Head thereof, began to affert openly, that the Pope whas that Great Antichrist, or Man of Sin, concerning whom the Holy Spirit witnessed by the Mouths of his Servants the Prophets; which some others understood not so much of the Pope, as of the whole Roman Hierarchy. And a mongst most of the Reformed Churches, *Notwith-this has been the * current and common Standing it Doctrine ever since; and it must be conhas been feffed, that this Charge has been vemuch oppoSed by some ry learnedly defended by many Eminent particular Protestant Divines. See particularly DoWriters, as Etor Henry More's Mystery of Iniquity. To Grotius, obviate this, several of the Romanists, that mond, they might at the same time defend and Thorn- support that abfurd Position of the Comdyke, &c. mencement of the Millennial Glorious Vi Dr. Ham fibility of the Church at the Reign of Constantine the Great, asserted that Heathen Rome was the Seat of Antichrift, and that the Roman Emperors before Constantine, or Nero in particular, was that very Son of Perdition who was to precede the Millennial Reign, but fure at a great distance; whilft others, with no better Success, applied it to Julian the Apostate. Now it must be own'd, that both these Emperors were very remarkable Types of him in fome respects or other; but it is as plain, that neither of these were that very Perfon intended by that Appellation. However, these Opinions have been long defended by many of the Learned of the Roman Communion; whilst some very few have stuck to the Old Primitive Doctrine. The 1 The weakness of the two former Opinions has been very folidly expofed and baffled by the Learned Reformers; who, tho they did not set themselves professedly to oppose the latter Opinion, yet thought it muft of Neceffity fall to the Ground, if they could once prove their grand Position, viz. That the Pope was Antichrist, which upon the Grounds afore-mentioned most of them afferted. troversy §2. I SHALL not here presume to en- The State ter into a Detail of the several Arguments of the Conwherewith these Learned Writers have en- concerning deavoured to support their different Opi- a personal nions, but shall only say, that whilst Men Antichrift. do not feek the Truth fincerely and impartially, it generally happens, that each Party finding what makes for her Turn, runs away with that, not regarding the reft; and thus not rightly dividing the Word of Truth, they make Distinctions where there is no Difference; and set those Truths in Opposition to each other, which if rightly understood, would serve mutually to explain, strengthen and support each other. This (I cannot but think) has been the Case between the Roman and Reformed Churches in this Controversy: The one finding that the Holy Scriptures, and the Doctrines of the purer Ages of the Church, seemed to understand by Antichrift, one particular Person that should arife in the latter Times, viz. in the End of the Roman Empire, justified and defended this Doctrine in Opposition to that Charge of Antichriftianism which was juftly ly caft upon them by the Reformers; fondly imagining, that if one were true, the other must be false; whilst on the other Hand, the Reformers, to make good their Charge, without regarding that Doctrine which they were forced to allow was Ancient, plied them only with those Arguments which were proper to the Cafe in Hand; without doubt believing, that since they had proved the Pope to be Antichrift, they were to look no further. Whereas it appears to me, not at all difagreeable to that perfect Oppofition that shall be between Antichrist and the Bleffed Jesus; that as our Lord Christ has his Mystical, as well as his Natural Body, fo Antichrift should have likewife. Of the My- 93. THE Mystical Body of our Lord ftical and Chrift, is that Company of Believers Body of our throughout the World, united in the Blef Natural Lord. fed Centre of Unity in the Spirit of Christ, who is the great Spring and Foundation of the Spiritual Life in them, and which does so truly unite those who partake of its Fulness, as to make them one in themselves, and one in God, even as the ever Blessed Trinity are one themselves, John 17. 21. and these are properly faid to be Members of Christ, because he is their Head, and from his Fulness of Life and Strength, they all receive, in their several Meafures and Proportions; and from him the whole Body fitly joyned together, and compacted by that which every Foint Supplyeth, according to the effectual working in the Measure of every part, maketh encrease of the Body unto the the edifying of it self in Love, Eph. 4. 16. The Members of this Mystical Body have been, in all Ages, labouring in the deep Resignation and Simplicity of Love, and in patient bearing of the Cross, to fill up that which is yet behind of the Sufferings of Christ (τὰ ὑςερήμαλα, * &c.) and to accom- *Col. 1.243 plish that measure of Sufferings, which shall put a glorious Period to the suffering Oeconomy, by which we are wrought up to Perfection, Heb. 2. 10. Till we all come in the Unity of the Faith, and of the Knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect Man, unto the meafure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, Eph. 4. 13. Which Perfection and Fullness, when 171/ it shall be obtained by a select Number, determined by God, in the spiritual Kingdom of Mount-Sion; upon these, as the first Fruits of his Kingdom, shall Chrift appear in his glorified Person, to fulfil the Joy of his Saints, and to confound his Opposers; where he shall reign as the visible Head of his Church: And so his glorified Person, or natural Body (if I may fo express it) shall be as it were the head-covering of his mystical Body which is the Church, Col. 1. 18. Antichrift. §4. Now I see no absurdity in suppo- of the my. fing, that the workings of Antichrift in the stical and Powers and Centre of Darkness may be natural fomething analogous to this Oeconomy of Body of the Bleffed Lord Jesus, whose Designs for the Reftitution of the lapsed Creation, he endeavours to counter-act and overthrow. The Devil, that grand Deceiver and Enemy of Mankind, has ever since the Fall of of our first Parents, been plotting and contriving to plunge us deeper into Deftrution, and to make our Fall irrecoverable. In order to this, he has endeavoured to ape and imitate the Dispensations of God, and to affimilate, as near as might be, the Spirit of Error to the Spirit of Truth. Thus without doubt he acted even in the Patriarchal Times: He had, we find, his Magicians in Egypt to oppose the Finger of God in his Servants Moses and Aaron; so after the giving of the Law, as God had his confecrated Places for holy Worship, his Altars, Priests, Festivals, &c. so had the Devil his likewise, as appears at large not only from Scriptures, but Heathen Antiquity. So in like manner this same Spirit of Delusion, ever since the Ascension of our Bleffed Lord into Heaven, set himself to oppose and undermine that Spiritual Dispensation, whereby God is preparing for himself a peculiar People, a royal Priefthood, a Church without spot or wrinkle, or any fuch thing. Thus he stirred up Simon Magus, under the Preaching of St. Philip at Samaria, to exalt himself, and give out, that he was some great Person * μέγαν. which the People explain, saying, This Man is the great Power of God, i. e. the Christ; for by that Name he is called, 1 Cor. 1. 24. Upon which Account this may not improperly be called the Head or Beginning of that Oppofition; which, in regard of its being peculiarly intended against the Perfon and Offices of Christ, is emphatically called Antichriftian. And St. John in his * Τίνα ; |