and so other miracles are for them that believe not who have not received the Gospel but not to them that believe 1 Cor. 14.21 22. who have already been convinced of the truth and fulness of the Scriptures to which God expects they should yield their full assent and obedience Ver. 10 11 12. In them that perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness In these words we have the subject of Antichrists delusions those on whom his signs and lying wonders should have effect viz. they that perish though many of the godly may have been entangled by Popish superstitions yet none receive them throughly or give up themselves to them but those that are to perish Rev. 17.11 They that dwell on the earth wondred after the beast even they whose names were not written in the book of life We have also here the reason why God suffereth so many to be delivered to their own destruction viz. because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved and this is further amplified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and for this cause viz. because they love not the truth God shall send them strong delusions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delusions that shall be effectual to make them believe a lie who believed not the truth i. e. obeyed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness that so they might be damned Gods judgements are suitable to mens sins those that love not the truth he suffereth to lose the truth and they that are willing to receive false doctrines and false worship that they may more quietly practise unrighteousness God suffereth them to have temptations to it and to be prevailed with by those temptations and this is the case of the Papal world because men delight not in the true knowledge of God to fear him and be thankful therefore he gave them up to worship Images and to serve the Creatures more than the Creator as he dealt with the Heathens before them Rom. 1.21.25 Men lov'd not the knowledge of Christ valued not his love and death but loved to boast of their own wills abilities and performances therefore God suffered them to lose the sound doctrine of justification faith an assurance and to make men and Angels their Mediators and to trust in the merits of their own works and sufferings men had no pleasure in holiness but in unrighteousness and licentiousness therefore God suffered them to be deprived of the Scriptures the mean and rule of holiness and to spend their days either in will worship superstition and voluntary severities bodily exercise which profits not 1 Tim. 4.8 or else in all filthiness and profaneness and yet to delude themselves with the vain hopes of pardons indulgencies dispensations penances and venial sins Moreover because men delighted not in spiritual things and heavenly mindedness they were deprived of the true knowledge of heaven and the comfortable hopes of Salvation to be taught to live in endless doubts and fears that can never be satisfied and to count it a favour to go to Purgatory at last there to suffer some thousands of years the torments of hell and to believe that their deliverance from thence depends upon the will of Popes and Priests and is to be bought with money Men were weary of the spiritual worship of God Faith and love prayer and thanks giving hearing the word and receiving the Sacraments with a serious heart and desire to profit by them therefore they are given up to be content to be deprived of Gods word and to hear little but the lying miracles of feigned Saints and humane Traditions and commandments of men also to have their prayers and Sacraments in a language they do not understand and to fool themselves with a belief that the Opus operatuns their bare presence at them and performance of the outward work is sufficient to save them Lastly because men were weary of a pious profitable and learned ministry therefore they are delivered to be enslaved by a generation of men for the most part abominably wicked ignorant and superstitious who deceive the people and are themselves deceived briefly natural conscience will not suffer men to be content without some religion and some hope of a better life and some persons to instruct them in it but their unruly lusts and affections make them love and chuse a religion that they may play and trifle with and such is Popery where men may seem very devout and zealous in external worship and for the Traditions of their fathers and yet live in all wickedness and notwithstanding hope to go to heaven Vse 1. This may lessen our wonder that Popery should so much prevail upon the world and that men should be so ready to return to it after they have received the knowledge of the truth and Popery been discovered to be false and ridiculous to common reason it is the righteous judgement of God to suffer them to be deceived who would be deceived and to suffer them to take up a false and absurd religion who are weary of the true though most excellent and most rational for this reason no means can withdraw men from their superstitious and Idolatrous practices and from their brutish obedience to the Pope and their Priests because God hath given them eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear and hearts that cannot perceive and understand till he hath executed all his wrath upon them 2. The best means to be preserved from Popery is to maintain in our selves love to the truth It was want of this that provoked God to give up the world to delusions and still to continue it under the power of them in a great measure He that will do the will of him that sent me he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God saith our Saviour John 7.17 Scripture and reason will not suffer us to receive Popery as a truth or as any religion but as a meer humane device to keep up the power of the Pope and his adherents and sense also will confute some of their errors as Transubstantiation and many of their miracles but if we love not the truth interest or fear may make us willing to believe a lye and submit to it unfeigned love of the Gospel and a lively sense of spiritual things will prevent this that we shall not be willing to let go the truth and then God will not suffer us to be led into errors If we delight in the knowledge of God he will never suffer us to be bewitcht with Idols that can neither see nor hear nor help If Christ be precious to us the chiefest of ten thousands and altogether lovely God will never suffer us to put our confidence in Creatures as our Mediators or in our own
