them from any material blemishes as being so exceeding necessary for the continuance of those Truths that were published by such men as accordingly as I have already intimated were Divinely and Infallibly inspired And that there were such Writings sufficient for the conveyance of the knowledge of Christ written by them that were infallible Witnesses of the Truth and that we may be assured that those which commonly bear the Title of them are they I have without any recourse to the Infallibility of the Church so plainly demonstrated in my Explanation of the Book 7. chap. 10 11. Mystery of Godliness that I think it needless to say any thing further of it in this place 2. In the second place they will pretend That the Church must be Infallible or else there will want an Infallible Judge of Controversies nay there will not be so much as any Authority in the Church to order the affairs thereof But the Answer is easie and brief That there is no want of any such Infallible Judge and therefore not of the Churche's Infallibility for the Scripture is a Sufficient Rule of Faith to all that have understanding whether Learned or unlearned in things necessary to Salvation and That the belief and practice of these will carry a man to Heaven The Spirit of God therefore is the onely Infallible Judge here and has declared as plainly as any successive Judges can in those things that are necessary to Life and Salvation what is to be believed and to be done Which if we believe and practise in particular and do also in general and implicitly believe and stand in a readiness to obey the rest of the Scripture when the sense thereof appears to us we are in a safe condition and need not doubt but it will go well with us in the other State For it is manifest that what is necessary is plain in the Word of God to all men otherwise Salvation were not sufficiently revealed to the world and what we above recited out of St. Paul were not true nor the Providence of God sufficiently watchful in the laying the first Foundations of his Church 3. For if the Scripture were not a Sufficient Infallible evidence of all necessary Truths God would have afterwards raised other persons of Apostolical purity in conversation and with the like power of working Miracles to have made a Supplement to the former which yet was never done or else those other necessary Truths taught indeed by the first Apostles but not written by them had been committed to Tradition which had been a very lubricous and perillous way and unlikely to be taken by Divine Providence But if any such way had been taken certainly the Scripture it self in which all men are agreed would have pointed it out to us as also if there had been any Interpreter instituted that there might be infallibly communicated to us what remains necessary to our eternal safety But the Scripture being silent herein it openly declares it self to be Sufficient to all such as with sincerity and care apply themselves to the understanding of it as certainly every man considering that his eternal Salvation lies upon it will be enforced to doe in his own behalf whenas if others interpret for him they may doe it more remissly or more fraudulently 4. Besides that it is a very unskilfull and inept desire that there should be any such Infallible Judge that has concluded all Controversies to our hands already For that would prevent or forestall that privacy and peculiarity of converse which God has with those Souls that are more dear to him who does in a special manner assure them of such Conclusions as are not to be reached at by every hand But when the Infallible Determination of the Church has passed all mens assurances will be alike and God will have as it were given the staff out of his own hands Wherefore there being no external Infallible Judge for the Interpreting obscure places in Scripture God's right of his dispensing his special favours is preserved and men of a more devout and Intellectual spirit are divinely employed and earnestly engaged to extraordinary piety and holiness that they may win the favour of that inward Infallible Interpreter even of that Holy Spirit which the World cannot receive and by the light of his assistence be inabled to reach the true sense of those Writings which himself dictated to the Apostles and other Holy men of God 5. And lastly That the want of Infallibility will take away the Authority of the Church is a very weak Inference For her Authority is entire in the urging those Truths and Duties in Scripture that are plain to all men even to such as do not in the least dream that they are Infallible And those that are thus plain are such as are the most useful for our safe conduct to Heaven And for those Doctrines that be more obscure if they be withall useful and edifying as also Rites and Ceremonies the Church has Authority though she be not Infallible to declare them and appoint them Let all things be done decently and in order But how she is to behave her self to Dissenters having spoke of that more copiously elsewhere 2 Cor. 14. 40. I shall not here so much as touch upon it I will onely adde That in things that are really disputable I conceive it is the duty of every one whatever his private judgment and inclinations otherwise would be to compromise with the Authority of the Church and for Peace and Order sake to be concluded by their Determinations 6. Now what has been already suggested will serve to null or enervate a third Sophism For it seems a plausible Objection against the Scripture alone being sufficient to guide us and rule us without a publick Infallible Interpreter That this were as if one should contend that the Law alone in Civil matters were sufficient without a publick Judge For besides what we above insinuated That a plain Law and such we averre the Scripture to be in matters necessary to Salvation may want no Judge where the Conscience finds it self upon pain of Damnation obliged to understand it aright we further suggest That the urging or pressing of the Law of Christ by a publick Minister Interpreter or Declarer of the sentence of his Law so far as it is plainly his to all unprejudiced Understandings as well unlearned as learned is not denied by those that contend that the Scripture is the sole Rule of Faith And for my own part as I said before in places that are not thus plain if such Interpretations be made as are not repugnant to other plain Texts of Scripture but tend to the promotion of the Ends of the Gospel which I have elsewhere specified I hope no man shall offend God but doe his dutie to the Church in compromising with them in their sentiments of things in such circumstances as these For they are supposed conscienciously and in the Fear of
worldly impurities 3. It is nobly concluded of Caelius Secundus Curio against Floribellus Neque enim vera Dei cognitio verúsque cultus unius aut Familiae aut Gentis aut Sectae propria esse potest sed quicunque sensu immortalitatis tanguntur ii ad se eandem pertinere existimare debent Poterat quidem Judaeorum Gens Circumcisionem externam Aaronis Familia Sacerdotium alias item Ceremonias sibi jure quodam vendicare sed divinam internam Circumcisionem vivas illas animi verásque Hostias aeternas Naturae leges quas in hominum animis Jova Opt. Max. à principio insculpserat omnium mortalium sententiis comprobatas sibi nec Judaei nec Graeci nec Romani nec ulla praeterea Natio quasi propria vendicare potuerunt And immediately after speaking more particularly of Christian Religion as it is revealed in the Scripture Ac nè illud quidem verè dici potest quod quidam putant summam Religionis quasi Haereditariam ad unum aliquem venisse sic ut pro libidine sua interpretari addere demere mutare statuere abrogare aliquid in ea possit Neque enim idcirco Leges divinitus latae sunt Religióve patefacta quò in eam mortales jus haberent sedut omni studio curâ labore diligentiâ colerent ejúsque dignitatem tuerentur 4. Wherefore as concerning those Eternal and Immutable Rules of Divine Reason which God has engraven upon every mans Spirit and come in as freely as the Light of the Sun into their natural eyes and without which what-ever Prophecies there are or Instructions in the Holy Writ it were impossible for us to be ascertained of the Truth of them or indeed of any meaning in them I say upon pretence of an imperious Infallibility to deface these Divine Characters of the Soul or to command them silence or to give them the Lie would be an act of the most notorious False-prophet and most contradictious to the Prophetick Office of Christ whether you respect his Humanity or Divinity that can ever manifest himself in the world 5. As for example If this impudent Oracle should declare That one and the same individual Body can be in several places at one and the same moment of time yea in infinite places in a manner and at vast distances at once That that may be made or created which is already in being That the real and sensible mode of a Subject may subsist separate from that Subject as suppose Motion or Hardness where there is nothing moved or hard That what we have assurance of by all our Senses and by the Senses of all men constantly the Object being at a due distance and the Medium fitted and the Organs rightly disposed may notwithstanding all this be false That the same Body at the same time may be bigger and lesser then it self but an inch distant from me and a thousand miles distant from me at once That one and the same person may be many thousand miles absent from himself and that he may both sit still and make a journey to himself at the same time That an entire organized Body may be wholly in every part thereof all of it in the Eye and consequently every part in every part the comely parts in those on which Nature has bestowed less comeliness That an entire Body may be divided and yet not into two parts suppose but into two wholes and both the same with the divided Entire body That the same Body may be now at Athens and after at Thebes and yet not pass any medium direct or circuitous to come thither That a man may swallow every atom of his own body at once into his belly limbs back belly head and mouth and all That one and the same individual person may be of different ages at once above thirty years old and yet not above three hours old at the same time That Religious Worship even that which is Latria may be given to Images and yet without Idolatry That Christ may satisfie for the faults of men and yet they remain obnoxious to the penalties due for those faults with several others of that kind I say whosoever upon pretence of being Prophet-general to the world should lift up his head on high and utter such Infallible Contradictions as these in the name of the Lord of Hosts or such oracular Definitions as must be false unless these be true we need not spend time in asking him Art thou he or do we look for another but may assuredly conclude that he is that expected eminent False-prophet who does Antichristianly oppose himself against the Spirit of Truth which Christ has imparted to the world partly by writing those immutable and infallible Rules of common Reason in the Souls of men and partly by those Holy Writings which he has left to his Church recorded by inspired men and Prophets and lastly by a special converse with more holy and sanctified Souls to whom he does in a more certain and assured way then ordinary impart his Spirit of Illumination as appears out of what we have cited out of the Book of Wisedom and might be proved out of sundry other places of the Canonical Scripture 6. And now whereas such a False-prophet as this has nothing to defend himself from the suspicion of being an Impostor but the peremptory and impudent bearing men down that he is Infallible it is but seasonable to appeal here to the world Whether it be not infinitely more likely that this one man or company of men or succession of either doing no real Miracles to extort belief nor living better nor so well as other men should be fallible and subject to error or given to deceit then that the above-cited absurd Conclusions should be true For neither he nor they can be Infallible if these be real Falsities as undoubtedly they are 7. Adde unto all this That if this Pseudo-prophetick Power should serve the true Prophets of Christ and faithful Witnesses as the false Prophet did Micaiah strike them on the cheeks nay cruelly persecute them and kill them dealing so with them as the Jews did of old with our dear Lord and Master who complained But now you seek to kill me a man that has Joh. 8. 40. told you the Truth which I have heard of God would they not prove themselves to be that Jerusalem that has become an Harlot and of whom our Saviour has predicted That it cannot be that a Prophet perish out of Luk. 13 33. Jerusalem she must be the Executioner O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee art not thou that mystical City of Hypocrites the false House of God Sodom and Aegypt where our Lord also was crucified as well as the Prophets before him and his holy Witnesses after him For the false Jerusalem the adulterate Church is ambitious to monopolize to her self the trade of bloud and of slaying of the Prophets and Witnesses
signifie certain performance but the duty what they ought to perform As when the Apostles are called the Light of the world and the Matth. 5. 13 14. Salt of the earth which onely signifies what they ought to be not what they were necessitated to be For those that ought to be thus may notwithstanding hide their Talent or grow unsavoury through their own fault as it fared in Judas and in all his succession of false Apostles which call themselves the Servants but are the betrayers of the Lord Jesus 13. But lastly Suppose that the Church then in general were here understood it does not follow That because that Primaeval and Apostolical Church should by a peremptory design of Providence have engraven upon it or exhibit to the world as Articles of belief nothing but what was true that the Church in succession should always doe the like For there was a prime care taken that the first establishment of the Church should be in truth and solidity but that being done which was sufficient for the after-carrying on the affairs of the Church in a right way by free Agents the success should afterwards lie upon their industry and fidelity at least so far as that by no miraculous and supernatural force they should be assisted or driven on to keep things pure and intemerate And that was sufficient for the Church I think which is thought sufficient for every particular man namely That the Christian Doctrines and Precepts being faithfully laid down in the Evangelists and other Writings of the Apostles they might that usual Grace of God which is not irresistible assisting them frame their lives and beliefs accordingly in those things that are plain And all are so that are necessary to Salvation Which Rule if it had been kept to no Error had crept into the Church to this very day 14. Which last Answer will contribute something towards an Answer to the last place alledged for it seems onely to contain a description of a special provision of God for the rightly settling his Truth in the first Ages of the Church To which purpose he appointed not onely Pastours and Teachers which Functions continue still but Apostles having a particular mission from Christ himself who breathed into them the Spirit of Truth as also Prophets and Evangelists men in a special manner inspired and assisted to erect the Fabrick of the Church according to the will and purpose of Christ who then in an extraordinary manner did supervise all by a miraculous assistence of his Spirit And therefore what-ever was wrote for the publick use of the Church while any of those unto whom our Saviour Christ said that the Spirit should abide with them for ever which should lead them into all Truth were alive or was approved by them is really of certain and infallible authority but what-ever after-Inventions or Super-additions there were in the Church they are to be measured by this unerring Rule These unerring Pastors therefore and Teachers Apostles Prophets Evangelists were not a promise to all Successions but an extraordinary gift as the Text it self imports which Christ at that time namely at his solemn Coronation or Triumph ascending above all Heavens that he Eph. 4. 10. might fill all things cast down as a Royal Largess upon his Church for the speedy completement of her for her growing up into the unity of the Faith and Knowledge of Christ and that she might not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine but adhere to that onely that was delivered by those Heavenly-inspired and miraculously-assisted Ministers of the Gospel The acknowledgement whereof I conceive had been the onely sure means to keep the Church in Unity for ever whenas the pretending to an Infallibility in the succeeding Church where indeed it was not and the taking upon them thereupon to impose things with equal authority to the Apostles themselves would naturally prove the fountain of all Error Schism and Confusion CHAP. II. 1. That the safe conveyance of the Apostolick Writings down to us by the Church does not infer her Infallibility 2. That the Plainness of Scripture in points necessary to Salvation takes away the want of an Infallible Judge 3. That the Scripture not pointing to any Infallible Judge nor any faithful Keeper of Traditions does ipso facto declare her self the onely sufficient Guide 4. That there is not onely no want of an Infallible Judge but better there should be none 5. That the want of Infallibility does not take away the Authority of the Church it being the duty of every person in things really disputable to compromise with her 6. That though a Visible Judge be necessary in Civil causes yet it is nothing so in Points of Religion 7. That every private man has not onely a liberty but a command to judge for himself in matters of Faith 8. The said Right or Privilege demonstrated also by Reason 9. That the Reason or Judgment of every private man is not a private Spirit in that reproachful sense that some speak it 10. That the claim to a right of judging for ones self in points of Faith does not make a man superiour to his Church 11. Nor yet equal 12. Nor implies that he thinks himself wiser then his Church but rather more careful of his own eternal Concerns 13. That it is not his private Wisdom he sticks to but the Wisdom of God known to all that are not wilfully blind 14. That the Church is not Infallible proved from the Example of the Jewish Church 15. That there is the same reason of the Christian. 16. That the want of an Infallible Interpreter is no such loss to the common people 17. That their assurance of the truth of the Scriptures by the Spirit is a Tenet not so superciliously to be exploded as some make shew of 18. That this Spirit is properly the Spirit of Faith distinguishable from that of Knowledge and Wisdom 19. The notorious Fraud and excessive Mischief of this pretence of Infallibility 1. BUT being worsted thus in Scripture they will pretend Demonstrations in Reason upon the presumption they are the true visible Church successively descended from Christ and his Apostles that Infallibility is for ever intailed upon them As first That unless the Church were successively Infallible we could have no certain and Infallible belief of the Holy Scriptures which are avouched to be such by the Church But I briefly answer That supposing this successive Church were a trusty undoubted Conveyer of the Copies of the Holy Scriptures uncorrupted yet it doth not follow that they must be Infallible Interpreters of these Scriptures no more then the faithful conveyance of Plato's and Aristotle's Writings to all posterity implies that the Conveyers thereof are Infallible Interpreters of them For they might preserve the Writings of either by a diligent comparing of Copies upon every transcription besides that there might be a special watchfulness of Providence over these Holy Writings for the conservation of
