compel doth testifie still retaining their old mustie store and sowre wilde grapes of Antichrist your Ministery is foully corrupted with guile and false principles about discipline accompanied with bitter and odious invectives against these harpers Lastly let us examine your National Churches above-named by Chap. 15. They stand not simply upon a sea of glass the word only purely sensed but upon the more gross interpretations of the Fathers and other learned men in darker times from whom they esteem it presumption to differ though to the native Truth as your sharp and frequent reproofs of me for differing from them doth demonstrate they have not obtained a conquest over the Beast but have erected a Beast in Episcopacie Presbytery c. his Image in their Canons and other Ordinances changed into his likeness his Mark by a subjection thereto nor are their members in distinct congregatings as being off from the number of his name but are all numbered to him And those who now adhere to these National Hierarchies are so far from harping out this triumphant song of victory by separation and war and singing True and righteous are thy ways herein thou King of Saints as they are secret mourners having a wound in their spirits at these his just proceedings and his judgements now made manifest witness of late the dolour for the overthrow of the Scots who fought in the Presbyterian cause your publike reproaches against the Separation with inward torments for their freedom together with many other passages which shew how this great work of God now beginning is closed and fast locked up from your understandings We desire from our souls that the Lord Jesus who hath the key of David would open the door of your hearts whereby his admired designes changes and works to be done might enter In the mean time you may behold your folly in bringing those texts to convince us and prove your practice every circumstance whereof agrees with the way of separation and riseth up as so many witnesses against yours You ask us Whether the Ordination of Ministers in such National Churches be a mark of the Beast Answ Seeing the Churches themselves are not these harpers but such as stand under a bestial power the Ministers must be of the same nature with the Churches And your Ordination whether by Bishops or preaching Presbyters coming from the corrupt key of Rome though done by fasting and prayer must carry with it the mark or brand of the same Beast or if the man be truely pious his outward livery And thus to judge is neither ignorance nor malice as you charge it but the discovery of Christ in his Revelation who through our sides you are pleased to defame with black terms of obloquie To your next we say that you are not clothed with the white garments of the harpers but with the black habit of sack-cloth You tax us with omitting singing of Psalms Answ For mine own particular I question not the Ordinance of vocal singing of Psalms though some do scruple the manner thereof as conceiving it to be much abused Albeit this harmonizing here is not tyed to metre but is the inward joy wrought in the hearts of Gods separated Saints for their noble redemption from the Beast and the new mercies bestowed on them which breathes forth either in secret ejaculations or acts more openly in Ministery Prayer Thanksgiving c. Object You quaere How we can be in our return from Babylon and yet within Babylons territories Answ A man may be returning from London and yet within the line of Communication so in this gradual separation we cannot go clear off at once but by degrees See Parag. 4. Reas 7. Before we conclude give us leave to propound a few Quaeries very material to be considered of 1. In general for all 2. In particular to you The general shall be a brief contracting of the whole body of this Controversie and are as followeth 1. Whether the being of yours or any other Office with us passing by succession from the Primitive came by a Lineal descent from Rome or not If some say Not then whether any can prove their Genealogie distinct and apart from her If from Rome as you confess then whether the essence and foundation of Office be true there or not If true then whether she must not radically be a true Church and a Sion If she be in her constitution false bottomless and Babylon whether there were not a dissolution of your line and chain 2. Whether a true congregated Church set in a right and compleat order of discipline in our Western Horizon can be proved from the Apostolical times to be distinct from the Romish Synagogue If not as the Scripture and the event doth clearly manifest then must there be a cessation and departure of Gods glory from this visibility proved from these Scriptures Rev. 7.1 Chap. 9.1 2 3 c. Chap. 11.2 3. Whether the primitive order sinking there must not be a new call and spiriting from God for the first restoring and beginning of this work whereby his glory may return to make it a true spiritual and heavenly building 4. Whether such a visible administration that gives being to a true pure genuine and single Gospel-marriage be to be seen in the first initiation of any of our new-built Church-formes or can be evidenced by Scripture to be existing at this present or whether this same be not prophesied not to return till after the downfall of Babylon by these Scriptures Rev. 19.2 3 6 7 8 9. chap. 11. 19. Hos 2.19 20. Isa 62.4 5. chap. 14.15 Mic. 4.3 8. Mat. 25.10 5. Whether if so all our visible constitutions must not be man in their ground-work and so numbered to that beast Rev. 13.18 6. Whether then the way prepared cast up approved of and called unto for his Servants now to walk in be not a separation with distinct Congregations without sitting down as Queens in visible constitutions I shall desire the Godly seriously and impartially to examine these Quaeries by the word of God We were all in a spiritual sense asleep and it is no shame but a honour to yeild to the conquest of truth and suffer it freely to triumph over our former misleadings and wanderings The Quaeries in particular to you are these 1. Whether as above your Office of the Ministery the corner-stone of your outward building being derived from the national hierarchy which successively came from the Pope be not one of Babylons stones and whether it be not against this text Jer. 51.26 They shall not take of thee a stone for foundations but thou shalt be desolate for ever saith the Lord. 2. Whether your gathering of Gospel-Churches out of true Gospel-Churches which you acknowledge the national to be be warranted by the Scriptures if so we desire your proofs for it 3. Whether your making of Elders without laying on of hands be agreeable to the primitive practice 4. Whether the receiving in of members made by your selves be taken from the primitive pattern that is whether such a Covenant and subscription thereto was the Ordinance by which men entred into Church-fellowship in that Gospel-day or whether members were not then received in by laying on of hands if by such a Covenant we desire your Scriptures to warrant it 5. Whether all this be not to omit or transgress the lawes and change the ordinances Isa 24.6 Yet one thing more You have taken a great deal of pains through your whole Book to prove a true visible stated gospel-Gospel-Church thorowout the Gospel-times but all this while you have not shewed us which of all the several forms is that true stated Church Rome arrogates it the Lutherans usurp it the English Episcopacie plead it the Presbyters and you chalenge it the Dippers appropriate it those called Brownists claim it as their sole interest the Independents assume it And truely the wisest man in Europe taking a thorow view of every one of these Church-models will be at a stand certainly to determine which of them is the true and right and which had its lineal descent in the rectitude of Order from the Primitive The more accurately he examines the greater occasion he may finde to question all Sir I beseech you not to take in prejudice what I have here presented in benevolence For though many things may appear something strange at first yet I hope upon second thoughts you will finde them no other then the real truths of God delivered by the Prophets Apostles and the Lord himself I presume you will not adjudge him who hath been and is your cordial friend to become your enemy because he tells you the truth and that in the same language the Spirit in Scripture speaks Indeed I may seem to some to be over-sharp but the discoveries by the vials are so imparted by the Spirit as at the one side to increase the torments of the marked souldiers of Antichrist so on the other side thorowly to searse and eat out the mystery of that deceit too deeply riveted in the mindes of many vessels of honour For though the Spouse was not totally deceived so as to be struck at the heart or killed yet was she so much deluded as to receive a wound Cant. 5.7 which cannot recover a perfect cure but by a searching salve And for my self I dare not daub in the things of God nor call evil good nor darkness light nor soothe up with flattering titles left my Maker should destroy me When I see my brother straying I am commanded to rebuke with plainness and not in any wise to suffer sin to rest upon him to omit which duty were a symptome of hatred Lev. 19.17 And I will assure you they are no other then the faithful wounds of a friend which in receiving may carry the vertue of an excellent oil that will not break your head but onely remove such putrefaction as might otherwise procure your loss at the day of Jesus Christ FINIS
