were sealed I answer Their Title teacheth us the causes of their being so called They are called The first-fruits it seems because they are to be the first after the grand Apostacy that shall bring forth fruits of more visible and conspicuous Obedience to God and good Works to Men And the 144000 in the 7th Chapter to the 9th vers the Church sealed were for different or contrary causes not called The first-fruits To wit Because they during the time of the grand Apostacy ' did not bring forth fruits of such visible obedience to God nor good works so apparent to Men For such as the Tree is such is the Fruit but that Numerus sigillatus was the sealed Church And such must her fruits be sealed works of necessity For a Book or Letter sealed is scarce at all legible And such is the love and works of that sealed Church There 's little exemplariness in her practice for others to follow Her works so weak are they so over-grown with Weeds of evil Manners are scarce at all manifest But the fruits of these first-fruits cannot but be manifest must of necessity be signally manifest because they shall have the Name of God written in their foreheads And their works wrought in a quadruplex conformity after the Pattern of the good Samaritan their grand Exemplar shall be that Name of God written in their foreheads exemplary and legible to all Ages and Nations I do not absolutely state the Epoche of the sealed Church at the Commencement of the 1000 years about the beginning of the reign of Constantius the first For they are said to come out of great tribulations which is more truly intended of their Conscript Antitype vers 14. Howbeit They did then begin to come out of those tribulations when the first Dragon began to fall Therefore Their Epoche of being sealed might seem to begin then But if they begun to be sealed as 't is likely they might at the beginning of the fall of the first Dragon Then they were at first that Woman in Heaven clothed with the Sun c. Ch. 12.1 And the same Church that triumphed over that false-accusing first Dragon in these words Now is come salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ For the accuser of our brethren is scast down vers 10. From that time her Graces decayed till after 400 when she fell from Heaven and fled into the wilderness vers 1 6 14. After that time she retained a great part though ftill decaying of her Primitive integrity for above 800 years Then her Graces grew still weaker till they were almost wasted and near quite spent For Abraham put Bread and a bottle of Water upon Hagars shoulder and sent her away with her son She wandered in the Wilderness till the water was spent and the Child ready to perish for whom she lifted up her voice and wept But God opened her eyes to see a Well of Water and she gave the Lad drink and he revived So the Righteousness and Graces of the sealed Church are like Hagars bottle of Water She also hath wandered in the Wilderness above 1200 years till her bottle is almost spent Well may her Children and she both ready to perish sit down and weep But the Name of God written in her and their foreheads shall be a Fountain of living Waters to revive both her and them For it is not an empty crackling of Thorns in a formal profession nor the vain blaze of foolish Virgins half-performances nor litigious contradiction nor bold confidence in blind obedience nor the stony-grounds shallow superficies of found Doctrine and practice like it nor Lo here nor Lo there nor the Witnesses weak and that also now expiting Sackcloth-Prophesie that can support the Gospel-Church whiles she herself is shivered into Schisms and Subdivisions brought to the brink of the Grave and her Righteousness that should sustain her almost spent Wherefore A necessity a necessity urgent and indispensible even comples the Gospel-Church and all Ministers and Magistrates to ask of God to open their eyes that they may see the life-redeeming River of apparent Righteousness and do as Hagar and her son did Drink and not dye That is That they may find what that sacred Name of God in the foreheads of his servants shall be and seek to have it fairly transcribed in their own that so they may be a part of those first-fruits redeemed from the Earth vers 3 4. We must therefore give all diligence to make this sacred Name of God sure to our selves to know what that life-redeeming Righteousness is and how to work it But how shall we know how to work it without a pattern A pattern a perfect Patern is and hath been long wanting upon Earth where then shall we find it We must seek the Patern in the Mount And I looked and lo a Lamb stood upon Mount Sion and with him an hundred forty and four thousand having his Fathers Name written in their fore-heads Chap. 14.1 There 's the pattern in the Mount and he that holds it forth The Name of God written and the Writer of it That Lamb was a light to the sealed-Church at least for about a thousand years Ch. 20.4 But to the Conscript-Church he shall be a Temple in her a Pattern to her not for a thousand years but unto all ensuing Ages Not by any corporal presence but by the abundance of the Graces of his Spirit When he was Corporally present on Earth he was called in scorn by the Pharisees a Samaritan and was indeed that good Samaritan that left the best Pattern upon Scripture Record of perfect Righteousness to all posterity