Adversaries to far less purpose For were not Ioseph's dreams and visions true that the Sun Moon and twelve Stars should worship him and all his brothers sheaves should bow to his sheas was not this true I say though his brothers first sold him though he became afterward a slave and long a prisoner in a strange Land before he was so suddenly exalted to be the great Viceroy under Pharaoh King of Egypt Or would you have an Example of a glory afterwards eclipsed and almost extinguished Were not God's first Promises made to the Israelitish Nation That he would make them a renowned Kingdom fully performed in the days of Solomon when there was no kingdom upon the earth like unto it for glory and magnificence though this so great glory lasted not long but began a little to be obscure in the end of Solomon's days and afterwards was quite eclipsed and clouded the Sun but now and then as it were shewing it self through a cloud And what is the Church of the Gentiles or what priviledge have they above the Church of the Iews that the like should not befall it which we are sure besel them and yet nevertheless God always made good his Promises unto them and no word of his mouth failed When we therefore talk of the Churche's Visibility and glory we must distinguish of Times and know that there are Times when the Church is indeed visible but not glorious secondly Times when it is neither visible nor glorious thirdly Times when it is to be both visible and glorious In the Times immediately after Christ's passion or if you will at his Passion I think any man will grant that it was then neither visible nor glorious In the Times of the persecuting Emperors when the Church had taken foot among the Gentiles and the Nations began flow unto it it was a society indeed visible but not glorious I am sure it was not in the tops of the Mountains but the Imperial Mountain of Rome not only overtopped it but ever trampled it under their feet For we must know here that we speak all this time of the external glory for that is the thing whereabout the quarrel is In the Times of Constiantine and thereabouts after three hundred years cruel persecution the Sun seemed as it were to break forth of a cloud and the Christian society became for a while both visible and glorious but presently after even as it was in the end of Solomon's reign this glory of the Church was not only eclipsed but even the visibility thereof in a manner covered and altogether darkned with that thick and universally-overspreading cloud of Arianism And thus far our Adversaries will go with us But we require they should grant us something more namely That this Arian cloud was no sooner blown over but another great cloud of that fore-prophesied Apostasic of the Church began to arise whereby the Churche's glory was not only eclipsed but at length again the Visibility thereof wholly overshadowed with the thick darkness of Idolatrous Antichristianism until that after a long day of darkness and a black night it pleased God even of late somewhat to dispel the cloud whereby the Society of true Believers became again outwardly visible and conspicuous unto the world And we hope when the cloud shall be wholly consumed by the beams of the Sun of the Gospel it shall become not only more visible than yet it is but far more glorious than ever hitherto it hath been when the fulness of the Gentiles as S. Paul speaks shall come in But of this more hereafter In the mean time that you may the better understand what is already discoursed concerning the Visibility of the Church as likewise know what was the State of true Believers when this Visibility was overshadowed take this which followeth viz. That there hath been in all Ages since Christ without interruption a Company or Society of Christian men agreeing or joyned together in the inward and invisible communion of the Faith concerning such Divine Truths as we profess needful to Salvation And for so much of this Faith as was not acknowledged by the rest of erring men called Christians in that respect this Society was a distinct Society from them yet nevertheless for so much of this their true Faith as was still acknowledged by those erring ones we speak of they were a part of the same Society with them For the Apostasie of the Church was not total and therefore in all the sound parts of their Faith our true-believing Society neither was nor is divided from them But if the Question be asked of a Visible Christian Society professing the same Essential Faith with us Whether such a one hath always been First we must know that by Visible Society in this question is meant A society of Christian Believers joyned together in one external Communion of the same publick profession use of Sacraments and Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction or Government For these make the outward Form whereby this Society is discernible from other Societies of men and a Society by this out-side severed and distinguished from other Societies is a Society visible and conspicuous to other Societies of men The Question therefore is Whether that Society of men agreeing together in the Points of our Christian Belief hath been in all Ages in this kind and sort joyned and distinguished from other companies not only of the world but even of Christian men or in shorter terms thus Whether the Society of men of our Christian Belief hath in all Ages been for the out-side a distinct Corporation from all other Societies and States of men My Answer is That for divers of the First Ages as before was shewed it was in that manner visibly distinguished but after an Apostasie had overspread and deformed the beautiful Spouse of Christ then was the Society or Belief as it were covered and involved with the same external mantle with them and as it were hidden in that dark cloud and so not a distinct external Society from the rest But though in the inward communion of the sincerer Faith it was diverse and distinguished yet it still for the most part continued a member of the same external I say external body with them being begotten by the same Sacrament of Baptism taught in some part by the same Word and Pastors still continuing amongst them and submitting to the same Iurisdiction and Regiment so far forth as these or any of these had yet some soundness remaining in them But for the rest whether in Doctrine or Practice that was not compatible with their sincerer Faith either wisely avoiding all Communion with it or if they could not then patiently suffering for their Conscience sake under the hands of Tyrants termed Christians For understanding this take this Simile When good Gold is mixed with a greater quantity of counterfeit metal so that of both becomes one mass or lump though each metal still retains and keeps his nature diverse from the
does he thank Lud. de Dieu for suggesting to him an easier explication of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apocal. 4. 6. and for acquainting him with his notion about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cherub signifying an Oxe from the Chaldee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cherab which is Aravit whereby his observation upon the 4 Animalia in Apocal. 4. 7. was confirmed And with the like affection he acknowledges Mr. Haydock's ingenious conjecture about the form of the Seven-sealed Book Apocal. 5. as also his being better informed about the Number of the Beast 666 by Mr. Potter's Discourse concerning it with which Discovery he was so highly pleas'd that not without some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he affirm'd it to be one of the happiest Tracts that had come into the world and such as could not be read without much admiration In short He did not take himself to be Infallible and therefore was not Unalterable where the change was for the better and the change is ever such where we part with a plausible Mistake or with a specious Probability for solid Truth and clear Demonstration but he was always ready to hear another's Reason and to yield himself a willing Captive to the Evidence of Truth For to be overcome by Truth and Reason makes the conquered a gainer and puts him into a better state than he was in before nor will he fail if he know his own happiness to make one in that joyous acclamation Great is Truth and mighty above all things She is the Strength Power and Majesty of all ages Blessed be the God of Truth Or else men come to be prejudic'd by an undue affection to their Idola specus as the L. Verulam calls them their peculiar Conceits some Notions and Speculations of their own by which they either are or would be known being fondly persuaded that things are so as they imagine them or vehemently desirous that they should be so and therefore it is no wonder if being thus prepossess'd they have lost their taste and wrong'd their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they cannot readily discern between Good and Evil but as the Prophet Esay speaks put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter and are easily brought to fansie that to be True and Right which they passionately will to be such in order to some corrupt design and interest eagerly pursued by them or to the gratifying of those several Lusts wherewith they are led away as the Apostle speaks and are therefore unable to come to the knowledge of the Truth And if they that are thus affected do sometimes for a pretence consult the Holy Scriptures they come so fully possess'd that this or that Opinion and Practice of theirs is True and Right or so strongly resolved to find it so that even the Divine Oracles seem to them to return such an Answer as they promised themselves they should receive and most impetuously lusted after And so it fares with them herein as in another case it did with the Romans who having taken Veii a famous City in Hetruria went into Iuno's Temple and there with great ceremony and affectionateness asking Iuno Velletne cum illis Romam ire to some the Image seem'd annuere to others etiam id ipsum affirmare Upon which story in Livy there is this observation of Machiavel in his Discurs de Repub. Cum tanta veneratione interrogassent visum est ipsis tale responsum audivisse quale se audituros prius pollicebantur The application is obvious But against this other Instance of Pride expressing itself in an over-dear regard that such men have to their own Sentiments and oftentimes for some self-ends and undue advantage to themselves against this I say Mr. Mede was secured by that Universal Alexipharmacum his truly-Christian Humility as also by that Generosum honestum which dwelt and ruled in him the noble Integrity of his spirit that which the Scripture calls the Good and Honest Heart a Principle not less yea more necessary to the right discerning of Divine Truth than the Subtile Head And from this Principle he thus expresseth himself in some of his Diatribae That we should be more willing to take a Sense from Scripture than bring one to it Agreeable to which is that Maxime of his worthy to be written in letters of Gold it was mentioned once before but cannot be too often inculcated that Maxime which he said was deeply impress'd upon his own Soul That rashly to be the Author of a false Interpretation of Scripture is to take Gods name in vain in an high degree How then shall they escape and where shall they appear who being resolved to walk after their own lusts pervert and distort the Scriptures as of old the Prophets complain'd of some that did violence to the Law and wrest them to their own destruction which were designed by God to make men wise unto Salvation There are others that are prejudiced through a servile regard to those Idola fori as the forenamed Lord styles Popular Opinions and Vulgar Perswasions the Opinions of the Many or of such a Party among the Many whose Persons first and consequently their Perswasions they have in admiration for generally these two go together They that do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. Iude's language go on also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the respecting of Persons introducing also the respecting of Opinions And herein they shew themselves a kind of Servum pecus receiving for Doctrines the Traditions or Customary Notions of such men without any serious consideration which yet is no other than a blind implicit stupid and irrational respect to persons and Opinions as not being founded upon Knowledge and Iudgment But withall they do hereby oftentimes design to serve their own ends by this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all this being done as S. Iude observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for advantage sake And against such Prejudices as these what could better secure the Author than his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to use S. Peter's expression his clear and sincere Mind his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Largeness of Heart his Vast Understanding his Free and Ingenuous Spirit those Intellectual and Moral Endowments of his whereof I have already given a brief account in the Second Head of Advertisements 3. As free he was from all Self-seeking Flattery and covetous Ambition as from Partiality and Prejudice each of which has a very inauspicious influence upon any growth in Knowledge and Understanding Accordingly he does more than once observe in his Epistles That Mundus ama◠decipi magis quam doceri and that by constant observation he had found That no man loved any Speculations but such as he thought would advance his profitable Ends or advantage his Side and Faction But for his own part he thus opens his heart in one of his Epistles to a Friend and plainly professeth That he had not made the
