by Faith through the power of which the entire resignation of our will into the leading and rule of the Spirit and Will of Christ is onely wrought and of which we shall treat particularly in its proper place though this small touch of it is needful here But the choice which Man made was to lean to his own understanding for his guide and to trust to the use of his Freedom which gave him to be at his own dispose as sufficient to encounter with and resist all Temptations and upon the first encounter failed and miscarried and let in Sin Death and Wrath upon himself and all his Posterity as the sad Consequence of that Fact of his To be then upon these terms as Adam was before his fall personally righteous and finding acceptance with God whilst we stand in such Obedience and Righteousness is an Effect which Christ in his first Ministry doth produce in the hearts of men making them in this respect the first sort of the four Witnesses we have before-mentioned and which though we have been considering of them in the Person of the first Adam before the Fall yet by the same Rule and Proportion the Witness is still the same whether it be communicated originally at mans Creation or else by renewal or restauration again after the fall by the same hand and Ministry which first gave it which Christ may do if he please and that he hath done is most obvious and undeniable from the experience we have had of late years within these Nations in a sort of Professors and Witnesses of Christ that do exactly go upon this bottom of Personal Righteousness wrought by the Principles of pure Nature renewed and restored within them which they assert may be held in perfection whilst we are here in the body and by which we may as by the Light within us perfectly subdue our brutish nature and keep under the body though all this be accompanied with mutability and the acceptance which they find with God is according to their works whilst they do well otherwise sin is at the door and the punishment according to the same This sort of Professors of the Name of Christ rise so high in their Testimony concerning him as to call him The glorious Sun of the soul the Searcher through of all darkness the Wonderful Power the Incomprehensible Wisdom and Immutable Holiness a thing that is invisible to every fleshly thing the one individual Spirit of Brightness that created all souls and are so dazeled with the Beams of this Glory all which he truly is that they overlook him too much according to his Humanity and see him not as he is the Son of man in whom Redemption is wrought for us and the Atonement for sin made by the price of his Blood the benefit whereof they have whether they confess it or not These are they that by the Candle of the Lord that is lighted within them the work whereof is written in their inward parts though they be not so much hearers of the Law by the Ministry of the outward Word yet do they shew themselves doors of the Law by the power of the Light that is within them doing as it were by Nature the things contained in the Law and so not having the Law outwardly considered are a Law to themselves shewing the work of it written in their hearts and by keeping the Righteousness of the Law do judge them who by the Letter transgresse the Law and do feel Peace and Comfort in their works In this manner did the Centurian fear God and work Righteousness Act. 10. before he heard those words from Peter that instructed him in the knowledge of Christ's Death and Resurrection and the Peace that comes to the Soul by his Blood unto the Remission of sins by whom all that believe are justified from all things which they could not be justified from by the Law of Nature or Works These ought not to be denied place in this rank of Christ's Witnesses whereof we have been speaking since they own and declare themselves to be fearers of God and workers of Righteousness upon these first principles of it which pure Nature teaches and plants where ever it is renewed and restored from the hand of Christ's liberality and bounty to put the Receivers of it to the tryal how far they will shew their faithfulness in the measure committed to them and in what readiness they are to put these Talents out in the way of exchange to get more and not to rest untill they obtain that state which is immutable It therefore greatly concerns such to look to their standing which is very slippery and uncertain and take heed lest they fall and to think soberly of themselves as they ought to think and not affirm as they are apt to do that their Witness contains in it all that Christ is lest otherwise when they come to be weighed in the ballance of the Sanctuary they be found at last to deny more of Christ than they confess of him Nor are they to exalt this part of the Ministry of Christ which is but the beginning against that fuller sight and knowledge of him that is still to be revealed but this one thing they should do Forget that which is behind and press forward to the mark of the prize of the high calling which is in Christ And although it be a commendable thing in them even upon their Principles to spread the knowledge of Christ in all the dark corners of the world where the Scriptures and written Word of Truth are not heard or received the effect of which labours with God's blessing may be the heightning and refining man's nature and purging it from filthy lusts and prophaness teaching them to fly from the Wrath and Vengeance which awaits evil-doers Yet this is to be done in subserviency unto not in opposition against the right knowledge and powerful Preaching of the Scriptures those Divine Oracles which God hath preserved for the great benefit and use of his Church in all times since the first writing of them By these are witnessed the righteous Principles and Actings according to the Law of pure Nature wherein Man was at first created and may so often as Christ pleases be again received in by that Light with which he enlightens every man that comes into the world whereof Christ as we have shewed is the Author and Dispenser and under this first Witness all these are to be comprehended who approve themselves doers of the Law men that fear God and work Righteousness in every Nation in such manner as God accepts though as yet they have not attained to the knowledge of Christ by the outward Ministry and hearing of the written Word But as these are such who pretend to be doers of the Law by a Light within them without dependance upon the Ministry of the written Word by a Teaching of the Word as it is spoken inwardly to the mind by Angels who are entrusted