And first Jesus said A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among Theeves which stripped him of his Raiment and wounded him and departed leaving him half dead And by chance there came down a certain Priest that way and when he saw him he passed by And likewise a Levite when he was at the place came and looked on him and passed by on the other side But a certain Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was And when he saw him he bad compassion on him and went to him and bound up his wounds pouring in Oyl and Wine and set him on his own Beast brought him to an Inn and took care of him and said to the Host Take care of him c. Luke 10.30 to 38. Saw him Not only the man but that which was right in it self and due to be done For the Priest and Levite passing by saw him but would not see to do what was right Their seeing him signified nothing So the Children of the Son of perdition see their neighbour So the sealed and true Saints commonly see their Brother Their seeing signifies little Inanimadvertency next to Avarice if not before it is the root of all evil in the body of the Apostacy of Antichrist But the wounded Man wanted speedy help There
Papists till about 1567. Nor were they all that time a small assistence to the servants of God nor to some Kings that had the Seal of God in their foreheads to further their Reformation in Doctrine and defend their lives But we shall further take the truest survey of them from several Texts of sacred Scripture And the sound of their wings saith the Text was as the sound of Charets of many Horses running to Battel Vers 9. And why comes this account of them from the Pen of the Prophetick Evangelist Because they sometimes subdu'd their enemies with the sound of their wings only For Ziscae's Armies beat their enemies in eleven battels more by the sound of their wings then force of Arms more by the noise or report of their coming then by their power which fully ratifies the truth of the Prophesie in reference to those so much feared assailants But Secondly After Zisca's death Sigismund the Emperour invaded Bohemia with a threefold Army The first was of Saxons and other Cities The Second of Fanconians led by the Marquess of Brandenburg The third was levied of Rhenenses Bavarians and Swevians led by Otho Archbishop of Trevers All these three mighty Armies met at Misna But the next day they all not seeing any Enemy but hearing the report of Procopius his coming fled to Thacovia leaving a great prey and their Arms behind them Thirdly this three-fold Army thus defeated with the sound of the wings of their enemies only Sigismund raised a far greater Army of forty thousand Horse besides Foot and invades Bohemia But was put to flight and his whole Army ran in a confused and amazed fright though they saw none of those winged Locusts pursue them Res crat imperiosa sonitus Alarum The sound of their wings the noise or report of their coming made that mighty Army fly confused whiles the Emperour could not by his Command cause them to rally Ages cannot parallel such presidents nor the World since the first Creation The Host of Syria heard a noise of Charets and Horses and that one time fled affrighted though they saw no man from the walls of Samaria But these mighty Armies fled many times not from a noise of terrour from the Lord of Hosts but from the noise or report of the coming of a few weak men though they saw no man And these many Presidents of such Stupendious strangeness prove irrefellibly that those Formal Reformists were at least the Victorious part of those Locusts that then vanquished their and the Churches Enemies with the sound of their wings only For if ever Armies were put to flight by the sound of the wings of their Enemies Then were these thirteen Puissant and Imperial Armies so put to flight If ever any since men were on Earth subdu'de their Enemies with the sound of their wings then those Victorious Taborites were therefore they could possibly be none but they the only Armies that so subdu'de them And by so subduing of them did indubitably fulfil this Prophesie in the performance of it And the sound of their wings was like the sound of Charets of many Horses running to battel Secondly And they had a King over them which is the Angel of the bottomless pit whose name in the Hebrew Tongue is Abaddon but in the Greek Tongue hath his name Appollyon Verse 11. And they had a King And what King Sure not Sigismund that could not rule them nor any Earthly Man or King Their King was a Spiritual King no Earthly Potentate His name in Greek was Apollyon and he Graeculus esuriens an hungry Greek Covetousness and Spiritual Pride in them was King over them that contrary to Gods Command ruled in their mortal bodies And so ruling over them was their King For what King had the Type-Locusts that commanded them to devour the Fruits of Egypt but their own eager and unsatiable appetites And these their Antitype must of necessity hold a just Symmetry or due proportion with them the Type of these Nor could the Devil be the King of these more then of other wicked men For he 's the General King that rules in the hearts of all the children of disobedience Therefore Let none tax Zisca or Procopius they might be persons of great Worth and Piety not Jerom of Prague nor John Hus nor any other persecuted Saints that were occasions