internal and more properly spiritual Her Graces were dead or ready to die Therefore their fruits her works differing little perhaps in true appearance from dead works were not found perfect though their doctrine might be so sound and profession so strict that from thence she might be famed or have a name that she lived chap. 3.1 2. For Hypocrites judge of spiritual life by outward forms and empty verbal professions and not by obedience conform to Gospel-rule This inward death of the witnesses properly spiritual was presignified sometimes by sleep like death sometimes by death real and literal And first By sleep like death we read That a deep sleep and an horrour of great darkness the Sun going down fell upon Abrabam Gen. 15.12 Abraham as a Prophet suffered this passive prophesie as the vision of outward affliction and inward darkness and desertion which was after fulfilled literally upon his seed after the flesh in literal Egypt and likewise upon his spiritual seed in Egypt spiritual where such an horrour of great darkness and deep sleep fell upon them that the text saith expresly they were dead And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great City called spiritually Sodom and Egypt c. they were spiritually dead because dead in spiritual Egypt and the means of their Resurrection from that death was by the Spirit of life from God entering into them that is their Graces were dead Or sick dying Graces They did not awake unto Righteousness but slept a sleep like death in sin and disobedience They held forth a Righteousness inconform to Gospel-rule such as some Sects Heathens and Hereticks hold forth and might dream that to be true obedience scarce thinking upon true Righteousness in practice which we shall after shew what it is Had Abraham not slept yet that horrour of great darkness that fell upon him had been sufficient to hide all things from his sight that he could see little or nothing and do as little But besides that darkness a deep sleep fell upon him so that he might seem dead in that sleep buryed in darkness yet Abraham was not dead all that time So a lasting Lethargy like death and a deep sleep of insensibility and spiritual security was to fall upon his spiritual seed the Gospel-Church and her Witnesses for 1260 years yet neither they nor she could be quite dead all this time but should retain some inward sick secret but living Graces all the time of their lying as dead in that threefold City For Secondly I sleep saith the Church but my heart waketh Cant. 5.2 She slept after the similitude of her Patriarch Abraham a deep sleep like death but was not dead The Members of her body both for action and understanding hands feet head were exceeding drowsie or in a deep sleep but her heart awaked She was not dead but lived by some weak sick but living inward Graces An inseparable sign of such a deep spiritual sleep is the difficulty to make her or her Members know that such a Lethargy lies upon them with a great impugning unwillingness to be awaked Secondly that inward spiritual death was also prefigured by death literal For the drybones were the whole house of Israel not so much legal as Evangelical And those bones were dead Ezek. 37.3 11. For the Witnesses the subordinate heads of the Church could not be dead but the Members of the same body must be much more dead Secondly I might here shew that Jonah our blessed Saviour presignified prophetically not only that outward threefold death aforesaid but also this inward and spiritual death of the witnesses towit Jonah by a seeming death and our Saviour by a real death The durations of both which three days and an half artificial or 42 hours are exactly conform as prophetick types to the duration of the death of the witnesses to wit three days and a half that is three years and a half or forty two months of days Annual which are 1260 years as we shall more irrefellibly shew in the sequel The Eighth Epoche IS of the treading of the Gospel-Church and her witnesses under foot by those Gentiles the spiritual Gentiles of this threefold Mystery of Iniquity whom we finde fitly described in the 8th and 9th Verses of the 11th Chapter to wit the Spiritual Ethnickes Gentiles in practice by profession Christians of Anti-christ sensual secular and spiritual And the Holy City the Gospel-Church and her witnesses shall they these very Gentiles tread under foot for forty two moneths saith the text chap. 11.2 That is they shall persecute convitiate rashly censure and contemn the Gospel-Church and her witnesses and her and their testimony for forty two moneths Here needs no Daniel to read the sins of the revolted Church too easie to be read in her just punishments And what were the Gospel-Churches chief sins She and her Saints trod under foot contemned sleighted neglected at least too much substantial knowledge of the truth true obedience and the witnesses of both and perhaps under a blind pretence of minding things plain and most necessary espoused a trivial shallow superficial knowledge of the truth with like obedience And where read you this Her just punishment renders it in Capital Letters she for treading under foot or not promoting and advancing with due diligence things most sacred profitable and honest was given into the hands of the Gentiles to be troden under foot forty two moneths And what those forty two moneths are the very next Verse tells you expresly That they are 1260 days to wit days annual or year swherefore the Epoche of the thus treading under-foot of the Gospel-Church and her witnesses which also imports their death fully shews both the time and manner of it is the same with the former All synchronizing The Ninth Interval IS of the Witnesses sackcloth prophesie And I will give power to my two Witnesses and they shall prophesie a thousand two hundred and sixty days cloathed in sackcloth Rev. 11.3 Our blessed Saviour and his Disciples prophesied as in sackloth to the legal and Jewish Church a Rebellious and gain-saying people for 1260 days literal predicted by Daniels half week of years He also wept over Jerusalem for the then chiefly spiritual desolations of Zion we have also shown that the Prophets in Ahabs time while Rain was restrained prophesied as Proto-types in great affliction and sorrow as it were in sackcloth for 1260 days So their Anti-type the Gospel-witnesses were to prophesie also in sackcloth in great sorrow and affliction for 1260 days to wit days annual or 1260 years which the ensuing Epochaes and sequel of this Treatise will also fully shew The Tenth Epoche is of the six Trumpets sounding THe six Trumpets sounding and the witnesses sackcloth prophesie though of different denominations are the same thing and the duration of both the same time Lift up thy voice saith the Lord to the Prophet like a Trumpet shew my people their transgressions c. So
the first-fruits are in future to come then these pretenders incult and careless of true Christian practice cannot be the first-fruits for others to follow Such Professors cry up with vain acclamations old Errors and Deceits for new Lights and are so far found lyars We shall now enquire Fourthly What is here meant by Mount Sion in the Text It s Type had its higher and lower parts It s higher part contained Moriab Sion and Calvary On Moriab stood the Temple On Sion was the Tower and City of David On Calvary was Christ crucified Jerusalem was built on the lower part of it The upper and lower parts had the denomination from its highest part of Mount Sion Sion and Sinai are Synantitheses or directly contrary So was the Wilderness and the Land of Promise As Jerusalem was the Metropolis of the Land of promise and Sion the chief place of note therein So Sinai was the Head and Symbole of the barren Wilderness Their disparities appear thus expresly from the Text. Tell me saith the Apostle Do ye not hear the Law for is written That Abraliam bad two sons the one by the Bond-Maid the other by a Free-Woman which things are an Allegory For these are the two Covenants The one from Mount Sinai which is Hagar and engendreth to bondage But he of the Free-woman was by Promise And Jerusalem above the Mother of us all is free The Mother of us all That is of all Sarah's Seed the sens of promise Wherefore Sion and Sinai as Types differed as Hagar and Sarah as the two Covenants as Grace and the Law Life and Death Bondage and Freedom Type Sion was a threefold foundation the substructure of the Temple of the City of God of the City of David Thither the twelve Tribes came to keep the Passover Therefore Type Sion was a Figure of the Foundation of the Church of God and a literal place But Spiritual Sion no literal place shall be the Antitype-foundation of the Gospel-Church For the Lamb and with him 144000 having his Fathers Name written in their foreheads shall stand there Ch. 14.1 The Foundation of the Church of God is transcendent Secondly Derivative The Transcendent Substructure is Deus in Christo pacatus God reconcil'd in Christ This Foundation the Rock and Pillar of Truth from eternity stands for ever The Derivative Foundation of the Gospel-Church is the knowledge and love of the Truth or a fruitful Faith in the Promises of God through Christ Christ said to his Disciples But who say ye that I am Peter said Thou art Christ the Son of the living God Jesus answered Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church Matth. 16.15 This Derivative foundation of the Gospel-Church was the Faith which Peter confessed and it had respect to and was built upon that first and transcendent Foundation This Derivative Foundation a living and fruitful Faith shall be that Mount Sion Ch. 14. where those conscript 144000 the Antitype of Solomons Temple shall stand and whereon the City of God shall be built Chap. 21.2 The Prophetick-promises are express and the Texts full and clear that prove it which notwithstanding many may object and say That this Foundation was laid long before The Assertion I confess and grant that this foundation was laid long before even in the Primitive times But a falling away was to come and a departing from the Faith 1 Thess 2. 1 Tim. 4.1 For the Church at least in a very large measure forsook the Rock of her safety the Foundation of her standing fell from Heaven where she stood and fled into the Wilderness for 1260 years Revel 12.1 6 14. So the Prototype-Church Jacobs family fell away departed out of the Land of Promise fled into the Wilderness and into her place there prepared of God To wit Egypt the most barren place in that Wilderness were it not miraculously prepared of God and as it were in the middle of it and returning thence through part of the Wilderness turned aside there also They were then far remote and long removed from the Type-foundation Sion literal where Abraham would have offered his son Melchizedeck was King of Righteousness and where the Lord was twice seen in abundant Grace and Mercy So their Antitype the Gospel-Church was long removed as aforesaid into the Spiritual Wilderness from the foundation of her standing But as many of the captives carried to Babylon were mindful of Sion and would not forget Jerusalem Psal 137.5 6. So some of the faln servants of God in the Gospel-Church have had some weak desires of Sions welfare and are somewhat though very little mindful of their first foundation But may some say this foundation Faith in the Promises stands still firm I Answer Sion stood after the City and Temple built upon it were turned to ashes but it was left desolate the living were departed the dead only and the slain were left there as the Lamentatious declare at large And so the Faith of the Antitype revolted-revolted-Church in the Spiritual Wilderness was and is a desolate Faith a Faith fruitless or far from being fruitful in the practice of good Manners and at least drawing near to a dead Faith and therefore no way fit to be the Foundation of the Gospel-Church adorned to be the Lambs Bride Ch. 21.9 But Antiype Sion shall be a fruitful Foundation a living Faith giving life to the City of God that shall be built thereon For Such as the Tree is such is the Fruit and such as this Foundation shall be the Superstructure upon it But these 144000 the Antitype of Solomons Temple built thereon shall be undefiled and withour fault saith the Text vers 4.5 That is Their Righteousness shall be so perfect in a fourfold conformity but there is no man that sinneth not I Kings 8.4 6 that it shall be a sweet Savour and a Sacrifice well-pleasing to God But the Faith of the Gospel wilderness-Wilderness-Church is as was that of her Prototype a barren faith affording very little fruit to Gods glory or the good of men The Wituesses we read were to be killed And this faith is much after the manner of the Carcasses of those killed Witnesses And indeed their Carcasses was such a Faith a dead or dying faith having some small insensible and almost unperceivable true life For Faith without Works saith the Apostle is dead a Carcass of Christian Profession without power James 2.17 20. And such a Carcass of the killed Witnesses or somewhat like it the Spiritual Gentiles kept unburied to be a foundation to build the Apostacy of Antichrist upon and it 's the Pillars of it to support it Nor are inanimadversive clypt inconform half-performances any fruits of a living but the deceits of a dead faith Such a faith Such a fruitless foundation is Sinai not Mount Sion and most unfit to be the Substructure of the Church of the living God Nor can it procure his favour but his anger or enmity for so Sinai signifies