of the spoil or rather to erect a Spiritual Polity to enslave all and bring the most insupportable Servitude of Body Soul and Estate such as Paganism could scarce ever shew the like certainly this must be very highly Antichristian For indeed what can be more salvagely oppressive in reference to the very Estates of men then to frame such a Religion upon the pretence of their Infallibility as is perfectly repugnant to the plain Word of God and immutable Rules of Reason depraving of things so for their own worldly advantage as I have already abundantly set out to bring in a more ample Revenue to feed the Pride and Luxury of this false Church And then when they have thus grossly perverted the Truth of God to declare that they who will not say Amen to their lies and forgeries have no more right to their own Estates then a Thief or Robber to what he has got by unlawful spoil and therefore accordingly not onely to hinder them from any employments of either profit or credit but disable them from making of Wills and their Heirs from inheriting their Estates and awing them from laying claim to their Patrimonies lest their Father's Heresie be intailed upon them whether they will or no. 7. To which Antichristian Barbarities you may adde also the scornful and cruel Penances they put upon them that do submit themselves to their Church making them go in procession in contemptible disguises or else enjoyning them to march in their shirts bare foot and bare leg and to whip their own bodies in the sight of the people as they go along How unlike nay how utterly contrary is this to that Meekness and Sweetness that is described in the Discipline and Government of the Kingdom of Christ But we need not insist upon these things we having treated sufficiently of them already 8. Now upon the second particular viz. that Humility and Lowliness which is also one fruit of Charity and by which the Person and Rule of our Saviour is described in the ancient Prophecies We have shewn the Antichristian Detestableness of the opposite to this Vertue already in the first Branch of the Divine Life and need adde nothing more thereto 9. The third character of Charity is her delighting in true and faithful dealing amongst men The opposites to which are easily discoverable To say nothing therefore of the manifold Frauds which we have already taken notice of all along in this our Description of Antichristianism this certainly must be very Antichristian and uncharitable namely To misrepresent mens Actions and Opinions in publick Speeches or Writings nay to invent notorious lies and fictions to the disparagement of mens Persons and Doctrines and suborn men to write them and divulge them to the world for truths Which is to doe so as was the custom of those who were under the Dragon that old Serpent and false accuser of the ancient primitive Christians whom they aspersed and calumniated as worshippers of the Sun because they put up their prayers with their faces towards the East as Man-sacrificers and as Eaters and Drinkers of humane flesh and bloud because of their calling the Eucharistick Bread and Wine the Body and Bloud of Christ they understanding it onely in a mystical or symbolical sense For professing with S. Paul There is neither Male nor Female in Christ but that both have equal admission into his eternal Kingdom That they had no regard of Sexes but were vile Sodomites and abusers of themselves with Mankind For meeting together to serve God in private in Grotts and Caves of the Earth for fear of persecution That they were Conspirators against the Roman State and Empire And lastly for their reverently receiving the Elements of Bread and Wine at their holy Communions That they were Worshippers of Ceres and Bacchus 10. In like manner we may imagine that this Pseudo-christian Church may raise such perverse Calumnies against the true members of Christ as namely traducing them for Atheists or at least Arrians because they will not acknowledge the Divinity of a consecrated piece of Bread reporting them as Manichees because they do not hold the power of the Church to be superiour to that of Emperours and Kings to make thereby but one Sovereignty in the Church but affirm the Secular Power independent thereon as if the holding these two distinct Powers were forsooth the holding the two Principles of the Manichees defaming them for Beesoneriders or Witches because they have by reason of hard persecution been driven to inhabit desert and mountainous places or upon their meeting more privately in houses by night to impute to them some such horrid and villainous practices as were reported of the primitive Christians that the Candle being put out they committed Incest and all manner of Uncleanness in the dark nay that they killed their own children in these concealed Assemblies of theirs To accuse them of reviling the Saints merely upon their professing it unlawful to invoke them or of blaspheming the Blessed Virgin because they hold it unfit to worship her To tax them of disobedience to the Magistrate onely because of their persisting in the sincere profession of that Faith that is consonant to the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles And lastly to father upon them what abominable actions they please and speaking without a Metaphor to gag the mouths of the thus accused and slandered that they may not answer for themselves to clear themselves in the audience of the people Nay to rack men till their very bowels break out of their belly to force them to acknowledge themselves or their party guilty of such villainous crimes as it is incredible their very persecutors should in good earnest suspect them of merely to get a pretence from such an extorted Confession to verifie their wicked Slanders to the world and to make the harmless and innocent professors of the Truth of the Gospel to be odious and hateful in the eyes of all men Certainly if this be not diametrically opposite to that part of Charity that discovers it self in true and faithful dealing nothing can be excogitated that is so CHAP. XIV 1. The nick-naming of the true Christians by the odious Title of Hereticks with their barbarous injuries thereupon 2. That Heresie and Schism are sins against the truly-Catholick and Apostolick Church 3. What is meant by One Catholick and Apostolick Church 4. What is that hainous sin of Heresie 5. What Schism 6. That while men are sincere members of the Apostolick Body they can be neither Hereticks nor Schismaticks 7. The Hypocritical and Schismatical Niceness of this Antichristian Church in forbearing to joyn in any Religious Duty with any member of the truly-Apostolick Body 8. Their fraudulent purpose in fostering this Schismatical Niceness and Unsociableness 1. BUt we will also take notice of that which will be so usually cast upon the Dissenters from this false Church that it will be scarce accounted any reproach done to them but rather civility
A MODEST ENQUIRY INTO THE Mystery of Iniquity THE FIRST PART CONTAINING A Careful and Impartial Delineation of the True IDEA of ANTICHRISTIANISM IN THE Real and Genuine Members thereof such as are indeed opposite to the indispensable Purposes of the Gospel of Christ and to the Interest of his Kingdome By H. MORE D. D. Sext. Empiric 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by J. Flesher for W. Morden Book-seller in Cambridge M DC LXIV To the READER READER 1. HAD it been but onely to apologize for breaking His necessity of Prefacing before this present Treatise that silence which I might seem to have imposed upon my self by publickly intimating the probability of it it had upon that account been requisite to Preface something to excuse the unexpected publishing of this new Treatise But I have fallen upon such a Subject as whose very Title sounds so harshly and disharmoniously to some ears that this alone were of sufficient force to extort from me the trouble of a Prefatory Apology The Idea of Antichristianism Both those words are so heavy laden with preconceived offence and prejudice that the Book may also be prejudged and precondemned before perused for the very Title 's sake unless I prepare the way by due and timely information for better acceptance 2. Know then Reader that this Idea which I present thee with This Idea of Antichristiinism what the nature thereof is and how unliable to any uncivil construction is not a vain Airy Platonical or Chimerical Figment as some phansy every Idea to be nor my treating of Antichristianism a Rude uncivil uncharitable phraseological Form of railing against such Things or Persons as are not onely Innocent but Sacred But contrariwise the nature of Antichristianism is so justly circumscribed by this Idea and so fitly limited thereby that it is in truth a bridle to the tongues and lips of such as not knowing what is truly Antichristian and what not in every pettish mood call any thing so in Religion that does not suit with their own humour and phancy Besides this Treatise being written in the way of an Idea that is to say being an Abstract Description or Delineation of the nature of Antichristianism without any application thereof to any person or persons whatsoever what Rudeness Incivility or Uncharitableness can this design carry along with it unless it can be thought rude or uncivil to define Vices in abstracto and describe them in their Parts and Objects and in what-ever Circumstances make to the clear and perfect knowledge of them provided it be done faithfully and skilfully And truly that I have not falsified anything in this my Description of Antichristianism I dare with confidence appeal to the judgment of any able and unprejudiced peruser thereof But what I have set down for Antichristian is such of its own nature whether it be called so or no. Which accuracy if all would imitate nothing would tend more to the peace of Christendom and the steddy and firm promotion of Protestantism in every Nation 3. Well be it so will some reply that there is nothing falsly nor unfaithfully managed in this Province you have undertook yet is That the abuse of the terme does not take away the right use of it not the undertaking it self though just and usefull yet something ignoble inglorious and ungentile thus to tincture your style and soil your pen with the names of Antichrist and Antichristianism of which the breath of the rude and ignorant vulgar usually smells as strong as of Onions and Garlick and have so fouled these words by their unmannerly mouthing them without all aime that they have made them now unfit to pass the lips of any civil person In answer to which I must ingenuously confess that the Title of my Discourse for this very reason may justly seem less plausible But it is the true and proper Name of the matter which I handle to which onely if these ruder people had been taught to appropriate the Term it could never have contracted any such nauseous prejudice as it seems to have done And I hope I am at least excusable if not thank-worthy in that I have taken pains to teach them the due and proper use thereof 4. But if there be any farther meaning in the Objection as That the opposing of Antichristianism in our sense is not at all ungentile but rather Heroical if it were ignoble or ungentile and below a man of a generous spirit to concern himself in the detecting or opposing Antichristianism it self I must take leave to profess that I think the Objectour understands not what Antichristianism is or at least not what I understand by it or have described it by in this Idea For that Antichristianism which I oppose and expose here to the view of the world is nothing else but real Impiety gross Fraud and Couzenage and most barbarous and unparallel'd Cruelty against the harmless Members of Christ and all this which infinitely aggravates the crimes under the show and pretence of Piety and Religion nay of the most Sacred of all Religions Christianity it self If these things therefore be not onely uncivil and ungentile but ferine brutish or rather Diabolical can it be ungentile or uncivil heartily and professedly to oppose them 5. Or to plead more distinctly and more particularly to two capacities Made evident to the judgments not onely of Believers of men to them first that have a conscience and belief of Christian Religion as it is delivered in the holy Scripture I demand of them how ignoble or inglorious a thing they deem it to oppose that which is plainly and palpably opposite to the Word of God and to the Commandments of Christ Jesus to endeavour to demolish that which does supplant and frustrate the very End of the Gospel of Christ and is so diametrically repugnant to the Interest of his Kingdom Certainly whosoever can judge such a Design as this dishonourable must be of the spirit of that company whom our Saviour of old most righteously reproved in these words How can ye John 5. 44. believe that receive honour one of another and seek not that honour that cometh of God onely As it is said also in another place For they loved the praise of men more then John 12. 43. the praise of God 6. And now for them that think it so noble and glorious a thing But even of Infidels or Atheists themselves to be indifferent to all Religions or indeed to believe none who are not so much as touched with the sense of the common Christianity such as all who call themselves Christians agree in yet if they have not put off the sentiments of common Humanity then which nothing can be more barbarous and ungentile I demand of them what offence can it be against the Laws of the highest Generosity to profess a mans disgust and enmity against such a constitution of things as runs point-blank not onely against the
any but that which is truly the Deity as I have noted in its due place 4. As for the places in the New Testament they are more copious and not less express The first is that in the Acts where when the Chap. 14. v. 14 15. Priest of Jupiter would have sacrificed to Paul and Barnabas at Lystra by reason of the great miracles he saw done they rent their cloaths and ran in amongst the people crying out and saying Sirs why do you these things We also are men of like passions with you and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God which made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and all things that are therein And what vanities are those from which they must turn but from the giving Acts 17. 29 30. of Divine honour to mere Creatures The same Apostle also at Athens in his Speech he made to them on Mars-hill reads them a very round lesson against Idolatry Forasmuch then as we are the off-spring of God we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto Gold or Silver or Stone graven by art and mans device And the times of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent Which exhortation certainly Paul made with the greatest earnestness that could be it being said verse the 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that his spirit was in a very sharp fit in a paroxysm of zeal when he saw the City of Athens so given to Idolatry Again in his first Epistle to the Corinthians he makes Idolatry the very Chap. 12. v. 2. Character of Gentilisme which Christ came to reclaim the world from Ye know that ye were Gentiles carried away to dumb Idols even as ye were led And elsewhere in the same Epistle he exhorts them more copiously and Chap. 10. v. 14 20 c. vehemently Wherefore my dearly-beloved flee from Idolatry The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to the Daemonia and not to God Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of the Daemonia Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy are we stronger then he And this was only about the meat sacrificed to these Daemons what had it then been to bow to their Idols He speaks also very smartly on this subject in his second Epistle to these Corinthians What fellowship hath righteousness Ch. 6. v. 14 16. with unrighteousness what communion hath light with darkness and what agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols And in his Epistle to the Galatians he plainly reckons up Idolatry amongst the grossest works of the flesh Murther Sorcery and Adultery And therefore accordingly Chap. 5. v. 20. in the Apocalyps Idolaters together with Murtherers and Sorcerers Chap. 21. v. 8. are threatned with the lake that burns with fire and brimstone and are shut with obscene Dogs out of the holy City And therefore assuredly Chap. 22. v. 15. S. John is in very good earnest in his dehortation from Idolatry in the 1 John 5. 20. close of his general Epistle And we know that the Son of God is come and has given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true through his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal life Little children keep your selves from Idols Amen From these places I think it is abundantly manifest That the divulging of the Gospel aimed at the taking away of Idolatry that sottish depravation of Religion out of the World 5. And we may be still the more assured of it by those words from our Saviour's own mouth The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father John 4. v. 23 24. seeketh such to worship him God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth Where Grotius and I think very truly interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sublatis ut ritibus ita locorum discrimine And surely the Christian worship being so pure as to abhor from the voluminousness of Judaizing ceremonies and the affixing of the residence of God to a consecrated place as in the Temple of the Jews Imagery and Idolatry must be abhorred infinitely more as infinitely more inconsistent therewith And if God may not be worshipped with an Image much less any thing that is not God either with an Image or without it CHAP. III. 1. What is meant by Grace and Truth coming by Christ. 2. Further Testimonies of Scripture to evince that Christ came to ease men of the Judaical burthen of Ceremonies The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. That the Death of Christ upon the Cross was the solution of the Ceremonial Law of Moses 4. Further proofs to the same purpose 1. BUT now That the grossness and carnality of the Judaical Ceremonies and the unprofitable burthen of them was to be done away by the coming of Christ which is the other point to be proved is very apparent out of several places of Scripture For the Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ that is to say The John 1 17. Law both Moral and Ceremonial was given by Moses but even that Moral Law was but such an one as could not give life as the Apostle Gal. 3. 21. speaks but the gracious assistance of the Spirit of God promised in the Gospel that does give life and strength to walk according to the will of God And then for the Ceremonial Law both it and indeed all things else happening to the Jews were but Types and Shadows but in Christ is the Truth They were not what they made a show to be and therefore in that sense may be said to be false so as he that says that the Image or Picture of a Man or Horse is a Man or Horse indeed pronounces false And therefore our Saviour speaks true when he saith Moses gave you not that bread from Heaven but my Father giveth you that true bread John 6. 31. from Heaven Whenas yet it is said of the Manna Psalm 78. He gave them bread from Heaven to eat But it being but a shadow of the true Vers. 25. bread from Heaven which is Christ it is said not to be the bread from Heaven As in the Epistle to the Hebrews the Law is said to have a Heb. 10. 1. shadow of good things to come and Paul to the Colossians Let no man judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of an holy-day or of the Coloss. 2. 16 17. new Moon or of the Sabbath which are a shadow of things to come but the body is Christ's So plain is it what is meant by Grace and Truth coming by Jesus Christ. For he is that Truth which was signified by the shadows of the Law and by him is
