to Paul from Heaven and so appointing him to be an Apostle did proclaim to all the World that he would Infallibly assist him and that therefore what was imparted to the World by him should be a Law irreversible to Christendom Whence the nulling of the Authority of S. Paul's writings were the abrogating of the very Law of Christ which were a most rebellious and blasphemous Enterprise against the Sovereignty of Christ himself 4. But there is also another way of undermining or subverting the Rule and Sovereignty of the Son of God and that is An undervaluing his Laws in proportion of Penalties laid upon the transgression of them and of some slighter humane Ecclesiastick Institutes As surely these would be very Antichristian Instances of this kind namely If Absolution for him that kills his Father or lies with his Mother should be five or six times Cheaper then of him that takes two Orders in one day or is Ordained without Letters dismissory or that to be Ordained out of the set times of the year should have a penalty ten times greater then Lying with a mans own Mother or if you will but equal to the deflouring of a Virgin the lying with a mans own Sister Murther Perjury Sacrilege Simonie revealing Confession keeping a Concubine lying with a woman in the Church but equal I say to all these nine put together What could vilifie the indispensable Law of God and Christ more then to make so many transgressions and so hainous less then that trifle of humane Tradition To Ordain onely at such times of the year 5. Again That were likewise a very conspicuous vilification of the Word of God if instead thereof there were read in the Churches finelydevised Fables to entertain the People withall As if they were wiser then the Wisdom of God himself and could entertain the people more edifyingly with incredible and ridiculous stories then with the Discourses of Christ Jesus and sober and easily-intelligible histories of truth that Divine Providence has recorded for the instruction of his Church 6. Dispensations also against the Law of Christ whether written in the Word of God or comprised in the sacred Law of Nature which is but the Transcript of that Law in the Eternal Logos Christ according to his Divinity were also an Antichristian defeating of Christ's Rule and Sovereignty as also would be the Interpretation of the serious Injunctions of Christ as if they were not Praecepta but Consilia not Commands but Advice left to us to follow if we would or to let alone if we pleased whenas Christ plainly declares that he that breaks the least of these Matt. 5. Commandments and teaches men so to doe shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven What then would it be to dispense with Perjury Treason Murther Incest Adultery Sodomie and other such hainous crimes What were it but the utter taking away the Law of Christ and destroying his Kingdom upon Earth The Fraud and Self-endedness of which easy Anarchy is onely to fill the net full though it be of rotten sticks and durt so long as out of this durt they can extract Silver But the Mischief is that the Riches of this false Church would flow and rise with the height of the Abominations and Transgressions of rich sinners till a deluge of wrath wash away this deluge of sin But those in the interim that are so foolish to believe these Dispensations and think they are come into a fair liberty of spirit having found so facil ghostly Fathers will thereby most certainly become the Bond-slaves of sin which in the conclusion will as certainly deliver them up to Eternal Death 7. But what plea or pretence will you say may there be made of acting Religiously while they act thus enormously in letting the raines loose to all manner of wickedness to them that will goe to the price thereof Why yes This Antichristian Power might pretend that all that Power which is in Christ though it be plainly a casting Christ out of his Royall Throne is derived upon him or them as his Successours But Christ being the absolutely-Supreme Power may doe as he will dispense with his own Laws as he pleases Wherefore this Antichristian power pretending to be or have the very same power may dispense with the Laws of Christ as it pleases especially for the enriching the Church for all such Interest is pious Which yet is such an Imagination that nothing can be more Treasonable against the Regal Office of Christ nor more destructive of his Kingdom 8. The effect of which villanous Principle would also certainly appear in this Synagogue of Satan or Antichrist and we should find Laws and Institutes quite contrary to the Laws and Decrees of the Son of God As certainly such as these would be namely Sundry sorts of Idolatry such as I have instanced in already and need not repeat and have noted the Frauds Book I. ch 12. and fetches in the practice of them The teaching for Doctrines the commandments of men which is expresly against our Saviour's own command and of which I have given sundry examples in my * Book I. ch 17 18 19 20 21 22. second branch of Antichristianism The with-holding the Cup from the Laiety notwithstanding the Institution of the Lord's Supper by Christ himself does so plainly injoyn the communicating both of Bread and Wine Drink you all of this and S. Paul again following the Example of Christ Let a man examine himself Matt. 26. 27. and so eat of this bread and drink of this cup which indefinite command 1 Cor. 11. 28. surely includes all But the drinking of the Cup being made the Privilege of the Priest it magnifies his condition hugely and makes the poor Laiety feel and acknowledge their distance how unholy and how removed from God they are in comparison of the Priesthood This would be the true Reason though they might pretend for I think they have nothing better to pretend the length of the Lay-mens beards which I suppose they would rather cut off then be cut short in their share of so holy a Sacrament Again The serving of God in the Church in an unknown Language praying to him and praising him and reading the Scripture in a Tongue the people understand not is evidently against the directions of S. Paul 1 Cor. 14. in this particular and against that more universal and indispensable Law Let all things be done to edifying As also the worshipping of Angels 1 Cor. 14. 26. Coloss. 2. 18. which the same Apostle does expressely speak against and likewise the forbidding to marry and the abstaining from meats upon a Religious 1 Tim. 4 3. account with several other such All which being expressely against the Commands or Laws of Christ it were a most reproachfull and Traitorous affront to him the true Head of the Church and a plain declaring against the Right of his Sovereignty thus to make any Laws or Institutes so
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
any but that which is truly the Deity as I have noted in its due place 4. As for the places in the New Testament they are more copious and not less express The first is that in the Acts where when the Chap. 14. v. 14 15. Priest of Jupiter would have sacrificed to Paul and Barnabas at Lystra by reason of the great miracles he saw done they rent their cloaths and ran in amongst the people crying out and saying Sirs why do you these things We also are men of like passions with you and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God which made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and all things that are therein And what vanities are those from which they must turn but from the giving Acts 17. 29 30. of Divine honour to mere Creatures The same Apostle also at Athens in his Speech he made to them on Mars-hill reads them a very round lesson against Idolatry Forasmuch then as we are the off-spring of God we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto Gold or Silver or Stone graven by art and mans device And the times of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent Which exhortation certainly Paul made with the greatest earnestness that could be it being said verse the 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that his spirit was in a very sharp fit in a paroxysm of zeal when he saw the City of Athens so given to Idolatry Again in his first Epistle to the Corinthians he makes Idolatry the very Chap. 12. v. 2. Character of Gentilisme which Christ came to reclaim the world from Ye know that ye were Gentiles carried away to dumb Idols even as ye were led And elsewhere in the same Epistle he exhorts them more copiously and Chap. 10. v. 14 20 c. vehemently Wherefore my dearly-beloved flee from Idolatry The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to the Daemonia and not to God Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of the Daemonia Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy are we stronger then he And this was only about the meat sacrificed to these Daemons what had it then been to bow to their Idols He speaks also very smartly on this subject in his second Epistle to these Corinthians What fellowship hath righteousness Ch. 6. v. 14 16. with unrighteousness what communion hath light with darkness and what agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols And in his Epistle to the Galatians he plainly reckons up Idolatry amongst the grossest works of the flesh Murther Sorcery and Adultery And therefore accordingly Chap. 5. v. 20. in the Apocalyps Idolaters together with Murtherers and Sorcerers Chap. 21. v. 8. are threatned with the lake that burns with fire and brimstone and are shut with obscene Dogs out of the holy City And therefore assuredly Chap. 22. v. 15. S. John is in very good earnest in his dehortation from Idolatry in the 1 John 5. 20. close of his general Epistle And we know that the Son of God is come and has given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true through his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal life Little children keep your selves from Idols Amen From these places I think it is abundantly manifest That the divulging of the Gospel aimed at the taking away of Idolatry that sottish depravation of Religion out of the World 5. And we may be still the more assured of it by those words from our Saviour's own mouth The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father John 4. v. 23 24. seeketh such to worship him God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth Where Grotius and I think very truly interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sublatis ut ritibus ita locorum discrimine And surely the Christian worship being so pure as to abhor from the voluminousness of Judaizing ceremonies and the affixing of the residence of God to a consecrated place as in the Temple of the Jews Imagery and Idolatry must be abhorred infinitely more as infinitely more inconsistent therewith And if God may not be worshipped with an Image much less any thing that is not God either with an Image or without it CHAP. III. 1. What is meant by Grace and Truth coming by Christ. 2. Further Testimonies of Scripture to evince that Christ came to ease men of the Judaical burthen of Ceremonies The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. That the Death of Christ upon the Cross was the solution of the Ceremonial Law of Moses 4. Further proofs to the same purpose 1. BUT now That the grossness and carnality of the Judaical Ceremonies and the unprofitable burthen of them was to be done away by the coming of Christ which is the other point to be proved is very apparent out of several places of Scripture For the Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ that is to say The John 1 17. Law both Moral and Ceremonial was given by Moses but even that Moral Law was but such an one as could not give life as the Apostle Gal. 3. 21. speaks but the gracious assistance of the Spirit of God promised in the Gospel that does give life and strength to walk according to the will of God And then for the Ceremonial Law both it and indeed all things else happening to the Jews were but Types and Shadows but in Christ is the Truth They were not what they made a show to be and therefore in that sense may be said to be false so as he that says that the Image or Picture of a Man or Horse is a Man or Horse indeed pronounces false And therefore our Saviour speaks true when he saith Moses gave you not that bread from Heaven but my Father giveth you that true bread John 6. 31. from Heaven Whenas yet it is said of the Manna Psalm 78. He gave them bread from Heaven to eat But it being but a shadow of the true Vers. 25. bread from Heaven which is Christ it is said not to be the bread from Heaven As in the Epistle to the Hebrews the Law is said to have a Heb. 10. 1. shadow of good things to come and Paul to the Colossians Let no man judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of an holy-day or of the Coloss. 2. 16 17. new Moon or of the Sabbath which are a shadow of things to come but the body is Christ's So plain is it what is meant by Grace and Truth coming by Jesus Christ. For he is that Truth which was signified by the shadows of the Law and by him is
