and authority the Supremacy therein to the by him first wounded Beast Deca-diademick Papal ch 13.7 4. Thus we see the coming of Anti-christ sensual was with all visible and open violence and in a Profession of literal Heathenism and gross Heresies therefore he did not nor could come secret and undiscerned as the Son of perdition did with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness For he was so far from coming with all deceiveableness of a non-appearance that he came as Sodom not ashamed disclosed her sins openly manifest and apparent therefore the Church saw him openly could not but see him and fled from his face into the Wilderness for 1260. years Verse 6.14 Sundry texts so expresly assert the Series of this second Dragon and of the then chief part of the body of Anti-christ sensual his flouds of visibly profane and most wicked men and manners that it seems impossible to be doubted or contadicted And sundry faithful Church-Histories uncontroulably determine though by undeniable collection and consequence the time and manner of his coming as aforesaid and will further appear But Secondly Anti-christ secular and spiritual the more proper body of the Apostacy and son of perdition came about the year 412. also under the conducts of the Sea-born and Bicorn beasts Papal with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness whereby they least appeared what they were indeed when they came 2 Thes 2.10 Rev. 13.13 14. But this threefold distinction as also how and when each came at first will be much more clear by shewing what earth brought forth the bicorn false Prophet And therefore And I saw another beast saith the text come out of the earth and he had two horns like a Lamb c. ch 13.11 Out of the earth Non omnis fert omnia Tellus The false Prophet Bicorn and Papal grew not out of every ground The High-way least honour'd him he it as little therefore gross Heresies and open profaneness fruits of the High-way ground which neither could hide him nor be hid from others he at fitst at least affected not nor was that his native soil that brought him forth But the thorny and stony grounds the truer Parents of all deceits were the producers of him Those Professors especially the stony ground gave him his first being and their professions furnished him with all deceits For the stony ground deceives not some single persons but the whole body of the Apostacy of Anti-christ that is this Rocky ground Professors lightly over-lay'd with a trivial and superficial earth of shallow knowledg and obedience deceives its painful Sowers and all that see it It were fondness they think to say At quando Messis when they see it send forth seeds of Grace so fast But it forthwith retracts its fertility and like a Furnace consumes that seed it cherished before and is most cruel in killing the Witnesses of the truth For the blind and ambitious Off-spring of the stony ground brings of all evil Reports the worst against all good men and Manners because blind Vipers of all Serpents bite forest and they of all other are most deadly And Secondly It deceives themselves most If we say they have Grace like a grain of Mustard-seed we need no more A little is enough the least sufficient They are much deceived though they in part say the truth For Grace like a grain of Mustard-seed is sufficient for the fimplest weakest sincere Professor But a careless contented proud knowledge though it be never so great is quite contraryto true Grace which is ever growing Sincere Professors grow daily in grace and in the knowleage of our Lord Christ But a careless contented shallow knowledge continually resists the Grace of God is ever busie in bringing evil reports upon it and watcheth to work the ruine of the Witnesses of it This is not that which hypocrites take it to be the grace of God either like a grain of Mustard-seed or in any measure Nor did our Saviour say that the Kingdom of God was like a grain of Mustard-seed standing at a stay but like a grain of Mustard-seed which though a small seed grows as it were into a Tree The Son of perdition should come with all deceiveableness And this spiritual profaneness of a contented shallow literally sound knowledge with like obedience was the way of that son of perdition Therefore He did not could not come as an Arrian or Mahumetan or as Antichrist sensual came There was nothing so great deceievableness in such gross Heresies and open prophaness which appertain as more manifest to Antichrist sensual and not so properly to this secular and Spiritual son of Perdition who should come and came about the year 407 not with open manifest or gross Heresies and manners conform but with all deceiveableness of appearance of truth in knowledge obedience Doctrine profession Miracles and pretences to be the true Catholick Church These are the Angelical colours of deceiveableness under which he and chiefly his Super-intendents works secure and as it were unseen all works of spiritual wickedness and under which he came Of all these we shall speak briefly and in some order but leave their Miracles to their proper place And first of the deceiveableness of their pretence to be the Catholick Church It was the Apostacy over which the Super-intendents this Man of sin presided that seemed Catholick or universal And that body of Apostacy was the Antithesis to the true Catholick Church Herein they deeply deceived those that dwelt upon the earth and were themselves deceived The text saith A falling away must come 2 Thes 03. That is there should be a grand and general revolt of the gospel-Gospel-Church from Faith and obedience say some Expositors They are so many and common we need not quote them But there could not be a general revolt of Saints from all inward Faith and from at least some outward weak and scarce-scarce-visible obedience Such therefore must be excepted But otherwise the Apostacy might seem general We shall search the truth of it in the Types and in their Anti-type And first The Apostacy of Israel under the Pharisees might seem general and the Pharisees might pretend by the generality to be with their followers the true Catholick Church Secondly The Apostacy of Israel under Ahab might pretend by the generality to be the catholick-Catholick-Church Thirdly The Apostacy of Israel in the Wilderness when the perfidious Spies searched the Land of Promise might pretend by the generality to be the Catholick Church For all Israel to a man about four excepted fell from Faith and obedience They all observed literally legal Ordinances so far as we find well enough but rejected the Prophetical traditions that promis'd them the Land of Promise They fell from Faith in the Promises from Faith of veracity and from obedience All fell away except as aforesaid All rebelled against God against Moses and Aaren and would have stoned the two faithful Witnesses that were sent Numb 14.9 10 11. Therefore the ten Spies
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
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
with the Lamb upon Mount Sion Ch. 11.2 Ch. 12 6.14 Ch. 13.5 That Type-Wilderness was the place of provocation wherein those in a figure sealed servants of God erring in their hearts and not knowing the wayes of God provoked him to anger and they all perished in that place for their provocations That Type-Desert was a literal local barren part of the World But this Antitype-wilderness is less literal more spiritual no less barren in good works and is in the Aggregate of it the whole World For the Prototype Apostate-Church was driven out of Paradise into the barren World that brought forth as a curse laid upon it Bryars and Thorns And the Antitype revolted Woman the Gospel-Church fled from Heaven her Primitive stations and was driven thence into the Wilderness this wicked World where evil Beasts Heathens Hereticks and proud and blind Hypocrites in habit and which is an inextricable Labyrinth of investigable intanglements and wayes all overgrown with Briers and Thorns of the Cares and Pride of this life A place where the sealed servants of God habituate themselves to err in their hearts and to be ignorant of his ways with all confidence and continually provoke him to anger But The Gospel Church was not to continue scatrered over all this Spiritual Wilderness but to be more strictly confined for 1260 years to her more pecular place there prepared of God The pâ—â—ce prepared in the literal Wilderness was Egypt as we shall in the sequel fully shew Another Prophetick-place prepared of God and that more Mystical was the Apostate body of Israel or they in their journeys and places of their pitcâ—â—ng their Tents For all Israel above twenty years old about four excepted fell away when the faithless Spies brought evil reports upon the Land of Promise from Faith and Obedience That Apostate body was a place prepared of God to preserve his truly sealed servants So the Papal-Apostacy and her subdivisions such at least as held the Homousian Faith were the Antitype-place prepared of God to preserve his truly sealed servants for 1260 years But these 144000 upon Mount Sion shall not need any place prepared in the Wilderness to preserve them because they themselves shall not be there Nor shall they need a body of Death the body of the Apostacy of Antichrist to preserve as the Fish did Jonah their lives from death But they shall have the Name of God written in their foreheads And that name true practice in a fourfold conformity shall be a strong Tower to desend them from all distresses Nor shall that Name of God the vivid practice of the power of Godliness be an Anchor in a storm but an impreguable Rock above all Seas which storms can never reach Paul's Ship wherein he sailed was long driven to and fro dash't with impetuous storms at last split in pieces The passengers got its brokenboards to bring them to shore And the Profuga Gospel-Church that fled from the Serpent for 1260 years hath been long driven too much like Pauls ship to and fro broken with violent storms and is now ready by dashing billows of dissenting brethren to split inpieces But these 144000 upon Mount Sion shall not need to fear Sea-storms of tribulations or persecutions because there shall be no more Sea saith the Text Chapter 21.1 No more Sea That is No more coaltern persecutions betwixt Professors of different perswasions nor tempestuous dashings of civil Divisions nor any more distresses as formerly for faithless disobedience So the whole World in time of the flood was a stormy-Sea wherein the Ark the Prototype-Church was driven But when it rested on Ararat there was no more Sea of dashing billows against that weather-beaten Type And so the sealed wilderness-Wilderness-Church hath been driven to and fro though her first 800 years were more favourable for about 1260 years as in a troubled Sea But when she shall arrive upon Mount Sion there shall be no more Sea Righteousness delivereth from death But her righteousness of a four-fold conformity which only is the fruit of true Faith shall deliver her from all future Sea-storms and