or Priests with Christ or both that is joynt or co-heirs with Christ in the dignity and perfection of his Manhead in one or both of these Considerations of it This is intimated Isa 43. 10. Ye are my Witnesses saith the Lord and my Servant Christ whom I have chosen that ye may know and believe me or be one in Judgment and Will with me and understand that I am he Before me there was no God formed nor shall be after me And they are called Witnesses not only because they know and believe him and are one in Spirit with him as he is a glorified earthly man and a man also that is Michael God's fellow but as they Prophesie in Sack-cloth or in a suffering state not loving their lives unto the death rather then cease to be Witnesses and to bear their testimony to the Truth when called thereunto under the greatest contradiction of sinners 9. By the Woman chap. 12. clothed with the Sun c. who being with Child cried travelling in birth with a Man-child and pained to be delivered is meant the true Sarah or spiritual Womb of Christ's dead body Rom. 7. 4. which lawfully discharges us from the Covenant of the Law or obligation to act singly by the activity it gives that we should be married to another even to him who is raised from the dead that we may bring forth fruit unto God as quicken'd into a life and activity much more excellent There is therefore set before the eyes of our Faith the Law of the Spirit of Life that is in-Christ Jesus risen from the dead for us hence-forward to be conformed and live unto as that birth of manly perfection which shines forth in him who was crucified indeed in weakness but was raised in power or a man of Power in whose hands all Power in Heaven and Earth is intrusted And those who become one in conjunction of Spirit with him by the new and everlasting Covenant are with him caught up to the Throne of God in the one or other capacity before intimated of the two sorts of Citizens that by the new birth are members of the Heavenly Jerusalem and of the remnant of the Womans Seed that keep the Commandments of God and have the Testimony of Jesus The great Contest and Battel which happened between the Witnesses on the one part comprehended under the name of Michael and his Angels and the Serpent and his brood on the other was as the one were Friends and the other Enemies to the Cross and Death of Christ and as the Judgment Opinions and Practises of the one or other made void or else established and advanced the Mystery and Efficacy of the Cross and the Law of it which those that observe and follow peace will be upon them as on all the Israel of God In this Quarrel the Witnesses do fight under the protection and blessing of Michael their Head as the other do under the support and encouragement of the Old Dragon their Head 10. By the Old Dragon we are to understand the Spirit that rules in the Children of disobedience who is for the present Head and chief Ruler over the World as managing the universal Scepter thereof by Christ's permission The Ensigns and Characters of this Empire according to Scripture phrase is seven heads and ten horns intimating the nature as well as perfection and universality of that worldly Power which is exercised by the Old Dragon in waging war against the Woman and her Seed This War he is capable to manage either as an Angel of Light and a false Prophet in the Church or as an universal Monarch and Governor in the World In the first Capacity as this Dragon transforms himself into an Angel of Light and Minister of Righteousness he works with all Power Signs and lying Wonders As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses and Aaron in their Commission so do the Serpent's Seed in Sheep's clothing and Christ's own likeness resist the Witnesses in their Testimony and oppose the Inhabitants of the Heavenly Jerusalem by pretending a greater Friendship to Christ and conformity to his written Law in all their words and actions than the true Seed of the Woman having indeed the form of Godliness but denying the Power and Spirit thereof After this manner did the Dragon and his Angels in the Primitive Church fight with Michael and his Angels to prevent the birth of the Man-child and to keep up the Credit and Authority of the Law and their following after Righteousness in the Principles and upon the terms of the first Covenant in opposition to the Ministry of the Spirit according to the Promise and Tenor of the new and everlasting Covenant This battel continued in the Primitive Church about four hundred years and came at last to this issue Satan was cast down out of Heaven upon an evident discovery of his deceitful workings and lying wonders in the Teachings and Inspirations which came out of his mouth as a false Spirit and Prophet so that he was not able singly this way to bear up any longer against the Power and Demonstration of the Spirit of Truth in the mouth of the Saints but found himself necessitated to resort to his earthly and worldly Weapons the Power of the Civil Sword that so joyning both his Interests together that of the Magistrate and false Prophet he might grow up into such a formidible posture as is mentioned Chap. 13. 4. where it is said Who is like unto the BEAST or able to make War with him This posture the Apostle John beheld the Dragon putting himself into when the seven-headed and ten-horned Beast arose out of the Sea and the two-horned Beast out of the Earth Both of these together do become the Seat or Throne to which the Dragon gave up his Power and Authority The first of these two Beasts receives him as the old unclean prophane heathenish Spirit they that are meant by that Beast are still the same in Principles as before only outwardly baptized into the name of the Christian Profession or Religion when Christian Religion became the Religion of the Roman Empire Thus was that Beast healed of its former Wound when Paganism was destroyed and pull'd down And because the bare name of Christian Religion or out-side Profession thereof without something of real Reformation and Power of inward Principles was not of credit or authority enough to advance Antichrist's Kingdom therefore the Ministry of the Law or first Covenant even the knowledge of Christ according to the flesh as it is capable to serve the Serpents Seed for a cover and vail of their enmity against the Cross of Christ and Power of his Resurrection doth spring up over the head as it were of the first Beast This second Beast or branch of Antichrist's Subjects and Kingdom with two horns like the Lamb but speaking as the Dragon chuses rather to joyn Interest with the first Beast than to suffer the Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem to come out
that is not only not in my sight but not in preference to him that I have given to you as my face and mouth Provoke him not for my Name is in him intimating withall that herein they were the more inexcusable because they had him with them and amongst them In him the light of God's Glory was shining forth as in God's own face and very similitude speaking his Mind by his own mouth and he was to be incarnate that the same Word might be near us even in our mouth and in our heart to hear it and do it This is the Prophet like unto Moses which God said he would raise up unto them out of and from the midst of their Brethren Let us then acknowledge this great Mystery of the Father and the Son distinguishing what God is by Nature and Essence from what he gives himself to be in the Person of the Mediator the only begotten that lieth in his bosome who yet is also his Messiah whom he sends and makes his Substitute by way of his in-dwelling Deity and Presence for the performing of all his pleasure in both Worlds The Trinity is the head and immediate cause of the being and fulness which is set up in the Person of the Mediator whom they not only inspire with each of their Names and Similitudes but make him a Vessel of meet use to convey the holy Oyl in the way of a twofold Ministry and Pipe to both Creations He therefore became incarnate that he might make use of no other spoksman immediately to interpret and declare the Mind of God unto his People than the Son of man glorified of which we have the lively Type Exod. 4. 15 16. in the Office of Aaron to Moses shewing that Aaron was made the mouth to Moses and Moses the mouth to God Aarons Office of spoksman figuring out that of Christ's Manhead and Moses his that of Christ's Mediatorship in spirits before his Incarnation upon which occasion God promiseth there in the Type that which he fulfills in Spirit and Truth in Christ's Person For as Moses had Commission to speak to Aaron as God's spoksman to him so hath the Spirit of the Mediator to Jesus the Son of man And as it was Aaron's Office to be spoksman to the People so is it the Office of Christ's Manhead to be the spoksman of Him that Moses typed out that great Prophet the Angel of God's Face and Presence and to be to him the Interpreter and Declarer of God's Mind and signifier of God's Commands to all in both Worlds Christ as he is the Son of man is to himself as he is the Word of God instead of a mouth or Prophet And Christ as he is the only Begotten or Word of the Father is instead of God most high unto his own Manhead answerable to the Promise made vers 15. and thou shalt speak unto him and put words into his mouth meaning Moses to Aaron and I will be with thy mouth and with his mouth and will teach you that is both of you what ye shall do Here we see and may see it with Admiration as the Queen of Sheba did in Solomon's Temple which was the Type the Glorious Ascent into the House of God and the gradual access which by one spirit we have through Christ unto the Father I would have you know saith the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 11. 3. that the head of every man is Christ the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God Christ that is the head of every man is the head of his own manhead and therefore was Christ God's Angel Messiah or sent-one before he was Man and had for his Head the one God and Father of all things How God is the Head of Christ we have shewed The blessed Trinity is the Father to that only begotten One who is the hidden Wisdom ordained before the World was to our glory The Angel that is the Messenger and Mediator of God's Covenant of whom he commands us to beware Exo. 23. 