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truth_n	father_n	life_n	way_n	6,604	5	5.4332	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25568	An answer to several remarks upon Dr. Henry More, his expositions of the Apocalypse and Daniel, as also upon his Apology written by S.E. Mennonite, and published in English by the answerer ; whereunto are annexed two small pieces, Arithmetica apocalyptica, and Appendicula apocalyptica ...	S. E., Mennonite.; More, Henry, 1614-1687.	1684 (1684)	Wing A3379; ESTC R10256	245,076	439

the Lion denoted the same The swiftness of whose expeditions viz. of the King of Babylon Ieremy compares to the slight of Eagles chap. 4. and chap. 40. Wherefore these four wings of this Leopard answer exquisitely to the description of the He-Goat in the next Chapter which is the same Empire viz. the Greek Behold an He-Goat came from the West on the face of the whole Earth and touched not the ground What did he then but in a manner fly And what can better set out such a flying than wings So fitly do these two Visions explain one another as to this passage But in the mean time the Remarker professeth himself of a wonderfull indistinct conception that cannot distinguish the nature of the four wings in general from the Number of them wherein yet he contradicts himself For he will not say that the four wings as four signifie haughty aspiring but as wings Wherefore as he from the general nature of them would have signified ambitious aspiring which if they did both here and in the Lion it clashes not with the Expositor's Interpretation one Symbol being capable of several senses by an Henopoeia of the second kind so the Expositor from the said general nature of them will have them signifie swiftness which is at least the more principal sense as has been proved and will reach also the swift division of the Greek Empire into four parts Alexander living so little a while after his Conquest Vers. 9. Though it be difficult to give an account of Ezekiels Vision chap. 1. yet I think it may be safely concluded that the living Creatures and Wheels are not Angelical as is here supposed For those four living Creatures agreeing in number and name with the four Beasts Revel 4. for they are both called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the four faces of each of these living Creatures being the faces of the four Beasts it shews that as the last signifies a successive body or society of men so the other must have the like signification Which is farther confirmed by their all four having the likeness of a man and a man's hand under every wing and their having Calves feet signifying the labour and travel which is given to men under the Sun and also by the spirit that is said to be in them and in the wheels Whereas Angels are called Spirits and not described by any Spirit abiding in them 1. The four faces and the four wings of the living Creatures I take to signifie the same thing viz. The complication in humane nature of the nature of those four Animals signified by the faces that is of Reason Religion Courage and Industry Of these four does humane nature consist and subsist by them they being the life and support of humane affairs The four wings may signifie the several spirits from which these operations are produced and the man's hand under each wing the management of all these operations by reason and prudence The four Beasts all of them representing the same body or society of Christians have the same signification with the four faces and wings of each living Creature but it would not have agreed with them that each of them should have had four faces as it doth with the erect stature of the living Creatures and also it would have been needless being the same thing is signified by the four several Beasts Besides those Beasts having six wings there would have been faces wanting to two of them 2. Which two wings added to the other four I take to be the same with the two wings with which the Seraphims fly Esay 6. these six-winged Beasts being the same with those Seraphims and to signifie that grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ or that Life and Truth which he says he is and thereby the way to the Father And we being by this grace or life and truth quickened and raised unto newness of life in Christ Jesus whereby we cease to be of the World and are delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the Kingdom of our Lord and so raised up and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Ephes. 2.6 they thereby become truly wings to us in exalting us from a worldly or earthly unto such an heavenly state Ezekiel's Vision therefore of the living Creatures and Wheels I take to be a Representation of the ruling of the God of Israel over his people in a natural state under a Legal or Iudaical Dispensation as the twenty four Elders and the four Beasts represent the same rule in a Christian state under the Dispensation of the Divine life The latter of which is to be fulfilled in the Millennium but the former was never fulfilled completely because the Iews failed of living up to the height of that Dispensation 3. But this Vision of Ezekiel and his other also of the Temple seem to be designed for the like purpose as the Tree of life was planted in Paradise viz. to signifie that Dispensation of life which men in due time were to be admitted unto but not then the natural earthly state of man not admitting thereof 4. So likewise the two mentioned