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-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
Sects make up the whole body of the man of sin but they most that fell from Faith or manners in those ten Nations over whom the Representatives of the Primitive Church once presided because these Nations were chiefly Antichristian that sometimes held forth Primitive found Doctrine and Manners and have since revolted from one or both which appears in Thes 2.3 where the Apostle immediately before he describes the man of sin and foretells his coming infers a necessity of falling away first before he could come which evidently implyes That the body of Antichrist was to be an Apostate body made up at first for the most and chiefest part of Revolted Church-Members Many Expositors upon the place call that falling away That grand and general Revolt of the Gospel-Church from Faith and Obedience But what that falling away was and how and when the Church fell and fled into the Wilderness we shall further shew in part at present but more fully afterwards The certainty and duration of that defection which could not be total in the true Church fully appears in two several Texts of one and the same Chapter Rev. 12.6 14. And the Woman fled into the Wilderness vers 6. And to the Woman were given two Wings of a great Eagle that she might flee into the Wilderness c. vers 14. Into the Wilderness that is into the secret subterfuges of obscure Latency And the time of Her continuing there is exprest in both Texts Two Texts in one and the same Chapter are the sacred twofold Testimony of the God of Truth shewing the certainty and duration of her defection But she could not in such sort flee until she fell from Heaven wherein she stood before she fled vers 1. Heaven was her primitive station Her conversation contrary to that aforesaid triplicit Iniquity was in Heaven till near about 407. I shall not here stand to shew how she stood in and fell from Heaven in a twofold respect For her standing was both Temporal and Spiritual Her Temporal standing for the Text refers not without the other to that was from about 292 to the time aforesaid as the sequel will clearly shew Her Spiritual standing in Heaven her more Heavenly Conversation was all the time of Her primitive station that is She as she ever should held forth so long contrary to Sensuality Covetousness and Pride Sobriety Equity and Veracity Secondly Sound Doctrine Thirdly Right Church Discipline What Sobriety Equity and Veracity because little looked into and perhaps less discerned are we shall shew afterwards This threefold true Gospel Obedience opposite to Sensuality Avarice and spiritual Pride with right Discipline and sound Doctrine are the true Churches Cognizance the certain marks of the true Church which whilst in Heaven clothed more spiritually clothed with the Sun she held forth But about the year 407 her Members and their Successors fell some à tanto some à toto They that fell only in part fled into the Wilderness and were persecuted because they fell and fell but in part by those that fell wholly to the Apostacy of Antichrist And we find a third sort more free from that defection and less forward to fly whom the Text calls a Remnant And the Dragon saith the text was wroth with the Woman and went and made War with the Remnant of her Seed which kept the Commandments of God and have the Testimony of Jesus Rev. 12.17 Where they are not taxed either with falling away or flying but are witnessed to have kept the Commandments of God and the Testimony of Jesus And that even then after the revolting Church was fled into the Wilderness from the face of the Serpent to wit Of the second Dragon These Champions of Christian courage Sons of Fortitude that kept the Commands of God when the rest of the Primitive Church were some in part some wholly faln might seem for they were but few like Caleb and Joshua Meses and Aaron when all Israel besides was faln away in part or in whole from Faith in the Promises and Obedience conform to God's Commands Numb 14.10 Nor is it like that those Professors that stood best were free from falling in part or held out long against the force of the second Dragon but followed the flying Church into the Wilderness also For when the prototype Church Jacobs Family fled into the Wilderness and so into Egypt her place there prepared of God there was not one that we find that staid behind or fled not from the Famine Nor may we imagine That they that fell wholly to the Apostacy of Antichrist fell wholly from sound Doctrine for they fell little from that at first but from the fruits of it Obedience conform to Faith For the Devils believe and tremble but fell wholly from all Obedience and therefore though they fell not at all that we find from the Doctrine of Faith they fell totally So the Children of the total Apostacy in the beginning of the grand defection were too forward to do the works of their father the Devil and though they like him sell little at first from the Doctrine of Faith fell wholly from Obedience to oppose the Truth and persecute the Witnesses of it Therefore their Apostacy though they fell little or had not faln at all from the Doctrine of Faith was total as the figless fig-tree though perhaps the fullest of leaves was wholly fruitless For Waters oft ebb and stow with full currents in the same channels so sound Doctrine is the Channel in which some men may and do run the wayes of God's Commands And sound Doctrine is also the same Channel wherein many men as the Pharisees who said but did not did may and do run in full currents quite contrary Courses to impugne the practise of Gospel Truth and persecute the Witnesses of it This is the greatest Apostacy guilded with Hypocrisie For If the light of the eye saith our Saviour be darkness how great is that darkness So If sound Doctrine it self be by uncharitablness perverted to misapplications or made to oppose the Truth and persecute the Assertors of it that 's the greatest Apostacy both from Faith and Charity Therefore they that fell á toto totally fell from Faith of veracity or from seeking after sincere obedience to impugne it and persecute the doers of it by a constant current of opposition though many of them fell little at first from the Doctrine of Faith For gross Heresies or Doctrine greatly corrupt are more peculiar to sensual Antichrist such as the Arrians were and Mahumetans are than to Antichrist Secular and Spiritual that fell less from the Doctrine of Faith and perhaps more from manners to manners not so sensual but more injust and merciless which the sequel will clearly shew But at present we shall begin to compare both both the holy City and City of Apostacy together that thereby both may plainly appear And first They that fell least and they that when they fell most fell but in part
that dwelt upon the Earth saith the Text and with them the Primitive Sects and dissenters blinded by this Architectors words and works words of deceit workes of false miracles came or rather as it were fled as the afflicted pursued Primitive Church also did into this tenfold City of deceit The Church fled into it out of necessity and constraint but the rest flowed to it so glorious were its buildings and its builders strong delusions instead of Zion and as to the true Catholick Church In this Decapolity of deceit especially in the time of the building of it did they that dwelt upon the Earth and the Dragons floods concenter in a deceitful unity and they and all Sects as the different Species in the Ark rested in her somewhat peaceable for a short space And thus much of the Son of perdition his coming with all deceivableness of unrighteousness when he first laid his foundation of deceit pulled down Primitive Church-Priviledges and built his Decharcy of the Apostacy from about 407 to about 620. We shall now shew his further proceedings after 620. The False Prophet's further Progress in supporting but with a much more remiss hand his new built City of Apostacy HE his work by him thus finished about the year 620 did not lay aside but less regarded his first but fitter instruments of deceit whereby he built that City Therefore it fell to many decayes for want of his wonted care and soon became as it were equally divided betwixt Christians and Mahumetans For The false Prophet remitting his usual stricter reignes of government began to indulge himself more then before to sensual delights would oft wallow in the filthy styes of Spiritual Sodom oft accompany himself with the beast in secular covetousness oft with the Dragon in voluptuous pleasures Nor did he so cast aside Secular and Spiritual wickedness but superadded sensual filthiness to both In a word he stearing a most irregular course ran the hazard to destroy his new erected Decaprincipality continuing and proceeding still worse till about the year 1210. Nor did he then reclaim himself but rather disclaimed to be some shelter as formerly to the Gospel Church nor did he so much defend her as before from the second Dragons fury but loosed the till then for about 1000 years bound first Dragon upon her That is he acted the Dragons part himself by persecuting her members after the manner of Dioclesian For he and by his procurement the King of France Commissioned Simon Earl of Montford to perpetrate most horrid Massacres upon her Then also that loosed Dragon or not long after sent abroad his bloody Inquisition breathing forth slaughter both to Papists and Protestants that had but so much as the least appearance of honesty or religion Howbeit the thus afflicted Church found some small shelter from Religious Kings Nobles and Emperours And the Gibelin Faction afforded her some succour But she continued thus troden under the loosed Dragons feet and driven by fierce storms and tempests till about the year 1417. Next and not without great need came in the Locusts a relief to the Church ready to perish by the rage of the loosed Dragon Apocal. 