other men but rather mistrust my own conceptions in which I go alone unless I can prove that I have Daniels spirit or justifie it by irrefragable arguments Answ My desire is to dive into these types and Prophecies with an humble and self-denying mind and to be free from puffed-up phansies of mine own wisdom above others or beyond the measure God hath given me neither do I acknowledge immediate revelations and inspirations as Daniel and the Prophets had to belong to any in our time but mediate by the word and for mine own particular am very cautious what I receive for truth upon these Prophecies either from myself or others untill by comparing Scripture with Scripture together with the event it be cleared up to me by manifest arguments As for other interpreters some of them I adjudge to be godly learned and wise and highly prize their interpretations wherein I finde them to agree with the natural sense of the text Yet they sticking in national Churches and living in the obscurer times of the tribulation were so veiled that they could not behold the next dispensation of Christ after the 1260 yeers should be expired But now the date of that time being finished God hath and will raise up a separated people who stand at the Glassie sea Revel 15.2 in the more bright unfolding of the mind of the Apostles and Prophets both for matter and time answerable to the promise made to such a returning people Isa 42.16 I will make darkness light before them And for my sense upon them as I have with diligent circumspection examined it my self so I wish others truly to weigh it by the balance of the Sanctuary and they may find that it comes not from me but from Christ his Apostles and Prophets nor to me only but to all those freed redeemed ones whose eyes the Lord hath and will inlighten Your insuing discourse on this subject contains two particulars Object 1. The doctrine of Christs persons offices the meanes to apply him faith the most dangerous errors in faith and worship are better learned out of doctrinal texts of Scripture then out of the Revelations that holding forth a story of the enemies of the Church who they should be how they should oppress the Church and at last be destroyed by her and of the Churches estate before the enemies rising under their power its deliverance and glorious estate in the end and not of faith worship and good works Answ 1. The book of the Apocalypse is doctrinal as well as other Scriptures for all Scripture is profitable for doctrine 2 Tim. 2.61 if all be doctrinal then this book is not excluded 2. The offices of Christ faith worship and good works are here figured out by allegories which being compared with other plainer texts make their sense much more full and bright to such whose eyes are open to discern the mystery 3. This historical narration doth not only shew who the Churches enemies are but what they are and in what they chiefly stand to wit in the court without Chap. 11.2 nor barely describes her persecution by and deliverance from but also presents before us the several dispensations of God the divers outward stands of his people in their distinct periods both that of the primitive that under antichrist this of the separation that of the visible marriage and call returning and the glory of new Jerusalem all which are of great and high concernment for a Christians knowledge and walk Chap. 1.3 and the ignorance whereof may occasion deep misery Revel 18.4 Chap 14.9 c. Besides the subject we are treating upon to wit who the beast is what he is in his latitude what was the dispensation and stand of the Saints in mystical Babylon what it is and ought to be in the season of their separation from her is not expressed by plain text of Scriptures but by dark prophecies and visions by way of prophesie it must be as being to come in the ages when Scripture was penned and the Lord in divine wisdome hath delivered it more obscurely that the common multitude in hearing might not hear and in seeing might not see but as was fore-prophesied might be deceived by the beast and partake with Babylon in her plagues as also that the curious art of the Spirit might the more be magnified in its wrapping up so much choice matter into such brief compendious platforms and at last in its bright explicating those intricate types and sayings to his despised servants which are veiled from the great Rabbies of the time for such with other causes these wayes and judgements of God are parabolically delivered Now we must search them where they are written if we intend to find Object 2. The Revelations is veiled with such mystical visions as very learned Christians cannot uncover the vaile nor clearly see to the end of them An. That this is concealed from such as adhere to national Churches is true it being prophesied that the veile should lie upon nations Isa 25.7 Chap. 30.8 9 10 11. Chap. 42. 