Visions the first of them seems to signifie the Spiritual power wherewith God would have ruled over his people and the last the Spiritual communion he would have had with them with the blessing attending the same if they had walked perfectly with him according to all his righteous judgments in that legal dispensation 5. Hence the close of the Vision of the Temple is The name of the City from that day shall be The Lord is there that is from the time they shall keep and observe all the Laws and Ordinances then delivered 6. And hence the God of Israel on sending Ezekiel to prophesie the ruine of the City and Temple and Captivity of the people does to render their iniquity more heinous shew himself to the Prophet in the glory of that government which their transgressions made them fail of or fall from to be cast off 7. Two instances of their falling from that Government are First their making the Calf whereon God who Exod. 29.45 46. had promised to dwell among them does chap. 33.2 3. say he will send his Angel before them but refuseth to go up in the midst of them lest he destroy them Secondly their desiring a King which is said to be not the rejecting of Samuel but of God to rule over them 8. The Wheels I take to be the same to the four living Creatures as the four Beasts are to the twenty four Elders viz. as the Governed to the Governours 9. And both the Wheels and living Creatures being under the Throne and not rising but as lifted up nor moving but as acted by the spirit which was in both seems to signifie the natural earthly state of those they represent whereby they were as mere passive Subjects to the actings of the Spirit of God upon them like as the Prophets were to

peace which are to flourish in his Kingdom yet this King so acknowledging him and honouring him with splendid superstitious devotions shall notwithstanding continue the same iron Kingdom as formerly though mixt with Clay in the sense mentioned Vis. 1. viz. the same Kingdom of violence and war Ans. Nothing was ever writ with more judgment elegancy and solidity in Explication of Prophecies than what that excellent Interpreter Mr. Mede has writ on this and the foregoing verse Which yet this conceited Remarker very superciliously calls a conceit and says is very remote from the intended sense of the Text when nothing is more congenerous thereto the Prophecy intending to describe the State of the Church as to Religion and Divine Worship in that space of the Time and Times and half a Time when the little Horn which is this King of Pride should rule the rost And therefore we may be sure it will not omit to perstringe the Idolatry then sprung up I mean the Pagano-christian Idolatry or an Idolatry of a new Mode For it is said of this King of Pride v. 37. That he shall not regard the God of his Fathers i. e. either none of the Pagan Gods he shall regard none of them or if you will more particularly he shall not regard that proper God of his Fathers viz. Mars whom Grotius would have understood by the red Dragon Of which Mars Romulus and Remus were born and he is the special Presidentiary God of the Roman City and Empire as Grotius himself also will have it This God of his Ancestors this King of Pride does not regard but is one who with his Hierarchy professes Celibate forbidding to marry a single life for him and his Adherents being most sutable and for their ambitious designs and preferring his own Politick ends before any God or Religion it follows v. 38. according to a true skilfull and faithfull account of the sense out of the Hebrew Together with God he will in his place or Temple where he is worshipped honour the Mahuzzim not Mars the proper God of his Ancestors but these new 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Mahuzzim may signifie from the Seventy's Translation Psal. 31.3 these new Numina defensoria of his Empire even with a God his fathers knew not which is Christ shall he honour them with gold and silver and pretious stones c. This is the onely easie and genuine sense that can be made of the 38 th verse And it being thus plain to any unprejudiced eye that these Mahuzzim are the Daemons that S. Paul speaks of 1 Tim. 4. where he tells us that the Spirit has foretold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expresly that those that forbid to marry c. will bring in the worship of Daemons which express Prediction is no-where but here and the degenerating Church looking upon the Relicks of Saints and their consecrated Images whose form of consecration does sometimes specifie their intended virtue against the Invasion of Enemies to be the Defence of the City where they are and the Saints themselves to be their Mahuzzim their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Martial and Warlike Defenders of the City where Temples or other places are consecrated to them What a groundless Cavil is this of the Remarker to except against Mr. Mede's rendring the sense of this present verse thus which is exquisitely according to the Hebrew viz. And he shall make the Holds of the Mahuzzim jointly to the foreign God understanding it of Churches and Monasteries For the Mahuzzim being once such Warlike Defenders expressed so under that Notion and their help being supposed to come from the places consecrated to them what an easie and obvious Analogy is it to call those consecrated places strong Holds or Forts a And the Prediction is not of what they would be in Reality but what they would be thought and reputed