Island fled away and the mountains were not found Nothing so remote as the Islands nothing so strong as the Mountains but the Antichristian Islands fled and perished before the stroak of Christ the Mountains were beaten to dust Christ will not leave Papacy so much as a Mountain to flie to or an Island to hide itself in he 'l leave no peice of the frame of Antichristianisme standing in any part of the World And yet still he goes on ver 21. There fell upon men a great hail out of heaven every stone about the weight of a Talent and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail for the plague thereof was exceeding great Here is an Allusion to Ezek. 13.11 to 16. I conceive the genuine sense of the verse to be this Those ten Kings or Supream powers who follow Jesus Christ in this Expedition have Commissions or Commands from the God of Heaven though Rome be burnt yea and the great battell of God Almighty fought and finished to go on with their braining destroying judgements upon all those everywhere wo are found to have had any interest in the Popes cause or Kingdom in worshipping the Beast or any way been engaged for his preservation and defence They shall be pursued and destroyed with such plagues and judgements as that it shall be evident they are from God and that heaven it self fights against them to root out that accursed race to the last man from off the Earth I suppose by this time you are all willing and ready to set your seals to this truth that The Pope who is the great Antichrist and his Kingdom shall be destroyed with most remarkable destruction But now I know the first Quaere you l make within your selves upon what hath been delivered and desire some satisfaction in wil be that of the Disciples Mat. 24.3 tell us when shall these things be and what shall be the sign of their comming I confess these are marvellous hard Questions but I shall freely tell you my thoughts upon them I find the time of Antichrists reign set down Rev. 11.2 The Holy city shall he tread under foot forty two months also Rev. 13.5 and it was given him to continue forty and two moneths by the way let me tell you his reign is reckoned by the moon which rules the night to hint thus much to us that Antichrists works are night works his whole reign is a reign of darkness but to the thing itself Forty and two months allowing thirty dayes to a moneth for they are Lunar moneths I told you make up a thousand two hundred and thereescore days the just time of the witnesses prophesying in sackcloth Rev. 11. or three years and a half First I understand these numbers of a certain and determinate time because every one of them is a broken number round numbers as we call them ten a hundred a thousand are put most times indeterminately a certain for an uncertain number but this is not a round but a broken number 2. These 42. months or three years and a half cannot be taken strictly for 42. of our months or three of our years and a half because as I shewed you before t is an utter impossibility that the Rise and Growth the Glory and all the business of his Kingdome should be compassed in so short a time Therefore Thirdly they must be taken according to that Ezek. 4.6 I have appointed thee each day for a year Every day in these 42 months being put for a year the whole amounts to 1260 years the just raign of Antichrist But when the time of his raign did begin confident I am there is no man alive without extraordinary Revelation can speak certainly and to a day and hereupon it is that all divines are at a loss as to a punctual certainty for his fall and ruin Concerning the time of the seetting forth of this Giant to run his course there are two or three opinions and I shall quickly tell them unto you 1. Some begin it as high as Constantine when he left Rome about the 19. year of his raign and seated in the East 2. Others place it as low as about the year 455. when Gensericus the Vandal took and burnt Rome at which time the Empire was broken all to pieces and utterly extinct There are a third sort who pitch it about the year 410. or 412. when Alaricus the Goth came and conquered and ransacked Rome Now they who say his 1260 years began when Constantine left Rome pitch his fall about Luthers time something above 100 years ago They who say it began at 455. make his fall and ruin 65. years yet to come They who affirm it began 410. or 412. lay him on his Death bed about twenty years hence It may be you will ask me my opinion amongst these Truly in a business of this abstruseness t would be wisedom to put you off with other mens judgements and conceal my own but I still finde that the sigleness of my spirit gets the predominancy of my Politicks 1. I like their opinion well who reckoning from Constantine pitch his fall in Luthers time for indeed Luther laid the foundation of his manifest ruin It is not unusual with Scripture to say a work is done if it be of God when t is but begun Revel 16.17 for it shall be as certainly done as if it were done already God calls things that are not as if they were 2. I think their Conclusion may be right who counting from 455. spin out his life to threescore years hence and upward but sure t is to be understood of that great battel of God Almighty mentioned