19 20. also Chap. 29.10 The Lord hath poured out upon you Prophets the spirit of a deep sleep and vers 11 12. And the vision of all is become unto you like to a book that is sealed which men deliver to one that is learned saying Read this I pray thee and he saith I cannot for it is sealed And the book is delivered to him that is not learned to read and he saith I am not learned Here the Spirit meets you in your argumentations of this nature for those who are most eminent amongst you alleadge that the visions of the Revelations and Prophets are sealed or as you here say veiled and we must not presume to dive into secrets such as are of a lower capacity complaine that they are unable to comprehend those mysteries and tell us that it belongs to scholars and learned men The reason of this darkness is because the Lord hath covered you But behold in vers 18 what the Spirit promiseth to such whom you adjudge to be blind and deafe The deaf shall hear the words of the book and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness And to these people who are inlightned to follow the Lamb this book together with the parables of Christ and the Prophets are as a cloudy pillar to lead them in their journey This worthy prophecie is the last book given by the Father unto the great Prophet after his ascension into glory and sent by his angel unto his servant John and is called a Revelation being delivered to shew to his servants things that were to come and that of Jesus Christ an emphatical title and proper to this book wherein it carries a dignity beyond the other Scriptures in the front whereof is promised an especial Gospel-blessing to such as read hear and keep the words of this prophecie keeping implies both an understanding of and a way or walk for his
union of the Spirit which is their breath of life and represents them unto us as the lively appearance of Jesus Christ And this may be called ours it being part of our inheritance when the same Spirit is severed and departed from them they remain as empty rudiments Object But many partake of the Ordinances that have not nor ever shall have union with Christ. Answ Those who do truely partake of the Ordinances must in the participation thereof have union with the Spirit of grace because the same Spirit that is in the Ordinances is in the Saints But to such as have in no kinde the workings of that Spirit the Ordinances are both dead and empty or rather a savour of death not that they are so in themselves but by accident because of their spiritual blindness and unbelief There may be a clear and bright light in the air yet for want of light in the eye a blinde man cannot see nor enjoy the comfort thereof Thus the ministery of Christs Gospel was a light shining in darkness but the darkness comprehended it not Joh. 1.5 the Gospel was not void of light nor the Ordinances being as pipes to the Lamps in the dispensation of their lustre but the men wanted spiritual eyes to behold and embrace its beauty Object But the foundation of Ordinances is the institution of Christ. Answ We deny not the institution of Christ to be the foundation of Ordinances but withal affirm that the next immediate principle is the Spirit of grace proceeding from Jesus Christ which by its union gives them their life and soul There may be an institution before the Ordinance hath its proper existence sometimes the command as made known to us by Scripture-record may be a ratification of that which was in being and practise before as we can instance in both However if the institution be perpetuated in the Word then it continues and the Spirit joyns constantly with it when existing if not then may the Spirit leave it sometimes always sometimes for a certain time determined Object The later are grounded on the Covenant of grace and so are the former if by founded you mean they are effects c. Answ 1. If they be effects they must depend upon their cause as their base and principle Every cause is a principle for Omnis causa est principium 2. We deny not that the later are branches of this Covenant but the former have a more neer relation and connexion therewith then the later for the former were used while Christ was on the earth before the keys of the later were given also the elect in mystical Babylon were Israelites as those within the Covenant Rev. 7.3 4. and having their election sealed up had some breathing and nourishment by the former of these Ordinances but the visible Order in which they stood is by the Spirit termed a wilderness and Babylon and the later Ordinances coming from the false key of that Church were bottomless and bestial In the like manner Israel in Egypt had ministery the Passeover c. before the Legal Marriage was contracted likewise the ten apostated Tribes had Circumcision where the visible stated Church was idolatrous Thus the former being before and without the later have a more immediate compliance with the Covenant and the later with visible orderly Church-constitution joyned thereto the one declares a Covenant member the other together with it a visible Church-constituted member To your sixth Objection from Rev. 7.1 I shall hereafter answer in its proper place in Sect. 2. Now we come to examine and remove your Objections brought against the Cessation which we will divide into five Sections Section 1. Our first was that Ministery Prayer the Sacraments Faith with Profession had the promise of the Word to uphold their successive abiding But the later as Ordination Confirmation Church-censures c. wanted the said promise and so lie void and desolate for a time as is proved in the Cessation I shall return to your two first Objections in the third Section next following Object 3. In the third to prove the later sort to endure successively as well as the former you bring Eph. 4.11 12 13. and 1 Tim. 6.13 14. Answ 1. To that of Eph. 4 we assent that all the Officers there exhibited were gifts sent down from Christ after his ascension to his Father vers 8.11 as also that they were differentially distinguished each from other both in the Office its administration and operation vers 7. and that all these together exceedingly furthered the work of the Ministery and tended wonderfully to the edifying of the body of Christ and the completing of the growth and stature of the Saints But yet we maintain that this dispensation of Office continued