Shipwracks But this righteousness is much more difficult to be done than the righteousness of formal Professors and far different from the promiscuous clypt and defalked righteousness of such true Saints whose Harps are ever out of tune For Formalists and Hypocrites nor are true Saints free from this fault really imagine that the way to work true Gospel-righteousness is obvious to any Every man they think may do it without much direction for any difficulty therein The ground of this almost general misconceit is this They mistake the deceiveableness of unrighteousness for the Righteousness of Saints and the Gold-like Crowns of Locusts for the Name of the living God written in the foreheads of his servants And this righteousness mistaken for true is most easie to be done by the most indocible It s most easie for men to pretend Religion and practise none To profess to witness the Truth and testifie lies in words and works or to witness it in both with those delayes and such slackness or partiality that it profits none To take much care to come to the knowledge of the Truth in the Doctrine of Faith and Manners and be deceived but not to come to the knowledge of the Truth in practice that they may be saved This is Doctrina dedocenda Doctrine to be learn't at least to better ends To pass heady censures and practise actions of precipitate rashness which even Heathens abhor is as bestial abhorred of God Our Law said an Heathen condemns no man unheard But corrupt careless true Christians can and commonly do condemn Indictâ causâ inaudito viro any man or thing unseen and unheard But no Law Literature nor Religion nor strict Profession nor sound Doctrine No Gifts nor Parts can bind or debar unsealed evil-Beasts from this barbarous frenzy which the Laws even of wicked Heathens allow not and which makes men more bruitish than the worst Heathens This desperate wickedness of barbarous folly so easie it is to be learn't is little less frequent nor less esteemed for true Righteousness than it was by the Pharisees who by this temerity of blind Hypocrisie condemned and crucified the King of Righteousness But the Righteousness of this Chorus Virgineus contrary to the Crowns of Locusts deceits of Hypocrites and the dangerous diversious of corrupt careless true Christians shall be as the Text infers every way conform to that which is right Therefore it must be for difficilia quae pulcra far more difficult to be attained and practised These were not defiled with women saith the Text for they are Virgins That is They shall not pollute themselves with the false Doctrines and foolish Opinions of Erroneous Professors nor espouse their works Their works shall not be like the fruits of Formalists withered for want of Rain nor blasted with the Wind but be good and perfect fruits of a foursold conformity well-pleasing to God
Therefore was God angry forty years with the Type Wilderness-Church and swore in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest So the Antitype-Wilderness is the place or dispensation of Gods heavy anger and sore displeasure even against his own Church and People because saith he of the Figure of these they do always err in their hearts and have not known my ways Heb. 3.10 Do always err c. Their Antitype also err always because they are ever inanimadversive and mind not or mind not much what they say or do One said of the troubled Sea Nibil bio nisi Pontus Aether So may we say of the dead faith of this Spiritual dreadful Wilderness There is nothing there but errors in mens imaginations and little else in the hearts and hands of Saints For the fruits of a dying or desert-faith are through brutish inadvertency erring imaginations ignorant animosities Schisms deceits in Opinions and mistakes in Manners A dead faith the foundation of the Apostacy of Antichrist is threefold or subsists of three parts First Inanimadvertency Secondly Ignorance or erroneous knowledge which the Apostle calls Science falsly so called 1 Tim. 6.20 From these two proceeds the love of a Lye And these three constitute a fruitless dead faith And Secondly Antitype Sion or a fruitful living Faith the Derivative Foundation of the Church of God is also threefold or subsists of three parts First Animadvertency Secondly true Knowledge and from these two proceeds Love the life of a fruitful living Faith For Knowledge comes by animadvertency and from both springs Love the life of Faith And I looked and lo c. Animadvertency is the Root of Faith Knowledge the Eye of it Love is the Life thereof But a dead faith Acts and looks not Censures and sees not Reads and minds not or with an evil Eye minds amiss mistakes pieces and fragments of good Works for perfect Obedience and deceits for Truth no better fruits must they expect that make a dead faith the foundation of their-Works and the substructure of the Church of God Break off thy sins said Daniel by righteousness and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor if it may be a lenthening of thy tranquillity Nebuchadnezzar no doubt did as Daniel directed But it 's not a careless clypt Righteousness of a dead faith nor half-performed mercy to the poor that can secure Professors Salnts States or Churches from dreadful Calamities He was driven as a man without Rule or Reason from amongst men and his dwelling was as in a Wilderness with the Beasts of the field till twice 1260 days past over him His Faith was a Wilderness dead Faith bringing fruits forth by halves The dreadful evils of the barren Desert Literal and Spiritual and the contrary benefits and blessings of Sion in Type and Antitype may briefly appear from the fastings of Moses Eliah and Christ forty days in the wilderness The time was above fourty days and perhaps about 42 days conform to 42 moneths Propbetical which was the time that the Gospel-Church should fulfil in her place in the Spiritual Wilderness Chap. 12.6 14. Ch. 13.5 For Christ had finished 40 days fasting before the Devil began to assail him with his fiercest temptations Matth. 4.2 So Eliah took one days journey into the Wilderness and was miraculously fed there before he fasted 40 days 1 King 19.4 And Moses fasted 40 days and 40 nights before God gave him the Tables of the Covenant Deut. 9.11 Forty days and forty nights rotunditatis gratiâ or as a round number are exprest but the whole time of the fastings of all the three appears to be longer That time was an abbreviated adumbration of the Gospel-Churches continuance in the Antitype-wilderness and what they did or suffered in that time there prefigured Prophetically the state of the Profuga-Church And first Moses fasted two several times 40 days and when he had finished his first 40 days in Horeb he found Israel more degenerate in Manners and Opinions than they had been before worshiping a Calf Deut. 9.12 So the Gospel-Church and Professors having now near finished their Wilderness-Pilgrimage are so far from being nearer to Mount Sion that they are much more erring in their hearts and ignorant of the ways of God More abundant in mistaking evil Manners for good Works and more blindly Superstitious in Worshiping as Israel did a Calf the works of their own hands The works of their hands Revel 9.20 And what are those works I Answer All careless deficient long-delayed or half-performed works of mercy and equity are though wrought by Saints the works of mens hands which God abhors Such much more are the works of all Saints and Professors that mistake their Cui persons or things whom they misintend to right or promote We are debtors saith the Apostle not to the flesh to live thereafter Rom. 8.12 But this is the misery of Modern times that all men and Saints for the most part mistake their Creditors and mind not to whom they themselves are Debtors For the miserable Wilderness-Christians are all Debtors and owe almost all they have to themselves little or nothing to their neighbours to whom what is part of their due they pay as the Pharisees did to their own Proselytes Kin Friends or Members of their own Societies But to things profitable and honest and to the pursuers of such things they find nothing or the least part due and accordingly repay them These are Debtors be they never so Spiritual to the flesh and these their fruits the works of their own wicked hands are worshiped almost by all as Israel when Moses had finished his 40 days fasting were found worshipping a Calf No less wicked are the Works of the hands of Hypocrites that make the Witnesses the Cui of their condemnation and false accusers forgers of lyes through their indulgent or not diligent examining of them their Cui of Credit and Reputation For this cause multitudes of blind zealous careless Professors readily give credit to and capitulate with the greatest Impostors against the injured most innocent This practice is the power of the Prince of darkness in the Mystery of iniquity whereby he crucifies Christ Mystical and kills his Witnesses in the Spiritual wilderness Secondly Eliah wandered and fasted forty days in the dreadful Wilderness and when he had finished that sore travel he was so sar from Mount Sion that he was got to Horeb quite contrary to it So the Gospel-wandring Saints and Professors having almost finished their much more sore travel in a far more troublesome Wilderness are so far from drawing near to Mount Sion that they are come to Horeh So horrible are the mistakes and deceits of these men and times But how and when did Eliah begin his Eremitetiavel I Answer He fled for his life from Jezabel as his Antitype the Gospel-Church fled from the second Dragon but indeed at first from both combined Ch. 12.6 14. He came to Beersheba where he left his