set up a false Christ in regiment This was not so palpable in outward shew but came in Christ his name under very specious pretences of Order Unity repressing heresies holiness advancing Christ and his Kingdom and therefore did the more universally deceive If the natures persons and offices our Lord Jesus had been directly originally and fundamentally razed in the Romish Church then Gods people could never have remained for so many ages in such a visible stand Object 3. The Popes extravagant exercise of discipline in excommunicating suspending not onely simple persons but whole Nations and disposing of all Ecclesiastical dignities was founded on this false doctrine that the Pope is universall Bishop Christs Vicar c. Answ 1 The same barely considered as a Notion or thing taught was not the ground-work of the beast but as usurped and layed in discipline a stone in the quarrie is not the foundation of a house till it be hewen out thence and disposed in the bottom of the building 2 This false Tenent of universality and visible headship is not a doctrinal if doctrine be minded as opposed to discipline but a disciplinall principle as any rational man may apprehend Object 4 None can comply with the Beast in the foundation of his estate without the loss of his salvation as who doth rely on another besides Christ and acknowledgeth him to be supream head under him vicar of Christ and submit to his new Articles of faith but many godly Christian have complyed with him in discipline as Ridly Latimer c. Answer 1 The beast it is true layed another foundation which primarily and radically was in discipline and secondarily struck against doctrine as is shewed before his visible headship and vicarship are principles of discipline and thence flow his articles of faith Besides he was fundamentally both in matter and forme a Beast for 1260 yeares and some time after and so long the Church is Babylon as before is cleared and all that time the world worshipped him but his Articles of faith are not of so long standing most whereof were framed in the Council of Trent And then that cannot be his groundwork which in order of nature and time followed his being the Cause must be before the Effect 2 This was damnable as to all so only to those Christians not truely grounded upon the Rock Jusus Christ Rev. 13.8 who having a meer outside shallow and sandie bottome might be radically supplanted by such a totall and delusive externality but the Elect having a deeper root then that of the Beast could not in the inward work of grace be by him subverted though they were outwardly clothed with his Livery Thus Gregory and other Popes of Rome before him might be in the Election yet their Office was essentially a Beast they living within the aforenamed time of the tribulation the like may be said of Ridly Hooper with the rest by you nominated If this beast had been originally false in the essentials of doctrine it had been damnable to them as well as to the rest of the world for if the foundations be utterly destroyed how can the righteous stand Psal 11.3 We desire the Reader rightly to observe the difference betwixt Mr. Elmestone and us in this particular subject He pleads that the Church of Rome is fundamentally false in doctrine which you may finde by his Arguments above and yet that in her order or Church-constitution she is in her ground-work true for he avers that the Pope hath the true key of Christs discipline in Ordination Excommunication c. and that Friars Monks Priests Bishops c. were radically right in their membership and orders which they had in and from that Church as you may read in the 29 and 30 pages of his book The former he is driven to maintaine or else he must contradict in writing what he and his party have published for many years in open Pulpits before the Nation that Rome is a false Church and that woman Babylon described in Revel 17. that the Pope is Antichrist and the beast delineated chap. 13. the latter he is inforced to manage or else he must yeild their office to be false which lineally descended from the Romish Church But how the body of discipline can retaine life in its binding and loosing where the soul of doctrine is departed or how she can be a bottomless pit and a stranger to Sion who is bottomly true in her order and hath the keyes of the Kingdome of heaven to let into and shut out of such a visible Kingdome we conceive cannot be proved by Scripture nor agree with any reason On the contrary we affirme that Church to be in visible Order false in her membership Babylonish in her office bestial but yet as the Prophecies foretold and the event hath manifested that there should be a godly people in that false visibility so for their sakes the Lord reserved the root of the Covenant of doctrine faith profession issuing thence in prayer praises c. as also a gifted ministery coming not from the bottomless key of that Church but from the immediate gift of Jesus Christ which you may see evinced in the Cessation the former must be fundamentally false or else Rome could not be Babylon the latter must be radically true or else there had been no subsistence for the Saints And thus we shall end with this third Paragraph Paragraph IV. OUrs in brief was this that the call of God in our times is only for separation without stating or without constituting and modelling visible Churches and sitting down therein Rev. 18.4 You may finde it declared in the Cessation that there are two bright and manifest dayes of Jesus Christ in the clear administration of his glory 1. That of the primitive apostolical day which continued till the key of the bottomless pit was given and thereby the Sun and aire darkned which shut up that brightness with darkness of a succeeding night 2. The day of his coming like lightning when the marriage of the Lamb doth againe return after the final subversion of Antichrist Betwixt these two periods is the time of the Babylonish age wherein neither of those two dayes are to be seen in such an open dispensation of his power the kingdome then being inward This latter season containes two distinct special and very observable revolutions 1. The time of the Saints tribulation lasting 1260 yeers in which term the true Church is only a sealed number disrobed of the beauty of her exterior order and visibly seated in the desart of nations where her choicest witnesses were outwardly invested with defiled and mournful garments and prophesied in that earth before the God of the earth where the beast had power to prevaile and tread them under foot making their estate mournful This begun about the yeer three hundred and ninty when the Bishop of Rome obtained the primacy of seat and is expired in the yeer 1650 as is shewed in the Cessation and
glory of God then sparkling forth in the bright lustre of that high dispensation is like most pretious Iasper clear as Crystal Rev. 21. which seems to be one of those stones called by Plinie Aerizula resemling the clear air darkned with no colour which might cause an aberration in the sight likewise Isa 42.12 her windows the mirror to let the same light into the heart are of Agats the original word signifies as well Jasper or Crystal which is most consonant to that of the Revelation by which the Spirit would teach us that there is the same light within in the eye that without is in the aire in both which there is such an unmixed and lightsome purity as discovereth several objects in their naked hue and all issues forth more immanently from God according to that of the Psalmist In thy light we shall see light Psal 36.9 but this in the splendor of it is beyond our times The separated people who have gotten victory over the beast stand upon a sea of glass in a more bright expanding Scriptures then in the Antichristian stations mingled with fire to burn up rubbish With all the wrong stated corporations there are humane bestial thrones interposed between them and the highest throne which like opacous bodies cause an eclipse of the countenance of him that sits thereon of which there be some grosser and occasion the greater darkness as in Rome others more thin and rarified but yet being mixed and of divers natures present untrue and discording aspects to such who look through these delusive mediums When the 144000 sealed ones who are now scattered in the wilderness and secret chambers shall like noble victors come off from the beast and return with their faces toward Sion the veil will be removed whereby the semblance of Christ will shine more purely upon them and they standing on the abovesaid sea behold his beauty through that glass with more open face and I am sure the senses of Scripture seen by that transparencie cannot bear so many opposite faces as now they do but will appeare in their more native and uniforme visage For though the same text may have various significations and prospects yet the variety is such as meets in a unity and is not destructive to it selfe as are the dissenting axiomes of this our evill generation My desire is that the goldy Readers who may now be severed one from another in judgement and practice would with a single eye sequestred from the former glosses of their own and others look into the inbrest of those prophecies produced in the following treatise and they may perhaps by the conduct of the Spirit of prophecie find that truth which may be as a spiritual clue to lead them out of their labyrinths and reduce them into one fold to travel together toward their desirable resting places Now suffer me a little to reflect and give you a compendious survey of some occurrences happening unto me I confess my self to be one of the least of the servants of Jesus Christ and in this particular subject was heretofore as blindfold as any What I have since received I acknowledg to the praise of his free grace only who hath committed such treasure to a poor weak earthen vessel given indeed to further the destruction of Antichrist but for your true edification If I glory in any thing it shall be in mine infirmities that God may have all the honor It was some nine yeers ago that the Lord in part shewed me the vanity of the national Presbytery for against Episcopacy I was ever since I came to yeers of understanding with the unwarrantableness of that compulsive power they at that time laboured to obtaine and then did I much affect and adhere to those bodies called Independents whom I yet look on as the more moderate solid