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Author: More, Henry, 1614-1687.
Title: An explanation of the grand mystery of godliness, or, A true and faithfull representation of the everlasting Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the onely begotten Son of God and sovereign over men and angels by H. More ...
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Print source: An explanation of the grand mystery of godliness, or, A true and faithfull representation of the everlasting Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the onely begotten Son of God and sovereign over men and angels by H. More ...
More, Henry, 1614-1687.
London: Printed by J. Flesher for W. Morden ..., 1660.
Subject terms:
Christianity -- Early works to 1800.
Christianity -- Essence, genius, nature.
URL: https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A51302.0001.001
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Table of Contents
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title page
To the READER.
book
CHAP. I. 1. The Four main Properties of a Mystery. 2. The first Propertie, Obscu∣rity. 3. The second, Intelligibleness. 4. The third, Truth. 5. The fourth, Usefulness. 6. A more full Description of the Nature of a Mystery. 7. The Distribution of the whole Treatise.
CHAP. II. 1. That it is fit that the Mystery of Christianity should be in some mea∣sure Obscure, to exclude the Sensuall and Worldly. 2. As also to defeat disobedient Learning and Industry: 3. And for the pleasure and im∣provement of the godly and obedient. 4. The high Gratifications of the Speculative Soul from the Obscurity of the Scriptures.
CHAP. III. 1. The Obscurity of the Christian Mystery argued from the Effect, as from the Iews rejecting their Messias; 2. From the many Sects a∣mongst Christians; 3. Their difference in opinion concerning the Tri∣nity, 4. The Creation, 5. The Soul of Man, 6. The Person of Christ, 7. And the Nature of Angels.
CHAP. IV. 1. That the Trinity was not brought out of Plato's School into the Church by the Fathers. 2. A Description of the Platonick Trinity and of the difference of the Hypostases. 3. A description of their Union: 4. And why they hold All a due Object of Adoration. 5. The irrefutable Rea∣sonableness of the Platonick Trinity, and yet declined by the Fathers, a Demonstration that the Trinity was not brought out of Plato's School into the Church. 6. Which is further evidenced from the compliable∣ness of the Notion of the Platonick Trinity with the Phrase and Expres∣sions of Scripture. 7. That if the Christian Trinity were from Plato, it follows not that the Mystery is Pagan. 8, 9, 10. The Trinity proved from Testimony of the Holy Writ.
CHAP. V. 1. That the natural sense of the First of S. Iohn does evidently witness the Divinity of Christ. 2. A more particular urging of the circum∣stances of that Chapter. 3. That S. Iohn used the word in the Iewish or Cabbalistical notion. 4. The Trinity and the Divinity of Christ argued from Divine worship due to him, and from his being a Sacrifice for sin. 5. That to deny the Trinity and Divinity of Christ, or to make the Union of our selves with the Godhead of the same nature with that of Christ's, subverts Christianity. 6. The uselesness and sauciness of the pretended Deification of Enthusiasts, and how de∣structive it is of Christian Religion. 7. The Providence of God in preparing of the Nations by Platonisme for the easier reception of Christianity.
CHAP. VI. 1. The danger and disconsolateness of the Opinion of the Psychopanny∣chites. 2. What they alledge out of 1 Cor. 15. set down. 3. A Pre∣paration to an Answer advertising First, of the nature of Prophetick Schemes of speech. 4. Secondly, of the various vibration of an inspired Phansie. 5. Thirdly, of the ambiguity of words in Scripture, and par∣ticularly of and . 6. And lastly, of the Corinthians be∣ing sunk into an Unbelief of any Reward after this life. 7. The An∣swer out of the last and foregoing Premisse. 8. A further Answer out of the first. 9. As also out of the second and third, where their Ob∣jection from verse 32. is fully satisfied. 10. Their Argument answered which they urge from our Saviours citation to the Sadducees, I am the God of Abraham, &c.
CHAP. VII. 1. A General Answer to the last sort of places they alledge that imply no enjoyment before the Resurrection. 2. A Particular answer to that of 2 Cor. 5. out of Hugo Grotius. 3. A preparation to an Answer of the Author's own, by explaining what the Greek word may signifie. 4. His Paraphrase of the six first Verses of the forecited Chapter. 5. A further confirmation of his Paraphrase. 6. The weakness of the Reasons of the Psychopannychites noted.
CHAP. VIII. 1. That the Opinion of the Soul's living and acting immediately after Death, was not fetched out of Plato by the Fathers, because they left out Preexistence, an Opinion very rational in it self, 2. And such as seems plausible from sundry places of Scripture, as those alledged by Menasseh Ben Israel out of Deuteronomy, Jeremy, and Job. 3. as also God's resting on the seventh day. 4. That their proclivity to think that the Angel that appeared to the Patriarchs so often was Christ, might have been a further inducement. 5. Other places of the New Testament which seem to imply the Preexistence of Christ's Soul. 6. More of the same kinde out of S. John. 7. Force added to the last proofs from the opinion of the Socinians. 8. That our Saviour did ad∣mit, or at least not disapprove the opinion of Preexistence. 9. The main scope intended from the preceding allegations, namely, That the Soul's living and acting after death is no Pagan opinion out of Plato, but a Christian Truth evidenced out of the Scriptures.
CHAP. IX. 1. Proofs out of Scripture That the Soul does not sleep after death: as 1 Peter 3. with the explication thereof. 2. The Authors Paraphrase com∣pared with Calvin's Interpretation. 3. That Calvin needed not to sup∣pose the Apostle to have writ false Greek. 4. Two waies of interpreting the Apostle so as both Grammatical Soloecisme and Purgatory may be de∣clined. 5. The second way of Interpretation. 6. A second proof out of Scripture. 7. A third of like nature with the former. 8. A further en∣forcement and explication thereof. 9. A fourth place. 10. A fifth from Hebr. 12. where God is called the Father of Spirits, &c. 11. A sixth testimony from our Saviours words, Matth. 20.28.
CHAP. X. 1. A pregnant Argument from the State of the Soul of Christ and of the Thief after death. 2. Grotius his explication of Christ's promise to the Thief. 3. The meaning of . 4. How Christ with the Thief could be and in Paradise at once. 5. That the Parables of Dives and Lazarus and of the unjust Steward implie That the Soul hath life and sense immediately after death.
BOOK II.
CHAP. I. 1. He passes to the more Intelligible parts of Christianity, for the under∣standing whereof certain preparative Propositions are to be laid down. 2. As, That there is a God. 3. A brief account of the Assertion from his Idea. 4. A further Confirmation from its ordinary conca∣tenation with the Rational account of all other Beings, as first of the Existence of the disjoynt and independent particles of Matter.
CHAP. II. 1. That the wise contrivances in the works of Nature prove the Being of a God; 2. And have extorted an acknowledgment of a General Provi∣dence, even from irreligious Naturallists. 3. That there is a Parti∣cular Providence or Inspection of God upon every individual person: Which is his Second Assertion.
CHAP. III. 1. His Third Assertion, That there are Particular Spirits or Immaterial Substances, and of their Kinds. 2. The Proof of their Existence, and especially of theirs which in a more large sense be called Souls. 3. The Difference betwixt the Souls or Spirits of Men and Angels, and how that Pagan Idolatry and the Ceremonies of Witches prove the Existence of Devils. 4. And that the Existence of Devils proves the Existence of Good Angels.
CHAP. IV. 1. His Fourth Assertion, That the Fall of the Angels was their giving up themselves to the Animal life, and forsaking the Divine. 2. The Fifth, That this fall of theirs changed their purest Vehicles into more gross and feculent. 3. The Sixth, That the change of their Vehicles was no extinction of life. 4. The Seventh, That the Souls of Men are immortal, and act and live after death. The inducements to which belief are the Activity of fallen Angels. 5. The Homogeneity of the inmost Organ of Perception. 6. The scope and meaning of External Or∣gans of Sense in this Earthly Body. 7. The Soul's power of Organizing her Vehicle. 8. And lastly, The accuracy of Divine Providence.
CHAP. V. 1. The Eighth Assertion, That there is a Polity amongst the Angels and Souls separate, both Good and Bad; and therefore Two distinct Kingdomes, one of Light and the other of Darkness: 2. And a perpetual fewd and conflict betwixt them. 3. The Ninth, That there are infi∣nite swarms of Atheistical Spirits, as well Aereal as Terrestrial, in an utter ignorance or hatred of all true Religion.
CHAP. VI 1. His Tenth Assertion, That there will be a finall Overthrow of the Dark Kingdome, and that in a supernatural manner, and upon their external persons. 2. The Eleventh, That the Generations of men had a beginning, and will also have an end. 3. To which also the Conflagration of the world gives witness.
CHAP. VII. 1. His Twelfth Assertion, That there will be a Visible and Supernatural deliverance of the Children of the Kingdome of Light, at the Con∣flagration of the World. 2. The Reason of the Assertion. 3. His Thirteenth Assertion, That the last vengeance and deliverance shall be so contrived, as may be best fit for the Triumph of the Divine life over the Animal life. 4. Whence it is most reasonable the Chieftain of the Kingdome of Light should be rather an Humane Soul then an An∣gel. 5. His last Assertion an Inference from the former, and a brief Description of the General nature of Christianity.
CHAP. VIII. 1. That not to be at least a Speculative Christian is a Sign of the want of common Wit and Reason. 2. The nature of the Divine and Animal life, and the state of the World before and at our Saviour's coming, to be en∣quired into before we proceed. 3. Why God does not forthwith advance the Divine life and that Glory that seems due to her. 4. The First Answer. 5. A Second Answer. 6. A Third Answer. 7. The Fourth and last Answer.
CHAP. IX. 1. What the Animal life is in General, and that it is Good in it self. 2. Self-love the Root of the Animal Passions, and in it self both requi∣site and harmless in Creatures. 3. As also the Branches. 4. The more refined Animal properties in Brutes, as the Sense of Praise, natural af∣fection, Craft: 5. Political Government in Bees 6. And Cranes and Stags, 7. As also in Elephants. 8. The Inference, That Political Wisdom, with all the Branches thereof, is part of the Animal life.
CHAP. X. 1. That there is according to Pliny a kind of Religion also in Brutes, as in the Cercopithecus; 2. In the Elephant. 3. A confutation of Pliny's conceit. 4. That there may be a certain Passion in Apes and Elephants upon their sight of the Sun and Moon, something a-kin to that of Vene∣ration in man, and how Idolatry may be the proper fruit of the Animal life. 5. A discovery thereof from the practise of the Indians, 6. whose Idolatry to the Sun and Moon sprung from that Animal passion. 7. That there is no hurt in the Passion it self, if it sink us not into an insensible∣ness of the First invisible cause.
CHAP. XI. 1. Of a Middle life whose Root is Reason, and what Reason it self is. 2. The main branches of this Middle life. 3. That the Middle life acts according to the life she is immersed into, whether Animal or Divine. 4. Her activity, when immersed in the Animal life, in things against and on this side Religion. 5. How far she may goe in Religious performances.
CHAP. XII. 1. The wide conjecture and dead relish of the mere Animal man in things pertaining to the Divine life, and that the Root of this life is Obedi∣ential Faith in God. 2. The three Branches from this Root, Humility, Charity and Purity; and why they are called Divine. 3. A Descri∣ption of Humility. 4. A Description of Charity, and how Civil Justice or Moral Honesty is eminently contained therein. 5. A Descri∣ption of Purity, and how it eminently contains in it what ever Moral Temperance or Fortitude pretend to. 6. A Description of the truest Fortitude: 7. And how transcendent an Example thereof our Saviour was. 8. A further representation of the stupendious Fortitude of our Saviour. 9. That Moral Prudence also is necessarily comprized in the Divine life. 10. That the Divine life is the truest Key to the Mystery of Christianity; but the excellency thereof unconceivable to those that do not partake of it.
BOOK III.
CHAP. I. 1. That the Lapse of the Soul from the Divine life immersing her into Matter, brings on the Birth of Cain in the Mystical Eve driven out of Paradise. 2. That the most Fundamental mistake of the Soul lapsed is that Birth of Cain, and that from hence also sprung Abel in the mystery, the vanity of Pagan Idolatry. 3. Solomon's universal charge against the Pagans, of Polytheisme and Atheisme, and how fit it is their Apology should be heard for the better understanding the State of the World out of Christ. 4. Their plea of worshipping but one God, namely the Sun, handsomely managed by Macrobius. 5. The Indian Brachmans worshippers of the Sun: Apollonius his entertainment with them, and of his false and vain affectation of Pythagorisme. 6. The Ignorance of the Indian Magicians, and of the Daemons that instructed them. 7. A Concession that they and the rest of the Pagans terminated their worship upon one Supreme Numen, which they conceived to be the Sun.