and foul Lust and bloudy Wrath and Zeal for those Idols of Fornication as it fares in enraged Gallants in the behalf of their Mistresses must rule and over-run all The crasseness I say of these Superstitions leaves the mind unmortified and unilluminated but raises a zeal for them both ignorant bloudy and barbarous Which methinks is a sad condition for any Soul to be found in 4. But that this bestial Rage accompanies the love of Idols to omit several Examples in Scripture is a Truth largely writ and testified by the bloud of those innumerable companies of the primitive Martyrs who with so much reproach and so many kinds of tortures were put to death for despising or opposing the ancient Pagan Idolatry as is confessed by all And Idolatry whether Pagan or Christian will naturally dispose them that are really devoted to it to the like cruel fury and madness And though the cruelty of Bear or Wolf seems more the mischief of them that suffer by them then the evil of those beasts themselves yet for that Circe that metamorphoses men into these salvage shapes few or none do doubt but that she injures their humane bodies What a mischievous Circe then is Idolatry that transforms the Mind into such beastly salvageness 5. And as for Uncleanness that it is so close an attendant upon the worship of Idols is also a Truth very often intimated in holy Scriptures as in the Epistle to the Romans where the Apostle expresly affirms that Ch. 1. 26 27. because the Heathen changed the truth of God into a lye and worshipped and served the Creature more then the Creatour or rather besides the Creatour for this cause God gave them up to vile affections the women changing the natural use into that which is against nature and the men likewise leaving the natural use of the women and burning in their lust one toward another men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompence of their errour that was meet Also in the first Book of the Kings upon the mentioning of the building of Ch. 14. 24. high places and Images presently is subjoined That there were also Sodomites in the Land c. The places are so many and so obvious where even unnatural uncleannesses are link'd together with Idolatry that it would be needless as well as tedious to recite them And therefore it is a very suspicable thing that where Idolatry seizeth most on the Church of Christ all manner of uncleanness will there be most rife also 6. But methinks I am too favourable in my charge against Idolatry while I seem to restrain the Mischief of it only to Uncleanness and Cruelty For the Authour of the Book of Wisdom does not stint the effects thereof to these but enlarges them also to Dissimulation Theft Unfaithfulness Tumults Perjury and what not * Ch. 14. 16 27. For the worshipping of Idols saith he not to be named is the beginning cause and end of all evil And S. Paul in the above-named Epistle makes it the fountain of all manner of vices and wickednesses which he doth not rashly but very rationally conclude For even as they did not like to retain God in their Rom. 1. 28 29. knowledge so God saith he gave them over to a reprobate mind to doe those things that are not meet Being filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness full of envy murther debate deceit malignity whisperers back-biters haters of God despightfull proud boasters men of evil machinations disobedient to parents devoid of judgement covenant-breakers without natural affection implacable unmerciful So great a deluge of wickedness breaks in upon men by their being addicted to Idolatry For Apostatizing from God by this hainous sin God also forsakes them as the Apostle intimates And besides The sottishness of Idolatrous worship that calls out the Affections to such gross and unfitting objects does naturally lay the sense of better things asleep and extinguish the true life of Religion which is the renewing the Mind into the Image or similitude of God and Christ which consists in an holy and peaceable love and in a pure chast and unpolluted spirit unspotted of the vain desires of this present world Whence the introduction of Idolatry into the Church of Christ must needs be the overflowing it with all manner of vice and wickedness But that consideration belongs rather to the next point The Mischief that redounds to the Church from Idolatry to which I shall immediately pass after I have but briefly intimated one Mischief more which falls upon the Idolater himself and of which I think he will be most sensible and it is only this That he shall have his portion in the Lake that burneth with Rev. 21 〈◊〉 fire and brimstone which is the second Death that is to say that eternal Death and destruction that will assuredly attend all such enemies of God 7. The Mischief that accrues to the Church from Idolatry I have partly hinted already namely that it is the most likely way to debauch her with all other manner of vices and does ipso facto transform her who should approve herself the pure Spouse of Christ into the abhorred condition of an Harlot To which you may adde those great agonies and aggrievances of spirit that the true members of Christ are cast into by beholding such abominable practices besides their personal unsafety and danger of barbarous persecutions and those hard trialls and disquieting solicitudes that naturally will attempt them as they are men consisting of mortal flesh and liable to all the evils it exposes them to and finally the actual injuries reproaches imprisonments and multifarious Deaths that would fall upon the sincerest part of the body of Christ for opposing or refusing to partake with others in their Idolatrous Abominations 8. And yet this is not all There is still a very grand Mischief behind and exceeding considerable done to the Church by this fearfull sin of Idolatry and that is The hinderance of her spreading and propagating herself in the world It is part of our Christian Faith as we make profession of it in the Nicene Creed That there is One Catholick and Apostolick Church Which implies that the Church has a right to be Catholick to be universally spred over the face of the Earth and that the true and proper Character of this Catholick Church is to be Apostolical That whatsoever Nation or People or part of any Nation or People profess that Doctrine and Discipline which was delivered by Christ and his Apostles become immediately thereby part of the Catholick Church and those that profess and enjoyn Doctrines and practices that are Anti-Apostolical run the hazzard of losing the true title of Catholick and of making themselves indeed no part of the Church of Christ. And certainly Idolatry is as Anti-Apostolical as contrary to the Apostolick Doctrine as any thing can be Wherefore the introduction thereof into the Church of
wealth honour and sensual pleasures 9. This is a competent Draught of the second Limb of Antichristianism which consists In the heaping together a number of trouble some and unwarrantable Superstitious conceits and observances whereby the yoke of Christ would be made far more grievous then the dispensation of Moses yea whereby the Servitude of Christians would be little inferiour if not greater then the slavery of the Israelites in the Land of Aegypt and in that house of bondage as it is styled peculiarly in the Scripture And therefore I think this particular constitution of things which I have described may very well goe for a confiderable Member of Antichristianism BOOK II. CHAP. I. 1. The Positive Ends of the Gospel which the rest of the Limbs of Antichristianism do oppose 2. That to lay claim to a Right of Infallible Interpretation of the Laws of Christ is a supplanting of his Kingly Office 3. An instance of that danger in the Glosses of the Pharisees 4. Several places of Scripture alledged to prove the Church Infallible 5. The first general Answer to these Allegations by demanding whether the Promise of Infallibility be to the Whole Church or to Part. 6. The second by demanding whether the Promise be Absolute or Conditional 7. A third That the Promise cannot be Universal touching all Objects that may be considered 8. A particular Answer to the first place of Scripture 9. An Answer to the second and third 10. Infallibility a Promise onely to the first Founders of the Christian Church 11. What the meaning of The pillar and ground of truth 12. A further exposition of that passage of Paul to Timothy 13. That if understood of the Universal Church it may be meant onely of it in the Apostles times 14. And that the like may be said of the last allegation 1. WE have now done with those Members of Antichristianism that oppose the Privative Ends of the Gospel of Christ which were The removing of Idolatry and the Burthen of Superstition out of the world we come now to the Positive End thereof which in general is The Advancement of the Divine Life and this either Personally in Christ or by way of propagation in his Members the Church Those Divine Honours and Offices the Person of Christ is advanced to and are most obvious to take notice of are those of King Priest and Prophet the opposing or supplanting of which cannot but be so many abhorred parts of this wicked Antichristianism whose Image we are now setting out in its genuine colours 2. As concerning the first therefore of these Suppose any man or company of men under pretence of being the true Visible Church successively descending from Christ and his Apostles should take upon them to be the Infallible Interpreters of the Law of Christ and teach that all men were to embrace and to submit to their Glosses seem they never so harsh never so improbable nay if you will never so impossible and declare it a mortal sin for any to doubt of their determinations in this kind This surely were a plain opposing or utter supplanting of the Kingly Office of Christ and the quite taking away His exercise of Sovereignty which cannot otherwise be exercised then by Commands and Decrees which when a King has published if another have power to interpret them any way as he pleases the Kingly power will really be in the Interpreter and not in the King I say this pretended right and power of Infallibly interpreting does in very truth make the Interpreter King and the King a Shadow or Cypher Assuredly no Earthly Prince would think himself truly Sovereign over his people if all the Injunctions and Edicts he made were not to bear the easie natural sense which he intends them in but to be drawn to some other meaning by any exception or evasion or any forcible interpretation that some forein Potentate should put upon them Wherefore whosoever pretends a Right and Infallibility in the interpreting the Law of Christ does in effect make Christ no Law-giver and consequently no King nor Governour in his Church then which what can be more grossly Antichristian 3. Cui jus est interpretandi hujus Sententia pondus habet legis Divinae is a saying which although * In his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Erasmus has put into the mouth of a mean person yet is a great Truth And our Saviour knew and has noted the mischievous abuse of this presumption so plainly in that instance of the Pharisees who could interpret away the force of that Command Honour thy Father and thy Mother by saying it was Corban that it is impossible he should allow of any visible Interpreter with such an unlimited Right as some contend for to the abuse of his Church and the taking his Kingly Office out of his own hands For he has there observed That the Matth. 15. 6. Pharisees had made the word of God of none effect through their Traditions that is to say through their Exceptions Qualifications and Interpretations of it 4. I but they will pretend that Christ will make his Church Infallible and if they be so he himself will really reign in them they interpreting alway according to his mind And that he has made his Church Infallible they will pretend to appear plainly out of such places of Scripture as these * Matth. 16. That the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her and again * Joh. 14. I will ask the Father and he will give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of truth which the World cannot receive c. again * Joh. 16. When he the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth To which adde that of S. Paul to * 1 Tim. 3. 15. Timothy where he seems to call the Church the Pillar and Ground of Truth And lastly that to the * chap. 4. Ephesians where Christ is said to have given some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ till all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the Head even Christ. Let these passages then be their Letters patent their grand pretended Commission of Infallibly interpreting and never erring in any Determinations or Conclusions and we shall easily discover that it is a mere pretence 5. For I demand whether this Promise of Infallibility be to the Whole visible Church in succession or
some part That it is not an Absolute Inconditionate Promise to the Whole is plain in that the parties of Christendom differ so much in matters of Belief as they do But if it be to some part where is the nomination of that part in these Promises whereby their Right of Interpreting may appear to the world There is no Particular Church specified there neither Greek nor Roman neither Muscovian nor Armenian nor that of Prester John nor any other Church else Whence it is plain that no Particular Church can have any claim or right to any such privilege 6. Again suppose some Particular Church had a Promise how does it appear that the Promise is Inconditionate to this Particular Church and that it is not upon supposal that they will seriously and sincerely apply their mind to find out the Truth and purifie their Souls from all those worldly and sensual impediments thereto For this spirit of Infallibility cannot lodge in a body that is subject unto sin For Purity of heart and life is the very Light and Crystalline Organ the very Eye of the Soul and to think of a privilege of Infallibility without Holiness is like the imagining of a promise to see without Light or Eyes Wherefore it is such an Hypocritical conceit that a man cannot well tell whether it be more to be lamented or laughed at for a Church to pretend that God has an irresistible design of making them Infallible to every Punctilio of Controversie and yet not of making them Holy and Good But it is a sign they contemn or abhor Goodness as being contrary to their corrupt natures but desire the privilege of Infallibility as being agreeable to their natural pride and the boast thereof an instrument to bring about all their deceitful devices And therefore we might adde to this That it is questionable whether the Promise be to any Church visible but to such as the Apostles were chosen sanctified and faithful Regenerate men for none but these are truly the Church of Christ and if he make his Promise good onely to such as are his true Church it is sufficient 7. Moreover be this Promise Conditionate or Inconditionate we cannot but be sure that this Infallibility is not Universal as to all Objects whatsoever And therefore to meddle with such things as are not necessary to Salvation nor really edifying were to go beyond their Warrant or Commission and thereby to forfeit or at least to have no benefit of the promised Assistence 8. But let us particularly examine the Texts of Scripture themselves The first whereof infers no more then this That the Church of Christ shall never cease to be that Death shall never be able to prevail against her neither to extirpate her in this world or hinder her of a glorious Immortality in the world to come For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death or Abolition or The state of the dead But this may be true of the Church though it were not Infallible So weak is this first Allegation 9. As for the second it were well for the Alledgers if it were onely weak for it is strong against themselves and makes much for our Hypothesis who conceive this Infallibility to be Conditional For reade the whole Context entire and it runs thus If ye love me keep my Commandments and I will ask the Father c. which implies there is a Condition That they must love Christ and keep his Commandments if they expect that Spirit which will abide with them for ever that is as long as they lived for so the word ordinarily signifies in Scripture And it is further added that it is such a Spirit as the World cannot receive Which therefore does strongly imply that it resides not in those who are worldly and carnally-minded Which Conditionality of the Promise is also infinuated in the third place alledged When the Spirit of Truth is come he will Lead you or guide you into all Truth that is he will lead you as a Man not hale you or drag you as a Stone or a brute Beast which is not a free Agent So that we see plainly that this Infallibility is Conditional where-ever it is And though I doubt not but the Condition being performed the Promise will be made good to all men as far as it is necessary to their Salvation yet these places are not the best that may be produced to that purpose the Promise being not General here but directed to certain particular men in such circumstances as it is evident that it is meant to them in particular and does not infer any succession For the men that he speaks to there he decyphers to be such as he was present with and should be put in mind by the Paraclet what he had said to them when present such Joh. 14. 16 17. as were sorrowful upon the occasion of his departure with other like circumscribing circumstances that cannot belong to any succession of men but were proper to the Apostles to whom he then spake 10. As indeed Infallibility it self seems a Promise most proper to them they being to lay the Foundations of the Church and to build the House of God which they having done in terms plain enough as to all things necessary to Salvation the Promise of Infallibility needs reach no further the Church for ever hereafter being safe provided she keep but close to what is plainly delivered by the first Founders of her nothing else need be obtruded upon Believers by way of Infallible imposition 11. And as for that fourth citation where the Church seems to be called The Pillar and Ground of Truth If we admit of Cameron and Capellus 1 Tim. 3. 15. their ingenious conjecture upon the place viz. That The Pillar and Ground of Truth is to be disjoyned from the precedent words by a Colon at least and understand also what follows without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness to be onely a Parenthetical Elogium of the Mystery of the Gospel into which the Apostle was transported upon consideration of those weighty Points thereof which he was a-delivering God manifest in the Flesh c. so that The Pillar and Ground of Truth may be 1 Tim. 3. 16. the Preface to the grand Points of the Christian Truth which that Parenthesis being seposed do immediately follow according as it was usual with the Jews to prefix before such Fundamentalls of knowledge the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fundamentum Columna Sapientia this passage will be wholly disâ—…bled from making any shew of proof for what it was alledged 12. But if you will adjoyn this Title to the Church it was the Ephesian Church where Timothy resided which has vanished long agoe And what other Church then unless every Particular Church can urge this place for Infallibility which experience of contradicting one another does openly confute Besides that the style it self of Ground and Pillar may not
