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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65195	Two treatises ... both written by Sir Henry Vane, Knight in the time of his imprisonment.	Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662.; Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662. Epistle general, to the mystical body of Christ on earth.; Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662. Face of the times.	1662 (1662)	Wing V80_PARTIAL; Wing V67_PARTIAL; ESTC R7026	96,369	132

this 17th Chapter but by this Key deserves our very serious consideration according to the usual understanding of the Papacy to be meant by this Whore which is not denied to be a part of Babylon and a chief part and to be also a Whore and Mother of Fornications but she is so openly and avowedly not secretly and under the shew of Reformation and there is not any mystery or secret in it to find her out as there is in the other case We come then in the last place as the Conclusion of the whole to shew what Word and part of his Counsels contained in the Promises and Prophecies not yet accomplished the Lord is now fulfilling in these present dispensations of our day and this by the comparing Scriptures with Scriptures and observing what gradually hath been fulfilled since the time of Christ's Ascention to this day and what signs he hath before given of the times wherein we now are There is nothing more positive and express in the Scripture as may appear by what hath been already mentioned and for which many particular Texts might further be alledged than this That there is a Kingdom of the Everlasting Gospel which neither can nor shall be shaken that must be brought upon the stage here in this World which shall stand firm as a Rock against all opposition and come forth as a stone cut out of the Mountain without hands that must break down the visible heads which the Serpent hath kept up in and over the whole Earth for these many thousand years together by the means whereof the true Children and Heirs have been kept out of their Possession and have been necessitated to a Witnessing and Prophesying condition in a way of Sufferings and of utmost cruel dealings and oppressions from their implacable Enemies to whom it hath been given to make and continue War with them till the course of Sufferings be finished Of this bitter Cup the Captain of our Salvation drank the deepest draught and had the greatest share And lest we should think he had put an end to the Sufferings of his Members by one Death on the Cross he dealt plainly with his Disciples in this point both before his Death and also during the forty dayes he spent upon Earth after his Resurrection for when the two sons of Zebedee had hopes to have seen him in his own Person speedily in his Kingdom before his Sufferings and were desirous the one to sit at his right hand and the other at his left in that day of his Glory and Power he intimates to them immediately that there is a Preparation requisit to be wrought in all that shall be thought worthy of that dignity which is to drink of the same Cup and to be baptized with the same Baptism that he was baptized with according to that true and faithful saying If we die with him we shall live with him if we suffer with him we shall reign with him And so when all the Disciples together a little before his Ascention Act. 1. 6 8. asked him saying Wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel his Answer is in effect this to them That until Israel's witnessing-work be over and finished that must prepare them to Rule and ripen their Enemies for the Judgment and Destruction appointed unto all ungodly men that must first precede the reigning-work which they too much looked for and thirsted after would not come nor the dayes of it begin Now this witnessing-work which is to be finished by the true Israel of God as the needful and requifit Preparation of you to Reign is What is to be wrought in them upon their own hearts and what is to be wrought by you as a Testimony born and given to the World on God's behalf And the latter of these is usually made use of by God to accomplish the former since all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shewing forth the Vertues of Him that hath called them in a holy and good Conversation shining as Lights in the World must suffer Persecution and are sure to be hated and oppressed by the World and Powers of it by all wayes and means that may prove their Faith and Patience And these Tryals which thus give proof of their Faith do cause Patience to have its perfect work in them till which they are not those meet vessels fitted for their Master's use as that he will dignifie them to appear seated as on his Throne in their hearts and thereby qualifie them with a Power of Rule so as at their word and by their prayers all things shall become possible to them What they bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and what they loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven For greater works than Christ himself did when he was in the flesh they