not to the end of the world as you would insinuate for it reached no further then the Primitive Apostolical times For proof whereof we shall render these Arguments 1. Because all the Apostles were dead at the end of the first or beginning of the second Century and in little time after Evangelists and Prophets You may from this place as well argue the constant abiding of Apostles Prophets and Evangelists as of Pastors and Teachers seeing the Spirit here speaks of a complete and full dispensation of Official Ministery consisting of all these together to bring this noble work to its perfection 2. The whole primitive key of Office was lost in the Romish defection and returns not again till Babylon is destroyed See the Cessation 3. If Office had lineally descended from the primitive then must Rome's Officers and her officiating be good and true and so she a true visible Church in the deepest of her Apostacie whom the Scripture declares to be Babylon and cast out from true measurement Rev. 11.2 Chap. 17. 4. If your sence be right then apostated Rome must be a continued increasing growing Church higher then it was when Paul wrote this Epistle or the highest degree of the Apostolical Church For the word until notes a continued act and all the tenour of the verses declares an increasing growing state whereas Rome was not a rising but a falling away 2 Thest 23.4 5. Because Christ in the time of this backsliding promiseth a new gift that implies the failing of the former Rev. 11.3 6. The union of faith here specified as the period of this time cannot be applied to the resurrection for then we walk by sense not by faith and enjoy the thing now onely beleft Therefore Sir to give you the true sence of this Text in respect of time we conceive that this word until extends no further then the end of the first or beginning of the second Century For then when the book of the Revelations was given the whole Scriptures were completed and so the work of the Ministery made perfect then was the highest rise fulness and unity of faith then was the scruple of Circumcision in greatest part if not wholly removed the Temple being destroyed
consideration I gathered what the meaning and mystery of this last marriage is by the stating of old Israel at mount Sinai Gal. 4. and by that of the Christians in the primitive Matth. 22. and found the same in the visibility to belong to external Church-constitution and disciplinal Order It is be demanded whether the Elect were before during the apostacie in the estate of widowhood and non-marriage I answer They are not simply but respectively in regard of visibility as compared with the primitive marriage For in this season Christ was as one gone and long absent and these elect ones were in their outward stand strangers in a strange country even in spiritual Babylon and there were under the rule of other lords and therefore the Scripture seems to figure them out in the condition of a forsaken widow Luk. 18.3 Isa 54.4 Also we are to minde that the same thing is set forth in various Types and Metaphors as it hath a bent to divers respects so the kingdome of heaven in the rule of grace is expressed by many parables Matth. 13. that thereby God may shew himself compleat in his word and what is wanting in the one is supplied in the other and so by this means there may be a fulness of Ministery knowledge and practice Hereupon the godly in another regard in the time of tribulation when they were but few little small and weak are denoted in another type and Metaphor to wit in the form minority and youthhood Isa 54.4 in the period of separation they proceeding to a higher growth and stature are deciphered in the conditions of virgins Matth. 25.7 Revel 14.4 and in the season of the wedding-day when they are come to more maturity and ready are represented in the state of a married wife Matth. 25.10 Rev. 19.8.9 Finally I took a survey of other interpreters on the Apocalypse and saw by many reasons that they very were defective and much mistaken in their senses of the later Prophecies speaking of our times and that ensuing and that the later part of the said Book when the little book is opened Chap. 10. must have a new interpretation both for time and matter of which you may observe something in the after-work and concerning which I may meet with occasion to treat more amply in our next reply if the Lord so dispose it But that I dwell not too long upon the Epistle I shall onely speak a few words of the following Book and so conclude I confess the stile is plaine and something rude plainness I endeavoured that it might be sutable to the meanest capacity the more unpolished it is because the most are my first and sudden conceptions For constant exercise in spiritual imployments and multitude of necessary worldly incumbrances would not permit me times of absolute repast and solitude to recollect and reduce my thoughts into an exquisite composure Also some Scriptures are often repeated occasioned partly by necessity it being but one case in the root in prosecution whereof I endeavoured to use the clearest and most pertinent texts partly by reason of Master Elmestones multiplicity of Arguments meeting in the same base together with some repetitions of his in a manner the same in sundry places of his book and for the better resolving such knots where I met with them I made use of those Scriptures which were elsewhere proved more at large that the weak might be thereby the better satisfied in particulars Such who are more intelligent may dispense with what may be for the benefit of lower apprehensions And I doubt not but they