An exposition with practical observations continued upon the eleventh, twelfth, & thirteenth chapters of…

First, In matters of Doctrine, there he increaseth lies, ¹having forsaken once the Truth: if the truth be once forsaken, men do not know whither they shall go: Grant but one error (we use to say) a thousand will follow, and ²they will multiply abundantly, especially some errors, there are some such breeding lies as if they be granted, there must be a great many others to maintain them. Never was there such an increase of false Doctrine, of lies in that sense, as there is at this day, in Revel. 12. 15. the ³text saith, that when the Dragon could not prevail against the Church, against the woman, by bloody persecutions, (for that's the meaning of it) then saith the text the Dragon cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the floo[…] this was the policy of the Devil, first labouring by violence to prevail against the Church, but that he could not do, and when he could not do that, then he cast w• ter out of his mouth like a flood, that it, as Interpre[…] observe, he did labour by a deluge of error and her […] ⁴undo the Church, when he could not do it by open violence: Truly this Scripture is even fulfilled, concerning us this very day, the Lord hath been pleased to curb the ⟨p. 205⟩⁵Dragon in this sense, and those that were instruments of the Dragon in open and violent pierce[…]cution, so that they cannot persecute the Truths as they were wont to do; now this is the way of the Devil, this Dragon he sends out of his mouth a flood of Errors and Heresies after the Truth, after the Church, labouring to swallow up all by this flood; and certainly we are in a great deal of danger at this day in this respect, there is a flood and deluge of such things, of all sorts almost of old errors that ever were, and many of them extreme dangerous, and men are serviceable to the Dragon in this thing more than