their deliverance David danced in one not so costly as this for it seemes to rise as high as Aarons Ephod But Gideons good intention for God proved superstition in the people who went a whoring after it as soone as he was dead and what he made for God that they speedily dedicated to Baal Ready they were to change their Government and to take any man for God that did them good though he were but the instrument and God to shew how the best men may fall gives them over in some things to shew they are but men Thus was it with the Bishops of the Church who by the keyes of the Lambe gained power with his people and might command eares and eare-rings hearts and hands to set up any monument to God and time turned all humane inventions into grosse Idolatrie and the very keyes of Bishops prevailed with Princes to goe higher then their eares even to the top of their heads and take off their crownes and cast them into the laps of Bishops which have so handled their keyes that they are become hornes held as upon the head of the Lambe but made to fight against him and having gotten such interest in the Kings of the earth and their Crownes worke them as hornes with theirs to wage warre with the Lambe and he is blinde that sees it not in that part of the Street of the great Citie that is in our Kingdome Brute a Romane for killing of his Father was banished into this Land 1108 yeares before Christ the first King we reade of in our Nation and some 58 yeares before Christ Julius Caesar being twice beaten out of the feild and having his sword taken from him by a valiant Duke and Labianus a Romane Tribune slaine by it yet civill warres gave Caesar the Conquest in the end and when he lost his Crownes in all his Monarchie he had the same fortune with us and Vortiger a murtherer of his lawfull Prince to hold that Crowne craves ayde of the Saxons and Hengist for his good service marries his Daughter and brings in the Saxons so fast that as tumbling stones they came upon us and at the last over-bare us and then in this division comes in the Monke and finds hornes fitted for him and so the ten and two in all Kingdomes agree to warre with the Lambe and these miserable slaves to Satan hold up his Soveraigntie against Christ and not like Gideon grant Christ his due but as the people will have it take all to themselves We see in our dayes jurisdiction without Empire to doe well in the Low-Countreys and the States rule and their Generall the Prince of Orange warres for them and they prosper and may be some thinke they should doe better if the Prince of Orange were their Emperour and the States changed to be his servants There is Empire with Jurisdiction this is two-fold merum and mixtum Imperium Meere Empire is absolute Monarchie and that is divine or humane Divine when God alone rules the Lord shall rule over you Judg. 8.23 yet at this time was there an Aristocratie assisting this Thearchie for Elders left by Moses Numb 11.17 and that out-lived Joshua Judg 2.7 kept the people to God and might have done without kings in all ages for we are mistaken to tye God to them as by a Law of nature to rule the world The Apostle saies not be subject to kings but to the higher powers Rom. 13.1 and to confirm us in them all saies Th re is no power but of God and therefore to resist one power with another is as well damnation as to withstand one alone and therfore the forms of Government must be obeyed as well as the men In the Thearchie of God the Elders as well as the Judges were to be obeyed and may be with the disobedience of God the people disobeyed their Elders and for both were punished Judges successively one by one are raised and for the life of their judge they are said to obey and being dead the people presently sin again and I may think if they had been constant the people would have been the worse for if God had not humbled them by oppression and so for a time made them sensible of their sorrow they would as they were in the wildernesse have kicked at their Commanders Deut. 32.15 And it appears so at the last as the book of the Judges ends their story for Thearchie that when they had no kings that is no Judges every man did that which was right in his own eyes This is arbitrary Government when no form is observed and as his Majestie accuseth the Parliament thereof I dare say if we forsake that Government our government will be as the King saith an arbitrary Government for meer Monarchie is no other The two Horns have long strugled for it and the Pope hath gotten it over all Bishops and what is his Government but an arbitrarie rule to rule all men as if all men should rule themselves and because Cesar kept Antichrist from this meer Empire to the thraldome of all the world so Antichrist having gotten it from Cesar cannot endure one king to reign in Italie Dan. 7.24 till he have subdued them all I told you of Martian a good Emperor in the East and the story of him is that the Gothes Vandales Hunnes and Herules gained from him the West which in the dayes of Theodosius belonged to Constantinople and from them it was gained again by the valour of Belisarius Mundus and Narses and lost again to the Lombards and by Antichrist assisted by the French they are expelled and the French too and the two Horns evidently the absolute Lord of Rome and hath used his horns so well that he hath by one means or another tamed all the ten horns and either by power or policie makes them