Right Honorius being Childless might expect to Succeed as partly by Conquest in Italy over all the Empire She by earnest entreaties perswaded him to spare the sad remains of that City and to depart out of Italy spoiled already This was not no doubt her single Design but her Design driven on and owned by the Senate and by a better Council at Ravenna He hereupon having received further supplyes of Monies for himself her and his Army marched with her into Spain to subject it to himself Hereupon his Souldiers slew him because he had left Italy and therein quitted a certain Fruition for a doubtful event which without much difficulty and no less danger they could not expect prosperous Thus he left near Conquered Italy and taln Rome drunk with the blood of Martyrs and drunk at that time with her own blood to the then new-born Beast Secular and Papal whose first Head was then wounded with the stroke of a Sword as it were unto death Revel 13.3 12 14. to wit By the Sword of this second Dragon prevailing at the same time under Pharamond in France and under Alaricus in Italy He prevailed not only against the Primitive Church Imperial Rome and the then falling and dying first Dragon all which letted and should let till then thus taken out of the way the rising up of Papal Rome and of the Sea-born Beast her secular Head but he prevailed also and might easily prevail against that Secular Beast and wounded as it were unto death in the day of his birth and when but beginning to rise out of the Sea his first and best Head For Rome Ruled over the Kings of the Earth And the Senate with an Emperour Ruled both her and them But the besieged Senate Ruled Rome with great grief and no great Power without Bishop or Emperour And in that feeble and afflicted Senate did this Sea-born Beast all wounded as it were unto death in the day of his birth by the Sword of this second Dragon rise up For the City saith the learned Hammond was divided into three parts so her Antitype was to be near the day of her Dissolution Chap. 16.19 One part was Pagan another Heretical and the third part Orthodox but grosly Apostate in manners Concerning the Heretical part I observe little But the Pagan or Heathen part was for Number and Power most prevalent all the time the City was besieged until it was taken For Attalus a profest Heathen was so high in Power and Favour with the People that he would be Caesar aut nullus and not be joynt Emperour with Honorius So was Symachus Lieutenant of Rome a Pagan And such was the Senate for the most part which appears in that they sent the said Symachus Legat to Honorius at Ravenna to Request that the Heathen Rites might be Restored Thus it appears plainly that the Heathen part was the greatest in that afflicted Senate of besieged Rome But that major part was no part of this Beasts wounded Head which was after healed but the last part of the first Dragons last and dying Head which was never healed but then went into lasting perdition Apocal. 17.11 For after two years siege and as I rather compute the time in 412 were those Pagan Senators and Imperial Rome numbered and finished Then came her and their Plagues in one day Death Mourning Famine Fire Chap. 18.8 which those Barbarians with barbarous hands had chiefly inflicted upon those Heathen Senators and Citizens that had invited revocated and consided most in them and that to their utter and final excision But the flying Senators and others that fled to the Sanctuaries of the more Orthodox but Apostate in manners found thereby a bare and hard exemption from imminent death And these thus scarce escaped Senators and perhaps some others in somewhat like condition were the visible original of the first Head of this Sea-born Beast weak and wounded to be a witness to the truth performed as was thrice foretold in three sacred Texts of Scripture in the same Chapter Apocal. 13.3.12.14 Here the Scissers of eternal death and final excision parted the last dying Head of Pagan and Imperial Rome from the first at first sick and deadly wounded Head of Papal Rome And I saw one of his Heads wounded c. and his deadly wound was healed vers 3. wounded by the Sword of this second Dragon Healed began to be healed when Atholphus remitting Rome and most of Italy into the feeble hands of that wounded Senate made them Temporal Lords over Rome Italy and other Nations over which that City for some time after claimed some Jurisdiction Then also their Bishop began to be partly by the said Donation partly by the Senates Assent partly by his own Usurpation prefer'd to the largest Superintendency Thus this Papal Superintendent Spiritual began to be suted with a fit Power Secular For these near slain but surviving Senators were Primitiae Papales Papal Romes first Fruits and though at first most feeble her first Powers Secular Because they and they first allow'd sufficiently their own Bishops Supremacy over all Bishops and Churches if not over all Kings and Councils For so soon as Athaulphus had remitted Rome and Italy to that wounded Beast his Bishop faln Romes Bishop Innocent the First returned but no Emperour with him to Rome and Ruled as by principal Authority both Spiritual and Temporal that reviving Beast and likewise Rome and Italy which that second Dragon in Athaulphus as one chief Head of him had given to that almost dying Senate And the Dragon gave began early to give his Seat Power and great Authority to the Beast He continued in giving his power in several Conquered Nations for about 200 years space but I may not digress from the matter in hand to insist upon so long a subject To shew when and how he began to give his Power the Supremacy therein to that Beast is sufficient at present Innocent immediately after his Return claimed and laboured much more hard than any had done before him to obtain Universal Supremacy over all Bishops Churches and Councils as plainly appears by his own practice witnessed and by his own Letters and those very many recorded by Augustine Osiander and others For the Emperours absence was Innocents advantage to augment and exercise a more uncontrouled Power And Honorius a good Prince and Orthodox but of no great Capacity to Govern came no more to Rome to Reside there to the day of his death For the Romans at least some of them are said to hate Honorius because he left Rome and went to Ravenna therefore he remained there And his Successors some having the Title of Emperours but scarce the power of Kings made Ravenna the place of their Residence Rome was never more Imperial but ever after Papal The Senate and Bishops of Rome in the absence of Honorius and as by his Authority acted many things to further their own Designs and in Defence of the
Church For He and his Brother Archadius with their Councils for they had both Orthodox and Heterodox Councils co-operating to some good were the two Wings of that Great Eagle Theodosius the Great which were given to the Gospel Church to flee into the Wilderness into the secret subterfuges of obscure latency for 1260 years as from those two texts unfolded will plainly appear Revel 12.6 14. The Orthodox uncorrupt in manners were in Innocent's time when the Grand Apostacy began very few The Heterodox Papal for I pass by all other Sects of those times were very many The false Doctrine of those Heterodox was not then manifold but very much dangerous to Princes to the Primitive Faith to all true Professors They held that the Church was built upon Peter and so upon the Pope as Peters Successor The Orthodox held that the Church was built upon Christ whom Peter confessed This Doctrine of the Heterodox was very dangerous to the true Church because a Doctrine contrary to the Foundation of the true Faith holding the Head Christ Col. 2.19 Secondly A Doctrine dangerous to Princes For if the Church was built upon Peter and so upon the Pope as his Successor Then all Kings and Councils must submit to him as the greatest because the Church cannot be built upon the greatest of them Thirdly This Doctrine was almost universal in the body of Apostacy and so violent in its course that the Pillars and chief Fathers of the Primitive Church seemed shaken therewith For Crediderunt Hieronymus Augustinus Ecclesiam super Petrum fundatam sed retractantes ambo dixerunt Super Petram Christum quem Petrus agnovit Both Jerom and Augustine were induced to believe that the Church was built upon Peter but both retracting said upon Christ the Rock whom Peter confessed This was the Doctrine of the pride of the Son of Perdition never delivered to the Church by Christ and his Apostles a Doctrine of blasphemy against God of deceit to men of rebellion against Princes A Doctrine perhaps inconsistent with any true Church or sincere Professors but generally held forth and earnestly contended for as the chief part of their Faith by Papal Rome in the very beginning of the grand Apostacy Secondly The Manners of these men and times these Texts shew Rev. 18.2 5. where they are fitly compared to a Cage of every unclean and hateful Bird to an habitation of Devils c. The Reader may also see the Learned Hammond quoting Salvian Also St. Jerom Augustine and others set down in the sequel Innocent's Successors added many Nations and Italy more absolutely to the Papal Decarchy of which in its due place Here the Reader may easily observe both a manifest and a manifold concurrence of Prophetick Scriptures with the performances of them As first with the final excision of the first Dragon the fall of Imperial Rome the profligation of the Primitive Church And all these were powerful and prevailing Impediments till then thus taken out of the way that letted the rising up of Papal Rome 2 Thes 2.6 7. Secondly With the rising up of the second Dragon by whom these impediments aforesaid were taken out of the way the Church driven into the Wilderness her Witnesses killed Chap. 12.14 Chap. 11.7 Thirdly With the rising up those Impediments thus removed of the Decadiademick Beast Secular and Papal Chap. 13.1 Fourthly With the wounding of his first and best Head by the Sword of the second Dragon vers 3.12 14. Fifthly With the healing of that Head by the second Dragon's Donation of Authority to him induced to it chiefly by the design and procurement of the false Prophet as will after appear vers 2 3 12 14. Sixthly With the Primitive Churches flight from the face of that second Dragon for 1260 years Chap. 12.6 14. Seventhly With the two Wings of that great Eagle which were given to the Gospel Church to flee into the Wilderness vers 14. For all Ages past and to come cannot possibly afford a time so inevitably necessary and appositly consistent wherein the two Eagles-wings could be given to the gospel-Gospel-Church as only this very juncture of time aforesaid These two young Princes or Emperours governed both by bad and good Governors had which signified the truth of this Series of things this Word or Motto Summa cadunt subitò intimating That the taking away or fall of him that letted to wit Rome Pagan and Imperial and the profligation of the Primitive Church fell out as in Scripture predicted in their time A threefold cord is not easily broken But this sevenfold concurrence of sacred Prophesies with the performances of them and those performances coinciding in the fame time may irrefellibly prove the certain commencement of the grand Apostacy Pagan Rome's final ruine Rome Papals Aera the exact time of the rise of the Sea-born Beast her Secular Head the fixt period when the first Dragon finally expired and second aspired As also how and when that second Dragon gave began to give his seat and power to that Sea-born Beast How he continued to give his power in Italy and other Nations for about 200 years I leave it as too long to relate here to its proper place Prophesies and their performances thus concurring are called saith Weames Parallels and give saith he the greatest light to the Scriptures that is to the readers of them To the Readers of them Not because they are fulfilled but known when and how they were fulfilled For all these Prophesies came to pass above twelve hundred years since yet have not given much greater light so far as I find to any by their being so long fulfilled because they were never perhaps in all that time known whether they were fulfilled or not or when or how they were fulfilled This may fully refel that common fond and wicked Conceit of Hypocrits and too much of true Saints Prophesies say they when they come to pass need no other Explication That 's the clearest fullest unfolding of them We shall therefore wait patiently upon God till they be performed and then we are sure to find their true and certain meaning Events best shew what those texts intend This is the common Plea not only of some true Saints perhaps but chiefly of Hypocrites as it was of their Type the Pharisees by whom our Lord was Crucified They expected still expect the Messiah in future to come who came before therefore Crucified him come whom they earnestly desired should come according to the Scriptures which with due sedulity to search they profanely neglected They had no doubt as Modern Hypocrites have their prejudices against Prophetick Scriptures and in them against the things that belonged to their peace might say in the proud folly of furious Jehu What peace do such Scriptures produce So their Antiype formal Professors have like prejudices of pride and ignorance against the same Scriptures and in them against those things that principally belong to the peace and