CHAP. II. 1. That the above-said concession advantages the Pagans nothing, for as much as there are more Suns then one. 2. That not only Unity, but the rest of the Divine Attributes are incompetible to the Sun. 3. Of Cardan's attributing Understanding to the Sun's light, with a confuta∣tion of his fond opinion. 4. Another sort of Apologizers for Paganism, who pretend the Heathens worshipped One God, to which they gave no name. 5. A discovery out of their own Religion that this innominated Deity was not the True God but the Material world.
CHAP. III. 1. The last Apologizers for Paganisme, who acknowledge God to be an Eternal Mind distinct from Matter, and that all things are manife∣stations of his Attributes. 2. His Manifestations in the External World. 3. His Manifestations within us by way of Passion. 4. His more noble emanations and communications to the inward Mind, and how the ancient Heathen affixed personal Names to these several Powers or manifestations. 5. The reason of their making these several Powers so many Gods or Goddesses. 6. Their Reason for worshipping the Genii and Heroes.
CHAP. IV. 1. The Heathens Festivals, Temples and Images. 2. Their Apology for Images. 3. The Significancy of the Images of Jupiter and Aeolus. 4. Of Ceres. 5. Of Apollo. 6. Their Plea from the significancy of their Images, that their use in Divine worship is no more Idolatrous then that of Books in all Religions; as also from the use of Images in the Nation of the Iews. 7. Their Answer to those that object the Im∣possibleness of representing God by any outward Image. 8. That we are not to envy the Heathen, if they hit upon any thing more weighty in their Apologies for their Religion; and why.
CHAP. V. 1. An Answer to the last Apology of the Pagans; as first, That it concerns but few of them, 2. and that those few were rather of the , then pure Pagans. 3. That the worship of Images is expresly forbid by God in the Law of Moses. 4. That they rather obscure then help our conceptions of the Divine Powers. 5. That there is great danger of these Images intercepting the worship directed to God. 6. He referrs the curious and unsatisfied to the fuller Discussions in Polemical Divinity.
CHAP. VI. 1. A new and unanswerable charge against Paganisme, namely, That they adored the Divine Powers no further then they reached the Animal life, as appears from their Dijoves and Vejoves, 2. Jupiter altitonans, Averruncus, Robigus and Tempestas. 3. From the pleasant spectacle of their God Pan: what is meant by his Pipe, and Nymphs dancing about him. 4. What by his being deemed the Son of Hermes and Mercury, and what by his beloved. Nymph Syrinx, his wife Echo, and daugh∣ter Iambe. 5. The interpretation of his horns, hairiness, red face, long beard, goats feet, and laughing countenance.
CHAP. VII. 1. That as the World or Universe was deified in Pan, so were the parts thereof in Coelius, Juno, Neptune, Vulcan, Pluto, Ops, Bacchus, Ceres, &c. 2. That the Night was also a Deity, and why they sacrifi∣ced a Cock to her, with the like reason of other Sacrifices. 3. Interiour Manifestations that concern the Animal life, namely that of Wrath and Love, which are the Pagans Mars and Venus. 4. Minerva, Mercuri∣us, Eunomia, &c. Manifestations referred to the Middle life. 5. The agreement of the Greeks Religion with the Romans, as also with the Aegyptians. 6. Their worship of the River Nilus, &c. 7. That the Religion of the rest of the Nations of the world was of the same nature with that of Rome, Greece and Aegypt, and reached no further then the Animal life. 8. And that their worshipping of men deceased stood upon the same ground.
CHAP. VIII. 1. That Judaism also respected nothing else but the Gratifications of the Animal life, as appears in all their Festivals. 2. That though the Peo∣ple were held in that low dispensation, yet Moses knew the meaning of his own Types, and that Immortality that was to be revealed by Christ. 3. That their Sabbaths reached no further then things of this life; 4. Nor their Sabbatical years and Iubilees; 5. Nor their Feasts of Trumpets; 6. Nor their Feast of Tabernacles; 7. Nor their Pente∣cost; 8. Nor lastly their Feast of Expiation.
CHAP. IX. 1. The Preeminency of Judaism above Paganism. 2. The Authors of the Religions of the Heathen, who they were. 3. How naturally lapsed Man∣kind fals under the superstitious Tyranny of Devils. 4. The palpable effects of this Tyranny in the Nations of America. 5. That that false and wilde Resignation in the Quakers does naturally expose them to the Tyranny of Satan. 6. That their affectation of blinde impulses is but a preparation to Demonical possession, and a way to the restoring of the vilest Superstitions of Paganism.
CHAP. X. 1. The Devil's usurped dominion of this world, and how Christ came to dispossess him. 2. The Largeness of the Devil's dominion before the coming of Christ. 3. The Nation of the Iews, the light of the world; and what influence they might have on other Nations in the midst of the reign of Paganisme. 4. That if our Hemisphere was any thing more tolerable then the American, it is to be imputed to the Doctrine of the Patriarchs, Moses and the Prophets. 5. That this Influence was so little, that all the Nations besides were Idolaters, most of them exer∣cising of obscene and cruel Superstitions.
CHAP. XI. 1. The villanous Rites of Cybele the Mother of the Gods. 2. Their Feasts of Bacchus: 3. of Priapus, and the reason of sacrificing an Ass to him. 4. Their Lupercalia, and why they were celebrated by naked men. 5. The Feasts of Flora. 6. Of Venus, and that it was the Obscene Venus they worshipped. 7. That their Venus Ura∣nia, or Queen of Heaven, is also but Earthly lust, as appears from her Ceremonies. 8. That this Venus is thought to be the Moon. Her lascivious and obscene Ceremonies.
CHAP. XII. 1. Of their famous Eleusinia, how foule and obscene they were. 2. The magnificency of those Rites, and how hugely frequented. 3. That the bottome thereof was but a piece of Baudery, held up by the Obscene and ridiculous story of Ceres and Baubo. 4. Of their foul superstitions in Tartary, Malabar, Narsinga, and the whole Continent of Ame∣rica.
CHAP. XIII. 1. The bloudy Tyranny of the Devil in his cruel Superstitions. The whip∣ping of the prime youth of Lacedaemon at the Altar of Diana. 2. The sacrificing to Bellona and Dea Syria with the Priests own bloud. The bloud of the sick vow'd to be offered in Cathaia and Mangi, with other vile and contemptuous abuses of Satan. 3. Other scornful and harsh misusages in Siam and Pegu. Men squeezed to death under the wheels of an Idols Chariot in the Kingdom of Narsinga and Bisnagar. 4. Foul tedious Pilgrimages in Zeilan, together with the cuttings and slashings of the flesh of the Pilgrim. 5. Whipping, eating the earth, plucking out eyes before the Idol in New-Spain, with their antick and slovenly Ceremonies in Hispaniola. 6. The intolerable harshness of their Su∣perstitious Castigations in Mexico and Peru. 7. That these base usages are an infallible demonstration of the Devil's Hatred and Scorn of Man∣kind.
CHAP. XIV. 1. Men sacrificed to the Devil in Virginia, Peru, Brasilia. They of Guiana and Paria also eat them being sacrificed. The Ceremony of these Sacri∣fices in Nicaragua. 2. The hungry and bloud-thirsty Devils of Florida and Mexico. 3. Their sacrificing of Children in Peru, with the Ce∣remony of drowning a Boy and a Girle in Mexico. 4. The manner of the Mexicans sacrificing their Captives. 5. The huge numbers of those Sacrifices in Mexico, and of their dancing about the City in the skin of a man new flay'd. 6. And in New-Spain in the skin of a woman.
CHAP. XV. 1. The sacrificing of Children to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom, 2. That it was not a Februation, but real Burning of them. That this custome spread from Syria to Carthage. 4. Further Arguments thereof, with the mistake of Saturn being called Israel rectified by Grotius. And that Abraham's offering up Isaac was no occasion at all to these execrable sacrifices. 5. Sacrificing of men in Britain, Lusitania, France, Ger∣many, Thrace and in the Isle of Man. 6. In sundry places also of Greece, as Messene, Arcadia, Chios, Aulis, Locri, Lacedaemon. 7. That the Romans were not free neither from these salvage sacrifices. 8. To which you may add the Cimbrians, Lituanians, Aegyptians, the Inhabitants of Rhodes, Salamis, Tenedos, Indians, Persians, &c.
CHAP. XVI. 1. Four things still behind to be briefly touch'd upon for the fuller Prepa∣ration to the understanding the Christian Mystery; as First the Pagan Catharmata. The use of them prov'd out of Caesar; 2. As also out of Statius and the Scholiast upon Aristophanes. 3. That all their expiatory Men-sacrifices whatsoever were truly Catharmata. 4. The Second, their Apotheoses or Deifications of men. The names of seve∣ral recited out of Diodorus. 5. Of Baal-Peor, and how in a manner all the Temples of the Pagans were Sepulchres. Their pedigree noted by Lactantius out of Ennius. 6. Certain examples of the Deification of their Law-givers.
CHAP. XVII. 1. The Third Observable, The Mediation of Daemons. 2. This Super∣stition glanced at by the Apostle in . And that Daemons are the Souls of men departed, according to Hesiod. 3. As also according to Plutarch and Maximus Tyrius. 4. The Author's inference from this position.
CHAP. XVIII. 1. The Fourth and last thing to be noted, namely their Heroes, who were thought to be either begot of some God, or born of some Goddess: the latter whereof is ridiculous, if not impossible; 2. The former not at all incredible. 3. Franciscus Picus his opinion of the Heroes (feig∣ned so by the Poets) as begot of the Gods: that they were really begotten of some impure Daemons, with Josephus his suffrage to the same pur∣pose. 4. The Possibility of the thing further illustrated from the im∣pregnation of Mares merely by the Wind, asserted by several Authors. 5. The application of the History, and a further confirmation from the manner of Conception out of Dr. Harvey. 6. Examples of men famed for this kind of miraculous Birth of the Heroes, on this side the tempusor.
CHAP. XIX. 1. That out of the Principles we have laid down, and the History of the Religions of the Nations we have produced, it is easie to give a Reasona∣ble account of all matters concerning our Saviour from his Birth to his Visible return to Iudgment. 2. That Christianity is the Summe and Perfection of whatever things were laudable or passable in any Religion that has been in the world. 3. The Assertion made good by the enumera∣tion of certain Particulars. 4. That our Religion seems to be more chiefly directed to the Nations then the Iews themselves. 5. An Enu∣meration of the main Heads in the History of Christ, that he intends to give account of.
BOOK IV.
CHAP. I. 1. That Christ's being born of a Virgin is no Impossible thing. 2. And not only so, but also Reasonable in reference to the Heroes of the Pa∣gans. 3. And that this outward birth might be an emblem of his Eternal Sonship. 4. Thirdly in relation to the Sanctity of his own person, and for the recommendation of Continence and Chastity to the world. 5. And lastly for the completion of certain prophesies in the Scriptures that pointed at the Messias.
CHAP. II. 1. That as the Virginity of Christ's Mother recommended Purity, so her Meanness recommends Humility to the world; as also other circumstan∣ces of Christ's Birth. 2. Of the Salutation of the Angel Gabriel, and of the Magi. 3. That the History of their Visit helps on also belief, and that it is not Reason but Sottishness that excepts against the ministery of Angels. 4. His design of continuing a Parallel betwixt the life of Christ and of Apollonius Tyaneus. 5. The Pedigree and Birth of Apol∣lonius, how ranck they smell of the Animal life. 6. The Song of the Angels and the dance of the musical Swans at Apollonius's birth compared.
CHAP. III. 1. That whatever miraculously either happened to or was done by our Saviour till his Passion cannot seem impossible to him that holds there is a God and ministration of Angels. 2. Of the descending of the Holy Ghost, and the Voice from Heaven at his Baptisme. 3. Why Christ exposed himself to all manner of hardship and Temptations. 4. And particularly why he was tempted of the Devil, with an answer to an Ob∣jection touching the Devil's boldness in daring to tempt the Son of God. 5. How he could be said to shew him all the Kingdoms of the Earth. 6. The reason of his fourty daies fast, 7. And of his Transfiguration upon the Mount. The three first reasons. 8. The meaning of Moses and Elias his receding, and Christ's being left alone. 9. The last rea∣son of his Transfiguration, That it was for the Confirmation of his Re∣surrection and the Immortality of the Soul. 10. Testimonies from Hea∣ven of the Eminency of Christs person.
