resolved also farther to fight against your Adversaries the Pergamenians or Romanists with the Sword of my mouth till I cut off great branches from the body of that far-spreading Tree and dismember whole Nations from the Community of that idolatrous Church by the power of the Word and the preaching of the Gospel This is that which is predictory of some Events to happen in the following Intervall according to the Genius of these Epistles 9. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden Manna The Promise here following the Epiphonema He that hath an ear to hear let him hear must according to the Rule signifie Theologically or Spiritually not Physically or Politically Wherefore the sense is Those of Pergamus indeed pretend that when they give that white and sweet Consecrated Wafer into the mouths of their Communicants they give them the true Manna my very Body and Bloud which was shed on the Crosse and my very Flesh that was there crucified and broken for them whenas notwithstanding they order their Eucharist so that they turn my Supper into a Feast of Idolothyta and make the partakers thereof guilty of Idolatry or spiritual Fornication forasmuch as they give Divine Worship to that which is not God So that as in the case of Balaam the Israelites were to eat things sacrificed to Idols in order to carnal Fornication so they that partake of this perverted Eucharist are necessarily ipso facto especially since the fourth Laterane Council drawn into spiritual Fornication or Idolatry But he that is courageous and abstains from this illicit Communion and through Faith overcomes all Difficulties for the quitting that outward white visible Wafer I will give him to eat of the hidden Manna of that true spiritual Manna mentioned John 6. For my flesh is meat indeed and my bloud is drink indeed But the words I there speak they are spirit and they are life Or if he die in the Cause I will give him the hidden Manna even the invisible food of Angels and his Soul shall passe into the society of the blessed Genii and Holy Souls of Saints departed this life 10. And I will give him a white Stone and in the Stone a new Name written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it That is to say Though he be accused and reproached for an Heretick and Schismatick in the Church of Pergamus where Satan the Accuser dwells yet I will give him a white Stone and quit him in judgement and establish the joy and peace of a good Conscience unto him Or thus I will give him a white Stone in which there is a new Name written that is his Old man shall be throughly crucified and he shall attain to the state of the New man in the purity thereof and enjoy that inestimable Jewel of the Divine Nature pure and permanent which no man knows the excellency of till he be made partaker thereof I will consummate Regeneration to him either in this life or upon his passage into the other state if he be snatched away by a sudden Martyrdome And this will more then countervail all the Injuries the lofty Church of Pergamus can doe to him in life goods or good name CHAP. VI. The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Church in Thyatira 1. AND to the Angel of the Church in Thyatira write The true Church of Christ is still in the power and within the Jurisdiction of the Church of Rome and therefore as Rome has been set out by the City of Babylon Tyre and Pergamus so is it here in this Intervall necessarily to be understood by the City of Thyatira I mean in such a sense as it was by the City of Pergamus That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence both Strabo and Pliny and others that are Criticks fetch the reason of the name Thyatira is alluded to I am inclinable to think from those Authorities and that the Womanishnesse of the Church of Rome in this Period is perstringed That her Softnesse and Luxury was more then ordinarily increased in this Intervall is not to be doubted as certainly her Covetousnesse as also her prankings and adornings in the splendour of their Altars and Churches and Copes and the like Which could not be so continuedly and so high in the former Intervall But here all along she may well be looked upon as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Filia delicatula a delicate Damosel indeed sitting like a Queen and knowing no sorrow when a little before she was like to be over-run by the Waldenses and Albigenses and was fain to enter the Field and fight manfully for her own safety A little after the beginning of this Intervall did Innocent the fourth appoint in the Council at Lyons that the Cardinals should go in their Rosie-coloured Hats and Robes and ride upon Horses with Furniture and Trappings sutable to the greatnesse of their Order and delicacy of their Condition And the Mitre of Paul the second is taken speciall notice of for the exceeding preciousnesse of the Jewels therein And no doubt there was the like encrease of the Ecclesiastick Bravery every-where A little before the beginning of this Intervall did Honorius the third appoint the Carmelites to goe in white that they might look more Maiden-like and decreed that they should be called the Family of the Virgin And the Franciscans and Dominicans are notorious all along this Intervall who had the Virgin Mary for their peculiar Patronesse And