unlesse of Apostolicall Institution if they stand in competition with that Royal Law of Love did not drown the voice thereof that it cannot so easily be heard But assuredly my Lord the letting this Philadelphian Dispensation in or the approaching as near unto it as we can will prove the most effectuall healing and consolidating the Interest of Reformed Christendome as well in the whole as in the parts thereof as we can desire or expect Which therefore I humbly conceive that all persons the more Power they are intrusted with in any of the Protestant Dominions are the more obliged to consider by how much more they are obliged to endeavour to promote the Interest of their Prince and Countrey whose Affairs they administer And therefore the right understanding of the Vision of the Seven Churches so manifestly giving this aim for the prosperous steering of Affairs I thought this my Exposition of the said Churches no unsutable Present in these Circumstances to be made unto your Lordship Of the Usefulnesse whereof I having spoken more particularly in my Preface I leave the whole to your Lordship's judicious and favourable perusall and wishing you all good Successe in the great Charge his Majesty has intrusted you with I cease to give you any farther trouble then in subscribing my self My Lord Your Lordship 's most humble and affectionate Servant HENRY MORE The PREFACE to the Reader declaring the Occasion Solidity and Usefulnesse of the ensuing Exposition Reader HOW unexpected this of mine may prove to thee I know not but sure I am it cannot be more then to my self who as I have never yet affected to bestow my pains on these kind of Subjects so I thought my self secure since the edition of the late Dialogues touching the Kingdome of God from ever being engaged in them any more For I made account that what was contained in Mr. Mede's Writings and in Synopsis Prophetica and the above-said Dialogues might afford all usefull satisfaction to any sober Enquirer into these Mysteries And I find neither my will nor my abilities to reach to the service of men in needlesse Curiosities And therefore thou maist be sure I did not deem the Propheticall Exposition of these Seven Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia to be such but rather that there was no such Exposition that belonged unto them and therefore rested in the Literal sense and an usefull Moral Application of them as they might sute any particular Church in any Age of the world placed in like Circumstances with any of these Seven Churches And these things methought were so obvious that it would have been a needlesse labour to have attempted any thing in so facil a matter where others have done sufficiently well before 2. But having sent the above-said Dialogues to a Gentleman in the Countrey to whom they were not unacceptable as being curious of Subjects of this nature after his civil acknowledgements for my sending him the Book and some pertinent Reflexions on the main matter at last he falls upon this business of the Seven Churches in these words I find not saith he any late Writer apply the Seven Churches mystically Revel 2. and 3. Chapters Mr. BRIGHTMAN having failed in his Application But I suppose the farther enquiry into that point may be worth your pains I shall now onely hint that the Seven Churches may represent the State of the whole visible Church from Christ's time to the Day of Judgement viz. Ephesus till Anno Christi 110 Smyrna till 306 Pergamus declining towards Popery till the WALDENSIAN Separation about Anno 1160 Thyatira emerging from Popery till the Pacification at Passaw in Germany 1552. and King EDWARD the Sixth's Reformation in England Sardis the state of Reformed Christendome the Kingdome of God since whole Nations fell from Rome and untill Rome shall be totally subdued Philadelphia when Truth Peace and Holinesse shall universally prevail and the name of the New Jerusalem shall be written upon the Church as is expresly promised Chap. 3. 12. Interims too august for such a poor Church as that was literally taken And this may be a Key for all the rest And lastly Laodicea when towards the end of the Thousand years Satan shall be again let loose a little space and Gog and Magog shall trouble the Church then luke-warm as in the days of Noah This was the whole verbatim of what that Gentleman writ touching this matter And this Reader was the Occasion of my undertaking and the advantage I had for the more easily performing this Task of expounding these Seven Epistles to the Seven Churches For the Intervalls here suggested though they are most-what different from what upon due deliberation with my self I thought fittest to pitch upon yet it is manifest that they could not but give aim toward a more speedy hitting the intended Mark and a more quick dispatch of this Exposition which I present thee with Indeed upon my endeavouring to frame out the same and my searching into Commentatours I found that P. Galatinus interprets these Seven Churches of seven Intervalls of the Church from the beginning to the end thereof This Cornelius à Lapide notes but not a word of the Limits of these Intervalls And since my compleating this Exposition a learned Friend of mine shew'd me a passage in Mr. Mede Lib. 5. c. 10. where he argues for a mysticall sense of these Seven Churches and seems to insinuate that they should Prophetically sample unto us a seven-fold successive Temper and Condition of the whole visible Church according to the severall Ages thereof answering to the Pattern of the Seven Churches here and that à principio ad finem and takes notice of the fitly placing of PHILADELPHIA partly about the time the Beast is falling and partly after his Destruction accordingly as we had already set down in our Exposition But the bounds of these successive Intervalls he has not attempted to define That Advantage therefore I had onely from the party I above mentioned as well as the first Invitation to undertake this present Design 3. But now as to the Solidity of the Performance although I must confess the clearnesse of the matter appeared so great to me at last as that it infinitely exceeded my first expectations of it and proved satisfactory to my self beyond what I thought possible yet I will not here pre-ingage thy judgement or belief but freely remit thee to the Exposition it self the Preparations to it in the first and second Chapters and the brief Recapitulation of the strength of it in the last Onely that thou maist have nothing to stumble at I will endeavour to prevent thee in some Exceptions the greatest I am aware of and yet in my own judgement not considerable 4. As first I would not have thee according to the manner of some let thy minde dwell upon any thing that may seem less strong alone As that Chap. 2. Sect. 11. where I intimate that because in the interpreting the Seven
not so well as they should be yet they must needs appear to any but an Humorist exceeding much better then in the Church of Rome And thus much of the Sardian Church CHAP. VIII An Interpretation of the Epistle to the Church in Philadelphia 1. AND to the Angel of the Church in Philadelphia write The meaning of Philadelphia is plain and is no Riddle The word signifies Brotherly love which rightly understood is the fulfilling of the Law So that I understand by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 universal Love for we are all brothers in Adam but especially the love of those of the houshold of Faith that is to say of Christian Believers In the Sardian Church the greatest noise and stir there is about Faith but her Works were not found perfect before God But the Inscription of this Church is Love which is the fulfilling of the Law as I hinted before And his banner over me was Love This is the Ensign of the Church of Philadelphia who elsewhere is said to be beautifull and terrible as an Army with Banners Who is she that looketh forth as the Morning fair as the Moon clear as the Sun and terrible as an Army with Banners Why who can it be but this Church of Philadelphia as famous for feats of Arms as for Love as we shall see in the process For the Intervall of this Church begins in the last Vial and reaches to the fourth Thunder These things saith he that is Holy And speaks to that Church that loves to hear those Instructions Be ye holy for I am holy and Be ye perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect He that is true He that will make good all his Promises and glorious Predictions touching his Church in this state thereof which is figured out by the Church of Philadelphia and writes to those that believe it and have a firm Faith in the Power and Spirit of Christ and of God He that hath the Key of David he that openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth What Eliakim was to Hezekias who was of the stock of David the same is Christ to God the Father whom S. John calls Love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is chief Minister of State under God and carries all as he pleases by the Authority committed to him of which a Key is the Symbol See Grotius upon the place There is nothing so hard and impervious but he can make way through it and open a door to Successe and again shut it against his Enemies 2. I know thy works And that so as to approve of them because they are the fruits of the Divine Love then which there is nothing to me more precious Thou actest not out of bitter zeal and strife or vain ostentation or any secular respect but merely out of love to me and my Righteousnesse and out of love to mankinde whose both present and future Happinesse thou dost sincerely endeavour to promote Behold I have set before thee an open door and no man can shut it Behold I have brought things about so by my Providence and will so effectually second what I have begun by my special assistence that maugre all the machinations of men and Devils thou shalt finde opportunities of most gloriously and successfully carrying on the Interest of my Kingdome This is performed in the last Vial in that great battel of God almighty when also the Beast and the false Prophet are said to be taken See the Divine Dialogues For thou hast a little strength Grotius himself interprets it a little Army and so indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will signifie appositely to the present scope and answerably to the Battel I named before The sense is Because though ye be but a few in comparison of the rest of my Church and Kingdome for the Sardian Church is his Kingdome and Church too out of which the Philadelphian Church is emerging and especially in respect of the Infidel and Antichristian party those under the Dragon and the Beast and the false Prophet yet ye have kept my Word and not denied my Name that is have both kept to what is holy and true in your hearts and professed it in your words and works therefore I will be with you in this glorious manner and make you so successfull in the promoting of the Interest of my Kingdome Of this Church therefore of Philadelphia are those Armies seen in Heaven Apoc 19. following Christ upon white Horses clothed in fine linnen white and clean which implies both the justnesse of their cause and the certainty of their successe As also those Boanergesses in the last Vial synchronal to that other Vision that thunder and lighten over the City divided into three parts whereby the Cities of the Nations fell and Babylon and her daughters were utterly overthrown 3. Behold I will make them of the Synagogue of Satan which say they are Jews but do lie Jews as I noted before according to the style of the Apocalypse are Christians and the Jews which professe themselves such and are not but do lie are pseudo-Christians or the Antichristian party but are judged here to be of the Synagogue of Satan because of their abominable lies and bloudy murders For the Devil was a murderer from the beginning and he is also in the same place by our Saviour termed a Liar Besides the Luciferian Pride of that Church like Satans the Prince of the Devils Behold I will make them come and worship before thy feet Even those that before kissed the feet of the Pope that lofty Prelate This answers very patly to that passage in the fore-named Vision where the Beast and false Prophet are taken and put alive into a lake of fire that is to say the Bestian and Pseudoprophetical power as such is burnt and destroyed and abolished and the Philadelphian power then appears above all or rather the Lord alone will be exalted in that day for to this time especially belongs that saying Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts For indeed the struggling of the Sardian Church hitherto against the City that is called Sodom and AEgypt though it has been in its kind laudable yet it has been in a manner Edom against Edom a part something more refined against that which is more impure I mean as to Life and Godlinesse and the weapons of their warfare have not been so spiritual as they ought they have not rid upon white Horses nor have been clothed in fine linnen white and clean they have not endeavoured to be that Church which is without spot wrinkle or any such thing but the Sardian tincture has too much distained them But as it is true in the natural sense that flesh and bloud cannot inherit the Kingdome of God so it is also in the political that those glorious times of the Kingdome of God
