the words which is least usuall as a thing that is onely understood by the learned in the Language or else according to the proper and most accustomed sound and pronunction of the words which is the common and most usuall course of writing if Ingland ought not according to the prouunciation be written rather with and then with an e and if so as it is and ought to be so then have you the number of the name of the beast in the name of the Parliament and the Holy Ghost tells you here is wisdom for him that hath understanding to count the number of the beast And besides this whereas it is conceived that this Kingdom was called England from Hengist that came hither out of Saxony with his brother Horsus to assist the Britaines against their Enemies as if it were Hengist-Land and by contraction England I say this is a meere fiction Sam. Daniel in his History p. 7. because Hengist had at first but the Isle of Thanat assigned for his Colony and it was an Heptarchy seven Kingdomes a long time after Hengist untill Egbert reduced the same into a Monarchy but I find it was vulgarly called Ingland and not England from a Queen called Angles from whence and for whose Honour in Latine it is called Anglia to this day And Anglia may as well be translated Ingland as England when the common writing is not according to the common sound of our pronunciation of it And I am not the first that did write it Ingland and not England but I have read it so divers times in good Authors and as you may see it in the three conversions of Ingland page 51. and in Epistle dedic and in other places of that book and in many other old Authors besides if you do well observe it and if any out landish Alien that knoweth not the custom of writing England with an e were to write the same you may be sure that the sound of the word Ingland would presently make him to write it with an I and not with an e. But as you have the name of the beast The Keepers of the Liberties of Ingland by the Authoritie of our Parliament which containe the just number of 666. So we must examine who they were that took upon them to be those Keepers of the Liberties of Ingland and we shall find them to be The House of Commons vvith the Lords or the House of Lords vvith the Commons and herein omitting them as I said before the numericall letters we find to be u. c. u. u. 1. l. d. just 666. A strange thing to me that such things should thus succeed in every thing unlesse you do ascribe them to the secret influence of the all disposing Providence of him qui disponit omnia suaviter which disposeth all things wisely and bringeth all things to passe by secret strange and wonderfull wayes And then the Holy Spirit addeth that this number of the beast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the number of a man a man no doubt either eminently bated and persecuted by the beast or else exceedingly advanced to some eminent place and Authority under the beast or both and it hath been shewed by Arise Evans that Will. Laud a man whom all men know how the Parliament affected him contained the just number of 666. and I do assure you that I have found this just number of 666. in the Latine name of another eminent man that belonged to the Parliament and loved not the Latine Beast who is no other then dominus Crumwelus wherein you may finde d. 1. u. c. u. l. u. that make 666. Object If you object that he wrote his name Cromwel and not Crumwel and so five is wanting to make 666. Sol. I Answer to this as I did for Ingland that the Spirit of God might mean that the number of the name of the beast should be taken as it is commonly pronounced and so known of all and not as it is written and so known only of those that are Scholers and thus should make up 666. and so Dominus Crumwelus doth And besides all this I will not here omit to proceed to shew unto you how it is observed that this very number of 666. is found out of their newdeviced Covenant as you may see it in querela Cantabrigensi page 24. where those Learned and judicious Divines say it will not be more then what upon triall Mr. Geast a learned Divine and a prisoner for his conscience sake will be found true if we here mention a Mysterie which many as we conjecture will not a little wonder at that this Covenant of these Rebells for which all this perfecution hath been raised confisteth of six Articles and those Articles consisting of 666. wordes and this is not the first time that persecution hath risen in Ingland upon fix Articles Mr. Foxe in his acts and Mon. vol. 2. p. 443. Edit Lod. 1631. as witnesseth those in the Reign of Henry the eighth the which Master Foxe will shew you more at large but as for the number of the beast that they should so directly answer to the number of words in those six Articles of their Covenant if we consider Gods Blessed Providence in every partitular thing it hath made many of us and so many others no doubt seriously and often to reflect upon it and I wonder that it is not more generally and more seriously thought upon And therefore though I professe with Master Calvin that I am no Pythagorian for matters of number nor a Jewish Talmudist to set my Faith and to ground my Religion upon them yet I say that seeing it hath pleased the Spirit of God to take up the same termes of numeration for dayes moneths yeares and times in the case of the Christian Church which he made use of in the Jewish Church and to set down his Mysteries which he would have his children to understand in numbers and seeing 1. the cause that is the Covenant for which the Parliament prosecuted his warre so eagerly 2. the time for which they demanded the Militia 3. the Name which they assumed to themselves 4. the Name of a speciall Man both persecuted by them and advanced under them and 5. all the other particular wordes and names which the Fathers afore-cited and other Learned Divines have observed to contain the number of 666. do so fully and so punctually cohere and agree with the impudency cruelty impiety and all other the wicked practises of that Parliament is it not apparant that this Mysterie of the Name of the Beast which is set down for our instruction that we might take notice of the Beast when he came into the World if ever it was any where discovered or accomplished in any Persons is now plainly and evidently seen to be fulfilled in that Long Parliament which is therefore concluded and beleeved by many good Christians and of no small Learning to be the Beast here spoken of and
the Turk could it be done Who then hath done it This Book was written in the time of the Usurper Truly if any Court hath done such an Act I think I need not if I knew it digito demonstrare dieier hic est because such a publick Fact and so abominable in the sight of men that is as the Apostle speaks of the death of Christ not done in a corner is known far and near and talked of by young and old Yet this much I will tell thee my friendly Reader for I think none but my friends will read me that I have read very many Histories both of the Greeks and Latines and many of the Histories of the Church Whence the 9 Speeches in Parliament were collected and the Lives of many Kings and Emperors both of our own Kingdom and of other Nations and the Nine several speeches as I believe of the best anti-regal Orators of the Long Parliament concerning the Power of Parliament to proceed against their King for mis-government The which Speeches if I be not much mistaken were all taken and collected out of Dolmans Book that was the great Jesuite and arch-enemy of Queen Elizabeth Father Parsons that printed a Book full of treason against the Queens Majesty under the feigned name of Dolman and the Book was condemned by Act of Parliament the 35th year of Queen Elizabeth and now with the change of the Title the most of it is reprinted to shew the Power of Parliament to proceed against their King which by that Act of the 25th of the Queen I conceive to be then judged no less than crimen laesae Majestatis a crime of High Treason against the Queen though in the Long Parliament it was thought a point of just proceeding against our Kings especially against King Charles And yet in all the Histories that I have read and in all those Nine Speeches and all those Examples What Kings were deposed or killed by their Subjects that those Orators do produce of the Kings and Princes that were deposed banished or killed by their Subjects for their Tyranny and mis-government as Saul and Ammon by the Jews Romulus Tarquinius Julius Caesar Nero Domitian Heliogabulus Maxentius Constantine the 6th and Irene by the Romans Childereck and Charles of Lorein by the French Flaveo Suintilla Don Alonso el Sabio and Don Pedro by the Spaniards Don Sancho by the Portugals Henry the 3. by the Polonians Gustavus by the Swedes Cisternus by the Danes Edwin John Edward the 2. Richard the 2. Henry the 6. and Richard the 3. by the English Which are all but obliquely and poorly produced and might by a reasonable Historian be fully answered especially because according to that true Rule Vivitur praeceptis non exemplis We are to frame our lives by Precepts as God commandeth us and not by examples as other men have done For I can have examples enough beyond number of men that have committed murders and that have been Robbers and Adulterers and the like And shall I therefore follow their examples God forbid So many Nations have done thus and thus unto their Kings And will that warrant us That we ought not to follow unjust examples do to the like By no means Because we are to look not what other Nations do but what God commandeth us to do and he commandeth us not to touch his Anointed nor to speak evil of the Governour of the people be he good or be he bad for if he be good nutritor est tuus he is thy preserver and thank God for him and if he be bad tentator est tuus God sent him for thy trial and thou must not kick against God but receive