of Papal Rome And when the time of those two Parents the Earth and the Sea was come to the Birth and there was no strength to bring forth the Bicorne and Decacerastick beasts Papal then did this second Dragon though he wounded both those Infant new born beasts with a sword give power to their two Parents to bring them forth by affording what furthered in that grand design their sick desires For he took away all that letted and filled other Nations of the Empire besides Italy with his Armies that they could not hinder it He also gave strength and means of growth to those two Parents by him first wounded Off-spring For he gave his power the Supremacy therein to that Decarch secular and Papal whom the Sea brought forth and likewise power to the Bicorne beast Rev. 13.2 4. ch 11.10 Dan. 7.25 That is he immediately after he had taken and burnt Rome lest the ruines of it with Italy almost ruinated to the wounded beast and false Prophet Papal For Honorius that good Emperour though a man of no great gifts durst not at least did not reside any more at Rome And that second Dragon in some process of time consigned his kingdoms to the false Prophets care embracing himself the unity of the Church of Rome He several wayes and at sundry times gave his seat and power which he took away from those he took out of the way as aforesaid to the beast and false Prophet wherefore He that is taken out of the way and he that taketh him away must needs be two But the first Dragon and Imperial Rome that letted the rising up of Rome Papal were taken out of the way But he that took away the first Dragon with Rome Imperial was this second Dragon 2 Thes 2.6 7. Rev. 13.24 which also Church History hath confirmed and will more fully confirm Therefore there must be inevitably two Dragons the second taking away the first and the first taken away by the second which also we find apparent from Reason Scripture and Church-History The first we find in Heaven and we find the Woman the Gospel and Primitive Church in the same Heaven of power at the same time Rev. 12.1 3. But she had not at her first ascending into that Heaven of authority such full power as that first Dragon had For he stood before her in the time of Constantius the first and in the beginning of Constantines Reign to devour her Child so soon as it was born ver 4. That is to destroy every man that might as a Christian Prince Emperour or Magistrate defend the Church The Woman or Gospel Church was then in Heaven in a double respect or in a twofold acceptation of the word Heaven but the Dragon only in a single acceptation of it And first the word Heaven holds forth an holy conversation And in this acceptance of the word the Church was then said to be in Heaven shining in the splendor of her Primitive Graces and not then faln from Heaven nor fled into the Wildernesses where her good works were much more dark and less visibly conform to Gospel Rule Secondly She not only had her conversation in Heaven but was ascended also into the Heaven of power and Authority in the Roman Empire and sate upon part of that Dragons throne whereon that Dragon sate Supream And in this respect both she and that first Dragon were said to be in Heaven that is in the Heaven of high power and Authority in the Roman Empire For in that Heaven of an holy conversation with the true Church that Dragon never was nor could be His conversation was not in Heaven but quite contrary to her Heavenly conversation Nor was he in Heaven That is as some assert in the true Church For both the Church and he are said to be in Heaven and he not in her or for her but before and against her But he was in Heaven that is he inhabited the Heaven of high power and Authority in the Roman Empire and was far above the Primitive Church at her first arrival into this Heaven For we find her there crying travelling in Birth and pained to be delivered that she might bring forth a Man-child a Christian Magistracy or power secular to protect her from that red Dragons bloudy persecutions And we find him standing before her to devour that Man-child or Christian Magistracy should she produce any But she brought forth a Man-child saith the text That is a Christian power secular and Military Michaels substitutes that overcame that Dragon and cast him out so as his place was found no more in the Heaven of Supream power and Authority in the Roman Empire He strove various ways and at several times to regain his place regained some power but his place was found no more in Heaven He had some power for a very short space power to persecute the Church but prevailed not He never after arrived to Supream Power in the Roman Empire but was soon after deprived of his being and about 412 cast into the bottomless pit forever By this it may plainly appear impossible that this Dragon should give his seat and power to the beast secular and Papal when he himself had none to give and when that beast was not in being who existed not till that Dragon that letted as the text saith his rising up was taken out of the way But the Dragon saith the text gave his seat power and great Authority to the beast Therefore that was the second Dragon But for the Readers irrefellible eviction we shall consider the Paterns or Prophetick Types and compare them with their Antitypes And first we find the type-Woman the Jewish Church Primitive Jacobs Family in Heaven adorned by an heavenly conversation having the Sun Moon and twelve Stars her Lights and guides Gen. 37.9 So we find her Antitype the Gospel Church Primitive in Heaven also having the Sun Moon and twelve Stars her Lights and guides Rev. 12.1 Thus we see that the Prophesies of the old Testament even in Genesis were not finally fulfilled as some affirm they were at the death of our Saviour or at the destruction of Jerusalem but signally ecchoed forth future transactions far beyond those times But of this we shall give after a short progress full proof The type-Woman Jacobs Family was as it were ascending into the Heaven of power become more mighty saith Pharaoh then the Egyptians therefore that Dragon for so the Scripture calls Pharaoh expresly the Dragon Ezech. 29.3 stood before that woman to devour her Man-child And this Dragon of Rome Pagan that Dragons Antitype stood before the woman the Gospel and Primitive Church ascended into the Heaven of power to devour her Man-child also so soon as it was born Rev. 12.4 The type-Dragon Pharaoh with his servants were cast out of their Heaven of power into the Sea Sank as a stone in the mighty waters The Sea covered them for ever Exod. 15.10 So his and their Antitype this
Dragon of Rome Pagan with his Angels servants and Officers were cast also out of their Heaven of high power as a great Milstone cast into the Sea into the bottomless pit for ever more Rev. 12.9 ch 18.2 ch 20.3 The type-Dragon Pharaoh thus sinking himself for ever had then no seat or authority to give to another And this Dragon of Pagan Rome his Antitype thus sinking for evermore had no seat power or authority to give to the Sea-born beast secular and Papal who also existed not till after that Dragon fell for ever as aforesaid Thus we see the Prophetick type Pharaoh with his servants is so apposite to its antitype the first Dragon and his Angels that it seems a real and literal relating of it Both perished without power both had not to give both did not give the least power to any other But the Dragon gave his power and great authority to the beast Rev. 13.2.4 Therefore that was the second Dragon We shall now examine another Patern or Prophetick type and compare it with its antitype How art thou faln from Heaven O Lucifer Son of the morning How art then cut down to the ground Isa 14.12 Who was this that thus fell from Heaven and who was thus cut down but only the Representative of the Kingdom of Babylon And from what Heaven did they thus fall but from the Heaven of high power and authority in that Kingdom And this Dragon of Pagan Rome the Representative secular of subantitype Babel Rev. 17.5 was cast down from Heaven unto the Earth chap. 12.8 And what was this Heaven out of which he was thus cast but the Heaven of high power and authority in the Roman Empire And thus Mead and most expositors expound the word Heaven in those texts to be high power and authority and indeed those texts thus explain themselves This was that Heaven of power wherein this first Dragon stood when he stood before the Woman to devour her Child For in any other Heaven he could not stand with the Primitive Church And how did type Babel with her secular head fall from this Heaven of power And how did her penultimate antitype or sub-antitype Rome Pagan and her head the first Dragon fall also from the same Heaven of power and authority unto the Earth I answer type Babel and her head secular fell from that Heaven when she fell into the hands of Cyrus that subdued both her and him And sub-antitype Babel Rome Pagan and her head the first Dragon fell also from their Heaven of power when they fell into the hands of Constantine and his armies Michaels substitutes that conquered both her and him about the year 320. But type Babel and her captivated head rebelled in the days of Darius Hystaspes for twenty months But she and her faln head by that Robellion fell lower from Heaven unto the Earth For her Rebels in her slew the women of that City that they should not hinder them in their designed work And Sopyrus by a policy cruel to himself betray'd the men into the hands of Hystaspes So she as a further progress to her final depopulation lost very many both of her men and women She raising that Rebellion to regain her place was exceedingly weakened thereby It quite brake that conquered power which she had in peeces and her place was found no more in heaven So the first Dragon the then faln head of sub-antitype Babel or Rome Pagans sudu'd representative rebelled also against the Gospel Church and her Masculine Off-spring that had subdu'd him He persecuted the woman persecuted her chiefly under the form of an Arrian in the time of Constantius the second Julian Valens but prevailed not the Primitive Church prevailed against him and his place was found no more in heaven But Thirdly Seleucus after type Babel to her own utter ruine had rebelled as aforesaid drew five hundred thousand of her Citizens out of her to inhabit his by him new built Selusia wherefore As Cyrus drew her River dry and so subdu'd that City at first So Seleucus draining that City of her Inhabitants brought her to the next door to eternal desolation which soon after followed For the place where she formerly shone like a refulgent Star was a Forrest where the Kings of Persia used to hunt in St. Jeroms time How art thou faln from heaven O Lucifer son of the morning And so When the first Dragon the captive head of sub-antitype Babel or Pagan Rome had rebelled against the Gospel Church and his Victor her Manchild Then he and his Angels falling the faster from heaven for that Rebellion were cut down