small reason for it that name being so particularly and pompously set out for a special name of his And though he has ever had a right unto it yet because the getting into possession of this right will be new and fresh in this Philadelphian Intervall after the battel of the Heros on the white Horse it is rightly termed a new Name and very fittingly writ upon these Philadelphians because they are so instrumental in his Atchievements These are the Boanergesses thundering over the great City divided into three parts and also those Horsemen on white Horses as I intimated before Christ therefore through these becomes King of Kings and Lord of Lords or rather he has made them the greatest Kingdome upon earth The mountain of the Lord's house is exalted upon the top of the mountains and all Nations flow unto it as it is to come to passe under the third Thunder Through which third and second Thunder and seventh Vial is drawn the Intervall of the Succession of the Church of Philadelphia as I have hinted above He that hath an ear to hear let him hear c. We need not here urge the intimation of this Political sense of things from the putting of the Epiphonema last the very nature of the expressions calling for it though we had no such guide But we may rather argue that the things themselves being of so manifest Political sense not moral or spiritual that it confirms our Rule touching the position of this Epiphonema But this by the bye We proceed to the Church of Laodicea CHAP. IX The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Church of Laodicea 1. AND to the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans write The Intervall of the Succession of the Church of Laodicea is the fourth and fifth Thunders that is from the loosing of Satan to the appearing of Christ coming to Judgement under the sixth Thunder In this Intervall the Scene of Philadelphia is past and Laodicea takes place which is acknowledged a true Church as to Worship and Doctrine but is represented as a lazy lethargical Church in which that former Philadelphian zeal is extinguished as to the generality of the Church though it 's likely this degeneracy comes on by degrees in this Intervall 2. Thus therefore it is foreseen in the series of Divine Providence that after that glorious estate of the Church which is synchronal to the second and third Thunder during which space and a little before the Scene of Philadelphia adorned the Stage had well purged the Christian World from all foolish opinions and superstitions and of that accursed custome of persecuting one another for them and that the truth of the Gospel had clearly shined in the simplicity thereof and so convictively against all the follies and impostures of the former Ages that the Church had no great hazard of being again cheated with them and that they had seen all Prophecies in a manner fulfilled before their eyes so that there could be no doubt to them but that the Philadelphian Church was the true Church nor be in any capacity of any change in faith or worship after this I say as all things are in some sort or other variable under the Sun so it seems this Philadelphian Church was at last to degenerate into this Laodicean state and that which was before the Reign of the Spirit and the living Righteousnesse of God would now become the Church of Laodicea which signifies a more popular or external Politicall righteousnesse or the righteousness of the people An external profession and performance of that Mode that was used by the Philadelphians in a living way and with the power of the Spirit the same will this Church of Laodicea hold on spiritlesly and lazily with little life or zeal and yet applaud themselves by reason of the abundance of knowledge she has because of the completion of the Prophecies and by reason of the purity of the external Worship she still retains as if all was still well with her and as if she wanted nothing 3. This in brief is the condition of this Church as it is significantly intimated in the very name For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies as much as the righteousnesse of the people And the people are any multitude of mankind gathered into a body politick as is manifest in that notation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it were from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then again in Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore the people being a body politick are ruled by such and such laws which if they observe it is not regarded quo animo or out of what Principle they observe them The new nature Regeneration and the Spirit are quite out of this rode And a National or Oecumenical Religion Doctrine or Worship as they are ab extrà are but as a political law and the Righteousnesse therein but a Laodicean Righteousnesse as has been abundantly inculcated already But besides this meaning of the name Laodicea which I doubt not but is particularly intended there may according to the multifarious Allusivenesse of the Propheticall style another notable meaning be also intimated and that very appropriate to this Church For the ratio nominis in Laodicea may be likewise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because in the Intervall of this Church God will in that most notorious and terrible manner come to judge the people Because the Closure of this Church brings in the last Judgement properly so called therefore this last Intervall of the Church is called Laodicea The judging of the people all the Nations of the world at the last Day And there is nothing more frequent in the Scripture then the giving of names from some notable externall Accident that respects the thing or person so named 4. These things saith the Amen the faithfull and true witnesse Paul in his second Epistle to the Corinthians says That all the promises of God in Christ are Yea and Amen that is to say they are so sure and certain that no man need doubt but they will be performed Wherefore this Attribute of Christ is seasonably brought in as respecting both the completion of the Promises already performed in bringing his Church to that admirable glorious condition in the Succession of Philadelphia as also the performance of that material Promise at the end of this Epistle touching eternal Life or a blessed Immortality in Christ's Heavenly Kingdome which these Laodiceans or degenerated Philadelphians like our modern Familists that pretend to the Philadelphian Dispensation may some of them it 's likely be prone to distrust But Christ is here also called the faithfull and true witnesse because he does so impartially witnesse concerning the truth of the condition of the Laodiceans and so faithfully discover to them the danger thereof And the declaration seeming so paradoxicall to them it was the more requisite to inculcate into them his own truth and faithfulnesse that he might gain
excuse and therefore become obnoxious to God's eternall wrath and Damnation if they relinquish not that false Prophetesse Jezebel as she is called in the Epistle to the Church in Thyatira who by her corrupt Doctrines deceives the people and inveigles them into gross Idolatrous Practices 9. Thus little is conceded by those of our Reformed Churches that speak most favourably of those in the Church of Rome And yet this little must be retracted unless we can make it out that any of that Church are capable of sincere and unfeigned Repentance while they are of it For to repent as a Thief because he is afraid to be hanged is not that saving Repentance But to repent as a true Christian none can doe unlesse he has the Spirit of God and be in the state of Regeneration For true Repentance arises out of the detestation of the uglinesse of Sin it self and out of the love to the pulchritude and amiablenesse of the Divine Life and of true Vertue which none can be touched with but those that are Regenerate or born of God Now those holy and Divine Sentiments of the new Birth are so contrary to the Frauds and Impostures to the grosse Idolatries and bloudy Murthers of the Church of Rome which they from time to time have perpetrated upon the dear Servants of Christ that it is impossible for any one that has this holy sense but that he should incontinently fly from that Church with as much horrour and affrightment as any Countrey-man would from some evil Spectre or at the approach of the Devil 10. He that is born of God sinneth not saith S. John How then can they be so born whose very Religion is a Trade of sin and that of the highest nature they ever and anon exercising grosse acts of Idolatry besides that they are consenting by giving up their belief and suffrage to the murtherous Conclusions of that Church to all the barbarous and bloudy Persecutions of the Saints that either have happened or may happen in their own times or ever shall happen by that Church they become I say guilty thereof by adjoyning themselves to this bloud-thirsty Body of men with whom the Murther of those that will not commit Idolatry with them and so rebell against God is become an holy Papal Law and Statute And therefore I say how can any man conceive that those men are born of God who are thus deeply defiled with Murtherous and Idolatrous Impurities but rather that they are in a mere blinde carnal condition and uncapable while they are thus of any true and sincere Repentance and consequently of repenting of their daily Idolatries which they commit and ordinarily to make all sure in ipso articulo mortis and therefore are out of all capacity of Salvation while they are members of that Church As plainly appears both by this present Reason fetch'd from the nature of Regeneration as also from the judgement of the Romanists themselves touching the state of Idolaters after this life and chiefly from the expresse sentence of the Spirit of God in Scripture as I intimated before 11. And therefore in the fifth and last place it is exceeding manifest how stupid and regardless those Souls are of their own Salvation that continue in the Communion of the Church of Rome and how desperately wilde and extravagant they are who never having been of it but having had the advantage of better Principles yet can finde in their hearts to be reconciled to it This must be a sign of some great defect in Judgement or else in their Sincerity that they ever can be allured to a Religion that is so far removed from God and Heaven 12. But this Church as the woman in the Proverbs is I must confess both very fair of speech and subtil of heart and knows how to tamper with the simple ones right skilfully She knows how to overcome all their carnal senses by her luxurious Enticements She has deck'd her bed with coverings of Tapestry with carved works with fine linens of AEgypt She has perfumed her bed with Myrrh Aloes and Cinnamon She entertains her Paramours with the most delicious strains of Musick and chants out the most sweet and pleasing Rhymes to lull them secure in her lap Such as those Idolatrous forms of the Invocation of the Virgin Marie and of other Saints which I have produced of which she has a numerous store Unto which I conceive the Prophet Isay to allude in that passage touching the City of Tyre representing there mystically the relapsing Church of Rome Take an harp goe about the City thou harlot that hast been forgotten make sweet Melody sing many Songs that thou mayst be remembred See Synopsis Prophetica Book 2. ch 16. 13. She gilds her self over also with the goodly and specious Titles of Unity Antiquity Universality the power of working Miracles of Sanctity likewise and of Infallibility and boasts highly of her self that she has the power of the Keys and can give safe conduct to Heaven by Sacerdotal Absolution and if need be out of the Treasury of the Merits of Holy men of their Church which she has the keeping and disposing of can adde Oyl to the Lamps of the unprovided Virgins and so piece out their Deficiency in the works of Righteousnesse Such fair speeches and fine glozing words she has to befool the judgements of the simple 14. But as to the first it is plain that that Unity that is by Force is no fruit of the Spirit and therefore no Sign of the true Church nor that which is from free Agreement if it be not to good Ends. For Salomon describes an Agreement of Thieves or Robbers heartening one another to spoil and bloudshed and to enter so strict a society as to have but one purse And therefore for a company of men under the pretense of Spirituality to agree in the inventing or upholding such Doctrines or Fictions as are most serviceable for a worldly design and for the more easily riding and abusing the credulous and carnal-minded thereby to be masters of their Persons and Wealth this is no holy Unity but an horrid and unrighteous Conspiracy against the deluded sons of Adam 15. And for Antiquity and Universality they are both plainly on the Protestants side who make no Fundamentals of Faith but such as are manifestly contained in the Scripture which is much more ancient and more universally received then any of those things upon whose account we separate from the Church of Rome which are but the fruits of that Apostasie which after four Hundred years or thereabout the Church was to fall into according to Divine Prediction So that we are as ancient and universal as the Apostolick Church it self nor do we desire to appear to be the members of any Church that is not Apostolicall And for their boast of Miracles which are produced to ratifie their crafty Figments they are but Fictions themselves framed by their Priests or Delusions of