CHAP. IV. 1. What miraculous accidents in Apollonius his life may seem parallel to these of Christs. His superstitious fasting from flesh and abstinence from wine out of a thirst after the glory of foretelling things to come. 2. Apol∣lonius a Master of Iudiciary Astrology, and of his seven Rings with the names of the seven Planets. 3. Miraculous Testimonies given to the eminency of Apollonius his Person by Aesculapius and Trophonius how weak and obscure. 4. The Brachmans high Encomium of him, with an acknowledgment done to him by a fawning Lion. The ridiculous Folly of all these Testimonies.
CHAP. V. 1. Three general Observables in Christs Miracles. 2. Why he several times charged silence upon those he wrought his Miracles upon. 3. Why Christ was never frustrated in attempting any Miracle. 4. The va∣nity of the Atheists that impute his Miracles to the power of Imagi∣nation. 5. Of the delusive and evanid viands of Witches and Magi∣cians.
CHAP. VI. 1. Of Christs dispossessing of Devils. 2. An account of there being more Daemoniacks then ordinary in our Saviours time. As first from a possi∣ble want of care or skill how to order their Mad-men or Lunaticks. 3. The second from the power of the Devil being greater before the coming of Christ then after. 4. That not onely Excommunication but Apostasy from Christ may subject a man to the Tyranny of Satan, as may seem to have fallen out in several of the more desperate Sects of this Age. 5. An enumeration of sundry Daemoniacal symptoms amongst them. 6. More of the same nature. 7. Their profane and antick imitations of the most solemn passages in the History of Christ. 8. A further solution of the present difficulties from the premised considerations. 9. A third and fourth Answer from the same of their cure and the conflux of these Daemoniacks into one Country. 10. A fifth from the ambiguity of the word . 11. The sixth and last Answer, That it is not at all absurd to admit there was a greater number of real Daemoniacks in Christs time then at other times, from the useful end of their then abounding.
CHAP. VII. 1. That the History of the Daemoniack whose name was Legion has no incongruity in it. 2. That they were a Regiment of the Dark King∣dome that haunted most the Country of the Gadarens: and that whe∣ther we conceive their Chieftain alone, or many of his army to possess the man, there is no absurdity therein. 3. How it came to pass so many De∣vils should clutter about one sorry person. 4. The Reason of Christs de∣manding of the Daemoniacks name, and the great use of recording this History. 5. The numerositie of the Devils discovered by their possession of the Swine. 6. Several other Reasons why Christ permitted them to enter into the Gadarens heards. 7. That Christ offended against the laws of neither Compassion nor Iustice in this permission.
CHAP. VIII. 1. Of Christ's turning water into wine. 2. The Miraculous draught of Fish. 3. His whipping the Money-changers out of the Temple. 4. His walking on the Sea, and rebuking the Winde. 5. His cursing the Fig-tree. 6. The meaning of that Miracle. 7. The reason why he expressed his meaning so aenigmatically. 8. That both the Prophets and Christ himself (as in the Ceremonies he used in curing the man that was born blind) spoke , in Typicall Actions. 9. The things that were typified in those ceremonies Christ used in healing the blinde; as in his tempering Clay and Spittle. 10. A further and more full Interpreta∣tion of the whole Transaction. 11. Some brief touches upon the Pro∣phesies of Christ.
CHAP. IX. 1. The Miracles of Apollonius compared with those of Christ. 2. His entertainment at a Magical banquet by Iarchas and the rest of the Brach∣mans. 3. His cure of a Dropsy and of one bitten by a mad dog. 4. His freeing of the City of Ephesus from the plague. 5. His casting a Devil out of a laughing Daemoniack, and chasing away a whining Spectre on Mount Caucasus in a Moon-shine night. 6. His freeing Me∣nippus from his espoused Lamia.
CHAP. X. 1. Apollonius his raising from death a young married Bride at Rome. 2. His Divinations, and particularly by Dreams. 3. His Divinations from some external accidents in Nature. 4. His Prediction of Stepha∣nus killing Domitian from an Halo that encircled the sun. Astrology and Meteorology covers to Pagan Superstition and converse with Devils. 5. A discovery thereof from this prediction of his from the Halo com∣pared with his phrantick Ecstasies at Ephesus. 6. A general Conclu∣sion from the whole parallel of the Acts of Christ and Apollonius.
CHAP. XI. 1. A Comparison of the Temper or Spirit in Apollonius with that in Christ. 2. That Apollonius his Spirit was at the height of the Ani∣mal life, but no higher. 3. That Pride was the strongest chain of dark∣ness that Apollonius was held in, with a rehersal of certain Specimens thereof. 4. That his whole Life was nothing else but an exercise of Pride and Vain-glory, boldly swaggering himself into respect with the greatest whereever he went. 5. His reception with Phraotes King of India, and Iarchas head of the Brachmans. 6. His intermedling with the affairs of the Roman Empire, his converse with the Babylonian Magi and Aegyptian Gymnosophists, and of his plausible Language and Eloquence. 7. That by the sense of Honour and Respect he was hook'd in to be so active an Instrument for the Kingdome of Darkness. 8. That though the Brachmans pronounced Apollonius a God, yet he was no higher then the better sort of Beasts.
CHAP. XII. 1. The Contrariety of the Spirit of Christ to that of Apollonius. 2. That the History of Apollonius, be it true or false, argues the exquisite Per∣fection of the Life of Christ, and the Transcendency of that Divine Spirit in him that no Pagan could reach by either Imagination or Acti∣on. 3. The Spirit of Christ how contemptible to the mere Natural man, and how deare and precious in the eyes of God. 4. How the several Humiliations of Christ were compensated by God with both sutable and miraculous Priviledges and Exaltations. 5. His deepest Humilia∣tion, namely, his Suffering the death of the Cross, compensated with the highest Exaltation.
CHAP. XIII. 1. The ineffable power of the Passion of Christ, and other endearing appli∣cations of him, for winning the World off from the Prince of Darkness. 2. Of his preceding Sufferings and of his Crucifixion. 3. How necessa∣ry it was that Christ should be so passive and sensible of pain in his suffe∣ring on the Cross; against the blasphemy of certain bold Enthusiasts. 4. Their ignorance in the Divine life, and how it alone was to triumph in the Person of Christ unassisted by the advantages of the Animal or Na∣tural. 5. That if Christ had died boldly and with little sense of pain, both the Solemnity and Usefulness of his Passion had been lost. 6. That the strange Accidents that attended his Crucifixion were Prefigurations of the future Effects of his Passion upon the Spirits of men in the World. 7. Which yet hinders not but that they may have other significations. 8. The third and last Reason of the Tragical unsupportableness of the Passion of Christ, in that he bore the sins of the whole World. 9. The Leguleious cavils of some conceited Sophists that pretend That it is unjust with God to punish the Innocent in stead of the Guilty. 10. The false Ground of all their frivolous subtilties.
CHAP. XIV. 1. That Sacrifices in all Religions were held Appeasments of the Wrath of their Gods. 2. And that therefore the Sacrifice of Christ is rather to be interpreted to such a Religious sense then by that of Secular laws. 3. The great disservice some corrosive Wits doe to Christian Religion, and what defacements their Subtilties bring upon the winning comeliness thereof. 4. The great advantage the Passion of Christ has, compared with the bloudy Tyranny of Satan.
CHAP. XV. 1. An Objection concerning the miraculous Eclipse of the Sun at our Sa∣viour's Passion, from its not being recorded in other Historians. 2. An∣swer, That this wonderfull Accident might as well be omitted be several Historians as those of like wonderfulness; as for example the darkness of the Sun about Julius Caesar's death. 3. Further, That there are far greater Reasons that Historians should omit the darkness of the Sun at Christ's Passion then that at the death of Julius Caesar. 4. That Gro∣tius ventures to affirm this Eclipse recorded in Pagan writers; and that Tertullian appeal'd to their Records. 5. That the Text does not implie that it was an universal Eclipse, whereby the History becomes free from all their Cavils. 6. Apollonius his Arraignment before Domiti∣an, with the ridiculousness of his grave Exhortations to Damis and De∣metrius to suffer for Philosophy.
BOOK V.
CHAP. I. 1. Of the Resurrection of Christ, and how much his eye was fixed upon that Event. 2. The chief Importance of Christ's Resurrection. 3. The World excited by the Miracles of Christ the more narrowly to consider the Divine quality of his Person, whom the more they looked upon, the more they disliked. 4. Whence they misinterpreted and eluded all the force and conviction of all his Miracles. 5. Gods upbraiding of the World with their gross Ignorance by the raising him from the dead whom they thus vilified and contemned. 6. Christ's Resurrection an assurance of man's Immortality.
CHAP. II. 1. The last End of Christ's Resurrection, the Confirmation of his whole Mi∣nistry. 2. How it could be that those chief Priests and Rulers that hi∣red the Souldiers to give out, that the Disciples of Christ stole his body away, were not rather converted to believe he was the Messias. 3. How it can be evinced that Christ did really rise from the dead; and that it was not the delusion of the some deceitfull Daemons. 4. The first and second Answer. 5. The third Answer. 6. the fourth Answer. 7. The fifth Answer. 8. The sixth and last Answer. 9. That his appearing and disappearing at pleasure after his Resurrection is no argument but that he was risen with the same Body that was laid in the grave.
CHAP. III. 1. The Ascension of Christ, and what a sure pledge it is of the Soul's activi∣ty in a thinner Vehicle. 2. That the Soul's activity in this Earthly Body is no just measure of what she can doe out of it. 3. That the Life of the Soul here is as a Dream in comparison of that life she is awakened unto in her Celestial Vehicle. 4. The activity of the separate Soul upon the Vehicle argued from her moving of the Spirits in the Body, and that no advantage accrews therefrom to the wicked after death.
CHAP. IV. 1. Christ's Session at the Right hand of God interpreted either figuratively or properly. 2. That the proper sense implies no humane shape in the Deity. 3. That though God be Infinite and every where, yet there may be a Special presence of him in Heaven. 4. And that Christ may be conceived to sit at the Right hand of that Presence, or Divine She∣china.
CHAP. V. 1. The Apotheosis of Christ, or his Receiving of Divine Honour, freed from all suspicion of Idolatry, forasmuch as Christ is God properly so called, by his Real and Physical union with God. 2. The Real and Phy∣sical union of the Soul of Christ with God being possible; sundry Reasons alledged to prove that God did actually bring it to pass. 3. The vain Evasions of superficial Allegorists noted. 4. Their ignorance evinced, and the Apotheosis of Christ confirmed from the Immortality of the Soul and the political Government of the other World. 5. That he that equalizes himself to Christ is ipso facto discovered an Impostour and Lier.
CHAP. VI. 1. An objection against Christ's Soveraignty over Men and Angels, from the meanness of the rank of Humane Spirits in comparison of the Angeli∣cal Orders. 2. An Answer to the objection so far as it concerns the fallen Angels. 3. A further inforcement of the Objection concerning the unfallen Angels, with an Answer thereto. 4. A further Answer from the incapacitie of an Angels being a Sacrifice for the Sins of the World. 5. And of being a fit Example of life to men in the flesh. 6. That the capacities of Christ were so universal, that he was the fit∣test to be made the Head or Soveraign over all the Intellectual Orders. 7. Christ's Intercession: his fitness for that Office. 8. What things in the Pagan Religion are rectified and compleated in the Birth, Passion, Ascension and Intercession of Christ.
CHAP. VII. 1. That there is nothing in the History of Apollonius that can properly an∣swer: to Christ's Resurrection from the dead. 2. And that his passage out of this life must go for his Ascension; concerning which reports are various, but in general that it was likely he died not in his bed. 3. His reception at the Temple of Diana Dictynna in Crete, and of his being called up into Heaven by a Quire of Virgins singing in the Aire. 4. The uncertainty of the manner of Apollonius his leaving the World, argued out of Philostra∣tus his own Confession. 5. That if that at the Temple of Diana Dictynna was true, yet it is no demonstration of any great worth in his Person. 6. That the Secrecy of his departure out of this world might beget a su∣spicion in his admirers that he went Body and Soul into Heaven. 7. Of a Statue of Apollonius that spake, and of his dictating verses to a young Philosopher at Tyana, concerning the Immortality of the Soul: 8. Of his Ghost appearing to Aurelian the Emperour. 9. Of Christ's appearing to Stephen at his martyrdome, and to Saul when he was going to Damascus.