Anno Christi 486. which is presently after the deposition of Augustulus in whom the Empire of Western Rome expired And this comes much nearer the point than 792. Howbeit far be it from me to affirm any thing thereof or of the verity of the Samaritan Computation or to prefer it in the general before our Hebrew though some things be found therein which dissolve a knot or two which make our Chronologers at theiâ— wits end As one for example How Abraham could come into Canaan after the days of his Father as S. Stephen says and yet be but 75 years old Gen. 12. 4. whenas his Father Terah lived 205 years and himself was born in the 70 year of his age Gen. 11. 26. But the Samaritan saith chap. 11. 32. That the days of Terah were but 145 years which is just for then Abraham was 75 years old at his Father's death and Moses and S. Stephen are reconciled which yet no man can imagine that the Samaritan Scribe ever thought of But the thing â—aim at in representing these differences and would propound to the consideration of the pious sober and judicious and with due reverence to the Divine Writ is Whether there may not be some secret disposition of Divine Providence in this variety of Computation to prevent our Curiosity in counting the exact time of the Day of Iudgment and second appearing of Christ. And that as the ambitious Tower of Babel was hindred by the Confusion of Languages so our Curiosity in this particular be not by a like Providence prevented by such a diversity of Computationsâ— For these things concern not matter of Salvation We know the first Ages of the Church followed the Computation of the Seventy altogether though it were most wide of truth and the chiefest Doctors the Church then had through ignorance of the Hebrew for a long time knew not or believed not there was any other Computation But for contents of Faith and the way of Salvation over such the Providence of God watcheth with a careful eye though man be heedless wicked and careless of preserving the integrity of that precious treasure committed to their custody Besides I nothing doubt if our Books be in any such particular as we speak of deficient or corrupted but that the true reading is yet extant in some of the two named or some other Copy some-where preserved by Divine Providence though we cannot yet know and discern which those righter readings be The Iews having a saying Cùm Elias venerit dissolvet nodos And without doubt when they shall be called and meet together from all places of the world which must be before that great Day cometh strange things will be discovered which we little dream of Now if any man ask if such a corruption of Computation be suppoâ—ed where it is most like to be I answer Not in those generations before the Floud where the Hebrew Computation being the middle between the excess of the Septuagint and defect of the Samaritan seems to be crucified as our Saviour between two Thieves but in the generations immediately after the Floud 1. Because in those the Seventy and the Samaritan for the most part agree which argues their difference from our Bibles not to have been voluntary 2. Because S. Luke in the Genealogy of our Saviour inserts as the Seventy do the generation of Cainan immediately after Arphaxad which our Bibles have not who knows what it means or whether it argue not a defect thereabout in the Hebrew Copies Time may discover the meaning thereof 3. Because Peleg at whose birth the Scripture seems to say the Earth was divided was born according to our Copies but 101 years after the Floud which troubles our Chronologers as seeming too small a time for eight persons to multiply unto such a number as may be presumed to have been at the building of the Tower of Babel and at their dispersion thence which will be much holpen if either Cainan be to be inserted to whose generation the Septuagint allow 130 years or if any of the other generations of Arphaxad Salah and Eber be to be read as both the Septuagint and Samaritan have them To conclude if the years of but three of those generations between the Floud and Abraham as of Arphaxad Salah and Nahor should prove to be as the Septuagint and Samaritan agreeingly read them and the generation of Cainan mentioned by S. Luke and four times by the Septuagint also to be added unto them the duration of the World hitherto will have been 350 or 360 years more than we count of If therefore such Suppositions as these may be admitted which I determine not but leave to such as are able and fit to judge Apagite indocti prophani then that Tradition of the Seventh Thousand year to be the Day of Iudgment and of the glorious Reign of Christ will in respect of those Septenary Types of the Old Testament have good probability of Truth Otherwise I cannot see how possibly it can be admitted 1 Thess. 5. 21. Omnia probate quod bonum est tenete I. M. CHAP. IV. An Explication of Psal. 40. 6. Mine ears hast thou bored compared with Hebr. 10. 5. A body hast thou prepared me PSalm 40. v. 6 7. Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not have mine ears hast thou bored Burnt-offering and Sin-offering thou hast not required Then said I Lo I come in the volume of the Book it is written of me I delight to do thy will O my God In which words an allusion is made to a Custom of the Iews to bore the ears of such as were to be their perpetual Servants and to enroll their names in a Book or make some Instrument of the Covenant Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou wouldst not have but because I am thy vowed Servant bored with an awl and enrolled in thy Book I said Lo I come I delight to do thy will O my God These words of the Psalm are alledged by S. Paul Heb. 10. But the first of them with a most strange difference For whereas the Psalmist hath according to the Hebrew Verity Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou wouldst not mine ears thou hast bored or digged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Paul reads with the LXX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A body thou hast prepared or fitted me What Equipollency can be in sense between these two This difficulty is so much the more augmented because most Interpreters make the life of the Quotation to lie in those very words where the difference is viz. That the words A body thou hast prepared me are brought by the Apostle to prove our Saviour's Incarnation whereunto the words in the Psalm it self Mine ears hast thou bored or digged or opened take them how you will will in no wise suit I answer therefore That the life of the Quotation lies not in the words of difference nor can do because this Epistle was written to the Hebrews and so first in the Hebrew tongue
Discourses the First is added in this Edition all but the Second of them were made by him in his younger days and all of them but the Last are elaborate and argue his great reading and study The Last which is plainer than the rest was added because the latter part thereof especially is a fit Supplement to Discourse 39. and withal because the whole is a pregnant proof of his freedom from Vaingloriousness and Affectation a Disease to which Young men are most subject and that he knew as to discourse learnedly before capable Hearers and to prepare strong meat for those of full age so likewise to become weak to those that were weak in imitation of the Great Apostle of the Gentiles and when he was to speak before a Country-Auditory to express himself in a very plain and familiar way Which ability and readiness of condescending to the meanest capacity was a Vertue and Perfection in him worthy of praise and imitation rather than an unseemly debasement and lessening of himself The Great S. Augustine was pleas'd to humble himself to a yet lower condescension he would speak sometimes broken and barbarous Latine before some sort of Hearers so it were better understood by them as Ossum for Os c. upon the mentioning of which instance he adds Melius est ut nos reprehendant Grammatici quam ut non intelligant populi In general His Style is every where grave and proper and fitly expressive of his sense an argument that he was Master of his Notions and did fully comprehend them Nor is it easie to find many Writers that in treating upon Prophetical and Obscure Scriptures of any other Abstruse arguments have either illustrated them with that clearness that easie and punctual accommodation of them to their proper Events or represented their Notions so handsomely and advantageously as he hath done To be short In his Discourses and Sermons there is nothing that is light humorous and trifling no little pieces of Wit or slight Phancy no high-flown nor affected Modes of expression no needless Quotations of the meaner and less-significant Sentences out of Authors with which some such especially who are less acquainted with the inward sense and relish of Better things endeavour to make their Discourses look very fine and as they think wondrous learned hoping thereby to gratifie some weak and Childish minds and by them to be had in admiration whose Applause yet is in the esteem of Wise men a Disparagement No His great care was to make his Discourses rather substantial and solid sit to entertain such as are of a more Manly and serious spirit than gawdy and quaint and pleasing only to those that are but Children and not grown to be Men in Understanding as being well assured that to men of judgment as Petronius hath well observ'd Nihil esset magnificum quod pueris placeret His Generous Soul could not stoop so low as to humor these such a Pedantick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Affectation being in his account a certain sign of a Poorness and Narrowness of spirit a Littleness of Mind when it can thus vacare rebus tam exiguis his interesse ut suis. In a word what is related in the Life of Padre Paolo that Oracle of Venice the famous Author of the History of the Council of Trent and for his scarcely-parallel'd Accomplishments both Intellectual and Moral the Glory and Wonder of that Age Il miracolo di questo secolo as the learned and excellent Vincentius Pinellus of Padua did love to style him may with equal truth be said of Mr. Mede and his Writings viz. That here was an happy conjunction of those Excellencies which rarely meet in one and the same Subject Scienza humilita prudenza e mansuetudine ritir atezza officiosita seriosita e dolcezza brevita e chiarezza soavita e sodezza Knowledge and Humility Prudence and Meekness Retiredness and Officiousness Seriousness and Pleasantness Brevity and Clearness Sweetness and Solidity I might add a word concerning some other Tracts of his and particularly such as besides his Clavis Apocalyptica refer to the Apocalyps and make the three last Chapters in Book V. But concerning these there is an Advertisement there prefixed And for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Remains upon the Apocalyps this in short may suffice to be intimated That they were only an Additional Supplement to the first Draught of his Synchronisms privately communicated to some Friends and were not written after but before his Clavis Commentationes Apocalypticae which were his Last labours upon that mysterious Book and by these his Last Thoughts upon the Apocalyps should be farther cleared and rectified whatsoever may seem in those former Papers less perfect and satisfying Concerning other Tracts of his there are particular Advertisements inserted where thore was need in their proper places And thus much concerning the Author and his Writings I proceed to the last Head of Advertisements III. Advertisements touching the Methods and Helps whereby the Author arrived at such an eminent degree of skill in the more abstruse parts of Knowledge And because it is and ever was the General sense of all Wise and Vertuous persons in the World That the Divine Presence and Assistence is absolutely necessary and therefore to be implor'd in all weighty undertakings that which deserves first to be numbred amongst those Helps to knowledge is I. His humble and fervent Prayer to Almighty God the Father of lights to guide him into all Truth and to give him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a good understanding in all things This was S. Iames his advice If any man lack Wisdom let him ask of God and it shall be given him This was that memorable counsel that a venerable unknown person gave to Iustin Martyr in his Solitude after he had pass'd through the several Philosophies then in being the Stoick Peripatetick Pythagorean and Platonick as a preparation to his receiving the best Philosophy that is the Christian That he would study the Writings of the Holy Prophets and for his better success therein saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he should first and above all things pray unto God that the Gates of light might be opened unto him and in the following of this counsel this great Philosopher became an eminent Christian faithful unto death This was Daniel's practice Daniel whose Prophecy is much-what of the like colour and complexion with S. Iohn's Apocalyps he sets himself and engages the Three Children his companions to do the like to desire mercies of the God of Heaven concerning that Secret of Nebuchadnezzar's Vision of the Four Kingdoms represented by the Image of Four differing mettals And to mention only one Example more but such a one as is most pertinent on this occasion S. Iohn is said to have wept much that none was found that could open the Apocalyptick Book sealed with