and less rigid of all the stated companies and though I never was incorporated amongst them yet was I a stickler in their behalf as I met with opportunity I found that Gospel-Churches were not made up with people of all sorts but of such men only who were Saints at least in visible appearance Iad judged th office of the Presbytery derived from the Bishops and so from the Pope not to be legitimate that Classical Provincial and National Synods assuming a power over particular congregations are the same Prelacy in the root with Episcopacy and herein might be more dangerous and destructive that whereas there were before but few now there would be a multiplicity of Bishops that this is to bring a medium and husband-like authoriry betwixt Christ the husband and the Church the Spouse and to conform the Kingdome of Jesus Christ to the kingdoms of this world that office by our Saviours rule was subservient It shall not be so amongst you Mat. 20.25 26 27. Luk. 22.25 26. That it is the property of the Locusts false officers to have crowns on their heads Revel 9.7 that Gospel-members must be a free willing people inlightned and constrained by the attractive vertue of the Spirit and not compelled by humane Laws and Canons that such a forcing is against the nature of a marriage which relative compaction ought to be combined by the mutual consent of both parties and not against the will injoyned by another that seeing no power of man can create a principle of belief to this or that way it were unreasonable to command the action that the spiritual life comes onely from Christ and no man can come to him except the Father draw him that the soul is the proper seat of God and the Apostles weapons were not carnal but spiritual that none are now infallible nor can substitute such unerring decrees which they dare affirm to be Jure divino which Law alone takes place upon the conscience that this compulsion hath been the greatest offence to render consciences the right hand of persecution both in Rome under Episcopacy and may be the like in Presbytery many of whom are over-rigid that it may for the future as well as in times past stop the free passage of new discoveries These and such like arguments upon occasion I produced and proved at large against the national Presbytery and thus far I went candidly Now for the particular practice of Church-constitution I began more narrowly to pry into the primitive platform and in this dissented from the rest that the Ordinance to receive into Church-fellowship was not a Covenant and subscription thereto nor by giving the right hand of fellowship but by laying on of hands I drew out my model as exactly as I could to its first exemplar and saw that many things could not be practised in their genuine order but this I pieced up with the extream law of necessity I concluded visible faith to be the next immediate groundwork of the whole building and in this last was my mistake such as overthrew all my former labour and yet remained I for some yeers in this misapprehension though with secret
externality was after surprised by Antichrist that destroying king the better to establish his worldly kingdom and captivate the godly in fetters of Iron And surely this was not again restored by Satans craft nor the insinuation of some subtile Sinons as you most abusively turn it but by the hand of Divine providence directing our noble partriots to regain the priviledge of their birthright whom Christ made kings and priests to God and his Father The Lord hath crowned the undertakings of those who were the choicest instruments in procuring this freedome with such prosperous success in his and our publike interest as might teach you more modesty then so reproachfully to defame them and hath with a mighty arme layed low the pride of such who sought to bring us back into bondage both in England Scotland and Ireland he reproved kings and nations for his peoples sake all which might force you write upon our liberty This is the finger of God if your eyes were open to behold his wonders now appearing It seems it much grieves you to see the tenth part of the great City falling in our dominions and that our States refuse to assume a Popedom over the conscience the peculiar seat of divine majesty However you judge it will be the honour of our Worthies in future ages and all neighbor-Commonwealths are amazed at the glory resting upon our English nation But Sir Why should this toleration be more destructive to you then to others You have as great a portion therein as any you thereby injoy a freedome for your walk which was denyed in the Bishops reign and when so large a door is opened in rising times if your Church cannot stand unless under-propped by worldly power it evidently demonstrates your kingdome to be of this world Be pleased to remember that the primitive was not built by might nor power but by the Spirit Zech. 4.6 and by the same Spirit Christ went forth conquering and to conquer mulittudes Rev. 6.2 Also the stone dashing all opposers in these latter dayes is cut out of the mountaine without hands Dan. 2.34 the kingly Prophet tells us Gods people will be willing or voluntaries as the Hebrew text carries it in the day of his power Psal 110.3 and 47.9 The Gosâ—el-Saints are genuinely of a royal princely spirit and never act nobly but from a pure principle of love within constraining 2 Cor. 5.14 You argue That out of this womb hath issued forth numerous heresies errors sects and schisms Answ Some of these named indeed are dangerous some are neerer to the truth then your selves but to reply to yours we assert 1. That all those nominated in your Epistle the Ranters excepted who in their blasphemies and beastly lusts are excluded were brought forth many yeers before this toleration was granted and it is a strange Paradox never heard of in publike till divulged by you that that can be the womb to conceive and bring forth which with as was not in retum natura extant in the series of nature till so long time after their existence Formerly it was an approved Aphorisme Causa est prior effecto The cause precedes the effect in order of nature or time or both But you produce a contrary example which if true will put all Logicians to an absolute non-plus We conceive the rationalist rather then be silenced will tell you Contra principia negantem non est disputandum no disputation ought to be held with him that denyes the principles Surely it is heat of passion against the Sectaries as you term them hath disturbed your otherwise more solid intellectuals To proceed suppose errors may arise yet is it not carnal but spiritual weapons must beat down such spiritual wickedness 2 Cor. 10.3 4. The Lord permits and the Scripture presageth that errors and offences must come partly that those who are approved may be made manifest partly that the conquest of truth may appear the more glorious which will at last dispel those gloomy clouds and shine forth with more perspicuous brightness The mystery of godliness rayes out with most perfect beauty by the clear discovery of the deepest mystery of iniquity Besides why may not truth in a free passage come in as well as heresie Without doubt Christ who hath all power committed to his charge is as potent to prevaile in light as the Prince of darkness in delusions Nay why may not truth be shut out by the contrary restraint The compulsion you plead for hath hither to proved a direct enemy to the pure Gospel of the Lord Jesus It may further be demanded to what way you so eagerly labor to ingage the sword of the Magistrate whether to your own or to some other Not to any other for when the Bishops held it in their custody you did with the formost exclaim against it as Antichristian bestial tyrannical c. and here you censure all others to be errors Sects Schisms and what not If you chalenge it to your selves we shall ask whether you among all the several bodies extant sit in the chaire of infallibility For none but an unerring law can warrantably claim a power over the conscience 2. Suppose you were infallible and could not err which you dare not affirme then whether you can create a belief the heart of those who are contrary minded The Apostles in Church-affaires were directed by an undeceivable spirit an yet neither used nor layed claim to such a power but invited and won men to the faith simply by the cords of love All that humane weapons can do is only to force the outward man which is a violent and preternatural motion and when the constraint is over soon turns again to its own centre Whereas the Gospel naturally begins within and grounds its principles in the intimate chests of reason It first breaks as a light into the Vnderstanding the noblest faculty and there imprints the image of its integrity thence it goes to the Will the great wheel of the soul and turns it to a willing obedience to all its precepts and commands thence it passeth to the inferiour affections and compels them to imbrace the beauties of holiness and from these inward springs proceed all the outward duties and services performed by the body The sum of the new Convenant is to write the laws in the heart and in the mind Heb. 8.10 This was exactly the method which the Apostles followed 2 Cor. 3.2.3 But you indeavor a preposterous course and contrary to the order of the Gospel to wit to constrain the body to what the heart opposeth If so and whatever be not of faith be sin then assuredly this your course is confusion and destructive to the souls of people We read of none in all the New Testament but only the beast who commanded all both smal and great to worship Revel 13. 3. It is conceived that you in this are a part of the greatest and most deceivable Schisme that ever came into the world and
