are thought to make the reward to be of Debt and not of Grace and that are set in the least opposition or competition with Christs Merits or in any place save commanded subordination to him nay he says he firmly holds That Works done with a conceit of obliging God by Merit in commutative Justice or as conceited sufficient without a Saviour and the pardon of their failings do more further their Damnation than Salvation Yea p. 97. none but Christ merited of strict distributive Justice according to the Law of Innocency nor by any Works that will save from the charge of sin and desert of death And that thou mayest know what he ascribes to our Graces Holiness or Works He tells us p. 119. we mean by Merit but the moral aptitude for the reward of a free Benefactor who also is Rector when the ordering of a free gift suspended on official conditions is sapientially made a means of procuring obedience This one Clause if understood and he is a bold Traducer of so great a Man that cannot understand words so plain will acquit Mr. B. and inform thee of the place of all Gospel Conditions 1. All Gospel-blessings are the free gifts of Christ as Benefactor they have their being without any regard to what we do therefore nothing in man is a jot of the righteousness or merit for which they are bestowed 2. Christ is our Rector or Governor he will rule us as well as be beneficent to us 3. As a means to incline us to comply with him as Rector he suspends these blessings on terms of what he makes our Duty and wisely orders them as Motives to our Obedience 4. Any Act of our Obedience is no more than a conformity to that Order of his and doth not hinder all we receive from him to be of free gift Obj. But he saith that good Works are necessary to Salvation Answ He doth so and how few deny it But 1. Not if a man dye as soon as he be converted but if he have time p. 94. 2. Their rewardableness is by Gods free Grace and Promise for the sake of Christs meritorious Righteousness Sacrifice and Intercession their imperfection being pardoned and their holiness amiable through him These are his words p. 76. 3. He saith Not without or as a supplement to the Sacrifice Merits and free Grace of Christ our Saviour and Faith in him p. 93 75. And we give our selves to Christ as our Prophet Priest and King to be saved by his Merits p. 94.4 He saith our best Works will not save a man from the charge of sin and desert of death p. 97. 5. He denies that external Obedience is necessary to our admission into a justified state as he shews in the Thief on the Cross And when he saith we are justified by our Faith Godliness and Works Justification is not taken by him for the pardon of sin which he ascribes wholly to the Merits of Christ but he takes Justification there for our acquittance against the accusation that we are Infidels Ungodly and Hypocrites And saith that against the charge that we are Sinners deserving Hell we are justified by Christ believed in p. 94. His meaning is plainly this Christ alone by his Merits forgives our sins and purchased eternal Life for us But seeing that Christ hath promised to forgive none but the penitent Believer and declared he will destroy all impenitent unbelieving ungodly sinners Now he thinks that we must be truly acquitted that we are not such or we shall not be saved by Christ Yea he thinks that when God justifies a man for Christs Merits he doth also declare a man to be a true Believer because he will justifie no other and will justifie all such and when God admits a man into Glory he doth even thereby adjudge him a believing penitent holy and upright man and free from the charge of being an infidel hypocritical unholy Enemy against whom the Gospel denounceth Vengeance and bars relief Let these things be weighed and none will wonder that he should say on his sick bed No works I will leave out works if he grant me the other And truly in health none spake more humbly of his own Works than he used to do But because some confident weak persons have inferred from that passage that he changed his Principles when he came to dye we shall inform thee that after that passage was utter'd by him even the night before his death Mr. Baxter was asked whether he was of the same sentiments as formerly about Justification He answered That he had told the World sufficiently his thoughts about it by several Writings and otherwise and thither he referr'd them And after a little pause with his Eyes lifted up to Heaven he cryed Lord pity pity pity the Ignorance of this poor City And in the time of his sickness he declared to us and others that his thoughts in these things were the same as formerly Our regards to Mr. B. force