thy trial with patience until he that sent him in his anger takes him away in his wrath against him and in his love to thee and he can take him away when he pleaseth till which time with David thou shouldst rest thy self contented as he did to endure the Tyranny of Saul though I say that I read of those foresaid Princes that were deposed or killed by the foresaid Nations and of many others Kings and Princes that as the Poet saith came not to their graves sicca morte And as the Parliament proceeded against King Charles without blood yet I find not any one of them all in any Nation whatsoever to have been proceeded against and to have been condemned and killed modo forma as the Jews proceeded against Christ and the Antichrist would proceed against the Witnesses and the Parliament did against our King And therefore this sin of the Antichrist is not an usual or a common sin as Idolatry blasphemy murder and the like but such a murder as is to be the proper and peculiar sin of the Antichrist and of none else in which respect the Apostle calleth the Antichrist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the man of the sin by which sin so done as I shewed you you might know him to be the Antichrist Object But it may be some will say that I do hereby positively and plainly conclude the Long Parliament to be the great Antichrist and to have committed the proper sin of the Antichrist because that they being the highest Court of Justice have condemned their Superiours their King and chief Pastor judicially as the Jews did Christ unto death Solut. I answer that God hath not made me a Judge to determine whether the Long Parliament hath justly or unjustly condemned them to death for if they have done justly therein they have done well and no waies committed the sin of the Antichrist which is such a condemning as I shewed of an innocent person unto death and of such persons as God requireth not but forbiddeth to be condemned but if they have unjustly condemned them let them look to it and answer to God for it I will not be their Judge let who will determine the question but I will proceed in the Apostles description of this man of sin that is the Antichrist And to shew that the Antichrist is full of other sins though this man-killing thus That the antichrist will be full of other sins as I shewed be his Master sin St. Paul goeth on to set out some other of his sins that tend to produce and to perfect the former sin saying that he should oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped So that He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an opposer or an adversary 1. A Rebel an opposer of his King and of his Passor as both the Syriack and the vulgar Latine reads it and as learned Zanchius saith this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek answereth to the word Satan in Hebrew and as the Son of Perdition which the Apostle here ascribeth unto the Antichrist so this word adversary alludeth unto Judas of whom Christ saith have not I chosen twelve and one of you is a Devil And why a Devil but because he
in their Ecclesiastical Histories have left it recorded to all Posterities what direful Torments the poor harmless Christians have endured in the first ten grievous Persecutions under Nero Domitian Dioclesian Decius and others Heathen Tyrants that were so cruel and so tyrannical to the Saints and Servants of God that most good men and religious minds cannot read their Sufferings without weeping nor remember them without pity For Claud. in Ruff. lib. 1. Quis prodere tanta relatu Funera quis caedes posset deflere nefandas It is not credible for Infidels that know not the Gospel to believe so many slaughters and such exquisite Tortures as the Christians endured when as alii flammis exusti alii ferro perempti alii patibulo cruciati or that they can be looked upon by any humanity with dry eyes And yet Isidorus tells us August de civ Dei l. 20. c. 8. Cyrillus catech 15. Hypolit Orat. de fine seculi The time of the greatest persecution and so doth S. Aug. S. Cyril and Hyppolitus the holy Martyr in his Oration de consummatione mundi that in the time of the Antichrist which would be towards the end of the world and not long before the Coming of Christ to Judgment the Synagogue of Satan and the worldly Senate or Citizens of this world should more furiously rage and more cruelly persecute the true Church of Christ and the most Faithful Servants of God than ever was done in the Primitive Times And besides the accession of above 5000 years experience unto Satans natural and inbred sagacity and sharpness of knowledge and understanding to find out new waies and subtiller devices to afflict Gods Servants they render this Reason for their Assertion because that The reason of the foresaid assertion as the Scripture testifieth Satan was to be bound and fettered as a dog in a chain for 1000 years that is after the end and determination of the first 10 great Persecutions and the Persecutions of the Goths and Vandals and the other Arian Kings that were no less Persecutors and Tormentors of the Orthodox Fathers and the Professors of the Faith of one Substance which is the right Catholick Faith than the Heathen Tyrants were of the Faithful Christians In all which time of 1000 years Satans 1000. years binding how understood that is either the full and determinate number of 1000 years as some Expositors would have it or else a very long season and much about the time of 1000 years though not precisely such a term as others would have it the Malice of Satan was so locked up and chained and his Power so abridged that he could not destroy as many nor persecute the Saints so much as he desired and would have effected si potuisset quantum vellet had he been suffered to do what he would But when his 1000 years Imprisonment should be expired and he loosned out of his Chains and more Liberty granted to him then his inveterate spite and his revengeful Malice for his former Imprisonment would devise the Means and find out the waies to vex and persecute the Servants of God and the Witnesses of Jesus Christ more than ever he had done before in any of the former Persecutions And truly I think Francisc Junius Tilenus ad Bellarm. l. 3. c. 7. de Rom. Pontif. Balâ—us de Antich cap. 6. that although Satan was not fully loosned and set at liberty till now of late yet whosoever readeth Thuanus Tilenus and Chamier and the Book of the Martyrs of our English Church written by Mr. Fox and other Authors that have written the History of these two last Centuries and doth rightly consider the Sufferings and Massacres of those Christians that they within the Compass of those years have undergone in France Germany Spain Italy and other places round about and that only for their Religion and not for any worldly Dominion which was the Sufferings of the People in former ages Dr Abbots in his brief description of the world pag. 141. in the time of the first 4 Monarchies and is still the condition both of the Jews and Christians within the Territories of the Turk that tolerateth any Sect and permitteth all Religions and all Nations to live peaceably and quiet throughout his whole Dominion so they yield themselves subject to his Rule and pay to him their allotted Contribution and meddle not with the Mahometan Laws and Superstition he must ingeniously confess the Truth of this Assertion and the unquestionable Certainty of this Prophetical Prediction of Isidorus and the other Fathers aforenamed videlicet that the sorest Troubles and the greatest Persecution of all that Satan raised or shall stirre up against the Christians as they are Christians hath been is and will be that which he hath and still doth prosecute and will persevere to do it by the Ministers and Ministry of his prime General and his dearly beloved Son of Perdition the great Antichrist And if according to the Counsel of Moses and Job Deut. 4.32 c. 32. v. 7. Job 8.8 Sr Walter Rawleigh in his Preface to the History of the world and M. Fox in his book of Martyrs we ask the daies of old and enquire of our Fathers that were before us what they suffered and how they were handled heretofore either in France Italy Spain or Germany or else nearer home where the Truth may be sooner found and better known of us in Ingland and that under K. Hen. 8. and Q. Mary the two greatest Persecutors of Gods Servants for their Religion that our Chronicles do mention and compare their sufferings in the just and even Ballance of an impartial judgment with that Oppression Persecution Injustice and cruelty and that joyned with such subtilty and a pretence of Piety as cannot by my dull Pen be expressed which for the space of 14 or 15 years hath been acted and continued here in this Island of Great Brittain against Loyal Subjects none can deny and Faithful Christians as we hope God will bear witness and that only for their Loyalty unto their King and their Piety towards God in the constant retaining of the true Faith wherein they were baptized and Christened and a good Conscience wherein they lived we shall find the Cruelties of those two forenamed Princes to be favourable and great mercies and all the Favours and Mercies of our new and now pretended Saints towards the true Ministers of Christ and the Faithful Servants of God to be the greatest Cruelties that ever were recorded in any History and I think such Injustice and so great as was never heard of in any Nation For 1. When King Hen. the 8. became sacrilegious 1. The Persecution of the Clergy and wrongs done in K. Hen. the eighth's time I have no other term for his Doings to rob the Church and to take away the Lands and Possessions of the Abbies and the Priories he did the same with the leave and consent of many if