God to have interpreted the Scripture and not for their own ends or carnal satisfaction in any thing And questionless in this case they can shew their Commission and that they act by Authority Let all things be done to edification 1 Cor. 14. 26. But that because every Civil controversy must be determined by a Judge therefore there must be an Infallible determinative Judge of all the nice and unprofitable controversies that emerge amongst Christians about Scripture and Religion is but a weak and lame Illation For Civil controversies cannot be undecided without injury to some party but no man is injured by not having those unprofitable at least unnecessary questions determined for they may hold their several opinions without wronging one another if they will but keep to that known Law of Christ that Royal Law of Charity Nay the deciding such controversies by a pretended Infallible Judge were a vast wrong to one party it galling their consciences and streightning their liberty and making the way to Heaven narrower then Christ has made it For so does this Infallible Judge that imposes his Determinations on men upon pain of eternal Damnation But God of his infinite wisedom and mercy has not given the least Intimation for any such Usurpation And therefore this Infallible Judge being not appointed by God and being unappointable by man the Scripture alone and not these pretended Infallible decisions must be the Rule of our belief 7. The fourth and last pretence is That unless the Sense of Scripture be determined by the Infallibility of the Church every private Spirit must be Judge of the meaning thereof nay and which is worse be Judge of the Church and thereby superiour to the Church then which nothing can be more wild and extravagant This seems a big difficulty at first But I answer That every particular man should judge for himself he has a Commission from the very Word of God nay I may say a Command As where he is bid to try 1 Thess. 5. 21. all things and to hold that which is good as also not to believe every 1 John 〈◊〉 spirit but to trie the spirits whether they be of God and in another place to be ready to give a reason of his Faith The Beroeans also are commended 1 Pet. 3. Acts 17. for searching the Scripture and trying whether the things that Paul even an inspired and chosen vessel of God had taught them were true or no. But for any one man or any company of men to be appointed by God Authoritatively and absolutely to be Judges for others in matters of Faith and Religion we do not find any where in Scripture or in Reason any such Commission given unto them but we are rather admonished to take heed how we be led hoodwinkt by any lest the blind Matt. 15. 14. leading the blind both fall into the ditch 8. But not Scripture onely but Reason it self does plainly commissionate private Spirits as they call them to judge for themselves For these pretenders to Infallibility doe it onely upon the boast that they are the true successive Church from the Apostles But unless they will be above all measure ridiculous they must convince the Reason of him whom they would make a Proselyte to their Church that their Church is that true and Apostolical one For to say so without proof is a madness to be hooted at by all men But to goe about to prove it is to appeal to the private Reason of him they would convince And if he be a Christian already though not of their Church the common acknowledged Principles are the Holy Scriptures in arguing from which the Disputant appeals to him he would bring over if his Interpretation or Allegation of them be not true But if he be an Infidel or Pagan he is to use Reasons to prove the Truth and Authority of the Scriptures themselves Which is still an appeal to the conscience of him that is to be gained to the Church whether what is offered to him be true or false And that which is offered to him being the whole Christian Faith for that is it which makes a true Church it is plain that his Reason and Conscience is appealed unto whether the whole Summe of the Credenda in Christianity is not true That is to say Though the Church and he that argues in the behalf of the Church have already judged and firmly concluded that the Christian Faith is a true Faith in the whole and in every part and make no appeal from their own judgment in reference to themselves yet in reference to the party they would convince they appeal to him if the grounds of their Belief be not solid and so imply and acknowledge that he is Judge for himself in these affairs call that in him a private spirit or what you please 9. But I do not know but it may be too reproachfully called a private spirit at least in the sincere and simple-hearted who have no private designs but to know the Will of God and to doe it and it is the Will of God all men should doe so and the spirit of man * Prov. 20. is said to be the Lamp of the Lord and that which judges according to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common notions of Reason in all men and has not lost the * Psell. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those common characters and ingenuous sentiments of Indispensable Truth and Morality which the Father of lights has of old sealed upon the Soul and which are hardly obliterated quite in any and are necessarily continued and that vigourously in the sincere I say such a Life or Spirit as this judging in a man is very hardly to be called a private spirit it judging according to the Universal sense of humane Nature and so as every one judges when he is unbiassed Nay if this will not serve I say that the Judgement which is thus made is the Judgement of that Universal King and Law-giver the Eternal Son of God it is his sentence in these cases but writ in the tables of our hearts and pronounced by our mouths as by the Praeco of a Court. So far is it from being the Judgement of a mere private spirit But that rather is the Judgement of a private spirit though it should bear the Title of an Infallible Church which is decreed not according to the plain Texts of Scripture so as all unprejudiced men would certainly understand them nor according to those indeleble Characters of Truth which Christ the Eternal Logos has writ in the Rational Souls of all mankind but according to partial Interest and depraved desires The sentence of Thousands nay of Millions of such Judges is more the verdict of a private spirit then the Judgement of the meanest private man that pronounces from such Principles as I have declared 10. Now for that odious imputation of making a mans self Superiour to the
to Paul from Heaven and so appointing him to be an Apostle did proclaim to all the World that he would Infallibly assist him and that therefore what was imparted to the World by him should be a Law irreversible to Christendom Whence the nulling of the Authority of S. Paul's writings were the abrogating of the very Law of Christ which were a most rebellious and blasphemous Enterprise against the Sovereignty of Christ himself 4. But there is also another way of undermining or subverting the Rule and Sovereignty of the Son of God and that is An undervaluing his Laws in proportion of Penalties laid upon the transgression of them and of some slighter humane Ecclesiastick Institutes As surely these would be very Antichristian Instances of this kind namely If Absolution for him that kills his Father or lies with his Mother should be five or six times Cheaper then of him that takes two Orders in one day or is Ordained without Letters dismissory or that to be Ordained out of the set times of the year should have a penalty ten times greater then Lying with a mans own Mother or if you will but equal to the deflouring of a Virgin the lying with a mans own Sister Murther Perjury Sacrilege Simonie revealing Confession keeping a Concubine lying with a woman in the Church but equal I say to all these nine put together What could vilifie the indispensable Law of God and Christ more then to make so many transgressions and so hainous less then that trifle of humane Tradition To Ordain onely at such times of the year 5. Again That were likewise a very conspicuous vilification of the Word of God if instead thereof there were read in the Churches finelydevised Fables to entertain the People withall As if they were wiser then the Wisdom of God himself and could entertain the people more edifyingly with incredible and ridiculous stories then with the Discourses of Christ Jesus and sober and easily-intelligible histories of truth that Divine Providence has recorded for the instruction of his Church 6. Dispensations also against the Law of Christ whether written in the Word of God or comprised in the sacred Law of Nature which is but the Transcript of that Law in the Eternal Logos Christ according to his Divinity were also an Antichristian defeating of Christ's Rule and Sovereignty as also would be the Interpretation of the serious Injunctions of Christ as if they were not Praecepta but Consilia not Commands but Advice left to us to follow if we would or to let alone if we pleased whenas Christ plainly declares that he that breaks the least of these Matt. 5. Commandments and teaches men so to doe shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven What then would it be to dispense with Perjury Treason Murther Incest Adultery Sodomie and other such hainous crimes What were it but the utter taking away the Law of Christ and destroying his Kingdom upon Earth The Fraud and Self-endedness of which easy Anarchy is onely to fill the net full though it be of rotten sticks and durt so long as out of this durt they can extract Silver But the Mischief is that the Riches of this false Church would flow and rise with the height of the Abominations and Transgressions of rich sinners till a deluge of wrath wash away this deluge of sin But those in the interim that are so foolish to believe these Dispensations and think they are come into a fair liberty of spirit having found so facil ghostly Fathers will thereby most certainly become the Bond-slaves of sin which in the conclusion will as certainly deliver them up to Eternal Death 7. But what plea or pretence will you say may there be made of acting Religiously while they act thus enormously in letting the raines loose to all manner of wickedness to them that will goe to the price thereof Why yes This Antichristian Power might pretend that all that Power which is in Christ though it be plainly a casting Christ out of his Royall Throne is derived upon him or them as his Successours But Christ being the absolutely-Supreme Power may doe as he will dispense with his own Laws as he pleases Wherefore this Antichristian power pretending to be or have the very same power may dispense with the Laws of Christ as it pleases especially for the enriching the Church for all such Interest is pious Which yet is such an Imagination that nothing can be more Treasonable against the Regal Office of Christ nor more destructive of his Kingdom 8. The effect of which villanous Principle would also certainly appear in this Synagogue of Satan or Antichrist and we should find Laws and Institutes quite contrary to the Laws and Decrees of the Son of God As certainly such as these would be namely Sundry sorts of Idolatry such as I have instanced in already and need not repeat and have noted the Frauds Book I. ch 12. and fetches in the practice of them The teaching for Doctrines the commandments of men which is expresly against our Saviour's own command and of which I have given sundry examples in my * Book I. ch 17 18 19 20 21 22. second branch of Antichristianism The with-holding the Cup from the Laiety notwithstanding the Institution of the Lord's Supper by Christ himself does so plainly injoyn the communicating both of Bread and Wine Drink you all of this and S. Paul again following the Example of Christ Let a man examine himself Matt. 26. 27. and so eat of this bread and drink of this cup which indefinite command 1 Cor. 11. 28. surely includes all But the drinking of the Cup being made the Privilege of the Priest it magnifies his condition hugely and makes the poor Laiety feel and acknowledge their distance how unholy and how removed from God they are in comparison of the Priesthood This would be the true Reason though they might pretend for I think they have nothing better to pretend the length of the Lay-mens beards which I suppose they would rather cut off then be cut short in their share of so holy a Sacrament Again The serving of God in the Church in an unknown Language praying to him and praising him and reading the Scripture in a Tongue the people understand not is evidently against the directions of S. Paul 1 Cor. 14. in this particular and against that more universal and indispensable Law Let all things be done to edifying As also the worshipping of Angels 1 Cor. 14. 26. Coloss. 2. 18. which the same Apostle does expressely speak against and likewise the forbidding to marry and the abstaining from meats upon a Religious 1 Tim. 4 3. account with several other such All which being expressely against the Commands or Laws of Christ it were a most reproachfull and Traitorous affront to him the true Head of the Church and a plain declaring against the Right of his Sovereignty thus to make any Laws or Institutes so
contrary to a Father then to murther his genuine children and for that very reason because they so lively resemble him and so faithfully adhere to their Father's vertuous practices and principles 10. I might adde also that the over-exercising of the Minds and Bodies of men in the multifarious observances of external Ceremonies and making them dance or trot from one Superstitious performance to another might be a disappointment of the Divine Birth as the over-much exercising of Women in dancing or what other feats of Activity or sore labour makes them often miscarry in that Child-bearing that is natural But I will not insist upon these things 11. The Sixth and last Title is The Prince of Peace In which Principality or Authority if any should claim succession and yet administer the Affairs of Christ's Church such a way as will naturally if not necessarily fill it full of broils and contentions this power would certainly beâ—… a supplanter of the Peaceable government of Christ and be the Author of an Antichristian Tyrannie and Confusion As for example If this usurping Power should coin new Articles of belief for their own benefit contrary to the known Principles of Scripture and Reason and require the profession of these from the Church of Christ as also appoint suspected Observances smelling rank of Idolatry and Superstition it were in a manner impossible but that it should cause vast rendings and tearings in the Church and fill the world full of strife and opposition Also if they should make it their business to define the sense of Scripture by a more determinate meaning then there were use of in the Church and put their Determinations and Expositions upon men as necessary points of belief This would also make much against the Peaceableness of the Church men being in a manner fatally propending to think this or that way in things that are not necessary to Salvation to be determined either There would needless violence therefore be done to the Consciences of men thereby to set the world on fire Whenas what is general is large and unitive and takes all in and gives them leave to live peaceably one by another without justling or crowding 12. But the Folly and Fraud of this curiosity would be the Endeavour of gaining or rather extorting respect from the people and of making their Function seem considerable and their Learning great and their Judgements unerrable and that they may feel their Authority and make others to feel it though to the discontent and dissettlement of the Church of Christ. As if their living exemplarily and urging the performance of what is plain in Scripture and keeping an orderly Discipline in those things would not gain them more respect and make them more honourable both in the eyes of God and man or as if they would not appear more infallible by insisting in his steps who is the Way the Truth and the Life then by grossely crossing this way or going out of it for some by-advantages of the World The discovery of which Frauds must needs make them odious to all men And lastly as for their having their Authority felt Christ has shewed them the way if they would follow it He taught as having authority and not as the Scribes for they say and Matt. 7. Chap. 23. doe not 13. This is one way of Antichristianizing against that sacred Title of Christ The Prince of Peace There is another more vile and execrable then that heart could imagine that is not acquainted with the depths of Satan and that is If this Antichristian power we describe should take upon them to absolve the Princes of Christendom from their Oaths and Covenants they make one to another upon their terms of Peace as also to absolve Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance to their Sovereigns were not this to break a-pieces all the bonds of Unity that not onely Religion but the Laws of Nature do afford thus to destroy the Sacredness of an Oath which is the end of all strife How then can that Heb. 6. 16. Power challenge a right of succession to the Prince of Peace which takes away the chiefest tie of Peace that humane affairs are capable of 14. And lastly that bloudy position of taking away mens lives for mistakes in Opinion when notwithstanding they are otherwise unblameable in faith and conversation and unfeigned professours of Christian Truths that are evidently revealed in the Word of God nay to take away their lives for not doing and holding things quite contrary to the express Word of God written both in our inward Souls and in the Holy Scripture as I have in several Instances declared in this description of Chap. 3. Sect. 8. Antichristianism What were this but to hang out the bloudy flag against the true Church of Christ and to proclaim open war against them to bid battel against them that are inrolled into the company of the Lamb and are the professed Souldiers of the Prince of Peace Whose opposers therefore in such a sort as I have intimated cannot but be that Apocalyptick Beast that makes war with the Saints or that Mother Chap. 13. 7. of Har lots who is drunk with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus So little doubt would there be of this last Opposition's proving an Antichristian Chap. 17. 6. Character of the deepest dye But of this subject more hereafter CHAP. VII 1. That any Constitution of things that naturally opposes and suppresses the Divine Life is Antichristian in the highest measure 2. Such as Idolatry Superstition and all the above-mentioned Oppositions to Christ's Offices and Titles 3. The opinion of a virtue in the Sacraments ex opere operato and of the needlessness of our attention to our Devotions 4. Dumb shows and the resting in the mere doing of a Religious duty be it from what principle it will 5. Easy Absolution and slight Penances 6. Plenary Indulgences purchased by money from Ecclesiastick Authority 7. A general note prefixed touching the Mischiefs of the several Oppositions against the Divine Life 8. The plausibility of the Supposition of an Ecclesiastick Power and Pomp more then Imperial 9. The weakness of the grounds for the said Supposition 10. The consequential Mischief thereof in driving the minds of Church-men from the study of Truth and Holiness 11. Yea in making them oppose every thing that is True and Holy if it oppose their designs of Ambition and Avarice 12. That such a Luciferian Power as this were the very ruine of the Kingdom of Christ upon Earth 13. And the turning of his Church into a mere Mart or Fair. 1. THus expressely and clearly have we delineated the Image of Antichrist in his opposing of Christ in his Offices and in running quite counter to the most Sacred Titles that do adorn his Person We come now to the Divine Life as it is propagable in the world and for which Christ was pleased to take our nature upon him and to lay down his life
