true Key can possibly be contrived How the false Prophet Bicorne rallyed this Papal Secular Beast's ten Kingdoms under him we leave it to the sequel where we handle it at large This Beast these texts mention Apocal. 13.1 to the 8th Also vers 12 14 15. chap. 14.9 11. chap. 15.2 chap. 16.2 10 13. chap. 19.19 20. chap. 20.4 10. Thirdly The false Prophet is the third Head of this threefold City There were three false Prophets the Sensual Secular and Spiritual The first was the Pseudoprophetick Seer of the second Dragon First as Paganoarrian after as Mahumetan and in all times of his Epoche over sensual loose Christians in all Sects This Seer ascending with the second Dragon out of the bottomless pit when he sallyed out of the North about 406 is not that false Prophet intended here in he Text But the Bicorne Beast is the false Prophet here intended Revel 13.11 whose two Lamb-like Horns are the two false Prophets Secular and Spiritual The first Horn or Seer Secular was the Clergy of the Papal Decapolity that owned the Popes Supremacy over all Bishops and Churches but not over Kings and Councils This Horn Secular was the mouth of the Decadiademick Beast Secular and there was given him a mouth saith the text speaking great things c. Chap. 13.5 This mouth or Horn Secular was Vinculum unitatis Catena amoris the linck of Amity and bond of Unity betwixt the ten Nations of Papal ROME I call this Horn Secular because he was given as a Pseudoprophetick prolocutor or mouth to the Beast Secular and Papal for the purposes aforesaid But The second the Spiritual Horn was more absolutely Temporal than the former and elated in Spiritual pretended proprieties above him This Horn was such of the Supream Papal Clergy as owned the Popes Supremacy not only over all Bishops and Churches as the former did but over all Kings and Councils and over all that is called God 2 Thes 2.4 These two Horns or Seers Secular and Spiritual will be more distinctly apparent in the Guelsick and Gibeline Factions when we come to speak of them This Spiritual Horn was both Temporal and Spiritual but claimed his Temporal Supremacy over all Powers Secular from his pretended Spiritual Right of Apostolick Succession and therefore more properly Spiritual This may suffice the Reader at present to know what is meant by the Dragon the Beast and false Prophet and by their three Seers or Pseudoprophetick mouthes Chap. 16.13 For This Horn as Spiritual was the mouth of the false Prophet As Secular was the Civil Representative of his Body Temporal This Series though perhaps sufficiently clear at present will be much more apparent in the sequel These Texts demonstrate this Bicorn-Beast Rev. 13.11 to 16. Chap. 16.13 Chap. 19.20 Here is may some say a very fair Indication of three Representatives the Dragon Beast and false Prophet and it s very probable That these three are the three Heads of this threefold City only we could wish that the premises were a little more plain and the truth apparent that these three are undoubtedly and undeniably the three heads of this threefold City I Answer And the great City was divided into three parts Chap. 16.19 There 's this threefold Cities three parts And these three Heads are as heads are set above their bodies set down a little above this threefoold body in the 13 verse of the same Chapter the words are these And I saw three unclean Spirits like Frogs come out of the mouth of the Dragon out of the mouth of the Beast and out of the mouth of the false Prophet for they are Spirits of Devils c. Here 's a threefold cause three Spirits of Devils of a threefold division devolved from the three Heads of it upon this threefold body Bodies by Spirits from their Heads receive sense and motion And therefore this threefold Body was to be divided into three parts because those three unclean Spirits proceeding from its three Heads were Spirits of Devils causing divisions For so the Text saith they went forth to the Kings of the Earth to gather them to battel vers 14. And this influence as the threefold cause from those three Heads and that threefold effect or division in this Tripolity proves by an inevitable necessity the Community of those Heads and this Body in a threefold individuum which we find here at its dissolution divided into three parts as we find it erected of three parts at the first Constituting of it Chap. 11.8 I have thus far distinguished and described this threefold City of the grand Apostacy and declared who and what Her three Heads were But because Contraria juxta se posita maximè elucescunt Contraries compared together best appear we shall now shew what her Antithesis the Holy City or true Church is and handle and compare both together that both may better appear to the Reader CHAP. IV. What the Holy City or true Church contrary to this threefold City is with an account of Her First As Primitive in Heaven clothed with the Sun till about 407. And Secondly As fled into the Wilderness and troden under foot by the Free Denisons of this threefold City for 1260 years CAin and Abel were born of the same Parents in one and the same Family so the true Churches Antithesis took beginning in the true Church at the beginning of the grand Apostacy That Apostacy brought forth Antichrist Sensual Secular and Spiritual which had long struggled with the true Saints like Jacob and Esau in the Womb of the Primitive Church but were then about four hundred and ten or twelve brought forth Howbeit Antichrist Sensual had his head power and enlargement from those Forreign Nations of the North at the Inundation of those Barbarians upon the Christian World And those multitudes of Military Forces in whose Van the second Dragon after 400 advanced to the Imperial seat and over-spread the Christian Empire cannot be accounted so well any part of the body of Apostacy but revolted loose Professors in the Church conjoyned in one body sensual with those Barbarians made up the body of Antichrist sensual The five wise Virgins slept the five foolish slept also So the primitive Church and Saints fell And her Church and Saint persecuting professors in her fell also They fell but not internally and totally but these fell totally to the Apostacy of Antichrist The true Church and Saints were the holy City even then after they were faln and whilest they were troden under foot by the Gentiles Chap. 11.2 but Her and their persecutors falling totally chiefly Constituted that Cities Antithesis this threefold City called spiritually Sodom c. that trod and contemned the true Church as aforesaid They treading her under foot and she troden under foot by them are both distinctly and apparently held forth in the verse abovesaid as also in the 8th verse c. For These three sorts of Professors the Sensual Earthly and Devilish in all
