Eremite-Pilgrimage did and doth cover all people But In Antitype Sion the promised Jerusalem there shall be no more Sun-darkening smoake of refined deceits Nor shall any clouds of universal darkness cover any more all people nor any Vail of Ignorance overspread all Nations For In that Mountain will God destroy the face of the covering cast over all people and the Vail that is spread over all Nations Isa 25.7 He hath promis'd it and will certainly and speedily persorm it Nor shall any Cloud then guide the Church by day nor any Pillar of fire by night But the glory of God shall enlighten it and the Lamb shall be the light thereof Chap. 21.23 To be short Antitype Sion and the Gospel-Church built upon it shall be the persection of beauty and pure Gold as it were transparent Glass Psal 50.2 Rev. 15.12 Ch. 21.21 There the beauty and harmony of Truth both in Doctrine and Practice shall be plainly and powerfully illustrated to all ages And this is Sion whom no man seeketh after Jer. 30.17 We shall now further enquire Fifthly What those Harps of God are Ch. 15.2 I answer They are called The Harpes of God and therefore cannot be made by the Art of Man but must be Harps framed by Gods hand to found sorth to the good of all his praise and glory That is They shall be the hearts of Men and Saints turned backwards How long said Elijah halt ye between two Opinions If the Lord be God follow him but if Baal follow him and they answered not a word 1 King 18.21 And they answered him not a word why not Decause their hearts were no Harps of God nor then turned backward But hear me Lord said Eliah and let this people know that thou art the Lord God and that thou hast turned their heart back again Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt-Sacrifice and the Wood and the Stones c. Vers 37 38. And when all the people saw it they fell on their faces and they said The Lord he is the God the Lord he is the God vers 39. The Lord be is the God And whence was this great acknowledgment of the truth to Gods glory The hearts of the people were become the Harps of God and were turned backward That was done in a Type and being more in word than in works continued but for a time But these Harps of God shall be the Hearts of Men and Saints turned back and turning others back from blind Sacrifice to sincere obedience Not in word but in deed Nor for a time but to eternity Harps that by good works wrought in a four-fold conformity shall greatly sound forth Gods glory and procure the general good of after-ages For Secondly Eliah we read repaired an Altar of the Lord that was broken down ver 30. And took twelve stones according to the number of the Tribes of the Sons of Jacob c. rebuilt it and offered upon it This was not written for nothing that Eliah did thus But be repaired the Altar of the Lord God accepts no Sacrifices but what are offered upon his own Altars He took twelve stones according to the number of the twelve Tribes Twelve is a quadrate number and the Root or Basis of twelve times twelve thousand or 144000 that adumbrate the Gospel-Church Ch. 14.1 Ch. 21.16 which principally denotes a quadri-formity or a fourfold conformity in the practices of all truly reformed Saints or rightly repaired Altars of God who are far from those Formalists and Hypocrites of blind inanimadvertency that mind not in their practices of good manners to conform their intellects to that which is right in itself or to come to the knowledge of the truth in practice that they may be saved Nor care to conform their wills to their right-informed intellects nor their works to both These are the Baalitish Altars of blind obedience such Altars God abhors hates such Sacrifices But these Harps of God shall be the repaired Altars of the Lord prepared by his hand to practise right in a fourfold conformity Such Altars only God accepts with such Sacrifices only is be well-pleased For The only Original Altar transcendent and above all is Christ But the Harps of God the hearts of men and Saints purifi'd by Faith and made conform to Christ are derivative Altars which God accepts in him And with their works wrought in a fourfold conformity is he well-pleased For God affects not Fables nor Fig-leaves of deceits fragments or half-performances but substantial Righteousness wrought in a fourfold conformity which only is Christian and true Righteousness Lastly Elijah when the people halted between two Opinions brought them to be of one mind And turned back their hearts that with one mouth they gave glory to the God of Heaven So shall their Antitype do Rev. 14.7 We shall here further shew First From what the hearts of Men and Saints shall be turned back Secondly To what they shall be turned Thirdly What their exceeding great danger is if their hearts be not turned back Lastly What their inestimable benefits and safeties shall be by having their hearts turned back again And first From what the hearts of Men and Saints shall be turned back I answer They shall be turned back from the practise of those sins of which they have not yet repented And the rest of the men saith the Text which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship Devils and Idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and of wood which neither can see nor hear nor walk Neither repented they of their Murthers nor of their Sorceries nor of their Fornication