CHAP. VIII. 1. The use of this parallel hitherto of Christ and Apollonius. 2. Ma∣homet, David George, H. Nicolas, high-pretending Prophets, brought upon the stage, and the Author's Apology for so doing. 3. That a misbelief of the History of Christ, and a dexterity in a moral Mytho∣logy thereof, are the greatest Excellencies in David George and H. Nicolas. 4. That if they believed there were any Miracles ever in the world, they ought to have given their reasons why they believe not those that are recorded of Christ, and to have undeceiv'd the world by doing Miracles themselves to ratifie their doctrine. 5. If they be∣lieved there never were, nor ever will be any Miracles, they do plain∣ly betray themselves to be mere Atheists or Epicures. 6. The wicked plot of Satan in this Sect in clothing their style with Scripture-lan∣guage, though they were worse Infidels then the very Heathen. 7. That the gross Infidelity of these two Impostours would make a man suspect them rather to have been crafty prophane Cheats then honest through-crackt Enthusiasts. 8. That where Faith is extinct, all the rapturous Exhor∣tations to Vertue are justly suspected to proceed rather from Complexion then any Divine principle.
CHAP. IX. 1. Mahomet far more orthodox in the main points of Religion then the above-named Impostours. 2. The high pitch this pretended Prophet sets himself at. His journey to Heaven, being waited upon by the An∣gel Gabriel. His Beast Alborach, and of his being called to by two Wo∣men by the way, with the Angels interpretation thereof. 3. His arrival at the Temple at Jerusalem, and the reverence done to him there by all the Prophets and holy Messengers of God that ever had been in the world. 4. The crafty political meaning of the Vision hitherto. 5. Mahomet bearing himself upon the Angel Gabriel's hand, climbes up to Heaven on a Ladder of Divine light. His passing through Seven Heavens, and his commending of himself to Christ in the Seventh. 6. His salutation of his Creatour, with the stupendious circumstances thereof. 7. Five special favours he received from God at that congress. 8. Of the natu∣ral wilyness in Enthusiasts, and of their subtile pride where they would seem most humble. The strange advantage of Enthusiasme with the rude multitude; 9. And the wonderfull success thereof in Mahomet. Other Enthusiasts as proud as Mahomet, but not so successfull, and why.
CHAP. X. 1. That Mahomet was no true Prophet, discovered from his cruel and bloudy Precepts. 2. From his insatiable Lust. 3. From his wildeness of Phansy, and Ignorance in things. What may possibly be the meaning of the black speck taken out of his Heart by the Angel Gabriel. 4. His pretence to Miracles; as his being overshadowed with a cloud, when he drove his Masters Mules. 5. A stock of a Tree cleaving it self to give way to the stumbling Prophet. The cluttering of Trees together to keep off the Sun from him, as also his dividing of the Moon. 6. The matters hitherto recited concerning Mahomet taken out of Johannes Andreas the Son of Abdalla a Mahometane Priest, a grave person and serious Christian.
CHAP. XI. 1. Three main Consequences of Christ's Apotheosis. 2. of the Mission of the Holy Ghost, and the Apostles power of doing Miracles. 3. The manner of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them at the day of Pente∣cost. 4. The substantial Reasonableness of the circumstances of this Mi∣racle. 5. The Symbolical meaning of them. 6. What was meant by the rushing winde that filled the whole house. 7. What by the fiery clo∣ven tongues. 8. A recital of several other Miracles done by or hap∣pening to the Apostles. 9. The Congruity and Coherence of the whole History of the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles argued from the Success.
CHAP. XII. 1. Three main Effects of Christ his sending the Paraclete, foretold by himself, Iohn 16. When the Paraclete shall come, &c. 2. Grotius his Exposition upon the Text. 3. The Ground of his Exposition. 4. A brief indication of the natural sense of the Text by the Author. 5. The Prophesie of Christ fulfilled, and acknowledged not only by Christians but also Mahometans. 6. That the Substance of Mahometism is Mo∣ses and Christ. Their zealous profession of One God. 7. Their ac∣knowledgment of Miracles done by Christ and his Apostles, and of the high priviledge conferred upon Christ. 8. What Advantage that por∣tion of Christian Truth which they have embraced has on them, and what hopes there are of their full conversion.
CHAP. XIII. 1. The Triumph of the Divine Life not so large hitherto as the overthrow of the external Empire of the Devil. 2. Her conspicuous Eminency in the Primitive times. 3. The real and cruel Martyrdoms of Christians under the Ten Persecutions, a demonstration that their Resurrection is not an Allegorie. 4. That to allegorize away that blessed Immortality promised in the Gospel is the greatest blasphemy against Christ that can be imagined.
CHAP. XIV: 1. The Corruption of the Church upon the Christian Religion becoming the Religion of the Empire. 2. That there did not cease then to be a true and living Church, though hid in the Wilderness. 3. That though the Divine life was much under, yet the Person of our Saviour Christ, of the Virgin Mary, &c. were very richly honoured; 4. And the Apostles and Martyrs highly complemented according to the ancient guize of the Pagan Ceremonies. 5. The condition of Christianity since the general aposta∣sie compared to that of Una in the Desart amongst the Satyrs. 6. That though this has been the state of the Church very long, it will not be so alwaies; and while it is so, yet the real enemies of Christ do lick the dust of his feet. 7. The mad work those Apes and Satyrs make with the Chri∣stian Truth. 8. The great degeneracy of Christendome from the Precepts and Example of Christ in their warrs and bloudshed. 9. That though Providence has connived at this Pagan Christianism for a while, he will not fail to restore his Church to its pristine purity at the last. 10. The full proof of which Conclusion is too voluminous for this place.
CHAP. XV. 1. Grotius his reasons against Days signifying Years in the Prophets, propounded and answered. 2. Demonstrations that Days do sometimes signifie so many Years. 3. Mr. Mede's opinion, That a new Systeme of Prophecies from the first Epocha begins Chap. 10. v. 8. cleared and confirmed. 4. What is meant by the Three days and an half that the Witnesses lye slain. 5. Of the Beast out of the bottomless pit. 6. Of the First Resurrection. 7. The conclusion of the matter in hand from the evident truth of Mr. Mede's Synchronisms.
CHAP. XVI. 1. Of the Four Beasts about the throne of Majesty described before the Prophecie of the Seals. 2. Of the Six first seals according to Grotius. 3. Of the Six first seals according to Mr. Mede. 4. Of the inward Court, and the fight of Michael with the Dragon, according to Grotius and Mr. Mede. 5. Of the Visions of the seven Trumpets. 6. The near cognation and colligation of those seven Synchronals that are contempo∣rary to the Six first Trumpets. 7. The mistakes and defects in Groti∣us his interpretations of those Synchronals. 8. Of the number of the Beast. 9. Of the Synchronals contemporary to the last Trumpet. 10. The necessity of the guidance of such Synchronisms as are taken from the Visions themselves, inferred from Grotius his errours and mistakes who had the want of them. The Author's apologie for preferring Mr. Mede's way before Grotius's, with an intimation of his own design in inter∣medling with these matters.
CHAP. XVII. 1. That does not implie, That most of the mat∣ters in the Apocalypse appertain to the Destruction of Jerusalem and to Rome Heathen. 2. The important Usefulness of this Book for the evincing of a Particular Providence, the Existence of Angels, and the ratification of the highest points in Christianity. 3. How excellent an Engine it is against the extravagancy and fury of Fanatick Enthusiasts. 4. How the Mouths of the Iews and Atheists are stopped thereby. 5. That it is a Mirrour to behold the nature of the Apostasie of the Ro∣man Church in. 6. And also for the Reformed Churches to examine themselves by, whether they be quite emerged out of this Apostasie; with the Author's scruple that makes him suspect they are not. 7. What of Will-worship and Idolatry seems still to cleave to us. 8. Further Infor∣mation offered to us from the Vision of the slain Witnesses. 9. The dange∣rous mistakes and purposes of some heated Meditatours upon the Fifth Mo∣narchy. 10. The most Usefull consideration of the approach of the Millen∣nium, and how the Time may be retarded, if not forfeited, by their faithles∣ness and hypocrisie who are most concerned to hasten on those good daies.
BOOK VI.
CHAP. I. 1. Three chief things considerable in Christ's Return to Iudgment, viz. The Visibility of his Person, The Resurrection of the Dead, and the Conflagration of the World. 2. Places of Scripture to prove the Vi∣sibility of his Person. 3. That there will be then a Resurrection of the dead not in a Moral but a Natural sense, demonstrated from unde∣niable places of Scripture. 4. Proofs out of Scripture for the Confla∣gration of the world, as out of Peter, the 3 Chap. of his second Epistle. 5. An Interpretation of the 12 and 13 verses. 6. A Demonstration that the Apostle there describes the Conflagration of the World. 7. A Confutation of their opinion that would interpret the Apostle's description of the burning of Jerusalem. 8. That the coming of Christ so often mentioned in these two Epistles of Peter is to be understood of his Last coming to Iudgment. 9, 10. Further confirmation of the said Asser∣tion. 11. Other places pointed at for the proving of the Confla∣gration.
CHAP. II. 1. The Fitness and Necessity of Christ's visible Return to Iudgment. 2. Further arguments of his Return to Iudgment, for the convincing of them that believe the Miraculousness of his Birth, his Transfigura∣tion, his Ascension, &c. 3. Arguments directed to those that are more prone to Infidelitie, taken out of Historie, where such things are found to have hapned already in some measure as are expected at Christ's visible Appearance. 4. That before extraordinary Iudgments there have usually strange Prodigies appeared by the Ministry of Angels, as before great Plagues or Pestilences. 5. As also before the ruine of Countries by War. 6. Before the swallowing down Antioch by an Earthquake. 7. At the firing of Sodome and Gomorrha. 8. And lastly, before the destruction of Jerusalem.
CHAP. III. 1. The Resurrection of the dead by how much more rigidly defined, ac∣cording to every circumstance and punctilio delivered by Theologers, by so much the more pleasant to the ears of the Atheists. 2. That the Resurrection in the Scholastick Notion thereof was in all like∣lihood the great Stone of offence to those two Enthusiasts of Delph and Amsterdam, and emboldened them to turn the whole Gospel into an Allegorie. 3. The incurable condition of Enthusiasts. 4. The Atheists first Objection against the Scholastick Resurrection proposed. 5. His second Objection. 6. His third and last Objection. 7. That his Ob∣jections do not demonstrate an absolute impossibility of the Schola∣stick Resurrection, with the Author's purpose of answering them up∣on other Grounds.
CHAP. IV. 1. An Answer to their first and last Cavil, from those Principles of Plato's School, That the Soul is the Man, and That the Bodie perceives no∣thing. 2. An Answer to their second, by rightly interpreting what is meant by Rising out of the grave in the general notion thereof. 3. That there is no warrant out of Scripture for the same numerical bodie, but rather the contrary. 4. The Atheists Objection from the word Resur∣rectio answered, whose sense is explained out of the Hebrew and Greek. 5. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and, what the meaning of them is in that general sense which is applicable as well to the Resurrection of the unjust as of the just.
CHAP. V. 1. An Objection against the Resurrection, from the Activity of the Soul out of her Body, with the first Answer thereto. 2. The second Answer. 3. The special significations of and , the first belong∣ing to the unjust, the latter to the just. 4. That the life that is led on the Earth or in this lower Region of the Air is more truly a Death then a Life. 5. The manner of our recovering our Celestial Body at the last Day. 6. And of the accomplishment of the Promise of Christ therein.
CHAP. VI. 1. That he has freed the Mysterie of the Resurrection from all Excepti∣ons of either Atheists or Enthusiasts. 2. That the Soul is not uncapa∣ble of the Happiness of an Heavenly Body. 3. And that it is the high∣est and most sutable Reward that can be conferr'd upon her. 4. That this Reward is not above the power of Christ to confer, proved by what he did upon Earth. 5. That all Iudgment is given to him by the Father. 6. Further arguings to the same purpose.
CHAP. VII. 1. Caecilius his scoffs against the Resurrection, and Conflagration of the World: That against the Resurrection answered already. 2. In what sense the soberer Christians understood the Conflagration of the World. 3. That the Conflagration in their sense is possible, argued from the Combustibleness of the parts of the Earth. 4. As also from actual Fire found in several Mountains, as Aetna, Helga and Hecla. 5. Several in∣stances of that sort out of Plinie. 6. Instances of Vulcanoes, out of Acosta. 7. The Vulcanoes of Guatimalla. 8. Vulcanoes without smoak having a quick fire at the bottome. 9. Vulcanoes that have cast fire and smoak some thousand of years together. 10. Hot Fountains, Springs running with Pitch and Rosin, certain Thermae catching fire at a distance.