6.4 9. compared with John 12.40 Acts 2.2 by which the visible keys of Church-power were given and sanctified but after when the Angel fell Rev. 9.1 2 3. another earthen hellish key with other smoke arising from the pit darkning and banishing the lightsome glory of the former as above and at last a new smoaking of the Temple from Gods glory Rev. 15.8 a new opening and entering implying key and doors all shewing that there was no opening nor entering but a cessation and shutting of the true visible betwixt these two days Besides there is a new open breathing of the four windes of the Spirit Ezek. 37.9 after the long restraint of the primitive blast Rev. 7.1 Act. 2.2 Ezek. 1.4 a new pouring of his Spirit Isai 32.15 after the former hiding of his power a new Marriage and Marriage-call Rev. 19.7 9. besides the Marriage at the first Matth. 22. a new lightning Matth. 24.27 besides the lightning at the primitive Ezck. 1.4 13 14. all teaching a non-continuance of this glory Again there was an invisible day between the bright shining day at the first Luk. 17.22 and the like glorious day again at the last vers 24. an invisible kingdom as that within vers 21. passing between the open kingdom of the primitive and the manifest kingdom of God at the last Chap. 21.31 Rev. 19.6 Chap. 11.17 all clearing up this cessation The visibilities Lo here and there were false and delusive The event hath made all this as perspicuous as the sun shines in the open firmament to those who will not obstinately and of set purpose shut their eyes against it to wit That there was an apparent and general Apostacie darkning and swallowing up all the bright Order of the primitive For that Church after Constantine had sully subdued the heathen Emperors and setled all in outward tranquillity about the yeer of our Lord 327 as the margin on Socrates hath it lib. 1. cap. 3. beginning to conform to and mix her self with National and worldly things degenerated and daily declined by the four first trumpets Rev. 8. till at last by the fifth the star totally apostated from heaven to earth about 390 and then the key of external Rule became purely National and was onely in the jurisdiction of Popes Patriarchs Bishops and earthly Hierarchies who alone usurped all Church-power into their hands In all our Western Globe there was no Church-Government visible but what was Romish for many ages and our Antagonist M. Elmestone confesseth that their Office of the Ministery the principal pillar of the Church came directly from Rome no longer ago then Luther's time Hereupon that of Protestantism is not termed a Separation but a Reformation their Office and Membership coming radically from the Romish Synagogue which seems to be hinted by the Prophet Jeremiah Chap. 51.9 We would have healed Babylon and she was not healed Object It hath been objected by others What shall we think of the Greek Church who never had to do with Rome nor owned her power Answ To whom we reply 1. That the Church of Grecia may be no plea to such who live in the Levant under the Turk but concerns not in the least our Protestant Churches who derived not their power from the Greek but from the Romish Pontificality 2. It is not true that the Greek Church never had to do with Rome For about the yeer 390 after Christ all the Eastern Bishops yeelded the Primacie of seat the proper place of Christ to the Romane Pope And afterward if the Bishop of Rome obtained by Phocas the Emperour the title of Vniversal then assuredly the Bishop and Patriarch of Grecia must be subject unto him and together with the Church be within the limits of his territories Again the Greek Empire was possessed by the Latines for sixty yeers together even from the yeer 1200 to the yeer 1260 and then Michael Paleologus recovered their Empire who about the yeer 1273 agreed with Pope Gregory the tenth at Iyons in France and promised that both himself and all his people hereafter should yeeld all Sovereignty to the Latine Pope and Church 3. The Greek Church was as well National and had a terrene Hierarchy even the very same with Rome and is so apostated that she denies the holy Ghost to proceed from the Father and the Son prays for the dead believes that the Saints departed enjoy not the presence of God till the Resurrection admits children of seven yeers old to the Sacrament because then as they conceit they begin to sin receives none into Orders but such as are married and forbids marriage to those who are actually in Orders rejects carved Images but admits the painted with many the like Fopperies and in many fandamentals is as gross or grosser then Rome To conclude Chap. 7 all the four windes of all quarters were restrained Chap. 11.2 the whole outward court of Discipline as well East as West was cast out as above and the great City Babylon was not onely at Rome but at Judea where our Lord was slain Chap. 11.8 and then certainly Grecia lying in the midst between must needs be comprehended within the circumference thereof It hath by some as the Dippers been questioned whether these National Churches be within the Covenant To whom I answer that though in their Church-order they were Babylon or confusion yet are they not wholly excluded from the Covenant as Heathens but are termed by the Spirit Israelites who had a sealed number amongst their tribes Rev. 7. Here we may see how though the place or hand failed the name was everlasting And it is not safe to detract from the words of this Prophecie especially seeing the sequele hath cleared that there was some profession of Christianity and a godly people amongst them through every age of this hiding of Gods power You may find this further cleared in the following Paragraph The next thing considerable under this first Querie is touching the true Church in this confusion 1. What she was 2. What was her condition 3. How she was fed 4. The just time of this her captivity 1. What she was In Chap. 7 I finde that there were one hundred and fourty four thousand sealed ones preserved secured and provided for In Chap. 9 that this number onely was undestroyed by the Locusts In Chap. 11 that the Temple measured must be this sealed company built up a spiritual house by the mystical bond of the Spirit it having no dimensions specified and all the externality being excluded as shall be proved in Paragraph 1. Sect. 4. In Chap. 14.1 that the mount Sion there expressed must be onely the mount of true grace footed on the counsel of God which is called a sure and sealed foundation 2 Tim. 2.19 For 1. All the sealed elect people even the whole one hundred and fourty four thousand stand on this mountain and that through all the apostated season which they did not do in any true visible being mixed amongst the Nations
Antichristianism is the keys of visible Church-constitution or Marriage-Ordinances resolve themselves radically into believers or into the power of the people who may at any time take them up erect and model visible Churches open and shut the doors thereof to others This we reduced to the touchstone of the primitive and found that they prayed preached baptized and at last brake bread while they were bare disciples and onely Covenant-members but in respect of Church constitution they were commanded to tarry and wait at Jerusalem till the promise of the Father to wit the keys of the Kingdom was given whereby the Kingdom of God came with power Acts 1.4 8. Luke 24.49 This was a manifest transfusion of the Spirit that did not onely increase the glory of the former but also stated and invested them with new Membership and Office and inspired the stative Ordinances of Ordination Confirmation Church-censures with a new created efficacie whereby they received in and shut out of that new-married Church The image of this is set forth in Acts 2. It is called a pouring out of the Spirit in regard of the abundant measure thereof visibly manifested vers 17 also a mighty rushing winde filling the house with cloven tongues of fire vers 2 3 as causing that breath of life and spiritual heat which operated in that apparent Kingdom Isaiah compares it to smoke filling the house as presenting the glory of Christ in his powerful administration Chap. 6.3 4. In Ezek. 1.4 5 the four Beasts or livings with each of them four faces which must typifie the Apostles Prophets and Evangelists who had all gists and tongues by which they were distinguished from the four Beasts Rev. 4.6 7 who had each of them but one face came out of the midst of that winde cloud and fire also in Ephes 4.8 11 the Spirit tells us that all the several degrees of the Ministerial Office to wit together with the former three Pastors and Teachers were ingendered originally by that virtual efflux of the Spirit sent down from heaven Indeed the twelve were set apart for their Office by Christ while he was on earth and in that sense named Apostles as Joseph is called the husband of Mary and she his wife while they were no more then espoused Matth. 1.18 19 20. and a man may be termed an heir when he is onely designed for the inheritance but their real investment was not till after For Ezekiel in the place before quoted shews that the four-faced beasts proceeded out of the wind cloud and fire expressed Acts 2 and in Eph. 4 Christ first ascended then gave gifts the gift sent down was the Office Some Apostles c. They had not till then that differential eminency of gift which gave being to and distinguished their Office from the rest nor of extraordinary Prophets or Evangelists nor of ordinary Pastors and Teachers no nor yet of the same which private members had after the Spirit was emitted They were before unfurnished with the gift of Tongues Act. 2.2 looked on Christ as an earthly king over a temporal kingdom Luke 19.11 Matth. 20.21 were ignorant of the death resurrection and ascension of Christ the common and main principles of Christianity Matth. 