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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65195	Two treatises ... both written by Sir Henry Vane, Knight in the time of his imprisonment.	Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662.; Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662. Epistle general, to the mystical body of Christ on earth.; Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662. Face of the times.	1662 (1662)	Wing V80_PARTIAL; Wing V67_PARTIAL; ESTC R7026	96,369	132

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

seat and suitable habitation in the hearts of his Children who is the Father of all Unrighteousness and Deceit these flow from him as from their Fountain and Well-head and he is their Countenauce Protection and Propagation for the encrease and enlargement of his Kingdom of Darkness By the means of this Two-fold hatred that Satan begets in the subjects of his Kingdom against the Light of God's Glory shining in the Face of Christ and in the witness of those that are the Members of his Mystical Body here on Earth he blows up a continual War and keeps on foot a fixed Enmity between the subjects of the one and of the other Kingdom and the Enmity is still the same in effect whether it be open and allowed or dissembled and hid the hatred and opposition is not the less in it self but the last of the two is the worst and most dangerous This he Heads with a visible Power as well as sowes the Seed of it invisibly in the Children of his Kingdom and either by violence or fraud or both hath never failed from the beginning of the World to this day by the wise permission of God for the bruising of the Heele of the Womans Seed in the Head and Members to shew himself the God or chief Potentate and Ruler in and over the whole World And so influence in such manner all the visible Rule and Authority whether Civil or Ecclesiastical that is exercised on Earth and is supported by humane Wisdom and Power centring in the foresaid Principles of batred and prejudice against Christ and his Kingdom that he hath ever got the better of it in the eye of flesh and blood over the true subjects and servants of Christ and hath as much as is in him slain Christ's Witnesses and kept them under in a most oppressed and dispersed condition Of this the Seed of Abrabam beginning in Sem and so downward until Christ's Incarnation and Death and as the Consequence thereof the rejection of the Seed according to the flesh were the living and known examples in their dayes what Servitudes and Captivities were they not exposed unto and did they not undergo And at last the very visibility of their own Church and State was wholly defaced and lost though both of Divine Constitution and supported not only with divine Laws but with the visible signet of the Divine Presence and by whom was this People upon whom the Name of God was called brought under persecuted and suppressed but by those who were foretold by Dan. ch 2. and most lively represented and described by that great Image which was the subject of Nebuchadnçzzar's Dream that none but Daniel could rehearse and interpret signifying the Persons and their Successors that should be found possessing the Universal Empire and Command of the World during the continuance of those known Four Monarchs that have followed successively one after another according as they were fore-told and charactered out some thousand years ago and are now standing upon their last legs the time drawing on apace when the spiritual seed of the same Abraham shall be made heirs even of the World by Faith and what was done by Abraham in Figure and Type as to his Conquest over the Four Kings Gen. 14. must have its accomplishment in Reality and Truth by those of his seed that are the true Israel in Spirit who by the Spirit of Life entring into them at the appointed time together with the Charge committed to them of pouring out the seven Vials of the last Plagues of God shall bring the final downfal and destruction of those Four Monarchs and in and with it of the Kingdom of the Beast and of Antichrist and bring home again and receive the true Lots that have been sojourners in the Sodom of this World all this time under the Power of their Oppressors And as it did befal Israel after the flesh that were Abraham's Natural Seed under the three first Monarchies and part of the Fourth our Saviour suffering Death Under the Roman Empire so are the Scriptures very plain and express if considered with a spiritual eye that the Israel after the flesh that have been adopted into the room and place of the former and though wild by Nature yet engrafted upon the same Stock and Root of the good Olive Tree the true anointed One that is the Father of many Nations as he is the Second Adam whose standing is by Faith that if they exalt themselves and become hardened and resist the Ministry of the Holy Ghost as the Jews that were their Predecessors did Christ will then make it appear also in the Case of these latter Jews who say they are so but having not the Spirit and Nature of true Faith in them do lye and deceive themselves as well as others that it is not they that bear the Root but the Root that bears them who therefore can cast them off as he did the others and once more not only shake the Earth but the Heavens although called Christian to make way for that Kingdom of his that cannot be shaken whereof we have already shewed and how nigh this is accomplishing and is even at the very doors we shall have occasion to make mention of more particularly as the next and last Particular we are to speak unto For an Introduction whereunto let me only mind you of some few things that the Apostle John in his Book of the Revelations layes before us on this behalf declaring first the things that were to befal the Heathenish Roman Empire and the Church of God abiding under its Protection during the time of the first Six Seals which by Computation continued till somewhat more than four hundred years after Christ j about the end of which period that Empire as Heathen dissolved and a new face of things in Church and State rose out of it at last for so mnch as concerned that part of the World which thereupon in Name became Christian And because the Spiritual part of the Church at that same time began to be most suppressed being forced to fly from the fury of the Serpent into a wilderness-wilderness-state and condition therefore the visible Constituted Frame of Civil as well as Ecclesiastical Power called Christian were represented unto John The First under the seven-headed and ten-horned Beast that came out of the Sea And the Second under the two-horned Beast that came out of the Earth answerable to what was under other similitudes intimated of them in the Iron Legs and the Feet and Toes of Nebuchadnezzar's Image part of Iron and part of Clay Whereby the Iron leggs are the Civil Power as it became Christian and retaining still the Reliques of the Roman Empire and by the Feet part of Iron and part of Clay is meant the Ecclesiastical State and Power partly Papal and partly Reformed as an earthly Jerusalem yet visible and both enemies to the Jerusalem that is above and yet not very good friends between themselves whose

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

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

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