the Publication of what we here insert tho' we would not be judged so happy as to arrive at his Light to lead us to a full Agreement with all his Sentiments As to this Book we wish there be not still great need of such helps against Popery and we are assured it will give more light than some greater Volumes on this Subject That God may render it useful shall be the Prayer of Thy Servants in the Gospel Daniel Williams Matthew Sylvester Protestant Religion Truly Stated and Justified c. THE Deceiver calleth his Book The Touchstone of the Reformed Gospel as if he owned a Gospel distinct from that of the Reformed Church And he undertakes to name fifty two points which the Protestants affirm but tells you not where nor proveth his affirmation but you must believe him as a Touchstone of Truth Dec. The first Protestant affirmation feigned is That there is not in the Church One and that an infallible Rule for understanding the Holy Scripture and conserving of Vnity in matters of Faith Answ A meer Lye if he mean that this is any part of Protestant Doctrine but he may find as crude confused words in some ignorant person that is called a Protestant The Reformed Catholicks hold that there is in the Church one and that an infallible Rule for understanding the holy Scripture and conserving of Vnity in matters of Faith And that Rule is The Evidence of its own meaning as inherent in its self discernible or intelligible by men prepared and instructed by competent Teaching and Study and the necessary help of Gods Grace and Spirit This is that Rule But the Reformed believe not 1. That there is any Rule by which ignorant prejudiced heretical wilfully blind wicked uncapable men can understand such Scripture as they are hereby undisposed to understand unless by a great change made on themselves Nor that any Prince can make a Statute which on Man can misunderstand abuse or violate 2. Nor that Men can understand it
lead them into all Truth and keep them from doing that Work Erroneously which they were commissioned to do Tho' not to make them absolutely free from Sin or Errour in all other things And therefore the Scripture written by them is free from Errour by Virtue of the special promise and Spirit 3. That all true Christians really regenerate are free from all Errour inconsistent with true saving Faith and Title to Salvation 4. That therefore the Church as it signifieth only the said regenerate true Christians hath no Damning Errour or none but what is pardoned as consistent with saving Faith and Holiness 5. That the Universal Visible Church is the whole Company of men on Earth that profess true saving Faith and are by Covenant Vow Baptized into this Profession And that all this true Visible Church professeth no Errour inconsistent with their Profession of the foresaid saving Faith Because the profession of saving Faith is essential to visible Christianity and to the visible Church For mark that I say not that they profess no Errour inconsistent with sincere Faith in themselves subjectively nor yet that as to objective Faith may not by unseen consequence overthrow it For there is such a concatenation of Divine revealed Truths that it is a doubtful case whether any one Errour which all men have do not by remote Consequence subvert the very Foundations But no true Visible Church or Christian so professeth any one Errour as not to profess the essential points of Faith and Godliness tho' they may think falsely that both are true Therefore Protestants teach that unseen Consequences are not to be so charged on those that see them not and hold fast the injured Truth as if it were a known or direct denyal of the Truth 6. But every Church and every man being imperfect both in knowledge Faith and Holiness have all some Errour For to be objectively de fide is to be of Divine Revelation And all the Scripture is Divine Revelation And if the question be Whether any Pope Council or Church understand all the Scripture without any Errour judge by Commentators and common Experience And now what saith the Deceiver against all this 1. He citeth Isa 59.21 God hath promised to preserve his Word in the Church Ergo the Church cannot Err A forged Consequence no more followeth but that the true Church shall not lose or forsake Gods Word For then it would cease to be the Church But 1. Not that the best Churches understand all that Word without any Errour 2. Nor that any particular Church visible may not apostatize or turn Hereticks or corrupt Gods Word and forbid men to use it in a known Tongue as the Papists do Next he citeth Joh. 14.16 As if all the Church had the same promise of the Spirit of Infallibility as the Apostles had If so then 