do thou humble her the more by shewing her her ugly hue in the glasse of the Holy Scriptures If she boast that she is that holy Jerusalem a City at Unity within it self whenas the rest of the World are so full of Sects and Factions tell her that she is that carnal Jerusalem wherein Christ in his true Members hath been so barbarously persecuted and murthered and that the Stones of her buildings are no living stones but held together by a mere iron violence and the Cement of her walls tempered with the large effusion of innocent bloud forasmuch as she is that two-horned Beast that gave life to the Image of the Beast and caused him to decree that as many as would not obey his Idolatrous Edicts should be slain This is the power of your Unity which is not from the Spirit of God but from the spirit of the Devil who was a Murtherer from the beginning But the Division of us Protestants is both a sign of our sincere search after the Truth and a more strong Testimony against you of Rome in that we being so divided amongst our selves yet we so unanimously give sentence against you your Miscarriages and Crimes being so exceeding grosse that no free eye but must needs discern them 21. If she vaunts of her Antiquity give her enough of it and tell her she derives her pedigree from that great Dragon the old Serpent that is called the Devil and Satan that Murtherer of mankinde Ye are of your father the Devil saith our Saviour and the works of your father will ye doe We grant that the Visage and Lineage of your Church reaches even beyond the times of the Apostles the two-horned Beast reviving the Image of the Pagan Beast the great red Dragon by bringing up again his old bloudy Persecutions and Idolatries It suffices us that our Church began with the Apostles If she glories in her Universality and in her large Territories tell her she is that GREAT City which spiritually is called Sodom and AEgypt where our Lord was crucified And that she is Babylon the GREAT the mother of Fornications and the Abominations of the Earth If she boast of the power of the Keys and of Sacerdotal Absolution tell her that he that is holy he that is true he that has the Key of David he that openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth that is to say our Lord Jesus Christ will never part with these Keys to his inveterate Enemy that notorious Man of Sin or Antichrist If she spread before thee her goodly wares of mercenary Masses of Pardons and Indulgences of the mutuatitious Good works of their pretended Holy men and women or the Wealth and externall Glories of their Church and varieties of rich Preferments and Dignities say unto her that she is that City of Trade of whom it is written that no man buieth her merchandise any more and again Alas alas that great City that was cloathed in fine linnen and purple and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls For in one hour so great riches are come to nought For her Merchants were the great men of the Earth and by her Sorceries were all Nations deceived And in her was found the bloud of Prophets and of Saints and of all that were slain upon the Earth 22. If she would amaze thee with the stories of the wonderfull Miracles done by her tell her that she is that two-horned Beast that doth great wonders and that deceiveth them that dwell on the Earth by means of those Miracles which he had power to doe in the sight of the ten-horn'd Beast or that false Prophet working Miracles and deceiving them that receive the mark of the Beast and worship his Image who together with the Beast is to be taken and cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone or lastly that Man of Sin and Son of perdition whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders If she would inveagle thee with her pretenses of Infallibility tell her that she is that Woman Jezebel that calleth her self a Prophetesse or the Prophet Balaam that insnared the Israelites in Idolatry and that very false Prophet that together with the Beast is to be cast alive into the lake of burning brimstone 23. And lastly if she would gull thee with that specious and much-affected Title of Holy Church tell her that the Spirit of Truth in the Divine Oracles let her commend her self as much as she pleases gives no such Character of her but quite contrary declaring the See of Rome to be the Seat of Satan and their Church his Synagogue the Pope and his Clergy to be Balaam the son of Bozor who loved the wages of unrighteousnesse and who was the Murtherer of Christ's faithfull Martyr Antipas to be that Woman Jezebel who calls her self a Prophetesse but was indeed a Sorceresse and a murtherer of the true Prophets of the Lord to be also that false Prophet that is to be taken alive and cast into the lake of fire and brimstone to be that great City that spiritually is called Sodom and AEgypt where our Lord was crucified to be the Beast that has the horns of a Lamb but the voice of the Dragon decreeing