indeed within this Intervall the Roman Church ran so much in the seminine strain that they generally professed themselves more under the Government and Providence of our Lady then of our Lord Jesus Christ. Gregory the ninth a little before the beginning of this present Intervall ordained that Salve Regina an Hymn to the blessed Virgin should be sung in all Churches Boniface the eighth in the year 1293 composed that Oraison Ave Virgo gloriosa and in the year 1470 the Mary Psalter and her Rosarie were composed by Alanus de Rupe 2. And how feminine this Church was in this Intervall the observations of that excellent Person Sr. Edwyn Sandys though after the expiration thereof when one would think they should in Policy have been more castigate in their Religion will give us fully to understand The honour faith he which they doe to the Virgin Mary is double for the most part unto that which they doe unto our Saviour Where one professes himself a Devoto or peculiar Servant of our Lord whole Towns are the Devoti of our Lady The stateliest Churches are hers lightly and in Churches hers the fairest Altars Where one prayeth before the Crucifix two before her Image where one voweth to Christ ten vow to her and for one Miracle reported to be wrought by the Crucifix not so sew perhaps as an hundred are voiced upon the Images of the Virgin Their Devils in Exorcism are also taught to endure the name of God or the Trinity without trouble but at the naming
Sardis it may prove very significative of the condition of Reformed Christendome within that Intervall beginning from the rising of the Witnesses and ending in the last Viall in part of it I mean After which the Intervall of Phyladelphia comes in and takes up also the second and third Thunder Some special qualities therefore of the Church of Sardis are to be read in this Stone Sarda and some to her praise others to her diminution The virtue of this Stone is that carried about one it makes a man chearfull and couragious and drives away Witchcraft and Enchantment and expells poison rightly administred which adumbrate some peculiar Privileges in this Sardian Church Their chearfull security in justification by faith in Christ's bloud and their being rid of the poisonous idolatrous doctrines and bewitching Enchantments of the Cup of the Whore Here 's nothing of Jezebel in this Church nor any mention of the eating of things offered to Idols nor in the two following Epistles which is no small ratification of the truth of these Successions Both they and she are well and sound touching these points 2. But this Stone Sarda which is also called Carnalina and in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odem as representing humane flesh and bloud so lively seems also to insinuate something to the Derogation of the Sardian Church as if they were flesh and not spirit which is the special Dispensation of the Church of Philadelphia And whereas Christ's Conquest over Edom is by letting out or squeezing out the corrupt bloud of old Adam this Odem or Carnalina is said to be of that virtue as to stanch bloud and stop it from running out and therefore seems to be significative of whatever Doctrines in the Sardian Church that hinder the due and requisite Mortification of the old man as loth to weaken him too much and let too much of his bloud and life run out 3. The meaning therefore is that though the Sardian Church be well rid of the foul Idolatries and grosse Trumperies of the Papal Church yet her state as yet is but carnal most-what It is not the Dispensation of the spirit of life but the main stir is about external Opinion Ceremony they seem to know Christ onely according to the flesh not according to the power of his Spirit whereby he is able to subdue all things under him Whereas Christ after he had said that his flesh was meat indeed and his bloud was drink indeed clearly explains himself in declaring expresly that the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life yet a great part of this Sardian Church I mean the Lutherans rack their own Wits and disturb the rest of Reformed Christendome to maintain that odd Paradox of Consubstantiation that so men may eat and drink that grosse Flesh and Bloud of Christ that was crucify'd upon the Crosse in the Celebration of their Eucharists What can be more Carnaline-like then this Besides that there are over-many that do as grosly and carnally erre touching the nature of the resurrection-Resurrection-Body they phansying it as terrestrially modify'd though it be called a celestial or spiritual Body in the Scriptures as that Body is that we put into the Grave or is capable of the imbraces of the Nuptial Bed To say nothing of other such like grosse carnal Conceits that this Sardian Church has not yet expunged out of her mind But as mischievous a mark as any of her Carnality is her Dissension and Schismaticalnesse even to mutuall Persecution as also the unnatural and unchristian Wars of one part of Reformed Christendome against the other These things rankly savour of the Flesh and are infinitely contrary to the due Dispensation of the Spirit which when it shall appear will bring in the Church of Philadelphia the Church of unfeigned Love and Charity wherein according to the prediction of the Prophets there shall not be the noise of this