Vineyard under pretence that men giving up their will and understanding to the supreme Power Government might be the more secure And all that wondred after the Beast gave up their Vineyards into the hand of the secular Power and professed no otherwise then according to the faith of the Empire and so had their Vineyards sown with divers seeds nay indeed with what was repugnant to the Apostolick Plantation Their minds were filled with gross lies foul-Idolatries of all sorts and murderous enmities against the true Children of God 12. But as for the Vineyard of Naboth that is the Vineyard of the true Prophets or Prophetesses as the word Naboth seems to intimate they were not given up that is those that were not Christians for fashion-sake and believed new invented lies and Apostolick truth alike but with a true and living faith acknowledged Jesus to be the Christ these would rather lose their lives then quit their Vineyards that yielded them that noble Wine that perpetual feast of a good Conscience and of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Whence it was that this Whore and Sorceresse Jezebel contrived their death or persecution and oppression as the two Prophets are said to both mourn in sackcloath and also to be slain The Vineyard therefore of Naboth is that sense and knowledge and conscience and life of the Spirit in the new birth whereby a man discerning plainly livingly betwixt the wayes of Christ and of Antichrist does as necessarily loath the one as adhere to the other 13. For the true and firm belief in Christ is from the new birth as S. John also witnesses Every one that believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God And therefore this Spirit of life must needs have an Antipathy against what is contrary to it self And is also the Spirit of Prophecy in the most concerning sense As John likewise intimates in his general Epistle where upon his mentioning many false Prophets gone out into the World he presently adds In this ye know the Spirit of God Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh is of God Which agrees exactly with that in the Apocalypse where the Angel says to John I am thy fellow-servant and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus that is to say of such as whose hearts do witnesse to them firmly and lively that Jesus is the Christ and accordingly professe it which none can do unlesse he be born of God and so have the Spirit of God Which is implyed in the following words For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of Prophecy that is to say the being able in such sort to witnesse that Jesus is the Christ is from the spirit and life of God in us which inspireth all holy truth From whence the Angel argues a kind of Parity betwixt John and himself and indeed all such as have the testimony of Jesus according to the sense declared and therefore would not be worshipped by them 14. But this is something a Digression saving that it may illustrate that passage in the Apocalypse where the two Witnesses are also called the two Prophets not so much from predicting things to come as from witnessing to the Truth from the spirit of life in the new birth and being so firm in this faith as to suffer for it even to the death and may also facilitate the belief of this Mystical sense of the story of Naboths Vineyard or this Vineyard of Prophecy it not implying any miraculous predictions but the being inspired with a right Sentiment of things from the Spirit of Life and having the confidence to speak the truth as it is in Jesus This is all that need to be understood thereby 15. To teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto Idols This Woman of Thyatira whether the wife of the Bishop of Thyatira or some other Person of quality for Interpreters of the letter vary in that according to the Literal sense is described from her acts as onely guilty of pretending her self to be a Prophetesse and that thereby she seduced the servants of Christ to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed to Idols which is a chief point of that which was called Gnosticisme And the truth of the supposed History here we do in no wise deny But we also adde that it is hugely improbable that the spirit of Prophecy would take notice so particularly of any one Woman in so majestick a Writing which Alcazar also very seriously and vehemently urges if there were not some greater matter aimed at Wherefore I say the Spirit of God taking the advantage of the significancy of the miscarriages of this Woman in Thyatira which would set out part of the enormities of the Church of Rome here perstringed added there to the name of Jezebel that the Prophetick Prefiguration might be the more complete the Church of Rome in this Intervall being lively adumbrated by this Allusion to Jezebel joyned to what is reported of this woman in Thyatira viz. That she pretends to be a Prophetess as the Church of Rome to be infallible that she drew the