wearied with their ill carriage And in the times of the Prophets there were usually false Prophets seducing the people 2 Pet. 2.1 Our Saviour foretold false Christs and false Prophets should arise soon after his days Mat. 24.24 And his Apostles that there should be false teachers in the Church privily bringing in damnable Heresies even denying the Lord that bought them and that many should follow their pernicious ways 2 Pet. 2.1 2. The Primitive times as they were most happy in Zeal and affection in the sound and Orthodox professours so they were as unhappy in the manifold errors Sects divisions that did disturb them as any of these latter Ages Augustin hath given us a Catalogue of 80. Heresies that troubled the Church in those days August Lib. de Haer. ad Quod vult Deus and yet he saith he omitted many and named but the principal It appears by their Epistles that the Apostles had no sooner planted Churches but the weeds of errors and opinions did straight ways spring up amongst them and this chiefly by these three means here mentioned 1. By pretence of the spirit When God did afford his spirit in extraordinary gifts and revelations to his Prophets and Apostles there never wanted men who pretended to the same spirit and the like revelations for their own devices most of them wilfully feigning some artificially and some by diabolical means procuring revelations and Enthusiasms and some weakly mistaking their own fancies and strong perswasions for dictates and inspirations of the Holy Ghost 1 Joh. 4.1 2. Believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they are of God for many false prophets are gone out into the world such as pretended to the spirit and that to the subversion of the greatest truths in the Gospel even to deny the person and coming of Jesus Christ as Simon Magus and his followers therefore he subjoyneth this mark v. 2 3. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God and every spirit that confesseth that he is not come is not of God The same direction is given 1 Cor. 12.2 3. I give you to understand that no man speaking by the spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed Such it seems there were that preten ding to the spirit the Apostles had rejected and reviled Jesus Christ 2. By pretence of a word or oral tradition They that could not pretend the spirit speaking in themselves pretended the judgment and sayings of Christ and his Apostles when absent for their own opinions sometimes forging their sayings sometimes mistaking the meaning of them affixing their own sence to them Thus a tradition was received as coming from the mouth of Christ that the beloved Disciple should not die Joh. 21.22 23. and is yet believed in the Greek Church who shew a place near Ephesus where they say that Apostle when old commanded himself to be buried alive where by some estuation or bubling of the earth they conclude he still breatheth St. Paul was often troubled by the Judaizing Christians who would have kept up the ceremonial law pretending the authority and practice of Peter and other Apostles that lived among the Jews which he refuteth at large Gal. 2. And it appeareth by almost all Pauls Epistles that this tradition was importunately urged and scattered through all the Churches by that sort of men even when the Apostles and Church of Jerusalem had declared that they never commanded such doctrine to be preached Acts 25.24 3. Thirdly By the pretence of Scripture our Epistle in the text And this either by pretence of forged Scripture or false and forced interpretations of the true Canonical writings Of the former sort were the writings of the false Prophets among the Jews and those fabulous Legends of Tobit Judith Susannah c. which were never received by the Jewish Church And such were the many suppositious writings in the primitive times as the Gospel of Peter Andrew Thomas Nicodemus and almost of all the Apostles the Gospel and Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans the Liturgie of James and the like mentioned by Eusebius and other writers Of the latter sort the Apostle speaketh 2 Pet. 3.15 16. That there were many unlearned and unstable Christians who did wrest some hard places in Pauls Epistles and the other Scriptures to their own destruction of this kind is this in the text as some suppose Cartwr in Locum that this opinion of Christs coming to judgment was rashly collected by some from those words in the former Epistle to the Thes ch 4. v. 15. We that are alive and remain unto the coming of our Lord shall not prevent those that are asleep hence they thought that the Apostle supposed that at least some of them who were then alive might live to the coming of Christ Though it seems that all these three means of pretended revelations traditions and Scriptures were used for this doctrine These arts have been all along used to disturb the Church and to pervert souls The Gnosticks Montanus and Manes pretended their inspired revelations Cont. Haer. De praeser and many others in latter ages Irenaeus and Tertullian tell us that many of the Hereticks of their days pretended traditions from one Apostle or other for their doctrine and practice as also others had their Apocryphal Scriptures or Canonical texts misapplied to maintain their errors The Papists make great use of all three of these pretences to establish their grossest errors The doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the bread of the worship of Saints and of religious Orders and Images is mainly built upon Revelations dreams and apparitions Lindanus ingenuously confessed that all those doctrines and practices wherein the Protestants do oppose them and dissent from them are to be proved by traditions of the Apostles not from the Scripture Their doctrines of Purgatory invocation of Angels equivocations and dissemblings are proved by the book of Tobit Judith Susan c. The Apostles Canons increased from 50 to 85 in the last age do them great services in the matters of their discipline and sometimes they wrest Scriptures for their purpose but they have been so baffled and shamed out of this since the Bible hath been common and studied by Protestants that they have forsaken this hold and the Jesuites think the poor secular Priests have betrayed their cause by undertaking to dispute for it out of the Scriptures These troubles by errors arise from the weakness of some who have more zeal than judgment and usually desire new things 2 Pet. 3.16 2 Tim. 4.3 People unlearned and unstable and that have itching ears from pride and conceit in others who that they may seem wiser than their brethren will be wise above or against what is written some teach perverse things to draw disciples after them some for secular interest There was no other reason why the Popes of Rome imbraced the worship of images transubstantiation and some such doctrines but because