prosperity of all Princes and People These can with like folly readily say What peace what prosperity comes by this kind of knowledge We busie our selves about better things mind more necessary concerns Thus Hypocrites harden their own hearts against the knowledge of those things that chiefly belong unto their peace and under a blind pretence of minding the most serious things embrace as the Pharisees did base inanimadvertency and brutish ignorance Our Saviour weeping for them said of their Type Hadst thou known at least in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace But they expecting those things come before to come in future never found that day nor those things Profane disregard to Prophetick Scriptures puts out quite all the eyes of Providence So formal Professors follow or rather far out-go their footsteps see not in no wise will see those things that belong unto their peace For formal Professors feed their own folly with deceits affect to walk in the admired sparks of their own Fires empty impertinencies and forsaking the means of their own safeties tread under-foot the things and those Scriptures that principally appertain to the peace of all People For this profaness and it was most just with God even the Gospel-Church as her followers trod under foot this knowledge those things was given to the Gentiles to be troden under foot for 1260 years Apocal. 11.2 3. But Fabula narratur surdis Sacred Prophesies with the Promises and Threatnings therein and the performances of them are to formal Hypocrites as Stories told to deaf or dead men Common Herds have as good care to know how or when Promises were performed and Prophesies fulfilled Therefore their Fore-fathers men of like base and brutish inanimadvertency perished with common Herds in the Flood But they that hate this dangerous and degenerous wickedness of slothful Hypocrites may from this contrary Fountain find an open Gate to good manners the surest grounds of firm peace at present a sevenfold complyance of performances with those texts that foretold the fulfilling of them And likewise how and when this second Dragon began to give his Seat and Power to the Sea-born Beast Nor are these seven Parallels or Prophesies performed a sevenfold but indeed a seventimes sevenfold coaltern record to each other irrefellibly confirming the truth of each others performance This second Dragon drave the Primitive Church into the Wilderness translated the Empire cut off the feeble and dying remnant of the first Dragon raised Papal Rome by taking away all that letted and by giving his groat Authority so taken the Supremacy therein to her Secular Head favoured somewhat from the first and by degrees received the Faith of the Church of Rome Therefore this second Dragon is the first Head in Scripture order of Papal Rome Him these texts hold forth Rev. 11.7 Chap. 12.14 15 16 17. Chap. 13.2 4. Chap. 16.13 The second Head of this threefold City was Papal Romes Power Secular or Beast with ten Crowns How and when he rose up we have sufficiently shewn and shall his Progress At present we shall shew his Disparities to distinguish him from the first Dragon John saw that first Dragon Chap. 12.3 Or the Scarlet coloured Beast Chap. 17.3 To wit One and the same Dragon or Beast in those two texts He saw this Beast also Chap. 13.1 But he saw not both alike He saw that first Dragon of Pagan Rome Historically and Prophetically as past in part and in part to come when he wrote the Apocalyps But he saw this Sea-born Beast not Historically or as past in part but Prophetically as to come entire after the fall of that first Dragon to wit the future rising up of his first Head or him in his first rising Revel 13.1 And first He saw that first Dragon or Scarlet-coloured Beast Historically or as past in part Five are fallen saith the text ch 7.10 that is Five Heads the Supream Powers of Pagan Rome Crowned in their Kings Consuls Decemviri Dictators Triumviri were then fallen or past when John wrote And one is vers 10. that is the sixth Head crowned in the Emperours then existed when John wrote Thus far he saw that first Dragon historically or as past in part So Secondly He saw also that first Dragon Prophetically or as to come in part And one is not yet come and when he cometh he must continue a short space that is the seventh Head should come and came about 292 when Constantius was made Caesar and somewhat siding with the Primitive Church began to support Her His Son declared fully for Her This was Divisi Caput Imperii divisum The divided Head of the divided Empire when some of its Supream Powers sided with the Primitive Church some with the Pagans therefore this Head because thus divided continued but a short space and ended about the year 324 when Constantine and his Armies Michaels Substitutes had cast him finally from his seat of chief Power and his place was found no more in Heaven Chap. 12.7 8 c. Howbeit he recovered Power though not Supream for a short time For Lastly His eight Head who was of the seven who existed an eighth but sick and scarce perfect head of that dying Dragon was the Paganoarrian or otherwise Heretical Head under Constantius the second Julian Valens c. This Head aspired about 340 and expired together with that first Dragon for ever in four hundred and ten or twelve Then this Sea-born Beast by the false Prophets procurement and the second Dragons preferring of him succeeded Secondly John saw the first Dragons ten Horns all uncrowned Chap. 12.3 Chap. 17.12 But he saw the ten Horns of this Beast all Crowned Chap. 13.1 They the ten Horns of the first Dragon were Pro-consuls Presidents or Deputies subject to the Senate and People of Rome who ruled over the Kings and chiefly those Kings of the Earth whom notwithstanding the text calls Kings that had received no Kingdom as yet Chap. 17.12 18. But these ten Crowned Horns of this Beast were absolute Kings or supream Powers subject legally to none but link't together by the chain of the false Prophets supposed true Catholick Religion Chap. 13.1 12. And this tenfold disparity proved from the text and the testimonies by necessary inserences of all Chronologies of those times evidently resels that universal opinion so far as I find of all Expositors upon those places to wit That the Decacerastick Dragon or Scarlet-coloured Beast in the 12th and 17th Chapters and this Beast in the 13th Chapter are all one and the same Dragon or Beast And it irrefellibly proves that this Beast in the 13th Chap. is signally different and distinct from that red Dragon or scarlet coloured Beast in the 12th and 17th Chapters This may seem abundantly sufficient to satisfie the Reader at present Howbeit I shall make it much more clear in the sequel For until this and many like gross grand and I might say general mistakes be removed no Apocalyptick
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-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
the Witnesses Sackcloth Prophesie run parallel in the same Epoche So the six Vials and this Cities duration synchronize with both which is plain from their temporal periods For The period of this threefold Mystery of iniquity in the tenth Chapter is thus exprest There shall be time no longer And its period in the sixteenth Chapter under or at the beginning of the seventh Vial as the former was under or at the beginning of the seventh Trumpets sounding is likewise thus exprest It is done And what is done The answer is made in the next verse but one And the great City was divided into three parts c. That is this threefold City was done ver 19. The scope and almost the express words of both texts is the same shewing That this threefold City or Mystery of iniquity should at the beginning of the sounding of the seventh Trumpet and pouring forth of the seventh Vial begin vigorously to be made manifest and the Mystery of God her Antithesis to be compleated that is The true Church should then begin more vigorously and visibly to expatiate and appear to all Sects and Nations For those periods It is done Time shall be no more are terms of expression that are synonymous in sense and are in both texts a twofold sacred record that the duration the more entire duration of this threefold City should be 1260 years synchronizing with the six Trumpets with the six Vials with the Witnesses Sackcloth-Prophesie and with all the rest of these twelve Epochaes Thirdly the duration of this threefold City is commensurated which are also the Epoche of the death of the Witnesses by three dayes and an half Rev. 11.9 11. In which texts the two former texts are more fully explained and the same period of this threefold City the third time repeated And first We see that the two Witnesses were to lye in that City dead for three dayes and an half ver 8 9. Therefore the end of those three dayes and an half was the period of the Witnesses death and of the duration as will appear of that threefold City For After three dayes and an half saith the text the Spirit of life from God shall enter into them ver 11. Therefore the end of those three dayes and an half must be the period of their lying dead in that City and the period also of that Cities duration For The same hour saith the text the tenth part of that City fell ver 13. And fell not to but from Apostacy in manners to pursue sincere truth and peace in Theory and practice or to use the words of the same text shall then begin to give Glory to the God of heaven that is Shall then begin to give Glory to God with greater vigour and visibility of true obedience then formerly And these three dayes and an half of the duration of the death of the Witnesses in that City and of that City till it should begin to fall as aforesaid are also conterminated as the same period the third time exprest with the beginning of the sounding of the seventh Trumpet vers 13. And the seventh Angel sounded c. Therefore these three dayes and an half of the more entire duration of this threefold City and of the death of the Witnesses therein synchronize with the six Vials the six Trumpets and the Witnesses Sackcloth Prophesie in 1260 years For those in this Chapter twice repeated three dayes and an half are the same three times and an half chap. 12.14 the same forty two Months chap. 12.2 And the same 1260 dayes in the next verse which being 1260 dayes annual are 1260 years For the durations of the death of the Witnesses and of this threefold City were pre-signified in Scripture both by three dayes and an half artificial or 42 hours and by three dayes and an half Annual or forty two Months as we shall fully and that so soon as we shall first lay down these twelve Epochaes instantly shew The Fifth Epoche is of the Gospel Churches grand revolt FIfthly The Gospel-Churches profligation and defection seems to retain the same time For We find her in Heaven holding forth though at last more remisly her primitive integrity of an Heavenly conversation till about 407 Rev. 12.1 And till then from about 292 in the Heaven of high Power and Authority in the Roman Empire For She casting the first Dragon from his seat there sate sole Regent in his Throne of power Her Eagles exalted both her and themselves into that Heaven ver 7. to the 12th But a falling away was to come and the Church fell fell from Heaven fled into the Wilderness for 1260 dayes Annual 2 Thess 2.3 Rev. 12.1 6 14. Therefore the Church fell from Heaven though not totally and finally in a twofold respect First in reference to her Heaven of high power Secondly In respect to her heavenly conversation Her fall in conversation caused her other fall She fell in part from her former Heavenly conversation Therefore She fell as the effect of that cause from her Heaven of high Power and Authority Her fall in conversation was Spiritual Her fall from Power was temporal In reference to both she according to those texts aforesaid stood in Heaven And in reference to both she fell from Heaven The manner of her fall from both is plain from her Patern or Prophetick type Lament 2.1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a Cloud in his anger and cast down from Heaven to the Earth the beauty of Israel c. So God covered her the anti-type-Anti-type-Church with a Cloud in his anger and cast down from Heaven to the Earth the beauty of Gospel Israel For She like the Church of Ephesus left her first love forsook her first works works of Judgment Mercy and Faith and remembred not scarce yet remembreth from whence she fell Thus she fell first in her conversation from Heaven therefore God sent the second Dragon with a flaming Sword who cast her as were our first Parents out of Paradise out of her Heaven of power and Authority and drave her into the Wilderness for 1260 years chap. 12.1.6.14 Many Expositors call that falling away in conversation that grand and general revolt of the Gospel Church from Faith and Obedience Howbeit it was in her true members though much inwardly chiefly in outward appearance and practice The gradual aggresses of the Churches defection from about 340 to 407 we shall shew afterwards The sixth Interval THe sixth Epoche and this of a different denomination more fully proves the former is of the Churches abode in her place prepared of God which is twice recorded in two several texts of the same Chapter And the Woman fled into the Wilderness where she hath a place prepared of God that they should feed her there 1260 dayes which being as we shall instantly and irrefellibly shew dayes Annual are 1260 years chap. 12.6 And there were given to the Woman two Wings of a great Eagle that
