strange contemner of Concinnity and Proportion if he be not pleased to observe how handsomely and naturally that hideous and unproportionate Chasma betwixt the Predictions in the eleventh Chapter of Daniel and the twelfth is in this way filled up with matters of weighty concernment and the Series of times continuedly carried on to the Day of Judgement 9. Thus unexceptionable in it self is Mr. Mede's Interpretation of these four Verses in Daniel and for ought I know may be one continued sense really aimed at throughout But I must confess when I look upon those words of the Apostle 2 Thess. 2. Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped which seems a plain Allusion to these words of Daniel He shall exalt himself and magnifie himself above every God I cannot but suspect that in an after-Completion of the Prophecy the Pontifician Power which is a kinde of revived Image of the Pagan Imperial Power of Rome so soon as the Pope had once out-topp'd the Emperour is also here perstringed and that therefore the two first verses of these four may be also interpreted of the Pope and of his Luciferian Pride as I shall more distinctly shew in its proper place CHAP. XI 1. The Reasons of his Prolixity hitherto in the Predictions of the Idolatry of the Church and of his future Brevity in the rest of the parts of Antichristianism 2. The Second member of Antichristianism prefigured in the * Apocal. 11 8. Witnesses lying slain in the Streets of the great City called Aegypt 3. A short Paraphrase and Exposition upon that verse of the Apocalyps 4. That the same thing seems to be prefigured in the Whore of Babylon her riding of the Beast 5. What Predictions concern the Opposition to the Priestly Office of Christ. 6. That the Two-horned Beast and the False-Prophet are all one and that both prefigure the Antichristian Opposition against his Prophetick Office 7. That the Affliction of the true Prophets of Christ is prefigured in the Vision of the Two Witnesses as also the Antichristian Opposition against the Kingly Office 1. IN the mean time we have I hope with sufficient copiousness vindicated Divine Providence from the least suspicion of so remarkable a neglect or defect as not to have as well predicted as fore-seen this general Lapse of the Church in this first and chiefest point of Antichristianism Daemon-worship or Idolatry Wherein I have been the more copious it being the chief Characteristick of the Apostatized state of the Church and indeed the Root of most of the rest of those Antichristian Enormities that have crept upon Christendome I am sure of that which is at least next in hainousness the Bloudy Persecution of the dear Children of God and faithful Members of Christ Jesus who cannot submit to such Idolatrous practices But I shall return into my first Method and search out the Predictions of each part of Antichristianism in that order I have spoken of them already Which I shall be able to doe with greater brevity by far having already made good my main design and having nothing else to doe but to refer to many of those Prophecies which I have expounded already Not to adde also how most of those parts of Antichristianism which are behind are nothing so fully and frequently predicted as this of Idolatry 2. As it fares with the very next Member we are to consider which is that Spiritual Bondage and Slavery men are brought under by that burthen of Superstitious Opinions and of tedious and fruitless Observances and a false persuasion of Penances to be done not for emendation of life onely but for satisfaction as if the Bloud of the Son of God were of no price nor value whenas such Fictions are forged for no other end then to uphold the Tyrannical power or to advance the unjust gains of the Priest At which condition of the Church I do not doubt but the Spirit of God points Apocal. 11. where the dead bodies of the Two Witnesses are said to lie in the streets of the great City which spiritually is called Sodom and Aegypt where also our Lord was crucified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a Mystery or Typically as Grotius himself acknowledges I say therefore that this Great City which is this Mystical Aegypt that House of Bondage to the ancient Church of God in the Type and to the modern in the Antitype is the pretended Catholick Church of Rome and that this Spiritual Slavery under the superstitious Impositions of the Pope and of whatsoever other Clergy of the same stamp is glanced at in this passage of the Vision For the Two Witnesses being Synchronal to the restored Beast it is in vain to dream of any thing at Jerusalem that should be the fulfilling of this Prophecy It is therefore I say the Church of Rome that is this Mystical Aegypt and the Pope the Pharaoh of this Aegypt with his hard Task-masters that make the deluded people drudge and toil under the burthens of their Superstition And the overthrow of this Spiritual Pharaoh and his Ecclesiastick Host is manifestly typified by that of the Aegyptians in the Red Sea which answers to the Bloud of