compel doth testifie still retaining their old mustie store and sowre wilde grapes of Antichrist your Ministery is foully corrupted with guile and false principles about discipline accompanied with bitter and odious invectives against these harpers Lastly let us examine your National Churches above-named by Chap. 15. They stand not simply upon a sea of glass the word only purely sensed but upon the more gross interpretations of the Fathers and other learned men in darker times from whom they esteem it presumption to differ though to the native Truth as your sharp and frequent reproofs of me for differing from them doth demonstrate they have not obtained a conquest over the Beast but have erected a Beast in Episcopacie Presbytery c. his Image in their Canons and other Ordinances changed into his likeness his Mark by a subjection thereto nor are their members in distinct congregatings as being off from the number of his name but are all numbered to him And those who now adhere to these National Hierarchies are so far from harping out this triumphant song of victory by separation and war and singing True and righteous are thy ways herein thou King of Saints as they are secret mourners having a wound in their spirits at these his just proceedings and his judgements now made manifest witness of late the dolour for the overthrow of the Scots who fought in the Presbyterian cause your publike reproaches against the Separation with inward torments for their freedom together with many other passages which shew how this great work of God now beginning is closed and fast locked up from your understandings We desire from our souls that the Lord Jesus who hath the key of David would open the door of your hearts whereby his admired designes changes and works to be done might enter In the mean time you may behold your folly in bringing those texts to convince us and prove your practice every circumstance whereof agrees with the way of separation and riseth up as so many witnesses against yours You ask us Whether the Ordination of Ministers in such National Churches be a mark of the Beast Answ Seeing the Churches themselves are not these harpers but such as stand under a bestial power the Ministers must be of the same nature with the Churches And your Ordination whether by Bishops or preaching Presbyters coming from the corrupt key of Rome though done by fasting and prayer must carry with it the mark or brand of the same Beast or if the man be truely pious his outward livery And thus to judge is neither ignorance nor malice as you charge it but the discovery of Christ in his Revelation who through our sides you are pleased to defame with black terms of obloquie To your next we say that you are not clothed with the white garments of the harpers but with the black habit of sack-cloth You tax us with omitting singing of Psalms Answ For mine own particular I question not the Ordinance of vocal singing of Psalms though some do scruple the manner thereof as conceiving it to be much abused Albeit this harmonizing here is not tyed to metre but is the inward joy wrought in the hearts of Gods separated Saints for their noble redemption from the Beast and the new mercies bestowed on them which breathes forth either in secret ejaculations or acts more openly in Ministery Prayer Thanksgiving c. Object You quaere How we can be in our return from Babylon and yet within Babylons territories Answ A man may be returning from London and yet within the line of Communication so in this gradual separation we cannot go clear off at once but by degrees See Parag. 4. Reas 7. Before we conclude give us leave to propound a few Quaeries very material to be considered of 1. In general for all 2. In particular to you The general shall be a brief contracting of the whole body of this Controversie and are as followeth 1. Whether the being of yours or any other Office with us passing by succession from the Primitive came by a Lineal descent from Rome or not If some say Not then whether any can prove their Genealogie distinct and apart from her If from Rome as you confess then whether the essence and foundation of Office be true there or not If true then whether she must not radically be a true Church and a Sion If she be in her constitution false bottomless and Babylon whether there were not a dissolution of your line and chain 2. Whether a true congregated Church set in a right and compleat order of discipline in our Western Horizon can be proved from the Apostolical times to be distinct from the Romish Synagogue If not as the Scripture and the event doth clearly manifest then must there be a cessation and departure of Gods glory from this visibility proved from these Scriptures Rev. 7.1 Chap. 9.1 2 3 c. Chap. 11.2 3. Whether the primitive order sinking there must not be a new call and spiriting from God for the first restoring and beginning of this work whereby his glory may return to make it a true spiritual and heavenly building 4. Whether such a visible administration that gives being to a true pure genuine and single Gospel-marriage be to be seen in the first initiation of any of our new-built Church-formes or can be evidenced by Scripture to be existing at this present or whether this same be not prophesied not to return till after the downfall of Babylon by these Scriptures Rev. 19.2 3 6 7 8 9. chap. 11. 19. Hos 2.19 20. Isa 62.4 5. chap. 14.15 Mic. 4.3 8. Mat. 25.10 5. Whether if so all our visible constitutions must not be man in their ground-work and so numbered to that beast Rev. 13.18 6. Whether then the way prepared cast up approved of and called unto for his Servants now to walk in be not a separation with distinct Congregations without sitting down as Queens in visible constitutions I shall desire the Godly seriously and impartially to examine these Quaeries by the word of God We were all in a spiritual sense asleep and it is no shame but a honour to yeild to the conquest of truth and suffer it freely to triumph over our former misleadings and wanderings The Quaeries in particular to you are these 1. Whether as above your Office of the Ministery the corner-stone of your outward building being derived from the national hierarchy which successively came from the Pope be not one of Babylons stones and whether it be not against this text Jer. 51.26 They shall not take of thee a stone for foundations but thou shalt be desolate for ever saith the Lord. 2. Whether your gathering of Gospel-Churches out of true Gospel-Churches which you acknowledge the national to be be warranted by the Scriptures if so we desire your proofs for it 3. Whether your making of Elders without laying on of hands be agreeable to the primitive practice 4. Whether the receiving in of members made by your selves be taken from the primitive pattern that is whether such a Covenant and subscription thereto was the Ordinance by which men entred into Church-fellowship in that Gospel-day or whether members were not then received in by laying on of hands if by such a Covenant we desire your Scriptures to warrant it 5. Whether all this be not to omit or transgress the lawes and change the ordinances Isa 24.6 Yet one thing more You have taken a great deal of pains through your whole Book to prove a true visible stated Gospel-Church thorowout the Gospel-times but all this while you have not shewed us which of all the several forms is that true stated Church Rome arrogates it the Lutherans usurp it the English Episcopacie plead it the Presbyters and you chalenge it the Dippers appropriate it those called Brownists claim it as their sole interest the Independents assume it And truely the wisest man in Europe taking a thorow view of every one of these Church-models will be at a stand certainly to determine which of them is the true and right and which had its lineal descent in the rectitude of Order from the Primitive The more accurately he examines the greater occasion he may finde to question all Sir I beseech you not to take in prejudice what I have here presented in benevolence For though many things may appear something strange at first yet I hope upon second thoughts you will finde them no other then the real truths of God delivered by the Prophets Apostles and the Lord himself I presume you will not adjudge him who hath been and is your cordial friend to become your enemy because he tells you the truth and that in the same language the Spirit in Scripture speaks Indeed I may seem to some to be over-sharp but the discoveries by the vials are so imparted by the Spirit as at the one side to increase the torments of the marked souldiers of Antichrist so on the other side thorowly to searse and eat out the mystery of that deceit too deeply riveted in the mindes of many vessels of honour For though the Spouse was not totally deceived so as to be struck at the heart or killed yet was she so much deluded as to receive a wound Cant. 5.7 which cannot recover a perfect cure but by a searching salve And for my self I dare not daub in the things of God nor call evil good nor darkness light nor soothe up with flattering titles left my Maker should destroy me When I see my brother straying I am commanded to rebuke with plainness and not in any wise to suffer sin to rest upon him to omit which duty were a symptome of hatred Lev. 19.17 And I will assure you they are no other then the faithful wounds of a friend which in receiving may carry the vertue of an excellent oil that will not break your head but onely remove such putrefaction as might otherwise procure your loss at the day of Jesus Christ FINIS
as having no such promise annexed to them and why should this be but to shew that these keys in the Churches hand should receive a sink and loss of their efficacie for a time For certainly the Lord knowing the apostated times if they had continued through the Babylonish defection would have added some word of remaining to them as well as to the profession To these we shall annex that Zech. 4.2 12. in which we may behold that related as evidently as the face is seen in the glass The Angel vers 2. sets before the eyes of Zechariah the image of the primitive Apostolical Church the like was also seen of John Rev. 1.12 20. onely here was the difference the Prophet sees the type of one Candlestick as representing the Church in her unity John beholds seven he writing to the seven Churches and here in vers 12. is pictured out a platform of the dispensation of the sealed elect number during the times of Antichristianism That the Candlestick vers 2. did embleme the primitive Churches we render these reasons 1. From the Angels answer vers 6. that this was not built by might or by power as outward Zerubbabel's temple was but by the Spirit as without hands by Christ the true Zerubbabel 2. From the head-stone of this spiritual building vers 7. which was the Lord Jesus 1 Pet. 2.6 Psal 118.22 Isai 28.16 Matth. 2◠42 Act. 4.11 3. From the shout and cry which was not Works works but Grace grace the manifest difference betwixt the Law and the Gospel 4. From the despising of small things the Jewish Ceremonies and the sight of the Plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel Christ vers 10. which teacheth the coming off from Mosaical rudiments to that of Christianity 5. From the seven eyes opened to be the Lambs eyes and for time in the primitive Rev. 5.6 and the seven Lamps vers 2. agreeable to Rev. 4.5 That the two Olive-branches and the two golden pipes vers 12. pertain to the next following Antichristian times is apparent by the decrease of the former fulness and the answer of the Angel vers 14. which can aptly be applied to no other time then that of the elect in Babylon From hence we shall evince this argument That there was a fulness of Ordinances in the primitive Age there were seven pipes to the seven Lamps vers 2. the number seven notes out a perfection the Pipes signifie Ordinances Luke 7.32 these being the organ by which the light and oil of Ministery is displayed whereas in the Antichristian season there are seen but two pipes that had golden oil the least of numbers and yet sufficient to testifie the truth of inward grace Now why should there be seven at the first and but two at the last but to set forth the cessation of the former five in their efficacie and power as being dead empty and without golden oil viz. Ordination Confirmation with the other stative Ordinances and that Ministery Prayer c. being predicted of God for abiding must as the two golden pipes remain and the two anointed ones by these empty themselves as the two Olive-branches In Rev. 7.1 the four open windes which are causa procreans conservans the begetting and preserving cause of these visible keys Ezek. 1.4 5. Act. 2. were by reason of the falling away wholly with-held from their apparent blast and the cause failing the effect must also cease this Spirit of life being restrained they must needs be meerly formal That as in the Scriptures before cited they were not promised to abide so the Spirit doth here desert and leave them empty of its lively influences In Chap. 9.1 2 3. the Angel who had usurped all Church-power into his custody totally apostated from heaven to earth becomes a meer earthly Angel by which that Church-policie that before was a kingdom of heaven is become a bottomless pit or a false Church without any bottom of Truth in her order and in stead of the keys of the celestial kingdom was another contrary key of the same bottomless pit the key being the same with the Church in the room of that sweet recreating winde or lightsome smoak descending from Gods glory to beget the truth of Office was the dark and delusive smoke or dispensation ascending from this bottomless furnace which ingenders none but locusts a degenerate brood of false Officers Here we may take notice of the effects that ensue upon the former with-holding of the windes God having forsaken and left it void Satan hath full power gives another key with other smoke whereby of Christ all is become Antichrist and bottomless of Truth In Chap. 11.2 where though the Temple was measured of which we shall speak anon yet the onward court was excluded and forbidden to be measured for so saith the Spirit The court without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies cast out That this outward court must belong to the visibility of Church-government may be cleared by these Arguments 1. Because this as opposed to the Temple within must be the exteriour outward part and who knows not that the Order of Ecclesiastical Government is the outside or visibility of the Church 2. Because this here excluded was given to the Nations the inward rooms of true grace with Worship flowing from those internal springs was never in the power of man to intermeddle with but the outward court of Church-Regiment was in the hands of Nations for many generations and nowhere else 3. Because the Nations by enjoying this outward court did tread the holy City under foot Now woful experience hath taught the Saints that that by which Antichrist hath trampled upon the godly was by sitting in the externality of Ecclesiastical Discipline in Spiritual Courts and Classes The four windes above restrained must be from this rejected Court the bottomless key pit and smoke in this unmeasured to Truth In Chap. 12.6 14. the same externality given to the Nations and mixed with worldly things becomes a worldly wilderness into which the woman fled That this wilderness is the National Babylonish Church is proved at large by Scripture and the analogie in Sect. 5. of the first Paragraph In Chap. 13. the Principality or chief of the power ruling here is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wilderness-beast compared with Mark 1.13 answerable to those false christs and false prophets which our Saviour foretold should be in the wilderness Matth. 24.24 The second Beast is here called a false prophet inferring the first to be a false christ or Antichrist as is shewed in our answer to him on Matth. 24. In Chap. 17. the Church born up by this Beast is called Mystery Babylon as being another and distinct from Sion in her very foundation who also was seen of John in this wilderness To sum up all if we consider the Gospel-times aright as they are pourtrayed in the Prophecies we shall finde that in the primitive there was the smoke of Gods glory preceding Isai
Antichristianism is the keys of visible Church-constitution or Marriage-Ordinances resolve themselves radically into believers or into the power of the people who may at any time take them up erect and model visible Churches open and shut the doors thereof to others This we reduced to the touchstone of the primitive and found that they prayed preached baptized and at last brake bread while they were bare disciples and onely Covenant-members but in respect of Church constitution they were commanded to tarry and wait at Jerusalem till the promise of the Father to wit the keys of the Kingdom was given whereby the Kingdom of God came with power Acts 1.4 8. Luke 24.49 This was a manifest transfusion of the Spirit that did not onely increase the glory of the former but also stated and invested them with new Membership and Office and inspired the stative Ordinances of Ordination Confirmation Church-censures with a new created efficacie whereby they received in and shut out of that new-married Church The image of this is set forth in Acts 2. It is called a pouring out of the Spirit in regard of the abundant measure thereof visibly manifested vers 17 also a mighty rushing winde filling the house with cloven tongues of fire vers 2 3 as causing that breath of life and spiritual heat which operated in that apparent Kingdom Isaiah compares it to smoke filling the house as presenting the glory of Christ in his powerful administration Chap. 6.3 4. In Ezek. 1.4 5 the four Beasts or livings with each of them four faces which must typifie the Apostles Prophets and Evangelists who had all gists and tongues by which they were distinguished from the four Beasts Rev. 4.6 7 who had each of them but one face came out of the midst of that winde cloud and fire also in Ephes 4.8 11 the Spirit tells us that all the several degrees of the Ministerial Office to wit together with the former three Pastors and Teachers were ingendered originally by that virtual efflux of the Spirit sent down from heaven Indeed the twelve were set apart for their Office by Christ while he was on earth and in that sense named Apostles as Joseph is called the husband of Mary and she his wife while they were no more then espoused Matth. 1.18 19 20. and a man may be termed an heir when he is onely designed for the inheritance but their real investment was not till after For Ezekiel in the place before quoted shews that the four-faced beasts proceeded out of the wind cloud and fire expressed Acts 2 and in Eph. 4 Christ first ascended then gave gifts the gift sent down was the Office Some Apostles c. They had not till then that differential eminency of gift which gave being to and distinguished their Office from the rest nor of extraordinary Prophets or Evangelists nor of ordinary Pastors and Teachers no nor yet of the same which private members had after the Spirit was emitted They were before unfurnished with the gift of Tongues Act. 2.2 looked on Christ as an earthly king over a temporal kingdom Luke 19.11 Matth. 20.21 were ignorant of the death resurrection and ascension of Christ the common and main principles of Christianity Matth. 