servants of Christ to Idolatry and uncleannesse as the Church of Rome does by engaging them in the Masse and other superficial modes of serving God that leave the minde sensual and besides necessarily intangle them in Idolatrous practices Thus much from the practice of this Woman 16. Now in that she has this name given her of Jezebel assuredly the spirit of God points us to her story to make up this Parallel betwixt this woman Rome viz. as she is also a murderer of the Prophets and servants of God and a contriver of false Accusations against them as if by the keeping of the Inheritance of their Fathers a pure conscience according to the ancient and Apostolick faith and innate notions of Truth that God has implanted in the minds of all men they were blasphemers of God and the King and obnoxious to both the Civil and Spiritual Magistrate And lastly which is to be taken special notice of the Church of Rome in this Intervall of the Succession of the Church of Christ is called Jezebel because for all her paintings and fine meretricious pranking her self up she was to be thrown out at the window and her flesh to be devoured by dogs which the just wrath of God and the zeal of Jehu the noble Reformers stirred up by the Spirit of God brought to passe at the end of this Intervall of the Church as it is threatned also in the following parts of this Epistle 17. And I gave her space to repent her of her fornication and she repented not She had a fair time to consider of her grosse Apostasies from the purity of my worship since the witnesse of the Waldenses and Albigenses against her and yet she remains still obdurate and impenitent and continues her old
prejudice to thy judgement touching the Interpretation of Antipas and its signifying as much as one against the Pope because that learned and reverend Expositour Dr. Hammond has styled it a wanton and vain phancy in Mr. Brightman who presumed so to interpret it thou art to consider that this Censure of that Passage was not so much built upon any weakness in the Passage it self as that it was found in a farrago of Conceits that were not so well managed as to support and countenance one another And therefore for the general Mr. Brightman's Exposition of these Seven Epistles being not so convictive that judicious Doctour was the more bold to speak so slightly of this passage thereof Which if it had been accompanied with other parts of his Exposition of these Epistles that had had the like unexceptionablenesse it would never have been found fault with by so judicious a Writer as indeed there is no reason it should For no name can be so fit and significant for this purpose as this of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie one and the same thing as Eustathius and others from him usually do affirm And it is most certainly true that they are both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Hesychius speaks And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have exquisitely the same signification But to have found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this supposed Prophecy had been quite against the laws of the Apocalyptick style that is as regardfull of due Concealment as of certainty of Revealment So that so plain a Passage would have stood out very coursly and harshly above the rest of that smooth and delicate Contexture of these Visions and occasioned a too-early intelligence of the meaning of these Prophecies Besides that Antipapas is no proper name of any man and that the very literal Story requires it should be Antipas Wherefore the Indication both for sense and for sound in this word Antipas is as exquisite as considering the nature of the Apocalyptick style it either could or ought to have been So that he that would cavill at this interpretation must of necessity deny the Hypothesis and say there is no Propheticall sense at all of these Seven Epistles 9. Nor needest thou scruple at my applying that Passage of the Martyr Antipas to the Albigenses and Waldenses that were slain in the field as if they were not rightly termed Martyrs For he that can save his Life by renouncing the Truth and yet parts with it though it be in the field is rightly deemed a Martyr Which was the case of these men And that is remarkable for this purpose which Mr. Mede takes notice of That when Simon Earl of Monfort had routed them and made a great slaughter of them and that the Bishop of Tolouse there present took thereupon the opportunity of exhorting them to return to the Roman Church they seeing so plainly that the wrath of God was kindled against them for their Separation from the Church they answered in plain terms that they were the people of God overcome by the Beast Apoc. 13. 