Which therefore is a foretelling of those delusions in the Church under the reign of the King of Pride That the people should put their trust and confidence in such vanities b What the Remarker would substitute in lieu of this excellent account of Mr. Mede is very frigid and jejune it giving notice of nothing but that the King of Pride will be for war as well as other Potentates and so making him to honour the God of forces he makes him still a worshipper of Mars the God of his Ancestours contrary to the Text. Besides there is this other Incongruity in this conceit in that this Prince of Pride is not a Sword-man but Rex sacrorum and his power lyes merely in a manner not in Martial forces and feats of Arms but rather in Magical Incantations and lying Miracles and prestigious charming of people into such superstitions as make most for his own advantage and such whereby he has an hank upon the Empire and deludes them with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness c And as for the Antithesis in professing Christ who is the Prince of Peace and yet to be given to War Is not the Antithesis at least as full when Christ came to introduce a pure divine Worship to Worship the Father in spirit and in truth that this King of Pride has filled all with superstitious Rites and Idolatries towards the Mahuzzim the Daemons or deceased Saints And lastly there is another a more near proper and immediate Antistoechy or Opposition betwixt the Genius of this King of Pride and his Ancestours in Mr. Mede's way they worshipping the God Mars in a gross Pagan secular sense he the Mahuzzim which are as it were so many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Paganochristian Mavortes in a sense more Spiritual and Ecclesiastical To all which you may add That Grammar and Criticism will not so easily comply with the Remarker's way But I have been too long on this Remark already Vers. 44. Thy tydings out of the North is surely more likely to be meant of the Germans Poles Muscovites c. than of the Tartars both because they are directly North of the Turks whenas the Tartars are as much East as North of them and also because the End here foretold against the Turks is more likely to be executed by the Christians than by those of the same Religion with the Turks especially whenas it is sent upon them in reference to the advancement of Christianity which is the occasion of its here being foretold Ans. That the tydings out of the North is surely more likely to be meant of the Germans Poles Muscovites c. than of the Tartars is spoke with more confidence than sound assurance of Reason For the Tartars being North-East of the Turks but much more properly North than the Persians it is easie and natural to conceive that the tydings out of the East being out of Persia that the News of the Stirs in Tartary would be called the Tydings out of the North the Tartars being a people so hugely more North than the Persians Any one that but casts his eye on a Map

〈◊〉 the prophetical Scriptures written before Daniel received this Prophecy Whenas there is not one Interpreter that I could ever lay my hands on or find mentioned by any but they understand thereby onely what is decreed and recorded in the Divine Mind The standing Intellect of God in which are described all the Laws and Decrees of his Providence is that Writing or Book of God which is so often mentioned in the Bible As Exod. 32. Blot me out of thy Book and Psal. 56. Are not these things noted in thy Book And Psal. 139. And in thy book were all my members written And that Book represented to Iohn sealed and unsealed is but a Symbol of this Book or Writing as I may so speak And this Scripture of Truth in Daniel in all likelihood is the first ground of that Apocalyptick sealed and unsealed Book If by the Scripture of Truth had been understood the various Prophecies of the precedent Prophets it would have been said the Scriptures not the Scripture of Truth Besides it will be hard to find all the things of this Prophecy any how written in the foregoing Prophets But it is not worth the while to confute so groundless a Paradox which is indeed an unaccountable Essay of a distorted fancy But to make the Scripture of Truth to signifie a declaration of the Divine counsel and purpose in a plain way without Enigmes is no distortion at all of the sense of the words But is most easie and natural as to one part there being not one Interpreter but who has hit of it or approved it that Scripture here signifies the Decree or Counsel of God And that Truth in the style of Daniel signifies plainness in opposition to Aenigmaticalness has been proved over and over again and that it does particularly signifie so here appears from chap. 11. vers 2. And now will I shew thee the truth As if none of Daniel's Visions were true till now But the apparent sense is Now will I communicate a plain Prophecy to thee without any Aenigmatical Figures or Involutions Which therefore shews that the Scripture of Truth is particularly restrained to this Prophecy here and not understood of the Writings of the precedent Prophets at large who abound with Enigmes or Parables If the Angel in saying Now will I shew thee what is written in the Scripture of Truth meant onely I will shew thee what already is shewn in the Writings of the Prophets it were a very sorry way of exciting attention in Daniel who might have said to the Angel It were a needless thing to give himself that trouble if what he would