21. and to obey his voice Provoke him not sayes he for he will not pardon their Transgressions for my Name is in him What can be more plain The most high God hath his Messiah his Angel or sent-one invested with his Majesty and Power of Command whose Voice must be obeyed as the Voice of God it being his Office to be instead of God to his Church What he binds is bound what he remits is remitted for the Name of God is in him He is in likeness and truth so near to God that he is God's equal the true Michael that is second with God in the Throne and yet he that is found in the Form of God and accounts it no robbery to be equal with God doth not disdain to have also his Equals the man that is his fellow the man of his right-haud whom he hath made strong for himself With the most knowing Jews the acknowledgment of Christ in this his heavenly and spiritual being before his incarnation was most usual and avowed The Angel that redeemed Jacob Gen. 48. they call the Divine Majesty owned for God and for Christ that was tempted in the Wilderness whose Voice say they is to be obeyed as the Voice of the living God and his Office is to be the Leader and Guide of the true Israel the great Prince that is the Presence and Majesty of God and the Lord and Ruler over all the Earth as well as Heaven all that is therein being governed by his hand Unto Him the pure and simple Essence of God is the Father and he is set up from everlasting the Father and Root whence that chief Branch springs that is Jesus the Lord and Christ in the capacity of Son to this Father who must reign till all things be subdued under him that is all inferiour Rule Authority and Power whatsoever that officiate or ought to do so in his right But when that is done and finished then shall this Son also himself be subject unto Him that is his Father that raised him from the dead and put all things under him that God may be all in all This occasioned Christ whilst he was on Earth to say Joh. 12. 28. Father glorifie thy Name speaking therein to God the Mediator to Him whose Office is to be to him the Mouth of God from whom he receives the lively Oracles to deliver to his Church as it is written I will declare thy Name to my Brethren in the midst of the Church will I sing Praises unto thee And again I will put my trust in him even in him who wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right-hand of the Majesty on high or in the heavenly This made Christ say When I am lifted up I will draw all men unto me that is mediately and in order afterwards to resign them up unto his Father and give up all his interest of Rule in them
with it Heb. 2. 1. So there is a second sort of Witnesses unto the same Principles in substance that is to say to the life of the Image of God in pure Nature wherein man was at first created as it comes again to be renewed and restored with power in the soul by the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the Redemption that is by his Blood through the Ministry of the written Word and the operation of the Spirit of Christ in the use of those Ordinances and Institutions of Worship which he hath appointed and revealed in the Scriptures according to the several measures of their growth up into this knowledge of Christ and faithfull walking with him therein under the variety of Profession and Forms of visible Worships that are extant in that which is acknowledged or witnessed to be the visible Christian Church which by the preaching of the Gospel upon the Ascention of Christ and the Ministry of his Spirit poured forth in the primitive state of it came to be raised up by God's visiting the Gentiles to take out of them a People of his Name that he might substitute unto himself as another Israel and holy People and Church of visible Professors of his Name in the room and place of the Jews and the old Law and Form of Worship that had been in practice among them Rom 11. which made James in Act. 15. 16 17. apply the words of the Prophets unto this new Christian Gentile Church which sayes After this I will return and will build up the Tabernacle of David which is fallen down and will build again the ruines thereof and I will set it up that the residue of men might seek after the Lord and all the Gentiles upon whom my Name is called saith the Lord who doth all these things Now amongst the visible Members of the Christian Church as evidently appears Gal. 4. there were a Generation that under the Name of Christians and hearers of the Gospel and Ministry of the Spirit according to the New Testament chose still to retain the Principles of the Law and first Covenant as the ballance of all their Faith Obedience and Worship desiring to be under the Law and Dominion of it and to cleave to the upholding and doing those things which according to the Judgment of the Apostle Paul made them debtors to the whole Law and struck them clear off from the true Principles of Grace that are by the Law of Faith and of the new and everlasting Covenant and of this they gave but too clear a proof in that they gloried in something that was on this side the Spiritual mind which is set upon things that are above and which ought to be died unto by the Doctrine of the Cross unto which they shew themselves the declared and zealous opposers Not but that in words and profession these pretended as much to own the Principles of Free-Grace and of the New-Testament as any and have their approach to it at least when they please themselves some more and some less but when they are brought to the Tryal they quickly shew that they are not able to endure the bridling and restraint which the New-Testament puts upon them by the Doctrine of the Cross of Christ to the crucifying that wherein they desire and affect to glory from which they are excluded by the Law of Faith and the New-Creature as we shall shew in its place So that in Truth that which these second sort of Witnesses have in their eye is not the being and life of the New Creature but the restoration of the old Adam in his primitive righteous and holy state into which they grow up and are found for the life of their holiness and upon that bottom as a qualification to entitle them to all the Promises and their abode and continuance in Fellowship and Communion with Christ and Interest in his Death for the Remission of sins They do experience such acceptance from Christ and are in themselves so certain of their good Estates to their Eternal Salvation that they will not endure to hear wherein they are in a mistake nor that it is possible for them to be better These do indeed excel the first Witnesses in the doctrinal part of the knowledge of Christ confessing him in that great part of his Priestly Office which the others see not as he bare our Transgressions and made Atonement for the sin of mankind by the Sacrifice of himself in the benefit of which Sacrifice they find their outward peace and joy more than in their righteous works nay when as to the light and evidence of their Sanctification they are at a loss and in the dark they have an adherence to the blood of Christ as the propitiation for their sins and his intercession on their behalfs to the Father for the obtaining new strength against Corruption and the renewal of their former peace and comfort which experience the first sort of Witnesses are strangers to or see no need of but account themselves Justified as well as Sanctified by the inward purity and perfection which they have attained with power over the brutish and sensual Nature that they are more careful and able to keep under than this second sort are Nevertheless The Oyl which is given from Christ under this first Ministry in either of these respects before-mentioned is that Annointing that through the frailty and weakness of the Vessel that receives it is not abiding but at the best is but as a sojourner that finds not in these hearts the new man that is the place of its rest Isa 66. and though it be used by Christ to trim the Lamp of the spirit of man with when renewed and restored to the obedience and subjection that is required by the Law of God in any degree and measure of sincerity or chastity of the pure Lamb-like and virgin Spirit yet being only in the Lamp where it spends and consumes and must be duly renewed and by a frame of heart meet to receive it and cheerish it or else being grieved and quenched it suddenly departs Hence it is that amongst these two Witnesses under this Anointing which is from Christ and the operation good righteous holy and spiritual and the change made by it true and real there are such a number of visible Professors that prove Hypocrites Apostates and fall away from the Grace and enlightening they have felt and experienced deceiving both themselves and others being not able to hold it out in the day of Tryal nor to persevere and endure to the end without on the other hand stumbling on the stumbling stone and becoming prejudiced against any higher and further growths up into Christ or on the other hand through fear of loss by Persecution are terrified from well-doing with amazement or are bought off from it with the reward of unrighteousness as Balaam was and as Demas who embraced this present World And the Reason of this as to the one as well as
of Divine Glory which Christ's Man-head is exalted unto in which he is according to his Man-head He that is above all one with the only begotten that is in the Father's bosome and hath the highest and clearest sight of God beyond that of Angels themselves It is that all Regenerated ones that are made heirs of the Spirit in the single portion thereof are built up and are Temples of the Holy Ghost an everlasting Habitation of God through the Spirit And because the same Jesus that after this first pattern of humane Perfection which is in him gives only the Witness that he is a meer and perfect man and in the exalted and more heavenly state of Manhead which he also hath as he that God the Father hath sealed and admitted to the sight of his own shape and very similitude hath by Inheritance obtained a more excellent Name than the Angels and must also give the Witness of what he is and in what Glory he lives as he inherits the Spirit in this double portion thereof Therefore by the same new creating Power which he is intrusted to administer as he gives the Holy Ghost he produces this second sort of new men and adopted Children heirs according to the Promise upon whom Christ poures out his Spirit not only by the measure and pattern or Rule of the first Creation but above it and beyond it according to the proportion that his own glorified Manhead hath obtained it in its highest exaltation admitting them into the same bosome of the Father with himself wherein he is as the only begotten into which bosome and most intimate vision of God neither do the Angels nor first sort of Heirs and Children of the Son's Kingdom ever arrive but is reserved to be dwelt alone in by this Seed of Abraham God's friend that are made Christ's peculiar Possession consisting of a select number of his choice Favourites and Friends that he Redeems from amongst all other men to make as the first fruits of his Creation to God and to the Lamb who are joynt-heirs with him of the double Portion and co-habit together with him in his Father's bosom where they see and Inherit his Glory in the Naked and Primitive purity which it hath in the Breast of God himself Experiencing as well what the Gift of the Holy Ghost is when it is God's Name poured out above measure as well as by measure that which Paul had some taste of whether in the body or out of the body he could not tell upon his being caught up into the third Heavens to the hearing of things impossible for him to utter in his Bodily state nor others to receive And if thus we understand the third Heavens as indeed we ought then the finding out the other two next below them will not be difficult since the second Heaven is that wherein are the Angels and Spirits of Just men made perfect upon the laying down the Body and the first that Presence of Christ and knowledge of his Name which he vouchsafes unto his Church and particular Saints in the converse they have with him here below in the Body which Paul doth also call a Heaven Phil. 3. 