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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	flesh_n	person_n	union_n	3,543	5	9.2603	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86191	The key of Scripture-prophecies: or, A glass of some new discoveries. Being an answer to a book published by Mr John Elmestone. Wherein is resolved, 1. Whether a true constituted church, with true office and visible membership, together with the ordinances proper to such a Gospel-stating, continued true by a line of succession from the primitive time downward to our times: or whether it were not interrupted by the apostacie. 2. If they did there intermit, when they return again to their first glory, whether now, or hereafter; and what is the dispensation now approved by the Spirit. / By Simon Henden.	Henden, Simon.	1652 (1652)	Wing H1430; Thomason E668_11; ESTC R202520	120,810	124

people to keep in and the conclusion is sealed with a dreadful curse against adders to or detracters from it This being the last so nobly given and peculiarly stiled by the name of Jesus Christ his Revelation so argues it to be full of majesty to be the compleature and perfection of the whole Scripture and shews the matter to be very precious and the comprehension thereof to be of weighty consequence for the welfare of the Saints And therefore it will prove our wisdome being here invited as at the one side to count the number of the beast and distinguish Gods things from mans Chap. 13.18 so on the other side to keep close to the administration therein deciphered for the times in which we live neither can any wander therefrom but he must needs run into multitude of errors and absurdities Sir we stand amazed that you should inveavor to deter us from searching into this prophecie and eclipse the light thereof from shining into our hearts that thereby if it were possible you might disrobe us of our blessing take heed lest you bring upon your self the curse However we shall rather obey the counsel of the Spirit in counting the number of the beast by those rules whereby he is described and to seek Christ in the path of separation in this book where the call and way are lively set before us I shall have occasion to speak more upon this subject in the fourth Paragraph Paragraph III. WE informed you that the foundation of the beast consisteth in an usurped power of Church-discipline footed on mans will without the call of God Object Against this is alledged That the foundation of the beast lieth not in false discipline but doctrine Answ Doctrine may be considered either in a more general sense for whatever may be taught and thus discipline may be comprehended under that notion it being teachable or else it is used in a narrower and more limited acceptation as it is opposed to and set apart from discipline and worship and so doctrine respects the free grace of God and justification by Jesus Christ and discipline is that part of divinity whether conceived spoken written or exercised which concerns external Church government Now that the beast described Revel 13. grounded himself primarily originally and radically in this latter part of discipline or government and not in Doctrine we render these insuing reasons 1. Because the Scripture declares that his residence should be in the court without which must pertaine to the outside in discipline and not to the inside in doctrine 2. Where Antichrist first grounded himself there he brought a whole corruption for the foundation of the beast and that of truth are extream contraries and cannot in the same thing subsist together Now Doctrine Christ believed and professed were not originally razed in Rome being all born up by the power of Christ but Discipline as confined to that government peculiar to a stated-Church was wholly defaced by that destroyer hereupon in office he was a meer beast the Angel of the bottomless pit and the Church became bottomless of truth and Babylon 3. This total defection lasted 1260 yeers and some space after till the seventh vial during all the former season he was a beast utterly false in his office and that prevailing all that while the court was excluded and the nations had power to trample Revel 13.5 Chap. 11.2 And you cannot for shame affirme that the Church of Rome hath for so long a time been radically false in doctrine 4. If the beast had primarily eradicated the principle of doctrine there could not have been any breathing for an elect number in such an outward station where neither the grace of God nor Christ nor justificaby him was to be found But the Scripture doth tell us that there was a sealed company a temple a woman and feeding for her in Mystical Babylon and the event hath cleared that there were a godly people a ministery of Christ to nourish them in the Romish Church during the abovesaid season or else it was nowhere for many ages 5 It is assented to by all the Protestant party that the Pope and his hierarchie make up this beast Now the foundation of the Pope is his Popedom whose rise was as Mr. Brightman well observes from the Authority of Peters Chaire the ground of his hierarchie is their respective orders and prelacies all which chiefly belong to discipline 6. The Beast carries the woman Babylon chap. 17.37 and who knowes not that the Pope with his creatures bear up the Romish Church by their ecclesiastical government 7 Upon a serious view you may finde that most if not all the corrupt Tenents of Rome meet radically in some false maximes of discipline which argues that to be the corrupt root from whence they sprouted forth 8. The Dragon gave him power Rev. 13.2 which is the soul and spirit of Antichrist The original of doctrine never was in the Devils hands to give it being upheld by Christ but the externallitie of rule being forsaken and cast out by God was left in Satans power who inspired the beast therewith hereupon ensued a Throne and great Authority all which appertain to discipline Your Arguments on the other side to prove the beast to ground in doctrine Object 1. The foundation of Christian religion lieth in Doctrine therefore also doth doth the Antichristian Answ This your consequence carries no convincing force but rather cusus contrarium verum est The contrarie sequel may challenge the truer sense for as the naturalists say Ars incipit ubi natura desinit Art begins where nature ends because natural existences being the workmanship of God begin first with the intr●nsecal and more essential parts and thence pass outward to the external whereas Artificers begin with the exteriour or outward part So Christian religion being created of God founds first in the inside of grace and faith and from thence operateth to the outside of discipline whereas the Antichristion being an artificial structure or man in its base Rev. 13.18 initiates in the superficies of discipline and thence goeth gradually into corruptions of Doctrine Object 2 Your next is taken from John 4.2 3 He that denies Christ to be come in the flesh is not of God this is the spirit of Antichrist false doctrine then about Christs nature Persons and Officers is the foundation of Antichristian religion Answ This great Antichrist doth not directly deny Christ his natures persons and offices as some petty ones in the primitive time might but secondarily and by consequence The first Popes and Bishops at the entrance of the 1260 years were so far from denying these that they published and zealously preached them up before the world as you also do onely they layed another foundation of discipline by taking the government from Christ his shoulders and laying it on their own and so in their outward order or rather disorder they denied Christ in his natures persons and offices and