Rev. 19.19 20. I verily perswade my self they who live threescore and ten or fourscore years hence shall neither see Pope nor form of Popery established by a law defended by a power in any Kingdome in the world 3. They most take with me who counting from 410. pitch his fall 20. years hence for about the year 410. or 412. the ten Horns or Kingdoms as Historians generally tell us were fairly appearing and surely the sixt head was going off at least if not quite off when some of the horns that grew on the seventh head were so visible The Pope must of necessity be before them for he is the seventh head upon which those horns grew it is said Rev. 17.12 They receive power one hour or as the Original might be better rendred the first hour with the beast But some read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not with but somewhat after the beast And indeed about this time the Popes shewed themselves openly to all the world and spake out what they wounld have that the censures of Bishops and all other causes of moment ought to be reserved to the Audience of the Bishop of Rome calling themselves the Father of Fathers and Firmament of Bishops When the Councel of Carthage in the year 413. sent and acquainted
find out a name but such a name out of them as will grasp in all the other descriptions of Antichrist such a name as sutes to all that is said of him in the Rev. or elsewhere such a name as will hold forth the man that succeeds the Emperors in the Government of the Roman State or that is the seventh head of Daniels fourth beast that sits in the temple of God as the great Church man Lording it over the Faith and Consciences of all men in the world and in ordine ad spiritualia subjecteth all civil rule and Authority to himself that highly pretends to be for Christ and yet in every thing crosseth and contradicteth Christ That looks like a Lamb speaks like a Dragon and exerciseth the Power of the first beast viz. King Consuls c. When we put them to find a name out of this number that points out a man to whom all these particulars do agree they are at a stand they cannot give us one though their Kingdom and their All lie upon it Wherefore I conclude That that name whereto all the descriptions of Antichrist do agree is that Saint John bids us here seek after and is the name of the great Antichrist but the names before given pointing out the Pope are such as in every one of them all the descriptions of Antichrist do meet and concentrate therefore this is the name and consequently the Pope is the man of sin the great Antichrist Thus you have a sevenfold-scripturall demonstration of the point It 's good to make sure-work when we have to do with so unruly a beast But why did not the Holy-Ghost speak expresly who it was might not he as easily have said the Popes of Rome are the man of sin the great Antichrist as expressed it thus darkly and left it so liable to doubt and controversie I answer T is not for us to teach God how he shall speak but duty when he hath spoken to set our selves with reverence to spell out his mind I might put you off with this But yet think I may with safety venture to give you some reasons why God carried it on thus in the clouds and in the dark I. 'T was out of a tender respect he had to his People the prevention of their utter ruine for had he said that the Bishops of Rome and consequently Christians should be Lords of Rome yea make Kings and Emperors bow before them nay be Masters of the World this inhumane conjecture would have armed the Heathen Emperors as one man against the Christians and Christians talked so much of a Kingdom that they had some thoughts and jealousies in their heads and hearts of them already therefore certainly if Saint John had spoke out their jealousies had kindled into a flame against them that they would have set themselves to have destroyed the name of Christian from of the Earth which was this way prevented Secondly God would shew himself to be the God of secrets and depths of wisdom above weak shallow man This book of the Revelation hath brought many great and learned men to let fall their plumes the high thoughts of their own wisdoms and sufficiencies hath set them a studying hath exercised their best Intellectuals brought them upon their knees to God in prayer that he would be pleased to give them a Revelation of the Revelation the things he hath opened in this book that he would open them more and give them his own key for none else can unlock the Cabinet How hath it set men of admiring that if there be such hardness such depths in Gods Revelations what unsearchable secrets and depths of Mysteries are there in the heart and bosome of God himself infinitely above the reach of the understanding of all Men and Angels God loves to lay vain proud men low he loves to bring them to the knowledge of themselves and t is a great mercy to us that he doth so Thirdly God sent Antichrist as the greatest judgement on men that ever was in the World Rev. 6.2 God there sends forth Christ in his Apostles Evangelists and others riding swiftly on the white horse of the Gospel and you know how quickly they rid clean through the world Psal 19.34 with Rom. 10.18 but the world did generally despise the Gospel of Salvation