serve him It s true hatred is spoken of Revel 17.16 and in point of Supremacie Princes have since Luther looked to this two horned Beast but their hatred as yet is not hot enough to eat the flesh of the Whore that Antichrist labours to cherish in all Countreys I said this Whore ends her street with us for Brute a Romane and Cesar Romes perpetuus Dictator have given us more then Ireland and Scotland our denomination to be in the Romane jurisdiction and I see Historians this way carrie it no further then us which makes me suspect this our present time to agree with Revel 11.7 The street that from Jerusalem stretcheth to us receives our dead bodies that is the Church and kingdom which politically are taken for the two witnesses for blessed be God in spite of all that Antichrist but Church and Kingdom do witnesse against him and he must do to us as he hath done in other parts of this street over-seas bring us into straits with them and the time is when they and we shall be about to finish our testimonie and then riseth the last warre to lay us as lowe as the graves mouth but not to be able to bury us and the reason is the same that we have 2. King 13.21 The invasion of the Moabites make the Israelites cast by the dead body and fall to their Armes It is thought our Bishops the worst of them intended again to bury us in the grave of Poperie and would have done it solemnly in an honourable mixture of their sweet spices and ointments and if Scotland had liked well of their preparation we had gone down together into the grave without redemption But Scotland tasted the Myrrhe and Aloes to be too bitter to be born by them and there is no Nation up to hinder the buriall and Ireland and England follow and over-seas the watres preceded and God hath so tempered them that if the Papists were at peace amongst themselves they would put hard but they would heave us into their grave again and make their own peace by our buriall They are glad they have such an opportunitie to kill us but their joy will not be long to hurt us with their horns That the horns of Antichrist are in it is more then manifest and our Bishops so blinded that they see it not and if his Majestie cannot through the thick mist see it God of his goodnesse expell the clouds that hinder it Admiration it is to see Papists flock to the Church take the oath of Supremacie by some dispensation from the Pope for certain it is he loves meer Monarchie and may perswade Kings so to do for if his Majestie would come to mixt Monarchie and consider that his Parliament by the form of Government in this Kingdom must joyn with him he would not forsake it or suffer Papists to abuse his Crowns to be as horns to goare his own body to prevent an arbitrarie Government where it cannot be to set up one where it ought not to be I say it is impossible to make the Parliament an Arbitrarie Government for all the world cannot invent a better means against it and his Majestie saies the power of it is sufficient to prevent tyrannie and therefore it cannot set it up But Anarchie and absolute Monarchie that is not Thearchie is and ever will be an arbitrary form of Government the good God of heaven preserve us from both for we are in the way to fall into them FINIS
begin una hora ver 12. It is a rule in the Word that wrath should be feared when God does first inflict it as in the captivitie of the City and the Sanctuary 2. King 25.3.8 There be seven yeers difference and the judgement begins with the first to account the seventie yeers captivitie But in Mercies it is clean contrary the return of the people was a great blessing Ezr. 1.1 but the building of the Sanctuary a greater Ezr. 6.14 and so the sure account of 70. weeks for the wellfare of the Jews must begin with the second yeer of Darius Nothus Ezr. 4.24 Happy are the Nations that take notice of Christ when he is angry lest it kindle into wrath and they perish Psal 2. 12. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him Mercie is at hand to this Nation that with zeal seek to set up Gods Sanctuary amongst us and the time will be shortly when we shall see it in the expulsion of those clouds that have fallen upon us since Reformation began amongst us but by reason of the Samaritanes that dwell amongst us could not to this day be accomplished You have heard that judgement should be speedily looked unto and Antichrist was not of 700. yeers thought of but began as Magnum mundo malum when these ten Kings fell from one Cesar They are the Apostles words 2. Thes 2.3 a falling away first that is of duty to Cesar and faith to the Lord Jesus Christ The Crowns depart from the heads of the Cesars Revel 12.3 to the horns of these Kings Rev. 13.1 This Apostasie of kingdoms is the evidence we must have for the other being a mysterie and not so manifest at the first There are noted three divisions of the Romane Monarchie the first by Constantine the second by Theodosius the third by Charles the great We must begin at the second for no sooner had Honorius and Arcadius the Empire shared between them but the West part was quickly distracted and dilacerated as we have said and Augustus Cesar breathed out the ghost in Augustulus when Odoacer made him abdicate and devest himself of all Imperiall dignitie The miserie began by Alaricus Ann. 395. was followed by Radagaisus and the miseries of warre like a Northerne storme Revel 7. fell upon the people as grasse and the Princes of