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A42415
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Theorems evincing, that the subject of the fourth and fifth chapters of the Revelation, is the Church of England, B.L.E. With answers to objections. Humbly offered to the serious consideration of all enemies of the Church of England, dissenters and separatists. By Wal. Garrett, rector of Everly in Wiltshire: sometime fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge.
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Garrett, Walter.
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Wing G271C; ESTC R218820
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7,586
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9
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THEOREMS Evincing That the Subject of the Fourth and Fifth Chapters of the REVELATION is the Church of ENGLAND B. L. E. With ANSWERS to OBJECTIONS Humbly offered to the Serious Consideration of All ENEMIES of the Church of England DISSENTERS and SEPARATISTS By Wal. Garrett Rector of Everly in Wiltshire Sometime Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge Who hath Believed our Report and to whom is the Arm of the Lord Revealed Esai liii 1. The Harvest is Plenteous but the Labourers are Few Mat. ix 37. I Have Already by God's Assistance Giv'n-forth an Exposition of Every Particular in the Fourth and Fifth Chapters of the Revelation and now come to Evince the CERTAINTY of it by laying down such Theorems or Propositions of Unquestionable Verity as will serve at Once both to Establish my own Exposition and to Refell All Others Whatsoever I. The Church Describ'd in Rev. iv and v. was not in Being when St. John Receiv'd the Vision For the Vision is Expresly Entitl'd by the Spirit Himself Chap. iv 1. Things that must be HERE AFTER II. The Throne in those Chapters therefore is not the Throne of God in the Highest Heav'n nor the Sitter on the Throne God Almighty Himself in Person for These were not Things to Come but have been the SAME from All Eternity but the Sitter on the Throne is God Ruling in and by some Earthly Potentate and his Throne is a Throne on EARTH And Consequently The Church in which this Throne is Set and over which the Sitter on it does Preside is a Church on Earth III. Whereas they are said Not to Rest Day and Night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty Which Was and Is and is to Come It cannot hence be Concluded That they should Never take any Rest in Sleep nor that Always when Awake they should be saying Holy Holy Holy c. but that they should Say it Every Day and Every Night or Every Morning and Every Ev'ning and That Often at Every Time and very Observably or to Some Such Sense as That is As when S. Paul enjoyns Every Christian to Pray without Ceasing 1 Thess v. 17. So Eph. vi 8. Act. xx 31. Rom. i. 9. 1 Thess i. 3. For it is a very Common Phrase and Can Mean no other but Constantly at certain Returns of Time or some Such Thing IV. Neither ought it hence to be Inferr'd That this Church was to make use of No Other Words in her Addresses but Holy H H L G A c. But only That she was to Use a Constant FORM of Prayer and Praise in which One of the most Remarkable Things should be her Glorifying the Blessed Trinity Only For that this Church is here set forth as Using a FORM is Undeniable And therefore No Church that does not use a Form of Glorifying the Blessed Trinity Nay that does not use it Much and very Observably can be the Church here Describ'd For How Odly would it look to pretend to Give an Idea of a Church that is a Profest Enemy of Forms or that hardly Ever Mentions the Trinity Distinctly in their Prayers by telling us That they Rest not Day and Night Saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which Was and Is and is to come As on the Other side it is the Very Characteristic of Our Church's Service Insomuch that I cannot Forbear to say That to him that is in Search after the Church here Prefigur'd That One Circumstance is Sufficient to Fore-stall his Judgment for the Church of England V. There is No Necessity That they should use Those Very Words neither It is Enough if the Words be LIKE them For Identity is not Requir'd in Visions but Likeness Only Thus a City in Prophecy is call'd a Woman a Tyrant a Beast c. Because of their Near Resemblance as to those Things the Prophecy Respects in them as the Parturiency of the One and the Savageness of the Other It is therefore for the Fulfilling of the Prophecy we are Speaking of Sufficient if the Church gives Glory to the Blessed Trinity in Words LIKE These Holy H H L G A Which Was and Is and is to Come Such for Example as are These of Our Church Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost As it Was in