Idolatries and cruel Persecutions against God's people to be that Babylon the great the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth the Woman on the seven Hills that is drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus and lastly to be that Man of Sin that notorious Antichrist that opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or is worshipped whose coming is with all deceivableness of unrighteousnesse in them that perish because they receive not the love of the truth that they may be saved For which cause God sends them strong delusion that they believe a lie That they all might be damned that believe not the truth but have pleasure in unrighteousnesse As well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well all they that love the Romish Lies and Impostures as all they that invent them are here plainly declared in the state of Damnation With this Nosegay of Rue and Wormwood antidote thy self against the Idolatrous infection of that strange Woman 's breath whose lips yet drop as an hony-comb and her mouth is more smooth then oyl And be assured that that cannot be the true Holy Church wherein Salvation is to be expected which the Spirit of God has marked with such unholy and hellish Characters let her boast of her own Holiness as much as she will 24. And if she return this Answer to thee That this is not to argue but to rail in phrases of Scripture do thou make this short Reply That whiles she accuses thee of railing against sinfull
and Finisher of our Faith and Salvation Nay the Creation or Generation of our life and flesh as well as our Salvation is here ascribed to the Virgin Which can have no sense or truth unless she were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God-woman in that sense that Christ is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God-man and as I said were as properly the Daughter of God as he is the Son of God 5. As she is expresly called in her Litanie Filia Dei the Daughter of God Which considering what high Titles they give her both in that Litanie and elsewhere as Illuminatrix cordium Fons misericordiae Flumen sapientiae Mater Dei Regina coeli Domina mundi Domina coeli terrae would be but a dwindling Title it belonging to all women that are believers if there was not some such raised and sublime sense of it as I have intimated And therefore their Addresses to her being as if she were as I said a She-Christ and the Daughter of God in as high a sense at least as Christ is the Son of God and she being called the Daughter of God in the Litania Mariae in her Litanie or publick Supplication to her it is plain that in that Intervall of the Church wherein this most conspicuously and notoriously happened the Church of Rome by reason also of the abundance of their Devotions then to the Virgin might be said to be rather the Worshippers of the Daughter of God then of the Son of God And that therefore the Spirit of Prophecy foreseeing these times whenas for such a space he called Rome Pergamus this succeeding Scene coming on he might very well change the title of Pergamus into that of Thyatira with a derisorious Allusion to the occasion of the name of that City from the news of a Daughter being born to Nicanor As if God Almighty had the like occasion of changing the name of Pergamus into Thyatira from the Romanists turning the Virgin Mary into the Daughter of God 6. For a stop to which Insolency Christ seems on purpose in the Epistle to the Church in Thyatira to resume to himself the Title of the Son of God notwithstanding that he is called the Son of man in the Vision in the foregoing Chapter out of which he ever draws a description of himself for an Entrance before each Epistle to the Churches Which in my judgement is a thing specially well worth the marking and that this making the Virgin Mary the Daughter of God in this Intervall might alone be a sufficient occasion of changing the name of the Church of Rome from Pergamus to Thyatira But other things that are apposite are also comprehended by a Propheticall Henopoeïa 7. But this is an Overplus to our present purpose which was mainly to discover the grosse Idolatry of the Church of Rome in the Invocation of their Saints and especially of the Virgin Mary and how both the Definition of the Council of Trent is Idolatrous in this Point and much more the Practice of the Church countenanced by publick Authority 8. For this Mary-Psalter it self that has the most enormous and blasphemous Forms of Idolatrous Invocation of any is not the private Contrivance of some single obscure superstitious Monk but bears the Title of that Seraphick Doctour S. Bonaventure once Cardinal of Rome Which is no small publick countenance thereto And that nothing might be wanting to the grace and furtherance of so devotionall a piece of Idolatry there was instituted a peculiar Society entitled the Fraternity of the Many-Psalter confirmed afterward by Sixtus the fourth many Indulgences