16.22 Mark 16.11 13. Luke 24.11 21 25. were not able to bear many things which after were easie to every believer Job 16.12 Chap. 14.26 1 Cor. 15.1.2 3 4 5 6 7. And this M. Robinson and others the solidest men of the Separation have maintained against the Presbyters and Bishops Again their first designation came not from man but onely from their Master which makes least for those who here will plead against us Besides the disciples were not called a Church nor did any lay on hands for Membership or Office nor use any Church-censures till they received power from on high Hence we may safely conclude that Gospel-stating at the first beginning came not from believers as believers but from the powerful dispensation of Chirst Jesus and that when if sunk and the same open windes before animating were with-held it must return to him the fountain whence at first it flowed for every thing resolvs into its principle But leaving the primitive we may search the Scriptures treating of this last marriage to come and we shall find the same pouring of the Spirit that was in that first Gospel-day * Rev. 11.2 Chap. 19.7 Isa 32.13 14 15. the joyous City shall lie desolate untill the Spirit be poured out from on High whereby the Wilderness shall be a fruitfull field and the fruitfull field counted for a Forest also Zech. 17.10 I will pour upon the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace c. Which must be on Jews and Gentiles for the mourners here poured on are interpreted by our Saviour to be all the tribes of the earth who by their sins and Iedol-worship have pierced Christ Matth. 24.30 likewise Ezek. 37.9 th-same open windes before bound up Rev. 7.1 shall be then loosed in their manifest blast So Luk. 17.24 and Psal 97.4 there will be the like fiery flashing lightning to illuminate the world which the earth shall see to wit visibly and tremble also Psal 102.16 When the Lord shall build up Sion he will appear in glory and Isai 60.2 His glory shall be seen upon thee both which places shew that his most excellent dispensation shall be visible Hence we may gather that as this by the apostacy resolved into Christ so it must again issue forth from him before it can have its true existence For this glorious effusion of the Spirit in the first beginning of Church-constitution is the foundation of the keys thereto pertaining it gives them their vital being their proper difference and by its manifold work causeth those various operations which proceed from and by them Thus in the primitive marriage they received power from on high whereby the Lord was to them for a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty Isa 28.5 by vertue whereof they had the high keys of the Kingdom So in this last the Lord will first marry them to himself to wit pour out his Spirit upon them whereby they shall be as a crown of glory and a royal diademe in his hand Hos 2.19 Isa 63.2 and then vers 5 they as sons of the Church shall marry in others the first is done by God immediately wherein man is meerly passive the second by man as instrumental working by the power of his preceding Into the first work of marriage acted simply by Gods own finger none save the Elect enter and not all the Elect but onely such elect ones who believe and wait for the same promise of pouring the Spirit for such choice singled ones were the hundred and twenty in the primitive though by the second done by the hand of the Church hypocrites did then intrude So in this last matrimony Isa 60.21 Rev. 21.27 none but the virgins who expect and prepare
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 LONDON Printed by Ja. Cottrel for Giles Calvert at the Black Spread-Eagle at the West-end of Pauls 1652. The EPISTLE To the Reader CHristian friends and Brethren in the Lord Jesus who are purchased from the rest of mankind by the precious blood of the Lamb of God and begotten by the incorruptbile seed of the Word to a life above nature it is you I owne by the nearest relation under what title soever stiled and to your wisdoms principally I direct this Epistle with the ensuing treatise The true occasion of this contending controversie you shall find in the front of the book to be a combate with a Presbyterian Minister by whom I was provoked to enter into the list The man though clouded by ancient principles I have esteemed to be one of the sealed number redeemed from the earth The Manuscript sent by him in opposition to me I received as the common mouth speaking the mind of many who are as much nay more interessed in the cause pleaded for then himself and thus much I may as I suppose say of it that if it were his alone it containes in effect the chiefest strength a whole party can produce in their defence We had rather receive the next return in the name of all then to meet with the forces of all under the title of one The subsequent Answer was a first by me written to be more private and not in the least intended to come forth into publique view it being a retired contest in it self and not clothed with the ordinary dress of elegancie sutable to the gust of this curious age nor so exactly polished as might be required for the Press But since my Antagonist appearing in Print in open oftentation with the common applause of the Presbyters who vote his book to be unanswerable and many of my godly friends urging my be the most ingaging tyes of entire affection backed with this covincing argument that the Lord gave me not a talent to hide in a napkin I am willing to satisfie them and mine owne conscience and rejoyce to meet him in the hight of his and his parties confidence as not fearing but the integrity of my cause will bear me out against all opposition For truth seeks not to be concealed in obscure corners but delights to come forth into open light and present her naked beauty to the publique view of Nations I am not ignorant that the subject with some searching reproofs though drawn from Scripture-record will be unpleasing unto many at the first appearance chiefly to such who are tyed up or much indeared to their respective constitutions Many are veiled by antiquity the judgements and interpretations of learned men in former or latter times whom they almost look upon as Oracles sounding out nothing but undoubted truths and adjudge its high presumption in themselves or other to swim against so full a stream These do not duely ponder in what a dark night our progenitors lived nor how the truths of God brake forth by several steps and degrees out of that deep apostacie My advice to such is to beware that under the derisive scorn of new lights they blaspheme not the discoveries of the Spirit streaming out to a perfective alteration Let them first examine before they censure Others seem to look with more eagle-eyes over many generations into the purest primitive times and erect new models of Churches parallel as they suppose to their first and most accomplished pattern and this I am perswaded the most do out of the sincerity of their hearts But they not observing the Cessation and departure of the glory of God from the ptimitive Government nor how Antichrist had full power in that outward Court not rightly discerning the next immediate fountaine whence a Gospel-marriage flowes nor marking the variety of Gods dispensations in several seasons imbrace shadows for real substances and set up bestiall Idols instead of true Gospel-Churches I shall desire them to consider that this manifest kingdome of God grounds not it self on visible faith nor comes with observations and buildings up visible forms and then bringing Christ unto them so as to say Lohere or there is Christ but comes with power from above being like lightning descending downe from heaven as shall be proved in the following treatise The greatest number being principled and guided by others of more eminencie are so strongly affected to what they have embraced and walked in that they account it no less then fighting against the waies of Christ to disclose their practice or acquaint them with their misleadings For affection is blind and can hardly be perswaded to espie real deformities in that object on which it reposeth its delights The Lord onely can and in short time will alter this eccentrick motion of his people and turn the wheel of the heart to move concentrick to himself But this is common to them all that to what way soever they are addicted the whole face of Scripture seems to cast a direct and favourable aspect onely towards them and to look upon others either more obliquely or not at all That as to one who hath the yellow Jaundise the aire it self with every object he beholds seems yellowish sutable to the distempered species in the eye or to him who looks through red or green glass or any coloured medium the same things shew red or green or answerable to the colour of the medium which presents them to his sight so those Scriptures that are in themselves uniform beating their genuine signification being veiwed through false glosses or the deceiveable light of delusive principles seem to men of differing judgements to carry several repugnant senses corresponding their misguided apprehensions The intuitive action is then lurest when the medium is diaphanous receiving that light of truth in its own purity which irradiates and manifesteth every colour in its proper kind and when the understanding the eye of the soul is like the crystalline humour and the visible species will complectioned in the bodily eye to wit clear perspicuous and capable of all colours but infected with the tincture of none Therefore the sea Rev. 4. by which the spiritual glory was discerned in the primitive times was of glass like to Crystal pure uncoloured and shining through which the several or contrariant colours were seen in their own peculiar dyes Also in the new Ierusalem her light the
struglings and reluctances in the radix of my spirit Till at last summoning up the strength of my meditations upon that subject I espyed that all my model was but an outward form voide of that Spirit of life which breathed in the primitive order that the glory of God was departed from those ordinances I then plead for and did not anywhere accompany their execution I viewed a wider dissimilitude from the primitive then before and began to inquire the reason why the same could not in many things be followed why that was uniform ours various why that contracted and gathered the Saints into a unity ours distracted and set the most pretious men at a vast distance who before were one in brotherly love that whatever scatters gathers not with Christ Math. 12.3 I considered withall that when Gospel-Churches were in a right order Christ by his administration was so powerfully there as to gather the Saints to him the dead carcase Matth. 24.28 by which like Aarons rod it swallowed up all those of the Magicians and impostors that to joyn to it was to come to the general assembly and Church of the first-born Heb. 12.23 to separate from it was a manifest symptome of Apostacie nay Reprobation 1 Joh. 2.19 Jude 19. to be excluded and shut out of this society was to be delivered over to Satan 1 Cor. 5.5 and 1 Tim. 1.20 that were as an effectual name and power in these external keys to binde and loose to open and shut which had clear effects on the parties either to ingratiate comfort and appease or to terrifie or harden that there was no administration of Christ in what was altogether independent from it And by comparing our new-built constitutions by this Norma I found them altogether deviated nay contradictory to their first copie to which they all pretend I need not particularize in so evident a case let any man enlightned view and judge On the other side in the behalf of the Independent Order I argued that the above-named necessity arising by the interception of Antichristisme the cause why the Primitive could not in its native way be practised may dispence with nay in some cases be above the Law according to the Proverb that the deadness of those stative Ordinances and the other defects in the right might arise from the weakness of the dispensation now in the dawnings of light which perhaps would obtain greater vertue in future ages that the sad differences thereby ocasioned might be ex excidenti from the carnality of men and not from any evil in stating of Churches that the Church must be upheld by Government and for me to question all visible Constitutions would be to oppose my judgement against most of Gods people nay the ablest men and condemn their practice both which will be accounted presumptuous and uncharitable Against this my thoughts replied partly by way of Queries that if the interception of that great Defection took away all possibility of practising the Primitive in its native method Whether it did not demonstrate a sink and interruption of that Order especially there being a mystical Babylon and a spiritual Egypt coming between us and the same first day in which all the Saints seemed to be captivated as Israel was in the outward of old and all our new-begun constitutions must necessarily imply such a cessation as also the call for separation alluding to that of ancient times Whether that fail might not occasion an alterable dispensation seeing different times have produced different changes in the outward body of Divinity and the prophecies seemed to look with divers faces on the primitive times and ours Neither found I such eminent good in any of our new-built Church-models which might necessitate the changing of the Rule nor any warrant for it in the Scripture either by Precept or Type they seemed rather to be obstructive to the free passage of the Gospel and the causes of Rents among Brethren Whether a Gospel-marriage begun at all in weakness or not rather with power to distinguish it from the Legal which was more formal as also from the false and Antichristian and so fill it with spirit whereby it might hold forth the lively presence of the husband that it did initiate with such majestie in the Primitive Acts 2 and the Prophets predict the like magnificent kingdom to come in succeeding ages Whether as there was a preparing by John and after by Christ's Ministery while on earth and some space of waiting after his ascension to dispose the disciples for the receiving that powerful dispensation there might not now be the like preparatory work gradually to purge away Antichristian filth and fit the Saints for that glorious administration to be revealed Whether those lively breathings operating in the constitutive Ordinances of Confirmation Ordination Excommunication c. in that first Gospel-day came not from the effectual emission and blast of the Spirit sent down by Christ and whether the same winde was not the soul to essenciate and animate the key before promised but not till then given Here I began to question my former mistake and enquire whether if the Primitive Order failed the placing the same upon visible believers not possessed with such power from on high to inspire the said keys with new breathings was not privative as the want of light is the cause of darkness and of life deadness the ground of that formality and emptiness which is experimentally known to be in the above-said stative Ordinances whether this be not to lay another foundation as bottoming that upon man or any grace in man that ought to lie only upon Jesus Christ and descends by a virtual influence from heaven Whether the contrary effects in ours from the primitive do not symbole a difference in the cause as arising from another principle and having a different spirit even that of Antichrist which though in pretence is most strongly for Christ yet in reality is most opposite to him And whether our deplored divisions and dissentions amongst the godly raised by our disunited Church-forms do not originally flow from that other root Man and that spirit of carnality which rents and scatters Whether the bright coming of Christ will establish or not rather abolish all these as Antichristian and offences to his Kingdom That a true gospel-stated-Gospel-stated-Church cannot have the keys of the Kingdom wanting which have a name and power to accomplish all the above-said ends That the Church of the Elect was preserved by Christ when all Ecclesiastical Rule was her enemy and this outward Government hath ever since the Apostacie been experienced to be lifeless and not to contribute one mite to the power of godliness but hath rather increased formality debate strife quenched the noble grace of Love to all the Saints and hath been averse to the workings of the Spirit and being thus prejudicial ought to be detected it being the great designe of God to anatomize the man of sin in all his specious
externality was after surprised by Antichrist that destroying king the better to establish his worldly kingdom and captivate the godly in fetters of Iron And surely this was not again restored by Satans craft nor the insinuation of some subtile Sinons as you most abusively turn it but by the hand of Divine providence directing our noble partriots to regain the priviledge of their birthright whom Christ made kings and priests to God and his Father The Lord hath crowned the undertakings of those who were the choicest instruments in procuring this freedome with such prosperous success in his and our publike interest as might teach you more modesty then so reproachfully to defame them and hath with a mighty arme layed low the pride of such who sought to bring us back into bondage both in England Scotland and Ireland he reproved kings and nations for his peoples sake all which might force you write upon our liberty This is the finger of God if your eyes were open to behold his wonders now appearing It seems it much grieves you to see the tenth part of the great City falling in our dominions and that our States refuse to assume a Popedom over the conscience the peculiar seat of divine majesty However you judge it will be the honour of our Worthies in future ages and all neighbor-Commonwealths are amazed at the glory resting upon our English nation But Sir Why should this toleration be more destructive to you then to others You have as great a portion therein as any you thereby injoy a freedome for your walk which was denyed in the Bishops reign and when so large a door is opened in rising times if your Church cannot stand unless under-propped by worldly power it evidently demonstrates your kingdome to be of this world Be pleased to remember that the primitive was not built by might nor power but by the Spirit Zech. 4.6 and by the same Spirit Christ went forth conquering and to conquer mulittudes Rev. 6.2 Also the stone dashing all opposers in these latter dayes is cut out of the mountaine without hands Dan. 2.34 the kingly Prophet tells us Gods people will be willing or voluntaries as the Hebrew text carries it in the day of his power Psal 110.3 and 47.9 The Gosâ—el-Saints are genuinely of a royal princely spirit and never act nobly but from a pure principle of love within constraining 2 Cor. 5.14 You argue That out of this womb hath issued forth numerous heresies errors sects and schisms Answ Some of these named indeed are dangerous some are neerer to the truth then your selves but to reply to yours we assert 1. That all those nominated in your Epistle the Ranters excepted who in their blasphemies and beastly lusts are excluded were brought forth many yeers before this toleration was granted and it is a strange Paradox never heard of in publike till divulged by you that that can be the womb to conceive and bring forth which with as was not in retum natura extant in the series of nature till so long time after their existence Formerly it was an approved Aphorisme Causa est prior effecto The cause precedes the effect in order of nature or time or both But you produce a contrary example which if true