ancient Apostolick Church not any blind Conceits and Phancies of their own And for the saving Operations of the Spirit nothing is more inculcated than that in our Publick Service Nor is the Ministry of man so much the conveyer of it as the sincerity of the Party who desires to partake of it It is the gift of Christ to the sincere who has told us from his own mouth here upon Earth That blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be satisfied It is not the hearing of a gracious man once or twice a week or being present sometimes in the Meetings whether silent or vocal of a Company of sullen Melancholists or Histrionical Mock-Prophets but a firm and unshaken Faith in the power of the promised Spirit of Christ for the subduing our Corruptions a fixt and continued Resolution of not offending the God of Heaven in any thing small or great a close Guard upon our Words and Actions as having a sense of the Presence of the Divine Majesty all the day long a perpetual exercise of mortifying the impetuosities of our own Will and of extinguishing all the sweet Relishes of Self-interest and vain-glory and a constant endeavour of wholly resigning our selves to God and his Service who has wholly made us Body and Soul and strictly and conscientiously walking according to His Will revealed in his written Word that is the Method of attaining to a more near Communion with God and the only way of more fully participating of his Spirit And this certainly may as well be done holding still Communion with the Church of England as in any new-fangled way that either the cunning of man or subtilty of Satan can invent And therefore it is rather a wanton kind of Hypocrisie in men or Insincerity to true Religion indeed that makes them break from the established Religion of the Church of England reformed according to the old Symmetral and Apostolical Pattern than any colour of Necessity driving them thereto And thus much briefly to those high-flown Spiritualists But what I now shall utter is still more weighty forasmuch as it concerns a greater number of men that have an honest inclination to Religion but their Education Parts and Calling do not capacitate them to make so strict inquiry into the Doctrines thereof as others may make but seek some external Authority to support their Faith and thereby lye obnoxious to the solicitations of the Emissaries of Rome who boast so much of the safe Anchorage of their Church To these men therefore I appeal what can be more safe for them than to adhere to the Autority and Profession of the ancient Apostolick and truly Catholick Church such as it was found before the Apostasie and is bore witness to in the Oracles of the Holy Scripture as I have above declared To adhere I say and keep close to this steady Rock and stop their ears against the vain pretences of any idle Fanatical New Lights or bold Enthusiasts Now he that adheres to the Church of England does adhere to this ancient Apostolick Church the Church of England being reformed according to that Pattern as to the frame of Government and Articles of Faith And for the Precepts of an holy Life besides what occurs in our Liturgie Litany and Catechism they are so plain in the Scripture and so fully and effectually declared by those in our own Church in printed Sermons and several other Writings to say nothing of the good Preaching up and down that no well-minded Christian can want any due Instruction This is a consideration the best accommodate that I know to keep us all in one which is to acknowledge the Autority and Undeceivedness in matters of any moment though not Undeceivableness or Infallibility of the ancient Catholick Church before the Apostasie came in Which true and just ground will give us all the Advantages and more than that false Boast of the Roman Church as if she forsooth were infallible and therefore irrefragable whenas that one Tenent of Transubstantiation alone sufficiently demonstrates it to be a groundless Pretence that Doctrine being plainly a Fardel of Impossibilities and Contradictions to say nothing of their infinite Superstitions Impostures and gross Idolatries and barbarous and bloody Persecutions and Murders for not submitting to them So that she is a Church all over besmeared with sordidly-gainful Superstitions Idolatries and Blood And therefore she being deprehended so grosly and enormously erroneous or imposturous and deceitful and supporting all her absonous Opinions upon that single pretence of her Infallibility she has manifestly forfeited her Credit before all the World and most justly lost her Autority that no man that has leisure and freedom to examine the Truth can easily be perswaded to rely or lean upon this broken Reed of Aegypt which is a fictitious and certainly false Pretence to Infallibility by an Apostatized Church shamelesly obtruding upon those they can deceive all the Abominations that are declared against in Daniel and the Apocalypse where the Visions represent the state of those Times into which this grand Apostasie fell How unsafe therefore is it for any one to repose himself on the Autority of such a Church God open the eyes of all that mean sincerely in Religion that they never fall into such a dangerous Ditch as this But the Church of England keeping to the ancient Symmetral Church to whom the Divine Oracles bear witness is in truth infallible in the main Points above-mentioned and in all things else material to Salvation and therefore all sorts of people learned and unlearned may safely embosom themselves in her so long as she continues which I wish may be for ever In the mean time we see what a mighty advantage it would be if that as our