being added Anno 1470. And Innocent the eighth added to these Indulgences plenarie Remission à poena culpa once in their life and once in articulo mortis to as many as entred into that Fraternity 9. And in such case stands the Church of Rome at this very day that is to say she is still Thyatira notorious for her Idolatrous Worship of the Virgin Mary But the Intervall of the true Church in Thyatira ceased upon the Reformation when we cast off the Pope or suffered Jezebel to delude the Servants of God no longer nor to debauch them with Idolatrous Modes of Worship But this is onely by the bye In the mean time it is abundantly manifest that the Invocation of Saints in the Roman Church is not onely the praying to them that they would pray to God for us but the asking Aids of them and such frequently as are in the power of none but of God and of Christ as he is God for to give and therefore is still the grosser Idolatry CHAP. VII That the Doctrine of the Council of Trent touching the Worshipping of Images is Idolatrous and the Reason of the Doctrine weak and unsound 1. AND thus much for their Idolatry in the Invocation of Saints Let us now consider what the sense of the Council of Trent is touching the worshipping of Images Imagines porrò Christi Deiparae Virginis aliorum Sanctorum in templis praesertim habendas retinendas esse eisque debitum honorem reverentiam impertiendam Quoniam honos qui eis exhibetur refertur ad Prototypa quae illae repraesentant ità ut per Imagines quas osculamur coram quibus caput aperimus procumbimus Christum adoremus Sanctos quorum illae similitudinem gerunt veneremur Id quod Conciliorum praesertim verò secundae Nicaenae Synodi Decretis contra Imaginum oppugnatores est sancitum The meaning of which in brief is this That the Images of Christ of the blessed Virgin and other Saints are to be had and retain'd in Churches and that due honour and reverence is to be done to them For which are produced two Reasons The first In that the Honour that is done to the Images is referred to the Prototypes The second In that this Injunction is but what the second Nicene Council had of old decreed 2. To which I answer That thus much as the Council of Trent has declared touching Images is plain and open Idolatry by the seventh Conclusion of the first Chapter and expresly against the Commandment of God who forbids us to make any graven Image to bow down to or worship But the Council of Trent says Yes ye may make graven Images of the Saints and set them up in their Temples and give them their due Honour and Worship nay ye ought to doe so and instances in the very act of Bowing or Kneeling and prostrating our selves before them This Definition of the Council is so palpably against the Commandment of God that they are fain to leave the second Commandment out of the Decalogue that the people may not discern how grosly they goe against the express Precepts of God in their so frequent practices of Idolatry See the first ninth and tenth Conclusions of the first Chapter as also the third fourth fifth eighteenth nineteenth and twentieth of the second 3. Nor can all their
the Images of the Virgin and of other Saints as in the worshipping of the Image of Christ. So that all is religious Worship and consequently grosse Idolatry it being done to Stocks and Stones and such like senslesse Objects For the drift of all Idolatry is when it is questioned and craftily defended that through the Worship of Daemons and Images they reach at the Worship of and the joyning their Devotion to the first and highest Godhead Wherefore the Council of Trent declaring with the second Council of Nice that is to say the blinde leading the blinde they have both fallen into this dreadfull Pit of Idolatry CHAP. IX The meaning of the Doctrine of the Council of Trent touching the Worship of Images more determinately illustrated from the general Practice of the Roman Church and Suffrage of their Popes whereby it is deprehended to be still more coursly and Paganically Idolatrous 1. BUT it may be it may give more satisfaction to some to know what is the Church of Rome's own sense of this Honor debitus she declares ought to be done to the Images of Christ and the Saints Putting off a man's Hat and lying prostrate before them the Council does not stick to instance in by the bye But because the Council calls this neither Dulia nor Hyperdulia nor Latria some will it may be be ready to shuffle it off with the interpretation of but a civil Complement to these Images or their Prototypes But since the Council of Trent has declared nothing farther what can be a more certain Interpreter of their meaning then the continued Custome of their Church and the sense of such Doctours as have been even sainted for their Eminency as Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure who both of them have declared that the Image of Christ is to be worshipped with the Worship of Latria the same that Christ is worshipped with 