a judgment of those things wherein their corrupt Interest is opposed or immediately or remotely struck at For men cannot serve God and Mammon as there it follows they cannot be faithful to God and his Truth where a love to him and a care to please him do not bear a greater sway than love to Mammon or any other worldly concern doth Add we yet to all this one consideration more and that is That when men have more love for and pleasure in unrighteousness for worldly advantage sake than love to Truth for Truths sake and what attends a sincere receiving of it the Scripture hath told us that for that very cause God shall send such learned men not excepted strong delusions that they should believe a lie to think and believe verily they have fast hold of Truth when yet they have but a lie in their right hand 2 Thes 2.10 11 12. God in just judgment giving them up to an injudicious mind to call evil good and good evil These things shew how little in reason the consideration of the learning and parts of any of the Popish party ought to weigh with those who upon the account of them are inclined to entertain any whit the more favourable opinion of their way when they consider as they ought that their Learning and Parts are in conjunction with a corrupt Interest As for the Laity or Common people of the Popish perswasion I will not say that a worldly corrupt Interest doth so much prevail on them immediately to be or to continue to be what they are in point of Popery as it doth with their Clergie but at the Second hand it doth prevail on them also For they acting by an Implicite faith believing as their Church-men believe and seeing not with their own but with their eyes and taking all on trust from them and giving up themselves intirely to their Conduct it follows necessarily that if a corrupt Interest misguide their Guides they also must needs become seduced by means of it So that what was said to the people of Israel of old is truly applicable unto them O my people they which lead thee cause thee to err But that will be no excuse to them who suffer themselves to be so misled For if the blind lead the blind you know who hath said they both shall fall into the ditch Now if Popery shall be found indeed to be founded in a like secular carnal corrupt Interest as the corrupt Doctrine and Practice of the false Apostles was and whether it be or no I leave you to judge by what the following discourse offers you then that alone would be enough to blast the Reputation of it for ever in the minds of all such as have judgment in Spiritual things For by this very thing did St. John discriminate the false Teachers and Degenerate Christians and their way from the Orthodox and Sincere and their way They saith he are of the world therefore speak they of the world and the world heareth them 1 Jo. 4.5 6. They are of the world i. e. they were men of worldly minds and such as chiefly designed a worldly Interest they were such as did mind earthly things as it is elsewhere exprest Phil. 3.18 therefore they speak of the world i. e. the Doctrine which they taught so far as it was False was calculated to promote a worldly corrupt Interest And the world heareth them that is earthly minded men pretenders to Religion received their Doctrine as falling in with their worldly design But we saith St. John are of God he that knoweth God heareth us i. e. received their Doctrine which drew men off from the world to God He that is not of God heareth not us Hereby know we the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of error behold here a plain Discrimination of who and whose way is of God and whose is not with whom the Spirit of Truth is found and with whom the Spirit of Error If the Authors of Popery then and their followers have adopted into their Religion as a part of it any corrupt Doctrine or Practice for worldly advantage sake as the false Teachers of old did then they we see as well as those false Teachers are markt out by St. John as being not of God but of the world and as men that are misguided by a Spirit of Errour And although by wresting the Scriptures and corrupting the Word of God they think to colour over and patronize their corrupt Doctrines and Practices just as the false Apostles before them did yet their Arguings thence are but of the same nature with the Reasonings of the false Apostles in like cases which were as St. Paul calls them but perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds destitute of the truth supposing that gain is godliness 1 Tim. 6.5 I have in the following Papers shewed how St. Paul's Complying with the Jews in some Rites of the Jewish worship upon account of Expedience was quite of a different nature from the corrupt Complyances of the false Apostles and their party And from that prudential and expediential complyance of his I have in an Appendix by parity of Reason argued the expediency of yielding to the use of some things in or about the external form of Gods Worship which are neither directly commanded nor forbidden by God when circumstances render such a yielding necessary to prevent Divisions in the Church and the bad Consequences of them and to preserve Peace and Charity in it and the better to further the free course of the Gospel And this I have done the rather lest any should think that such a yielding as aforesaid should be of like nature with those corrupt compliances of the false Apostles and their Party which are represented to view in the following Discourse As for those who have hitherto escaped the snares of Popery the proper use of the ensuing Tract for them is to fortifie them against all Temptations of turning Papists of what nature soever the Temptation may be Always remembring that such as follow the false Apostles in corrupting the Christian Religion to avoid Persecution or for any worldly advantage whatsoever must expect to share with them in their fate also of whom it is said their end shall be according to their works 2 Cor. 11.15 And since you will find by the process of the Discourse before you that the Corruptions both in Faith and Practice first in the false Apostles and their followers and after them in the Papists did arise and spring out of an inordinate love of the world the consideration thereof may serve as a Sea-mark to warn us to take heed of that Rock upon which so many professours of Christianity have made shipwrack of it This running into the Spirit of the World hath always been fatal to the Churches As it laid waste at last the once famous flourishing Churches of the Apostles own planting so it hath since deprest and kept many others very low in their
THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY UNFOLDED OR The False Apostles and the Authors of POPERY compared in their secular Design and Means of accomplishing it by Corrupting the Christian Religion under pretence of Promoting it John 7.18 He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory 1 Tim. 6.5 Men of corrupt minds and destrtute of the truth supposing that gain is Godliness LONDON Printed by J. M. for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St Paul's Church-Yard 1675. THE PREFACE THE design of the following Discourse is to shew that Popery is founded in a like worldly corrupt Interest as the way of the false Apostles was and carried on by a like Art And if it shall appear to be so indeed there will be no great cause to marvel why the many worthy endeavours of the Advocates of the Protestant Cause to convince the Papists of being guilty of corrupting the Christian Religion should prevail no more upon them than they have done for such an Interest whilest adhered to doth obstruct the operation of all such Truth on the Mind and Will as tends to oppose or undermine it So that upon the former supposition we may well conceive that the reason why the endeavours of the Persons aforesaid have prevailed no more upon the Gainsayers is not the weakness of their Cause nor weakness in their managing of it nor yet the strength of their Adversaries Arguments in opposing them but the true reason will be found to lye in the prevalence of a carnal worldly corrupt Interest For that which was the reason why the Holy Apostles could not recover the false Apostles nor those that stuck to them from their Errors and Corruptions we may well conceive to be the reason likewise why the Advocates for Reformation have recovered no more than they have done of the Papists neither from theirs which were introduced into the world and persisted in upon the same or like carnal reason and motive as the Corruptions of the false Apostles were Now our Adversaries themselves cannot but grant that the reason why the Holy Apostles prevailed no more upon the false Apostles and their followers than they did in managing the Christian Cause against them in corrupting the Christian Religion was neither the badness of their own nor goodness of their adversaries Cause nor the Holy Apostles weak managing of their Cause and if none of these were the reason what else could it be in probability but the false Apostles love of close adherence to and fast holding of such a corrupt Interest as could not be upheld but by corrupting the Christian Religion And if the Holy Apostles who were extraordinarily assisted in delivering and speaking Truth and who had their Doctrine extraordinarily confirmed with Signs and Wonders and divers Miracles could not for all that prevail with the false Apostles to confess and relinquish their Errors so long as a Worldly Interest was upheld by those Errors and was dearer to them than the Truth it self 't is then no wonder at all if our Protestant Advocates who do not pretend to compare with the Apostles have prevailed no more neither than they have done though their Cause be never so good and so well managed to bring Popish Guides to acknowledge and relinquish those Errors of theirs by which their corrupt Interest is supported and maintained if that Interest is dearer to them also than that Truth that opposeth it and fights against it is as there is too much ground to suspect it is Some perhaps may be under a temptation to have the more favourable opinion of Popery for that there have been men of great Parts and Learning of that way who upon that account may perhaps be thought as able as their Adversaries to discern Truth from Error But if those who so think will but consider that those Learned men have still had a strong byas of a corrupt Interest to draw them aside they may easily relieve themselves against such a temptation For the greater parts such men have as have espoused a corrupt Interest and are strongly bent to defend it the less likely are they to be overcome meerly by Truth Because it hath always been too common with such men to imploy all their Parts and Learning to the uttermost not indifferently and impartially to seek Truth for Truths sake but to make the best they can of the Cause they have undertaken and with all possible Art to dress it up that neither they nor any of their party may fall into dislike of it Which was the reason why the learned Scribes Lawyers Pharisees and Rulers among the Jews stood it out against Christ when the more illiterate and meaner sort that were not under such a temptation of a worldly interest as the others were nor had such parts to strengthen themselves in their opposition as the others had were sooner brought to receive Christ and submit to his Doctrine Of such as the former sort our Saviour said how can ye believe which seek honour one of another and seek not the honour which comes from God only Joh. 5.44 The experience of such a thing as this doubtless occasioned that saying of St. Paul 1 Cor. 1.26 You see your calling brethren how that not many wise men after the flesh are called nor many mighty nor many noble Besides as the Love of a corrupt Interest in men calls off their thoughts from an impartial enquiry after Truth especially such Truth as opposeth it so it corrupts the mind and clouds the understanding of Learned as well as Vnlearned in making a Judgment of what 's Truth and what 's Error in those things wherein such an Interest is concerned 'T is said a Gift blindeth the wise and perverteth the judgment of the righteous Exod. 23.8 It hinders a man from enquiring impartially into the right of the others cause against whom he hath received a bribe and causeth him with as much partiality to consider his from whom he hath received it and is a byas as well as a cloud upon his mind in forming a judgment upon the Cause before him by reason of all which he gives judgment against the truth and equity of the Cause And there is the same reason why a corrupt Interest otherwise should hinder a right judgment and determination in matters wherein that Interest is struck at as there is why the corrupt Interest of a bribe should hinder it in a man otherwise knowing and wise Our Saviour saith if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness if therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness Mat. 6.23 If the governing principle in man be corrupt as it is when that which is predominant is covetousness or the love of the world of which he there speaks the issues of it can be no more pure than the streams that flow from a corrupt Fountain that corrupt governing principle will still be turning men aside in particular actions of their Lives and in making
