6. There are seven points in Popery which they seek to confirm by miracles ; and which, being senseless in themselves, do most scan- dalise Protestants.
[1.] Pilgrimages. They show the shrine, and also the chamber of the house of the blessed Virgin; how the Virgin at Loretto was trans- ported out of Galilee into Ualmatia, and by angels in the air, to the remote parts of Italy, and settled there after some removes.
The story is ridiculous, and I am serious ; yet this drawcth an infinite company of pilgrims there, where new miracles are pretended to be wiought continually.
[2.] Prayers for the dead. Bellarmine allegeth, out of Gregory, the miraculous apparition of Paschal's ghost, beseeching St Germanus to pray for him.
[:i] Purgatory. All their miracles are framed especially for the establishing of this point, which is of such gain to them ; as that a dead man's skull spake to ]\Iei-carias praying, ' When thou dost offer prayer for the dead, then do we feel a little consolation.'
2 ThES. II. 10.] THE EIGHTH SERMON. 75
[4.] The invocation of saints. Alypius, a grammarian, being forsaken of his physicians, St Tiola appeared to him by night, demanding what he ailed, or what he would have ? He answered (to show a touch of his art) in Achilles's speech to his mother Thetis, in Homer, &c. ' Thou knowest ; why should I tell thee that knowest all ? ' Where- upon she conveyed a round stone to him, with the touch of which he was presently healed.
[5.] The adoration of images, but especially of the cross, crucifix, and image of Christ. Malvenda saith, that at Meliapore, in the East Indies, where St Thomas was killed by those barbarous people, dig- ging, to lay a foundation, they found a square stone, in it a bloody cross, and an inscription implying the saint was slain in the very act of adoring and kissing the cross ; hereupon on went the building, and the chapel being finished, in the beginning of the gospel, in sight of the whole multitude, the cross did sweat abundantly ; the sweat wiped off, drops of blood appeared in the linen with which they wiped it, till at length it returned to its own colour.
[6.] The adoration of the host is made good by such a number of miracles as fill whole volumes. Bellarmine himself telleth us of a hungry mare, kept three days without meat, yet when provender was poured to her in the presence of the host, she, forgetting her meat, with bowed head and bended knees adored the sacrament,
[7.] The primacy of the Pope hath been the beginning and is the end of all popish legends. A bishop, being excommunicated by Pope Hildebrand, and inveighing against his pride, was smitten with a thunderclap. Baronius relates, that while Pope Eugenius the Third was celebrating the mass, a beam of the sun shone upon his head, in which were seen two doves, ascending and descending, which an Eastern legate seeing, submitted instantly to the primacy.
Use. Another note of Antichrist : these impostures are not only countenanced and encouraged in that church, but made a mark of it. The power of miracles : When Antichrist first appeared, ridiculous miracles of all sorts began to be cried up and established ; yea, and to this day, these are pleaded, challenging us for the want of them. What they cannot prove by the oracles of God, they endeavour to prove by miracles of Satan.
SEKMON VIII.
With all deceivahleness of unrighteousness in them thai perish; he- cause they received not the love of the truth, that they might he saved.— 2 Tees. II. 10.
We have described unto you the head of the antichristian state ; we come now to the subjects, especially the zealous abettors and pro- moters of this kingdom. They are described : — (1.) By the means how they are drawn into this apostasy and defection, ev Trday aTrdrr) t^?
7G THE EIGHTH SERMON. [2 ThES. II. 10.
tiSi/cta?. (2.) By their doom or misery ; they are in a state of perdi- tion: in them that perish. (3.) liy their sin, vliich is the cause and reason of" tliis doom : hecav^e they received not the love of the truth, that they might he saved.
1. The means: ' With all deceivahleness of unrighteousness.' That Antichrist shall he a deceiver, and that he deceiveth hy lying miracles, we have seen already, and is foretold : Rev. xiii. 14, ' And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth hy the means of those miracles which he liad power to do in the sight of the heast,' &c. ; but the deceived are not altogether guiltless, for tiie fraud would soon he discovered by a holy and pure soul. His great engine is either the baits of lust and sin, which work on none but those that have pleasure in unright- eousness, ver. 12 : the generality of wicked and carnal Christians are easily drawn from God's pure worship, and true godliness ; either by worldly -means, as by the offers of preferment, riches, dignities, or else terrors of the flesh. Now, none catch at these worldly baits but whose eyes the god of this world hath blinded, 2 Cor. iv. 4.
2. Their misery : they are said to be ' those that perish.' That bear- eth three senses: — (1.) That they are worthy to perish, because they do not .use care and diligence to understand their duty, being blinded by their worldly affections. That is the mildest sense we can put upon it ; they deserve to perish. No man perisheth but for his own fault : Hosea xiii. 9, * 0 Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help.' Now, they that will yield to tlie deceivahleness of unrighteousness, justly perish ; though there be deceit in the case, yet there is unrighteousness in the case also. Fraudulent dealing should not so cozen us, as apparent unrighteousness or unfaithfulness to Christ should warn us. (2.) That they are in an actual state of per- dition, and, unless they come out of it, are undone for ever. The apostles, when they propounded Christian doctrine, at first did use this term to distinguish impenitent unbelievers from those that received the gospel : as 1 Cor. i. 18, ' The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us that are saved the power of God :' so 2 Cor. ii. 15, ' We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that perish, and in them that are saved.' So he distinguisheth them that receive the faith, and them that receive it not ; penitent believers are these that are saved, but impenitent unbelievers are those that perish, that is, are for the i)resent, during their infidelity and impeni- tency, in an actual state of perdition ; so 2 Cor. iv. 3, ' If our gospel be hid, it is hid to those that are lost ;' that is, who are for the pre- sent in a lost condition. We know not God's secret decrees, but those that refuse and oppose the only remedy, to all a]i[»earance, are lost men. Now, this he applieth to those that yield to Antichrist, showing them that though they are Christians, yet they have no more benefit l)y the gospel than infidels ; they receive not the truth — these revolt from the owning of it upon carnal reasons: and therefore it is fore- told. Rev. xiv. i), 10, ' If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wrath of God, which is jKuired out without mixture into tlie cup of his indignation; and he sliall be tormented with fire and brimstone, in the presence of the holy angels, and the presence of the