16.22 Mark 16.11 13. Luke 24.11 21 25. were not able to bear many things which after were easie to every believer Job 16.12 Chap. 14.26 1 Cor. 15.1.2 3 4 5 6 7. And this M. Robinson and others the solidest men of the Separation have maintained against the Presbyters and Bishops Again their first designation came not from man but onely from their Master which makes least for those who here will plead against us Besides the disciples were not called a Church nor did any lay on hands for Membership or Office nor use any Church-censures till they received power from on high Hence we may safely conclude that Gospel-stating at the first beginning came not from believers as believers but from the powerful dispensation of Chirst Jesus and that when if sunk and the same open windes before animating were with-held it must return to him the fountain whence at first it flowed for every thing resolvs into its principle But leaving the primitive we may search the Scriptures treating of this last marriage to come and we shall find the same pouring of the Spirit that was in that first Gospel-day * Rev. 11.2 Chap. 19.7 Isa 32.13 14 15. the joyous City shall lie desolate untill the Spirit be poured out from on High whereby the Wilderness shall be a fruitfull field and the fruitfull field counted for a Forest also Zech. 17.10 I will pour upon the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace c. Which must be on Jews and Gentiles for the mourners here poured on are interpreted by our Saviour to be all the tribes of the earth who by their sins and Iedol-worship have pierced Christ Matth. 24.30 likewise Ezek. 37.9 th-same open windes before bound up Rev. 7.1 shall be then loosed in their manifest blast So Luk. 17.24 and Psal 97.4 there will be the like fiery flashing lightning to illuminate the world which the earth shall see to wit visibly and tremble also Psal 102.16 When the Lord shall build up Sion he will appear in glory and Isai 60.2 His glory shall be seen upon thee both which places shew that his most excellent dispensation shall be visible Hence we may gather that as this by the apostacy resolved into Christ so it must again issue forth from him before it can have its true existence For this glorious effusion of the Spirit in the first beginning of Church-constitution is the foundation of the keys thereto pertaining it gives them their vital being their proper difference and by its manifold work causeth those various operations which proceed from and by them Thus in the primitive marriage they received power from on high whereby the Lord was to them for a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty Isa 28.5 by vertue whereof they had the high keys of the Kingdom So in this last the Lord will first marry them to himself to wit pour out his Spirit upon them whereby they shall be as a crown of glory and a royal diademe in his hand Hos 2.19 Isa 63.2 and then vers 5 they as sons of the Church shall marry in others the first is done by God immediately wherein man is meerly passive the second by man as instrumental working by the power of his preceding Into the first work of marriage acted simply by Gods own finger none save the Elect enter and not all the Elect but onely such elect ones who believe and wait for the same promise of pouring the Spirit for such choice singled ones were the hundred and twenty in the primitive though by the second done by the hand of the Church hypocrites did then intrude So in this last matrimony Isa 60.21 Rev. 21.27 none but the virgins who expect and prepare
in profession were beyond the sphere of Satan For the inward created principle in the soul breaking forth in and by these means and Ordinances the Spirit in and by the Word sustaining its perpetuity and Christ supporting the same are all far above the reach of Antichrist had these been in the power of that destroyer he would have utterly marred all the springs yea the very fountain of grace In the same manner the communion taken on the ground work of the spiritual union of all the godly wherever scattered when the corporated was false and Christ therein fed upon by faith was not altogether subverted for the mystical relation betwixt Christ and the heart and the godly with the godly was beyond the compass of Popes Bishops or any humane authority whatsoever Also for Baptism though the Antichristian Church was in her constitution and order unmeasured to truth and therein Babylon yet she was not utterly shut out from the Covenant but had the call of Israelites had the Name of the Father Son and holy Ghost put on them with a common grace to believe the Covenant and an elect sealed number in and amongst their tribes none of which properties can be attributed to those wholly without Though Antichrist in some things infected the externality of this Ordinance yet could he not fundamentally raze the Covenant nor utterly abolish the name of Christ from amongst Christians nor make invalid the power of the Word perpetuating that name Isai 56.5 In like sort the ten apostated tribes were in their Church-order set up by Jeroboam radically false and yet were Israelites within the Covenant and had the signe of Circumcision Thus also men excommunicated are excluded from Church-fellowship but not from their Baptism and the Covenant Likewise Hereticks who fell from the Church were received again not by new Baptism but by laying on of hands Euseb l. 7 cap. 2 3. 2. Our Reasons why the later sort as Ordination Confirmation c. abode not are these following 1. They are not promised in the Word to continue Isai 56.5 2. They wanting that promise were forsaken by God when corrupted 3. All the external Order became Antichristian and so the Ordinances proper thereto must be bestial or else how could there have been a Babylon wherein the sealed number were captives 4. Our last taken from this text Rev. 9 is that these were wholly resolved into the Pope to whom was given another key with other smoke and Officers These being altogether external and Christ leaving them Antichrist might have and had absolute power therein to make them bottomless Object Against this you assert that though the Pope have another false key yet withal he hath the keys of Christs discipline in Ordination Excommunication Suspension c. Answ Though the Pope usurp the carcase of those Ordinances that were Christs before yet their true essential form which makes them to be Christs and true Office and Membership on which they depend he and his whorish Church have not For confirmation whereof these grounds do naturally arise from the text 1. The first Reason is drawn from the nature of the Pope and Antichristian Hierarchies vers 1. the Star or Angel fell from heaven the orb in which he was fixed before unto the earth or wilderness Chap. 12.6 a total apostacie from his former office and sphere and was not in the least degree heavenly but terrene earthly and meerly humane or a wilde beast Rev. 13.1 and is numbered not to God but to man vers 18. It is a true Rule Corruptio optimi est pessima The corruption of the best things is always worst and most contrary to its former goodness Satan who was the noblest is by his fall the basest of creatures and most unlike to an angel of light which he was before he fell So here that Angelical Office which shined as a fixed Star in the bright firmament of the primitive purity holding forth the liveliest glory of Christ for the perfecting of the Saints being once apostated from his former sphere became not onely an humane Hierarchie but a meer Antichrist as most opposite to Christ of any other 2 Thess 2.3 and the man of sin as that wherein the quintessence of evil and deceit is epitomized and grown to its perfect maturity and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one in office altogether without and besides the Law and likest to sin it self which is termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Joh. 3.4 nay he is the principal vicegerent of Satan on earth to whom he commits his chiefest power Rev. 13.2 throne and authority in the exercise whereof he is Abaddon or Apollyon Chap. 9.11 destruction it self in the abstract recorded in the two most famous Languages and is most emphatically stiled by Paul The son of perdition being one who hath caused the greatest ruine and desolation and is termed by John the King of the bottomless pit Thus we may see that the Office of the Pope and his Hierarchy is most corrupted of any thing else being that wherein the being of Antichrist doth subsist who is not a particular person but a corporation And this Official Hierarchy being stript naked of its primitive truth and becoming meerly Antichristian cannot in the least degree beget a lawful Office for Nâ—l dat quod non habet If the fountain be polluted how can the streams be pure None can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one Job 14.3 2. This Angel had another key different in nature from the former And it is impossible the keys of the kingdom of heaven can subsist with the key of the bottomless pit or the power of Jesus Christ be united with the power of Satan Contraries in their extremes cannot stand together but the one must destroy the other 3. The Church opened by this key is a bottomless pit bottomless she being void of the groundwork of Truth in her order a pit or prison being as a hell on earth in which men are captivated Prov. 7.27 Chap. 9.18 Isai 51.14 Chap. 49.9 Zech. 9.11 12. also a Church excommunicated of God and Babylon Rev. 11.2 Chap. 17.5 and so cannot in her constitution have the keys of the kingdom of heaven for the key must be of the same nature with the Church Besides if Confirmation Ordination Excommunication c. be true in Rome then must that Romish Church into which by these keys she enters and out of which she shuts be a kingdom of heaven and a Sion and not a bottomless pit and Babylon which we conceive you will be ashamed to affirm 4. The smoke or dispensation of this pit or false Church is hellish and diabolical eclipsing and darkning the whole Horizon vers 2. and how can the smoke or winde of Gods glory spiriting these Ordinances and making them lightsome dwell together with the darksome false and delusive smoke of the bottomless pit surely the Lord will not so much honour Antichrist his greatest adversary If the