Freedom than that wherein man was at first Created in that mutable and Primitive state of purity And what this Freedom is we shall shew that is so worthy to be obtained and fought after in exchange for the other This Freedom consists in the witnessing every respect which is wrought in the Understanding and Will of man by Regeneration and Divine birth of the one or other sort to render them of entire use and service unto that higher and superiour Will in the second Adam the Lord from Heaven that is made and given of the Father to be a quickning Spirit unto them in a twofold capacity First of their natural Head and Sovereign whom they are to serve as in relation of Subjects to their King and Law-giver and therein fulfil and answer the very end of the Law of Nature and actually become those righteous persons against whom there is no Law that can take hold of them to punish them or take the least exception to their perfect Righteousness that have given to them a constant and perpetual Will to do right to every one and love the Lord their God most intirely by influence from their Head who in this respect is the common Parent to both the sorts of Children whom he makes free Citizens and Inhabitants of the Heavenly Jerusalem his own glorified man-head which is the Mother of us all But secondly Christ the second Adam comes forth also in another Headship to the second sort of these Children which is that of Husband and Bridegroom gathering them up into a state of higher Love and Duty than that of Servants and Subjects and receiving them unto more honorable use in familiarity intimacy and a kind of equality comprehending the Love and Duty of righteous and faithful Servants but in respect of the nearness of relation and union becoming much the more excellent and transcendant The Inspiration and holy Anointing which flows from Christ in this twofold Headship of his into the hearts of these his Members hath that effect upon them as joyns them to him in unity and agreement of spirit or of judgment and will and so entirely possesses them engrosses them in the service and to the use of their Lord that it leaves them at no liberty to 〈◊〉 the use or service of any other but in subordination to his will which excludes sin and all evil esteeming it their greatest happiâ—… thus to be bound up in a way of love delight and entire obâ—…nce in the Will of their Head their second Adam and Lord frâ—… Heaven Hence they experience that they are not their own in â—…ny thing for it is not they that live but Christ liveth in them and with his Princely prevailing Influence as their Head is their infallible Guide and firm Security in all their operations giving them such an abiding and growth up in all things into him in an entire resignation and obedience to his Will as co-co-workers together in every thought word and work that they cannot miscarry nor shall ever be hurt by the second death but shall be rewarded with those pleasures that are at his right-hand and at his left in his Kingdom for evermore And although this most perfect Freedom which is obtained by this binding and conjunction in unity and agreement of spirit with Christ be esteemed by the Possessors of it of price inestimable yet it is the greatest bondage and cross that can befall a wicked heart and is that which is reserved by Christ to be their torment for ever in the end which will be given by him to his first Ministry in the hearts where he is finally rejected from whom after he is departed and withdrawn for a season as if they should never hear of him as indeed they shall not to their comfort yet they shall to their terrour and sorrow be made sensible of him by the fastning which he will make of his Darts of enlightnings into the minds of the wicked as sharp Arrows and a gnawing Worm that shall never dye when by the breath of his mouth he shall kindle a fire of Conviction and self-judging in their Conscience together with the just sence of his Divine Vengeance they can no longer flee nor escape from But on the contrary the truly regenerated souls are made willing and exceedingly pleased to draw in this yoke with their Head to see with his eyes and act by his quickning in all they do and to put on with him this lowliness meekness and purity of spirit which feeds on that which is incorruptible and is with God of great price so great as no righteous workers have his praise and blessing but these who are properly Christ's Mystical Body the Branches that abide in him and whose Fruit is permanent unto Life Eternal and this Body or Church of invisible Saints and spiritual Worshippers of the true God even whilst they are in their Wilderness and suppressed state Christ the great Overseer of their souls doth feed with Teachers afâ—â—â— his own heart and is not wanting by an outward Ministry under him â—o feed and refresh with Oyl the Lamps of all sorts that he makes use of as his Witnesses and bear his Name whether