follow the steps of the false Apostles as in any of those other things I have instanced in For although they the false Apostles could not stand before the powerful conviction of the faithful Apostles but found their hearts to sink within them as to the Cause they maintained as knowing in their consciences they were not able by the strength of truth to defend it against the assaults of the holy Apostles yet then they would in face and outward appearance glory and boast as if they had the victory and all because they had no other way to hold their party to them and to carry on their design which they were resolved to stick to whatever was said against it and also because they found that this course of theirs would do them as much service as a demonstration would do among their credulous followers who hung upon their lips and were willing to take all they said upon trust as suiting most with what they liked best See for this the 2 Cor. 5.12 We commend not our selves again unto you saith St. Paul but give you occasion to glory on our behalf that you may have somewhat to answer them which glory in appearance and not in heart meaning the false Apostles All that I shall add is only to observe from what was last delivered That the false Apostles even then when they set the best face upon their Cause and gloried over their opposers and carried it outwardly with never so great confidence and boasting yet since their own corrupt Interest was concerned in the Contest there was just cause for their followers to suspect what they pleaded in their own defence and that it was wisdome in them that did so and folly and unhappiness in those that suffered themselves to be imposed upon and deluded thereby without looking more narrowly into the matter themselves as those did who tryed them that said they were Apostles but were not and found them liars Rev. 2.2 And if so then in as much as a Corrupt self interest of Popish Guides is also concerned in and depends upon the cause they labour to defend as I have shewed those who have committed themselves to their Conduct have no more reason to be confident of the goodness of their Cause upon the account of the confidence and boasting of those who undertake to defend it than the followers of the false Apostles had in reference to their cause But in point of greatest prudence are concerned to look upon all they say with a jealous eye and with the greatest care and diligence to scan the matter themselves and to search the Scriptures themselves and impartially to consider as well what is said against them and their Cause as what is said for it and them and not carelesly or desperately to venture their souls upon such mens confident pretences whose Corrupt interest it is to deceive them APPENDIX WHat you shall find in this Appendix was first intended to be brought in by way of Digression at the close of the Answer to an Objection from St. Paul's Compliances at the end of the 9th Section of the foregoing Discourse to which it properly relates But it s running out to such a length as it hath done hath altered that intention as tending to too great an interruption in the line and method of that Discourse And I have the rather thought it meet to add this to the whole Discourse lest any should think a compliance in the use of some undetermined circumstances in the administration of Gods Publick Worship should be of like nature with the corrupt compliances of the false Apostles and their party discovered in the said Discourse That which I have to add therefore upon the foresaid occasion take as follows From what hath been said in the foresaid Section touching St. Paul's Compliances somewhat may be observed which may be of good use to Christians in many dubious Cases There I have shewed how that St. Paul sometimes withstood the use of Circumcision and sometimes yielded to it The reason of which did arise from the different circumstances that did attend the use of the same thing upon different occasions When it was urged upon the Gentiles as necessary to their salvation St. Paul withstood it But to avoid stumbling in the believing Jews who were not as yet satisfied touching its cessation and to prevent a breach in the Church and to gain the more upon such as were inclinable to Christianity he yielded to the use of that and other like things among them I think we may safely suppose that St. Paul knew well enough when he did so that Circumcision was not in it self or by positive command necessary to the Jews under the Gospel by the taking place of which it was abolished for he said Circumcision is nothing 1 Cor. 7.19 Nor was it simply unlawful in it self for if it had no Circumstance could have sanctified it or made it lawful So that when he yielded to it it was upon account of Expediency by reason of circumstances attending it which made it expedient such as was the Peace of the Church and the better propagation of the Gospel And yet when he yielded to it upon the account of Expediency we may well suppose it was not wholly and altogether expedient without any inexpediency at all but only more expedient than inexpedient For otherwise it may well be thought that his yielding to the use of it somewhat tended to nourish the opinion the Jews had of its perpetuity under the Gospel and to minister some advantage to those who taught a necessity of it unto Salvation and could not be very grateful to the believing Gentiles who opposed it nor to St. Paul himself neither So that in some respect it was inexpedient to yield to it when he did yield to it but in other respects more inexpedient to withstand it and not to yield to it From all which we may observe that when two Inexpediencies come in competition the one attending the doing and the other the not doing of the same thing so that there is a necessity to yield to one of them in doing or not doing of it then that which is least inexpedient is to be yielded to Or which is the same that when all circumstances are considered then that which hath more of expediency than inexpediency in it is to be chosen Just as on the other hand when two Precepts the one moral the other but positive come in competition the less is to give place to the greater To fit these general Rules to particular cases requires some skill but if these things were well considered and practised it would go a great way towards the lessening those undue distances which are among us As for instance Suppose some circumstances in the external form of our Publick Worship establisht by Law were so inexpedient as some deem them to be Yet if they would but lay aside Prejudice Partiality Passion and Interest of Parties in making a judgment of