9.1 to the 12 ver But here may Elephants swim or rather these Texts seem fathomless Here difficulties with double files stand prepared to stop my progress Therefore I must of necessity first unty many Gordian knots seeming indissoluble Because these Locusts seem to be Reformists most deceitfully formal some refuge to the Church and so most difficult to be discerned though most contrary to them from true Saints men somewhat reformed in Doctrine nothing in manners but affecting manners more confining upon the deceiveableness of Spiritual wickedness then the usual practices perhaps of former Hypocrites But we shall first see what sacred Writt sayes of them And Smoak saith the Text ascended out of the bottomless pit and out of the Smoak came Locusts This shews them to be the Off-spring of those that hold forth only formal smoaky pretences of seeming-Religious deceits Secondly And smoak ascended out of the bottomless pit c. This also shews them to be the products of the bottomless pit whose duties devotions knowledge faith formal reformations and fruitless obedience are bottomless or have no bottom That is are without fidelity or veracity For veracity is the reality of truth the bottom of all gifts and graces without which they are inconform to Gospel rule and but formal smoaky deceits Therefore Reformation all reformation in Doctrine and not in Manners in Profession and not in Practice in Practice but not conform to Gospel Rule is bottomless reformation no reformation indeed but real deceits These Locusts seem the rather because said to ascend out of the bottomless pit to be the successors of the Gibelin Faction which and whose like Predecessors s ubservient to the secular horn of the Bicorn beast had regulated his temporal principality and spiritual superintendency with more seeming sober moderation and discretion of deceit during the time of his Spiritual horns extravagant and ambitious exorbitances for about 800 years In these Locusts at least near their latter end Anti-christ seems to end as he began at first with all or as it were double deceivableness For they had faces like the faces of men seeming sound doctrine and profession but neither so in deed but deceits ver 7. Secondly They had hair as the hair of Women a right ordered and right ordering discipline in appearance but that was nothing so but deceit ver 8. Thirdly They had Crowns like Gold like Crowns of righteousness and true obedience but they were not such but deceits ver 7. For they had O truculent cruelties of detracting covetousness teeth of Lions ver 8. They strictly in a blind profession profest Christ and pursued Covetousness eagerly Fourthly their shapes were like horses prepared to battel ver 7. And yet their shapes were partly like men partly like women and partly like unto Lions as we shewed before Therefore The Aggregate of their politick body was Chimaera multiformis a manifold monster of mysterious deceit But their shapes their principal shapes were like horses prepared to battel They were all more or less bent as in a military order against those that had not the seal of God in their foreheads All rallyed as in several Regiments in sundry factions against them But they were commanded not to hurt the Grass nor any green thing nor any Tree ver 4. That is not the servants of God that had his seal in their foreheads whose doctrine they partly espoused whose persons and professions though they followed not their manners they defended For That was as it were a command from God not to hurt but defend them because they much alike outwardly embrac'd the same common faith and profession Therefore They by an implicit command of a much like common profession were commanded not to hurt these but only those men that had not the seal of God in their
foreheads Not these Not the servants of God not the true Church That is Her and their hurt which they should receive from those Locusts should be over-ballanced by greater benefits and defences But they were commanded to torment those that had not the seal of God for five moneths ver 5. That is to torment those Saint-persecuting Papists that had tormented the servants of God The patern in the prototype the Locusts which God sent upon the Land of Aegypt plainly shews the manner of their coming and the end of their message which was to torment those persecutors and somewhat to defend persecuted Saints From hence riseth a perplex knot of deceit to those Locusts and others They think that because they torment and oppose Papists or seek perhaps to very little purpose by their teachings and writings to evert or refel their tenents therefore they are Saints their works sincere doctrine sound They have no affinity they think with the son of perdition his deeds of darkness lie far from their doors Whereas this was the grand deceit of their predecessors the Papists when they first erected the Apostacy They because they refelled converted and partly compelled the Arrians and other Sects to the unity of the deceit of that City gave their own deceitful slandering shallow doctrine and obedience the titles of true antient Catholick and Apostolick and reputed them selves and were undoubtedly reputed the true Church Herein those Papists were and these Locusts are much deceived For the Orthodox Papists of the rising Apostacy no less sound in doctrine then moderne Locusts were against the Arrians and other gross Hereticks and many of them might not be sensual professors yet Salvian saith That because of their evil lives even the Arrians were more tolerable And Saint Jerom and sacred writ it self applyes to them all those attributes in the 17 and 18 Chapters that are chiefly due to the son of perdition not because their doctrine was false but their manners corrupt nor because their manners were sensual though such were the fruits of some but because their Apostacy in manners consisted in secular and spiritual wickedness whiles they served but to resist the truth and to exclaim and conspire against the faithfullest witnesses of it or at least to neglect both them and it This is the reformation of Pharisees and Hypocrites which they cry up but they never seek sincere obedience conform to Gospel rule Such formalists or hypocrites be their doctrine never so sound or their professions strict are the head of the body of Apostacy and the highest Pinnacles upon the Towers in that Tripolity of deceit And therefore From hence springs a second deceit not much unlike the former of the Locusts They cast usually the grievous imputation of Antichrist solely upon that Antient Sect of the Papists or upon the literal City of Rome alone and will not no not be taught it so much as touch that burden though they have no less reason to bear it with their little finger but lay it solely upon that Sect or City or the superintendent of it whereas the Apostacy of Antichrist is common to all revolted professors that follow the lusts of the flesh the lusts of the eyes and pride of life For the Apostle did not tax the defection of Demas with turning aside to any one Sect or Heresie but with secular covetousness He hath saith he forsaken us and embraced not this or that Sect or Heresie but this present evil world Sensual secular and spiritual wickedness is the chief visible form of the Apostacy which gives being to it But the different false opinions and deceitful professions therein are but forma figurae the Protean colours and outward cloathings upon the several members of the same Apostacy which makes the many different divisions thereof the more distinguishable For if we fill an hundred glasses of so many different colours with the same liquor or matter each glass renders the same liquor of a different colour whereas indeed there is no difference in the matter but in the colour of those Glasses that contain it so all formal professors in the body of the Apostacy of Antichrist differ not so much in deed as in colour There 's the same sensual secular and spiritual wickedness in all except that in many some one of those three lusts may be most predominant And their outward different formes or professions make no more real reformation or alteration of that threefold matter of iniquity then the different colours of those Glasses alter the matter conteined in them Therefore these Locusts or formal professors that would seem much reformed from Papists in doctrine discipline and obedience having attained faces like the faces of men hair like the hair of women and Crowns like Gold remain Papists in manners or out strip them for pride and covetousness And such have no plea or priviledge but abundant disadvantage thereby because their hearts are thereby much more deceived blinded and hardened against true faith discipline and manners and are made more adverse to truth and averse from peace But we shall come nearer home to the matter Try all things saith the Text and we at this time shall