A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of S. IOHN

Abstract

ALthough the nature of the trueth be of such force and efficacie, that after it is hearde by the spirituall man, it is immediatlie beleeued, credited and embraced: yet the naturall man is so infirme, and weake, that his beleefe, must bee supplied by naturall reasons and euident arguments: Wherefore, many learned and godly men, of the Primitiue Church, haue gathered out diuers pithie and forcible, naturall and Philosophicall arguments, to prooue and confirme the Christian faith thereby: As in the 1. Cor. 15.36 Paul the learned and godly teacher of the Gentiles, perswading them to confesse the resurrection of the dead, induceth a marveilous pithie and familiar argument, by a natural comparison of seede sowne in the ground, that first must die and be corrupt in the earth, and then doth it quicken vp and rise againe after an other forme, than it was sown into: And likewise other learned Doctors of the primitiue Church writing to the Ethnicks, who sturred at the Virgins conception and at Christs divinitie, reasoneth with them on this maner: saying, Your gods (as ye beleue) hath conversed with many women among you and haue begotten many children, who haue wrought no miracles: & how can ye that so beleeue, deny vs, that our great God hath begotten one Sonne, in whom divinitie, and humanitie are conjoyned, seeing your eies and forefathers, haue seen so many and divine miracles wrought by him, & in his name? And so most wisely vsed they these Gentiles own opinions and arguments against themselues, which mooued the malicious Apostate Iulian the Emperour, to discharge from Christians, the Schooles and learning of Philosophie, yeelding the reason, because saith he, Propriis pennis ferimur, and as by that meanes many of the most learned Gentiles in these daies, were either mooued necessarilie to confesse the Christian Religion to be true, pure and holie: or then at the least were made fo astonished, that they were not able to write or teache against it. So likewise, now in this second arising of the Evangelical trueth, from the horrible Antichristian darknesse: it is not enough that this divine Reuelation which discouereth the Antichrist be onely by simple assertion interpreted, or historicallie applyed to the confirming of their zeale, that already knowes and detests that man of sinne and sonne of perdition, but also to the effect the sauourers of his errors may either be conuerted or then their mouthes bridled from calumniating the trueth, it is needfull that such necessarie reasons and sure arguments or at the least, such notable tokens be induced, as may make that interpretation vndenyable.