also many dark spots though clear as the Sun she hath her clouds and Eclipses Many will be carryed away with errour superstitions and carnal policies yea some of all sorts rulers as well as ruled learned as well as unlearned Those that have made great shew as well as the common sort be not troubled nor suspect the true doctrine and worship these things are foretold and therefore must be We are next to enquire what this departure is which is here foretold and who be guilty of it Some have understood it of the defection of the world from the Roman Empire following the conjecture of some one leader without consideration as Calvin observes And the Rhemists recede from it very unwillingly and under correction of their Superiours but the Apostles saith the day of Christ shallnot come except there come a departure first viz. a departure from Christ The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used for departure or apostasie is appropriated to signify a defection in or from religion so the same Apostle useth it but with an explication 1 Tim. 4.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some shall depart from the faith Moreover the head of this Apostasie is to sit in the Temple the Church of God v. 4. and to bring it about by delusions and lying miracles seducing those that loved not the truth that they might be saved but had pleasure in unrighteousness v. 10 11 12. It must therefore be a departure from the truth and purity of the Christian religion It is agreed betwixt Papists and Protestants that it is the apostasie under Antichrist as the chief head and leader of it which is here foretold but the question is who is this Antichrist Where and when this apostasie may be found As the Jews did generally expect the coming of Christ yet knew him not believed him not when he was among them so the Papists believe and expect that Antichrist shall come and miserably spoil the Church but cannot or will not see and own him though he is and long hath been amongst them That Nero shall rise again and be the Antichrist as he was the first persecuting Emperour I not worth the refuting The Papists generally teach that Antichrist is yet to come and shall endure but three years and a half immediately before the end of the world that he shall be a Jew of the tribe of Dan rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple abolish the Christian worship and almost the name of Christ but all this without any colouor proof except that slender one that he shall sit in the temple of God v. 4. Some few are so ingenuous as to confess that Rome is Babylon Antichrists seat but then some say the Heathen persecuting Emperours in the first three hundred years of the Church were this Manof sin Some again considering that it is an apostasie of professing Christians here spoken of conjecture that some Pope of Rome at the end of the world shall deny Christ become an Infidel and cause himself to be worshipped as God this should be this man of sin But the Text plainly speaks of a defection of Christians which was secretly working in the Apostles days only some thing hindered its prevailing and full discovery vi 6 7 8. The mystery of iniquity doth already work and it was to be a mysterious defection not an open and totall apostasie from Christ it was to be brought in by signs miracles lying wonders and all ungodly deceits for the just condemnation of them that received not the love of the truth that they might be saved though they received the profession of it v. 9. to 12. And the man of sin the Head of this apostasie was to sit or rule in the Temple of God which is his Church 1 Cor. 3.16 Therefore this apostasie was to be not total from the name and profession of Christ ad of his Church but a defection in the Church an apostasie from the purity of the Doctrine worship Discipline and practice of the Gospel such as should have so many excuses and specious pretences for it that the delusion should be strong and such as those that do not heartily love the truth should not be able to discern Whence we collect this proposition Proposition That the Church of Rome is and for a long time hath been the seat of this man of sin the mother of this apostasie or That Popery is the grand Apostasie of the Church here foretold This I shall make good first by some general reasons and then by the particular criteria or marks laid down in the text By the Church of Rome we mean all those Nations and Churches which as so many members make up that great body which they call the Roman Catholick Church whereof the Pope is the Head and the Church of the City of Rome the principal part By Popery we understand that religion viz. Doctrines worship Discipline and Government which is peculiar to them and distinct from all other Christians especially from the Protestant Churches and whereby they are knit into one body and society and live in one Communion distinct from and opposite to the Reformed Churches Now that this Church is apostatized from Christ and this religion is a Doctrine and practice of apostasie may appear in the general by comparing the true state of the Church of Christ with the state and Doctrine of the Roman Church 1. First The true Church of Christ acknowledgeth and worshippeth one only God the creator of the world and father of our Lord Jesus Christ This is the foundation of religion that there is one only infinite Being the fountain and author of all things else and therefore that all worship fear trust and obedience is due to him alone 1 Cor. 8.5 Though there be that are called Gods whether in heaven or in earth as there are Gods many and Lords many But to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in Him But the Papists do acknowledge and worship other Gods besides him even the Host or Bread in the Sacrament and the Virgin Mary The Heathens pretend to acknowledge but one supreme God but the Papists do acknowledge that which sense reason and scripture witness to be a bit of bread to be the supreme God their maker and Lord which they usually call the Host and that it is to be worshipped cultu Latriae Conc. Trid. Ses 13. Cap. 4 5. ibid. c. 6. with that worship that is due to God alone This they keep upon their Altar in a gilded Box in imitation of the Ark of old there they teach is the special presence of God as it was in the Holy of Holies This they worship and carry in triumph by this they swear viz. by the Mass and by the Pix and this is a peculiar note and badge of their communion by which they difference themselves from others and destroy all that do not acknowledge and worship this their God as far as their power