most eminent So that this Bishop is without doubt he of Rome who from the very beginning was lookt upon as above others by reason of the City which was the Seat of the Empire and consequently the Lady and Mistriss of all other Cities This was the ground of the precedency granted to that Bishop as appears both by the Council of Calcedon and by the second Council of Constantinople Among the Bishops of Rome Gregory the first is particularly here represented by this great Star. And that not only because he was stiled great but because he truly fell from Heaven through abandoning the care of heavenly things to pursue and cleave to those of the Earth This we may the rather believe because he gives this account of himself in the fifth Epistle of his first Book writing to Theotista the Emperors Sister Under the Colour says he of a Bishoprick I am sunk into the world and am become more enslaved to the cares of the Earth than ever I was when but a Laick person Since I was outwardly advanced I am inwardly fallen And I bewaile my own state as being thus driven from the presence of my Creator He writ the same to Anastasius Bishop of Antioch namely that he was so depressed by the load of multiplicity of affairs that he could not raise his mind to heavenly things The fall of this Gregory the Great does yet more appear in that it was he who changed the Service of the Church into that which from his name is called to this day the Gregorian 'T was he likewise who most blasphemously equalled the four first Councils to the four Gospels and who in his four Books of Dialogues brought the belief of Purgatory into the Church But we are to take care that we do not restrain our selves only to one Bishop This great Star is to be taken as representing collectively all the Bishops of Rome since they first begun to depart from the Truth and from Christian Humility And indeed before Gregory the Great Mark who was elected Pope anno 335. did so highly exalt the Rights of the Sea of Rome that he had the confidence to write to the Bishops of Egypt in these prophane words that follow The Roman Church hath forever been without a Spot and through the Grace of God and the protection of St. Peter forever shall be so For says he the Lord spake thus to the Prince of the Apostles Peter I have prayed for thee that thy Faith do not fail Julius I. took upon him by his own meer Authority to re-establish several Oriental Bishops that had been justly deposed Liberius by subscribing to the condemnation of St. Athanasius subscribed to Arianism which drew upon him the curses of St. Hilary After the death of Liberius Damasius and Ursicinus caused such an effusion of blood by their struglings for the Roman Chair that Ammianus Marcellinus a Heathen Author reports that in the Temple where the Election of Damasus was held there were 137. slain at one time The greatest persons among the Heathen coveted the grandure of the Popes so that the Pagan Pretextatus being designed Consul offered to Damasus to turn Christian upon condition that he might be made Pope Siricius who succeeded to Damasus forbid Ecclesiastical Persons to marry shamefully perverting to that purpose the words of St. Paul Rom. 8. 8. they who are in the flesh connot please God. After Gregory I. Boniface III. assumed the Title of Universal Bishop Boniface IV who succeeded to him consecrated the Pantheon to the blessed Virgin and to all the Saints having been before a Temple dedicated to Cybele and to all the Heathen Gods. And the Monastick life became so highly valued and advanced under all these Popes that they taught it to be the true Evangelick way of living and the most sure means of salvation These Doctrines together with others added by the Bishops of Rome and which they either themselves invented or else authorised and decreed made them to be this Wormwood that hath corrupted the saving Doctrine and which hath rendred all the Waters of Grace and the Fountains of Salvation bitter XIII ILLUSTRATION Of the fourth Trumpet The third part of the Sun and of the Moon and of the Stars smitten REV. CHAP. VIII V. 12. And the fourth Angel sounded and the third part of the Sun was smitten and the third part of the Moon and the third part of the Stars so as the third part of them was darkned and the day shone not for a third part of it and the night likewise THE wo denounced by this fourth Trumpet hath two Characters The one is Error and Superstition in that the Fountains of light are so strangely changed The other is Violence and Force because these Sources of light are smitten For the Term of Smiting is often used in the Scripture to signify killing and destroying As in Deut. chap. 4. v. 46. Ios chap. 8. v. 22. 