the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass the blood of Thomas the merits of the Church for intercession the Virgin Mary Saints and Angels are intercessors to God even as to our particular necessities for us there 's but one says Christ there are more says the Pope Christ alone is Prophet of his Church to be heard in all things whatsoever he shall say Act. 3. and for this end he opened the sealed book bids every one of his search the Scriptures grow in knowledge walk in the light of Gospel-truth the Pope expresly contradicts this and tells you that the Doctrine Christ hath left in the Scriptures is not sufficient without his daily supplements of unwritten Traditions which are of equal Authority with the word of Christ and must be beleeved upon pain of damnation Of the written word what he pleaseth he makes authentique what he pleases he cancels he teaches and interprets all by an infallible unerring Spirit He hath sealed up the book or Bible which Christ opened to them forbidding the people the use of Scriptures Latine Scriptures Latine Service all must be to them in an unknown tongue he tells them that ignorance is the mother of devotion and to believe as the Church believes is knowledge and faith enough Christ hath forbidden all kinde of pictures and Images in the Worship of God Deut. 4.15.16 Take good heed unto your selves for ye saw no manner of similitude in the day the Lord spake unto you in Horeb lest ye corrupt your selves and make a graven Image c. John 4.23 The true worshippers worship the Father in Spirit and in truth the Father seeketh such to worship him No says the Pope you shall make Images of the Trinity and pictures of the Cross and shall kiss and worship them with the worship of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same worship ye give God Christ You shall make Images of Saints and Angels and shall worship them with worship of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a religious worship though not the highest you shall pray unto them and fill all your Churches with them for they are Lay-mens books Christ hath taught us that our own righteousness is as menstruous rags upon our best performances we are unprofitable sevants that we are justified by faith without the works of the Law T is not so says the Pope good Works are meritorious there is a merit of congruity in them before conversion and a merit of condignity in them after conversion nay that some men do works of supererogation more then the Law of God requireth or is their duty to do whereby they are not onely justified themselves but the overplus of their merits helps to justifie others Christ saith he will have the Sacrament of the Supper administred in both kinds 1 Cor. 11 23. to 27. I have received of the Lord that which I delivered unto you that the Lord Iesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and sayd take eat this is my body after the same manner he took the cup saying this cup is the new Testament in my blood this do ye as oftenas ye eat this bread and drink this cup c. This St. Paul received of Jesus Christ delivered it in charge to all and every of the Churches of Corinth both what and how they were to receive It shall not be so says the Pope the Priest shall receive in both kinds the People shall have nothing but the bread Christ teaches that marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled Heb. 13. No says the Pope 't is not honorable in the Clergy so they call them t is not lawful for a Priest to marry Christ says Let no man judge you in respect of meats or drinks or an holy day Col. 2. You are now freed from the observation of daies and meats every creature of God is good if it be received with thanksgiving No says the Pope ye shall observe Saints daies and for meats touch not taste not any flesh on such and such dayes and weeks of Lent But to what end should I thus go on I profess I can hardly name one Doctrine of Jesus Christ but the Popes of Rome have thwarted it either directly or indirectly and quite subverted it The Pope may see himself in those old Heretiques the Antitactae as in a glass who held it religion to contradict the Laws of their Maker and instead of Gods Laws brought in their own inventions and fooleries Take it thus He on whom such a mystery of iniquity is found as to pretend to be wholy for Christ and yet in every thing crosses and opposes Christ he is the man of sin the true and great Antichrist but upon the Pope is this mystery of iniquity
Elizabeth and to give her her just praise made some encrease or improvement of King Edwards Reformation but yet for all that if the real truth might be spoken out Rome and England were still fast tied together by the tails of Episcopacy Ceremonies and form of worship the waters whereof swelled high in King James time and became a Land flood all over the three Nations after his decease drowning some carrying others full Tyde back again to Rome I 'le tell you if you 'l hear me with meekness and patience of spirit what satisfies me that he fell for the Popish Antichristian Interest which if well understood Peoples spirits would more acquiesce in his fall then now they do 1. There was this upon his account the profanation of the Lords day by a Law I mean by that wretched book of ungodly Sports and Liberties The day which our Lord Christ and the reformed Laws of the Land had set apart for all sorts of People to have studied the Scriptures encreased their Spiritual knowledge and their faith against all false Doctrine and Worship and for the People to be authorized and instigated by the edict of a King to gaming sporting mixt danceing on that day as you know they were what could the Pope himself had be been in England considering the state of the Nation have done more or been more Popishly politique for the undermining for the undoing of our religion as the best