according to the knowledge his Will that is revealed in the first or in the second Covenant that so hâ— may by upholding such an Office under him edifie all that are under his Charge as he sees occasion and is agreeable to the condition the Church is in whether of restraint or freedom from the Powers of the World By those which Christ puts in to the Ministry of his Spirit under him we are to understand such ahe gives his Vnction and Mission unto as he is the Head of Nature or of Grace and from their own Experience are made able to minister the knowledge of Christ in his healing and restoring work or in his regenerating and New-creation-building before described giving their Witness according to what they themselves have received of the Spirit in the three distinct Dispensations of it before expressed in the first of which because of the mutable state of the operation thereof both in themselves as well as in their hearers they that are eminent Preachers unto others by the excellency of Gifts with which they are anointed and that from Christ may nevertheless themselves be found at last Cast-awayes But in the other two they which experience the Anointing thereof become Pillars in the House of God that never go out more and may obtain the highest Order and Rank of Ministry in the Church even that of Apostles in the same way as Paul himself did by such a Spiritual Light of Christ as he sayes 1 Cor. 9. 1. Am not I an Apostle have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord And as thus the Apostolical Order came to have being in the Church by the immediate sight of Christ in Spirit as we see in Paul's Case which comprehends in it all other the inferiour Ranks of Ministers whether Prophets
by the Law which he consents and agrees to as that which is righteous and holy and spiritual and good and a will to put it in execution as that which in the doing thereof he doth but his duty and which he is obliged to by GOD and his own voluntary Engagement and to continue therein under the danger of the Curse upon failer Here the Command is a Lamp and the Law is Light to instruct man in his Duty and the Spirit and Mind of man keeping to this Light and walking up to it and faithfully in it is in a good and perfect state by God approved and justified so that there be but a continuance in it And this Christ seems to acknowledge to him that put him the Question Luke 10. 25. What shall I do to inherit Eternal life In the Answer he gives bidding him do that which is written in the Law which sayes Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul with all thy strength and with all thy mind do this and thou shalt live Where then lies the difficulty what is it that is yet wanting The difficulty lies in man's part whereof he is not enough sensible and the want is that of a Guide and Surety to set and to keep man's spirit right in the doing of that which the Law requires in the manner God prizes and most esteems For there is a way that is right in man's eyes even in yeelding obedience to the Law of God wherein man glories and is puffed up in himself but hath no praise from God and this is from that spring and principle of activity which is seated in the freedom of Will which is natural to man in his first righteous Nature and was found in him before his Fall and is capable of Restitution since nay is actually restored through the benefit of his Death more or less in every man by that common Light and Grace which Christ doth no more withhold from any man than he doth his Rain from raining upon the Just and Unjust but in way of further bounty doth confer in large proportions where he pleaseth a distribution of his Goods and Spiritual Gifts in which he causeth the Receivers thereof to differ one from another according to the use he intends them unto By which enriching of man's nature upon this his restored natural bottom of a free active righteous spirit according to the Law whilst the primitive mutability is still continuing with him he is so far from being made a New Creature and truly regenerate as is but too generally conceived that nothing but passing under the new Creation-work translating man out of his primitive natural freedom and activity into an activity and Freedom of another kind is capable to hinder this first freedom from engendring to bondage and the righteousness accompanying it from failing and ending in the death of Hypocrisie and final Apostacy which made Christ in Joh. 8. 31. to deal so plainly with the Jews that in this wavering spirit were for the present such as passed currant for Believers and were so called by the Evangelists but Christ knew they were not of continuance and so told them ver 31. together with the Remedy which he had by him for the cure of it For they stood in need to be made free by the knowledge of the Truth or rather to be known of him that is True the Son that abides in the house for ever who is able to bring them into that state of freedom that shall make them free indeed with an impossibility ever to be imbondaged more or to serve sin as their lord and master This mutable state wherein man did at first receive God's Image by Creation and doth in the way of Restoration again partake of it by vertue of the Ministry of Christ's first anointing and comforting Presence in which he takes up his habitation in the soul as a so journer and passenger although there be given that knowledge of God's Will and Mind to man which is true and as perfect and full as the Vessel that takes it can bear yet the weakness of the Vessel is such that it is like the wave of the Sea tossed with every wind when temptation arises and is either of it self apt to mistake and misunderstand the Rule given him to walk by or to close and fall in with a false deceitful spirit