CHAP. VIII. 1. A fiery Comet as big as the Sun that appeared after the death of Deme∣trius. Comets presages of Droughts. Woods set on fire after their appea∣ring. 2. Of falling Starres. Of the tail of a Comet that dried up a River. 3. Hogsheads of Wine drunk up and men dissipated into Atoms by Thun∣der. 4. That the fire of Thunder is sometimes unquenchable, as that in Macrinus the Emperours time; and that procured by the Praiers of the Thundring Legion. 5. Of conglaciating Thunders, and the transmuta∣tion of Lot's wife into a pillar of Salt. 6. The destruction of Sodom with fire from Heaven. That universal Deluges and Earthquakes doe argue the probability of a Deluge of Fire. 7. That Plinie counts it the greatest wonder, that this Deluge of fire has not hapned already.
CHAP. IX. 1 The Conflagration argued from the Proneness of Nature and the transcen∣dent power of Christ. 2. His driving down the Powers of Satan from their upper Magazine. 3. The surpassing power and skil of his Ange∣lical Hosts. 4. The efficacy of his Fiat upon the Spirit of Nature. 5. The unspeakable corroboration of his Soul by its Union with the God∣head; and the manner of operation upon the Elements of the World. 6. That the Eye of God is ever upon the Earth, and that he may be an Actour as well as a Speculatour, if duly called upon. 7, 8. A short De∣scription of the firing of the Earth by Christ, with the dreadful effects thereof.
CHAP. X. 1. The main Fallacies that cause in men the Misbelief of the Possibility of the Conflagration of the Earth. 2. That the Conflagration is not only possible but reasonable, The first Reason leading to the belief there∣of. 3. The second Reason, the natural decay of all particular structures, and that the Earth is such, and that it grows dry and looses of its solidi∣ty whence its approach to the Sun grows nearer. 4. That the Earth therefore will be burnt, either according to the course of Nature, or by a special appointment of Providence. 5. That it is most reasonable that Second way should take place, because of the obdurateness of the Athei∣stical crew. 6. That the Vengeance will be still more significant, if it be inflicted after the miraculous Deliverance of the Faithful.
CHAP. XI. 1. A Recapitulation or Synopsis of the more Intelligible part of the Chri∣stian Mysterie, with an Indication of the Usefulness thereof. 2. The undeniable Grounds of this Mystery, The existence of God, A particu∣lar Providence, The Lapsableness of Angels and men, The natural sub∣jection of men to Devils in this fallen Condition. 3. God's Wisdome and Iustice in the Permission thereof for a time. 4, 5. Further Rea∣sons of that Permission. 6. The Lapse of Men and Angels proved. 7. The Good emerging out of this Lapse. 8. The exceeding great Pre∣ciousness of the Divine Life. 9. The Conflagration of the Earth. 10. The Good arising from the Opposition betwixt the Light and Dark King∣dome. 11. That God in due time is in a special manner to assist the Kingdome of Light, and in a way most accommodate to the humane Fa∣culties. 12. That therefore he was to send into the World some Vene∣rable Example of the Divine Life, with miraculous attestations of his Mission of so sacred a Person. 13. That this Person, by reason of the great Agonies that befall them that return to the Divine Life, ought to bring with him a palpable pledge of a proportionable Reward, suppose, of a Blessed Immortality, manifested to the meanest Capacity by his ri∣sing from the dead and visibly ascending into Heaven. 14. That in the Revolt of Mankind from the Tyranny of the Devil, there ought to be some Head, and that the Qualifications of that Head ought to be oppo∣site to those of the old Tyrant, as also to have a power of restoring us to all that we have lost by being under the Usurper. 15. That also in this Head all the notable Objects of the Religious propensions of the Nations should be comprized in a more lawfull and warrantable manner. 16. That this Idea of Christianity is so worthy the Goodness of God, and so sutable to the state of the World, that no wise and vertuous Person can doubt but that it is or will be set on foot at some time by Divine Providence; and that if the Messias be come, and the Writings of the New Testament be true, in the literal sense it is on foot-already.
CHAP. XII. 1. That the chief Authour of this Mystical Madness that nulls the true and literal sense of Scripture is H. Nicolas, whose Doctrine therefore and Person is more exactly to be enquired into. 2. His bitter Revi∣ling and high Scorn and Contempt of all Ministers of the Gospel of Christ that teach according to the Letter, with the ill Consequences thereof. 3. The Reason of his Vilification of them, and his Injuncti∣on to his Followers not to consult with any Teachers but the Elders of his Family, no not with the Dictates of their own Consciences, but wholy to give themselves up to the leading of those Elders. The ir∣recoverable Apostasie of simple Souls from their Saviour by this wicked Stratagem. 4. His high Magnifications of himself, and his Service of the Love, before the Dispensation of Moses, John the Baptist, or Christ himself. 5. That his Service of the Love is a Third Dispensa∣tion, namely of the Spirit, and that which surpasses that of Christ; with other Encomiums of his doctrine, as That in it is the sounding of the last Trump, the Descent of the new Jerusalem from Heaven, the Resur∣rection of the dead, the glorious coming of Christ to Iudgment, and the everlasting Condemnation of the wicked in Hell-Fire. 6. That H. Ni∣colas for his time, and after him the Eldest of the Family of the Love in succession, are Christ himself descended from Heaven to judge the World, as also the true High Priest for ever in the most Holy.
CHAP. XIII. 1. An Examination of all possible Grounds of this fanatick Boaster's magnifying himself thus highly. 2. That there are no Grounds thereof from either the Matter he delivers, or from his Scriptural Eloquence, Raptures and Allegories. 3. The unspeakable Power and Profit of the Letter above that of the Allegorie, instanced in the Crucifixi∣on, Resurrection, Ascension of our Saviour, and his coming again to Iudgement. 4. That Allegorizing the Scripture is no special Di∣vine gift, but the fruit of either our Natural Phansie or Education. 5. That he had no grounds of magnifying himself from any Mira∣cles he did; 6. Nor from being any Special Preacher of Perfecti∣on or Practiser thereof. 7. Of that Imperfection that is seated in the impurity of the Astral Spirit and ungovernable tumult of Phansy in Fa∣natick Persons.
CHAP. XIV. 1. That neither H. Nicolas nor his Doctrine was prophesied of in Holy Scripture. That of the Angel preaching the Everlasting Gospel ground∣lesly applied to him. 2. As also that place Iohn 1.21. of being That Prophet. 3. His own mad Application of Acts 17. v. 31. to him∣self. 4. Their Misapplication of 1 Cor. 13. v. 9, 10. and Hebr. 6. v. 1, 2. to the Doctrine of this new Prophet. 5. Their arguing for the au∣thority of the Service of the Love from the Series of Times and Dis∣pensations, with the Answer thereunto. 6. That the Oeconomie of the Family of Love is quite contrary to the Reign of the Spirit. 7. That the Author is not against the Regnum Spiritûs the Cabbalists also speak of, but onely affirms that this Dispensation takes not away the Personal Offices of Christ nor the External comeliness of Divine Worship. 8. That if this Regnum Spiritûs is to be promoted by the Ministry of some one Person more especially, it follows not that it is H. Nicolas, he being a mere mistaken Enthusiast, or worse.
CHAP. XV. 1. That the Personal Offices of Christ are not to be laid aside: That he is a Priest for ever, demonstrated out of sundry places of Holy Writ. 2. That the Office of being a Iudge is also affixed to his Humane Person, pro∣ved from several Testimonies of Scripture. 3. Places alledged for the excluding Christ's Humanity, with Answers thereto. 4. The last and most plausible place they do alledge, with an Answer to the same.
CHAP. XVI. 1. That Hen. Nicolas does plainly in his Writings lay aside the Person of Christ, as where he affirms That whatever is taught by the Scripture-learned is false, and That all the Matters of the Bible are but Prefigu∣rations of what concerns the Dispensation of his blessed Family. 2. Other Citations to the same purpose, and his accursed Allegory of Christ's ce∣lebrating his Passeover with his disciples, whereby he would antiquate and abolish the true Historical knowledge of him. 3. Several places where he evidently takes away the Priestly Office of Christ. 4. Others that plainly take away his glorious Return to Iudgement and the Resur∣rection of the dead in the true and Apostolical sense.
CHAP. XVII. 1. His perverse Interpretation of that Article of the Creed concerning Life everlasting. 2. His misbelief of the Immortality of the Soul, proved from his forcible wresting of the most pregnant Testimonies thereof to his Dispensation and Ministry here on Earth. 3. Their interpreting of the Heavenly Body mentioned 2 Cor. 4. and the unmarried state of Angels, to the signification of a state of this present Life. 4. That H. Nicolas as well as David George held there were no Angels, neither good nor bad. 5. Further Demonstrative Arguments that he held the Soul of man mor∣tall. 6. How sutable his laying aside of the Person of Christ is to these other Tenets. 7. That H. Nicolas, as highly as he magnifies him∣self, is much below the better sort of Pagans. His irreverent apprehen∣sion of the Divine Majesty, if he held that there was any thing more Divine then himself.
CHAP. XVIII. 1. The great mischief and danger that accrues to the World from this false Prophet. 2. The probable Ferocity of this Sect when time shall serve, and eagerness of executing his Bloudy Vision. 3. That Fami∣lisme is a plot laid by Satan to overthrow Christianity. 4. What the face of things in likelyhood would be supposing it had overrun all. 5. The Motives that inforced the Authour to make so accurate a Discovery of this Imposture.
CHAP. XIX. 1. That Familism is a Monster bred out of the corruptions of Christianity, and ill management of affairs by the Guides of the Church. 2. The first Particular of ill Management intimated. 3. The second Particu∣lar. 4. The third Particular. 5. The fourth. 6. The fifth Parti∣cular. 7. That this false Prophet H. Nicolas was raised by God to ex∣probrate to Christendome their universal Degeneracy, Prophaneness and Infidelity. 8. That though the Evil be discovered, it is not to be reme∣died but by returning to the ancient Apostolick Life and Doctrine.
BOOK VII
CHAP. I. 1. That the Subject of the Third part of his Discourse is The Reality of the Christian Mystery. 2. That the Reasonableness of Christian Reli¦gion and the constant Belief thereof by knowing and good men, from the time it is said to have begun til now, is a plain Argument of the Truth thereof to them that are not over-Sceptical. 3. The Averseness of slight and inconsiderate Witts from all Arguments out of Prophecies, with their chiefest Objections against the same. 4. That the Prophecies of the Messias in the Old Testament were neither forged nor corrupted by the Jews. 5. An Answer to their Objections concerning the Obscurity of Prophecies. 6. As also to that from Free Will. 7. That all Pro∣phecies are not from the fortuitous heat of mens Phansies but by divine Revelation, proved by undeniable Instances. 8. A particular reason of true Prophets amongst the Iews, with some Examples of true Prophe∣cies in other places. 9. A notable Prophecie acknowledged by Vani∣nus concerning Julius Caesar's being kill'd in the Senate.
CHAP. II. 1. The genuine sense of Jacob's Prophecie. 2. The Inference there∣from, That the Messias is come. 3. That there had been a considerable force in this Prophecie, though the words had been capable of other tole∣rable meanings: but they admitting no other interpretations tolerable, it is a Demonstration the Messias is come. 4. The chief Interpretations of the Jews propounded. 5. That neither Moses nor Saul can be meant by Shiloh, 6. Nor David, 7. Nor Jeroboam, nor Nebuchadonosor. 8. That in the Babylonian Captivity the Sceptre was rather sequestred then quite taken away; with a further urging of the ineptness of the sense of the Prophecie, if applied to Nebuchadonosor. 9. Their sub∣terfuge in noted and refuted. 10. The various significations of , and their expositions therefrom. 11. An Answer to them in general. 12, 13. An answer to their evasion by interpreting of a Page  283 Tribe. 14. An Answer to their interpreting of a staffe of main∣tenance. 15. An Answer to their interpreting it a rod of correction. 16. An Answer jointly to both these last Interpretations. 17. That their Variety of Expositions is a demonstration of their own dissatisfaction in them all.
CHAP. III. 1. The Prophecy of Haggai. 2. The natural sense of the Prophecy. 3. That the Second Temple could not be more glorious then the First but by receiving the Messias into it. 4. That Herod's Temple could not be understood hereby. 5. An Answer to their subterfuge concerning Ezekiel's Temple. 6. That the Prophecy of Malachi addes further force to that of Haggai. 7. That the Prophet could understand no other Temple then that which was then standing.
CHAP. IV. 1. The Prophecie of Daniel. 2. The Exposition of the Prophecie. 3. That the said Exposition is as easie and natural as the meaning of any writing whatsoever; and what an excellent performance it would be to demon∣strate out of Chronologie, That the Passion of Christ fell two or three daies after the beginning or before the end of the Last week. 4. The summe of the sense of the whole Prophecie. 5. That the Circumscription of the Prophetical Weeks is not made by the vastation of the City, but by the ac∣complishment of those grand Prophecies concerning the Messiah. And that no Epocha can be true that does not terminate upon them.
