look for it as at a proper Season God hath forescen and singled out for the Execution of his Judgment on Babylon even this her Enchanting Jubilee when she says I sit a Queen I am now on a Throne giving out my Pardons and Indulgences I am no Widow nor shall know the lofs of Children Behold from all Parts how they gather about me at this very time And at the time of so violent a Persecution upon the Servants of God making the same Protestation with our selves against the Papal Idolatry Superstitions and Tyranny If we are not concern'd at such a time as this we have only a Name to live as Protestants and the Reformed but are dead as God Charges upon the Church of Sardis the Prophetical Emblem of the Churches stiled the Reformed We have forgotten how we Received and Heard in that so great Appearance of God by the Rev. 3. 1 2. first Reformers and Princes will too sadly seem to have lost that first Protestant Spirit c. which acted those Princes in the Transactions at Spire Am. 1529. Oh that therefore we might Remember Hold fast and Repent And if there were a Spirit pour'd out from on high upon us a Spirit of Prayer who knows but that in the midst of this false Jubilee These two things Widowhood and loss of Children Alienation of Princes and People might come on this Mystic Babel in one Day in one Moment If we could wrestle with God as Jacob these Two Things would certainly come upon Her in their Perfection as on Esay 47. 8. that Babylon of Old for the Multitude of her Sorceries and Enchantments in this very day of her Jubilee To this very purpose I will draw out from the Text as it stands in connexion with This the Former the Following Chapters Six great Propositions and then argue further upon them in compare with other Scripture Prophecies Proposition 1. There is undeniably a great Judgment denounced by God and largely described upon some City Figured by Babylon the Great that must most certainly be Executed in its own Time and upon the City designed according to the sure word of Prophecy Cap. 1. 1. The Revelation of Jesus Christ that God gave to him to shew to his Servants things shortly that is with great speed from that very time it was given to come to pass successively till the Everlasting Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ in comparison of which all time is short Now because this Judgment cannot yet as will appear be possibly supposed to have come to 1 Cor. 7. pass it must yet come to pass And because so much hath all along and for so very long time been coming to pass according to this Prophecy and yet this Judgment hath not been Executed the Execution of it must needs therefore be very near Prop. 2. There are Infallible Characters fixed by the Prophecy in these Chapters before us on the the City so denounced upon assuring this City is the present Papal Rome For if Rome be the City Characteriz'd as it is now Papal it is that City so threatned by this Judgment For the Characters and the Judgment are inseparable Now Rome will appear to be the City Characteriz'd and therefore on it must the Judgment here written be Executed Prop. 3. It is one of the great Glories of this Judgment that the first coming of it into Execution shall be with great suddenness and surprizal and when very Few stiled by Christ the Few Names in Sardis have a Thought or Apprehension of any such thing One Day one Hour one Moment as of Ancient Babylon speak the very great Velocity of the Judgment Prop. 4. The Princes that at this time Bear up the Grandeur and the Haughtiness of Papal Rome by giving their Power and Kingdom to the Beast called therefore His Horns shall be by the Lamb King of Kings and Lord of Lords so overcome as to be made Instruments in the Execution of the Judgment in such Parts and Degrees as the strong Lord who Judgeth shall Commission them unto which shall highly Exalt and make Illustrious the Judgment As an Indication of this it is said C. 17. 16. The Kings shall hate the Whore shall make her Desolate and shell eat her Flesh and shall burn her with Fire and in this Text her Plagues are Death and one concurring with the other Mourning Famine and burning with Fire Prop. 5. The Greatness and the sudden Invasion of this Judgment as denounced by God are uncontroulably to be demonstrated not only as to the possibility but the certainty of both as from the Truth of the Lord who hath so long ago denounced it so from the Wisdom and Omnipotency of the strong Lord that judgeth Prop. 6. The Divine Prescience and Wisdom hath chosen out a Time and decreed it for the Execution of this Judgment when Babylon shall shew it self in its Pride its Pomp its Presumption Security For it is when she shall say I sit a Queen and shall see no Sorrow and 't is most undeniable its Jubilee is such a Time and when Great Princes shall so be at her Devotion as for her sake with such a violence to persecute and Protestant Princes stand by and have nothing to say against it Prop. 1. I begin with the first Proposition that the Judgment here forewritten must most certainly be executed That there is a great Judgment here described and denounced on some City Figur'd by Babylon the Great is most uncontestable every word in the Foregoing and this Chapter assures it and in the following Chapter we have most solemn Doxologies and Thanksgivings upon it In Cap. 17. 