six Angels should sound their Trumpets that is the Gospel-witnesses should prophesie six times seven moneths of days annual which make 1260 years So long they should prophesie in sackcloth That is they should lift up their voices like trumpets as the Priests of the Lord did at the siege of Jericho six times but with somewhat feeble blasts and in much frailty and without any great visible effect or event of their sounding to convince Sects or convert Hereticks But they should sound their six Trumpets prophesie in sackcloth no longer For there should be no longer time saith the text No longer time of the six trumpets sounding of the Witnesses sackcloth prophesie nor any longer time of the transactions and durations of all these twelve Epochaes But then or very soon after when the 7th Angel should begin to sound when the witnesses shall begin to prophesse with more power in practice then the Mystery of God should be finished as he hath declared c. that is His Church should then begin to be adorned as a Bride and the Mystery of Iniquity in all Sects Papal Mahumetan and modern to be made manifest They shall proceed no further saith the text for their folly shall be made manifest to all men This Epoche of the six trumpets though sufficiently clear at present is fully proved in the precedent Epochaes and ensuing parts of this Treatise The Eleventh Epoche THe Eleventh Epoche the same time and thing with the former for the most part is of the pouring out of the six Vials They were Golden vials but full of the Plagues and wrath of God therefore they synchronize with the six trumpets sounding and with the witnesses sackcloth-prophesie For the witnesses were to smite the Earth with all Plagues as often as they would in the days of their prophesie which we find were 1260 days and prophetically import as is or rather will be made apparent so many years It s apparent therefore that the witnesses prophecying for six times seven moneths of days annual or 1260 years in sackloth were the six Angles that sounded their six trumpets and the six Angles that poured forth their golden vials And that their successive prophesies in sackcloth for six time seven moneths of days annual were those six golden vials For God gave them power to prophesie so long in sackcloth And their prophesie by the power of God is no doubt a golden vial and six golden vials in that sixfold space of time But six golden vials full of the Plagues and wrath of God contingently or occasionally upon the impenitent Anti-chrictian world because of their profane contempt of their reproofs For Corruptis optimi pessima The best things by abuse bring the worst effects So the Gospel-witnesses prophesies and reproofs by the power of God are that 's undeniable golden vials full of the greatest mercies to men by them admonished but by abuse they are though golden vials filled with all the Plagues of the wrath of God And how do the Gospel-witnesses and the Anti-christian world fill those golden vials of the witnesses reproofs with the wrath of God either against themselves or oothers I answer the Gospel-witnesses fill which falls out too oft their own vials with temporal Plagues against themselves So the Prophet sent to Bethel was some what remiss but in some circumstance only a man would think in this duty of prophesie Therefore he filled that golden vial the word of the Lord in his own mouth with a self-destroying Plague temporal For a Lion forthwith met him and slew him So the Gospel-witnesses oft fill their golden vials their gifts of prophesie with self-destroying Plagues when they do that duty with a cold careless remisness when they prophesie in words and not in works or practice themselves what they reprove in others when they oppose the truth they should promote whiles they labour not that their lips may preserve knowledge and they prophesie by power from God whiles they do not that duty or do it without sedulity Thus the Gospel-witnesses fill their golden vials the word of prophesie in their own mouths with self destroying Plagues of the wrath of God Lastly I will givepower to my two witnesses Religious Ministers and Magistrates and they shall prophesie And what is prophesie The Spirit or gift of prophesie is saith the text the testimony of Jesus or a faithful witness of sincere truth both in words and works without delayes diminishing or defalking so much as in circumstance any part of it which this Prophet sent to Bethel found by sad experience This appertains as their duty to Ministers to do it in words and in works also And to Magistrates to do it in works or practise and in words also though not in words altogether in such manner as it belongs to Ministers Prophesia est testimonium tum verbis tum fact is verum afferre non impugnationem convitlum vel cavillationem inferre For they that prefer truth-opposing-contradiction or prefer not the truth conform to Gods command prophesie not or at least fill that golden Vial their power and gifts to prophesie with the Plagues and wrath of God against themselves Secondly others also perhaps true Saints fill the golden Vials of the Gospel-witnesses with self-destroying temporal Plagues So a certain Prophet said to a man in the name of the Lord Smite me I pray thee The man perhaps in favour to him as a Prophet refused to smite him and so filled that golden Vial the word of the Lord in the mouth of that Prophet with a self-destroying Plague For a Lion also forthwith met him and slew him 1 Kings 20.35 36. Saints sometimes too oft fill the golden Vials of the witnesses with the sharpest temporal Plagues against themselves Oft with grievous spiritual plagues and desertions which themselves sustain Oft with most deadly plagues upon all men Babylon the great Rome-Pagan or rather Rome Christian and Papal newly apostate in manners fell That is the Saints that stood in her and that only could fall indeed fell from their first love and works and some fled out of her therefore Her plagues her Witnesses having finish'd their Primitive testimony against her defections came in one day Death Mourning Famine Fire chap. 18.2 8. A few sincere Saints in that City stood and that City supported by their standing stood firm A few sincere Saints fell and Babylon the great fell by their fall Fell temporally by their Spiritual fall in part their fall though but in part filled the Vials of her faithful Witnesses their reproofes and Prophesies with the Plagues and wrath of God which they poured forth upon that falling City True Saints thus fill the Golden Vials of the Witnesses with Plagues against themselves against the Church of God against all men If whiles they sound their trumpets they shut their ears or are hearers of the word only not doers of it or do it carelesly or inconform to Gods command If they forget judgment mercy faith
porters of evil reports dyed immediately by the Plague and all Israel whom they had infected with the Pestilence of that Apostacy all to a man from twenty years upwards two excepted dyed in the wilderness ver 29. And all that sad Prophetick story is told as it were mutato nomine of their Anti-type the body of Apostacy who by their generality pretend to be the Church Catholick who cast away look not after the Promises in the Prophetick Scriptures nor after substantial truth and obedience but basely espouse a trivial superficial shallow though somewhat literally sound knowledge with obedience conform which is the productor of evil reports blasphemies persecutions and the path-way that the son of perdition came when he came with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness about the year 412 as will instantly appear For this way is deceiveableness it self most deceitful and that sin chiesly that shuts Heaven whiles they and their complices conceive it to be the only Key to open it This was the way of his coming about the year four hundred seven ten or twelve let us turn therefore our eyes to about that time to see more clearly both the time way and manner of his coming St. Hierom's Record and he 's the fittest testator here best occurreth his commencement at such a time and in such a manner as the Apostle predicted and I here have briefly described Of him Erasmus as Clarkes Church-History witnesseth thus writeth Quis doces aptiùs quis delectas urbanùs St. Jerom was in Erasmus esteem as it might appear the best Teacher and most delightful writer of all the Fathers He also lived and was at Rome in that very juncture of time when the Christian world was turning upon the hinge of Apostacy and commencing that grand revolt which â—he Apostle speaks of Therefore his Authority the best of any may here stand good But he about the year 406 as we shall shew call'd Rome-Christian the Meiropolis of the then revolting world a receptacle of Devils and faln Babylon And St. Jerom sure a most vigilant Father of the Church and a sober Writer would not have called Rome-Christian then-reviloing faln if he had not seen good reason or rather real truth for it that she was then faln or in falling But he gave sufficient reasons and those reasons we shall afterwards abundantly shew to be real truths For it follows * When I livea saith he in Babylon an inhatitant of the purple whore after the Roman Laws I would have written something of the holy Ghost and have dedicated the Treatise to the Bishop of that City And behold that seething pot which was seen in the Prophet Jeremy looking out of the North beginneth already to buil and the Senate of Pharisees cryed out at me all at once Neither was there so simple a Scribe in all that ignorant Rabble which conspired not against me wherefore I am now as it were out of Captivity neturned to Jerusalem c. Tempora mutanfur A sudden change into a strange Antithesis Rome of late the City of Righteousness revolted as in a moment to be the Head of the Mystery of Iniquity and her Professors once fruitful in all good works were turned Pharisces And the Senate saith he of Pharisces