that Grace which was not afforded by the Law namely the Quickning Spirit of God the peculiar promise of the Gospel Wherefore the Truth it self the body of the Sun of Righteousness being now risen with healing in his wings it is time for obscure Shadows and dark Types to fly away 2. And hence it is that S. Paul so stoutly exhorts the Galatians not to be held in bondage any longer within these shady coverts Nevertheless Gal. 4. 30. what saith the Scripture Cast out out the Bond-woman and her son For the son of the Bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the Free-woman So then Brethren we are not children of the Bond-woman but of the Free Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoak of bondage that is to say neither with Circumcision nor any other useless and burthensome ceremony And again upon the same subject he speaks very triumphantly in the above-mentioned Epistle to the Colossians in the same Chapter from the 8 verse to the verse before recited In which paragraph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Coloss. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hand-writing of Ordinances seems most naturally to be understood of Ceremonial ordinances that these were nailed to his Cross and nulled by his death but for that Law which is purely Moral and Eternal and the observation whereof is the perfection of Humane nature he came not to destroy it but to rescue it and perfect it by clearer glosses Which interpretation agrees the best both with the matter in hand which are Ceremonial ordinances which the Apostle speaks of Traditions of men and Rudiments of the World and also with the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in verse 20. If you be then dead with Christ from the Rudiments of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why as living in the world are ye subjected to ordinances to the decrees and ceremonial impositions of men As it follows immediately Tast not touch not handle not which he calls the Commandments and doctrines of men and not unlike those he mentions in his first Epistle to Timothy Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats which in one sense of the Text he seems to term the seducing Chap. 4. v. 3. doctrines of Devils as suggested by them over whom Christ is said to triumph here under the name of Principalities and Powers by virtue of his Cross and so treading them down is supposed to trample upon their ordinances those Doctrines of Devils which they enviously and insultingly entangled poor mankind withall And little better then such would the Judaical Ceremonies themselves be accounted when having been once abrogated by God through Christ they are again re-inforced by new imposers For that zeal that is inspired into men for the driving on superstitious ordinances and practices contrary to the command of Christ and the honour of the Gospel may be rationally conceived to come from Satan the active enemy of the Church of Christ. 3. Like to this of the Colossians is that of the Ephesians For he Chap. 2. 14. is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us having abolished in his flesh that is by his flesh crucified on the Cross as before the law of commandments contained in ordinances which answers to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hand-writing of ordinances in the former And by both these places it is evident That the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross was the solution of all the Ceremonies of Moses Law according as the Prophet Daniel had Dan. 9. predicted and That the everlasting Righteousness should take place a Religion that would instruct us to worship God in spirit and in truth and therefore should stand for ever there being none more perfect to succeed 4. And according to this tenour of the Gospel S. Peter as well as S. Paul is very earnest upon the point in that debate at Jerusalem whether Act. 15. 10. the converted Gentiles should be circumcised where he concludes his speech in this manner Now therefore saith he why tempt ye God to put a yoak upon the neck of the disciples which neither our Fathers nor we were able to bear namely ob ingentem illum numerum praeceptorum ritualium as Grotius has noted and superadded And S. Paul is so zealous for the casting out the Bond-woman and her child that he tells the Galatians roundly Behold I Paul say unto you that if you be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing So industriously did the Apostles of Gal. 5. 2. Christ fling off from the Church that wearisome burthen of the Rites and Ordinances of the Mosaical Law And thus we are sufficiently assured of the Privative End of the Gospel namely That it was to eradicate Idolatry from amongst the Nations and to null the Law of Moses in all the Ritual or Ceremonial ordinances thereof as a troublesome and useless incumberment upon Christianity and the Churches of God CHAP. IV. 1. The Positive End of the Gospel summarily proposed 2. The several grounds of honour due to Christ and particularly of his Paternal Title 3. Both God the Father and Christ the Authours of our Regeneration and how the First Hypostasis being called Father does not exclude the Second from that Title in respect of his Church 4. The other Titles of Christ plain of themselves 5. The Divine life with its Root and Branches the Second part of the Positive scope of the Gospel 6. That such a Mysterie as upon Religious pretences does really supplant all the grand Ends of the Gospel whether Privative or Positive is Mathematically manifest to be that notorious Mystery of Iniquity 7. The method of pursuing the particulars of this Mystery more largely 8. The Falsness Fraud and Mischief of every member of Antichristianism to be enquired into 9. The Authour 's serious desire that the Truth of the Description may be perused without Prejudice and acknowledged without Tergiversation by them that are convinced 1. THE Positive Scope of the Gospel as I said and have elsewhere proved is The exaltation of the Divine life which is either by giving all due honour and obedience to Christ in whom this life did so eminently reside or by promoting the increase thereof both intensively and extensively in his members that it may rise to a due height where it is and get footing amongst those where it is not that the whole Mass of Mankind if it were possible might be leavened not with the leaven of Hypocrisie but with the sincere doctrine and enlivening spirit of the Gospel of Christ. 2. That Honour and Homage we owe to the Person of Christ is to be considered chiefly in these five respects As he is our King As he is our Priest As he is our Prophet As he is God Blessed for ever and As he is in a particular manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Creature Which is a manifest reviling and Blaspheming of him worse then the calling of a Prince by the name of the basest vermin I say therefore in such Countries as the name of God usually signifies the true God and not Angels to apply that appellation to any man is both Idolatry and Blasphemy as it would be to use any Gesture to him that were appropriate to Divine adoration which made the Greeks that they would not doe reverence to the King of Persia in the Persian mode because that was the very posture which in Greece they used in worshipping their Gods 7. These are the chief if not all the Signes of Divine worship that easily occur to my mind And if I have let any escape my recital in particular they will easily be recalled if not kept safe in the general Notion I have given of the Appropriate Signes of Religious worship namely That all they are such that either Consent of Nations or the Use of particular Countries or the natural Signification of the thing it self or else Divine definition has made so Of the first sort of which are Meat-offerings Drink-offerings Burning of Incense Erecting Altars Dedicating Images and the like Of the second sort is such or such a posture of Religious veneration proper to such a Country as in that example of the Greeks which was obligatory to them of that Country And of the third The praying for the Holy Spirit for Remission of Sins Eternal life or for what else is out of the power of the Creature to give also The making of Vows and Oaths they implying an absolute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in them in whose name they are made and not only a knowledge of the fact but a power of punishing out of the road of Humane laws of which power and knowledge we have no assurance in any particular Spirit but in God only To which you may adde The invoking of any particular invisible powers while they are invisible though in such things as they are naturally able to help us in Hymns also or any Compellations whatsoever made to a Creature if the words signifie the incommunicable Excellencies of God All these of their own nature and whatsoever are like these are the Appropriate Signes of Religious worship though the Consent of Nations did not give their suffrage and are not due to any thing nor lawfull to be given to any thing but to the true God Whence the misapplication of them to any other Object will certainly be the sin of Idolatry Lastly an example of the last sort is Bowing to Images it being declared in the Decalogue a kind of service of them according as I noted before 8. And now that no man may phansy to have found any creep-hole to evade the power and plainness of our Reason by pretending that Religious worship is of a larger extent then what I have defined I shall here timely advertise him not only that I matter not what careless abuses there may be put upon a word or what forced pullings and drawings to make proper terms to stretch for the covering and palliating unproper actions or unsound opinions but also and of which I would have him take special notice that the strength of our Demonstrations will not depend upon the singleness of the signification of Religious worship which yet I have sufficiently proved to be but One but upon the truth of that Definition we have given thereof in that sense that is there professedly intended For no man