1 Kings chap. 15. v. 29. and elsewhere These two characters do perfectly agree to the Religion of the Mahometans The Error in it is most palpable in that it denieth both Christs Divinity and the merit of his death and in that it promiseth such a felicity in the life to come as can be pleasing to none save unto Souls sunk into sensuality And its Violence is so well known that all who have heard of Mahomet do know that that Impostor boasted the being sent by God with a Sword to force the belief of his Religion And the event was according for within the space of 40. years after Mahomets death his four Successors Ebubeker Oâ—hmar Osman and Haly whom they stile Gods four sharp Swords planted that abominable Religion by force of Arms in Syria Palestine Egypt Mesopotamia Persia Africk Barbary and Numidia It was in the year 622. that Mahomet published his damnable Errors which is another character whereby to adjust it with the Wo or this fourth Trumpet For the Bishop of Rome was already fallen under the third These are the two Enemies of the Christian Religion the one a hidden Enemy and the other an avowed The one established himself as a Fox the other as a Lion. The one assaulted Religion in the West the other in the East The Bishop of Rome begun to fall away in the fourth Age Mahomet appeared in the seventh His abominable Religion followed the fall of the Roman Bishop as the Wo of the fourth Trumpet followeth the Wo of the third XIV ILLUSTRATION Of the fifth Trumpet The Key of the bottomless Pit given to the Star that fell from Heaven REV. CHAP. IX V. 1. And the fifth Angel sounded and I saw a Star fall from Heaven unto the Earth and to him was given the Key of the bottomless Pit. V. 2. And he opened the bottomless Pit and there arose a Smoke out of the Pit as the smoke of a great Furnace and the Sun and the Air were darkned by reason of the smoke of the Pit. WE have seen the Fall
of the Bishop of Rome under the third Trumpet The fifth discovereth unto us the growth and the accomplishment of the Mystery of Iniquity For this is the same Star which St. Iohn had called great and of which he had said that it was already fallen from Heaven The Key is a Symbole of Power and Authority When the Nations were to be brought out of Idolatry into which they were plunged as into a bottomless pit and to be introduced into the Kingdom of Heaven Iesus Christ gave to St. Peter the Keys of that Kingdom And it was that Apostle who first made use of those Keys when he preached the Gospel to Cornelius who was a Gentile But now when the same Nations are to return to Idolatry the Key of the bottomless Pit is given to the pretended Successor of St. Peter by the Dragon Rev. chap. 13. v. 2 4. The Bottomless Pit being opened with this Key which the Bishop of Rome received from the Dragon there came forth a smoke out of the Pit as out of a great Furnace and the Sun and Air were darkned The Sun is Jesus Christ The Air is Religion For Jesus Christ is the Sun of Righteousness and Religion which consisteth in Doctrines Worship and Ceremonies is with respect to Salvation what the Air is with respect to the Animal life which no longer endureth than while we suck in and breath out the Air. Nor can it be denied but that the Bishop of Rome hath darkned the Sun of Righteousness in that he hath assumed to himself all the Offiâ—es of our Saviour his Kingship his Priesthood and his dignity of Supream and infallible Teacher And in that he hath added the Sacrifice of the Mass to the Sacrifice of the Cross and humane Satisfaction to the merit of Christs Blood which is the price of our Redemption Neither can it be gainsaid but that he hath darkned the Air of Religion by a mixture of Heathen Ceremonies with those which Jesus Christ had ordained Such as Altars the different Habits of Priests Agnus Dei's Chappelets Scapularies Holy Water Abstinences and Fastings Finally he hath corrupted the Discipline and Government which fence and preserve Religion by changing it into a Monarchy like unto that of Earthly Princes contrary to the express Declaration of our Saviour to his Apostles The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship but ye shall not be so Luks 22. 25. And also contrary to the advice of St. Peter whose Vicar and Successor he vainly boasts himself to be For he enjoins Ministers to feed the Flock of God and not to carry it as being Lords over God's Heritage 1 Pet. 5. 2 3. This Change was not all made at once but by little and little The Smokt came not all out of the bottomless Pit at one and the same time but successively and by degrees answerable to the nature of the Mystery of Iniquity which hath established it self by fraud and subtility Before Gregory I. about the end of the second Century Victor upon the subject of what day Easter should be kept was so rash as to excommunicate all the Churches of Asia as if he had been the Soveraign Master of all Churches Upon which account St. Ireneus rebuked him according as he deserved Siricius condemned the Marriage of Priests abusing to that end the words of St. Paul They that are in the Flesh cannot please God as if by being in the Flesh the Apostle had understood the state of Marriage Boniface III. Successor of Gregory I. challenged the Title of Universal Bishop which Gregory had condemned in Iohn Bishop of Constantinople as the Title of the Forerunner of Antichrist Boniface IV. consecrated the Pantheon to the Holy Virgin and to all the Saints which the Pagans had dedicated before to Cibele the Mother of the Gods. And the Controversie about the Worship of Images grew so hot in the eighth Age that Pope Gregory the second excommunicated the Emperor Leo for opposing it In the ninth Age Paschasius the Monk of Corby was the first that taught the Corporal Presence but Rathramu writting against it by the command of Charles the Bold the question remained undetermined But the Truth becoming darkned by the Smoke that arose out