offered to them In the following verses of that chapter God sends out The red horse of War The black horse of Famine The pale horse of Pestilence and his name that sate upon him was Death and Hell followed him verse the twelfth There comes a great Earthquake which upon the same account shakes down all the heathen Gods and Monarchies brings Constantine the great into the Throne sets up Christianity in the World and now Regis ad Exemplum every one turns Christian but yet the meer formality of name and notion served their turn the generality of men received the Christian faith but not in the love of it they held the truth of God in unrighteousness and this doubtless angered God more then the Heathens open contempt of the Gospel whereupon God set himself to bring forth some greater judgements on the Christian world then he had on the Heathenish when first he had secured his own By sealing the servants of God in the forehead Chap. 7. In the eighth Chapter the Trumpets sound whereby all Expositors agree haereses corruptelas verae Doctrinaepraesignificari In the four first chiefly Heresies Corruptions of sound Doctrine are presignified Temporal miseries not excluded but t is something hard I find to assign the right heresie and who was the broacher to every Trumpet Chap. 9.1 2. Tht fifth Angel sounded and I saw a star fall from heaven and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit And he opened the bottomless pit and there arose smoak out of the pit as the smoak of a great furnace and the sun and the air were darkned by reason of the smoak of the pit Here Hell breaks loose upon them and now in the Popes of Rome or the great Antichrist was wrath come upon the Christian World to the uttermost there were all Judgements in this one 2 Thes 2.8 to 13. Then shall that wicked be revealed whose comming is after the manner of Satan with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that Perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be sved for this cause God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a lye that they all might be damned c. Now if God had named the Person and time of Antichrists coming there are such fearful things spoken of him that all the World would have set against him and so God had crossed the decree of Divine Justice but being expressed thus darkly the Pope hath been able to corrupt and deceive all the Nations of the Earth whereby the determined wrath is come upon the souls and bodies of Hypocritical and ungodly Christians This kinde
graffed in Well because of unbelief they were broken off and thou standest by faith be not high-minded but fear for if God spared not the natural Branches take heed lest he also spare not thee Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God on them that fell severity but towards thee goodness if thou continue in his goodness otherwise thou also shalt be cut off Are these Bugbears windie Bladders Can these words possibly import less then that God and Grace were not so made over to them but time might produce a change both in Pastors and Church from good to bad from bad to worse and that if they did not walk humbly and watch to the keeping of the Faith they should certainly be cut off Thirdly Together with Constantines large Endowments and Immunities there arose abundance of Idleness Errors Images Superstitions Pride Affectation of outward greatness especially in the Church of Rome and thus she forsook her first Love and the spirit daily quenching yea dying in them they knew no way to keep up but by supporting themselves with a carnal and outward strength Socrates in his seventh book and 11. Chapter saith Now began an ill name to stick on the Bishops of Rome who beyond their priestly bounds have stept into principality This was in the daies of Theodosius the yonger scarce fourscore years since their low poor condition which Constantine raised them from The next remarkable thing we read of was this Philippicus Leo with some other Emperors after them not without the advice of Pratriarks and a whole Eastern Councel threw Images out of Churches as being decreed Idolatrous Whereupon the Bishop of Rome seizes the City and Territories about into his own hands makes himself Lord thereof which till then was Governed by a Greek Magistrate absolves all Italy of their Tribute and obedience due to the Emperor upon this goodly occasion Then to bear himself out in these pranks he takes upon him by Papâ—â—â— sentence to unthrone Chilpericus gives the Kingdom to Pepin and so made him his fast friend and Champion for by him he presently got all Ravenna and annexed it to the Sea of Rome as lawful prize to Saint Peter I must not now stand to tell you how throughout the fift and sixt hundred years after Christ diverse of the Bishops of Rome did openly contend for supremacy but were supprest in several Councels of Carthage and Chalcedon T was not long after when Phocas murthered his Master the Emperor Mauritius and then says the Historian Bonifacius obtinuit a Phoca ut Rom. Ecclesia esset caput omnium Ecclesiarum Pope Boniface obtained of Phocas that the Church of Rome should be head of all Churches From that time forward that Antichristian Jurisdiction and Supremacie grew still more and more till