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
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
endeavour to shew briefly what their use and meaning is Wherefore we shall distinguish by their respective works or fruits they bring forth betwixt the sealed and Conscript-Churches and betwixt both and those that have not the Seal of God nor his Name in their foreheads And first The works of the flesh are manifest c. Gal. 5.19 Such works are not sealed works nor deceitful God sets no Seal to the doers of them vers 21. nor are they much deceitful For there is no great deceit or Mystery in the more proper works of the flesh which are manifest Of these I have written at large before and therefore need not now insist upon them But Secondly The practice of Truth-pretending Formalists is Justitia insigillata deceptiva an unsealed half-performed righteousness of deceit It was commanded them saith the Text that they should not burt the Grass neither any green thing nor any Tree but only those Men which have not the Seal of God in their forebeads Ch. 9.4 That is The Locasts as it were by a command from God ver 5. should torment Truth-pretending Church-persecuting Papists that had not the Seal of God in their foreheads with like retaliation as they had persecuted and tormented the Saints of God that had his Seal in their foreheads Nor had these Locusts themselves his Seal as neither Type Egypt nor the Locusts that tormented her had the Seal of the Covenant and the practice of those Papists and these Locusts that tormented them being both alike unsealed was a persecuting practice and a righteousuess not sealed but deceitful shewing that the doers of such rash violence have not the Seal of God Fiat tamen justitia Right must be done to evil-doers and not with-held from the well-deserving To omit either or do both negligently is not the least pe secution as we have seen in Eli and others Such persecution on the right hand or left is though almost universally practised by such as are sealed the practice properly of those that have not the Seal of God in their oreheads Thirdly The practice of those 144000 that were sealed with the Seal of God is Justitia sigillata vera sedvix-manifesta true righteousness through much weakness and many deficiencies not clearly manifest These 144000 were not the aggregate of the whole Gospel-Church but a select part of it excluding the outward Court that was cast out and given to the Gentiles Chap. 11.2 For the son of perdition was to sit as God in the Temple of God yet was not sealed or accepted of Him as a select member of his Church 2 Thes 2.4 The Seal of God is inward or outward 2 Tim. 2.19 The foundation of God standeth sure having this Seal The Lord knoweth who are his And Let every one that nameth the Name of Christ depart from iniquity The Lord knoweth who are his There 's the inward and invisible Seal And let him that nameth the Name of Christ depart from iniquity There 's the outward and more visible Seal of God in the foreheads of his Saints wherewith these 144000 were sealed Primitive Saints were wont to shew their Faith by their Works Jam. 2.18 And so these 144000 especially at first did for a long time But they though sealed with the Seal of God were not like the Church of Thyatira of whom this record is given of God I know thy works and charity and service and faith and thy patitience and thy works and the last to be more than the first Rev. 2.19 But the works of these 144000 were more and more perfect at first than at last For the Seal of God in their foreheads though it might suffer some decay at the grand Apostacy about or before 412 continued competently visible near a thousand years Tum vetus ipsa dies extenuabat opus Then the impression of the Seal of God in their foreheads was much defaced and their departing from iniquity less apparent Wherefore God loosed the first Dragon out of the bottomless Pit after he had been bound about 1000 years upon the Gospel-Church fallen from her first Love and Works But God hath since greatly multiplyed as he did the Type-fallen-Womans her sorrows not by her bearing many Children but by suffering for her sins her Children to wound her with many Darts of afflicting Calamities and to rend her into Schisms Subdivisions which Balm can scarce heal nor any Art bind up Were any of her sons so dutiful to her so faithful for her as to tell her and declare unto her her deplorable and desperate condition 't were in vain she minds it not but lyes as it were insensible upon her sleepy Pillow seems to have given her self up to inanimadvertency and forgetfulness begins many good works forgets to finish them Torpor corpus totum tenuit sopor animam A desperate insensibility hath seised upon the Members of her Body and a deep sleep on her Senses She is Quasi Ecclesia moritura non mortua as a dying Church only not dead But God shall wipe away all tears from her eyes Ch. 7.17 Ch. 21.4 He hath promised it and will perform it which must be done if ever it be done by his writing the Name of God in the foreheads of his servants her sons So may she be revived in her Off-spring For Fourthly These 144000 in the 14th Chapter are the same Gospel-Church redeemed as it were from death Redeemed from the Earth saith the Text ver 3. Both are the same Church but in different respects and times For the 144000 in the 7th Ch. to the 9th vers were the Church of God fed in the wilderness for 1260 years Ch. 12.6 14. But these 144000 shall be the same Gospel-Church fix't upon Mount Zion Ch. 14.1 That 144000 in the 7th Chapter was Ecclesia sigillata the sealed Church of God But these 144000 shall be Ecclesia conscripta the same Gospel-Church having the Name of God written in her forehead That sealed Church triumphed over Primitive Apostate Rome Ch. 18.20 Ch. 19. to the 7th vers This conscript-Church the same Church in succeeding times should triumph over Papal Rome Ch. 15.2 3 4. Therefore Both differ much in distance of time For that 144000 in the 7th Chapter were sealed long before these 144000 in the 14th Chapter should have the Name of God written in their foreheads And Lastly They differ much though both the same Church in preceding and succeeding times in respect to things For Those 144000 in the 7th Chapter sealed above 1200 years before the Name of God should be written in the foreheads of these their successors were not though so long before them called The first-Fruits But these 144000 in the 14th Chapter though so long after those former are called The first-fruits redeemed from the earth and from among men vers 3.4 Therefore it requires necessarily our serious disquisition to examine For what causes these the conscript Church are called The first-fruits so long after those in the 7th Chapter