the Provinces as the taller Cedars Zech. 11.2 and then the very mountain of the Monarchie was moved Rev. 8.8 and cloven asunder into ten kingdoms and the Westerne starre fals out of the orbe thereof Revel 8.10 so that between the first assault by Alaricus and this of Odoacer Ann. 475. we may state the division to be made perfect in the number of ten Kings Anno 456. Martian in the East was a good King in those miserable times and had peace and died before he had fully reigned seven yeers leaving behind him great grief in the hearts of the people because they lost so good a man He called the fourth generall Councell wherein Leo and his Legates stormed at the honour done to the Patriarke of Constantinople fearing some might advance him above the Pope whose perking up in pride prepared for Antichrist who prevailed least in the East till the second Nicene Councell which was the first that ever decreed the worship of Images The Greek Emperours still retaining the name as Leo Isaurus Constantinus Cabalinus Nicephorus Stauratius Leo Aâ—menus Michael Baldus Theophilus opposed when Gregory the second and third Paul the first Stephen the fourth Adrian the first and second Leo the third Nicholas the first c. upheld them 338. Bishops in a Councell at Constantinople Ann. 754 solemnly condemned them and 787 their veneration was made a Law which to that day was a private opinion and as Irene and after her Basilius gave Images their first honour so God dishonoured their succession with the Saracens and Turks and the next Generall Councels as the Papists call them were all to make warre with the judgements of God for the sinnes of the Church and the children of God that repented but none at all to pull down Idolatrie for the ten Councels called by the Popes of Rome are not one of them like the first but are found to handle these matters fitter for a Councell of Warre then Consistory of Priests First they consult of an holy Warre with the Saracens and Turks and so pilgrimes go out of the West into the East to purchase graves to themselves in the Holy Land by fighting with God in his two woes Revel 9. and the very sinne that caused them is expressed v. 20. of which they repented not and prospered accordingly Secondly they are recalled again from the East into the West to fight with the Waldenses and Emperours that stood in the Popes light and lastly the Kings and Princes of Germanie that have forsaken the Church of Rome how are they persecuted as Lutherans and so you have all the Generall Councels held by the Church of Rome and I wonder they do not blush at their words for the first condemne them of horrible pride and they have denied two of them in some Canons of Orders as if they had erred in a point of Faith when they used their lawfull libertie in such things as were most indifferent The fifth Generall Councell condemned Vigilius for a cursed Nestorian The sixth judged Honorius for an Hereticall Monothlite The seventh and eighth manifest them to be guilty of Idolatrie never decreed before by any Councels but condemned by all and the ten last the worst of all are called by Popes against regall and Imperiall authoritie and condemne truth for heresie Saints for Hereticks and prove the Pope the greatest Tyrant in the world If from Martian we cast our eyes upon the 9. Kings I know not one of them to be good and for our Nation before Vortimer I can say much both for Kings and Bishops We had the first Christian King and Emperor in the world An. 181. Lucius sent to Eleutherius for a Bishop Rome being then famous and his kingdom preserved pure religion to the daies of Diocletian in that 10th persecution we were tried for it Our nation is thought to receive the Gospel from the ministerie of Joseph of Aramathea which was purely maintained above 250. yeares It was the onely Sanctuary of the Saints and for them being persecuted to flee unto In the tenth Persecution Diaclesian found us out as being the most generall cruell fatall and finall of all the rest as we may feare this to be in which wee are and may be the last by Antichrist as that was by the Pagans This proved our faith and I finde it fayled not till Austen the Monke came from Rome And I pray you note it as being noted in the booke of God I would faine know seeing all the Seven Seales have their Indexes as foure Beasts for the foure first and earthquake for the sixt and Seven Trumpets for the last What is meant by an Altar
for the fifth Rev. 6.9 certainely Martyrdome and of all the ten Persecutions that is called Aera Martyrum the age of the Martyrs as being the greatest an most remarkeable and ended in our Nation because he that put an end to it under God was the Great Constantine borne in our Nation and for the Church to deliver it After him we fell into a division and the two Kings I mentioned began our misery and of Britons wee became Saxons and fell into an Heptarchie and from Rome comes Austen and lands in Kent the first part of our seven Kingdoms and there begins as great a confusion in the Church as there was in the State He found many godly men of the Clergie which he insulted over and being forsaken by them as used to no Romane pride or Popish orders but following such as came from the East which Rome abhorred they would none of his reformation and therefore like a limbe of Antichrist he begins their persecution and by such Romane hornes made warre with the Lambe which lesse or more hath