cryed out at me all at once neither was there so simple a Scribe in all that ignorant Rabble that conspired not against me Against whom Against St. Jerom whom the Papists themselves acknowledge to be a Reverend Father of the Church Ah persidious people of the City of Apostacy How soon is the Metropolis her self of the Primitive Church become unstable as waters and the once firm sear of her faithful Witnesses revolted from Faith and manners For the manners of that upstart proud Catholick-Church pretending Apostacy were mores Iniquissimi most inhumane above Heathens insolencies even to St. Jerom one of the ablest and most worthy Fathers of the Church who apparently had more serious and real worth and solid depth of good ground in him then all the petty pibble Quarry of that proud Senate of Pharisees had And this anti-type Church-Catholick pretending Apostacy when she but began to put forth her rebellious head and first opened her blasphemous mouth against the faithful Witnesses of the truth had as much as all her Types had deceitful grounds sufficient to pretend to a Church-Catholick and might and probably did thus plead Why Jerom do you coms by your Dedications to dictate to us as if we needed your instructions in the tenents of the Homousian Faith Had we needed your help we had sent for you And what need do you think can the Supream Representatives of the Catholick-Church here have of your help a single and obscure person And will you insult alone over the Catholick-Church tax ber with covetousnesse rash censures want of Charity Oppression Apostacy and we know not what Is this your Christian meckness and submission Cannot the City live in peace for you nor the Church in quiet We all all here as one man disdain your daring boldness and detest your pride And the Senate of Pharisees said Jerom cryed out at me all at once c. The Apostacy the truth-opposing Apostacy was or then seemed Catholick and the true Catholick-Church fled or was then flying away into the Wilderness That wicked apostacy even in her Infancy had aspired to the false title of the true Catholick-Church whom she most persecuted and conspired against her most faithful Witnesses And that if the Records of many besides Jeroms may be believed in the Metropolis of the true Primitive but then revolting Church This Apostacy therefore as her Types were seemed general or Catholick and did deeply deceive her self and those that dwelt upon the Earth with the falsly arrogated or stoln title of the true Catholick and Apostolick Church St. Jerom was no base Porter of evil reports no morose â—ash tâ—â—ie accuser but the most faithful of all the Fathers at least then living to reprove exhort correct rebuke instruct Et quis docet aptiùs None taught with more sincere and true Christian candor But relapsing Rome thus reproved plainly by him pay'd dear for her Apostacy and obstinate impenitence For about the very next year and that fully confirms the truth of his reprooss and the equity of his just complaints was Rome besieged made tributary and the body of her Christian Empire began to be translated And about five years after the City the second time besieged was taken plundred burnt and almost totally depopulated by the Plague Sword Famine Fire Then might that miserable City call on Jerom and cry Solon Solon Then was the first and best head of the Sea born beast secular and Papal wounded as it were unto death upon the day of his Birth or so soon as he was brought forth And then Rome Papal or the tenfold body of Apostacy persisting still obstinate and impenitent was with her revolting head or Metropolis the Ruines of Rome literal given up
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-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
This is not the way of his coming nor could he come this way This is via non satis deceptiva There 's not deceit enough in such open enormities to deceive the Nations This had been the way to deceive none and to be seen of all Had he come this way not of deceit but apparent wickedness he had not laid his foundation of fraud in his misapplyed Tu es Petrus had not had power to pull down the Primitive Church nor to assume her proprieties and priviledges to himself to build his Apostacy therewith in her place Nor could he have drawn the Nations those that dwelt upon the Earth saith the Text nor the Primitive Church her self to be the Burgers of his new built City had he come with open hostility profaneness and gross Heresies This had been the way to affright her and them and to make both fly from his presence as the Church then also did from the face of the Serpent or second Dragon ch 12.14 For Such professed hostility open profaneness and gross Herefie best befits the Pseudoprophetick superintendent of Antichrist sensual seated in Spiritual Sodom and her head that Dragon who about the year 407 came not like this Bicorn Lamb-like builder with all deceivableness but with open violence armies of gross Hereticks Heathens and Arrians to kill the Church and her witnesses or to cause her saith the Text to be carryed away of the flood To wit By that flood of Military Forces vers 15. wherewith he vanquished Rome Imperial That so neither she nor any part of her being quite carryed away might be ever seen any more Therefore He did not deceive and draw her by fraud but by force drave her to fly with two wings of a great Eagle as into her subterfuge into this Tripolity of deceit which the false Prophets hands had constituted or was in constituting of it of ten Nations For That City of deceit and persecution but of her preservation from corporal and total destruction by that second Dragon the Text calls Her place prepared of God ch 21.6 And the woman fled into the wilderness where she hath a place prepared of God that they should feed her there 1260 dayes The same place and the same time is set down the second time in the same Chapter vers 14. For Though the False Prophet by Gods permission built this ten-fold City of Apostacy yet it was a place prepared of God for the purpofe aforesaid To wit To preserve his Church not from all persecution but from a total destruction by the rage of the second Dragon from whose face the Church then fled for 1260 years ver 14. For the false Prophet built that City a City both of affliction and refuge to the flying Church But God gave him power all power into his hands to crect that Decalabyrinth of errour Whose coming is with all power saith the Apostle 2 Thes 2.9 He shall wear out well nigh wear out the Saints of the most high and think to change times and Laws and they shall be given into his hands the Laws of power or all power as it were by a Law shall be given into his hand for three times and an half or 1260 years to be a refuge as well as a scourge to the Church so long Dan. 7.25 For as God prepared a Fish and that Fish to be a place for flying Jonah not as a Tombe to interre him in lasting oblivion but as a Womb to preserve him for a future birth to a better life So God prepared Rome Papal with her Sects for his flying Church as a womb to preserve her from perishing and for a future production of her to a far better reviction And the Woman fled into the wilderness into her place prepared of God where she is nourished for 1260 dayes from the face of the Serpent Apocal. 12.6.14 The time in Type and Antitype and how God prepared Rome Papal with her Sects to be a place to preserve his Church for 1260 years from perishing by the second Dragon we shall shew afterwards And therefore Male creditur Hosti It s dangerous trusting to Turkes and Mahumetants the main continued stem and Off-spring of this second Dragon For though they pretend to some slavish allowance of liberty to Christians and Sects for which some Sects and wicked professors wish them before Papists and indeed above others more Orthodox it may be undoubtedly expected That had they the power absolute in their own hands over all Christians they would Massacre all as they did formerly in Spain for the very name of Christ For so their like Pagano-arrian predecessors at the ingress of this second Dragon about 407 came with flood-like armies and with full purposes to destroy utterly the Gospel Church But The false Prophet came with all deceivableness Laid his foundation of deceit pulled down Church priviledges and built his Decapolite state of Apostacy under a strict and specious pretence of the Catholick and Apostolick Faith confirmed by many dreadful false Miracles and in shew of all meekness as being the servant of the servants of God and the tender Father of all the Fathers of the Church when all was nothing but a strongly deluding fraud in a superficial affected shallow knowledge and profession fruitful only in persecution and in bringing evil reports upon the best men then living A knowledge and profession casting the imputation of innovations upon their antient Catholick and most solid Truths as in the examples of the sixth Council of Carthage Saint Basil Jerom Augustine and others And calling their own Innovations Antient and Catholick Truths and Customes So Innocent the first did about his pretended antient right of Supremacy in his Epistles to the Bishop of Roan Augustine and others You have saith he to Saint Augustine had due regard of the Apostolick honour I say of him who hath the care and charge of all Churches in asking advice of him in these perplexities and intricate causes following therein the antient Canon which you know as well as my self to have ever been observed in all the world And yet Augustine and the sixth Council of Carthage clearly proved this his pretence of an antient and Catholick practice in all the world to be a notorious and remarkable lie in those four first Fabers of the Apostacy To wit Innocent Zosimus Boniface and Caelestin For The Son of perdition in all his Sects and Off-spring seeks seeks diligently to suppress solid truth and sincere obedience by casting the lying Imputation of innovation upon it and to preferre a shallow fruitless knowledge in a proud careless covetous practive as antient Catholick and Apostolick Thus he cast down the power of the Primitive Church and built his Apostacy in her place That is the Bicorn Seer by deceit by all possible deceivableness built this City And as the bands of the blinded Syrians sent to Dothan came instead of it to Samaria so these ten Nations with the Dragons floodlike armies or they
