Selected quad for the lemma: woman_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
woman_n	church_n	time_n	wilderness_n	1,494	5	9.8942	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50525	The apostasy of the latter times in which, according to divine prediction, the world should wonder after the beast the mystery of iniquity should so farre prevaile over the mystery of godlinesse, whorish Babylon over the virgin-Church of Christ, as that the visible glory of the true church should be much clouded the true unstained Christian faith corrupted the purity of true worship polluted, or, The gentiles theology of dæmons i.e. inferiour divine powers, supposed to be mediatours between God and man : revived in the latter times amongst Christians in worshipping of angels, deifying and invocating of saints, adoring and templing of reliques, bowing downe to images, worshipping of crosses, &c : all which together with a true discovery of the nature, originall, progresse, of the great, fatall and solemn apotisy are cleared : delivered in publique some years since upon I Tim. 4. 1,2,3 / by Joseph Mede ...	Mede, Joseph, 1586-1638.; Twisse, William, 1578?-1646.	1641 (1641)	Wing M1590; ESTC R22768	121,369	171

which he left us as monuments of his death till he come whichsoever it bee I must confesse it hath a straine above the abomination of the Gentiles who though they supposed some presence of their Daemons in their Images and reliques yet were they never so blockish as to think their Images and reliques to be transubstantiated into Daemons But to come to the maine againe I will confesse for my selfe that I cannot think of this Daemon-resemblance without admiration nor doe I beleeve that you will heare without some astonishment that which I am now to adde farther That the advancers of Saint-worship in the beginning did not only see it but even gloried sed gloriatione non bona that they had a thing in Christian practice so like the doctrines of Daemons we heard before that Plato in his Repub. would have the soules of such as died valiantly in the battell to be accounted for Daemons after death and their Sepulchers and Coffins to bee adored and served as the Sepulchers of Daemons Eusebius lib. 13. Praepar Evangel quoting this place adds with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these things doe befit at or after the decease of the favourites of God whom if thou shalt affirme to be taken for the champions of true Religion thou shalt not say amisse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence it is our custome to goe unto their tombs and to make our prayers at them and to honour their blessed soules The purpose of Eusebius was here to shew as a preparation to draw men to Christianity how well the present use of Christians in honouring the memories of their Martyrs by keeping their assemblies at their Sepulchers did agree with that of the Gentiles so much by Plato commended in honouring their champions and worthies for Daemons after death But alas in the age next after it proved too too like it indeed For these earerings which the Christians had borrowed or stolen from the Gentiles at their comming out of Aegypt presently became a golden calfe as soone as the woman the Church came into the wildernesse yea and Aaron the Priest had a foule part in it too Read the eighth book of Theodoret de curandis Graecorum affectionibus whose title is de Martyribus or in the meane time take these few passages thereof Thus hee speaks having quoted that passage of Hesiod for Daemons commended by Plato Quod si Poëta Hesiodus auxiliares custodesque mortalium eos vocat qui sanctè olim beneque vixerunt eamque hujus Poëtae sententiam Philosophorum optimus Plato adeò confirmavit ut eorum hominum Sepulchra ●olenda esse atque adoranda censuerit Quid ita quaeso boni viri i. e. Graeci quae ipsi facimus accusatis nos etenim pari modo N. B. eos qui illustri pietate viguerunt proque eâ jugulati ac caesi sunt auxiliares medicos nominamus at non Daemones tamen absit à nobis absit hic furor sed amicos Dei fidelesque servos dicimus fuisse Ibid. posse sanctorum animas vel cum extra hoc corpus fuerint hominum curare negotia Plato etiam II legum libro affirmat verba Platonis citantur Cum itaque Philosophus credendum esse rumoribus censeat id est sermonibus qui vulgò habentur de illâ animarum defunctarum curâ circa homines vos tamen nobis non solùm fidei nihil habetis clamantemque eventorum vocem audire non vultis c. Ibid. Martyrum templa conspicua Quique homines prosperá valetudine sunt conservari eam sibi à martyribus petunt Qui verò agritudinem aliquam patiuntur sanitatem exposcunt Insuper steriles c. Item qui peregrè proficiscuntur c. non qui se ad Deos accedere arbitrentur sed qui orent Dei martyres tanquam divinos homines intercessoresque sibi eos apud Deum advocent precentur Piè verò fideliter precatos ●a maximè