7. and knowing this to be their fate yet would not flinch from the Truth and therefore the Army returning upon them they had all their throats cut in the field Whence it is manifest that they were Martyrs properly so called according to our Definition thereof As there were also severall Antipas's in this Intervall that suffered Martyrdome in that way that thou canst not except against that is to say such as were merely passive and made no resistence Some of them are named by Mr. Brightman who if he had done as well on the other five Churches as he has on this of Pergamus and that of Thyatira his Exposition of the Seven Churches had been considerable 10. And lastly to arm thee against the authority of the above-named Venerable person touching the reason of the name of Thyatira as if it were as much as Thygatira a young Daughter for which he perstringes Mr. Brightman condemning the Conceit for a mere groundless Phancy I say it is not evident that he so much reprehends him for the Notation of the word as for the application of it to such a sense as he there expresses which is much different from that sense we have proposed and far more dilute But as for my self I must confesse I could not but conceit that the Notation of the word Thyatira was alluded to after I had read that Passage in Cornelius à Lapide on the Text which for thy fuller satisfaction I shall transcribe Verùm Strabo lib. 13. Plinius lib. 5. cap. 9. alii passim tradunt eam that is the City Thyatira primitùs nuncupatam à Seleuco filio Nicanoris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ob laetum nuncium natae sibi filiae unde nomen Thyatirae Thyatira ergò Graecè significat filiam quod aptè competit Jezebeli illici quae hîc arguitur This of Cornelius made me secure of the Authentickness of this Notation he so precisely qùoting Strabo and Pliny for the same And therefore I could not but persuade my self that the Church of Rome was here called Thyatira with some Allusion to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Had it not been for this I should have contented my self with the Allusion to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 onely But these Authorities made me search into the State of the Church of Rome in this Intervall and I found many things abundantly answerable to the Title in the sense of this Notation Amongst which if thou chance to think my Reflexion upon the multitude of Monks or Friers in those days to bear the least strength with it consider but what Polydore Virgil writes of that one Order of Franciscans who as some others were the peculiarly-devoted to the blessed Virgin Totum terrarum orbem saith he una haec implevit Familia ut vulgus jam tum stupefactum suspicaretur non tam Pietatem quà m Otium Ignaviam interdum multis cordi esse And to have such swarms of men that had renounced their Virility and led an idle life and went gadding and gossipping up and down telling odd Stories to the people as old Wives and Nurses do to Children having most of them Chins as smooth as Womens and their Faces mob'd in Hoods and long Coats like Petticoats as if they had a greater ambition to appear the Pedissequae or Handmaids of the Virgin Mary whom the Doctours of that Church love to call the Daughter of God then the Men-servants and Souldiers of Jesus Christ who in this Epistle to the Church in Thyatira on purpose one would think to reproach the Roman Church for this Idolatrous Corrivalry or rather Prelation of the Virgin in religious Worship before Christ expresly calls himself the Son of God This I say must assuredly be a consider
and Finisher of our Faith and Salvation Nay the Creation or Generation of our life and flesh as well as our Salvation is here ascribed to the Virgin Which can have no sense or truth unless she were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God-woman in that sense that Christ is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God-man and as I said were as properly the Daughter of God as he is the Son of God 5. As she is expresly called in her Litanie Filia Dei the Daughter of God Which considering what high Titles they give her both in that Litanie and elsewhere as Illuminatrix cordium Fons misericordiae Flumen sapientiae Mater Dei Regina coeli Domina mundi Domina coeli terrae would be but a dwindling Title it belonging to all women that are believers if there was not some such raised and sublime sense of it as I have intimated And therefore their Addresses to her being as if she were as I said a She-Christ and the Daughter of God in as high a sense at least as Christ is the Son of God and she being called the Daughter of God in the Litania Mariae in her Litanie or publick Supplication to her it is plain that in that Intervall of the Church wherein this most conspicuously and notoriously happened the Church of Rome by reason also of the abundance of their Devotions then to the Virgin might be said to be rather the Worshippers of the Daughter of God then of the Son of God And that therefore the Spirit of Prophecy foreseeing these times whenas for such a space he called Rome Pergamus this succeeding Scene coming on he might very well change the title of Pergamus into that of Thyatira