1. The Vision begins thus John is called to come to the Angel who would shew him the Judgment of the Great Whore In this C. 18. 1. Another Angel having Great Power and with whose Glory the Earth shone Appears and he cry'd mightily with a loud Voice Babylon the great is fallen is fallen certainly and irrecoverably Fallen and so the Vision goes on in the most dreadful Expressions and Pourtraies of a Judgment most stupendious The Kings of the Earth bewail and stand afar off for fear of her Torment her Merchants throw Dust on their Heads and cry out in their Lamentings Alas Alas and at last her Irrecoverable Ruin is set out by a Millstone cast into the bottom of the Sea by a mighty Angel pronouncing So shall Babylon be thrown down and found no more at all ver 15. 19. 21. If this Judgment then be Prophetically denounced by the Holy the True the Mighty God It must and shall certainly come to pass in the Time and upon the City designed This is a Principle of Natural Light and Intellectual Reason so clear I shall no further insist upon it What then can be levied by way of Objection I can possibly suppose but two Things Either the Authority of the Book of the Revelation must be called into question as not from God or it must be said
of thy Enchantments But then it is destroyed for ever sunk as a Milstone This speaks the Perpetuity of the Judgment All this is most Prophetically Typical of the Judgment on Mystic Babylon We have found it was literally fulfilled as indeed in one Day and one Night on old Babylon and so it shall in the first Onset on the Mystical But the Judgments of it are so much of another Nature they shall continue much longer in the Execution like the second Death it suddenly surprizes but it continues for ever so is the Judgment of Babylon her Smoke rises up for ever and ever And If any man worship Chap. 14. 9 c. the Beast or his Image c. the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God without mixture and he shall be tormented with Fire and Brimstone in the Presence of God and of the Lamb and of the Holy Angels and the Smoke of their Torments riseth for ever and ever Thus though the Beginning of the Judgment be sudden the Continuation of it is by certain Distributions of its self till it become an everlasting Lake of Wrath and Torment Posit 4. The Princes that long bare up the Grandeur and Haughtiness of Papal Rome by giving their Power and Kingdom to the Beast called therefore his Horns shall be so overcome by the Lamb as to be made Instruments in the Execution of the Judgment in such Parts and Degrees as the strong Lord shall when he becomes Vniversal Monarch King of King and Lord of Lords commission them unto This shall highly exalt and make Illustrious the Judgment It is therefore much to be considered and is a great Confirmation that Babylon means Papal Rome as hath been already at large set forth that the so strange and unaccountable Subjection of so many Kings to the Papacy a feeble Power if we consider its Force of Arms which Statists and Men of Politicks have so wondered at is here accounted for It is indeed call'd Sorcery and Intoxication being made Drunk with the Wine of her Fornication the most Lively Description of False Religion But all is under the Divine Supreme Ordination For God put it into their Hearts to Fulfil his will and to agree together and to give their Kingdom to the Beast until the words of God should be Fulfill'd And they have one mind to give their Power and Strength unto the Beast and hereupon they make War with the Lamb and so Persecute his Truth and Servants And C. 17. 2 13 15 16. the People of these Kingdoms Nations Multitudes Tongues the Inhabitants of the Roman Babilonian Earth falling under the same Enchantment of a False Religion made Drunk and Commiting Fornication with her are as a Confluence of Waters to her on which she sitteth Was there ever or could there be a plainer Description in Prophesy of what is so plain matter of Fact which hath rais'd the Admiration and Wonder of all Observers But when the words of God shall be Fulfilled and the Time Allotted expired Then these Kings shall so far as God pleases be the Executioners of the Judgment For as the Plagues in the Text are Death Mourning Famine Burning with Fire so the Kings shall hate the whore make her desolate Eat her Flesh Burn her with Fire It 's True there are Kings that Bewail her v. 13. 18. But that pertains to another part of the Judgment when it is Advanced to the Eternal Judgment with the Explication of which I have not at the present to do But how wonderfull and Illustrious will the First Execution be when these Kings shall First Appear in it Sure It will be very Great and Glorious Propos. 