CHAP. V. 1. The Application of the First verse of the Prophecie to prove That the Messiah is come. 2. The Iews evasions propounded and answered. 3. An Application of the Second verse of the Prophecie, with a Con∣futation of those Rabbins opinions that make Cyrus, Jehoshua and Ze∣robabel, or Nehemiah their Messiah. 4. An Application of the Third verse, with a Confutation of the Jews fiction of Agrippa's being the Messiah to be cut off.
CHAP. VI. 1. How convincing Evidences those three Prophecies of Jacob, Haggai and Daniel are, That the Messiah is come. 2. That it was the General Opinion of the Jews, That the Messiah was to come about that time we say he did. 3. Josephus his misapplication of the Prophecie of Daniel to Vespasian. 4. A further confirmation out of Tacitus, that the Jews about those times expected their Messiah. 5. Another Testimony out of Suetonius.
CHAP. VII. 1. That it being evident the Messiah is come, it will also follow that Jesus is he. 2. That the Prophets when they prophesied of any emi∣nent King, Priest or Prophet, were sometimes carried in their Prophe∣tick Raptures to such expressions as did more properly concern the Mes∣siah then the Person they began to describe. 3. That these References are of two sorts, either purely Allegorical, or Mixt; and of the use of pure Allegories by the Evangelists and Apostles. 4. Of mixt Alle∣gories of this kind, and of their validity for Argument. 5. That eminent Prophecie of Isaiah, that so fully characterizes the Person of Christ. 6. That the ancient Jews understood this of their Messiah, and that the modern are forced hence to fancy two Messiahs. The Soul of the Messiah appointed to this office from the beginning of the World, as appears out of their Pesikta. 7. The nine Characters of the Mes∣siah's Person included in the above-named Prophecie. 8. A brief In∣timation in what verses of the Prophecie they are couched. 9. That this Prophecie cannot be applied to the People of the Iews, nor adequately to Jeremie's person. 10. Special Passages in the Prophecie utterly unap∣plicable to Jeremie.
CHAP. VIII. 1. Further Proofs out of the Prophets, That the Messiah was to be a Sacrifice for sinne. 2. That he was to rise from the dead. 3. That he was to ascend into Heaven. 4. That he was to be worshipped as God. 5. That he was to be an eminent Light to the Nations; 6. And welcomely received by them. What is meant by His Rest shall be glo∣rious. 7. That he was to abolish the Superstition of the Gentiles. 8. And that his Kingdome shall have no end. 9. That all these Cha∣racters are competible to Jesus whom we worship, and to him only.
CHAP. IX. 1. The peculiar Use of Arguments drawn from the Prophecies of the Old Testament for the convincing the Atheist and Melancholist. 2. An Application of the Prophecies to the known Events for the conviction of the Truth of our Religion. 3. That there is no likelihood at all but that the Priesthood of Christ will last as long as the Generations of men upon Earth. 4. The Conclusion of what has been urged hitherto. 5. That Christ was no fictitious Person, proved out of the History of Heathen Wri∣ters, as out of Plinie, 6. And Tacitus: 7. As also Lucian, 8. And Sue∣tonius. Page  314 9. That the Testimony out of Josephus is supposititious, and the reasons why he was silent concerning Christ. 10. Julian's purpose of rebuil∣ding the Temple at Jerusalem, with the strange success thereof, out of Am∣mianus Marcellinus.
CHAP. X. 1. Further Proofs that both Iews and Pagans acknowledge the Reality of the Person of Christ and his doing of Miracles. 2. The force of these allegations added to the Prophecie of the Time of Christ's coming and the Characters of his Person. 3. That the Characters of his Person are still more exact, but not to be insisted upon till the proof of the Truth of the History of the Gospel. 4, 5. That the transcendent Eminency of Christ's Person is demonstrable from what has already been alledged and from his Resurrection, without recourse to the Gospels. From whence it necessarily follows That his Life was writ. 6. That the Life of Christ was writ timely, while Eye-witnesses were alive, proved by a very forcible Demonstration. 7. That Eternal Happiness through Christ was the hope of the First Christians, proved out of Lucian and S. Paul; and of a peculiar Self-Evidence of Truth in his Epistles. 8. That the first and most early meaning of Christianity is comprised in those Writings. 9. That Eternal Salvation depending upon the Knowledge of Christ, it was impossible but that the Apostles should take care betimes that the Miracles of Christ should be recorded. 10. That the Apostles could not fail to have the Life of Christ written, to pre∣vent the erroneous attempts of the Pragmatical, to satisfie the Importu∣nity of Believers, or in obedience to divine Instigation. 11. That it is as incredible that the Apostles neglected the writing of the Life of Christ, as that a wise man in the affairs of the World should neglect the writing of his Will when he had opportunity of doing it. 12. That, it being so incredible but that the Life of Christ should be writ, and there being found writings that comprize the same, it naturally fol∣lows, That they are they.
CHAP. XI. 1. Other Proofs, That the Life of Christ was writ by his Apostles or his Followers, out of Grotius. 2. An Answer to a foolish surmise that those Records writ by the Apostles might be all burnt. 3. That the Copies have not been corrupted by either carelesness or fraud.
CHAP. XII. 1. More particular Characters of the Person of the Messiah in the Prophe∣cyes. 2. His being born at Bethlehem; 3. And that of a Virgin. 4. His curing the lame and the blinde. 5. The piercing of his hands and feet.
CHAP. XIII. 1. That if the Gospel of Christ had been false and fabulous, it would not have had that success at Jerusalem by the preaching of the Apostles. 2. The severity also of the Precepts and other hardships to be undergone would have kept them off from being Christians. 3. As also the incre∣dibleness of the Resurrection of Christ, and of our being rewarded at the Conflagration of the World. 4, 5. The meanness also and contempti∣bleness of the first Authours would have turned men off, nor would they have been listned to by any one, if the Resurrection of Christ had not been fully ascertain'd by them. 6. Which the Apostles might be sure of, being only matter of Fact; nor is it imaginable they would declare it without being certain of it, by reason of the great hazards they underwent thereby.
CHAP. XIV. 1. Objections of the Jews against their Messiah's being come, answered. 2. A pompous Evasion of the Aristotelean Atheists supposing all Mi∣racles and Apparitions to be the Effects of the Intelligences and Heaven∣ly bodies. 3. Vaninus his restraint of the Hypothesis to one Anima Coeli. 4. His intolerable pride and conceitedness. 5. A Confutation of him and the Aristotelean Atheisme from the Motion of the Earth. 6. That Vaninus his subterfuge is but a Sel-contradiction. 7. That Christianitie's succeeding Judaisme is by the special counsel of God, not by the Influence of the Starres. 8. Cardanus his high folly in calcu∣lating the Nativity of our Saviour, with a demonstration of the ground∣lesness of Vaninus his exaltation in his impious boldness of making Mahomet, Moses and Christ sidereal Law-givers of like Authority. 9. That the impudence and impiety of these two vain glorious Preten∣ders constrains the Authour more fully to lay open the frivolousness of the Principles of Astrology.
CHAP. XV. 1. The generall Plausibilities for the Art of Astrology propounded. 2. The first Rudiments of the said Art. The Qualities of the Planets, and their Penetrancy through the Earth. 3. That the Earth is as pervious to them as the Aire, and of their division of the Zodiack into Trigons, &c. 4. The essentiall Dignities of the Planets. 5. Their accidentall Digni∣ties. 6. Of the twelve Celestiall Houses, and the five wayes of erect∣ing a Scheme. 7. The Requisitenesse of the exact Knowledge of the mo∣ment of Time, and of the true Longitude and Latitude of the place. 8. Direction what it is, and which the chiefest Directours or Significa∣tours. 9. Of the and or Apheta and Anaereta, and the time when the Anaereta gives the fatall stroke.
CHAP. XVI. 1. That the Starrs and Planets are not useless though there be no truth in Astrology. 2. That the Starrs are not the Causes of the Variety of Productions here below. 3. That the sensible moistening power of the Moon is no argument for the Influence of other Planets and Starrs. 4. Nor yet the Flux and Reflux of the Sea, and direction of the Needle to the North Pole. 5. That the Station and Repedation of the Planets is an argument against the Astrologers. 6. That the Influ∣ence attributed to the Dog-star, the Hyades and Orion, is not theirs but the Sun's, and that the Sun's Influence is only Heat. 7. The slight occasions of their inventing of those Dignities of the Planets they call Exaltations and Houses, as also that of Aspects. 8. Their folly in preferring the Planets before the fixt Starrs of the same appearing magnitude, and of their fiction of the first qualities of the Planets, with those that rise therefrom. 9. Their rashness in allowing to the influence of the Heavenly Bodies so free passage through the Earth. 10. Their groundless Division of the Signs into Moveable and Fixt, and the ridiculous Effects they attribute to the Trigons, together with a demonstration of the Falseness of the Figment. 11. A Confutation of their Essential Dignities. 12. As also of their Accidental. 13. A subversion of their Erection of Themes and distributing of the Hea∣vens into twelve Celestial Houses. 14. Their fond Pretenses to the know∣ledge of the exact moment of the Infants birth. 15. A Confutation of their Animodar and Trutina Hermetis. 16. As also of their Method of rectifying a Nativity per Accidentia Nati. 17. His appeal to the skilfull, if he has not fundamentally confuted the whole pretended Art of Astrology.
CHAP. XVII. 1. Their fallacious Allegation of Events answering to Predictions. 2. An Answer to that Evasion of theirs, That the Errour is in the Artist, not in the Art. 3. Further Confutations of their bold presumption, that their Art alwaies predicts true. 4. That the punctuall Correspondence of the Event to the Prediction of the Astrologer does not prove the certainty of the Art of Astrology. 5. The great Affinity of Astrology with Dae∣monolatry, and of the secret Agency of Daemons in bringing about Predictions. 6. That by reason of the secret Agency or familiar Con∣verse of Daemons with pretended Astrologers, no argument can be rai∣sed from Events for the truth of this Art. 7. A Recapitulation of the whole matter argued. 8. The just occasions of this Astrologicall ex∣cursion, and of his shewing the ridiculous condition of those three high-flown Sticklers against Christianity, Apollonius, Cardan and Va∣ninus.
BOOK VIII.
CHAP. I. 1. The End and Usefulness of Christian Religion in general. 2. That Christ came into the World to destroy Sin out of it. 3. His earnest re∣commendation of Humility. 4. The same urged by the Apostle Paul.
CHAP. II. 1. Christs enforcement of Love and Charity upon his Church by Precept and his own Example. 2. The wretched imposture and false pretensions of the Family of Love to this divine Grace. 3. The unreasonableness of the Familists in laying aside the person of Christ, to adhere to such a carnall and inconsiderable Guide as Hen. Nicolas. 4. That this Whif∣ler never gave any true Specimens of reall love to Mankinde, as Christ did and his Apostles. 5. His unjust usurpation of the Title of Love. 6. The unparallel'd endearments of Christs sufferings in the behalf of Mankinde.
CHAP. III. 1. The occasion of the Familists usurpation of the Title of Love. 2. Ear∣nest precepts out of the Apostles to follow Love, and what kind of Love that is. 3. That we cannot love God, unless we love our neighbour also. 4. An Exposition of the 5 and 6 verses of the 1 chapter of the 2 Epist. of S. Peter. 5. Saint Paul's rapturous commendation of Cha∣rity. 6. His accurate description thereof. 7. That Love is the highest participation of the Divinity, and that whereby we become the Sons of God. And how injurious these Fanaticks are that rob the Church of Christ of this title to appropriate it to themselves.
CHAP. IV. 1. Our Saviour's strict injunction of Purity; from whence it is also plain that the Love he commends is not in any sort fleshly, but Divine. 2. Se∣veral places out of the Apostles urging the same duty. 3. Two more places to the same purpose. 4. The groundless presumption of those that abuse Christianity to a liberty of sinning. 5. That this Errour at∣tempted the Church betimes, and is too taking at this very day. 6. Whence appears the necessity of opposing it, which he promises to doe, taking the rise of his Discourse from 1 Iohn 3.7.
CHAP. V. 1. The Apostle's care for young Christians against that Errour of thinking they may be righteous without doing righteously. 2. Their obnoxious∣ness to this contagion, with the Causes thereof to be searched into. 3. The first sort of Scriptures perverted to his ill end. 4. The se∣cond sort. 5. That the very state of Christian Childhood makes them prone to this Errour. 6. What is the nature of that Faith Abraham is so much commended for, and what the meaning of . 7. A search after the meaning of the term Justification. 8. Ju∣stification by faith without the deeds of the Law what may be the mea∣ning of it. 9. Scriptures answered that seem to disjoin Reall righteous∣ness from Faith; 10. And to make us only righteous by imputation. 11. Undeniable Testimonies of Scripture that prove the necessity of real Righteousness in us.