of the bottomless Pit in the tenth Age which Baronius stiles an Age of Iron and Lead and which all Writers acknowledg to have been an Age of Ignorance and Darkness it came to be decided in the eleventh Age by Nicolas the second Who made it be prescribed to Berenger in his Retractation that believers did not only eat Christ Sacramentally but that he was really broken by their teeth In the same Age Gregory the seventh made come out of the bottomless Pit these propositions mentioned by Baronius Anno 1076. num 31. namely that the Pope of Rome alone hath Right to be called Universal That all Princes ought to kiss the Popes Feet That his name only should be mentioned to the Churches That he hath an Authority to depose Emperors That without his command no Council ought to be called General That no Book nor Chapter ought to be held for Canonical without his Authorisy That he may discharge Subjects from their Oath of Allegiance And many other such as these which Baronius calls Dictata Papae Out of the same Pit came forth the Adoration of the Holy Sacrament under Pope Houorius the second The Feast of God or of Corpus Christi under Pope Eugenius the second Auricular Confession under Pope Innocent the third The first Crusado with promise of forgiveness of all their sins under Urban the second Anno 1095 The first Jubilee with a promise annexed to it of universal pardon to all that should go to Rome and visit the Churches there was instituted by Boniface the eighth Anno 1295. Finally Eugenius the third about the year 1149. did ordain that the Decretals collected by Gratian should be read and explained in the Schools Which Decretals treat of nothing save of the Power of St. Peter and of the Pope of the excellency of a Monastick life of Celibate of Transubstantiation of the Mass and of such like Doctrines which are this Smoke arisen out of the bottomless Pit by which the Sun and the Air have been darkned XV. ILLUSTRATION Of the Locusts REV. CHAP. 9. V. 3. And there came out of the Smoke Locusts upon the Earth and unto them was given power as the Scorpions of the Earth have power V. 4. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the Grass of the Earth neither any Green thing neither any Tree but only those men which have not the Seal of God in their Foreheads V. 5. And to them it was given that they should not kill them but that they should torment them five moneths and their Torment was as the Torment of a Scorpion when he striketh a man. V. 6. And in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it and shall desire to die and death shall flee from them V.
rejoice in thee In a word the Valley which Ezekiel saw chap. 37. v. 1 c. covered with bones was nothing save an Image of the Jews being captive in Babylon And in truth the death of the Churches in France c. is of a nature answerable to the Resurrection that is here promised to the Witnesses and which signifies no other thing but their re-establishment Which is the reason why 't is said that their Bodies lie unburied For that is as much as to say that the Beast was not able to put them into Graves because the Favourers of the Reformation hindred it and that they remain unburied that they may the more readily be restored The change of the Expression in the Text doth both favour and strongly support this Exposition For when the Holy Ghost is speaking of their Enemies he saith that the Inhabitants of the Earth shall rejoice over the Witnesses that are overcome and slain but when he speaketh of those that favour and uphold them he saith that they of the people kindreds and tongues and Nations who shall see their dead bodies shall not suffer them to be put into Graves But what is that to say will not suffer them to be put into Graves For the better understanding of it we are to observe all that the Beast was to do against the Witnesses 1. It is said that the Beast shall make war with them That is the Church of Rome or the Papacy shall make war against the Protestants This the Event hath made evident 'T is five or six and twenty years since this war begun As soon as the peace of the Pyrenees was concluded the Romish Clergy and the Iesuites took the field and begun with the Church of Montauban whose Colledg and Senate they put down In a few years after all the Churches in the Kingdom saw themselves besieged and threatned to be destroyed by a terrible battery of Edicts and Declarations But that they might not make too much noise they fell upon them by degrees and attack'd them one after another The first assault was against Ministers Habits the next against Annexes after that against the Bells in their Temples then against their Buryings next against Children that had attained to the age of seven years then against Midwives It would make a large Volumn to recount all the Edicts and Declarations But their main Engin was the matter of Summons by which they compelled them to produce the Titles by vertu of which they enjoyed the publick exercise of their Religion in their respective places This was a proclaimed War. The Table of Commissioners for execution of the Edict of Nantes the Magistrates of Justice the Parliaments and the Council were the Field of Battel where the Beast appeared fighting against the Witnesses 2. 