shall do because he is gone to his Father Secondly The witnessing-work is not only to be wrought in them to prepare them in mind and body to be meet vessels for the use of their Head by them to shew forth his Wisdom and Power to the glorifying of God in their spirits and in their bodies which are his but the Light of it must be given out and born in the sight and for the profit and good of others if the fault be not in themselves that should benefit by it unto whom the savour of the knowledge of Christ ministred by his faithful Witnesses in their several places and callings will prove in the issue either a savour of life unto life or of death unto death according as either it is received and valued or rejected and expelled No man saith Christ when he hath lighted a Candle putteth it in a secret place neither under a Bushel but on a Candlestick that they that come in may see the light which Scripture is interpreted 1 Cor. 14. 24 25. where the instance is given in meeting of the whole Church together in one place that is as many visible Saints and Believers as could well hear one another in the place they assembled in for their common Edification In which Church-meeting they were as a Golden Candlestick that did in such manner hold forth the shining Light of Christ's Truth and Holiness to those that came in and were lookers on and were not of the Society that by the Spirit of Prophecy which in and among them of that particular Church was exercised it so fell out that whoever came in desirous to learn and be instructed he was convinced of all he was judged of all and the secrets of his heart were so manifest that falling down on his face he worshipped God and went out and reported that God was in them of a truth This is then the second sort of Witnessing-work which by Christ was intrusted to his Disciples and Followers to be exercised and imployed in according to their several places and callings till his return in the day wherein he is to come and judge the World in Righteousness that is

seat and suitable habitation in the hearts of his Children who is the Father of all Unrighteousness and Deceit these flow from him as from their Fountain and Well-head and he is their Countenauce Protection and Propagation for the encrease and enlargement of his Kingdom of Darkness By the means of this Two-fold hatred that Satan begets in the subjects of his Kingdom against the Light of God's Glory shining in the Face of Christ and in the witness of those that are the Members of his Mystical Body here on Earth he blows up a continual War and keeps on foot a fixed Enmity between the subjects of the one and of the other Kingdom and the Enmity is still the same in effect whether it be open and allowed or dissembled and hid the hatred and opposition is not the less in it self but the last of the two is the worst and most dangerous This he Heads with a visible Power as well as sowes the Seed of it invisibly in the Children of his Kingdom and either by violence or fraud or both hath never failed from the beginning of the World to this day by the wise permission of God for the bruising of the Heele of the Womans Seed in the Head and Members to shew himself the God or chief Potentate and Ruler in and over the whole World And so influence in such manner all the visible Rule and Authority whether Civil or Ecclesiastical that is exercised on Earth and is supported by humane Wisdom and Power centring in the foresaid Principles of batred and prejudice against Christ and his Kingdom that he hath ever got the better of it in the eye of flesh and blood over the true subjects and servants of Christ and hath as much as is in him slain Christ's Witnesses and kept them under in a most oppressed and dispersed condition Of this the Seed of Abrabam beginning in Sem and so downward until Christ's Incarnation and Death and as the Consequence thereof the rejection of the Seed according to the flesh were the living and known examples in their dayes what Servitudes and Captivities were they not exposed unto and did they not undergo And at last the very visibility of their own Church and State was wholly defaced and lost though both of Divine Constitution and supported not only with divine Laws but with the visible signet of the Divine Presence and by whom was this People upon whom the Name of God was called brought under persecuted and suppressed but by those who were foretold by Dan. ch 2. and most lively represented and described by that great Image which was the subject of Nebuchadnçzzar's Dream that none but Daniel could rehearse and interpret signifying the Persons and their Successors that should be found possessing the Universal Empire and Command of the World during the continuance of those known Four Monarchs that have followed successively one after another according as they were fore-told and charactered out some thousand years ago and are now standing upon their last legs the time drawing on apace when the spiritual seed of the same Abraham shall be made heirs even of the World by Faith and what was done by Abraham in Figure and Type as