can deny but the Religious worship due to God alone though he were so extravagant as to conceit some kind of Religious worship due to some Creatures is truly and exactly defined in the above-said Definition And I promise here aforehand that my convictions of Idolatry shall be fetched not from the supposition that Religious worship may have no other sense then according to which I have defined it in this Definition but only from the truth of the Definition of that Religious worship which is due to God alone to the end that there may not be the least room left for any imaginable cavil or evasion or for any shadow or dream thereof CHAP. XII 1. A brief enumeration of the parts of that full instruction we have to discern what is Idolatry 2. That the Adoration of the Cross is Idolatry 3. As also the Worshipping any Person of the holy Trinity by an Image or Picture 4. That Religious worship given to Saints or Angels though without the use of any Image or Picture is Idolatry 5. That the mere Invocation of any particular invisible power is also Idolatrous 6. Certain Evasions touching the praying to Saints answered 7. Another subterfuge answered 8. Worshipping Saints by Images a double Idolatry 9. That it is Idolatry to worship an Image taking it for the Saint himself 10. As also the Adoration of any man alive upon Earth 11. That the worshipping of the Eucharistick Bread taken for the real Body of Christ is Idolatry 12. That all the above said acts are Idolatrous let men pretend what they will to cover the guilt 13. And that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. Peter does not imply a lawfulness in any kind of Idolatry 1. WE are now I think sufficiently instructed partly by the acknowledged examples of Idolatry committed by Heathens or Jews and partly by the knowledge of the adequate Object of Idolatry as also of the right Definition of Religious worship and of the appropriate Signes thereof and of the formal or essential application of those Signes to discern and define infallibly what would be Idolatry where-ever it was practised amongst Christians themselves and what not 2. As for example To adore the Cross or to give any Religious worship thereto though there were no Image upon it would be Idolatry according to the First Instance thereof and of such as are referrable thereto which shew that Idolatry may be committed without an Image And that it is here committed is plain in that we suppose the appropriate Signes of Divine worship used in the adoration thereof Which done to any creature is ipso facto Idolatry 3. Secondly To doe Religious worship to the Picture or Image of any Person of the holy Trinity or of all three or particularly to the Image of Christ though this Religious worship is intended to pass through the representation to God himself Father Son or Holy Ghost is notwithstanding Idolatry according to the second Instance where worshipping the true God by an Image is proved to be such 4. Thirdly The worshipping Angels or Saints yea the blessed Virgin herself with Religious worship though without an Image is Idolatry And such may be a Religious Invocation of them the asking of them such things as are proper only for God to give as Remission of sins Assistance of grace and Eternal life or using any Epithets in Hymns or Songs to them that signifie the incommunicable Excellencies of God or lastly making Vows and Swearing in their names
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
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
contrary to a Father then to murther his genuine children and for that very reason because they so lively resemble him and so faithfully adhere to their Father's vertuous practices and principles 10. I might adde also that the over-exercising of the Minds and Bodies of men in the multifarious observances of external Ceremonies and making them dance or trot from one Superstitious performance to another might be a disappointment of the Divine Birth as the over-much exercising of Women in dancing or what other feats of Activity or sore labour makes them often miscarry in that Child-bearing that is natural But I will not insist upon these things 11. The Sixth and last Title is The Prince of Peace In which Principality or Authority if any should claim succession and yet administer the Affairs of Christ's Church such a way as will naturally if not necessarily fill it full of broils and contentions this power would certainly beâ—… a supplanter of the Peaceable government of Christ and be the Author of an Antichristian Tyrannie and Confusion As for example If this usurping Power should coin new Articles of belief for their own benefit contrary to the known Principles of Scripture and Reason and require the profession of these from the Church of Christ as also appoint suspected Observances smelling rank of Idolatry and Superstition it were in a manner impossible but that it should cause vast rendings and tearings in the Church and fill the world full of strife and opposition Also if they should make it their business to define the sense of Scripture by a more determinate meaning then there were use of in the Church and put their Determinations and Expositions upon men as necessary points of belief This would also make much against the Peaceableness of the Church men being in a manner fatally propending to think this or that way in things that are not necessary to Salvation to be determined either There would needless violence therefore be done to the Consciences of men thereby to set the world on fire Whenas what is general is large and unitive and takes all in and gives them leave to live peaceably one by another without justling or crowding 12. But the Folly and Fraud of this curiosity would be the Endeavour of gaining or rather extorting respect from the people and of making their Function seem considerable and their Learning great and their Judgements unerrable and that they may feel their Authority and make others to feel it though to the discontent and dissettlement of the Church of Christ. As if their living exemplarily and urging the performance of what is plain in Scripture and keeping an orderly Discipline in those things would not gain them more respect and make them more honourable both in the eyes of God and man or as if they would not appear more infallible by insisting in his steps who is the Way the Truth and the Life then by grossely crossing this way or going out of it for some by-advantages of the World The discovery of which Frauds must needs make them odious to all men And lastly as for their having their Authority felt Christ has shewed them the way if they would follow it He taught as having authority and not as the Scribes for they say and Matt. 7. Chap. 23. doe not 13. This is one way of Antichristianizing against that sacred Title of Christ The Prince of Peace There is another more vile and execrable then that heart could imagine that is not acquainted with the depths of Satan and that is If this Antichristian power we describe should take upon them to absolve the Princes of Christendom from their Oaths and Covenants they make one to another upon their terms of Peace as also to absolve Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance to their Sovereigns were not this to break a-pieces all the bonds of Unity that not onely Religion but the Laws of Nature do afford thus to destroy the Sacredness of an Oath which is the end of all strife How then can that Heb. 6. 16. Power challenge a right of succession to the Prince of Peace which takes away the chiefest tie of Peace that humane affairs are capable of 14. And lastly that bloudy position of taking away mens lives for mistakes in Opinion when notwithstanding they are otherwise unblameable in faith and conversation and unfeigned professours of Christian Truths that are evidently revealed in the Word of God nay to take away their lives for not doing and holding things quite contrary to the express Word of God written both in our inward Souls and in the Holy Scripture as I have in several Instances declared in this description of Chap. 3. Sect. 8. Antichristianism What were this but to hang out the bloudy flag against the true Church of Christ and to proclaim open war against them to bid battel against them that are inrolled into the company of the Lamb and are the professed Souldiers of the Prince of Peace Whose opposers therefore in such a sort as I have intimated cannot but be that Apocalyptick Beast that makes war with the Saints or that Mother Chap. 13. 7. of Har lots who is drunk with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus So little doubt would there be of this last Opposition's proving an Antichristian Chap. 17. 6. Character of the deepest dye But of this subject more hereafter CHAP. VII 1. That any Constitution of things that naturally opposes and suppresses the Divine Life is Antichristian in the highest measure 2. Such as Idolatry Superstition and all the above-mentioned Oppositions to Christ's Offices and Titles 3. The opinion of a virtue in the Sacraments ex opere operato and of the needlessness of our attention to our Devotions 4. Dumb shows and the resting in the mere doing of a Religious duty be it from what principle it will 5. Easy Absolution and slight Penances 6. Plenary Indulgences purchased by money from Ecclesiastick Authority 7. A general note prefixed touching the Mischiefs of the several Oppositions against the Divine Life 8. The plausibility of the Supposition of an Ecclesiastick Power and Pomp more then Imperial 9. The weakness of the grounds for the said Supposition 10. The consequential Mischief thereof in driving the minds of Church-men from the study of Truth and Holiness 11. Yea in making them oppose every thing that is True and Holy if it oppose their designs of Ambition and Avarice 12. That such a Luciferian Power as this were the very ruine of the Kingdom of Christ upon Earth 13. And the turning of his Church into a mere Mart or Fair. 1. THus expressely and clearly have we delineated the Image of Antichrist in his opposing of Christ in his Offices and in running quite counter to the most Sacred Titles that do adorn his Person We come now to the Divine Life as it is propagable in the world and for which Christ was pleased to take our nature upon him and to lay down his life