endeavour to shew briefly what their use and meaning is Wherefore we shall distinguish by their respective works or fruits they bring forth betwixt the sealed and Conscript-Churches and betwixt both and those that have not the Seal of God nor his Name in their foreheads And first The works of the flesh are manifest c. Gal. 5.19 Such works are not sealed works nor deceitful God sets no Seal to the doers of them vers 21. nor are they much deceitful For there is no great deceit or Mystery in the more proper works of the flesh which are manifest Of these I have written at large before and therefore need not now insist upon them But Secondly The practice of Truth-pretending Formalists is Justitia insigillata deceptiva an unsealed half-performed righteousness of deceit It was commanded them saith the Text that they should not burt the Grass neither any green thing nor any Tree but only those Men which have not the Seal of God in their forebeads Ch. 9.4 That is The Locasts as it were by a command from God ver 5. should torment Truth-pretending Church-persecuting Papists that had not the Seal of God in their foreheads with like retaliation as they had persecuted and tormented the Saints of God that had his Seal in their foreheads Nor had these Locusts themselves his Seal as neither Type Egypt nor the Locusts that tormented her had the Seal of the Covenant and the practice of those Papists and these Locusts that tormented them being both alike unsealed was a persecuting practice and a righteousuess not sealed but deceitful shewing that the doers of such rash violence have not the Seal of God Fiat tamen justitia Right must be done to evil-doers and not with-held from the well-deserving To omit either or do both negligently is not the least pe secution as we have seen in Eli and others Such persecution on the right hand or left is though almost universally practised by such as are sealed the practice properly of those that have not the Seal of God in their oreheads Thirdly The practice of those 144000 that were sealed with the Seal of God is Justitia sigillata vera sedvix-manifesta true righteousness through much weakness and many deficiencies not clearly manifest These 144000 were not the aggregate of the whole Gospel-Church but a select part of it excluding the outward Court that was cast out and given to the Gentiles Chap. 11.2 For the son of perdition was to sit as God in the Temple of God yet was not sealed or accepted of Him as a select member of his Church 2 Thes 2.4 The Seal of God is inward or outward 2 Tim. 2.19 The foundation of God standeth sure having this Seal The Lord knoweth who are his And Let every one that nameth the Name of Christ depart from iniquity The Lord knoweth who are his There 's the inward and invisible Seal And let him that nameth the Name of Christ depart from iniquity There 's the outward and more visible Seal of God in the foreheads of his Saints wherewith these 144000 were sealed Primitive Saints were wont to shew their Faith by their Works Jam. 2.18 And so these 144000 especially at first did for a long time But they though sealed with the Seal of God were not like the Church of Thyatira of whom this record is given of God I know thy works and charity and service and faith and thy patitience and thy works and the last to be more than the first Rev. 2.19 But the works of these 144000 were more and more perfect at first than at last For the Seal of God in their foreheads though it might suffer some decay at the grand Apostacy about or before 412 continued competently visible near a thousand years Tum vetus ipsa dies extenuabat opus Then the impression of the Seal of God in their foreheads was much defaced and their departing from iniquity less apparent Wherefore God loosed the first Dragon out of the bottomless Pit after he had been bound about 1000 years upon the Gospel-Church fallen from her first Love and Works But God hath since greatly multiplyed as he did the Type-fallen-Womans her sorrows not by her bearing many Children but by suffering for her sins her Children to wound her with many Darts of afflicting Calamities and to rend her into Schisms Subdivisions which Balm can scarce heal nor any Art bind up Were any of her sons so dutiful to her so faithful for her as to tell her and declare unto her her deplorable and desperate condition 't were in vain she minds it not but lyes as it were insensible upon her sleepy Pillow seems to have given her self up to inanimadvertency and forgetfulness begins many good works forgets to finish them Torpor corpus totum tenuit sopor animam A desperate insensibility hath seised upon the Members of her Body and a deep sleep on her Senses She is Quasi Ecclesia moritura non mortua as a dying Church only not dead But God shall wipe away all tears from her eyes Ch. 7.17 Ch. 21.4 He hath promised it and will perform it which must be done if ever it be done by his writing the Name of God in the foreheads of his servants her sons So may she be revived in her Off-spring For Fourthly These 144000 in the 14th Chapter are the same Gospel-Church redeemed as it were from death Redeemed from the Earth saith the Text ver 3. Both are the same Church but in different respects and times For the 144000 in the 7th Ch. to the 9th vers were the Church of God fed in the wilderness for 1260 years Ch. 12.6 14. But these 144000 shall be the same Gospel-Church fix't upon Mount Zion Ch. 14.1 That 144000 in the 7th Chapter was Ecclesia sigillata the sealed Church of God But these 144000 shall be Ecclesia conscripta the same Gospel-Church having the Name of God written in her forehead That sealed Church triumphed over Primitive Apostate Rome Ch. 18.20 Ch. 19. to the 7th vers This conscript-Church the same Church in succeeding times should triumph over Papal Rome Ch. 15.2 3 4. Therefore Both differ much in distance of time For that 144000 in the 7th Chapter were sealed long before these 144000 in the 14th Chapter should have the Name of God written in their foreheads And Lastly They differ much though both the same Church in preceding and succeeding times in respect to things For Those 144000 in the 7th Chapter sealed above 1200 years before the Name of God should be written in the foreheads of these their successors were not though so long before them called The first-Fruits But these 144000 in the 14th Chapter though so long after those former are called The first-fruits redeemed from the earth and from among men vers 3.4 Therefore it requires necessarily our serious disquisition to examine For what causes these the conscript Church are called The first-fruits so long after those in the 7th Chapter
and profitable to Man For so their site position and number import We find them not wandering in the Wilderness nor sitting under shadows of Death as they did before when the Woman fled into the Wilderness and her Witnesses were killed for 1260 years Revel 12.6 14. Ch. 11.7 9 11. But we find them situate and built standing no doubt after the Patern of the Lamb upon Mount Sion where Solomons Temple was built and so the Antitype of it Ch. 14.1 For We find their number to be 144000 Ch. 14.1 3. And the quadrate dimensions of Solomons Temple were 144000 Cubits thus cast up It s length 60 Cubits multiply'd by its breadth 20 Cubits makes its product 1200 Cubits which multiply'd by 30 Cubits the heighth of it makes 36000 Cubits whose square is 144000 Cubits And we find this sacred company to be 144000 to stand upon Mount Sion That is To be the Antitype of Solomons Temple or the true Gospel-Church returned out of the Wilderness and turned back to obedience That is To have the Name of the Father of the Lamb written in their foreheads which necessarily infers That this Caetus Virgineus must needs be Chorus Agni the Church of Christ That is The City of God re-built upon Mount Sion To wit upon inviolable Principles of Truth in Faith and Manners For Secondly Both their number and position imports a Quadruplex-conformity in practice For this City saith the Text lieth four-square in 12000 furlongs Ch. 21.16 It s Quadrate Dimensions it 's so easie and evident that it needs no casting up are 144000 furlongs which principally imports That the Righteousness of this Chorus incontaminatus should be of a Quadruplex-conformity or every way conform to that which is Right in it self A righteousness of arduous industry and acquisition directly contrary to the Goldlike-Crowns and deceits of Locusts and Hypocrites Thirdly The Name of God shall be in the foreheads of his servants the inhabitants of this holy City saith the Text Chap. 22.4 And his Name shall be written in the foreheads of these 144000 Ch. 14.1 Therefore these 144000 shall be that City of God I omit for brevity many other comparityes betwixt this conscript 144000 Ch. 14. and the holy City Ch. 21. The Position of the Prototype twelve Tribes about the Tabernacle was in a fourfold figure And their Antitype this 144000 Ch. 14. are of a square number And the holy City Ch. 21. is to be both of a quadrate number and figure And this fourfold congruity betwixt both in their number in the Name of God in the place of that Name and in their quadrate position signally proves that these 144000 Ch. 14. shall be the same City of God Ch. 21. And likewise that the practice of that quadrate polity for such as the Tree is such is the Fruit shall be a righteousness of a quadruplex or fourfold conformity which only or what tends thereunto is substantial and true Righteousness All other is but deceits We have already shown who that Lamb upon Mount Sion shall be Secondly Who these conscript first-fruits that shall attend him are to be And Thirdly We shall further enquire why this conscriptcompany is called The first-fruits redeemed c. Or from what and for what they shall be so redeemed And first from what they shall be redeemed To which I answer They shall be redeemed from doing the works of Heathens and Hypocrites that are contrary to Gospel-rule And from those obscure commixt works of proud careless true Christians that are inconform to Christs Commands and render them though true Saints doubtful to themselves and others whether they be such or not Secondly We shall enquire for what they should be thus redeemed The Text expresly answers this demand in these words These are the first-fruits That is They should be thus redeemed to be the first-fruits or foregoing examples for all Ages to follow To wit To draw the Nations both Heathens Sects and Saints to practise good works conform to that which is right in it self For the works of Hypocrites have no power to draw others to practise sincere obedience because they by their works give not nor can give any good examples for Papists Jews or Turks to follow Nor can careless true Christians corrupt in Manners draw others nor be drawn without those first-fruits for them to run after their examples Therefore All Sects and Nations without these first-fruits and the Lamb for their Patern must remain statu quo prius ever unconverted never truly united but be as they are and long have been Or be if that be possible worse than ever they were Sic subitò deterrima deteriora si sint sequentur Saecula For corrupt careless slothful true Christians cannot run nor draw others to run the ways of Gods Commands They though their Doctrine were most sound they strict and devour their gists great and many have more need to be drawn than power to draw others by their examples Their drawing is rather a drawing back of themselves and a with-holding of others from pressing forwards For the proud covetous careless conversations of such true Saints have no attractive force to good draw forceably to evil Their slothful pains of careless Levity Pride and