Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist, Part 1 · Chapter 14
CHAP. XIV. Of other Fountains and springs of Familists, and Antinomians, and of the Treatise called, The Divinity of Germany, or, Theologia Germanica, and that called The Bright-starre.
THE Gnosticks having their name from knowledge, had their rise not from Nicholas, one of the seven Deacons, as Philaster thinketh, but rather as Irenaeus saith, lib. 1. heres. c. 24. from Carpocrates, they said the Soule was made of the substance of God, or, It was the very essence of God; I conceive the Monkish Familists had their rise from the Gnosticks, and Manicheans, who sprang from the Gnosticks. The Libertines, David George, Libertines sprang from the Gnosticks, Familists from Libertines, Antinomians from bothand H. Nicholas seeme to have their first spring from these two, to wit, Theologia Germanica, and The Bright-starre. For Philosophy and Divinity dissected, is but a rude, foolish, and unlearned Pamphlet, of late penned, and changing as Familists and Antinomians doe, Scripture, and God, and Christ, into Metaphors and vaine Allegories.
The Author of Theologia Germanica is not named, one John Theophilus translated it out of High-Dutch into Latine, and it was Printed at Antwerpe, Anno 1558. The Author was a superstitious Priest, of the Order called Teutonici or Dutch lads, in French, the Knights of the Rhodes, it is like the Author was before Luther, and it is certaine Familisme is a branch that grew from the root of Popery, and was whelped in a Monastery, by men that would be perfect above all Law, Ordinances and Acts of a practicall life, and would live on spirituall Monkish contemplations, and they are much of blood to the Antichrist, though they will not acknowledge their father, and call all but themselves Antichristian.
John Valdesso a Spaniard of noble birth, a Chevalier of the Emperor, who being a Bishop repented, wrote in the Spanish tongue, a Treatise of Practicall Divinity, called Divine Consid…rations, in which though there be sundry good and excellent Meditations, yet are there in it, many fooleries, and the grounds and poysonable principles of Familisme, Antinomianisme, Enthusiasme, for he rejecteth the Scriptures, magnifieth Inspirations, vil. fi…th good works, heighteneth the dead faith, ext…nuateth sin, &c. The man leaving his Bishoprick, came to Naples, and dyed there, Anno 1540. Vergerius caused to be Printed the Treatise out of the Spanish language▪ at Basil, An. 1550. It is Englished, and Printed at Cambridge, An. 1646. The Antinomians, Familists, and others in England of that stampe specially M▪ Beaco…, Catechisme, pag. 138▪ salute the book as happily arrived in the English coasts, farre above any peece that Calvin ever wrote; Such Lettuce such lips, But to return:
This Author of Theo. Germanica, and of the Bright Starre, say, There is nothing in the aTheol. Ger. ….2…. p. 53.Creature, but God the Creator, as there is nothing bBright stare c. 8 p. 11.in the heat and beame of the Sun, but the Sun it selfe, and fire. Just so (as Libertines teach) there is but one Spirit, one God, one internall forme in God, Angels, and Men, good and ill, and in all creatures. But
1 The Holy Ghost makes this the highest Treason in Tyrus, who being cloathed with a bit of corruptible glory, saith, Ezek. 28.2. I am God.
2. Creatures can erre and be tempted to sin, God cannot be tempted, Jam. 1.3.
3. Creatures are changeable bits of dependencies on God, Rom. 11.36. Prov. 16.4. The Lord is without, and above change, or shaddow of change, Mal. 3.6. Jam. 1.17.
4. All Nations to God are nothing, Isa. 40.17. God calleth himself to Moses, I am, and, I am that I am, as the fountain of beeing, and being by nature, and the alone infinite, onelyonly wise, happy being, as all Scriptures cleare, Creatures, even Angels are in their essence, but time-dependencies, created results of God, Lame-nothings, frothy yesterday start-ups, poore time-accidents▪ branches budding out of meer mother-nothing, by the alone will and goodnesse of God, there was folly found in th…se Sonnes of the morning, the head-peeces and master-creatures, the Angels, Job 40.18, 19.