2. And Azorius the Jesuite affirms that it is the constant Opinion of the Theologers their own he means you may be sure that the Image is to be honoured and worshipped with the same Honour and Worship that he is whose Image it is Which is not unlike that in the Council of Nice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the foregoing Citation But that they are all capable of religious Worship the Council of Trent it self as well as Bellarmine and others if not all the Theologers of that Church does plainly acknowledge in that it determines for their Invocation which is competible to no invisible Power but the Godhead it self Wherefore it is manifest that their Images are worshipped with religious Worship also 3. But we shall make still the clearer judgement thereof if we consider the Consecration of these Images which the Council of Trent declares are to be worshipped For the Consecration and Worshipping of them makes them perfectly as the Idol-Gods of the Heathen as Octavius jearingly speaks of the Heathen Gods that is their Idols in Minucius Felix Ecce funditur fabricatur scalpitur nondum Deus est Ecce plumbatur construitur erigitur nec adhuc Deus est Ecce ornatur consecratur oratur tunc postremò Deus est Behold it is clothed or adorned it is consecrated and prayed unto then at length it becomes a God And if this will doe it the Church of Rome's Images will prove as good Idol-Gods as any of them all 4. Chemnitius recites some forms of Consecration I will cull out onely those of the Images of the blessed Virgin and of S. John That of the Virgin is this Sanctify O God this Image of the blessed Virgin that it may aid and keep safe thy faithfull people that Thundrings and Lightnings if they grow too terrible and dangerous may be quickly expelled thereby and that the Inundations of Rain the Commotions of civil War and Devastations by Pagans may be suppressed by the presence thereof Which is most effectual to make all men come and hurcle under the protection of the Virgin 's Image in such dangers as under the Wings of the great Jehovah This is hugely like the consecrated Telesms of the Pagans But let us hear the form of the Consecration of the Image of S. John also Grant O God that all those that behold this Image with Reverence and pray before it may be heard in whatsoever Streights they are Let this Image be the holy Expulsion of Devils the conciliating the presence and assistence of Angels the protection of the faithfull and that the Intercession of this Saint may be very powerfull and effectuall in this place What a mighty Charm is this to make the Souls of the feeble to hang about these Images as if their Presence were the Divine Protection it self 5. These Chemnitius recites out of the Pontificall he perused But the Rituale Romanum published first by the command of Paulus Quintus and again authorized by Pope Urban the eighth will doe our businesse sufficiently they being both since the Council of Trent and therefore by the Exposition of these Popes we may know what that debitus Honor is which the Tridentine Fathers mention as that which ought to be done to the Images of Christ the blessed Virgin or any other Saint For the Consecration of their Images runs thus Grant O God that whosoever before this Image shall diligently and humbly upon his knees worship and honour thy onely-begotten Son or the blessed Virgin according as the Image is that is a-consecrating or this glorious Apostle or Martyr or Confessor or Virgin that he may obtain by his or her Merits and Intercession Grace in this present life and eternall Glory hereafter So that the Virgin and other Saints are fellow-distributers of Grace and Glory with Christ himself to their Supplicants before their Images and that upon their own Merits and for this Service done to them in kneeling and pouring out their Prayers before their Statues or symbolicall Presences What greater Blasphemy and Idolatry can be imagined Ornatur consecratur oratur tunc postremò fit Deus that is to say The Image is pray'd before but the Daemon pray'd unto There is no more in Paganism it self And yet by the Pope's own Exposition this is the debitus Honor that is owing to the Images of the Saints Consider the latter end of the last Conclusion of the first Chapter and the forms of Invocation in the fourth and fifth as also the eighteenth Conclusion of the second Chapter 6. This is all plain and expresse according to the Authority of their Church And that besides their Adoration and Praying before thâ—se Images which considering the Postures of the Supplicant and the Image is as much praying to them as the Heathens will acknowledge done to theirs there are also Wax-candles burning before them and the Oblation of Incense or perfuming them Feasts likewise Temples and Altars to the same Saints and the carrying them in Procession which was the guize of ancient Paganism is so well known that I need not quote any Authours And that this is the