Avarice are usually fond and rash impugnations of censorious ignorance against the practice of that which is right Therefore the secret and scarce discerned Graces of such true Saints are too feeble to draw others by solid Doctrine or depth of Knowledge which they never seek after Or by good examples which they never give These are no attractive first-fruits though they may in due time be drawn by them But The Righteousness of these first fruits shall be opposite to the works of darkness Justitia manifesta works of Light made thereby manifest and for that cause forceable to draw he Nations Men Sects and Saints to God and to bind the attentive ears of all to hearken and obey by its delicious harmony Nor shall that sacred company serve for Paterns of practice to posterity but be Gnomon judicij vel Norma judicandi the Rule of Right Judgment to all Saints Sects and Professors that pretend to extraordinary gifts of the Spirit of God and to be endowed with power from above above their brethren of present or former times Such may try and judge themselves and discern and be discerned by others in a very large measure whether they be led by the spirit of delusion or by the Spirit of Truth and Sobriety For The Gospel-Church was to be in the Wilderness vailed in great obscurity involved in great distresses and decaying daily in Graces for 1260 years and until these first-fruits her Off-spring should begin to stand upon Mount Sion Therefore all Sects and Professors that pretend to be endowed extraordinarily with Gifts and Power from above before this time expire appear inevitably and may appear to themselves by undeniable Record of Sacred Scripture to be so far Impostors and Seducers of others For if
the first-fruits are in future to come then these pretenders incult and careless of true Christian practice cannot be the first-fruits for others to follow Such Professors cry up with vain acclamations old Errors and Deceits for new Lights and are so far found lyars We shall now enquire Fourthly What is here meant by Mount Sion in the Text It s Type had its higher and lower parts It s higher part contained Moriab Sion and Calvary On Moriab stood the Temple On Sion was the Tower and City of David On Calvary was Christ crucified Jerusalem was built on the lower part of it The upper and lower parts had the denomination from its highest part of Mount Sion Sion and Sinai are Synantitheses or directly contrary So was the Wilderness and the Land of Promise As Jerusalem was the Metropolis of the Land of promise and Sion the chief place of note therein So Sinai was the Head and Symbole of the barren Wilderness Their disparities appear thus expresly from the Text. Tell me saith the Apostle Do ye not hear the Law for is written That Abraliam bad two sons the one by the Bond-Maid the other by a Free-Woman which things are an Allegory For these are the two Covenants The one from Mount Sinai which is Hagar and engendreth to bondage But he of the Free-woman was by Promise And Jerusalem above the Mother of us all is free The Mother of us all That is of all Sarah's Seed the sens of promise Wherefore Sion and Sinai as Types differed as Hagar and Sarah as the two Covenants as Grace and the Law Life and Death Bondage and Freedom Type Sion was a threefold foundation the substructure of the Temple of the City of God of the City of David Thither the twelve Tribes came to keep the Passover Therefore Type Sion was a Figure of the Foundation of the Church of God and a literal place But Spiritual Sion no literal place shall be the Antitype-foundation of the Gospel-Church For the Lamb and with him 144000 having his Fathers Name written in their foreheads shall stand there Ch. 14.1 The Foundation of the Church of God is transcendent Secondly Derivative The Transcendent Substructure is Deus in Christo pacatus God reconcil'd in Christ This Foundation the Rock and Pillar of Truth from eternity stands for ever The Derivative Foundation of the gospel-Gospel-Church is the knowledge and love of the Truth or a fruitful Faith in the Promises of God through Christ Christ said to his Disciples But who say ye that I am Peter said Thou art Christ the Son of the living God Jesus answered Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church Matth. 16.15 This Derivative foundation of the gospel-Gospel-Church was the Faith which Peter confessed and it had respect to and was built upon that first and transcendent Foundation This Derivative Foundation a living and fruitful Faith shall be that Mount Sion Ch. 14. where those conscript 144000 the Antitype of Solomons Temple shall stand and whereon the City of God shall be built Chap. 21.2 The Prophetick-promises are express and the Texts full and clear that prove it which notwithstanding many may object and say That this Foundation was laid long before The Assertion I confess and grant that this foundation was laid long before even in the Primitive times But a falling away was to come and a departing from the Faith 1 Thess 2. 1 Tim. 4.1 For the Church at least in a very large measure forsook the Rock of her safety the Foundation of her standing fell from Heaven where she stood and fled into the Wilderness for 1260 years Revel 12.1 6 14. So the Prototype-Church Jacobs family fell away departed out of the Land of Promise fled into the Wilderness and into her place there prepared of God To wit Egypt the most barren place in that Wilderness were it not miraculously prepared of God and as it were in the middle of it and returning thence through part of the Wilderness turned aside there also They were then far remote and long removed from the Type-foundation Sion literal where Abraham would have offered his son Melchizedeck was King of Righteousness and where the Lord was twice seen in abundant Grace and Mercy So their Antitype the Gospel-Church was long removed as aforesaid into the Spiritual Wilderness from the foundation of her standing But as many of the captives carried to Babylon were mindful of Sion and would not forget Jerusalem Psal 137.5 6. So some of the faln servants of God in the gospel-Gospel-Church have had some weak desires of Sions welfare and are somewhat though very little mindful of their first foundation But may some say this foundation Faith in the Promises stands still firm I Answer Sion stood after the City and Temple built upon it were turned to ashes but it was left desolate the living were departed the dead only and the slain were left there as the Lamentatious declare at large And so the Faith of the Antitype revolted-revolted-Church in the Spiritual Wilderness was and is a desolate Faith a Faith fruitless or far from being fruitful in the practice of good Manners and at least drawing near to a dead Faith and therefore no way fit to be the Foundation of the gospel-Gospel-Church adorned to be the Lambs Bride Ch. 21.9 But Antiype Sion shall be a fruitful Foundation a living Faith giving life to the City of God that shall be built thereon For Such as the Tree is such is the Fruit and such as this Foundation shall be the Superstructure upon it But these 144000 the Antitype of Solomons Temple built thereon shall be undefiled and withour fault saith the Text vers 4.5 That is Their Righteousness shall be so perfect in a fourfold conformity but there is no man that sinneth not I Kings 8.4 6 that it shall be a sweet Savour and a Sacrifice well-pleasing to God But the Faith of the Gospel wilderness-Wilderness-Church is as was that of her Prototype a barren faith affording very little fruit to Gods glory or the good of men The Wituesses we read were to be killed And this faith is much after the manner of the Carcasses of those killed Witnesses And indeed their Carcasses was such a Faith a dead or dying faith having some small insensible and almost unperceivable true life For Faith without Works saith the Apostle is dead a Carcass of Christian Profession without power James 2.17 20. And such a Carcass of the killed Witnesses or somewhat like it the Spiritual Gentiles kept unburied to be a foundation to build the Apostacy of Antichrist upon and it 's the Pillars of it to support it Nor are inanimadversive clypt inconform half-performances any fruits of a living but the deceits of a dead faith Such a faith Such a fruitless foundation is Sinai not Mount Sion and most unfit to be the Substructure of the Church of the living God Nor can it procure his favour but his anger or enmity for so Sinai signifies
servant There and then he began his Prophetick-Pilgrimage For he travelled thence one days journey into the Wilderness lay down and slept under a Juniper-Tree There an Angel touching him awaked him and bid him eat and drink He lay down again and the Angel touching him the second time bid him eat and drink So Christ commanded his Disciples to watch and pray and coming the first time found them asleep So did he three times and said Now sleep on Eliah so sleeping and the Disciples sleeping three times as aforesaid Prophetically prefigured the sleepy disposition of the Gospel-Church and Saints in the Spiritual Wilderness And what is sleep Sleep is a Mirrour of false Idea's wherein all the Imaginations of men are vain Visions and the things and actions which they dream they see or do are not in the least the same not seen nor done indeed So the Antitype-Hermitage of the Gospel-Churches aberrations is a large Vally of vain Vision where Saints and Professors wander in darkness and live if such may be said to live in a deep Lethargy of forgefulness forget the manner how to shew Mercy keep Faith or practise Right But dream they see what indeed they see not and do what in deed they do not mistaking morose long-delay'd half-performed good-works the Imposturous deceits of Antichrist for true Christian practice But Sion signifies not a sleepy Couch but a Watch-Tower and shall afford a clear Prospect where Men and Saints awaked from sleep revived from death shall see a far off right Idea's real Substances and practise according to Right Representations Thirdly Christ was led of the-Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil There he fasted forty dayes and forty nights Then and not till then did the Devil fiercely assault him with his fiery Darts which shews that the Gospel-Church and Saints should fustain the forest brunts and sharpest assaults of dangerous tryals and temptations about the end of her and their Wilderness-Pilgrimage Satans first inducement was to sensuality Most Men and most Professors fall into and fall by this temptation of the Devil And many without his tempting can be drawn away of their own lusts and enticed But Christ was far from being brought to practise this Pollution or being otherwise drawn or inticed Secondly The Devil taking him into an high Mountain tempted him to worldly covetousness Luke 4.5 This is the deplorable state and desperate condition of Saints and Professors in the Spiritual Wilderness That they are there alway subject to be haled by the hands of the Devil to be tempted by him to their own destruction Lastly The Devil tempting him to