5. The Greatness and Sudden Invasion of this Judgment as Denounced by God and by such Instruments as the Ten Kings are uncontrolably to be Demonstrated not only as to the Possibility but the certainty of both as from the Truth of the Lord who hath so long ago Denounced it So from the Wisdom and Omnipotency of the strong Lord who is the Judger This is not therefore in the least unreasonable but the Highest Justification from the Truest Principles of Reason is to be found in the Expectation of the Judgment upon the Beast and the City Let it be never so sudden For the Lord is every way Infinitely Shrong who Judgeth God therefore in such his great works of what kind soever appeals to the Consideration of himself as the God that stretcheth out the Earth and that which cometh out of it that giveth Breath unto the People upon it Es 42. So in the Judgment on Old Babylon He that made the Earth by his Power he hath Established the World by his Wisdom and he hath stretched out the Heaven by his understanding when he uttereth his Voice there is a Multitude of Waters in the Heavens and he Causeth the Waters to Ascend from the Ends of the Earth He maketh the Lightning with Rain and bringeth the Wind out of his Treasures Jeremiah 51. 16. 17. It 's therefore a very great Misprision of Infinite Wisdom and Power when we make that an Argument against the most Extraordinary and most Miraculous Works of God which he makes an Argument for Faith and Expectation of them as if he were Tyed by what he had done to do no more or had done all he could do and nothing to be Expected but according to the Laws of Creation and dayly providence and Leisurely Progresses and not in those Immediate Effects of Sudden Power The great God argues differently because those Works of his are so great and so high That therefore still so great and so high are to be Expected and that they should stand up so together when he pleases And so we unwisely think we very well argue he that so Wonderfully and Miraculously appear'd in the First Times of the Gospel hath done all that he will do or thinks fit to be done till the day of Judgment But undoubtedly we may better argue he hath much greater things to do to make the very latter times of the Gospel-Glory as Illustrious as their very beginning and entrance was Before his Kingdom the Man of sin and Son of Perdition shall be Consum'd and utterly defaced his Spirit shall be poured out The Everlasting Gospel shall be Preach'd The Heathen shall come to the Lord from the Ends of the Earth and shall know his hand and his might and that his Name is Jehovah And all Israel shall Turn to the Lord and be saved For Strong is the Lord who shall do all these things Posit 6. The Divine Prescience and Wisdom hath chosen and singled out a Time and decreed it for the Execucion of this Judgment when Babylon shall shew it felf in it's Pride in it's Pomp it 's Presumptive Security For as hath been said it is when she shall say I sit a Queen and shall see no sorrow as Babylon of Old said I shall be a Lady for ever and shall know no
another consider'd together that Papal Rome with its Papacy are here Represented to be Judged The Characters are these Following Charact. 1. It is undeniable The Papacy lays claim to a Supremacy as the Vicar of Christ Vniversal Bishop Pope of Rome as Universal as Emperor of Rome heretofore over the Princes of Europe and a Pastor above Princes and the Supreme Powers here upon Earth So the Church of Rome Vniversal Catholic Church The Mistress of Churches or Lady as Babylon of Old or as Rome when Mistress Lady of the World All this is undenyable Matter of Fact in general knowledg of the World at this day and much more so before the Reformation And what more plain in Prophecy In Daniel in this Prophecy of the Revelation Beast is Interpreted into King or Kingdom as a Succession of Kings Having Times and Laws given into his Hand to Change Horns are Kings and so must the Little Horn be and as more Dan. c. 7. Stout then his Fellows an Imperial King In this Vision of the Revelation the Beast is the Eighth King and of the Seven Heads Supremes over Rome To shew his Imperialness Ten Kings are as Horns upon his Head in Subordination to him Power was given to him over all Kindreds and Tongues and Nations An Vniversal Monarch C. 13. 7. â— 17. 9. As for the City it is Babylon The Great the Great City who saith I sit a Queen As she had sate upon Formor Kings so she is Carried on high by the Beast The Kings of the Earth Live Deliciously with her her Merchants are the Great Men the Grandees of the Earth made Rich by her Costlyness And the Greatness and Variety of her Merchandise speaks her Greatness Now seeing it hath been Proved by the Letter of the Prophecy Rome is the Seven Headed City that was Imperial at the Time of the Prophecy given I appeal to all Persons who know the State of Things now in Europe and what it was in Ancient Time whether there be in the Roman Empire that then was any Supreme like the now Pope for Universality For not only the Kings excepting those who Renounced him in the Reformation but even he is who called Emperor is no Emperor in Compariâ—â—â— of the Papal Supreme whom he himself owns and payes Subjection to or any City that can pretend to be a Queen as Rome pretends to be as it calls it self the Catholick Church There can be no pretence of the Otoman Supreme or of Constantinople like it Though that be so fixed as it is as a Spightful Rival of it by the hand of Vengeance as might be further shewn if Seasonable now And therefore this Character I look upon even Demonstratively Distinctive of Papal Rome and the Papal Supremacy But if this can be thought not sufficient what follows will more assure it Charact. 