Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A36016
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The mystery of iniquity anatomized by William Dillingham.
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Dillingham, William, 1617?-1689.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing D1483; ESTC R24295
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19,111
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24
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in publick that they may with the more ease injoy it in a Corner fugit and Salices To slake which immortal Thirst after Rices the Veins of all Europe must be sucked and those of India come swimming in though at second hand to make that affluence and Euphrates of Gold and Silver which might be a sufficient Supply for Babylon the Great It would be a Labour worth a good deal but to reckon up all the several Streams which empty themselves into this great Channel But I shall name only some few of them 1st It might be foreseen that a great Revenue might be raised by a voluntary Benevolence from Princes and other great Men of the World who would be glad to bestow some of their Wealth at parting with the World that they might thereby make some Amends for the Sins by which they got it and purchase to themselves an Elbow-Chair in Heaven which they could believe to be feasible by seeing the Porter St. Peter or hisSuccessor who kept the Keys Yea a Pretence to a Donation would in tract of time create a kind of Title by Custom and Prescription especially of as much as they could get and keep Possession of and when this way would reach no further it might be pieced out by taking what would not be given and this might be effected by many ways and means As for Instance by Sale of Red-hats to such Princes as had a mind to prefer a Friend or provide themselves of a Proctor also by sale of other Court-Offices By Sainting of some when any Nation desired to worship their own Country-man and Acquaintance that he might more naturally superintend their particular Concernments By setting up a Purgatory to cast Men into a Sweat that they might be well paid for rubbing of them dry again by a Pardon fringed with a Multitude of Masses by making Penal Laws on purpose to be dispensed with at greater rates By Sale of Ecclesiastical Benefices in their own bestowing which they might charge with annual Pensions and then release at five Years purchase and exacting Fees of all other Benefices as First-Fruits Tenths and other Perquisites from the smaller sort but from Bishopricks for their Palls Investitures c. an unknown Sum might come in from all Countries as also for Vacancies of Collegiate Churches and Abbies and many more too tedious to be recited By such ways and means were the Triumvirate of Pride Lust and Covetousness to be provided for But for the perfecting of the Mystery of Iniquity and the making it work more effectually there were a couple more of Ingredients to be added which are indeed the very Cremor Tartari the Systole and Diastole of the Devil's Heart and the necessary Instruments of his Polity Fraud and Cruelty And as himself was a Lier and Murderer from the beginning so these two Characters of Antiquity could not be spared to make the Mystery look like its Author There are two principal Lineaments of the Image of God which the Gospel came to repair in Man Truth and Love that so he might be renewed after the Image of him that created him who is called Truth and cannot lie and also Love which two things are especially recommended in Scripture as the main Characters of an Evangelical Spirit and Conversation and therefore Satan could not make his Mystery enough Antichristian unless he should extirpate these two out of his Common-Wealth by implanting their Contraries Fraud and Cruelty in the Minds of all his cordial Subjects but especially those who should have the Management of his Kingdom and Affairs The First whereof was indispensibly necessary for carrying on the Mystery both for keeping it secret and trapanning Men into Principles and Practices so directly contrary to the Doctrine of the Gospel and that under a Pretence of complying with it And therefore the Apostle tells us aforehand That the coming of the wicked One should be after the working of Satan with lying Wonders and all Deceivableness of Vnrighteousness 2 Thess 2.8 9. Speaking Lies in Hyprocrisy 1 Tim. 4.2 being a seducing Spirit The Mystery of Iniquity was to be carried on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through the Hypocrisy of Liars who being Liars should pretend to Truth and therefore so long as they made use of her Garment they were to have no further regard to her self either in Thought Word or Deed but having feared Consciences to give up themselves to believe what they once knew to be false and to spare no Lies nor false Oaths Circumventions Treacheries nor Treasons having first persuaded themselves that nothing can be Sin which is serviceable to their Holy Designs In Pursuance whereof fabulous Legends new Doctrines and new Articles of Faith were to be minted and digged up out of that dark and bottomless Pit of Tradition and varnished over with a seeming Gloss of wrested Scripture Councils were to be packed true Authors corrupted and false ones suborned And to warrant all there should be an Order of Men instituted who by their disputacious Subtilty should duel all Opposers and spin out Truth into so fine a Thread that few Eyes should be able to discern what colour it was of and then weave it into a Cobweb-Lawn or Spiders Web rarefying Faith into vain Speculations and snarling the plain Truth into a thousand Perplexities till it can neither be believed nor understood And as for Cruelty thereby they should fight Satan's Quarrel with the Seed of the Woman and gratify their own Principle which he should infuse into them of Hatred and Revenge And seeing the Mystery of Iniquity was to be carried on against all Right and Reason it was like to meet with opposition enough from others who would adhere to such Principles and therefore all those soft and foolish Principles of Love Pity and Humanity were to be thrown over-board and all the Methods and Modes of Cruelty were to be devised and made use of for the tormenting and destruction of all such as should either oppose or not comply with the great Silver Diana and the Golden Image which Satan should set up for himself to be worshipped by who having great Wrath against the Woman shall make War against the Remnant of her Seed which keep the Commandments of God and have the Testimony of Jesus Christ Rev. 12.17 chap. 16.6 chap. 17.6 chap. 18.24 Thus have we briefly seen how Satan hath contrived his Mystery of Iniquity so that it should not only dethrone Jesus Christ from his Worship and supplant him in all his Offices but also gratify and uphold Sin and Corruption which he came to save us from and heal us of and thereby revive his Kingdom in Mystery and Masquerade and destroy Millions of precious Souls to all Eternity But now perhaps it will not be amiss to take a short and particular View of several Doctrines of our Christian Faith and Ordinances of Christ and observe how subtily the old Serpent contrived to pervert them that he might make them subservient to the