of their coming as Kings over them For Moses himself was a means of the coming of the Type-Locusts but not their King So the persecuted Church and Saints were the occasion of these Locusts coming but no King over them But Covetousness and Pride conjunct was their King For the Locusts were only Formal Professors Reformed from Papists to a somewhat sound Doctrine and many of them perhaps to strict Profession but remained Papists in manners or rather outstript them for Pride and Covetousness For Covetousness the Root of all evils For Pride the chief cause of all Coutentions And this double iniquity or combined wickedness Pride and Covetousness was 't is most like the Locusts King And they had a King over them c. For Thirdly Their teeth saith the Text were as the teeth of Lions Vers 7. This further shews what the Locusts King was To wit Their Lion-like rapacity and greedy avarice And shewes their parity therein to those Saint-persecuting Papists whom with like retaliation they were sent to persecute Peccato par poena The Papists opprest the poor and those servants of God that had his Seal in their foreheads as it were with teeth of Lions Therefore God sent those Locusts to oppress and suppress those Saint-persecuting Papists that had not the Seal of God in their foreheads as it were with teeth of Lions For the Papists as it might appear were not only cruel to the servants of God that thus had his Seal inserted but uncharitable also and merciless to the poor which their own Writers witness even of their Spiritual persons They are alwayes careful saith Theodoret a Niem to advance their Kindred Nephews c. are seldom seen any poor And if perhaps any poor body beg an alms of them they presently turn away their eyes And if perhaps extream want urge him to ask the second time they threaten him He speaking of Vrban the sixth Innocent the seventh Boniface the ninth and Gregory the twelfth saith that these four gave no alms which saith he is a sign of damnation and though a fault in all yet worst in them because no man can be saved withont charity And this he wrote being Notary of the Apostolick Letters in 1408. and Secretary successively to Vrban Boniface Innocent Gregory and Alexander And Locusts are no less cruel and uncharitable than the Papists The Papists may plainly see their own sins in those punishments which God inflicted upon them by their hands Both are alike the Locusts and the Papists in their practices Both are cruel both extreamly covetous The charity of both is but a verbal pretence and in
universal mistake To judge the meekest and most innocent to be self-exalters and vain-boasters only because they are faithful to bear witness to the Truth This was the grand mistake of that Learned and devout Council by whom our Lord was crucisied He as he must inevitably do spake the truth And the Truth cannot but dignifie the doers and sayers of it with the title and due praise of being the Oracles of God But that blind but knowing pust up Senate of Pharisees and Hypocrites misconceived That the Truth which he spake was boasting vain-glory and blasphemy And therefore they all unanimously and with one consent cryed out Crucifie him crucifie him The Witnesses were to be killed and the holy City the Church of God persecuted and trodden under foot in the Antitype-place where our Lord was crucified To wit by such censorious blind professors as the Pharisees were Rev. 11.2 8. And this slanderous imputation and mis-supposition that they are boasters blasphemers and men that take too much upon them is the chief or almost only and universal cause or instrument of their being so killed persecuted and trodden under foot Nor are true Saints as we shewed before free from this frenzy of heady and censorious rashness Elisha discovered the King of Syria's Counsel and design several times to the King of Israel whereby the King of Israel saved himself not once nor twice King 6.10 Such discoveries were signal advantages and deliverances to the King and people of Israel Nor could I but in love to my Country and in fidelity to the Church make this discovery of the chief cause of the killing of her Witnesses That so Ministers and Magistrates as the Church of Ephesus tryed those that said they were Apostles and were not may try those Truth-misapplving Blasphemers that charge her Witnesses falsly with boasting And finding them to be the seditious Synagogue of Satan may rebuke them sharply So may they save themselves and the Church not once or twice from such distress as fell upon the Jews for the very same sin To wit because their Rulers did not duly reprove and rebuke those Christ-crucifying blasphemers that charged him with blasphemy So may the rain of Righteousness after 1260 years restraint fall in plentious showers upon all Nations So peace and prosperity may spring up to all Princes and people So may Ministers and Magistrates they being faithful in the discharge of this duty save the Witnesses of the Truth and perhaps themselves from the bloody irruptions of merciless cruelties in the mouthes of depravers and Hypocrites that falsly accuse them as the first Dragon did Primitive Saints day and night as boasters as blasphemers or as persons unworthy and the worst of evil doers whereby the defences of States and Churches and the healers of their breaches are broken down by the basest of men