will put all Logicians to an absolute non-plus We conceive the rationalist rather then be silenced will tell you Contra principia negantem non est disputandum no disputation ought to be held with him that denyes the principles Surely it is heat of passion against the Sectaries as you term them hath disturbed your otherwise more solid intellectuals To proceed suppose errors may arise yet is it not carnal but spiritual weapons must beat down such spiritual wickedness 2 Cor. 10.3 4. The Lord permits and the Scripture presageth that errors and offences must come partly that those who are approved may be made manifest partly that the conquest of truth may appear the more glorious which will at last dispel those gloomy clouds and shine forth with more perspicuous brightness The mystery of godliness rayes out with most perfect beauty by the clear discovery of the deepest mystery of iniquity Besides why may not truth in a free passage come in as well as heresie Without doubt Christ who hath all power committed to his charge is as potent to prevaile in light as the Prince of darkness in delusions Nay why may not truth be shut out by the contrary restraint The compulsion you plead for hath hither to proved a direct enemy to the pure Gospel of the Lord Jesus It may further be demanded to what way you so eagerly labor to ingage the sword of the Magistrate whether to your own or to some other Not to any other for when the Bishops held it in their custody you did with the formost exclaim against it as Antichristian bestial tyrannical c. and here you censure all others to be errors Sects Schisms and what not If you chalenge it to your selves we shall ask whether you among all the several bodies extant sit in the chaire of infallibility For none but an unerring law can warrantably claim a power over the conscience 2. Suppose you were infallible and could not err which you dare not affirme then whether you can create a belief the heart of those who are contrary minded The Apostles in Church-affaires were directed by an undeceivable spirit an yet neither used nor layed claim to such a power but invited and won men to the faith simply by the cords of love All that humane weapons can do is only to force the outward man which is a violent and preternatural motion and when the constraint is over soon turns again to its own centre Whereas the Gospel naturally begins within and grounds its principles in the intimate chests of reason It first breaks as a light into the Vnderstanding the noblest faculty and there imprints the image of its integrity thence it goes to the Will the great wheel of the soul and turns it to a willing obedience to all its precepts and commands thence it passeth to the inferiour affections and compels them to imbrace the beauties of holiness and from these inward springs proceed all the outward duties and services performed by the body The sum of the new Convenant is to write the laws in the heart and in the mind Heb. 8.10 This was exactly the method which the Apostles followed 2 Cor. 3.2.3 But you indeavor a preposterous course and contrary to the order of the Gospel to wit to constrain the body to what the heart opposeth If so and whatever be not of faith be sin then assuredly this your course is confusion and destructive to the souls of people We read of none in all the New Testament but only the beast who commanded all both smal and great to worship Revel 13. 3. It is conceived that you in this are a part of the greatest and most deceivable Schisme that ever came into the world and
6.4 9. compared with John 12.40 Acts 2.2 by which the visible keys of Church-power were given and sanctified but after when the Angel fell Rev. 9.1 2 3. another earthen hellish key with other smoke arising from the pit darkning and banishing the lightsome glory of the former as above and at last a new smoaking of the Temple from Gods glory Rev. 15.8 a new opening and entering implying key and doors all shewing that there was no opening nor entering but a cessation and shutting of the true visible betwixt these two days Besides there is a new open breathing of the four windes of the Spirit Ezek. 37.9 after the long restraint of the primitive blast Rev. 7.1 Act. 2.2 Ezek. 1.4 a new pouring of his Spirit Isai 32.15 after the former hiding of his power a new Marriage and Marriage-call Rev. 19.7 9. besides the Marriage at the first Matth. 22. a new lightning Matth. 24.27 besides the lightning at the primitive Ezck. 1.4 13 14. all teaching a non-continuance of this glory Again there was an invisible day between the bright shining day at the first Luk. 17.22 and the like glorious day again at the last vers 24. an invisible kingdom as that within vers 21. passing between the open kingdom of the primitive and the manifest kingdom of God at the last Chap. 21.31 Rev. 19.6 Chap. 11.17 all clearing up this cessation The visibilities Lo here and there were false and delusive The event hath made all this as perspicuous as the sun shines in the open firmament to those who will not obstinately and of set purpose shut their eyes against it to wit That there was an apparent and general Apostacie darkning and swallowing up all the bright Order of the primitive For that Church after Constantine had sully subdued the heathen Emperors and setled all in outward tranquillity about the yeer of our Lord 327 as the margin on Socrates hath it lib. 1. cap. 3. beginning to conform to and mix her self with National and worldly things degenerated and daily declined by the four first trumpets Rev. 8. till at last by the fifth the star totally apostated from heaven to earth about 390 and then the key of external Rule became purely National and was onely in the jurisdiction of Popes Patriarchs Bishops and earthly Hierarchies who alone usurped all Church-power into their hands In all our Western Globe there was no Church-Government visible but what was Romish for many ages and our Antagonist M. Elmestone confesseth that their Office of the Ministery the principal pillar of the Church came directly from Rome no longer ago then Luther's time Hereupon that of Protestantism is not termed a Separation but a Reformation their Office and Membership coming radically from the Romish Synagogue which seems to be hinted by the Prophet Jeremiah Chap. 51.9 We would have healed Babylon and she was not healed Object It hath been objected by others What shall we think of the Greek Church who never had to do with Rome nor owned her power Answ To whom we reply 1. That the Church of Grecia may be no plea to such who live in the Levant under the Turk but concerns not in the least our Protestant Churches who derived not their power from the Greek but from the Romish Pontificality 2. It is not true that the Greek Church never had to do with Rome For about the yeer 390 after Christ all the Eastern Bishops yeelded the Primacie of seat the proper place of Christ to the Romane Pope And afterward if the Bishop of Rome obtained by Phocas the Emperour the title of Vniversal then assuredly the Bishop and Patriarch of Grecia must be subject unto him and together with the Church be within the limits of his territories Again the Greek Empire was possessed by the Latines for sixty yeers together even from the yeer 1200 to the yeer 1260 and then Michael Paleologus recovered their Empire who about the yeer 1273 agreed with Pope Gregory the tenth at Iyons in France and promised that both himself and all his people hereafter should yeeld all Sovereignty to the Latine Pope and Church 3. The Greek Church was as well National and had a terrene Hierarchy even the very same with Rome and is so apostated that she denies the holy Ghost to proceed from the Father and the Son prays for the dead believes that the Saints departed enjoy not the presence of God till the Resurrection admits children of seven yeers old to the Sacrament because then as they conceit they begin to sin receives none into Orders but such as are married and forbids marriage to those who are actually in Orders rejects carved Images but admits the painted with many the like Fopperies and in many fandamentals is as gross or grosser then Rome To conclude Chap. 7 all the four windes of all quarters were restrained Chap. 11.2 the whole outward court of Discipline as well East as West was cast out as above and the great City Babylon was not onely at Rome but at Judea where our Lord was slain Chap. 11.8 and then certainly Grecia lying in the midst between must needs be comprehended within the circumference thereof It hath by some as the Dippers been questioned whether these National Churches be within the Covenant To whom I answer that though in their Church-order they were Babylon or confusion yet are they not wholly excluded from the Covenant as Heathens but are termed by the Spirit Israelites who had a sealed number amongst their tribes Rev. 7. Here we may see how though the place or hand failed the name was everlasting And it is not safe to detract from the words of this Prophecie especially seeing the sequele hath cleared that there was some profession of Christianity and a godly people amongst them through every age of this hiding of Gods power You may find this further cleared in the following Paragraph The next thing considerable under this first Querie is touching the true Church in this confusion 1. What she was 2. What was her condition 3. How she was fed 4. The just time of this her captivity 1. What she was In Chap. 7 I finde that there were one hundred and fourty four thousand sealed ones preserved secured and provided for In Chap. 9 that this number onely was undestroyed by the Locusts In Chap. 11 that the Temple measured must be this sealed company built up a spiritual house by the mystical bond of the Spirit it having no dimensions specified and all the externality being excluded as shall be proved in Paragraph 1. Sect. 4. In Chap. 14.1 that the mount Sion there expressed must be onely the mount of true grace footed on the counsel of God which is called a sure and sealed foundation 2 Tim. 2.19 For 1. All the sealed elect people even the whole one hundred and fourty four thousand stand on this mountain and that through all the apostated season which they did not do in any true visible being mixed amongst the Nations
for this later coming of the Bridegroom by the pouring glory of his Spirit shall go in with him to the Marriage and not all they but properly the wise virgins shall be thus immediately invested from heaven * See Parag 4. Matth. 25.10 what may be afterwards by the sons of the Church we leave to the times to manifest If you will bring all our new-stated Churches to this touch-stone you may finde them to be of a different metal from the true and however so neer the primitive they seem to be in the outward shell yet in reality to be grounded upon another foundation to wit upon believers not possessed with such a power visibly sent down from heaven Now that faith or the profession thereof without such a divine call and spiriting cannot be a ground-work for stating Churches I shall further prove by these following Arguments 1. Faith must foot on a call as done in obedience to the heavenly voice but now there is no call for visible Church-marriage as is declared in our first Rule and no call no faith nay it wanting that must bottom upon our own call name and time which is presumptuous disobedience 2. God having promised to spirit this again faith must rely upon the same promise till fulfilled and not upon its own power the hundred and twenty were believers and yet begun not any constitution by vertue of that but waited till the keys were given 3. Profession alone can no more give life unto Ordinances from which the glory of God is departed then it can infuse a living soul into a dead carcase It is God's sole prerogative to create their breath of life which he will do in his own season according to what he hath promised Faith and profession are but effects and to attribute such a causal vertue to them is to confound and turn the causes upside down and to set the creature in the place of his Creator 4. This pretended saith void of the call and promise of God and the vital influence of its prime original cause is but a meer work a bare creature-foundation by far too weak to lay a Gospel-fabrick upon and being but humane must in divine things be bottomless and whether the smoke or dispensation arising thence be not then that of the bottomless pit we leave it to wise men seriously to consider We are sure that this is the proper distinguishing character to difference the true from the false The true begins with the smoke or winde Gods glory inspiring the follow the keys opening and entering and by that it becomes a spiritual building the false begins with the key the smoke ensueth and thence is it a building made with hands grounded on tradition Rev. 9.1 2. The true is as smoak descending from heaven the false as smoke ascending from an humane bottom I shall now speak a little to you of the Separation who are modeled into the form of stated Churches I know there are many precious Saints amongst you in whom the character of Jesus Christ is printed and confess that some of you have been instruments to bring to light some solid Truths and prepared way for greater You hold a Separation from all National Hierarchies according to the Scriptures have in part cleared that the Beast reacheth further then the Papal Chair of Rome have renounced prelacies and precedencies have vindicated the consciences of the godly from the Laws and Canons of Courts and Classes maintain the Gospel to come in the liberty and power of the Spirit have rightly pleaded that members of true Gospel-Churches must at least have a visible Saintship have to this day been real and cordial in that noble Cause beginning in our ends of the earth For these good things found amongst you I protest in the presence of the great Tribunal I am obliged by the bond of entire affection and desire your spiritual welfare as my own salvation Yet I must not dare not flatter or dissemble in matters divine but because I love I am compelled to deal plainly and faithfully resting confident that those who are truely pious will desire to see their combustible works burn by the fiery trial of the Vials What I shall expostulate with you I have already convinced in my self Consider seriously whether consultations be not weak grounds to bottom Gospel-Churches or whether the primitive the patern you labour to model by was ever laid upon such sandy foundations or whether these your actings do not contradict many of your own tenents before named Did the Kingdom of God in that first day come by observations or by the descending majesty of the Spirit Or will Christ think you be less glorious in this later Reformation then in the former View I beseech you the Scriptures treating of the dignity of this later marriage Or if you cannot search primarily into the cause look into the effects that follow these your undertakings For knowledge in the ordinary way comes to us secundum posterius so that by those signes or symptomes which break out in manifestation we are directed to look into the fountains whence they issue forth Why was there so great efficacy in the outward order of the primitive Government but because it proceeded originally from the manifest blast of the Spirit Why is there so little in your externalities if not because arising from weak humane principles You that are most discerning do you not see too much of formality too little of power Nay why was that one and the same in every particular drawing the flock of Christ into a general unity unless because it footed in the Spirit which by its illuminating glory virtual operation and perswasive attraction congregated the whole body of Sions sons unto it Why are yours manifold disagreeing and occasions of dividing the Saints but because basing on obscure carnal apprehensions Experience informs us that your various constitutions have rent the Lords people in pieces and are as so many walls to keep them asunder and that which divides is carnal Tell us To which of you shall we joyn to come to the general Assembly Yea to what form shall we come and not in the very act of sitting down sequester our selves from the major part of the godly By a narrow search you may finde your union to ground in division your gathering in scattering View Ezek. 34.5 6 and compare them to your divisions Peter James and John chosen vessels were like in their minority to fall into the same relapse Matth. 17.4 Master if thou wilt let us build tabernacles but alas they knew not what they said understood not that Gospel-tabernacles were not to be made with hands but by the powerful dispensation of the Spirit Much like to this do you Let us build temples let us erect Gospel-Churches Well if you must needs be doing the proper work of your Master observe what censure he gives of such designes Matth. 24.23 24 26. Iuke 17.20 21 22 23. Mark rightly the secret chambers