20. where he sayes Our Conversation is in Heaven meaning by the walking with Christ in Spirit as well as being and living in it whilest we are here in this World in which Christ is able and doth appear to our Bodily sensual part before its change and putting on that which is Incorruptible as it must do and Christ's manhead thus considered as it makes this threefold Heaven was lively represented and described by the form of building God caused the Ark to be built up in Gen. 6. 16. where the directions that are given do require Noah to make it of lower second and third stories or heights one above another like the outward Court the Body of the Temple and Holy of Holies or inmost part of the House which God commanded also in Solomon's Temple and both not without signifying this great Mystery in the glorified manhead of Christ by the Spirit and Presence whereof he makes a threefold Heaven and way of converse with the Sons of men under the threefold degrees of Light and Glory that from his Face and by the Spirit of his Mouth are given forth and hath answerable Hearers and Receivers 1. That Administration of the Light of pure Nature the effects whereof upon the hearts of the Receivers produces healing and restoration of the wound made by sin and renews a like frame of Spirit in man as to the kind of it wherein he was at first Created and is still exercising his first mutable and wavering Principles that in time of tryal fail and so end in Apostacy and Death through the weakness and fault of the Vessel not of the Liquor or Oyl which is poured out into these Lamps that in his own Nature is Incorruptible but is suffered to leak out by these broken and frail Vessels Secondly The Light of pure Nature and right Reason fixed and made incorruptible through Faith and Regeneration whereby the former frailty and leaking of the Vessel is perfectly cured without changing the fashion of it any further than what is requisite to bring it into subjection and obedience to a supream Judgment and Will given as its guide and surety to sustain and influence the actings thereof throughout The Third is the Light of Divine Love which he that dwells in dwells in God and is in the Light as He is in the Light beholding divine beauty in its original where it is most attractive and binds up the Judgement and Will of the beholders into its own likeness most willingly and irresistably transforming them into the thing beloved This is the Love which casts out fear and all torment in the cleerest evidence and greatest assurance that the Creature can possess And by this Love it is when not seen that Faith works and the Spirit of Adoption crying Abba Father that Spirit and Presence of the Son that is sent into our hearts which we are knit into by an inseparable union and the Soul is formed thereby into the likeness of him that doth beget in either of the two last degrees of Light and quickning before-mentioned Both which do beget that Seed of Life in the heart that is immortal the Princely prevailing conquering Seed of Believers that are the true Israel of God to whom all the Promises are sure this is wrought by the coming of the Son in Spirit into the Soul there to beget and form his own likeness in our Understanding and Will the making us know him that is true and that we are in him that is true either according to this lower or higher birth of himself of which he calls us to partake and so become Witnesses thereof in our selves and unto others This then is the knowledge of the Truth which we are to understand doth make the Adopted Children of God free with another and better kind of
Freedom than that wherein man was at first Created in that mutable and Primitive state of purity And what this Freedom is we shall shew that is so worthy to be obtained and fought after in exchange for the other This Freedom consists in the witnessing every respect which is wrought in the Understanding and Will of man by Regeneration and Divine birth of the one or other sort to render them of entire use and service unto that higher and superiour Will in the second Adam the Lord from Heaven that is made and given of the Father to be a quickning Spirit unto them in a twofold capacity First of their natural Head and Sovereign whom they are to serve as in relation of Subjects to their King and Law-giver and therein fulfil and answer the very end of the Law of Nature and actually become those righteous persons against whom there is no Law that can take hold of them to punish them or take the least exception to their perfect Righteousness that have given to them a constant and perpetual Will to do right to every one and love the Lord their God most intirely by influence from their Head who in this respect is the common Parent to both the sorts of Children whom he makes free Citizens and Inhabitants of the Heavenly Jerusalem his own glorified man-head which is the Mother of us all But secondly Christ the second Adam comes forth also in another Headship to the second sort of these Children which is that of Husband and Bridegroom gathering them up into a state of higher Love and Duty than that of Servants and Subjects and receiving them unto more honorable use in familiarity intimacy and a kind of equality comprehending the Love and Duty of righteous and faithful Servants but in respect of the nearness of relation and union becoming much the more excellent and transcendant The Inspiration and holy Anointing which flows from Christ in this twofold Headship of his into the hearts of these his Members hath that effect upon them as joyns them to him in unity and agreement of spirit or of judgment and will and so entirely possesses them engrosses them in the service and to the use of their Lord that it leaves them at no liberty to 〈◊〉 the use or service of any other but in subordination to his will which excludes sin and all evil esteeming it their greatest happiâ—… thus to be bound up in a way of love delight and entire obâ—…nce in the Will of their Head their second Adam and Lord frâ—… Heaven Hence they experience that they are not their own in â—…ny thing for it is not they that live but Christ liveth in them and with his Princely prevailing Influence as their Head is their infallible Guide and firm Security in all their operations giving them such an abiding and growth up in all things into him in an entire resignation and obedience to his Will as co-workers together in every thought word and work that they cannot miscarry nor shall ever be hurt by the second death but shall be rewarded with those pleasures that are at his right-hand and at his left in his Kingdom for evermore And although this most perfect Freedom which is obtained by this binding and conjunction in unity and agreement of spirit with Christ be esteemed by the Possessors of it of price inestimable yet it is the greatest bondage and cross that can befall a wicked heart and is that which is reserved by Christ to be their torment for ever in the end which will be given by him to his first Ministry in the hearts where he is finally rejected from whom after he is departed and withdrawn for a season as if they should never hear of him as indeed they shall not to their comfort yet they shall to their terrour and sorrow be made sensible of him by the fastning which he will make of his Darts of enlightnings into the minds of the wicked as sharp Arrows and a gnawing Worm that shall never dye when by the breath of his mouth he shall kindle a fire of Conviction and self-judging in their Conscience together with the just sence of his Divine Vengeance they can no longer flee nor escape from But on the contrary the truly regenerated souls are made willing and exceedingly pleased to draw in this yoke with their Head to see with his eyes and act by his quickning in all they do and to put on with him this lowliness meekness and purity of spirit which feeds on that which is incorruptible and is with God of great price so great as no righteous workers have his praise and blessing but these who are properly Christ's Mystical Body the Branches that abide in him and whose Fruit is permanent unto Life Eternal and this Body or Church of invisible Saints and spiritual Worshippers of the true God even whilst they are in their Wilderness and suppressed state Christ the great Overseer of their souls doth feed with Teachers afâ—â—â— his own heart and is not wanting by an outward Ministry under him â—o feed and refresh with Oyl the Lamps of all sorts that he makes use of as his Witnesses and bear his Name whether according to the knowledge his Will that is revealed in the first or in the second Covenant that so hâ— may by upholding such an Office under him edifie all that are under his Charge as he sees occasion and is agreeable to the condition the Church is in whether of restraint or freedom from the Powers of the World By those which Christ puts in to the Ministry of his Spirit under him we are to understand such ahe gives his Vnction and Mission unto as he is the Head of Nature or of Grace and from their own Experience are made able to minister the knowledge of Christ in his healing and restoring work or in his regenerating and New-creation-building before described giving their Witness according to what they themselves have received of the Spirit in the three distinct Dispensations of it before expressed in the first of which because of the mutable state of the operation thereof both in themselves as well as in their hearers they that are eminent Preachers unto others by the excellency of Gifts with which they are anointed and that from Christ may nevertheless themselves be found at last Cast-awayes But in the other two they which experience the Anointing thereof become Pillars in the House of God that never go out more and may obtain the highest Order and Rank of Ministry in the Church even that of Apostles in the same way as Paul himself did by such a Spiritual Light of Christ as he sayes 1 Cor. 9. 1. Am not I an Apostle have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord And as thus the Apostolical Order came to have being in the Church by the immediate sight of Christ in Spirit as we see in Paul's Case which comprehends in it all other the inferiour Ranks of Ministers whether Prophets