many Waters that insinuates that this Description respects also his Body Mysticall which are a multitude 7. I know thy works and charity and service and faith The true Church then in Thyatira being in Oppression and Affliction stood close to one another and encouraged and comforted one another and supported one another as well as they could and endeavoured after an Exemplarity of Godlinesse and due proficiency in the Power of Religion as being Candidates for that Deliverance which they by Faith saw was not far off And thy patience and thy works and the last to be more then the first That is I see the works of thy Patience in suffering Imprisonment Tortures and Death and particularly in giving up your selves as an Oblation of Incense to the Fire and faggot in such numbers for the testimony of my Truth Which being toward the latter end of this Intervall it is fitly said and the last to be more then the first This is according to what is found in History 8. Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest that Woman Jezebel which calleth her self a Prophetess c. viz. the Papal Hierarchy that pretends to be infallible and under colour of this brings in Idolatry which is spiritual Fornication and detains men in the Communion of their idolatrous Mass which the Spirit of God here parallels to the eating of things sacrificed unto Idols The Prophetesse Jezebel here therefore answers to the false Prophet after mentioned in the Revelations and this exprobration to the Church in Thyatira of permitting Jezebel thus to practice her deceits to that voice of the Angel Come out of her my people lest ye be partakers of her sins and of her plagues It is a kind of solicitation of the Princes and people in Christendome such as discerned the Frauds and Idolatries of the Roman Church to make a Defection from her and suffer her Trumperies no longer For the time of that Defection now drew near and things were ripe for it and it was in the power of them that disliked the condition of Affairs to amend it and therefore he saith Because thou sufferest that Woman Jezebel For it is no fault in us to suffer those things which it is not in our power to help or redresse 9. This Jezebel is very expressive of the Roman Hierarchy if we recurr to the story of the book of the Kings not onely for her painting of her self which is notorious in the Roman Church and especially in this Intervall and such as the Homilies of our Church in England take especial notice of comparing all those rich and gorgeous Adornings of the Church of Rome to the painting of the wrinkled face of an Harlot but also for her Whoredomes and Witchcraft as it is noted 1 Kings 9. 22. What peace so long as the whoredomes of thy Mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many Which is exactly parallel to the Description of the Whore of Babylon who is said to be the mother of Fornications and Abominations of the earth described also by that Cup of Sorcery in her hand whereby she intoxicates the Kings of the Earth and makes them drunk with the Wine of her Fornication And whereas she is said to be drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus Jezebel also in her History is famous for murthering the Prophets of God 10. And those grosse Wickednesses committed by Ahab who did very abominably in following Idols and in persecuting the Servants of the true God who is said to have sold himself to work Wickednesse are imputed to this subtil murtherous Whore and Witch as the Text plainly declares But there was none like unto Ahab who did sell himself to work wickednesse in the sight of the Lord whom Jezebel his wife stirred up That is to say the Roman Hierarchy according as both the Vision of the Whore of Babylon and of the two-horned Beast do plainly signifie was the Authour Contriver and Instigatour unto all those murtherous and idolatrous practices that the Secular Magistrate has been guilty of during their Force and Tyranny over the true Servants of Christ. The Beast with two Horns exercised all this Power before the Beast with ten Horns or rather made use of the Secular Power to effect all their devillish Designs against the Children of God as Jezebel wrote Letters in Ahab's name and sealed them with his seal The Church got the stamp of the Imperial Authority upon all the wicked Dogmata of their Religion and Idolatrous practices which they contrived for their own carnal advantages and then if any Naboth would not part with the Inheritance of his Fathers the possession of an holy righteous and rational Conscience nor profess nor act against the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against those native Truths and Notions which God of his infinite mercy and faithfulnesse has implanted in the minds of all men that have not done violence to that innate Light the Candle of the Lord searching all the parts of the belly he was through the murtherous contrivances of this Strumpet Jezebel falsely accused as a Blasphemer of God and the King as an enemy to both the Catholick Faith and secular Magistrate and so was sentenced to death And death came by these wicked Accusations in this Intervall as in the former Intervall wherein Antipas was slain by openly fighting in the Field Thus apposite is the Allusion to the History of Jezebel for the setting out the state of this Intervall of the Church under the Tyranny of the Church of Rome 11. Nor is it all harsh thus to interpret a Vineyard to so spiritual a sense as to make it something within us whenas both Philo and other ancient Interpreters have interpreted Paradise to that sense or the Garden of Eden And others also cannot but acknowledge that that Law of Moses Deut. 22. 