the Cunning and Industry of Secular Princes and if all those Doctrines and Duties which were most urged and most frequently came into practice were of such a nature as did plainly tend to the either Honour Power or Profit of the Priesthood This I say would strike very far towards the making the World Infidels or believers of nothing but this That the Summe of our Religion is but a witty Invention of so many fictitious Stories Doctrines Precepts and Ceremonies which would serve to hamper the Consciences of men and make the World more Governable but so shaped out by the Priests as made most for their worldly advantage And such we have already described the Tenents and Doctrines of this Church to be continuedly displaying the Frauds and Self-endedness of all their Errours and Mispractices and need not here again repeat them 4. Thirdly This also would oppose the Christian Faith To make the nature of it such that it must be always doubtfull Of which I must confess I know not what may be the fetch unless it be to keep mens Minds as some deceitfull Physicians and Surgeons do their Bodies in such an unsound and valetudinarious condition that they may have the more frequent recourse to them and depend the more upon them or because they mixe some things in Religion necessarily to be believed which it is impossible they should be firmly believed by any but fools And thus the true and solid points of Christianity such as have sufficient evidence to convince any maâ—… of Reason must be reputed obscure and uncertain for being found in the company of such gross Falsities or Uncertainties which yet pretend to an equal right of entire reception with the clearest Truths And further It is no wonder that such a Church as places whatever certainty there is of Faith upon her own Infallibility as if that were the ground of it should derive both an opinion and profession of the Uncertainty of Belief upon her Nurselings they having no better ground then what we have so plainly demonstrated already to be hollow and ruinous But it is their onely Shift and Refuge to make their Infallibility the ground of Belief the matters they propose to be believed having no recommendation either from Scripture or their own nature to be embraced And therefore things being thus uncertain at the bottom upon their Principles they must instead of a firm and solid Faith be content with an obscure and uncertain one Which is indeed the destroying of Christian Faith and the substituting of a more vertiginous fluctuation of mind in lieu thereof 5. Fourthly That Principle also tends to the ruining of Faith which supposes That without right Succession of Bishops and Priests there is no true Church and therefore no true Faith and that this Succession may be interrupted by the misordination or misconsecration of a Priest or Bishop the persons thus ordained or consecrated being Atheists or Jews or ordained by them that are so or do out of malice not intend what they ought in the Sacrament of Orders as some call it Which were a conceit able to turn all men Scepticks concerning their state in Religion but is a Position absolutely against inward sense and Reason As if a man could not feel in his own conscience whether he believed or not the Truths of Holy Scripture without he were first assured that he was a member of that Church that had an uninterrupted lawfull Succession of the Priesthood from the Apostles times till his own Whenas there is nothing more immediate to a man then inward sense which it is not in the power of any Sophistry ever to confute 6. Wherefore though this Position may be spightfully levelled against the Certainty of Faith yet the execution it can doe upon the considerate is very inconsiderable and small much like that peevish Supposition of the necessity of Unity of Opinion as if those Churches that did differ in any thing had the certainty of nothing An excellent Hypothesis indeed were it but true and such as would effectually recommend the usefulness of an Infallible Judge of Controversies if he could be had for love or mony by whom they might closely compact the parts of the Church Catholick together as with cramps of Iron But there is no such force in the Theorem which will of it self fall asunder into dust if we consider it can stand upon no other terms then what will supplant the truth of all Reason and Religion in the world the whole world being divided in their judgments and conclusions concerning both Whence it is plain that the Attempt though weak tends to the bringing in universal Scepticism in all things In which deluge the Christian Faith would be also drowned and perish with all other Truths there being no Ark left to take Sanctuary in and to be safe from the working and absorptive waves of this reciprocating Euripus 7. But sixthly and I shall now instance in what is not onely ill-meant but must needs have a successfull efficacy for making the World Atheists or Infidels and that is The glutting of them with lying Miracles and gulling of them with delusions and cousening devices call them pious Frauds or by what other fine names you please For the Falsehood being once discovered in such a Church as requires to be believed more upon their own Authority and Infallibility then upon the credibility of the matters which they propound I say if they once be taken tardy in Forgeries and guilefull Fictions in any points especially such as tend to their own profit how can this fail of shaking or rather ruining the whole Frame of belief to the very Foundations How ruinous then must the Christian Faith be where such Lies and Figments are frequent and almost as frequently discovered by those that are more nasute Certainly Atheism and Infidelity must break in upon such a Church as the Sea upon the cutting of the Banks 8. That I may the better be understood I will give you some brief Instances of these impudent Figments As for example If they should have the face to tell the people that such a Saint when his Head was struck off walked four or five mile with it in his hand onely resting himself every mile's end to take breath at his open weasen-pipe That another Saint being hospitably entertained at the expence of the lives of a Cow and a Calf restored them again to life and that they were both of them found the next day in their Master's Meadows That by another Saint the Devil was seen behind the Altar busily writing down mens sins in a parchment which being something too scant he stretched with his teeth and his hold slipping knocked his head against the wall That a certain She-Saint being swallowed by a Dragon she making a Crosse in the Dragon's belly burst him in pieces and so was delivered That a Bishop having cut off his own hand upon its being polluted by the kiss of some over-affectionate female it
Also Christ's Handkerchief and the Shirt which the blessed Virgin made for him as likewise the Cradle in which he was rocked 15. Furthermore the Virgin Mary's Veil with which she used to cover her head her Comb her Hair her Girdle her Needles sowing-Thread and Work-basket nay the very House in which she dwelt and wrought transported as I said before out of Palestine into Italy by the hands of Angels The Reed with which they smote Jesus the Rope with which they haled him to execution the very Sponge also with which the Jews gave him vinegar mingled with gall to drink and some of the Coin for which Judas betrayed him nay the very Lantern he used in that work of darkness and the Dice wherewith the Souldiers play'd for Christ's seamless Coat Moreover the pure Bloud of Christ and the Milk of Mary his Mother kept in glasses The Pillar also at which Christ was whipped and the Stairs or Steps on which he went up into the Judgment-Hall and some of the Thorns wherewith he was crowned An Image of the Virgin Mary made by S. Luke to which an Angelical Statue of Marble was seen often to bow The paring of the nails of a living dead Crucifix and the lively Picture of Christ made by himself by the pressing onely of a Napkin to his face when he sweat 16. What would the world say to the credibility of three Tuns of Teeth from the Jaws of one Saint to the producing of the very Dagger and Shield with which S. Michael fought with the Devil and a Feather that might then haply fall out of one of the Angel's Wings What to the shewing of the Skull of a Saint's head at one place his Hair in another his Jaw-bone in another his Forehead in a fourth and yet his whole Head in a fifth What to the Fore-skin of Christ shewn also in five several places at once What to some dozens of Nails wherewith Christ was nailed to the Cross and as many pieces of the Cross as would load a Cart to carry them and as many glasses of the Virgin 's Milk as would fill all the vessels in a countrey-dairy How can such gross Impostures as these but wipe the Priests lips clean of all credit and belief and cast the world into desperate Atheism and Infidelity 17. But eighthly and lastly The Incredible of all Incredibles and the greatest Impossibility of all Impossibilities were that pretended Mystery of Transsubstantiation which being urged with the like necessity and assurance of Truth that any thing is urged by this Antichristian Church whose Picture I am a-drawing will doe the most fatal execution upon the Christian Faith that any thing imaginable can doe For supposing this the most Fundamental Article of their Creed or if you will the most precious and the most seriously-urged Fundamental of them all and the very hindge of almost all their publick Devotion and God-service if this break all must fall to the ground For if the Church be found shamelesly false in so important a Point as this it does immediately follow that she will be believed in nothing Wherefore they whose belief was either wholly or mainly supported by the seeming greatness of her Authority this failing by the easy discovery of so gross a Falsehood and yet by her most earnestly and most seriously avowed for Truth the Faith of every such man must also necessarily fail unless by some special grace of God assisting his conference with the persons or writings of some better-instructed Christians which he may haply meet with in this vast Wilderness he wanders in he be stopt from splitting himself a-pieces from this dangerous precipice he stands on and from the plunging himself into the mire of Atheism and Unbelief 18. For undoubtedly if he have no other help but this Pseudo-christian Synagogue though he may be awed by their external lash from professing his Infidelity yet it will be impossible for him to hinder the tacit growth of it in his own Soul but he will naturally disgust and disclaim all hearty commerce with Religion and even loath it as a pack of lies Wherefore it is impossible but this congregation of Impostours and Deceivers which I am setting forth in the truest colours I can should swarm with multitudes of grown and obdurate Atheists For the Imposture we speak of now being so signal and the discovery so easy and obvious how can it chuse but be discovered even by multitudes of people For the account comes onely to this Whether it be more likely that the Church for her own advantage which I perceive she does every-where eagerly and stiffly pursue may knowingly and wittingly impose upon me or at least mistake in her own judgment of the Infallibility whereof I have no proof but her own boast when it is in the mean time her Interest to boast so I say the account comes onely to this Whether it be more likely that she may practise fraud or fall into a mistake out of some blind Superstition or that by the uttering of Five words a Priest should have such a power as to turn a piece of Bread into a Man the Bread according to all my Senses being as much Bread as it was before Which is a double Miracle and greater then ever was yet done in the world considered but thus far and almost as great a Miracle that any one should believe it 19. But there are still greater I cannot say Miracles but downright Impossibilities As first That this Bread is not turned into a Man that was to be but that was already in being Which is the hardest Non-sense that can be offered to the mind of man to think upon And yet in the second place the Bread is so turned into a Man that is to say into the Man Christ that he is entirely in every place where this consecrated Bread seems to be that is in thousands of places at once at very large distances Which is as perfect a Contradiction as any can be proposed That one and the same Body should be entirely distant from it self For how can it be One being thus divided from it self since Unity consists in Indivision and Self-Unity certainly is Self-Indivision Wherefore if there be one Self at Oxford suppose and another at Cambridge at the same time it is impossible it should be one and the same Person their distance or division demonstrating them two distinct ones And thirdly and lastly From this false supposition That one and the same Body may be at the same time in several places it will also follow That one and the same Person or Body may be at the same time wholly within it self and wholly without it self wholly above it self and wholly beneath it self on the right hand of it self and on the left hand of it self That it may be One Body and yet many Bodies at once or rather no Body but a Spirit or to speak more truly Nothing That one and the same Person may meet himself and complement
or justice and that is the so freely nick-naming them by the style of Hereticks and Schismaticks Which yet in their own judgment I suppose not to bear so little weight with it whenas their real estimate is discoverable by their proceedings they deeming an Heretick so odious or contemptible that he is not worthy of the common privileges of mankind and of that protection that the Laws of humane Society do afford men that he shall not have the security of a Promise though confirmed by Oath Faith not being to be kept with Hereticks Not to mention here that they have made the penalties of Heresie capital Which how justly though a man were an Heretick in the matters of Belief provided it were not out of Pride and conceitedness but out of invincible Ignorance I will not here discuss 2. It will be of greater use to consider what is real Heresie or Schism that the sincere and knowing Christian may not be reproached nor the less skilful affrighted with these Bug-bears Those that make so great a cry against the hainousness of these sins their Zeal and Rhetorick would be more usefully placed if they would be so faithful as to give us a right Notion of them otherwise while they pretend to be so industriously desirous of Peace and Unity in the Church they may but give greater occasion of Dissensions and Animosities For to make more things Heresies and Schisms then are is to create more quarrels then there need be I will acknowledge as soon as any that Heresie and Schism are very grievous crimes even of the deepest dye but then it must be truly Heresie or Schism not what-ever the peevishness or interest or prejudice of a domineering party will be pleased to call so under the pretence that they are that One Catholick Church from whose Doctrine be it never so false or corrupt for one to dissent must be Heresie and to separate from their communion be their practices never so Idolatrous Schism No certainly those high sins of Heresie and Schism are not against this or that particular Synagogue be they never so numerous but against that ancient and truly Catholick and Apostolick Church and he that sins against her Unity sins against his Creed which has taught us to say I believe one Catholick and Apostolick Church Which words because they may be abused to the making of the Church look less Catholick and One then it is I shall offer an easie resolution of the sense of them 3. I conceive therefore that the Object of our Belief in this Clause of the Creed are these three Propositions First That the Church of God wherein eternal Salvation is to be had is but One that is to say That a man cannot be saved in any Religion as some wantonly conceit but that there is one onely way of Salvation which is revealed to God's true Church under which all must come before they can be saved Secondly That this Church of God is now a Catholick Church not Topical or National as in the Commonwealth of the Jews but a Church that is by right to spread over the face of the whole Earth and is designed so to doe by Providence as is expressed in several passages of the Prophets From the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same my name shall be great amongst