Pope have the true smoke or winde of the primitive Church then what he bindes or looses on earth is bound or loosed in heaven Matth. 16.19 as is further cleared in the second Section 5. The Officers coming from hence are locusts of a divers kinde from the true they proceeding from another key king pit and smoke If Office had been true in Rome then Membership must be the like for he can be no true Officer that is not withal a Member and if Office and Membership be both right in that Catholike Synagogue then must she be a true Church being radically right both in Ministers and people Sir have you exclaimed against Rome as Babylon for so many yeers and do you now by this argument prove her to be Sion However we may from this text observe that as the pit is bottomless so is the key the smoke and the locusts arising from it and that fundamentally so that your Ordination Excommunication Suspension coming from hence cannot have any parcel of the keys of the kingdom of heaven but must pertain to this bottomless key Object But say you these Ordinances may remain the Ordinances of Christ though in wrong hands and abused as the Great seal of the kingdom is still in the right and true seal though in the hand of an usurping Lord Keeper c. Answ If you should prove these constitutive Ordinances to be Seals yet in the Broad Seal there be two things requirable 1. The Power and Authority from whence the Seal proceeds 2. The confirming of an act coming from that power by the Seal When the writing sealed is derived from a lawful authority then the Seal carries the name and majestie of that true and rightful power which makes it a legal ratification but if it issue forth from an usurped Primacy though the matter and print may be the same with the other yet the act sealed bears the substance of that usurpation which puts another form upon it and makes it illegitimate nay treasonable So these Ordinances pertaining to Church-order in the primitive times arising from Christ and his Spirit working in the Apostles c. were accompanied with the name and power of Christ which made them true as representing the lively image of himself but these coming from other usurping lords as Popes Bishops or the like receive the character of the same usurpation which changeth their essence makes them unlawful and to carry the image of the Beast And your Office flowing from this bestial and exorbitant key must be false in its foundation The Key the Church the Smoke is another and thereof not Christ but Antichrist the king of the bottomless pit We informed you how the truth of this was verified by the event that there was no other Office but that of the Locusts kinde even in Luther's time who himself was a Monk In opposition to this you reckon up some Bishops Monks Friers Priests or of some such Popish Order that for 1260 yeers stood up to witness the Truth who were not locusts Answ These men whom you reckon up with any other of the like sort of godly men officiated by Antichrist had no other Office but that of the locust-kinde You your self acknowledge the Officers called Monks Friers Priests Abbots Cardinals and the Popish Clergie to be of the series of the locust a little before in the same page of your book And whatsoever excellencie and honour these men gained beyond others arose simply from the gift of Jesus Christ not at all from their Popish function that being but the defiled rags with which the same Witnesses were clothed No man not Popishly minded can imagine that their Frierhood Monkery Priesthood or the like could confer any dignity to their piety or that these men thus gifted by the Lord Jesus did attribute any esteem to their Popish Orders It is observable that God should rear up such men who had no Office but what was meerly invented to be such noble instruments to testifie in some degree the Truth which may teach you us and all others not to give any worth to such difiled Offices but onely to their qualifications which unless sanctified from heaven they had been locusts as well as the rest of their Orders and to conclude that this their grace and the right to dispense the same came not from their officiating but onely from the gift and grant of the Lord of life So that herein we must distinguish their inward gift with its administration from their outward investment the one distilling from Christ was radically true and holy the other coming from Antichrist was utterly false and polluted Object You assert further that Ockam John of Gaunt Dante 's John Wickliff Jerome of Prague Luther were men that amongst others made up the series of the three Angels Rev. 14. and yet lived in the Church of Rome had their external calling from that Church were of some of the Popish Orders c. Answ Bare saying is no proving and ipse dixit he said so will hardly pass for currant amongst men of judgement We shall deny that the men you name were of the rank of the three Angels specified Rev. 14.6 8 9. much less that they were called Angels by vertue of their Popish Office which you would insinuate For they lived within the circuit of the one thousand two hundred and sixty yeers of tribulation wherein they were mourners and being as you confess men that lived in the Church of Rome that had their external calling from that Church and of some of the Popish Orders must be those Witnesses clothed in sackcloth Rev. 11.3 Whereas these three Angels were of the rejoycing Harpers who arose not till after the expiration of that sorrowful time were clothed in white Robes of joy and greater purity and had gotten the victory over the Beast his image mark name and the number of his name Chap. 7.9 Chap. 15.2 Again neither the Ministery nor Writings of those you mention were so pure and full as might be termed an everlasting Gospel which the first Angels ministery was vers 6 neither did they with the second vers 8 unmask the root of Mysterie Babylon great part whereof was sealed up from their understandings neither did they discover the Beast his image and mark in its whole latitude with the third who with a thundering voice crieth against all such defiled Offices with which they were outwardly arayed vers 9. 2. These ministers or instruments of this threefold discovery are not intitled Angels by vertue of any outward call to an Office by the Pope Bishops or any other authority on earth but onely by the priviledge of a gift dispensed immediately by the Angel of the Covenant Rev. 10.8 9 10 11. Here their commission or sending forth Go comes simply from God their furnishing for this ministration or their taking and eating the book from the Angel and being thus divinely impowered they must prophesie though all the earth oppose it their
by war and the punishments thereof or at least by a sharpe and searching discovery I shall therefore advise you with all my Christian friends wheresoever to come off from such like defilements lest ye partake with Babylon in her plagues and that your works burn not at the appearance of Jesus Christ and this you will finde to be seasonable Counsel if the Lord open your eyes to embrace it Section 1. Against this our assertion you except first more generally then particularly your general exceptions I shall bind within this Section the particular I shall divide into several Sections apart Object 1. More generally you assert 1. That this course of ours is contrary to all former times whose separations were accompanied with the present setting up of Church-societies Answ 1. This of separation from spiritual Babel is called a new thing then springing forth Isa 43.19 chap. 42.16 and so must in some respect be differing from all the former Againe we grant the separations of former times were presently accompanied with congregating ministery prayer with other services that were lawfully exercised before their departure as we do the like now but withall denie that those servants of God assumed any new thing or an old after its dispensation lay void without a new call and warrant for the work Object To prove yours You instance the departure of Abraham from Chaldaea Israels from Egypt Judahs from Babylon the Primitives from Judaisme and Hâ—athenisme Answ We shall begin with that of Abrahams who as he separated not till God called him from his Country and his Fathers house Gen. 12.1 Act. 7.2 3 4. so in this his journey he made no innovation but onely exercised himself in Ministery Prayer and the like which he emitted not in Chaldaea and after he came into Canaan took not up the signe of Circumcision till he received an express command from Heaven Gen. 17.10 11 12. and this was not till 24 yeers after his first entrance into the Land of promise as appears by comparing ver 1. with chap. 12.3 and near 30 yeers from his going out from Vr of the Chaldees as may be gathered by Scripture-consent To that of Israels stating in the wilderness upon their going forth from Egypt we say 1. That they were separated from Egypt both people and land being passed through the red Sea but we are not yet so from Babylon nor can be till the way be traced over Euphrates 2. They being thus severed remaâ—ned a bare separated people a yeer or more as you confess 3. After that their marriage or Church-state was not contracted by themselves for the Lord himself begun it at mount Smai where they had a call pattern and warrant for all they did all which was smoked by the cloud of Gods glory but you can produce no such call nor glory for any of your new-built constitutions nor prove the continuance of the primitive through the season of the apostacy Touching the Jewes returne from Babylon we answer That they did not rebuild the Temple in their voyage of separation but first came to Sion the proper resting place and then begun it by vertue of an heavenly call directing Cyrus and the Jewes for that designe and by the incouragement of the Prophets Haggai and Zachariah Isa 44.28 chap. 45.4 Ezra 5.12 Object Here you produce against us the saying of the Jewes Hag. 1 2. It is not time to build Answ They being come to Sion and called of God to the work might justly be reproved for slacking their hands Notwithstanding if they should have erected that