unchristian War any more These Touches may suffice to shew why the Spirit of God has denoted this Succession of his Church by the Title of the Church in Sardis 4. These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God The number Seven signifies Universality sometimes whence the Pythagoreans call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The sense therefore is that hath in readinesse to bestow all the spiritual or Divine Graces to make the man of God perfect to every good word and work And the seven Stars That is to say that holds the seven Stars in his right hand so it is in the Description before his speech to the Ephesine Church which is repeated here for encouragement Christ hereby declaring his Power and promising his Assistence to the renewing of Christendome through the Reformation as well as he did to the forming of it at first and rooting out Paganism in the first beginning of the Church which is the Ephesine Intervall I know thy works that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead I discern plainly thy state and condition Thou hast indeed a semblance of life because thou hast a great deal of Heat and Zeal and dost with an externall fervour doe many performances that may raise a fame of thee of being more then ordinarily religious And many hot disputes there may be for this or that Ceremony for this or that Opinion and against them much and very vehement discourse about Faith and Justification and the like Which Heat and activity bears a semblance of Life in thee But assure thy self unlesse thou hast that Faith that worketh by Love all this stir is but the noise of tinkling Brasse or of sounding Cymbals And being thus alive thou art notwithstanding in my sight little better then dead And although thou dost thus imitate warm flesh and bloud yet thou art but a cold Sardius Stone to my touch and discernment As she that liveth wantonly is dead while she liveth though she thinks she is then most of all alive so it is with him that devoid of Christian Love and Charity is enlivened with an hot bitter ignorant and preposterous Zeal This is not the life of God but of mere Nature and Carnality 5. Be watchfull and strengthen the things that remain that are ready to die Take heed that want of Love and Life hazard not Faith too and Remissnesse in Manners bring not in Atheism and Infidelity over all For I have not found thy works perfect before me Those things that have Life in them goe on to Perfection Wherefore if they stop before and make no progresse it is a sign there is some deadly distemper at the very heart or root and such a Plant must wither and die Thy Works are neither perfect nor dost thou easily admit of such Doctrines as lead most effectually to Perfection Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard and hold fast and repent That is to say You that are my true Apostolick Church remember what ye have
purify'd Gold And white rayment that thou mayst be cloathed and that the shame of thy nakednesse do not appear Groan then earnestly in this O thou spiritlesse Laodicea desiring to be cloathed upon with that spiritual house which is from Heaven that being so cloathed thou mayst not be found naked For while thou art in this earthly Tabernacle thou oughtest to account it a burthen and not to set up thy staff in the enjoyments of this life because all things are peacefull and prosperous with thee Not that I would advise thee to shorten thy days here but that being thus cloathed by this spiritual Vestment Mortality might be swallowed up of life And it is the Spirit of life and the Divine Love that worketh in thee this one great thing that thou so greatly wantest and yet art insensible thereof And anoint thine eyes with eye-salve that thou mayst see That is Cleanse thy self with such a due measure of Mortification and Purification of the inward man from all filthinesse of flesh and spirit that thou mayst attain to the Divinely-moral Prudence which will enable thee to have a right judgement and discerning in all things This therefore is the Collyrion which I would advise thee to anoint thine eye-sight with even the purgation of thy self from all the Animal Corruptions that thou mayst perfect the inward Righteousnesse in my fear For the outward alone carries none to Heaven The Ointment I prescribe will indeed smart but without it thou wilt still continue blind and never finde the way to everlasting Salvation 9. As many as I love I rebuke I deal plainly truly and faithfully with thee and not out of any ill will is it that I thus rebuke thee But it is ex amore benevolentiae though not ex amore complacentiae For as thou art thou art but a nauseous and irksome spectacle to me And therefore I thus rebuke thee and instruct thee that thou mayst amend And chasten 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which signifies to chastise and scourge as well as to instruct Which therefore may seem to be the commination of some external Calamity and Affliction that Christ would bring upon the Laodiceans if they did not repent them of their remissness and in such a way as themselves may haply be the causes of through their Remissnesse and Luke-warmnesse For that former Philadelphian Zeal and Activity ceasing which that Church exercised in the behalf of the Interest of the Kingdome