the Gentiles c. as * Chap. 1. Malachie has fore-told And David in the second Psalm Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession Thirdly and lastly That this One Catholick Church is neither to be stretched so wide as to be acknowledged there where the Apostolical Doctrine the Faith and Practice delivered and commanded by Christ or his Apostles is oppugned and contradicted and quite contrary Doctrines and Practices brought in nor to be made so narrow as that such companies of men should not be allowed to be part of this Catholick Church amongst whom notwithstanding the Apostolical Doctrines do obtain and Primitive Practices of the Church set on foot by the Apostles or Christ himself are in use That is to say The adequate Character of this One Catholick Church is that it rejects nothing of the Apostolical Doctrines and imitable Usages which were commanded by Christ or by his Apostles to the Church nor teaches or institutes any thing that is point-blank opposite thereto or to the Word of God to which Christ and his Apostles give testimony That therefore is the true Catholick Church in the whole and in every particular company of it which has for its visible Laws and Usages whereby it self becomes also visible the Laws and Usages of Christ and his Apostles and nothing contradictorious thereunto This I hope will be acknowledged by all men the most easie and genuine sense of this Article of the Christian Creed that the words are capable of 4. And hence I think a man may easily discover what that Heresie is that is justly to be deemed so hainous a sin namely That it is A Dissent from the Catholick Church even in those things that are in it Apostolical For by them alone they being entire and uncontradicted in her does she discover her self to be that One and onely Catholick Church of Christ. And this would be an hainous sin indeed against that Authority she has to instruct and imbue the world with this saving truth I say to dissent from any part of this Apostolick Doctrine out of a spirit of contradiction and self-conceitedness would be Heresie in the most loathsom circumstances that can be imagined And the next degree to this would be the dissenting from the Catholick Church in such things as they generally agree in though they be not expressly any part of the Apostolick Doctrine but in the mean time not plainly dissonant to the Word of God nor to the immutable Notions of humane Understanding And the third and last degree is to dissent from the determinations of a mans own particular National Church in the like circumstances with the former These seem to have something an over-near affinity with what we have defined most properly primarily to be Heresie But considering that even Oecumenical Councils themselves may erre and that Scripture in things necessary to Salvation is sufficiently plain and the Affairs and the Genius of particular Nations exceeding different and changeable and General Councils very hardly and slowly to be congregated I must not be over-hasty to call a Dissent here no not from an Oecumenical Doctrine or Usage by so harsh a denomination as Heretical there being no entrenchment made thereby upon the Apostolical Laws and Doctrines But to dissent from or not to subscribe to the determinations of what Church soever that are plainly repugnant to the Doctrines Apostolical were not onely not Heretical but Heroical especially if the Dissent is likely to beattended with any personal inconveniences to the Dissenter 5. And now for Schism there is much-what
though not immediately by the Ecclesiasticks themselves but by military men whose Instructers and Examples they are is most righteously laid upon this bloudy Prophet-murthering Synagogue herself this cruel and imperious Harlot drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus as well she may upon such Principles as I have supposed her to be of and rage even to immense Massacres which may exhaust thousands yea an hundred thousand at a draught CHAP. XVII 1. That this Opposition against the Divine Grace of Charity is a most substantial Limb of Antichristianism and the Character of them without the Holy City 2. That that repeated Catalogue of abhorred Titles in the Apocalyps is plainly a Synopsis of the main Characters of the Antichristian Polity we describe 3. The confirmation of the truth of our Idea of Antichristianism therefrom 4. A summary Representation of this Idea in the Oppositions and Defeatments of the Privative Ends of the Gospel as also of those noted Offices of Christ. 5. Of his Divinity and other holy Titles 6. Of the Divine Life in Root and Branches 7. A Parable to set out the salvage Injustice and Cruelty of this Antichristian Synagogue 8. The Apodosis of the Parable 9. That we have set out the Idea of the most real and essential Antichristianism that can be with an Answer to what may be objected to the contrary 10. That it is that very Antichristianism that is foretold in the Prophets the clearing whereof necessitates us to an inspection into them before we make any punctual Application of our Idea to the Apostasy of the Church 1. THat this last Limb therefore of our Description comprised in such things as are notoriously opposite to that Heavenly Vertue of Charity is a very substantial Limb of Antichristianism I think it is impossible for any one to doubt And therefore it is no wonder that the chief Character thereof which is writ in letters of bloud I mean that of Bloudy persecution which I last of all insisted upon is entred into that black list of Names which are excluded out of the Holy City of God Without are Dogs and Sorcerers and Fornicatours and Murtherers and Rev. 22. Idolaters and every one that loves and makes a lie Which I doubt not but is a Synopsis of the chief Oppositions to the Holy City or Body of Christ and therefore what can this other Body be but the very Body of Antichrist 2. And I look upon that brief comprehension of those detestable Titles as the more considerable and more exactly computed because the same summe though not the same words seems to be reckoned up in * Revel â—…1 〈◊〉 and 22. 25. two several places for where the words differ yet reckoning one thing with another we shall find the same extent of sense taken in For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are of equal extent with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For as I had occasion to note above 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will answer to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such persons being understood in both as are seducible by false Doctrines and feigned Legends contrary to both the Word of God and common sense and have their spirits intimidated and basely enslaved and befooled with superstitious Falsehoods and Lies And then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answers to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in both are understood such as coin false doctrines for the profit of their Church and invent lying Legends and obtrude supposititious Reliques upon the people to pick a peny out of their purses And lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are both included in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dogs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which intimates Unbelief of Religion is included in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are Brutes Religion being the property of a Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or abominable for masculine Venerie is included also in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but with a particular respect to their Species the Dog being so furiously lustfull as to spend promiscuously upon either Sex And now for the rest of the Titles in each Catalogue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are all one saving the terminations of the words which alters not the sense at all but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exquisitely the same And therefore the Synopsis is plainly the same in both places 3. Wherefore enslaving Superstition Infidelity or Atheism Foul uncleanness of either kind Lying Legends and Doctrines false even to Impossibility and to the plain contradicting of Scripture the worst of Murthers the bloudy Persecution of the Saints professed Sorcery or Incantation or a pretence of doing more wonderfull things then the greatest Magicians of Aegypt and lastly gross Idolatry and open Image-worship all these I say being as well noted and so signally to be the opposites of the Holy City which is the Church of Christ as so execrable in the sight of God as expressely to be doomed or sentenced to be cast into the Lake that burns with fire and brimstone I conceive that my Idea of Antichristianism being made up chiefly out of these parts and explicitely comprising them all besides other particulars of the like nature it cannot be denied but that it is a true and perfect Idea thereof even upon the testimony of Holy Writ 4. But I dare briefly appeal to any mans Reason that has imbibed but the first Rudiments of Christianity and knows but common sense and has read any ordinary Carechism has the least spark of Grace in his heart or any relish of what is holy and divine whether the nature of those things of which I have composed this Idea of Antichristianism be not essentially and intrinsecally Antichristian For to take again a compendious view of what we have more largely exspatiated in and thereby to give judgement more safely on the whole matter what Hypothesis can be framed more Antichristian then this That a pack of men phansy them as numerous as you please should hold together under one domineering Head that would trample upon Princes and tread upon the necks of Emperours and kick their Crowns off with his foot and under pretence of being Successours to Christ and his Apostles though Christ told the boasting Jews who yet were unquestionably the posterity of Abraham that they were of their Father the Devil because they did his works claim notwithstanding an Infallibility of Judgement and Right of ordering all the affairs of the world in reference to Christ's Spiritual Kingdom but yet in the mean time in very truth seek nothing but the encrease of their temporal Honour and Power and to this end undermine and defeat the whole design of the Gospel not acting according to the Laws of Christ but making such Institutes and countenancing such Practices as bring in most wealth for the support of the Magnificence of this Tyrannical High-priest that takes it to be but his
due to ride upon the necks of Princes And therefore every gainful sin and serviceable to this purpose shall be made a Law though never so point-blank against the Laws of God and Christ and all those sacred purposes of Christ's coming into the World shall be trode upon for a foot-stool to lift this pack of Impostours into the Throne that they may the better trample upon all the people of the Earth That is to say Whereas Christ by his Gospel came to silence idolatry throughout the world these Deceivers for their own advantage and profit will set up openly in their Churches as gross Image-worship as ever was amongst the Heathen Whereas Christ came to free the people of God from the yoke and burthen of Mosaical Ordinances these Oppressors of Mankind will load their bodies and Consciences with more numerous and tedious Superstitions and Ceremonies then eveâ—… Moses commanded and put them to a drudgery and slavery worse then the Aegyptian Task-masters did the children of Israel in their soarest bondage Whereas Christ was given to the world by his Father to be an absolute King from whose Decrees there can be no appeal nor any annulment of dispensation with his Laws a perfect High-priest who by the Sacrifice of himself once made and self-effectual Intercession is an all-sufficient Reconciler of us to God a Prophet and Teacher whose Instructions and Predictions are all infallible Oracles this King of Babylon for so I will call this Tyrannical Seducer with his Hypocritical Assistants shall pretend that Christ has given up his Kingdom to them and that they have the very same Power that Christ himself can dispense with or abrogate those Laws he has made or appoint Laws quite contrary to them oâ—… have authority to put what sense upon them they please which is the 〈◊〉 nulling of Christ's authority as he is Law-giver and King and the greatest Treason and the most contemptuous that can be committed against his Heavenly Majesty This false High-priest with his several Orders of levite as if that one offering of the Body of Christ which he himself made once were not sufficient for the atonement of the World nor yet his sole Intercession in virtue of his Infinite Merits and Passion available for our reconciliation with God pretend to the high dishonour and vilification of Christ's own offering himself up once to offer him up in their own hands really and bodily every day in a manner and as if the Intercession of Christ and his own inestimable Merits were of themselves maimed and defectuous clap to them to piece them out the Merits and Intercession of mere Mortals such as could merit for none but for themselves nor indeed have got to Heaven but upon the sole merits of their loving Saviour whom they are made thus to confront in his incommunicable Office And lastly This false Prophet with the rest of his devoted Impostours to the end that their own lies and misleadings of the people may not be discovered but withall to the unsufferable reproach of that great and true Prophet the Lord Jesus and the unspeakable injury of his cordial Followers withhold those lively Oracles delivered by him and his Apostles from the knowledge of men not without gross revilements and disparagements cast upon those Holy Writings then which nothing can be more outrageous against the Prophetick Office of Christ. 5. Again Whereas the Divinity of Christ is plainly and punctually and of set purpose asserted in Scripture to assure us of the allowableness of that Religious Worship we doe to him it being his peculiar Royalty or Prerogative as being not mere Man but God nay his Godhead being ascertain'd to us by that argument of Adoration due to him Worship him all ye gods yet this perfidious Antichristian Hierarchy will not stick to undermine this Prerogative and as much as in them lies to proclaim to the world that he is no more then mere Man for as if they had found an allowed instance of Men-worship in him they will give Religious worship to hundreds of Saints as well as to himself Whereas Christ is described in the Prophets as the Prince of Peace these falsely-pretended Successors of his or rather the Seed of Satan who was a man-hater and murtherer from the beginning will prove themselves Fomenters of dissentions and commotions and causers of embroilments of Nations and Kingdoms in War upon their politick and pragmatical Machinations for the unjust Interest of their own holy Crew Whereas Christ was the Light of the World these will study to keep the world in Ignorance that they may the better tyrannize over them and inslave them And whereas Christ professed himself to be the Truth these will make it their business to fill the world with Falsities and Lies so they be but so contrived as is most fit for the holding up their Interest Pomp and Power in the world 6. And thirdly and lastly Whereas the chief and most indispensable End of Christ's coming here upon Earth was to enliven the world with that Life which is truly Holy and Divine wherein are comprised those four Heavenly Graces of Faith Humility Purity and Charity as for the first This Pseudo-christian Church by reason of the multitude of their lying Miracles and gross Legends and falsified Reliques their incredible Stories of Purgatory and shameless Impossibility of Transsubstantiation all which tend to the Profit and Interest of these Seducers bring things to such a pass that if all the counsels of Hell were laid together they could not invent any thing more destructive of Christian Belief and more mischievously insinuating that Religion is onely a Fiction found out to inrich the Priest and make him powerful and honourable And then for Humility Their Supreme Patriarch being so very high and wrought to that high pitch by such frauds and forgeries by abetting and countenancing such Treasons Murthers and Villainies by raising such Seditions and Confusions in Christendom and this Sacerdotal Monarchy exercised with that haughtiness and unparallel'd pride this Supreme Levite so grossly and rudely treading upon the necks of Princes and making the greatest Emperours his foot-stool in his displeasure and his Sedan-men or Chair-carriers when he is at peace with them and the whole constitution of their Hierarchy in the several pomps and degrees thereof being rather a fiery rack of inflaming Ambition to set all mens spirits on the tenter-hooks in their reaching after the bewitching prizes which are ever flaring in their eyes then an allowable frame of a modest order of Government to keep up wholesome Discipline in the Church can we imagine any complexion of things more contrary to the Spirit of Humility then this And then again for Purity For this lofty High-priest to stoop so low as to set his Seal to the allowableness of Fornication by receiving an annual Tribute from the Whores of his Metropolis and to enjoyâ—… coelibate to his Priests as if he meant to drive them into the nets that these Nuns