Imprimatur Sam. Parker ERRATA In the Pref. to the Exposit. pag. 4. l. 2. Interims read in terms In the Exposit. p. 11. l. 1. r. the Church in Thyatira p. 53. l. 21. r. in Thyatira p. 107. l. 26. r. event In the Antidote p. 11. l. ult for at r. all p. 27. l. 17. r. impossible or p. 91. l. 24. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 AN EXPOSITION OF THE SEVEN EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES Together with A Brief Discourse of IDOLATRY with Application to the Church of ROME By HENRY MORE D. D. PROV 12. 19. The lying tongue is but for a moment but the lip of Truth shall be established for ever London Printed by James Flesher 1669. To the Right Honourable John Lord Robarts Baron of Truro Lord Privy Seal Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and one of his Majestie 's most Honourable Privy COUNCIL My Lord WHat things single are usually thought sufficient to determine ones choice of a Patron to any publick Writing whether it be private Obligation from particular Favours or the Desire of leaving to Posterity a just and honourable Testimony to the Parts and Vertues of some excellent Person or the design of obtaining the Patronage and countenance of such a Person to what we adventure to make publick as is able by his Learning Judgement and publick Repute to protect it from Injury all these do so happily conspire in your Lordship that I should have thought it an Omission unpardonable if I had not taken this opportunity of paying your Lordship this due respect and of doing that right to the Truth I here professe as to put it under the wings of so fit and able a Patron Which still ought to be done with the greater alacrity there being that Providentiall Coincidence of things that I should have a Book ready in the Presse at that very time that our Gracious Sovereign did think good to conferre upon your Lordship that great Honour and Trust of being Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Which conjuncture of Circumstances could not but excite me with greater readinesse to make your Lordship this congratulatory Present upon your new Honour Which all good Christians that know the inflexible uprightnesse of your spirit and cordiall adherence to the Apostolick Faith and just Interest of Reformed Christendome cannot but congratulate For this it is indeed My Lord that has begot in me a more special esteem of your Lordship that in this instable and uncertain Age you have with that steadinesse of minde and clearnesse of Judgement stuck to the Truth and Purity of the Protestant Religion as discerning the vast difference betwixt it and Popery which yet too many now-adays either because they are removed too great a distance from all Religion or else because their sight is extremely dim in matters of this nature can not or will not discern But this is spoke with a more particular regard to the second part of this small Volume I present your Lordship withall But the first also has its speciall sutablenesse to the Circumstances your Lordship is placed in For by how much more power any one is intrusted with by any Protestant Prince by so much the more he is concerned to understand how sacred a Province he undertakes and how expresly that Religion and Profession is owned in the Holy Prophecies Christ has delivered to his Church above and against the barbarous and idolatrous Tyrannie of the Church of Rome Which things are set out with that plainnesse evidence and easiness in this Exposition of the Epistles to the Seven Churches that I hope no impartial Reader can fail of being made exceeding sensible of the Sacrednesse of the Protestant Religion and Interest by the perusall thereof Besides that there are some notable Hints in these Oracles for the more happy and secure management of the Affairs of Reformed Christendome I shall onely name that passage to the Sardian Church Remember how thou hast received and heard and hold fast c. The Verse runs out into a dreadfull Commination of heavy Judgements to the Angel of the Church of Sardis for his loosenesse and slipperinesse in those points of Apostolick Doctrine which the Reformers had recovered into the knowledge of so great a part of the world And amongst the things that they had heard that voice of the Angel Apoc. 18. Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins c. was not the least articulate Whereby the Church of Rome was openly declared to be that Babylong the Great the Mother of Fornications and the Abominations of the Earth as also the Pope with his Clergie to be that notorious Antichrist This the Sardian Church had received from their Evangelicall Predecessours And it had been their everlasting establishment never to have for got it never to have let it die or smothered it But what mischief the halting betwixt two Opinions is apt to doe and the not taking notice how sacred a thing the Protestant Religion is in the sight of God and how rejectaneous that of the Church of Rome I believe neither your Lordship nor any one else that has his eyes opened either into History or the Affairs of the world can be ignorant of or if he be a good Christian make the observation without regrett and sorrow But the Prospect of what is to come is more pleasing and comfortable which is the state of the Church of Philadelphia into which the Sardian Church that is to say Reformed Christendome or the Protestant Churches are to passe as being the next successive Intervall Which therefore cannot but be a Note of main importance for all Reformed States and Kingdomes to stear their Affairs by namely to bend their course thitherward whither they are pointed to by the Finger of God himself in his Holy Oracles For they sail as it were with winde and tide whose carriage of Affairs approaches the nearest to the purpose of Divine Fate Which is lively pourtray'd all along in this stupendious Book of Prophecies written by S. John The most pleasing and enravishing part whereof is that which is typify'd or prefigured by the Church of Philadelphia the Church of Brotherly love Which is the next Scene Divine Providence has designed to introduce And which all those do most grosly oppose who for difference in matters not revealed in holy Scripture nor necessary to Salvation think they have pretense enough with all unchristian keennesse and bitternesse of spirit to reproach and inveigh one against another to nourish the highest Animosities and to watch all opportunities of persecuting ruining and trampling one another into the Dirt. As this is extremely unchristian in it self so is it also diametrically opposite to that Dispensation that God intends to introduce into his Church as the chiefest Blessing he has in store for her and is as it were knocking at the door to enter if the lovd noise of hot and quarrelsome Brawls about matters of smaller moment as indeed all things are exceeding small
prejudice to thy judgement touching the Interpretation of Antipas and its signifying as much as one against the Pope because that learned and reverend Expositour Dr. Hammond has styled it a wanton and vain phancy in Mr. Brightman who presumed so to interpret it thou art to consider that this Censure of that Passage was not so much built upon any weakness in the Passage it self as that it was found in a farrago of Conceits that were not so well managed as to support and countenance one another And therefore for the general Mr. Brightman's Exposition of these Seven Epistles being not so convictive that judicious Doctour was the more bold to speak so slightly of this passage thereof Which if it had been accompanied with other parts of his Exposition of these Epistles that had had the like unexceptionablenesse it would never have been found fault with by so judicious a Writer as indeed there is no reason it should For no name can be so fit and significant for this purpose as this of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie one and the same thing as Eustathius and others from him usually do affirm And it is most certainly true that they are both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Hesychius speaks And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have exquisitely the same signification But to have found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this supposed Prophecy had been quite against the laws of the Apocalyptick style that is as regardfull of due Concealment as of certainty of Revealment So that so plain a Passage would have stood out very coursly and harshly above the rest of that smooth and delicate Contexture of these Visions and occasioned a too-early intelligence of the meaning of these Prophecies Besides that Antipapas is no proper name of any man and that the very literal Story requires it should be Antipas Wherefore the Indication both for sense and for sound in this word Antipas is as exquisite as considering the nature of the Apocalyptick style it either could or ought to have been So that he that would cavill at this interpretation must of necessity deny the Hypothesis and say there is no Propheticall sense at all of these Seven Epistles 9. Nor needest thou scruple at my applying that Passage of the Martyr Antipas to the Albigenses and Waldenses that were slain in the field as if they were not rightly termed Martyrs For he that can save his Life by renouncing the Truth and yet parts with it though it be in the field is rightly deemed a Martyr Which was the case of these men And that is remarkable for this purpose which Mr. Mede takes notice of That when Simon Earl of Monfort had routed them and made a great slaughter of them and that the Bishop of Tolouse there present took thereupon the opportunity of exhorting them to return to the Roman Church they seeing so plainly that the wrath of God was kindled against them for their Separation from the Church they answered in plain terms that they were the people of God overcome by the Beast Apoc. 13. 7. and knowing this to be their fate yet would not flinch from the Truth and therefore the Army returning upon them they had all their throats cut in the field Whence it is manifest that they were Martyrs properly so called according to our Definition thereof As there were also severall Antipas's in this Intervall that suffered Martyrdome in that way that thou canst not except against that is to say such as were merely passive and made no resistence Some of them are named by Mr. Brightman who if he had done as well on the other five Churches as he has on this of Pergamus and that of Thyatira his Exposition of the Seven Churches had been considerable 10. And lastly to arm thee against the authority of the above-named Venerable person touching the reason of the name of Thyatira as if it were as much as Thygatira a young Daughter for which he perstringes Mr. Brightman condemning the Conceit for a mere groundless Phancy I say it is not evident that he so much reprehends him for the Notation of the word as for the application of it to such a sense as he there expresses which is much different from that sense we have proposed and far more dilute But as for my self I must confesse I could not but conceit that the Notation of the word Thyatira was alluded to after I had read that Passage in Cornelius à Lapide on the Text which for thy fuller satisfaction I shall transcribe Verùm Strabo lib. 13. Plinius lib. 5. cap. 9. alii passim tradunt eam that is the City Thyatira primitùs nuncupatam à Seleuco filio Nicanoris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ob laetum nuncium natae sibi filiae unde nomen Thyatirae Thyatira ergò Graecè significat filiam quod aptè competit Jezebeli illici quae hîc arguitur This of Cornelius made me secure of the Authentickness of this Notation he so precisely qùoting Strabo and Pliny for the same And therefore I could not but persuade my self that the Church of Rome was here called Thyatira with some Allusion to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Had it not been for this I should have contented my self with the Allusion to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 onely But these Authorities made me search into the State of the Church of Rome in this Intervall and I found many things abundantly answerable to the Title in the sense of this Notation Amongst which if thou chance to think my Reflexion upon the multitude of Monks or Friers in those days to bear the least strength with it consider but what Polydore Virgil writes of that one Order of Franciscans who as some others were the peculiarly-devoted to the blessed Virgin Totum terrarum orbem saith he una haec implevit Familia ut vulgus jam tum stupefactum suspicaretur non tam Pietatem quà m Otium Ignaviam interdum multis cordi esse And to have such swarms of men that had renounced their Virility and led an idle life and went gadding and gossipping up and down telling odd Stories to the people as old Wives and Nurses do to Children having most of them Chins as smooth as Womens and their Faces mob'd in Hoods and long Coats like Petticoats as if they had a greater ambition to appear the Pedissequae or Handmaids of the Virgin Mary whom the Doctours of that Church love to call the Daughter of God then the Men-servants and Souldiers of Jesus Christ who in this Epistle to the Church in Thyatira on purpose one would think to reproach the Roman Church for this Idolatrous Corrivalry or rather Prelation of the Virgin in religious Worship before Christ expresly calls himself the Son of God This I say must assuredly be a consider
Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia 1. WE shall first premise That as those two following Prophecies of the Seven Seals and of the opened Book reach from the beginning to the end of the Church so this of the Seven Churches reaches also from the beginning of the Church to the end of all Which seems congruous both from the nature of the Vision it self and from the following Examples of the Prophecies of the Seven Seals and the opened Book We shall premise in the second place That as it is conspicuous that four of the names of these seven Churches are directly significant of some State and Condition they are in viz. Smyrna Pergamus Philadelphia and Laodicea so it is exceeding credible that the other three names may allude to some thing that may set out their Nature and Condition also viz. Ephesus Thyatira and Sardis as we shall take more express notice in the process of our Exposition Lastly which might as well if not better have been noted at first This more mysticall sense which we are now a-rendring of the Seven Churches doth not at all clash with the Literal sense of the same nor exclude that usefull Applicability of them for the Reproof or Praise of any Churches particular in any time or Age of the Christian world that are for the like things obnoxious or commendable But the distinct Providence of God and his watchfulness and foresight of the Affairs of his Church may haply be more illustrated and display'd by this mystical way of Exposition then by that Literal or Moral 2. We will therefore distinguish the whole Duration of the Church of Christ especially so far forth as it is within the limits of the Roman Empire which also the other Prophecies in the Apocalyps seem chiefly to regard into Seven Intervalls and will suppose the first Intervall to end where the second begins viz. in the tenth year of Nero or Anno Christi 63. 