'T is said that the Beast overcame the Witnesses This hath been seen litterally accomplished when the Churches were deprived of the Liberty of their Worship either by the Judgment of the Commissioners or by the Sentence of the Magistrates or by Arrests of Parliament if so be that any fled to the Council at last all without exception were condemned by the Edict of Fontainbleau which repealed that of Nantes 3. 'T is said that the Beast shall kill the Witnesses We have declared already that the death here intended is a Civil and Spiritual death Which consisteth in this that the Reformed Congregations are suffered no more to assemble neither publickly nor privatly and that they are not permitted to read the Word of God nor any Book of the Reformed Religion And in this that all they of that Religion are compelled by the Violence of Souldiers to abjure their belief and to promise to enter into fellowship with the Church of Rome except it be such that were able to make their escape out of the Kingdom and some Prisoners who hitherto stand it out 4 Whereas it is said that the dead bodies of the Witnesses were not buried because the kindreds Tongues People and Nations would not suffer it this must be some mercy and blessing that is promised unto them in order to comfort them under their state of death There is not one thing which they who are dead would more desire provided they could speak than to be put into graves as esteeming it a favour and an honor And thence it is that by the Laws of Nations Traitors and horrid Malefactors are deprived of the honor of burial and of rest in a grave The Spirit of God threatned one of the Kings of Israel that he should be buried with the burial of an Ass Ierem. 22. 19. which is as much as to say that he should not have the honor of a grave And if the Holy Spirit had said that they who had slain the Witnesses would not suffer them to be buried there would have been no cause to doubt but that the denial of Sepulture by those murderers were to be expounded as a continuance of their fury and to be interpreted for an addition of punishment and for something accounted worse than death But seeing they are not those who had killed them and who are designed by Inhabitants of the Earth that would not suffer their bodies to be buried but they are the Kindreds Tongues Peoples and Nations it is evident that it must be some great benefit that is procured for them by these Kindreds Tongues Peoples and Nations which is obtained in despight and to the great regret of those Inhabitants of the Earth who had killed them But how is this that the not being buried is a benefit and advantage to the Witnesses whom the Beast had killed and for the Protestant Flocks whom the Romish Church hath scattered I dare say that before the Publication of the Edict of Fontainbleau for Repealing the Edict of Nantes we could not have conceived nor have in the least comprehended this State of the Witnesses lying dead without being put into Graves But that Transaction which hath astonished all Europe hath reflected so much light upon this Article that I am perswaded that as the death of the Witnesses is fulfilled in the extinction of all the Protestant Churches in France c. so the State wherein these extinguished Churches do now continue giveth us to see the accomplishement of this that is here said concerning the Bodies of the Witnesses lying in the street of the great City without being put into Graves There are three sorts of Catholicks among the new Converts Some go willingly to the Mass These are such as have not tasted the good Word of God Children of this world Lovers of Earthly things Ready to become Turks by the same way that they are become Papists There are others who go not at all to Mass but abhor it as a prophanation of the holy Supper of our Lord. There are a third sort who do indeed go but at the same time they testify that they do it through being forced and pray heartily to God being resolved to depart the Kingdom
the ten persecutions of which that of Diocletian was the last That of Pergamus hath a reference to the time when Antichrist sitteth in the Temple of God and when the Church of God is hardly visible through her dwelling as the Church of Pergamus did where Satan had his Throne That of Thyatira hath a great conformity to the condition of the Church when Antichrist both begun to fall and begun to raise himself again According to the Testimony given by our Saviour to that of Thyatira Thou hast not the Doctrine of Jezebel and thou hast not known the depths of Satan That of Sardis hath a resemblance to the Reformed Church degenerating and falling into corruption of manners Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead Yet thou hast a few names which have not defiled their Garments That of Philadelphia is a protrature of that of the Church when She shall be perfectly Reformed when Sion shall be perfectly re-established when the alone Key of David shall open and shut when the voice of Iesus Christ shall be perfectly followed and that both with respect unto manners and to faith This is the State wherein the Church will be during the time of the Millennian Reign whereof we have before spoken Lastly that of Laodicea is a Mirour wherein we may behold the State of the Church towards the End of the world When zeal shall have become cold Charity scarce to be found and corruption