History of Christ and his Apostles but introducing thereupon such a face of Idolatry and Heathenish Superstition and barbarous Cruelty against the true Servants of Christ that by those whose judgments are more free and piercing such a state of the Church cannot but be deemed rather a Revival of Paganism then an uninterrupted Succession of true Christianity in the world or to use the softest language that the truth of the thing will admit of it cannot be judged pure and unadulterate Christianity but a kind of Pagano-Christianism the Pagan Rites Idolatries and Superstitions being practised upon Christian Objects and this Paganism in this pretended Christianity being maintained with as ferine cruelty as Paganism it self was in the time of the Heathen Emperours It remains now according to our proposed Method to search into the holy Oracles to find out Whether such a kind of Antichristianism as I have described be not prefigured therein and Whether so horrible a Mutation in the Church of Christ which for the general it is apparent even in the judgements of all that are not wilfully blind has for these many Ages seized upon the Church was not predicted of old by the Prophets or Apostles or by both 2. For it seems to me a wonderfull thing and incredible That God who was so carefull and watchfull over the Church of the Jews foretelling their Captivities and Returns out of Captivity and fore-advertising them in a manner of all their affairs of Importance by the mouths of his Prophets sometimes many hundred years before should leave the Church of Christ for so great a number of Ages without Ephod and without Teraphim without Prophets or timely Predictions what things would betide her in the decursion of so long a space as twelve or thirteen hundred years together to let her be bewildred thus in so endless a Night and leave her floating upon the waves without any Cynosura to stear by Wherefore I do not doubt but Christ has been so faithfull to his Spouse that he has left some Oracular Records wherein a man may reade if he come with unprejudiced eyes in a very legible Character the state and condition of the Church and this grand Apostasy of it with the most notorious circumstances thereunto appertaining that is to say He shall find in a manner all those Heads of Antichristianism which I have insisted upon intimated some way or other and charged upon that Church especially which History has found so guilty thereof 3. Which thing I being so fully persuaded of in my own judgement cannot without a great measure of grief or indignation reflect upon the misspent pains of some learned Pens who have endeavoured to pervert all those illustrious Prophecies whether in Daniel the Apocalyps or other places that do forewarn the people of God of this grand Degeneracy of the Church unto some other sense and meaning though never so forced and frivolous though never so strained and inconsiderable thereby obscuring both the glorious Providence of God of whose watchfulness over his Church the true and easy sense of these Prophecies is a most ample witness as also hindering that benefit which was to accrue to us by the right understanding of these holy Prefigurations and Predictions which if rightly interpreted would be of wonderfull great virtue for the reclaiming of the world and converting of Christendom to that ancient and Apostolick purity as well in Practice as Doctrines from which they have so long time swerved Wherefore out of a due sense of the Honour of God and the Interest of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus I hold it fit to bring into view all those Prophecies as well of the Old as New Testament that have been by the Ancients understood of this Antichristian Apostasy and with an unprejudiced freedom and impartiality to unfold the meaning of them Which I hope I shall doe with that plainness and simplicity of evidence offering so unforced so easy and so natural a sense of things and so coherent with undubitable Principles that there is no man that is not grosly prejudiced but will receive full satisfaction concerning the true meaning of these Divine Oracles 4. I must confess that it is hard to produce any Text of Scripture wherein this Apostatized state of the Church is undoubtedly foretold under the very Name of Antichrist though that Name be found more then once in the Epistles of S. John But though some do yet I dare not contend that this Antichrist or Antichristianism which I have hitherto described is so clearly pointed at in every one of those places Not onely Grotius but Mr. Mede himself understands those Antichrists of the Pseudo-christs that our Saviour foretells of in Matthew which should start up before and after the destruction of Jerusalem which was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the last hour of the Jewish Commonwealth But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is indifferently rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Fourth Kingdom in Daniel being the last the time of that Kingdom may be also intimated by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whence that in S. John * 1 Ep. 2. 18. My little children it is the last hour and as you heard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that that famous Antichrist will come even now there are many Antichrists whereby we know it is the last hour may bear this sense upon supposition the Prediction is somewhat Elliptically set down That the last time in Daniel's Kalendar of his Four Kingdoms that is to say the last Kingdom was then a running on which is the Roman during which Kingdom the Little horn which here is called Antichrist shall come upon the stage This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he that famous Antichrist whom you may have heard of out of Daniel but this is a greater distance off Wherefore to speak what more pressly concerns you Even now there are many Antichrists which not Daniel but our Saviour foretold of whereby again we know it is the last hour but I mean not of the Four Kingdoms of Daniel but of the Jewish Commonwealth according as our Lord has predicted Or more briefly thus My little children it is the last hour that is to say the last Kingdom of the Four namely the Roman and as you have heard that that famous Antichrist will then come viz. in that last hour so also now in the last hour of the Jewish Polity there are many Antichrists whence we may gather it is the last hour thereof these many Antichrists according to prediction attending this last hour as that one famous Antichrist that In some such sense as this I do confess that that Antichrist or Antichristianism which I have hitherto treated of may be by very Name intimated in this Text of Scripture though I shall quarrel with no man that would interpret it otherwise Grotius expounds this famous Antichrist of whom they
by their recourse to the Bloud of Christ by which they are justifi'd and freed from that blind bondage they were held in under those hard Task-masters that the Concinnity is marvellous to consider the Type being so clear a Prophecy of what has happened within these last Ages in breaking from that Tyrannicall bondage of the Italian Pharaoh But such Instances as these are infinite 6. The next obscuring Scheme is Ellipsis which is an omission of some word or words which are requisite to determine the sense Examples of Ellipses occurre every-where in the Old Testament in the Psalms Job and other Books But by an Ellipsis here I understand not merely the defect of something to make up the full sense but such an artificial defect as shall make the sense seem compleat without the supplement understood For that seems to be the Genius of these Apocalyptick Visions especially that they are made so as to seem very trim and express very complete and articulate in the very outward Cortex as a Book that has some pleasing Embellishments on the back-side as well as the History of truth within 7. Which I little doubt but may be alluded to in that expression concerning this Volume of Visions that it was * Revel 5. 1. written within and without according to the ancient manner of the Cabbalistick Mysteries Touching which Traditions Parmenides had got that Principle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That there is a twofold traditionary Knowledge the one Truth it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Daniel in counterdistinction to his Aenigmatical Visions the other Types or Parables accommodate to the conceit and gust of the Vulgar S. Hierom also Rupertus and several others understand this being written within and on the back-side of a Literal and Mystical sense Grotius pretends the Text is not rightly comma'd but reads it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Written within and sealed on the back-side As if there were any Books written on the back-side and sealed within So unfortunate an Interpreter of the Apocalyps is the great Hugo even in lesser matters But to return to the matter in hand 8. The difference of those two kinds of Ellipses we have described may be seen in these Examples Exod. 3. where Moses asking God his Name he returns this answer I am that I am which is an Elliptical speech and fully supplied is My Name is I am that I am Something like this is that also in the * Chap. 1. 4. Apocalyps Grace to you and peace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which were more full 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But these Ellipses are such that they discover the defect of what is to be supplied But sometimes it is not so as Apocal. 17. 8. The Beast which thou sawest was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and goe into perdition And a little after When they behold the Beast that was and is not and yet is Which seems a smooth entire sense in the exteriour Cortex of the Prophecy whenas no good sense at all can be made of it unless there be conceived some such Ellipsis as before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But to have been thus express had laid this Mystery over-open which ought to be in a greater measure concealed and therefore it was thus carefully lock'd up in this Prophetick Ellipsis Of which Text more fully in its proper place 9. Homonymia is the Diversity of significations in one and the same Symbol whereof one alone is to be understood else it were coincident with an Henopoeia of the second kind Which Homonymia may fall out ex accidenti and is of no greater difficulty then that ordinary Homonymia of words whose sense the consideration of the contexture of things will determine or else it may be intended of set purpose to make up a more gracefull insculpture upon the external Cortex of a Vision As in the Vision of the Witnesses I suspect that the three days and an half that they lie dead in the street do not signify as in the beginning of that Vision three years and an half but three times and an half that is 1260 years Nay that they do signify so I do confess I do more then suspect am indeed well assured in my own judgement of the truth thereof But whether there be any likelihood of their signifying also three years and an half Events will better determine Which if they did there would not be a simple Homonymia in this Symbol of three days and an half but an Henopoeia of the second kind 10. Metalepsis is a Prophetick Scheme whereby an Effect or Event is transferred or communicated to some eminent Person merely or at least mainly because the place and time is coincident with his and there is the same reason of Things This Scheme I must confess is very Poetical but not unelegant nor unusuall Like to this is that of Virgil Candidus auratis aperit cùm cornibus annum Taurus and again Libra dies somnique pares ubi fecerat horas Where Taurus and Libra because they are then in conjunction with the Sun have attributed to them or transferred upon them those Effects which really are the Sun 's onely and not theirs But that there is such a Metalepsis as I have described in the Prophetick style that one example of the Rider of the red Horse in the * Chap. 6. 4. Apocalyps will make good who is armed with a great sword in his hand and is said to take peace from the Earth Whenas nothing else is signified but that in this Emperour's time there would be very furious killing and slaying in the Empire though by no fault of his For it is said they should kill one another as if the Text on purpose did cast in that key for the opening the meaning of the Vision as Mr. Mede has judiciously observed Whose interpretation of the First six Seals is so solid that it is impossible I think taking all things together for any unprejudiced Reader not to be assured of the truth of them Whence it is that I am so well assured of this present Prophetick Figure I have set down 11. Antichronismus is an obscurative Scheme in Prophecy which sets down one measure of time for another as a Week for Seven years as in Daniel a Month for Thirty years a Day for a Year Which Figure seems to be used in the Apocalyptick Visions not onely for concealment sake but for proportion and Decorum that the external Cortex of the Prophecies may not want their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that winning and pleasing Credibility of Story Wherefore these Antichronismi are a necessary Consequence of that Prophetick Henopoeia that contracts vast Empires and other Bodies Politick with their long Successions into the figure or shape of Beasts or single Persons whence that the duration of their lives may not be over-proportionated to their nature it was necessary to declare their
reason Grotius has to exile S. John into Patmos in Claudius his time for Claudius his expelling the Jews from Rome falls short of banishing John into Patmos by many degrees For first Grotius was to prove that by Jews are meant Christians in that place For there are no contemptible reasons to induce one to believe that the Jews not the Christians are meant there First Because the Christians sought a Kingdom above not on the Earth but the Jews ran mad after such a Christ or Messias as would make them Masters of the World and therefore they onely could seem dangerous in Rome as whose Tumults tended to an Earthly Booty Secondly In the Acts this Edict of Claudius is mentioned as touching the Jews onely and Aquila and Priscilla as being Jews for there is not the least intimation of their being Christians are said to depart from Rome to Corinth Thirdly The fresh remembrance of Tiberius his Edict against the Accusers of Christians might have still that influence upon the mind of his Successors that so suddenly no such harsh Sentence should pass against them especially they being a people as I said whose thoughts were on Heaven did not lie at catch for things on Earth And lastly None of the Ancients ever taxed Claudius for any injury done to the Christians whenas if they had been banished and S. John himself confined to Patmos which had been a very severe punishment and to flesh and bloud little less tolerable then death undoubtedly the Infamie of so great a Cruelty would have been transmitted to Posterity by the Church and Claudius not escaped the brand of a Persecutor Nor do those words of Suetonius prove the Edict to belong to the Christians Claudius Judaeos impulsore Chresto tumultuantes Româ expulit but onely that there was an Edict against the Jews For who can believe any weight in his asserting that they tumultuated impulsore Chresto whenas Christ was not then alive on Earth much less at Rome to incense the Jews into Tumults unless it was that the Jews were occasionally vext at the Christians in Rome and made a great deal a-doe at their acknowledging such a Messias as was crucifi'd and therefore of whom there was no hope of serving their turn for the regaining of their liberty and making them great men in this world Wherefore there being such a stir with the Jews concerning their Chrestus or Messias against the Christians uncertain Fame might make Suetonius phrase it so as he has but this Inspection into the Genius of the Jews might cause Claudius to expel them out of the City it may be in favour of the Christians as well as for his own security This passage in Suetonius is so far from determining this Edict to the Christians that Orosius gives this judgment of it Utrùm Oros. lib. 7. cap. 6. contra Christum tumultuantes Judaeos coërceri comprimi jusserit an etiam Christianos simul velut cognatae religionis homines voluerit expelli nequaquam discernitur So little assurance is there that Claudius did any evil at all to the Christians by that Edict mentioned in Suetonius 6. But suppose that Decree reached the Christians also at Rome it is but an arbitrarious surmise to think it reached to other parts of the Empire and if to other parts of the Empire it is not a Confinement as I have above hinted but a Banishment at large from some one certain place and then onely of such it is most likely as were in Tumults or at least from such Towns where they might have caused Tumults which was most unlikely in the place where S. John resided the sweetness and peaceableness of whose spirit would tempt any discreet Governour to retain him for the better keeping things in peace And yet so extravagant is this supposition that he is the onely man that is thus sharply dealt with nor can they produce an example of any one else thus banished in Claudius his time and yet all the Apostles certainly were busie enough in doing their duties to propagate Christianity in the Empire 7. I but you will say this Record of Claudius his expelling the Jews from Rome being seconded with the Testimony of Epiphanius who affirms him banished into Patmos under the same Emperour is such a double cord as will not easily be broken Which I would the easilier grant if they had any strength at all single as I have shew'd the first has none and shall doe the like for the second There are two places alledged out of Epiphanius The one Haeres 51. Sect. 33. where speaking of S. John he writes thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But these words are not spoken definitively of S. John's being in Patmos in Claudius Caesar's reign but onely that he was in Patmos and did prophesie there but for the time he says it was at the farthest in Claudius his reign for that is the meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it was the soonest that he could be thought to prophesie in Patmos as an Exul there but he does not say absolutely he prophesied then So that it is a more lax and conjectural Affirmation concerning the time and onely says that it is the utmost distance within which he may be thought to have prophesied not denying but that the time of his Prophesying might be later suppose in Domitian's time Of which Petavius is so confident that he writes over against Imperante Claudio in the Text this short Marginal Note Mendosè pro Domitiano he taking it for granted that Epiphanius speaks more definitively then I think he does And I believe both Grotius and others that cite the place to the same purpose with him were aware of such a sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I have hinted which made them leave it out of their Citation as weakening the force thereof Nor is it any Argument that Epiphanius does dogmatically define that S. John prophesied in Claudius his time because if he was not perswaded of that opinion he would have followed the ordinary one as being fitter to use against the Montanists that would derogate from the truth of the Apocalyps by reason of the Epistle to the Church of Thyatira which they pretend to be wrote before there was any Church there for then the later written the better But supposing the Father uncertain which was true and not assured but that the Montanists would prove that there was no Church as yet at Thyatira in Domitian's time neither were there any likelihood that â—…e would peremptorily pitch upon Domitian's reign rather then of the other or rather not decline both and betake himself to some other Answer as indeed he does For he seems to be in love with the Objection thus circumstantiated he gaining so much as he conceives upon the Objectors as by their own Supposition to make them acknowledge S. John or the Author of this Book of Visions to be really endued with the Spirit of Prophecie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For if they say there was not a Church at Thyatira in being at that instant when S. John wrote they plainly declare that S. John did prophesie and intimated afore-hand that there would be one Wherefore Epiphanius found little reason why he should from the state of the present Controversie chuse the ordinary opinion rather then that which is accounted his own 8. The other place of Epiphanius is Haeres 51. Sect. 12. where he tells us how S. John was impelled and constrained to write the Gospel by the instigation of the Holy Ghost though he very much declined it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet he was forced by that impulse and that in his old