3. Which Period therefore of the Ephesine Church ending so early even about thirty years before St. John's writing the Apocalypse agrees excellently well with that passage Ch. 1. v. 18 19. where after Christ's declaring himself the first and the last as before in the same Chapter he is called He that was and is and is to come and his mentioning his own Death and Resurrection and how that he will be alive to the end of the world to carry on the Affairs of his Church he presently inferrs Write therefore what things thou hast seen what things are and what things shall be hereafter which he expresly and immediately calls the Mystery of the seven Stars and the seven golden Candlesticks ver 20. which is worth the noting What things thou hast seen already in the times of thy life past namely the state of the Ephesine Church what things are now present viz. the Smyrnian state of the Church in which thou art and tastest of the bitterness of it in this thy Exile here in Patmos for the Ten Persecutions were then already begun and John was in the Second of them and what things shall be hereafter namely to the end of the world in the residue of the period of the Smyrnian Church and in the periods of the Remainder of the Seven Churches succeeding And questionless the Vision of the Rider of the white Horse respects what was then past namely Christ's first Warfare upon his conquest of Death and his being mounted into his glorify'd Body who after from on high sent down Succours to his Apostles and Disciples and assisted and and managed that illustrious Battel in the beginning of the Apostolick Times so successfully and gloriously that infinite numbers of men were brought under the obedience of the Gospel even within the space of the Ephesine Period 4. So that there can be no scruple of the Church of Ephesus representing a State of the Church past but onely that it seems improper to direct an Epistle to a Church then out of being But this can be no argument with them that hold the Seven Churches to be seven successive Conditions of the Church to the worlds end For make the Exitus of the Ephesine Church reach beyond S. John's time suppose to Anno Christi 100 or thereabout the rest of the Epistles will be writ to Churches not yet in being and some many hundreds nay thousands of years ere they shall be which yet they must not count absurd 5. The briefest account therefore of this matter is this That the Spirit of God seems to drive on two main designs in the Vision of these Seven Churches at once The one most effectually to animate and encourage the Church to doe well to stick to Truth and Holiness through all the Trials and Calamities of this present life as also to deterre them from all kind of Sin and wickedness of what nature soever whether Apostasie from the Faith Idolatry Sensuality or what-ever Remissness in Manners For which design this Epistolar way is exceeding accommodate it bearing the form of personally speaking to people and so the more forcibly makes them take notice in a manner whether they will or no of what is said unto them The other design and that so laid as not to foregoe the former advantage is to instruct the Church in the Providence of God and his Foresight to shew how all things lie bare before his eyes in such order and succession as they are in time to come to pass In the Literal sense of these Epistles to the Seven Churches that former design is plainly pursued and attained understanding them directed to these Seven Churches in Asia then in being and in a very great measure in the Moral sense These Epistles I say being so applicable to any part of the Catholick Church in any Age thereof placed in the same or like circumstances of Condition with these Asiatick Churches this Epistolar way will have a considerable efficacy and influence upon them for either Animation or Reproof 6. But now the great Question is Why the Prophetical design discoverable in the mystical Interpretation should have been couched in this Epistolar way especially the Epistle to Ephesus being writ after the Ephesine Period was expired To which I answer that this Propheticall design was not intended for the Ephesine Church in this mysticall sense but for future Ages and therefore it is taken in onely to make up the entireness of the whole Succession of the Church in its several distinct states from the beginning to the end of all But this Epistolar way is still retained in this mysticall sense for the same usefulnesse it had in the Literal to the Seven Churches in Asia then really in being For so soon as any of these Letters by this mysticall sense is understood to be directed to any successive part of the Church as now for example as will appear anon the Epistle to the Church of Sardis is directed to the Protestant Church or Reformed Christendome this Succession of the Church
ought to be as much concerned as that particular Church of Sardis was in Asia minor And this intention of the Holy Ghost being once understood it will be of the like usefulness to the Philadelphian Church especially and also to the Laodicean Wherefore the Objections were but small considering the Usefulness of this Epistolar way though there were no other sense of these seven Epistles and the seven Churches but the mysticall For as in an entire Vision where the beginning is touching something past or present all goes under the Title of Propheticall though that part that respects things past is but Historicall Representation so in this entire Epistolar Vision though the first part be Epistolar yet it is but Historicall Representation exhibiting times and persons past as if they were present to be writ to and that for uniformity sake in the form of an Epistle as what is past in History under the form of Propheticall Vision as the Rider of the white Horse which is the first in the Vision of the Seals though the Representation was of what was partly past and partly present But what is to come is the proper object of all Vision Propheticall But now besides all this in the Literal sense there being then a Church in Ephesus when that Epistle was wrote to it and in a Moral sense it being applicable to any Church that does Ephesize in any part of Christendome and at any time the Objection in my judgment has melted into less then nothing And therefore notwithstanding this exception we will not stick to place the end of the Interval of the Ephesine Succession in the tenth of Nero's Reign and in the year of Christ 63. Till then let the Church of Christ be represented under the Title of Ephesus from that time till about three hundred and odd years after Christ under the name of Smyrna from thence to the latter end of the Persecution of the Albigenses and Waldenses let her be the Church dwelling in Pergamus from that time till whole Nations fell off from the Pope let the same Church bear the name of Thyatira from that time Protestantisme became the Religion of Nations till the last Vial let this Church bear the Title of the Church in Sardis from that time till the fourth Thunder let it wear the name of Philadelphia from the fourth Thunder till Christ come visibly to Judgement in the clouds let the Church bear the name of Laodicea These are the seven Intervals which how well they will fit with the Titles of these distinct successive States of the Church and the things spoken of them in the Vision I will anon endeavour to unfold CHAP. II. A farther Preparation out of the first Chapter of the Apocalypse whereby this Propheticall meaning of the Vision of the Seven Churches is more clearly assured BUT in the mean time for the greater assurance of this Propheticall or Mysticall sense we will first make some farther Remarks upon the first Chapter of the Apocalypso Where we will make onely this one modest Supposition that the Spirit of God sets down nothing immethodically nor in vain or at least nothing vainly immethodicall Wherefore upon the very first Verse which bears the Title of the whole Book The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass that is things to come to pass some shortly and other some in succession of time as all Interpreters agree I cannot but note this That if the Spirit of God do but respicere Titulum as most certainly he will he will set down no entire Visions as this of the Seven Churches is but they must in the main be of things to come to pass not of things present merely and not hid but obvious to the eyes of men as the State of the Churches here mentioned was to the world at that time And therefore something farther must be meant by them then can be contained in the Literal sense which is not of things to come as the Title requires but onely of things present or some Promises or Threatnings that do not properly amount to the nature of Prophetical prediction no more then the Law of Moses to which they are annexed 2. Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the word of this Prophecy for the time is at hand This again plainly shews that this Book is all of it I mean all the entire Visions thereof a Book of Prophecies which as I intimated before mere Promises and Threatnings cannot make it no more then they do those Laws of Moses to which they are adjoyned And though the several States of the Seven Churches may be applicable to several states of particular Churches of after-Ages in Christendome l yet it cannot properly be in this Literal sense by way of Prediction but of Example of Vertue or Vice of pious or impious Actions which repeatedly happen in all History Whence if there be no more in it then thus these Epistles to the Seven Churches cannot be deemed any Prophecy and therefore are heterogeneous to the Scope and Title of the Book 3. But upon the so expresly calling this a Book of Prophecies for John to salute the Seven Churches in Asia with this Salutation Grace be unto you and peace from him which is and which was and which is to come methinks it does even forcibly drive a man to conceive that the Vision of the Seven Churches which he so immediately falls upon is a Prophecy according to the title immediately mentioned in the foregoing Verse Besides that the description of the party in whose name he salutes them which is and which was and which is to come does very naturally insinuate that he is treating of what reaches from the beginning of the Church to the latest Ages thereof Which he insists more upon in the seventh Verse after he has spoken of the person of Christ Behold he cometh with the clouds this reaches the last Period of Laodicea when God will judge all people and every eye shall see him and they also which pierced him and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him for the Earth shall then be burnt up with the works thereof Even so Amen This will certainly come to pass about the seventh Thunder in that dark hollow Dungeon where there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth let the sons of Infidelity or Unbelief conceit what they will to the contrary Wherefore the minde and scope of the spirit of Prophecy seems here to be carried out even to the utmost Ages of the world 4. According as he declares in the next Verse I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and the ending saith the Lord which is and which was and which is to come the Almighty That Wisedome and Power that reaches from one end to another mightily and sweetly orders all things This methinks strongly insinuates that the Vision of the Seven
within the Intervall of the Ephesine Church in our sense several Reproofs and Exhortations in the Epistles of the Apostles do plainly evince See Dr. Hammond's Notes on this Church which fully reach our design And the Epistles of Paul and the first of Peter and that to the Hebrews were all writ within that Intervall we have set for the Ephesine Church and their Faults committed before Which Defaults this Vision rebukes and threatens them for by way of instruction for future Ages as it is in the following Verse 9. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent and doe the first works He bids them return to their first Love which was more strong then death And it was fit to give this command and encouragement to the Church because of greater Trials to come in her Smyrnian Condition For before the Ten Persecutions Martyrdome was more rare Or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy Candlestick out of his place except thou repent That is by an Hypallage I will remove thee from thy Candlestick which therefore is directed more especially to the Bishops or Pastours of the Church at that time as threatning them for falling into such a remiss degree of Love themselves or suffering their Charges so to fall For the seven Candlesticks are the seven Churches Ch. 1. v. 20. and the seven Stars are the Angels of the seven Churches that is to say the Bishops and Pastours of the Church Wherefore this Commination to them may by an Hypallage signifie their being removed from the Church by some Judgement or other that is as many of them as were thus carelesse and remisse But to any Members of the Church the removing of the Candlestick from them may be their amission of their Church-membership as eripere alicui or adimere alicui Civitatem is to make him cease to be a Citizen any longer Which sense is also competible to the Bishops or Pastours Christ may cut them off in foro Divino from being any longer Members of his Church and consequently from Salvation But there is yet another sense which pleaseth me best of all in which Victorinus Andreas Lyranus and Alcazar do all agree who interpret the removing of the Candlestick out of its place of the commination of some Commotion or Storm that should overtake this Church not that this Church should be carried quite away but moved or agitated as in a Storm or Earthquake This they understand of the Ephesine Church in Asia literally which is an argument that the Interpretation seemed very easie and genuine unto them And it is as easily applicable to our Mysticall sense But I would raise the Storm a little higher and make it signifie the storm of that dreadfull Persecution that was to befall the Church in the Smyrnian Intervall thereof For it is look'd upon still as the Apostolick Church from the beginning to the end though distinguished into these several Intervalls And it is observable that there is in every Epistle to the respective Church some Prediction to be fulfilled in the Intervall of the following Church Which I thought fit here to note at once and shall particularly as we proceed take notice thereof in their proper places The sense therefore seems to be this That unless the Church in this Ephesine Intervall would be raised to an higher pitch of Zeal and Love and Activity for the propagating of his Kingdome Christ would excite their Courage and exercise it with such hot Persecutions sanguis Martyrum semen Ecclesiae as would be more effectual for the bringing to pass his design And it sell out accordingly in the Ten Persecutions within the Smyrnian Period of the Church 10. But this thou hast that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans which I also hate The Church by this time had grown so soft and remisse that there was not that zealous painfulnesse as heretofore in several of them nor that resolved Courage in suffering all things for Christ's sake yet they were not grown so corrupt and beastly as to be given up to the impurity of the Nicolaitans which in after-times some exercised from a mistake of an indiscreet act of one Nicolas a Deacon in these very times of the Apostles And from him were these beastly fellows called Nicolaitans But little or nothing of this Impurity appeared within the Period of this Ephesine Church which yet the Spirit of God foresaw would become detestably frequent and notorious in such Wretches as though they called themselves Christians the Apostolick Church would not own This is allowed the Ephesine Church for their comfort and credit that they are free from Nicolaitism and that they may adde to their Purity invincible Patience and Fortitude he adds To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God For their works and labour and pains-taking here is eating and refreshing promised them for their Patience and hardship a Paradise of Pleasure for their laying down their lives for the Gospel the enjoyment of eternal Life in the Kingdome of Christ. Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdome Verily I say unto thee This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise But we had almost forgot the former part of the seventh Verse He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches Which being a common Epiphonema to all these seven Epistles repeated in them from the first to the last certainly must bear no small importance with it Two things therefore I conceive driven at by the affixing this Epiphonema to each Epistle The one to give us notice that though there be a Literal sense of these Epistles yet that they are every one of them also a Parable which is intimated from this repeated form of speech which Christ in his life-time usually added at the end of Parables He that has ears to hear let him hear Besides that the very sense of the Epiphonema implies so much which is He that has an understanding to reach the depth of the meaning of these Epistles let him reach it For it is not within the reach of every man's wit to find out the drift of them The other thing driven at is to intimate to us that there is a meaning lodged under these seven Parabolicall Epistles of exceeding great moment and concernment to the Church From whence I would inferre that that Interpretation of them that is of the greatest consequence is the most likely to prove true And such I conceive this will approve it self to the judicious which we are now a-framing And thus much of the first Succession of the Church under the Title of Ephesus CHAP. IV. The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Church in Smyrna 1. AND unto the Angel of the Church in Smyrna write We come now to the second Succession of the state of the Church whose Title is the Church in Smyrna and
and I will give you the Crown of Life That is to say Stand out till the consummation of the Ten Persecutions wherewith ye will be tried and ye shall have the Crown of Life I will crown you with the Imperial Crown which shall prove a Crown of Life unto you Christianity shall become at length the Religion of the Empire which will save you for the future from the deadly Persecutions of the red Dragon You shall be no longer subject to the Cruelty of Roman Paganism for the profession of your Religion This therefore will be a Crown of Life unto you This is according to that Apoc. 21. 4. And there shall be no more death that is there shall be no more Persecution and killing for Conscience sake Which was the sad case of this Smyrnian Church under the Pagan Cruelty in an eminent manner Wherefore when they had wone their Freedome it was a Crown of Life to them by the Law of Contraries That this is the genuine sense will farther appear from what follows 6. He that hath an ear to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches This being an usual Epiphonema to Parables plainly intimates that what hitherto has been said is a parabolicall Prophecy And the nature of a Prophecy is to foretell such things as are to be transacted here on earth And therefore where the Promise is not Divine or concerning the state after this life the Epiphonema follows as is very conspicuous in the Promise to the Church of Thyatira which is the first example of the Epiphonema coming last of all which is a sign that the whole Epistle there is Propheticall Verse 26. And he that overcometh and keepeth my words unto the end to him will I give power over the Nations c. Which therefore concerns the stage of this Earth And therefore this Promise here of the Crown of Life before the Epiphonema I would interpret of a Reward in this life on this earth according as I have expounded the passage But now that which follows this Epiphonema is a Promise of another sort viz. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death for it is the securing of a blessed Immortality after this life and seems farther to correspond with that passage in the Apocalypse Ch. 20. v. 6. Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first Resurrection on such the second death hath no power Wherefore though not according to the inference of rigid Syllogism yet according to those nice and delicate hints in Propheticall Intimations I would conclude that the promise of their Portion in the first Resurrection is here proposed to those afflicted Smyrnians which was the proper Portion of Martyrs and Confessours according to the opinion of the Primitive Church as Mr. Mede has learnedly and judiciously observed Which granted does hugely corroborate this Application of the Epistle to the Church in Smyrna to this Intervall which contains the times of all the Sufferings in a manner of the primitive Martyrs The promise of a blessed Immortality had been very proper and accommodate to this Smyrnian state of the Church that were so frequently to lose their lives for profession of the Gospel but for it to be intimated to them that these shall have their portion in the first Resurrection which is proper to Martyrs as appears by the place above quoted is so characteristicall of this Intervall wherein all the primitive Martyrs suffered viz. in those Ten Persecutions that it does marvellously confirm the truth of the Exposition of this present Epistle in this Mysticall way we have gone And thus much of the Church in Smyrna that is in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the bitternesse of Oppression and Affliction as the Allusion to that Syriack word imports We proceed to the Church in Pergamus CHAP. V. The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Church in Pergamus 1. AND to the Angel of the Church in Pergamus write The Intervall of this Church is from the year of Christ 324 when Constantine utterly defeated the Army of Licinius not above thirty thousand of one hundred and thirty thousand escaping and so with his own Victories made the Church also triumphant out of her long and unsupportable Miseries raising her aloft from her sad Oppressions and Persecutions From this year I say to the year 1242 when the Pope's Legate Amelin made an end of the Albigensian War with Trancavel Bastard of the Earl of Beziers let this be the Intervall of the Church in Pergamus 2. Of the beginning of this Intervall there can be no doubt And for the termination of it there are these two Considerations to countenance it The first in that the latter of those numbers in the last of Daniel viz. the number 1335 does point to the beginning of the Affairs of the Waldenses and Albigenses who are both one Sect and from one Authour Waldo of Lyons an holy and good man whose Preaching and his own and his Followers Sufferings were about the term of that Number whose Epoche is the Prophanation of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes So considerable a passage of Providence is the appearing of the Waldenses in those times betwixt the year of Christ 1160 and 1170. For they were condemned for Hereticks by Pope Alexander in the Laterane Council in the year 1162 upon which you may be sure Persecutions would immediately follow And Mr. Mede with great judgement will have this latter Number in Daniel to point at these Times Nor does that expression of Daniel at all weaken his Opinion in that he saith Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days because it is said in the Apocalypse also Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord that is that die for the cause of our Lord Jesus And of the Church of Smyrna it is said I know thy tribulation and poverty but thou art rich The judgement of the Spirit of God and the judgement of carnal men are quite opposite in these things What they call Poverty the Spirit calls Riches what they Misery the Spirit Blessednesse Wherefore the Affairs of the Waldenses or Albigenses is a notable distinct and conspicuous joint of time even according to the judgement of the Spirit of Prophecy But then in the second place I terminate the Intervall of this Church in Pergamus not in the beginning but the conclusion of these Waldensian or Albigensian Affairs because they being all in a manner one and so plainly concluded in the year I have mentioned their Sufferings may the more punctually answer to the Sufferings of that one Martyr Antipas who is here said to be slain in Pergamus But the Concinnity of these things we shall better understand after we have descanted upon the name Pergamus 3. That by Pergamus is intimated a state of Exaltation or Sublimity I intimated before Sublimia omnia dicta Asiaticis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notat Hesychius Suidas
Servius saith Grotius upon Apoc. 1. 11. whence he would have the Church in Pergamus to re-mind us of high and heavenly things But this is a Moral not a Propheticall sense But with him howsoever I acknowledge that the signification of Sublimity is alluded to in the general but here most elegantly and seasonably in reference to the precedent state of the Church in Smyrna which was a state of Humiliation and bitter Affliction But at the very beginning of this present Intervall she so conspicuously emerging out of this low sad affictive state into the state of glory peace and prosperity what can be more significant then to salute her with the Title of the Church in Pergamus accordingly as she is here saluted which is a kind of Congratulation to her fresh emergency out of her late Miseries And this sense will hold good for a time in this Intervall namely till tho days of her Apostasy but then the Apostolick Church will be the Church in Pergamus still but in another kind of meaning 4. According therefore to the richnesse of the Prophetick style Pergamus has also another sense such as the City Babylon and the City Tyrus which are put for the City of Rome But then not in such a sense as to mean the Walls or Stones of the Roman City but the Roman Church and her Power and Jurisdiction And in such a sense is Pergamus also here put for Rome So that this Epistle written to the Church of Christ in Pergamus the truly Catholick and Apostolick Church is directed to this Church dwelling under the Roman Church or within the Roman Churche's Jurisdiction understanding old Rome especially as all such Apocalyptick Visions perstringe her most Now that Rome in this sense is perstringed by this Pergamus is very evident First in the easie Allusion of Pergamus to Rome from the signification of the words For as Pergamus signifies Sublimity so as Martinius notes Rome is from the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exaltari Besides that her Situation is high and Buildings lofty according to that of the Poet Collibus è septem totum circumspicit orbem And the highest of all is the Bishop of Rome himself who exalts himself above all that is called God or is worshipped Is not this therefore a fit Bishop of Pergamus that perks thus above all Kings and Emperours and Princes of the earth And our Intervall of the Church of Pergamus reaches the highest times of her Exaltation it taking in both Gregory the seventh who first excommunicated the Emperour and took upon him the power of making Emperours himself and Alexander the third who trode upon the neck of the Emperour Frederick as also Caelestine the third that crowned Henry the sixth and his Empress with his feet and in scorn kick'd the Emperour's Crown off with his foot when he had crowned him Certainly the Popes of Rome were then the Bishops of Pergamus with a witnesse Nor after this Intervall could they ever hold their Crests so high Boniface the eighth indeed was a Blusterer and excommunicated Philip the Fair of France but he called him fool for his pains and handled him in such sort that surprized at Anagnia he was disgracefully mounted on a poor Jade and so carried prisoner to Rome where Pride and Regret broke his heart and so he there dy'd ingloriously But secondly It is said of this Pergamus that it was the most given to Idolatry of all the Cities of Asia so Andreas Cesariensis reports of it which is the notorious Character of Rome above all Cities and therefore elsewhere in the Apocalypse she is called the Whore of Babylon for her insatiable spiritual Fornications Thirdly These Pergamenians were very fierce and diligent Accusers of the Apostolick Christians to bring them to Martyrdome as Dr. Hammond upon the place notes out of ancient History For which also Rome is taxed elsewhere in the Apocalypse who is said to be drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus Fourthly It is recorded of the Prefect of this City Pergamus that he would persuade the Christians to forsake the Apostolick Faith and return to Heathenism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because the elder Religion was the more precious and to be preferred As Antiquity is the great Pretense of the Papal Church That Prefect said of Christianity that it was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it began but the other day And so you may be sure the Church of Rome said of the Religion of the Waldenses and Albigenses See Dr. Hammond upon the place And lastly That it should be the Martyr Antipas that was slain in Pergamus can any name more directly and assuredly point at the Church of Rome or the Papal Church then this For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Father and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is Papa â—â— but a Reduplication of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eustathius has noted and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies as much as against And therefore who can be so blind as not to discern how fit a Type this Antipas is of them that within this Intervall of the Church should suffer for being against that holy Father the Pope as he is called Nothing can sound more congruously or harmoniously whatever any man by way of cavill can say against it The main Interpretation therefore of this present Epistle to the Church in Pergamus will respect the pure Apostolick Church abiding within the Jurisdiction of the Roman as this sense plainly implies the Woman in the wildernesse as the Holy Ghost elsewhere expresses it These things saith he that hath the sharp sword with two edges Christ is set out thus in this Epistle to the Church in Pergamns because this Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God understood and rellished by the Divine Spirit in us was the main Weapon whereby the Church in Pergamus defended her self from the Pergamenian Corruptions and so kept her self pure from the false Glosses and unsound Traditions of either Superstitious men or crafty Deceivers 5. I know thy works and where thou dwellest even where Satan's seat is and thou holdest fast my Name and hast not denied my Faith even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithfull Martyr who was slain among you where Satan dwelleth That is to say I know thou doest well for the main and to thy greater commendation I consider where thou dwellest even where the first-born of Lucifer has his throne he that exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped So Christ compares Satan to Lucifer or the King of Babylon of whom the Prophet says How art thou fallen Lucifer thou son of the Morning Luke 10. 18. I beheld Satan as lightning fall from Heaven And yet neither the awe nor glory of that Church could cause thee to forsake my Name and in stead of being a true Christian to become a Member of Antichrist and so relinquish the pure Apostolick Faith no not
