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A35177 The summ of two sermons on the witnesses and the earthquake that accompanies their resurrection occasion'd from a late earthquake, Sept. 8 and preach'd on the fast following, Sept. 14 / by W.C., M.A. ... Cross, Walter, M.A. 1692 (1692) Wing C7264; ESTC R31339 35,336 46

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THE SUMM OF Two Sermons ON THE WITNESSES AND THE EARTHQUAKE That Accompanies their Resurrection Occasion'd from a Late EARTHQUAKE Sept. 8. And Preach'd on the FAST following Sept. 14. By W. C. M. A. Minister of the Gospel LONDON Printed and are to be Sold by Jonathan Robinson at the Golden Lion in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1692. To his very much respected Friends ANTHONY STEPHENS Esq Cashier of the Treasure of the Navy and his Beloved Consort Mrs. MARGARET STEPHENS SIR NExt to that Devote Society whose I am and whose Desire was my Call to publish this Discourse it became me to pitch on you for a Theophilus to whom and your Second Self I might Dedicate it it being the First Fruits of a small Recovery of Health from a dangerous and tedious Sickness and you being so constant a Friend and comfortable a Visitant under it Amicus certus in re incertâ cernitur I hope you will not be offended that I have thus published your Name you being a publick Person for so many Years and it being the Desire of all good Men that know you that your Vertues were still in a more publick and visible Station There are but few who have serv'd Three such Kings without real or reputed Blame by one Party or other in Wisdom Diligence or Fidelity as you have done and long may you live to do so Madam All things under your Care are in print and for that Cardinal Vertue of your Sex Cleanliness and Neatness you are a Pattern both at London and Epsom I wish all Gentlewomen would copy out the rest of your Vertues in their Lives also 1. In making the Pleasures and Diversions of Civil Converse wear the Livery of Religion recommending their Profession as that which is not only consistent with Chearfulness and Sociableness but as that which refines it and preserves it from Extravagancy and Troublesomness 2. In adorning themselves in such a modest and acceptable Dress that neither runs to the Extreme of the Vanity or Costliness of some who think their Habit is never fashionable enough except they become the Pity of Persons wise and grave and the Scoff and Ridicule of the Vain and Foolish like themselves and think their Apparel and Furniture never rich enough except they endanger the Estates and Credits of their Parents or Husbands and bring them under the Curse of Womans ruling over them and Childrens oppressing them nor the singular Affectedness of others who think the most of Religion is wrapt up in Garments or that a Profession is invisible if it have not a Badge in their Cloaths and that to be the Duty of a Sect that themselves think the Sin of an Office 3. In that Abhorrence of Idleness not only overseeing your Household Affairs with your own Eye but giving an Example with your own Hand and sometimes bearing the heaviest part of the Burden 4. In the charitable Improvement of a plentiful Allowance by which they may lay up so sure a Foundation that no Earthquake can shake but may establish 5. In a true and constant Sympathy with the meanest and lovest of Acquaintance and Friends not forgetting them in Adversity or slighting them whilst unserviceable The more of Perfection you have both obtained the more easie the Duty of Progress and Growth will be and the greater Obligation lies on you for it from him who made the difference The Foundations of Religion are Living Roots and they have a Sun to shine upon them that knows neither Night nor Winter That you both may in this and all other things prosper and that this small Offering and every other Providence may promote it is and shall be the Prayers of Your Faithful and very much Obliged Friend and Servant Walter Cross REV. XI xiii And the same Hour was there a great Earthquake c. THIS Book of the Revelation is not only Divine but is a standing Witness to the Divinity of all the rest it is a Seal to the whole Bible both in Order and Nature being a Volume of Prophecies methodically digested concerning the Empire of the World and the Church of God ander it's Dominion from the End of the Sacred History unto the End of the World whose daily Fulfilments in the great Revolutions of both shew him alone to be the Author that can shew things to come and foretell what shall happen Isa 41.23 The Goodness of the Author declares it to be intelligible and the Faithfulness of him who had Power to open the Book has in part and will more particularly put the Key of actual Knowledge in the Hands of Protestants how else shall the Readers and Hearers obtain the promised Blessing Rev. 1.3 The times of the end when Knowledge should encrease Dan. 12.4 are come on us since the ends of the World were come on the Apostles 1 Cor. 10.11 Shall the Witnesses have Power to shut Heaven and not unlock this Book In the time of the Sixth Trumpet the Angel stands with the Little Book open Rev. 10.2 The Prejudice against the Use of this Book from different Opinions is an unreasonable Objection being of no less Force against the whole Body of Divinity and Method of Salvation by the Gospel wherein Disputes are neither fewer nor of less moment This Portion of the Prophesie about the Witnesses is as much enquired into and as much agreed about as any in the whole Book A Disagreement about 60 or 70 Years in an Aera of nigh 1300 Years Duration is but a small Difference We have no Period of Time before Christ's Incarnation of so great a quantity that is not lyable to greater Disputes And if Prophecy since Christ be as clear as History before his time the Ground of Complaint from Obscurity is not great The hopeful Nighness of this mystical Earthquake with which the Witnesses arise the dreadful portenduousness of this Literal Earthquake we have heard of from America Italy Holland France and felt in England and the probability or possibility they may be one makes me choose this Text. These 12 Verses from the 3d to the 14th contains an entire Treatise about the Two Witnesses and doth contain twice two distinct Parts in it viz. Two Persons Two Periods Two States and Two Consequents of the Persons last Living and Heavenly State First We have two Persons for our Pattern as well as our Subject Sackcloth is an Habit becoming a Fast Day it is an Habit becoming the whole Life of a Protestant or Witness untill the Witnesses are risen Sackcloth is the Symbol of Prayer and Repentance an humbled Condition and humble Heart and an humble Habit become each other By these Two Witnesses are represented the Universal Church under the Imperial Jurisdiction there never were very considerable parts of the Church without the Limits of the Empire especially from the beginning of the Reformation For First These Witnesses must be Persons Men they cannot else be Witnesses Moses and Aaron Elias and Elisha Joshua and Zerubbabel were Persons Secondly Not
Individual Persons 1260 Years are too long an Age for Numericals they must therefore be a kind or sort of Successions of Men. Thirdly They are a Church from their Office before God Prophets from their Symbols Olive-Trees Candlesticks from the like Couples that conducted and presided in the Church under the Old Testament Moses and Aaron Elias c. whose Individual Characters are here described by devouring Fire 2 Kings 1.10 Shutting up of the Bottles in Heaven from Rain 1 Kings 17.1 Measuring of the Temple Zech. 2. 4. Plaguing of Egypt and turning it's Rivers into Blood from their Interest in Heaven and at last going to Heaven Fourthly They are a Church contemporary with and opposite to the Beast and his Gentilism 1. By Beast all over this Book is understood the Roman Empire under it's Eighth and last Form of Government viz. Ten Sovereignties or Kingdoms Politically and Ecclesiastically united to Rome This Beasts Body or Subjects are the Gentiles for the time of Duration is the same Rev. 11.2 and 13.5 2. The Opposites are the same Rev. 13.6 7. and 11.2 7. 3. The Nature is the same for Popery is an Image of Paganism Rev. 13.14 2ly 42 Months and 1260 Days are of the same Extent so they are contemporary and opposite Fifthly They are a Charch represented by Two 1. From the Sufficiency of their Testimony to have convinced the Gentiles of their Gentilism and leave them without Excuse if not convinced 2. From that Famous Division of their Testimony the Old and New Testament 3. From the two distinct People that make up the New Testament Church Jew and Gentile Eph. 2.14 Two made one in their Testimony which Division is observed in the Scaled Servants of God Rev. 7.3 For Ver. 4. One Hundred Forty Four Thousand are Sealed out of the Tribes of Israel and a greater Number out of all the Kindreds of Gentiles Ver. 9. These two Bodies of Men are Sealed from the sinful Apostacies that did begin and continue with the Trumpets Sixthly They are the Representatives of the Church especially from the beginning of the Reformation 1. The very Name Protestant proves it For Pro-testants Witnesses