shall abound and be universal and thereby draw upon the world that Deluge of Fire which shall give a renovation unto it These Reflections do shew us the reason why the Lord directed the seven Epistles and all the Visions of the Apocalypse of St. Iohn precisely to the Seven Churches But it is matter of surprise that Iesus Christ hath made no mention nor spoken one word of the Church of Rome nor of the Pope How comes it to pass that he forgets his Vicar and the Mother of all Churches which either have been or are to be to the end of the world How comes he to be unmindful of the Apostolick Sea of the Seat of Infallibility of the alone Fountain of all lawful Vocation and Mission and of the Centre of Religion For seeing the Lord the Son of God is not man that he should lye or the Son of man that he should repent it is the more remarkable that he should have forgot in a Book purposely writen to mark out the destiny of the Church and to distinguish her from Babylon points which according to the Roman Catholicks are fundamental and such as men cannot be ignorant of without hazarding Salvation So that now it is not possible that the Church of Rome should be what She pretends O that God the Father of Mercy and Light would remove from the hearts of men the vail of prejudices and passions that all Christians may come to see the danger of maintaining Communion with the Romish Church the necessity of Reformation and the Conformiry of the Worship which Protestants render unto God with the sacred and inviolable Rule of the Gospel FINIS A DEFENCE OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS Upon the Apocalypse of St. Iohn Concerning the EFFUSION of the VIALS In Answer to Mr. Jurieu ' s Apology for the Accomplishment of the Scripture-Prophesies Printed in the Year 1688. The PREFACE 'TWere to be wished that all who publish their Meditations upon the Revelation were found to agree in their Explication of that Divine Book as much as they do in their Exposition of the other Sacred Writings But how desirable soever this be it hath not hither to come to pass And an uniformity of Opinions about the sense of Prophesies whose Accomplishment is yet to come is no less impossible to Interpreters that are not divinely inspired than the knowledg of those future things is which they do predict So that it is not strange that Mr. Jurieu in his Accomplishment of Prophesies and the Anonymous Author in his Illustrations upon the Apocalypse do not universally accord and that in their Exposition of the 16. Chap. they are found to contradict one another Nay it would be a kind of miracle should they upon the many various subjects of the Revelations of St. John be found in all things to have the same sentiments But possibly some will be surprised that two Reformed Divines should write against one another And probably some may not only be surprised but scandaled throw their seeing two Brethren differ and throw an apprehension that the Papists may draw some advantage from their disagreement And it must be acknowledged that if mens surprise at their difference should have that effect it had been a thousand times better that both those Authors had forever concealed their thoughts than to give the least matter of scandal to their Brethren by publishing of them The design therefore of this Preface is to obviate these two difficulties and to justify not only those two Antagonists but all others who may embark in this quarrel by espousing the one side or the other As to the first difficulty I do affirm that if any are offended at the seeing two Reformed Divines write against each other in the Exposition of the 16. Chap. about the Effusion of the Vials the Offence is taken and not given And I do withal maintain that 't is lawful for every one in his Exposition of Prophesies to pursue that way which seems best unto him If in his Explication he contradict any Article of Faith necessary to Salvation I do confess that in this case all men have reason to be offended with him who shall by his Interpretations overthrow any of those Articles and they have cause to treat that Expositor as an Innovator and to disclaim his Exposition as a Heresie But which Article of Faith is subverted or so much as opposed or any ways injured by the either saying that the Vials are poured out or that they are not poured out Mr. Jurieu apply's all the Events since the tenth Century to the Vials as if they had been all this while pouring forth and the Anonymous Author of the Illustrations applieth them to the Trumpets which have sounded and not to the Vials which he believes to be still to be poured forth Now what Article of Faith is either gain-said or wronged by these two different Expositions But one may say that it will at least beget a Dispute about the Explication of a Book which all Christians ought to pay a deference unto as a Divine Book and a Dispute which being begun at such a conjuncture as that wherein we are may in all probability not have a good issue Whereas on the contrary this Dispute will stirr up the Curiosity of divers Adversaries who by coming to read these two Works will from thence learn very important Truths which they are yet ignorant of They will thereby understand that the Pope whom they worship as a Deity is the Original Picture of the Son of perdition who is