of our Lady to tosse and seem much tormented Where one fasts on Friday upon the account of the Passion of our Lord many fast on Saturday upon the account of his Mother And to their Beads they string up ten Salutations of our Lady to one of our Lord's Prayers The Bell also which is rung at Sun-rise at Noon and Sun-set is called the Ave-Mary Bell whereby all men every-where at those set times might be engaged to doe their Devotions to the Virgin Mary And lastly their chief Preachers do teach in Pulpit whatsoever is found in Scripture spoken of Christ the Son of God to apply it to our Lady also as being the Daughter of God Is not therefore the Church of Rome rightly called Thyatira as alluding to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which both Strabo and Pliny would have to be the reason of the name of that City 3. I will onely adde one thing more Alsledius calls this Intervall of time which we attribute to the Church of Thyatira Regnum Locustarum because of the variety of the Orders of Monks that started up within this time Therefore when the Church of Rome swarmed so with Monks and Friers that had abjured their Virility by an irrevocable Vow of Caelibate and went in sculking Hoods and long Coats like Women and so became Petticoat-men at the best was it not very congruous for the Spirit of Prophecy by way of just reproach to this Womanishness so to characterize the Church of Rome at this time by calling her Thyatira as if they had become rather the Daughters of men then the Sons of men by this so general Effeminacy in more then those Monkish garbs which I now mention Besides that these Petticoat-men the Dominicans especially managed their opposition against the true Church in a right feminine manner not manly as before by meeting their enemy in the Field but sneakingly by Perfidiousness and Treachery to bring them into the Inquisition and then cruelly and insultingly in the upshot as it is easie to understand by reading the History of the Holy Inquisition as they call it Therefore there being all these symptoms of Feminity in the Church of Rome in this Intervall it is not unreasonable to conceive that this corruption of hers is perstringed by calling her the City of Thyatira alluding to Thygatira which signifies not a son of Adam but a daughter 4. But were it not for the Authority of Strabo and Pliny there is another paronomastical Allusion which I should prefer before this Wherefore according to the richnesse of the Prophetick style I should also conceive Thyatira to allude to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is to break or bruise Aromatick Spices which makes them give the sweeter savour or else to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Altars for the burning of sweet Odours Any of which methinks is lesse forced then either Grotius his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Strabo's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And as to the sense the Paronomasia is very expressive of the Persecutions of the true Members of Christ within this Intervall and agrees exactly with History wherein there is little talk of flaying with the Sword as is intimated in that expression in the foregoing Intervall where the Martyr Antipas is said to be slain which agrees admirably well with that great Slaughter of the Waldenses and the Albigenses which were martyred in the Field by the Pontifician Forces as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies properly to slay suppose with the Sword or any such weapon of War 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the Persecutions in the Thyatirian Intervall were usually Burnings or Rackings and wasting away their lives in miserable Imprisonments But that which was most frequent and most famous in this Period was the burning of men alive with Fire and faggot This filled Thyatira with so many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where though the Cruelty of the Persecutors was most execrable yet the Faith Constancy and devout Sincerity of our blessed Protestant Martyrs went up with the flames and globes of Smoak sweeter then any Odours or Incense from the Altar into the presence of Heaven and were there accepted for his sake who gave himself for us an Offering and a Sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling favour 5. The frequency of these Burnt-offerings in those times is noted by Sanderus a Papist Infinitos Lolhardos Sacramentarios in tota Europa nuper ignibus traditos fuisse But nothing can be so significative of the change of the Scene of the Persecution of the Church in Pergamus where Antipas was slain to this in Thyatira whereby these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are alluded to as that passage in the History of the Albigenses lib. 2. c. 9. which gave me occasion to terminate the Pergamenian Intervall in that year viz. 1242. Here you see saith he the last Attempt which we finde the Albigenses to have made and the last Expedition of Pilgrims levied against them All the pursuit against them afterwards was by the Monks the Inquisitours the Dominicans he means of whose Father Dominicus his Mother when she went with child with him dream'd she was big of a Dog that vomited fire out of his throat which Monks saith he now kindled their Fires more then ever And taking these poor people disarmed and singling them out by retail it was impossible for them any longer to subsist And so this suffering Church of Christ passed out of that state where Antipas was slain with the Sword to that of Thyatira where the holy Martyrs of our Reformed Religion were burnt at the Stake And this I think will suffice to make us understand why the Power and Jurisdiction of the Roman Church in this Intervall bears the Title of Thyatira 6. These things saith the Son of God who hath his eys like to a flame of fire and his feet are like fine brasse The Son of God is here Christ either personally or mystically understood for his Body the Church Understanding it personally of Christ his flaming Eyes denote his piercing and discerning Foresight and Providence it portends also his Wrath and Vengeance against the Persecutors of his Church with Fire and faggot but his Feet like fine brasse the peremptory Constancy amd Purity of his ways But if we understand these Feet like fine brasse of Christ's mysticall Body we are to make a supply of the Description out of the former Chapter ver 15. And his feet like fine brass as if they burned in a furnace whereby is insinuated the fiery Trial of his Church in this Intervall of Thyatira even in the grossest sense so many of his Servants standing at the Stake with their leggs in the midst of flaming Fire kindled by their barbarous Persecutors That the Son of God described in the foregoing Chapter is also representative of his Body mysticall the description of his Voice seems plainly to intimate His Voice being compared to the sound of
trade of whoring still Behold I will cast her into a bed and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation except they repent of their deeds Unlesse she repent I will certainly cast her into a bed of sicknesse and languishment for that bed of Adultery wherein she has entertained the Kings of the earth Her strength and glory shall be much diminished and her Paramours shall bewail the Calamity I shall bring upon her For there shall be of the Kings that shall hate the Whore shall make her desolate in their dominions and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire As it fell out in the late defection of whole Nations from her And I will kill her children with death That is either slay them with the sword of the Spirit and so make them dead as to her by their conversion to the truth or else kill them with a natural death such I mean as come against my true Church whether whole Armies or seditious Emissaries as has often happened since the Reformation And all the Churches shall know that I am he that searches the reins and hearts and will give unto every one of you according to his works That is it will be notoriously taken notice of in all Christendome how just my judgements are and that I deal not with Jezebel according to her fair pretenses and Titles who calls her self Holy Church and pretends all her cruelties and imposturous and Idolatrous Trumperies to be for my glory whenas they have run into all this degeneracy for their worldly Interest But mine eyes which are a flaming fire searching into the hearts and reins clearly see their abominable Hypocrisie and my feet like fine brasse that never goe out of the way of purity and justice will be sure to overtake them and doe due vengeance upon them I will reward every one according to his works 18. But unto you I say and unto the rest in Thyatira as many as have not this doctrine To you Pastours of my true Church in Thyatira and the rest which are your charge that hold not the Idolatrous doctrine or faith of the Thyatirian that is of the Roman Church And which have not known the depths of Satan as they speak that is which have not approved the deep mysteries as they speak of reason of State or of the Roman Religion such as murdering innocent men for the Interest of Holy Church Infallibility Transubstantiation and the like but I who search the heart and reins do apertly declare to be the depths of Satan they tending to nothing but to Luciferian Pride barbarous Persecutions and Murders and grosse imposture and Idolatry I will put upon you no other burden but that which ye have already hold fast untill I come I have already shew'd you my approbation of your wayes ver 19. and in that ye do not communicate with the Idolatrous Jezebel keep to where you are and stand out to the last let no Persecutions dismay you till I come in judgement against this Jezebel the same with the little Horn in Daniel which in the expiring of the time and times and half a time will certainly be judged 19. And he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end to him will I give power over the Nations That company of men those people that keep my works to the end to the last semi-time of the Seven they shall have power over the Pagan Christians they shall get them under and be no more domineered over by them And he shall rule them with a rod of Iron that is with sufficient power and strictnesse to keep them in subjection As the vessels of a Potter shall they be broken to shivers The stone shall smite the Image on the feet and break them to pieces That shall be at the long-run Even as I received of my father I in you and you in me you in me by vertue of the Power of my Spirit shall thus reign and I in you according as it is written I shall give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron thou shalt dash them in pieces as a Potters vessel But this is something further off 20. And I will give him the morning star In the mean time and which is next to succeed I will give them the morning star that is a considerable dawning towards that greater Day of the illustrious reign of Christ upon earth in his Saints by his Spirit The Phosphorus to the glorious Sun-rise of the happy Millennium properly so called This intervall will be the same with that of the Vials which are accompanied with such a smoake As here the Promise which is to be performed in the next Succession of the Church and there continued is not expressed with that vigour as elsewhere where Christ in reference to his Kingdome is said to be the bright morning star here onely the morning star without the ornament of that Epithet The Kingdome of Christ therefore under the first Thunder may be said to be the morning star but under the second the bright morning star And it is observable that whereas in that other place he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may also have the signification of more early then was expected which exquisitely answers to the evert it falling out toward the fore-part of the last semi-time But these things are onely by the by He that hath an ear to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches There is nothing new remarkable in this Epiphonema but the placing of it here after the whole Epistle which is a sign that all the Epistle is a Parable and is not onely meant of the Church in Thyatira in the Literal sense but that the condition and affairs of some other Church the truely Catholick and Apostolick Church in the Intervall defined are here prefigured and described Prophetically And that therefore the Promises are to be performed on this stage of the Earth as of their own nature they appear to be such that have a Political sense Which therefore therewithall assures us that such a tenour of Interpretation belongs to the three following Epistles because the Epiphonema is the close of every one of them And therefore we shall steer the course of our Interpretation accordingly CHAP. VII The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Church in Sardis 1. AND unto the Angel in the Church of Sardis write That Sardis was a City in Asia is manifest Ch. 1. And considered no otherwise then so does not at all illustrate the condition of this fifth Succession of the state of the Church But acknowledging here again a Paronomastical Allusion to Sarda the precious Stone as Grotius does or taking notice with Pliny that that Stone is so called for its first being found about