try the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of errour of Christ and Antichrist and shew what the works and practices of Primitive Saints were what they have been since and wherein they differ or rather shall differ from deceiveableness of unrighteousness or the Locusts Gold like Crowns of deceits That so Saints and Sects may not ever swell with intermutual strife wander in wildernesses of obscure aberrations and grabble in darkness to the continual dishonour of God the extream hazard of the true Church and ineffable infelicity of all Nations That we may more assuredly know who these Locusts were and what their Crowns of deceit are we shall enquire when they rose up And the fifth Angel sounded vers 1. And we find them rising up in the time of the fifth Trumpets sounding which was the penultimate dispensation of the Apostacy of Antichrist For that time was to be the last interval save one of the Son of perditions duration because when the seventh Angel shall begin to sound the mystery of God should be finished ch 10.7 The time therefore of these Locusts coming was to be near the end of the Epoche of the Apostacy of Antichrist For the Locusts and plague of Darkness came in Type together and were the last plagues but one when they came Exod. 10. And so these Antitype-Locusts and Darkness came together and were to be so exact are Prophetick Types with their Antitypes the last Plagues but one in the Epoche of the grand Apostacy Ch. 9.1 2. ch 16.10 Therefore these Locusts coming near the end of the Apostacy could not be the Saracens that came near the beginning of it nor be as many Expositors would have them Monkes Fryars or Jesuites who were far from being as these were to be some refuge to the Church Nor do I
neither real Both have the same sign as the Author saith of damnation in giving no alms or Alms inconsiderate to the poor Both have much alike or the Locusts the longer of the two teeth of Lions And their teeth saith the Text were like the teeth of Lions I have oft observed with much admiration that many strict Professors are extream covetous and could not upon due consideration but imagine they might either be Locusts crept into strict Forms or else true Saints corrupted by the evil and cruel examples of their covetous conversations Covetousness a shame to Heathens is most uncomly in Christians and most destructive in Church-Societies like Achan in the Host of Israel Fourthly they had power saith the Text to vex men five moneths That is the time of their chief power to vex or torment those men that had not the Seal of God in their foreheads but not the full time of their continuance Therefore we may distinguish those Locusts into penultimate and ultimate pristine and present Those Pristine or first appearing Locusts had for five moneths or 150 years wings ran with winged-speed to take away the power and maintenance of the Papal Clergy in many Nations But some of the Modern Locusts their successors are no less willing had they wings to do it to take away the maintenance of the most Reformed Ministry But as many of the first were doubtless defenders of good men and ordained of God so to be So I dare not deny That some of the last may be at least docible and ductile to found Faith and good Manners To be short As it 's apparent to me that the Mahomet Saracens were far enough from being any part of these Locusts So If any shall render a more rational account of them and make them appear to be any other people or Professors I shall readily relinquish my own Opinion and receive theirs Till then Their manifold deceivableness in their hair Crowns Faces Discipline Doctrine Profession Practice and their Offices and Functions for the Servants of God and against the unsealed in their foreheads must confirm me in this Tenent That some of them aforesaid were the first fruits of those Locusts that for filthy lucre took up stricter Forms to devour Church-Revenues Of whom and for which the German Emperours sometimes complained See Sleiden and Lanquet c. circa An. 1538. And both Luther and Calvin which so far shewes the integrity of them and their true followers testified sharply against the Litigious pride and silthy avarice of those Professors that thereby pretending to be Members of them brought much infamy and disturbance upon their Church-Societies For this is certain That the Locusts Formal Smoky Proud Professors are for silthy lucre readiest to creep into the truest Churches and by their covetous conversations to corrupt them and turn them if possible into Dens of Thieves It shews also that the devoutest Professors though their Doctrine be never so sound import not any thing if they remain Papists in Manners or outstrip them for Pride and Covetousness And here remarkable were the mercies of God and the Wisdom of his Providence For many sincere Professors were as men hid among them and as Eliah was kept from death by greedy Ravens preserved from horrid Massacres by these Modern Formalists But I must not here omit some Readers of great repute that say I make and that they read it in this Treatise John Hus Jerom of Prague Luther Calvin and all Reformists to be the Locusts Nor must I hate but plainly reprove these men It 's a duty indispensive I dare not but do it These men reckon themselves and are reputed long Students and great Proficients in the Prophetick Scriptures Sure then they make themselves at least seem to be very unjust Stewards of those Sacred Mysteries The unjust Steward calling his Lords Debtors to account asked the first what he owed He answered An hundred measures of Oyl Take thy Pen quickly sayes he and write in thy Bill fifty I doubt not but that might be read in his Bill if he wrote it because it was written But these could read that in my Treatise which was never written here nor I think ever thought on by any That which many Learned Doctors and Knights that read it all could never read or find in it as their own Hand-writings fully witness But these Readers are themselves not throughly consentient to sound Doctrine and finding in this Treatise their Chima'ra's and Illusions cast down like Dagon when he lost his head sought 1 conceive a feeble revenge by raising these slanders and taught others as Sappho taught his Birds to speak to proclaim in City and Country that I make all Reformists to be the Locusts to my unspeakable and most causelesse detriment Nor is this I think the sole cause Careless inadvertency might be some cause of their mistakes For inconsiderate rashness is the first fruit of uncharitableness as due and diligent animadvertency is of charity And the want of both in these Readers might cause their rash mistakess For many things much alike are oft most contrary As the Parelia or Mock-Suns in watery Clouds or Ponds seem as fair as the Sun it self but are no true Suns So these Locusts are Parelia Sanctorum Mock-Saints and may seem as fair in all outward Formalities as the Saints themselves and yet are no more true Saints than those Mock-Suns are true Suns It were therefore extream foolishness in any to charge me that I make those Mock-Suns to be true Suns or the true Sun to be no more or better then one of them So it is no less fondness for any careless cursory and therefore uncharitable it caders to charge me that I make true Saints to be those Mock-Saints or Saint-like Locusts from whom we shall find they differ as far as light from Darkness when we come to examine what the Locusts Crowns as it were like Gold are what their Sun-darkening Smoake of deceit is and wherein both differ from that sincere practice and Profession which is or rather should be the Righteousness of true Reformists and Saints The Subject I now insist upon is to shew what evil Manners are that men may avoid them And inanimadvertency is the foundation of all evil Manners and principal cause indeed of all the miserable Divisions amongst us We shall therefore spend no more time about those trivial Readers but proceed As Christ nevertheless look't upon Peter and brought him to repentance So I may in love to them look a little back upon them but not digress from the design of this Treatise THe Primitive Fathers and Profeffors made mention of the man of Sin or Son of Perdition according to the Text under the Notion or by the name of Apostacy or Refuga Apostacy is a falling away from heavenly mindedness to inanimadvertency or to mind Earthly things Some Sects are the Subdivisions of the Grand Apostacy or of the Antichrist predicted by Prophets and
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
