and powers raised against him the victorious Leader of this Army never could nor can be overcome 2. Wee have in him not onely the vertue of his death and resurrection but also the benefit of his intercession supplying us with uncōquerable strength by which we fight and conquer 3. Wee have by him mighty weapons of proofe and power against which no dragons could yet prevaile as the powerfull sword of the Spirit that invincible I had almost said omnipotent shield of faith by which we can doe suffer and overcome all things that defensive helmet of hope a sure and stable anchor of the soule these are weapons of Gods making and cannot faile 4. We have in him the donation of the Spirit who is stronger in us than hee that is in the world 1 Ioh. 4. 5. this Spirit teacheth our fingers to fight he gives us the anoynting 1 Iohn 2. 20. that we may be Kings and Conquerors as he is and communicates unto us Christs owne victory 5. We have by him a commission sealed unto the Angels to keepe to fence and guard us to beare us in their hands Psalme 91. 11. And this comforted Elisha's servant that there were more with him than against him 2 Kings 6. 3. Further if wee looke at the enemies they cannot prevaile for 1. They are creatures and what can the creature doe against the Creator what can the clay doe against the Potter 2. They are cursed creatures cursed in their persons I will curse them that curse thee Mat. 25. 41 Goe ye cursed cursed in all their enterprises and purposes against Gods people against whom the Lord himselfe hath professed himselfe an enemy He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye Zech. 2. 8. cursed in all the meanes they use against the Church their fraud violence envying lying false accusing and the like 3. They are captive creatures bound spoyled led in triumph pinyoned as Lyons in Grates or dragons in chaines they cannot lift hand or foot against us farther than our Captaine affords them leave and what hope have they to prevaile that shall never have leave to reach above our heele Further if wee looke at our selves as weake and unworthy as wee are yet are they weaker then to prevaile against us for 1. They shall not prevaile against our cause the battell is the Lords the question betweene the dragon and us is Gods glory and our salvation if hee should prevaile against us God should lose his honour this was Moses his argument Numb 14. 15. If thou shouldest not stand to this people the enemies would say The Lord is not able to give them the good land 2. They shall not prevaile against our faith though wee have much flesh yet there is a little faith and the gates of hell shall not prevaile against so little as a graine of Mustard-seed 3. Though wee bee but unprofitable yet wee are the Lords servants and therefore he will uphold us to victory David thought this a good argument Psal. 86. 2. O save thy servant that trusteth in thee 4. We are members of Christ our head and must partake in his victory we must be where he is to see his glory when he can patiently suffer his members to be rent off his body when hee can endure to bee dismembred and deformed then may the sound members be pulled away by temptation or persecution then may the dragon hope to prevaile but not before Here some objections must be answered for doth not the dragon prevaile against their graces their persons their profession or how may we conceive of this doctrine Object 1. For their graces was not Adam in innocency pulled away by temptation and Peter by persecution Answ. For Adam the dragon prevailed against the grace of creation but hee shall not against the true grace of regeneration the difference betweene which 1. Adam was to persevere by his owne strength we by the strength of GOD are preserved to salvation 2. Adam received grace to persevere if he would but not to will what he could but wee haue through Jesus Christ both power and will to persevere 3. Adam wanted the confirmation which wee have both in the promise which makes the Covenant of grace surer than that of worke Ier. 32. 40. as also in the intercession of Christ which continually underproppeth us supplies us with new strength which makes faith in God farre more sure and firme than that of Adam against which the dragon prevailed For Peter it is true the dragon prevailed against the grace that was in him first in part secondly for a time but not wholly and finally For in Peter the leaves faded but the root lived saith Theophilact and Augustine Confession of the mouth failed but not beliefe in the heart otherwise Christs prayers that his faith should not faile had beene frustrate the flame of his faith was suppressed but not all sparks extinct for then Christ should have deceived him saying The gates of hell cannot prevaile against it Object 2. The dragon often prevailes against their persons Cain prevailes against Abel and slayes him thousands of Israelites fall before Benjamin in a good cause often are Gods people driven to the wall Answ. God suffereth the dragon and his Angels sometime to smite and oppresse good men 1. To correct their sinne and throughly to humble them 2. To bring the dragons to their top and height of pride while his people are under and to fill up their measure the sooner But here 1. Though they may overcome their persons