continuance is measured out by the time of the six Trumpets that is to say in the exercise of these three distinct Powers under the Name Christian the one Imperial and Magistratical the other Spiritual and Ecclesiastical in the two Horns and branches of it pretended unto of Divine Right and Institution or whether it be more diffusive in a Collective Body of Church-Rulers and as more particularly it is expressed to last twelve hundred and sixty Prophetical dayes that is to say years in the 11 12 and 13 Chap. of the Revelations and by comparing what is spoken and described in the foresaid Chapters with Chapter 17 concerning this Constitution and Face of the Christian Church and State that was fore-seen to rise up out of the dissolution of the Heathenish Roman Empire and the driving into the Wilderness the Spiritual part of the Church made up of those who are said for the heavenliness of their Principles and Converse to be those that dwell in Heaven chap. 12. vers 12. and chap. 13. 6. It seems very plain that upon the Disputes that was likely to arise in the Christian Ecclesiastical State and Government upon the bottom of the Papacy and Rule in the Church by one universal visible Head under Christ here upon Earth as one of the Horns belonging to the second Beast by Daniel called the Little Horn mentioned single because he was most Potent and for a long time was able to uphold his Authority without any considerable cruelty and division that was visible But in process of time the separation and division happened as John in mentioning of the two-horned Beast did fore-tell there would alwayes be within the bowels of the visible Church of the outward Court-worshippers a more and a less corrupted and backsliden part the one of which compared with the other would or might be likened to the earthly Jerusalem in the temper it was in when Christ was upon Earth for persecuting the Prophets and killing the Heir himself when he came amongst them As the other might be to Samaria and the worshippers of Jeroboams Calves after that he had headed the ten Tribes in their defection not only in the Civil State but from the Purity of God's visible Worship kept up according to God's Ordinances This latter being the lively resemblance of the Papacy and all that acknowledge the Papal Authority as the chief Ruler and Head of the visible Church throughout the several States and Dominions of the Christian Empire the other figuring out the Jerusalem that now is and is in bondage with her Children distinguishing her self from Popery on the one hand and from them that dwell in Heaven as the true Citizens of the Jerusalem that is above the Mother of all those that are Heirs according to the Promise on the other hand accounting the one Babylonish Antichristian and Heretical and the other Schismatical and Erroneous Fanatical and Blasphemous And because the Woman as the Apostle calls the earthly Jerusalem which was amongst the Galatians in his dayes as being in bondage with her Children to the Law and worldly Rudiments that perish in the using Touch not taste not handle not as Objects of Divine Worship which feed most the outward senses doth make a very fair shew in the flesh having the Form of Godliness but denying the Power of it and withdrawing from and disowning the Children of the Promise that are of a more heavenly birth and of the free Woman Therefore we shall find this sort of Professors described by John in his 1 Epist 2. 19. They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us and not have made a manifest distinction of themselves from us that is to say from being followers 1 Thess 2. 14 15. of the Churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus that are the Circumcision in Spirit and have no confidence in the flesh For which cause sake the Thessalonians in adhering to the primitive pattern which shewed it self in those Churches did suffer the like things from their own Country-men the Jews among whom they lived as those Churches of God in Judea did from the Jews there who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets and chased out the chiefest of the Apostles from amongst them and they pleased not God and are contrary to all men forbidding under pretence of too much familiarity with the Heathen and prophane World that the Gospel should be preached unto the Gentiles whereby they might be saved every way filling up their sins and bringing wrath upon themselves to the uttermost This is the Woman which John saw in Rev. 1. that was drunk with the blood of the Saints ver 6. and with the blood of the choicest Martyrs of Jesus at which he wondred with great admiration as little expecting to find what he saw or to reade that name written upon her forehead which he did of Mystery Babylon the great the mother of Fornications and Abominations of the Earth with whom the Kings and Inhabitants of the Earth commit Fornication and have been made drunk with it For at last her false unchaste whorish spirit to her Lord and Husband is discovered and made manifest by the open rejection of him in his Members and by the Combination and Conjunction which she is found in with the seven-headed and ten-horned Beast and his Adherents under the Papacy thereby to make War with his Witnesses and slay them and expose their dead bodies to shame and reproach in the streets of this earthly Jerusalem who for her exceeding Apostacy and fierce Enmity against the true Temple-worshippers is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified and though she have strengthened her self as one that sits upon many Waters and who is the City that reigns over the Kings or chief eminent Persons men of Name of the Earth which the Children of the earthly Jerusalem are yet sayes he God determines to bring her to Judgment and in order thereunto the Instruments he will employ therein are the several Potentates and Kingdoms that have given their Power to the Papacy who at the time appointed shall find it their Interest to agree and become of one mind in hatred of this Whore or unchaste Spouse of Christ that sitteth upon Peoples and Multitudes and Nations and Tongues and shall therefore combine together to make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire For God hath put it into their hearts to fulfil his Will in this Judgment which they are to execute as Nebuchadnezzar formerly did upon the earthly material Jerusalem in his days until which be fulfilled they shall agree and hold together giving joyntly their Counsel Authority and Strength in support and maintenance of the Beast that is the first and chief Horn of the two-horned Beast which is the Papacy And how to give a right interpretation of the things in
this 17th Chapter but by this Key deserves our very serious consideration according to the usual understanding of the Papacy to be meant by this Whore which is not denied to be a part of Babylon and a chief part and to be also a Whore and Mother of Fornications but she is so openly and avowedly not secretly and under the shew of Reformation and there is not any mystery or secret in it to find her out as there is in the other case We come then in the last place as the Conclusion of the whole to shew what Word and part of his Counsels contained in the Promises and Prophecies not yet accomplished the Lord is now fulfilling in these present dispensations of our day and this by the comparing Scriptures with Scriptures and observing what gradually hath been fulfilled since the time of Christ's Ascention to this day and what signs he hath before given of the times wherein we now are There is nothing more positive and express in the Scripture as may appear by what hath been already mentioned and for which many particular Texts might further be alledged than this That there is a Kingdom of the Everlasting Gospel which neither can nor shall be shaken that must be brought upon the stage here in this World which shall stand firm as a Rock against all opposition and come forth as a stone cut out of the Mountain without hands that must break down the visible heads which the Serpent hath kept up in and over the whole Earth for these many thousand years together by the means whereof the true Children and Heirs have been kept out of their Possession and have been necessitated to a Witnessing and Prophesying condition in a way of Sufferings and of utmost cruel dealings and oppressions from their implacable Enemies to whom it hath been given to make and continue War with them till the course of Sufferings be finished Of this bitter Cup the Captain of our Salvation drank the deepest draught and had the greatest share And lest we should think he had put an end to the Sufferings of his Members by one Death on the Cross he dealt plainly with his Disciples in this point both before his Death and also during the forty dayes he spent upon Earth after his Resurrection for when the two sons of Zebedee had hopes to have seen him in his own Person speedily in his Kingdom before his Sufferings and were desirous the one to sit at his right hand and the other at his left in that day of his Glory and Power he intimates to them immediately that there is a Preparation requisit to be wrought in all that shall be thought worthy of that dignity which is to drink of the same Cup and to be baptized with the same Baptism that he was baptized with according to that true and faithful saying If we die with him we shall live with him if we suffer with him we shall reign with him And so when all the Disciples together a little before his Ascention Act. 1. 