Spiritual Pride set him upon a Pinnacle of the Temple The Temple was built upon Mount Moriah that was part of Sion There the Devil departed There Christ overcame the Devil To intimate to all Ages That when the gospel-Gospel-Church and Saints shall arrive unto and be built upon Mount Sion to wit upon the lasting Foundation of a fruitful and living Faith then the fiery Darts of the Devil shall be spent Then shall she be ever Victrix and they overcome the Devil For Secondly The Prototype-Desert was as it were more peculiarly under the Devils jurisdiction There he tempted our blessed Saviour There Type Israel tempted and provoked God to wrath Such is the Antitype and Spiritual Wilderness much more For that is the place where the seven Vials full of the plagues and wrath of God were to be poured forth for above 1260 years upon Gospel Apostate Israel for her continual provocations Rev. 15.1 Ch. 16.1 But God chose Mount Sion which he loved For in Salem is his Tabernacle his dwelling place in Sion Psal 76.2 Psal 78.68 That is God chose loved and dwelt in literal Sion by a Prophetick-Adumbration but shall chuse love and dwell unto all after-Ages in Spiritual Sion by a much more manifest and real love power and presence Revel 14.1 Ch. 21.3 Ch. 22.3 4. Because Thirdly From Horeh part of Sinai was Sin from the Law there given made exceeding sinful But in Moriah part of Sion did the Lamb of God by the Sacrifice of himself take away the sins of the World But the efficacy of the satisfaction of that Sacrifice shall be principally illustrated and manisested to all Ages in Spiritual Sion where the Conscript-Church is called The first-fruits redeemed unto God and to the Lamb Ch. 14.1 3. Where its manifest from these express Texts that the Hermite-Churche's arrival in Spiritual Sion is contrary to the careless inadvertency of formal true Saints and Professors accounted and so called matter of Redemption Redemption the price and fruit of Christs Blood was wrought in Sion He first brought it forth planted it there Thence it was disseminated into many Nations where it brought forth its first-fruits That Primitive dispensation was the Gospel-Churches Spting succeeded by a short Summer For both expired soon after the year 400 Then a sharp Winter and a dark Night began to surprize that Royal Plant wherein it continued in much like condition to that Tree in Daniel and indeed was shadowed by it that was hew'n down had its Branches cut its Leaves shaken off its Fruits scattered till seven times past over it as they shall over this Dan. 4.16 Revel 10.7 Ch. 11.15 This Royal Plant those Times and that Winter of Tempests over-past shall be by the Lamb replanted not as at first in literal Sion but in Sion Spiritual and shall again bring forth the first-fruits redeemed from the Earth to God and to the Lamb Ch. 14.1 3 4. Fourthly Both the Legal and Gospel-Churches in the Literal and Spiritual Wildernesses provoked the most High Psal 78.17 Then was his wrath kindled against his people insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance Therefore he consumed their days in vanity and their years in trouble Vers 33. Psal 80.40 Consumed their days in vanity c. How in vanity The true Gospel-witnesses had power to Prophesie 1260 years in Sackcloth Vers 3. And what was the power of that Prophesie They had thereby power to shut Heaven that it should not rain in the days of their Prophesie and to smite the Earth with all Plagues Vers 6. that is Power to render the Antichristian World inexcusable to make their sins exceeding sinful their plagues insusserable At quando Messis What Reformation of mistakes in Manners What information against Errors in Opinions where are the first-fruits And what 's more vain Therefore God listed up his hand against his inheritance to overthrow them in the Wilderness consumed their dayes in vanity their years in trouble Rev. 11.2 7. Ch. 12.15 17. But God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes in Spiritual Sion Ch. 7.17 Ch. 21.4 rectified their Judgments reform their Manners and render them undefiled and without fault in his sight Ch. 14. But. Fifthly Great was the cause when God complained of his own people in the Desert That they provoked him to swear in his wrath that they should not enter
barren than any part of it for in seven years when the River did not overflow it brought forth nothing But it was a place miraculously prepared of God by a more general Providence through the River's yearly overflowing it And it was more remarkably prepared by a special Providence of God in sending Joseph thither to foresee and prevent the miserable calamities of its seven years native barrenness Spiritual Egypt the subject of the secular and Spiritual-Apostacy was the place prepared of God to preserve the Gospel-Church for 1260 years in the Antitype-Wilderness Rev. 12.6 14. Ch. 11.8 And therefore Thirdly Literal and Spiritual Egypt were the Theaters or proper places of the Type and Antitype-Apostasies And Fourthly We shall shew what the grand Apostacy is and first In a Figure The Patriarks sold their brother into Egypt and God sold them into the same place They fell away from faith and love From faith to their own Father from love to him and their own brother from care of both And the Apostacy of the gospel-Gospel-Church is exactly the same She and her Members fell in a very great measure from faith and obedience from faith to men from love to their brethren and thereby from obedience to God The fruits of Egypt in the famine were ill-favoured and withered fruits Such are the fruits of Saints and Professors in the Spiritual Wilderness their good works are Dwarf-manners half-performances They sell their brethren for lucre without shewing mercy or doing right They err in their hearts and are ignorant of the wayes of God They mind not or very little what they are The grand Apostacy is two-fold The first And The second Such was it in the Types thereof Type Egypt's Apostacy was two-fold She at first savoured Israel was a nursing Mother to the Profuga -Church but fell away to afflict and persecute that people That was her first Apostacy But Secondly She oft repented as Hypocrites do to no purpose and then pursud Israel into the Red Sea to slay them all by a total excision and they all that pursu'd them perished themselves in that Sea This was Egypts second and last Apostacy Secondly The Old World revolted from its Primitive Integrity Therefore God appointed Noah a Preacher of Righteousness a Figure of the Witnesses Prophesying in Sackcloth to forewarn the World for 120 years That might be the principal time of its first Type-Apostasie But all that time spent they repented not and the fear of God was reduc'd to some few in a single family That diminution of the fear of God and increase of impenitence after so long admonition was a second Apostacy Then the floud came as an universal Sea and destroyed the World Thirdly Baals Prophets and Consederate Israel fell away to worship Baal for 1260 dayes That was the chief time of their first Apostacy But after that Satan became a lying Spirit in the mouthes of all the surviving Prophets That was their second Apostacy Then the total excision of all those Prophets soon after followed Thirdly Judas a man of half-performances and a Figure of the Apostasie of Antichrist is expresly called The son of perdition John 17.12 And the Antichrist I say not sensual but Secular and Spiritual is called also The Son of perdition 2 Thes 2.3 That Type-son of perdition Judas apostatized twice and first he was or seemed to be a chosen Vessel Christ chose him to be a Disciple Luke 6.13 But he fell away to be a Thief and a Hypocrite and so continued for about 1260 days Daniels half week of years Dan. 9.27 and was all that time undiscovered or not known to the Apostles to be an Hypocrite That time was the duration of his first Apostacy But then Secondly Satan entered into Judas That was his second Apostasie He then immediately betrayed his Master and hasted to hang himself This second Apostasie was a falling away Non à bono ad malum sed à malo ad pessimum not from seeming good to real evil so he had faln before for 1260 days but from real evil to most desperate wickedness from seeming fidelity to real perfidy So his Antitype the son of perdition was to Apostatize twice His first revolt was from Primitive Faith and Love That desertion was to continue entire 1260 years His second Apostasie is or shall be a falling away à malo in deterrimum from evil to all excessive wickedness perfidy and iniquity which the Apostle thus predicted This know that in the last days perilous times shall come for men shall be lovers of their own selves covetous boasters proud blasphemers without natural affection false accusers traytors c. This is Apostasia novissima pessima the last and worst Apostasie Therefore it is that we find such a prodigious and suddain mutation of mens manners They had sometimes yea lately some mansuetude some love some seeming good Now nothing but deceit They incline their ears to lyars and Hypocrites hearken unto lyes become false accusers and traytors as if Satan with seven Spirits were re-entred into Judas and indeed As Satan entered into Baal's Servants and into Judas also and thereby initiated his and their second and last Apostasie So we find it expresly said That Spirits of Devils shall seduce the Antitype-Apostasie and after 1260 years the time of its first revolt actuate the impenitent part of that Apostate body as the Devil did the Swine of Gadara into the Sea of perdition Revel 11.13 18. Ch. 16.19 That time is or shall be Perditissimorum morum tempus pessimum the most depraved time of sinister prevarication wherein men and manners are most degenerate from being or doing good Their half performances are broken into fractions and yet they retain a Form c. Religion is made almost universally a Cloak for Ignorance and Iniquity The first Apostasie of Antichrist was like green Tares that incumber growing Corn The second Apostacy is compared to a ripe Harvest wherein the evil fruits of the Mystery of Iniquity are fully ripe Rev. 14.15 18. We return The place prepared in the Antitype Wilderness is vas continens the proper Subject and Theater of the grand Apostasie and of the Plagues that attend it But Spiritual Sion shall be the Theatre or derivative foundation of the Churches reversion and repentance the receptacle of all the Mercies of the Promises of God and the Fountain of those healing Waters of Life to all Nations Ezek. 47. to the 13th Rev. 22.2 3. The grand Apostasie is only blindness of mind and barrenness in manners affected and espoused by Men Saints and Professors And this Apostacy with little limitation is almost universal as barrenness in the seven years famine overspread the Land of Egypt and only shrubs and fruitless sands covered the face of the Wilderness But it must be then universal when the smoak of the bottomless-pit darkned the light of the Sun and the light of the Aire Chap. 9.2 Then universal darkness and more near the end of the Churches