1. Papists are none of the true Church because they have many Errours 2. And if the major part be the Church rather than a minor Sect then all other Christians that are against Popery are free from Errour for they are twice or thrice as many as the Papists 3. And when the far greater part were Arrians they were free from Errour Yea the Council of Sirmium to which Pope Liberius professed full consent Or did Christ break his promise to all these 4. If the Pope or all his Prelates have as full a promise of the Spirit as the Apostles then they may write us a new Bible and Word of God as they did No wonder then if the Canons and Decretals be as much Gods Word as the Bible But why then do they not confirm their Canons by Miracles as the Apostles did And why did so many Popes contradict each other Had both Stephanus Formosus Nicholas and the foresaid Johns that denyed the Life to come c. the same Gift as the Apostles Surely we may well say to them as St. James Shew me thy Faith by thy Works They did shew it by most odious Simony Gluttony Drunkenness Lying with Maids and Wives even at the Apostolick Doors Murdering Christs Members by Thousands Silencing faithful Preachers Deposing Emperours Commanding Perjury and Rebellion even to Sons against their own Fathers Forbidding all Church Worship of God to whole Kingdoms for many years when a King will not obey the Pope By such Works they shew their Faith O the power of Satan and the horrid pravity of man when such things are not only Justified but trusted to for Justification and made consistent with a Church that never Erred Indeed these Errours crept in by Degrees which maketh it difficult to Expositors of Scripture Prophesie to know just the year when the mischief became so ripe as to prove Rome to be Babylon Apostate to Pagano-Christianity and the Pope to be Antichrist But if I see a man Raging mad in Bedlam I will not make it an Article of my Faith that he is Sanae mentis because I know not just when his amentia deliratio or Melancholly became a Mania or Furor The Deceiver also citeth Mat. 18.17 viz. Because men must hear the Church where a Sinner dwelleth that calleth him to Repentance after due Proof and Admonition therefore the Pope and his Prelates cannot Err. An Argument liker a Derision than a serious Proof Did not the Pope then Err when Bishops and Councils have in vain called him to Repent Doth not the Church Err then most damnably that commandeth Murder Treason and most heynous Sin and is the Leader of the Impenitent Must we take such then as Heathens and Publicans But as the man thinketh so the Bell tinketh Do but Fancy that by the Church is meant only the Pope and his Clergy and that all is such Sin which the Pope calleth so tho' God command us and then all such Texts will seem to them to say what they would have them say The man also citeth Eph. 5.27 viz. Christ will present his Regenerate Church perfect and spotless in Judgment What then Ergo the Visible Church on Earth hath no Errour or Spot And Ergo the Pope and his Clergy are this Visible perfect Church And why not as well Constantinople Alexandria Antioch or Jerusalem the Mother Church Which part is it that is the whole or indefectible What is profaining Gods Word if this be not If any should be forbidden the Scripture it is these prophaning Priests The Eighth accused Point That the Church hath been hidden and Invisible Ans We do not think that the Pope and his Clergy-Church have been hidden and invisible Their Wars even in Italy and Rome for many Ages made them Visible Yea and palpable too The Kings and Emperours that they Fought against or Deposed knew them above 100000 Waldenses and Albigenses felt them to the Death Quae Regio in terris talis non plena laboris Whether this man knew not the Protestants Judgment herein or whether he would not have his Reader know it I cannot tell but I shall tell you what it
THE PROTESTANT Religion TRUELY STATED AND JUSTIFIED By the late Reverend Mr. RICHARD BAXTER Prepared for the Press some time before his Death Whereunto is added By way of Preface some Account of the Learned Author By Mr. Danel Williams and Mr. Matthew Sylvester LONDON Printed for John Salusbury at the Rising Sun over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1692. TO THE READER THE Author of the following Tract is the Reverend Mr. Baxter now enjoying that Glory he so conversed with in his mortal state Among his many Excellencies his Love to God to Peace and Truth was not the least eminent The last rendred him averse to Logomachies and confusion well knowing How vain all eristick debates be if the Question be not truly and plainly stated This Book will give thee a Specimen