consequi quae desiderant testantur illa quae votorum rei dona persolvunt manifesta nimirum sanitatis adepti iudicia Nam alii oculorum alii manuum simulachra suspendunt exargento auroque confecta paulò post Quid quod eorum qui passim Dii ferebantur memoriam è mente hominum martyres aboleverint Suos mortuos Dominus Deus noster in templa pro Diis vestris i. e. Daemonibus iduxit ac illos quidem cassos gloriâ vanosque reddidit suis autem martyribus honorem illorum dedit Propandiis enim Diasiisque Dionysiis i. e. Jovis Liberique Patris solennitatibus Petro Paulo Thomae Sergio aliisque sanctis martyribus solennitates epulo populari peraguntur Cùm itaque tantam utilitatem ex honore martyribus collato provenire homines videatis fugite quaeso errorem Daemonum pravioque ductu martyrum facibusque utentes viam capessite quae ad Deum perducit c. Now judge whether hitherto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath beene fitly applyed or not I will goe on Having therefore by so many arguments made apparant I hope what I endeavoured to prove I desire we may observe among so many corruptions both now and heretofore over-whelming the Church of Christ what it is wherein the Holy Ghost placeth the essence and counteth as the very soule of the great Apostasie under the man of sinne and would have us to make the pole-starre of our discovery thereof Not every errour not every heresie how fowle soever but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idolatry and Spirituall fornication as for other heresies though accompanying this yet are they but accidentall and not of the essence of the great Apostasie which was to come Even as whores are seldome without other great faults which yet are no part of whoredome so hath the spirituall whore many other heresies but her whoredome is only Idolatry and the doctrine of Daemons Neither is heresie of it selfe no though damnable heresie a character whereby the great Apostasie can bee knowne from other sects and blasphemies Fowle heresies were in the first ages of the Church yet Antichrist and his time were neither of them yet come when his time approached neerer the Arrians Macedonians Nestorians Eutychians were abominable heretiques And the Arrians possessed for a time the face of the visible Church yet was not theirs the solemne Apostasie looked for But Idolatry or spirituall whoredome which in that storme the Devill was a working this is the only character and note whereby the Apostasie under the man of sinne is discovered and distinguished from all other blasphemies sects and heresies of what age or time soever Which that I may not seem to ground only upon the exposition of my text which whatsoever the probability thereof be may yet be thought alone too weak to support the weight of so maine a conclusion I desire you to take these arguments for a full confirmaiion thereof some of them have already beene intimated but now all are mustered up together First that Babylon is entitled in

the Revelation of S. John not the Lyar of Babylon not the Tyrant of Babylon not the Heretique of Babylon nor the Murdresse of Babylon but the Whore of Babylon yea that Great Whore and the Mother of fornications and abominations of the earth Doth not God think we give the name as he accounts the nature or is there any one will deny that this Babylon is that mystery of iniquity which our Apostle so calleth as being in opposition to the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mystery of true worship and Religion if any should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mystery Babylon in her forehead would help to reclaim him And what Whore is that with whom the Kings and Nations and Kingdomes of the earth commit fornication can it be any other but a spirituall Whore Without question therefore S. John meanes no other thing here than what he foretold in the eleventh chapter That the Second and outmost court of the Temple which is the second state of the Christian Church together with the holy City should bee trodden downe and overtrampled by the Gentiles forty two moneths that is overwhelmed with the Idolaty of the Gentiles which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as long as power shall bee given to the Beast to make warre with the Saints as long as the witnesses must weare sackcloth and the woman which escaped the fury of the Ethnicall Dragon be fed in the wildernesse Secondly S. Paul tels us that the great Apostasie should enter by strong delusions by signes and lying wonders consider then what corruptions of the Christian faith were thus ushered in to begin with the begining and first corruption of that kinde Invocation of Saints with the adoration of their shrines and reliques how were these advanced in the Church was it not by miraculous cures of the sick healing of the lame restoring of the blinde yea raising of the dead as seemed sometimes