and speediest means of ushering in his own Had the Sabbath taken its name according to his desire in that edict it might rather have been called Dies Daemoniacus then Dominicus the Divels day then the Lords day Secondly Never was any man a more stiff upholder of Episcopacy then he was which indeed is nothing else but the Popes Supremacy only under another name multiplied or broken into so many peices everyone whereof hath the form and nature of the whole Was not every Bishop in his Diocess a little Pope lording over both the flock his co-presbyters This peice of Popery he held fast to his dying day Thirdly He suffered the Bishops so to mannage and improve the reliques of Rome in this Kingdom the whole rabble of Ceremonies Calvin called them tolerabiles ineptiae by give me leave as wofull experience hath taught to call them intolerabiles ineptiae intolerale fooleries I say to improve them so to the Popish interest that many hundred precious witnesses of Jesus Christ were imprisoned persecuted forced into strange Countries yea many of them to take up their dwellings in a Wilderness amongst wild beast and more savage men Nay some blood was shed in a publike and juridicial way by Gallio cared for none of these things stood an idle unconcernd spectator I fear I am too benignus interpres more favourable to him as to this particular then he deserved We use to say you know qui non vetat peccare c. He that doth not forbid yea suppress sin when he 's able commands it Fourthly There was Masse and Masse Priests Idols and the worship of the Beast I might say of divels for so Saint Iohn speaks Rev 9.20 set up by conjugal promise and Covenant and accordingly kept and observed I mean the French Court amongst us from whence went no small animation and protection to Priests and Popery clean throughout the Kingdoms Fifthly I cannot but lay at his door that new common prayer book that had first been at Rome I have had it from some of deep inspection into State-affairs and was there confirmed by the Popes own hand and then sent by that Arch-prelate into Scotland about fourteen years ago Their throats being too narrow to swallow it they were presently proclaimed Rebells in all the parish Churches and Chappels in England proclaimed Rebells Observe the King was affronted and disobayed in their rejection of it VVhereupon an Army was raised against them thinking to have forced that English Mass upon them but at Barwick God gave him the Check Sixthly His arming Papists by Proclamation to destroy his Parliament of England and his making peace with the Irish rebels and proclaiming them his good Catholike Subjects what other language could have come out of the Popes own mouth Thus he openly professedly joyned interest with the Antichristian Party You may be sure Papists in both Kingdoms would never have run the hazzard of their Lives and Estates with him in so desperate a war but that they well saw and knew if the day were his whereof they made no question how to make no small advantage to themselves against the true Protestant yea and had promises and assurances thereof from him Seventhly That title of Defender of the faith for which I know I shall be much wondred at was found upon him as likewise upon his Predecessors First He for his part had been a sorry defender of godly zealous Protestants the Lord knows from first to last Secondly that it is a Mark set upon the Kings of England by the Popes own hand is better known then can be denyed King Henry the eighth wrote a book against Luther I have seen it he inflicted death upon diverse that owned Gospel light and disclaimed Popery whereupon the Pope sent him this Title Defender of the faith with a great sword to slaughter indeed the true servants of Jesus Christ Let any man judge whether this was not a mark of the Beast upon him and t was ambitiously derived one from another King Edward and and Queen Elizabeth should have cast off this as soon and as zealously any of the rest I remember Luther says in one place That if the Pope as Pope should command him to read the Scripture or preach to the People he would not therefore do it Christ would not suffer the divels to call him the Son of God though indeed he were so yea he would not own his own name and Titles out of their mouth he took it as no honor at all to him Thus our Kings when this Title came to them from the Pope they should have thrown his title at his face again and told him that God had given them the civil sword which they would not bear in vain but zealously and constantly defend the true Gospel faith of Jesus Christ without his command and for his Title they looked upon it as no honor at all to them but a dangerous dishonour Well now that Christ is gone forth to make Inquisition not onely for Popery it self but even for the least dregs of it in all places of the world this mark of the Beast also was found upon him yea and actions tending to the Popes mind and sense upon it Where Christ finds the least signes or marks of the Beast such shall certainly feel his wrath much more cause had Christ to pour out a Vial of wrath and justice on him upon whom so much of Antichrist and his Interest was manifestly found and if one Instrument will not do it another shall I am perswaded