to his Conquest over the Four Kings Gen. 14. must have its accomplishment in Reality and Truth by those of his seed that are the true Israel in Spirit who by the Spirit of Life entring into them at the appointed time together with the Charge committed to them of pouring out the seven Vials of the last Plagues of God shall bring the final downfal and destruction of those Four Monarchs and in and with it of the Kingdom of the Beast and of Antichrist and bring home again and receive the true Lots that have been sojourners in the Sodom of this World all this time under the Power of their Oppressors And as it did befal Israel after the flesh that were Abraham's Natural Seed under the three first Monarchies and part of the Fourth our Saviour suffering Death Under the Roman Empire so are the Scriptures very plain and express if considered with a spiritual eye that the Israel after the flesh that have been adopted into the room and place of the former and though wild by Nature yet engrafted upon the same Stock and Root of the good Olive Tree the true anointed One that is the Father of many Nations as he is the Second Adam whose standing is by Faith that if they exalt themselves and become hardened and resist the Ministry of the Holy Ghost as the Jews that were their Predecessors did Christ will then make it appear also in the Case of these latter Jews who say they are so but having not the Spirit and Nature of true Faith in them do lye and deceive themselves as well as others that it is not they that bear the Root but the Root that bears them who therefore can cast them off as he did the others and once more not only shake the Earth but the Heavens although called Christian to make way for that Kingdom of his that cannot be shaken whereof we have already shewed and how nigh this is accomplishing and is even at the very doors we shall have occasion to make mention of more particularly as the next and last Particular we are to speak unto For an Introduction whereunto let me only mind you of some few things that the Apostle John in his Book of the Revelations layes before us on this behalf declaring first the things that were to befal the Heathenish Roman Empire and the Church of God abiding under its Protection during the time of the first Six Seals which by Computation continued till somewhat more than four hundred years after Christ j about the end of which period that Empire as Heathen dissolved and a new face of things in Church and State rose out of it at last for so mnch as concerned that part of the World which thereupon in Name became Christian And because the Spiritual part of the Church at that same time began to be most suppressed being forced to fly from the fury of the Serpent into a wilderness-state and condition therefore the visible Constituted Frame of Civil as well as Ecclesiastical Power called Christian were represented unto John The First under the seven-headed and ten-horned Beast that came out of the Sea And the Second under the two-horned Beast that came out of the Earth answerable to what was under other similitudes intimated of them in the Iron Legs and the Feet and Toes of Nebuchadnezzar's Image part of Iron and part of Clay Whereby the Iron leggs are the Civil Power as it became Christian and retaining still the Reliques of the Roman Empire and by the Feet part of Iron and part of Clay is meant the Ecclesiastical State and Power partly Papal and partly Reformed as an earthly Jerusalem yet visible and both enemies to the Jerusalem that is above and yet not very good friends between themselves whose

Religion hath been made National and in the Rules Ordinances and Doctrines thereof been embodyed with the Laws of each Nation in the Empire and so enforced by the Civil Sword those that truly keep the Commandments of God and Testimony of Jesus have been driven into a state of desolation persecution and dispersion and are so to continue and be warred upon forty and two Months by the Earth and her Inhabitants on the one hand and by the Sea and her Inhabitants on the other Both these sorts of Inhabitants and Enemies of the Church in the Wilderness do make up and constitute but one great City or incorporated Society of the Serpents seed spiritually called Egypt and Sodom under the headship of worldly Government as it arises out of the Sea This worldly Government is still but the same fourth Beast and universal Romane Empire in Principles of opposition to the Kingdom of Christ and Seed of the Woman as before It seems indeed to be now healed and reformed with the shew of Christian Religion under the headship of Church-Government and coercive Power arising out of the Earth or apostate Principles of the worldly Church departing from the Primitive Power Purity and Patern retaining still something of the form of Godliness but denying the Spirit and Power thereof The first Beast carries the second and is willing to be rid upon by it finding great benefit and advantage by having the Whore upon their back for the propagating of servitude and rooting out of the earth the pure and chaste Principles of the