their grounds their signes their forms their artificial structure narrowness secrecy multiplicity their walls by which they are parted from the wilderness and one from another and yet their conjunction in the whole and tell me whom you can apply them But alas you are herein asleep and know not what you do or speak or write are ignorant how the Marriage must again descend from heaven The Lord awaken you that you may go forth from these narrow rooms in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace to meet the Bridegroom Let not an over-weening affection to your own models be any impediments for Christ will cashier all buildings of man and break down the partition-walls by the light of his discoveries It will therefore be your wisdoms to deny your selves in your several respective interesles and count them as loss and dung in comparison of the rising dispensation of the Lord Jesus especially considering that humility in self-denial is the high-way to honour in the School of Christ And thus leaving you to the power and guidance of him that calls effectually I shall now come to M. Elmestone's book and to remove those Objections framed by him against what hath been and hereafter will be delivered In the prosecution of this task I shall not directly follow him but rather for ther Readers benefit reducing what is immethodical into its proper place of order think fit to divide the whole Controversie into several members of heads which I call Paragraphs and to distinguish the subdivisions of those generals by Sections The first Paragraph answers to this Cessation The second Paragraph toucheth the book of the Revelation The third Paragraph shews wherein the foundation of the Beast described in Rev. 13. consisteth The fourth Paragraph dictates the true way and walk now to be Separation without stating The Postscript is in the last place as well as his Paragraph I. IN this place we laid down a distinction of Ordinances that the first sort as Ministery Prayer Baptism the Lords Supper Profession c. specified above in the Cessation footed more immediately on our spiritual union and the Covenant of Grace that the second sort as Confirmation Ordination Excommunication Admission Absolution c. are based on Church-constitution and are essential to Officials or a Church stated with Officers The first sort of these remained successively the second not This note of ours was but a hastie and overly work as desiring in some sort to answer your request for the present but intended and offered a fuller explanation of our selves by word of mouth or else I should have given you a more exact and better digested account however we shall resolve those many things you retort against it The first whereof touching a gifted Ministery we shall reply to in Sect. 2. Object Against this you first oppose That to believe in Christ profess him and private prayer are Duties not Ordinances and that Ordinances are solemn and publike means which Christ hath appointed to communicate his grace unto us and to perform solemn service unto him as publike preaching administring the Sacraments publike prayer c. Answ I. The word Ordinance may be taken either 1. more largely for whatever God hath ordained as the ordinances of the heavens meat drink c. and as limited to divine things for what he hath therein appointed and decreed and thus ordain and ordinance may be conjugates or else 2. it is used more strictly for Ministery Prayer c. In the later fence Faith and Profession are not Ordinances in the former they are for Act. 13.48 As many as were ordained to eternal life believed where faith being grounded on Gods Ordination must be his Ordinance 2. We conceive private prayer to be an Ordinance in the strict acceptation of the word as well as publike it being that whereby we perform solemn service unto God and a means by which he communicates himself unto us Object 2. But say you It is a Duty not an Ordinance Answ To which we reply that as it is a service God requires us to perform unto him so is it our duty we being bound to yeeld him homage and obedience and thus publike prayer and the rest acknowledged by you are duties as well as private prayer but as it is an organical instrument inspired from above and a means for our good so is it an Ordinance Object 3. You except against the word essential and aver that Ordinances cannot be essential to Officials for nothing can be essential but the matter and form the matter of an Officer is gifts the form an orderly placing him into Office by such as have sower to do it Answ 1. It is not true that nothing may be termed essential but the matter amd form for there are some properties flowing from the nature of these internal causes that are inseparably annexed to their fountains without which the causes themselves cannot subsist and the same though they are not the essence yet may be and are in terms of Art called essential 2. By Officials we mean a visible constituted Church completed with Officers and such a Church hath in it essentially the visible Keys of church-Church-power and discipline which your own words assert in affirming that the form of an Officer is his orderly placing him into Office by such who have power to do it 3. Not onely the matter but the whole being of the Office lieth in gifts the matter is a generical and more common the form a differential propriety of gift to give being to and distinguish the Office and this proper gift may be administred either from Christ immediately in the first stating of Churches as Eph. 4.8 where the gift sent down was the Office or else mediately in a Church stated by the hand as an instrument 2 Tim. 1.6 1 Tim. 4.14 Object Nothing can subsist wanting its essentials but a Pastor or Teacher may be lâ—tted by sickness or otherwise that he cannot preach c. for many weeks together Answ 1. Preaching and administring the Sacraments are not of the later but the former sort of Ordinance the exercise whereof is not proper to an Officer 2. You here confound the faculty with the action the action may cease and yet the faculty be essential and inseparable A man cannot subsist without the faculty of Laughter yet when the action faileth he ceaseth not to be a man So in Sleep the Senses are bound up from their exercise yet their habit remains entire A Constable in the Common-wealth is a true Officer when employed in his private affairs and not doing the work of his Office but without the power proper thereunto he cannot be a Constable So Official Pastors or Teachers lay not down their Office when they are off from their Ecclesiastical ministration but without the potential faculty thereof they cannot be Officers Object 4. You except further that Ordinances are not grounded on our spiritual union Answ All true Ordinances are based on the
which in Paul's time was the greatest cause of rents then was the primitive Church in her highest stature being as the sun in its full Meridian then were all things here spoken of fulfilled then and but till then was a growing rising time and after that was a gradual declining from that time Heresies and Errors the renters of union crouded in apace Euseb lib. 3. chap. 29. In little time after the three highest spheres of the Ministerial Office were wholly resolved and expired and that remaining of Pastors and Teachers grew in every succession more corrupt and so increased in pride and usurpation till at length the Angel totally apostated from heaven to earth lost the true key of Office and instead thereof had the key of the bottomless pit which brought a gloomy night on all Object 2. Your second Scripture is 1 Tim. 6.13 14 where say you is a strait charge laid upon Timothy to keep that course of discipline prescribed to him in that Epistle Answ This solemn command of the Apostle doth not comprehend the whole Epistle but onely that immediately going before which is to fight the good fight of faith in following after righteousness godliness love patience meekness and avoiding covetousness thereby to obtain eternal life and this is doctrinal and to be observed till the last coming of Christ Now that it is thus is clear from the text for the Spirit faith not Thâ—s but this as pointing at that immediately preceding nor commandments in the plural as respecting all the several precepts of the whole book but commandment in the singular number as respecting one The Apostle in this Epistle gives other charges by the particle these in the plural number as Chap. 4.11 These things charge and command and Chap. 5.21 having before given rules about discipline enjoyns him to do these things without partiality and lay on hands suddenly on no man The phrase of abiding is not at all annexed to these former charges they containing many things that failed but onely to this later singled out by it self which it well reviewed will further clear up our assertion and by a direct diameter contradict the sence which you would force it to To your fourth Objection from Matth. 28.19 20 we shall reply to in the conclusion of this Paragraph Section 2. Our second is that Ministery Prayer c. being perpetuated in the Word have always the life and power of the same Word in some measure accompanying them whereby to preserve their vital being Rev. 11.1.3 But the later wanting the same Word to uphold their abiding had the winde of the Spirit with-held from them whereby they became as a carcase without a soul Rev. 7.1 We are to observe that the outward matter of Ordinances are in themselves either barren empty elements or at most external formalities a meer carcase or void cask 't is the Name and power of Jesus Christ and the Spirit sent from him that is their internal and essential form when the same Spirit of life deserts them they then remain as a dead body is when the soul is severed from it or as an empty cabinet out of which the Jewel is taken Now the former of these answerable to the Prophecies are experimentally found to have some degree of their vital faculty subsisting There is the same light power and vertue in Ministery Prayer and Praisings that was in the primitive age though not in the same degree likewise for Baptism the badge of the Covenant there was some secret vertue in the Covenant to beget and preserve a sealed company amongst the Israelites which there was not amongst Turks and Heathens quatâ—nus sic also the Communion received upon the ground of our spiritual union with all the godly may confer some influence of comfort and refreshing flowing from the death of Christ For as there was a mystical relation of the scattered Saints which knit them to Christ the head and one to another by a spiritual bond so was there a mystical communion and feeding together with respect to the same inseparable union But for the later that are proper to a Church stated and invested with full power though in the first Gospel-day they held forth the glory and face of Jesus Christ yet afterwards when the external Government was taken from Christ's shoulders and placed upon Antichrist as it was generally in the hands of Popes Patriarchs and Archbishops thorowout the world according to what was prophesied that it should be given to the nations Rev. 11.2 then was the winde of the Spirit withheld from breathing in them then was the glory of God departed from them since which time they have been but as an empty shell out of which the kernel of their ancient truth was taken since then the lively efficacie and power of Christ is not found to accompany them wherever used Consider them as they are in the Romish Church who alone in all our Horizon can claim a succession from the primitive and where because your Office is derived from thence you are inevitably driven to hold their true being to remain What tender hearted Protestant who holds the Pope to be Antichrist can cordially embrace that his Holiness or his Clergie by laying on of hands can confer a true spiritual gift or that Christ accompanies their hand with so much glory as to make it the prime key on earth to beget the truth of Membership and Office Who would not blush to imagine that the Popes Excommunications or Bulls deliver over to Satan and by consequence that the Church of Rome â—nto which by these keys and doors they are entered and out of which they are shut is such a Church as may be named a kingdom of heaven or that what she bindes on earth is bound in heaven or that what she looses on earth is loosed in heaven or that she can forgive and retain sins All which powers she must have if the really possess the keys of the Kingdom For these can no more be severed from the keys while abiding true then the soul from the body while a living organ But if Rome be fundamentally a false Church as she is held to be by the Protestant party and stript naked of that primitive excellencie in her external government then what may be thought of you who deduce your interest from her by descent Experience hath taught the Saints that there was as little efficacy of the true Spirit if not as much of that Antichristian spirit of Cruelty Partiality Covetousness Enmity against the power of godliness in the Bishops Courts as was before in Rome And what the Presbytery hath been in Scotland where they had the full and uncontroulable command we leave to such to determine who have felt the rod. If it be true that Effectus sequitur virtutem causae The effect follows the vertue of its cause then surely no good fruit is like to spring from an Antichristian root The lifelesness formality contentions divisions c. that
are in and caused by our new-built models are too well known in England and how they ground upon an humane bottom is to be seen in the second Querie of the Cessation Object Against this you quaerie What means then hath been left for which the Lord would make due provision for his people from whence then came the conversion of the one hundred and fourty four thousand living under the Apostaciâ— and of multitudes in these later times were they aborigines a people springing out of the earth or let down from heaven Answ 1. You cannot I hope think that the conversion or edification of any soul under the Romish defection came from the Ordination Confirmation Admission Absolution c. of the Pope or any of his Hierarchy nor hath the least good but rather hurt come from these as exercised by the Bishops or you for they have been utterly empty of any true spiritual breathings as before is cleared 2. Gods ways of conversion are various his Spirit worketh when where and how it pleaseth sometimes he calleth from the womb Isai 49.1 Jer. 1.5 Luke 1.15 Rom. 9.11 sometimes by the godly conversation of the Saints by their holy walk and seasonable admonition Josh 2.1 Ruth 1.16 17. and 1 Pet. 3.1 Thus godly men in our times going into places where the Ministery hath been blinde and formal were instruments to work on and enlighten others and by this means many have been spiritualized in the Antichristian times Sometimes the Lord may sanctifie great outward afflictions and the sence of hainous sins as he did to Manasseh 2 Chron. 33.12 13. Sometimes by the sight of a strange and fearful accident striking a terror on the man as Waldus the first founder of the Waldenses was by seeing a man fall down dead before him also a kinsman of mine was first wrought upon by seeing a Fire-drake fall down beside him Sometimes by a divine light or vision as Paul Act. 9.3 also another precious Saint in our age by his own acknowledgement to me and others Sometimes by reading of the Scriptures 2 Tim. 3.15 which many very godly men in our days have affirmed to be the means God hath used to turn them to himself Sometimes by a powerful officiated Ministery as in the Primitive times Sometimes by a gifted Ministery as shall be in the next place manifested and this gifted Ministery together with the rest of the first sort of Ordinances as Prayer c. were the ordinary means to feed the woman in the wilderness The variety of Gods ways in this noble work of Conversion is beyond the apprehension of any creature and you much forget your self in tying it up onely to an Antichristian Office By what means the one hundred and fourty four thousand and the standers at the glassie sea were spiritually begotten and brought forth we leave it to the Lord sure we are they were not oborigines their birth came not from the earth nor from the earthly key of your Officials but from a grace descending from heaven Object 1. Against thâ—s gifted Ministery is affirmed That it is onely said not proved and may be as castly denied as affirmed Answ There was such a Ministery in the Primitive times as is evident Act. 8.4 Chap. 11.19 20.1 Cor. 14.31 and 1 Pet. 4.10 11 though then the chiefest glory thereof was administred by way of Office but in the Antichristian season the true Ministery was managed by a gift subordinate to and beneath that of a true Office for 1. There was no Office in all the West but what was Romish for many hundred yeers after the first fall and that it is there false and Antichristian shall be declared in the next Section 2. When all Office came from Antichrist and his false key then Christ himself to provide food for his Elect gave power to his two Witnesses not from the hand of a Popish Ordination but from his own immediate gift Rev. 11.3 I will give to my two Witnesses and they shall prophesie their prophecie came from the immediate gift of Christ This gift beginning at that time when the four open windes were held from their blast and the false key was given must be a gift inferiour to the former Office and come not from any mediate power on earth but simply from heaven 3. Experience hath taught us in our generation that there is not the least degree of vertue in Ordination that addes one scruple to the gift of the Ministery or tends to the furtherance of salvation but rather that the Spirit hath breathed forth with with greatest efficacie in such men who either had no Office at all witness Dudly Venner of Cranebrook M. George Frogmorton when he preached at Bennâ—nden with multitudes now in England the truth of whose Ministery is sealed by the conversion of thousands or else by such Non-conformists Ministers who in the closets of their brest renounced or at least disliked their Office and subscription and by these last when Office in your sence was not refined you may ghess how it was when more corrupt Object 2. They always acted as Officers and were so acknowledged Answ This is not true many neither were nor acted as Officers many disliked their Office some renounced it as is before declared and if any did so act and were acknowledged it was the blindness of the times so to account which the Lord in times of ignorance might connive at Certain we are that no good came from their Office that being false but onely from their gifts and the blessings thereof were weak and lowe in comparison of what they were in the primitive times they being darkned and bemudded by their Office And this is so far from being ungrateful as that it is agreeable to the prophecies and the event Object 3. Paul produceth the conversion of the Corinthians not so much to prove his gifts as for a seal of his Apostleship Answ We will first declare the occasion of this argument of Paul and then return to yours The occasion was this There were certain false Apostles who subtilly perswaded the Churches not that he was no Officer but that he was onely an ordinary Minister or one at least inferiour to an Apostle and so not to be looked on as infallible In consutation of whom Paul proves himself to be an Apostle in the strictest sense as is clear by this text compared with Chap. 10.16 Chap. 12.12 Gal. 1.1 17 18 19. Chap. 2.7 8.9 This premised we shall now reply to your chiefest Helena 1. When Office was true it had not onely an ordinary grace common with private Christians but also an addition of a grace and life proper to the Office Thus Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers having several degrees of order were endowed with a propriety of gift peculiar to each degree and the success was answerable in the heaters Thus Paul being a true Apostle shewed forth all the signes thereof with Apostolical power and authority and the same proper