so long as the Moon endureth And a little after in the same Psalm He shall spare the poor and needy and shall save the souls of the needy He shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence and precious shall their bloud be in his sight And in * Chap. 4â—… Esay it is said of him A bruised reed shall he not break and smoaking flax shall he not quench till he hath brought judgment into victory And again in the * Psal. 45. Psalms In thy majesty ride on prosperously because of truth meekness and righteousness and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things namely to break in pieces the Oppressour and to put the Fraudulent to open shame Also in * Chap. 9. Zacharie Rejoice greatly O daughter of Sion shout O daughter of Jerusalem Behold thy King cometh unto thee â—…e is just and having salvation lowly and riding upon an Ass and upon a Colt the foal of an Ass. And again in * Chap. 40. Esay He shall feed his Flock like a Shepherd he shall gather the Lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those that are with young And in another place more copiously describing the Kingdom of Christ * Chap. 11. With righteousness saith he shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness the girdle of his reins The Wolf also shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lie down with the Kid and the Calf and the young Lion and the Fatling together and a little Child shall lead them and the Cow and the Bear shall feed their young ones shall lie down together and the Lion shall eat straw like an Ox. And a sucking Child shall play on the hole of the Asp and the weaned Child shall put his hand on the Cockatrice den They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea To all which you may adde That Christ with his Church in the Revelation is all along represented under the Hieroglyphick of a Lamb that harmless and peaceable creature and in Daniel under the Type of a Man whenas the rest of the Kingdoms are typifi'd by wild Beasts Which intimates that the Kingdom of Christ is not a Kingdom of Belluine Ferocity but of Reason Humanity and tender Loving-kindness 3. According therefore to this Description of the Kingdom of Christ it is plainly a Kingdom of Peace and Love the Empire of that Divine vertue of Charity and discovers it self in the defending righting and easing of the poor in the lowliness and meekness of the Governours and in the truth and faithfulness of them in managing their affairs without any guile or deceit in the unity and friendly conversableness of people in the cessation of war and hostility and in the protection of the â—…aints of God from persecution and slaughter All these Happinesses are included in the Reign of Christ according to the above-cited predictions and are all of them the Effects of Charity as S. Paul has described that Grace from the excellent fruits thereof For Charity is kind full of acts of Humanity seeketh not her own much less what belongs to others either out of envy or covetousness 1 Cor. 13. Charity is not puffed up with pride and high-mindedness has no pleasure in unrighteousness or deceitfulness but rejoyceth in truth and faithfulness Charity does not easily think evil of men or unseemly behave her self out of the bad opinion she conceives of them in matters of Morality or Religion Charity is so far from exciting others to war that she is hardly provoked to anger but is patient and long-suffering so far from persecuting and murthering the good that she will not be over-severe to those that are no better then they should be For Charity beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things so far is she from persecuting imprisoning from racking and killing of innocent and good men that are endued with the true fear of God upon worldly Jealousies and Suspicions that is to say for fear the spreading of the Truth of the Gospel should bear down their usurped Empire of Idolatrous Tyranny and Superstition 4. Having therefore so clear a view of the nature and properties of Charity and of the condition of the Reign of Christ in his Church whose Dominion is founded in the Law of Love it will not be hard to draw the picture of an Antichristian Polity so far forth as it is opposite to this last Branch of the Divine Life which is that transcendent Grace of Charity Let us suppose therefore a company of men that pretend to succeed Christ and his Apostles who if they be his legitimate Successours they should succeed him also in the Graces of his Spirit to be quite contrary in the administration of the affairs of the Church to that Description of the Kingdom of Christ out of the Prophets and Psalms would not this of a truth prove a most palpable and remarkable Limb of Antichristianism 5. As suppose first for example Whereas our Saviour Christ is described as one that does redeem the souls of the poor and needy from oppression and wrong if the Frame of this Polity that his pretended Successours set up in the World were a yoke upon the most simple-meaning people greater then that of Judaism and a servitude and bondage more intolerable then that of Aegypt as I have above described it as both burthening and afflicting their Consciences and also wearying their Bodies and Book I. ch 19 20 21 22. emptying their Purses by mulcts for such offences as are neither against the Law of God nor any duty we any way owe to our Neighbour but onely against such Superstitious Institutes as were made by the Ignorance of some and the cunning Craft of others who multiply unnecessary Laws that they may enjoy the sweet of the Penalties and suck away the bloud and sustenance of the poor labouring-man as often as they catch him in these nets were not this point-blank contrary to that part of the Description of Christ's Kingdom that consists in the protecting and easing of the poor and oppressed 6. It were a very unchristian thing and a shreud sign that those were not the true and genuine Successours of Christ that did not prevail so much upon the Civil Government that vassalage and slavery and squallid and deplorable poverty should be chased away for the glory of the Gospel and the honour of the Kingdom of Christ which is supposed to be where-ever the Gospel is received But for these pretended hypocritical Successors to be Instruments and Assistants to the enslaving of the World for the partaking
perpetual Confutation of Hugo Grotius in all his Expositions wherein he would undermine and elude the orthodox Protestant sense of the Prophecies we make use of in this Treatise And lastly Though I am very loath to have any difference with so excellent an Interpreter as Mr. Mede yet I must ingenuously confess that I cannot but dissent from him in several things which I deem not a little material 7. As first for example in his Exposition of the Beast that was The Author's dissent from Mr. Mede in his Exposition of the Beast that was and is not and is not For of this Beast he saith it might be said in S. John 's time Et jam olim eam fuisse necdum tamen natam esse With this short account would Mr. Mede turn off that Description of him But I must confess it seems to me impossible that those words should be used with any truth if restrained or tied to the time when the Vision was exhibited as if it spoke of his existing or not existing then and not only of the order of succession of Existence and Non-existence For the Beast that was to be again under the last Head was in actual being in S. John 's time Wherefore how harsh must it be to say of it while it is in being that it was But how plain a contradiction to say it is not while it is or that it is not yet born when it has continued so many ages and does and is to continue uninterruptedly so many after Apply this to any particular person still alive and in health and to live many years will it not grate against common sense to say of him he was and is not while he is alive and in being Besides that necdum tamen natam esse does not at all specifie his succession under the eighth King more then the seventh that being left out in this Interpretation which is the most plainly and most materially signified in the Prophecy namely That the Beast was to cease to be for a time Which Intervall of Non-existence immediately was to precede the succession of the Beast under the last Head 8. The oversight whereof seems to me to put Mr. Mede to the As also of the seventh King plunge also in his Exposition of the eight Kings where he glosses upon Unus est alius nondum venit after this manner Unus Regum seu Dynastarum ordo putà Caesarum adhuc superest sed is quoque sub Caesaribus Christianis ità mutaturus ut quasi alius sed brevis admodum aevi dynastes videretur reverâ tamen non alius Where quasi alius and reverâ tamen non alius I must ingenuously confess seem to me to fall short off or rather to be quite contrary to the scope of the Text this Seventh King being called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on purpose to indicate his extreme difference from all that went before him that he did toto genere differre as being purely Christian and that the Eighth and six first have a greater cognation one with another then he with any of them which is according to truth Nor can the shortness of his Reign for was not that of the Decemviri and Dictatours far shorter nor his being still Caesar make him not an express and distinct King from the rest For upon this account the Beast that was and is not will want a proper and distinct Head at least till the Pope perk't up into the Caesareate which will be for some hundreds of years For the Head of the Empire till Hildebrand 's time or at least Pope Constantine and the two succeeding Gregories were the Caesars 9. And lastly Therefore the said oversight put Mr. Mede to the The unaccountableness of there being but seven Heads though eight Kings in Mr. Mede's way puzzle how to make but seven Kings of eight and upon committing this Paralogism There are but seven Heads of the Beast therefore there must be but seven Kings Whereas if he had considered according to the plain Indication of the Prophecy that there was a time when the Beast was for a while to cease to be which was the Intervall when pure Christianity was the Religion of the Empire and that the seven Heads of the Beast were Heads of Blasphemie or Idolatry he might have easily discerned not onely that there might be eight Kings though but seven Heads of the Beast but also that it was necessary it should be so For when the Beast was not in being his Head was gone also But the Empire never yet ceased to be no not in the Intervall of the Beast's not being nor could it be then without a Sovereignty Wherefore there is a necessity that there should be eight Kings though but seven Heads of the Beast For the Beast in his Non-existence could neither want nor have an Head The great serviceableness of the Authour's Interpretation of the Perdition of the Beast and of the burning of the Whore for the peace and security of Christendom 10. This is true as I have fully and it may be over-fully demonstrated in the ensuing Discourse But if it had not been also mainly usefull as well as true I should not have made it my business so carefully and copiously to have evinced it Nor take I any pleasure in having different opinions from others much less in divulging them were it not for a common good as this certainly is it tending so naturally to the peace and safety of all the Secular Powers of the Empire and to the vindicating of this holy Book of Visions it self from that contempt or hatred that some bear to it as seeming a Countenancer or Exciter of Fanatical persons to tumultuate against their lawfull Sovereigns whenas on the contrary as I have elsewhere intimated there is not any Book more faithfull and more friendly to the Prerogative of Secular Princes then this Volume of Prophecies the Prediction of the Perdition of this fourth Beast being rather a mercifull Promise then a Commination Which is this That as it ceased to be for a time so after a certain Period of time it should cease to be for ever Now the temporary ceasing of the Beast to be was onely the Empire 's entertaining and maintaining the pure and Apostolick Christianity as yet uncontaminate with any Pagan-like Idolatries Wherefore the ceasing of it to be for ever is nothing else but the being cleansed for ever from all Idolatry and Antichristianism Which can be no ill news to the Emperour and Secular Kings or Princes of the Empire they being quit of Idolatry which makes the Empire a Beast and of the imposturous Tyranny and Usurpations of the Pope of Rome over them at once But for that Hierarchical Power of the Pope and his Clergie and truly it will analogically touch such a Presbytery as hath not learn'd the lesson of due Subjection to the Secular Sovereignty in things indifferent that Papal Hierarchy I say which as * Praefat.