2. God becommeth all things in man, Man or the Creature should arrogate to himself… nothing, not life, essence, power, knowledge, doing, or not doing, there is nothing that is not God, and belonging to God — for it is God onelyonly who liveth, understandeth, is able, loveth, doth, or leaveth undone all, So Theolo. Ger. c. 56. Nothing is but God and his will, and this will is God, and what-ever is in God is God, and nothing is but God alone, 1. Because God is infinite, and if there were being in us, then should infinite beeing be bounded, where our beeing begins. 2. If man bee beeing, hee is good, for beeing and good are convertible, but there is none good but God. 3. Philosophers and fathers say there is but one only truely being. 4. God saith, I am that I am. 5. The sonne of God made himselfe of no reputation and discended to bee a man and nothing, then man is nothing. so Bright-stare.
The old Adam and disobedience or sinne, is nothing, but when the creature ascribeth to it selfe Being, The wild stuffe that is in Theologia Germani. and the Brightst. Theol. Germ. c. 14. vetus homo est Adamus & inobediemia ipseitas, egoitas …t …imilia: ut nov…s homo est Christus & obedientia.and life and essence and goodnesse. So sinne is nothing, but I, my selfe, Egoitie and such like and the new Adam or Christ is nothing but obedience and an ascribing of all to God.
So ch. 2. Faith and Scripture saith, sinne is nothing else but that the creature doeth divert it selfe from the immutable God and adhereth to a mutable thing that is, doth turne it selfe from that which is perfect, and to that which is in part and imperfect, and especially to it selfe. Now this observe, when the creature doth chaleng any good thing to it selfe, as to bee, to live, to know, briefly to be able to doe any thing that can be tearmed good, as being in it self that good thing, or as though that good thing were appertaining to it, then it averteth it self, what other thing then did the Devill? This arrogancy to be I, to be my self, to be me, and to be mine, was the devils aversion and fall.
I answer nothing is a being of it selfe, by heritage, essentially, and without dependence on another, as its father, cause, Author, Creator, but God; and nothing lives, worketh, doth good, independently, infinitely, immutably, from and of it self, but God onelyonly. And all Creatures, Angels, and Men, are but borrowed beeings, beeings by adoption, gift, loane, and little shaddows,How creatures are under-causes of their own working, and yet in be…ing and working, depend on God. remaining shaddows, by the essence, goodnesse, and free pleasure of God. And as their beeing is dependent, so are they Gods dependent tooles, and instruments of working, they doe, and doe good, but dependently and so as both power and actuall doeing, and doeing good is from God principally, by moving, exciting, and determinating them to doe, and from, ego, egoitas, ipseitas, from themselves actively as instruments and tooles in Gods hand, if the creature seek a world of its own, in being and working without God, that egoitas, that I, that my self, is the great Lord of pride, but otherwise the creature is not in its essence God. There was a comparative self-deniall required in Adam, and is in the man Christ and the elect Angels, though no sinfull selfe was in any of these three, and it is that the sinlesse creature should yeeld its beeing, lust, will and desires, rather to be trampled on, dispised, or turned to nothing, before God be dishonoured; All the essentiall attributes of goodnesse, holinesse, wisdome, grace, justice, power, soveraignty, &c. that are all infinite in God, proclaime that there is an infinite distance between the Creature and the Creator, but if we speak of a borrowed beeing, and a borrowed working, at the second hand, and by loane, then it is no sin, for creatures to say they are creatures, for the Holy Ghost saith it, and biddeth man say, that he is clay, and a living soule, nor is it sin to the Creature to ascribe doing of good to it self, as the Church saith, I have sought thee, O Lord, Isa. 26. and David, I love thee, O Lord; and Paul, I have laboured more abundantly then they all; though it was a labouring borrowed from grace, and sure the Creature acts sin and against a law, and not in subordination to God as Law-giver acting him against a Law.
4. Error, Obedience is to deny selfe; The creature is all good in the Creator, and to value and esteem all beeing, and all good, God himselfe, Theol. Ger. c 13.
5. All creatures, the body and soule of man were hid potentially in God, and shall returne to silence, and to nothing after.