CHAP. VI. 1. Their alledgement of Gal. 2.16. as also of the whole drift of that Epi∣stle. 2. What the Righteousnesse of faith is according to the Apostle. 3. In what sense those that are in Christ are said not to be under the Law. 4. That the Righteousness of faith is no figment but a reality in us. 5. That this Righteousnesse is the New Creature, and what this new Creature is according to Scripture. 6. That the new Creature consists in Wisedom, Righteousness and true Holiness. 7. The Righteousnesse of the new Creature. 8. His Wisedom and Holinesse. 9. That the Righ∣teousness of faith excludes not good Works. The wicked treachery of those that teach the contrary.
CHAP. VII. 1. That no small measure of Sanctity serves the turn in Christianity: 2. As appears out of Scriptures already alledged. 3. Further proofs thereof out of the Prophets; 4. As also out of the Gospel, 5. And other places of the New Testament. 6. The strong Armature of a Christian Souldier. 7. His earnest endeavour after Perfection.
CHAP. VIII. 1. That the Christians assistance is at least equal to his task. 2. The two Gospel-powers that comprehend his duty. 3. The first Gospel-aid, The Promise of the Spirit, with Prophecies thereof out of Ezekiel and Esay. 4. Some hints of the mystical meaning of the last. 5. A∣nother excellent prediction thereof.
CHAP. IX. 1. The great use of the belief of The Promise of the Spirit. 2. The eat∣ing the flesh of Christ and drinking his bloud, what it is. 3. Further proof of the Promise of the Spirit. 4. That we cannot oblige God by way of Merit. 5. Other Testimonies of Scripture tending to the former purpose.
CHAP. X. 1. A Recapitulation of what has been set down hitherto concerning the Use∣fulnesse of the Gospel, and the Necessity of undeceiving the world in those points that so nearly concern Christian Life. 2. The ill condition of those that content themselves with Imaginary Righteousnesse, figu∣red out in the Fighters against Ariel and Mount Sion. 3. A further de∣monstration of their fond conceit. 4. That a true Christian cannot sin without pain and torture to himself.
CHAP. XI. 1. That the want of real Righteousness deprives us of the Divine Wisedom, proved out of Scripture: 2. As also from the nature of the thing it self. 3. That it disadvantages the Soul also in Natural speculations. 4. That it stifles all Noble and laudable Actions; 5. And exposes the imaginary Religionist to open reproach. 6. That mere imaginary Righteousness robs the Soul of her peace of Conscience, 7. And of all divine Ioy; 8. Of Health and Safety, 9. And of eternal Salvation. 10. That God also hereby is deprived of his Glory, and the Church frustrated of pub∣lick Peace and Happiness.
CHAP. XII. 1. Of the attending to the Light within us, of which some Spiritualists so much boast. 2. That they must mean the Light of Reason and Con∣science thereby, if they be not Fanaticks, Mad-men or Cheats. And that this Conscience necessarily takes information from without; 3. And particularly from the Holy Scriptures. 4. That these Spiritualists acknowledge the fondness of their opinion by their contrary practice. 5. An appeal to the Light within them, if the Christian Religion ac∣cording to the literal sense be not true. 6. That the Operation of the Divine Spirit is not absolute, but restrained to certain laws and conditi∣ons, as it is in the Spirit of Nature. 7. The fourth Gospel-Power, The Example of Christ. 8. His purpose of vindicating the Example of Christ from aspersions, with the reasons thereof.
CHAP. XIII. 1. That Christ was no Blasphemer in declaring himself to be the Son of God; 2. Nor Conjurer in casting out Devils. 3. That he was unjust∣ly accused of Prophaneness. 4. That there was nothing detestable in his Neutrality toward Political Factions: 5. Nor any Injustice nor Parti∣ality found in him. 6. Nor could his sharp Rebukes of the Pharisees be rightly termed Railing; 7. Nor his whipping the Buyers and Sel∣lers out of the Temple tumultuary Zeal; 8. Nor his crying out so dread∣fully in his Passion be imputed to Impatience or Despair. 9. The suspi∣cion of Distractedness and Madness cleared. 10. His vindication from their aspersions of Looseness and Prodigality. 11. The crooked and perverse nature of the Pharisees noted; with our Saviours own Apology for his frequenting all companies. 12. That Christ was no Self-seeker in undergoing the Death of the Cross for that joy that was set before him.
CHAP. XIV. 1. The reason of his having insisted so long on the vindicating of the Life of Christ from the aspersions of the Malevolent. 2. The true Character of a real Christian. 3. The true Character of a false or Pharisaical Christian. 4. How easily the true members of Christ are accused of Blasphemy by the Pharisaical Christians. 5. And the working of their Graces imputed to some vicious Principle. 6. Their censuring them prophane that are not superstitious. 7. The Pharisees great dislike of coldness in fruitless Controversies of Religion. 8. Their Ignorance of the law of Equity and Love. 9. How prone it is for the sincere Christian to be accounted a Railer, for speaking the truth. 10. That the least Opposition against Pharisaical Rottenness will easi∣ly be interpreted bitter and tumultuous Zeal. 11. How the solid Knowledge of the perfectest Christians may be accounted Madness by the formal Pharisee. 12. His Proneness to judge the true Christian accor∣ding to the motions of his own untamed corruptions. 13. His prudent choice of the vice of Covetousness. 14. The Unreasonableness of his censure of those that endeavour after Perfection. 15. His ignorant sur∣mise that no man liveth vertuously for the love of Vertue it self. 16. The Usefulness of this Parallelisme betwixt the Reproach of Christ and his true Members.
CHAP. XV. 1. The Passion of Christ the fifth Gospel-Power, the Virtue whereof is in a special manner noted by our Saviour himself. 2. That the Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness was a prophetick Type of Christ, and cured not by Art but by Divine Power. 3. That Telesmatical Preparations are superstitious, manifest out of their Collections that write of them; 4. Particularly out of Gaffarel and Gregory. 5. That the Effects of Telesmes are beyond the laws of Nature. 6. That if there be any na∣tural power in Telesmes, it is from Similitude; with a confutation of this ground also. 7. A further confutation of that ground. 8. In what sense the Brazen Serpent was a Telesme, and that it must needs be a Typical Prophecie of Christ. 9. The accurate and punctual Pre∣figuration therein. 10. The wicked Pride and Conceitedness of those that are not touched with this admirable contrivance of Divine Pro∣vidence. 11. The insufferable blasphemy of them that reproach the Son of God for crying out in his dreadfull Agony on the Cross; wherein is discovered the Unloveliness of the Family of Love.
CHAP. XVI. 1. The End of Christs Sufferings not onely to pacifie Conscience, but to root out Sin; witnessed out of the Scripture. 2. Further Testimonies to the same purpose. 3. The Faintnesse and Uselesnesse of the Allegory of Christs Passion in comparison of the Application of the History thereof. 4. The Application of Christs Sufferings against Pride and Covetousnesse. 5. As also against Envy, Hatred, Revenge, vain Mirth, the Pangs of Death, and unwarrantable Love. 6. A General Application of the Death of Christ to the mortifying of all Sin whatsoever. 7. The celebrating the Lords Supper, the use and meaning thereof.
CHAP. XVII. 1. The sixth Gospel-Power is the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. The priviledge of this Demonstration of the Soul's Immortality above that from the Subtilty of Reason and Philosophy. 2. The great power this consideration of the Soul's Immortality has to urge men to a Godly life: 3. To wean themselves from worldly pleasures, and learn to delight in those that are everlasting: 4. To have our Conversation in Heaven. 5. The Conditions of the Everlasting Inheritance, 6. Further enforcements of duty from the Soul's Immortality.
CHAP. XVIII. 1. The Day of Judgement, the seventh and last Gospel-power, fit as well for the regenerate as the unregenerate to think upon. 2. The Uncertain∣ty of that Day, and that it will surprize the wicked unawares. 3. That those that wilfully reject the offers of Grace hre, shall be in better condi∣tion after Death then the Devils themselves are. 4. A Description of the sad Evening-close of that terrible Day of the Lord. 5. The Affright∣ment of the Morning-appearance thereof to the wicked. 6. A further Description thereof. 7. The Translation of the Church of Christ to their Aethereal Mansions, with a brief Description of their Heavenly Hap∣pinesse.
CHAP. XIX. 1. That there can be no Religion more powerful for the promoting of the Di∣vine Life then Christianity is. 2. The external Triumph of the Divine Life in the person of Christ how throughly warranted and how fully per∣formed. 3. The Religious Splendour of Christendom. 4. The Spirit of Religion stifled with the load of Formalities. 5. The satisfaction that the faithfully-devoted Servants of Christ have from that Divine homage done to his Person, though by the wicked.
CHAP. XX. 1. The Usefulnesse of Christianity for the good of this life, witnessed by our Saviour and S. Paul. 2. The proof thereof from the Nature of the thing it self. 3. Objections against Christianity, as if it were an unfit Religi∣on for States Politick. 4. A Concession that the primary intention of the Gospel was not Government Political, with the advantage of that Concession. 5. That there is nothing in Christianity but what is highly advantageous to a State-Politick. 6. That those very things they object against it are such as do most effectually reach the chief end of Political Government, as doth Charity for example, 7. Humility, Patience, and Mortification of inordinate desires. 8. The invincible Valour that the love of Christ and their fellow-members inspires the Christian Souldiery withall.
BOOK IX.
CHAP. I. 1. The four Derivative Properties of the Mystery of Godlinesse. 2. That a measure of Obscurity begets Veneration, suggested from our very senses. 3. Confirmed also by the common suffrage of all Religions, and the nature of Reservednesse amongst men. 4. The rudenesse and ignorance of those that expect that every Divine Truth of Scripture should be a comprehen∣sible Object of their understanding, even in the very modes and circum∣stances thereof. 5. That Contradictions notwithstanding are to be exclu∣ded out of Religion. 6. And that the Divinity of Christ and the Triunity of the Godhead have nothing contradictious in them.
CHAP. II. 1. That there is a latitude of Sense in the words of Athanasius his Creed, and that One and Unity has not the same signification every where. 2. The like in the terms God and Omnipotent. 3. Of the word Equal, and to what purpose so distinct a knowledge of the Deity was communicated to the Church. 4. In what sense the Son and Holy Ghost are God. That Divine adoration is their unquestionable right. And that there is an in∣telligible sense of Athanasius his Creed, and such as supposes neither Polytheisme, Idolatry nor Impossibility. 5. That there is no intricacy in the Divinity of Christ but what the Schools have brought in by their false notions of Suppositum and Union Hypostatical. 6. That the U∣nion of Christ with the Eternal Word implies no Contradiction, and how warrantable an Object he is of Divine worship. 7. The Appli∣cation thereof to the Iews. 8. The Union of Christ with God compared with that of the Angels that bore the Name Jehovah in the Old Testa∣ment. 9. The reasonableness of our Saviours being united with the E∣ternal Word, and how with that Hypostasis distinct from the others.
CHAP. III. 1. That the Communicableness of Christian Religion implies its Reasona∣bleness. 2. The right Method of communicating the Christian Myste∣ry. 3, 4. A brief example of that Method. 5. A further continuation thereof. 6. How the Mystagogus is to behave himself towards the more dull or illiterate. 7. The danger of debasing the Gospel to the dulness or shallowness of every weak apprehension.
CHAP. IV. 1. The due demeanour of a Christian Mystagogus in communicating the Truth of the Gospel. 2. That the chiefest care of all is that he speak no∣thing but what is profitable for life and godliness. 3. A just reprehen∣sion of the scopeless zeal of certain vain Boanerges of these times. 4. That the abuse of the Ministery to the undermining the main Ends of the Gospel may hazard the continuance thereof. 5. That any heat and zeal does not constitute a living Ministery.
CHAP. V. 1. The nature of Historical Faith. 2. That true Saving Faith is properly Covenant, and of the various significations of . 3. In what Law and Covenant agree. 4. In what Law and Testament. 5. I what Covenant and Testament agree. 6. That the Church might have called the Doctrine of Christ either the New Law or the New Covenant. 7. Why they have styled it rather then . The first Rea∣son. 8. Other Reasons thereof. 9. The occasion of translating , The New Testament.
CHAP. VI. 1. That there were more Old Covenants then one. 2. What Old Cove∣nant that was to which this New one is especially counterdistinguished: with a brief intimation of the difference of them. 3, 4. An Objection against the difference delivered; with the Answer thereto. 5. The Reason why the Second Covenant is not easily broken. 6. That the im∣portance of the Mystery of the Second Covenant engages him to make a larger deduction of the whole matter out of S. Paul.