Impure Souls are not admitted to any inward converse with God most Pure and Holy That Wickedness is destructive of Principles is also Aristotle's observation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Immorality or a Vicious life unfits men for the noblest Speculations so that they can neither know Divine nor Moral Truths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they ought to know and as they might have known had they had a true resentment of Morality and an inward esteem of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things that are just pure and lovely and of good report And though such men may sometimes hit upon some Philosophical Notions yet even in the discovering the Mysteries of Nature they had done far better and had excell'd themselves had they been more purged from brutish Sensuality and all filthiness of flesh and spirit I will only add this That for a most clear and undeniable proof of this Assertion That Morality and a Good life affords the greatest advantages to a more excellent knowledge of not only Divine but Philosophical Truths we have in this Age the unparallel'd Works of some eminently-learned and nobly-accomplish'd Writers who really are Virtuosi according to the ancient Latine importance of the word and not merely in the Italian sense which applies only to the Wits and such as are any way Ingenious be they or be they not morally Vertuous But that which I chiefly intended under this last Particular was to acquaint the Reader how deeply sensible Mr. Mede was of the indispensable necessity of a Purified Mind and Holy Life in order to the fuller and clearer discerning of Divine Mysteries This was his firm belief and it obliged him to endeavours worthy of it To which purpose I shall here produce a very observable passage out of a Letter of his to an ancient Friend in Lincolnshire who having received and with great satisfaction read some Papers from Mr. Mede containing his first Essays upon part of the Apocalyps and thereupon writing to him with all serious importunity That he would earnestly pray for and endeavour after a great measure of Holiness to the mortification of Sin more and more that thereby he might be prepared to receive a greater measure of Divine Illumination and be as a Vessel of honour chosen by God to bear and convey his Truth to others with much more of the like import concluding with this request You see how bold I am with you but let love bury that Exorbitancy c. To this his Christian advice Mr. Mede return'd this excellent Answer Sir I thank you heartily for your good Admonitions and am so far from interpreting your Love Exorbitancy that I confess my self to have much need of this and more and therefore desire you to second this your Love with Prayer to God for me that he would vouchsafe me that his Sanctifying Spirit and that measure of Grace which may make me capable of such things as he shall be pleased to reveal and hath in some sort praised be his Name already revealed unto me in the contemplation whereof I find more true Contentment than the greatest Dignities which Ambition so hunteth after could ever have afforded me I have considered what S. Paul saith The Natural and Carnal man is altogether uncapable of the things of God's Spirit neither can he know them c. and what our Saviour saith If any man will do his Father's will he shall then know of the doctrine whether it be of God and I give thanks to Almighty God who hath made the Light of these his wonderful Mysteries to kindle that Warmth in my Heart which I felt not till I began to see them and which have made me that which they found me not This passage out of Mr. Mede's original Letter I thought very worthy to be made publick and inserted here upon so fit an occasion both for that excel-cellent and genuine relish of an humble and serious Piety in every line thereof as also because it is an illustrious Attestation to the forementioned Truth That an Holy Heart and Life is a necessary Qualification to the right discerning of Divine Mysteries agreeable whereunto is that in the Greek Version of Prov. 1. 7. which yet is rather a Paraphrase than a bare Translation there being more in the Greek than in the Original Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 AND now I have passed over the Three long Stages of this Preface In the last Head of Advertisements I have acquainted the Reader by what Methods and Helps the Author arrived at so great a measure of skill in the Scripture particularly in the more abstruse and mysterious parts thereof And thus may others also attain to a considerable Knowledge and purchase this goodly Pearl this Treasure hid in the field of Prophetical Scriptures if they are willing to be at the same cost and bid to the worth of it and not ignorantly nor sordidly undervalue it For Wisdom and particularly this kind of Wisdom and Knowledge is not to be had at a cheaper rate it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Pearl of great price and worthy of all that we have to bestow to purchase it They that look as little into the Apocalyps as some do into the Apocrypha and mind the Book of Daniel no more than they do the Apocryphal Story of Bell and the Dragon and therefore exercise not their good parts nor bestow that serious diligence about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Scripture as they use to do about other kind of difficulties whether in Philosophy or other parts of Learning it 's no wonder they complain the Iewel is too dear when they have no mind to give the full price for it and that all Labour after such knowledge is either excessively hard or useless whenas yet through their delicateness and love of their own ease or for some other reason they never made any due trial But in other things Difficulty is no argument it rather whets and animates men of brave spirits and that all Excellent things are hard is so confess'd a Truth that it has pass'd into a vulgar Proverb The first and least therefore that is to be done by such as are of another spirit and are minded to search these as well as the other Scriptures is by a frequent attentive reading of the Prophetical Visions to fix the main passages thereof in their minds otherwise both the style and matter the great things of the Prophets as Hosea speaks of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great things of the Law will be always counted as a strange thing This being done they must if they would succeed in their search apply themselves to those Five Means and Instruments of Knowledge as Mr. Mede did and prosper'd and by his Writings hath lessen'd the difficulty of these Studies and made the way plainer for others than he found it for himself And as the study of the Prophetick Scriptures would by an heedful attending to those
he detects the impertinency of that trivial shift of the Romanists in distinguishing between Idolum and Imago with much more of the like import in that Treatise of his which the Learned Is. Casanbon worthily styles Exactissimae fidei diligentiae Scriptum To conclude It may not be amiss here to add a short story not impertinent to the argument in hand Mr. Mede having lately preached a Sermon at S. Marie's in Cambridge upon Eccles. 5. 1 about the Reverence of Gods House a young Master of Arts took the freedom sometime after to tell him as who might not be free with him a person of such exemplary Humility and Condescensions That from some passages in that Discourse the world concluded that he had changed his Opinion and that he did not now think as formerly that the Pope was the Hoghen Moghen that was his drolling expression No replied Mr. Mede But I do and shall think so as long as I live for all this 42. And here we have a fair occasion to represent another of those worthy Qualities that adorn'd his Character His well-grounded Constancy and Vnchangeableness of Iudgment We say Well-grounded otherwise for a man to persist resolvedly in an Opinion because it has been his Opinion is neither Vertue nor matter of Praise but rather a piece of troublesome Stiffness and Pertinacity usually accompanied with fond Self-conceitedness and a design to secure his fame and some emolument he receives from his easie admirers From which humour none was more free than our Author who would profess That so far as he could judge of himself by experience he was as willing to embrace Truth when he saw evidence for it as any man living as well considering that it is the part of a true Christian as Aristotle observes it to be of a true Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the interest and advancement of Truth to forgoe and quit his own private conceits and speculations how dear soever they were formerly unto him and on the contrary an argument of a low and servile spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be either fondly addicted or enslaved to any Hypothesis and Opinion either of his own or others Our Author was not indeed light of belief nor would be easily take up an Hypothesis But when any new Notion was presented to him by others or offered itself to his thoughtful mind he would first make a stand and pause well upon it strictly examining the Grounds thereof and if upon a serious and due weighing of all that was fit to be taken into consideration he found it to be a solid Truth he was not apt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be shaken from his judgment a right 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle both in his Ethicks and Rhetorick styles a Vertuous man or in the Apostles language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stedfast unmovable and established in the present Truth Yea he was ever so impartial and constant a Lover of Truth that nothing but the Holy Scripture and sound Reason could prevail upon him 'T is true To conceal his judgment not to divulge every thing that was Truth to him he was not hard to be perswaded The remembrance of the Apostles Rule Rom. 14. Hast thou faith have it to thy self as also his own Charity Prudence and Peaceableness of spirit did dispose him to it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and wheâ—e it was convenient But neither Friends nor Interests nor any worldly Allurements whatsoever were of force to corrupt his affections or pervert his judgment much less could they prevail with him unworthily to deny any Truth how unplausible soever it was to some men and therfore disadvantageous to himself For a proof of his constant and unremovable affection to Truth as also of his patient enduring the contradiction of others against himself take this Instance viz. That in the revolution of about twenty years by-past the saying was his own he had by the self-same persons been look'd upon and accordingly reported of as Popish Protestant and Puritane and yet he would protest it as in the presence of God that to his knowledge he had not in the least receded from his very first perswasions So that all the while he was the same without wavering although varied to their appearance because they sailing with the tide and wind varied towards him Thus they in the Vessel under sail being always in motion think the Land moves so it seems to their erring sense which yet is never the less fixed and unmoved for their thinking amiss But our Author as he consider'd that Precept in Siracides chap. 5. 10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be thou stedfast in thy understanding so he knew likewise that the ready way to attain to this establishment was this according to the counsel in the foregoing verse not to winnow or sail with every wind But we must not indulge our selves the liberty of enlarging upon every thing in our Author which render'd him justly exemplary worthy of praise and imitation Return we therefore from this Digression to what has a near affinity to our former argument In speaking to which and the remaining particulars we must study to be short and take the nearest way to our journeys end left we over-drive the more infirm and therefore the more querulous sort of Readers and wear out their patience otherwise to those that are of sounder and stronger judgments and consequently capable to value and honour and love the Author we doubt not but a larger Narrative than this would seem not tediously long but too short rather as indeed the most enlarged History of his Life his Piety and Learning is in itself and upon a true account a short History too short if we consider the great Worth and manifold Perfections of the Person of whom though we should speak much we shall yet certainly come short if we may here use in an inferior sense what is said of God by the Son of Sirach chap. 43. To proceed then 43. As he abhorr'd Idolatry and Superstition so he likewise abhorr'd Sacriledge and all Profanation of Holy things As for Sacriledge his judgment is well known to those who have read his Works with attention amongst which to omit several passages in his other Discourses there is one Diatriba wholly spent upon the Story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. wherein the nature and proper notion of the Sin there mentioned is clearly explained as also the hainousness and danger of Sacriledge is fully proved from several Examples of special remark in H. Scripture all eminently verifying that of Solomon It is a snare to the man who devoureth that which is holy With the consideration whereof our Author being deeply affected as also of the great disservice done hereby to any Intendment of Pious Charity and the no less dishonour done to Religion when what is devoted to Pious purposes is less secure from the