2. The Papal Supremacy However Prevalent it hath been and is is yet in the Ballance of Worldly Powers a weak Precarious Impuissant Supremacy and hath no Martial Strength to support or Defend it self by as is well known in all History and Daily Experience So that Great Statesmen Puffendors Introduction to the Histor of Europ Cap 12. and Politicians have been much Amused How so Unarm'd a Supremacy should have so long continued it self We in this Nation are Witnesses how Uncontroulably the King of this Nation Henry the 8th at his own Pleasure Revuls'd himself and it from him and Queen Elizabeth after the Resumbmision of Queen Mary Abdicated the Papacy anew as other Princes about the same Time did In the same manner let us Judg of the City Rome now and we know it is not the Residence of the Ancient Martial Spirit and Prowess that Inhabited it But as its Supreme is Unarm'd so is the City upheld by the Kindness of the Ten Kings that shall Hate and Famish and Burn it hereafter and by the Fraud and Cunning of the Pope the Cardinals and other the Preisthood of it an Imperial City in a Mystery that is a False Catholick Church held up by Art Let us observe now How Prophecy speaks of this Character both as to the City and as to its Supreme and we shall find in Daniel The Feet and Toes of the Image Dan. 2. Which make the last State of the Fourth Roman Monarchy or Kingdom were Part of Iron and Part of Clay Partly Strong as Iron and Part Broken Fragile v. 42. Weak and Frail as Clay And what could the whole Ingeny of Man have found out more Curiously and yet Significantly to Express the Feeble Supremacy of the Papacy Like Feet of Clay upheld by the Iron of the Ten Kings and in the other Vision the Ten Horns Surround and Cover the Little Horn that else could not defend it self his Power shall be Mighty but not in his own Power C. 8. 24. In the Revelation the Beasts Supremacy is continually Represented with an Image Conioyn'd with a Spiritual Power an Ecclesiastical Supremacy which is a Supremacy in an Image And it is by Gift under a Divine Decree The Ten Kings Agree and with One Consent give their Kingdom and Power and Strength to the Beast It is by Gift and by Agreement and as by Ballance on One Another's Power as Event hath prov'd Let us now behold the Character drawn by Prophecy in relation to the City She sits indeed a Queen But it is by the Sorcery of a False Religion upon Princes and People by making them drunk with the Wine of her Fornication and Adulteries an Impure Senseless sort of Devotion and the False Hopes of Salvation by it a Drunken Dream fit to Enchant and Enslave those who are bereaved of All Judicious Understanding in Christianity and pleas'd with a Faith Worship of God and Conversation suited only to a Carnal Sensuality All this shews us wherein the Strength of this City or False Church lies And how Exactly do these Things Answer One Another What we Every Day see with our Eyes and hear with our Ears and have all manner of Assurance of in Papal Rome and these Delineations of Prophecy carrying us out of all manner of Doubt that the City here described to be Judg'd is Papal Rome Char. 3. In the Papacy of Rome and its City or False Church we find the Collection of All the Superstitions and Idolatries that ever have been almost if not altogether in the World under One Pretence Colour and Coverture or other Running like Filthy Drains into this Foul Great Sewer enough to fill Volumes with their incredible Multitude and Variety Such as if duly consider'd cannot but be thought most Strange and Horrid in so Divine Spiritual and so Intellectual a Worship of God as Christianity teaches And how hath Prophecy Represented this In Daniel by the Infamous Name of Beast common to Him with other Idolatrous Pagan Supremes So by His thinking to change Times and Laws given into his Hand for such a Term plainly signifying Sovereign Power Engaging it self in the Devising
very well expect its Downfall to be near and that it must needs be sitting on its last Supremacy But when we calculate according to the sure Word of Prophecy as we have utmost Assurance that Papal Rome is the Babylon that is to be judged So we have no Room for Doubt that it is the last Supremacy For as the City is adjudged to final Destruction so the Beast is thrice said to go into Perdition Chap. 18. 21 22. compared with Chap. 17. ver 8 11. If therefore the City sitting on the Beast is cast as a Milstone into the Sea That cannot survive the Beast to sit on any other And if the Beast go into Perdition as he is also call'd by the Apostle the Son of Perdition as the Judas of Christianity going into his own Place while the Woman sits upon him there is a perfect End of his Supremacy also he is therefore said by the Apostle 2 Thess 2. to be first taken away by the Breath of the Lord's Mouth and then brought utterly to nothing with the Brightness of his Illustrious Appearance 2 Thess 2. 