by a most just judgment to persevere in that grand blind Apostacy and Rebellion against God for 1260 years In which Epoche Heaven should be shat that it should not Rain at least that promised Rain of special mercies and divine Graces and yet be open all that time to send down to pour forth the six Vials full of the Plagues and wrath of God upon the obstinate impenitent Anti-christian world And this grand inundation of dreadful evils temporal and spiritual flowed as from its proper fountain from the Churches too free contributing to the general Apostacy by falling some wholly some in part from Faith and manners to affect a careless shallow fruitless knowledge with obedience comform From faith and manners That is not from Faith of Doctrine though she fell from that by degrees in part That was in the beginning of the Apostacy somewhat competently sound but profanely and carelesly shallow chiefly because it wanted right and charitable application But from Faith and obedience that is in her true members though that but in part from her and their first Faith of veracity and obedience conform to Gospel rule For sound Doctrine is vas continens a fit Vessel to hold forth sincere obedience either in a full or a more remiss measure And as fit by the abuse of it to carry on that grand defection aforesaid And when began this grand Apostrophe or diversion of the Gospel-Church from Faith and obedience St. Jerom gives you an infallible character a most sure mark of the time of this revolt expresly in these words And behold that Seething-pot which was seen in the Prophet Jeremy looking out of the North beginneth already to boil That is the fire of affliction from the Natitions of the North the Gothes Scythians Francks and sundry others began to make the Pot of Apostacy the falling Professors of the revolting Church boil in affliction that their filthy profaneness their careless contempt of solid truth and sincere obedience might boil out But it did then but begin to boil beginneth saith he already to boil for it had not then reached Rome the Metropolis or middle part of that Pot This complaint therefore and that Apostacy or the nearest proximity to it as is then appeared to St. Jerom might be or begin about a year before she was made tributary in 407 or about six years before she was taken plundered and burnt by Alaricus in 412. For then that fire of affliction made that Pot boil in the middle The full conclusion and clear inserence is this That Apostacy or nearest proximity thereto of and for which St. Jerom so grievously and most justly complained might appear to him to begin or be apparent about the year 406. For the next year was Rome besieged and paid tribute the next year after Then that Pot did more then begin to boil And about four hundred and four it did not begin For then Stillico subdu'd Radigusus kill'd and took all his Army consisting of two hundred thousand He also about that year beat Alaricus two or three times and drave him into Pannonia Then the fire of affliction scorched sore those barbarous Nations and the Pot of which Jerom spake was scarce touched or little afflicted therewith Therefore that grand degeneracy of which Jerom thus complained must appear to him to be or begin about the year 406 when the Pot of Apostacy began to boil and when the Powers of Rome-Christian and Imperial and of the Primitive Church began to be translated into the succeeding Kingdoms of the second Dragon Beast and false Prophet as to the far larger part of that Power for 1260 years Howbeit I see no necessity that we should bind the ingress of this Apostacy or the Commencements of the other Epochaes by a strict-limitation to any one certain or fixt year But they all brought forth as it were together began circa haec tempora much about those times To wit more apparently and especially about the years four hundred and seven ten or twelve But may some say St. Jerom's testimony and you produce no other is too weak to sustain the truth of the Commencement of the Apostacy of Anti-christ so far as to shew how and when it began I Answer I shall add the ample witness of sacred Writ of many Writers and of some Councels Fathers to his testimonies and so make a twisted cord or a manifold Record not perhaps easie to be broken St Jerom then lived in that very time wherein those sacred Prophesies pointing forth Primitive Romes fall under the Figure of Babylon were fulfilled saw and might observe the fulfilling of them He therefore had those advantages above all the Fathers that might render him the fittest expounder of them For Chrysostom dyed at the beginning of their fulfilling St. Ambrose dyed in or soon after the fulfilling of them St. Jerom only was an Eye-witness of their fulfilling and lived after about 13. years For then St. Augustine was scarce grown to the repute of a Father nor so fit to take notice of those transactions He survived St. Jerom about fifteen years was a powerful impugner of Primitive Sects and so far prevailed that many owned the Orthodox Faith and embraced the unity of then revolted Papal Rome whose Faith was then excepting as aforesaid but little heterodox That Church not withstanding his high deserts and great pains persecuted and excommunicated him until his dying day as we shall instantly shew partly by his own complaints partly from the Authority of a Cloud of faithful Witnesses and expresly from the testimony of Boniface the second We shall therefore first see how St. Jerom as the most competent for it paraphraseth upon those prophetick Scriptures that foretold the time and manner of the ingress of the grand Apostacy And first the text faith Babylon is faln is faln Apocal. 18.2 And St. Jerom applyes those very words to Imperial Rome in Name Christian not much less in outward Profession and Doctrine in that very juncture of time when the grand defection first commenced called her then expresly as the text also then did faln Babylon We find this assertion It is faln Reduplicated in the text And not improperly For Rome Imperial and more in name then thing Christian then fell in a double to wit both Temporal and Spiritual respect And first She fell temporally about the year four hundred and ten or twelve as a great Mill-stone cast into the Sea ch 18.21 And a Millstone so cast is seen no more for ever The whole Chapter is an entire description of her twofold fall and plainly shews that the terminus a quo of her temporal fall had no terminus ad quem and in that respect should be eternal Here Doctor Hammonds Paraphrases may supply the place of St. Jeroms Noting saith Hammond upon the 14th and 21th Verses that Rome shall never be the barbourer of Heathen Idols her former Idols or the seat of the Empire any more The same saith Morney
to be killed as well by the Bicorn beasts Complices as by the Heretical beast and his adherents out of the bottomless Pit and this hath been and is constantly the cause of their killing from the hands of Lamb-like Hypocrites To wit on the witnesses part their abilities and fidelity of their testimony And on those inadvertists and Apostates parts pride and fordid self-exalting-insufficiency which being foly guilty of it they seek to put from themselves and impute it to the witnesses of the Truth Therefore the faithful witnesses as their calling to be witnesses of the Truth compells them and as it s their duty to God unavoidable seek to free themselves from their false Charges justifie as is most just themselves and their own words and works Hereupon the whole ignorant Rabble of revolting inadvertists redouble their Cry against them all at once as proud-vain-boasters self-exalters insufficient And this wicked Calumny is the chief staff Antichrist hath to stay himself upon his principal armour wherein he trusteth wherefore his Complices have commonly such abused sayings as these in their mouths Propria laus de te sordet in ore tuo Let not thine own Lips praise thee c. If they can but make such misapplyed sayings the matter of their Cry against the Gospel witnesses they think they have overcome them sufficiently killed them with their own weapons and proved them out of their own mouths to be proud blasphemous vain-boasters and Hypocrites what need we any more said the Pharisees This Cry of condemnation and proness to condemn argues the damnable pride of Apostates and Hypocrites and is without all controversie the true and infallible Character of them Who art thou saith the Apostle that judgest another That is who art thou that judgest art prone to judge another rashly falsely or uncharitably but a whited wall a member of the man of sin and a Son of perdition For the Interrogation imports a positive assertion all soundness of Doctrine zeal and strictness of profession notwithstanding Lastly Nor was there saith Jerom so simple and mean a Scribe in all that ignorant Rabble that conspired not against me Most unhappy must those men and times be when the blind and barbarous Apostacy from faith and manners is so general that scarce one man amongst the at least most seeming learned and religious can be found to be so much animadversive as to be capable to read and understand as Jeroms was a Treatise penn'd to good purpose but shall rather by cursed speaking oppose the faithful composer of it or at least grosly neglect both him and it Neither was there saith Jerom so simple and mean a Scribe in all that ignorant Rabble that conspired not against me And they soon after conspired against Saint Augustine against Orthodox Councils and against the Gospel-Church as will instantly appear We have thus far shown that Romes temporal fall was final as aforesaid and that her spiritual fall some few excepted might seem total which shews that the Apostacy after the Patern of her foresaid Types was or might seem general Secondly We have shown the Terminus ad quem of Rome Primitive and Apostate as also the Terminus a quo or commencement of Rome Decapolite and Papal which is also the beginning of all these twelve Epochaes For as no man can build a firm house upon a false foundation so I if I intend to give some short Series of the Transactions of these twelve Epochaes must of necessity seek to lay first and above all a sure foundation in stating rightly the Commencements of them Lastly I have laboured to shew in part what the matter