9. Thou shalt not sow thy Vineyard with divers seeds has also a Moral or Mysticall meaning and is a Precept of Simplicity or Sincerity of heart Wherefore the Vineyard of Naboth may very well signifie the Humane Will and Understanding that is sown onely or planted with such Notions or notices of things as are from God whether they be those innate Idea's of the Soul or what is communicated farther by the Spirit of God in the Holy Writings of inspired men or are more immediately inspired into us by the abode of that Spirit in us All these Plants are of our Heavenly Father 's own planting and no other seed is to be sown among them repugnant thereunto And this Vineyard is the Inheritance of all true Christians descending upon them from the Apostles times to this very day But the Roman Empire being perverted by the doctrines of the whore or two-horned Beast or by the eorruptions also of their own nature had a mind to invade this ancient right as Ahab had to get into his possession Naboth's
Vineyard under pretence that men giving up their will and understanding to the supreme Power Government might be the more secure And all that wondred after the Beast gave up their Vineyards into the hand of the secular Power and professed no otherwise then according to the faith of the Empire and so had their Vineyards sown with divers seeds nay indeed with what was repugnant to the Apostolick Plantation Their minds were filled with gross lies foul-Idolatries of all sorts and murderous enmities against the true Children of God 12. But as for the Vineyard of Naboth that is the Vineyard of the true Prophets or Prophetesses as the word Naboth seems to intimate they were not given up that is those that were not Christians for fashion-sake and believed new invented lies and Apostolick truth alike but with a true and living faith acknowledged Jesus to be the Christ these would rather lose their lives then quit their Vineyards that yielded them that noble Wine that perpetual feast of a good Conscience and of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Whence it was that this Whore and Sorceresse Jezebel contrived their death or persecution and oppression as the two Prophets are said to both mourn in sackcloath and also to be slain The Vineyard therefore of Naboth is that sense and knowledge and conscience and life of the Spirit in the new birth whereby a man discerning plainly livingly betwixt the wayes of Christ and of Antichrist does as necessarily loath the one as adhere to the other 13. For the true and firm belief in Christ is from the new birth as S. John also witnesses Every one that believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God And therefore this Spirit of life must needs have an Antipathy against what is contrary to it self And is also the Spirit of Prophecy in the most concerning sense As John likewise intimates in his general Epistle where upon his mentioning many false Prophets gone out into the World he presently adds In this ye know the Spirit of God Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh is of God Which agrees exactly with that in the Apocalypse where the Angel says to John I am thy fellow-servant and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus that is to say of such as whose hearts do witnesse to them firmly and lively that Jesus is the Christ and accordingly professe it which none can do unlesse he be born of God and so have the Spirit of God Which is implyed in the following words For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of Prophecy that is to say the being able in such sort to witnesse that Jesus is the Christ is from the spirit and life of God in us which inspireth all holy truth From whence the Angel argues a kind of Parity betwixt John and himself and indeed all such as have the testimony of Jesus according to the sense declared and therefore would not be worshipped by them 14. But this is something a Digression saving that it may illustrate that passage in the Apocalypse where the two Witnesses are also called the two Prophets not so much from predicting things to come as from witnessing to the Truth from the spirit of life in the new birth and being so firm in this faith as to suffer for it even to the death