This is cleare against the immortallity of the soule, that, Scripture saith, seeth God, injoyeth his face, goeth to Paradise, or torment after death.
6▪ Hell standeth in these, 1. when a man seeth himselfe worthy of all ill, 2. Perpetually damned and lost. The heaven & hell of Familists included within the lists of this life.3. Neither wils nor conceives comfort from any …eature. 4. Yet he waiteth for deliverance. 5. Beares nothing waywardly but sin. 6. And when he cannot think ever to be delivered, or comforted.
He is in heaven, when he regards nothing, desires nothing but the eternall good, so this becomes his, he may often, in one day, passe from heaven to hell, and from hell to heaven, and is safe in both.
This is a hell and a heaven unknown to Scripture, 1. They are within the bounds of this life, hell and heaven are after death and buriall, Luk. 16. 2 There is a marcet way, between this heaven and this hell. But Luk. 16. there is a gulf, and no passage between the right-heaven and Scripture hell, Luk. 16. 3. These may end, the true hell and heaven are eternall, Mat. 25. last. Psal. 16.11.
7. When God alone works in man, and leaves undone in him, without any I, to mee, or mine, there is true Christ and no where else, Theol. Germ. c. 22. Christ crucified in Mount Calvary, is but an imagination, to suffer with Christ, is Christ crucified. Our sufferings and Christs are one by union of will and Spirits. Bright star. c. 18 …89, 190, 191. &c. 200.
Then is Christ not true man. 2. nor dyed he really,The Familists acknowledge no Christ, but a Metaphoricall Chri…t ▪ but only Spiritually in us, when we suffer with the like meeknesse and patience, as he dyed and suffered; and yet he is but an Allegorick or phancied man to the Familist. The like Familists say of his Resurrection, Ascention, and judging the world. Its but to doe what is already done, to open these rotten graves any farther; These two pieces, so fleshly and abominable, agree well with the Tenents of H. Nicholas, and are now set out, An. 1646. by the Familist Randel, to the insnaring of the soules of many thousands in London.
In the yeare 1…75. the Familists of England published a confession before King James came to the Crowne of England but laxe and generall,Of the Familists in England in reigne of K J…mes, and the contents of a supplication they …r…sented to the King. I know not what, for H. Nicholas wrote bookes of sundrie sorts. As his exhortation 1 c. 6. § 5.7, 8, 9. His instructions of the upright, and Christian baptisme: his crying voyce: his first exhortation: and these (saith hee) may bee confess…d among the adulterous and sinnefull generation and the false hearts of the scripture learned: for so hee called all the godly in England, and all that are not of his way. But for his love-secrets, hee saith, yee shall not talke of your secrets (either yet utter your myster…) openly or nakedly in the hea…ing of your young children or disciples, Familists dissemble and cover the… foulest and grossest poynts of doctrine from the simple.but spare them not in the …ares of your El…rs, which can understand the same, or are able to beare, or away with the sound thereof. But they have their private Traditions and unwritten verities (saith H. Nichol. in his Elidad. § 5.) By which they grow up in love according to the requiring of her service, where all things needfull to bee knowen, or declared, are alwayes according to the capacity of their understanding brought and declared to them, to the (§ 17) young or new borne children according to their youngnesse, to the weak according to their weakenesse, and to the eld…r… according to their driednesse or old age, where (§ 18) neither some heare all, nor all heare some private mysteries; but the confession might have a sound meaning. Though as they ment, there is nothing sound in it.