it became an overgrown Monster even to give Laws to all the Kingdoms and Churches in the World Fourthly It is said Rev. 13.2 The Dragon gave him his Power and Seat and great Authority The Pope hath the Keys of the bottomless pit Rev 9 in his hands the devil freely bestowed them on him and made him the great steward of his house his heart rests securely in him Fithly God made them Antichrist in that sense which he 's said to harden Pharoahs heart They not receiving the truth in the Love of it but holding the truth of God in unrighteousness for this cause God gave them up to what you have heard to receive in and upon themselves that recompence of their Errors and sinfulness which was meet Thus you have the cause of his Rise and Growth But haply some man will say to me Is not the Pope Saint Peters successor My Answer 's this That he is the great Antichrist hath been I think sufficiently cleared then whether he is Saint Peters Successor or no I leave thee to judge But for your clearer light in this point what if Saint Peter were never Bishop of Rome as for my part I verily beleeve he was not And because here is the very foundation of their Papacie give me leave to speak to it not doubting but I shall say enough to convince thee there is no just Warrant to make it a point of thy Faith that Peter was Bishop of Rome Whatsoever Bellarmine saith concerning Peters Journals for he speaks as punctually as if he had travelled with him from first to last hath no solid ground to rest the sole of its foot upon at all He says in the fifth year of Christs passion Peter was made Bishop of Antioch and continued in that Bishoprick seven years Then he went to Rome the second year of Claudius ibique sedem fixit ann 25. there he pitched and Bishop'd it five and twenty years Et ibidem vitam finivit there he ended his daies But that ever Peter was seven years Resident at Antioch for that 's required in a fixed Bishop and twenty five at Rome or most part of those years in those places he brings not one text of Scripture to prove either you have his bare word for it but who 'l take that for good proof in his own cause I wonder For the former of these we read concerning the Church of Antioch who gathered and constituted it Act. 11.19.20 21 22. ver 25.26 We find also who were the chif Prophets and Doctors of it Act. 13.1 We do not find in all the Scripture that Peter was at Antioch but in one place Gal. 2. and that in transcursu he took it only in his way Is here sufficient ground to conclude him Bishop of Antioch for seven years together I have stood the more upon this to shew you that if upon such slender grounds they have concluded him Bishop of Antioch for such a space of time certainly they will catch at small things to constitute him Bishop of Rome whereby their own turn is so much served Search all the New-Testament from one end of it to another and where ever you find Rome named if you find mention of Peters being there twenty five years or ten years or one year or one day then let me pass for a lyar Yea says Bellarmine 't is evident he was at Rome Ex eo quod fuit in Babylone in that he was at Babylon 1 Pet. 5.13 the Church which is at Babylon salutes you Roma autem in Apocalypsi passim vocatur Babylon Rome in the Revelation is still called Babylon his very words 1. Let God have the glory of his own truth out of his Enemies mouths Rev. 17.4 5. The woman was arrayed in Purple and Scarlet colour and decked with Gold and Precious Stones and Pearls having a golden Cup in her hand c. And upon her forehead was written Mystery Babylon the great the mother of Harlots and the abominations of the whole Earth All this then by Bellarmines own confession must be understood of Rome and the great whore or Antichrist is not to sit at Jerusalem as he says in another place lyars had need of good
Pope Innocent with their Acts desiring him That he would add his Authority his Answer was to this effect That they had due regard of the Sea Apostolick and of him who had the care and charge of all the Churches the very language of the Beastly Antichrist Rev. 13.7 So that at this time we may safely conclude him actually set down in his Chair of Pestilence and thence may as safely conclude that his Throne to wit the City of Rome and the glorious visibility of his raign and Kingdom will be laid in the dust twenty years hence In a business of this Nature you ought in reason make some grains of allowance to our guess possibly it may fall out three or four years either under or over and what will you say if it fall out that Rome will be begirt and burnt too about 16. years hence I 'le tell you what my opinion is built upon that of Revel 13. verse the last Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast His number is six hundred threescore and six Observe t is indefinitely called the number of the beast the Holy Ghost may perhaps speak much in a little two things at once thus that 666. is the number of the Beast his name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and the number also of his raign expired that his Seat and Throne shall be pulled down and burnt his formall visible reign shall be at an end about the year 666. But in this I confess I have no man to stand by me t is onely my