symboles accompanying his Ministery and the peculiar effects thereof wrought in the manner of the Corinthians conversion sealed his Apostleship and not their bare conversion as is apparent by comparing this text with 2 Cor. 12.12 The signes of an Apostle were seen amongst you in all patience in signes and wonders and mighty deeds 2. Bare conversion without such singular gifts and fruits argues not any particular no nor any Office at all For men in every one of those five degrees nay such as had no Office were instruments in this honourable designe and a common effect proves not a particular cause Paul's argument had been weak and groundless to demonstrate himself to be an Apostle by such a signe as was common to all other Officers nay to private Christians 3. The Witnesses in mystical Babylon whether in Rome or elsewhere received a gift from Christ tending to convert and edifie Now the conversion wrought by those godly men did not confirm the warrantableness of membership and orders in the false Churches they lived in for their outward clothing was black deformed sackcloth it onely evidenced the truth of that inward grace and power given by Jesus Christ I hope you will not affirm that those good fruits issuing from the Ministery of Sylvester Savanarola Wickliff Huss Luther with others of the Romish Clergie as also Latimer Ridley Hooper with sundry other Bishops ratified the Office of Friers Monks Priests and Diocesan Bishops as that of Paul did his Apostleship we say It sealed onely their gifts We shall here sift another argument of yours against this gifted Ministery instanced in page 23 of your Book Object If such a gifted Ministery be currant and sufficiently authorized for administring Word and Sacraments then there was no need of an Official Ministery and Christ it seems ordained therein a superfluous Ordinance for Frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora It is a vain thing and not beseeming a wise man to use many ways to do that which may be done by sewer Answ This your Philosophical Maxime is not generally true in Divinity but must admit of many limitations For God is a free agent and may work by more or fewer nay without mediums and in some seasons administers a greater variety and fulness for satiety and delight Prov. 9 1 2 3. Cant. 5.1 Matth. 22. Revel 19.9 in other times he useth a more sparing dispensation onely to maintain some being and life of grace When the Temple was destroyed and the vessels thereof lay void and were of no use for Gods service in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar yet the Lord then was to them a little Sanctuary in the truth of Grace Ministery Prayer c. You cannot from hence conclude that the same Temple and vessels as were made consecrated and used in Jerusalem were superfluous Ordinances neither is it safe to charge Wisdom it self with vanity and indiscretion for effecting that by more which he might have and did accomplish by fewer means So when the outward court of Church-government was given to the Nations and in the possession of Antichrist Christ did and might in point of honour and justice leave it and distribute his grace by a more retired and inward way as is at large declared in the Cessation Therefore this your assertion is both untrue and dangerous it intrenching upon the absolute and unlimited Royalty of the great King Object Lastly if the holding of the four windes be understood of the holding of the Spirit from breathing in Ordinances for others carry it fairly in another sence then 1. there is nothing said how long the restraint should last much less that it lasteth during the apostacie Answ 1. That the winde metaphorically signifies the breathing of the Spirit is apparent by these Scriptures Joh. 3.8 Ezek. 1.4 Acts 2.2 Ezek. 37.9 14. and it cannot here be fairly applied to any other sence it belonging to Israelites and the restraint being hurtful to their earth sea and trees that winde must needs be favourable and reviving whose detaining is hurtful 2. The text implicitely concludes the restraint to last during the time of the hurt which is the whole Antichristian age and after that the four windes shall again be loosed to animate what lay before spiritless as is shewed on the second Querie in the Cessation Object 2. Then it must be meant of a more sparing breathing in comparison of the primitive times not of an utter restraint 3. If it be an utter restraint then take notice that the restraint is general and cannot by any circumstance of the text be confined onely to Official preachers and preaching but as fully reacheth to the gifted men as to them and so doth conclude an utter ceasing of the Spirit now or then from breathing in or by any Ordinances Answ To begin with the last of yours 1. This withholding and the hurt thereby may be gathered by a circumstance of the text not to be so general as utterly to debar the Elect from some more secret and inward inspirations for vers 2 3 the four Angels are forbidden to hurt by this restriction till the Angel of the East had sealed the servants of God in their foreheads which infers a care and some provision for the spiritual subsistence and breathings in upon and by the elect hereupon it reacheth not to the gifted men for they had a power given immediately from Christ which breathed forth in Ministery Rev. 11.3 and as there was an inward Temple and Altar so there was approved Worship therein flowing from the truth of grace vers 1. 2. The restraint was total in respect of outward Order and Church-constitution For first Therein succeeded another key also that was cast out and became Babylon as shall be shewed in the two next Sections and the Spirit cannot breathe in that which is wholly corrupted and becomes another especially in what it excommunicates Secondly The winde here expressed was utterly detained from blowing on the earth sea or any tree which must imply it to be in some sence general Thirdly All save the Elect were hurt thereby and subverted vers 2. which dis-interesses other common Israelites from those outward priviledges they enjoyed while the visibility was true From hence we gather that the open windes deciphered Acts 2.2 which gave being to the external keys of Church-government were altogether bound up from their manifest blast but yet a still and secret influence coming more immediately from Jesus Christ which never was wanting from Adam's time remained and this was more sparing and narrow in comparison of the primitive both in its measure and degree and the number of the Ordinances which it occupied The windes here kept back are said to be four in regard of the generality thereof reaching to the four quarters also the windes of the earth it being an administration more visible here on earth thus the power of binding and loosing by these more external keys is said to be on earth
in profession were beyond the sphere of Satan For the inward created principle in the soul breaking forth in and by these means and Ordinances the Spirit in and by the Word sustaining its perpetuity and Christ supporting the same are all far above the reach of Antichrist had these been in the power of that destroyer he would have utterly marred all the springs yea the very fountain of grace In the same manner the communion taken on the ground work of the spiritual union of all the godly wherever scattered when the corporated was false and Christ therein fed upon by faith was not altogether subverted for the mystical relation betwixt Christ and the heart and the godly with the godly was beyond the compass of Popes Bishops or any humane authority whatsoever Also for Baptism though the Antichristian Church was in her constitution and order unmeasured to truth and therein Babylon yet she was not utterly shut out from the Covenant but had the call of Israelites had the Name of the Father Son and holy Ghost put on them with a common grace to believe the Covenant and an elect sealed number in and amongst their tribes none of which properties can be attributed to those wholly without Though Antichrist in some things infected the externality of this Ordinance yet could he not fundamentally raze the Covenant nor utterly abolish the name of Christ from amongst Christians nor make invalid the power of the Word perpetuating that name Isai 56.5 In like sort the ten apostated tribes were in their Church-order set up by Jeroboam radically false and yet were Israelites within the Covenant and had the signe of Circumcision Thus also men excommunicated are excluded from Church-fellowship but not from their Baptism and the Covenant Likewise Hereticks who fell from the Church were received again not by new Baptism but by laying on of hands Euseb l. 7 cap. 2 3. 2. Our Reasons why the later sort as Ordination Confirmation c. abode not are these following 1. They are not promised in the Word to continue Isai 56.5 2. They wanting that promise were forsaken by God when corrupted 3. All the external Order became Antichristian and so the Ordinances proper thereto must be bestial or else how could there have been a Babylon wherein the sealed number were captives 4. Our last taken from this text Rev. 9 is that these were wholly resolved into the Pope to whom was given another key with other smoke and Officers These being altogether external and Christ leaving them Antichrist might have and had absolute power therein to make them bottomless Object Against this you assert that though the Pope have another false key yet withal he hath the keys of Christs discipline in Ordination Excommunication Suspension c. Answ Though the Pope usurp the carcase of those Ordinances that were Christs before yet their true essential form which makes them to be Christs and true Office and Membership on which they depend he and his whorish Church have not For confirmation whereof these grounds do naturally arise from the text 1. The first Reason is drawn from the nature of the Pope and Antichristian Hierarchies vers 1. the Star or Angel fell from heaven the orb in which he was fixed before unto the earth or wilderness Chap. 12.6 a total apostacie from his former office and sphere and was not in the least degree heavenly but terrene earthly and meerly humane or a wilde beast Rev. 13.1 and is numbered not to God but to man vers 18. It is a true Rule Corruptio optimi est pessima The corruption of the best things is always worst and most contrary to its former goodness Satan who was the noblest is by his fall the basest of creatures and most unlike to an angel of light which he was before he fell So here that Angelical Office which shined as a fixed Star in the bright firmament of the primitive purity holding forth the liveliest glory of Christ for the perfecting of the Saints being once apostated from his former sphere became not onely an humane Hierarchie but a meer Antichrist as most opposite to Christ of any other 2 Thess 2.3 and the man of sin as that wherein the quintessence of evil and deceit is epitomized and grown to its perfect maturity and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one in office altogether without and besides the Law and likest to sin it self which is termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Joh. 3.4 nay he is the principal vicegerent of Satan on earth to whom he commits his chiefest power Rev. 13.2 throne and authority in the exercise whereof he is Abaddon or Apollyon Chap. 9.11 destruction it self in the abstract recorded in the two most famous Languages and is most emphatically stiled by Paul The son of perdition being one who hath caused the greatest ruine and desolation and is termed by John the King of the bottomless pit Thus we may see that the Office of the Pope and his Hierarchy is most corrupted of any thing else being that wherein the being of Antichrist doth subsist who is not a particular person but a corporation And this Official Hierarchy being stript naked of its primitive truth and becoming meerly Antichristian cannot in the least degree beget a lawful Office for Nâ—l dat quod non habet If the fountain be polluted how can the streams be pure None can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one Job 14.3 2. This Angel had another key different in nature from the former And it is impossible the keys of the kingdom of heaven can subsist with the key of the bottomless pit or the power of Jesus Christ be united with the power of Satan Contraries in their extremes cannot stand together but the one must destroy the other 3. The Church opened by this key is a bottomless pit bottomless she being void of the groundwork of Truth in her order a pit or prison being as a hell on earth in which men are captivated Prov. 7.27 Chap. 9.18 Isai 51.14 Chap. 49.9 Zech. 9.11 12. also a Church excommunicated of God and Babylon Rev. 11.2 Chap. 17.5 and so cannot in her constitution have the keys of the kingdom of heaven for the key must be of the same nature with the Church Besides if Confirmation Ordination Excommunication c. be true in Rome then must that Romish Church into which by these keys she enters and out of which she shuts be a kingdom of heaven and a Sion and not a bottomless pit and Babylon which we conceive you will be ashamed to affirm 4. The smoke or dispensation of this pit or false Church is hellish and diabolical eclipsing and darkning the whole Horizon vers 2. and how can the smoke or winde of Gods glory spiriting these Ordinances and making them lightsome dwell together with the darksome false and delusive smoke of the bottomless pit surely the Lord will not so much honour Antichrist his greatest adversary If the
engagement to prophesie ariseth from their taking and eating the book Besides the word Angel signifieth a Messenger or one sent with a prevailing administration which may be either by the medium of a visible power here belowe or else simply from above without any such mediums from man All this we shall be ready to evidence in our next Return Before we pass from hence give us leave a little to go back and reflect upon the ground-work of your stand and dealings in this particular Truly Sir we conceive you are hardly driven when being sounded to the bottom you cannot justifie your own Office but withal you are inforced to plead for that of Friers Monks Priests Bishops and the whole rabble of the Popish Orders nay to maintain them to be the Angels of truth by reason of their outward investments from Rome neither can you vindicate your interest in your key of Church-government in Ordaining Excommunicating c. but you must therewith manage the Popes Surely it is inevitable necessity drives you to this extreme shift that either you must hold the foundation of Church-order to remain in Rome and so make that mother of harlots to be radically the true spouse or else you must yeeld and renounce your own We cannot but * Isai 29.9 stay our selves and wonder that you who have been counted men of knowledge and godliness should so straitly tie up all the Ordinances of Jesus Christ to such a corrupt and Antichristian function as if you onely were thereby called and inrighted with a power to dispense the same when as your Office in the root thereof comes from the Pope the angel of the bottomless pit and his false way If your eyes were opened to see the nature and extent of that key you would quickly finde that your glorying herein were your greatest shame and so it will appear ere long For though you should outwardly clothe this your Office and the Church built thereon with the fairest Robes of the primitive patern and could extract the quintessence of wit policie learning art argument to present it as impregnable and had the tongues of men and angels to paint it out with more then humane eloquence to make it seem like * Ezek. 27.3 Tyrus to be of perfect beauty yet being in its principle earthly and bottomless your Office with the power of its government will unavoidably be disclosed to be a false Christ a false prophet or Beast the Church sustained thereby to be a daughter of that great mother Rev. 17. and her attire and seeming beauty to be no other then the glittering ornaments and paintings of the woman Babylon the mystery of whose deceit will be anatomized and made naked by the light of the Spirit This lay concealed in times of ignorance and God did more connive but now his call enlightens and discovers these principles of delusion and invites to a separation Let us therefore advise you in the bowels of charity to obey this voice of the Spirit in coming off your selves and to hasten your members the captive exuls that they die not in the pit that you may be of the number of the rejoycing harpers Rev. 15. and not of those mourners Chap. 18. Section 4. Our next ground was that the visible Church it self the foundation of these later Ordinances failed and so the Ordinances proper to a constituted Church must needs receive a loss of their efficacie Object You except That the visible Church is not the foundation but the institution of Christ Answ The institution of Christ is a foundation but yet that which affords present being or existence both to the constitution of visible Government it self and the Ordinances arising thence is the Spirit of life sent from Jesus Christ as is elsewhere shewed And whether such a Church first married by God whereby to have the keys of this visible kingdom given them from above and the Spirit of Christ united to and operating in them enjoy not by vertue of that union a principle of power to use the same and contribute a right Membership and Office unto others we leave it to you to consider The iron conjoyned to the fire hath the same essence of heat and operation with the fire and I suppose you will grant that a true Presbytery coferring an Office unto another by Ordination hath the being and foundation of that Office This word foundation taken simpliciter simply and originally is proper onely to Christ but secundum quid after some sort may be attributed to the Church whether visibly corporated or mystical You assent that if it be made good that the visibility of Church-order failed and became Babylon it is enough to carry the cause Answ This is proved in the Cessation from Rev. 11.2 that when this outward court was given to the Nations it was then cast out by the Spirit The words properly translated run thus But the court which is without the temple cast out and measure it not for it is given to the Nations and the holy city shall they tread under foot fourty and two months When the Nations ingrossed the externalitie and outside of Ecclesiastical Government into their hands and joyned in with National worldly Regiment they made up national Churches Here we may behold as in a spiritual Map of what nature they are and how they are false and Antichristian in the original of their constitution whether considered as Papal Episcopal or Presbyterial which these Reasons syllogistically drawn from the native sence of the text do demonstrate 1. Those Churches which are altogether outward and have nothing of the temple and altar and the vertue and life thereof in their constitutions are meerly humane and spiritless But National Churches whether Papal Episcopal or Presbyterial are so Therefore c. The Major you cannot deny the Minor is cleared by the words of the text for no more was given them but the outward court See Sect. 2. 2. Those Church-Constitutions that are cast out of God are disapproved and forsaken of him But such National Church-constitutions are cast out of God Ergo c. The Major is undeniable the Minor is confirmed by this Scripture The court without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies cast out and not leave out as it is translated hereupon ensued another key Sect. 3. 3. Those Churches that have no measurement by the line of Truth are false and Antichristian But such National Churches have no measurement by the line of Truth Ergo c. The minor is evinced by the text Measure it not and so are bottomless 4. Those Churches who are distinct and another from the holy City are in their ground-work of their Order strange and Babylonish But such National Churches are distinct and another from the holy city Ergo c. The Major is indubitable The Minor is also evinced from the text where they the Christian nations and the holy city are set in distinct and opposite terms 5. Those Churches who
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