6 8. asked him saying Wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel his Answer is in effect this to them That until Israel's witnessing-work be over and finished that must prepare them to Rule and ripen their Enemies for the Judgment and Destruction appointed unto all ungodly men that must first precede the reigning-work which they too much looked for and thirsted after would not come nor the dayes of it begin Now this witnessing-work which is to be finished by the true Israel of God as the needful and requifit Preparation of you to Reign is What is to be wrought in them upon their own hearts and what is to be wrought by you as a Testimony born and given to the World on God's behalf And the latter of these is usually made use of by God to accomplish the former since all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shewing forth the Vertues of Him that hath called them in a holy and good Conversation shining as Lights in the World must suffer Persecution and are sure to be hated and oppressed by the World and Powers of it by all wayes and means that may prove their Faith and Patience And these Tryals which thus give proof of their Faith do cause Patience to have its perfect work in them till which they are not those meet vessels fitted for their Master's use as that he will dignifie them to appear seated as on his Throne in their hearts and thereby qualifie them with a Power of Rule so as at their word and by their prayers all things shall become possible to them What they bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and what they loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven For greater works than Christ himself did when he was in the flesh they shall do because he is gone to his Father Secondly The witnessing-work is not only to be wrought in them to prepare them in mind and body to be meet vessels for the use of their Head by them to shew forth his Wisdom and Power to the glorifying of God in their spirits and in their bodies which are his but the Light of it must be given out and born in the sight and for the profit and good of others if the fault be not in themselves that should benefit by it unto whom the savour of the knowledge of Christ ministred by his faithful Witnesses in their several places and callings will prove in the issue either a savour of life unto life or of death unto death according as either it is received and valued or rejected and expelled No man saith Christ when he hath lighted a Candle putteth it in a secret place neither under a Bushel but on a Candlestick that they that come in may see the light which Scripture is interpreted 1 Cor. 14. 24 25. where the instance is given in meeting of the whole Church together in one place that is as many visible Saints and Believers as could well hear one another in the place they assembled in for their common Edification In which Church-meeting they were as a Golden Candlestick that did in such manner hold forth the shining Light of Christ's Truth and Holiness to those that came in and were lookers on and were not of the Society that by the Spirit of Prophecy which in and among them of that particular Church was exercised it so fell out that whoever came in desirous to learn and be instructed he was convinced of all he was judged of all and the secrets of his heart were so manifest that falling down on his face he worshipped God and went out and reported that God was in them of a truth This is then the second sort of Witnessing-work which by Christ was intrusted to his Disciples and Followers to be exercised and imployed in according to their several places and callings till his return in the day wherein he is to come and judge the World in Righteousness that is
times are brought all the concurring and fore-running Symptoms and Characters thereof Secondly That the time of the End that is to say the fore-toldof day in which Christ is to judge the World in Righteousness so as to make up his Jewels on the one hand and gather them as his precious Fruits into his Granary and to kindle an Oven of his fiery Vengeance to burn up the VVicked root and branch and gather together the Tares to be burnt in unquenchable fire is at the very doors and ready to open it self upon us as the day of Redemption to the Good and Terror and Amazement to the Wicked Thirdly That this Day shall begin with the Rising of the VVitnesses clothing those that then shall be in the World with such a Ministry of Power and Glory as shall qualifie them to discharge their several Witness-bearing Duty before specified with great applause and good reception from the World God permitting none to stand before them that make resistance or opposition which shall be as a necessary fore-running dispensation for Christ's Personal Manifestation and Rule on Earth a thousand years but by these Savioxrs that thus shall be brought up upon Mount Zion as a Stone cut out without hands New Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness shall be constituted and the four Monarchies utterly broken to pieces and destroyed and the Kingdom of Antichrist and the Beast brought to final ruine and destruction The very mentioning of these three Particulars without alledging particular places of Scripture will bring them to your mind which teach and speak expresly concerning the truth of them and the matter of fact it self as to what progress and course this witnessing-work hath made from Judea where first it was lighted step by step into all Nations and Kingdoms all the World over who have been acquainted with these VVitnesses and have seen their Light shining in these Golden Candlesticks and can give an account how from time to time they have been put out and removed from one place to another till atlast the bodies of these two Prophets are found dead in the streets of the earthly Jerusalem and spiritual Egypt and Sodom if they might be suffered to be put into their Graves and surely it is not without great wisdom that these Witnesses are called Two considering the two distinct Ministries of Christ which they bear witness unto and how each Ministry hath two out of whose mouth it receives its Justification But further That this Testimony is upon its finishing point let us enquire whether the last slaying of the Witnesses declared by the sight of their dead bodies Rev. 11. fit to be put into their Graves be not already before out eyes The right opening and understanding whereof is of great use as a key to many other most considerable and difficult Scriptures These two Witnesses as they justifie Christ's second Ministry the knowledg of him in spirit are the Saints in their invisible Church-state fled into the Wilderness from the violence and rage of Persecution which Satan stirred up against them by the visible Church and Powers of the Civil Rule Government called in for assistance How these Witnesses are two we have shewed being the two Orders of Believers which Christ's Mystical Body hath been ever consisting of though rather mystically figured out than appearing as they are in the truth and brightness of their proper Glory as Heirs of the Spirit of Promise in the single and double portion thereof These in their Spirit Nature and Principles have been disowned persecuted and slain by the visible Church as much as in them lies by exposing of them to the utmost of bodily sufferings and harms and this from the time that the visible Church hath degenerated grown Papal and been defended by the ten horns of her Civil Government in the Western Empire of the World and the sharpest and most bitter Enemies to these two Witnesses are the Reformed part of the visible Church who declare their ripeness to be rejected by Christ and have the flood of the Papal Power and Tyranny let in upon them as they hate and reject the heavenly Seed and spiritual part of the Church and can find opportunity to go back again into Conjunction with the Corrupt part of the visible Church to hinder the growth of that which is Spiritual rather than to go forward and become one with it So that it might be made appear in the whole progress the Gospel hath made from East to West the Reformed part of the Church never lost ground nor was swallowed up again by the Papal till it self first took up its stand as to going on forward and refused to be more Spiritual and Heavenly being fiercer enemies hereunto than any other whatsoever And the greatest demonstration of this is given in the last act of this Enmity that hath been acted and is yet in acting to the last slaughter which is to be made of the Witnesses in order to expose their dead bodies in the open streets of this Earthly Jerusalem where they are as spectacles to be seen three dayes that is years and an half by them of Peoples and Tongues and Kindreds and Nations headed by the Papacy who shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in their graves by the Inhabitants of the earthly Jerusalem who were willing enough to do it as exceedingly joyed at the sight of their dead bodies but shall rather chuse to quit those dead Carkases in way of contempt from any further prosecution of them and instead thereof apply themselves with the strength of their whole Party to strengthen and besiege the earthly Jerusalem in whose streets the dead Carkases of the Witnesses are to lye in a way of open reproach to be gazed upon and shall make a gathering against it as Zach. 14. 2. as to battel so as the event of it shall be the taking of the City and the utter ruine of that part of the visible Church distinguished from the other by the Name of Reformed which when it happens will be a Fourth sign and by conjecture this work is already begun and materials for this Siege are not only in readiness and the Design laid and the Parties agreed that are to undertake it but the open Defiance to the Battel is given and both sides fixed in their resolutions to abide the issue which will not exceed the term of three years and an half before it be fully decided Upon which decision that according to Dan. 2. 43. is to happen between these two parts of the visible Church immediately after they find they cannot pitch upon the way of piecing up together against those that dwell in Heaven though it be both their interests and that they earnestly desire and labour it Nay this Mount of Olives on which this second pair of Witnesses or visible part of the Church Reformed are that shall Zach. 14. 4. cleave also in the middest as not being able to hold longer together