nor of their Theft Rev. 9.20 21. Yet repented not This Particle of time yet is the period of the six Trumpets sounding and terminates the 1260 years of the Witnesses Sackcloth-Prophesie Noah preached 120 years to the Old World and not a man that we find more than of his own Family repented at the period of that time And the Witnesses Prophesied 1260 years and men yet repented not Many repented no doubt by a feeble secret and almost unperceivable true repentance whereby they were saved but not according to that repentance promised to the Gospel-Church whereby God might be effectually glorified And the rest of the men yet repented not saith the Text. The Caldeans praised Gods of Gold and of Silver of Brass of Iron of Wood and of Stone Dan. 5.4 The words in Type and Antitype are literally almost the same ver 23. Rev. 9.20 We shall examine what some of these sins are that so the Christian World for praevisi mali mollior ictus may foresee and shun the punishments that must fall for those sins The first sin in the Antitype is Idolatry They worshipped Devils and Idols of Gold and Silver and Brass and Stone and of Wood which neither can see c. In the Type they were literal Idols but these in
and mind more the tything of mint and cummin If they deny the witnesses their due honor or due maintenance or tread them or their testimony under their feet by a careless dis-regard or dilatory neglect of it or them Thirdly the Anti-christian world fills the golden Vials of the Witnesses with Plagues and wrath against themselves when they design or seek to attempt any thing against them Eliah prophesied the death of Ahaziah Then the Captains of fifties filled that Vial by attempting against him full of Gods wrath against themselves For fire came down from Heaven and devoured them and their fifties 2 Kings 1. So if any man will hurt his Antitype the Gospel witnesses fire proceedeth out of their mouths and devoureth their enemies That is they fill their golden Vials the word of prophesie in their mouths with devouring fire from Heaven to destroy themselves Rev. 11.5 Pharaoh and his servants filled the golden Vials the word of the Lord in the mouth of Moses with many self-destroying Plagues And the very same also doe's the Anti-christian world with the Vials of the Witnesses And first Moses turn'd waters into bloud The Egyptians by their disobedience made them so Exod. 7.19 20. So the Gospel-witnesses Moses and Aaron's Antitypes turned waters into bloud The bloud-thirsty brought this Plague upon themselves Rev. 11.6 ch 16.3 5 6. Secondly Egypt was Plagued with Frogs and her Antitype with Frogs also Exod. 8.2 Rev. 16.13 Thirdly both were Plagued with Boyles and Sores Exod. 9.10 Rev. 16.7 Fourthly Egypt was Plagued with the Plague of Hail So was her Anti-type Exod. 9.23 4. Rev. 8.7 Fifthly Egypt was Plagued with Locusts So was her Anti-type Exod. 10.1415 Rev. 9.3 Sixthly Both type Egypt and her Anti type were Plagued with darkness Exod. 10.21 Rev. 9.2 These and sundry others were those Plagues of the six golden Vials the word of the Lord in the mouths of his Witnesses rebelled against Golden Vials Such the Propesies and reproofs of the witnesses are filled with Plagues Such impenitent men make them to be And how do men the Member of Anti-christ fill those golden Vials with Plagues against themselves I answer they despise reproof persecute their reprovers they value not the words of the witnesses read not regard not their Writings But being reproved their business is to study Cavils and contradictions or find both without study or care to understand what they cavil ar or whom or for what they contradict Thus spiritual Egypt resolving like Pharaoh and his servants to work wisely do very soolishly in filling the golden Vials of the witnesses with the Plagues and wrath of God against themselves by persevering in sordid avarice and truth-opposing Saint-persecuting cruelties Secondly Filthy Sodomites the froth of fluid wit and folly fill those Vials of the witnesses with the Plagues and wrath of God as their type did against themselves by persisting sensual against admonitions to sobriety slothful against their exhortations to sedulity by entertaining their rebukes with loose laughter and making a mock of their reproofs Solutes hi captant hominum risus Lavish laughter of folly and ignorance is their food whereby they fill their minds with windy levity their lives with evil manners those golden Vials with the wrath of God and so bring down fire from Heaven upon their own heads So type Sodim mocking her reprovers perished So perished her Princes and Rulers for not reproving of her Thirdly Anti-type apostate Jerusalem Professors of blind zealous devout ignorance in all Sects fill the golden Vials of the VVitnesses with most deadly Plagues by resisting them and by bringing evil reports upon their just reproofs So Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses They hardened the hearts of Pharaoh's servants by exalting themselves the basest men above Moses and by preferring their own illusions above his real worth works So their Anti-types prefer their own formalities before the real works of the true Witnesses Hic apprimè hoc optimè This mans work these mens Writings are like Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver But the witnesses golden Vials are Brass Their words false their works