predict was already predicted in the Prophetick Writings So extravagant is the Remarker in this Remark Vision 6. Vers. 22. I Take this Verse to be a general account of what is more particularly related in the following verses and the Covenant the same with what is after called the holy Covenant and the Prince of it the same with the Prince of the Host against whom Antiochus Epiphanes is said to magnifie himself Vis. 3. whenas Demetrius can very badly by reason of his right onely be said to be Prince of Antiochus and his confederate forces whenas at the same time he is described to be really King acting in his own behalf Ans. The Indistinctness of the Remarker's fancy would crumple up things together which Grotius by virtue of his skill in History has explicated more articulately And nothing is alledged against him of any value For Demetrius being really by right though absent the Sovereign of his Uncle Antiochus and of Attalus and Eumenes waging war against Heliodorus though in behalf of their Sovereign King Demetrius onely in shew Demetrius may very well justly and properly be called the Prince of these confederates against his open enemy Heliodorus Their being perfidious to him did not extinguish his real Right and Relation of being their King Nor was Antiochus yet declared or acknowledged King The Remarker should have proved that Vers. 27. These two Kings meditating mischief in their hearts seems to be against the Iews and not against one another for that would not be so agreeable with their meeting then in a friendly way and the words do import some mischief which they concurred in and not mischiefs projected against one another And the lyes they speak may then signifie what they say of the Iews by way of instigating one another against them This sense will better than the other agree with the scope of the Vision viz. to foretell what will befall the people of God and also with the following words But it shall not prosper for yet the end shall be at the time appointed that is Notwithstanding such meditating the Iews Ruine yet the end of their state shall not be till the time appointed The same words to the same sense are v. 35. Ans. These two Kings meditating mischief one against another when they pretend mutual friendship though it be not agreeable to the Laws of friendship yet it is to the nature and custome of Politick Potentates and the Prophecy predicts not what ought to be but what would be And the one being so ambitious and covetous the other so deeply injured there was no likelihood that there was any real friendship betwixt them but that all their caressing and complementing one another were imposture and lyes as they are called in the Prophecy And the scope of the Prophecy is sufficiently pursued without distorting this place from this natural sense Grotius and others have given it For the feats of Antiochus against the Iews are fully declared afterwards And for the following words But it shall not prosper c. The sense the Expositor has given agrees very well with this Hypothesis of Grotius And besides what mischief the King of the North meditated against the King of the South did not prosper as appears from v. 29 30. But there is no mention of any Essay from the King of the South against the people of God which farther shews the Ineptness of the Remarker's conceit which he would substitute in the room of Grotius his judicious Interpretation See also what the Expositor has writ v. 35. on those words Because it is yet for a time appointed comparing them with what he has wrote on the same words v. 27. Vers. 39. The conceit of making Churches and Monasteries to be called strong Holds seems very remote from the intended sense of the Text. a For they were no such Holds at all farther than the crafty Impostures of Priests did for their gain delude the people with a belief of their being so And it was in a spiritual sense they were pretended to be such which does not agree with the words in this and the precedent verse they bearing a Martial sense b I take them therefore to be spoken in way of c Antithesis on mentioning this strange God whom this King should acknowledge viz. That though the Laws of this strange God teach righteousness and

person that has more resemblance to the Prophet Daniel as pretending himself also to be a Prophet though characterized in the Apocalypse to be a false one is most absurd and ridiculous But it is too long to insist on these things And therefore Tenthly What the Remarker says That this perfect Tyrian state proceeding not from the Spirit of Holiness proved corruptible this I suppose he collects from v. 15. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day thou wast created till Iniquity was found in thee But if this be all that is meant by this Vision that humane Polities be they never so well ordered at first if there be no more than what is humane will in process of time corrupt besides that it is so obvious and trivial a Notion it is not the Object of Prophecy Wherefore for the Prophet to make such a stir about so small a business is a supposition incredible And therefore this perfect state that is to say this upright and honest state as well as beautifull and glorious of the Prince of Tyre is a real prediction of the state of the Primitive Bishops of Rome especially even till the Apostasie came in And the words of this 15 th verse sound so high that S. Austin Gregory and other Theologers conceive they relate to Lucifer who was created perfect