own Church in particular so all the Reformed Churches would jointly exhibit the same unexceptionable Pattern of Antiquity to be followed that bears a just Autority with it which the generality of men may safely rely on and that Independency and the guidance of private Spirits seducing men from the National Churches framed to that ancient Platform were quite out of fashion in all Reformed Christendom and that all men with alacrity of mind and sincerely loyal affections would shew themselves morigerous to their Supreme Governours For this is the only effectual and warrantable way that I can conceive for the enlarging the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus and the overthrowing the Kingdom of Antichrist The other Scene of things as I noted above hardens the hearts of the Princes and Prelates of Christendom who cannot but think it a sorry exchange to accept of Presbytery which would prove but a Democratical Papacy for the Order of Episcopacy or a dismal Spectacle to see the Body of Christ mouldred into an infinity of Sects and Schisms as a dead Carcass dissolved into a multitude of crawling worms and the decent grandeur and splendour of the Church to dwindle into dispersed Companies of obscure Conventicles and
and the Apocalypse But what a peculiar aptness and efficacy it has to reconcile the Sectaries to the Church of England and to shame them for separating from so Authentick a Constitution to follow the Guidance of private Spirits I cannot better express it than I have already done in my Advertisement on Jos Glanvil his Letter to my self printed with the last Edidition of Saducismus Triumphatus It is upon the occasion of his Converse with a certain Gentleman who had followed all the sorts of these Private-Spirit-Guides which at last plunged him into down-right Atheism The Harangue is something long but I hope not of so lazie a strain but it will keep the Reader attentive especially it being so useful and seasonable To forsake the sentiments of the ancient Apostolick Church for such are the Reformed Churches freed from the filth of the predicted Apostasie and such in a special manner is the Church of England to follow any private Spirit is such a piece of Folly and Giddiness that the Extravagance thereof is above expression and the danger so obvious that they must be very blind and stupid that discern it not at first sight All are not born to be Philosophers or Theologers and to have a faculty to decide Controversies by the edge of their own Wit and Reason Wherefore it is both their duty and safety to adhere to the sense of the Church Catholick before the Apostasie such as it was for about four hundred years after Christ Within which time the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the Godhead was professed as publick Articles of the Church and the distinction of Bishops and Presbyters owned Whence it is demonstrable how innocent the one is and how Orthodox the other For if the Articles of the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the Godhead were false they had also been Idolatrous and the Apostasie had begun much sooner than it is predicted to begin in that admirable Book of Prophecies the Apocalypse Nor was the late Reformation which yet certainly it is and I have undeniably demonstrated it in the second Part of the Appendage to my Exposition of Daniel's Visions the Rising of the Witnesses For they had been strange Witnesses that should still profess the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the Godhead if those Articles were false since it necessarily follows that they were ipso facto grosly Idolatrous or retained Episcopacy if it had been Antichristian These things are so exceeding plain that no man can deny them that has parts and leisure and without prejudice considers them And if the Sectaries that pretend so much to the Spirit above others had the Spirit of interpreting and understanding Prophecies aright it would convince them of their Errour and Schism But if this slowly goes down with them they are to examine themselves if it be not an humour with them to deny any such Symmetral Times of the Church for about four hundred years that they may still find matter for eternal Cavils and Schisms But now the main Articles of our Faith being thus redoubtedly assured to us both from the Symmetricalness of the Primitive Times for about four hundred years and the Testimonies of the Risen Witnesses of which Political Resurrection neither Quaker Familist nor Socinian partook of as appears by the Harmony of Confessions of the Reformed Churches no Reformed Church owning their Opinions how just how sober and Christian a thing is it for every private man to adhere to this common Faith touching these main Articles and not to commit himself to these Ignes Fatui of private Spirits which may lead him so about as at last to plunge him into the Dregs of Atheism as it happened to the above-mentioned Gentleman That Spirit which leads from the Communion of the ancient Apostolick Church which is a Light set upon an Hill and so certainly to be known by those Characters above-named and carries men into the dark Holes of Schismatical Conventicles is most assuredly let them pretend to what they will the Spirit of Errour and Delusion of the Devil and a certain Symptom that such men are carnal as highly as they think of themselves having not the Spirit most assuredly having not the Spirit in that measure whereby they become such living Members of the true Catholick Church which is the Body of Christ that they plainly feel what hurts it at least what palpably stops its growth what wounds it what hazards the very life and being