transforming himself into the Image of Righteousness and imbrace him for the True one for whatever Image of God that which is a meer Creature and no more is found in the old Serpent knows how to imitate and personate the same in the very likeness wherein it shines forth in Christ's own Person and with the same to seat himself in the hearts of his followers as in the Temple of God and to shew himself as far as that will go for proof and demonstration that he is God to the imbondaging and carrying captive by this deceit all that receive not the Truth in the love of it Whereas the Image and knowledge of God and of his Will which is given by the Truth or by his coming into the Soul who is the true One doth anoint and impress the Soul with that Name of God which doth exclude by the very Nature of its evidence all possibility of falshood deceit or uncertainty as doth the Dayes-spring of Light to the natural eye which by its self-evidence assures it It is that Light wherein is no darkness at all but is able to distinguish it self as that which is separate from the darkness of every counterfeit and false representation This comes only by the Law of Faith and true Regeneration that Gift of the Holy Ghost as he is the Second and better Comforter the Spirit of Truth which the World neither doth nor can receive Christ therefore calls himself the Truth as he is the receiver and giver of this Anointing as these Rivers of Living Waters flow from him that fail not but are a well-spring unto Life Eternal as it is written Joh. 7. This spake he of the Spirit for the Holy Ghost was not yet given that is in this Ministry and by the means of Christ's Manhead because Jesus was not yet Glorified Jesus was a man and the most perfect righteous natural man which ever was the form of which is made in him Incorruptible having its first mutability fixed by being subjected and made a Servant though the elder unto a New-spring of Light and Divine Birth that was added to him as he became the engrafted Word and wherein he and the Father are One and not he but the Father doth the work Therefore he sayes in Rev. 1. 18. I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore and have the Keyes of Hell and of Death According to this pattern of man's Natural Perfection made in Christ incorruptible and brought forth in perfect subjection and subservency unto and agreement with a more excellent birth
desires not the death of a sinner having sent his only begotten Son into the World that all should live through him and none perish or die in their sins for want of a possible and sufficient Remedy even him whom God hath fore-ordained and set forth to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood for the remission of sins that are past And this is so far from making void the Law or first Covenant between God and man that it doth establish it and much clear up the Justice of God in exacting the Debt of Obedience and Allegiance due to him from Man according to the Law when so much Clemency and Forbearance hath preceded and an Act of Oblivion freely and of Grace hath been passed the benefit whereof is conditionally extended unto all Hence it is that the Office of giving and putting in execution the Law of God as it is a Ministry that works wrath is committed by the Father unto Christ as he is the Son of Man First to dispence Judgment with Mercy great patience and long-suffering and afterwards without Mercy as that fiery Indignation which is reserved for wilful and hardned sinners This Christ doth plainly intimate Luke 12. 10. where he saith Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven For what else can be the meaning of these words but that Christ would have his Disciples know that Judgment was first committed to him as he is the Son of Man made the chief Officer and Dispenser of God's Justice whether distributive or revenging the exact Rule whereof is given and contained in the Law of Nature or Covenant of Works The Transgressions against this Law are capable of remission and forgiveness through his Blood the Intercession whereof speaks better things than that of Abel and prevails for gifts even to the Rebellious so that they receive not God's grace nor take his Name in vain if they do he will not hold them guiltless nor continue any longer to extend to them the benefit of his Sacrifice Secondly Therefore Judgment was committed to him without Mercy in reference to such sins by which the doers of them blasphemed and resisted the Ministry he was intrusted with of giving the Holy Ghost or inspiring the hearts of the Regenerate with the new Name and that saving knowledge of God which is communicated according to the Law of Faith and of the new and everlasting Covenant This is the Royal Office and Dignity which Jesus as the Son of Man is exalted unto by the personal union which he hath with the Word being made a meet Minister in all respects through his Death and Resurrection to dispence God's sovereign Justice and to execute Judgment and Equity according to the Law of Nature renewed and confirmed in his own Blood Herein he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords the great and Universal Monarch that is appointed Law-giver and chief Judge in Heaven and Earth to and over all Natural Beings whether Angels or men and is the rewarder of every man according to his works with the same measure that any man metes unto another he measures out unto him again and strictly doth insist upon and require that which is just and due to be paid unto God or man by the Law and Principles of the first Covenant He therefore hath the Gifts and Abilities incident to that Communion with God committed to him to dispence being the Head of God's distributive as well as his revenging Justice and will