concluded and expressed in our 39 Articles to which all Ministers subscribed and this uniformity of Gods worship thus purged from all abuses errors and Superstitions and so perfectly composed by all those holy men for the honor and service of God was fully authorized by the Queen and all the Parliaments that were convened and held in her time to be observed without any omission or alteration in all Churches as you may see by the Act prefixed before the Book of common Prayer And afterwards it was continued and preserved by that wise and learned King K. James and above all and more strictly than all by that ever blessed King and glorious Martyr of Jesus Christ Charles the 1. that defended the true faith and this true form of serving God against all opposers both the superstitious Papists and the apostate Puritanes and Separatists even to the loss of his life And I presume all good Protestants will yield unto me and I am perswaded That the Church of Ingland in King Charles his raign was the purest Church on earth that the Pope and his Cardinalls if they would speak according to their consciences could not deny but that the Church of Ingland as it was purged from Idolatry and Superstition and established in such purity of Doctrine and excellency of Discipline in the raign of King Edward the 6th and especially in Queen Elisabeths time and so continued in the raign of King James and King Charles was the truest and the purest Church unless they did except their own Church that way-fared and was militant here on earth where the faith of Gods elect might infallibly be found the service of God was rightly observed and was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Temple the House and the Church which he hath purchased and wherein he dwelleth And So E. H. truly confesseth that amongst all the reformed Churches E. H. in his Preface to the Reader the Church of Ingland hath alwayes been esteemed the purest as being most conformable to primitive purity and the word of God both in Doctrine and Discipline B. Montague in apello Caesarem c. 5. p. 47 48. And this appears even from the pens of the heads of other reformed Churches as Bucer Melancthon Calvin Camerarius Beza Zanchius Molinaeus Casaubon Sergevil Saravia and others who many of them confess in plain words and all by consequence conclude that the Church of Ingland of any particular national Church in the world cometh nearest to the apostolick rule for though all the Churches that protested against the superstitious tenents and errors of the councill of Trent and the Church of Rome have borne the name of reformed Churches yet neither all nor any of them all are indeed well and perfectly reformed when as many of them are corrupt in many points of Doctrine as I could shew you amongst the Calvinists and especially the Lutheran Churches that maintain that foul error of the ubiquity of the humanity of Christ their consubstantiation of his body in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and their many mistakes about the communication of the Properties of both his natures as Danaeus sheweth most excellently against Chemnitius and most of them are deficient in the rule of primitive Government not any one of them indeed following the Apostles Discipline And the reason of their deficiency is The reason of the deficiency of the Reformation of the other reformed Churches because that in the French and German Churches and the Churches beyond the Seas the Reformers of them by reason of the innumerable number of their potent enemies and the civil broyles and diffentions that were then in those parts and especially the want of a King in Israel that is a supream Monarch in some of those places over the people which made way for every one of the vulgar sort to do as we read in the Book of Judges what seemed right in his own eyes Judges 21.25 were constrained to do what they might and not what they would have done what could be effected and not what they desired to be performed But the Church of Ingland not by popular or any one particular mans reformation as John Knox that furious puritane did in the Church of Scotland but by a national Synod of all the Bishops and best Divines called by the King and confirmed by the King Peers and Commons of the whole Kingdome reformed her self not as other Churches did tumultuarily but with a great deal of advice diligence and deliberation that so it might be effected as the Apostles left it as the sacred rule required and as it was premonstrated it should be performed and weeded from all the dross the tares and the darnells that should spring to choak the pure wheat And therefore seeing the Church of Ingland until these late times was the truest and the purest reformed Church on earth it is conceived and I do believe it that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Antichrist should arise not out of Rome that hath corrupted many truths and superadded many errors and Superstitions upon the fundamentalls of our Religion and is as yet unreformed nor out of Constantinople which hath likewise apostatized from the true faith of Christ and doth still continue unreturned to Christ from their false Prophet nor out of Hierusalem as some men do most fondly dream but out of this Church this very Church of great Brittain For as heretofore Speed l. 6. cap. 45. Camden britan pag. 74. Euseb in vita Constant. Zechar. 10.11 this Iland of great Brittain brought forth Constantine the son of Helen the daughter of King Coylus which was the best instrument that ever the Church of Christ had to further and to honor the Christian Religion as Eusebius sheweth the same at large And as according to the Septuagint the Prophet saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath passed through the narrow sea with affliction and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down and the scepter of Aegypt shall depart away which may signifie that Christ hath first of all purged this Church that lyeth within the narrow seas and hath made the purest Reformation here that was made in any place by the afflictions and sufferings of the aforenamed Martyrs in Queen Maries dayes and hath thereby brought down the pride of the Pope and of the Roman Church that were then as powerfull as the Assyrians were when the Prophet wrote the same and hath driven away his usurpation and freed us from his tyranny as the Israelies were delivered from the bondage of the Aegyptians so the devil bearing an inveterate hate and infinite malice against this Iland more than against any other place The 2. special Reasons why the devil beareth a greater malice to this Iland more than to any other place for these two grand services that it did to God 1. The toleration of the Christians to profess their faith in peace and the Plantation of the Church of Christ to encrease
Opinions and vomited forth the Blasphemies of the old hereticks and chiefly of the Anthropomorphites Sabellians Nestorians Sadduceans Alexander Ross in the Epistle to the Reader before his animadversions Arabeans Taceans or Euchratites Manichaeans Mahometans and others the like wicked Hereticks All which Errors Heresies and Blasphemies the said Rosse hath observed and quoted the very Chapters where they were to be found and seen in the said Leviathan and hath in his animadversions most religiously and learnedly like a good Servant of Christ confuted the same to whom I refer my Reader to be more fully satisfied in every point And so the Reverend Bishop Hall hath somwhat shewed the Errors Heresies Blasphemies Bishop Hall in his revelation unrevealed Absurdities and Confusions that sprang amongst us and these Sectaries have brought into this Church of Christ And so likewise no doubt but many other Divines have observed and confuted the Blasphemie of these Beasts that have so divided the seamless Coat of Christ and brought such a confusion into his Church And letting pass the multiplicity of errors dissentions and absurd conclusions that have now lately crept into these Dominions about the Government of the Commâ—â—-wealth when some would have it a Monarchy others no Monarchy some desire it to be Aristocratical others Democratical and others Anarchical no Government at all If all the foresaid errors and all other sorts of heresies and blasphemies be not the undeniable marks and notes and the Causers of the greatest confusion and division that can be among Christians in the Faith and Doctrine that they do profess and if every Parish-Priest in order or without order becoming absolute like a Pope in every Congregation without any subordination to superiour Governours as the Independant Anabaptists and Lay Preachers would have it doth not breed the greatest confusion that can be in the Discipline and Government of the Church I leave it to any wise man to determine it and to judge whether the Popes Traditions or the Turkes Alcoran or the Jews fabulous Targum can bring more Sects and divisions and cause greater confusion among the people than these Sectaries and Hereticks have scattered and produced in our Church Objection But here it may be some Presbyterian will object against me for making the Region of division and confusion to be that great City of Babylon that is spoken of in the Revelation and is the place and City where the Antichrist shall enthrone himself and say to me as S. Bernard doth in the like case to Abaylardus that answered him quod omnes Patres sic ego autem non sic that although all the Fathers thought so as S. Bernard said yet he thought not so therefore that I must with Acetâ—erigere mihi scalam set up a Ladder for my self alone to ascend and climb up to the high top of this great Mystery the understanding of what place is meant by this Babylon Author Romae ruinae finalis Anno 1666 when as most of the Expositors of this Point and Place both old and new Papists and Protestants as you may see them produced in heaps by the author of Romae ruina finalis Anno Domini 1666. which is dedicated inclitissimo D. O. Protectori do by Babylon there spoken of literally understand