yet not their piety faith and holinesse which they specially aime at and therefore hate their persons 2. While they kill their bodies they perfectly cure them from all sinne and molestation the Lord doth it not to lose them but lest they should be lost he takes them from the evill to come 3. He confounds the dragons the more in that hee increaseth the Church by that whereby they would ruine it watring his Church with the blood of the Martyrs and making them more than Conquerors when they seeme most conquered and overcome Object 3. But the dragon prevailes against whole Churches Protestant countries chaseth the woman often into the wildernes see we not what powers forces are raised against the womā how Antichrist thrusts into the Countries expels the Gospell and Professors and sets up the Idoll of the Masse and the mysterie of iniquity seemes stronger and prevailes every where against the mysterie of godlinesse Ans. The dragon may prevaile against some particular Churches and utterly waste and breake them off as the Jewes Rom. 11. and so any nationall Church may be broken off But 1. Their sinne hath prevailed against themselves contempt of the Gospell and securitie were the dragons that wasted them else all the dragons in hell could not 2. They may be cut off from Christ in respect of the visible face and of the externall covenant and of the outward state and profession
the woman drunke with blood of the Saints That religion which is so fiery and fierce must be from the Devill a man-slayer from the beginning unknowne of Christ and his Apostles and all their true Disciples and followers 4 A fourth note of this woman is her Marriage A good way to know one by is the head and how can wee know the Church better then by her head Jesus Christ whose wife she is of whom all the Children of the Church are begotten by vertue of the eternall Covenant of grace as in Lawfull wedlocke Our Mother scornes to be the Popes Concubine she hath betaken herselfe onely to Christ and professeth of him Cant. 2. 16. My welbâ—loved is mine and I am his Christ is he whom her soule loveth and is in her eyes the chiefe of ten thousand Cant. 5. 10. To him she hath plighted her troth and cleaves onely and undividedly unto him in life and in death The whore of Rome holds not Christ the head For 1 By Image-worshiping and many other Idolatries they are fallen from Christ this is plaine in Colossians 2. 18. 19. 2 They set up the Pope in Christs place Bellarmine on the 1 Pet. 2. 8. by the stone understandeth the Pope And Catharinus by head mentioned in Colos. 2. 19. will have the Pope to be meant Ob. But they professe Jesus Christ. An. Union is either Sacramentall so they are joyned by profession or Mysticall so they are not joyned The fift marke of the true Mother is her carriage and behaviour First to her husband to whom in all her behaviour shee expresseth foure vertues As 1 She is chast and faithfull unto him she keepes herselfe onely to her husband and preserves the marriage band She forgets not the guide of her youth nor the commandement of her God nor playeth false with any other lover any secondary head or Vicar generall she thinkes it strange that an husband should have a Vicar She abhorres that foule and spirituall adultery by grosse Idolatry and false worship which the whore of Rome impudently acteth and defendeth Neither Angels nor men nor merits nor Saints nor Images doth she bow unto nor any other alluring harlot can unsettle her from him whom her soule loveth 2 She is subject to her husband in all things content to be tryed and ruled in all cases by his will and word in the Scriptures What will we say to a woman that laies claime to a man to be her husband but rejecteth and disgraceth his directions and cleaveth wholly to her owne will and to other mens counsels and decrees Who will not suspect and conclude her to be an harlot But so doth the apostaticall Romish Synagogue 3 She depends onely on her husband and no other for the meanes of her welfare and all needfull supplies She scornes to seeke to any other Advocates or mediators whether Saints or Angels either for redemption or intercession her husband that can supply the greater can the lesser much more She cares for no pardons nor merits but her Lords She scornes to marry one and seeke maintenance of another 4 Shee honors her husband onely and will give his honor to none other If she did derogate from his glory in the worke of redemption by the doctrine of free-will justification by workes humane satisfactions she were an arrant strumpet and no wife But our Church ascribes all the worke of salvation to God onely from first to last Teaching that we are wholly dead in trespasses and sinnes till he quicken us and that good workes are the way to the kingdome not the cause of it and follow a person justified but goe not before to justifie him and are necessary by a necessitie of presence not by a necessity of efficiency Thus men and Angels are excluded from any part of Gods honor Secondly her behaviour to her children 1 She nurseth them at her owne breasts puts them not forth to suck strange milke of traditions Councels Decretals 2 She instructs them and teacheth her children The vertuous woman opens her mouth with wisdome Prov. 31. 