by their recourse to the Bloud of Christ by which they are justifi'd and freed from that blind bondage they were held in under those hard Task-masters that the Concinnity is marvellous to consider the Type being so clear a Prophecy of what has happened within these last Ages in breaking from that Tyrannicall bondage of the Italian Pharaoh But such Instances as these are infinite 6. The next obscuring Scheme is Ellipsis which is an omission of some word or words which are requisite to determine the sense Examples of Ellipses occurre every-where in the Old Testament in the Psalms Job and other Books But by an Ellipsis here I understand not merely the defect of something to make up the full sense but such an artificial defect as shall make the sense seem compleat without the supplement understood For that seems to be the Genius of these Apocalyptick Visions especially that they are made so as to seem very trim and express very complete and articulate in the very outward Cortex as a Book that has some pleasing Embellishments on the back-side as well as the History of truth within 7. Which I little doubt but may be alluded to in that expression concerning this Volume of Visions that it was * Revel 5. 1. written within and without according to the ancient manner of the Cabbalistick Mysteries Touching which Traditions Parmenides had got that Principle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That there is a twofold traditionary Knowledge the one Truth it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Daniel in counterdistinction to his Aenigmatical Visions the other Types or Parables accommodate to the conceit and gust of the Vulgar S. Hierom also Rupertus and several others understand this being written within and on the back-side of a Literal and Mystical sense Grotius pretends the Text is not rightly comma'd but reads it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Written within and sealed on the back-side As if there were any Books written on the back-side and sealed within So unfortunate an Interpreter of the Apocalyps is the great Hugo even in lesser matters But to return to the matter in hand 8. The difference of those two kinds of Ellipses we have described may be seen in these Examples Exod. 3. where Moses asking God his Name he returns this answer I am that I am which is an Elliptical speech and fully supplied is My Name is I am that I am Something like this is that also in the * Chap. 1. 4. Apocalyps Grace to you and peace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which were more full 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But these Ellipses are such that they discover the defect of what is to be supplied But sometimes it is not so as Apocal. 17. 8. The Beast which thou sawest was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and goe into perdition And a little after When they behold the Beast that was and is not and yet is Which seems a smooth entire sense in the exteriour Cortex of the Prophecy whenas no good sense at all can be made of it unless there be conceived some such Ellipsis as before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But to have been thus express had laid this Mystery over-open which ought to be in a greater measure concealed and therefore it was thus carefully lock'd up in this Prophetick Ellipsis Of which Text more fully in its proper place 9. Homonymia is the Diversity of significations in one and the same Symbol whereof one alone is to be understood else it were coincident with an Henopoeia of the second kind Which Homonymia may fall out ex accidenti and is of no greater difficulty then that ordinary Homonymia of words whose sense the consideration of the contexture of things will determine or else it may be intended of set purpose to make up a more gracefull insculpture upon the external Cortex of a Vision As in the Vision of the Witnesses I suspect that the three days and an half that they lie dead in the street do not signify as in the beginning of that Vision three years and an half but three times and an half that is 1260 years Nay that they do signify so I do confess I do more then suspect am indeed well assured in my own judgement of the truth thereof But whether there be any likelihood of their signifying also three years and an half Events will better determine Which if they did there would not be a simple Homonymia in this Symbol of three days and an half but an Henopoeia of the second kind 10. Metalepsis is a Prophetick Scheme whereby an Effect or Event is transferred or communicated to some eminent Person merely or at least mainly because the place and time is coincident with his and there is the same reason of Things This Scheme I must confess is very Poetical but not unelegant nor unusuall Like to this is that of Virgil Candidus auratis aperit cùm cornibus annum Taurus and again Libra dies somnique pares ubi fecerat horas Where Taurus and Libra because they are then in conjunction with the Sun have attributed to them or transferred upon them those Effects which really are the Sun 's onely and not theirs But that there is such a Metalepsis as I have described in the Prophetick style that one example of the Rider of the red Horse in the * Chap. 6. 4. Apocalyps will make good who is armed with a great sword in his hand and is said to take peace from the Earth Whenas nothing else is signified but that in this Emperour's time there would be very furious killing and slaying in the Empire though by no fault of his For it is said they should kill one another as if the Text on purpose did cast in that key for the opening the meaning of the Vision as Mr. Mede has judiciously observed Whose interpretation of the First six Seals is so solid that it is impossible I think taking all things together for any unprejudiced Reader not to be assured of the truth of them Whence it is that I am so well assured of this present Prophetick Figure I have set down 11. Antichronismus is an obscurative Scheme in Prophecy which sets down one measure of time for another as a Week for Seven years as in Daniel a Month for Thirty years a Day for a Year Which Figure seems to be used in the Apocalyptick Visions not onely for concealment sake but for proportion and Decorum that the external Cortex of the Prophecies may not want their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that winning and pleasing Credibility of Story Wherefore these Antichronismi are a necessary Consequence of that Prophetick Henopoeia that contracts vast Empires and other Bodies Politick with their long Successions into the figure or shape of Beasts or single Persons whence that the duration of their lives may not be over-proportionated to their nature it was necessary to declare their
same case as Apoc. 1. and Exod. 3. But to object that there they breed no such obscurity or sense as in this place is to acknowledge what I contend for that the Ellipsis is here used on set pupose for concealment but the concealment again more recommendable and not at all invincible because this Ellipsis is not without Examples in Scripture and made it may be not without some allusion to those very Texts where the Name of God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ero Exod. 3. 14. qui ero and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Zegerus and Cornelius à Lapide compare with this name of the Beast to shew the great discrepancy And the latter of them concludes that the Reign of the wicked is fitly expressed by Erat non est but the Name of God who alone has immortality and whose Kingdom is a Kingdom of all Ages by Qui est qui er at qui venturus est and much more he has to that purpose in comparing this Name of God with the Name of the Beast for so he also calls this description of him Sicut Dei Nomen est Jehova h. e. Qui est ità Bestiae Nomen est Qui non est Secundò Dei Nomen est Qui â—…uit est Bestiae Qui fuit non est Tertiò Dei Nomen est Fuit erit Bestiae Non erit ampliús So Cornelius The last of which answers exactly to our sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But we have been over-copious and industrious in clearing a point which we had already so fully demonstrated by proving That this Beast whose Chap 11. Sect. 13 14 c. Name or Title or Description call it what you will is Was and is not c. is the Roman Empire after it had taken the profession of Christianity upon it and had degenerated therein into a kind of an After-Paganism 14. And that I have interpreted the Beast in his Re-existence of the Empire turning Idolatrous rather then being moulded into any new Political Government as many doe my reason is because this is more consonant to my third Rule of interpreting Prophecies and likewise because the Empire in a Political sense cannot be said to have ever yet ceased to be there was never yet a season since its being when a man might say It is not and lastly the Whore or Two-horned Beast will not be Synchronal with the Beast that was and is not and yet is unless this Beast's Commencement begin upon those terms I have declared namely That the Rising again of the Beast was the Empire's Relapse into a kind of Paganism Idolatry 15. But we shall now pursue the detection of Agreements Was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit That is to say It was in that decursion of time before the Dragon was fought by Michael and slain but ceased to be upon that slaughter And therefore it is said in the Thirteenth Chapter that the Dragon gave him his power that is he succeeded as Heir to the powers of the Dragon and the Dragon's forces for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signâ—…fies as in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were left to his conduct and management Or because the Dragon signifies the Devil as well as the Pagan Empire The Devil delivered to this Beast his forces his power and throne so as he had done to the Pagan Empire that is the assistence of evil Spirits Idols or Images and all the Pomp and Train of his Kingdom of Darkness but yet changing himself and all these into a show of true light and hiding his villainy under a pretext of adorning and improving the Christian worship See Mr. Mede upon the place Which setting up again of the Beast that had the deadly wound and Paral. 2. Agr. 3. getting into life by means of the Dragon's assistence and proper weapons of his warfare such as Idols and Images and false Miracles answers very fitly to his re-ascending here out of the bottomless pit For so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signify as well as the Sea or Abolition or Evanescency And hence is manifested the truth of the third Agreement of our second Parallelism 16. But if we understand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signify the Sea as it usually Paral. 2. Agr. 6. does and in reference to the Empire it self I doubt not but does also here this answers to the Seven-headed Beast's rising out of the Sea chap. 13. v. 1. and is the sixth Agreement of our second Parallelism 17. And go into perdition According as it is said chap. 13. v. 10. Paral. 2. Agr. 7. He that leadeth into Captivity must go into Captivity He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword Which is the seventh Agreement of our second Parallelism 18. And they that dwell on the Earth shall wonder whose names were Paral. 2. Agr. 8. not written in the book of life According to what we reade chap. 13. v. 3. And all the world wondered after the Beast and v. 8. And all that dwell upon the Earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of Life of the Lamb c. Which is the eighth Agreement of our second Parallelism 19. When they behold the Beast that was and is not He is said here or rather in the beginning of this verse not to be answerably to his being said to be slain chap. 13. 3. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death so the English Translation But the Greek has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is caesa ad mortem Nor does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render as it were imply that his head was not slain and struck with so deadly a wound that it died For besides that this wound is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a deadly wound more then once it is evident that the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not always weaken or lessen the sense as appears ch 5. v. 6. where we find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Lamb notwithstanding was really and down-right slain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore referrs to the Imaginativeness of the Representation not to the Imperfectness of the Death or Slaughter represented Wherefore this Head was really slain and killed and therefore implies the Body was dead also and that the Beast ceased to be according as it is here said that he is not Which I Paral. 2. Agr. 3. have already noted to be the third Agreement of our second Parallelism Which Agreement considered jointly with the perpetual Agreements of that Parallelism is also an invincible Confirmation of the truth of our Exposition of The Beast which thou sawest was and is not c. namely That he speaks adequately of the Beast under the last Succession re-existing in this Seventeeth Chapter as he does of the healed Beast in the Thirteenth and that there can be no objection against the over-close concealment of the