with a derisorious Allusion to the occasion of the name of that City from the news of a Daughter being born to Nicanor As if God Almighty had the like occasion of changing the name of Pergamus into Thyatira from the Romanists turning the Virgin Mary into the Daughter of God 6. For a stop to which Insolency Christ seems on purpose in the Epistle to the Church in Thyatira to resume to himself the Title of the Son of God notwithstanding that he is called the Son of man in the Vision in the foregoing Chapter out of which he ever draws a description of himself for an Entrance before each Epistle to the Churches Which in my judgement is a thing specially well worth the marking and that this making the Virgin Mary the Daughter of God in this Intervall might alone be a sufficient occasion of changing the name of the Church of Rome from Pergamus to Thyatira But other things that are apposite are also comprehended by a Propheticall Henopoeïa 7. But this is an Overplus to our present purpose which was mainly to discover the grosse Idolatry of the Church of Rome in the Invocation of their Saints and especially of the Virgin Mary and how both the Definition of the Council of Trent is Idolatrous in this Point and much more the Practice of the Church countenanced by publick Authority 8. For this Mary-Psalter it self that has the most enormous and blasphemous Forms of Idolatrous Invocation of any is not the private Contrivance of some single obscure superstitious Monk but bears the Title of that Seraphick Doctour S. Bonaventure once Cardinal of Rome Which is no small publick countenance thereto And that nothing might be wanting to the grace and furtherance of so devotionall a piece of Idolatry there was instituted a peculiar Society entitled the Fraternity of the Many-Psalter confirmed afterward by Sixtus the fourth many Indulgences being added Anno 1470. And Innocent the eighth added to these Indulgences plenarie Remission à poena culpa once in their life and once in articulo mortis to as many as entred into that Fraternity 9. And in such case stands the Church of Rome at this very day that is to say she is still Thyatira notorious for her Idolatrous Worship of the Virgin Mary But the Intervall of the true Church in Thyatira ceased upon the Reformation when we cast off the Pope or suffered Jezebel to delude the Servants of God no longer nor to debauch them with Idolatrous Modes of Worship But this is onely by the bye In the mean time it is abundantly manifest that the Invocation of Saints in the Roman Church is not onely the praying to them that they would pray to God for us but the asking Aids of them and such frequently as are in the power of none but of God and of Christ as he is God for to give and therefore is still the grosser Idolatry CHAP. VII That the Doctrine of the Council of Trent touching the Worshipping of Images is Idolatrous and the Reason of the Doctrine weak and unsound 1. AND thus much for their Idolatry in the Invocation of Saints Let us now consider what the sense of the Council of Trent is touching the worshipping of Images Imagines porrò Christi Deiparae Virginis aliorum Sanctorum in templis praesertim habendas retinendas esse eisque debitum honorem reverentiam impertiendam Quoniam honos qui eis exhibetur refertur ad Prototypa quae illae repraesentant ità ut per Imagines quas osculamur coram quibus caput aperimus procumbimus Christum adoremus Sanctos quorum illae similitudinem gerunt veneremur Id quod Conciliorum praesertim verò secundae Nicaenae Synodi Decretis contra Imaginum oppugnatores est sancitum The meaning of which in brief is this That the Images of Christ of the blessed Virgin and other Saints are to be had and retain'd in Churches and that due honour and reverence is to be done to them For which are produced two Reasons The first In that the Honour that is done to the Images is referred to the Prototypes The second In that this Injunction is but what the second Nicene Council had of old decreed 2. To which I answer That thus much as the Council of Trent has declared touching Images is plain and open Idolatry by the seventh Conclusion of the first Chapter and expresly against the Commandment of God who forbids us to make any graven Image to bow down to or worship But the Council of Trent says Yes ye may make graven Images of the Saints and set them up in their Temples and give them their due Honour and Worship nay ye ought to doe so and instances in the very act of Bowing or Kneeling and prostrating our selves before them This Definition of the Council is so palpably against the Commandment of God that they are fain to leave the second Commandment out of the Decalogue that the people may not discern how grosly they goe against the express Precepts of God in their so frequent practices of Idolatry See the first ninth and tenth Conclusions of the first Chapter as also the third fourth fifth eighteenth nineteenth and twentieth of the second 3. Nor can all their