and may also facilitate the belief of this Mystical sense of the story of Naboths Vineyard or this Vineyard of Prophecy it not implying any miraculous predictions but the being inspired with a right Sentiment of things from the Spirit of Life and having the confidence to speak the truth as it is in Jesus This is all that need to be understood thereby 15. To teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto Idols This Woman of Thyatira whether the wife of the Bishop of Thyatira or some other Person of quality for Interpreters of the letter vary in that according to the Literal sense is described from her acts as onely guilty of pretending her self to be a Prophetesse and that thereby she seduced the servants of Christ to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed to Idols which is a chief point of that which was called Gnosticisme And the truth of the supposed History here we do in no wise deny But we also adde that it is hugely improbable that the spirit of Prophecy would take notice so particularly of any one Woman in so majestick a Writing which Alcazar also very seriously and vehemently urges if there were not some greater matter aimed at Wherefore I say the Spirit of God taking the advantage of the significancy of the miscarriages of this Woman in Thyatira which would set out part of the enormities of the Church of Rome here perstringed added there to the name of Jezebel that the Prophetick Prefiguration might be the more complete the Church of Rome in this Intervall being lively adumbrated by this Allusion to Jezebel joyned to what is reported of this woman in Thyatira viz. That she pretends to be a Prophetess as the Church of Rome to be infallible that she drew the servants of Christ to Idolatry and uncleannesse as the Church of Rome does by engaging them in the Masse and other superficial modes of serving God that leave the minde sensual and besides necessarily intangle them in Idolatrous practices Thus much from the practice of this Woman 16. Now in that she has this name given her of Jezebel assuredly the spirit of God points us to her story to make up this Parallel betwixt this woman Rome viz. as she is also a murderer of the Prophets and servants of God and a contriver of false Accusations against them as if by the keeping of the Inheritance of their Fathers a pure conscience according to the ancient and Apostolick faith and innate notions of Truth that God has implanted in the minds of all men they were blasphemers of God and the King and obnoxious to both the Civil and Spiritual Magistrate And lastly which is to be taken special notice of the Church of Rome in this Intervall of the Succession of the Church of Christ is called Jezebel because for all her paintings and fine meretricious pranking her self up she was to be thrown out at the window and her flesh to be devoured by dogs which the just wrath of God and the zeal of Jehu the noble Reformers stirred up by the Spirit of God brought to passe at the end of this Intervall of the Church as it is threatned also in the following parts of this Epistle 17. And I gave her space to repent her of her fornication and she repented not She had a fair time to consider of her grosse Apostasies from the purity of my worship since the witnesse of the Waldenses and Albigenses against her and yet she remains still obdurate and impenitent and continues her old
not so well as they should be yet they must needs appear to any but an Humorist exceeding much better then in the Church of Rome And thus much of the Sardian Church CHAP. VIII An Interpretation of the Epistle to the Church in Philadelphia 1. AND to the Angel of the Church in Philadelphia write The meaning of Philadelphia is plain and is no Riddle The word signifies Brotherly love which rightly understood is the fulfilling of the Law So that I understand by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 universal Love for we are all brothers in Adam but especially the love of those of the houshold of Faith that is to say of Christian Believers In the Sardian Church the greatest noise and stir there is about Faith but her Works were not found perfect before God But the Inscription of this Church is Love which is the fulfilling of the Law as I hinted before And his banner over me was Love This is the Ensign of the Church of Philadelphia who elsewhere is said to be beautifull and terrible as an Army with Banners Who is she that looketh forth as the Morning fair as the Moon clear as the Sun and terrible as an Army with Banners Why who can it be but this Church of Philadelphia as famous for feats of Arms as for Love as we shall see in the process For the Intervall of this Church begins in the last Vial and reaches to the fourth Thunder These things saith he that is Holy And speaks to that Church that loves to hear those Instructions Be ye holy for I am holy and Be ye perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect He that is true He that