as here they are in Babylon then such who have only an outward station must be wholly shut out they standing solely in the outward court of false constitutions And therefore here all the world of Israelites worshiped the beast except those whose names were written in the book of life of the Lamb slaine from the foundation of the world Chap. 13.8 and Chap. 17.8 none are excepted but those who were written in this book from the foundation of the world So that here all save the elect are excluded and that for one thousand two hundred and sixty yeers Chap. 14.1 which razeth your next argument from its sandy foundation Their sealing notes their confirmation of the truth of grace and that being in their foreheads argues some measure of visible profession We shall in the last place deliver Master Elmestons assertion touching the outward court which he affirmed in a verbal dispute which was after this manner That it typed out the state of a false Church and that it never had any measurement at all To which was then answered That it did prefigure the outward order or visibility of Church-constitution and three reasons were produced to prove it drawn from the text which you may finde written in the Cessation also that this was true till here rejected by the Lord Jesus and could not denote that which never had any approved measurement as was then likewise cleared by these following arguments 1. By way of allusion to the temple of old That as there was not only a Temple within whereinto the Priests and none but they might enter but also a Court without erected by Divine institution and sanctified by the Spirit into which the Priests and people had access in common both which made a full and compleat temple so in the primitive times there was the internality of true grace wherein properly the elect who only were a royal Priest-hood had interest and likewise an outward order built up and breathed into by divine inspiration into which Christians visibly professing some true and some seeming came and both these together concurred to make a full visible Church 2. From the words of the text the court without cast out which the original phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Nothing in propriety of speech can be said to be cast out that was not before within Ishmael was a member in the family of Abraham before he was excluded none can be excommunicated unless he be first a brother so this being now cast out argues it to be till then approved 3. From the reason rendered by the Spirit why it was excluded for it is given to the nations which implies that it had measurement till it was thus given and corrupted by Antichrist Some trifling objections were made by Master Elmestone against these which partly for brevity sake partly because I conceive them not to be materiall I shall now omit If he think them to be otherwise and be pleased to publish them I shall be ready with Gods assistance to give a reply Thus much of the fourth Section we shall now pass on to the fifth Section 5. The fifth and last Section is taken from Mat. 24. where the visible models Loe here and Loe there or as Luke hath it Chap. 17.23 See here or see there being thus rejected by Christ are false and deceivable the powers that bear and teach them up are false Christs or Antichrists and false Prophets the spheres wherein they rule are the wilderness and secret Chambers For the clearer apprehending of this Scripture it may be requisite first to explaine something on the Chapter and after to declare your mistakes thereon To begin with the unfolding of the Chapter we are to consider there were three questions demanded by Christs Disciples vers 3. The first When these things shall be to wit the destruction of Jerusalem and dissolution of the temple spoken of in vers 2. The second What shall be the signes of his coming that is of his bright ministerial coming and dispensing his spirit-like lightning The third The signes of the end of the world to wit of the great and last day of judgement and the general resurrection To which the Lord methodically and in order one after another answereth with the signes thereof from vers the 15. to vers the 32. To the first from vers 15. to vers 23. To the second from vers 23. to vers 30. To the third vers 30 31. To omit the first as that impertinent to this subject we shall begin with the second of his coming like lightning The signes of the second are double 1. The long foregoing delusion of Antichristianisme abiding till his bright coming from vers 23 to vers 27. 2. The short noted immediate signals as the darkning of the Sun Moon and Stars and the shaking of the powers of heaven vers 29. If you desire to understand what these figurative speeches mean you may know by these places Isa 34.4 Joel 3.15 Hag. 2.21 22. and by the subversion of outward Babylon set forth by the like metaphors Isa 13. 10. Also by the overthrow of the Jewish Church Joel 2.30 31. And that of the Roman Heathen Emperors Rev. 6.12 13 14. The signes preceding the third to wit the end of the world are also twofold 1. The appearing of the Son of man in heaven that is his bright coming like lightning 2. The mourning of all the tribes of the earth upon the sight of the same glorious dispensation Psal 97.4 Zech. 12.10 11 12 13 14. of the Jews for their long blindness in Judaisme of the false stated Churches amongst Christians for their defilements in Antichristiansme of Turks and Heathens for their Mahometisme and gross Idolatry Againe we are to mind that the long Babylonish delusion of the signe of the second contains two distinct seasons 1 The time of the tribulation of the godly by the overswaying power of the false Antichristian Churches which by comparing this with the Revelations continued 1260 years chap. 11.2 3. chap. 12.6 14. chap. 13.5 a remarkable time it being ingraven in five places of that prophecie for our more espiciall remembrance 2 The time of the Sun and Moons darkning the Stars falling c. to wit the season of the vials wrath wherein the Saints are passing from their former bondage and retaliate the reward upon their Enemies vers 29 where it is said Immediately after the tribulation to wit that wrought by the Beasts prevailing for 1260 years the word after notes our another distinct time of the Sun and Moons darkning c. and the Saints lifting up their heads who at this time are said to come out of great tribulation Rev. 7.14 and to get victorie over the Beast cha 15.2 and that this delusion continues the same season also is clear from Mark 13.24 where it is said In those daies to wit of the Antichristian deceit after the tribulation This orderly method of the text concurring with the Disciples three questions
the agreement of the Apocalypse therewith and the succession of the times so directly answering may lead us to conclude that this notable deceit belongs to that of the great Babylonish apostacie yet for the further clearing up this truth we shall evidence it by these ensuing reasons 1 Because Christ markes this out to be the next after Jerusalems destruction and the next grand deceiveable evill alteration succeeding to the Church was that of Antichristianism 2 This ominous falsity is evidenced by the Spirit in Luke 17.22 23 to be after the primitive when he saith The daies will come and withall that the time when they shall say See here and see there is the time of an invisible day as is further asserted They shall desire to see one of the daies of the Son of man to wit either that of the primitive or the latter of his bright coming and shall not see it which most aptly agrees with that dark gloomie night of Antichristianism when the Sun and Air were darkened the day of Christs power disappeared and the Beast had power to prevail Rev. 9.1 chap. 7.1 chap. 13.5 3 From the continuance of the same delusion which was from the end of the primitive day till this latter day of his bright coming which none ever did but that of the great Antichrist 4 From the bewitching subtilty of their signes and wonders which fitly complies with the first and second beast who did the like deceitful miracles Rev. 13.13 14 the second beast is there called a false Prophet implying the first to be a false Christ or Antichrist onely there it is typed out by one false Christ and false Prophet there being but one in the root which is man ver 18 here by many in respect of their particular statings their divers forms and the different time of their several rises 5 From the effectual working of this deceit They shall seduce if it were possible the very Elect nothing that is possible to deceive but is subverted only the Election based on Christ is excepted which complies with none but that of the beast who deceived all universally except the sealed ones them too so far as was possible only the work of the election with that flowed purely from it was untouched as is proved in the Cessation 6 Christ gives a principal and general forewarning the danger being so great which must relate to a notable and epidemical deceit as was that of the beast this admonition took its effect by the ministery of the third Angel Rev. 14.9 c. who rouzed the godly out of their former sleep Furthermore it cannot be imagined that our Saviour briefly deciphering all the principal occurrences from the primitive Gospel-day to the end of all things should let slip a matter of such weighty consequence and so long continuance without giving any notice thereof We shall in the next come more nearly to the exposition of the text in which our Messias lively emblemes the state of false Churches wherein the substance of this deceit doth lye and there we may at once take a survey 1 Of their marks 2 Of their grounds 3 Of their formes or rather their Spheres in which they inhabit 1 The marks of these fals Churches are four 1 Their visibilitie in their stative order Lo or sea in that time when the true Kingdom was within not to be seen in such an open dispensation Luk. 17.21 22. 2 The phrase Here and there notes out a manifest place of rest or sitting down fitly representing Church-constitutions it is the character of the woman Babylon in this season to sit as a Queen 3 Their variety here and there which must scatter whereas the true is uniforme and universally gathers the Eagles unto it 4 The visible Loe or modell is first and then Christ is brought to it Lor here is Christ as if the Spirit of life and divine primitive power were in it when it is but their owne spirit even that of Antichrist ascending from an humane bottom hereupon Luk. 17.20 implicitely tells us that it ariseth from humane observation of such and such a forme drawne from their imaginarie platformes and forcing Christ unto it whereas in the true Christ the dead carcase is there first who inspires it by the flashing lightning glorie of his Spirit 2 The grounds are twofold 1 A false Christ Antichrist or a Beast are persons usurping that power which is proper and essential to Christ onely and this they assume and use in constituting visible Churches hereupon they are said to come in Christs name viz. with his power and authority in pretence vers 5 when in realitie it is but their owne name Joh. 5.43 saying I am Christ that is taking up such a power as peculiarly belongs to him whose sole prerogative it is to begin visible constitutions Psal 102.16 Zech. 4.6 10. Hos 2.19 20. 2 A false Prophet is the teaching and managing of the same false power as exercising in Ministery all the power of the first Beast or false Christ before him Rev. 13.21 Both these concur to the making and compleating of false Churches the most sublime mystery and quintessence of whose deceit lieth in their signes and wonders ver 24. which in Revel 13.13 is to make fire to come downe from Heaven in the sight of men to wit their pretending of the fierie operation of the Spirit to be in their stative ordinances with such a shew of working like unto God his working as if it were Christs true fire coming down from Heaven when indeed it is but ignis culinaris or rather ignis fatuus a strange feigned fire of their owne kindling and vers 15. he had power to give life to the Image of the Beast by his spiriting these stative ordinances which when true are the image of Christ when false the image of a Beast all which they so set in the face of men as if it were celestiall and the lively breathings of the Spirit and this kinde of spirituall magick may be fitly termed signes and wonders that do the more universally seduce because they seem to be heavenly and to be derived from Apostolicall power 3 The formes or spheres of these false Churches are pictured out by a double figure the Wilderness and the secret chambers 1 The Wilderness This is not a proper but a metaphorical Wilderness as the Sun Moon Stars and the powers of heaven are and so are the lightning the dead carcase and Eagles and pictures out a visible station resembling a desart which most congruously complies with that of National Churches whether Romish Episcopal or Presbyterial Hence the woman when once she declined into a National stand is said to flie from Heaven into the Wilderness Revel 12 6. Hence is she said to go out of the City to dwell in the field of this Babylon Mica 4.10 Likewise the great strumpet was seen of John in the Wilderness Rev. 17.3 thereby shewing that her place and residence should be
other men but rather mistrust my own conceptions in which I go alone unless I can prove that I have Daniels spirit or justifie it by irrefragable arguments Answ My desire is to dive into these types and Prophecies with an humble and self-denying mind and to be free from puffed-up phansies of mine own wisdom above others or beyond the measure God hath given me neither do I acknowledge immediate revelations and inspirations as Daniel and the Prophets had to belong to any in our time but mediate by the word and for mine own particular am very cautious what I receive for truth upon these Prophecies either from myself or others untill by comparing Scripture with Scripture together with the event it be cleared up to me by manifest arguments As for other interpreters some of them I adjudge to be godly learned and wise and highly prize their interpretations wherein I finde them to agree with the natural sense of the text Yet they sticking in national Churches and living in the obscurer times of the tribulation were so veiled that they could not behold the next dispensation of Christ after the 1260 yeers should be expired But now the date of that time being finished God hath and will raise up a separated people who stand at the Glassie sea Revel 15.2 in the more bright unfolding of the mind of the Apostles and Prophets both for matter and time answerable to the promise made to such a returning people Isa 42.16 I will make darkness light before them And for my sense upon them as I have with diligent circumspection examined it my self so I wish others truly to weigh it by the balance of the Sanctuary and they may find that it comes not from me but from Christ his Apostles and Prophets nor to me only but to all those freed redeemed ones whose eyes the Lord hath and will inlighten Your insuing discourse on this subject contains two particulars Object 1. The doctrine of Christs persons offices the meanes to apply him faith the most dangerous errors in faith and worship are better learned out of doctrinal texts of Scripture then out of the Revelations that holding forth a story of the enemies of the Church who they should be how they should oppress the Church and at last be destroyed by her and of the Churches estate before the enemies rising under their power its deliverance and glorious estate in the end and not of faith worship and good works Answ 1. The book of the Apocalypse is doctrinal as well as other Scriptures for all Scripture is profitable for doctrine 2 Tim. 2.61 if all be doctrinal then this book is not excluded 2. The offices of Christ faith worship and good works are here figured out by allegories which being compared with other plainer texts make their sense much more full and bright to such whose eyes are open to discern the mystery 3. This historical narration doth not only shew who the Churches enemies are but what they are and in what they chiefly stand to wit in the court without Chap. 11.2 nor barely describes her persecution by and deliverance from but also presents before us the several dispensations of God the divers outward stands of his people in their distinct periods both that of the primitive that under antichrist this of the separation that of the visible marriage and call returning and the glory of new Jerusalem all which are of great and high concernment for a Christians knowledge and walk Chap. 1.3 and the ignorance whereof may occasion deep misery Revel 18.4 Chap 14.9 c. Besides the subject we are treating upon to wit who the beast is what he is in his latitude what was the dispensation and stand of the Saints in mystical Babylon what it is and ought to be in the season of their separation from her is not expressed by plain text of Scriptures but by dark prophecies and visions by way of prophesie it must be as being to come in the ages when Scripture was penned and the Lord in divine wisdome hath delivered it more obscurely that the common multitude in hearing might not hear and in seeing might not see but as was fore-prophesied might be deceived by the beast and partake with Babylon in her plagues as also that the curious art of the Spirit might the more be magnified in its wrapping up so much choice matter into such brief compendious platforms and at last in its bright explicating those intricate types and sayings to his despised servants which are veiled from the great Rabbies of the time for such with other causes these wayes and judgements of God are parabolically delivered Now we must search them where they are written if we intend to find Object 2. The Revelations is veiled with such mystical visions as very learned Christians cannot uncover the vaile nor clearly see to the end of them An. That this is concealed from such as adhere to national Churches is true it being prophesied that the veile should lie upon nations Isa 25.7 Chap. 30.8 9 10 11. Chap. 42. 19 20. also Chap. 29.10 The Lord hath poured out upon you Prophets the spirit of a deep sleep and vers 11 12. And the vision of all is become unto you like to a book that is sealed which men deliver to one that is learned saying Read this I pray thee and he saith I cannot for it is sealed And the book is delivered to him that is not learned to read and he saith I am not learned Here the Spirit meets you in your argumentations of this nature for those who are most eminent amongst you alleadge that the visions of the Revelations and Prophets are sealed or as you here say veiled and we must not presume to dive into secrets such as are of a lower capacity complaine that they are unable to comprehend those mysteries and tell us that it belongs to scholars and learned men The reason of this darkness is because the Lord hath covered you But behold in vers 18 what the Spirit promiseth to such whom you adjudge to be blind and deafe The deaf shall hear the words of the book and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness And to these people who are inlightned to follow the Lamb this book together with the parables of Christ and the Prophets are as a cloudy pillar to lead them in their journey This worthy prophecie is the last book given by the Father unto the great Prophet after his ascension into glory and sent by his angel unto his servant John and is called a Revelation being delivered to shew to his servants things that were to come and that of Jesus Christ an emphatical title and proper to this book wherein it carries a dignity beyond the other Scriptures in the front whereof is promised an especial Gospel-blessing to such as read hear and keep the words of this prophecie keeping implies both an understanding of and a way or walk for his
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 intrâ—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