would direct and assist them as in many other things so in this viz. in their Choice of or Recommending Persons to those Dignities in the Church which do ipso facto make them Convocation-men Because said he as the Convocation is properly the Clergie's Parliament so such Men are the lasting Members of that House and therefore a special care to be had that they be well qualified not only of good Learning and good Life but of good Experience good Temper and of good Repute with the Gentry This last he added and gave good reasons why and then proceeded Although it is possible yea very probable that some who sit high in the Church enjoying the benign Aspect and happy Influence of a Good and Gracious Prince may very much advantage and advance the Church in other respects yet without a great regard had of sit Convocation-men all the rest will be but as building high without Buttresses and it may suddenly tumble down again 8. What opinion Strangers had of Mr. Mede and of some others of our Country-men with a modest Advertisement FOrein Testimonials are held to be the more considerable because they are supposed to be less partial as proceeding rather from right Iudgment than from any byassed Affection I shall not here repeat any thing out of Sir William Boswell's Letters or out of those of Lud. de Dieu and of others but I shall tell you what I have received from the mouths of some Grandees in Repub. Literaria They pronounced him not only a most Iudicious and Profound Divine but a Person Eminent in almost all variety of choicest Learning besides Languages And therefore they did not doubt to rank him with the Lord Verulam and with Mr. Thomas Lydiat To which three Persons I speak still of men of great variety of Learning for otherwise they had an exceeding high Veneration for very many of our Divines and for others of other Faculties but to these three they gave such a Preeminency as was given to David's three first Captains in the List of his Worthies Here I cannot conceal what dropp'd from one of their mouths because I wish good use may be made of it at home Inquiring what Fortunes these men had and understanding they were but ordinary especially that of Mr. Lydiat he burst out into this speech You in England deserve not to have such Brave men among you since you make no more of them That his Zeal for good Worth had been the more excusable had it not exceeded so much as not to suffer his Iudgment to consider what afterwards he was minded of 1. That the L. Verulam was advanced to as high a Place in the State as a Subject is capable of but how he lost his footing no ingenuous man is willing to remember 2. That some men who are very Bookish and Studious usually prefer their Leisure and Liberty before all Preferments whatsoever Which was Mr. Mede's and Mr. Lydiat's case The former of whom mought have been much higher than he was if he had pleased and was as high as he desired to be had he lived to get but a Donative to his Fellowship And in that his Condition such as it was he thrived so well as to become a considerable Benefactor to his Colledge 3. But now concerning Mr. Lydiat for whose sake chiefly that smart speech was uttered here the Difficulty rises higher and grows more perplex'd His great Worth hath been celebrated enough by those his rare Pieces now extant In his many Chronological Disquisitions he conflicted as with Christoph. Clavius and with the whole Colledge of Romish Mathematicians so with that great Goliah of Literature Ioseph Scaliger whom yet he so manifestly worsted as to make him forsake his Weapon and to betake himself unmanly to his Tongue When the news of his Death came beyond Sea I knew a certain great Mecaenas and Patron of Learning there whose Industry travelled very much to collect what of his Papers might be had and to that end employed divers among the rest my self with a Resolution to have them fairly and faithfully printed at his own charges But they were not to be retrieved Now let us see what Favours and Encouragements were afforded to a Person of so great Merits It is true Prince Henry of Famous and Glorious Memory took so much notice of him as to receive him into His Service and to have him read to Him Here questionless he had found a very Bountiful and Royal Master had not that Peerless Prince been cropt just in his Bloom and Blossome But now alas Mr. Lydiat's Hopes saw their own Funeral in that of his Royal Master's Wherefore retiring into a small obscure Living at Alkerton in the Edge and Fringe of Oxfordshire there he solaced himself in his private Study until being unhappily engaged for the Debts of one nearly allied to him he was thrown into Prison where he lay a long time At length partly by the assistance of Sir William Boswell never to be named without very great Honour and partly by the helps of the excellent Dr. Pinke that most worthy Warden of New-Colledge whereof Mr. Lydiat had been sometime Fellow as I have heard and by the noble bounty of some other Friends of that University he was restored to his Liberty and returned to his little Living wherein maugre all the Disasters he had felt before and all that salvage usage he after suffered for his Loyalty in the late Troubles he left behind him at his Death a very neat and substantial Parsonage-house with Barns and Stables Garden and Orchard sutable all which he built and raised from the ground as also a new Chancel of his own building likewise wherein he lies buried as in his own proper Tomb and Monument But to say the Truth when all is said that can be said It were heartily to be wished That Publick Spirits would come up a little thicker in the World It was a memorable Passage of an Italian Ambassador here in England who having taken his leave and being now under sail homeward stood upon the Deck and looked wistly towards our Country as long as he could well discern it and then for a Vale uttered these words O troppo selice Isola c. O too happy Island if thou hadst but some more Publick Souls in thee This I have heard frequently repeated and most feelingly by as great a States-man and as good a Commonwealths-man and as sound a Christian as our Nation hath bred in many Ages It were to be wished again That there were not too much of Truth in a speech that fell from a through-Scholar and Divine Many by their fine Arts and Methods get into Preferments whiles Scholars of good deserts are hard at their Studies It was not the least Ruby or Diamond in that fair Brooch stuck upon the Memory of the ever-Blessed B. Andrews That he sent for men of Note that he thought wanted Preferment and gave them Prebends and Benefices under Seal
Acts 2. 42. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They continued in breaking of Bread and in Prayers As for bodily expressions by gestures and postures as standing kneeling bowing and the like our Blessed Saviour himself lift up his sacred eyes to heaven when he prayed for Lazarus fell on his face when he prayed in his agony S. Paul as himself saith bowed his knees to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ He and S. Peter and the rest of the Believers do the like more than once in the Acts of the Apostles What was Imposition of hands but an external gesture in an act of invocation for conferring a blessing and that perhaps sometimes without any vocal expression joyned therewith Besides I cannot conceive any reason why in this point of Evangelical worship Gesture should be more scrupled at than Voice Is not confessing praising praying and glorifying God by Voice an external and bodily worship as well as that of Gesture why should then the one derogate from the worship of the Father in Spirit and Truth and not the other To conclude There was never any society of men in the world that worshipped the Father in such a manner as this interpretation would imply and therefore cannot this be our Saviour's meaning but some other Let us see if we can find out what it is There may be two senses given of these words both of them agreeable to Reason and the analogy of Scripture let us take our choice The one is That to worship God in Spirit and Truth is to worship him not with Types and shadows of things to come as in the Old Testament but according to the verity of the things exhibited in Christ according to that The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Iesus Christ. Whence the Mystery of the Gospel is elsewhere by our Saviour in this Evangelist termed Truth as Chap. 17. ver 17. and the Doctrine thereof by S. Paul the word of Truth See Ephes. Chap. 1. ver 13. Rom. 15. 8. The time therefore is now at hand said our Saviour when the true worshippers shall worship the Father no longer with bloudy Sacrifices and the Rites and Ordinances depending thereon but in and according to the verity of that which these Ordinances figured For all these were Types of Christ in whom being now exhibited the true worshippers shall henceforth worship the Father This sense hath good warrant from the state of the Question between the Iews and Samaritans to which our Saviour here makes answer which was not about worship in general but about the kind of worship in special which was confessed by both sides to be tied to one certain place only that is of worship by Sacrifice and the appendages in a word of the Typical worship proper to the first Covenant of which see a description Heb. 9. This Iosephus expresly testifies Lib. 12. Antiq. cap. 1. speaking of the Iews and Samaritans which dwelt together at Alexandria They lived saith he in perpetual discord one with the other whilst each laboured to maintain their Country customs those of Ierusalem affirming their Temple to be the sacred place whither sacrifices were to be sent the Samaritans on the other side contending they ought to be sent to Mount Garizim For otherwise who knows not that both Iews and Samaritans had other places of worship besides either of these namely their Proseucha's and Synagogues wherein they worshipped God not with internal only but external worship though not with Sacrifice which might be offered but in one place only And this also may seem to have been a Type of Christ as well as the rest namely that he was to be that one and only Mediator of the Church in the Temple of whose sacred body we have access unto the Father and in whom he accepts our service and devotions according to that Destroy this Temple and I will rear it up again in three days He spake saith the Text of the Temple of his Body This sense divers of the Ancients hit upon Eusebius Demon. Evang. Lib. 1. Cap. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not by Symbols and Types but as our Saviour saith in Spirit and Truth Not that in the New Testament men should worship God without all external services For the New Testament was to have external and visible services as well as the Old but such as should imply the verity of the promises already exhibited not be Types and shadows of them yet to come We know the Holy Ghost is wont to call the figured Face of the Law the Letter and the Verity thereby signified the Spirit As for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Spirit and Truth both together they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but once found in holy Writ to wit only in this place and so no light can be borrowed by comparing of the like expression any where else to expound them Besides nothing hinders but they may be here taken one for the exposition of the other namely that to worship the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with to worship him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But howsoever this exposition be fair and plausible yet methinks the reason which our Saviour gives in the words following should argue another meaning God saith he is a Spirit therefore they that worship him must worship in Spirit and Truth But God was a Spirit from the beginning If therefore for this reason he must be worshipped in Spirit and Truth he was so to be worshipped in the Old Testament as well as in the New Let us therefore seek another meaning For the finding whereof let us take notice that the Samaritans at whom our Saviour here aimeth were the off-spring of those Nations which the King of Assyria placed in the Cities of Samaria when he had carried away the Ten Tribes captive These as we may read in the second Book of the Kings at their first coming thither worshipped not the God of Israel but the gods of the Nations from whence they came wherefore he sent Lions amongst them which slew them Which they apprehending either from the information of some Israelite or otherwise to be because they knew not the worship of the God of the Country they informed the King of Assyria thereof desiring that some of the captiv'd Priests might be sent unto them to teach them the manner and rites of his worship which being accordingly done they thenceforth as the Text tells us worshipped the Lord yet feared their own Gods too and so did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Chrysostome speaks mingle things not to be mingled In this medley they continued about three hundred years till toward the end of the Persian Monarchy At what time it chanced that Manasse brother to Iaddo the High Priest of the returned Iews married the daughter of Sanballat then Governour of Samaria for which being expelled from Ierusalem by Nehemiah he fled to Sanballat his Father in Law and after his