or to fasten the one to the other and the one part shall go toward the East into down-right Popery the other unto the West at the vastest distance and greatest contrariety one to the other that is imaginable so as half of this Mountain of visible Saints in Name shall remove North deeper into the Apostacy and the other half South nearer to the Heavenly Jerusalem And in this state of things when the Iron shall break the Kingdom of the Clay to pieces And again that Kingdom of Clay shall divide and remove one half to the East and the other to the West causing a most terrible Earthquake as in the dayes of Uzziah at which time of this Earthquake the tenth part of the Papal Sea shall make a final defection from her and the Lord my God shall come and all the Saints with thee that is to say He shall Muster up his Heavenly Troops and take to himself his great Power in which he shall begin to reign by the executing of his Wrath and divine Vengeance upon his Enemies in the pouring out the seven vials which is the time of the end that is to say of ending the 1260 years for the two Witnesses Prophesying in Sackcloth and the Womans remaining in the Wilderness and the time when the rising of the Witnesses doth begin and that Saviours shall come upon Mount Sion and judge the Mount of Esau spiritually as the ten Kings shall judge them outwardly and give the flesh of the Whore to be torn in pieces and burnt with fire These with others that might be alledged are the characters and signs to prove the first particular that the Testimony which Christ declared so long ago was to be given by the Preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom in all the World and unto all Nations is upon its finishing point The Second which is the ending of that Dispensation and the beginning of a new one by the pouring out of the seven vials to the utter destruction of Antichrist's Kingdom and the cutting out the stone without hands in preparation to the perfect deliverance of the Church out of Babylon and the compleat bringing them out of their Captivity in order to the actual Restoring the Kingdom of Israel is that we shall likewise give some short discovery of Two things are comprehended in the Restoring the Kingdom to Israel First Israel it self the true Inhabitants and Citizens of the New and Heavenly Jerusalem must be restored to a Kingdom that is a visible incorporated Society of Subjects relating to the true David their King as their Soveraign and only Law-giver disclaiming all other reigning or exercising Dominion over them Secondly Over Israel thus restored to be a Kingdom Christ will shew and own himself visibly their King and the Universal Monarch over the whole World who at that time shall be one Common-wealth of Israel and Children of Abraham under one of the two Covenants yielding either true or feigned Obedience if not out of Love yet from the fear of Wrath Divine Vengeance begun to be revealed and poured forth upon all the Disobedient For no sooner shall the Vials begin to be poured out but the time is come of Christ's Wrath that is to say when he shall come forth in the visible execution of his Royal Office and Power amongst them in the hands of his undoubted Officers executing Judgment upon all that shall withstand his Peoples Freedom and coming out from under their former servitude and bondage under the Kingdom of Antichrist and this in order to restore Israel unto such a constitution of a Kingdom which Christ is to exercise over them during the space of a thousand years And therefore that which first begins this new dispensation called the time of the end is the rising of the Witnesses by an extraordinary pouring out of the spirit as the latter rain which like Life from the dead shall enter into them and set them upon their feet and qualifie those in office amongst them as their Rulers in State or Church with a like and greater power than was given in the Type and Figure to Moses and Elias at whose word the earth was smitten with visible plagues and curses as often as they saw cause to promote the end for which they were sent and employed and so it must be again in a much more glorious dispensation thereby to restore and constitute Israel into a Kingdom in despite of all opposition which plainly evidences that such a dispensation as this is necessary as that which must be preparatory and conducing to give the actual being and constitution of a Kingdom to a People that are found in so great and universal a state of servitude and bondage far beyond that which Israel was in to whom Moses was sent to bring them out of Egypt Therefore behold the dayes come saith the Lord Jer. 23. 7 8. that they shall no more say the Lord liveth which brought the Children of Israel out of the land of Egypt but the Lord liveth which brought up and which led a parallel dispensation to Moses his bringing them up and leading them as a horse in the Wilderness Esay 63. the seed of the house of Israel out of the North Country and from all Countries whither I had driven them and they shall dwell in their own land The spiritual seed of Israel driven in the time of the Gentiles into the Wilderness and kept slaves to the highest degree during the reign of Antichrist must have a time of gathering and bringing up into their land under their own King and the Nation that hath kept them in bondage God himself must and will judge more signally than he did Pharaoh and the Egyptians by which means this stone that hath been fallen upon and suppressed for so many hundred years even these fixed unmoveable chaste followers of the Lamb must rise and stand again upon their feet with great power and authority so as they shall not onely be a burthensome stone for all people that burthen themselves with it Zach. 12. 3. to the cutting them in pieces though the people of the earth be gathered together against them but vers 5 6. In that day saith the Lord I will make the Governours of Judah like an hearth of fire in a sheaf and they shall devour all the people round about on the right hand and on the left and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place even in Jerusalem and the Lord himself shall defend in that day Jerusalem and he that is feeble amongst them shall be as David and the house of David as God as the Angel of the Lord before them so as the Governours of Judah shall say there is strength to me and to the Inhabitants of Jerusalem in the Lord of Hosts their God I know it is and will be Objected that these places refer to the conversion of the Jews that are the natural seed of Abraham which are expected to be first received again as
of Christ Jerusalem is destroyed by Titus Vespasian and there ended the second great Period and Revolution of this War that was managed between the two seeds All along this second War the seed of the Serpent was possessed of the Universal Monarchy of this World had all the countenance and assistance which that could afford The main visible Protection vouchsafed by God on the other hand to his Church and People was continued in the line of Abraham accounting from Sem downward unto God's judicial rejection of that seed of Abraham according to the flesh upon their crucifying the Lord of Glory In this second War we find the seed of the Woman bruised still in the heel and coming off with loss Yea upon the winding up of this second great Day or Period of time wherein the Prince of Life was by wicked hands put to death and the whole Nation of the visible Church of God on Earth rejected and their Worship prophaned and destroyed the Devil might seem to himself and others to have come off compleat conqueror But the War is again renewed by the Serpent and his seed against the seed of the Woman who are repeated and brought forth again by the Regeneration from amongst the very heathenish Nations of the World that were not before accounted by God as a People of his but given up as it were to the dominion of Sin and Satan This third War had its foundation laid in the Incarnation Death and Resurrection of Christ who though a Son was taught obedience by suffering and in the condition of a sufferer obtained the victory Through death he destroyed him that had the power of death that is the Devil And by tasting death for every man as became the Captain of our Salvation he was made perfect through sufferings This way of fighting and overcoming the Devil and Sin was a great mystery till then and the most unlikely of all other ever to break the Serpents head and dispossess him and his Instruments of their worldly Thrones and Powers Yet in this way of the Cross by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their Testimony do the true Witnesses of Christ manage and carry on this third War One thousand two hundred and sixty dayes that is yeares have bin alotted them for prophesying in sackcloth in a persecuted wilderness condition Then they are to rise out of their graves stand again upon their feet and prophecy with power 'T is past all dispute that the conquest must fall on the side of the Lamb and his followers at the ending of this third great season and revolution of time wherein the seed of the Woman hath still been on the suffering hand The end of their suffering season will be when the seventh Trumpet begins to sound immediately after the effect which the pouring forth of the Vials shall have upon the Beast and his kingdom This is the Rise Progress and Issue that is given unto things in the third Age of the World called Christian that was made to spring up and have its being out of the destruction of the Jewish World Rom. 11. 11. The cleer view and prospect of things in this Christian World both as to the Civil and Church-government as also the War between the two Seeds brought on again and continued was given by Christ unto the Apostle John and revealed to him by his Angel in the Book of the Revelation For there we find the period that must happen also to this third World and to the Heavens and Earth or the Civil and Church-state appertaining to it and carried on under this dispensation in order to give place to a world to come which is yet to succeed This World to come will be of a more heavenly and spiritual Constitution as to the general state and frame of things which is to be brought forth by Christ's second appearance upon the spirits and bodies of men on this side their compleat and utmost glorification The final ascending up to the Father to sit down at his right hand is after this world that is yet to come or the thousand years Reign of Christ withall his Saints on earth shall have had its course Unto the risen state of Saints when they shall begin to come forth in their victorious posture and unresistable power of Faith and Prayer doth the Prophet Hosea seem to refer chap. 6. vers 2 3. After two dayes sayes he or great seasons of Affliction and Suffering already described he will revive us by the WORD 's being made Flesh and the day-spring from on high therein visiting us This Hab. 3. 2. is called a reviving the work or preserving it alive in the midst of the years of Wrath and Oppression from the Serpent and his seed that was yet to be under-gone for the space of 1666 years after Christ's birth as will appear in its proper place In the third day sayes Hosea that is at the end of it when the Witnesses are to arise we shall live in his sight By following on to know the Lord we shall perceive that his going forth in this his third great revolution of time hath been as the morning shining more and more unto a perfect day and that his coming to us according as hath been by him purposed in his first and in his second Appearance will be as the former and latter rain unto the Earth The former rain of Christ's Spirit in the season of his first Appearance began at the day of Pentecost in visible gifts and distributions of the holy Ghost dividing to every man severally as himself pleased By this means he raised up a Ministry that formed and laid the Foundation of the Primitive Church That Church was upheld in its original purity more or less as long as they kept the Word of God's Patience and withstood the opposition made against it after a right manner by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their Testimony in the giving whereof they loved not their lives unto death This appeared all along those hard and cruel Persecutions they under-went until such time almost as Constantine came to the Empire But to avoid Persecution Christians then began to mingle Interest with worldly Powers and to please Governours took their rest in the outward Court some out-side form of godliness so as that which we call Christian Religion became the Religion of the Empire or of the body of the Nation unto which it was received as commanded and compelled by the Laws of the State and power of the Sword This practice commenced and bears date about four hundred years after Christ from which time little of the former rain hath fallen upon such visible or state Christianity in their Publick and National Meeting-places of Worship That rain became then hidden Manna the peculiar food and refreshing of the Woman and her seed in the Wilderness where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time From about the time that Christian