to the ground For the Churches Eagles of high power in the Roman Empire the Orthodox Emperours Valentinian and Theodosius with his Sons bound him the more for that Rebellion with cords which he could not cast from him and with strong chains their strict Edicts against Arrians and Heathens which he could never break Therefore thus begirt with the bands of eternal death he besought the second Dragon the Barbarians of the North to pity his deplored estate That second Dragon mindless of his miseries came about 407 and about 412 trod his feeble and dying remnant under his careless feet Thus dyed that Dragon poor as Codrus not having any inheritance nor heir to inherit But the Dragon gave his seat and great authority the Supremacy therein to the beast therefore that was the second Dragon That beast secular and Papal blasphemed them that dwelt in Heaven Rev. 13.6 By heaven there is meant the heavenly conversations of Saints whom that beast blasphemed Rejoyceye Heavens and ye that dwell in them chap. 12.12 There by heaven is meant not only the heavenly conversations of Saints but the high power and authority of the Primitive Church prevailing against the first Dragon and possessing his throne of power and authority in the Roman Empire out of which heaven of power he was cast as aforesaid For he had no other heaven held no other That was his only heaven in which he was where and when John saw him in heaven And this was that heaven in which the Primitive Church stood with him when he stood before her and was there without him after he was cast out when her Manchild or secular head sate sole Monarch in the throne of the Roman Empire But rejoyce ye Heavens c. By heavens here is more especially meant the Western Empire and Churches that were more heavenly minded more Orthodox and more fruitful in good works conform to Gospel rule then the Eastern Churches were who were much more corrupt with Heresies Arrianism and evil manners And therefore as they scarse could be counted true Churches and so called heaven were called the earth and the Sea Wo unto the Inhabitants of the Earth and the Sea For The Devil is come down to you having great wrath because he knoweth he hath but a short time ver 12. For That first Dragon acted by the
porters of evil reports dyed immediately by the Plague and all Israel whom they had infected with the Pestilence of that Apostacy all to a man from twenty years upwards two excepted dyed in the wilderness ver 29. And all that sad Prophetick story is told as it were mutato nomine of their Anti-type the body of Apostacy who by their generality pretend to be the Church Catholick who cast away look not after the Promises in the Prophetick Scriptures nor after substantial truth and obedience but basely espouse a trivial superficial shallow though somewhat literally sound knowledge with obedience conform which is the productor of evil reports blasphemies persecutions and the path-way that the son of perdition came when he came with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness about the year 412 as will instantly appear For this way is deceiveableness it self most deceitful and that sin chiesly that shuts Heaven whiles they and their complices conceive it to be the only Key to open it This was the way of his coming about the year four hundred seven ten or twelve let us turn therefore our eyes to about that time to see more clearly both the time way and manner of his coming St. Hierom's Record and he 's the fittest testator here best occurreth his commencement at such a time and in such a manner as the Apostle predicted and I here have briefly described Of him Erasmus as Clarkes Church-History witnesseth thus writeth Quis doces aptiùs quis delectas urbanùs St. Jerom was in Erasmus esteem as it might appear the best Teacher and most delightful writer of all the Fathers He also lived and was at Rome in that very juncture of time when the Christian world was turning upon the hinge of Apostacy and commencing that grand revolt which â—he Apostle speaks of Therefore his Authority the best of any may here stand good But he about the year 406 as we shall shew call'd Rome-Christian the Meiropolis of the then revolting world a receptacle of Devils and faln Babylon And St. Jerom sure a most vigilant Father of the Church and a sober Writer would not have called Rome-Christian then-reviloing faln if he had not seen good reason or rather real truth for it that she was then faln or in falling But he gave sufficient reasons and those reasons we shall afterwards abundantly shew to be real truths For it follows * When I livea saith he in Babylon an inhatitant of the purple whore after the Roman Laws I would have written something of the holy Ghost and have dedicated the Treatise to the Bishop of that City And behold that seething pot which was seen in the Prophet Jeremy looking out of the North beginneth already to buil and the Senate of Pharisees cryed out at me all at once Neither was there so simple a Scribe in all that ignorant Rabble which conspired not against me wherefore I am now as it were out of Captivity neturned to Jerusalem c. Tempora mutanfur A sudden change into a strange Antithesis Rome of late the City of Righteousness revolted as in a moment to be the Head of the Mystery of Iniquity and her Professors once fruitful in all good works were turned Pharisces And the Senate saith he of Pharisces cryed out at me all at once neither was there so simple a Scribe in all that ignorant Rabble that conspired not against me Against whom Against St. Jerom whom the Papists themselves acknowledge to be a Reverend Father of the Church Ah persidious people of the City of Apostacy How soon is the Metropolis her self of the Primitive Church become unstable as waters and the once firm sear of her faithful Witnesses revolted from Faith and manners For the manners of that upstart proud catholick-Catholick-Church pretending Apostacy were mores Iniquissimi most inhumane above Heathens insolencies even to St. Jerom one of the ablest and most worthy Fathers of the Church who apparently had more serious and real worth and solid depth of good ground in him then all the petty pibble Quarry of that proud Senate of Pharisees had And this anti-type Church-Catholick pretending Apostacy when she but began to put forth her rebellious head and first opened her blasphemous mouth against the faithful Witnesses of the truth had as much as all her Types had deceitful grounds sufficient to pretend to a Church-Catholick and might and probably did thus plead Why Jerom do you coms by your Dedications to dictate to us as if we needed your instructions in the tenents of the Homousian Faith Had we needed your help we had sent for you And what need do you think can the Supream Representatives of the Catholick-Church here have of your help a single and obscure person And will you insult alone over the Catholick-Church tax ber with covetousnesse rash censures want of Charity Oppression Apostacy and we know not what Is this your Christian meckness and submission Cannot the City live in peace for you nor the Church in quiet We all all here as one man disdain your daring boldness and detest your pride And the Senate of Pharisees said Jerom cryed out at me all at once c. The Apostacy the truth-opposing Apostacy was or then seemed Catholick and the true Catholick-Church fled or was then flying away into the Wilderness That wicked apostacy even in her Infancy had aspired to the false title of the true Catholick-Church whom she most persecuted and conspired against her most faithful Witnesses And that if the Records of many besides Jeroms may be believed in the Metropolis of the true Primitive but then revolting Church This Apostacy therefore as her Types were seemed general or Catholick and did deeply deceive her self and those that dwelt upon the Earth with the falsly arrogated or stoln title of the true Catholick and Apostolick Church St. Jerom was no base Porter of evil reports no morose â—ash tâ—â—ie accuser but the most faithful of all the Fathers at least then living to reprove exhort correct rebuke instruct Et quis docet aptiùs None taught with more sincere and true Christian candor But relapsing Rome thus reproved plainly by him pay'd dear for her Apostacy and obstinate impenitence For about the very next year and that fully confirms the truth of his reprooss and the equity of his just complaints was Rome besieged made tributary and the body of her Christian Empire began to be translated And about five years after the City the second time besieged was taken plundred burnt and almost totally depopulated by the Plague Sword Famine Fire Then might that miserable City call on Jerom and cry Solon Solon Then was the first and best head of the Sea born beast secular and Papal wounded as it were unto death upon the day of his Birth or so soon as he was brought forth And then Rome Papal or the tenfold body of Apostacy persisting still obstinate and impenitent was with her revolting head or Metropolis the Ruines of Rome literal given up
and many others consubscribing with Jerom to those express texts of sacred Scripture Thus we see that the temporal fall with the time of it of Rome Imperial then partly Pagan partly Orthodox and partly heretical is signally apparent from sacred Scriptures and from the testimonies of the fittest unfolders of them 'T is true may some say Honorius who dyed about the year 427 never or scarce at any time came to Rome after 407 but left that City to the Bishop thereof to the day of his death But Valentinian the third Reigned after Houortus for about thirty years Therefore Rome did not fall forever in 410 nor so fall temporally but that it recovered contrary to Jeroms Hammonds Morneyes and many others testimonies and contrary to the Records of sacred Scripture upon which chiefly they ground their assertions to be the seat of the Empire for some time after four hundred and ten or twelve I answer whether Valentinian resided constantly at Ravenna or came sometimes to Rome I exactly observe not in History But Morney and many other Authors affirm that Ravenna was after 412 the place of residence to the Supream Powers secular in Italy To wit to those few following and but reputed or so stiled Emperours To the Kings of the Gothes and of the Heruli and to the Exarchs of Ravenna If Ravenna was Valentinians place of residence or he sometimes but a stranger at Rome Then was Rome no more the seat of the Empire under him But Secondly suppose Valentinian had resided at Rome all the time of his Reign yet had not Rome therefore been the seat of the Empire but at best but the Metropolis of the Kingdom of Italy For the Nations of the Empire were rent from her And Constantinople was then the Supream Imperial seat of the remaining Nations Thirdly Were it that the Nations were not then rent away from Rome and admit Valentinian had reigned in her all his time yet his Government had been little more then titular because Leo Magnus then Bishop of Rome ruled Rome and all that the Emperour should rule after the Law of his own arbitrary will For Rome was then no more Imperial but Papal and Pope Leo was of such repute that what he spake was so approved that it was not lawful for any no not for the Emperour to dissent in the least thing Therefore what ever Valentinian did or could say or do it signified nothing without the condesent of Leo Magnus that ruled as it were alone both the City Country and might regulate Valentinian himself as being but one horn of the wounded and then scarce healed but after Decadiademick Beast Papal For Leo Magnus was Anti christs Eliah for false miracles as it were the Pseudo prophetick mouth in his time of the Bicorn beast that deceived those that dwelt upon the Earth by means of those miracles which were given him to do c. For Fourthly Attila and his Armies that Flagellum Del and scourge of the world marched towards trembling Rome to reduce herinto ashes Then the two if I may so call them Emperours of the East and West conjunct or both together durst not look upon his Army But Leo alone went forth to meet him treated with him and terrified the said Attila with an apparition of a Clergy-man shaking a two-edged sword at him and threatning to destroy him and his Armies if he condescended not to Pope Leoes demands Attila affrighted forthwith retired with his Army And so Leo saved Rome and all Italy from the sword So when Genserious spoiled Rome purposing to have burnt it there was no Emperour to interrupt his Armies â—o scarce so much as the name of a King to oppose him But the same Leo prevailed with him to spare the City Her Bishop ruled in and over her Rome was never any