spoken of the Influence of life into a Christian's actions in general But as in natural life so in spiritual are many Branches as the words of my Text imply speaking not singularly of one Issue but plurally of many Issues of life For that which lives exerciseth many living acts as so many streams flowing from the Fountain of life none of which belong unto that which liveth not These Issues in Nature are five Health Nourishment Growth Sense and Motion and the Heart is the Fountain of them all without it they are not they cannot be but as it fareth so fare they all The like unto these are to be found in our spiritual life of which I will speak somewhat in special the rather because every of them are as so many Motives to incite us to the attainment of this life to God-ward by serving him in Sincerity and Truth 1. The first Issue of Spiritual life flowing from the Heart is spiritual Health For the curing of our Souls of their Spiritual diseases must begin at the Hearts and the inward causes of corruption must thence be purged before there can be any true Reformation or sound Health in the outward parts Even as the heat of the Face is not much abated by casting water and cooling things upon it but by allaying inwardly the heat of the Liver Again That which seems to spring and flourish in our lives unless it be rooted in the Heart will wither and die The Fig-tree that only made a shew with leaves having no fruit in the end being cursed lost the leaves too wherewith it deceived our Saviour So the Seed which sprouted upon the stony ground is said to have withered because it had no root And if an Apple seem never so beautiful yet if it be rotten at the core it will quickly putrifie 2. The second Issue of spiritual life is spiritual Nutrition whereby the Soul continually feeds upon Christ in his Word and Sacraments But this is in none whose works and actions issue not from the Heart by Sincerity and Truth For where Hunger and Thirst is not the body is not nourished He must have a stomach to his meat that will have good by it Chewing in his mouth will not do it though he swallow it if his stomach be against it he will vomit it up again And can this spiritual hunger and spiritual thirst be where the inward man is not sanctified Can he have a Spiritual stomach whose heart is not cleansed 3. The third Issue of Spiritual life is spiritual Growth It is God's wont to reward the sincerity of a little grace with abundance of great graces Nathanael a man of no great knowledg yet being a true Israelite void of guile is further enlightened by our Saviour who gives him a sight of the true Messiah endues him with true faith and promises him still greater matters A weak and dim knowledg had the Eunuch and Cornelius in the Mystery of Godliness yet because they worshipped God sincerely an Evangelist was sent to the one and an Angel and an Apostle to the other to give them clearer light of the Gospel and a fuller largess of spiritual gifts The curse of God is upon Hypocrisie to destroy a great deal a great stock of grace but his blessing is upon Sincerity to improve a little portion to a greater measure A little Spring is better than a great Pond for in Summer when Ponds are dried up little Springs will still hold out 4. The fourth Issue of Spiritual life is spiritual Sense the Sense and feeling of the favour of God This no man shall ever find who lives not the life of sincerity For this is the most found and undeceivable evidence of our portion and interest in the power and purity of Christ's saving passion and sanctifying bloudshed 5. The fifth Issue of Spiritual life is spiritual Motion such I call Alacrity and Courage Sincerity is the cause of these It makes us chearful in all duties of service and obedience unto God it makes us valiant and courageous in all dangers trials and temptations begetting in us a true manly generous and heroical spirit The wicked saith Solomon Prov. 28. 1. flee when no man pursueth but the righteous are bold as a Lion DISCOURSE XXXVIII ISAIAH 55. 7. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon I Will not speak of the coherence of these words for they are an entire sense of themselves and contain in them two parts First The Conversion of a sinner Secondly The Condition of one so converted The Conversion of a sinner is exprest in three degrees In the forsaking of wicked wayes In the forsaking of evil thoughts and thirdly In returning again unto the Lord. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord. The Condition or State wherein he stands who hath done all this is no state of Merit but of Mercy no not so much as a little Merit but even abundant Mercy If the Lord after all this accepts him it is because he will have mercy upon him if our God forgive he doth even abundantly pardon Of these I intend to speak in order and first of the First which is The Conversion of a sinner which is as I have said laid down in three degrees or steps the latter always excelling the former Even as in the Temple of Solomon he that would approach the Mercy-seat of God must ascend through three parts of the Temple the Court the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies So must he that will attain this Condition of Mercy mount these three steps of Repentance that he may enter into that glorious Sanctuary which is not made with hands where the great God that â—hews mercy unto thousands lives for ever and ever The first two of these forementioned degrees To forsake a wicked way To rid the heart of evil thoughts lest they seem but one thing expressed in many words I must handle both together that by comparing I may the better distinguish them As for the latter therefore of these words they have no great difficulty and therefore will not need much explication but in the former Let the wicked man forsake his way the Metaphor of way causeth some obscurity which I think is thus to be unfolded Every way implies a walking a way being that wherein men use to walk In whatsoever sense therefore the Metaphor of walking is taken elsewhere in Scripture in the same is way taken here But To walk in Scripture seems in a special and proper sense to signifie the outward life and conversation of men For as in the natural man the act of progression or moving to and fro is the most external act of all others and the most obvious to the sense of every one So in a man
and see how they are expressed and that is in three things 1. To go upon the breast or to have the posture of the Body groveling on the earth whereby as I shall shew presently is implied the abasement of the creature 2. To have for meat the dust of the earth wherein is shewn its unprovision of food for the maintenance of its life being of all Beasts of the field to have the basest and coursest fare 3. To be in continual mortal and irreconcilable enmity with man both his Lord and the Lord of the rest of the creatures from whom it should be in continual danger and fear of its life and once espied be sure to have its brains dash'd out by him And which makes the misery so much the greater to be no way able to be revenged of his enemy other than to come unawares behind him and then also not able to reach above his heel as being most unequally matched he walking â—â—oâ—t with his head and whole body advanced while the miserable Serpent shall lie groveling on the ground ready to be troden apieces under his feet Of these three Particulars let us speak severally and first of the first Vpon thy breast shalt thou go In the Hebrew it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some turn Vpon thy belly which interpretation hath been one great cause of the difficulty to understand the meaning of this Malediction For if the shape of the Serpent were after the fashion it is now it is not possible to imagine how it could ever have gone otherwise than upon the belly for to think that ever it went an-end were a conceit more worthy to be derided than to be believed By which means there appeared no other way to evade this difficulty but to affirm that the Serpent indeed went upon his belly from the beginning but either that it was not so toilsom to him or not for a curse unto him till now which for my part it being so far from the letter of the Text I could never yet believe I had much rather in this follow the Vulgar or Ierome's Translation which reads super pectus tuum gradiêris upon thy breast shalt thou go for upon thy belly I believe the Serpent went from the first Creation but not upon the breast until this present malediction The breast of the Serpent I call the upper part of the Serpent's body from the navel up to the head The belly the other part or the other half downward with which though at the first he walked prone to and upon the earth yet was the other part his breast and head reared up and advanced until for having been abused to the ruin of mankind he was now with his whole body to creep groveling upon the earth And perhaps thus much the Septuagint meant to insinuate by their Translation which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon thy breast and thy belly where it may seem that they rendred two words for one in the Text for illustration and for intimation of this That whereas the Serpent before went only upon his belly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now he should from henceforth walk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon his breast and belly too As for the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used there is no necessity at all to translate it the belly but rather some probability of the contrary in the Etymology of the word For though in the Hebrew the Theme be not used yet in the Chaldee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â— which signifies incurvatus â—uit to bow downward seems to mean the inclination of the head and breast or upper part of the body to the earth as may be gathered from that of Elijah 1 Kings 18. 42. where it is said that Elijah went up to the top of Carmel pronum se abjecit in terram and cast himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees for here the Targum useth this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â— the Radix of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Again Mark 1. 7. in those words of Iohn Baptist There is one cometh after me the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose here for the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â— stoop down the Syriack hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â— of as near a kin to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as is the Syriack to the Chaldee The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self is of rare use in the Bible besides in this place and therefore we can receive no great help from the comparing of places It is read again Levit. 11. 42. and that in a singular mark as the Masorites have observed for the Vau cholem in the last syllable is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great Vau and exactly the middlemost letter of all the Law of Moses if their Arithmetick failed them not But no particularity of signification can from that place be gathered the speech being of creeping things which go as well upon the breast as the belly and the belly as the breast Since therefore the word here used neither hindreth our opinion nor much furthereth it we will come to such other grounds as may prove our assertion for the Serpent's going with breast advanced afore the Fall of man and not groveling till his Malediction And first let it be considered there is no impossibility of it in regard of the frame of the Serpent which appears both by their advancing themselves when they assault a man which the Painters express in their Pictures and also when they swim through the water which is with their head and some part of their breast raised above water even as a Swan holdeth up her neck as I have heard affirmed by such as have been eye-witnesses and lastly Plinie and Solinus report of the Basilisk that the Basilisk walks so still as I shewed a little before And it may be as when the Giant-like stature of mankind was diminished after the Floud in a manner throughout the world and for many ages yet was there by God's disposition still a race of Giants left even till the time of David for a monument and witness of the truth of a far bigger stature in former times which else could not so easily have been believed or imagined Such were the Zanzummims in Abraham's time the sons of Anak in Moses's and Goliah in the time of David and it may be there are yet some in some part of the world to be sound as I say these seem to have been preserved by God as a memorial unto men that they were not now as at the first So it may be it was the will of God and is amongst so many kinds of Serpents to preserve this one that it should not as the rest go groveling upon the earth but might be as a monument of the truth of the malediction of the rest to all posterity Thus much of the possibility which would be far greater if we should with S.