Religion hath been made National and in the Rules Ordinances and Doctrines thereof been embodyed with the Laws of each Nation in the Empire and so enforced by the Civil Sword those that truly keep the Commandments of God and Testimony of Jesus have been driven into a state of desolation persecution and dispersion and are so to continue and be warred upon forty and two Months by the Earth and her Inhabitants on the one hand and by the Sea and her Inhabitants on the other Both these sorts of Inhabitants and Enemies of the Church in the Wilderness do make up and constitute but one great City or incorporated Society of the Serpents seed spiritually called Egypt and Sodom under the headship of worldly Government as it arises out of the Sea This worldly Government is still but the same fourth Beast and universal Romane Empire in Principles of opposition to the Kingdom of Christ and Seed of the Woman as before It seems indeed to be now healed and reformed with the shew of Christian Religion under the headship of Church-Government and coercive Power arising out of the Earth or apostate Principles of the worldly Church departing from the Primitive Power Purity and Patern retaining still something of the form of Godliness but denying the Spirit and Power thereof The first Beast carries the second and is willing to be rid upon by it finding great benefit and advantage by having the Whore upon their back for the propagating of servitude and rooting out of the earth the pure and chaste Principles of the Primitive Apostolick Catholick Church Thus the War is managed between the two seeds in this third day Towards the latter end of this day is our lot fallen who are at present alive in this world But before the period and shutting in of this day the Sufferings of the Womans Seed shall have an end Then that Ministry of the Spirit shall come in which is compared to the latter rain This is that which shall break the Serpents head utterly tread him his kingdom and followers under foot This is that which by the pouring forth of the seven Vials of the wrath of God upon the kingdom of the Beast to the utter ruine and destruction thereof will prepare the way for the coming down of the new Jerusalem out of Heaven as a Bride adorned for her Husband and so for the thousand years Reign of Christ on Earth At the beginning of that Reign Satan shall be chained up and there shall be no more Sea or prophane worldly-Interest and beastly Government left In the evening-time of this third day or age of the World wherein we now live it shall be light by the coming on of the Kingdom and Reign of Christ with all his Saints Zech. 14. 5 7. This then that we have been describing is the third signal season or great revolution of things in this world wherein the same War that was from the beginning hath been and still is carrying on between the two Seeds under the name of Christian or of Christ's followers The Seed of the Serpent under pretence of being for Christ do prove at last universally against him most shamefully and wickedly rejecting him and falling in with the kingdom of Antichrist in direct opposition to his Kingdom This they will do notwithstanding that he hath been graciously striving and contending by the Ministry of the Gospel to work the whole World into a state of Obedience and Subjection to the Righteousness of his Scepter For this end hath he been many hundred years giving forth the light and glory of his Gospel and Kingdom from the Eastern parts of the World to the West and suffered himself all along to be cast off and his Members to be oppressed and troden under foot by degrees in one Nation and Country after another till at last it came to these Western parts and was spread from hence in America which with these Nations we live in seem to be the last piece of Ground this Quarrel is to be fought out in Yea and probably this is the time as well as the place wherein the Witnesses are finishing their Testimony being the last that are signally to be slain by the Beast as the proper accomplishment of that Prophesie Revel 11. 7. The Beast is represented here as generally in his ascendant posture being gratified with some remarkable Rise in his affairs as a lightning before death to enable him for the accomplishing of this great counsel of God that is to be acted upon the dead bodies of his slain Witnesses within the three years and half before their rising again and standing upon their feet Then they are to enter upon the second part of their Prophetical Ministry compared to that of Eliah's in Ahab's time and that of Moses in Egygt when at their word they shall shut Heaven that it rain not have power over Waters to turn them into blood and to smite the Earth with Plagues as often as they will By them also Heaven shall be opened and a fuller and more excellent discovery of Christ in Spirit ministred than ever yet hath been Amongst them shall be found those seven Angels or Officers of the Church to whom shall be committed the pouring out of the seven golden Vials full of the wrath of God These Vials contain a like universal Ministry of Wrath and of the Judgement of God by Fire upon ungodly men as was brought by Water upon the old World in the dayes of Noah This ministry of wrath by Fire shall put a period to the third state of things in the world as that by Water did unto the first Out of the destruction of the present World and frame of things by this fiery ministry of God's wrath is the thousand years Reign of Christ to spring up in that Kingdom of his that shall never end And here bear with me in giving by way of digression some few broken Notions in order to the better and more distinct opening of Christ's Kingdom which we shall find Luk. 17. 20 21. and chap. 19. 11 c. to be distinguished into a Twofold state 1. A Kingdom inward The Kingdom of God is within you and is the dominion of God in the Conscience and Spirit of the Mind This Kingdom stands not nor comes in or with any outward observation but is the commanding ruling Principle of Life in the true Saint as a Law written in his inward parts Christ's Kingdom as thus considered is intended Rev. 11. 1. where it is called the Temple of God or the inward Court and those that worship there glorifying God in their Spirits This Kingdom of Christ is capable of subsisting and being managed imwardly in the minds of his People in a hidden state concealed from the eye of the world By the Power thereof the inward senses or eyes of the mind are opened and awakened to the drawing them upward to a Heavenly converse catching and carrying up the Soul to the Throne of God and to the
and way answer but to the outward Court thereof and the Worship appertaining thereunto The former have the true inward Circumcision of the heart in the spirit whose praise is not of men but of God The latter are those who at best have but the Circumcision of the heart in the letter which labours to shew it self in such outward Circumcision of language and practice as may serve to keep up a shew or form of Godliness in the sight and to the well-pleasing of man whilst they are at an utter distance even in their hearts from the very life and power of Godliness that springs up from the new nature that is found in the true Circumcision which worship God in the spirit and answer to the inward Court Paul takes notice of this in his time Gal. 4. where he distinguishes between an earthly Jerusalem that is in bondage with her Children under the Covenant of Works or Dominion of the Law and a Jerusalem above which is free and is the Mother of all that Seed of Abraham who are Heirs according to the Promise These are described Rev. 12. by the Woman clothed with the Sun that hath the Moon under her feet and upon her Head a Crown of twelve Stars This figurative description shewes the Glory of the City Jerusalem as it is above inward and in spirit who with her Children is in freedom under the Covenant and Dominion of Grace The same is also signified by the inward Court appointed to be measured by the Reed of God in distinction from the outward Court which is not measured but abandoned and given up as it were to the power of the Gentiles to be by them troden under foot and defiled 2. In this same space of time falls out the impregnating of the Woman or her growing Great ready to be delivered of a Man-child The principal care of the Apostles and other Teachers who succeeded in their Spirit in the Primitive Church described under the representation of the seven Churches of Asia and the Angels or Officers appertaining to them was to be doing what had the most conducible tendency to the hastening and forwarding this birth of the Man-child which the Dragon opposed diligently watch'd to hinder resist and if possible to devour as soon as born 3. The seven-headed Dragon's lying in wait and managing the battel against Michael and his Angels about the aforesaid birth must needs contemporize with the two fore-mentioned Particulars All the three do therefore fill up the first space of time or age succeeding the Apostles measured out by what is contained in the six first Seals and was fore told to John as that which should happen both to the Church and World until the