several Interests of his Kingdom of Darkness and the Polices thereof First for Preaching the Gospel which is the means of the Propagation and Edification of the Church and saving the Souls of Men this the Devil knew might be made a Gladius Delphicus and was capable of being turned upon the Gospel it self by making the Pulpit a Mortar-Piece to discharge his Granado's from and to cast his fiery Darts of Sedition and damnable Heresies among the People by taking Care that when it was used the Doctrine might be corrupted by a preverting Gloss and by mixing with it Legends and feigned Miracles and cunningly devised Fables to keep the People ignorant and from the sight and knowledg of the Scriptures lest they should know too much and discover his Errors lest they should be wiser than their Priests and so despise them who should have neither parts nor means for Learning which might recommend them but be like Priest like People Priests of the meanest of the People and the People made pliable to believe any Doctrine that should be offered to them and readily practise whatsoever Superstition or Idolatry should be injoined and while Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion the Devotion must needs prove Blind and never be able to grope the way to Heaven and yet so it must needs be while Prayers are recited in an unknown Tongue But because it might be too great a Mortification of Mens Curiosity to let them see no further then their Noses therefore he resolved to furnish them with Prophecies of his own dictating whereby they might be amused without danger of being made wiser or better by them as they might be by the Scriptures And remembring how his heathen Romans were wont to have their Curiosity hushed with the lullaby of the Theater he resolved to entertain Christians with Images and sine Pictures on the Church-Walls and Windows and Theatrical Representations of Gospel-History which should be instead of Scripture to them and were like to be taking with those empty Souls who knew no better Then for the Sacraments they might be easily laid lower in esteem by joining others in Commission with them which should be so slightly grounded that People might be tempted to suspect the true Coin as if of no better Metal or else think that Men could make Sacraments and add Grace to accompany them But as for the sealing and assuring Power of them it should be enervated by suspending their Efficacy upon the Intention of the Priest which none living but himself could be assured of without a Divine Revelation and therefore not know but they might be Idolaters in worshipping an unconsecrated Wafer nor whether they had so much as been baptized or no. And besides the Sacraments were capable of being corrupted by superstitious Ceremonies and by impious Uses and Applications viz. Baptism might either be totally rejected as childish and ridiculous or neglected and deferred or by misapplying it to Persons against their Wills or to the Ignorant or unduly to the Children of Unbelievers or else defiling it by adding to it Creame or Spittle and Exorcisms or shamefully profaning of it by Christening of Bells c. The Eucharist might be perverted by worshipping of the Elements instead of Christ himself giving the Priest a power to make his Maker which would advance the Priesthood into Admiration and ballance other just Causes of Contempt and make the People beholden to him for his Intention which alone could keep them from being gross Idolaters By abusing it as an Amulet to Preserve or an Opportunity to Poison a Charm to Exorcise or a Pawn for securing a Debt thereby turning the Host into a Hostage and the Natural Body of Christ as they should believe it to be into Gold or Silver by a strange kind of Retransubstantiation Which a certain Emperor is recorded to have done However while this sacred or solemn Mystery instituted by our Saviour's dying Breath and bequeathed as a Legacy to his beloved Spouse whom he purchased with his own Blood as a Divine means of her Comfort and Union shall become the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 matter of Contention and occasion of the most mortal hatred that Satan himself could infuse into the Minds of Men and while the due Commemoration of Christ's most Precious Death shall be made to many Men the cause of their own while I say this sacred Mystery shall be thus perverted to contrary Ends the Devil will triumph as having turned it into a Mystery of Iniquity to the defeating of the Gospel especially while so many Men by unworthy receiving do eat and drink their own Damnation and give possession of themselves unto Satan by the livery and seisin of the Sop. And as for that Authority and Power of the Keys which Christ left with his Church Satan knew how to serve himself of it for excluding out of the visible Church those of the Houshold of Faith and the letting in of Thieves and Robbers How to make it a Pick-lock to Mens Purses and Consciences and to imploy it upon trivial and pecuniary Errands which would render it ' i th' mean while not only useless to its proper End but also pernicious by absolving Men into Presumption Yea and the Government of the Church ordained for the Union Order Safety and Edification of it might be in a great measure defeated by reducing the choice of the Persons into the Hands of Temporal great Ones of whom while few would be good Men the Persons chosen would likely be accordingly and by intoxicating their Minds with Temporal Riches and Honours which would make them think their primitive Duty too far below them and have neither care nor leisure to mind it And lastly by making their Precincts so large that it would be impossible for any one Man though never so Good Able and Diligent to administer one of them as he ought And all this might be brought about under the specious pretence of the flourishing Condition of the Church and its having Princes for its nursing Fathers And as for those blessed Ends of this Institution above mentioned while some should delight themselves in imposing upon others their own Opinions and Commands in matters doubtful or needless and others please themselves as much in a pertinacious holding and propagating of their contrary Opinions and a sturdy noncompliance with what they desire both Sorts would be so stiffly set upon having their own Wills and maintaining their own Reputations as to forget that they were Brethren and to neglect the Peace of the Church which Christ their common Saviour purchas'd with his own Blood. But yet in the mean while even in all Ages truly gracious and humble Persons would indeavour to keep their Peace with God studying and believing plain Truths and faithfully practising all their known Duties to have Peace in themselves and to shew forth a brotherly-Love unto others yielding as much as is possible for Publick Peace sake According to St. Paul's Exhortation Rom. 12.18 If it