the seed of Gods people they have lain a great while under the clods as if they had been lost or quite dead but God hath a day wherein his seed shall spring up into a harvest of joy and all that see them shall acknowledge they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed as it is Isa 61.9 Thirdly after these the residue of the Nations shall be the Lords Zach. 8.22 23. Many and strong Nations shall come to seek the Lord of Hoasts in Jerusalem and to pray before the Lord. And in those dayes it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the Nations even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew saying we will go with you for we have heard that God is with you That which was done Act. 2. will not agree to this Text for we do not read of many and strong Nations coming in then You will say how can many and strong Nations come in to Jerusalem at any time Doubtless it will be by Agents or Messengers according to Zach. 7.2 3. when the Jews shall send forth their Emissaries into all Lands to Preach Christ to them there shall go a great blessing a mighty power of the Spirit along that the hearts of the Nations generally shall be mightily taken with them and there shall be certain men out of every Nation and Language authorized to take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew and say we will go up to Jerusalem with you for God and Christ are with you to have the most exact and perfect Directory that we and our whole Nation may worship God aright Once Christ in his Rule and Government was kept within the narrow bounds of Jury then he stretched forth the arms of his power over the Gentiles first the Eastern then the Western Churches but the day is coming wherein he will lift up a Scepter over all the Nations of the world Dan. 7.14 There was given him Dominion Glory and a Kingdom that all People Nations and Languages should serve him He reigns a glorious King indeed that is King of all Kings of all Kingdoms Nations in the Earth Sixthly Christ will then given his People more purity and power of Ordinances then ever the Churches did enjoy Take me I pray you in my own sense Ordinances as they came from the Apostles themselves were pure perfect because they were the immediate inspirations or breathings of the Holy Ghost but consider them in the hands of divers others and in the hands of succeeding Officers and Churches and what Errors yea damnable Doctrines were there presently found amongst them Which increased daily grew worse and worse till at last there came out of the womb of them the great Antichrist But when Christ shall set up this Kingdom whereof we speak there shall be no danger by any gross Errors or seduction by false Teachers Isa 30.25 26. There shall be upon every high mountain and upon every high hill rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter when the Towers fall Moreover the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold as the light of seven dayes in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his People and healeth the stroke of their wound These rivers and streams of Ordinances shall break forth in all the Churches in the day of the great slaughter and when the Towers fall i. e. when the Pope and towring Kings shall be brought down Rev. 19 17. to 21. There shall be this wonderfull increase of Gospel-light when God shall heal that spiritual wound the poor Jew lies so sick of to this day when he shall bind up the breach that is between the ten and the two Tribes making them one in faith and love Rev. 22.1 He shewed a pure river of water of life clear as Chrystal proceeding out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb. Romish Ordinances were the blood of a dead man but the Ordinances of Christs Kingdom shall be a river of life most clear and pure ver 2. In the midst of the street of it and of either side the River was there the tree of life which bare twelve manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every moneth and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the Nations Christ in his Ordinances will be a wonderfull tree of life bearing both all plenty and all variety of fruits free and open for every one to pluck and feed upon a healing vertue there is in the very leaves thereof the most outward parts of Ordinances will have saving efficacie upon mens hearts God will then send forth men of eminent parts and graces Obad. ver 22. Saviours shall come up on Mount Sion to judge the Mount of Esau and the Kingdom shall be the Lords In the day when the Lord shall take the Kingdom to himself there shall be Saviours raised up upon Mount Sion in the Margent of your Bibles you have a parallel place put 1 Tim. 4.16 Save the self and those that hear thee q.d. be a Saviour to thy self others Obadiah cals the then-Ministers of the Gospel Saviours because their Gospel-dispensations shall be in the holiness power of the great Saviour of men the Lord Jesus Christ And there will be the most zealous and impartial exercise of Church-discipline that ever was to keep out to purge out both the prophane and the erroneous for which take two or three Scriptures Rev. 21.27 There shall in no wise enter into it i. e. into the holy City which comes down from God out of Heaven any thing that desileth neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lye but they which are written in the Lambs book of life Not but that doubtless there will be hypocrites in the Church but they shall be so close they shall so artificially paint and varnish themselves over with seeming holiness that they may very well be taken in the judgement of charity for such whose names are written in the Lambs book of life but if once they appear to be defilers of themselves or others any kinde of way nay if they be but catched in lying if such offer themselves they shall not enter shall not be received if they be got in they shall quickly be sent packing again Zach. 13 1. In that day when there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem because of him whom they had pierced Chap. 12.10 11. There shall be a fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness i. e. abundant streams not only of Doctrine and Worship but also of Discipline for it follows That Idols and false Prophets shall be cut off ver 2. And if any one continue to Prophesie or Preach lyes even his Father and Mother that begat him shall cause him to be thrust thorow with the sword of the Spirit or Church-censure such zeal and impartiality will there be