divine edifice in their journey before arrived there they might have met with a sharper rebuke and punishment The crime is more hainous to usurpe a power and build upon their own bottoms then to neglect it in its time though I justifie neither However God calls not his people to any such work now in these our travels from mysticall Babell neither can man do it in its owne season this spiritual fabrick being not built by hands as the outward was but the Lord himself must first create it by the pouring out of his Spirit Your temerity in constituting your Church by your owne power before God begins it and charging us as being too too slow for waiting his proper time brings to our mind a story in Exodus chap. 32. When Moses there seemed to the Israelites to tarry too long they as impatient of delay must needs go before God and frame a golden Calfe by their own imaginations as you now do a bestiall Idol To that of the primitive we reply that the Disciples used ministery prayer baptisme and at last received the communion but did not state any visible Churches and after Christs resurrection from the dead they tarried at Jerusalem expecting the promise of the Father to impower them for the same work Indeed when they were first married by God by the glorious emission of the Spirit they by vertue thereof as sons of the Church married in others by bringing them into that Gospel-fellowship So that when visible Churches are existing men are received in as married members when not there can be no entrance further then into a Covenant membership waiting the times of God Object 2. Your next charge against us is that ours is against a common rule for interpreting Scriptures which is that wherein it commands the avoiding of evil it doth vertually command the contrary good Answ This rule we infringe not but imbrace and follow For as we flee from the beast his image marke name and number so we walk in that good way of assembling and exercise such ordinances as are now spirited by the Lord. But you are so far from doing good upon the avoiding evil that you run from one evil of the Bishops and rush into another of Presbytery from Babylon and the beast into Babylon and the same beast newly translated Object 3. You further taxe us that this course of ours casteth a foul blot of gross ignorance and rash presumption upon all the Protestant Churches Answ 1. Your selves separating from the Nations and setting up a Church distinguished from the rest of your parish do in your practice condemn all national Churches You also in your principles and words unchurch all the lesser independent bodies the like do they to you and all others not of their way Therefore for you to lay so high a charge against us and do the same things seemes to favour of partiality and come under the reproof of the Apostle Rom. 2.1 2. For clearing our selves we answer Vivimus legibus non exemplis We set not the practices of men but the lawes of God for our examplar That of man hath especially from the first beginning and so downward of the Antichristian darkness been the common misleading mark of Christians both in Papacy Episcopacy and the like And the differing and disagreeing formes of Churches in our age may teach how invalid humane authority is in the things of God But
not hid in that City nor the adjacent territories nor fled they from thence by a personal flight These two extremes will hardly come together 5. This call here specified pertains not to all times and persons For as Israel was to be in outward Babylon for the space of seventy yeers before the call for their departure so the woman was to remain in the mystical for a full season even 1260 yeers Rev. 12.6 as before the wheat and tares were to grow together till harvest which belongs to the vials chap. 14. and then this call for separation had its peculiar time prefixed the war and it being conjoyned together The primitive Saints failing in their first love sunk into the same earthly confused condition and were left asleep in that wilderness for a full season till the times of God came for their deliverance from bondage 6. This of Protestantisme cannot properly be termed a separation in respect of Church-constitution but rather a dividing of the kingdom Dan. 2.41 The true separation consists in a number out of Nations Rev. 7.9 who are off from the beast and his thorne over consciences as standing immediately before the highest throne and were not defiled with women chap. 14.2 3 4. But theirs was whole Nations good and bad together and they set up a beast originally derived from Rome and by consequence must in their Church-state be a strange woman as is proved in Paragraph 1. Sect. 3. Indeed Antichrist reigning long in his Catholique pontificalitie grew so foul at last that he was found out by the Protestants and being discovered was contented with them to sit down in Episcopacy but lording it there with too much tyranny was also disclosed to be the same beast trimmed in other habit and where he could not be admitted that attire in policy that he might the easier deceive masked himself under a more curious dress in Presbytery yet his ground-work arising by descent from the Pope is the same with the former and he also there usurps or chalengeth the like popedom over consciences The same beast remaines in all onely his Kingdome is divided To your fifth Objection we answer that by the word only we exclude stating not assembling for Ministery Prayer c. Section 3. Your next Objections are directed against our seventh Reason where we tell you that we are yet but in the way towards Sion Before we give a reply to yours we shall acquaint you what we conceive of this subject to prepare for that following We hold that there was a Sion 2 Temple a Woman a Kingdome of grace and a reigne of God therein through all Gospel-times yet withall that this did not constantly abide in the external order of Ecclesiastical government but was in its outward stand and dispensation various In the primitive day Sion was not onely inward in the work of grace and the hidden man saith c. but likewise visibly stated by Christ in the glory of her outward order In the dark night of Antichristianisme she was more retired subsisting simply in the grace of Election mystical union with some weak degree of profession and witness had the badge of the covenant but visibly in a false strange and Babylonish constitution as is cleared in the Cessation After the final subversion of Antichrist the like visible government shall againe descend from heaven as is shewed in the Cessation also Quaer 2. This is diversly stiled in the Prophets answerable to the sense it is opposed against or applyed to Sometimes to teach us that before the Saints were outwardly a scattered and bondaged people in a strange land or Babylon the visibilty of true Gospel-order and regiment is by a Synecdoche termed Sion Rev. 18.4 Isa 35. The ransomed of the Lord return from Babylon to Sion The redeemed ones were never absented from the mystical Sion but from the visible they were and to that are said to return Likewise to inform us that a mystical or more invisible Sion remained and to point out in particular what failed and what againe reverts the Prophets tell us that it is the visibility of regiment shall be added to the former as Mich. 4. after the vials wars are ended in a full peace ver 3.4 the Lord shal reigne agreeable to Rev. 19.6 and then thou O Tower of the flock the strong hold of the daughter of Sion unto thee shall it come even the first dominion the Kingdome shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem ver 8. then judgement shall be given to the most high Saints Dan. 7.22 Now to apply this to our case we affirme that in the former of these two acceptations we are in our way to Sion in the latter we are on Sion expecting the glory of her government to come from the Lord Jesus So that Sion in the Scriptures is sometimes taken only for the mystical or mount of true grace and thus it is in the times of the apostacy sometimes for the visible order of the Church-constitution or outward rule The not marking this hath caused many in the daies of this more intrinsecall administration to bring the promises belonging to Sion unto their stated formes and so to Babylon thereby deluding both themselves and the people thus did the Pope thus did the Bishops and the like do all the rest We shall now proceed to remove your obstacles Object 1. It is the state of all imbracing the Gospel to be come to mount Sion and the celestial Jerusalem Heb. 12.22 Answer This was spoken to the gospel-Gospel-Church of the primitive day who was Sion as in the being and profession of faith so also in her outward corporation and discipline and cannot in its latitude be extended to all Gospel-times Object 2. To prove the perpetual succession of a Gospel Sion stated in outward order through the Antichristian age you instance Rev. 14.1 Answ Sion here specified figures out the mount of true grace and the unmoveable foundation thereof For all the Elect sealed number and only they stood with the Lamb upon this mountaine See the Cessation If this be meant of a visible constituted Church then must if follow either that all the Elect in the world and only they through the whole season of tribulation must successively in every generation thereof be congregated apart by themselves and set in a true order distinguished from the Papacy Patriarkship c. or else that Rome and the Greek Church as corrupt as she carrying this continuance of visibility must be true and orderly constitutions made up of members elect and pretious and none but such If the former be asserted the Scripture and the event both manifest that the Saints were scattered and mixed amongst the nations if the latter more must attributed to Rome then she dares chalenge to her self Besides this daughter of Sion was visibly in Babylon where all the beauty of her exteriour order was turned into confusion as you may at large read in the same Cessation as also Parag.
