countries. For as concerning his masses, prayers for the dead,
images, pilgrimages, monkish vows, sinful fasts, and the beastly
single life of their priests, though when the spirit of Antichrist
was in them, they did bear some sway in the world; yet now, of
what esteem are they? or who has reverence for them? They are now
blown together under hedges, as the dry leaves, for the mice and
frogs to harbour in: yea, the locusts too, camp in the hedges
among the dry leaves, in the cold day, and 'when the sun ariseth
they flee away' (Nahum 3:15-17). When 'tis a cold day for them in
a nation, then they lurk in the hedges, though their ordinances
lie there, as leaves that are dry, and fallen down from the tree;
but when the sun ariseth, and waxeth warm, they abide not, but
betake them to their wings, and fly away. But one would think that
fallen leaves should have no great nourishment in them: True, if
you have respect to men, but with vermin any thing will do: We
speak then of them with reference to men, not with respect to the
very members of Antichrist: And I say, as to them, when the spirit
of Antichrist is gone out of these ordinances, they will be with
them as dry leaves that no body seeketh after. The ordinances
therefore of Antichrist are not able to bear up themselves in
the world, as the ordinances of the Lord Jesus are, for even the
ordinances of Christ, where the spirit of Christ is not, are yet
in some esteem with men: But THESE, when the spirit of delusion
has left them, are abhorred, both skin and bones: For in themselves
they are without any sense, or rationality (Eze 20:25,26); yea,
they look as parts of things which are used to conjure up devils
with: These were prefigured by the ordinances that were NOT
good, and by the judgments whereby one should not live. For what
is there, or can there be of the least dram of truth or profit in
the things that are without the word, that being the only stamp