Womans flight from the Dragon after this great battel in Heaven and retiring into the Wilderness there to be nourished of God her appointed time These three are the immediate Antecedents of those things which have been shewed to contemporize under the seventh Seal and six Trumpets that is to say the distinguishing between the inward and outward Court with the Worship and Service appertaining unto each Secondly The impregnating of the Woman And then Thirdly The battel hereupon arising in Heaven or within the Primitive Church and continuing a long time till at length the Man-child comes to be born Then the Dragon loses his credit and authority in the Church His subtilty in accusing and laying false imputation on the Brethren the truly pure and spiritual part of the Church is detected Hereupon he is cast out into the Earth confined as it were to the outward Court and the Worshippers and Service belonging to it as the only matter for him to work upon for the increase of his Kingdom by the number of Hypocrites and Apostates drawn by him out of the true Church They were in truth never of it though for a while they were in it At length they find it their interest to make a Separation from it being sensual and not having the Spirit they can no longer endure those that have it and that shine forth daily more and more in the Life and Testimony thereof The old Dragon became hereby necessitated to manage and prosecute the War with the earthly Weapons only of worldly Power and Government in a way of outward force and compulsion exercised by the power of humane Laws and of the civil Sword This Power and Sword the corrupt sensual and malignant Church founded and consisting in the worshippers and service of the outward Court getting into their hands or engaging it on their side by mingling Interest with worldly Governours committed Whoredom like Tyre with all the Kingdoms of the VVorld upon the face of the Earth Isa 23. 17. Yea this Beast with two horns so influenced encouraged and back'd the ten horn'd Beast that he became thereby fixed and engaged in his Mind as well as Power to continue and carry on the War forty and two months longer against the Woman and her Seed and to blaspheme God his Name his Tabernacle and them that dwell in Heaven Thus in brief Heads have we seen how the two first great Sections or Divisions of time in the third Age are filled up to wit the space from John's receiving the Prophecy of them in the Isle of Patmos to the end of the first battel or war made in Heaven and as the issue of that the catching up of the Man-child unto God and to his Throne and the Womans actual flight into the VVilderness and from thence to the rising of the VVitnesses which puts a period to the suffering season alloted to their Prophesying in Sack-cloth And as to the third and last Section of time it is that which is measured out by the sounding of the seventh Trumpet and the pouring out of the seven Vials which begins with the beginning of that Trumpet and continues till the Whore be judged Babylon sunk and the whole Kingdom of the Beast for ever ruined and destroyed This makes way for the marriage of the Lamb to be celebrated here on Earth and so for the coming on of the Kingdom of Christ into the actual exercise of a visible ruling Power and universal Empire over the whole VVorld for a thousand years Having thus had a view of the distinct periods of time together with the matter of the Prophesies which were to be fulfilled in and under each of these distinct Revolutions it will yet much prepare and help our understandings rightly to discern and look into the Mysteries of this most excellent Book if once we can but arrive at a satisfactory opening and interpreting at least in some chief particulars the things which are signified under many of the Figures and Allegorical Expressions made use of throughout the whole Prophecy For Example Let us consider these The seven Churches and the Angels of them The Throne in Heaven The sealed Book The Woman The Dragon and his Angels Michael and his Angels The Man-child The throne and seat of the Dragon's
Power and Authority The outward and inward Court The Floud issuing out of the Dragon's mouth The distinguished Inhabitants of the Heavens of the Earth and of the Sea The 144000 sealed Virgins The Palm-bearers The Remnant of the Womans Seed that keep the Commands of God and have the Testimony of Jesus The seven-headed ten horn'd Beast The Beast's Image The two horn'd Beast The false Prophet The Whore Mystical Babylon The great City that rules over the Kings of the Earth The Number of the Beast's Name The two Witnesses their hidden or obscure Prophesying in Sack-cloth their glorious Appearing and Prophesying in Power and in a Wonder-working Ministry like to that of Moses and Eliah The Kingdom of the Beast and his ascent out of the bottomless pit The slaying of the Witnesses at the finishing of their Testimony or perioding of their Sack-cloth-Prophesying and their lying Dead in the streets of the great City spiritually called Sodom and Egypt The Witnesses rising and ascending up into Heaven The coming of the Wrath of the Lamb The sight of Heaven opened with the Temple and Ark therein contained The Harvest and Vintage The marriage of the Lamb The coming down of the new Jerusalem out of Heaven to be as a Tabernacle of God amongst men on Earth all the Kingdoms of this World becoming the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ The Charge given John by him that was dead and yet liveth for evermore the Amen or everlasting Truth of God Rev. 1. 18 19. was to write First The things which he had seen in the description of the fulness and excellency of Christ's Person exhibited to him vers 12 17. Secondly The things which are or the state of the Church in his time as it had for its chief places of abode those principal Cities in Asia by name expressed chap. 2 d. 3 d. together with the Representation in them as in Type and Figure of the state of the Universal Apostolick Christian Church which was to continue under the seven distinctions of time contained under the seven Seals under the last whereof six of the Trumpets were as 't were included There was that also found in those seven Asiatick Churches that did typically represent the decrease and sinking down of a great Party in the visible Christian Church into the Apostasie foretold in this Book of the Revelation until the very time of the rising of the Witnesses Thirdly and lastly John was Commanded to write the things which shall be hereafter or which were to succeed that present state in which the then seven Churches were at that time respecting as well the Corruption and Apostasie coming upon the face of the Primitive Church as the continuance of it with countenance and support from worldly Powers till the sounding of the seventh Trumpet These things that shall be hereafter when time shall be no longer or when the Mystery of God shall be finished and all persons and things shall appear plainly and manifestly as they are amount in general to the Constitution and Concerns of that glorious state of the Church which is to be from thenceforth for evermore To proceed then to the Explicating of many of the chief Allegorical Expressions in this Book of Revelations 1. By the seven Churches in Asia let us understand as in type the state of the Christian Church characterized and described as Brightman intimates under the distinct periods of time held forth by the things done during the seven Seals which reach to the sounding of the seventh Trumpet 2. By the Angels of the seven Churches are to be understood not only or principally the Officers or Persons ministring but rather the Light of the Gospel in its distinct measures and degrees administred according to the nature of the times and seasons which the things done under the first six Seals did occasion For upon the rejecting of that there was caused a gradual and successive removing of each Candlestick out of its place and the Church sinks down at length into an universal Defection and Apostacy as to the visible part of it This renders it in its concluding and final state so naucious and loathsome to God that he resolves to spue them out of his mouth and reject them for ever To confirm this we find each Church to consist of two very different sorts of Members one that are spiritual prepared with spiritual senses or eares to hear what the Spirit sayes to the Churches the other though they have the name and credit of Church-members yea and in process of time the greatest visible Power and Sway in it saying they are Jews or right Heirs of Promise yet are they not so but do lie They are indeed of the Synagogue of Satan They came out from the spiritual and better part of the Church as no longer able to joyn and go along or keep pace with them in their heavenly Life and Conversation Being sensual and having not the Spirit they separate from the true spiritual worshipper seeking their upholding and maintenance in this or that Form and Way from the Powers of the World And having once got worldly Power and outward strength and force on their side they resolved to persecute and make War upon the better and more spiritual part of the Church with earthly Weapons and by compulsion of the Civil Sword 3. The Throne in Heaven described in the fourth Chapter is the Seat which God hath made for himself in the Creature-being of Christ the Mediator as his own Sanctuary from whence to issue forth all his Authority and Power decreed to be by him exercised whether in Heaven or on Earth in the capacity of Head and universal King over all the works of God's hands He that sits on this Throne is the same that chap. 19. is cloathed with a Vesture dipt in blood and whose Name is called the WORD of God He is said chap. 5. vers 6. to have seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the Earth and this by his being made flesh and by his Death and Resurrection in which he shewed himself the true Sanctuary which God pitch'd and not man This had been in type from the beginning a most glorious high Throne Jer. 17. 12. designed from all Eternity to be the Throne and the place of the soals of his feet whose Name is the WORD of God in order to dwell in the midst of the Children of Israel for ever and bear unto their sight and enjoyment the clear and compleat vision of the invisible God 4. The Book chap. 5. written within and on the backside sealed with seven Seals as it is part of the Vision given to John is a description of the inward and hidden meaning of the matter of this Prophecy whether as to that which more especially concerns the Affairs of the Church or that which more generally relates to the Affairs of the World and the Empire thereof The seven Seals with which it