of the Apostacy was and what the sins of it were in the begining of it And having done this I shall proceed to shew Fourthly How and when the Bicorn Beast laid his foundation of deceit and began to build thereon the body of Apostacy That the Son of Perdition the superintendent of that body of Apostacy came and the time of his coming we have shewn sufficiently But which way came this Prince of that Apostacy How did he lead on the Van of that revolted body What was the way of deceiveableness wherein he went What Doctrine for foundation did he first lay What was his practice and profession in that juncture of time from 404 to about 412 and some time after If we consult Saint Jerom here He is silent He has nothing or not much to say against the doctrine of the Senate of Pharisees Their doctrine was not Arrian but Homousian not grosly Heretical but for the most part Orthodox Otherwise they and their superintendent could not so well deceive those that dwelt upon the Earth But That man of sin came exactly as the Apostle foretold with all deceiveableness And so his doctrine was a contented careless shallow but for most part sound doctrine perverted by a censorious uncharitable application which is most deceitful For Deceit fortified from truth it self mis-applyed is most deceitful and most properly the deceit of the false Prophet Bicorne For as the greatest knowledge that profanely stints it self in its growth or groweth fruitless for want of right application is a deficient trivial knowledge and the stony ground 's shallow superficies which is most deceitful So the soundest doctrine that serveth to shelter and support Pharisaical pride filthy avarice and perfidious fraud is but corruptio optimi pessima the most perverse prevarication of Hypocrifie whereby the Bicorne beast most deceiveth and his deceived And this Pillar of smoak and foundation of deceits served him best at first for a substructure to build the body of Apostacy upon He shall teach saith Saint Cyprian infidelity under a shew of faith the night for the day destruction for salvation and AntiChrist under the name of Christ He shall come saith the Apostle with all deceivableness of unrightecusness And shall deceive saith our Saviour were it possible the very Elect. This way of deepest deceits was like the way of a Serpent upon a stone the secret way not of Antichrist sensual but of Secular and Spiritual Antichrist more properly called the son of perdition For Antichrist sensual and his complices came Sodom-like with little deceitfulness of appearance in doctrine or profession cared not for it in either because they then desired not and now desire not much to hide their sins But contrarily all-deceiveableness of false appearances in sound doctrine with uncharitable application in verbal formalities of strict profession and in seeming-serious fictions of false miracles was the only or chief way wherein the son of perdition conform to the Testimonies of those sacred Texts came or could come Howbeit His white vail of deceits was somewhat spotted even from his Cradle or first commencement with some black spots of unsound doctrine which made him even then less deceivable to the more discerning and more visible to the simple For Liberius Bishop of Rome about the year 360 was an Arrian and a profest adversary
to Athanasius But he was Bishop of Rome about forty years before the superintendent of the son of perdition was advanced to preside supream in the body of Apostacy Pope Anastasius the second about the year 490 holding the Heresie of Acatius dyed the same death that Arrius did But Cyricius sought to bring in the prohibition of Priests mariages about the year 400 But this doctrine of Devils as the Apostle calls it sprung not up to purpose till after some Centuries of years A thing not to be forgot saith Morney upon this occasion that corruption of doctrine as well as of discipline should meet and march together For Secondly The President over the Apostacy even in his and her Infancy did not only innovate something in doctrine but did much invade the rights of the Primitive Church in point of Discipline His incroachments herein came with such commanding violence that Orthodox Councels could not heal her seeming mortal wounds made thereby For He took away her power of the Keyes and Church-priviledges by rescuing and restoring excommunicate Appellants to him as he pleased and arrogated all her rights unto himself Wherefore these bulworks thus broken down and the Churches defences falling on all sides she was soon by this meanes troden under foot of those Gentiles for 1260 years Revel 11.2.3 And a flood of at first somewhat refined errours formal ignorance filthy but deceitful manners began to overspread by the same meanes and at the same time the face of the Christian World We see therefore some beginings of unsound doctrine were in the ingress of the Apostacy But the breaches in Church Discipline the defence both of doctrine and manners and support of the Church seemed even then irreparable And Thirdly Sundry superstitions the least suspected seeds of the greatest Heresies were liberally sown about the beginning of the Apostacy Damasus instead of Psalmes caused songs to be sung in the Church Abolished the Bible-Translation by the Septuagint Contrary to which the Council of Laodicea Decreed Can. 69. Innocent about the year 406 Decreed That all Persous should kiss the Pax. Leo about the year 442 brought in Auricular confession Decreed that reverence should be given to the Images of Saints upon the penalty of a curse Thus we see That the Doctrine of the body of Apostacy when the Bicorn beast first began to build it was for the most part sound but somewhat corrupt and which is Antichrists undeniable Character carelesly shallow Secondly That he brake down the Primitive Churches wall of Discipline to make his ingress the more easie that he might ruinate her and erect his Apostacy in her place Thirdly That he loaded her and fortified his own City of confusion with sundry superstitions which grew up after into dangerous Heresies Thus he came and this was the manner of his coming when he first came to build the body of Apostacy But Fourthly The great business from about 400 and for a long time after was about Supremacy and to lay a firm foundation for his threefold Decapolity Wise builders seek a sure Rock so these Fatui Structores foolish master-builders must pretend to find a Rock when they laid their foundation upon the sand But where must they find this unfound Rock In the Scriptures and the Nicene Council In the Scriptures they find Tu es Petrus And upon this Rock c. There they find Peter to be the Rock and the Pope his pretended successor to be the foundation of the Church This Fundamental Heresie for so it may well be was so closely followed and so subtilly handled upon Scripture account in that juncture of time that it had almost deceived as I shewed before some chief Fathers of the Primitive church Crediderunt Hieronymus Augustinus Ecclesiam super Petrum fundatam Sed retractantes ambo dixerunt Super Fetram Christum quem Petrus agnovit Both Jerom and Augustine were brought to believe that the Church was built upon Peter But they both retracting said upon Christ the Rock whom Peter acknowledged The rest of the Doctrine of the Apostacy when it began to prevail apparently about the year 407 was sufficiently supersicial and shallow but most of it literally and fundamentally sound and so much the more fit to deceive conform to that coming of the Son of Perdition whom the Apostle foretold saying whose coming is with all deceivableness c. Secondly That deceitful fruitless knowledge brought forth like obedience Not good works but evil reports upon all that was good and wicked practices against the best men which Saint Jorom Saint Augustine and sundry others from their ownsad experience sufficiently witnessed But Saint Jerom calls that new created Corporation of Apostacy The Rabble of Ignorance Neither was there saith he so simple a Scribe in all that ignorant Rabble c. Sure Saint Jerom here overshoots himself For how could Rome then revolting be a Rabble of ignorance seeing her Doctrine was then for the most part though trivial and shallow sound and besides some sincere professors in her she had no doubt her learned Clarkes famed for Religion Saint Jerom doubtless was serious but not censorious not rash in calling the body of that Apostacy A conspiracy or a Rabble of pride and ignorance For they that want as they he complained of appeared to do right and Charitable application in practice though they should have all knowledge or be never so learned are proud as the Apostle speakes knowing nothing Such consent not though they should in words at least in works to the Patern of sound Doctrine and are therefore trivial and shallow both in Doctrine and Obedience And that such superficial Proficients the best of them know nothing appears also expresly in the words of the Apostle 1 Corinth 13.2 Though I understand all knowledge and have all Faith and have no Charity I am nothing Am nothing Ex nihilo fit nihil Little knowledge is he like to have that is nothing though he know never so much He 's nothing that hath not Charity That is He hath no knowledge and as little obedience Both are false both but deceits if his words and workes are without right and Charitable application That 's the depth of good ground without which the deepest Earth is shallow and the greatest knowledge and gifts the greatest deceits What wonder then if sacred Scripture sayes Such men know nothing or are nothing And what wrong did Saint Jerom do to the Senate of Pharisees whom because he had sadly experienced them to be such men he asserted to be A Rabble of Pride and Ignorance seeing the Scripture it self saith Such men are proud knowing nothing And If the greatest knowledge and gifts of such Professors is but Pseudosophia the wisdom of folly or deceit of fools then how great is the deceit and folly of the wisest and most knowing men that wants or seeks not after a meek sober right and Charitable application of what they do know and