set up a false Christ in regiment This was not so palpable in outward shew but came in Christ his name under very specious pretences of Order Unity repressing heresies holiness advancing Christ and his Kingdom and therefore did the more universally deceive If the natures persons and offices our Lord Jesus had been directly originally and fundamentally razed in the Romish Church then Gods people could never have remained for so many ages in such a visible stand Object 3. The Popes extravagant exercise of discipline in excommunicating suspending not onely simple persons but whole Nations and disposing of all Ecclesiastical dignities was founded on this false doctrine that the Pope is universall Bishop Christs Vicar c. Answ 1 The same barely considered as a Notion or thing taught was not the ground-work of the beast but as usurped and layed in discipline a stone in the quarrie is not the foundation of a house till it be hewen out thence and disposed in the bottom of the building 2 This false Tenent of universality and visible headship is not a doctrinal if doctrine be minded as opposed to discipline but a disciplinall principle as any rational man may apprehend Object 4 None can comply with the Beast in the foundation of his estate without the loss of his salvation as who doth rely on another besides Christ and acknowledgeth him to be supream head under him vicar of Christ and submit to his new Articles of faith but many godly Christian have complyed with him in discipline as Ridly Latimer c. Answer 1 The beast it is true layed another foundation which primarily and radically was in discipline and secondarily struck against doctrine as is shewed before his visible headship and vicarship are principles of discipline and thence flow his articles of faith Besides he was fundamentally both in matter and forme a Beast for 1260 yeares and some time after and so long the Church is Babylon as before is cleared and all that time the world worshipped him but his Articles of faith are not of so long standing most whereof were framed in the Council of Trent And then that cannot be his groundwork which in order of nature and time followed his being the Cause must be before the Effect 2 This was damnable as to all so only to those Christians not truely grounded upon the Rock Jusus Christ Rev. 13.8 who having a meer outside shallow and sandie bottome might be radically supplanted by such a totall and delusive externality but the Elect having a deeper root then that of the Beast could not in the inward work of grace be by him subverted though they were outwardly clothed with his Livery Thus Gregory and other Popes of Rome before him might be in the Election yet their Office was essentially a Beast they living within the aforenamed time of the tribulation the like may be said of Ridly Hooper with the rest by you nominated If this beast had been originally false in the essentials of doctrine it had been damnable to them as well as to the rest of the world for if the foundations be utterly destroyed how can the righteous stand Psal 11.3 We desire the Reader rightly to observe the difference betwixt Mr. Elmestone and us in this particular subject He pleads that the Church of Rome is fundamentally false in doctrine which you may finde by his Arguments above and yet that in her order or Church-constitution she is in her ground-work true for he avers that the Pope hath the true key of Christs discipline in Ordination Excommunication c. and that Friars Monks Priests Bishops c. were radically right in their membership and orders which they had in and from that Church as you may read in the 29 and 30 pages of his book The former he is driven to maintaine or else he must contradict in writing what he and his party have published for many years in open Pulpits before the Nation that Rome is a false Church and that woman Babylon described in Revel 17. that the Pope is Antichrist and the beast delineated chap. 13. the latter he is inforced to manage or else he must yeild their office to be false which lineally descended from the Romish Church But how the body of discipline can retaine life in its binding and loosing where the soul of doctrine is departed or how she can be a bottomless pit and a stranger to Sion who is bottomly true in her order and hath the keyes of the Kingdome of heaven to let into and shut out of such a visible Kingdome we conceive cannot be proved by Scripture nor agree with any reason On the contrary we affirme that Church to be in visible Order false in her membership Babylonish in her office bestial but yet as the Prophecies foretold and the event hath manifested that there should be a godly people in that false visibility so for their sakes the Lord reserved the root of the Covenant of doctrine faith profession issuing thence in prayer praises c. as also a gifted ministery coming not from the bottomless key of that Church but from the immediate gift of Jesus Christ which you may see evinced in the Cessation the former must be fundamentally false or else Rome could not be Babylon the latter must be radically true or else there had been no subsistence for the Saints And thus we shall end with this third Paragraph Paragraph IV. OUrs in brief was this that the call of God in our times is only for separation without stating or without constituting and modelling visible Churches and sitting down therein Rev. 18.4 You may finde it declared in the Cessation that there are two bright and manifest dayes of Jesus Christ in the clear administration of his glory 1. That of the primitive apostolical day which continued till the key of the bottomless pit was given and thereby the Sun and aire darkned which shut up that brightness with darkness of a succeeding night 2. The day of his coming like lightning when the marriage of the Lamb doth againe return after the final subversion of Antichrist Betwixt these two periods is the time of the Babylonish age wherein neither of those two dayes are to be seen in such an open dispensation of his power the kingdome then being inward This latter season containes two distinct special and very observable revolutions 1. The time of the Saints tribulation lasting 1260 yeers in which term the true Church is only a sealed number disrobed of the beauty of her exterior order and visibly seated in the desart of nations where her choicest witnesses were outwardly invested with defiled and mournful garments and prophesied in that earth before the God of the earth where the beast had power to prevaile and tread them under foot making their estate mournful This begun about the yeer three hundred and ninty when the Bishop of Rome obtained the primacy of seat and is expired in the yeer 1650 as is shewed in the Cessation and
19.7 8 9 His wife hath made her self ready hath the grant of the wedding-garment and the call to marriage-supper Blessed is he that shall be called to this nuptial feast for none that are unfurnished uncircumcised or unclean shall enter thereinto Isa 52.1 Zech. 14.21 therefore will the door be shut against the foolish virgins Let us take the counsel of our Lord vers 13 Luke 21.36 Watch and pray that ye may be counted worthy to escape all these things viz. the vials wrath and to stand before the Son of man when he comes in the glory of his Spirit The arising taking and trimming of the Lamps both of the wise and foolish virgins is now the discerning of the one from the other about the sixth vial Revel 16.15 the wedding is after the vials pouring on Antichrist As these virgins go from Babylon and the Lord by his call guidance and protection leads before Isa 52.12 so do they follow the Lamb as they have an aspect toward the marriage to Christ coming then in the visible manifestation of the Spirit so do they go forth to meet the bridegroom There be some other difficulties to be unfolded in this text which for brevity I shall here omit till I see my opponents exceptions In the going forth or travelling of these virgins or returners towards the marriage we find two noted and observable passages The first-is from the beast his earth sea rivers and fountains and throne c. The second is over the river Euphrates at the sixth vial Chap. 16. The Saints going over this great river are stiled the kings of the East which is not a proper but figurative and borrowed speech as well as the earth sea c. and are so tearmed partly in allusion to the kings of Judah who went to the temple by the way of the East gate Ezek 36.12 partly for that they will be increasing flourishing kings resembling the Sun-rising by which they are distinguished from the kings of nations who are then declining and upon their fall like to the Sun in the West partly as they will resemble their King Christ who is called the Angel of the East Rev. 7. And these are not only Jews but Gentiles also unless you intend to disrobe them of their kingly dignity and do suppose that the Dragon Beast false Prophets kings of the whole world with their adherents do make war only against the Jews and are not gathered against the godly Gentiles an idle fancy to imagine Besides these are the men that pour out their vial into the aire Thus far in general But because you seem to require it and that it may more fitly answer yours we shall now divide it into particular Reasons why this walk of these harpers is separation without stating Reason 1. Our first ground is because in this season there is no divine call for visible Church-constitution or marriage if there be we should desire to be informed where the highest we can finde in the Scripture is for separation and rewarding There was never any new work begun in Church-matters either not in being before or after a general and long privation without a new call to authorize and impower men for the work Noah built not his ark till God commanded him Gen. 6.14 Abraham departed not from his country till the Lord said unto him Get thee out Chap. 12.1 Aaron assumed not the honor of the Priesthood till called of God Heb. 5.4 nay Christ our Lord honoured not himself but he that said unto him c. vers 5. David durst not build a resting place for his God without asking counsel of the Prophet the Lords oracle and being forbidden prepared abundantly for the work but durst not attempt to build 1 Chron. 17.1 3. Chap. 29. his son Solomon a king of Peace being called begun and finished that magnificent building 1 Chron. 17.12 Chap. 28.6 the same temple being after ruinated by the king of Babylon was not reedified but by a heavenly voice directing Cyrus and the Jews to do it Isa 44.28 Chap. 45.1 4.2 Chron. 36.23 Ezra 1.2 3. the Apostles waited at Jerusalem and went not forth to state visible Churches till they received power from heaven calling and priviledging them for that designe Acts 1.4 Chap. 2.2 And questionless Jesus Christ in his Revelation exactly marking out and shewing to his servants all the remarkable changes and dispensations of his Saints would after so long a cessation and confusion of their first order the greatest for matter and time that ever was have in this book confirmed the work of stating and made it indubitable by his call in its first return as well as that of separation if there had been any such fabrick now to be erected If you object the primitive call The Cessation of that insuing and the other new call to come makes that to be to us insufficient Again there is not any visible administration of the Spirit to begin any Church-constitution since the windes were with held Rev. 7.1 nor will be till the same winds are loosed and the Spirit again poured out in a visible symbol as is proved in the Cessation Quaer 2. Reason 2. Our next ground why we cannot at this time state and but only separate is because the book of the Revelation prescribes two distinct and severed periods for separation and visible Church-marriage the first to be during the rewarding by war Chap. 18.4 6. the last to be after a full separation and the downfal of Babylon Chap. 19.7 9. Now time is Gods peculiar prerogative and proper interest who can appoint him the times without intrenching upon his incommunicable royalty Jer. 51.44 Again as there is a time fixed for every purpose so every thing is beautiful in its time Eccles 3.1 11. but out of his season there is and must be a deformity and disproportion the reason is because many concurrences fall into the point of opportunity that contributes a comliness goodness and sometimes truth of existence to the thing or action which being done out of its season loseth its grace and beauty and in Church matters is vaine false and unlawful Thus in this honourable work of stating there will at that day be the raine of God the bright and powerful administration of the Spirit the grant and gift of the beautiful wedding garment the lively call of Christ to make it incomparably glorious and of surpassing lustre but now in this your day there is not only the want but the contrary to all these which causeth it be both obscure formal narrow as also disuniting dangerous and sinful Now the harpers above specified are virgins not the defiled married women they are obedient followers of the Lamb in the call of separation are not intruders and goers before him in the act of stating Reason 3. The third is because there is not now a sufficient dispensation of light sutable for the majesty of a Gospel-constitution How various are â—iens observations about the
by war and the punishments thereof or at least by a sharpe and searching discovery I shall therefore advise you with all my Christian friends wheresoever to come off from such like defilements lest ye partake with Babylon in her plagues and that your works burn not at the appearance of Jesus Christ and this you will finde to be seasonable Counsel if the Lord open your eyes to embrace it Section 1. Against this our assertion you except first more generally then particularly your general exceptions I shall bind within this Section the particular I shall divide into several Sections apart Object 1. More generally you assert 1. That this course of ours is contrary to all former times whose separations were accompanied with the present setting up of Church-societies Answ 1. This of separation from spiritual Babel is called a new thing then springing forth Isa 43.19 chap. 42.16 and so must in some respect be differing from all the former Againe we grant the separations of former times were presently accompanied with congregating ministery prayer with other services that were lawfully exercised before their departure as we do the like now but withall denie that those servants of God assumed any new thing or an old after its dispensation lay void without a new call and warrant for the work Object To prove yours You instance the departure of Abraham from Chaldaea Israels from Egypt Judahs from Babylon the Primitives from Judaisme and Hâ—athenisme Answ We shall begin with that of Abrahams who as he separated not till God called him from his Country and his Fathers house Gen. 12.1 Act. 7.2 3 4. so in this his journey he made no innovation but onely exercised himself in Ministery Prayer and the like which he emitted not in Chaldaea and after he came into Canaan took not up the signe of Circumcision till he received an express command from Heaven Gen. 17.10 11 12. and this was not till 24 yeers after his first entrance into the Land of promise as appears by comparing ver 1. with chap. 12.3 and near 30 yeers from his going out from Vr of the Chaldees as may be gathered by Scripture-consent To that of Israels stating in the wilderness upon their going forth from Egypt we say 1. That they were separated from Egypt both people and land being passed through the red Sea but we are not yet so from Babylon nor can be till the way be traced over Euphrates 2. They being thus severed remaâ—ned a bare separated people a yeer or more as you confess 3. After that their marriage or Church-state was not contracted by themselves for the Lord himself begun it at mount Smai where they had a call pattern and warrant for all they did all which was smoked by the cloud of Gods glory but you can produce no such call nor glory for any of your new-built constitutions nor prove the continuance of the primitive through the season of the apostacy Touching the Jewes returne from Babylon we answer That they did not rebuild the Temple in their voyage of separation but first came to Sion the proper resting place and then begun it by vertue of an heavenly call directing Cyrus and the Jewes for that designe and by the incouragement of the Prophets Haggai and Zachariah Isa 44.28 chap. 45.4 Ezra 5.12 Object Here you produce against us the saying of the Jewes Hag. 1 2. It is not time to build Answ They being come to Sion and called of God to the work might justly be reproved for slacking their hands Notwithstanding if they should have erected that divine edifice in their journey before arrived there they might have met with a sharper rebuke and punishment The crime is more hainous to usurpe a power and build upon their own bottoms then to neglect it in its time though I justifie neither However God calls not his people to any such work now in these our travels from mysticall Babell neither can man do it in its owne season this spiritual fabrick being not built by hands as the outward was but the Lord himself must first create it by the pouring out of his Spirit Your temerity in constituting your Church by your owne power before God begins it and charging us as being too too slow for waiting his proper time brings to our mind a story in Exodus chap. 32. When Moses there seemed to the Israelites to tarry too long they as impatient of delay must needs go before God and frame a golden Calfe by their own imaginations as you now do a bestiall Idol To that of the primitive we reply that the Disciples used ministery prayer baptisme and at last received the communion but did not state any visible Churches and after Christs resurrection from the dead they tarried at Jerusalem expecting the promise of the Father to impower them for the same work Indeed when they were first married by God by the glorious emission of the Spirit they by vertue thereof as sons of the Church married in others by bringing them into that Gospel-fellowship So that when visible Churches are existing men are received in as married members when not there can be no entrance further then into a Covenant membership waiting the times of God Object 2. Your next charge against us is that ours is against a common rule for interpreting Scriptures which is that wherein it commands the avoiding of evil it doth vertually command the contrary good Answ This rule we infringe not but imbrace and follow For as we flee from the beast his image marke name and number so we walk in that good way of assembling and exercise such ordinances as are now spirited by the Lord. But you are so far from doing good upon the avoiding evil that you run from one evil of the Bishops and rush into another of Presbytery from Babylon and the beast into Babylon and the same beast newly translated Object 3. You further taxe us that this course of ours casteth a foul blot of gross ignorance and rash presumption upon all the Protestant Churches Answ 1. Your selves separating from the Nations and setting up a Church distinguished from the rest of your parish do in your practice condemn all national Churches You also in your principles and words unchurch all the lesser independent bodies the like do they to you and all others not of their way Therefore for you to lay so high a charge against us and do the same things seemes to favour of partiality and come under the reproof of the Apostle Rom. 2.1 2. For clearing our selves we answer Vivimus legibus non exemplis We set not the practices of men but the lawes of God for our examplar That of man hath especially from the first beginning and so downward of the Antichristian darkness been the common misleading mark of Christians both in Papacy Episcopacy and the like And the differing and disagreeing formes of Churches in our age may teach how invalid humane authority is in the things of God But
