ABSTRACT
In Pansebeia: Or, A view of all Religions in the World ... Also, a Discovery of all known Heresies in all Ages and Places (second edition, 1655), Alexander Ross (1591-1654), Scottish biblical scholar, royalist and ejected clergyman, asked ‘What Opinions in Religion are held by Theaurau John’? Ross answered:
He cals himself, Priest of the Jews, sent as he saith from God, to convert them: his wilde whimsies are these; 1. He cals it nonsence and a lie, to say that God is Father of us all. 2. That we Gospellers (as he cals us) worship the Devill, because (saith he) the spirit of man is a Devill. 3. That it is a Monster, and absolute blasphemie to say, the godhead dwelt in Christ bodily. 4. He wonders how he that created all, could be born of a woman: by which we may plainly see he is a circumcised Jew. 5. He saith, that the child which the Virgin brought forth, is love, as if the generation of Christ were altogether mysticall, and not reall. 6. Hee saith, That Mary is Christ, and Christ is Mary, and that these are but names of one thing. 7. He denyeth, That Christ was properly born, or that he was born in one, or that he was begotten, or that he could be flesh properly; or that he did descend into our flesh, but into our spirits onely; or that he could be included in the Virgins wombe, and withall hee belyeth us in saying, That we have brought the humanity to be very God: wheareas we say, the same person is God and man, one not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. 8. He calls the English Clergy, thieves, robbers, deceivers, sounding from Antichrist, and not from the true Christ, in which we see the Impudent spirit of an heretick, who can no other wayes defend his lies, and blasphemies, but by railing. 9. He prateth, That the Gospel cannot be preached by another, but by it self; so that mans voyce or outward sound, is a lye, and Antichrist. 10. That our Ministers, are not Christs ambassadors, but that their call is a lye, for ‘tis learning, and learning is that whore which hath deceived the Nations, and compleated the work of Antichrist: “See the impudence and boldnesse” of this blind ignoramus. 11. He denyeth, that the Priests lips can preserve knoweldge, though the Scripture is plain for it, but by the Priest, he understands knowledge it self, and so he will make the Holy Ghost knowledge it self, and so he will make the Holy Ghost to speak Tautologies, in saying, knowledge shall preserve knowledge: here we see the fruits of ignorance. 12. He makes the spirit of man to be a quintessence abstracted out of elementarie motions, “such is his dull Philosophie. 13. Out of his kind respect to the Devil, by whose instinct he writeth: he affirms, That hee with the false prophet shall receive mercy at last; because God will not punish a finite thing infinitely, “but hear he again bewrayes his ignorance; for the devill is infinite à posteriore, both in regard of his essence, and of his desire in sinning; besides, that God, whom he offendeth, is infinite. 14. He ignorantly saith, That he who confers Gods gift, is
as great, yea, greater than GOD himself; if so, then it must follow, that the Apostles were greater than God, when they gave the gifts of the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands. 15. He impiously saith, that Saint Paul wrote many things which he understood not. 16. And as impiously doth he say, that in them books, which we call Scripture, is the lye, as well as in other books. 17. After his ignorant manner, he confounds the gift of prophesie, with the Prophet himself, in saying, man is not the Prophet, but the light in man from God. 18. He will not have us to seek for Antichrist abroad, for man in darknesse is Antichrist. “I deny not, but every man in darknesse, is in some sort an Antichrist: yet there is one great Antichrist to be fought for abroad. 19. The Trinity, which he acknowledgeth is, God, the Sonne, and Man: “this Trinity is hatched in his crasie brain. 20. He is so mad, that he saith, he can make one word bear forty significations: so he can make tu thou, stand for dark or light, or hell, or heaven, or sea, or land, or angel, or Sunne, or the devil. 21. He will not have Christs body that suffered to be our Saviour, nor Christs body; for Christs body saith he, is obedience: thus he would fain make Christ our Saviour, a meere allegorie; and therefore in plaine termes affirmeth, that true Christ hath not, nor cannot have any true corporall body; for he is a spirit, and a spirit is free from flesh, “as if forsooth a spirit and flesh could not be united in the same person, then he concludes, that the body or flesh which suffered at Ierusalem, was not Christs body. 22. He makes the soul of man to be all one with the Gospel; and the body of Christ to be the whole Creation: “by this and such like stuffe with which his books are fraughted, we may see that he deserveth to have his brains purged with Hellebor, rather than his crasie opinions refuted by arguments, or Scripture.1