more Imperial no scarce regal but Papal Never Imperial but in name for a little time ever in deed Papal after 412. Therefore Rome after 4.2 was no more the seat of the Empire but subject to the Bishop thereof and both he and it for a long time were subject to Ravenna even then when but an Exarchate of the Greek Empire The nine Emperours after Valentinian were but Augustuli not worth the naming therefore I omit them And Valentinian though he reigned much longer than they all may be reckoned one of them They all bare little Rule Leo at that time Ruled Rome and all Italy and therfore it s signally apparent from the performances of those Prophesies in the 17 and 18 Chapters as we find them faithfully recorded in History That Rome Primitive but Apostate in manners oft adumbrated by Babylon in those Chapters fell temporally about the years four hundred and ten or twelve according to the manifold predictions of those Scriptures and the Glosses and Paraphrases of the fittest and ablest expounders of them that is that Rome fell like a great Milstone cast into the Sea finally about 412. from all power as Pagan and from ever being any more the Supream Seat either of the Heathen or Christian Empire And Secondly Her Apostacy or Spiritual fall and the time of it is no less apparent First from Scripture Babylon saith the Text is fallen not fallen only Temporally as aforesaid but Spiritually Fallen also For it follows And is become the habitation of Devils the hold of every foul Spirit and a Cage of every unclean and hateful bird vers 2. This Apostacy and that temporal fall as the cause and effect are so contexed in those Texts that they cannot possibly but be contemporal as aforesaid which also the testimony of a Cloud of Writers witnesseth Therefore that Apostacy began must needs begin much about the time when Rome fell temporally about the years four hundred and seven ten or twelve Did the Pagan and heretical parts only thus fall I answer They that never stood never fell Prosternatus humo non habet unde cadat They did not could not so fall Spiritually as to be chiefly if at all intended in those Texts But the Faith of the Church of Rome was once famous throughout the world Rom. 1.8 And she not like Sardis famous for a name that she lived lived famous for utility in all good works according to Gospel-Rule But a falling away was to come and Rome the Metropolite-head with her body some few no doubt excepted then fell or began to fall from the utility of the Orthodox Faith though not much at first from the Doctrine of it This faith of inutility or the practice of that Apostacy is most in use almost every where This Apostacy was then when those Primitive Apostates began to fall Temporally so grand and general That the Spirit of God useth a grandure of words to express the greatness of it His words in the Evangelist are these And after these things I saw another Angel come down from Heaven and the Earth was lightned with his Glory And he cryed mightily with a
Dragon gave by degrees his Seat and great authority to the Ten-crowned Beast Papal by submitting his Nations to this Bicorn Builder who had power to deceive those Nations by means of his Miracles Ch. 13.14 to become the matter of his ten fold Polity which his industrious hand was then contriving Lumbardy and Scotland both Kingdom I leave to the Readers liberty Lastly Italy was the tenth Nation which the False Prophet edified upon his Tu es Petrus in this ten fold Tripolity His operating hand was first upon it and last in framing of it to his absolute purpose He to that end supplanted the Kings of the Lumbards in Italy Conspired against and by conspiracy slew the Exarches and Officers of the Greek Empire residing in Italy Here saith Baronius was an end of the Dukes and Governours whom the Emperour was wont to send to command in Rome and places adjacent And here we end our brief discovery how the Bicorn beast built up the Papal Decapolity out of the matter of the Apostacy I approve not that common Opinion of many Expositors that find ten petty Kingdoms and those to no purpose in Europe They placing them chiefly betwixt the Rheyne and Danubius thus name them Alemanni Ostrogothi Visogothi Hunni Saxoni Suevi Alani Vandali Burgundiones Franci most of which were petty if I may so call them Kingdoms of no continuance And so as if Caesars Effigies upon his Coyn could be greater then his person or the Mapp of a Country larger then the Country it self the Nations of the Prototype-Monarchies Chaldaean Persian Greek Roman must be far greater then the ten Nations of their Antitype Rome Papal whom they did but prefigure or shadow forth Their tenent so trivial I reckon not worth refuting But the ten Nations aforesaid were large Provinces under Pagan Rome after under Rome Orthodox And Lastly were ten large Kingdoms in Papal and Decapolite Rome That is they were all at least freed from the bondage and power of Rome Imperial The Supream secular powers of those ten Nations were the ten crowned horns of the Sea-born beast ch 13.1 Here the Reader may observe That three distinct powers secular are represented in the Apocalyps by three different and distinct beast The first is Bestia decem habens cornua sine coronis a Beast with ten Horns uncrowned The second is Bestia decem armata Cornibus coronatis a Beast with ten Horns crowned The third is Bestia Gentium Regna transferens vel bestia intermedia the beast that Translated the Kingdoms of the falling Empire The first with ten Horns uncrowned was the first Dragon or the powers secular of Pagan Rome whose five first heads were fallen before our blessed Saviour was born five are fallen saith the Text ch 17.10 He letted and should let the rising up of Papal Rome till he was taken out of the way Him the 12 17 and 18 Chapters as also Thessal 2.7 hold forth The second Beast with ten Horns crowned was this Seaborn-beast Secular and Papal or the Secular powers of those ten Nations aforesaid whom the false Prophet deceived into a Papal-Decapolity by means of his false Miracles which he had power to do ch 13.14 The five first heads of the this ten-crowned beast were so far from being fallen before Christ was born that neither was that beast nor any one of his heads in being for above four hundred years after the birth of our Saviour This Beast these Texts hold forth ch 13.1 2 3. c. ch 16.13 The third Beast Bestia Regna transferens was the second Dragon who took away him the first Dragon that letted the rising up of Papal Rome and gave added his power and great Authority the Nations which he took from him to her crowned Beast secular being induced thereunto by the deceit and procurement of the Bicorn beast as we have shown immediately before This intermediate Beast or second Dragon these Texts hold forth ch 11.7 ch 13.2.4 ch 16.13 In these things I confess and many other I do as a duty to be done of necessity stear my course contrary to the Currents of all at least all modern Writers whereby I am incident to incurre the displeasure of many Howbeit it seems to me no small fault of injustice and ingratitude in those that being by long assuetude cemented to their errors wherein all Writers perhaps have misled the way cannot be content to be inconsentient to the truth themselves but are apt to conceive a prejudicious amaritude and that before they read or know what they write against those that would by undenyable eviction of reason convince them of their errors and manifest to them nolentibus volentibus not only the great dangers but the grossness of their mistakes The Premises aforesaid may at present fully refel many that pretending to unfold them pour forth confusion as a flood upon sacred Scriptures and make them much more obscure and dark by their confident false glosses and Expositions They may serve also to undeceive many sincere but seduced professors and sober Writers that are led away with the same errors But I return The superindents of the False Prophet Pagan the Roman Emperours who were summi Pontifices fell rather short of this expansive superintendency over which the false Prophet Papal presided And what was the means by which he built this tenfold City He cometh saith the Text withal deceiveableness c. That is He deceived those that dwelt upon the Earth those Nations chiefly aforesaid by meanes of those Miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast Of which miracles I have hinted something before but shall insist upon them more fully afterwards Secondly He laid his forged or at least falsely applyed Foundation by deceit in Doctrine He perverted the Text to cause them that dwelt upon the Earth to believe contrary to truth and the true Faith That Peter was the foundation of the Church that the Pope his supposed successor was the same by succession sole Apostolick-Bishop Primate over all Churches and Supream over all Kings and Councils Those that dwelt upon the Earth those thus deceived ten Nations chiefly There 's the matter of this tenfold Cities building He deceived them There 's the meanes his pretended message doctrine of deceit and false miracles by which he built it His Doctrine was a shallow fruitless but somewhat literally sound Doctrine destitute of right and charitable application And such meanes is fittest to make way for lying miracles and both these the most effectual meanes eruere Ecclesiam aedificare mysterium iniquitatis to destroy the Church and Saints all solid knowledg of the truth and true obedience by slanders evil reports and wicked contrivances against all that is good For That 's proper especially to such profane affected shallow knowledge and obedience Therefore The son of perdition was not to come in the Van of Apostacy with gross Heresie and open scandalous practices like the Arrians or Mahumetans
Apostles Such Sects nevertheless come nearest to true Churches that holding forth sound Doctrine are sound most fruitful in the practice of good Manners Sects are either more General or more Special Sects more Special are Societies of Professors fallen from sound Doctrine or good Manners and separated from Churches more sound then themselves The more General Sect are such Professors in all Sects and Churches as are fallen though not from sound Doctrine from the practice of good Manners Doctor Colet calls this Sect The Sect of evil Manners Many Saints at least men somewhat Moral and Ingenuous may be found in many Sects who are the supports of them and are usually least regarded and most persecuted in and by those Sects For Locusts are apt to creep into and corrupt through Inadvertency Pride Ignorance and avarice all Sects and even the truest and best Church-Societies Cause Dissentions in them oppose diligence and fidelity and endanger to destroy them Therefore it is not my design in this Treatise to fall foul as Weather-beaten Ships at Sea upon any Sects or Church-Societies but in love to reprove them plainly and to manifest to them their manifold gross and dangerous mistakes in Opinions and Manners of which their inconviction though they little mind it is their greatest misery they do or can sustain on Earth To that end I shall beginning at the Foundations of both endeavor to distinguish the true Church and Saints from false Professors in all Sects and Churches And first The Rock whereon the true Church is built is Christ alone Sunt caetera Arenae All other Formal fruitless Christ-pretending Professions are but Sands of deceit or Smoake whereon the Apostacy of Antichrist and all false Practices are built The first Superstructure upon the true Rock is Animadvertency For Faith comes by hearing and hearing by Animadvertency to hear He heareth to very little purpose that minds not much what or how he hears For Secondly the first Superstructure upon the sandy Foundation of the Apostacy of Antichrist is inanimadvertency or a careless unmindfulness To hear profitably or To do what they hear Animadvertency the first Superstructure upon the sure Rock is threefold a mindfulness to hear to expect and to practise what is heard and read and brings forth a threefold operative Grace Faith Hope and Charity though true Animadvertency and more accepted of God is a fruit of that threefold Grace Inanimadvertency the first Superstructure upon Sandy Foundations is threefold Non animadversive Semi-animadversive Mis-animadversive and brings a three-fold effect contrary to Faith Hope Charity To wit Perfidy false confidence and rash and censorious uncharitableness This threefold inadvertency opposite to true Repentance is the threefold Substructure of Antichrist Sensual Secular and Spiritual And first Non-animadvertency is the Substructure of Antichrist sensual or of such Professors