These derogating Hypocrites and those Harpers that have the Harps of God are most contrary by whose contrariety predicted those first fruits of true obedience to God and good works to men will more easily appear These Harpers saith the Text sung as it were a new song which no man could learn but those 144000 first-fruits vers 2 3 4. Ch. 15.2 Therefore these Harpers must be as those Texts plainly import the same 144000 that had the Name of God written in their foreheads or at least the Teachers of them But We must here distinguish betwixt these 144000 having the Name of God written in their foreheads and those 144000 in the seventh Chapter that were sealed with the seal of God in their foreheads and betwixt both and those that have not the seal of God in their foreheads Chap. 9.4 And first We shall distinguish betwixt these 144000 having the Name of God written in their foreheads and those 144000 in the seventh Chapter that were sealed with the seal of God in their foreheads These sealed 144000 were sealed under the sixth Seal Chap. 6.12 Chap. 7.4 But these 144000 Chap. 14. having the Name of God written in their foreheads were to stand with the Lamb upon mount Sion under the seventh Trumpet Chap. 10.7 Chap. 11.19 Chap. 13.18 Chap. 14.1 Therefore these 144000 conscript in the fourteenth Chapter are not the same Gospel-Church in the same respects to times and things though otherw se the same with-those 144000 sealed servants of God in the seventh Chapter For the seven Seales as most Writers and I with them agree had respect to the Transactions of literal and Imperial Rome and shewed the state of the Church under that power But the seven Trumpets and Vials have respect to Papal Rome and running parallel in the same Synchronism shew the state of the Church under that power The opening of the sixth Seal shews the fall of the sixth head of the ten-fold body of Heathen Rome and the fall of the Pagan Power under that head which is more fully exprest in Chap. 12 to the 14. vers The final excision of Imperial and apostate Rome is held forth under the seventh Seal Chap. 8.5 And this Prophesie is more amply unfolded in the eighteenth Chapter But The fall of Papal Rome or of the grand Apostacy is predicted to be under the seventh Trumpet and seventh Vial Chapter 10.7 Ch. 11.11 15. Ch. 16.17 Then the couscript-Church it seems should be manifest as the Texts shew Also the Texts in the seventh Chapter from the ninth verse to the end and the manifold Prophetick-Promises in those Texts refer to the conscript-Church Chap. 14. Chap. 21. Chap. 22. rather than to the sealed-Church or not to her until after many Centuries of years her Off-spring should have the name of God written in their foreheads Thus their disparities further appear Those 144000 in the seventh Chapter sealed with the Seal of God And these 144000 having the Name of God written in their foreheads are both the Church of God but in different respects and times For those 144000 in the seventh Chapter were the Gospel-Church sealed and numbred in the same Chapter measured in the eleventh Chapter Fed and defended in the Wilderness for 1260 years from the rage of the second Dragon Chap. 12.6 14. contemporal with her Antithesis those Saint-persecuting Truth-pretending Professors that had not the Seal of God in their foreheads Chap. 9.4 And brought from wallowing in blood under the bloody feet of the Roman red Dragon Chap. 12.10 Chap. 18.20 For these 144000 in the seventh Chapter were sealed and numbred immediately after the fall of the first Dragon Chapter 7.3 But these 144000 having the Name of God written in their foreheads Chap. 14. were to stand upon lasting foundations of true Faith and good Manners Mount Zion not immediately after the fall of the power of Rome Imperial but immediately after the fall of Papal Rome Rev. 11.13 15. Chap. 15.2 Chap. 10.7 Chap. 13.18 Chap. 14.1 But because these Texts contain the Myrrhe of Ages to heal all Nations and the best Writers fall short in unfolding of them I shall
took care of him saith the Text and said to the Host Take care of him Care is to all good works the Girdle of Truth without which they are neither true nor good Had not the good Samaritan though he had done all he did besides taken care of him he had wholly omitted his Christian duty For as Faith without Charity is dead so Charity without care is dead A true christian care to do good is the edge of Charity and the life of it It 's the grand misery and mistake of Men and Saints to do perhaps many good works carelesly whereby they become not good works but deceits Such works though commonly practised by sealed or Wilderness-Saints are far from that practice which they should perform but are the proper works of the members of of Antichrist and the Characters of them By those Characters therefore we shall discover who are or appear to be careless Professors and who are careful in the practice of Christianity And first They that are careless to collect and consider the incomplex-principles of right in it self are careless in their conversations and cannot come to the knowledge of the Truth in Practice These Incomplex-principles rightly collected are the Basis and Grounds of all Mercy and Equity to Men And that which the Scriptures and we commonly call The cause of any man Plantiff or Defendent stated Neither doth the cause