fulfilled amongst us Christians the new people of God There were false Prophets among the people of Israel even so saith my Text were there to be false Teachers among Christians who should bring in damnable Heresies Which that you may the better do Know first that the Israelites did at no time altogether renounce the true and living God not in their worst times but in their conceit and profession they acknowledged him still and were called his people and he their God though they worshipped others besides him So Christians in their Apostasie neither did nor were to make an absolute Apostasie from God the Father and Christ their Redeemer but in outward profession still to acknowledge him and to be called Christians Secondly There are two main Apostasies of Israel recorded in Scripture The First is styled The sin of Ieroboam the son of Nebat as a principal establisher thereof And this was to worship the true God himself under an Image For he set up Calves at Dan and Bethel and consecrated them in this manner Behold Israel the Gods which brought thee out of the land of Egypt For those are Calves indeed which here think he took the Calves themselves to be Gods The truth was Because he would not have the people go to the Temple of Ierusalem where the Ark the pledge of God's presence was therefore he made these Calves in stead thereof supposing as the Gentiles did of their Gods that the true God would have yielded his presence to an Image made in honour of him And therefore they used when they came to make vows or oaths at the Calf to swear Iehovah liveth as Hosea 4. 15. When therefore our Papists worship God the Creator under an Image and Christ their Redeemer in a Cross Crucifix or in a piece of Bread this is the very same Apostasie with that of Ieroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin And as false Prophets taught Israel that so have false Teachers brought into Christendom the very same as you see was prophesied The Second main Apostasie of Israel is called The way of Ahab not because he was the first bringer in but the chief establisher thereof And this was not only to worship the true God idolatrously in an Image as Ieroboam did but to worship other Gods besides him namely Baal-gods or Baalim supposing either by these to have easier access unto the Lord of Hosts the Soveraign God or that these he might resort unto at all times and for all matters as being nearer at hand and not of so high a Dignity whereas the Soveraign God Iehovah the God of Israel either managed not smaller and ordinary matters or might not be troubled with them For such as I told you was the conceit of the Heathen as that the Souls of some great ones after death had the honour to be as Agents betwixt the Soveraign and Superior Gods and men as being of a middle nature between them which in Greek are called Daemons in the Scriptures Baalim When therefore those who are called Christians and have given their faith to Christ Iesus to be their only Mediator and royal Agent between them and his Father when these do worship and invocate Saints or Angels whether with Images or without to be as under-Mediators with God for them or of themselves to bestow some favour upon them those who do this as you know who do are fallen into the Apostasie of Ahab and are worshippers of Baalim For the Idolatry of Saints is altogether the same with that of Baalim HAVING therefore thus seen the verity of S. Peter's Prophecy for the first mark to know of what kind of Heresie should be the Christian Apostasie even like unto that of Israel now let me tell you what use to make of S. Peter's comparison and thus coupling the one by the other First That wheresoever you read in Scripture of the Idolatry of Ieroboam's Calves and of Ahab's Baalim you think of what I have told you and know that whatsoever God speaks against those things there the same he speaks of the Apostate Christians under Rome whose case is in all respects the same If therefore other points be hard and such as you cannot understand yet this of Idolatry is an easie mark for you to know the true Church from the false by and almost every leaf in the Scripture will help you Bless the Lord therefore and never cease to bless him who hath delivered us from those woful abominations and Idolatries wherewith the Church was so long overwhelmed and hath restored unto us the sincerity of his Gospel Secondly Seeing the Holy Ghost hath taught us here to compare the Christian's Apostasie with that of Israel we may hereby learn also what was the state and condition of true Christian Believers under the Apostasie of Antichrist namely the same with the true Israelites under the Apostasie of Israel Where was the true Church in Ahab's time was it not covered so under the Apostate Israelites that Elias himself who was one of it could scarce find it 1 Kings 19. 10. Where was the company of true worshippers in Manasses time the worst time of all or had the Lord no Church at all Yes he had a Church even then even hidden in the body of that Idolatrous Nation yea a strong party though not seen as appeared presently upon Manasses death when Iosiab came to reign who at eight years of age a very child yet was able to reform all again When therefore the Papists shall ask us where our Church was before Luther let us answer She was as the true Israelites were then buried under the Apostate body of Christendom she was even there whence God in his good time called her out viz. she was in the Spiritual Babylon If Rome now be Babylon and your Mother-Church that ancient Spouse of Christ which hath been so long an abominable Strumpet committing Fornication with strange Gods as we are sure she is we cannot chuse but know where ours was in the mean time until it pleased God to call her thence even amongst you she was then and where she is now you know and shall one day feel until you bite your tongues for pain But how could the faithful company of Christ live in the midst of Idolaters and have means of Salvation I answer Even as the true Israelites lived in the midst of the Apostasie of Israel But you may ask further When the face of the Church and the whole visible worship therein was so universally stained with abominable Idolatries how and whereby should a man gather that there were any such sincerer company amongst them who had not defiled their garments I might tell you that Histories though written by our enemies do mention many such discovered at several times But I will give you another sign to know it namely The light of God's word and some other Divine Truths still remaining For it was not so much
be the more happy in that day of vengeance and wrath upon our Nation Neither need we wonder that this Desolation should be called the End for our Saviour himself taught them so to speak in his Prophecy concerning it as may appear if we consider that Antithesis in S. Luke chap. 21. 9. Ye shall hear of wars and commotions but the End is not by and by Ver. 20. But when ye shall see Ierusalem encompassed with armies then know that the Desolation thereof is nigh AND thus much I thought to add to my former discourse of Latter Times lest through ignorance thereof we might incline to that little better than blasphemous conceit which Baronius by name and some other of Rome's followers have taken up viz. That the Apostles in such like passages as we have noted were mistaken as believing the End of the World should have been in their own time God of purpose so ordering it to cause in them a greater measure of zeal and contempt of worldly things An opinion I think not well beseeming a Christian. 1. For first whatsoever we imagine the Apostles might here conceive in their private opinions as men yet we must know that the Holy Ghost by whose instinct they wrote the Scriptures is the Spirit of truth and therefore what is there affirmed must be true yea though the Pen-man himself understood it not 2. It was not possible the Apostles should expect the End of the World to be in their own time when they knew so many things were to come to pass before it as could not be fulfilled in a short time As 1. The desolation of Ierusalem and that not till the seventy weeks were expired 2. The Iews to be carried captives over all Nations and Ierusalem to be troden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled 3. That in the mean time the Roman Empire must be ruined and that which hindered taken out of the way 4. That after that was done the Man of sin should be revealed and domineer his time in the Temple and Church of God 5. After all this viz. when the fulness of the Gentiles should come in that Israel should be received again to mercy 6. That Christ should reign in his Church on earth so long till he had put down all rule all authority and power and subjected all his enemies under his feet before he should subdue the last enemy which is death and surrender his kingdom into the hands of his Father 7. That the time should be so long that in the last days should come Scoffers saying Where is the promise of his coming How is it possible they should imagine the Day of Doom to be so near when all these things must first come to pass and not one of them was yet fulfilled And how could the expectation of this Day be made a ground of exhortation and a motive to watchfulness and prayer as though it could suddenly and unawares surprize them which had so many wonderful alterations to forego it and none of them yet come to pass I have spoken hitherto of what was revealed to all the Apostles in general But if we take S. Iohn apart from the rest and consider what was afterward revealed to him in Patmos we shall find in his Apocalyptical Visions besides other times more obscurely intimated an express prophecy of no less than a thousand years which whatever it mean cannot be a small time and must be fulfilled in this world and not in the world to come Notwithstanding all this I make no question but even in the Apostles times many of the believing Gentiles mistaking the Apostles admonitions to the Iews of the End of their State approaching thought the End of whole world and the Day of the Lord had been also near whom therefore S. Paul 2 Thess. 2. beseeches to be better informed because that Day should not come until the Apostasie came first and the Man of sin were revealed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Expresly or In express words CHAP. XVI The Fourth Particular viz. The Warrant or Proof of this Prophecy When the Spirit speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Spirit foretold the Great Apostasy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expresly in Dan 11. vers 36 37 38 39. A View of these Verses in the Hebraw Text with an exact Translation of them both in Latin and English The chief Difficulties in these Verses explained and incidentally other places of Scripture The different opinions of Iunius and Graserus about Vers. 38. The Author's Translation free from the inconveniences of both A particular Explication of Mahoz and Mahuzim That hereby are meant Fortresses Bulwarks as also Protectors Guardians Defenders c. How fitly this Title is appliable to Angels and Saints accounted to be such by those that worshipt them NOW I come to the Fourth particular of this Prophecy The Warrant or Proof thereof The Spirit hath foretold it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in express words in some place or other of Divine Writ The Spirit told Peter Acts 10. 