as mind nothing orlittle else but loose Profaneness Such were the men of the Old World They knew nothing saith the Text till the Flood came c. And no marvel For how should thew know any thing that minded nothing Non-advertists are very Beasts both have hearts alike to mind nothing Therefore both perished alike in the Flood These slothful Citizens of Spiritual Sodom regard not to read the Scriptures that testifie of Christ or Books that unfold the meaning of them Or they read both but mind not through sensual levity and folly to understand what they read Such were the Men and Swine of Gadara They cared not to know Christ the living truth and these care as little to know what truth in practice is So far are they from that that they mind not so much as the proper objects of right-producing Animadvertency or the Principles of the practice of good manners which Principles because little minded by most Professors through almost a general inanimadvertency we shall insert in the sequel Such Non-advertists are the Owles of Ignorance unclean and hateful Birds that hate the light and would were it in their power utterly extinguish it and destroy the Witnesses of it For truth in Doctrine and Manners is directly contrary to the bruitish ignorance of Non-advertists Therefore they oppose both by a direct opposition Yet these seek shelter for their sins of bestial ignorance under some careless Formalities or in some corner of the Court that was cast out and given to the Gentiles and receive the Seed of Grace like the High-way-ground let it lye where it 's scattered till it 's lost but it takes no Root there as it did in the Thorny and Stony grounds Secondly Semi-advertency is the Substructure of secular Apostacy or of men minding Earthly things These Professors for such as the cause is such is the effect Worship God by halves do good Works by halves are half-Christians in shew in deed Heathens And though Spiritual Egypt owns them are much like those Samaritans that succeeded captive Israel in their vacant Habitations They worshipped the Lord and worshipped their Idols also And these Locusts are such Semi-advertists seem to serve God by halves but in deed covetousness which is Idolatry altogether They were Men and Women in appearance Lions in practice winged Horses in pursuit of their practices For Semi-advertists assume several shapes according to which their evil manners differ Under these men if I may so call them not only good men but good works suffer Martyrdom They spin many threds of good works and go on for a space But their Lions teeth of avarice before these good works be finished bite in pieces those threds and lay those good works a bleeding All their good works are Opera refuga works of Apostacy They begin many and perfect none For Thorns sprang up in the Thorny-ground and choaked the good Seed And these are that Thorney-ground wherein Cavils Slaunders Quarrels Missuppositions Pretences Excuses and Busie neglect of the best things springs up and through Pride and Covetousness choake every good Work before it be finished Pilate was guilty of this sin so was Saul Both did very much and then turn'd Apostates in not perfecting what they had begun True Saints are oft guilty of these sins and pay dear for their Semi-advertencies and half performances For Moses omitted to circumcise his son therefore God met him and would have kil'd him 'T is like he lay sick near unto death So the Prophet sent to Bethel had performed within a very little all the task that God sent him to do But a Lion met him and slew him because he left part a very little part of his work undone Little do many true Saints imagine that the cause of their losses languishing sicknesses and oft untimely deaths is their Semi-advertency causing careless half-performances and keeping them back from perfecting any good work Such Saints can scarce be discerned by theirs Works from Locusts and Hypocrites Semi-advertency is so much worse then Non-advertency as Apostacy is worse than Profaneness or as To know and profess the truth and oppose it is worse than
universal mistake To judge the meekest and most innocent to be self-exalters and vain-boasters only because they are faithful to bear witness to the Truth This was the grand mistake of that Learned and devout Council by whom our Lord was crucisied He as he must inevitably do spake the truth And the Truth cannot but dignifie the doers and sayers of it with the title and due praise of being the Oracles of God But that blind but knowing pust up Senate of Pharisees and Hypocrites misconceived That the Truth which he spake was boasting vain-glory and blasphemy And therefore they all unanimously and with one consent cryed out Crucifie him crucifie him The Witnesses were to be killed and the holy City the Church of God persecuted and trodden under foot in the Antitype-place where our Lord was crucified To wit by such censorious blind professors as the Pharisees were Rev. 11.2 8. And this slanderous imputation and mis-supposition that they are boasters blasphemers and men that take too much upon them is the chief or almost only and universal cause or instrument of their being so killed persecuted and trodden under foot Nor are true Saints as we shewed before free from this frenzy of heady and censorious rashness Elisha discovered the King of Syria's Counsel and design several times to the King of Israel whereby the King of Israel saved himself not once nor twice King 6.10 Such discoveries were signal advantages and deliverances to the King and people of Israel Nor could I but in love to my Country and in fidelity to the Church make this discovery of the chief cause of the killing of her Witnesses That so Ministers and Magistrates as the Church of Ephesus tryed those that said they were Apostles and were not may try those Truth-misapplving Blasphemers that charge her Witnesses falsly with boasting And finding them to be the seditious Synagogue of Satan may rebuke them sharply So may they save themselves and the Church not once or twice from such distress as fell upon the Jews for the very same sin To wit because their Rulers did not duly reprove and rebuke those Christ-crucifying blasphemers that charged him with blasphemy So may the rain of Righteousness after 1260 years restraint fall in plentious showers upon all Nations So peace and prosperity may spring up to all Princes and people So may Ministers and Magistrates they being faithful in the discharge of this duty save the Witnesses of the Truth and perhaps themselves from the bloody irruptions of merciless cruelties in the mouthes of depravers and Hypocrites that falsly accuse them as the first Dragon did Primitive Saints day and night as boasters as blasphemers or as persons unworthy and the worst of evil doers whereby the defences of States and Churches and the healers of their breaches are broken down by the basest of men These derogating Hypocrites and those Harpers that have the Harps of God are most contrary by whose contrariety predicted those first fruits of true obedience to God and good works to men will more easily appear These Harpers saith the Text sung as it were a new song which no man could learn but those 144000 first-fruits vers 2 3 4. Ch. 15.2 Therefore these Harpers must be as those Texts plainly import the same 144000 that had the Name of God written in their foreheads or at least the Teachers of them But We must here distinguish betwixt these 144000 having the Name of God written in their foreheads and those 144000 in the seventh Chapter that were sealed with the seal of God in their foreheads and betwixt both and those that have not the seal of God in their foreheads Chap. 9.4 And first We shall distinguish betwixt these 144000 having the Name of God written in their foreheads and those 144000 in the seventh Chapter that were sealed with the seal of God in their foreheads These sealed 144000 were sealed under the sixth Seal Chap. 6.12 Chap. 7.4 But these 144000 Chap. 14. having the Name of God written in their foreheads were to stand with the Lamb upon mount Sion under the seventh Trumpet Chap. 10.7 Chap. 11.19 Chap. 13.18 Chap. 14.1 Therefore these 144000 conscript in the fourteenth Chapter are not the same Gospel-Church in the same respects to times and things though otherw se the same with-those 144000 sealed servants of God in the seventh Chapter For the seven Seales as most Writers and I with them agree had respect to the Transactions of literal and Imperial Rome and shewed the state of the Church under that power But the seven Trumpets and Vials have respect to Papal Rome and running parallel in the same Synchronism shew the state of the Church under that power The opening of the sixth Seal shews the fall of the sixth head of the ten-fold body of Heathen Rome and the fall of the Pagan Power under that head which is more fully exprest in Chap. 12 to the 14. vers The final excision of Imperial and apostate Rome is held forth under the seventh Seal Chap. 8.5 And this Prophesie is more amply unfolded in the eighteenth Chapter But The fall of Papal Rome or of the grand Apostacy is predicted to be under the seventh Trumpet and seventh Vial Chapter 10.7 Ch. 11.11 15. Ch. 16.17 Then the couscript-Church it seems should be manifest as the Texts shew Also the Texts in the seventh Chapter from the ninth verse to the end and the manifold Prophetick-Promises in those Texts refer to the conscript-Church Chap. 14. Chap. 21. Chap. 22. rather than to the sealed-Church or not to her until after many Centuries of years her Off-spring should have the name of God written in their foreheads Thus their disparities further appear Those 144000 in the seventh Chapter sealed with the Seal of God And these 144000 having the Name of God written in their foreheads are both the Church of God but in different respects and times For those 144000 in the seventh Chapter were the Gospel-Church sealed and numbred in the same Chapter measured in the eleventh Chapter Fed and defended in the Wilderness for 1260 years from the rage of the second Dragon Chap. 12.6 14. contemporal with her Antithesis those Saint-persecuting Truth-pretending Professors that had not the Seal of God in their foreheads Chap. 9.4 And brought from wallowing in blood under the bloody feet of the Roman red Dragon Chap. 12.10 Chap. 18.20 For these 144000 in the seventh Chapter were sealed and numbred immediately after the fall of the first Dragon Chapter 7.3 But these 144000 having the Name of God written in their foreheads Chap. 14. were to stand upon lasting foundations of true Faith and good Manners Mount Zion not immediately after the fall of the power of Rome Imperial but immediately after the fall of Papal Rome Rev. 11.13 15. Chap. 15.2 Chap. 10.7 Chap. 13.18 Chap. 14.1 But because these Texts contain the Myrrhe of Ages to heal all Nations and the best Writers fall short in unfolding of them I shall
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