the Beginning Is Now and Ever shall be World without end Where we see the Words As it Was Is now and ever shall be Perfectly to Correspond to Those in the Type Which Was and Is and is to Come And in the Former Clause Father Son and H. Ghost Answer as Directly to Lord God Almighty and Glory to Holiness For God is said to be Glorious in Holiness Exod. xv 11. For as the Usual Notion of Holiness in Scripture is Separation So the Glory of God is that Nothing can be Compar'd to him Esai xl 18. xlvi 5. VI. The Sealed Book is That whose Visions are Distinctly Set-down in the Sixth and Following Chapp This is Plain to Sense VII By Op'ning the SEALS of this Book is Meant Explaining it There is No Other Sense of Op'ning the Seals of Any Book throughout the Scripture For Sealing Always singnifies Concealing the Sense of a Mystery and Op'ning is Explaining it For which see Dan. ix 24. and xii 4. Esai xxix 11. Luk. xxiv 32. Acts xvii 3. And I am very well Assur'd there is No One Place to the Contrary I do not say That Barely to Op'n a Book is to Explain it but to Op'n the SEALS of a Book or to Op'n the Text or Writing of a Book for the Seals are Always upon the Text and Not upon the Cover Paper or Parchment of a Book And if the Book we are speaking of had been Sealed only with Wax Lead or Ir'n c. What Needed All That Ceremony Setforth so Particularly and Pompously in the vth Chapter about the Loosing of its Seals when Every Mechanic could have done it But it is There Affirmed That No one in Heav'n nor in Earth nor Vnder the Earth could do it What Not Break or File or Cut or some way or other Get-off a Seal from a piece of Parchment That 's strange indeed VIII It is not God's Giving his Son the Revelation that is Describ'd in Rev. v. For That was Done Before the Vision was Exhibited to S. John But the Vision of Rev. v. is Manifestly a Part of those things which the Spirit Entitles Things that were to come to pass AFTER Chap. iv 1. IX The Vision therefore of Rev. v. is a Prefiguration of the Circumstances that were to Accompany the Explaining of the Said Book when the Time was Come for it Which is an Indisputable Result from the Two next-foregoing Theorems X. The Precise Time for the Fulfilling of Rev. v. 5. is That wherein the First Notice was to be giv'n of the True Way of Expounding the Book For when upon Loud Proclamation made No One in All the World was Found Able to Do it to the Great Grief of
People that was not Intended by the Author Whose Honour pray will That Reflect upon Such Objections therefore as These that have No Foundation in the Prophecy are Mere Prejudices For Why is not the Church of England Large enough Only because we Fancy so For Where does the Prophecy Require either a More Extensive Church than This of England to be Fulfill'd in Or more Eminent and Renowned Pers'ns in their several Stations than were Queen Elizabeth King James I. King Charles I. and II. and for an Elder than Joseph Mede But Particularly as for King Charles II. it is Plain that He had Piety Enough to Answer All His Part in the Prediction to the Full and with That let Every one that pretends to Reas'n Rest Satisfi'd For it cannot be Deni'd but that King Charles II. with All his Faults was in the Hands of CHRIST a Noble Instrument of our Political REDEMPTION And if we think his Private Conversation to have been hardly Suitable to That High Character yet since at the Same Time we Cannot but Confess the Prophecy to be Accomplisht in him give me leave to Remember you That God sometimes in the Unsearchable Depths of his Wisdom and Justice is Found to have made of the Chief Stones in his Edifice Stones of Stumbling at which however it Becomes not Us nay it is very Dangerons for us to he Offended From which Danger we can only be Secure in Taking our Measures from the Word of God and Not from our Own Delusive Fancies and Prejâ—dices And May Our New Jerusalem in This take Warning by the Old one For it is grown too Plausible and Popular a Humour because so well Attemper'd to Most Mens Capacities or Designs to Vilifie Prophetic Speculations upon Affected Ignorances and Misappresions Wherein we are not a little Uncharitable upon many Accounts But Especially in respect of Those who Otherwise might be Converted by them from the Error of their ways As in Particular in respect of Non-Conformists and Separatists to whom it would be a Singular Piece of Service to have it Made-out Clearly to them That the Church of England By Law Establisht is the Church Predicted of in the Fourth and Fifth Chapters of the Revelation That they Perish not in their Dividing Practices and Unchristian Strifes and Emulations For Our Sectaries do More than cry I am of Paul and I of Apollos c. And yet ev'n That is by the Apostle Term'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Division