the City of Rome and no other place but Rome and I expound it not so grammatically as they do for any special place or City but altogether mystically for the great City of this world and especially for that part of the world where most errors heresies divisions and confusions are spread and do infest both the Church and Common-wealth And why should I think to be believed before all the rest Or what revelation have I had to understand it better than they did Respon To this I answer 1. That the Particulars of the Person time place and other adjuncts of the great Antichrist are tendered unto us every where in the Scriptures as Prophesies and as Mysteries sealed up obscure and not manifested nor to be understood many times by the Prophets themselves until they be fulfilled and are made known by evident and plain event which as I said before is the best exposition upon all Prophesies And therefore as Bishop Morton saith in excuse of the Fathers concerning their erring in this very case of the Antichrist the ignorance or mistaking of those things Bishop Montagu in his apello Caes c. 5. p. 146. which cannot possibly be understood before the time of their accomplishment in the last daies can no waies be held prejudicial to the wisdom and judgment of the Fathers of former times nor the receding from them can be said to be a fault or presumption in us when we see things otherwise fulfilled than they thought Tilenus exeges de Antichristo 73. p. 21. because as Tilenus saith very well aliud est latentem Antichristum non posse agnoscere aliud revelatum nolle adspicere it is one thing not to know the Antichrist while he lieth hid before he cometh into the world or to know the place or time of his coming before he cometh for so neither the Fathers of old nor the Protestants of latter years though never so learned could rightly and infallibly discern either who he was or at what time and in what place he should arise untill they saw him and it is another thing to refuse to know him or to take notice both of him and of the place where he is when he plainly appeareth and is made manifest to as many as are willing to take notice of him Dr. Hackwill in his Preface to his Book of Gods Providence 2. I say with Dr. Hakewel that sometimes an error and mistaking of a point hath been conceived and delivered by some man of note and worth both for learning and judgment and then the same error hath by the succeeding Schollers been generally imâ—taced and received for a truth sine judicio as Mr. Calvin saith in the like case anâ— without further search or discussion into the nature and ground of the matter and in such a case we ought to accept and follow a late and newly delivered truth and recede from the old and ancient error though never so generally imbraced by the former Authors rather than to continue in a generally received error because truth whensoever and by whomsoever discovered is to be received and preferred before error how anciently or how generally soever it hath been delivered §. 3. The Antichrist will accomplish and fulfill all the Prophesies and do all the things that are foretold us should be done by the Antichrist and that being but an insipid speech to say mallem cum Socrate errare quam cum aliis verè sentire 3. The Antichrist having seen the rebellion and apostacy of the Church and now growing strong by the division and confusion that is both in the Church and State wherein he inthroneth himself as in the seat of his Majesty
end why these sinfull murderers do thus kill those eminent persons expressed by our Saviour Christ in the Parable of the husbandmen that killed the Kings son that he being the heir and being killed the inheritance might be their own and they should rule and raign as Kings and have all for themselves that was their chiefest aim for they had learnt their Poetrie to make every Verse true that endeth with semper tibi proximus esto As Cum fueris faelix The covetous and ambitious mans Poetry semper tibi proximus esto Si fueris Romee semper tibi proximus esto Si fueris alibi semper tibi proximus esto Si tibi sint nati semper tibi proximus esto Si tibi sint nulli semper tibi proximus esto and the like So their hate their malice and their murder was not for the love of justice to have sin punished but for the love of themselves that they might have the pleasure and the profit for their iniquity And now having passed through these Particulars and seen the highest step and staff of this ladder of homicide and the worst degree or kinde of murder I say the sin of the Antichrist is like the sin of the Jews in the condemnation of Christ The sin of the Jews condemning Christ what it was which was an usurpation by Inferiors and Subjects as the Jews were to Christ of the highest Court and throne of justice and thence judicially and most unjustly to condemn to death and accordingly to kill and murder the most eminent person their superior placed over them by God to be their King to rule them their Priest and Prophet to pray for them and to instruct them and all this under the hypocriticall cloak and pretence of piety and Religion but indeed to this end that they might get the rule Government and Dominion into their own hands And I conceive the proper and peculiar sin of the Antichrist that the Apostle meaneth in this place The sin of the Antichrist like unto the sin of the Jews to be just like unto the same and never committed either by the Pope or Turk or any other single person whatsoever when it is to be done by a court and a collected multitude of men which therefore maketh the sin the more odious and abominable in the sight of God and of all good men And if in all Aquinas Summes or Antoninus his Titles or in all the Tomes of Abulensis or the mighty Comments of Cornelius à lapide or the painfull Works of Alstedius or the Summes of Vices by Peraldus or in and among all the beastly sinnes that Azorius in his moral Institutions setteth down or as the Prophet Jeremy saith Jerem. 2.10 Passe over to the Isles of Shittim and see send unto Kedar and consider diligently and see if there be such a thing or if you can finde in any Author divine or humane a sin more injurious to man and more odious and abominable in the sight of God than this thus committed by the Jews against Christ and by the Antichrist against the 2 witnesses of Christ then will I retract mine Assertion and submit my self to the correction of the Presbyterians for misinterpreting this place and mistaking this sin here meant by our Apostle But to justifie my Collection you may remember how angry the Lord was Numb 16.32 and how terribly he punished Corah Dathan and Abiram with such a punishment as the like is not found in all the book of God for despising their Superiors and Governors and refusing to yield obedience to Moses and Aaron in but giving spitefull and scandalous words unto them and saying when Moses called them we will not come up Numb 16.12 14. how angry then and what punishment think you would the Lord have inflicted on these rebellious Subjects if they had most wickedly and thus hypocritically as I now shewed you killed Moses and Aaron by a formal judiciary judgment of a whole Court of justice And to make it plain and evident that this man-killing is the notorious and proper peculiar sin of the Antichrist by which as by a plain and singular character he might be known to be the Antichrist when he came into the world the holy Ghost saith that when the two Witnesses of Christ the Supream Magistrate E. H. de Antic p. 76. and the chief Pastor of Gods people as some of the best Interpreters say have finished their testimony that is according to the time determined by God the Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit that is the Antichrist as all Interpreters do confess shall make war against them Revel 11.7 and shall overcome them and kill them that is in manner and form as I shewed to you before because no other kind of killing them The sin of Antichrist proved to be the foresaid sin of man-killing could have been so odious and so abominable in the sight of God And the Apostle here in 2 Thes 2.3 doth inrimate as much in the very next words that do immediatly follow the man of sin by calling him presently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the child of perdition or the son of destruction or of the destroyer which I find only ascribed to Judas that betrayed Christ and delivered him to death and to the Antichrist that brought the witnesses of Christ to death and so both Judas and the Antichrist are rightly termed the sons of destruction both actively and passively 1. Actively in destroying and bringing others to destruction as Judas did Christ and the Antichrist the Witnesses And 2. Vide Maresium in dissertat de ontichristo pag. 50. Passively in destroying themselves as Judas did in hanging himself and the Antichrist will do for so unjustly delivering his King and his Master to be destroyed And so you have seen what sin is the notorious proper and peculiar sin of the Antichrist the murdering of the Witnesses 2. 2. Who hath committed this sin that is the sin of the antichrist Neither the Pope nor the turk We are now to enquire whom we can find if we can find any that hath committed and thus committed as I shewed you this sin And here I must tell you it is far safer to tell you who did it not than to name to you who hath done it But I am sure that neither the Pope nor the Turk hath done it neither could they do it Reason 1 1. Because it was to be done by Inferiours and Subjects against their Superiours and Governours as the Jews did against Christ and Corah Dathan and Abiram against Moses and Aaron that were their Rulers and their Teachers and the Pope hath no superiour Pastor to instruct him nor the Turk any Emperor or King to command him Reason 2 2. Because it was to be done by a collected multitude and a High Court of Justice the highest Court in the Kingdom where it should be done and therefore neither by the Pope nor
say that we must understand not only the name Jehova and Lord and God and the other usual and proper titles and names of God which S. Hierome and others have collected out of the Scriptures but also any other thing that discovereth and maketh God known unto us as his works his word his titles his attributes and the like because God hath no proper name that can make him known unto us or fully express his nature and his being as God himself saith unto Moses Exod. 13.14 when he desired to know his name that he might thereby know him So whosoever denyeth the things and rejecteth the words notions and expressions that bring us to know God or to know the Father and the Son to be the true God doth therein and thereby deny God and is as the Apostle saith the great Lyar and the Antichrist that denyeth the Father and the Son Leber Secundus CAP. I. The measuring of the Temple the two Witnesses that should erect and build the Christian Church who they are how long they should Prophesie how they should be killed and used after their killing how they shall be resuscicated and revived and in what time they shall be revived after they be killed and of the great mystery of God what it is and when that shall be finished OUr loving Lord and Master Jesus Christ having left us here on earth was not like Pharoahs Butler so unmindfull of us as we are of him when he was glorified in Heaven but he sends his Angel to informe his best beloved Desciple and Servant Ichn of those chiefest afflictions and persecutions that the Christian Church should find and must so undergoe here amongst the Sons of men from that time that the Angel came unto him untill he should come to judge the World and to deliver his distressed Servants out of all their troubles To what end Christ foretells the troubles of his Church and he foretells us of them that they being foreshewed unto us we might the better either study by our endeavours and prayers to God wisely to prevent and avoyd them or manfully with Gods assistance to undergoe them which might the better and the more patiently be done being expected for to come quia tela previsa minus nocent because expected troubles are alwayes less dangerous and not any wayes so grievous as those that do suddenly surprize us and rush upon us like an A med man and this sad and wofull condition of the Church the Wars and Conflicts that she must pass through and the troubles and persecutions that she must suffer the Blessed Evangelist and Apostle St. Iohn setteth down in this book of the Revelation as the Holy Ghost by his Angel hath shewed them unto him And of all the things that are foreshewed I intend only to handle What things the Author chiefly aimeth to treat of by the assistance of Gods Holy Spirit and to treat in this place what I conceive to be the chiefest things that are observable in the 11th 12th and 13th Chapters of this Book of the Revelation and which are as I beleive principally meant or at least most probably applicable to these very times wherein we live and in all likelihood to this particular Church of great Britany and Ireland that to many men seemeth to be the Stage whereupon all or most of the sad spectacles and Tragedies here in these three Ghapters mentioned are evidently seen acted as they were foreshewed I confess the burthen that herein I took upon me is very heavy and the charge very great and I have often Prayed to the same Holy Spirit The weight of the burthen that he undertaketh that as Daniel saith giveth Wisdome and revealeth Secrets Dan. 2.21 22. and that hath revealed these secrets unto his Servant Iohn that he would be pleased to reveale the meaning of them unto me who without his help can understand just nothing but with his assistance may find out the true meaning of these mysteries which wiser men and greater Schollers without his help cannot do and herein I presume not positively to affirme any thing as Articles of Faith for others to beleive but I only do set down what I verily do conceive to be the true meaning of the Holy-Ghost and say with the Poet Si tu quid rectius istis Candidus imperti si non his utere mecum Now the summe of these three Chapters The summe of the three Chapters that are explained by the Author 11 chap. in brief is this 1. In the 11th Chapter the Angell setteth down to St. Iohn the state and condition of the Governours and Pastors of Gods Church the two Witnesses of Jesus Christ and their fiery tryall their persecution and their suffering under the rule and Reigne of the great Antichrist termed here the Beast that ascendeth from the bottomless pit 2. 12 chap. In the 12th Chapter he sheweth the troubles Crosses and Persecutions of the whole Church and the chiefest members of the same and how that notwithstanding all the malice of Satan and the spite of her persecutors the Church should be assisted and delivered from them all 3. 13 chap. In the 13th Chapter the Apostle describeth unto us the great Antichrist that should most of all persecute the Witnesses of Christ and the false Prophet that should instruct and instigate the Antichrist to proceed on in all his impieties and he sheweth the Combination of these two and of others the chiefest Enemies of the Witnesses and of the Church of Christ First 1. Of the measuring of the Temple and of the Worshippers therein Chap. 11.1 After that the Apostle had eaten 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the little book which the Angell gave him and was told by the Angell that he must Prophesie againe before many People and Nations and Tongues and Kings he saith there was given unto him a Reed like to a Rod or a measuring Pole and the Angel said unto him arise and measure the Temple of God and the Altar and them that Worship therein And we find that this measuring Reed was used sometimes to pull down to ruine and to destroy the measured place and sometimes to build and to reare up the same and some Interpreters whom E. H. followeth do understand it here for the ruine and Rejection of the Jewish people the dissipation of them by the Romans What is meant by the Temple that was to be measured The building of the Church of Christians and the end of their then Temple their Sacrifices and their Religion that was now approaching on and very nigh at hand but I rather conceive that by the Temple of God that was now to be measured we should understand the Church of God that is the Christian Church that was now to be edified to be reared up and to be reduced to a new forme and to have new Ordinances and new Sacraments far better then those that were in the Jewish Temple as Beza
Faith from off the world by taking away all the meanes and maintenance of the Clergy and so exposing all the most reverend Bishops to scorne and contempt and then Idem c. 11. Lament 4 5. denying any Office or place of command or credit either in the Army or Civil Government to the Christians and thrusting all others out of their places and imployments that professed the Christian Religion and bestowing all Offices of honour and profit upon the Idol-Worshippers and so magnifying the superstitious and idolaters and bringing both the Clergy and lay Christians to extreame want and poverty and making them the spectacles of reproach when as many of them had not bread to put into their mouths and instead of Scarlet that they formerly used they must now be glad of rags and be driven as the Prophet speaketh to imbrace the dunghill and to dig or beg or starve he had almost extinguished the light of the Gospel and exhausted the very Soul of Christianity out of the world and had been very like to put out the greatest part of the light of the divine truth from all the parts of his dominions but that the goodness of God against whom it is hard to kick and whose will must stand when as no Counsell can prevaile against his providence did raise up the two Appollinarisses that were two learned and most famous Christian School-Masters who teaching many Noble mens Children Socrates l. 3. c. 14. The Father turned the five books of Moses into Heroicall verse Idem l. 3 c. 15. Marcellinus l. 22. c. 13. l. 25. c. 5. and by well grounding them in the Rudiments and principles of the Christian Religion did in spite of all the subtlety of Julian and the malice of Hell exceedingly uphold and preserve the faith of Christ for this Apostata bred in Athens at the same time with Greg. Nazianzen and very well skil'd in all humane learning as among other things his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the many elegant Orations and books that he wrote sheweth and Marcellinus testifieth was not ignorant of that maxime of Cornelius Tacitus Sublatis studiorum praemijs ipsa studia pereunt the only way to put out the fire is to take away the fewell and the readiest course to put down all learning is to take away the reward of learning and the maintenance of learned men for as Martiall saith Sint Maecenates non deerunt flacce Marones Martial epig. Bountifull Maecenases and Religious uncorrupted Patrons will bring forth learned Authors Poets Orators Historians and Divines but if you will root out any Art science or profession you need not defile your hands with blood by killing the Persons but take away the meanes and maintenance of the Professors and let them starve but not be kill'd because poverty and want hunger and cold nakedness and shame with scorne and contempt will prevaile with men whose names are not written in the book of Life and are not upheld by the special grace of Gods mighty hand O quantum cogit egestas Juvenal sat 3. to do what thou wilt more then the Sword or Canon Vellit nam saepius aurem Invida paupertas dixit vilia rura And as Juvenal saith Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat Res Angusta Domi Therefore I take Julian that took this course with the Church of