opinion which started up in me upon my poring upon that Text yet I have this to countenance me the Holy Ghost tells us The Earth-quake that must shake his Throne and Kingdome all to pieces when once it begins and for my part I am satisfied t is begun will be a great earthquake such as was not since men were upon the earth so mighty and so great Rev. 16. And this may be some Answer to those who think there 's more work then can be done in so short a time When God sets upon it he will make quick work with him The Earth-quake being so mighty and so violent may possibly reach the Walls of Rome by that time after which Popery will have a being for some years Rome is burnt in the 18. Chapter of the Revel But the Beast and false Prophet with their Armies their destruction is described in the 19. Chapter as being I suppose to be done some space of years after I doubt not but there are divers of you who hear me this day that shall out-live Romes ruin and that your childrens children will most certainly out-live the great battel of God Almighty wherein both Pope and Popery shall be utterly destroyed But what shall the sign of these things be Why let me tell you Scripture hath given a sign of his approaching ruine and that 's the killing of the witnesses Concerning which I shall briefly premise a few things as First that they are not to be restrained to any sort of men for t is sayd of them Rev. 11.4 These are the two Olive-trees and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the Earth In calling them the Olive-trees the Holy Ghost doubtless alludes to Zach. 4. Where Zerubbabel and Joshua the Magistrate and the Priest are in the vision the two Olive-trees in the interpretation the two annointed ones that stand by the Lord of the whole Eaarth the witnesses Comprehended all those Magistrates and Ministers that have in any juncture of time out of a principle of Religion and Conscience for God any way set themselves against the Pope By Candlesticks we are taught from Christs own mouth to understand Churches Rev. 1.20 The seven Candlesticks which thou sawest are seven Churches The rest of Saints and Churches added to Godly Magistrates and Ministers make up the witnesses And we must needs take them thus for the Holy Ghost divides all throughout the reign of Antichrist into but two witnesses or Prophets and the Gentiles Rev. 11. So that all beside those of Antichrists Party or Faction are witnesses or are of the witnesses Secondly They are sayd to be two First In relation to Moses and Aaron who brought Israel out of Egypt to Zerubbabel and Joshua who brought the People of God from their Babylonish captivity So these bring the Church of Christ out of the more then Egyptian Babylonian bondage of Popery Secondly They are sayd to be two in reference to the legality of their testimony two being a sufficient number in Law to bear witness against him and so God to be justified in their condemnation as being clear and righteous Thirdly For their paucity those who witnessed against him were but a very few in every Nation in respect to those droves and innumerable Multitudes that followed him all the World wondered after the Beast though toward the end of their Prophesie they grow apace Rev. 14.6 7 8. I saw another Angel flie in the midst of heaven having the everlasting Gospel to preach to every Nation Kindred Tongue People saying fear God give glory to him for the hour of his judgement is come And there followed another Angel saying Babylon is fallen that is hath begun to fall since Luther and others have so publikely and openly preached the Gospel Bellarmine confesses that since we have called the Pope Antichrist his Kingdom hath wasted and been incomparably less then before the witnesses have increased the Gentiles have decreased but throughout the most of his reign they were but two very weak and inconsiderable was the number that set against him Thirdly Antichrist hath been killing witnesses all along Rev. 11.2 The holy City shall they tread under foot forty and two moneths throughout his whole domination hath he been been stamping Saints to dust in every age in every Kingdom but that slaughter of the witnesses the spirit of God so largely describes and points the finger to as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the indubitable sign or fore-runner of his sudden downfall I take to be done at one time and in one place It is notoriously known what our Prelates did in England how for a long time they set themselves against the zealous Protestant and by means of their Courts Canons Ceremonies book of sports new c. Oath they silenced made to hide in Corners drove into strange Countries Wildernesses thousands upon thousands At last there rose up two or there somewhat more bold then their fellows whom they took and made them high Examples off their Popish justice and cruelty cut off their ears and sent them to prisons far distant one from another How much they glorified and pleased themselves in this their Conquest you all know and doubtless this fact of Protestant Bishops for so they were called was an universal token to the Popish World that the day was theirs If Protestant Bishops say they have done so valiantly for Romes Interest surely the day is ours and