make it appear that he desires not to reap where he hath not sown nor to gather where he hath not first strewed and dispersed abroad in his bounty and liberality none being a more chearful giver and lender of his Goods than He looking for nothing again where there is no ability to pay not happening through our own default This is the Ministry which worketh Wrath that is to say contracts a debt of Punishment and of the Curse to every one that joyns issue with God upon the terms of this Covenant and continues not in all things written in it to do them And although by this Ministry and that from Christ himself as he is the Son of man there be a life and communication of God's Image given which in it self considered is pure holy righteous spiritual and good yet it is but upon such terms that it may be again withdrawn and revoked by the Giver if he please or may be corrupted or forfeited by the Receiver and so end in death and wrath The proof of this was seen at first in the Fall of our first Parents and is since in all the Children of Perdition who after all their great and high enlightnings and clensing from all their old sins fall into a relapse that is irrecoverable so as to become trees twice dead finally to be pluckt up by the roots and burned It is Christ in the exercise of this his first Ministry that we intend when we say that he is the Lord of Nature and Fountain of all Justice upholding a powerful and lasting Witness of himself in the very Natural Conscience where he begets and sets up that knowledge which declares God Just and the Justifier of him that either is perfectly righteous in his own person with the righteousness that his Law requires or that in default thereof is righteous in another that God hath given to be made a Sacrifice for them that they thereby might be made the Righteousness of God in him such as he is willing to accept on their behalf and to reward not of Debt but of Grace In one of these two wayes it is for all men to seek to be justified to answer the end of the Law and to receive the reward of it But as to those that neither in the one nor the other of these wayes desire to approve themselves and be found righteous they are justly convinced of all and shall be judged of all as meet objects for God's revenging Justice to be shewed upon them as the Judgement that is final after which no place is left for Mercy So then in and by this Ministry that begins in Justice distributive which is founded in God's bounty and liberality by which he giveth to all their being life and motion and filleth the desire of every living thing and which endeth in avenging and punishing Justice upon mercy and bounty abused as the known natural Principles of all Law and righteous Magistratical Government God manifests himself the Fountain thereof in the Person of Christ the Mediator And in this kind of knowledge of God and obedience to his Law all mankind are and must be conversant whether they will or no and are to shew themselves either his obedient Subjects whom he countenanceth protecteth and rewardeth in their well-doing or his rebellious and disloyal Subjects over whom he will glorifie himself in his avenging Justice and dispensation
unto the death the seed of the Woman shall at last certainly and fully overcome the seed of the Serpent tread Satan and his kingdom under foot for ever and ever The principal means they shall rely upon for the bringing of this war to a good issue is the way of overcoming by the blood of the Lamb or force of Christs intercession whose blood cries for vengeance against his enemies as also by the word of their Testimony freely and boldly given forth by them in their very sufferings whilst worldly Power stands on the enemies side which shall have its effect upon friends and foes as a savour of Life to the one death to the other a sweet savour to God both ways prospering in the thing whereto he sends it and performing all his pleasure 2 Cor. 2. 15 16. Esay 55. 11. Pursuant to this counsel and decree of God declared Gen. 3. 15. he hath wonderfully and fignally preserved the seed of the Woman unto this very day He hath given them being preservation and protection in the midst of all enemies and in despite of all their rage and opposition He hath carried on his CAUSE and upheld righteousness on the side of his People whatever disguises reproaches or blemishes have been endeavoured to be put upon it by the Devil and his adherents The miraculous preservation of the Womans Seed the Scriptures distribute into three principal Branches which distinguish the whole tract of time allotted to them for their sufferings into three great Periods and seasons wherein the seed of the Woman hath received variation as to the outward form and dispensation of things though in mind principles and spirit they continue still the same in and under all these Changes The first appearance of the seed of the Woman in order to enter the list with the Seed of the Serpent we find in the line of Adam which he begat of Eve the Mother of all living Abel the first Martyr died before he had any issue or means to propagate it God supplied that defect in the line of Seth. In this new line is carried on the decreed enmity between the two seeds till the Flood came and swept away in a manner all mankind from off the face of the earth At that time the first war ended But the foundation and matter of a new war in this kind is contracted into and found even in the family of Noah The first war begun in Adams line and continued in Seths was in a way of God's just judgement upon the whole world brought to an end by the Flood The seed of the Woman was now narrowed and diminished into Noahs person and two of his sons The seed of the Serpent was contracted into a less room yet the