19. Behold three men seek thee The Spirit said Separate Barnabas and Saul Acts 13. 2. The Spirit forbade S. Paul to preach in Asia The Spirit said that the Iews should bind S. Paul at Ierusalem Acts 21. 11. But in all these the Spirit spake not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for these things were nowhere written and therefore what it spake it spake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only by secret Instinct or Inspiration But that which the Spirit speaks in the Written word that it speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verbatim expresly If therefore concerning this Apostasie of Christian believers to be in the Latter times the Spirit speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then is it to be found somewhere in the Old Testament for there alone the Spirit could be said to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or verbatim in the Apostles time Having therefore so good a hint given us let us see if we can find where the Spirit speaketh of this matter so expresly There are three main things in this our Apostle's Prediction whereof I find the Spirit to have spoken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in express words and that in the Prophecy of Daniel 1. Of these Last or Letter times 2. Of the new worship of Daemons in them 3. Of a Prohibition of marriage to accompany them As for the first of these the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Latter times Daniel as you have heard before expresly names them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A time times and half a time being those Last times of the Last Kingdom wherein the Hornish Tyrant should make war with the Saints and prevail against them For the second A worship of new-Daemons or Demi-gods with the profession of the name of Christ you will perhaps think it strange if I should shew it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if I do it was
Octob. 8. 1629. from Christ's Hospital London THE ground of the expectation of the coming of Christ and his Kingdom was say you the near expiration of Daniel's Seventy weeks The expectation of Simeon Anna and others of the Magi and them of the East was seventy years before the end of Daniel's Seventy weeks according to your opinion For you hold that the Seventy weeks end at Ierusalem's overthrow which was after Christ's Birth seventy years Therefore it could not be any mark for the looking for of Christ. 2. At the end of the Seventy weeks according to your judgment the City and Sanctuary was to be destroyed sacrifice ended and desolation brought on the Iews Therefore the Seventy weeks according to your Tenet is a mark of other matters not of Christ's or the Saints Kingdom but rather of Vespasian's as Iosephus saith which ensued just upon the end of the Seventy weeks But in truth Daniel's Seventy weeks end at Christ's death and seeing Christ was expected to be King of the Iews all that truly kept account of the Seventy weeks might rightly conceive that Christ about thirty years before the expiration of the Seventy weeks should be born and so about thirty years old which are years fit for publick charge should enter upon that Kingdom Of this reason I forbore to write formerly because I saw that we should differ about the beginning and end of Daniel's Seventy weeks which would bring on a new controversie between us That Christ's Kingdom was as you affirm to be revealed in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Fourth Kingdom I see no Text that proves it nor that Christ's Kingdom should be consummated at the end of the Roman Kingdom At the end of the Fourth Kingdom in Daniel it was to begin Chap. 7. And that it was perfected in Christ Iesus is evident for he overcame the Devil Death Hell and all and teaches that all power is given him in heaven and earth that all things bow to him and that he led captivity captive Further I have good ground for to say that the extirpation of the Fourth Kingdom was one sâ—re mark of Christ's coming and his Kingdom for that only is the mark of the same Chap. 2. and 7. where that Kingdom is mentioned You will not admit the Greeks any Rule after Antiochus Epiph. death because the Holy Ghost ends their Kingdom in him I say the Holy Ghost ends the domineering violence and persecution of the Saints in him but there were to be clayie feet after him Stories shew that many Kings of the Greeks ruled after him and in the end Cleopatra a woman as Iosephus saith of chief Nobility in those times even Caesar at first umpired between her and her brother in matters of difference between them She had the revenue of Iericho and Arabia and other parts she killed all her kindred that might stand in her wayâ— and desired Antonie to do the like by them of chief bleâ—d in Syria that she in right of the Greeks might have all She with the rest after Epiphanes were sufficient to express the clayie legs And that Rule is sufficient and all that I stand for Besides the Stone as cut out not as growing to a Mountain is to fall on the toes So that if by the legs the Romans be understood Christ was not to come in their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but at their fall Evident it is that Christ's Kingdom took place as frequent mention of it in the New Testament shews at his first coming and so began at the beginning of the Roman persecutions not at the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of them they were abundant and manifold afterward The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of their Empire hath nothing to do here You hold still that the Roman Kingdom was revealed to Daniel but not according to the distinct Fates and Times as to Iohn I shewed that the Fourth Kingdom in Daniel was revealed to him most distinctly for the original proceeding strength acts persecution sufferings fall All the 〈◊〉 are revealed to Iohn about the Roman Kingdom Now if they should both speak of the Roman Kingdom but in these points 〈…〉 it be true in Iohn that this Book was opened by none as you limit it according 〈…〉 distinct Fates before by Christ Therefore the limitation propounded by you cannot hold I say not that the Iews after the Apostles times brought in or invented the opinion That the Romans were Daniel's Fourth Kingdom but that they endeavoured to perswade it whoever were the brochers of it Ionathan Ben Uziel or any other surely some of their stamp And the rather they then did and now do perswade to it because some Christians by assenting to them give them advantage therein If Porphyrie an enemy to Christians overcome by the evidence of truth confessed it that is a greater confirmation of the truth The Devil confessed Christ to be the Son of the living God though the Devil be a liar commonly yet now he spake that which was most true Besides in S. Ierome it appears that Porphyrie was not alone in that opinion but that divers others held the same And in the eleventh chapter S. Ierome goes along with Porphyrie in most things but addeth this That Antichrist and his doings were there typed And in points in which S. Ierome crosseth Porphyrie his arguments are sometimes but his own bare assertion sometimes weak If you please to set the best edge on them that may be we will try them And Porphyrie had Suctorius his Author To the writing in a different hand You hold Christ's Kingdom to be double First Regnum Lapidis while the times of the Four Kingdoms lasted I say it cannot be in the time of the three former Kingdoms for it was preached by Christ and the Apostles to be at hand in the time of the Romans Antiochus Epiphanes his time whom you make the last of the Greeks being past well-near or full hundreds of years before Besides I object That if Christ's Kingdom be set up in the Fourth Kingdom 's time it must be set up in the three formers time also For it confounded the gold silver brass iron as well as fell on the clayie legs Again if you make the Sâ—one to continue a Stone from Christ's time till ours and some years after God knows how long to smite the feet of the Image you will make the legs and feet of the Image above 1600 years long three times and more as long as all the body The Second Kingdom of Christ you hold to be Regnum montis that shall fill the whole earth to arise when the Image shall be utterly destroyed 1. I say This division of Christ's Kingdom is no where in Scripture plainly expressed though this Kingdom be most frequently handled If such a thing had been it would in one place or other in the various handling of it have been plainly taught 2. The Stone spreads it self over the whole earth presently
were once studied and setled therein which made me so unwilling at the first to enter the Lists with you in this kind where I could expect no other fruit but the loss of much time and pains to no purpose The wit of man is able where it is perswaded to find shifts and answers until the day of Doom as appears in so differing opinions held amongst Christians with so much and so endless pertinacity on both sides It is sufficient therefore for a man to propound his Opinion with the strongest evidence and arguments he can and so leave it Truth will be justified of her children But of these reciprocations of discourse in writing wherein you place so much benefit for discovery of Truth I have often heard and seen Truth lost thereby but seldom or never â—ound I find by your last Reply that you and I differ so far and in so many Principles needful for the discovery of the truth of this Question that all the time I have for my private studies would be wholly taken up in attending this dispute if I should go on still therewith I have had some experience once before that it is a tenacious piece where it hath taken hold I would not be entangled again and therefore desire with your good leave to give it over till opportunity of meeting together where I should be able to talk with far more ease than I can write I profess unto you I contemn not your discourses but do diligently and apud conscientiam meam weigh your arguments howsoever it comes to pass I am not perswaded by them But I cannot find time for such a Collation and besides am unwilling to put all in writing which I would utter in a private and a personal discourse I will say a word or two to your last but without expectation you should reply again 1. The opinion of the 70 weeks expiration is not mine but Scaliger's and divers other learned mens and amongst the rest Iunius's who otherwise for the Monarchies is yours For my self howsoever in the 70 weeks I have yet followed Scaliger yet I had a private way to make the 62 weeks to point out our Saviour's Baptism Howsoever for the Iews expectation of Messiah it was enough to know in what age he was to come though not precisely the year 2. I shall never believe but all those places of the Son of man's coming and appearing in the clouds of heaven mentioned in the Gospels and in the Apocalypse ch 1. 