26. Eunica taught Timothy the scriptures of a child 3 She provides for her children as the vertuous woman for all her family Prov. 31. 15. The Church upholds the meanes of salvation to keepe the beleevers in good state She is not the naturall Mother that starves her children that shuts up the breasts from them that hideth the Scriptures and counts it heresie to reade them that corrupteth the Sacraments that a man can see nothing lesse then the institution in them But Popery leadeth her children directly to perdition whatsoever shewes they make to the contrary For 1 They runne after it whose names are not written in the booke of life 2 All the children of that mother are without comfort in life and death because they are the sons of Agar and not of the true Mother and therfore no inheritance belongeth unto them II. Having found out the true Mother in herselfe we are now to enquire how or by what markes we may find this Mother to be our Mother and our selves her children A man may know himselfe the sonne of this Mother by sundrie notes 1 As a child borne comes into a new world and findes a marveilous change in the estate of it So a sonne borne of this mother comes into a new estate is separated from the world and the corruptions of it brought out of the corruption of nature and practise as out of the waste and wombe of the world and set into a new condition in grace and is in all things contrary to himselfe in his old nativity The change especially appeareth in five things 1 Thou wast borne of flesh and after the will of the flesh but now thou art borne of God This is called a birth of water and the holy Ghost because in this the spirit supplies the office of water in washing away corruptions and defilements of flesh 2 In thy old nativity thou wast borne in sinne now being borne againe thou sinnest not 1 Joh. 3. 9. because the seed of God is in thee thou canst not sinne raigning sinne wholly and finally thou hast now a new or renewed nature 3 In thy old nativity thou wast borne dead in sin Eph. 2. 1. but now borne of this mother thou art quickned with a new life of grace called the life of God Now thou livest not but Christ liveth in thee Now maiest thou say as Christ himselfe said Rev. 1 18. I was dead but now I am alive 4 In thy old nativity thou wast as a dead man bound hand and foot without all motion of grace nay all thy motion was downeward for nature with contempt of grace But now a new motion in spirituall things attends spirituall life Now thou movest upward towards heaven according to the command of grace whereto thou wast before an open enemie 5 In thy old
up on high for the terrible blow when the fire was a giving to their diabolical Engine then was salvation the Lords now was the Lord seene our strong Saviour for although our salvation was then sent us in a royall vessell yet then was salvation the Lords At this day other Countries few or no Protestant Countries excepted sit in the dust nay in goare-blood there lamentable spectacles are fire sword blood in streames and rivers shed like water in the streets in the fields in the houses here meets them death of Parents of husbands of brethren there overtakes them orbity of Children deflouring of wives and daughters with shamefull villanies and cruelties beseeming Popish forces Their noises are frightfull alarmes roaring of great Ordinances tumbling downe of Towers townes and houses over their heads unhappy tydings of burning spoyle and slaughter But we enjoy peace plenty the Gospell of peace safety and happy Protection under our owne Vines and figtrees our noises are sermons Psalmes songs of triumph for many miraculous deliverances At this our happinesse Papists chafe fume plot and curse that there is no sorcery against Iacob and are inraged that no plot succeeds but fals upon the heads that devise them and whence is all this but that salvation is the Lords And were it not for our sinnes salvation would bee the Lords still for us all the power of Antichrist nor all Popish forces nor all the devils in hell could drive Christ out of his place if our sinnes did not grieve him and drive him away from us 2. This is a reproofe both of Churches and persons 1. This doctrine casteth out the Church of Rome from being the true Church of God which I prove thus The true Church singeth salvation onely to the Lord the Romish Church singeth not salvation onely to the Lord therefore the Romish Church is not the true Church The latter part or assumption I prove thus That Church which seeketh or assigneth salvation to any thing within themselves or without themselves singeth not salvation onely to the Lord but the Church of Rome seeketh and assigneth salvation both to things within and without themselves besides the Lord ergo Within themselves they seeke and assigne salvation to the merit of their owne workes The Rhemists on Heb. 6. 