sense in this notable Ellipsis because though the commissure be as invisible as that in curious Steel-work yet the apparent Agreements of this second Parallelism betwixt the Seven-headed Beast in this and the Thirteenth Chapter would not fail to unscrue the meaning with the considerate and intelligent 20. Is not and yet is Of which I have shewn already that there can Paral. 2. Agr. 5. be no good sense unless we understand not a perfect Identity but rather a Resemblance or Similitude Which Resemblance by way of elegancy gives the title of Identity as if that which is very like were exactly the same So he that came in the Spirit of Elias was called Elias and one egregiously Epicurean or Platonical might be called Epicurus redivivus or Plato redivivus as if the one were really Epicurus the other Plato And it is a vulgar expression That such an one will never die while such a Son of his namely one that is exactly like him is alive conceding herein that the Father may be dead and alive at once dead in his own person but alive in that lively image of himself his surviving Son Quanquam nullum monumentum clarius Servius Sulpitius relinquere potuit quà m effigiem morum suorum constantiae pietatis ingenii filium Of such a son as this is that saying of Siracides Though his father die Ecclesiastic 30. 4. yet he is as though he were not dead for he has left one behind him that is like him So then as Servius Sulpitius may be said to be dead and alive at once dead in his own person but alive in his son who is so perfect an Effigies of him so it may be said of the Beast that he is not and yet is Because he is not really that ancient Pagan Empire which was the Beast killed by the introduction of pure Christianity but yet he is in that he is revived in the Empire 's becoming again so Paganly Idolatrous and so lively representing the state thereof in the Dragon's time Res enim dicitur existere saith à Lapide cùm ejus Exemplar Imago Typus aut Figura existit And how lively an Image or Resemblance this degenerate Empire is of that under the Dragon I might here particularly display but I will rather defer it to the following Chapters In the mean time this may suffice in general to prove the fifth Agreement of our second Parallelism CHAP. XIV Ver. IX What is the meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that Siracides seems to allude to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his description thereof 2. That Constantinople is also allowed to have Seven Hills and that it makes for the proof of the eighth Agreement of the first Parallelism Ver. X. That the making the seven Heads seven sorts of Governours is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but a natural and necessary truth 2. How naturally the different successions of the Supreme Powers of the Roman Empire fall into eight parts 3. The onely true reason why there are numbred Eight Kings though but Seven Heads of the Beast 4. That the dividing of the Emperours into Pagan Christian and Pagano-Christian is aimed at or supposed in the enumeration of the Eight Kings is an unexceptionable Truth 5. That it is most credible that after the Sixth King no other account of distinction of the Supreme Power of the Empire was look'd upon by the Angel but what respected Religion 6. A demonstrative Inference from One is that there is an Ellipsis in The Beast that thou sawest was and is not c. 7. Why * Apocal. 17. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whence the last subdivision is confirmed and the tenth Agreement of the second Parallelism made good 8. The fourth Agreement of the second Parallelism Ver. XI That the description of the Beast is his Name and part thereof used for the whole as in the Name of God which farther confirms the above-mentioned Ellipsis 2. The easie and genuine meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. That the meaning of * Verse 11. The Beast that was and is not he is the eighth is that his Head is the eighth 4. That the Eighth King by an Henopoeia may admit of more Caesars then one reigning at a time and why 5. The ninth Agreement of the second Parallelism 6. The seventh Agreement Ver. XII The eleventh Agreement of the second Parallelism 2. The twelfth Agreement 3. The meaning of * Verse 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ver. XIII The thirteenth Agreement together with the meaning of * Verse 13. being of one minde and of giving their strength and power to the Beast 2. That the Pope once emerged above the Emperour even in Secular Power may continue the succession of the seventh Head there being nothing else intended thereby but the secular Pagano-christian Sovereignty of the Empire Ver. XIV The fourteenth Agreement of the second Parallelism 2. The fifteenth Agreement 3. The sixteenth Agreement of the second Parallelism Ver. IX AND here is the mind that hath wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In such a sense as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ch 13. 18. Here is wisedom that is Here is a special Arcanum Here is recondite Wisedom or a Cabbalistical Parable According as is intimated Ecclesiastic 6. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For wisedom is according to her name and is not manifest to the vulgar Where Siracides in all likelihood alludes to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to cover over a thing and so conceal it as if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were derived from thence And assuredly the Wisedom of the Ancients was such had an outward crust or rind as well as an inward pulp And Diogenes should have rather wrote thus of Parmenides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the ancient Sophia which Siracides would have sound like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had a double sense one according to external appearance the other according to an inward truth Wherefore as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Here is such a kind of recondite wisedom as I have described so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Here is a meaning that implies a special example of the ancient Sophia which used to hide great and concerning Truths under outward Hieroglyphicks and Types 2. The seven Heads are seven Mountains on which the Woman sitteth That Old Rome is here indigitated by these seven Hills Interpreters generally consent that City being so famously taken notice of for them both by Historians and Poets As by Dionysius Halicarnasseus Pliny Plutarch also by Varro Tertullian and others By Poets as Virgil Horace Ovid Claudian and the Sibylls Which things being so well known and obvious in Commentators I think it needless to produce any examples But there are that please themselves in finding Records of Constantinople's being also noted for her seven Hills which Bishop Mountague does Part 2. Ch. 5. in his Appello
followers For it is too dilute and frigid a Gloss to make no more of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then to turn it off with a Posthac or Hereafter as if the term of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had not passed into a phrase of Art already and had not been defined long since by the Angel in Daniel or at least was not a necessary Consectary from Chap. 12. his Definition who being asked how long to the end of these wonders he held up his right hand and his left hand unto Heaven and sware by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time and times and half a time And being again asked by Daniel to declare more plainly when the end of those things should be he gives this Answer That the words are sealed till the time of the End which is so called as being that notable section of time that lies next to the end of the Fourth or Last Monarchy but presently after addes this hint to point him to this time of the End That from the time that the daily Sacrifice should be taken away and the Abomination that makes desolate set up should be 1290 days but that blessed he should be that came to the 1335 days 9. Now the end of those things Daniel enquired after reached as appears from the Text and general consent of Expositors even to the Day of Judgment however that phrase is to be understood Whence it is rational to conceive that Daniel's Prophecies reach through those four famous Monarchies or Kingdoms the Babylonian Persian Greek and Roman and that the Roman Kingdom conterminates or synchronizes with the fulness of time or the end of Times and Ages and being the Fourth and last division of this Sacred Kalendar of Prophecies as Mr. Mede calls it may rightly be termed the last times or last days in which the Messias was expected and came But after Christ's coming seeing there would be a very marvellous and notorious reign of Antichrist during this Fourth Monarchy or last time who is figured out in the Two-horned Beast and the Whore of Babylon which are of the Middle Synchronals of the Book-prophecie and which I have already demonstrated to begin about 400 years after Christ and that the time of their continuance is the same with a Time and Times and half a Time and that this is 1260 years it is evident that this share of time is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter times of these last or the time of the End as lying next thereto and the very times the Angel speaks of in this Chapter where he asserts with an Oath that those Wonders that is that prodigious Reign of Antichrist should continue for a time and times and half a time but that when he shall have accomplished to scatter Dan. 12. 7. the power of the holy people namely the Jews then all things spoken of shall be finished Which is the very same with that in the Apocalyps where the Angel swears by him that lives for ever that there should be no more time saving in the days of the voice of the seventh Angel Apoc. 10. 