of that peculiar accuracy in this kind as even determineth the Controversie before an Argument be produced It is not to be concealed that some complain of the multitude of his distinctions but such may consider that the Comprehensiveness of his Mind accommodated things to the most subtil as well as the less intelligent Reader and provided against future Errours as well as the mistakes he attends to in the particular points before him Indeed he was a man born for more lasting service than one Age yea his Name will be greatest when impartial inquisitiveness after Truth shall render men painful and sad experience of the mischief of narrow and dividing Principles hath forced the confident to mutual allowances and well studied determinations But how unhappy was he or rather such as mistake him that he is oft charged with deserting this or that Truth because he understood it in a consistency with it self and such other truths wherewith it was connected As if Ort hodoxie must be sacrificed when-ever a Doctrine is made intelligible or the choice of terms more apt to confute the erroneous less obnoxious to mistakes and most expressive of digested thoughts ought to alarm all such who seem capable to know little more of Truth than the sound of oft repeated Phrases Nay as more convincing what treatment any man must expect who sets himself to heal a blind depraved World The clearest representation of his mind will not silence the ignorant from charging him with those Errours which he most expresly disowns Three of the most material are denied and confuted by Mr. Baxter in this very Treatise viz. the moral freedom of the Will of an unregenerate man conditional Election and the merit of good Works as opposed to or coordinate with the Righteousness of Christ Neither must it be over-look'd that it was his Concern in this Book above any other to speak as near to these points as his Judgment could admit and in other Treatises he more largely declares against them 1. Of Free-Will p. 87. he tells us he denies that mans Will in his unregenerate state is free from vitious inclination or from the conduct of an erring Intellect or from the Biass of Sensuality c. 2. He denies that the Will thus vitiated will ever deliver it self without Gods Spirit and Grace it being rather inclined to grow worse 3 As that degree of common Grace which is in the unregenerate is but such as consisteth with the predominant Reign of Sin so the Will of every unregenerate man in that pravity is as a Slave to its own vitious dispositions errour and temptations Who can say more against Free-Will Obj. But he affirms the natural freedom of the Will Answ He doth so and explains it p. 84 85 86 91. and it is no more than that a Sinner is a man still tho' he be depraved and he is a liberal and not a forced Agent in what he acteth Obj. But he saith p. 88. That by common Grace a man may do more good and less evil than he doth Answ It 's true he saith so But p. 85. he distinguisheth between common and special Grace and denies that we can do that by common Grace which is proper to special Grace and saith men have but just so much and no more moral Liberty and power as they have of Gods Grace to relieve their vitiated Wills See p. 91. 2. Of Conditional Election p. 99. He condemns the Notion called Scientia Media p. 100. he saith God decreeth not mens Salvation or Sanctification meerly on Foresight of our Faith but decreeth our Faith it self Sin he permitteth but Faith he effecteth and decreeth to effect and p. 101. he shews how God decreeth both the means and end And tho' God justly denieth his Grace to many that forfeit it by wilful resistance and contempt yet he takes not the Forfeiture of the Elect. Yea he adds That he is deceived and wrongeth God that feigneth him to send his Son to redeem the World and his Word to call them and his Spirit to renew them and all this at random not knowing whether it may not all be lost or leaving it chiefly to the Free-Will of them whose Wills are contrarily inclined and vitiated whether Christ and all his preparations shall be lost p. 102. he approveth the plain Christian who holds that our destruction is of our selves but our help and Salvation of God and God is the first and chief Cause of all good and men and Devils of all evil Obj. But he will not say that God hath by his Will and Decree ordained from Eternity that men shall sin or will and chuse evil p. 100 101. God doth not decree that men shall sin that they may be damned for sin is no work of God c. Answ But yet he saith p. 100. that 1. God decreeth who shall de damned for sin 2. That he foresaw mens sins not as an idle Spectator but a willing Suspender