10. say that our workes are meritorious and the very cause of salvation so farre as God should bee unjust if he rendred not heaven for the same Andradius saith that heaven is not given freely but is due to our workes and that God hath set forth heaven to sale for our workes and it is as due as a peny for a peny-worth Suarez also saith A supernaturall worke from grace within it selfe and of it own nature hath a proportion with the reward and a sufficient value to be worth the same The reward is not given for Christs merit saith he the merit of Christ cannot bee made our merit neither can our merits have the power of meriting from Christs merit or any more worthinesse than they be ordained to have of themselves yea our merits are true merits and have an inward worthinesse proportionable to the reward in the same manner as if we conceived a man to be just without the merits of Christ as many thinke of the Angels and Adam in innocency So Suarez a Pillar of that Church Tom. 1. in Thom. 3. 1. Here is a Church built upon another rocke and foundation than Christ. 2 Here are Christs merits thrust under board reward is not given for them 3. Here is salvation affirmed without Christ as the Angels and Adam in innocency 4. Here are our owne merits without all power or merit from Christs 5. Here God crownes mans merit not his owne gift contrary to Augustine de grat lib. arb c. 6. 6. Here merit is magnified and grace quite excluded contrary to Paul If it be of grace then no more of workes 7. Here our owne performances which are all due debt sinfull damnable and when wee have done all we can unprofitable Luke 17. 10. yet are more profitable more honourable and beneficiall than all Christs Away henceforth with S. Pauls doctrine that eternall life is either a gift of God or a free gift No farre be it from us saith the Deane of Lovaine that we should looke for eternall life as a poore man doth for his almes but as the Garland which by our labour we have deserved Here is every man a Jesus in himselfe without respect of the death or merits of Jesus in a word here is a damnable abrogating of the whole Gospell a new establishing the Covenant of workes Here is no longer a Christian faith nor a Christian Church cleave to it who will or dare in this faith is no salvation they are abolished from grace and cut off from Christ Shall wee after such light suffer our selves to bee led away from the truth to an heresie that leads us from Christ salvation merited by him Let them say salvation is not the Lords and seeke it in themselves their owne merits meanings and observances let their owne arme save them let them disclaime the Churches acclamation who sing that salvation is the Lords in whole and in part for beginning and perfection But let us disclaime our selves for why should thistles boast of figs and let him that glorieth glory in the Lord. Without themselves they seeke and sing salvation to many things I referre them to two First the Host of heaven Secondly the host in earth 1. The Popish Idolaters runne to the helpe of Angels Every one hath his speciall Angell to whose protection hee must daily commit himselfe and all his affaires yea and wee are bound to invocate the Angels for helpe and salvation so say the Rhemists on Col. 2. 18. because they are our advocates for mercy and on 1 Iohn 2. 1. contrary to the very words We have but one Advocate with the father because wee have but one Head and one that can plead his owne justice for mercy 2. They runne to the Saints departed as their tutelary patrons and defenders of themselves and their Cities whō they invocate to helpe save thē not as Mediatours onely which were too much but as meriters and bestowers of mercy It were tedious to shew how every countrey City family every man every state of men every art every disease every beast have their peculiar Saint and Saviour Some Saints rule the Sea some the Land some the Countries some the Cities some the Elements some the arts some the trades some the beasts some the birds and every Saint knowes his charge The Student must pray to Saint Gregory the Sayler to S Nicolas the Painter to S. Luke the Physitian to S Cosmas the Lawyer to Saint Iuno so Smiths Taylers Hunters horsemen to S. George the very harlots have S. Afra and Magdalen nay every beast and bird hath a saint to pray unto geese Gallus sheep Wendelin horse Eulogius hogs
to the exact rule of justice contrary to Iob. 3. 9. None can answer God one for a thousand Neither can he blinde us as he doth himselfe by saying accedente gratia Dei for Gods grace and satisfactory works are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can never stand together Rom. 11. 6. if of grace not of workes 5 That a Priest may properly forgive sinnes as Tecellius the Popes pardoner openly proclaymes in Churches and elsewhere that although a man had layne by our Lady the Mother of Christ and begotten her with child yet he was able by the Popes power to pardon the fact This horrible blasphemy was the ground of Luthers revolt from Popery 6 That a man having true faith in Christ may be damned Bellarm. de baptis l. 1. c. 14 Against the Apostle in Eph. 2. 10. Wee are saved by faith and Rom. 5. 