Counterfeits Thus they fill by odious comparisons and preferring their own deceits those Vials of real Gold with the greatest and most deadly Plagues against themselves So the ten Spies filled the golden Vials of the Promises of God with fierce Plagues against themselves and the people by bringing evil reports upon the Land of Promise and worse upon the word of God that promis'd that Land to the people of Israel therefore they all perished instantly by the Plague and all Israel from twenty years old upward about four excepted perished in the Wilderness So the Antichristian world and chiefly Pharisaical hypocrites fill the Vials of the witnesses with the fierce wrath of God against themselves by bringing evil reports upon the Prophetick Promises and word of Prophesie in sacred Scriptures through a profane careless ignorance of them And Ignorance is the Mother of evil reports and fills not only their hearts with malice but their mouths with blind misconstructions blasphemies and at best with wicked excuses cavils slanders against the Gospel-witnesses and their record Thus they fill their golden Vials with the most deadly plagues against themselves For they affect a fruitless delibation of divine truth without depth in Doctrine or due obedience which though a small measure of Knowledge is sufficient to save the humble serves but to harden their hearts to seek or find cavils against solid truth sincere obedience For the three evil grounds had not or afforded not a fruitful depth to growing seeds But the good ground only both had and afforded depth of Earth to the feed of Grace And this depth of Earth in mens judgments and obedience at least in their desires and affections makes those golden vials of the witnesses the more the vessels of honour and fills them with all mercies But that threefold want of fruitful depth in Anti-christ sensual secular and spiritual at least in their affections fills those Vials with all Plagues of the wrath of God These have power to smite the Earth with all Plagues as oft as they will That is to pour forth the six Vials filled therewith to wit For 1260 years in the dayes of their Prophesie Rev. 11.6 That 's the Epoche of these six Vials of the witnesses Sackcloth Prophesie of the six trumpets sounding and of all these twelve Epochaes For There shall be time no longer But in the dayes of the voice of the seventh Angel when he shall begin to sound the Mystery of God shall be finished chap. 10.6 7. And when the seventh Angel shall pour out his Vial it shall be done ch 16.17 The Mystery of God shall be finished or done that is the true Church as a City set upon an hill shall begin to be seen and embraced by all Sects and Nations And the Mystery of Iniquity in all Sects Papal Mahumetan and modern shall begin effectually to be made
was Veritas incomplexa or res recta in se that which was right in it self and due to be done The good Samaritan so soon as he saw him made that incomplextruth complex saw and considered what he had need of They that see and consider not see without Eyes Their Eye is evil They see nothing and can never do that which is right For how can they do what they approve not or approve what they know not This seems to be through shameful inadvertency the common bestial custom well nigh of all men and the practise almost so universal is the grand Apostacy of all Professors Men see hear and read and mind nothing to make it nor scarce that more than Complex But Secondly The good Samaritan did not only make that Incomplex-truth or right in it self Complex by taking care to know it but made it Triplex had his Harp ready tuued to a conformity of will to do that right which he knew due to be done He that takes care to know what is right to be done to other men that is every mans first duty in Christian practice but takes no care to conform his will to do it as it should be done doubles his iniquity and his own just punishment For he that knows his Masters will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes Nor can such be said to be doers of the will of God as do it without diligence but by halves or with unwilling minds or without conformity of works to his will Such works though commonly practised by sealed Saints are no part of their practice which they should persorm And such Professors seem so far from being those first-fruits that they appear not to be any part of the sealed servants of God But Thirdly The good Samaritan did not only make that Incomplex-truth complex by a conformity of the Intellect to that which was right in it self Nor did he only make that Complex-truth triplex by a conformity of will to that known right but he made it Quadruplex by a conformity of works to a right informed Will and Intellect He readily set about without delayes the discharge of that duty to God Man Nor did he alledg the difficulty of the mans recovery to retard his duty The passers-by might pretend that And that 's ost pretended by Hypocrites to pass by the works of Mercy and Equity Want of care towards others in their extremities is the cause that many are cast away undone in their Estates destroy'd in their sicknesses Such Professors be they never so strict stand not with the Lamb upon Mount Sion nor seem indeed to be his Disciples For The good Samaritan pretended no impossibility of the mans recovery to decline his duty much less did he