of his own Acts so far as to leave Sinners to their self-determining Wills Reader if thou art a man of thought thou seest Mr. Baxter is clear for absolute Election tho' he did not think it necessary for the vindication thereof to judge that God absolutely decreed men to sin that he might damn them it 's enough that it is from Gods Sovereign Will that many are not elected it would be an ease to the damned that they could justly say God decreed us to all our sins that he might bring us under all this punishment a Non-election to Efficacious Grace and a positive Decree to damn such for sin which themselves would choose best suited with his Conceptions of Gods Goodness Truth and Purity 3. Of the Merit of good Works Note Reader that he is not fond of the word Merit but his Adversary leads him to the use of it as thou mayst see p. 96. But let us hear what his sence is of this point p. 119. All Saints are saved by the full sufficient Merits of Christ and have none at all of their own unless the amiableness of Grace freely given them be called their Merit and p. 95. we do with Paul renounce all Works of our own that
have of their own a Redundancy to save others But we all with thankfulness confess that God useth to bless the Houses of the Faithful the Children for the Parents sake and hath exprest this in the Decalogue and by many Promises Yea that he would have spared Sodom had there been but Ten Righteous persons there And a Potiphars House and a Prison may be blest in part for Josephs sake And when Parents are Dead this blessing may be on their Children through many Generations And God remembred Abraham when his Posterity provoked him David had a special promise for his Seed None of this is denyed by us But 1. There is no Merit in any mans Works but their Rewardableness by Gods free Grace and promise for the sake of Christs meritorious Righteousness Sacrifice and Intercession their Imperfection being pardoned through him and their Holiness amiable to God 2. No man shall be saved for anothers Merit or Holiness or Works that is not truly Regenerate and Holy himself The Eighteenth accused Point That no man can do Works of Supererrogation Ans Supererrogation is a sustian word of your own by which you may mean what you please 1. No man can perform to God more Duty than he oweth him It 's a Contradiction Duty is quod debetur 2. No man can profit God by any thing that he doth 3. No man save Christ lived wirhout all Sin And he that sinneth doth not all his Duty or keep all Gods Law perfectly And he that doth not all doth not all and more 4. There is no Moral good done by any man which was not his Duty and Gods Law commanded not For Gods Law is perfect and therefore obligeth to all Moral good And as Sin is the Transgression of the Law so Moral good is the conform Obedience to the Law 5. God hath not Counsels to Moral action which are not obliging Laws and make not our Duty For to keep them is Moral good and the Law were imperfect if it obliged not to all such good If the Counsel oblige ut norma officii it 's a Law If it oblige not it 's vain 6. But there are many actions that are neither Commanded nor Counselled nor forbidden But those are not Moral actions as being no objects of our Choosing or Refusing by Reasons Conduct The nictus oculorum our Breathing our Pulse the Circulation of the Blood c. are no Moral acts Commanded or forbidden but necessitated Man maketh it no act of deliberation and choice which Foot he shall set forward first or just how many Steps he shall go in a Day which of two equal Eggs he shall Eat and an hundred such These are neither Duty nor Sin Commanded nor Counselled nor forbidden neither virtuous or vicious 7. And there are innumerable actions that are not the Matter of any Common-Law or Counsel and so as such are neither Sin nor Duty which yet as Circumstantiated and Cloathed with Accidents are to this or that man either Duty or Sin This not understood maketh these Ignorant Casuists abuse the words of Christ and Paul about Chastity and Marriage And because Christ saith every man cannot receive this Saying and Paul she hath not Sinned He that Marrieth doth well and he that doth not doth better they gather that there are Moral actions which are not best and yet no Sin The true plain solution is from the two last Considerations 1. God hath made no Law commanding or forbidding Marriage or Celibate as such or in Common To Marry is no Sin considered meerly as Marriage 2. But God hath made Laws against hurtful and injurious Marriages and to guide men to know when Marrying is a Duty or a Sin 3. And if any ones case were so neutral as that it could not be discerned whether Marrying were a