age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he was more then ninety years old after his return out of Patmos which happened in Claudius his time Where there is this adjection of the mention of his return from Patmos as a confirmation of the grandevity of the Apostle at that time Now let us see what service this Magnus testis Historiarum diligentissimus Inquisitor as Grotius calls him as well as he does Petavius who so plainly contradicts him in this very point can doe this learned Interpreter in the present case For this passage if there had been any force in the former does quite obtund it it shewing Epiphanius not at all diligent in Chronologie as Alcazar has also well observed in making S. John above ninety years old in Claudius his time whenas the common Tradition of the Church is that he was very young when he entred upon his Apostleship S. Jerom saith that Christ chose him when he was but a youth or child Baronius makes him just twenty five years old at the Passion of our Saviour The Scripture it self implies also that he was but young in that Christ says to his Mother concerning John Woman behold thy son which should imply that he was at least as young as our Saviour Christ he being himself born of the Virgin when she was but of the age of fifteen as Nicephorus relates out of an Epistle of Euodius Bishop of Antioch But by Epiphanius his Chronologie S. John would be at least twenty years older then the Blessed Virgin concerning whom notwithstanding Christ says to John Behold thy Mother And which is still worse if S. John was ninety years old when he came out of Patmos under the reign of Claudius it will run the Nativity of Christ near fourty years back and place it long before Cyrenius was Governour of Syria forasmuch as all men conceive S. John to be at least as young as our Saviour if not much younger Which Absurdities detect Epiphanius not to be so great and unexceptionable a Witness in History as Grotius would make him And therefore Petavius again peremptorily sets down in the Margin over against Epiphanius his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sub Cocceio Nerva Joannes revocatur ab exilio Which certainly is the truth and agrees with that time of S. John's age which Epiphanius allots to him when he wrote the Gospel For supposing him to be born about the same time our Saviour was or a little later this writing of the Gospel will fall into the years of Nerva or at least some few years after Domitian according as you shall finde it set down in Chronologies 9. But supposing Epiphanius his Testimony of value in this case the same Epiphanius that witnesses John in Patmos under the reign of Claudius witnesses him out again in the same reign which as I have * Sect. 4. already noted spoils Grotius his Project who would have S. John prophesy in Vespasian's time else all the fat is in the fire as touching the Interpretation of the Seventeenth Chapter of the Apocalyps But I think I have plainly proved that there can be nothing gained out of Epiphanius for establishing Grotius his conceit these Passages of the Father being either but Conjectures or Inadvertencies or else some lapses of the Scribe who wrote it seems more glibly the name of Claudius then of the other two Emperours as it might appear in that second Citation S. John being indeed about that age when he came out of Patmos in Cocceius Nerva his time but not in Claudius's 10. So that Grotius has not so much as one Witness to countenance his new Invention and if he had had this one what is one to the whole stream of Antiquity and of the Churches Nay what is Epiphanius his Testimony compared with the Testimony of that one single Father Irenaeus he living two hundred years nearer S. John's time then Epiphanius and who expresly asserts in Eusebius that the Apocalyps was imparted to S. John at the end of Domitian's reign For speaking of the Name of the Beast he writes thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If the name of the Beast had been openly to be divulged at this time it would have been told by him that saw those Visions which under one collective Title are called The Apocalyps For they were seen not long since at the end of Domitian 's reign 11. This I doubt not but is the genuine sense of these words and that he speaks not of the Vision of the Beast alone under that name of the Apocalyps but of the whole body of Visions so called Otherwise for distinctness sake he would have said not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 especially considering Apocalypsis had then passed into a known Title of this volume of Visions Besides that the Name of the Beast was not seen by S. John but the Number of his Name And therefore whereas the Latine has it Antichristi nomen per ipsum utique editum fuisset qui Apocalypsin videret neque enim ante multum temporis visum est I should easily believe that visum got in for visa by the oscitancy of the Scribe For unless the Interpreter of Irenaeus had understood qui Apocalypsin videret of the whole Collection of Visions and not of the Beast onely and his Name he would have rather said Revelationem and for sureness have added ejus to make the sense more distinct and determinate qui Revelationem ejus videret And lastly suppose this Testimony proved onely that the Vision of the Thirteenth Chapter of the Revelation was seen at the end of Domitian's reign which I have not the least conceit of it will not serve Grotius his turn since this of the Seventeenth Chapter is later both by order of situation in the Apocalyps and also by nature For it being the plainest Vision concerning the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns that was exhibited to S. John and containing in it a Key for the right understanding the other it ought to come last the Comment being naturally later then the Text according to common sense and reason 12. Wherefore seeing there is no proof at all that Claudius persecuted the Christians much less that he exiled John into Patmos but that Domitian was a notorious Persecuter and
truth of the Consectary appears thus The Seventh King which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and which I have proved to be the Emperours purely Christian it is said of him that he must * Apoc. 17. 10. continue a short space which unless the Prophecy speaks altogether undeterminately and defines nothing thereby must in reason be thought to be about a third part of that space which this Expression intimates to be long For Short and Long are not absolute terms but relative or comparative and are two Extremes which imply a Middle Wherefore we cannot better settle the determinate Idea of them then by supposing a Line divided into three equal parts and to look upon the whole Line as the Subject of Longness two thirds of the Line as the Subject of Mediocrity and one third of Shortness From whence we may gather universally what proportion to speak accurately and Mathematically Short and Long must bear the one to the other That in strictness of Notion that which is just the third part of the other is short in comparison of it but in common use of speech though it be something more or less it will break no squares There must either be some such way as this to settle this Notion or else Short and Long will signify nothing but be words spoke at random unless it be in such cases as there is a known measure of Mediocrity as when we say a tall man or a low man where it is taken for granted that a middle stature is so many foot and no more Having seriously considered the necessity of some determinate Notion of these two terms and how naturally they fall into this proportion I could not but consent to so plain a Conviction though I might justly seem prejudiced against it by what I have wrote elsewhere concerning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but I had not then so accurately Mystery of Godliness Book 5. Ch. 16. Sect. 9. weighed the matter 4. Admitting therefore that to be the genuine sense of these terms of Short and Long which I have propounded and comparing the continuance of the Seventh King with the continuance of the Sixth that is to say of the Pagan Caesars which from Julius to Constantine is about 360 years it is plain that the continuance of the Seventh King that is of the Christian Caesars must be 120 years or thereabout which added to Ann. Christi 312 when Constantine was converted to Christianity make 432 years Which I would not pronounce to be so defined as to understand a Mathematical accuracy in the proportion of Short and Long but with some latitude such as befits the use of common speech in such Expressions though it be necessary to have recourse to this Mathematical Idea that we may judge whether the use of these terms be tolerable or extravagant But what I leave more laxe here will be more particularly bounded in the Proportion of the Inward and Outward Court of the Temple which will gird in this time a little within 400 years but so as this present way of Compute will be very flexible and obedient to it For supposing the Short term viz. 120 subdivided into three degrees or parts any thing above two thirds thereof may rationally be deemed Short in the first degree of Comparison And we are to remember that the Duration of the Beast restored is computed by Months of years which as I have above noted intimates a latitude no less then any thing within thirty in the computation of these Epocha's the pinching of things to a year's coincidence being of no usefulness in these long Periods nor in the nature of the things that are predicted and therefore not affected nor intended by that Spirit that dictated these Prophecies Which I doubt not but is a very solid and true Observation Wherefore it is plain enough that the Churche's lapse into Antichristianism was not till about four hundred years after Christ the reign of the Seventh King not expiring till then Consect III. That the Reign of Antichrist is comprised within the compass of 1260 years or thereabout 5. For thus long is the Empire to continue Idolatrous as is evident out of our Joint-Exposition and the first Consectary thereof But it is in a manner impossible for the Empire to continue Idolatrous any longer then the Idolatrous Clergy thereof rides it and guides it which is the Whore or the Two-horned Beast and these Types the Types or Symbols of Antichrist Which we shall farther prove to synchronize with the Ten-horned Beast that is with the Pagano-Christian Empire in the following Chapter Consect IV. That Antichrist is long since entred into the World and has reigned about twelve hundred years already The truth of this Consectary is evident from the second wherein is shewn that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the succession of the purely Christian Caesars was not above 120 years or thereabout Which added to the year of Constantine's Conversion 312 make up 432. From about that time Antichrist began his reign and therefore has reigned at least twelve hundred years already Consect V. That according to Prophetical Compute the Ruine of Antichrist is near and that nothing can retard it but the Sinfulness Hypocrisy and Factiousness of the Reformed Churches and that therefore that voice of Him that cried in the Wilderness Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand is again very seasonable in this our Age. This Consectary is exceeding plain from the three Consectaries immediately going before nor is it needfull to adde any thing to the farther clearing it Onely see if you will my Mystery of Godliness Book 5. Chap. 17. Sect. 10. Consect VI. That the Roman Empire divided into Ten Kingdoms is the Seat of Antichrist This is directly contained in our Joint-Exposition the Beast with ten Horns being there proved to be the Roman Empire thus divided And the Whore which is Antichrist is said to sit upon this Beast and the Two-horned Beast to be the Idolatrizing Clergy of the Empire under those two Imperial Patriarchates of Rome and Constantinople as also the Whore and the Two-horned Beast are proved to be all one Which fully make good this sixth Consectary Consect VII That the Ruine of the Fourth Monarchy and the Introducing of the Fifth which is the Kingdome of the Saints of the most High as Daniel calls it does not imply warrs and spoil and the invading of the rights of any Prince or People according to the tenour of the Prophetick style but merely the renewing of the Empire into an Evangelical Purity in Doctrine and Worship and in Christian Life 6. This plainly appears out of our Joint-Exposition where it is manifest that the Beast which is the Roman Monarchy is said to be slain and not to be in rerum natura merely because the Pagan Idolatry was expelled out of it or ceased to be the Religion of the Empire and that the Beast was revived from the dead and brought into Being again merely
the Book of Articles Trans substantiation cannot be proved Article 28. by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many Superstitions Whence she rightly and demonstratively concludes that the Sacrament is not to be carried about lifted up nor worshipped For there is none that can worship the Host upon presumption that it is Christ to whom Divine worship is due but he is ipso facto an Idolater as I have proved elsewhere more at large And again in the same Book she does expresly declare That the Sacrifices of Masses in the which it is commonly Article 31. said that the Priest does offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt are blasphemous Fables and dangerous Deceits The truth of which is easy to be understood out of what we have written in our Idea of Antichristianism touching Idolatry and the Abuse of Christ's Person and Office in this enormous Errour And in the Homily concerning the Sacrament she expresly taxes the Popish Masses with Idolatry imputing it to the ignorance of the nature of the Lord's Supper What hath been the cause of this gross Idolatry but the Ignorance thereof what has been the cause of this mummish Massing but the Ignorance thereof And a little after Let us therefore so travail to understand the Lord's Supper that we be no cause of the decay of God's worship of no Idolatry of no dumb Massing of no hate and malice c. To all which you may adde what is annexed in our Liturgie at the end of the Communion viz. That the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithfull Christians And the natural Body and Bloud of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places then one Which Rubrick is interserted in our Liturgie with unexceptionable Judgment and Fidelity and does fully reach the end of its Intersertion For no man I think can be so grosly ignorant or so openly malicious as to pretend that after this so plain Declaration of our Church either himself or any one else can become guilty of Idolatry by that humble posture of Kneeling at the receiving of the Sacrament 4. And lastly touching the Adoration of Images there can be nothing more seriously protested against by any Church then this enormous wickedness is by ours To omit how she has perstringed them in the Book of Articles she does expresly bind the worshippers of them under a curse in her Liturgie in the Form of Commination Cursed is the man that maketh any carv'd or molten Image to worship it And in her Homily against the Peril of Idolatry with a passionate but unexceptionable and judicious zeal she does copiously inveigh against the very having of Images in Churches I mean such as are in any capacity of being worshipped nay against the very making of the Image of God or any of the Persons of the Holy Trinity yea of Christ himself forasmuch as he is truly God contending that no Image can be made of Christ but a lying Image as the Scripture peculiarly Homily against the Peril of Idolatry Part 3. calls Images Lies for Christ is God and Man Seeing therefore for the Godhead which is the most excellent part no Image can be made it is falsly called the Image of Christ. Wherefore Images of Christ be not onely Defects but also Lies Nor does she stick here but urges the argument and truly not without judgement against the Images of Saints whose Souls the most excellent part of them can saith she by no Images be represented and expressed But concerning the having such Images in Temples she doth with an holy Jealousy peremptorily contend and inculcate that it is plainly against the Second Commandment adding this reason For they being set up have been be and ever will be worshipped and thereupon become abominable Idols nothing different from those of the Heathen they being made of the same matter with them and men having the same conceits of the Saints they are made to and of their offices as the Heathen had of their Deities they worshipping them also with the same Rites and Ceremonies And to shew they have the same opinion of their Saints that the Pagans had of their several Gods she compares such Saints as are made Guardians of Kingdoms to their Dii Tutelares such as Belus was to the Babylonians Osiris and Isis to the Aegyptians Vulcan to the Lemnians the Guardian Saints of Cities to their Dii Praesides such as Apollo was to Delphos Minerva to Athens Juno to Carthage and Quirinus to Rome and lastly their Templed Saints to Jupiter in the Capitol and Diana in the famous Temple of Ephesus And touching one and the same Saints having Images in several places she parallels our Lady of Walsingham our Lady of Ipswich and our Lady of Wilsdon to Venus Cypria Venus Paphia and Venus Gnidia to their Sea-Gods Neptune Triton Nereus and Venus S. Christopher S. Clement and the Blessed Virgin to Vulcan and Vesta Gods of the Fire S. Agatha And then intimating that as in ancient Paganism the Affairs of Love of War of Diseases in men and beasts were assigned to several Deities so to several Saints in the Popish Religion she at last breaks out into this zealous Exclamation Where is God's Providence and due honour in the mean time who saith The Heavens be mine and the Earth is mine the whole world and all that in it is I give victory and I put to flight Except I keep the City the Watch-man waketh but in vain that keepeth it Thou Lord shalt save both man and beast But we have left him neither Heaven nor Earth nor Water nor Countrey nor City Peace nor War to rule and govern neither men nor beasts nor their diseases to cure That a godly man might justly for zealous Indignation cry out O Heaven and Earth and Seas what madness and wickedness against God are men fallen into What dishonour doe the Creatures to their Creatour and Maker namely in reposing a religious trust in those Saints they invoke to these purposes which can belong to none other but God himself 5. And as touching the manner of their worshipping these Images and Saints What meaneth it saith she that they after the manner of the Gentile Idolaters burn Incense offer up gold to Images hang up crutches chains and ships legs arms and whole men and women of wax before Images as though by them or Saints as they say they were delivered from Lameness Sickness Captivity or Shipwreck Is not this COLERE IMAGINES to worship Images so earnestly forbidden in God's Word And a little after more fully and vehemently Wherefore when we see men and women on heaps to goe on Pilgrimages to