and Martyrs differ only in Language Latine English and Greek The Year 1530 when they who composed and professed the Augustan Confession of Faith were so solemnly baptized Protestants then did the former Seal'd Servants of God publickly commence Witnesses 2. The Work of Reformation was carried on by very Famous Two's Waldus and Bruis Wickcliff and Pourney Huss● and Jerome of Pragne Luther and Melancton Zuinglius and Occolampadius 3. Before the beginning of the Reformation they had another Name and in another Condition Rev. 7. and 14.1 2. Seal'd Servants of God without a Temple or Church scattered as the Seven Thousand in Elijah's Days and absconded Here they are in a better Condition in a Temple and have got a new Name Witnesses 4. All things spoken of in this Paragraph are Occurrences under the time of the Sixth Trumpet whose whole Period is but an Hour a Day a Month and a Year that is 396 Years For it begins Ch. 9.14 and Ch. 10.6 7. the Angel stands as in that Period saying There was no more Time to come but what was to be under the Seventh Trumpet Moreover he begins no other period untill his Discourse come to the 14th verse of the 11th Chapter 5. This Chapter begins with Measuring of the Temple which is an Emblem of Rebuilding it Zech. 2.2 to measure Jerusalem for she shall be Inhabited as Towns without Walls This was the VVork of Joshuah and Zerubbabel the two Olive-trees Zech. 4. From the certainty of this last Argument Marckius a late and large VVriter on this Book draws a most Melancholly Conclusion viz. That 1260 years are to begin from the Reformation But the Answer is easie and the Cause evident why the Spirit of God mentions so particularly this period here not to give a Character of their Beginning but to give a Reason why the Outward Court and the Holy City were not Measured as well as the Temple i. e. VVhy the Reformation was confin'd to so narrow Bounds and did not extend it self as far as the Name and Profession of Christianity viz. Because the Gentile or Beasts Period of 42 Months was not yet ended The Lease that God had given them was not out nor the season of sincere Saints Sufferings tho' they might be full of Expectation from what they should see at that Great Revolution Hence the Protestants are the VVitnesses The Second Two are two Periods a Greater of 1260 and a Lesser of 3 Years and a half These two cannot be of equal Extent For First There is no Parallel to explain it by after that Calculation in Scripture viz. Days for Years and then the Days of these Years for Years again nor could Reason ever satisfie her self about Rules for explaining Mystical Numbers at that rate Secondly The Two States of Death and Prophesying which are the Contents of the two Periods are opposite Thirdly The one begins when the other is about to end Ver. 7. And when they shall have finished or when they are about to finish For the Subjunctive Mood in Greek has no other Future Tense than the Aaorist The first Great Period has a most visible Mark to know its beginning from viz. The Eighth kind of Government in the Roman Empire Rev. 17.10 11. But lest only Historians should know that the form of that last kind is describ'd by it's being divided into Ten several Kingdoms Rev. 17.12 And the Ten Horns which thou sawest are the Ten Kings which have received no Kingdom as yet but receive Power as Kings one Hour with the Beast Likewise in the 13 Chap. at his first arising he has Ten Horns and Ten Crowns from which Birth he is to continue 42 Months and this very Beast it is Chap. 11.7 and 13.7 both from his Original and his Enmity to the Saints that is contemporary with and opposite to the Witnesses now this Form of Goverament was fairly visible between 450 and 460 and consequently ends between 1710 and 1720. But there is some ground of hope that the Resurrection of the Witnesses may be sooner First Because it is not positively said that these three years and a half shall be the last three but about it Secondly The Beast is alive after the Witnesses are risen for the third VVoe that then commences is inflicted on him Thirdly The Witnesses period seems to begin from their being Seal'd at the beginning of the Trumpets Rev. 7. and their entring into the Wilderness Rev. 12.6 both which are before the Beasts rise The second Little Period is little for Time but greatest for Concern of any mentioned in Sacred or Civil Writ excepting the three Days and half of our Lords Death and Sufferings There has been no Notable Persecution since the Reformation but some Writer or other has referred this time to and no great wonder since there are no other