the word of God we are assured is an unerring rule by which we shall endeavour to steer our course and not by the wandering notion of learned men Our recourse is onely to the Law and Testimony for proof whether you they or we be rightest In the interim we condemn not the grace of Christ where-ever we finde it nor the generation of the righteous as righteous Yet if their outward way be condemnable by the word of God we conceive it true humility and piety to judge accordingly and charity to acquaint them therewith Thus we shall end with your general exceptions against the whole and shall in the next place proceed to the more particular framed against some particular reasons before nominated which we will divide into several Sections Your fourth Objection is opposite to our first Reason deduced from Rev. 18.4 9. and runs as followeth Object 4. All Circumstances considered the time of this separating and rewarding is not untill God shall put it into the hearts of Kings to joyne together to destroy Rome it self and is surely about the pouring out of the last or some of the last vials And then being ready to give the onset on Rome by this voice they are called to plague her throughly At which time this call is directed to such of Gods people who are hidden in the Idolairous City and the adjacent territories to flee from her by a personal flight And how long it will be ere this be effected the Lord knowes Answ This your assertion consisteth of many fallacies which must be drawn out in their parts to clear up the truth 1. As that Babylon is not onely Rome with her adjacent territories but the great City chap. 17.18 reaching where out Lord was slaine chap. 11.8 above two thousand miles distant from Rome and duely pondered must be as large as the whole Roman Christian Empire and so compriseth England Scotland France or what place soever hath a false Church or beastly power to bear it up 2 These last plagues of God are not onely against Rome but every land where Babylonish Churches are residing even all Christian Nations The same whirlwind in these latter daies is said to begin at the ends of the earth and to go from Nation to Nation Jer. 25.31 32 33. chap. 23.19 20. chap. 30.23 24. Psal 110.5 6. and to be universall Isa 24. chap. 34. Luk. 21.35 Mat. 24.37 c. We have seen the beginnings of it in our Dominion the effects whereof were lately like to fall on some men of note in England Caetera taceo 3. This call of separation is not simply from Rome as an outward place but from all Antichristian stands whether Romish Episcopal Presbyterial c. the call is generall and the surest remedy to escape the general judgement 4. The pouring these plagues is not all at once by the last or some of the last vials it is gradual by every vial degree after degree For all the Angels pour out in their order upon the Earth Sea Rivers and fountains Sun and Throne of the beast upon the great river Euphrates and the aire chap. 16. 5. Not the Kings of the earth but the separated people are the principal instruments in rewarding for the text bids first Come out of her my people then reward States that come off may be assistants Object But this was done by the ten hornes ten Kings chap. 17.16 12. Answ The reading of the text must be warily observed for the better understanding thereof The most and authentick Greek copies have it The ten horns and the beast shall hate the Whore but Aretas whom the vulgar Latine followes renders it The ten horns on or upon the beast shall hate both senses are true and in both the hornes and the beast are coupled together the hornes and the beast hate also the horns hating are fastened on the beast And as the horns are these ten for nature Christians not for number for they did not all ten but some of them detest this Whore to the same Christian beast that abhors must be taken by the like Synecdoche the whole for the part to wit the Episcopal and Presbyterial beast shall hate not the Papal and the Whore defied must must be the great Whore or grandmother Rome who in her whordoms was grown over-foul They detested not the lesser and more specious daughters of whom themselves were a part nor yet the the woman Babylon in her extent for they most sadly mourned for her downfall their riches and delicacies being taken away with her chap. 18.9 10. Neither did they abominate the beast but beeing fastned on him did assist him with their Armies against the sitter on the white horse and his Armies and both hornes and beast fell together ch 19.11 to the end The abovesaid hating appeares to us to allude to the Protestant Princes who together with their beast the ecclesiastical hierariches either Episcopall or Presbyteriall did hate make desolate and naked consume and burn up the whore of Rome as having nothing to do with her in their dominions Now the rewarders before specified were not horns on the beast being severed from the very number of his name and being on Christs side follow him upon white horses to subdue the beast and horns together For the time of the call of separation I shal speak in the next place Object You go on and say that the spiritual separation made by Protestant Princes and Churches from Rome in doctrine and worship as they had a warrant from this call the reason whereof belonging to all times and persons not to partake in Romes sins do sufficiently inforce it so had they pregnant grounds from other Scriptures and commands Answ Here are many insinuations also couched up in this sentence which must be examined in their parts As 1. What you here intend by your spiritual separation 2. How you can justifie a spiritual separation to be made by Princes you mean I suppose by their laws If it be spiritual it must be caused by the free motion of the Spirit constraining a people by the linkes of love and not inforced by the cumpulsive lawes of men 3. You affirme your separation to be in doctrine and worship it seemes you are ashamed to say in discipline as being convinced in your conscience that yours is the same radically with Rome If your Church be grounded upon a Baylonish discipline it cannot be a visible Sion Jer. 51.26 4. You tell us they had a warrant for it from this call by which at at one breath you blow downe all you built before Marte cadunt subiti per mutua vulnera fratres For if this call be not untill Kings join together to destroy Rome it self about the last or some of the last vials and that then it is directed to such onely who are hid in that City with the adjacent territories how can these be applyed to Protestant Princes and Churches They renounced Rome long before they were
which lie voide of his administration till his glory return from heaven to sanctifie them againe for use thereby avoiding the idols that must necessarily insue upon taking them up can be no breach but a fulfilling of the second and fourth Commandments both in the affirmative and negative part and this being grounded on the call and warrant of our Lord Jesus must be done in his name advance his kingdom fall into the compass of his divine will and pleasure agreeable to the three first petitions The Virgins going forth to meet the bridegroom was a preparatory to that illustrious marriage wherein Christ in the open prospect of his dispensation will appear a husband and they that are wise a married wife when entred into the wedding-chamber of the Lamb. I say this high way in the wilderness being the medium and passage to that spiritual magnificence tends to exalt the glory throne scepter and kingdome of Jesus Christ And this walk can no way hinder the salvation of our selves or others but bends to the furtherance thereof as the consciences of many can testifie who have found the ministery to be as waters springing out of the desart Isa 48.21 chap. 41.17 18. even when they could obtaine no such new rising springs of refreshments with you But Sir Seeing you have so furiously charged against us we shall intreat you to reflect upon your own way for nosce teipsum know your selves is the first point of wisdome and you may with eyes anointed with spiritual eye-salve discerne that you usurpe a power onely proper to the King of Saints to set up visible Churches to make members and officers upon your owne call power and spiriting and that by omission of some of the primitive ordinances and placing other inventions in their stead Thus to erect a bestial Idol with subjection thereto must be directly opposite to the second Commandment and having built up such a golden Calf can do no less then blemish and defile all your services in your assemblings on the Lords day contrary to the fourth command and withall you bottoming the same upon your owne consultations without a celestial investment first as power from above must honour your owne names derogating from the name of Christ set up and magnifie your owne kingdomes eclipsing and darkning his do your owne wills in opposition to the will of God and by this undermin'e the three first petitions Which machination of yours striking so against the radix of Divinity can no way forward the salvation of soules but is prejudicial and a drawing people to disobedience not a bearing up of the stative ordinances wherein his soveraign power and goodness will be set forth but a laying them upon a humane Antichristian base and thereby so changing them that they carry the majestical name spirit and wisdome of man the very Image of a beast not an establishing of doctrine therein and a right officiated ministery but a broaching of errors a constituting and bearing up of a delusive Ministery as a false Christ and false Prophet the foundation of such untimely and misleading visibilities for though sometimes you preach up God and Christ onely as coming in his Name in pretence yet you establish teach up another in discipline therein coming in your own name not a preventing of scandals and restraining licentious living by true discipline but a causing scandals and offences by a false not onely in particular persons but in your whole unseasonable stated Churches and therefore it brings a general wo Matth. 18.7 Rev. 18 6. and this miserable Scotland hath experienced in whom your greatest boast glory and hope of and for your Presbyterian Government resided You may plainly see how God worketh against such designes It is true that in the Primitive day when Church-Government came from Christ and manifest smoke winde fire and lightning of his Spirit which breathed in and operated by the stative Ordinances of Ordination Confirmation Church-censures c. there was the life light and glory of the same Spirit which presented the soveraign power beauty and wisdom of Jesus Christ the husband and made them effectual means for the perfecting and completing of the Church his spouse But since this externality was forsaken and rejected by the Spirit and the key thereof being grounded barely upon an humane Antichristian base became bottomless the same Ordinances have been found to be lifeless and empty of their primitive excellencie not to have the least vertue to convey any spiritual nutriment to the Saints but rather to increase formality and decrease the power of godliness Nay they springing from a bestial root have brought forth such bitter fruit as hath been most opposite to the workings of the Spirit of grace This key of Regiment through the West remained solely in the hands of Rome for many ages where it clouded and by degrees darkned the whole Hemisphere with the poysonous sumes and exhalations arising from that bottomless furnace and though at first it came in more mildly in a lamb-like visage yet at last when discovered it brake out into such open rage against the godly as hath filled the Chronicles with most sad and tragical stories Of later yeers in England it was taken thence and transplanted into the Bishops who by the enjoyment thereof so trampled upon the Saints that we are all sensible of that Antichristian spirit therein raigning and triumphing And those places where the Presbyterian Discipline hath had the full swinge and was backed by the sword of the Magistrate are known to abound with more formality worldly mindedness nay open prophaness then is usually to be found with us in England where also some precious men who could not lay their consciences passive to their yoke of tyranny have felt the stripes of their cruelty so deep in their persons and estates as hath forced some to flee from their native Country witness Scotland The same spirit in our lesser Corporations acts its chiefest strength in disuniting of the Lords people where also the above-named Ordinances are lifeless and ineffectual and this many the choicest amongst them begin to be sensible of It is onely the mystical Church or foundation of true grace that is the pillar and ground of truth while the outward court is cast out and becomes the base of falshood In the close your Book you excuse your being long before you sent us your Answer Answ We suppose you took the larger time to recollect and muster up your chiefest forces into one entire body It appears to us that many lines meet in that your centre and as the Poet saith in another case Virtus coit omnis in unum Many results in one seem to combine to stablish what will fall by strength divine POSTSCRIPT WE shall in the last place pass to your Postscript where you demand from Rev. 15 who the harpers are that stand at the glassie sea c. Answ Those harpers are a separated not a stated people which we have evidenced
invested with a full power to make Members and Officers This stating of your case if we misapprehend you not is a digression from all your former and after writing which tends to manage the continuance of a Church in membership office and the keys thereof 2. Such a Church as you here nominate to wit the Saints assembled in distinct companies who were externally pure from all the corruptions of the times cannot be shewn to the extant through the whole season of the apostacie for both the Scripture and the event hath manifested the contrary that the true was here and there a godly man outwardly mixed with the common Israelites Object You alleadge Such a church there was in Israel among the ten apostated tribes Answ 1. How that of the Israelites was through all the time of that defection is uncertain this we are sure of that there was then a true Church in Judah and Benjamin and the Temple at Jerusalem was the common centre of Worship for all the Israelites and it is more then probable that the godly of Israel have had some relation to the Church of Judea and went at times appointed to Jerusalem But without all doubt none of the Order of Jeroboam's Priests were true Officers nor any succession derived from them the like may be said of the Pope and of your investment coming from him 2. It is untrue that there were always such Assemblies for in the days of Ahab Elijah the chiefest Prophet knew of no such congregatings but testifies that he onely was left 1 King 19.18 So then the seven thousand reserved must be a hidden number known onely to the all-seeing eyes of Eternity and not obvious in open Assemblies Besides this pertains not to the Antichristian deluge and doth not at all prove your point Neither doth that of the Jews captivity for they being amongst Heathens and those wholly without did not involve themselves into their Paganism but were entire within themselves in the service of their God exercised in their own Synagogues were distinct in their Genealogies from the Babylonians their Priestly Office came not in the least from the Idol-priests of Bell but descended without any such interception from the Order of Aaron on the other side the Saints in the mystical were amongst such who though in their Order Babylon yet were not without the Covenant but were Israelites amongst whom they were visibly incorporated and not severed either in Membership or Office which your self confesseth to be the condition of your first and choicest men in the thirtieth page of your book That of the Israelites and this of outward Babylon though in many regards it symbolizeth the Antichristian stand yet not in all there being something more and proper to this later which none of the former could chalenge Object But say you such Assemblies there were through the Antichristian defection Answ This we utterly deny and have manifested the contrary Object But to confirm the constant succession of visible Churches you propound these Scriptures Isai 9.7 Dan. 2.44 Psal 110.2 Answ We have assented to and proved that there was faith and some degree of its profession visible in the lowest ebbe of Antichristianism but it yet remains for you to evince that the true visible constituted Church had its perpetual abiding Your text Isai 9.7 makes it good that Christ ruleth in the kingdom of grace but not a syllable of his constant reigning in visible Church-order is there specified We conclude thus far with you that Christ sits on this throne to order and establish it with judgement yet his ordering is in its dispensations various it was more open and full in the primitive glory more retired and sparing in the Babylonish desertion it will again be more manifest when the glory of the first returns The first word of the verse is divers in the reading in the Hebrew copie it being one thing in the line and another in the margine The line is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Bibles take the margine The margin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The line if beginning with the primitive times is most concordant with the other prophecies and the event the margine if applied to the Jews last return and the kingdom then rising doth best agree with the other Scriptures speaking of the same time Object But say you what is this throne and kingdom of David but Christ's visible Church in which Christ is to sit and reign visibly as David did in his kingdom Answ You here confound the effect with its cause in making this throne to be the visible Church David's throne in a Gospel-sence is the spiritual throne of grace which is the centre of Divine Majestie the common fountain from whence all the influences of grace do flow and that before which the Saints approach and Christ sits upon this throne of majesty in the heavens where neither he nor his throne are to be seen with bodily eyes as David and his throne were but are onely belieft by the piercing eyes of faith Also the kingdom is but an effect arising from that incomprehensible cause not the cause it self and this may be more open or more hidden according to the various administration of him that sits upon the throne Again the throne of David was not visible in the Babylonish captivity Your next text Dan. 2.44 belongs to the victorious kingdom of Christ in these last days prevailing over Antichrist and the whole Romane Monarchy For 1. This Image comprehends all the beauty and strength of earthly Monarchs from Daniel's days downward the last whereof was the Romanes 2. The last of Iron is distinct from the three foregoing of gold silver and brass Now as the three former metals pictured out three several kingdoms different both in their rise language and regiment from each other to wit the Babylonians Persians and the Grecians so this last of Iron being of a distinct metal from the other must type out another Monarchy even the next set apart from the former three preceding hereupon the Spirit vers 40 calls it a fourth kingdom now the fourth from the Babylonians and the next following the Grecians was the Romanes who were differing from the rest in their original people and government The Romane Monarchy Dan. 7.23 is intitled the fourth kingdom Furthermore the strength of the Iron exceeding breaking in pieces treading down subduing all the rest and devouring the whole earth can agree with no other but the Romanes The Seleucians it cannot be for that was but part of the Grecians and is described to be one wing one head one horn of the third divided unto the four windes and inferiour to the first rise thereof Chap. 7.6 Chap. 8.8 Chap. 11.4 Again the stone interpreted to be the kingdom not the king alone breaks in pieces this of the Iron and it was not the Saints of the most High but the Heathen Romanes that subdued the Seleucians Now this fourth kingdom of the Romanes is dashed into