* “ Wherefore, since you see there is so much "advantage by honouring the Martyrs, be per"suaded, I beseech you, to flee from the error of "demons; and making use of the Martyrs as so many lights and guides, follow the way which "leads directly to God," &c.

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Now judge whether the doctrines of demons hath hitherto been fitly applied or not:-I will go on.

Διονυσίων, Πέτρου καὶ Πάυλου, καὶ Θῶμᾶ καὶ Σεργίου, &c., καὶ τῶν ἄλλων μαρτύρων ἐπιτελοῦνται δημοθοινίαι.

* Ορῶντες τοίνυν τῆς τῶν μαρτύρων τίμῆς τὸ ὠφέλιμον, φεύγετε ὦ φίλοι, τῶν Δαιμόνων τὸν πλάνον· καὶ τούτοις φωστῆρσι καὶ ποδηγοῖς κεχρημένοι, τὴν πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν ἄγουσαν πορείαν οδεύσατε, &c.

CHAPTER VIII.

That Idolatry is the main character of the Church's apostasy, proved by three arguments.

HAVING, therefore, by so many arguments, made apparent, as I hope, what I endeavoured to prove ; I desire we may observe, among so many corruptions both now and heretofore overwhelming the Church of Christ, what that is wherein the Holy Ghost placeth the essence, and accounteth as the very soul, of the great apostasy under the man of sin, and would have us to make the pole-star of our discovery thereof. Not every error, not every heresy, how foul soever, but Doctrines of Demons, idolatry and spiritual fornication. As for other heresies, though accompanying this, yet are they but accidental, and not of the essence of the Great Apostasy which was to come. Even as harlots are seldom without other foul faults, which yet are no parts of whoredom, so hath the spiritual harlot many other heresies, but her whoredom is only idolatry and the Doctrine of Demons.

Neither is heresy of itself, no, though damnable heresy, a character whereby the Great Apostasy can be known from other sects and blasphemies. Foul heresies were in the first ages of the Church; yet Antichrist and his time were

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neither of them yet come. When his time approached nearer, the Arians, Macedonians, Nestorians, Eutychians, were abominable heretics; and the Arians possessed for a time the face of the visible Church, yet was not theirs the solemn Apostasy looked for.

But Idolatry, or spiritual whoredom, which in that storm the Devil was a-working, this is the only character and note whereby the *Apostasy under the man of sin is discovered and distinguished from all other blasphemies, sects, and heresies, of what age or time soever.

Which that I may not seem to ground only upon the exposition of my text, which, whatsoever the probability thereof be, may yet be thought alone too weak to support the weight of so main a conclusion, I desire you to take these arguments for a full confirmation thereof. Some of them have already been intimated, but now all are mustered up together.

1. That Babylon is entitled, in the Revelation of St. John, not the liar of Babylon, nor the tyrant of Babylon, nor the heretic of Babylon, nor the murderess of Babylon, but the whore of Babylon, yea, that great whore, and the mother of fornications and abominations of the earth. Doth not God, think we, give the name as He accounts

* 1 Thess. i. 9. Conversion to Christianity is described as a turning from idols to serve the true and living God, and to wait for his Son Jesus Christ; therefore apostasy therefrom is a return to idols from the living and true God and his Son Jesus Christ.

the nature? Or is there any one will deny that this Babylon is that *mystery of iniquity which our Apostle so calleth, as being in opposition to the great mystery of true worship and religion? If any should, Mystery, Babylon, in her forehead, will help to reclaim him. And what whore is that with whom the kings, and nations, and kingdoms of the earth commit fornication? Can it be any other but a spiritual whore? Without

question, therefore, St. John means no other thing here than what he foretold in the eleventh chapter. That the "second and outmost court, of the temple, (which is the second state of the Christian Church,) together with the holy city, should be trodden down and overtrampled by the Gentiles forty-two months :"-that is, overwhelmed with the idolatry of the Gentiles, which is the Doctrine of Demons, as long as power shall be given to the beast to make war with the saints, as long as the witnesses must wear sackcloth, and the woman which escaped the fury of the heathen Dragon be fed in the wilderness.

2. St. Paul tells us, that the Great Apostasy should enter by strong delusions, by signs, and lying wonders. Consider, then, what corruptions of the Christian faith were thus ushered in. To begin with the beginning and first corruption of that kind. Invocation of saints, with the adoration of their shrines and reliques,-how were these advanced in the Church? Was it not by miraculous cures of the sick, healing of the lame, * Μυστηριον ευσεβειας. † Μυστηριον, Βαβυλων. ‡ 2 Thess. ii.

restoring of the blind-yea, raising of the dead (as seemed) by only the touch and air sometimes of the shrines and reliques of souls deceased ? Was it not still confirmed by strange apparitions, and other means wonderful to hear, for discovery of bones and reliques unknown and forgotten,yea, of men whose names they had never heard of before?—and, which, as I shall shew better hereafter, no such experience for three hundred years together observed in the Church, until the fatal and fixed time began to enter. The worshipping of images, (the second, in time, of the Church's fornications,) was not this also allured, and at length fully ratified by like signs and miracles shewed upon those who approached them in their devotions? Read the Legend, and see what store there is of strong delusions, and lying wonders. That which, for a time, came in last, but deserves a place among the foremost, I mean the idolatry of the mass, and adoration of the breaden God, search and see if it also be not thus attended.

If all this be true, then would I know what doctrine of theirs besides was installed with these solemnities. There is but one only left for an exception, and that is Purgatory; but what if all the delusions of purgatory, with all the apparitions of purgatorian ghosts, were but an indirect device of Satan, aiming partly to advance the mass into an idol, by the miraculous efficacy, as the ghosts forsooth report, of the oblation thereof for them; partly to instal the son of perdition, a demon I yet spake not of, and still a demon, to