Sardis it may prove very significative of the condition of Reformed Christendome within that Intervall beginning from the rising of the Witnesses and ending in the last Viall in part of it I mean After which the Intervall of Phyladelphia comes in and takes up also the second and third Thunder Some special qualities therefore of the Church of Sardis are to be read in this Stone Sarda and some to her praise others to her diminution The virtue of this Stone is that carried about one it makes a man chearfull and couragious and drives away Witchcraft and Enchantment and expells poison rightly administred which adumbrate some peculiar Privileges in this Sardian Church Their chearfull security in justification by faith in Christ's bloud and their being rid of the poisonous idolatrous doctrines and bewitching Enchantments of the Cup of the Whore Here 's nothing of Jezebel in this Church nor any mention of the eating of things offered to Idols nor in the two following Epistles which is no small ratification of the truth of these Successions Both they and she are well and sound touching these points 2. But this Stone Sarda which is also called Carnalina and in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odem as representing humane flesh and bloud so lively seems also to insinuate something to the Derogation of the Sardian Church as if they were flesh and not spirit which is the special Dispensation of the Church of Philadelphia And whereas Christ's Conquest over Edom is by letting out or squeezing out the corrupt bloud of old Adam this Odem or Carnalina is said to be of that virtue as to stanch bloud and stop it from running out and therefore seems to be significative of whatever Doctrines in the Sardian Church that hinder the due and requisite Mortification of the old man as loth to weaken him too much and let too much of his bloud and life run out 3. The meaning therefore is that though the Sardian Church be well rid of the foul Idolatries and grosse Trumperies of the Papal Church yet her state as yet is but carnal most-what It is not the Dispensation of the spirit of life but the main stir is about external Opinion Ceremony they seem to know Christ onely according to the flesh not according to the power of his Spirit whereby he is able to subdue all things under him Whereas Christ after he had said that his flesh was meat indeed and his bloud was drink indeed clearly explains himself in declaring expresly that the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life yet a great part of this Sardian Church I mean the Lutherans rack their own Wits and disturb the rest of Reformed Christendome to maintain that odd Paradox of Consubstantiation that so men may eat and drink that grosse Flesh and Bloud of Christ that was crucify'd upon the Crosse in the Celebration of their Eucharists What can be more Carnaline-like then this Besides that there are over-many that do as grosly and carnally erre touching the nature of the Resurrection-Body they phansying it as terrestrially modify'd though it be called a celestial or spiritual Body in the Scriptures as that Body is that we put into the Grave or is capable of the imbraces of the Nuptial Bed To say nothing of other such like grosse carnal Conceits that this Sardian Church has not yet expunged out of her mind But as mischievous a mark as any of her Carnality is her Dissension and Schismaticalnesse even to mutuall Persecution as also the unnatural and unchristian Wars of one part of Reformed Christendome against the other These things rankly savour of the Flesh and are infinitely contrary to the due Dispensation of the Spirit which when it shall appear will bring in the Church of Philadelphia the Church of unfeigned Love and Charity wherein according to the prediction of the Prophets there shall not be the noise of this unchristian War any more These Touches may suffice to shew why the Spirit of God has denoted this Succession of his Church by the Title of the Church in Sardis 4. These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God The number Seven signifies Universality sometimes whence the Pythagoreans call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The sense therefore is that hath in readinesse to bestow all the spiritual or Divine Graces to make the man of God perfect to every good word and work And the seven Stars That is to say that holds the seven Stars in his right hand so it is in the Description before his speech to the Ephesine Church which is repeated here for encouragement Christ hereby declaring his Power and promising his Assistence to the renewing of Christendome through the Reformation as well as he did to the forming of it at first and rooting out Paganism in the first beginning of the Church which is the Ephesine Intervall I know thy works that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead I discern plainly thy state and condition Thou hast indeed a semblance of life because thou hast a great deal of Heat and Zeal and dost with an externall fervour doe many performances that may raise a fame of thee of being more then ordinarily religious And many hot disputes there may be for this or that Ceremony for this or that Opinion and against them much and very vehement discourse about Faith and Justification and the like Which Heat and activity bears a semblance of Life in thee But assure thy self unlesse thou hast that Faith that worketh by Love all this stir is but the noise of tinkling Brasse or of sounding Cymbals And being thus alive thou art notwithstanding in my sight little better then dead And although thou dost thus imitate warm flesh and bloud yet thou art but a cold Sardius Stone to my touch and discernment As she that liveth wantonly is dead while she liveth though she thinks she is then most of all alive so it is with him that devoid of Christian Love and Charity is enlivened with an hot bitter ignorant and preposterous Zeal This is not the life of God but of mere Nature and Carnality 5. Be watchfull and strengthen the things that remain that are ready to die Take heed that want of Love and Life hazard not Faith too and Remissnesse in Manners bring not in Atheism and Infidelity over all For I have not found thy works perfect before me Those things that have Life in them goe on to Perfection Wherefore if they stop before and make no progresse it is a sign there is some deadly distemper at the very heart or root and such a Plant must wither and die Thy Works are neither perfect nor dost thou easily admit of such Doctrines as lead most effectually to Perfection Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard and hold fast and repent That is to say You that are my true Apostolick Church remember what ye have
received from me my self or my Apostles stand fast to the infallible Word which will impartially instruct and excite you to all the due measures of Godlinesse And believe not the rotten and corrupt Glosses ofdeceitful men that would sew Pillows under mens Arm-holes and frame Opinions and Precepts to favour the Lusts of the flesh To dote upon men is a piece of Carnality but to dote on them for their carnal Opinions and fleshfavouring Documents is Sardian or Carnaline of a double Dye Repent therefore for the Kingdome of God is at hand and he that has the seven Spirits of God stands ready to assist and succour with his Divine Graces all that sincerely endeavour after Righteousnesse So that the fault lies at your own doors If therefore thou shalt not watch I will come on thee as a Thief and thou shalt not know what hour I come upon thee If thou wilt not return to true Sobriety and Sincerity of Manners I shall bring some signal mischief upon thee before thou beest aware I shall suddenly come in Judgment against thee when thou least dreamest thereof God of his infinite mercy avert the ill Omen and change our hearts that we may amend our lives and he may be reconciled to us 6. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments Notwithstanding the Dispensation of the Sardian Church be so generally carnal in the very hew of that Carnaline-stone that looks so like mere flesh and bloud yet there are some few that have not defiled their garments with that colour but are as it were the Primitiae of the Dispensation of the Spirit whose inward Man is renewed day by day into the Image of my self and are made partakers of the Divine Nature and are the Children of Light And they shall walk with me in white These shall not onely enjoy glorious Converses with me and I communicate my spiritual Graces abundantly to them but they shall be very successfull and prosperous in their Affairs For to be cloathed in white signifies so in the Onirocriticks accordingly as you may see in Achmetes For they are worthy For I doe to every one according to his work 7. He that overcometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment He that overcometh all the Lusts of this terrestrial Body to him will I communicate the Celestial or Divine This is a more Theologicall sense But the Political is most proper the Epiphonema concluding the whole Epistle Wherefore to be clothed in white Raiment it being here the promise to him that overcomes signifies and that rather then in the fore-going Verse Successe and Prosperity in external affairs and exemption from Grief and Affliction as the Onirocriticks do expresly interpret it See Achmetes And I will not blot his name out of the book of Life The more proper and Politicall sense may be that when the Church by overcoming has emerged into the Philadelphian condition it shall never change at least as to the externall frame but keep up to the end and God will avowedly acknowledge it to be his even to the last even then when it is passed into the Laodicean state and the state of Persecution shall never overwhelm it any more So the Book of life may signifie here as the Crown of life before in the Epistle to the Church of Smyrna But I will confess his name before my Father and before his Angels That is to say I will acknowledge his nature to have become in a manner Divine and Angelical and therefore to be a meet Associate for their companies in my Heavenly Kingdome for ever This may be a Moral or Theologicall sense But the Politicall is chiefly aimed at as is intimated by the placing of the Epiphonema last of all The confessing therefore of the Names of these few in Sardis that are right as they should be and as many as make up to the measure of their Sanctity which therefore are the seed of the Philadelphian Church Christ his confessing of their Names before his Father and before his holy Angels is the mentioning of their Names as of a People more peculiarly his and extraordinarily dear unto him that by thus owning them in such an endearing manner before God and his holy Angels they may be in a more special manner recommended to the favour and Protection of God and to the faithfull and watchfull Ministry of his holy Angels which will be the efficient causes of their being cloathed in white and of their Name never being blotted out of the Book of Life that is to say of the Permanency of their outward Prosperity and security from Misery and Oppression that thus Innocency and outward Felicity may goe hand in hand in the blessed Millennium which is in a manner the same with the Philadelphian Intervall of the Church These few Names in Sardis will amount to this at last For Salvation is to spring out of Sardis not out of Babylon Nor is it any wonder that the Ministry of the holy Angels will be so extraordinarily exercised about a Church which will then have become so Angelicall as is more fully noted in the Divine Dialogues 8. These are the rousing Motives which Christ useth to excite the carnal Church of Sardis to more hearty endeavours after the Dispensation of the Spirit that they may bring on the beginning of those most happy Times the conduct of which Affair is represented by that illustrious Heros on his white Horse Chap. 19. where his Armies follow him on white Horses clothed in fine Linnen white and clean Which appertains to the last end of the Intervall of this Church of Sardis a great part of whom by this time it 's likely may have turned their Carnaline-colour into pure white and be ready to march with him there to that spiritual Warfare as some are said here to walk with him in white and that with marvellous success and prosperity as their white Cloathing does intimate He that hath an ear to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches Reformed Christendome especially she is so much concerned therein For she as I said at first is this Sardian Church the beginning of whose Intervall being adorned with more true Holinesse and sincerity of Zeal the better deserved the Title of the Rising of the Witnesses And though they be here much reproved for their Faults yet they are acknowledged to be one of the Seven Churches in Asia Chap. 1. 11. that is to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Fundamento and are the true and Apostolical Church still and justly witnesse against the Idolatries and grosse Antichristian practices of the Church of Rome such I mean as with them have become a Law and thereby are properly Antichristian This I thought fit to adde to stop the preposterous pronenesse of some toward the Roman Church from the Consideration that all things are not so perfect in the Reformed Churches as might be desired For though they be