CHAP. VII. 1. The different states of the Two Covenants set out Galat. 4. by a double similitude. 2. The nature of the Old Covenant adumbrated in Agar: 3. As also further in her Son Ismael. 4. The nature of the New Cove∣nant adumbrated in Sarah: 5. As also in Isaac her Son and in Israel his offspring. 6. The necessity of imitating Abraham's faith, that the Spiritual Isaac or Christ may be born in us. 7. The grand difference betwixt the First and Second Covenant, wherein it doth consist. With a direction, by the by, to the most eminent Object of our Faith. 8. The Second main point wherein this difference consists, namely Liberty, and that, First from Ceremonies and Opinions; 9. Secondly from all kind of Sins and disallowable Passions; 10. Lastly, to all manner of Righte∣ousness and Holiness.
CHAP. VIII. 1. The adequate Object of saving Faith or Christian Covenant. 2. That there is an Obligation on our parts, plain from the very Inscription of the New Testament. 3. What the meaning of Bloud in Covenants is. 4. And answerably what of the Bloud of Christ in the Christian Covenant. 5. The dangerous Errour and damnable Hypocrisie of those that would per∣swade themselves and others that no performance is required on their side in this Covenant. 6. That the Heavenly Inheritance is promised to us only upon Condition, evinced out of several places of Scripture.
CHAP. IX. 1. What it is really to enter into this New Covenant. 2. That the entring into this Covenant supposes actual Repentance. 3. That this New Covenanter is born of water and the Spirit. 4. The necessity of the skilfull usage of these new-born Babes in Christ. 5. That some Teachers are mere Witches and Childe-Suckers.
CHAP. X. 1. The First Principle the new-Covenanter is closely to keep to. 2. The Se∣cond Principle to be kept to. 3. The Third and last Principle.
CHAP. XI. 1. The diligent search this new-Covenanter ought to make to finde out what∣soever is corrupt and sinful. 2. That the truly regenerate cannot be quiet till all corruption be wrought out. 3. The most importunate devotions of a living Christian. 4. The difference betwixt a Son of the Second Covenant and a Slave under the First. 5. The Mystical completion of a Prophecy of Esay touching this state.
CHAP. XII. 1. That the destroying of Sin is not without some time of conflict. The most infallible method for that dispatch. 2. The constant ordering of our external actions. 3. The Hypocritical complaint of those for want of power that will not doe those good things that are already in their power. 4. The danger of making this new Covenant a Covenant of Works, and our Love to Christ a mercenarie friendship. 5. Earnest praiers to God for the perfecting of the Image of Christ in us. 6. Continual circumspection and watchfulness. 7. That the vilifying of outward Or∣dinances is no sign of a new-Covenanter, but of a proud and carnal mind. 8. Caution to the new-Covenanter concerning his converse with men. 9. That the branches of the Divine life without Faith in God and Christ, degenerate into mere Morality. The examining all the motions and ex∣cursions of our Spirit how agreeable they are with Humility, Charity and Purity. 10. Cautions concerning the exercise of our Humility; 11. As also of our Purity, 12. And of our Love or Charity. The safe conduct of the faithfull by their inward Guide.
BOOK X.
CHAP. I. 1. That the Affection and esteem we ought to have for our Religion does not consist in damning all to the pit of Hell that are not of it. 2. The un∣seasonable inculcation of this Principle to Christians. 3. That it is bet∣ter becoming the Spirit of a Christian to allow what is good and commen∣dable in other Religions, then so foully to reproach them. 4. What are the due demonstrations of our Affection to the Gospel of Christ. 5. How small a part of the World is styled Christians, and how few real Chri∣stians in that part that is so styled. 6. That there has been some un∣skilfull or treacherous tampering with the powerfull Engine of the Gospel, that it has done so little execution hitherto against the Kingdome of the Devil. 7. The Author's purpose of bringing into view the main Impe∣diments of the due Effects thereof.
CHAP. II. 1. The most fundamental Mistake and Root of all the Corruptions in the Church of Christ. 2. That there maybe a Superstition also in opposing of Ceremonies, and in long Prayers and Preachments. 3. That self-chosen Religion extinguishes true Godliness every where. 4. The unwholsome and windy food of affected Orthodoxality; with the mischievous conse∣quences thereof. 5. That Hypocrisy of Professours fills the World with Atheists. 6. That the Authoritative Obtrusion of gross falsities upon men begets a misbelief of the whole Mystery of Piety. 7. That all the Churches of Christendome stand guilty of this mischievous miscarriage 8. The infinite inconvenience of the Superlapsarian doctrine.
CHAP. III. 1. The true Measure of Opinions to be taken from the designe of the Gospel, which in general is, The setting out the exceeding great Mercy and Goodness of God towards mankinde. 2. And then Secondly, The Triumph of the Divine Life in the Person of Christ, in the warran∣tableness of doing Divine Honour to him. 3. Thirdly, The advance∣ment of the Divine Life in his members upon Earth. 4. The Fourth and last Rule to try Opinions by, The Recommendableness of our Religion to Strangers or those those that are without.
CHAP. IV. 1. The general use of the foregoing Rules. 2. A special use of them in favour of one anothers persons in matters of opinion. 3. The examina∣tion of Election and Reprobation according to these Rules. And how well they agree with that Branch of the Divine Life which we call Humi∣lity. 4. The disagreement of absolute Reprobation with the first Rule; 5. As also with the third, 6 And with the second and fourth.
CHAP. V. 1. That Election and Reprobation conferrs something to Humility. 2. That some men are saved irresistibly by virtue of Discriminative Grace. 3. That the rest of Mankind have Grace sufficient, and that several of them are saved. 4. The excellent use of this middle way betwixt Calvi∣nisme and Arminianisme. 5, 6. The exceeding great danger and mis∣chief of the former Extremes.
CHAP. VI. 1. The Scholastick Opinions concerning the Divinity of Christ applied to the foregoing Rules. 2. As also concerning the Trinity. 3. The Ap∣plication of the Antitrinitarian Doctrine to the said Rules. Its disa∣greement with the third, 4. As also with the second. 5. The Antitri∣nitarians plea. 6. An answer to their plea. 7. How grosly the denying the Divinity of Christ disagrees with the third Rule.
CHAP. VII. 1. Imputative Righteousness, Invincible Infirmity and Solifidianism, in what sense they seem to complie with the second and last Rule, and how disagreeing with the third. 2. The groundlesness of mens Zeal for Imputative Righteousness, 3. And for Solifidianisme. 4. The conspiracy of Imputative Righteousness, Solifidianism and Invincible Infirmity to exclude all Holiness out of the Conversation of Christians. 5. That large confessions of Sins and Infirmities without any purpose of amending our lives is a mere mocking of God to his very face. With the great danger of that Affront.
CHAP. VIII. 1. The flaunting Hypocrisie of the Perfectionists, and from whence it comes. 2. The easie Laws whereby they measure their Perfection. And the sad result of their Apostasie from the Person of Christ. 3. That there is far more Perfection in many thousands of those that abhorre the name of Perfection then in these great Boasters of it. 4. In what consists that sound and comely frame of a true Christian Spirit.
CHAP. IX. 1 Sincerity the middle way betwixt pretended Infirmity and the boast of Perfection: with the description thereof. 2. A more full character of the Sincere Christian. 3. That they that endeavour not after that state are Hypocrites, and they that pretend to be above it, Conspiratours a∣gainst the everlasting Priesthood of Christ. 4. The Personal Reign of Christ upon Earth, and the Millenium in the more sober meaning thereof applied to the above-nam'd Rules.
CHAP. X. 1 That in those that believe There is a God, and a Life to come, there is an antecedent Right of Liberty of Conscience not to be invaded by the Civil Magistrate. 2. Object. That no false Religion is the com∣mand of God; with the Answer thereto. 3. That there is no incongruity to admit That God may command contrary Religions in the world. 4, 5. The utmost Difficulty in that Position, with the Answer thereto. 6. That God may introduce a false perswasion into the mind of man as well for probation as punishment. 7. That simple falsities in Religion are no forfeiture of Liberty of Conscience. 8. That though no falsities in Religion were the command of God, yet upon other considerations it is demonstrated that the Religionist ought to be free. 9. A further demon∣stration of this Truth from the gross absurdities that follow the contra∣ry Position.
CHAP. XI. 1. That there is a Right in every Nation and Person to examine their Reli∣gion, to hear the Religion of Strangers, and to change their own, if they be convinced. 2. That those Nations that acknowledge this Right and act accordingly, have naturally a Right to send out Agents into other Nations. Their demeanour there, and the right of revenging their in∣juries. And how this Method had justified the Spaniards Invasion of the Indians. 3. The unpracticablenesse of the present Theory by reason of the general perverseness of the World. The advantageousnesse of it to Christendome, and suitablenesse of it to the Spirit of a Christian. 4. That Religion corruptive of manners is coercible by the Magistrate. 5. And that which would plainly destroy the defence of the Countrey. 6. As al∣so whatever Religion is inseparably interwoven with Principles of Per∣secution. 7. An Answer to that Objection, That all Sects are persecu∣tive, and that therefore there can be no Liberty of Conscience given.
CHAP. XII. 1. To what Persons and with what Circumstances the Christian Magistrate is to give Liberty of Conscience. And the great advantage thereof to the Truth of Christianity. 2. That those that are not Christians, are not to be admitted into places of trust by the Christian Magistrate, if he can supply himself with those that are. 3. That the Christian Magistrate is to lay aside the fallible opinions of men, and promote every one in Church and State, according to his merit in the Christian life, and his ability promoting the interest of the Church of Christ and the Nation he serves. 4. That he is to continue or provide an honourable and competent allowance for them that labour in the word and doctrine. 5. That the vigi∣lancy of the Christian Magistrate is to keep under such Sects as pretend to Immediate Inspiration unaccountable and unintelligible to sober Reason, and why? 6▪ That the endeavour of impoverishing the Clergy smels rank of Prophaneness, Atheisme and Infidelity. 7. That the Christian Magistrate is either to erect or keep up Schools of Humane Learning, with the weighty grounds thereof. 8. A further enforcement of those grounds upon the fanatick Perfectionists. 9. The hideous danger of casting away the History of the Gospel upon pretence of keeping to the Light within us.
CHAP. XIII. 1. The Authours application to the better-minded Quakers. 2. He desires them of that Sect to search the grounds and compute the gains of their Revolt from Christ. 3. That there are no peculiar Effects of the Spirit of God in the Sect of the Quakers, but rather of Pythonisme. 4. That their Inspirations are not divine, but diabolicall. 5. The vanity of their boasting of the knowledge of their mysterious Allegories. 6. The grounds of their insufferable bitterness against the Ministers of Christ. 7. That he was urged by the light within him to give witnesse to the Truth of the History of the Gospel, and to admonish the Quakers. His caution to the simple-minded among them how they turn in to Familisme. 8. His ease and satisfaction of minde from disburdening himself of this duty. 9. The compassionablenesse of their condition, 10. And hope of their return to Christ.
CHAP. XIV. 1. That Publick Worship is essential to Religion, and inseparable when free from Persecution. The right measure of the Circumstances thereof. 2. Of the Fabrick and Beauty of Churches according to that measure. 3. The main things he intends to touch upon concerning Publick Worship. 4. That the Churches of Christians are not Temples, the excellency of our Reli∣gion being incompliable with that Notion. 5. The vanity of the Sectari∣ans exception against the word Church applied to the appointed places of Publick Worship. 6. That though the Church be no Temple, yet it is in some sense holy, and what respect there is to be had of it, and what reve∣rence to be used there. 7. Of Catechizing, Expounding and Preaching. 8. Of Prayer, and what is the true praying by the Spirit. 9. The Excellency of publick Liturgies. 10. What is the right End of the Ministry. 11. Cer∣tain special uses of Sermons, and of the excellency of our Saviour Christs Sermon on the Mount. 12. The best way for one to magnifie his Ministry. 13. Of the Holy Communion, who are to be excluded, and of the posture of receiving it. 14. Of the time of Baptism, and the Signe of the Crosse. 15. Of Songs and Hymns to be composed by the Church, and of Holy-daies. 16. Of the celebrating the Passion-day and the Holy Communion. 17. Of Images and Pictures in places of Publick Worship. 18. A summa∣ry advertisement concerning Ceremonies and Opinions.
The CONTENTS.
An INDEX of Places of Scripture that are interpreted in this Treatise.
Mistakes in the COPY.
In Printing.