Christ to be Primogenitus diaboli and Proximus Antichristo the first born of the Devil in respect of his Wickedness though not of time and the next Neighbour or Gentleman Vsher to the Antichrist that chalked out the way to him to overthrow the Church and is the vilest and the worst of all the persecutors that either preceded him or should succeed him untill the comming of the Beast that ascended from the bottomless pit and shall discend to the Lake of Fire and Brimstone because all the other persecutors persecuted Presbyteros the Priests and Bishops that stood for the Faith but this wretch endeavoured to root out Presbyterium the most sacred Calling and Function of the Bishops and Ministery that there might be none to uphold the Faith of Christ upon the Earth but that the Religion and the Service of his Heathen Gods might be still continued to whom beyond all others he was most superstitiously devoted Am. Marcel l. 25. c. 6. as Ammianus testifieth And he is said here c. 17.10 to be the 7th for the comfort of the Church it is added that he should continue but a short space which was but three years at the most for this vile person beginning his Voyage against the King of Persia resolved and Vowed if he prevailed in that enterprise to Sacrifice all the Christians unto his Idoll Gods How God revenged the Wickedness of Julian therefore the God of Gods and the Protector of the Christians sent his Angel from Heaven as some write or a Devil out of Hell as saith Calistus that ran him through or some other instrument of the divine justice suddenly smote him no man knowes how nor from whence that he dyed scoffingly saying vicisti Galilee vicisti and then one of his Compeers objected against the Christians that their God was not as they affirmed slow to wrath when he did so speedily and so suddenly execute his fury against Julian to whom we answer that this doth exceedingly commend the great goodness of our God that will when he seeth his Patience and his long sufferance is abused cannot bring the reprobates to Repentance seeth his Servants in Jeopardy to be destroyed to preserve his Saints to prevent their own further judgment suddenly smite them while they are acting their villanies and their sins are in their hands as he did smite Nebuchadnezzar while the word was in his mouth Dan. 4.31 and Corah Dathan and Abiram before they had the opportunity to destroy his Servants and to commit any more wickedness to heap more vengeance unto themselves So that as the mercyes of the wicked are cruel Prov. 12.10 the judgments of our God upon these transcendent malefactors are mingled and allayed with a great deal of Mercy And as these Reasons afore cited do sufficiently prove Julian to be here meant by the 7th King the Angel speaks of so the Holy Ghost saith The Beast that was and is not is the eighth as I have shewed to you before who might be conceived to be him that was and is not then it is said that he which was and is not is of the 7th that is not of the same race or stock or a colleague of and with the 7th Marcell in vita constantij as Junius saith Trajan was with Nerva or Julian was with Constantius as Marcellinus saith But of the same quality and condition of the same subtlety and cruelty in persecuting the Saints and suppressing the true Service of Christ as the seventh was and is of the same livery and serving the same Master and after
of the Beast supposed by the persecuted Saints to be that long Parliament And for those that have so much wondered at the Victories and successes of that Parliament and are thereby seduced to take them for the true Saints and their doings just and well-pleasing unto God and the poor persecuted party to be rejected of him and their cause displeasing in his sight when they see them thus subdued and subjected unto them delivered up by God into the hands of their enemies to be robbed and killed if they submit not themselves to be ruled and governed by their Lawes I would desire them onely to consider who can deny the Jewes to be Gods own peculiar people and a chosen Generation that made their boast of God Psal 44.9 and professed that they would prayse his name for ever and the Heathens to be Gods professed enemies and Idolaters that worshipped stocks and stones for Gods v. 10. and yet in the very next verse of the same 44 Psalm it is said but now O God thou art farre off and puttest us to confusion and geest not forth with our Armies thou makest us to turn our backs upon our enemies which were Atheists and Idolaters and hast scattered us among the Heathen which had not known Gods name and they that hate us spoil our goods which is the very case of the Kings friends in these Kingdoms Psal 79.6 and in the 79 Psalm the Prophet saith O God the Heathen are come into thine Inheritance thine holy Temple have they defiled and made Hierusalem a heap of stones and we are become an open shame to our enemies a very scorn and derision to them that are round about us And though all this came upon them Psal 44.18 yet as the Prophet testifieth they did not forget God nor behaved themselves frowardly in his Covenant neither were their hearts turned back as I hope nor ours nor their steps gone out of the way no not when they were smitten into the place of Dragons v. 19. and covered with the shadow of death but they were still Gods beloved people his Saints and his Children when they were thus beaten and spoyled and even eaten up like sheep as we are now by those ravenous Wolves that were none of Gods people but the Rods of his fury to chastize that people which were his Servants though now offending their Master for which they are chastized And therefore men should not judge our case by our distress nor approve of the Parliaments proceedings by their successes when we assure our selves and they might believe it it is now with us as it was then with the Jewes and our losses loose us nothing nor do their gettings gain them any thing being all laid up in a broken bag for the Victories and prosperity of the wicked puffs them up with pride and a high conceit of their own Sanctity and deserts and so makes them far worse then they were before but the adversities and defeats of Gods Servants their beating and their spoyling humbleth them and causeth them to run to God to confess how justly they have deserved the same and to implore his pardon and deliverance as well knowing that there is no place to flie a Deo irato nisi ad Deum placatum and so they are made by their miseries better then they were before in their felicity Mala quae nos hic premunt ad Deum ire compellunt because as St. Augustine saith pari motu exagitatum horribiliter faetet caenum suaviter fragrat unguentum the stirring of a Dunghill or any filthy puddle raiseth stink but the stirring up of Oyntment makes a very sweet and pleasant smell so though the punishment of the wicked drives them with Saul to despair of Gods help and to run unlawfull courses to Witches and Wizards the chastisements of Gods Servants drive them with David to cry to God both for his pardon and for his help and cause them with Daniel to behave themselves submissively as they ought while he was under the rule of Nebucadnezar Therefore wise men should not judge of the equity of things by the success of things when the very Heathen man could say Careat successibus opto Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat Let him want all good success that judgeth actions by the success for if you please to look into Jeremiah 12.1 2 3 Psal 37.7.10.35 36. Psal 73.3 4 5. 18 19 and 20. verses and Psal 92.7 and into many of the like places of the Book of Job you shall find that the more men prosper in their bad wayes the more sure they are to be destroyed and the more fearfull shall be their destruction And so Victories and Successes such as Daniel speaks of the Victories of Antiochus and such as the Holy Ghost sets down in this Chapter the Victories of the Beast over Christs Saints though we confess them to come from the hand of God without whose providence a sparrow cannot light upon the ground yet we avouch them to be no infallible signes of Gods love to the Victors or of his approbation of their actions to be just and blameless in his fight when as we know he gives the Victory to many men and those Victors are neither approved by God for just nor their doings as they are done by them acceptable unto God but he doth many times bate and abhorre their very proceedings even in those things and at that time when himself gives them a power to prevail and he will in his good time severely punish them for those their misdeeds which he himself in his secret judgement suffered them to effect yea and gave them ability to bring them to passe even as I shewed he not onely prospered and gave the Victory to the Inhabitants of Ai Josh 7.5 against the Children of Israel and to the Tribe of Benjamin against their Brethren in two severall Battles but he also raised called annointed strengthened and assisted Jehu that profest himself as zealous for the Lords honour as any man could be 2 Reg. 10. to make him as victorious over the idolatrous House of Ahab to root out all his Posterity even 70. Sonnes at a clap as the long Parliament hath been over the good King Charles and his off-spring and yet the Lord saith and I would the beast here spoken of would consider it he Would require or avenge the blood of Ahab and the blood of those 70. Children Josh 1.4 no doubt that were innocent and causlesly caused to be slain at the hands or upon the house of Jehu And so without question the just God in his good time when he maketh inquisition for blood will avenge the innocent blood of all those holy Martyrs that hath been unjustly spilt in our last Warre for as the Prophet saith right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints and the voice of their blood doth cry aloud like Abels blood