1. by faith wee have peace with God and our Saviours promise that the gates of hel shall not prevaile against it To these sixe I could adde sixe hundred more to make this flood of Antichristian heresies swell but I content my self with a taste I I. A flood of slaunders and gulfe of reproaches and hellish devises imputing to the Woman and true profession of religion most scandalous opinions and hainous enterprises and all to keepe the Woman under water to get the secular sword drawne against her and to make the Princes jealous fierce and severe against her as the greatest enemie of their estates and royalties Instances of the former Doth not Antichrist out of his mouth send out most false and slaunderous lies as that our doctrine teacheth 1 That the Church hath fayled from off the earth many hundered yeares till Luther 2 That wee condemne all Councells Fathers Antiquity and will onely be tyed and tryed by Scripture whereas wee refuse not to bee judged by men judging according to Scripture and allow the Churches approbation and consent of Antiquity onely holding it absurd that the authority of Scripture should depend upon the approbation of the Church which is the question And this were to make the shine of the sunne dependant on the light of a candle 3 That wee teach God the author of sin even of that treacherous sinne of Iudas Rhem on Act. 2. sect 9. Whereas wee only teach as Scripture doth that Christ was delivered up according to the determinate counsell of God and that God hardneth evill men not as an author of evill but as a righteous judge and not by bare permission but by actuall with-holding his grace and giving them over to the divell to be hardned as a just judgement 4 That wee are enemies to all good workes and hold only faith necessarie nay that we condemne good workes as sinfull pharisaicall hypocriticall Rhem. on Rom. 2. sect 3. whereas wee teach that to justification before God faith is only necessarie but such a faith as worketh by love and that good workes are inseparable fruits of faith signes of justification and a way in which Christians must walke to salvation And many more imputations there are not needfull to be all rehearsed For the latter Have not the Papists in all ages prooved themselves to be the very mouth of the dragon breathing out nothing but their owne poysonfull inventions against our religioÌ„ and sincere Preachers and Professors of the same Have they not published to all the world and do that no sort of men are such enemies to Princes and governement none such disturbers of a setled State and common peace no sect so bad none so unworthy of common favour none such enemies to Laws orders Kingdomes Have they not licked up the spettle of the father of lies and infinitely shamed themselves with lyes and slaunders as blacke as the waters of Styx the river of hell as that Luther learned his Divinity of the devill was borne of the devill and dyed of drunkennesse That Calvin was eaten up of wormes and dyed blaspheming and invocating devills whose life and death was so holy and happy as the dragon must open a wide and impudent mouth to staine the same That Beza dyed reconciled to the Pope and cursed the day he ever knew Protestant doctrine which Beza himselfe lived to confute That Mr. Bucer denyed at his death that Christ was come the whole country and D. Redman preaching at his funerall knowing the contrary and as true as that Mr. Perkins dyed in despaire of whose happy life and death my selfe was an eye-witnesse as true as that those whom they called Puritanes had blowne up the Parliament house III. Another part of this flood is the cruell and bloody Edicts the cruell Constitutions and inhumane Rescripts which they furiously breath-out with such violence and rage as a strong current and flood which hath broken out of the bankes Such as are their Trent-curses for every slight difference in opinion from them Such as are their Spanish barbarous Inquisitions which are as the sharp teeth in the mouth of the dragon Such as their Romish Bulls and cursed excommunications their degradations c. Such as are their six Articles their horrible execrations and abrenunciations and all of that kinde to destroy root out and for ever to drowne the very name and memory of the woman and sound Christian Religion For the third The end of the dragon in sending out this water was to drowne and carry away the woman First The end of all the dragons furie is the destruction of the Church nothing will serve him but drowning his malice stints not it selfe in any mischiefe or hurt he can bring upon her Secondly His wrath once caryed her out of Paradice now he would carry her out of the way to heaven also he envyes not onely her safety and quiet in earth but her salvation in heaven Thirdly It notes a difference betweene the waters sent out by God upon the Church and these of the dragon The floods of God do but water or if any more do but wash the City of God The floods out of the dragons mouth are to wast and destroy the woman and to cary her away from the earth The dragon had made sundry assaults upon the woman before and still Michael had crossed him and against this last hid the woman safe yet so great is his furie and rage and so blind his malice that not observing Gods providence towards his Church he bolts on forward to new enterprises against her Whence learne that Satan and his instruments will never give over their malice against the godly though they have never so ill successe in the same Psal. 1â— 4. Do not workers of iniquity know that they eat up my people as bread q. d. though they do know them Gods people and see by many arguments that God is their God yet they oppresse them with desire and delight even as desirously and greedily as they eate bread when they are hungry Did not Phar 〈◊〉 see that none of his devises succeeded against â—srael