that are spiritually prudent will prize the naked and solid Truths of God delivered in the plain language of the Word before the adulterate shadows of carnal Reason though glittering in the specious habit of humane Eloquence Christian and sincerely pious Reader though this subject may seem new and strange and the Scriptures dark and doubtful at a sudden glance yet he that will bring to pass his act even his strange act hath promised to make dark things lightsome and crooked things strait and upon a serious reflection you may finde the accomplishment of the same promise blessing your endeavours and removing the veil to shew you the inward beauty of those Prophecies aspecting your own generation which will direct you to imbrace and walk in the right path cast up by the Spirit and to avoid those accursed things that will bring a general deluge upon the secure world that while darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the people his light may arise upon you till at last his glory be seen upon you Now that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ and Father of glory may give unto you the Spirit of wisdome and revelation in the knowledge of himself is the desire and uncessant prayer of him who is Your cordial friend and Brother in the Lord Simon Henden Certain ANIMADVERSIONS upon Master Elmestone's Epistle to the Reader YOur Epistle comes galloping in upon the wooden story of the Trojan-horse built by the counsel of Pallas and by subtile Sinons perswasion received into Troy to the ruine of that ancient and famous City For from thence issued out a warlike Troop of most valiant Greek Captaines who laid that City wast with fire and sword To this horse you compare the liberty granted for tender consciences in Religion procured say you by Satans craft and the insinuation of some cunning Sinons and may redcund to the great prejudice if not the ruine of your Troy your Church and Gospel For out of it have come forth c. Answ The native language of Canaan is more sutable to the majesty of Divinity then the fabulous fictions of heathen Poets and did you conceive your Church to be genuine of a Celestial birth you might be better advised then to Christian it by the name of an outcast stranger Indeed to follow you in your own similitude Rome being built partly by some roving Trojans was called a second Troy rising out of the ruines of the former and what should move you to stile your Hierarchical Church a third we cannot guess unless because you are an off-spring arising from her ashes in England However you may be pleased to consider that the maine cause bringing desolation to the first was not the Trojan-horse but the wilful retaining of Helena a defiled whorish woman amongst them and if there be the like accursed thing with you it is that will procure your great prejudice if not your ruine We use the more boldness that these your works may burn and your persons be saved in the day of the Lord. Notwithstanding that liberty which you most unfitly yoke with the said woodden horse is a precious jewel bought by the invaluable ransome of Jesus Christ who by the price of his dearest blood did at first redeem his Saints from vain traditions and humane thraldoms to be a free willing people to him their sole Soveraign in Religion but in the
wilderness Chap. 12.6 14 and in the streets of the great city where their bodies lay when slain and on which earth they stood for some space after the Spirit of life re-entered vers 8 11 and in this terrene station they prophesied before or in the presence of earthly Hierarchies who sate in the temple or rather the court without as God The most of these Witnesses were in the Romish Church who cried against the known corruptions and administred spiritual food to the elect scattered in that confusion Object It hath been frequently objected by others that these are Candlesticks which never denote visible Churches Answ Candlesticks are not always in Scripture figures of Churches but sometimes do signifie the vessels holding forth the light of Ministery in this sence is it understood Matth. 5.15 Mark 4.21 Luke 8.16 Chap. 11.33 where the light is the Ministery the Candlestick the organ or man containing that gift the house with those truely entering therein the Church And that it is so taken here will plainly appear by an exquisite view of the text For 1. The Church is in this place delineated by another figure viz. the Temple vers 1 and not by the Candlesticks and that house is also an invisible temple shut up from the outward court vers 2. 2. When Candlesticks do resemble Churches they are â—ver set first in figure Zech. 4.2 Rev. 1.12 but here they are placed last 3. They must here belong to Ministery because the Prophets themselves who prophesie are said to be Candlesticks whereas when the Candlesticks denote Churches the Ministers are pictured by another distinct figure to wit by stars Chap. 1.16 20. 