paralel Whom I never read to have done things so unjustly as that Parliament did utterly to undoe so many men and never tell them what evill they have done there shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world no nor ever shall be math 24.21 and upon the words of the revelation where satan is said to be let loose c. 20. v. and Hypolitus Cyrillus Isidorus and others doe collect and avouch out of the scripture that the injustice and the persecution of the Antichrist will be greater and stranger and more grievous then any other of the persecutions that preceded it and therefore Bellarmine and many others both of the Roman and of the Protestant Church do make the persecution of the Antichrist to be one of the two concomitant signes whereby the saints and servauts of Christ shall know and understand that he is come into the world But the unspeakeable and unparaleled injustice cruelty and persecution of that Parliament acted against the true servants of Christ that were loyall subjects of the civill state and the faithfull Governours of the purest church that Christ had on earth intimated by the Apostle in the place before cited and lighting upon them that I specified to you before surpassed in my understanding all the persecutions that preceded it when as I shewed you in the beginning of this booke the votes ordinances and acts of that Parliament are not inferiour but as I conceive exceeding in cruelty injustice and impietie the edicts of Dioclesian or Decius or any other of the worst of the pagan persecutors Aod doth not this most plainly evince and prove that the Iuncto of united Independants and their adherents and associale Prebyterians in that long Parliament and their false Prophet that sate at Westminster to instruct them are the beasts spoken of in the Revelation c 13. and the man of sin the childe of perdition and the great antichrist that St. Paul prophesied of to come into the world 2 Thes 2 6. Another undeniable palpable signe of the antichrist is 6. Grosse Hypocrisie of the Parliament unfallible sign of the anti The partlel his more then Pharisaicall hypocrisie sitting in the Temple of God as God preaching the Gospel as an Evangelist and being in al things else as I have formerly shewed the best saint in shew and the devill in deed and so an absolute and a perfect hypocrite as the Presbyterians affirmed the Pope to be And have not that long Parliment most hypocritically besides their other doings made an act for the propagation of the Gospel and have nominated certain men of their own sect to put that act in execution throughout the thirteen shires of Wales as where they found the people most loyall to their King and more desirous to retain the true service of God amongst them then any other parts of the kingdom and therefore had more need to have their Gospel preached there amongst them but I beseech you marke how finely the darke fiend can change himselfe into an Angel of light that he might inlarge the kingdom of darkenesse for if you would rightly understand how these men have propagated the Gospel of Christ in those parts where I had an occasion to be an eye-witness of their proceeding I do assure you upon the faith of a christian they have ejected and deprived most if not all of the best preachers and grave doctors some onely for receiving their just dues others for their loyalty and some without once calling them to answer or telling them why or wherefore they were ejected and they have set their livings to Captaines and Soldiers and have shut the Churches doores and charged the right Incumbents neither to pray there nor to preach unto the people and so they have verie formally propagated the Gospel of Christ by this their good service as is conceived unto the Antichrist and yet that they might seem good gospellers to deceive the world they have got some few novices and young striplings that wanted meanes as much as they lacked learning 1 Tim 3.6 Iude v. 12. and 13. How the Parliament hath propagated the Gospel in Wales such as St. Paul speaks of and as wandring Stars and Clouds without water as St. Iude calls them or as the Pilgrime Jew that was lately talked of with one pocket Sermon or two that they got as was reported from their brethren of Wrexam and learned the same by rote which were full of the doctrines blasphemies of the times they became as they are term'd itinerant preachers to bestow a Sermon upon a congregation which they never saw before and which in all likelihood they should never see again And thus the Parliament with their wandring preachers have propagated the Gospel of Jesus Christ the clean contrarie way And who seeth not by all this and by all their other doings like this that as all divines confesse the Antichrist under the name of Christ and upon pretence to doe the best service unto Christ will be the greatest enemie of Christ so these men under the shew of propagating the Gospel have done more then all the wicked hereticks that preached or the beathen tyrants that knew not Ghrist to overthrow the true church of God and to roote out the right faith and the clear light of the Gospel from off the earth And therefore if the Parliament be not the great Antichrist but that a greater and a worse shall come into the world God O Good God I humbly beseech thee for Jesus Christ his sake take me out of this world before he commeth into the world that mine eyes may not see that evill And now being wearied in prosecuting the folly and discovering the great great iniquity and impietie of that Parliament sutable to the predictions of those things that should be acted by the Antichrist and fearing that I have too much wearied my reader in the pursute of this wild beast I should here end this point What a preacher saith in a printed Sermon but that I cannot omit what a godly preacher setteh down in a a Sermon printed at London 1647. upon St Luke c. 18 vers 31.24 where he saith It hath been a long and a great dispute whether the Antichrist be come and who he is and if I be not mistaken the scripture will easily resolve this question for they that oppose themselves against Christ they that sit in the Temple and set themselves aboue all deposing and murdering Kings are not these the first and the great Antichrist when they make themselves what Christ alone is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and therefore alone hath the power to depose Kings and to dispose of their kingdomes are they not the Antichrist For the Apostle saith qui Christi sunt crucifixerunt carnem they that are Christs have crucified the flesh or fleshly lusts but qui Antichristi sunt crucifixerunt Christum Regem we may justly say they are the Antichrist
neither of these can be said to have been and not to be and yet to be at the same time as the Holy Ghost affirmeth of this Beast for though Domitian was chosen by the Souldiers whilst his Father Vespasian was in Judaea Vide Caracott◠pag. 52. and then gave up his right and title to the Empire when Vespasian returned to Rome yet this doth not cohere with he is not and yet is which is affirmed of this Beast and though it might have been said that he was and is not and yet shall be if this Vision of the Beast had been shewed to St. John in Vespasians time but it could not possibly be said that he was if according to Epiphanius his Testimony St John was banished to Patmos and had these visions revealed unto him in the Emperor Claudius his time because that after Claudius Nero reigned 13 years Galba seven moneths Otho four moneths and Vitellius eight moneths before Vespasian was made Emperor nor could it be well said that he was whilst Vespasian was in Judaea when he was but an Vsurper and an Intruder while his Father lived or though it might be truly said in some sence that he was and in some other sence that he was not yet can it not be said in any way or in any sence that he was and is not and yet is as the Holy Ghost saith of this Beast How then shall we unfold this Riddle and untie this Gordian knot I answer That the Words in c. 17.8 do seem most coherent to the long Parliament That 1. Was a true Parliament that I have often thought of it and assayd it divers wayes and yet could never see how this Testimony of the Holy Ghost touching this beast that he was and is not and yet is can be applied either to Domitian or to any other of all the Emperours or Kings or Society of men so fitly and so probably agreeing with the meaning of Gods spirit as it is or may be applycable to the long and lately dissolved Parliament for that was a true Parliament when the King called them together and they sate to consult with their King de arduis rebus regni about the great affaires of the Kingdom and took their Oaths and made their solemn Protestation to protect the Kings Person and to maintain the true Protestant Religion 2. Is believed to be no Parliament But I heard many wise men judge it no Parliament when they did expell and cast out their guides and their leaders the Messengers of Christ from among them and endeavoured as the Giants did of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make Warre against God and raised an Army against their head and with all their might did fight against their King and at last like did most disloyally cut off his Head that was the head of them and of us all and as the Prophet speaketh of the like godly King 3. And yet still is a Parliament the breath of our nostrills and yet still it is a Parliament in their own esteem and with their adherents and by their peremptory Acts and Ordinances that are still accounted most excellent and binding and are so urged and observed by their adherents and compelled to be observed by all others and by the greatness of that power and authority which they assumed unto themselves and do by their Acts and Lawes execute over all people to this very day more then any other ordinary Parliament ever used whereby you see how this may