other son This Epocha of 1656 years from the Creation to the Flood is in Scripture distinguished as one great period of time and revolution of things in the world relating to this war between the two seeds and the event of it It began in and with the Patriarchs in the person of Abel whom Cain that was of that wicked one flew It continued all along with the Patriarchs and their day on earth who lived every one of them hundreds of years And it had its period in that universal ministry of God's wrath and vengeance upon the whole world which in Scripture is called THE DAY OF THE LORD The second appearance then of the seed of the Woman and seed of the Serpent also we find in Noahs family From the matter and fuel contracted into this narrow compass does the fire of the war between the two seeds break forth a-fresh and another world as it were and state of things diverse from the forme runder the government of the Patriarchs is brought upon the Stage This new and differently stated war arises and is occasioned from the differing minds and principles found in Noah's three sons Sem Ham and Japhet The flood having destroyed all the families of the earth save Noahs onely the Government of the World came hereby to receive a considerable change because the Right of the Empire of the whole world was now by Gods Providence devolved upon the family of Noah and in particular upon himself in person as the right heir of it After him it came to Sem and his line by God's special designation though Japhet were the eldest In Noahs three sons as in type the three sorts of principles and mindes which influence this second world of mankind are described and as I may say personated to the life These three principles distinguish all persons descended of Noah's family throughout the whole world into three sorts of Inhabitants The same method does John by way of allegory hold Rev. 12. 12. calling one sort of them Inhabitants of Heaven or those that dwell and have their conversation in Heaven corresponding in their Principle and way of Life with the Jerusalem that is above Another sort he tearms Inhabitants of the Earth or those that dwell on Earth the tribes of the Earth or citizens of the earthly Jerusalem The third are those that dwell in the Sea or are found in a state of deep darkness and alienation from the Life of God casting up mire and dirt as raging waves of the troubled Sea Esay 57. 20. living in that open heathenisme and prophaness that the greatest part of the world chuse to abide in notwithstanding the offer of Liberty made to them by the ransom paid on their behalf in the blood of the Redeemer 1. The mind that shews it self in the first sort of these Inhabitants is that which was in Sem a holy spiritual mind set upon things above or in heaven at Christs right hand This when it comes to operate is that active living Faith of the new creature which works by love By this Faith or in this spiritual mind and principle of Life and operation Abel offered unto God a more excellent Sacrifice than Cain Heb. 11. 4. 2. The mind that discovers it self in the second sort of inhabitants those that dwell on Earth citizens of the earthly Jerusalem is that which was in Japhet as a middle wavering state perswadeable either to good or evil either to leave the earth and love of seen things and to ascend and dwell in the tents of Sem in order to be fixed and set on things above or else to cleave unto things seen in affection and desire and thence to descend and draw back to perdition apostatize and lodge in the heathenish principles of Cham and so partake of his curse as well as sin Those that thus decline from the wavering spirit and principles of Japhet to the prophane state of Cham are noted in Scripture to be such as having known the way of righteousness do turn aside from the holy command and so come to have their lot amongst those that are twice dead and pluck'd up by the roots whose latter end is worse than their beginning For upon such a fatal backsliding such
of Christ Jerusalem is destroyed by Titus Vespasian and there ended the second great Period and Revolution of this War that was managed between the two seeds All along this second War the seed of the Serpent was possessed of the Universal Monarchy of this World had all the countenance and assistance which that could afford The main visible Protection vouchsafed by God on the other hand to his Church and People was continued in the line of Abraham accounting from Sem downward unto God's judicial rejection of that seed of Abraham according to the flesh upon their crucifying the Lord of Glory In this second War we find the seed of the Woman bruised still in the heel and coming off with loss Yea upon the winding up of this second great Day or Period of time wherein the Prince of Life was by wicked hands put to death and the whole Nation of the visible Church of God on Earth rejected and their Worship prophaned and destroyed the Devil might seem to himself and others to have come off compleat conqueror But the War is again renewed by the Serpent and his seed against the seed of the Woman who are repeated and brought forth again by the Regeneration from amongst the very heathenish Nations of the World that were not before accounted by God as a People of his but given up as it were to the dominion of Sin and Satan This third War had its foundation laid in the Incarnation Death and Resurrection of Christ who though a Son was taught obedience by suffering and in the condition of a sufferer obtained the victory Through death he destroyed him that had the power of death that is the Devil And by tasting death for every man as became the Captain of our Salvation he was made perfect through sufferings This way of fighting and overcoming the Devil