8. And he is taken and cast alive into the Lake And even this gives certain Proof This is the last Supremacy For there can be none after the Eighth King upon which the City sitting is destroyed It could not therefore be the Seventh King which by being called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Another a very Forreigner of another Kindred to the other Kings No Head of Babylon though a King of Rome is therefore certainly known to be the Christian Emperor and came after the Pagan Emperor call'd the Dragon who then was in his Regnancy when the Apostle writ Let us then argue thus which ever of the Kings is the Beast must be the Supreme sitting on which Babylon prov'd to be Rome must be destroy'd It cannot be the Sixth King who then was when the Prophecy was given and who might be supposed to have lasted til I now For who can suppose in any Sense whatever Rome is upon the same King it was then nor can it be upon the Seventh King but no Head on that Account for he could continue but a short Space as hath been elsewhere made out it must be therefore some Supreme that hath continued a long Space in Opposition to the short Space This therefore must be the Papacy which hath lasted longer than any Government over Rome without Variation in any Essential Point and than so far as I know any other in the World Beside it is expresly said the Dragon by which I apprehend all Interpreters understand the Pagan Imperial persecuting Power at the Time of the Revelation given is expresly said to receive a deadly Wound from the Christian Emperor on which he as it were secretly conveyed over his Power Seat and great Authority to the Beast gliding it as unobservedly by the Christian Emperor unto the Idolatrous Antichristian Papacy by whom his Deadly Wound was healed which is therefore the Eighth King but Seventh Head Seventh from the Sixth Head or Pagan Emperor of whom when the Apostle writ it is said he now is Then follows the Seventh King no Head then the Beast the Seventh Head who hath continued even above 1200 Years So that the Time from the Cessation of the Western Christian Roman Empire when the Beast received Power and the Ten Kings with him at 476 of the vulgar Account exceeds the Time from the first Building of Rome to that Supremacy of the Bishop or Pope of Rome so that no Title of Principality in Rome hath by a kind of Providential Fatality been assumed by any Secular Power precisely over the City Rome but Bishop or Pope of Rome This argues beyond Possibility of Denial from this so long Continuance of the Papacy in Opposition to the short Continuance of the Seventh King no Head or Christian Emperor that the Pope is indeed that Seventh Head and Eighth King and so the Last even the Beast that goes into Perdition Posit 3. It is one of the Glories and Lustres of the Judgment of God on Babylon That the first coming of it into Execution shall be with great Suddenness and Surprizal It is expressed in one Day and one Hour and in the same Hour I know Day and Hour may signifie any determinate Season But in such very constant and pregnant Expressions of Suddenness exceeding Suddenness is intended The same Expressions are used concerning Literal Babylon * Esay 47. Jer. 51. In one Day and in a Moment one Post shall run to meet another with the Tydings so sudden and unthought of Tydings when Belshazzar thought of no such Thing the †Dan. 6. Hand-writing appeared upon the Wall And the same Night Belshazzar was slain and the King of the Medes took the Kingdom the Babylonian Monarchy then utterly ceasing This was Prophetically Typical of Mystical Babylon It is therefore no Argument this Judgment cannot be executed a long Time yet because there are no present Appearances Herein shall appear the Glory of this Judgment as one great Point of it the Suddenness of it In many of the most high and lofty Works of God Suddenness hath been the peculiar Lustre of them In the Creation of the World He spake and it was done He Psal 33. 9. Esay commanded and it stood fast He called to the whole Creation and it stood up together In the Giving the Spirit suddenly there was the Noise of a mighty rushing Acts 2. 2. Wind. In the Day of Judgment sudden Destruction shall come when they shall cry Peace Peace 1 Thes 5. 1. upon all the Enemies of the Kingdom of Christ The third Woe cometh quickly in the hasty and sudden Effects Rev. 11. 14. of it Now by this Suddenness it is not intended That the whole Execution of the Judgment should be in so short Time though it is and shall be in short Time For the whole Progress of the Third Woe is quick and speedy as it passes through the Tubuli or Pipes till it comes down into the Ocean of Everlasting Yet it shall not be in one Day Hour or Moment But the first Invasion or Assault shall be so Then it moves by seven Voices and by seven Vials of the last Plagues wherein is filled up the Wrath of Almighty God To the Ancient Literal Babylon it is said Esay 47. 7. c. Thou sayst I shall be a Lady for ever so that thou didst not lay these things to thy Heart neither didst thon remember the latter end of it therefore hear now this thou that art given to Pleasures that dwellest carelesly thou that sayest in thy Heart I am and none else besides me I shall not sit as a Widow neither shall I know the loss of Children but these two things shal come upon thee in a Moment in one Day the Loss of Children and Widowhood they shall come upon thee in their Perfection for the multitude of thy Sorceries and for the great abundance