Christ which is a wall on the left hand and on the right to the simple-hearted Israelites in their flight from these Tyrants of Aegypt but overwhelms Pharaoh and his Host and puts this Song of Thanksgiving into the mouths of those who through serious meditation upon the proper virtue and intent of the bloudy Passion of Christ have escaped this Aegyptian Vassalage I will sing unto the Lord for he hath triumphed gloriously the horse and his rider has he thrown into the Sea Or which is the same that Song of Moses and of the Lamb Apoc. 15. Great and marvellous are thy Works Lord God Almighty just and true are thy waies O King of Saints c. But of these things I have spoken already and therefore this brief intimation Book 1. Ch 4. Sect. 5. shall suffice Onely for a corroboration of this Typical sense of Aegypt I cannot omit to take notice how this Song of Moses and of the Lamb is said to be sung 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which is a notorious Indication Apocal. 15. 2. that the escape of the Israelites from Pharaoh through the Red Sea is alluded to in this Song both in that the Sea upon whose shore it is sung is called a Sea of Glass which represents the hard consistency which the Sea then seemed to have being as a thick glassy wall on this side and that side of the Israelites nay indeed it is said in the Song of Moses Exod. 15. 8. The flouds stood upright as an heap and the depths were congealed in the heart of the Sea and also in that it is said to be mixt with fire which intimates how these two massy walls of glass were penetrated by the sight of the Angel that went along
Sensuality Luxury and Affluency and to be drunk therewith to abound with worldly felicity even to an Insensibility of better things and to a besotted security and contentedness with the present enjoyments of this Life This also may be one sense of this intoxicating Cup besides what I have touched upon before Ver. V. And upon her forehead was a Name written Which Interpreters have rightly noted to allude to the custom of some impudent Harlots who had their names written upon their foreheads as appears from that in Seneca Nomen tuum pependit in fronte pretia stupri accepisti manus quae Diis datura erat sacra capturas tulit 2. Mystery Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth All which Inscription I conceive is the Name of the Whore For the Scripture often makes long Names even a whole Sentence as I shall have occasion more fully to note anon I say the very word Mystery is part of the Name And the sense of the whole is That the Name of the Whore is Mystical Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots or rather the Mother of Fornications 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so some Copies which the Vulgar Latin follows and Grotius best approves of and best fits with what follows and of the Abominations of the Earth that they may be both Abstracts And Mystical here signifies the same that Spiritual elsewhere in the Apocalyps Which is spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt as Chap. 11. v. 8. Cornelius à Lapide has also compared them and it is the Great City there too which is so called Wherefore let any one judge if Mystical or Spiritual Babylon can be understood of Rome Pagan or whether it is likely that the Spirit of God should prefix the term Mystery to an Inscription that hath no more in it then a dry Synecdoche For if Rome Pagan be understood it is no more but putting one Pagan Idolatrous and Persecutive City for another With which certainly so profound and venerable a Preface as Mystery cannot well suit 3. Wherefore it must be understood of a Christian City or Polity Idolatrizing and debauching others with Idolatry And the meaning of the Mystery must be this Even that that Hierarchy which should over-spread the Empire pretend to be the pure and unadulterate Apostolick Church and be generally believed to be so nay to be that City from Heaven the foundations of whose Walls are twelve with the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb inscribed upon them that City wherein God will wipe away all tears from the eyes of his servants where there shall be no more death nor sorrow nor crying nor any more pain that is to say no more bloudy Persecutions Pressures nor Tortures of the faithful Servants of Christ as Grotius well interprets it and lastly that City wherein there is no Temple that is to say no Object towards which we bow besides the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb who alone is worshipped with Religious worship I say the Mystery is this That that Occumenical Hierarchy or Body of the Clergie that boast themselves to be this pure and Apostolick City as being of an unerring judgment should indeed be the very City Babylon it self which in stead of being so chast a pattern of Purity of Worship were Sacrificers to the dead and the Adorers or Worshippers of Bel and the Propagators of the worship of the Baalim that is to say of the worship of Daemons or false Gods through the world