of God their enemies may more then ordinarily encrease upon them especially the Devil being let loose and being very active to deceive the Nations whom they should counter-plot by being as active to convert them to the Truth And this may be the time wherein the Prediction of Gog and Magog is to be fulfilled who are said to be gathered together to battel and to encompasse the Camp of the Saints and the beloved City which in this state is termed the Church of Laodicea but in that Vision the Camp of the Saints because there were not onely many Saints amongst them of the old Philadelphian strain but that they were still in their externall frame an holy people and an holy City not prophaned by the Gentiles that is to say not polluted by Heathenish Superstition and Idolatry and Imposture and Cruelty nor brought under their power and dominion that were Which yet was once the condition of the Holy City for a time and times and half a time or forty two months Apoc 11. 2. 10. And it is still called the beloved City also for the same reason but not the new Jerusalem descended from Heaven because so generally that new and Heavenly nature was lost amongst them But this Church of Laodicea is still beloved of Christ partly for her own sake and partly for her deceased Sister's sake the lovely Philadelphia whom she so much resembles in all her externall features that dearest Spouse of Christ. And therefore the Title of the beloved City agrees very well with this passage in the present Text Whom I love I rebuke yea and scourge too For these streights that the Laodiceans are to be cast into by the Siege of Gog and Magog seems the most probable way to rowze them out of their Lukewarmnesse and lazy Formality But that things may not run the hazard of growing worse and worse nor there be an infinite repetition of the vicissitude of Scenes on the Stage of this Earth Providence will knock off at such a time as that the wicked and prophane Rabble of the world shall not again get the dominion over his true Church but he will put a period to the Contest by a deluge of Fire from Heaven as it is intimated in that Vision But this is more then falls to the share of this present verse Be zealous therefore and repent That is Amend thy dead Formality and Lukewarmnesse by attaining to the Spirit of life through Mortification and Regeneration that so thou mayst recover the old Philadelphian Zeal and Love For this is the onely thing thou wantest 11. Behold I stand at the door and knock Do not pretend Difficulties I am ready not onely to assist thee but do also importune thee I suggest good Motions to thee do thou but pursue them and improve them If any man hear my voioe and open the door that is If any man obey those dictates of Conscience and overtures of Light and Grace that Christ ever and anon offers him and so becomes sincere in all things and not willingly offends him in any thing great or small which will not fail to be done where the desire is sincere and this sincere desire is the Door that lets in Christ for he passes into us through an unfeigned hunger and thirst after Righteousness then says he I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me That is I will communicate my Nature and Spirit unto him and he shall eat my flesh which is meat indeed and drink my bloud which is drink indeed that is to say He shall partake of my body bloud not in Symbols onely which ye doe well to keep up till I come but in a true and living way whereby that shall be accomplished I in my Father and ye in me and I in you If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our aboad with him Wherefore being thus replenished with the God of life and the Father of lights thou canst not fail of being full of the Spirit and of all alacrity and readinesse to every good work Thy Luke-warmnesse and Dulnesse will goe away 12. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my Throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne And that thou mayst be the more effectually rowzed up out of this Tepidity and Lethargicalnesse thou shalt not onely enjoy me and my Father on this Earthly
a mere Creature and that a very sorry one too and therefore must be gross Idolatry by the twenty-first and twenty-second Conclusions of the second Chapter 3. But now that their Doctrine of Transubstantiation is false after we have proposed it in the very words of the Council we shall evince by undeniable Demonstration Per consecrationem Panis Vini conversionem fieri totius substantiae Panis in substantiam Corporis Christi totius substantiae Vini in substantiam Sanguinis ejus quae conversio convenienter propriè à Sancta Catholica Ecclesia Transubstantiatio est appellata And a little before cap. 3. Si quis negaverit in venerabili Sacramento Eucharistiae sub unaquaque specie sub singulis cujusque speciei partibus separatione factâ totum Christum contineri Anathema sit In which passages it is plainly affirmed that not onely the Bread is turned into the whole Body of Christ and the Wine into his Bloud but that each of them are turned into the whole Body of Christ and every part of each as often as division or separation is made is also turned into his whole Body Which is such a contradictious Figment that there is nothing so repugnant to the Faculties of the humane Soul 4. For