and Sin was a great mystery till then and the most unlikely of all other ever to break the Serpents head and dispossess him and his Instruments of their worldly Thrones and Powers Yet in this way of the Cross by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their Testimony do the true Witnesses of Christ manage and carry on this third War One thousand two hundred and sixty dayes that is yeares have bin alotted them for prophesying in sackcloth in a persecuted wilderness condition Then they are to rise out of their graves stand again upon their feet and prophecy with power 'T is past all dispute that the conquest must fall on the side of the Lamb and his followers at the ending of this third great season and revolution of time wherein the seed of the Woman hath still been on the suffering hand The end of their suffering season will be when the seventh Trumpet begins to sound immediately after the effect which the pouring forth of the Vials shall have upon the Beast and his kingdom This is the Rise Progress and Issue that is given unto things in the third Age of the World called Christian that was made to spring up and have its being out of the destruction of the Jewish World Rom. 11. 11. The cleer view and prospect of things in this Christian World both as to the Civil and Church-government as also the War between the two Seeds brought on again and continued was given by Christ unto the Apostle John and revealed to him by his Angel in the Book of the Revelation For there we find the period that must happen also to this third World and to the Heavens and Earth or the Civil and Church-state appertaining to it and carried on under this dispensation in order to give place to a world to come which is yet to succeed This World to come will be of a more heavenly and spiritual Constitution as to the general state and frame of things which is to be brought forth by Christ's second appearance upon the spirits and bodies of men on this side their compleat and utmost glorification The final ascending up to the Father to sit down at his right hand is after this world that is yet to come or the thousand years Reign of Christ withall his Saints on earth shall have had its course Unto the risen state of Saints when they shall begin to come forth in their victorious posture and unresistable power of Faith and Prayer doth the Prophet Hosea seem to refer chap. 6. vers 2 3. After two dayes sayes he or great seasons of Affliction and Suffering already described he will revive us by the WORD 's being made Flesh and the day-spring from on high therein visiting us This Hab. 3. 2. is called a reviving the work or preserving it alive in the midst of the years of Wrath and Oppression from the Serpent and his seed that was yet to be under-gone for the space of 1666 years after Christ's birth as will appear in its proper place In the third day sayes Hosea that is at the end of it when the Witnesses are to arise we shall live in his sight By following on to know the Lord we shall perceive that his going forth in this his third great revolution of time hath been as the morning shining more and more unto a perfect day and that his coming to us according as hath been by him purposed in his first and in his second Appearance will be as the former and latter rain unto the Earth The former rain of Christ's Spirit in the season of his first Appearance began at the day of Pentecost in visible gifts and distributions of the holy Ghost dividing to every man severally as himself pleased By this means he raised up a Ministry that formed and laid the Foundation of the Primitive Church That Church was upheld in its original purity more or less as long as they kept the Word of God's Patience and withstood the opposition made against it after a right manner by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their Testimony in the giving whereof they loved not their lives unto death This appeared all along those hard and cruel Persecutions they under-went until such time almost as Constantine came to the Empire But to avoid Persecution Christians then began to mingle Interest with worldly Powers and to please Governours took their rest in the outward Court some out-side form of godliness so as that which we call Christian Religion became the Religion of the Empire or of the body of the Nation unto which it was received as commanded and compelled by the Laws of the State and power of the Sword This practice commenced and bears date about four hundred years after Christ from which time little of the former rain hath fallen upon such visible or state Christianity in their Publick and National Meeting-places of Worship That rain became then hidden Manna the peculiar food and refreshing of the Woman and her seed in the Wilderness where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time From about the time that Christian
Power and Authority The outward and inward Court The Floud issuing out of the Dragon's mouth The distinguished Inhabitants of the Heavens of the Earth and of the Sea The 144000 sealed Virgins The Palm-bearers The Remnant of the Womans Seed that keep the Commands of God and have the Testimony of Jesus The seven-headed ten horn'd Beast The Beast's Image The two horn'd Beast The false Prophet The Whore Mystical Babylon The great City that rules over the Kings of the Earth The Number of the Beast's Name The two Witnesses their hidden or obscure Prophesying in Sack-cloth their glorious Appearing and Prophesying in Power and in a Wonder-working Ministry like to that of Moses and Eliah The Kingdom of the Beast and his ascent out of the bottomless pit The slaying of the Witnesses at the finishing of their Testimony or perioding of their Sack-cloth-Prophesying and their lying Dead in the streets of the great City spiritually called Sodom and Egypt The Witnesses rising and ascending up into Heaven The coming of the Wrath of the Lamb The sight of Heaven opened with the Temple and Ark therein contained The Harvest and Vintage The marriage of the Lamb The coming down of the new Jerusalem out of Heaven to be as a Tabernacle of God amongst men on Earth all the Kingdoms of this World becoming the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ The Charge given John by him that was dead and yet liveth for evermore the Amen or everlasting Truth of God Rev. 1. 