be understood that is said of the beast that he was and is not and yet is though I leave it to the judicious Reader to judge whether he conceives this to be the meaning of the Holy Ghost or not or whether all this may be so as may thus be coherent and applicable to that long Parliament or not And as this which I have now expressed doth seem very shrewdly to prove Some conceive it thus to be fulfilled I will not determine it the long Parliament is or may be here signified by this beast so that which is set down by the Angel in the 17th Chapter and the 10th verse which is the explication of this vision that is here shewed c. 13. doth more fully seem to illustrate and confirm the same thing for there he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and there are seven Kings that is which have been and will be great and grievous extraordinary persecutors of my people The 5 Kings that were fallen before this Revelation was shewed whereof five are fallen that is dead and gone which we understand by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fallen and these five saith Junius are 1. Servius Sulpitius Galba the seventh Emperour of the people of Rome 2. Marcus Salvius Otho 3. Aulus Vitellius 4. Flavius Vespafianus 5. Titus the Sonne of Vespasian and one is saith the Holy Ghost that is saith he Flavius Domitian another Sonne of the foresaid Vespasian in whose latter Reign saith he St. John wrote this Revelation and another is not yet come saith the Text that is saith he Cocceius Nerva and the beast that was and is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translators render Junius in annotat in c. 17. joyned to Beza's Translation even he is the eighth even he especially to be observed above any of the other seven saith the Angel and this even he saith Junius is Nerva Trajan that is as I conceive him Cocceius Nerva the last that was aforenamed or rather as the stories shew Vlpius Trajanus qui hic vario respectu Septimus octavus appellatur who himself in divers respects is called here the seventh and the eighth for that although in number and order of succession he be the eighth yet saith he because this man obtained his power and authority with Nerva and did execute his consular office with him when Nerva died he is also said to be the seventh c. 17.11 and is reckoned together with Nerva as if Nerva and Trajan were but one head according to which sence our former Translation though very corruptly reads the beast that was and is not is even the eighth and is one of the seven or as the Geneva notes do understand those Kings The 1. is Nero. 2. Galba 3. Dr. Hammond in permonit pag. 907. Ex Hugone Grotio qui conjutatur Maresio pag. 169. Otho 4. Vitellius 5. Vespasian 6. Titus 7. Domitian 8. Nerva or as Doctor Hammond saith which is more likely to be right if St. John was banished to Patmos in Claudius his time and far more unlikely if his banishment was in Domitians time the 1. is Claudins 2. Nero. 3. Galba 4. Otho 5. Vitellius 6. Vespasian 7. Titus 8. Domitian But indeed all these Expositions and the like annumeration of these Kings that were fallen and extant and to come which would be too tedious for me to rehearse do seem to me to be far wide from the meaning of the Holy Ghost in this place
because the spirit of God here in this Book setteth down the state and condition of his Church The main end and scope of the whole Book of the Revelation The fourfold enemies of the Church 1. The beast conceived to be 2. The Ecclesiasticall Whore or false Church which is the Church of Rome 3. The secular Whore or worldly Professors 4. The false Prophet or lying Preachers what piety they pretend and what great mischief they do and foresheweth her what afflictions and persecutions she should undergo through the malice of the Devill and by the meanes of those wicked Tyrants his Instruments that brought the first 10 great persecutions upon the Church and especially by those quaternion of adversaries that towards the end of the world should arise and seek to make an end of the true Church as 1. The beast the man of the sin the great Antichrist that would be an Antichrist that is an adversary unto Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most eminently and therefore is termed the beast that ascendeth out of the buttomless pit 2. The Ecclesiasticall Whore that breaks her faith with Christ and makes the Kings of the Earth and the Inhabitants of the Earth drunk with the wine of her fornication that is the fair glosses and the sweet conceits of her Idolatries and superstitions and makes her self drunk with the blood of the Saints and with the blood of the Martyrs of Jesus and that is because they will not imbrace and follow her in her fornications 3. The secular Whore that followes after the World and will not take upon her the yoke of Christ but hateth all them that seek to withdraw her from the sweet pleasures of the flesh and the deceitfull vanities of the world 4. The false Prophet that by a pretended zeal to reclaim the Whores and to reduce the one from the world and the other from her errors unto Christ deceiveth all them that dwell on the earth and instigateth spurreth and setteth on the beast to proceed and to go on in all his villanies and wickedness against the Servants of Christ all which that should happen unto the Church from the time of the Angels revealing them before the end of the world the spirit of God would foreshew unto St. John that St. John might foreshew them unto the Church And this I take to be the main end and the chiefest scope of the whole Book of this Prophesie and therefore after he had told us of the beast that should so extremely persecute his Church in the 13th Chapter and would now further decipher him here in the 17th Chapter he addeth and there are 7 Kings that is which have and shall in like manner vex and persecute my Servants and this he saith Why the persecutions and afflictions of the Church are foreshewed and foresheweth to this end videlicet to teach the true believers in Christ by the examples of those former Martyrs that had already suffered under those five persecutors that were fallen and dead to be now in the time of this 6th and after in the 7ths time and under the Tyranny of the beast which is the 8th most patient in all their sufferings and to comfort themselves in all their miseries and afflictions when they do consider and weigh their own present state and condition with the precedent condition of those holy Martyrs that have suffered as much or more then they and are now for their constancy and patience in their persecutions crowned by Christ with eternall glory and also to put his servants in mind from what divine providence and to what end these persecutions are sent unto them when they do consider they come not by chance being thus foretold so long before they come but by the speciall appointment of Almighty God that knoweth what is best and disposeth all things for the best and for the speciall good of them that love him and then lastly to assure them of a glorious success and an undoubted Victory to become Conquerours even when they are conquered and do suffer their persecutions unto death because the same spirit that foretells us of their coming tells us also how our Brethren that went before us overcame all their sufferings and how we shall overcome them in like manner even when our enamies seem to overcome us And therefore immediately after the description of our enemies Chap. 13. and the setting down of our sufferings v. 7. the spirit of God addeth v. 9. v. 9 Here is the patience and the faith of the Saints that is their patience in suffering and their faith concerning their sufferings to believe that they come from God for their good and shall produce all good success unto them But these forenamed Emperors that are alledged to be here meant The foresaid Emperours not all so great persecutors of the Church were not all such great persecutors of the Christians but some of them were very Gentle and meek as Titus the Son of Vespasian who was therefore called deliciae generis humani the delight of mankind though indeed he was not altogether so delightfull nor so gentle to the Christians and others ruled but a very short space as Galba reigned but seven moneths and nine dayes Otho but four moneths Vitellius but eight moneths and we read of no great evills that these three men did unto the Christians though they were no good men and after these Vespasian reigned but nine years and eleven moneths and Titus but two years and twon moneths So that all these five from Nero to Domitian reigned not above fourtee years and therefore I conceive that these five could not be meant to be set in the Catalogue of the chief persecutors of Gods Church nor be ranked in the same Class with the beast and his adherents when as neither Eusebius nor any other Ecclesiasticall Historian reckoneth the first three amongst the persecutors And whereas Junins That the 8th is not said to be a King which ought to be specially observed in his Annotations annexed to our Bibles makes Trajan to be the 8th and others make Nerva and others Domitian I say that neither of them is here meant to be the eight and of the seven for I would have it observed that the eight is not said to be a King but there are seven Kings saith the Holy Ghost and but seven Kings are said to be and the Antichrist which is the beast and the eight is no where said to be a King or to have a Crowne upon his Head but upon his Hornes So that if either of these or any one of the other Roman Emperours or any other King whatsoever had been here meant to be the eight the Holy Ghost in all likelihood would have said and there are eight Kings Divers attributes of the the 8th not ascribed to any of the other seven whereas he saith and there are seven Kings Besides you may observe many other speciall marks and additionall differences that are