thus the Body of Christ will be in God knows how many thousand places at once and how many thousand miles distant one from another Whenas Amphitruo rightly expostulates with his Servant Sosia and rates him for a Mad-man or Impostour that he would go about to make him believe that he was at home though but a little way off while yet he was with him at that distance from home Quo id malúm pacto potest fieri nunc utî tu hîc sis domi And a little before in the same Colloquie with his Servant Nemo unquam homo vidit saith he nec potest fieri tempore uno homo idem duobus locis ut simul sit Wherein Amphitruo speaks but according to the common sense and apprehension of all men even of the meanest Idiots 5. But now let us examine it according to the Principles of the learned and of all their Arts and Sciences Physicks Metaphysicks Mathematicks and Logick It is a Principle in Physicks That that internall space that a Body occupies at one time is equal to the Body that occupies it Now let us suppose one and the same body occupy two such internall places or spaces at once This Body is therefore equal to those two spaces which are double to one single space wherefore the body is double to that body in one single space and therefore one and the same body double to it self Which is an enormous Contradiction Again in Metaphysicks The Body of Christ is acknowledged one and that as much as any one body else in the world Now the Metaphysicall Notion of one is to be indivisum à se both quo ad partes and quo ad totum as well as divisum à quolibet alio But the Body of Christ being both in Heaven and without any continuance of that body here upon Earth also the whole body is divided from the whole body and therefore is entirely both unum and multa which is a perfect Contradiction 6. Thirdly in Mathematicks The Council saying that in the separation of the parts of the Species that which bears the outward show of Bread or Wine that from this Division there is a parting of the whole divided into so many entire Bodies of Christ the Body of Christ being always at the same time equal to it self it follows that a part of the Division is equal to the whole against that common Notion in Euclide That the Whole is bigger then the Part. And lastly in Logick it is a Maxime That the Parts agree indeed with the Whole but disagree one with another But in the abovesaid Division of the Host or Sacrament the Parts do so well agree that they are entirely the very same individuall thing And whereas any Division whether Logicall or Physicall is the Division of some one into many this is but the Division of one into one and itself like him that for brevity sake divided his Text into one Part. To all which you may adde that unlesse we will admit of two Sosia's and two Amphitruo's in that sense that the mirth is made with it in Plautus his Comedy neither the Bread nor the Wine can be transubstantiated into the intire Body of Christ. For this implies that the same thing is and is not at the same time For that individual thing that can be and is to be made of any thing is not Now the individual Body of Christ is to be made of the Wafer consecrated for it is turned into his individual Body But his individual Body was before this Consecration Wherefore it was and it was not at the same time Which is against that fundamental Principle in Logick and Metaphysicks That both parts of a Contradiction cannot be true or That the same thing cannot both be and not be at once Thus fully and intirely contradictious and repugnant to all Sense and Reason to all indubitable Principles of all Art and Science is this Figment of Transubstantiation and therefore most certainly false Reade the ten first Conclusions of the brief Discourse of the true Grounds of Faith added to the Divine Dialogues 7. And from Scripture it has not the least support All is Hoc est corpus meum when Christ held the Bread in his hand and after put part into his own mouth as well as distributed it to his Disciples in doing whereof he swallow'd his whole Body down his throat at once according to the Doctrine of this Council or at least might have done so if he would And so all the Body of Christ Flesh Bones Mouth Teeth Hair Head Heels Thighs Arms Shoulders Belly Back and all went through his Mouth into his Stomach and thus all were in his Stomach though all his Body intirely his Stomach excepted was still without it Which let any one judge whether it be more likely then that this saying of Christ This is my Body is to be understood figuratively the using the Verb substantive in this sense being not unusual in Scripture as in I am the Vine The seven lean Kine are the seven years of Famine and the like and more particularly since our Saviour speaking elsewhere of eating his flesh and drinking his bloud says plainly that the words he spake they were spirit and they were truth that is to say a spiritual or aenigmaticall truth not carnally and literally to be understood And for the trusting of the judgement of the Roman Church herein that makes it self so sacrosanct infallible the Pride Worldliness Policy multifarious Impostures of that Church so often and so shamelesly repeated and practised must needs make their Authority seem nothing in a Point that is so much for their own Interest especially set against the