4. These are placed after the olive-trees as drawing the oil therefrom and the first relates to their qualifications the last to their dispensation The Prophets are called olive-trees and Candlesticks as they are the instruments that bear hold and dispense the grace and gift of prophecie Object There were say you Saints so manifesting themselves so discovered by the Beast and whore by their opposition which they made to their wayes against whom the beast made war overcame them and were drunken in their bloods Answ The Saints for many hundred yeers in the West even since the Apostacie were not at all visibly distinguished from the Romish Church but lived there without any open persecution Indeed within these later Centuries God raised up more valiant champions who upon some discovery more manfully testified against the great Beast of Rome then before who was then onely extant known to be so and disclosed further the corrupt doctrine of that grand-mother-whore against whom that beast at last raged and prevailed by open persecution But the most of these also were here and there a man living and dying visibly in that Church witness the Martyrs here in England which you may read in M. Fox his book of Martyrs If some were at last distinguished from that great Whore tell us what distinction of Office they had descending from the primitive Order or upon what ground they were stated in Church-discipline Surely they living within the compass of the 1260 yeers must be clothed with sackcloth and stand outwardly in that earthly confusion or wilderness and some of late in the secret chambers The saving and incorrupt truths by them professed were chiefly in point of doctrine They unmasked onely the Beast and Whore of Rome but were blinded in daughter-harlots arising then and after and the Lord in times of ignorance over-looks the weakness of his sincere servants If the Lord had designed a continued chain of true visible stated Churches as you insinuate through every age of this defection severed and apart from Rome then without doubt he would have reserved a succession of office pure amongst the said Churches nay if there had been true official Ministers all along in those Churches then no question but such a lineal descent is extant whence the outward function of the Ministery should be deduced without being beholding to the key of Rome But we know not of any investment coming from Christ and his Apostles with us but what is derived from the Popish Clergy and you in effect confess as much in the 30 Page of your book that Luther and your choicest men had their external calling thence and so much must you grant of your own unless you renounce your genealogy Now if the key pit and smoke in Rome became bottomless as it did Rev. 9. then no off-spring issuing from her can be grounded in the truth of order Therefore were there the like beasts in the Churches you plead for who persecuted the godly by sword banishment imprisonment blood when they were anatomized as the Pope their forefather did before We now come further to expostulate about the temple and the outward court Rev. 11.1 2. Master Elmestone holds the temple to be a true visible stated Church and the Court without to symbolize such a false Church state which never was bottomed in the truth On the other side we maintaine the temple to decipher the mystical union of the one hundred and fourty four thousand sealed or elect ones whereby they are built up a spiritual house and the Court without to be the externality of Ecclesiastical order which was established by Christ in the primitive times and true but after being corrupted by Antichrist was rejected by the Spirit and false Object You alledge That the temple is the visible because measured Answ This measurement was not in the visibility of Church-order but only in the inward work of true grace and worship thence arising as will appear by these reasons 1. Because when the visible Church is measured it hath alwayes degrees of outward demensions and distances specified in the measuring as of the new Jerusalem the city was found by the golden rod to be ten thousand furlongs the wals one hundred fourty four cubits Revel 21.15 16 17. also Ezekiels temple and City from Chap. 40. to the end of the book whereas this hath no such demensions specified in the meting 2. Because the outward court which we have proved in the Cessation to be the externality of Church-order was excluded and forbidden by the spirit to be measured which must infer that nothing was here comprehended but the inward roomes of the hidden man with worship c. flowing from those intimate springs of grace 3. Because only the sealed elect number remained Rev. 7.3 c. Chap. 9.4 Chap. 14.1 Chap. 13.8 Mat. 24.24 Object Those sealed ones were as you truly say elect saved ones but in all ages many more have made profession then the elect and so during the Apostacy many beside the sealed ones did help to make up a visible Church Answ In a true stated Church hypocrites may be circumscribed within the compass of a true external stand and so may have an outward measurement but when the exteriour order is excluded and the measurement only internal to the elect who are visible in false stands
appears a married wife and Christ to her an husband in the open face of his glorious administration and withal in this consideration there be times of minority widowhood forsaking as through the antichristian age when the beloved in this second sense had withdrawn himself and was gone Cant. 5.6 the Church of the elect then in some respect in the state of widowhood Luk. 18.4 7. and one forsaken Isa 62.4 the being no more forsaken intimates a forsaking before the marriage then coming infers a non-marriage the season preceding If it be demanded how the marriage can be said to return when the covenant successively remained We answer that the bare Gospel-covenant when not stated in the free and full glory of Evangelical regiment especially when the visible order is another doth not in Scripture-language bear the dignity of a visible Gospel-marriage For the same covenant of grace runs tacitely along through the Jewish legal stand and had a secret saving influence on the godly yet is not stiled a Gospel-marriage till set in the majesty of a Gospel-order and then the nuptials were solemnized