but fell through his own Pride These rich and glorious descriptions therefore taken from the most holy things of the Temple respect the Bishops of Rome especially and their Hierarchy before the Time of the Apostasie till Iniquity was found in them Nothing but wilfull blindness or a skew conceit against Episcopacy as if the Remarker were a Presbyterian which yet I do not believe can hinder a man from seeing so clear a Truth Eleventhly As for the Moral Cabbala on the three first Chapters of Genesis it is a natural and coherent Application of the most sapid and weighty parts of a Divine Morality And let him take heed that he is not guilty in an high degree of an Insensibility of such things that will adventure to call that Cabbala a Romance But this was pluck't in by the head and shoulders by the Remarker and haply might as well have been omitted as answered by the Answerer Twelfthly It is extreme precariously affirmed by the Remarker That the Perfections and Imperfections of a Civil state may not Typifie the Perfections and Imperfections of a state Ecclesiastical and especially as to some particular point As this Vision of the Prince of Tyre is taken notice of in Synopsis Prophetica for a Prediction of Ecclesiastical Nundinations Wherefore this Tyrian Polity they being a Polity of Merchants and being for a time honest and upright and not adulterating their Wares nor using any fraud or couzenage may be a Type of the Primitive unapostatized State of the Church while her Merchandize was pure and uncorrupt For there is a spiritual as well as a secular Merchandize as appears by that of Solomon Prov. 3.14 For the Merchandize of wisedom is better than the Merchandize of silver c. And the salutiferous Wisedom of the Gospel better than all other Wisedoms And our Saviour Christ says The Kingdom of God is like a Merchant-man seeking goodly Pearls Mat. 13. And the goodly Pearl indeed that exceeds all other Pearls is pure Evangelical Truth unsophisticate with any noxious errour This was the Merchandize of the Primitive Church and of the Bishop of Rome while he continued perfect in his ways from the day God created him that is constituted him Bishop of Rome till Iniquity was found in him Till he defiled his Sanctuaries by the multitude of his Iniquities by the Iniquity of his Trafick bringing in many Institutes and Doctrines Antichristian and repugnant to the pure Evangelical Truth of Christ and all this for filthy lucre and worldly Interest What an easie Type is Tyre here though a Civil State of a State Ecclesiastick But I am even weary of making out such plain things What follows is refuted already by this and by my fourth Answer And I have been too long already It is sufficiently clear out of what has been said that Ezekiel's Prophecy of Tyre is a Type of Antichrist and consequently does give countenance to the applying the words Glorious holy Mountain to Antichrist himself or his seat as well as the most holy things in the Temple or relating to Aaron are applied in Ezekiel to the Prince of Tyre Antichrist his Type As for that passage of the Remarker's rare wit in the close of all I onely answer this thereto That the Expositor takes no pleasure in breaking any ones Head of what quality soever nor has any such intention any where or of administring any palliating Plasters But if he had any Sovereign Cephalick or Medicated Cap that would corroborate and cleanse the Brain and clear the Judgment I do not doubt but he wishes so well to the Remarker that he would bestow it on him whereby he might be the better inabled to discern the solidity and congruity of other mens conceptions and the Absurdities and Incongruities of his own If he had in his understanding the last verse Yet he shall come to his end c. of the destruction of the Turk conjoined it with his pitching the Tabernacles of his Palace on Mount Sion and Mount Moriah in expectation of the Kings of the East the return of the Israelites to their own Land as Mr. Mede seems to intimate there had been better sense in it but to join the destruction of the Turk with his pitching the Tabernacles of his Palace in New Rome or Constantinople is very absonous and ridiculous But whether Mr. Mede's way or the Expositor's way be the better Time onely will certainly discover Vision 6. continued in Chap. 12. Vers. 1. AND there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a Nation c. answers not to the great Earthquake under the seventh Vial but proceeds from the great commotion that will be by reason of the gathering of the great Armies of the Christian and Antichristian Party to the great decisive battel of that great day of God Almighty And that Earthquake signifies the great Astonishment the victory then will cause and the great Revolution which will ensue thereon Which sense is confirmed by the following words And at that time shall thy people be delivered viz. That deliverance will be the fruit and product of those troubles and it will be by the utter vanquishing of the Antichristian Party in the abovesaid battel Ans. The time of trouble and the time of the great Earthquake are assuredly the same viz. the Time of War and destruction which Earthquakes signifie in the Prophetick style and according to Artemidorus and Achmetes Wherefore the Earthquake cannot be after the Victory or signifie any Revolution then but signifies the battel it self and the destruction thereby But afterwards comes settlement contrary to an Earthquake namely the Descent of the