7. when he shall sound and the Mystery of God be finished as he has declared to his servants the Prophets alluding particularly to this of Daniel This is the right meaning of this passage of the Revelation according to common sense and Grammatical construction Which plainly shews that the Time and Times and half a Time end with the sixth Trumpet From which considerations it is evident to any one that is unprejudiced that this term of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a term of the Prophetick style the same with the Time of the End with an allusion to that Sacred Kalendar of Daniel consisting of the four Monarchies as being the latter section of the continuance of the last running on along with the Reign of Antichrist For so does the Church generally interpret that Time and Times and half a Time in Daniel 10. And that they do belong to the Reign of Antichrist even in our sense Mr. Mede has in my judgment most convincingly made good even from those numbers of 1290 days and 1335 days in his little Treatise of those Numbers which he calls Revelatio Antichristi Which were certainly given as a Key to open the truth of Daniel's Prophecies concerning the reign of that Man of sin and the time of his Discovery The words Dan. 12. 9. are closed up and sealed till the time of the End that is till these latter times but the wicked shall not then understand them but the wise shall and may be assured of them by this Key of Numbers of years from the Epocha of Antiochus his prophaning the Temple compared with the Event the first notable Instances of Revealing of this Man of sin The first of these Numbers from that Epocha ends in the year of our Lord 1120 the latter in the year 1165. For I have already so undeniably demonstrated that Days stylo Prophetico do signifie Years both in this Treatise and in my * Book 5. Ch. 15. Sect. 2. Mystery of Godliness that I think no man will doubt of it and that they cannot signifie Days here Mr. Mede has with no less evidence evinced Now the Event is exact to Admiration For in the year 1120 a true and perfect detection or description of Antichrist came forth and not till then as you may see by that compendious account which Mr. Mede has given thereof The ending of the other Period is also notable for the Waldenses and Albigenses in whose times the Mystery of Iniquity was more fully detected and by more numerous Companies protested against Whence they are said to be blessed that reach to those times by reason of the great clearness of the Light of the Gospel that shined forth nor less happy they that then also suffered for witnessing to it but certainly much more blessed by reason that their Reward should be greater and more singular For the Prophecie declares how things are in truth and reality and not according to the judgment or sentiments of the soft and false carnal mind See that judicious Author Mr. Mede for I cannot dwell upon these things I will onely adde for a farther assurance of Mr. Mede's Exposition that no other will hold water For it is not likely that these Numbers of Days should be any Interpretation of the Extent of the above-mentioned Time and Times and half a Time they both of them varying from the just measure of that Period and the sense also of that Aenigmatical expression being not so hard but that all hit on it and agree in it To which you may adde that the Epocha from Antiochus will not comply with this design and it is hard to make that Epocha signifie otherwise then literally with any credibility of meaning As also that this way the main difficulty about which Daniel was so solicitous will not be satisfi'd which was When this
made him capable of suffering death This is all spoken of our Head and Captain and yet it may be not without some reflexion upon his Body the Church To whom also the riding upon white Horses belongs as appears in the fourteenth verse They have also flammeous and fiery eyes because of their Intellectual Graces and it is said that the Spiritual man discerneth all things 1 Cor. 2. They have also a name that no man knows besides themselves which is their New birth or the participation of the Divine Nature Their garments also are died in bloud in that so many have suffered Martyrdom for the testimony of the Gospel against the Idolatry and Tyranny of Antichrist and all have been martyr'd that is slain and mortifi'd as to the life of sin and besprinkled also with the bloud of the Lamb in the pardon of what-ever Transgressions are past And lastly they are to be crowned and reign as Kings upon earth for the Kingdom is given to the Saints of the most High Dan. 7. 6. But to return to the Description of this Heavenly Heros A sharp-edged Sword is said to go out of his mouth Which is analogical to that in the Hebrews The word of God is quick and powerful sharper then any two-edged Heb. 4. sword And in that he is said to rule the Nations with a rod of iron it is an allusion to the second Psalm which is a Prophecie of the Messias Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel Which is a Prophetick Symbol of that wonderful contrition of heart that the powerful Word of God makes when sincerely and seasonably evibrated against the enemies of his Kingdom as in the Epistle to the Hebrews it is said to divide asunder and cut betwixt soul and spirit and hew down into the very joints and marrow Such is the Militia of this Heavenly Host. He shall smite the Earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips will he slay the wicked Esa. 11. 4. 7. And in that he is said to tread the wine-press of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God it looks as if it referred to that of Esay 63. Who is this that comes from Edom with his died garments from Bozrah this that is glorious in his apparel travelling in the greatness of his strength I that speak in righteousness mighty to save Which answers to that in this present Vision Whose name is Faithful and True and in righteousness doth he judge and make war But it follows in Esay Wherefore art thou red in thy apparel and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat I have troden the wine-press alone and of the people there was none with me For I will tread them in my anger and trample them in my fury and their bloud shall be sprinkled upon my garments and I will stain all my raiment For the day of vengeance is in my heart and the day of my redeemed is come This answers to what is said of the Rider of the white Horse in this Vision that he was clothed in a vesture dipt in bloud Which in both these Prophecies referrs both to the Passion of Christ and his Spiritual Victories over his Enemies The Wine-presses also answer to one another in each Vision And being that the Harvest is as our Saviour says the end of the world the Vintage which is something later then it must be a later part of the end of the world So that this Vision of Edom and Bozrah will very well sute in that respect also to this of the Apocalyps And it is farther considerable that Bozrah signifies Vintage and Edom the carnal persecutive Church real enemies to the true Jerusalem as the Edomites were to Israel And I need not adde that Edom and Ismael are Types of one and the same thing So that the warfare seems plainly to be spiritual as it may be I shall take occasion to clear up more fully in another place 8. Lastly in that it is written upon his thigh KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS it shews the Royal Descent of Christ even according to the flesh as if he had laid claim to this Sovereignty by descent from David the King accordingly as it is said Chap. 22. I am the root and off-spring of David and the bright morning-star The root of David as to his Divinity and the off-spring of David as to his Humanity But the meaning of this part of the Vision is That the Word of God that is to say the Law of Christ inward and outward is at last in conspicuous Triumph though it had been kept under and plainly troden into the dirt for so long a time in the Reign of the Two-horned Beast or the Whore 9. But that the Church of Christ which is his Body has also a share in this part of the Vision is easily discoverable For in that this Title of King of Kings and Lord of Lords is written upon his thigh it signifies also the Dominion of his posterity the Church as Ribera and Alcazar have rightly noted and accordingly as it is said else-where in the Apocalyps He has made us Kings and Priests c. And for the treading of the Wine-press of the wrath of God or the subduing of Edom does not Christ doe it by the powerful and convictive zeal of his Saints and faithful Ministers of his Word who seriously and weightily laying the Law and the heavy wrath of God against Sinners to the hearts and consciences of these carnally-complexionated Edomites squeeze out if I may so speak their corrupt bloud that is the principle of that ungodly life in them for in the bloud thereof is the life thereof and so making them dead as to sin after revive them into righteousness unto everlasting Salvation And so for that sharp-edged sword which is here said to come out of the mouth of Christ it is in effect the very same that comes out of the mouths of his Saints who rule the world by convincing them of their wickedness and causing them to return to God This sharp piercing and vehement Reproof out of the mouths of the people of God against the Beast and the False Prophet is here said to be a Sword coming out of the mouth of Christ because their mouths are his mouth by right use and possession and he inspires by his Spirit and they are onely his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that transmit this fiery Law this blast of fire and flaming breath as it is called in Esdras whereby the wicked are consumed They are I say but as a seized Gate or Passage through which or in which this sharp-edged Sword wherewith the Nations are smitten is so powerfully brandished by our victorious Saviour For this Flame and this Sword I take to be clear Truth and sound and searching Reason inspired from the Eternal Word which whetted with an holy sincere and unaffected kind of Enthusiastick Zeal
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
fetches of wit whatsoever her abominable Enormities comprehended under those main Heads of Imposture Idolatry and Bloud-shed being as determinately and legibly set down in these Prophecies as the transaction of things past in any History And therefore the truth can be hid from none but such as either have not the leisure to understand the Prophetick style or are blinded with Prejudice and Interest Which I believe is so powerfull with some that it would make them hesitant and Sceptical even in Mathematical Demonstration But so manifest Eviction in so concerning a Truth as we have here cleared up I dare confidently pronounce will not be rooled off for ever 14. Sure I am that main Subterfuge that some so usually fortify themselves in wall fail them I mean those words in the very beginning of the Apocalyps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From which they would infer that no Events but such as were to come to pass within a short time after the Communication of these Prophecies are to be applied to them But this Scruple I have I think sufficiently answered in my Mystery of Godliness by intimating that the Inference is as unreasonable as if one upon the report that such a Comedie or Tragedie was to be acted within less then this half-quarter of an hour should conclude that all the Acts and Scenes thereof would not reach beyond that time whenas the sense is onely that the Comedie or Tragedie will begin to be acted within that time And therefore Cornelius à Lapide upon these words Quae oportet fierei citò apertly and judiciously glosses thus Hoc est quae citò incipient fieri licèt non citò finientur And Alcazar upon the same words Quasi diceret In hac Revelatione continentur quaedam quae citò oportet fieri alia quae non adeò citò implebuntur And it is Grotius his own note upon them Alia citiùs alia seriús But forasmuch as some of these Series of Visions which reach even unto the end of all things were suddenly to be fulfilled it is said at large touching the Subject of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As I suppose one would say of an Army that reached a quarter of a mile in length that this Army is at the very gates of the City whenas onely they that march first in rank are there Again Unless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signify which will be shortly a-doing not finished it is a perfect contradiction to the nature of some of the things that are foretold as the Reign of the Saints and the Ligation Apocal. 