infecting therewith even the very Jews themselves the peculiar people of God and in stead of being a Protection and Refreshment to the Servants of the true God held them in a long and sad Captivity casting them that would not bow to the Image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up into an hot fiery Furnace This is the Mystery and yet a very true one For it is over-manifest of this Pseudo-christian Hierarchy that they have debauched the professed People of God with various kinds of Idolatry and have held them captive a long time under an hard servitude and besides other tortures and persecutions have burned thousands of the faithful servants of Christ with Fire and Fagot Wherefore it is a Mystery indeed that she that so boldly professes her self the City of God and had the luck to be believed so generally to be so should in truth be found to be that bloudy and Idolatrous Babylon 4. And because she boasts her self also to be the Catholick as well as the Apostolick Church she is farther adorned with the Title of Great as well as of Babylon and is at once styled Babylon the Great the vast extent of that City which they that have made the most frugal computation reckon 360 or 380 Stadia in compass Pliny and Herodotus 480 being a fit Symbol of their pretence to Catholickness or Universality And lastly because she will pretend to be the Spouse of the Lamb and be called Our Mother the Church the Spirit of God in reproach to this false Beast has styled her the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth 5. Which style does plainly discover that this City Babylon is not Rome Heathen but a Polity Christian. For Rome Heathen was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius reads it the Mother that is the Author and Dispenser of Idolatry over the face of the Earth for the Nations were Idolatrous of themselves without her and she rather a Learner and Receiver of their Idolatries which she increased as she advanced her Trophees as it may appear by that promissory Charm which Macrobius sets down used by Saturnal lib. 3. cap. 9. the Romans when they had hopes of taking a City calling out thereby the Tutelary Gods of the Place and promising them Temples and Solemnities at Rome Wherefore the Title of Mystery prefixed to the Name of the Whore or rather it being a part of it and which easily answers to that Mystery of Iniquity the Apostle speaks of jointly considered with this part of the 2 Thess. 2. 7. Name The Mother of Fornications and Abominations of the Earth does evidently agree with our Demonstration in the foregoing Chapter that proved it necessary to understand by Babylon not Rome Heathen but a State of the Church degenerating into Heathenism and Idolatry Which lying deeper then that every man can discover it at first sight as being coloured and gilded over with fair pretences of magnifying Christ and his Apostles and the rest of the Saints especially the Virgin Mary the Mother of Christ is rightly called a Mystery In which this Whore and the Two-horned Paral. 1. Agr. 5. Beast do exactly agree For his having Horns like a Lamb is that outward pretext of Succession from Christ and his Apostles and of having a power from them to rule and discipline the Church according to the mind of Christ to his Honour and for his interest which they pretend in every thing But his speaking like a Dragon bespeaks him
man But there is no numbering of one Number given but by extracting of the Root 10. Wherefore as the Square-Root of 36. may rightly be conceived to detect that that famed Tetractys had a relation to the Hexameron of Moses and signified that every Day 's Creation had its Foeminine Principle as well as Masculine the First it self not excepted which is consonant to that Aphorism of the Jews Nulla virtus divina descendit sine indumento and to Moses his assimilating the First Day 's Creation to Light so the Square-Root of this Number of the Beast may also detect to whom this Vision of the Two-horned Beast doth belong And I have already shewed in my Mystery of Godliness that the Root of this Number is 25 and that Book 5. Ch. 16. Sect. 8. it does plainly agree with several substantial Observables concerning the Church of Rome and their City and that in a perfect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to 12 which is the Root of 144 the number of the Regiments that appear with the Lamb on Mount Sion Which things being sufficiently cleared in the said Treatise and may be more copiously understood out of Mr. Potter I shall spare to speak any thing farther of them in this place but wholly remit the Reader thither for satisfaction 11. In the mean time I will not stick to conclude that it is apparent Paral. 