Almost all Professors and many Saints much deceive themselves by being of this or that Sect or Church-Society and by being therein vainly consident whereas a Sect signifies nothing But sincerity is the substance of true obedience Saul so desperately deceitful are half-performances paid a large price of exemption from obedience to God and doing good to himself his Country and Family He went saw and overcame Amaleck as God commanded brought away their best Catcle c. Who could nor could he himself imagine that more to please God could be done that service Nor scarce could Samuel beat him out of the strong confidence of that misbelief But Samuel told him that all that large price of exemption for it seemed to exceed an half-performance from true obedience was as Witchcraft and Rebellion Why as Witchcraft Because half-performances deceive unsealed Hypocrites more than Witchcraft and would deceive were it possible the very Elect But the practice of the good Samaritan is a perfect Patern in a fourfold conformity for all Men and Nations to follow having due respect to all the Principles of right in it self A Quo Quid Cui Quantum Quoties c. And such Works and they only are the sacred Harmony of the Harps of God And I looked and lo a Lamb stood upon Mount Sion c. We shall and so conclude the first Part of this Treatise further enquire First Who that Lamb is Secondly What is here meant by Mount Sion Thirdly Who those Harpers shall be Fourthly Why they are called the first-fruits Fifthly What is meant by those Harps of God And first That the Lamb on Mount Sion shall be Christ is not doubted I suppose nor deny'd by any Not that Christ shall then stand corporally in his Hypostatical person there or any where else upon Earth either for 1000 years or more or less time when these 144000 shall attend him But by the Lamb in this Text is meant Christ's Substitutes his revived Witnesses Religious Ministers and Magistrates raised from the sleep of Spiritual Death to the Life of Animadvertency and to mind to do right and shew mercy after the Patern of the good Samaritan in a fourfold Conformity which only is Christian true practice For As Michael and his Angels are said to fight with the first Dragon And to bind him c. Ch. 12.7 Ch. 20.2 It was Michael's Delegates and Substitutes Constantin with his Armies and Officers that fought and not Michael personally and literally on Earth So the Lamb in the Text upon Mount Sion shall be his Witnesses and Representatives Religious Kings and Ministers standing firm as upon Mount Sion upon lasting Principles of sound Faith and good Manners Nor was it God and Christ literally but the said Substitutes with their Successors that reigned on Earth when the 1000 years began Ch. 12.10 Nor shall God and the Lamb literally but their Representatives be the Temple in the conscript-City of God Ch. 21.22 Secondly We shall further enquire who this conscript-number that shall accompany the Lamb shall be and see wherein they differ from Locusts and Hypocrites And first They clearly appear to be the Gospel-Church after lier Wilderness-Pilgrimage brought to and built upon immoveable Foundatious of Truth and Peace For two Texts in one and the same Chapter expresly tell us That the Woman fled into the Wilderness and was to remain there at least 1260 dayes dayes annual which are 1260 years Ch. 12.6 14. And the duration of that Desert-condition by her finished we find her immediately or very soon after firmly seated upon Mount Sion And it is well known to all that know any thing that Mount Sion was never in the Wilderness Ch. 11.11 13 15. Ch. 13.18 Ch. 14.1 That Mount was the Type-Seat of true Worship This the Antitype That for a time This till time be no more That was literal This shall be Spiritual To wit Lasting and inviolable Principles of true Faith and good Manners whereon the gospel-Gospel-Church firmly built shall perform true obedience to God and good Works to Men in a fourfold conformity Therefore Locusts and Hypocrites can be none of this couscript-company their Harps of pride strife and ignorance if such Instruments can be called Harps sound forth rash and foolish questions cavils and impugnations against that which is right Their works and true Saints too off practice the same are torn Sacrifices clypt fragments half-performances good beginnings never finished works of negligence and careless forgetfulness or wicked exemptions from good works They scatter some fragments the worst Simony to be rid of doing good whiles they relieve the poor reward the well-deserving but strengthen not their hands as Sodom did not by relieving or rewarding of them Their works not performed in a fourfold couformity are contrary to the Patern in the Mount and the practice of the good Samaritan Therefore being laid in the ballance they are ever found wanting This company having the Name of God in their foreheads may be called Coetus Virgineus vel Chorus incontaminatus the Virgin or undefiled company These were not defiled with women saith the Text for they were Virgins vers 4. They seem to differ from the Profuga or sealed Church only as Christ transfigured in the Mount differed from what he was before Christ in the Mount was not another man but a Man the same Christ of another manner So these 144000 conscript in the Mount shall be the same Gospel-Church that was sealed before that fled into the Wilderness and was fed there for 1260 years Not for matter another Church but a Church of other manners transfigured as it were in the Mount of God and not floating as the Ark in the flood upon unstable waters not driven to and fro with every wind of false Doctrine and different Opinion not broken by proad Billows of swelling Schisms and Subdivisions but shall be immovably fixt like the Ark at last upon a sure Rock which can never be shaken Many rich Prophetick-promises to the Gospel-Church are held forth in the 7th Chapter from the ninth verse to the end But those manifold promises of the richest mercies seem to be made chiefly to the conscript-Church and were not so fully fulfilled to the sealed servants of God in that Chapter For after the sealing of them the Text saith After this I beheld and loe a great multitude c. vers 9. For as God did not begin to smite Egypt with the Plagues of Excision till his people were first sealed in the Fronts or Door-posts of their habitations with the blood of the Lamb Exod 12. So these their penultimate Antitype were first sealed in their foreheads before God smote Imperial and Apostate Rome about the beginning of the fifth Century But as his Prototype sealed servants the people of Israel finished forty two journeys in the literal Wilderness So these sealed servants of God in the 7th Chapter were to fulfill forty two moneths Prophetical 1260 years in the Spiritual Wilderness before they should stand
Therefore was God angry forty years with the Type Wilderness-Church and swore in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest So the Antitype-Wilderness is the place or dispensation of Gods heavy anger and sore displeasure even against his own Church and People because saith he of the Figure of these they do always err in their hearts and have not known my ways Heb. 3.10 Do always err c. Their Antitype also err always because they are ever inanimadversive and mind not or mind not much what they say or do One said of the troubled Sea Nibil bio nisi Pontus Aether So may we say of the dead faith of this Spiritual dreadful Wilderness There is nothing there but errors in mens imaginations and little else in the hearts and hands of Saints For the fruits of a dying or desert-faith are through brutish inadvertency erring imaginations ignorant animosities Schisms deceits in Opinions and mistakes in Manners A dead faith the foundation of the Apostacy of Antichrist is threefold or subsists of three parts First Inanimadvertency Secondly Ignorance or erroneous knowledge which the Apostle calls Science falsly so called 1 Tim. 6.20 From these two proceeds the love of a Lye And these three constitute a fruitless dead faith And Secondly Antitype Sion or a fruitful living Faith the Derivative Foundation of the Church of God is also threefold or subsists of three parts First Animadvertency Secondly true Knowledge and from these two proceeds Love the life of a fruitful living Faith For Knowledge comes by animadvertency and from both springs Love the life of Faith And I looked and lo c. Animadvertency is the Root of Faith Knowledge the Eye of it Love is the Life thereof But a dead faith Acts and looks not Censures and sees not Reads and minds not or with an evil Eye minds amiss mistakes pieces and fragments of good Works for perfect Obedience and deceits for Truth no better fruits must they expect that make a dead faith the foundation of their-Works and the substructure of the Church of God Break off thy sins said Daniel by righteousness and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor if it may be a lenthening of thy tranquillity Nebuchadnezzar no doubt did as Daniel directed But it 's not a careless clypt Righteousness of a dead faith nor half-performed mercy to the poor that can secure Professors Salnts States or Churches from dreadful Calamities He was driven as a man without Rule or Reason from amongst men and his dwelling was as in a Wilderness with the Beasts of the field till twice 1260 days past over him His Faith was a Wilderness dead Faith bringing fruits forth by halves The dreadful evils of the barren Desert Literal and Spiritual and the contrary benefits and blessings of Sion in Type and Antitype may briefly appear from the fastings of Moses Eliah and Christ forty days in the wilderness The time was above fourty days and perhaps about 42 days conform to 42 moneths Propbetical which was the time that the Gospel-Church should fulfil in her place in the Spiritual Wilderness Chap. 12.6 14. Ch. 13.5 For Christ had finished 40 days fasting before the Devil began to assail him with his fiercest temptations Matth. 4.2 So Eliah took one days journey into the Wilderness and was miraculously fed there before he fasted 40 days 1 King 19.4 And Moses fasted 40 days and 40 nights before God gave him the Tables of the Covenant Deut. 9.11 Forty days and forty nights rotunditatis gratiâ or as a round number are exprest but the whole time of the fastings of all the three appears to be longer That time was an abbreviated adumbration of the Gospel-Churches continuance in the Antitype-wilderness and what they did or suffered in that time there prefigured Prophetically the state of the Profuga-Church And first Moses fasted two several times 40 days and when he had finished his first 40 days in Horeb he found Israel more degenerate in Manners and Opinions than they had been before worshiping a Calf Deut. 9.12 So the gospel-Gospel-Church and Professors having now near finished their Wilderness-Pilgrimage are so far from being nearer to Mount Sion that they are much more erring in their hearts and ignorant of the ways of God More abundant in mistaking evil Manners for good Works and more blindly Superstitious in Worshiping as Israel did a Calf the works of their own hands The works of their hands Revel 9.20 And what are those works I Answer All careless deficient long-delayed or half-performed works of mercy and equity are though wrought by Saints the works of mens hands which God abhors Such much more are the works of all Saints and Professors that mistake their Cui persons or things whom they misintend to right or promote We are debtors saith the Apostle not to the flesh to live thereafter Rom. 8.12 But this is the misery of Modern times that all men and Saints for the most part mistake their Creditors and mind not to whom they themselves are Debtors For the miserable Wilderness-Christians are all Debtors and owe almost all they have to themselves little or nothing to their neighbours to whom what is part of their due they pay as the Pharisees did to their own Proselytes Kin Friends or Members of their own Societies But to things profitable and honest and to the pursuers of such things they find nothing or the least part due and accordingly repay them These are Debtors be they never so Spiritual to the flesh and these their fruits the works of their own wicked hands are worshiped almost by all as Israel when Moses had finished his 40 days fasting were found worshipping a Calf No less wicked are the Works of the hands of Hypocrites that make the Witnesses the Cui of their condemnation and false accusers forgers of lyes through their indulgent or not diligent examining of them their Cui of Credit and Reputation For this cause multitudes of blind zealous careless Professors readily give credit to and capitulate with the greatest Impostors against the injured most innocent This practice is the power of the Prince of darkness in the Mystery of iniquity whereby he crucifies Christ Mystical and kills his Witnesses in the Spiritual wilderness Secondly Eliah wandered and fasted forty days in the dreadful Wilderness and when he had finished that sore travel he was so sar from Mount Sion that he was got to Horeb quite contrary to it So the Gospel-wandring Saints and Professors having almost finished their much more sore travel in a far more troublesome Wilderness are so far from drawing near to Mount Sion that they are come to Horeh So horrible are the mistakes and deceits of these men and times But how and when did Eliah begin his Eremitetiavel I Answer He fled for his life from Jezabel as his Antitype the Gospel-Church fled from the second Dragon but indeed at first from both combined Ch. 12.6 14. He came to Beersheba where he left his