Sedition Faction Envying or Emulation Strife Contention 1 Cor. i. 11 12. iii. 3 4. and Said to be in its Own Nature Damnable Gal. v. 20 21. Accordingly the Same Apostle lays a Grievious Curse upon Such Make-bates 1 Cor. xvi 22. If Any Man Love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maran-atha For he had most Earnestly Besought them Chap. i. 10. BY THE NAME OF OVR LORD JESVS CHRIST to Speak All the Same Thing and that there be No Divisions among them but Perfect Concord in the Same Mind and in the Same Judgment With respect to which in the end of the Same Epistle as is said Already he in his Zeal for the Churches Unity does Solemnly Denounce Anathema Maran-atha upon all Those Pers'ns with whom for want of LOVE to the LORD JESVS CHRIST his Obtestation should prove Ineffectual I am not therefore of Their Mind who give-out That the Fomenters of Unreas'nable Divisions may be Sav'd Grounding themselves upon 1 Cor. iii. 12 -15. For the Apostle does not say as They Imagin That the Builders of Ill DOCTRINS shall be Sav'd but of III Pers'ns For the Building he is There Treating of are Pers'ns He Explains himself so Expresly ver 9. YE are God's Husbandry YE Pers'ns Not Doctrines are God's Building Agreeably in the Next Verses CHRIST says he is the Foundation The Foundation therefore wee see and Whole Structure are not Doctrines but Pers'ns Whereof Some are Gold and Some Stubble But tho' the Stubble be Burnt yet the Builder shall be Sav'd if he were not in Fault But This in Building of Dividing Errors which is indeed Destroying or Pulling-Down and Not Building Cannot Rightly be Affirm'd I am Sure S. Paul in That Place is very Far from So Saying Be Zealous therefore Brethren and Repent and Joyn your selves with All Alacrity to the Communion of That Heav'nly Church which in the Fourth and Fifth Chapters of the Revelation and I might Add the Tenth and Many More as will Appear Hereafter is Adorn'd and Honour'd with So Glorious a Testimony from the Spirit of Prophecy Lastly Ev'n such as will not Believe without a Sign from Heaven might hence Receive Incredible Satisfaction For the Revelation Set in its True Light as Now it is What is it but A STANDING SIGN from Heav'n A PERMANENT and PERPETUAL MIRACLE For therein is Our Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of Glory Conspicuously Reveal'd from Heav'n for Sixteen Hundred Years ago to have set in Order the Grand Affairs and Revolutions of the most Considerable Parts of His Empire in the World from its Beginning to our Own Times Inclusively Which Consider'd with What Conscience can any Man Deny the Being or the Providence of God or that the Scriptures are his Genuine Oracles among which he finds the Revelation to be So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Self-Evident and to Carry the Authority of the Others Shining in it or Call in Question Any Point or Article Especially of the Prime and Fundamental ones of Our Religion For it is not Possible to be Objected against the Revelation as was of Old by Porphyry against Part of Daniel's Prophecy That it was Composed After the Things were Done Hieron Praef. Com. in Dan. And yet it is as Plainly and as Fully Accomplisht as if it had been So Indeed or as if the Histories of More than 1600 Years had All been Writt'n Purposely in Favour of a Prophecy but Newly Vnderstood and yet in Every bodies Hands So Long Before And Can we make a Trivial Matter Sirs of Such Discoveries Which are in True Esteem the Glory of Christianity and which if Duly Cultivated and Improv'd as they both Might and Ought to be would Equal the Condition of Our Times to That of the First Ages of the Church as to the Certainty that we might Gain Thereby of our Religion and the Proof they would enable us to Make of it And let No Man Here Cry-out upon the Strength of Imagination till he has Well Weigh'd the Assertion and Knows himself Able to Confute it For How Easily are the Mists of Fancy Dispell'd by the Light and Warmth of Sound Reas'n For My Part I am very Sensible â— I Bless God for it That the Wisdom of the Spirit has So Contriv'd the Texture of This Prophecy that a Foreign Exposition of it may as Easily be Blown away as a Loose Feather A Lock with so Many Substantial Wards to it is not to be Pickt Which is the True Cause that not One of the Admirers of H. Gr. or Dr. Hammond has at Any time Appear'd in Vindication of Their Expositions they are so Manifestly and so Grosly Faulty And so All Others Needs must be that Err as They do in the Main Subject of the Vision For a Conclusion therefore of this Paper I Heartily Commend it to the Good Blessing of the Great God our Saviour To Whom be All Glory for Ever Amen LONDON Printed and are to be Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster