Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
... The Apostle Paul tells us: the mystery of iniquity was working in his time, and the Embryo of the Prelatical Hierarchy, and a Papistical, consequently, then formed; which we find after stirring in the counteractings, and contradiction of a Diotrophes, (that early aspiring Primate,) even unto the Apostle John. Hence the Apostle Peter in his exhortation to Pastors of the Church, doth so [anxiously] dehort them from those two grand & Satanical enchantments, viz. Covetousness, and Lording over God’s Heritage; which no doubt had its influence for checking these evils for a considerable time. But the early-sown tears of the Evil one, did by piece-meal discover themselves, first, in the advance of Beza’s human Episcopacy, the fixt Moderator, or proestos, which was next, (by the influence of the restless temper) screwed up to the Satanical, as he calls it, viz. the Diocesion Prelacy, swallowing up, and enhancing all the decisive Authority and Power of Pastors in Government; then the ascension was made to the Arch-bishops, and Metropolitans’ Office, and Power, and by an inevitable necessity to the Culmen of the Papal Monarchy at last.
The Lord having in this evening of time, and the days of Reformation, by the light of the Gospel, discovered the mystery of iniquity, and of the Papal Hierarchy consequently; and caused his People to hear his call, to come out of Babylon, and be separated from that detestable Synagogue, the Reformed Churches has generally had so deep a sense of the connexion of Popery and Prelacy, that together with the one, they found themselves obliged to reject the other; and in their Confessions, and by the Writings of their most famous, burning and shining Lights, have witnessed against this corruption of Government, as well as against that Synagogue’s errors in point of Doctrine; …
For more, see Thomas Forrester on the corruption of church government and the mystery of iniquity.
The Lord having in this evening of time, and the days of Reformation, by the light of the Gospel, discovered the mystery of iniquity, and of the Papal Hierarchy consequently; and caused his People to hear his call, to come out of Babylon, and be separated from that detestable Synagogue, the Reformed Churches has generally had so deep a sense of the connexion of Popery and Prelacy, that together with the one, they found themselves obliged to reject the other; and in their Confessions, and by the Writings of their most famous, burning and shining Lights, have witnessed against this corruption of Government, as well as against that Synagogue’s errors in point of Doctrine; …
For more, see Thomas Forrester on the corruption of church government and the mystery of iniquity.