in the fourth and fore-going Paragraph and proved by several Reasons We shall here more amply decipher their nature property and stand out of the three several texts of the Revelations in which the Spirit paints them forth The first is Chap. 7. v. 9. There you may see them not to be whole nations but a great number of or out of nations being chosen from the rest who stand immediately before the throne of grace clothed with white robes of rejoycing praise and virgin-like purity all palms in their hands an ensigne of victory and peace and alluding to the multitude who followed and cried Hosanna when Christ rode up to Jerusalem Mat. 21.8 9. Mark 11.8 9 10. Luke 19.37 38. all which attributes a difference of them from the sealed number and Witnesses before Vers 14 they come out of great tribulation which manifesteth the time to be after the 1260 yeers Vers 15 these for their diligence in holy exercises are said to serve God day and night in his temple their hungering and thirsting no more nor the sun and heat lighting on them v. 16. infers the spiritual famine and affliction they underwent the preceding season from which now they are perpetually freed Their seeding by the lamb their being led to living fountains of water answers to the fertility and springs of water for spiritual strengthning and recreating breaking forth in the wilderness or high-way there to Sion Isa 35.6 7. chap. 41.18 chap. 48.21 chap. 49.9 10. Psal 107.35 and to the precious promises made to the same people Hos 2. from vers 14. to 19. Isa 42.16 The second Scripture is Chap. 14. Vers 1 is a type of the sealed number under Antichristisme expressed chap. 7. from vers 1. to 9. who stand upon the mystical mount of election or grace The separated Saints are presented from vers 2. where they are not onely rejoycers as before but harpers they singing for joy of heart and tuning their sounding instruments of praises Isa 51.11 Psal 98. Isa 42.10 Chap. 30.29 Their song for matter v. 3. is a new song sutable to the new work then created for them Isa 43.19 Chap 42.16.9 10. which was so abstruse and mysterious that none amongst the nations and false stands could truely learn it but the 144000 redeemed from the earth who by degrees will be capable thereof come out and joyn with the harpers Vers 4 these are not defiled with women which notes their separation from all false Churches either of the wilderness or secret chambers for they are virgins preparing for the marriage to come in chap. 19. and as the Lord goes before them so do they follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes from vial to vial both in separating from and rewarding of they are not onely redeemed from the earth with the 144000 but also purchased from amongst men which hints at their separation from the rest of the world and being the first thus bought have the honour of being the first fruits unto God and the Lamb. In vers 5 for the pureness and sincerity in their Ministery which brings Divinity up into a Gospel-glory they are said to have no guile in their mouthes for they are without fault before the throne The third text is Chap. 15. v. 2 3 4. in which their victory station and song are more distinctly and accurately described Vers 2 their victory is over the Beast to wit all usurped Hierarchies over consciences whether Romish Episcopal Presbyterial of any other his Image their stated Frames and Ordinances formed according to their carnal imaginations his Mark a subjection thereto from all which the harpers are redeemed and from the number of his name as a people separated in their distinguished assemblies Their stand was on a glassie sea the clear pure bright sensings of Scripture which for the copiousness is called a sea for its perspicuity of glass 2 Cor. 3.18 which is mingled with fire to consume the timber hay and stubble of Antichristian materials 2 Thess 2.18 and to purge the filth of the Saints by the spirit of judgement and by the spirit of burning Isa 4.4 In vers 3 their song is the song of Moses and the Lamb for their outward and spiritual deliverance the substance of which is compendiously drawn out in vers 3 4. the like is declared in Chap. 14.7 c. And these for time arose presently with the Angel-pourers as appears by their being conjoyned together vers 1 2. by their victory and triumphant song which begins with and continues all the series of the vials These judgements and wonders of God have been of late so clearly manifested with us that no man spiritually enlightned can gainsay it Having thus delivered the state of these harpers we shall now acquaint you why your National Churches whether Episcopal or Presbyterial are none of their number They for time arose long before the 1260 yeers of tribulation were ended and were not a selected company out of nations nor redeemed from amongst men but were whole nations good and bad incorporated into one leprous body they were not clothed with white robes of joy praise and purity nor stand immediately before the throne but even the godly amongst them were clothed in sack-cloth stood visibly in the streets of the great city and before earthly Hierarchies who as terrene gods lorded it over them whereby the sun and heat smote them as was too well known in the Bishops times and by the proceedings of others elsewhere both before and since neither are you a growing people with an increase of spiritual nourishment and new rising springs of heavenly refreshings but are declining to more formality and deadness and will daily decrease as the light of Truth increaseth your kingdom grows full of darkness neither do you return from Babylon but sit down in that desart Thus you may take notice how contrary you are to the separated people expressed Chap. 7. Give us leave to shew you how unlike your National Churches ruled by Bishops or Presbyters are to the harpers painted out in Chap. 14. They sing not the new song of triumph over the Beast but the old one of crying him uâ—… and applauding him they stand not immediately before the highest throne but before Classical Provincial and National Synods coming as a medium between and ruling over the conscience they are not virgins in their purity from the Beast nor wait they for the marriage to come nor are undefiled with strange women but are strange women boasting with her Chap. 18.7 that they sit as Queens are already married in their visible constitutions and their members defiled with the same false married Churches they follow not the Lamb in his call of separation but go before him in their own of stating they are not redeemed from amongst men as herein obtaining the honour of the first-fruits in whose mouth is sound no guile but remain bondaged themselves and labour to enthral others as their frequent importuning the Magistrate for power to