by the only touch and aire sometimes of the shrines and reliques of soules deceased was it not still confirmed by strange apparitions and other meanes wonderfull to heare for discovery of bones and reliques unknowne and forgotten yea of men whose names they never heard of before And which I shall shew better hereafter no such experience for thirty yeares together observed in the Church untill the totall and fixed time began to enter The worshipping of Images the second for time of the Churches fornications was not this also allowed and at length fully ratified by like signes and miracles shewed upon those who approached them in their devotions Read the legend and see what store there is of strong delusions and lying wonders That which for time came in last but deserves a place among the foremost I meane the Idolatry of the Masse and adoration of the breaden god search and see if it be not also thus attented If all this be true then would I know what doctrine of theirs besides was installed with these solemnities there is but one only left for exception and it is Purgatory but what if all the delusions of Purgatory with all the apparitions of Purgatorian Ghosts were but an indirect device of Satan ayming partly to advance the Masse into an Idoll by the miraculous efficacy forsooth as the Ghosts report of the oblation thereof for them partly to install the Sonne of perdition a Daemon I yet speak not of and yet a Daemon to sit as God in the Temple and Throne of Christ with the keyes of Hades and death to deliver them what stronger presumption can there be of this than the event and that the errour of Purgatory had so long beene working before the Devill seemed to know how to make this use of it which at length he spied out and plied lustily with signes and wonders If all this be true then it followes still that it is spirituall fornication which the Holy Ghost in Scripture intendeth and the event hath marked out for the soule of Antichristian abomination and impiety But of the matter of miracles and lying wonders more in the second part of my text which is the proper place thereof Thirdly and lastly the great Apostasie is a thing proper to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter times which I will shew when I come at it to be the last times of the fourth kingdome of Daniel Dan. 7.25 alibi but amongst all other corruptions only the spirituall fornication of the Church and spouse of Christ will bee found proper to these times But you will say if Idolatry and Spirituall fornication bee the matter why should not this rather be laid upon Painims and Turks and Saracens who acknowledge not Christ rather than upon Christians who doe I answer S. John and S. Paul prophesied of things to come not of that which was in being when they prophesied But Ethnicall and Painim Idolatry at that time overwhelmed the whole earth yea and persecuted and made warre with the Saints and no time hath yet beene when this Idolatry was not to be found It must needs be then some other whoredome for whoredome it was to be which was prophesied of to come Againe neither Saracen nor Turk the greatest unchristian States since Christ neither of these I say can bee Antichrist wee speak of nor their blasphemy that mystery of iniquity foretold by the Apostles and Prophets For there are two unquestionable charactes of that mystery which will neither of them without doubt not both of them agree to Turk or Saracen videlicet first that it should sit in the Great City which in S. Johns time reigned over the nations of the earth Secondly that it should bee an Apostasie from the Christian faith once embraced But the Turk whatsoever he be is no Apostate being of a nation which never was Christian nor was the seat of the Saracen Empire whilst it stood either in the old or new Rome or neere unto either for I would seeme to yeeld for this time that new Rome or Constantinople would serve the turne though I am farre enough from beleeving it Nor will I alleadge that Mahomet himselfe and his nation were both Painims when they began their blasphemies for you would tell me that Sergius the Monk taught him to make the Alchoran nor will I question now whether the Christian or Mahumetan be the greater Idolater though the doubt might soone bee resolved seeing it is well knowne the Mahumetans worship no Images But I have alleaged nothing save what is without exception that both these characters I spake of cannot bee applied either to Turk or Saracen though I beleeve that neither can be When I spake of Painims and Mahumetans I would have you remember that there were some blasphemous sects in the first ages of the Church which are no more to be accounted of as Christians than Mahumetans and Painims are nay Mahumetanism is neerer Christianity than many of them were for amongst whom the Christians Deity is not worshipped and received those though they