will make good all his Promises and glorious Predictions touching his Church in this state thereof which is figured out by the Church of Philadelphia and writes to those that believe it and have a firm Faith in the Power and Spirit of Christ and of God He that hath the Key of David he that openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth What Eliakim was to Hezekias who was of the stock of David the same is Christ to God the Father whom S. John calls Love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is chief Minister of State under God and carries all as he pleases by the Authority committed to him of which a Key is the Symbol See Grotius upon the place There is nothing so hard and impervious but he can make way through it and open a door to Successe and again shut it against his Enemies 2. I know thy works And that so as to approve of them because they are the fruits of the Divine Love then which there is nothing to me more precious Thou actest not out of bitter zeal and strife or vain ostentation or any secular respect but merely out of love to me and my Righteousnesse and out of love to mankinde whose both present and future Happinesse thou dost sincerely endeavour to promote Behold I have set before thee an open door and no man can shut it Behold I have brought things about so by my Providence and will so effectually second what I have begun by my special assistence that maugre all the machinations of men and Devils thou shalt finde opportunities of most gloriously and successfully carrying on the Interest of my Kingdome This is performed in the last Vial in that great battel of God almighty when also the Beast and the false Prophet are said to be taken See the Divine Dialogues For thou hast a little strength Grotius himself interprets it a little Army and so indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will signifie appositely to the present scope and answerably to the Battel I named before The sense is Because though ye be but a few in comparison of the rest of my Church and Kingdome for the Sardian Church is his Kingdome and Church too out of which the Philadelphian Church is emerging and especially in respect of the Infidel and Antichristian party those under the Dragon and the Beast and the false Prophet yet ye have kept my Word and not denied my Name that is have both kept to what is holy and true in your hearts and professed it in your words and works therefore I will be with you in this glorious manner and make you so successfull in the promoting of the Interest of my Kingdome Of this Church therefore of Philadelphia are those Armies seen in Heaven Apoc 19. following Christ upon white Horses clothed in fine linnen white and clean which implies both the justnesse of their cause and the certainty of their successe As also those Boanergesses in the last Vial synchronal to that other Vision that thunder and lighten over the City divided into three parts whereby the Cities of the Nations fell and Babylon and her daughters were utterly overthrown 3. Behold I will make them of the Synagogue of Satan which say they are Jews but do lie Jews as I noted before according to the style of the Apocalypse are Christians and the Jews which professe themselves such and are not but do lie are pseudo-Christians or the Antichristian party but are judged here to be of the Synagogue of Satan because of their abominable lies and bloudy murders For the Devil was a murderer from the beginning and he is also in the same place by our Saviour termed a Liar Besides the Luciferian Pride of that Church like Satans the Prince of the Devils Behold I will make them come and worship before thy feet Even those that before kissed the feet of the Pope that lofty Prelate This answers very patly to that passage in the fore-named Vision where the Beast and false Prophet are taken and put alive into a lake of fire that is to say the Bestian and Pseudoprophetical power as such is burnt and destroyed and abolished and the Philadelphian power then appears above all or rather the Lord alone will be exalted in that day for to this time especially belongs that saying Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts For indeed the struggling of the Sardian Church hitherto against the City that is called Sodom and AEgypt though it has been in its kind laudable yet it has been in a manner Edom against Edom a part something more refined against that which is more impure I mean as to Life and Godlinesse and the weapons of their warfare have not been so spiritual as they ought they have not rid upon white Horses nor have been clothed in fine linnen white and clean they have not endeavoured to be that Church which is without spot wrinkle or any such thing but the Sardian tincture has too much distained them But as it is true in the natural sense that flesh and bloud cannot inherit the Kingdome of God so it is also in the political that those glorious times of the Kingdome of God