tread the holy City the sealed number under foot are tyrannical and bestial But such National Churches do so tread as is further asserted And the holy city shall they tread under foot The truth of this hath shewed it self not onely in the cruelty of Rome but also by the like tyranny of the Bishops in England and the rigour of the Presbytery in Scotland and that the same aspiring spirit is in many amongst you if the sword of the Magistrate would second and impower you the declarations of some both in their writings and in their open Pulpits which men look upon as the oracles of Truth have sufficiently manifested to the world we hope they will be more wise and tender of the consciences of others for the future These National Churches considered in one universal body are the great city Babylon Chap. 17.15 18. Chap. 11.8 9 10. Now if the visibility of Church-constitution was onely National for many generations as is cleared by all the evidences of former times and these National Churches Babylonish then must there be a fail and cessation of the truth of the same visibility Compare this Scripture with the event and you may finde that as here the whole outward court was given to the Nations and then cast out by the Spirit so the event is parallel to the prophecie which tells us that the total Order of Ecclesiastical regiment became National and was for many hundred yeers Romish in the full possession of the Pope where by the common grant of all Protestants it is held to be Babylon and when the visible Church became a stranger and bottomless the key of outward Government in Confirmation Ordination Excommunication c. must be of the same nature with the Church as is declared in the former Paragraph The truth of this is likewise confirmed by the state of the true Church in the times of this apostacie who was onely a sealed elect number which by an invisible union made up a mystical temple a Sion a women c. whose visible abode was in the wilderness of Babylon as you may read in the Cessation I shall here demonstrate it by another Scripture which was there omitted The text is Micah 4.10 where the prophet speaking of the daughter of Sion saith that she shall go forth out of the city her genuine and celestial Order and shall dwell in the field answerable to the wilderness into which the woman fled Rev. 12.6 and shall go even to Babylon to such a field where is meer confusion from whence the Lord will at last deliver her by separation and redeem her from the hands of her enemies And that this alludes to the condition of the Gospel-Church in spiritual Babylon is evinced by the gathering of the nations against her vers 11 which agrees whith these last combinations against the Saints Zeph. 3.8 Isai 54.15 Revel 16.14 16. by her horns of iron and hoofs of brass to thresh and beat in pieces many people also after her complete victory by her consecrating their gain to the Lord which never was fulfilled in the majesty here delivered but must be proper to the time of the vials wherein the people coming out of Babylon reward her and her assistants with the like degree of punishment Rev. 18.6 Dan. 7.22 The event doth likewise comply with this Scripture as face answers to face in a glass For the primitive Church who was glorious in her visible constitution setled and beautified with Apostolical power did after decline from thence into the vast barren field of the Babylonish nations where she was scattered here and there a godly person outwardly mixed with the rude multitude from whom she was not distinguished either in Membership or Office and where she was held in chains of thraldom by Popes Bishops and the like beastly Hierarchies who in this strange country monopolized the key of Government into their sole tuition and in this desolate estate she must needs be an exile in a forraign land From this bondage also the Lord begins at last to call her out and deliver her from her enemies From hence we may necessarily conclude that if this external station wherein the daughter of Sion visiby stood was a field a wilderness a Babylon or forraign country of strange confusion then must all the beauty of her former outward Order be dissolved and turned into a rude Chaos that if her key of visible Rule was taken solely into the usurpation of Antichrist the Beast those alien lords Then must the Ordinances thereof lie void as did the Temple-vessels in the house of Nebuchadnezzar's idol-gods We will now with God's assistance proceed to answer your Objections made against this Object You alleadge that to say the visible Church did fail is as much as to affirm that the pillars of the earth were broken down the Church standing as firm by Gods ordinance power and faithfulness Answ It is true that the pillars of the earth are born up by the Word of God albeit the earthly governments thereof have the times of their shake and dissolution Psal 75.3 Isai 2.19 21. Hag. 2.21 And withal it is as true that the Church in the being of election inward grace outward profession and the more intrinsecal rule of grace is a kingdom that cannot be shaken Heb. 12.28 it being promised to be perpetual Matth. 16.18 But the visibility of Church-government was not so pillared in the Word for its successive abiding this is rather fore-prophesied that it should be corrupted by Antichrist and become Babylon To lay the ground-work of your after-discourse you here distinguish a visible Church M. Elmest First say you by a visible Church may be meant a company of Christians joyned together in one place set in true order of Worship and exercise of all Gods Ordinances that such a Church hath been in any one place or many successively you think cannot castly be proved Answ By such a Church if we understand you aright you mean a Church set in a right order of Discipline and furnished with true Officers And if such a Church cannot be proved to have been successively through the apostacie then must you yeeld that the primitive chain of Order was broken and so justifie its cessation for such an one it is that you have maintained to abide and we have proved to discontinue This grant of yours duely pondered doth at one breath unmount the whole fabrick of this your Babel and might soon put a period to the major part of this Controversie M. Elmest Secondly by a visible Church may be meant a company of persons professing true religion abstaining from all false worship and worshipping God in a pure way though for the most part in sundry places and meeting in small companies such a Church hath been perpetual Answ 1. Such companies may thus assemble for Ministery Prayer as did the one hundred twenty before they received powerfrom on high and we do now and yet not be a visible Church