of it Can they pretend to the Spirit of Christ in any due measure that are devoid of this necessary Sympathy and sense of the common good of his Body and the Interest of his Kingdom which is Reformed Christendom The Enemies whereof what do they desire What do they endeavour more than to divide and subdivide us to hurry us into Opinions and Practices as unlike the ancient and Apostolick Church as may be to make us appear as whimsical and ungovernable as they can thereby to expose us to contempt and loathing and to harden the hearts of the Princes and Prelates of Christendom against a just Reformation and those that have reformed to make them sick and weary of the Reformation by reason of the unsetledness and distraction of the people Does the Spirit of Christ then lead to the destroying and laying waste his own Church and Kingdom Certainly that Spirit that hinders the growth and hazards the being of the Kingdom of Christ must be not the Spirit of God but the Spirit of Giddiness of Errour and of Delusion Wherefore the ancient Authority of the Church while it was Symmetral is to be acknowledged and those main Points touching Faith and Worship to be adhered to and professed the Holy Ghost having set his Seal thereto in those Divine Prophecies of the Apocalypse and this detestable Pride and loathsom Ingratitude whenas yet things are so well setled by lawful Authority in the late Rising of the Witnesses in thus breaking from so Authentick a Constitution and setting up Schismatical Congregations is heartily to be repented of nor are we any longer to be deluded by that false Spirit that under pretence of bringing in a more pure and spiritual Dispensation undermines and hazards the very Being of the true Kingdom of Christ by this odious spectacle of multifarious Schisms It is not the breath of any mere Man that can convey the Spirit of God to us and it is a false pretence of those high-flown Spiritualists that think in their Schismatical Worship they have nearer Communion with God than those that adhere to the way of the ancient Apostolick Faith and Practice For they in their Meetings are but taught by men and those speaking the sense of a private Spirit they being Straglers from the Fold of Christ as having bid adieu to the ancient Catholick and Apostolick Church of which yet the Church of England which they have forsaken is a genuine part and therefore its Ministry more safe and Autoritative they speaking the sense of the
the Feast of Expiation though it was not fit nor could be that Aaron who yet doubtless was a Type of Christ should dye and rise again and ascend into Heaven of which the Sanctum Sanctorum is a Type even of the highest and purest part thereof yet instead of his own Blood he entred into the Sanctum Sanctorum with the blood of a Bullock and Goat which was a Type of the Bloodshed of Christ of whom Aaron was also a Type which therefore plainly implies the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ who out-did the Type and with his own Blood entred into the Holy of Holies And whereas both the Spiritual or Immortal Nature of Christ and his Terrestrial and Mortal could not be set out by one thing two Goats are made to typifie them the sacrificed Goat his crucified Flesh or Body on the Cross which likewise lay dead in the Grave while the Scape-Goat an Emblem of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plotinus somewhere calls it his Immortal part was sent free into the Wilderness the Won of Spirits and Ghosts to Azazel if that be a proper Name a mighty Prince in those Regions of the Dead according to that Clause in the Creed if rightly understood He descended into Hell Or that of the Apostle 1 Pet. 3.18 Being put to death in the flesh but alive in the Spirit by which he also went and preached to the Spirits in prison These were the weighty Negotiations of the Scape-Goat the Immortal part of Christ till his visible Resurrection by resuming his Body out of the Grave And there is the like reason of the two Birds one killed and the other let fly into the fields Levit. 14.4 These the more we search into them the more easie and natural Types they will be found of those Passages touching Christ his Death and Resurrection as the entring of Aaron with the blood of the Goat a Type of Christ as to his Suffering as well as Aaron was a Type of him into the Sanctum Sanctorum is a plain Type of his Ascension into Heaven and Intercession there in virtue of his own Blood shed on the Cross in his Crucifixion But it is besides my present Scope to insist on these things I will only give one Instance more and that is of Aaron in his Priestly Habiliments In which Spectacle we may so plainly read not only those three Offices of Christ whose Type he is King Priest and Prophet his golden Diadem denoting the first his Vestments in common with other Priests the second and his Urim and Thummim the last The durable effect whereof is discovered in those Visions especially of Daniel and the Apocalypse that run through all the conditions of the Church to the End of the World but there is yet a further Mystery discernible viz. the Divinity of Christ in that he is cloathed with the Universe which is a Vestment cannot belong to Aaron as a man but as he is a Type of the Eternal Logos that made the World See the Appendix to the Defence of my Philosophick Cabbala Chap. 5. Sect. 3 4. And the Name Jehovah viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 engraven on his golden Diadem an Orthodox Cabbalist will be prone to conceive and not without better reason perhaps than any can bring to the contrary that the Triplicity of those Letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denote the Trinity of Hypostases in the Godhead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Platonists also term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and we Christians call Father Son and Spirit Which Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is set after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if we were to be instructed thereby that the Spirit proceedeth as well from the Son as from the Father Though I do not hope that such a Cabbalistical Notion will suddenly end the Controversie betwixt the Greek Church and the Latine But I must beg my Reader 's pardon for this not altogether I hope useless Digression I had before made a competent Supply for my not bestowing one entire Chapter in my Paralipomena to prove the Intelligibleness of the Visions of Daniel and the Apocalypse without which all endeavour to interpret them is ridiculous and vain And I need the less here expatiate on this Argument Phililicrines Parrhesiastes in his Reflexions on R. B. having done so much of that work to my hand but in a way that partakes much of Mirth and Satyr for which he may haply incur the Censure of the more grave and sowre and it may be more for being merry than Satyrical And the first I must confess is the greatest infirmity I have observed in that Party But it is a sign he has all this time served a good Master and that it is not the deepness of Melancholy as some superficial Souls may be prone to phansie that has plunged his mind into such serious studies as the searching out the right sense of inspired Visions and Prophecies and the like but that there is such a Life and Spirit in him that loves the exercise of Reason Wit and Divine Speculation at once And if by that of Satyr any contempt fall upon R. B. for his contempt of the ancient Primitive Times of the Church and for his presumption of making himself a Guide to People upon his private Spirit against the wholesom Instructions of the Homilies of the Church of England and Authority of both Crown and Mitre and for his foul slurring as much as in him lyes the peculiar Priviledge and Glory of the Christian Religion as to have its state from the beginning to the end so certainly prefigured by Divine Visions and Prophecies he hypocritically pretending the Apocalypse to be altogether unintelligible now it is so clearly to be understood against Fanaticism and Bloodshed thus cancelling the seasonable usefulness thereof and casting dirt upon the pious and learned Labours of the best Writers of our Church I say if any contempt fall upon him from what of Satyr is found in those Reflexions of Phililicrines Parrhesiastes he may as I conceive fairly thank himself there being nothing I dare say intended by that free Satyrist but the peace and good of the Church and the reducing of R. B. to a better Judgment and exposing the profane and frivolous Spirit of those that pride themselves in a boastful profession that to them forsooth great Wits as they are the holy Visions of the Divinely inspired Prophets are altogether Unintelligible Books written by the same Author and printed for Walter Kettilby at the Sign of the Bishop's Head in S. Paul's Church-yard HEnrici Mori Opera Theologica Philosophica 3. Vol. Fol. His Exposition on Daniel Quarto His Exposition on the Apocalypse Quarto His Answer to several Remarks on his Expositions on Daniel and the Apocalypse His Illustration of those two abstruse Books in Holy Scripture the Book of Daniel and the Revelation
Arguments in one for the proving that the Baptism of Christ was in the nineteenth year of Tiberius not in the fifteenth as is vulgarly conceited First in that it is the year immediate to the expiration of the sixty nine Weeks of Daniel which butt upon the Manifestation of the Messias according as that Prophecy assures us From the going forth of the Decree to rebuild Jerusalem to Messiah the Prince are seven weeks and sixty two weeks Dan. 9.25 Secondly in that it is the first year in the last week wherein the Messias is predicted to make a Covenant with many Thirdly in that it is the thirtieth year of Christ's Age and so many years there are from the Consulship of Lamia and Geminus to the nineteenth year of Tiberius And lastly it being requisite for so great an Undertaking as John the Baptist's was to have some number of years to perform it in and not to tye our Saviour's Baptism up to the first year of John's baptizing no more than the Baptist's imprisoning and beheading which no man will say was in the same year he began to baptize because the year it was done in is not mentioned but the nature of the thing requiring some years we are to be determined for the number by the Prophecy which plainly points out the nineteenth of Tiberius for the Messias's Manifestation which was at John's baptizing him Whence it is manifest that the whole course of the Baptist as S. Paul calls it was about four years In which though things are not digested into Annals questionless John bestirred himself notably in the discharging of his Province The Heads only of his Actions are set down Luke 3. where at last he concludes And many other things besides what was written preached he in his exhortations to the people But though there be no distinct History of each year of the Baptist's Ministry yet there are many passages of History that comport with this four years extension of his Ministry before he baptized Christ namely that he baptized him in the nineteenth year of Tiberius Which first that passage in S. John seems to imply Joh. 2.19 Jesus said unto them Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up Then said the Jews Forty and six years was this Temple in building and wilt thou rear it up in three days This passage was when Christ was come to the first Passeover ensuing his Baptism which was in the month Marchesvan or Dius of the Syromacedones which takes in some few days of October but the rest runs into November And Tiberius beginning his Reign in Autumn it is manifest this first Passeover was within the same year that Christ was baptized Which we say is the nineteenth of Tiberius and that this passage in the Gospel confirms the same For this is most certainly spoken of Herod's Temple the other Temple being demolished and that built instead thereof The words of Josephus are express Antiq. lib. 15. cap. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Besides that Chronologers are horribly out in their endeavours of adjusting the number of years to the other Wherefore this must be spoke of Herod's Temple And the time that this Temple was begun to be built is the eighteenth year of Herod's Reign Some make the Epocha of this his Reign to be in the year of the Consulship of Agrippa and Caninius when by the help of Sosius against Antigonus Herod took Jerusalem and so possessed himself of the Metropolis of his Kingdom But besides that this Epocha is more obscure and slight than those other two the first when by the Favour of Antony the other of Augustus he was made King of Judaea it falls a year or two short even of the fifteenth of Tiberius till when John did not baptize at all But the Epocha of his first being made King of the Jews namely by M. Antony that is yet more impertinent and anticipates the fifteenth of Tiberius four or five years Wherefore there is a necessity of reckoning Herod's eighteen years from his being made King by Augustus or from the Victoria Actiaca And from the eighteenth year of his Reign from this Epocha which will fall into the year of the Consulship of Claudius Nero and Quintilius Varus to the nineteenth year of Tiberius is just forty five years So that the Jews reckoned right within a single year Which the Authority of Josephus and the infallible Testimony of Daniel's Prophecy may very well have a right to rectifie Or for their better credit we may conceive forasmuch as Herod is said De Bello Judaico lib. 1. cap. 16. by Josephus to have done something to the Temple the fifteenth year of his Reign before he undertook this vast Design mentioned before that in the two or three years space preceding whatever doing or undoing of things there were they might guess upon the whole Compute that there was a years furtherance toward the building of the Temple before the commencement of this grand Enterprise indeed which added antecedently to forty five years makes forty six nor disturbs the years of the right Epocha but adjusts all well and makes all three agree Daniel Josephus and the Jews that made this smart Repartie to our Saviour They having so fair a Plea for it it is no wonder they stretched one single year above the time from the right Epocha of Numbering But in the mean time it is evident that this is no mean proof for the placing the Baptism of Christ in the nineteenth year of Tiberius Again T. L. in his Recensio cap. 19. out of Josephus makes it plain that John the Baptist was not beheaded till about the time that Vitellius was Prefect of Syria Now Lucius Vitellius as appears out of the sixth Book of Tacitus his Annals was made Governour of the East Cestius Gallus and Servilius Rufus being Consuls about the midst of the twenty first year of Tiberius Wherefore John the Baptist who lived not quite two years after his baptizing Christ could not be killed before the beginning of the one and twentieth of Tiberius Which therefore plainly argues that he baptized Christ in the nineteenth year of his Reign Thirdly and lastly Luke 13. there is mention of some that told Jesus of the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their Sacrifices Which abundance as well of the Protestant Writers as the Pontifician look upon to be the same persons that those Samaritans were of whom Josephus and Hegesippus write the former Antiq. lib. 18. cap. 5. the other lib. 2. cap. 5. De excidio Hierosolymitano that Pilate slew them when they met together to sacrifice on Mount Gerazim For Pilate as Hegesippus intimates made as if he had a mind Eorum mysteria cognoscere But the Samaritans or Galileans intending to sacrifice though they were cut off by Pilate before they had ascended the Hill and were in the very Act Fame that loves to add to things of this nature what may make them more Tragical astonishing and surprising
the thousand years were finished may be understood of the wicked's reviving Politically after the expiration of the Millennium and the rather because the sense of the place carries it for those that at the Millennium were heretofore dead either naturally or Politically and so Judgment proceeds upon them Apoc. 20.4 which the wicked were not in a Political sense and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they lived not again must refer to that Physical Resurrection we contend for Add to all this that if the first Resurrection were understood in a Political sense and meant in general as well of them that were beheaded as those that worshipped not the Beast and in no other sense than so there is no reason why S. John should use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at first and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And we might demand if that be the first Political Resurrection which is the second unless we will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And how it can be appropriated to this first Resurrection as a special Priviledge of the partakers thereof that the second Death shall have no power over them this by promise belonging to all true Believers though not Martyrs from the beginning of the Church to the end of the World But to obtain a glorified body before the second Death or the Lake of Fire be in being which by its own Nature exempts from the harm thereof or of any thing like it in being this is a peculiar Priviledge indeed And blessed and holy and peculiarly happy is he that has his share in such a first Resurrection as this for he is actually out of the reach of all harm that may come from the Lake of Fire the being within the reach of whose power is to be obnoxious to the second Death and according to the Apocalyptick Antithetical implications or intimations he is possessed already of everlasting life in a glorified body whenas others are but Candidates for the same I hope by this time you perceive how easie smooth and natural my Exposition of the first Resurrection in a Physical sense is and how intricate harsh and perplex the contrary way would be c. CHAP. XX. That the Description of the New Jerusalem is a Description of a state of the Church on Earth The high expressions therein but such as are used in the Prophets touching the people of the Jews The Plea of those that will have it merely a Description of the Church Triumphant in Heaven consisting of seven Arguments out of Alcazar An Answer to those seven Arguments A more moderate way betwixt them that hold the Description of the New Jerusalem the one to signifie merely such a state of the Church on Earth the other the state of the Church in Heaven viz. That though it be a Prophecy of an excellent state of the Church on Earth yet the Description of that state is an intended Type also of the state of the Church Triumphant in Heaven THERE is a wide difference betwixt some Interpreters touching the Description of the New Jerusalem Apoc. 21. some understanding it to be a Description of the State of the Church here on Earth others of the State in Heaven Amongst these latter is S. Augustine especially and after him Ribera Alcazar Pareus and others Amongst the former Justin Martyr Grotius Dr. Hammond Brightman with others And I must confess I am altogether of that Opinion that it is the Description of the State of the Church on Earth after the ruine of Antichrist and so have expounded it continuedly throughout in my Exposition of the Apocalypse and have carefully suggested Arguments all along from the Text it self that it is so to be expounded So that there wants nothing for any further confirmation thereof unless I should take notice how there are no expressions so high in this Description but what are in other places of the Prophets and generally understood by Interpreters of the State of the Church on Earth namely such expressions as these In that Prophetical Thanksgiving of Tobit Chap. 13. Jerusalem shall be built up with Sapphirs and Emeralds and precious Stones thy Walls and Towers with pure Gold And the streets of Jerusalem shall be paved with Beryl and Carbuncle and Stones of Ophir In the Prophecy of Isaiah Chap. 65. v. 17. Behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth and the former shall not be remembred nor come into mind But be you glad and rejoice for ever in what I create for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy See also Chap. 66.22 In the Prophecy of Ezekiel My Tabernacle also shall be with them yea I will be their God and they shall be my people Again Isa 25.8 The Lord will wipe away tears from all faces And 54.11 Oh thou afflicted tossed with Tempests and not comforted behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours and thy foundations with Sapphirs I will make thy windows of Agates and thy gates of Carbuncles and all thy borders of pleasant stones And Chap. 60.19 The Sun shall be no more thy light by day neither for brightness shall the Moon give light unto thee but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light and thy God thy glory Thy Sun shall no more go down neither shall thy Moon withdraw it self for the Lord shall be thine everlasting-light and the days of thy mourning shall be ended What more exalted expressions than these are there in the Apocalypse in the description of the New Jerusalem All which places notwithstanding are understood of a state of the Church on Earth And so the City which Ezekiel describes by which is understood the Church on Earth the twelve Gates the River Trees and Fruit they are all transcribed into the Description of this New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse So assured a thing is it that the Apocalyptick Description of the New Jerusalem does denote a state of the Church here on Earth Wherefore it were a more fit thing to bring into view the Plea of the other Party who are so confident that it is a description of the state of Heaven than to concern our selves in any further proofs that it is a state of the Church on Earth that we may give a right judgment of the matter Alcazar who is very stiff for this Opinion produces no fewer than seven Arguments for the same The first is the Authority of S. Augustine who bluntly says in his De Civitate Dei lib. 20. cap. 17. That it is mere impudence to assert otherwise because it is said Absterget Deus omnem lacrymam ab oculis eorum mors jam non erit neque luctus neque clamor sed nec ullus erit dolor And at the end of that Chapter he says That these things are so clearly spoken of the World to come and the Immortality and Eternity of the Saints that we must not pretend that any thing is manifest in Scripture if this place be obscure The second is taken