Mat. 22. So in the antichristian defection the said Covenant had some close hidden being and breathing on the sealed number yet being deprived of the outward court of its regiment and the Church-constitution becoming a stranger it could not carry the prerogative of a true single genuine visible Gospel-marriage till re-estated from Heaven in the power and beauty of its first dominion and when this returns the marriage of the Lamb is again said to come and not till then Rev. 19. Object 4. It may as well be said that there is no visible marriage between Christ and particular Christians before that time as that there is none between Churches and Christ. Answ As the marriage betwixt Christ and the Church was in this season onely more mystical and hidden so is it betwixt Christ and particular Christians Object You go on and assert That no particular Christian can be a meet bride for Christ who is not clothed with the pure fine and shining linen viz. The righteousness of the Saints Answ We assent that without the righteousness of Christ applyed by faith to the heart there can be no union or marriage to Christ and so no salvation But this more internal work when the outward stand is not answerable is not anywhere in type figured out by the metaphor of garments because they being an outward covering do usually signifie the visible station and walk of the Saints Hereupon this visible station of the godly since the Apostacie is in the Revelation allegorically set forth by a threefold clothing parallel to a treble condition 1. That of the witnesses and Elect while abiding in spiritual Babylon Rev. 11.3 who though they had the inward grace yet being externally in false Churches are emblem'd in the habit of black and filthy sackcloth their clothing being agreeable to their outward stand Rev. 11.3 2. The raiment of the Virgins or separated Saints in the season of separation Chap. 14.4 which for that they are off from the beast and defiled women Chap. 9.7 and in a more approved way then before together with joy and triumph Chap. 15.6 is pictured in the forme of pure white linen and this is the first to whom the type of white garments is attributed since the great defection 3. The wedding garments given as a new grant by the pouring out of the Spirit Chap. 19.7 9. after the period of the former which for their high pure and emphaticall excellency of walk are stiled the righteousness of the Saints Without this latter robe neither many Saints in general nor any one in particular can be a meet bride for a visible marriage with Christ none can give it till they first receive it Object But you appropriate this marriage chap. 19. to the Jewes and those wholy without Answ That this belongs to all as well to Gentile Christians as to the Jewes and Pagans we render these reasons 1. The reigne of God is general the marriage generall the Spouse married the whole Bride the Lambs wife the call is universall they which must comeprehend all the Saints If the Christian Gentiles be not concluded in this marriage then are they no part of the bride nor have any share in the reigne marriage or the blessing thereof View the text well and your sense cannot avoid this absurdity 2. The people injoying and rejoycing in all this royall magnificence are the singers for the utter destruction of Babylon And not onely the Jewes but the Gentiles also who were the chiefe actors in her ruine must questionless rejoyce in her downfall Besides this book was sent to the Christian Gentiles as principally pertaining unto them 3. The externality of Church-government amongst the Gentile Israelites which carries the name and dignity of a Gospel visible marriage as is shewed before was cast out when given to the Nations chap. 11.2 and since that exclusion we find no return grant and call for the restauration thereof if not here in this book no nor yet in any other Prophecie till this time and at this very point of time the whole current of Scripture foretels the same work to revert Now it is extream follie to think that this Revelation should not inform us when the glory of outward order and rule should be restored as well as it teacheth us when it was ruined and rejected or that all the prophecies besides should pass it over in deep silence We rather believe it then again to come when the Spirit fore-declares it to be and not before 4. Our Saviour in Matth. 24.23 24 25 26 27. and Luk. 17.21 22 23 24. acquaints us that since the time of that great falling away till the day of his bright appearance all the visible Lo's or models of Churches being grounded on mens observations are false delusive and that in this his day his shining dispensation shall flash from east tow est like lightning and not be tied up to one or a few Nations Againe the open pouring of the Spirit the begetting cause of a Gospel-marriage doth not returne in its open blast till this season and the effect cannot be existing before its cause neither can any without that manifest administration build up true spiritual Churches Object You insinuate that Isa 62.5 partains to Sion and its restauration which must be the Jewish Nation Answ If it belong to Sion then must it be common to all believers as well Gentiles as Jewes which you have proved from Heb. 12.22 and Revel 14.1 And though you build so much upon other interpreters and therein seem not to be an hairs breadth from him whom you cite to have said Malo cum Platone errare quam cum aliis vera sentire I had rather err with eminent Ploâ—o then to think the truth with others yet we shall rather prize the truth before any humane authority and think it far safer