hurt or benefit it would be no Moral eligible or refuseable action 4. But to some it is a great Duty by accidents and to some a great Sin Therefore Paul never meant that it was no mans duty and no mans sin but only that simply as Marriage it was no mans duty or sin or the matter of a commanding or forbidding Law but only by accident it may be such to one more than to another That this is Pauls meaning the Papists must confess For 1. Do not they say that the Marriage of Priests Fryars and Nuns are Sin 2. If any one Marry an Infidel or utterly unsuitable Person without necessity against Parents wills or one that is impotent or hath the Pox or that he cannot maintain c. Is not this a hainous Sin What else signifie Gods Law and mans against unlawful Marriages And if one cannot live chastly without Marriage and Parents command it it is not a Sin to refuse The Law saith Let all things be done to Edification and whether ye Eat or Drink or whatever ye do do all to the glory of God And is it only Counsel and no Command to Marry or not Marry as it makes to Gods Glory or against it There are few actions of a mans Life that make so much to his hurt and utter misery as unwise and unmeet Marrying And is this on Sin May they not see Pauls meaning then if they were but willing It is hard to imagine a case in which so important an action as Marriage can be neither Sin nor Duty 2. But sometime men use the word Sin and Sinners for meer Wickedness and such Sin as is inconsistent with a state of Salvation And we easily grant that all Sins are not such Sins as these But Gods Law is perfect tho' man be imperfect and forbiddeth all Sin even the least 3. But see the Heresies of Popery This man here saith To do that which is Counselled is not necessary because one may nevertheless be saved But he who omitteth what is commanded unless he do pennance cannot escape Eternal pains 1. See here what a frivolous Counseller they make Christ when it 's not necessary to follow his Counsel 2. See here how they make Necessity to be only of that which a man cannot be saved without When Saul a Persecutor and Blasphemer an Infidel Murderer c. may be saved if he be truly Convicted Obedience hath it's Necessity tho' we knew that God would forgive Disobedience to the Convicted 3. See here how they damn themselves and all mankind every man living omitteth what is commanded many hundred times for which he doth not that which they call Pennance He is a Lyar that saith he hath no Sin specially of Omission Gods Law bindeth us all to Believe to Hope to desire Holiness and Heaven to love God and our Neighbours and our Enemies with a stronger degree of Faith Hope Desire and Love than we do Every Prayer and Meditation is sinfully defective Every hour hath some omission of improvement And all this is not remembred nor all confest to a Priest nor all known or observed by any Sinner And some omission we are guilty of at our very
minds despise them or by their way of Image-worship to seem to be of their mind For as a man that useth the common Words of an Oath without any purpose to Swear is a prophane Swearer with the Tongue which the mind should better rule tho' his mind Swear not so he that on his Knees in Religious Prayer looketh on Images as the mediate Object of his Worship his act is bodily Idolatry and his mind is guilty by not better ruling it Where God affixeth the mention of his Jealousie even to the Third and Fourth Generation calling the bowers to Images those that hate him it is needful to us to be jealous of our actions For our God is a Consuming Fire And we are nâ—t ignorant of the Doctrine of your St. Thomas who saith that the Image is to be Worshipped with the same sort of Worship as that which it representeth and the Image of the Crucifix with Latria called Divine Worship The Fiftieth accused Point That no man hath seen God in any Form and that therefore his Picture or Image cannot be made Ans 1. But what if it were Lawful to Paint God Is it Necessary Why may you not be contented to have a painted God your selves Must all be burnt and damned as Hereticks that are not of your mind Will you be jealous against those that bow not to a painted God as God is jealous against those that do it God saith Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them Where saith he Thou shalt bow down to them and worship them Or bow towards them and say It is not to them 2. God saith Thou shalt not make to thy self the likeness of any thing in Heaven or Earth to bow down to them and worship them Bowing down purposely towards them and before them is interpretatively bowing down to them worshipping them And God would not be so worshipped Isa 40.16 