About the yeare 1604. the Familists of England presented with this fraudulent confession a supplication to King James which was printed at Cambridge anno 1606. And answered by one of the Universitie, in the supplication they hid their soul tenets and say,
Wee doe beseech your Princely Majesty to understand that the people of the Familie of love, or God, doe utterly disclame all obsurd and selfe-conceited opinions, and disobedient and erroneous Sects of the Anabaptists, Browne, Penry, Puritans, and all other proud-minded Sects, and Heresies whatsoever, protesting upon pain of our lives, that we are not of consent, nor agreeing with any such brainsick Preachers, nor their rebellio…s, or disobedient Sects whatsoever, but have beene and ever will be truely obedient to your highnesse and your Laws, to the effusion of our blood, and in this part of their supplication the Reader may see the bloody persecuting minds of Familists, for they exhort King James to persecute all the truely godly that were non-conforme to Prelates,prelats patrons of Familists. and went under the name of Puritans, and tacitly praise King James for executing the Laws against such as in conscience durst not bow to the then Prelaticall Baal: and the Familists principles carry them to esteem any Religion indifferent: yet half an eye may see how desirous they are the Sword should be drawn against the godly, whom they all Puritans, and therfore judge if Antinomians and Familists now in England, who cry out against the use of the Sword for matters of Religion, and plead for a Catholick licence and tolleration to all Religions, that themselves may be tollerated also, if they had the Sword and Power, if they would not be most bloody Dragons, in cutting the flesh and drinking the blood of those they call Presbyterians and Puritans; for thinke not their doctrine is different from that doctrine of their fathers.
So here they quit the Protestant Doctrine maintained by those that are called, but unjustly, Puritans, and promise to conforme to all Popish Ceremonies, to Arminianisme, Popery or what else is, or shall be by law established▪ without once promise of obedience in the Lord, and according to the rule of holy Scripture.
They well knew that Puritans were hatefull to King James and all such as were non-conform to Prelacy, and Ceremonies, in either Kingdoms, and therefore to ingr…tiate themselves into the Kings favour, they raile in their fleshly manner against all the godly in England, for which cause the Prelates did overlook them, partly because they made work of controversies for the times, and diverted many from eye-ing and considering the corruptions of Prelates, partly because Prelates and they were common enemies to those that were truely godly, and unjustly called Puritans, and what shall we think of those that went for Puritans in England, not many years agoe, who now turn Famili…ts, as many now adaies doe?
2. They defy all to object any thing against them, except disobedient Puritans, who maliced them these 25 years, and what marvell, for Hen. Nichol. saith (prophet of the Spirit, c. 13. § 8.) He can no more erre in what he saith, than could the Prophets of God, or Apostles of Christ, He saith § 9. Almost all of his way were an uncleane whorish covetous and fleshly company.
3 They acknowledge their obedience to Ceremonies, sacraments, and the Kings supremacie. Y…t amongst them are neither Kings nor Masters H. Nicho. Spirit c. 34. Sect. 8. But are equall in all degrees among themselves as they say.
4 Th…y say, onelyonly right gracious Soveraigne, wee have read certaine bookes, brought forth by a German Authour under the Characters of H. N. — out of …hich service or writings we be taught all dutifull obe…ience towards God and a Magistrate and to live a godly and honest life, and to love God above all things and our Neighbour as our selves agreing therein with all the Holy Scriptures, as wee understand them.
But nothing of the blessed Trinity is here, nothing of the Gospel, of Christ, God man, of the justification of the ungodly by faith and the rest of our Articles of faith, but only of a mere legall way to heaven, as if they were in the state of innocencie. So they extoll fleshly Henry Nicholas and his doctrine that disclaimes all the protestant faith. 2. They will not have the scriptures a rule of faith, but as they understand them.
5 They complaine that H. Nicho. is shamefully slandred, and his disciples traduced, persecuted and imprisoned.
6 That nothing could ever bee proved against them. But that was because they hold it lawfull to deny Christ and their religion before men, what then could bee proved against them?
7. They intreat the King to read H.N. his books, and commit to learned men the examining of them, and promise they will bring over some disciples out of Germanie who knew H, Nicho. while hee lived, to resolve the K. of hard phrases in his writings.
8 That they maintaine no errors willfully.
9 They desire inlargement upon baile out of prison. Yet the Puritans maintaine errour willfully.
But the truth was the Prelats, because the Familist… bowed to their Baal of conformity and hated Puritans and counted any religion indifferent; fostered them, and would neither refute them▪ nor suffer any others to refute them. which is the cause of all the fects this day in England, they lay under warme prelacie, spake nothing against their domination and now in this time of liberty they come out to the sunne and day-light.