20. of Satan For the Continuance of these Events is predicted to be a thousand years Wherefore unless a thousand years be but a short space of time the Events foretold contradict the very Title of this Prophetick Volume were that the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is contended for Whence it is manifest that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not touching every Event signify which shall be finish'd but which shall be a-doing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thirdly For the signification of this Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how sudden how short a time must it denote who will define it For the Prophet Haggai when he saies Yet a little while and I will shake the Heaven Ch. 2. ver 6. and the Earth c. his Prediction pitches on a time about five hundred years distant from the time of the Prophecy Whence there is no necessity of seeking the completion of the Seals and Trumpets in the Destruction of Jerusalem It is therefore to be understood comparatively a little time as Grotius also interprets that of Haggai In which sense I would likewise understand that so-often-repeated saying in the Apocalyps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold I come quickly Which I believe has an especial eye to the Sixth Seal which is described like Apoc. 6 1â—… 13 14 15 16 17. the Day of Judgment but is indeed the Overthrow of the Dragon by Christ and his taking the Roman Empire into his own hands upon the Conversion of Constantine to the Christian Religion which was in a good deal less time then five hundred years and but a very little time indeed in comparison of the great atchievement which was compassed in it Fourthly The first Six Seals the Fight of Michael and the Dragon the Inward Court of the Temple all these Visions their Events I mean are finished within a less while then what Haggai calls little Fifthly The Outward Court of the Temple the Whore of Babylon the Two-horned Beast the Ten-horned Beast the two Witnesses the Virgin-Company the Woman in the Wilderness the Events also of all these Visions are in fieri within less then that time which the Prophet Haggai calls little The Trumpets also had begun to sound within that time But the Affairs of the Seven Churches might be of a far earlier Accomplishment and it may be accomplishable over and over again they being flying Prophecies and not so affixed to time and place as they seem and as the rest of the Visions are Which Grotius also has observed And this I think is sufficient to make good the Title of the Subject of these Prophecies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And no more then this is supposed or rather demonstrated in Mr. Mede's way of interpreting the Apocalyps Sixthly They themselves are fain to interpret some Prophecies of Events that fell out or are to fall out above twice five hundred years from the Prediction As the * Apocal. 20. loosing of Satan the Army of Gog and Magog the Siege of the beloved City the falling of fire from Heaven upon the Besiegers the General Judgment and the like Which are the more contradictious to their own Hypothesis because they make no such order or concatenation of Visions as Mr. Mede does And therefore it will be the harder to make them compliable with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But for the way that I am for where one thing so handsomely or necessarily hooks in another the first Thunder the seven Vials the last Trumpet the seven Thunders the last Seal the seven Trumpets and the first Six of these Trumpets their Synchronalls as the first Six of the Seals theirs the whole Volume of Visions in a manner is so of one piece and one thing follows another so continuedly that when the first Events begin to appear the whole Series may well be said to begin or to be a-doing and if quickly quickly So little Repugnancy has Mr. Mede's way with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And lastly Forasmuch as I have so plainly demonstrated that the Apocalyps was not communicated to S. John before Domitian's time and See Chap. 2. that therefore this Application of the Seals and Trumpets to the Destruction of Jerusalem is not onely harsh as any one may see in examining them but also impossible the Visions being since that Event and that therefore those Affairs cannot be of the number of those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 since they were then past not future and that this straining of this phrase is merely for this Exposition's sake which if it were seriously stuck to would make the Apocalyps utterly unintelligible and consequently unprofitable to the Church nay bring an unspeakable detriment thereto by depriving us of so illustrious a pledge of Divine Providence I think these things put together are of infinitely more moment to us for to adhere to that ordinary and ancient Interpretation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I nominated at first then to this novell one that has been but newly started merely for the countenancing such Expositions of the Apocalyps as are not onely extremely harsh and forced but utterly impossible This I hope is even more then enough to remove all prejudice to Truth that may lie upon any ones mind by reason of the mistaken sense of these words and inable him without any farther hesitancy to acknowledge the unexceptionable Perspicuity of those Expositions of the Apocalyps I have exhibited to his view CHAP. XXI 1. The marvellous Completeness of the Reformation of the Church of England in her Doctrines and Institutes 2. That she plainly condemns the Invocation of Saints for Idolatry 3. As also the Adoration of the Host where our Kneeling at the Communion is vindicated 4. Her condemning the Worshipping of Images 5. Her concluding the manner of the Papists worshipping Saints and Images to be plainly the same with that of Pagans 6. Her free and just censure touching the decking of their Images and making them Lay-mens Books 7. How perfectly she has freed us from that Aegyptian yoke we lay under in the time of Popery 8. The Celebration of Holy-days the keeping of Lent and the use of the Surplice in the sense of the Church of England fully vindicated from all imputation of Superstition or Antichristianism 9. That the use of the Surplice is not from any grounds at all of Policy in the Church but pure Charity with a vindication of the use of the Cross in Baptism 1. HAving thus clearly set out the true nature or Idea of Antichristianism as also plainly made good that such an Antichristianism or Antichrist as is delineated in that Idea is that very Antichrist which the Prophecies in the Holy Scriptures do prefigure or soretell we should now proceed to a more punctual Application of the said Idea and Prophecies to the State of the Church from such times as it fell into this Antichristian Lapse till this very day But that being something a more voluminous Design and less gratefull to my disposition who take far greater pleasure in the Vindication of an injured Friend then in raking into the unsavoury miscarriages of either a Stranger or professed Enemy I shal satisfy myself at least at this bout with that part of Application onely which concerns our Reformed Church of England whereby I do not doubt but to free her from all imputations or suspicions of being guilty of any point of true and real Antichristianism in any of her Doctrines or Institutes Whence it will appear how little she is concerned in this free and faithfull delineation thereof unless it be to give Almighty God most humble and hearty thanks who did so graciously assist those noble Hero's with resolution and judgment for the atchieving of so happy and marvellous a Reformation wherein nothing is left no member nor the least joynt or article of that odious and hatefull Image or Idea of Antichrist which we have described no frauds or falsifications of the Gospel of Christ for the Interest of a worldly Church and the feeding of the Priesthood by a trade of Lies and Impostures which would have made any ingenuous man ashamed to be found of the Order or Profession whenas how if no Prophaneness lurk in his soul he may well deem the Calling an ornament to his person And that this is not a boast but a real truth I sâ—…all briefly make good by running through all those limbs of Antichristianism whether opposing the Privative or Positive Ends of the Gospel which I proposed in my Idea 2. The first of the first kind whereof was Idolatry in the Invocation of Saints and Angels in the Worshipping of the Host and in the Adoration of Images Wherein though the Universal Practice of the Church of England does sufficiently clear her from such gross imputations yet I think it not amiss for her greater honour to bring into light her avowed and declared judgment concerning these matters that all the world may take notice how sound she is at the Core in these weighty points of Religion Touching therefore the Invocation of Saints That she does apertly condemn it appears in the Book of Articles where she calls it a fond thing Article 21. vainly invented and grounded upon no warrants of Scripture but that it is repugnant to the Word of God so far is it from being grounded thereupon And the second part of the Homily concerning Prayer is wholly spent in proving That we are to address our Prayers to none but to God himself Where there are excellent Arguments to that purpose and where she does plainly declare that Christ is our onely Mediatour and Advocate as also she does in the Liturgie for the cutting away all pretence for the praying to Saints and does smartly and at once conclude That Invocation is a thing proper to God which if we attribute unto the Saints it soundeth to their Reproach neither can they well bear it at our hands Which is equipollent to the judging of it Idolatry For what is Idolatry but the doing that worship to a creature which is proper to God And therefore she compares it with the Pagans offering sacrifice to Paul at Lystra And how the receiving of Divine honour must redound to the reproach of what-ever Creature receives it I have abundantly Book 1. Ch. 12. Ver. 3. Sect. 4. noted elsewhere I shall onely urge one place more which is very explicit and of great weight The argument runs thus Invocation or Prayer may not be made without faith in him on whom we call but we must first believe in him before we can make our prayer unto him whereupon we must onely and solely pray unto God For to say we should believe in either Angel or Saint or in any other living Creature were mere horrible Blasphemy against God This is a very remarkable passage and a Demonstration that the Invocation of Saints and Angels is flat Idolatry it so plainly implying the acknowledgement of that Excellency which is proper onely to God Nor can our holy Mother the Church be thought to deem it less Idolatry for calling it Blasphemy since all Idolatry is so and is several times called so in Scripture Book 1. Ch. 5. Sect. 11. as I have noted in his due place 3. Now for the second The worshipping of the Host which supposes the Bread trans substantiuted she is most declaredly against both the Opinion and Practice As in