wound that wounded man afresh with false aspersions did not tell him his covetousness in travelling to get ill-got gain was the cause of his calamity Nor retort to him in scorn That had he kept honest mens company he had not faln into the hands of Theeves Nor did he say such Sad distresses were evident signs he was a wicked man To deride men in distress is high profaneness but to rail upon those to whom they should do right is most unchristian and inhumane But most pretenders in these times and many I hope I may call them so sealed servants of God make it no great matter that so they may decline their duty of doing right or shewing mercy to rail upon such so desperately depraved are their Manners And they dare invade other mens rights so far as to become Judges of their persons and actions whom they know not and which they do not understand Fourthly Had the good Samaritan delay'd the man half-dead he had dy'd no doubt outright and he himself had past by as that Priest and Levite did his duty of doing right or shewing mercy Right long delay'd is usually lost thereby or comes like the repentance of Judas when its too late Let none therefore be hearers of the Word or knowers of the will of God only deceiving themselves but doers of it without delayes or defalcation The good Samaritan to that end had his Harp well tuned His heart was not surfeited or overcharged with the cares and business of Antichrist that continually resist true obedience to God and right to men But unsealed Locusts and Hypocrites have their hearts and hands ever over-charged with abundance of business that they can never mind good works worth the Name of good They therefore are ever ready to say with Ahab who was an express Figure of Antichrist Thy servants were busie very busie here and there that we forgot obedience could not remember to shew mercy or mind to do right in a forefold conformity These are not Harpers haviing the Harps of God but loaded Camels that can never pass through the Eyes of Needles Are always fitted and prepared like that Priest and Levite to pass by all obedience to God right and mercy to Men. And the sealed servants of God may very well make in a great measure the same excuse and say Thy servants are ever so busie minding Earthly things or having our hearts devoutly set upon serious Formalities that we have not leisure to look after the life of Religion and power of Godliness practised in a fourfold conformity Nor did we ever imagine that any such practice though now we perceive it had been in being Mercy and Right we mind not or we mind such duties but as Moral Works not worth the minding These though the sealed servants of God take not or very little the example of their Practice from the Patern of the Lamb upon Mount Sion but so prevalent is the Power of the grand Apostacy even in Saints from the customes and manners of men But this Chorus incontaminatus or conscript-number must make the works of the Lamb not the manners of men the Patern of their Christian practice which above all things calls for our further consideration Fifthly We find not that the good Samaritan did summon near neighbours to make a Rate to relieve the wounded man and so let him whiles they through covetousness could not agree be lost but defray'd the whole charge himself but the sealed servants of God differ far from his practice and either omit good Works or must have perhaps an hundred to co-adjoyn in Copartnership to perform half a good work at three half-pence charge And unless many do joyn will not have no by no means any hand in it Such as thus learn Christ shew not themselves by their practice to be the sealed servants of God much less to have his Name written in their foreheads But the good Samaritan manifestly condemned such multipartite practice of shriveled and sordid tenacity by his own example He not seeking assistance from others where it needed not expended the whole charge himself in doing that good work to the wounded man compleated a perfect Patern in a quadruplex-conformity Sixthly He
the Antitype must be more Spiritual because the City of the Antitype-apostasie is said to be a Spiritual City Rev. 11.8 Literal Idols are more congruous to sensual Antichrist whose sins are more sensual and literal But the Idols of Secular and Spiritual Antichrist that denominate that City Spiritual must be more Spiritual Idols Some Sects have in them true Witnesses prophesying in Sackcloth and some nor do I exclude the Roman nor Greek Churches from being Sects have instead of such witnesses their Idols of gold or of silver or of stone or of wood that is Men of greater or meaner capacities and parts to be their blind Seers The man Micab took a stragling young Levite to be to him a Father and a Priest in a way of Idol-worship So any man more stupid than Wood or Stone will serve some Sects well enough to be to them a Father and a Priest or indeed the very Idol of their ignorant admiration That stragling Levite was no Ordinance of God in Micab's house But the man Mitah made him an Idol of Wood with his own hands vers 12. The words run thus And the rest of the men which were not killed by these Plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship Devils and Idols c. That they should not worship Devils This further shews what the works of their own hands and what those Idols are To wit deceits The Serpent