Secondly, As the name Protestant is distinctive with respect unto some other pretended profession of Christian religion, so it derives this denomination from them who in all ages, after the apostasy of the church of Rome came to be expressly antichristian, departed from the communion of it, opposed it, reformed themselves, and set up the true worship of God according unto the degrees and measures of gospel light which they had received.
This was done successively in a long tract of time, through sundry ages, until, by an accession of multitudes, princes and people, unto the same profession, they openly testified and protested against the
53-i THE STATE AND FATE OF
papal apostasy and tyranny; whence they became to be commonly called Protestants. And the principles whereon they all of them proceeded from first to last, which constitute their religion as pro- testant, were these that follow: —
1. That there are in the Scripture, prophecies, predictions, and warnings, especially in the book of the Revelation and the Second Epistle of Paul the apostle to the Thessalonians, that there should be a great apostasy or defection in the visible church from the faith, worship, and holiness of the gospel ; and, in opposition unto what was appointed of Christ, the erection of a worldly, carnal, antichristian church -state, composed of tyranny, idolatry, and persecution, which should for a long time oppress the true worshippers of Christ with bloody cruelty, and at last be itself " consumed with the spirit of his mouth, and destroyed by the brightness of his coming."
This defection was so plainly foretold, as also the beginning of it, in a "mystery of iniquity," designed even in the days of the apostles, that believers in all ages did expect the accomplishment of it by the introduction of an antichristian state and power, though the manner of it was hidden from them, until it was really fulfilled. I say, from the days of the apostles, and the giving out of those prophecies and predictions of the coming of antichrist and an apostate church-state ■with him, all Christians in all ages did believe and expect that it should come, until its real coming, in a way and manner unexpected, confounded their apprehensions about it.
2. Their second principle as Protestants was, that this defection and antichristian church-state, so plainly foretold by the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures, was openly and visibly accomplished in the church of Rome, with the nations that had subjected themselves unto the yoke thereof. Therein they found and saw all that tyranny and oppression, aU that pride and self-exaltation above every thing that hath the name of God upon it, all that idolatry and false worship, all that departure from the faith of the gospel, all that contempt of evangelical obedience, which were foretold to come in under and constitute the fatal apostasy.
3. Hereon their third principle was, that as they valued the glory of God, the honour of Christ and the gospel, their own salvation, and the good of the souls of others, they were obliged to forsake and re- nounce all communion with that apostate church, though they saw that their so doing would cost many of them their dearest blood or lives.
4. They were convinced, hereon, that it was their duty publicly to jirotest against all those abominations, to reform themselves, as unto faith, worship, and conversation, according unto the rules before laid down, as those that are fundamental unto Christian religion.
THE PROTESTANT RELIGION. 535
These were the principles whereon Christian rehgion, as it is pro- testant, was re-introduced into the world, after it had been not only obscured, but almost excluded out of it, as unto its public profession. And these principles are avowed by all true Protestants as those whereon they are ready at all times to put their cause and profession on the trial.
The way whereby the profession of this protestant religion was introduced on these principles, and made public in the world, under the antichristian apostasy, was the same whereby Christian religion entered the world under Paganism, — namely, by the prayers, preach- ing, writings, sufferings, and holiness of life of them who embraced it, and were called to promote it. And herein their sufferings, for the number of them that suffered, and variety of all cruel prepara- tions of death, are inexpressible. It is capable of a full demonstra- tion, that those who were slain by the sword and otherwise destroyed for their testimony unto Christ and the gospel, in opposition unto the papal apostasy and idolatry, did far exceed the number of them that suffered for the Christian religion in all the pagan persecutions of old, A plant so soaked and watered with the blood of the martyrs will not be so easily plucked up as some imagine. Nay, it is probable it will not go out without more blood (of sufferers, I mean) than it was in- troduced by; which yet no man knows how to conceive or express.
But it had no sooner fixed its profession in some nations, but it was loaden with all manner of repi'oaches, charged with all the evils that fell out in the world after its entrance, and, by all sorts of arts and pretences, rendered suspected and hateful unto princes and potentates. Whatever is evil in or unto mankind, especially unto the interest of great men, was with great noise and clamour charged on it ; for so it was in the first entrance of the Christian religion imder Paganism. There was neither plague, nor famine, nor earthquake, nor inundation of water, nor war, nor invasion by enemies, but all was charged on that new religion. And the reason hereof was, not only the hatred of the truth through the love of sin and unrighteousness, and an in- grafted power of superstition through blind devotion, but principally because, for a long tract of time, the whole of the profession of reli- gion had been suited unto the secular interests of men, supplying them, under various pretences, with power, domination, territories, titles, revenues, wealth, ease, grandeur, and honour, with an insinua- tion into and power over the consciences of all sorts of persons ;■ — a thing very deshable to men of corrupt minds, and easily turned into an engine unto very bad and pernicious ends. That the whole com- plex and all its parts, in their various motions and operations, of the Christian religion in the Papacy, is framed and fitted unto these ends, so as to give satisfaction unto all corrupt and ambitious desires