of the Widow saith the Text come unto them Isa 1.23 That is They do not collect nor consider the Incomplex-principles aforesaid of Mercy and Equity Such Professors Judges or Magistrates it matters not what their Church-Society Sect or their repute for Learning Strictness or Religion is are corrupt and unjust Professors and at least in appearance Members of Antichrist But we shall illustrate the Premises for the Reader 's better understanding by one or two Examples And first A Prophet's poor Widow made her address to Elisha and stating her own cause her self thus laid down the principles of Right in it self necessary and due to be satisfied unto her Thy servant my Husband said she is dead 2 King 4.1 There 's the Cui a desolate Widow to whom mercy and equity was due to be done A second Incomplex-right in it self was A quo or from whom which is implyed in the same words of the poor Widow To wit Prophet who was principally concern'd and bound both by the Levitical Law and by the royal Law of Love to make her Incomplex-condition Complex or to take notice of it and duly consider it Levit. 25.35 to the end Deut. 15.8 11. A third Incomplex-right is exprest in these words Thou knowest that thy servant that Widow's late Husband did fear the Lord That was a further tye though he must do right and shew mercy to all men to the Prophet to make her condition Complex or to have full knowledge of it A fourth Principium praecognoscendum or truth in it self which the Prophet was bound to know is exprest in these words And the Creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen These Principia praecognoscenda or Truths in themselves thus lay'd down were the Cause of the poor Widow stated before the Prophet And they that are not truly careful and diligent to know and rightly apprehend the causes of Plantiffs or Defendents stated by word or writing are unjust Judges corrupt Magistrates careless Christians make themselves at least appear to be the Members of Antichrist The cause of the Poor of the Widow of the Fatherless and of strangers in distress comes not before those careless Christians nor can they discharge any duty of Mercy or Equity to men But the Prophet did not tell the poor Widow she was a trouble to him or that he was busie about matters of much higher concernment nor did he bid her come two moneths hence and talk with him Nor tell her to encourage her he would move it to friends at his best leisure as many Professors commonly do and at last perhaps revolt from all he had promis'd to little purpose and she expected But he immediatly bid her borrow many Vessels and pour Oyl out of a Vial she had into those Vessels and filling them with Oyl sell so much as would pay her Creditors and live her self upon the rest Thus the Prophet took effectual care to make the poor Widows Incomplex cause Complex or to take full cognizance of it Secondly He took care to make her Complex or by him known cause Triplex by conforming his will that he might relieve her to his right informed intellect Thirdly He took care to conform his works to his right-informed will and intellect wherein he had due respect to another incomplex-right To wit Quantum The fruit of his charitable care was not a fragment or piece of a good work nor an half-performance but a plenary supply of full relief to all her wants with due respect to all Principles of Right in it self Such works only are Christian and shall be the practice of that incontaminate company of conscript Harpers that shall be found without fault in Gods sight We shall shew a contrary Patern in Pilat's careless practice Pilate was careful to do right by halves or but half careful Christ's Cause came under his disquisition The first incomplex Truth in his Cause was that he was blameless or without fault Pilate made that Truth in it self half-complex or took half cognizance of it For he having examined him said thrice I fina in him no failt John 18.38 Ch. 19.4 Luke 23.4 He was willing to release him but not effectually careful to do it For overpowered by his adversaries importunities he gave sentence to put him to death So all Laodicean half hot half cold half careless half careful Spurious Professors though never so strict devout or zealous will but talk trisle cavil delay promise not perform practise by halves falsifie forget or before they begin be weary of well doing and thereby wear out the Saints of the most high and destroy his faithfullest Witnesses as Pilate by like practices caused Christ to be put to death For All Professors Judges and Magistrates half-careful only to collect and consider the Systems of Incomplex-causes cannot expect to exceed Pilat's unjust practice by whom our Lord was crucified Had Pilate been faithfully careful to do right he had not regarded the Jews favour nor been by any business or other means drawn or deterr'd from doing of it A second Incomplex-Truth in Christs Cause was That the Scribes and Elders as Judas had betray'd him to them through covetousness had delivered him into Pilates hands out of envy who was but half-careful to make this Truth it self Complex or to know it He knew saith the Text that for envy they had delivered him Mat. 27.18 But his care to know the cause of Christ was but by halves For To this end said our blessed Saviour was I born and for this cause came I into the world that I should