Primitive Apostolick Catholick Church Thus the War is managed between the two seeds in this third day Towards the latter end of this day is our lot fallen who are at present alive in this world But before the period and shutting in of this day the Sufferings of the Womans Seed shall have an end Then that Ministry of the Spirit shall come in which is compared to the latter rain This is that which shall break the Serpents head utterly tread him his kingdom and followers under foot This is that which by the pouring forth of the seven Vials of the wrath of God upon the kingdom of the Beast to the utter ruine and destruction thereof will prepare the way for the coming down of the new Jerusalem out of Heaven as a Bride adorned for her Husband and so for the thousand years Reign of Christ on Earth At the beginning of that Reign Satan shall be chained up and there shall be no more Sea or prophane worldly-Interest and beastly Government left In the evening-time of this third day or age of the World wherein we now live it shall be light by the coming on of the Kingdom and Reign of Christ with all his Saints Zech. 14. 5 7. This then that we have been describing is the third signal season or great revolution of things in this world wherein the same War that was from the beginning hath been and still is carrying on between the two Seeds under the name of Christian or of Christ's followers The Seed of the Serpent under pretence of being for Christ do prove at last universally against him most shamefully and wickedly rejecting him and falling in with the kingdom of Antichrist in direct opposition to his Kingdom This they will do notwithstanding that he hath been graciously striving and contending by the Ministry of the Gospel to work the whole World into a state of Obedience and Subjection to the Righteousness of his Scepter For this end hath he been many hundred years giving forth the light and glory of his Gospel and Kingdom from the Eastern parts of the World to the West and suffered himself all along to be cast off and his Members to be oppressed and troden under foot by degrees in one Nation and Country after another till at last it came to these Western parts and was spread from hence in America which with these Nations we live in seem to be the last piece of Ground this Quarrel is to be fought out in Yea and probably this is the time as well as the place wherein the Witnesses are finishing their Testimony being the last that are signally to be slain by the Beast as the proper accomplishment of that Prophesie Revel 11. 7. The Beast is represented here as generally in his ascendant posture being gratified with some remarkable Rise in his affairs as a lightning before death to enable him for the accomplishing of this great counsel of God that is to be acted upon the dead bodies of his slain Witnesses within the three years and half before their rising again and standing upon their feet Then they are to enter upon the second part of their Prophetical Ministry compared to that of Eliah's in Ahab's time and that of Moses in Egygt when at their word they shall shut Heaven that it rain not have power over Waters to turn them into blood and to smite the Earth with Plagues as often as they will By them also Heaven shall be opened and a fuller and more excellent discovery of Christ in Spirit ministred than ever yet hath been Amongst them shall be found those seven Angels or Officers of the Church to whom shall be committed the pouring out of the seven golden Vials full of the wrath of God These Vials contain a like universal Ministry of Wrath and of the Judgement of God by Fire upon ungodly men as was brought by Water upon the old World in the dayes of Noah This ministry of wrath by Fire shall put a period to the third state of things in the world as that by Water did unto the first Out of the destruction of the present World and frame of things by this fiery ministry of God's wrath is the thousand years Reign of Christ to spring up in that Kingdom of his that shall never end And here bear with me in giving by way of digression some few broken Notions in order to the better and more distinct opening of Christ's Kingdom which we shall find Luk. 17. 20 21. and chap. 19. 11 c. to be distinguished into a Twofold state 1. A Kingdom inward The Kingdom of God is within you and is the dominion of God in the Conscience and Spirit of the Mind This Kingdom stands not nor comes in or with any outward observation but is the commanding ruling Principle of Life in the true Saint as a Law written in his inward parts Christ's Kingdom as thus considered is intended Rev. 11. 1. where it is called the Temple of God or the inward Court and those that worship there glorifying God in their Spirits This Kingdom of Christ is capable of subsisting and being managed imwardly in the minds of his People in a hidden state concealed from the eye of the world By the Power thereof the inward senses or eyes of the mind are opened and awakened to the drawing them upward to a Heavenly converse catching and carrying up the Soul to the Throne of God and to the