7. are the same with that coming of the Son of man in the clouds prophesied by Daniel at the extinction of the Fourth Beast Ch. 7. and that the Holy Ghost in the New Testament hath reference thither both for words and meaning If this be so you know what follows 3. I say not the Greeks ruled not after Antiochus Epiphanes but that the Holy Ghost accounts that Kingdom no longer in the Monarchichal reckoning and so follows the story of their Kings no further than Epiphanes from thenceforth the Roman having now conquered Greece was to take place 4. I deny not but firmly believe that Christ's Kingdom took place at his First coming But I utterly deny that to be the Kingdom our Saviour prophesies of Luk. 21. 31. and answerably in the other Gospels or that whereof S. Paul speaks 2 Tim. 4. 1. I charge thee before God and the Lord Iesus Christ who shall judge the quick and dead at his appearing and his kingdom or that foretold in the Apocalyps to be when the seventh Trumpet shall sound and the like places 5. Unless it can be shewn me That the six Seals seven Trumpets seven Vials the treading down of the Temple two Witnesses their slaughter and Resurrection the red Dragon's persecution c. were in specie revealed to Daniel I will still hold those Fates of the Roman Kingdom were sealed and not revealed to Daniel though the Roman Monarchy were revealed to him 6. The ancient Iews did but the latter Iews hold not the Roman to be the Fourth Kingdom but the Mahumetan and the Roman to be a continuation of the third 7. What I alleged of Porphyrie for yours was to shew the injustice of your disparaging mine as being held by Iews who yet when they first held it were the only people of God and Custodes oraculorum Dei If Porphyrie might see a Truth why not much more they 8. I never meant to say That the Kingdom of Christ should appear whilst all the Monarchies were yet standing but before the times of that succession of Monarchies should expire Which is true if it appeared only in the last Monarchy The confounding of the Gold Silver Brass and Iron in the destruction of the Image is either the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 typi for the parts of the Image could not succeed in time as the Kingdoms signified by them could and so all must be broken together or because the second kingdom possessed the first the third the second the fourth the third the last is represented as containing all the rest c. 9. The Duration of the Four Kingdoms holds no proportion with the parts of the Image typifying them and therefore the continuance of the Fourth Kingdom makes the legs of the Image neither longer nor shorter 10. I wonder you should say there is no Second Kingdom of Christ which I had rather call the Second State of his Kingdom mentioned in Scripture Consider the places I point to in the fourth Paragraph and add to them Luke 17. 20 c. where our Saviour being asked of the Pharisees concerning the Kingdom of God tells them that he must first be rejected of that Nation and that the coming thereof should be as in the days of Noah c. 11. The Mystery you say you conceive not in the piece written with another hand is that Mystery which the Apostle saies was not known till the preaching of the Gospel namely That the Iews should be rejected and the Gentiles surrogated in their stead Nor did I say as you mistake that the Iews had no part in the First state of Christ's kingdom but that their Nation had not by which I meant nothing else but that their Nation was rejected Doth not our Saviour expresly say that he should be rejected of that Nation Luk. 17. 25 It mattereth not though many of their Nation received him seeing the Body of their Nation acknowledged him not This is plain enough I shall not need put you in mind of S. Paul's discourse of the casting off of the Iews though then there were so many particular Iews believing in him as I believe never were since 12. I believe not that ever the Gospel of Christ was preached all over the world no more than I believe that Augustus Caesar taxed the whole world because it is said he taxed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For in the style of those times the Roman Empire was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appears in the Greek Historians
But it is no unwonted thing for Scholars thus to outgo their Masters There are some Papers of mine walking I know not where concerning Bowing towards the Altar which were written by way of Answer to some body and a man of note demanding of me what I thought thereof One was my first Answer Another more large replying to the Exceptions he made against that first and the whole opinion and practice being somewhat larger than I use to write Letters and written with some intention of mind after my thoughts that way had been long asleep I by chance kept a Copy of it which how it came to be so much dispersed I profess I know not That so-long-since-written Discourse of mine De Sanctitate Relativa c. savours too much of my infancy in Divinity and first thoughts and affection of style ever to see the publick light And indeed I had resolved to enjoy my self and such contentment as I could find in my Cell and never to have come in print again either to please or displease any man but only to vent such Notions as I had conceived privately by a new way I took of Common-placing changing my Theme qualibet vice When now on a sudden before I was aware and little expected any such matter one of my Straglers is perkt into the Press telling the world he was one of those Common-places What his destiny is I know not but if it be good some body can say He hath flung many a stone in his days but never hit the mark till now and that too by mere chance and not so much as intending it For writing to Sir W. B. I think it is not tanti upon this occasion 'T is a Pamphlet and I had rather it should come to his hands with a kind of neglect on my part than with too much pomp But I thank you for what you have done and for your further offer Thus with my best affection I commend you to the Divine blessing and am Your old and assured Friend Ios. Mede Christ's College Iuly 3. EPISTLE XCVIII Mr. Mede's Letter to Mr. Hartlib touching some Socinian Books and Tenets together with his resentment of the Difficulties which Mr. Dury's Pacifick Design met with and of the Evil of Prejudice and Studium partium Mr. Hartlib I Received yours with the Discourse inclosed of Schism That Extract of the Letter to you is but a Symptom of Studium partium of which kind he that will be an indifferent and moderate man must look to swallow many Therefore Transeat Only thus much to be nearer or further off from the Man of sin is not I think the measure of Truth and Falshood nor that which would be most destructive of him always true and warrantable If it be there be some in the world that would be more Orthodox and Reformed Christians than any of us The Socinians you know deny That Souls live after death until the Resurrection or That Christ hath carnem sanguinem now in Heaven both as most destructive of the idolatrous errours of the Man of sin the first of Purgatory and Invocation of Saints which they say can never be solidly everted as long as it is supposed Souls do live the other of Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and Bloud of Christ. Is not this to undermine Antichrist with a vengeance as they say I have not been very obtrusive unto men to acquaint them with my notions and conceits in that kind for some of them that are but lately known have lien by me above these twenty years and not shewn to any unless they urge me and ask me what is my opinion and yet my freedom to utter my mind than to such as are prejudiced the contrary way does neither them nor me any good Therefore Cupio defungi if it would be and to be troubled no more either with Quaesita or Reciprocations in that kind For the Discourse you sent me It proceeds from a distinct and rational Head but I am afraid too much inclined that way that some strong and rational wits do It may be I am deceived The Conclusions which he aims at I can more easily assent to than to some of his Premisses I have yet looked it but once over But any more free or particular censure thereof than what I have already given look not for left I be censured my self 'T is an Argument wherein a wise man will not be too free in discovering himself pro or con but reserved Thus with my wonted affection and prayers I rest Your assured Friend Ioseph Mede Christ's Coll. Aug. 6. 1638. After this Mr. Mede wrote another Letter the last Letter he wrote to Mr. Hartlib about a month before he died wherein besides matters of News and his repeating what he had said in the foregoing Letter concerning the great Learning of the Author of that Discourse of Sschism he expresseth his resentment of the Difficulties which Mr. Dury's design of Pacification met with in these words Mr. Dury and such as wish well to his business must comfort themselves as the Husbandman doth who though he sees no appearance of his Seed awhile after it is sown especially in dry weather yet despaireth not but as soon as the Rain from above shall water the ground to see it begin to spring up You see what an invincible mischief Prejudice is and Studium partium It leaves no place for admission of Truth that brings any disadvantage to the side That 's the Rule which they examine all by Will so many Rents of the Church as we see ready to sink it never make us wiser Thus with my prayers and best affection I rest Your assured Friend Ioseph Mede Christ's Colledge Aug. 28. 1638. The End of the Fourth Book THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE WORKS OF The Pious and Profoundly-Learned Ioseph Mede B. D. SOMETIME Fellow of CHRIST'S Colledge in CAMBRIDGE CONTAINING FRAGMENTA SACRA OR MISCELLANIES OF DIVINITY Io. 6. 12. Colligite quae superfuerunt Fragmenta ne quid pereat Chrysost. Homil. in 1 Tim. 5. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE CONTENTS OF THE FIFTH BOOK CHAP. I. The disposition of the years of Iehoiakim according to the several Events mentioned in Scripture pag. 889 CHAP. II. The Mystery of S. Paul's Conversion or The Type of the Calling of the Iews pag. 891 CHAP. III. An Answer concerning a Discourse inferring from the Septenary Types of the Old Testament and other Arguments That the World should last 7000 years and the Seventh Thousand be that happy and blessed Chiliad pag. 892 CHAP. IV. An Explication of Psal. 40. 6. Mine ears hast thou bored compared with Hebr. 10. 5. A body hast thou prepared me pag. 896 CAP. V. D. HIERONYMI Pronunciata de Dogmate MILLENARIORUM cum Animadversionibus pag. 897 CAP. VI. Verba GAII apud EUSEBIUM Lib. 3. cap. 22. Hist. Eccles. cum Animadversionibus pag. 899 CAP. VII De Nomine Antichristi apud S. Ioannem pag. 900.