18 19. was to write First The things which he had seen in the description of the fulness and excellency of Christ's Person exhibited to him vers 12 17. Secondly The things which are or the state of the Church in his time as it had for its chief places of abode those principal Cities in Asia by name expressed chap. 2 d. 3 d. together with the Representation in them as in Type and Figure of the state of the Universal Apostolick Christian Church which was to continue under the seven distinctions of time contained under the seven Seals under the last whereof six of the Trumpets were as 't were included There was that also found in those seven Asiatick Churches that did typically represent the decrease and sinking down of a great Party in the visible Christian Church into the Apostasie foretold in this Book of the Revelation until the very time of the rising of the Witnesses Thirdly and lastly John was Commanded to write the things which shall be hereafter or which were to succeed that present state in which the then seven Churches were at that time respecting as well the Corruption and Apostasie coming upon the face of the Primitive Church as the continuance of it with countenance and support from worldly Powers till the sounding of the seventh Trumpet These things that shall be hereafter when time shall be no longer or when the Mystery of God shall be finished and all persons and things shall appear plainly and manifestly as they are amount in general to the Constitution and Concerns of that glorious state of the Church which is to be from thenceforth for evermore To proceed then to the Explicating of many of the chief Allegorical Expressions in this Book of Revelations 1. By the seven Churches in Asia let us understand as in type the state of the Christian Church characterized and described as Brightman intimates under the distinct periods of time held forth by the things done during the seven Seals which reach to the sounding of the seventh Trumpet 2. By the Angels of the seven Churches are to be understood not only or principally the Officers or Persons ministring but rather the Light of the Gospel in its distinct measures and degrees administred according to the nature of the times and seasons which the things done under the first six Seals did occasion For upon the rejecting of that there was caused a gradual and successive removing of each Candlestick out of its place and the Church sinks down at length into an universal Defection and Apostacy as to the visible part of it This renders it in its concluding and final state so naucious and loathsome to God that he resolves to spue them out of his mouth and reject them for ever To confirm this we find each Church to consist of two very different sorts of Members one that are spiritual prepared with spiritual senses or eares to hear what the Spirit sayes to the Churches the other though they have the name and credit of Church-members yea and in process of time the greatest visible Power and Sway in it saying they are Jews or right Heirs of Promise yet are they not so but do lie They are indeed of the Synagogue of Satan They came out from the spiritual and better part of the Church as no longer able to joyn and go along or keep pace with them in their heavenly Life and Conversation Being sensual and having not the Spirit they separate from the true spiritual worshipper seeking their upholding and maintenance in this or that Form and Way from the Powers of the World And having once got worldly Power and outward strength and force on their side they resolved to persecute and make War upon the better and more spiritual part of the Church with earthly Weapons and by compulsion of the Civil Sword 3. The Throne in Heaven described in the fourth Chapter is the Seat which God hath made for himself in the Creature-being of Christ the Mediator as his own Sanctuary from whence to issue forth all his Authority and Power decreed to be by him exercised whether in Heaven or on Earth in the capacity of Head and universal King over all the works of God's hands He that sits on this Throne is the same that chap. 19. is cloathed with a Vesture dipt in blood and whose Name is called the WORD of God He is said chap. 5. vers 6. to have seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the Earth and this by his being made flesh and by his Death and Resurrection in which he shewed himself the true Sanctuary which God pitch'd and not man This had been in type from the beginning a most glorious high Throne Jer. 17. 12. designed from all Eternity to be the Throne and the place of the soals of his feet whose Name is the WORD of God in order to dwell in the midst of the Children of Israel for ever and bear unto their sight and enjoyment the clear and compleat vision of the invisible God 4. The Book chap. 5. written within and on the backside sealed with seven Seals as it is part of the Vision given to John is a description of the inward and hidden meaning of the matter of this Prophecy whether as to that which more especially concerns the Affairs of the Church or that which more generally relates to the Affairs of the World and the Empire thereof The seven Seals with which it