continued to this day for as the ten hornes that have usurped the Crownes from the Caesars so the two hornes that the Bishops usurpe from Christ are used against him and have for 900 yeares as a booke taken out of the Records of the Tower hath shewed unto us plainly proving the keyes of the Church by the Bishops to have beene turned into hornes to the hurt of it for it is they that challenge the Lambes hornes that is the power of the keyes Rev. 13.11 to themselves and by the Lambes owne hornes fight against him and cause the ten hornes so to doe who are rather seduced by them then cruell to Christians being Christiās themselves for it were unnaturall for the members of the bodie to doe so except some Devill or Divine inspired with his spirit should doe it and my conjecture is not in vaine by the words of a Pope himselfe which are these Rex superbiae prope est quod dici nefas est Sacerdotum est praeparatus exercitus Greg. l. 4. Ep. 38. A King of pride is not the Pope alone but a prepared Army of Priests and therefore may in our Bishops extend to us and yet it is not they as Bishops but as they use their keyes for hornes and cause Kings to use their Crownes so to whom in the Lambe himselfe I shall now yeeld a better example in their Warres Piè regnare rectè judicare justè pugnare to reigne religiously to judge rightly and righteously to make warre are proclaimed in Heaven by a divine Herald when the Captaine of our Salvation goes out to warre He sits upon a white horse when he gives Crownes to the obedient Rev. 6.2 and casts them downe in the disobedient Rev. 19.18 The Priests have Crownes and Thrones Rev. 4.4 grant them to be the Bishops and as we have said of their two hornes to be their honours from the Lambe yet will not the Lambe spare them in the great day of his wrath Rev. 6 16 17. Let Princes and Prelates thinke of their powers and prerogatives as vaine things with an angry Lambe but why say I angry when he calls to a nuptiall Supper Rev. 19.7.9 O but it is the Supper of the great God ver 17. and the fowles of Heaven must be filled with it that is the Devills and hell for thither goe alive the Beast and the false Prophet ver 20. and hell-fire devoureth them and because we meet them so coupled in their finall fatall ruine let us see their combination in all their Warres and the expression is thus The Beast and his Image the Beast and the false Prophet The Beasts Prophets are the Bishops and he is deceived with their hornes that is with the keyes and by them they mould Kings into what Image they please and therefore good Reader toties quoties as often as thou meets them thus matched make this their mystery The Beast and his Image by Beast understand the false Prophet or the Bishop with two hornes and by his Image all Kings and Kingdomes moulded by him and then with ease thou wilt understand that when Beast and false Prophet come together the Beast must be Kings and the false Prophets the Bishops that deceive them which is no more dishonour to good Bishops then the false Prophets of Baal were to the Prophets of the Lord. Where are thy Prophets Jer. 37.19 that is thy deceivers O Zedekiah have not I told thee the truth that the Caldeans would come againe and though Pharaoh King of Egypt had wounded them all yet should they rise up in their Tents and borne the Citie ver 10. Where are the men of thy peace Jer. 38.22 Thy Prophets that promised thee that the King of Babylon should not returne have deceived by their counsell and prevailed and fastned thee in the myre c. Pedes tui defixi funt in luto retro conversi from my counsell thou art gone and invincibly tyed by flatterers in the mudde of thy own mischiefe Be wise therefore yee Kings how you fight for Antichrist by the Lambes owne hornes or your owne let not the Bishops be your Counsellours as Austen was when he came from Rome but let such as come from the Lord Jesus Christ with the right use of the keyes command your Consciences not your Crownes to use them for the Lambe and by his example to make warre and give me leave first to begin with Piè regnare to rule religiously that is from God as the cause for God as the end and by men as the meanes And because his Majestie saies the personall right is in him as of any other thing he enjoyes I will shew him plainly by Gods Word his errour as the Parliament hath done by the Laws confessing my self a Royalist for his crown to be from God and a friend of the kingdome to hold their own by Law which they have from God as well as his Majestie means to maintain what God hath given him Come we to the issue between David and all Israel for the kingdome and his wife They restore her without conditions as being absolutely Davids and injuriously both taken from him by Saul and kept from him by Israel and therefore well might David say See not my face except my right in her be restored to me Wife children goods belong to a King by commutative justice and in them all he hath a personall right and is injured in the detaining of them from him by any force or fraud By this right he may not claime his kingdome and say to his people the land is mine in commutative justice for so it is not his but theirs yet in distributive justice it is his not theirs for God hath distributed to him the honour of the kingdome but not the goods Every man by Law is the owner of what is his and all being put together the kingdome may keep from the King whatsoever it hath if