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
Papists till about 1567. Nor were they all that time a small assistence to the servants of God nor to some Kings that had the Seal of God in their foreheads to further their Reformation in Doctrine and defend their lives But we shall further take the truest survey of them from several Texts of sacred Scripture And the sound of their wings saith the Text was as the sound of Charets of many Horses running to Battel Vers 9. And why comes this account of them from the Pen of the Prophetick Evangelist Because they sometimes subdu'd their enemies with the sound of their wings only For Ziscae's Armies beat their enemies in eleven battels more by the sound of their wings then force of Arms more by the noise or report of their coming then by their power which fully ratifies the truth of the Prophesie in reference to those so much feared assailants But Secondly After Zisca's death Sigismund the Emperour invaded Bohemia with a threefold Army The first was of Saxons and other Cities The Second of Fanconians led by the Marquess of Brandenburg The third was levied of Rhenenses Bavarians and Swevians led by Otho Archbishop of Trevers All these three mighty Armies met at Misna But the next day they all not seeing any Enemy but hearing the report of Procopius his coming fled to Thacovia leaving a great prey and their Arms behind them Thirdly this three-fold Army thus defeated with the sound of the wings of their enemies only Sigismund raised a far greater Army of forty thousand Horse besides Foot and invades Bohemia But was put to flight and his whole Army ran in a confused and amazed fright though they saw none of those winged Locusts pursue them Res crat imperiosa sonitus Alarum The sound of their wings the noise or report of their coming made that mighty Army fly confused whiles the Emperour could not by his Command cause them to rally Ages cannot parallel such presidents nor the World since the first Creation The Host of Syria heard a noise of Charets and Horses and that one time fled affrighted though they saw no man from the walls of Samaria But these mighty Armies fled many times not from a noise of terrour from the Lord of Hosts but from the noise or report of the coming of a few weak men though they saw no man And these many Presidents of such Stupendious strangeness prove irrefellibly that those Formal Reformists were at least the Victorious part of those Locusts that then vanquished their and the Churches Enemies with the sound of their wings only For if ever Armies were put to flight by the sound of the wings of their Enemies Then were these thirteen Puissant and Imperial Armies so put to flight If ever any since men were on Earth subdu'de their Enemies with the sound of their wings then those Victorious Taborites were therefore they could possibly be none but they the only Armies that so subdu'de them And by so subduing of them did indubitably fulfil this Prophesie in the performance of it And the sound of their wings was like the sound of Charets of many Horses running to battel Secondly And they had a King over them which is the Angel of the bottomless pit whose name in the Hebrew Tongue is Abaddon but in the Greek Tongue hath his name Appollyon Verse 11. And they had a King And what King Sure not Sigismund that could not rule them nor any Earthly Man or King Their King was a Spiritual King no Earthly Potentate His name in Greek was Apollyon and he Graeculus esuriens an hungry Greek Covetousness and Spiritual Pride in them was King over them that contrary to Gods Command ruled in their mortal bodies And so ruling over them was their King For what King had the Type-Locusts that commanded them to devour the Fruits of Egypt but their own eager and unsatiable appetites And these their Antitype must of necessity hold a just Symmetry or due proportion with them the Type of these Nor could the Devil be the King of these more then of other wicked men For he 's the General King that rules in the hearts of all the children of disobedience Therefore Let none tax Zisca or Procopius they might be persons of great Worth and Piety not Jerom of Prague nor John Hus nor any other persecuted Saints that were occasions of their coming as Kings over them For Moses himself was a means of the coming of the Type-Locusts but not their King So the persecuted Church and Saints were the occasion of these Locusts coming but no King over them But Covetousness and Pride conjunct was their King For the Locusts were only Formal Professors Reformed from Papists to a somewhat sound Doctrine and many of them perhaps to strict Profession but remained Papists in manners or rather outstript them for Pride and Covetousness For Covetousness the Root of all evils For Pride the chief cause of all Coutentions And this double iniquity or combined wickedness Pride and Covetousness was 't is most like the Locusts King And they had a King over them c. For Thirdly Their teeth saith the Text were as the teeth of Lions Vers 7. This further shews what the Locusts King was To wit Their Lion-like rapacity and greedy avarice And shewes their parity therein to those Saint-persecuting Papists whom with like retaliation they were sent to persecute Peccato par poena The Papists opprest the poor and those servants of God that had his Seal in their foreheads as it were with teeth of Lions Therefore God sent those Locusts to oppress and suppress those Saint-persecuting Papists that had not the Seal of God in their foreheads as it were with teeth of Lions For the Papists as it might appear were not only cruel to the servants of God that thus had his Seal inserted but uncharitable also and merciless to the poor which their own Writers witness even of their Spiritual persons They are alwayes careful saith Theodoret a Niem to advance their Kindred Nephews c. are seldom seen any poor And if perhaps any poor body beg an alms of them they presently turn away their eyes And if perhaps extream want urge him to ask the second time they threaten him He speaking of Vrban the sixth Innocent the seventh Boniface the ninth and Gregory the twelfth saith that these four gave no alms which saith he is a sign of damnation and though a fault in all yet worst in them because no man can be saved withont charity And this he wrote being Notary of the Apostolick Letters in 1408. and Secretary successively to Vrban Boniface Innocent Gregory and Alexander And Locusts are no less cruel and uncharitable than the Papists The Papists may plainly see their own sins in those punishments which God inflicted upon them by their hands Both are alike the Locusts and the Papists in their practices Both are cruel both extreamly covetous The charity of both is but a verbal pretence and in
bare ignorance Balaam was much guilty of this sin of Semi-advertency half mindful of Gods command and half unmindful Therefore drawn by the strong Cords of Covetousness he came at last to act directly coutrary to Gods command But an Angel stood in his way to kill him and he was slain at last for the same sin But Modern Semi-advertists his and his followers Antitypes are apt to stand contrary to that Angel in the way against the truth to stop the progress of it and destroy such as do assert it For Covetousness adjoyned to Semi-advertency is soon filled with Canine anger against all truth and chiefly against the practisers of it and readily complyes with all such as seem Religious that are most ready to slaunder and asperse them and it So the Senate of Pharisees consented as one to the sentence of the High Priest against Christ Semi-advertists extend at first some trivial half performed help to the truth and the witnesses of it but after oppose it and desert or destroy them They hear read and pray by halves or so far as to get a Form of Religion but not the power of it begin many good works finish none do half leave half undone are half hot half cold which God abhors Judas when the seventy forsook Christ did not forsake him nor was found blame worthy by the Apostles for about 1260. dayes But then through Semi-advertency caused by Covetousness turn'd Traytor what Family or Church could be more pure than that whereof Christ was Head What Doctrine more perfect than that he taught Yet that Locust lurk't even there Semi-advertists sow pregnant Seeds of perfidious Prodition Schism and Apostacy even in the best Church-Societies and endanger to destroy them Thirdly Mis-animadvertency the fruit of Charity-wanting Pride and parent of the greatest ignorance is the principal ground of the Spiritual Apostacy whose Professors like the Pharisees take the greatest pains to least purpose pray hear and read not by halves but amiss and misapply through uncharitableness