2. Agr. 9. partly from what I have delivered there and partly from what is added in this place That the Seat as well of the Two-horned Beast as of the Whore is at last in their respective Visions determined to Old Rome as being the most permanent and conspicuous Residence of the Apostatized Priesthood and such as by being so notorious an Instance of this Wickedness becomes a Measure and Rule of comparing and judging of the greatness of the Apostasy of other Churches by their nearer accession and agreement to this Queen of Harlots And therefore by intimating the Name Number and Seat of this chief part of the Apostatized Clergy it gives us the clear knowledge and fast apprehension of the whole corrupted Body and all the parts thereof where-ever and how long soever they be found within the Boundaries of the Roman Empire But when once they are swallowed up and washed off by some extraneous Power and fall under the Jurisdiction of some other Empire I must confess though we may judge these too by this measure I do not see how they then can so well be concerned or aimed at in these two Prophecies both the Two-horned Beast and the Whore being look'd upon as Riders and Guiders of the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns and therefore supposed within the Roman Empire Which is a plain cause why these Prophecies have laid so fast hold on the Church of Rome in the conclusion of them as if she were in a manner solely concerned For it was fit so to doe by reason of her Permanency in Duration as well as Eminency in wickedness Which may be one reason also why this body of the adulterate Clergy is called the Beast with two Horns because all those Patriarchates annumerated to the Greek Church were betimes swept away a new Empire overflowing them whenas the Patriarchate of Constantinople was free from this inundation till about two hundred years ago So faithful is the Spirit of Prophecy in the Prefiguration of Events as he may easily see that pleases to consult History In the mean time as I said it is manifest enough that the Seat as well of the Whore as the Two-horned Beast in each Vision is determined to Old Rome Which is the last Agreement of our first Parallelism 12. As the last of our second is That the Seat of the Seven-headed Par. 2. Agr. 1â—… Beast is left free in either Vision and not fixt to any Metropolis Indeed the Seven Heads of the Beast being also interpreted of the Seven Hills of Rome it is apparent that the Beast has some relation to that place and must have some Title or denomination from that City else why should the Beast's Heads have any thing to doe to typifie those Seven Hills But the Prophecy as it were datâ operâ declining the fixing the Imperial Seat of the Seven-headed Beast bestows that Privilege on the Whore assigns her the Seven-Hilled seat saying The seven Heads are seven Hills where the Whore sitteth Which is admirably agreeable to the event For indeed Rome has been the constant See of the Whore but the Seat of the Seven-headed Beast has been very changeable some time at Rome then at Constantinople and lastly in Germany 13. And thus we have seen the exquisite Congruity and Coincidence of all the parts of the Visions of these Thirteenth and Seventeenth Chapters one with another which though they be so accurately correspondent yet I must confess not altogether so adequately but that the Vision of the Whore bears a more press and close respect to the Church of Rome all along and besides the plain designment of her Seat which is common to both her gorgeous attire and bloud-thirstiness or rather her being so lavishly bloud-drunk as she is described seems to appropriate the Vision more peculiarly to her then the Greek Church Which Drunkenness as well as Gorgeousness of Apparrel though it be not all along the reign of the Whore yet according to the nature of these Prophetick Figures which exhibit the whole Succession of affairs under one joint show they were without any discrimination to be represented at once Which Consideration may take off any the like scruple in these Prophetick Schemes and Representations For what was done but for a while adorns those Images as much as what is permanent there being no mention of Succession of time but all represented at once 14. And therefore though that Inscription Mysterium upon the Pope's Crown which was questionless in imitation of the Inscription on Aaron's Mitre all his vestments and ornaments being so industriously imitated in the Pontifical Habiliments be now turned into Julius Pontifex Maximus yet it is not the less probable that it was glanced at in this Description of the Whore The truth of which Story Bishop Dounham does assert with all imaginable confidence Quod autem ait in fronte Meretricis De Antichristo lib. 1. cap. 7. scriptum fuisse nomen Mysterium id in Romano Pontifice completum esse pro comperto habemus Which passage is so confessed a truth that Lessius in his Answer to King James could not deny it Wherefore as our Saviour Christ's uttering that first verse of the twenty second Psalm My God my God why hast thou forsaken me intimated to the world that the whole Psalm was a Prophecy of his Passion so this first word of the Name of the Whore of Babylon on the Papal Tiara was an indication that the whole Name or Title belonged to the Pope with his Clergy and that they are this Great Whore that has made drunk the