said Eve beguiled me The Devil was a lyar and a deceiver from the beginning And Men and Professors of these times are greatly pleased in deceiving and being deceived with the works of their own hands Their works of Mercy and Justice to omit their mistakes in Opinions are inconform or but half performances and those usually so long delay'd that they damnifie or undo by fruitless attendences the receivers of them That is Men in these times are marvelously delighted in deceiving themselves whiles they imagine themselves like Laodicea to be rich in good works and do none but beguile and deceive themselves with works inconform or long delay'd half-performances like Saul's half-service They that so worship God worship in deed devils The following sins of the impenitent Apostasie and perhaps of Saints are these Neither repented they of their Murders nor of their Sorceries nor of their Fornications nor of their Thefts vers 21. Neither repented they of their Murders Murders literal were sins of the Type-Apostasie and are the sins of Antichrist sensual But they are more Spiritual in the Antitype-Mystery of iniquity Thou hast slain said Nathan to David Uriah the Hittite with the Sword of the children of Ammon 2 Sam. 12.9 David did not slay Uriah nor did Joab flay him the children of Ammon slew Uriah But it was done by Davids order and direction to Joab This was Spiritual or Mystical Murder more wicked and deceitful than literal Murder can be Were Nathan now living he might say to many if not almost to every man something that is like to what he said to David To some he might say Thou hast slain as Cain did thy brother and thy self by the sword of careless disregard of his and thy sasety To another he might say Thou hast slain as David did thy fast friend by the sword of deceitful dealing He might say to very many Ye have slain the poor with the sword of sordid tenacity And not to a few Ye have slain the well-deserving with the sword of inconform rewards To some he might say Ye have slain the injured and oppressed by the sword of long delayes letting them perish or be undone before you went about to right or relieve them He might say to very many Ye have slain the Witnesses of the Truth by the sword of slanderous Tongues in the mouthes of men of Beliel their false accusers Thus was Christ that Faithful and True Witness slain And by this means are the Gospel-Witnesses and the most injured innocent killed Pilate found no fault in Christ and the Pharisees found no fault in his false accusers Very many and they seeming Religious resolve with Pilate to right the injured to relieve the oppressed But then run to their adversaires and false accusers and like the Pharisees find no fault in them for want of due examination according to Scripture-Rule Deut. 19.18 Therefore they justifie their adversaries and false accusers and through their forgeries delay or condemn and ruinate those that are wronged and the most faithful Witnesses of the Truth Thus are Waters turned into Wormwood Judgment into Gall Revel 8.11 This common practice the practice too oft of Saints plainly discovers a pusilanimous and feeble levity of mind or want of judgment in them that follow it They pretend and perhaps suppose those depravers are Consciencious and Religious So the Pharisees thought of themselves whereas there was but one or two Wise and Religious men in deed in all that Council by whom our Lord was crucified though it might consist of hundreds all famous for the repute of Wisdom and strict Religion For the generality of seeming strict and zealous Professors if Types must co-indent with their Antitypes are like their Types the Pharisees neither Wise nor Religious Few there are like Pilate that will not co-incide and capitulate with false accusers Scarce any like Nicodemus that would not consent to the foolish and wicked determinations of that hypocritical and blind Councel For As many are called and few chosen and as many shall strive and few enter in at the strait Gate So the seeming religious and blindly devout are many But they that are Religious indeed are few and least appear to be what they are Lastly Nathan might now say to several Thou hast slain thy self and thine with the sword of secular business Thy servant said Ahab as the Prophet imply'd was busie here and there that he let the man go committed to him to keep Therefore said the Lord shall thy life go for his life and thy people for his people Ahab lost his own life the life of all his Family and Posterity and lost all the people of Israel by a busie catching at some secular shadow of his own covetous conceit So many Professors and too many Saints are so busie about Secular Affairs that they let go obedience So busie for self-ends that they let go Right and Mercy to men forget both So busie about outward Forms that they let go the Life and Power of Religion and thus miserably slay themselves and others by the sword of Secular and Spiritual business This is Spiritual murder from which the hearts of Men and Saints are not but must be turned back Thirdly Nor of their Sorseries And to omit the literal which are many what are Spiritual Sorceries Balaam was partly careful to make the living God the Oracle of his Counsels and director of his Actions was or seemed to be very strict to speak and do only what God commanded Numb 22 38. Ch. 23.12 26. But he was