all their Devotions Doctrine Gifts and Parts to deprave the Truth and destroy the witnesses of it These search the Scriptures and such Books as unfold the meaning of them and find in both so blind and perverse is wicked uncharitableness that which was never written in either So the Pharisees searched the Scriptures with much uncharitable blinde truth-misapplying sedulity and found there that our blessed Saviour should dye as a blasphemer which was never written And those Readers aforesaid might read through cursory haste and uncharitable misapplication my Treatise and find therein that I made Luther Calvin and all Reformists to be the Locusts which was not written Misadvertists are readiest to cast their blind bolts of precipitate rashness against Truth in Doctrine and Practice and the assertors of both The Stony ground owns them and they receive the seed of Grace like it They aspire to the most specious pretences and seek tegment and shelter in the fairest corners of the Court that was cast out and given to the Gentiles Herin lyes the Spirit and life of the Apostacy of Antichrist That men mind not half mind or mind amiss those proper objects of due animadvertency that are Principia praecognoscenda the Principles and Grounds of all obedience to God and right to men Improbus non animadvertit ut intelligat A wicked man saith the Text minds not or regards not that he may understand Prov. 29.7 Therefore Nonadvertists must needs be desperately wicked because they know not nor mind to know what the Grounds of doing right or wrong are Therefore Semiadvertists must be more wicked because they mind but by halves and so to less and worse purpose then they that mind nothing For those ten Semiadvertist-Spies sent to search the land of promise gave in part a good report but otherwise an evil report of it and of the promise of God which brought swift destruction upon themselves and caused that all Israel four excepted were destroyed Whereas Nonadvertists that as bruit Beasts mind nothing cannot be so guilty of bringing evil reports upon that which is good or of causing such general calamity and destruction in States and Churches Lastly Misadvertists must be most wicked because they above all Professors are most fruitful in evil reports They search the Scriptures and such Books as unfold them and find in both as the Pharises did what was never written in either You saith our Saviour are of your Father the Devil and the works of your Father you will do Lying Derogation and worth and Truth-Detraction in careless and uncharitable Misadvertists especially in such as most desire to seem Religious is ex digito Daemonis opus a more peculiar work wrought by the very singer of the Devil in the hearts and mouthes of Hypocrites This threefold inanimadvertency or carelesness to know what Truth is in practice as well as in Doctrine is almost general and seems to overspread the Earth as Waters cover the Sea To know the truth of it and the dangers of it if it be true and how to prevent those dangers is a duty universal incumbent upon all and of the highest and most necessary concernment to all The Prototype Apostacy of the Old World was almost universal Noah Preached an hundred and twenty years and we read not of one man more then his own family that was brought thereby to due Animadtency the ground of true Repentance I am therefore very much afraid that the grand Apostacy is more general then men and Saints imagine it to be I need not name those Texts that denote the Antitype In that World as well as in this there wanted not no doubt many Learned men reputed Religious if not Famous both for Learning and Religion and yet the Text sayes so universal was the inanimadvertency of that Type-Apostacy they knew nothing till the Flood came c. This therefore to foresee and shun the dangers of such an epidemick sin and that sin it self of careless disregard that 's the cause of all ignorance and impenitence is Opus opere dignum a work worth all acceptation as the Apostle speaks in another case of absolute necessity to be set about with all diligence by all For it 's least safe to relye upon Smoak in the mouth of the bottomless pit or upon the Locusts Crowns of Deceit And the righteousness of true Saints too guilty of this sin of the grand inadvertency and Apostacy is like the Oyl in the wise Virgins Lamps but enough if That for themselves only The finding out of the Gunpowder-plot was a most happy discovery But this discovery to prevent the most Dreadful and Epidemick Dangers is of far greater concernment then to foresee and prevent the conflagration of the greatest City or the total destruction of any Nation and admits not a minute of delay by any that 's at all animadversive We shall a little further examine the generality of the grand Apostacy St. Jerom was a man of a serene
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-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
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-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-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
practice It were better therefore and their Christian duty to seek depth of Earth at the hand of the giver of every perfect gift to become good ground richly furnished with a frame of right application to get a meek candor of Christian integrity and right practising Charity The labours also of such men in sacred Scripture are not usually contemptible nor they so proud and consident However the failings of such may be better born with But the Senate of Pharisees of whom Saint Jerom so greatly complained was at the ingress of the Apostacy far from such a frame of Spirit as appears from their own practises according to Saint Jeroms and many others testimonies aforesaid and as we shall instantly further shew Therefore Jerom was not much wrong or rather judged very right when he called that Senate not of true Seers but of wicked Spies of evil reports A Rabble of Pride and Ignorance Et quis docet aptius who hath more fitly taught us the time of the ingress of the Apostacy with the manner of it To wit exactly as the Apostle expresly foretold in all deceiveableness of unrighteousness That is in a fruitless trivial deceitful Saint-persecuting truth-opposing but somewhat literally sound profession doctrine and obedience c. God sure would so have it That this vigilant Watchman should by his special Providence and appointment stand at the door of the Church of Christ and signisie to her faithful shepheards the certain time when the Wolf brake in upon her with the manner of his ingress that such as should be industrious and faithful in their Charge should not need to be overmuch incumbred in finding out that instant time of his entering in and the manner of it which also further and that fully confirms the first termini or commencements of all these twelve Epochaes Thus much of the manner and time of his ingress His progress with the manner of it now invites our Eye a little space The False Prophets progress in pulling down the Primitive Church her Power and Priviledges to build therewith his Apostacy in her place THe False Prophet the Bicorn superintendent of this Decapolite body which he was then about to build having laid his foundation of deceit and made this misapplyed Text Tues Petrus his chief Pillar in it proceeded to build upon it And which way goes he to work in Building upon this Foundation Diruit aedificat He destroyed and built Destroyed Primitive Church Priviledges Built his own Supremacy Beat down Zion Built Babel And how was this done He destroyed the then almost decayed Unity of the Church by Schisme And how may this plainly appear Innocent Zosimus Boniface and Caelestin these four first builders of the Decapolity of Apostacy claimed Supremacy in and over all Churches and Councils The three last sent their Legates to the sixth Council of Carthage and ordered them there to require of that Council the Rights of the Bishop of Rome To wit The Right of power to command granted as they pretended by the Nicene Council That Council therefore of Carthage sent Messengers with Letters to the Bishops of Constantinople Alexandria and Antioch to send the Acts of the Nicene Council fast sealed up The Copies came the Council examined them and found no such Canon there as the first four superintendents of the Apostacy falsely pretended but rather the contrary And so were all these first four fabers or master-builders of the mystery of iniquity found Lyars and were so proved to be by the certain experience and authority of an Orthodox Council wherein Aurelius was President and Saint Augustine himself an active member of it Boniface Nevertheless because that Council would not receive their new found foundation of usurping pride neither upon Scripture account from their Tu es Petrus by them perverted Nor from the Nicene Council which it never decreed excommunicated that Council and therein Augustine himself and all the Churches of Africk But Boniface the Second about 115 years after absolved those Churches upon their humble submission His words are these Aurelius Bishop of Carthage that presided in the sixth Council of Carthage with his Colleagues 227 Fathers of Africk and amongst them Augustine himself began by the instigation of the Devil in the time of our Predecessors Boniface and Caelestin to exalt themselves against the Church of Rome But Eulalius now Bishop of Carthage