25. To whom will ye liken God Or what likeness will ye compare unto him To whom will ye liken me or shall I be equal saith the Holy one See Lev. 26.1 Deut. 16.22 Hab. 18.2 The Molten Image is a Teacher of Lies It is Blasphemy to make a Picture or Image of God but what he maketh himself as if we said God is like that Image or Creature But this Deceiver tells us how God appeared to Adam and others in a humane or some certain shape Ans 1. And yet he hath oft and earnestly forbid making Images of him to worship 2. Anthopomorphits that take God to have parts like man are Condemned as Hereticks by the Church of Rome it self Every notifying sign of Gods attributes is not called his Image and man is called his Image for the Divine Impressions on his Soul which cannot it self be seen and Pictured If God appear by an Angel and that Angel appear in humane shape we are nevertheless forbidden to worship God pictured as a man Sun Moon Stars yea every Creature notifieth God to us yet may we not paint him like these or any other Creature Did not Gods transcendency and his express Word plainly and frequently reprove this Popery had some small excuses If they deny Christs and his Apostles Words that no man hath seen God at any time save his Son they reproach him To see his Works is only to seâ— that which notifieth him and not himself Else every Pagan and Brute seeth God We deny not but the Sun and Fire and a man may be pictured and that God being partly notified to us by these and every Creature may be said so far to appear in them And when did he appear so wonderfully as in Christ And yet it being not his Essence in it sell that we see in them but his attributes is part an Image of a man of the Sun Moon Stars of a Horse or a Dog or a Toad is not to be called an Image of God else God may have as many Images as Creatures The One and Fiftieth accused Point That Blessing or signing with the sign of the Cross is not founded in Holy Scripture Ans The man would not tell you whether he mean the Lawfulness of the Cross only or also the necessity of using it But what are his Proofs 1. Rev. 7.3 Hurt not the Earth nor the Trees till we have sealed we read signed the Servants of our God in their foreheads Is here any mention of Crossing or Blessing with the Cross An Angel in prophetical Vision is bid to mark or seal the Servants of God as those that are not to be destroyed when God commissioneth other Angels to destroy the Persecutors Therefore the Priest must sign all Christians with the Cross And I would they did not infer as one did from Ezek. 9.4 5. And to the other he said go ye after him through the City and smite let not your Eye spare neither have ye pity stay utterly Old and Young and little Children and Women but come not near any man on whom is the mark and begin at my Sanctuary And thus whatever Plague or Death God bid Angels execute on his uncurable Enemies Idolaters and Persecutors the Devil will teach men that Priests and their Hang-men may execute on all that are not marked in the Forehead with a Cross But as long as Rome is so like to Babylon they were better teach men a truer Exposition of the Revelations Thus they can prove that the Scripture is but like a Nose of Wax by using it as if it were so It was Idolatrous Persecuting Rome that was to be destroyed and it was those that had Gods mark and not the Beasts that were to be secured And who is that Idolatrous persecuting Beast The next Text is Mark 10.16 Christ put his hands on Children and blessed them And would he make men believe that we deny Christs blessing them or others Or that Pastors may bless the people in his Name Is here ever a word of signing with the Cross The other is Luke 24.50 He led them out as far as Bethany and he lift up his hands and blessed them Therefore the Priest must Cross men in the Forehead Reader this is the fashion of these Men's confuting the Reformed Catholicks and proving Popery and using Scripture And have they not reason to challenge the sole Interpreting of it Let but the Pope and his Priests expound it and it shall all speak for them and speak Blood and Fire against all that obey them not But till then they are it's Enemies because it is the greatest Enemy to them 2. But suppose Christs blessing had been Crossing With what Face do they feign Protestants in England to be against Crossing in the Forehead When the World knoweth that the Church of England is not only for it but Ejecteth and Silenceth all Ministers that will Baptize the Child of the most Godly Christians without it And they know that all the Churches called Lutheran use it Are none of these Protestants 3. And though those called Non-Conformists are not for