Eremite-Pilgrimage did and doth cover all people But In Antitype Sion the promised Jerusalem there shall be no more Sun-darkening smoake of refined deceits Nor shall any clouds of universal darkness cover any more all people nor any Vail of Ignorance overspread all Nations For In that Mountain will God destroy the face of the covering cast over all people and the Vail that is spread over all Nations Isa 25.7 He hath promis'd it and will certainly and speedily persorm it Nor shall any Cloud then guide the Church by day nor any Pillar of fire by night But the glory of God shall enlighten it and the Lamb shall be the light thereof Chap. 21.23 To be short Antitype Sion and the Gospel-Church built upon it shall be the persection of beauty and pure Gold as it were transparent Glass Psal 50.2 Rev. 15.12 Ch. 21.21 There the beauty and harmony of Truth both in Doctrine and Practice shall be plainly and powerfully illustrated to all ages And this is Sion whom no man seeketh after Jer. 30.17 We shall now further enquire Fifthly What those Harps of God are Ch. 15.2 I answer They are called The Harpes of God and therefore cannot be made by the Art of Man but must be Harps framed by Gods hand to found sorth to the good of all his praise and glory That is They shall be the hearts of Men and Saints turned backwards How long said Elijah halt ye between two Opinions If the Lord be God follow him but if Baal follow him and they answered not a word 1 King 18.21 And they answered him not a word why not Decause their hearts were no Harps of God nor then turned backward But hear me Lord said Eliah and let this people know that thou art the Lord God and that thou hast turned their heart back again Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt-Sacrifice and the Wood and the Stones c. Vers 37 38. And when all the people saw it they fell on their faces and they said The Lord he is the God the Lord he is the God vers 39. The Lord be is the God And whence was this great acknowledgment of the truth to Gods glory The hearts of the people were become the Harps of God and were turned backward That was done in a Type and being more in word than in works continued but for a time But these Harps of God shall be the Hearts of Men and Saints turned back and turning others back from blind Sacrifice to sincere obedience Not in word but in deed Nor for a time but to eternity Harps that by good works wrought in a four-fold conformity shall greatly sound forth Gods glory and procure the general good of after-ages For Secondly Eliah we read repaired an Altar of the Lord that was broken down ver 30. And took twelve stones according to the number of the Tribes of the Sons of Jacob c. rebuilt it and offered upon it This was not written for nothing that Eliah did thus But be repaired the Altar of the Lord God accepts no Sacrifices but what are offered upon his own Altars He took twelve stones according to the number of the twelve Tribes Twelve is a quadrate number and the Root or Basis of twelve times twelve thousand or 144000 that adumbrate the gospel-Gospel-Church Ch. 14.1 Ch. 21.16 which principally denotes a quadri-formity or a fourfold conformity in the practices of all truly reformed Saints or rightly repaired Altars of God who are far from those Formalists and Hypocrites of blind inanimadvertency that mind not in their practices of good manners to conform their intellects to that which is right in itself or to come to the knowledge of the truth in practice that they may be saved Nor care to conform their wills to their right-informed intellects nor their works to both These are the Baalitish Altars of blind obedience such Altars God abhors hates such Sacrifices But these Harps of God shall be the repaired Altars of the Lord prepared by his hand to practise right in a fourfold conformity Such Altars only God accepts with such Sacrifices only is be well-pleased For The only Original Altar transcendent and above all is Christ But the Harps of God the hearts of men and Saints purifi'd by Faith and made conform to Christ are derivative Altars which God accepts in him And with their works wrought in a fourfold conformity is he well-pleased For God affects not Fables nor Fig-leaves of deceits fragments or half-performances but substantial Righteousness wrought in a fourfold conformity which only is Christian and true Righteousness Lastly Elijah when the people halted between two Opinions brought them to be of one mind And turned back their hearts that with one mouth they gave glory to the God of Heaven So shall their Antitype do Rev. 14.7 We shall here further shew First From what the hearts of Men and Saints shall be turned back Secondly To what they shall be turned Thirdly What their exceeding great danger is if their hearts be not turned back Lastly What their inestimable benefits and safeties shall be by having their hearts turned back again And first From what the hearts of Men and Saints shall be turned back I answer They shall be turned back from the practise of those sins of which they have not yet repented And the rest of the men saith the Text which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship Devils and Idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and of wood which neither can see nor hear nor walk Neither repented they of their Murthers nor of their Sorceries nor of their Fornication nor of their Theft Rev. 9.20 21. Yet repented not This Particle of time yet is the period of the six Trumpets sounding and terminates the 1260 years of the Witnesses Sackcloth-Prophesie Noah preached 120 years to the Old World and not a man that we find more than of his own Family repented at the period of that time And the Witnesses Prophesied 1260 years and men yet repented not Many repented no doubt by a feeble secret and almost unperceivable true repentance whereby they were saved but not according to that repentance promised to the Gospel-Church whereby God might be effectually glorified And the rest of the men yet repented not saith the Text. The Caldeans praised Gods of Gold and of Silver of Brass of Iron of Wood and of Stone Dan. 5.4 The words in Type and Antitype are literally almost the same ver 23. Rev. 9.20 We shall examine what some of these sins are that so the Christian World for praevisi mali mollior ictus may foresee and shun the punishments that must fall for those sins The first sin in the Antitype is Idolatry They worshipped Devils and Idols of Gold and Silver and Brass and Stone and of Wood which neither can see c. In the Type they were literal Idols but these in
covetous and his practices partial or but in part And such services to God joyned with covetousness Also all half performances and commixt worshippings of God and Baal Christ and Belial or of God and Mammon and all haltings betwixt two contrary Practices or Opinions are Spiritual Sorceries and are expresly compared to Witchcraft and Idolatry 1 Sam. 15.22 23. Because the best works of such Professors are mixt Heterogene or Lincy-Woolsy works of deceits and wicked exemptions from sincere practice and true obedience Fourthly Nor of their Fornications Literal Fornications in sensual Antichrist are many But the Fornications of the Mystery of Iniquity and these intended in the Text are the same are more Spiritual And what are they When few or many joyn in outward-worship or in any Church-Society to act Spiritual-filthiness That 's Spiritual fornication That is when such come together not for the better but for the worse Not to be more fruitful but more barren in good works when they meet together not to edifie but to increase strise and ignorance This and such like conjoynt-practices are Spiritual fornication It is an absurdity in the very name of a true Church That God should call any people out of the world to practise covetousness Or to become Vines bringing forth if any fruits for themselves for their Proselytes Co-associates nothing for others nor to further any thing that 's profitable or honest But the Conscript-Church shall not be defiled with Women for they are Virgins Ch. 14.4 That is Her sacred company shall abhor the pollutions of this Spiritual filthiness and be redeemed from the Earth and among men to God and the Lamb ver 3 4. But it 's contrary to the Nature of a true Church That she should be called or redeemed of God from the Earth to follow Earthly things Or that she should be redeemed from among men to mind nothing or to omit good manners and be ignorant of them Such co-adjoynings as produce these or such like ends are Spiritual fornications far from the ends of that conscript incontaminate Company But there is no Church till those first fruits appear can be free from gross pollutions of Spiritual fornication because they have not their hearts turned back they yet repented not saith the Text of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their fornications Nor Fifthly Of their Thefts And what are they To diminish or derogate from the due woâ—th or works of any man is Spiritual thievery Such are all half-performances like that of the unjust Steward's who set down but fifty measures of Oyl where an hunred were due And therefore All witnessing of the truth in words and works as Pilate did by halves seconded by recidivations or oppositions are Spiritual thievery and murderous thefts as that in Pilate was All careless or willful derogations from the true meaning of the Scriptures or from the truth in the Writings of those that rightly unfold them are spiritual thievery and such detractors have all plagues that can be possible denounced against them Revel 22.19 And therefore To affirm that no right collection can be made nor clear conclusion drawn from Prophetick-Scriptures is Sacrilegious and Blaspemous Theft as I shall further shew in the second pare in answer to that mistaken Assertion Scriptura symbolica non est argumentativa Blind Hypocrites will by no means believe that inanimadversive men that mind not hear not read not the incomplex Principles of right in itself and that 's the shame and folly of beastial Professors be they never so literate or seeming Religious must needs be wicked men But their practice is a continual derogation from the truth and their works at best but works of darkness and ignorance wrought without any Rule of Reason And therefore must be Spiritual theft of necessity For Thirdly Ut jugulent homines surgunt de nocte latrones Theft is the proper work of darkness And Spiritual Theft delights most therein It oft makes the Truth itself to be a mysterious means to practise Murder and promote Robberies So Doeg by speaking the truth when he should not and by not speaking the whole truth robbed David of his due repute with Saul and robbed the Priests of the Lord of their lives A theft like unto this but much worse is when Men and Saints as they commonly do raise slanders from shadows and say They hear such and such evil reports from the mouthes of other men That many affirm the same c. But never name who those speakers are conceal those slanderers or rather feign such to be whereas in deed there were never any such speakers nor such things spoken Or at least they make it not appear and De non apparentibus non existentibus eadem ratio Things that appear not to be are not in being in the Eye of Reason and Judgment of Equity This way of wounding men is a most wicked way of lying defamation Such fictitious slanders did Doeg never produce against David or the Priests of the Lord These Speluncarum mendacia Thefts least perceived whereby many are robbed of their Lives ruinated in their Estates come out of dark Dens But indeed those reporters themselves where the first pretended speakers are not produced are those Robbers and Thieves that slay others by the Sword of their slanderous tongues Ad fabulas credendas facilitas An easiness to believe lyes or a disposition apt to derogate rash censoriousness is a thievish disposition and denotes that such depravers are Spiritual Thieves Such surreptitious Professors where they prevail are the excision of Mercy and Equity and supplant all good Manners because they steal away the hearts of the Ministers of Justice as Absalom did the hearts of Israet and make them basely subservient to Sycophants and to receive and believe lyes It 's the most deplorable demonstration of base degenerosity in Men and chiefly in Magistrates to suffer themselves to be made miserable preys so they seem strict and religious to Depravers and Hypocrites Nor was there said Jerom so simple and mean a Scribe that conspired not c. But now we may rather say There is no such sordid Pickthank or ignorant depraver no such treacherous Ziba or slavish servant nor a Lad so silly or illiterate that is not sufficiently able to carry away an hundred Captives and to alienate through lying defamations their Judgments and Affections far from doing right or shewing mercy And therefore Thou shalt not run with a multitude to do evil For he that runneth with a multitude of evil men is a member of that multitude So Men and Ministers of Justice that suffer themselves to be in such sort basely stoln away by Spiritual Thieves make by that means themselves Thieves These now more than ever increasing worshippings of Idols and these Spiritual Murders and Sorceryes and Fornications and Thefts are the sins of which Men and Saints have not yet repented And from which their hearts and hands must be turned