seeing himself through the sin of Aurelius to stand separated from the ommunion of the Roman Church hath repented him thereof intreating to be received to Peace and Communion with her c. It is therefore abundantly evident by the testimony of their own Writers and by the authority of this Bishop who upon their humble submission absolved those Churches that the Spiritual representatives of the Church of Rome excommunicated that sixth Council of Carthage and Augustine therein and consequently the Churches of Africk represented in that Council And by a Synechdoche partis they thereby excommunicated the whole Primitive Church divesting her of her Church power and priviledges which that sixth Council sought to maintain And so the Church of Rome by that insolent excision of the Primitive Churches faithful witnesses made her self manifestly a Sect from the true Church For in that she excommunicated them she cut her self off from them and from the body of the Primitive Church whom they did represent and in her right officiate for The ground of this Papal Protoschisme from the then falling or but new fallen Primitive Church was that foundation which the Bicorn beast found in his misapplyed Tu es Petrus as well as he also did in the Nicene Council For this foundation being first laid when he first began to build the Corporation of Apostacy about the year four hundred and twelve he proceeded next to go this way to work To wit ut diruat Ecclesiam to destroy the feeble and perhaps then flying Primitive Church by excommunicating her faithful Martyrs and maintainers of her just rights and priviledges By blaspheming her and them the Tabernacle of God in Heaven by bringing evil reports upon such as sought most to support her and by persecuting serveral wayes both her and them Of this Saint Augustine himself grievously complained We are threatned faith he with a Posse Comitatus and Force of armes to put the sentence of the Apostolick Sea in execution and so shall we poor Christians stand in greater fear of a Catholick Bishop then the Hereticks themselves do of a Catholick Emperour c. Jerom complained of the Conspiracy of the Apostacy But Augustine here complaines of their force of armes and violence by them even in the infancy of that Apostacy threatned against St. Augustine against the Churches of Africk and by consequence against the whole Primitive Church And all these Persecutions Excommunications causeless Conspiracies threatnings and at least offers or attempts of violence were done under an outward vail of deceit in a superficial trivial shallow but somewhat
literally sound doctrine destitute of right application from any principle of Charity or right understanding For Here I may hint which I shall after handle at large this threefold clear Character of and signal distinction betwixt the false Prophets sensual fecular and spiritual Doctrine grosly corrupt with manners conform are the Image and superscription of the sensual false Prophet and his followers He 's a Political false Prophet and they false professors because their faith in its outward form of words is grosly false or their practice visibly profane But The false Prophet secular is no single person but a Political false Prophet also and his followers false professors not because their doctrine of Faith is false though that may be in many things unsound but because their Charity through Covetousness is false and their practises and applications from the same extract corrupt and false as in the Pharisees Thirdly The False Prophet Spiritual is a Political false Prophet and his followers false Professors not because their Faith in its literal form of words is false though that may be much unsound but because their Charity extracted from censorious pride is false and their practices and applications from the same spring most corrupt as in the Pharises also For the Pharisees held forth as a Figure of him the Bicorn beast or his two hornes versant about pride and covetousness And as we say Omnia sâ—ingratum dixeris So we may say All their Religion devotions duties and obedience are most false if their Charity and applications though their doctrine be never so sound be corrupt and false as aforesaid This Triplicit Monster the sensual secular and spiritual Antithesis to Gospel truth and the witnesses of it thus described is the three headed Cerberus that barks forth day and night all evil reports rash slanders and cavils against them and it For The very Heathens might have some glimpse of those three sensual secular and spiritual lusts the three yelling mouthes of this infernal Beast and did most fitly figure them by that feigned monster But the yells of those two last from principles of pride and avarice are by far the fellest and most loud Therefore The Senate of Pharisees not the Heathens or gross Hereticks in Rome cryed out against Jerom all at once Therefore The Pharisees and not the Publicanes cryed out against Christ For Sooner may men silence doggs then those men from cursed speaking before they know what for what or against whom they speak For The two last led by the most greedy and pernicious lusts of pride and covetousness are the cruellest cursed speakers violently carryed on with canine appetites to derogate from the best deserving ut inde diruant that thereby they may destroy them For The superintendents of the two last are the two Horns of that Bicorn beast Revel 13.11 The two representatives Spiritual of the Son of Perdition that under the Lamblike Formes of Religious Zeal in doctrine and profession void of Charity and right application cryed down Christ Mystical as the Type Pharisees cryed down Christ personal And cryed down the Primitive Church with all her rights power and priviledges as the Senate of Pharisees as he calls them cryed down Saint Jerom all at once For That Lamblike Bicorn Beast spake saith the Text as a Dragon These are the meanes those very meanes whereby that Bicorn Pseudoprophetick beast diruit Ecclesiam pulled down the Primitive Church He spake as a Dragon cryed down the true Church the truth of the Gospel the faithful witnesses of both as the first Dragon did day and night and that with many Cerberous mouthes all at once Thus he pulled down the Primitive Church alienated her rights destroyed her proprieties Diruit aedificavit He destroyed and built Of his Diruit we have briefly done Or what and how this Bicorn False Prophet pulled down what opposed we have briefly hinted from the testimonies of Saint Jerom Augustine Boniface the second and from the sixth Council of Carthage which is most evident in the Letter of that Council to Caelestin and in the Canons of that Council His aedificavit or what he built in the place of what he pulled down we shall handle with like succinctness The False Prophets further proceeding in building the body of Apostacy having first pulled down what opposed HE in the next place went about to build wherein his main care was to keep his new found foundation his perverted Tu es Petrus with all diligence For The Council of Chalcedon having about the year 450 much invalidated his claim of Supremacy from the Nicene Council Gelasius about the year four hundred and ninety two alledged not for himself either the Nicene Council or the antient observation of the Church but held himself fast to his Tu es Petrus This goeth not saith he by any Synodal Constitutions but by the very voyce of the Gospel Tu es Petrus Upon the Rock Christ whom Peter confessed did Christ that faithful Faber and true witness build his Church And the false Prophet Bicorn his Anti-faber built her Antithesis the Tower of Babel upon this Chimaera Rock of his misapplyed Tu es Petrus He spent much time in pulling down what opposed before he could go fast forward in his building The First Nation that conferr'd her self as part of it to the False Prophets intended Fabrick was France under Clovis the first Christian King thereof about the year 485. Justinian about the year 533 in his Letter to John the second submitted and united to his holiness all the Bishops of the East The East Empire which Justinian as his Letter witnesseth submitted and united to the See of Rome contained these Nations that were before Provinces of Pagan Rome To wit First Greece and Thrace Secondly Natolia Thirdly Syria and Palestina Fourthly Aegypt Fifthly Mauritania But the two last had submitted before to Boniface the second as we shewed before These five at first Provinces under Pagan Rome after Kingdoms in Rome Papal with France aforesaid made six Nations of the false Prophets Decapolity Richaredus King of Spain honoured this grand Seignor and his supposed sacred Papal City by adding his Kingdom as a seventh part of it to his soon after Decarch-superintendency about the year 586. This grand Master builder took great care in the time of Gregory the great and about the year 590 of the British Isles to bring them as an eight part of it into the building of his beloved City Germany the ninth part of this Decapolity came in by parcels Part probably might come in with Clovis an 485 whose Off-spring and people of his Kingdom were Germans in Franconia which we find not Conquered from him Part the Burgundians might bring in about the year 416 who were about that time Germans and turned Christians Part the Lumbards brought in about the year 570 and 607. Bavaria and Austria brought in their large parts about the year 615. Thus the second