cannot appear till the Church emerge out of the Sardian or Carnaline state into the Philadelphian Against which Church Christ exhibits no complaint at all but loves her and likes her entirely even as he is cordially loved of her And without question the state of that Church is so lovely that she will charm even her enemies to a liking of her and unto a submission to her all things being so irreprehensible in her But commonly wicked men are very domineering and ferocient against good men that have any blot or infirmity on them unless they be of their own faction And therefore this Philadelphian Church if any must be the Church that can mollifie the hearts of the Papists and bring over as many as God pleaseth to the belief of the Truth But for the Cities of the Nations their Conquests will be unspeakable amongst them For these are those powerfull Thunderers by whose thundering and lightening the Cities of the Nations are to fall as I intimated before And to know that I have loved thee The Papists themselves shall discern by the stupendious successe of the Philadelphian Church what a value Christ puts upon her and how far he prefers her Integrity Simplicity Brotherly-kindnesse Humility Meeknesse and Purity of Worship before the Roman Frauds and Impostures their barbarous Persecutions and Cruelties their Luciferian Pride and superstitious and Idolatrous practices 4. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience that is Because thou art both meek-hearted and hast been faithful and not flitting in the time of trial but endurest all things for my names sake I will keep thee from the hour of temptation that shall come upon all the world Namely at what time all the world will be in an hurly-burly and cast into manifold streights and calamities Which is in the last Vial when the three unclean spirits goe forth unto the Kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battel of that great Day of God Almighty and when there shall be so great an Earthquake as has not been since men were upon earth so mighty an Earthquake and so great In this mighty tempest and hurry of things will I preserve thee from danger and thou shalt carry it safe through all Thou shalt escape better then any party of men by reason of thy conspicuous Innocency sincerity and exemplarity of life and unexceptionable Apostolicalnesse of doctrine and singular love to me and all mankind Because thou art milde and courteous and benign and beneficent to all because thou art a lover of unity un-self-interessed a foe to no body and onely an enemy to the vices and miseries of men This with my singular favour to thee shall protect thee in that great confusion and high fermentation of mens spirits under the last Vial. Who is he that will harm you if you be followers of that which is good 5. Behold I come quickly Thou art already in that Period of time wherein this great Judgement will come upon the earth namely under the first Thunder Or rather because the Philadelphian Church is not supposed to be in distinct being or appearance till the last Vial the last Vial must be this Period And then this coming in respect of that time will be quickly indeed Hold thou fast what thou hast that no man take thy Crown Thou art a Church after my own heart O Philadelphia and I blame thee for nothing thou walkest uprightly with me and art perfect Wherefore hold that ground which thou hast got in truth and integrity that thou mayst not be deprived of that Crown I intend thee for in thee will I accomplish all the glorious Promises touching my Kingdome upon earth 6. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the Temple of my God and he shall goe no more out ' O 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that overcomes that is in the Apocalyptick style All or the whole Company that overcomes which is here meant of the Philadelphians They shall be as a pillar in the Temple of God that is they shall be a steddy and standing Holy people a true holy Catholick Church that shall never fail but shall last till I come in the clouds to Judgment in the last Day All other forms and denominations shall fail but this shall keep the sovereignty to the last And I will write upon him the name of my God This is in pursuance of the former Metaphor of a Pillar with a farther Allusion to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Ancients These Philadelphians shall have the name of God written upon them that is their Conversation and manners will be so holy and divine that it will be as conspicuous to all as if it were writ upon their foreheads that they are the holy Church and chosen people of God Or more briefly and in a more Political sense The name of my God may allude to Jehovah Shammah intimating that these Philadelphians shall be that Church which is represented by the City Jerusalem described by Ezekiel which is called Jehovah Shammah Of which the following words seem to be a more expresse signification And the name of the City of my God which is New Jerusalem which cometh down out of Heaven from my God The name of the City the new Jerusalem as well as Jehovah Shammah will be written upon them The City where God dwelleth and ruleth by his Spirit that is to say they will be that City of Jerusalem formally and actually under the second Thunder For to be called and to be are all one in the Hebrew Idiom And his name is called the Word of God Apo. 19. 3. is as much as He is the Word of God Wherefore this Philadelphia under the second Thunder passes into the same with the new Jerusalem but the Title of Philadelphia begins sooner and reaches farther to the fourth Thunder This Inscription of the Philadelphians that they are called the new Jerusalem c. in the very words in which it is described afterwards Apoc. 21. is a notable Indication that by the Church of Philadelphia is meant that Succession of the Church that is under the second and third Thunder but was emerging in the last Vial. For it is the new Jerusalem which cometh out of Heaven from God Which therefore having this manifest Political sense would be very hardly attributed to that City of Philadelphia in Asia literally understood but with an eye to this successive Intervall of the Church which we here speak of And the Promise was not performed to the Literal Church of Philadelphia which has perished that was no such lasting Pillar And therefore there is a necessity of a farther sense Mysticall or Propheticall 7. And I will write upon him my new name It is expresly said Apoc. 10. 16. that Christ has a name written upon his Vesture and upon his Thigh King of Kings and Lord of Lords This name Grotius would have understood here And there is no
belief of them against their own false sense and opinion of themselves The beginning of the Creation of God This hath a more high meaning like that in the beginning of S. John's Gospel and respects the Divinity of Christ by whom all things were made and in whom all things are But I believe also that is more particularly insinuated here which is expresly declared of him according to the Seventy by the Prophet Esay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The beginner of that world or Age under the Messias wherein he having as I intimated before carried on all things so completely according to promise and prediction this seems an advantageous repetition of what was intimated before in that Attribute of Amen As if he should say I was the beginner of this marvellous Scene of things from the time of my living on this Earth in the flesh to this very day and you see how steddily all things have been carried on according to Predictions and Prophecies wherefore believe me in the rest whether Comminations or Promises which I shall now declare unto you This seems to be the genuine sense of this Preface to the Epistle 5. I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot I see thee to be in a tepid formal remisse Dispensation Thou holdest still the outside of the Philadelphian Church for Doctrine and Worship But thou art destitute of that Spirit of life in the new Birth which was the proper Character of thy deceased Sister of Philadelphia I would thou wert cold or hot Though it be not better in it self yet it were better for thee thou wert not so externally good as thou art that thou mightest the sooner be convinced of thine own wants and get into the state of Repentance of Mortification and finally of Regeneration that so thou mightest partake of my Spirit But now thou art but an externall Image of warm flesh out of which life and soul did lately depart even then when thy Sister Philadelphia departed out of this world Thou art the external frame of that Philadelphia but the spirit has left thee 6. So then because thou art luke-warm and neither cold nor hot I will spew thee out of my mouth That is I will declare in a torrent of words against thee how nauseous and distastfull thou art to me and how my stomack rises against thee Which is done in the following verse where he pours out those just Reproaches against her that she is wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked Or it may be there may be a more profound and yet not less solid meaning in this Commination and that it may be predictive of her utter Extermination that the continuance of the Church of Christ upon Earth shall cease in her For the immenseness of Christ's Divinity incompassing all things that are he can vomit nothing out from him but it must therewith be cast into Non-entity And the Laodicean Church is the last Scene of Providence and this Church and indeed the whole Scene of affairs on this Earth for her sake is shortly to have an end For in the next Thunder to this Laodicean Intervall Christ comes to Judgement and presently after is the Conflagration And Satan is to be let loose but a little time so that the time of the Laodicean Church cannot be long Wherefore the Commination I will spew thee out of my mouth may well be a prediction of the utter Extermination of the Church out of being that is as to the state of a Church upon Earth For as before the coming of the Floud God is said to repent him that he had made man upon the earth and that it grieved him at his heart so Christ here expresseth how nauseous and stomack-sick he is against his Church under this Intervall and Title of Laodicea how his choler and indignation rises against her Luke-warmnesse and that therefore he will vomit her out in a floud of Fire and overwhelm her in a deluge of hot scalding sulphureous flames which will come to passe at the Conflagration The state of the Church now in its old age naturally growing worse Christ will think fit to put an end to the Scene of things and carry his to his Celestial Kingdome 7. Because thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing And this is one reason of the Spiritlesnesse and Inactivity of the Laodicean Church that she thinks she has all things desirable already Peace Plenty Power and Dominion Security from enemies Profession of the Truth Purity in externall Worship rid of Superstition and Idolatry abundance of Knowledge as well Natural as Theological the understanding of all Prophecies by reason of their clear Completion and the faithfull and judicious Interpretations of her Predecessours no Oppression no Persecution for Conscience sake every man lives at quiet and injoys himself under his own Vine under his own Fig-tree What want we therefore are we not still the true Philadelphian Church and the new Jerusalem descended from Heaven in all the riches and glories thereof One would think so indeed according to the judgement of any carnal eye But let us hear what the Amen says the true and faithfull Witnesse And knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked Christ saith to the Church in Smyrna I know thy works and tribulation and poverty but thou art rich The Primitive Church while the Spirit of life was in them though in the midst of the want of all externall Comforts and under most dreadfull Persecutions in the judgement of Christ are accounted rich but the Laodiceans in the affluence of all external Blessings because they want that Spirit of life are deemed poor and miserable and naked as if they had not a rag to hang on their backs nay blind also for all their abundance of Knowledge because they are devoid of the knowledge and experience of the Mysteries of the Spirit of life in the new Birth and the Renovation of the Soul into inward living Righteousnesse but take up with the externall Laodicean state or condition 8. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou may est be rich I advise thee sincerely to endeavour for that is the price thou must pay for this Gold after the Recovery of thy self into the state of the new Jerusalem descended from Heaven which City was of pure Gold so purify'd in the fire that it was as clear as transparent Glasse This is the new Creature in thee the Transformation of thy nature into the Image of the Heavenly Adam This is solid and durable Riches indeed and such as will go along with thee into the highest Heavens when this Earth and the metalls therein shall melt with fire Labour therefore after such a solid Treasure as will abide those fatal flames and will not perish with thee in the general Conflagration And the Symbol of this Treasure is this
miraculous sagacity without any Reason or humane Literature with an un-erring certainty he can smell out the right way and so secure you from all danger To say nothing how excellent he is at the swimming any water and how he can tread the very air he is so high-metall'd and light-footed Onely be sure to keep fast in the Saddle And then Sir Knight said the Shepherd if the wind blow fair the plumes in your Helmet may help to support you both but if not some Angel from Heaven may take you by the Crest of your Helmet as he did the Prophet Habakuk by the hair of his head when he carried him through the air from Judea into Babylon 13. The Knight looking back for he was not aware of the Shepherd at this time What conâ—eâ—â—ed 〈◊〉 man is this said he that talks this phancifully May it please your Worship he is a Shepherd said they and has a Flock on yonder little Hill hard by but he is one of the most self-conceited old fools that ever your Worship met with in all your days he thinks that all skill and knowledge lies within the compasse of his baldpate and wrinkled fore-head though few or none are of the same opinions with himself Sir Knight said the Shepherd I pretend to no skill nor knowledge but what is certainly within mine own ken but what I know I love to speak freely And I tell you Sir Knight unlesse you be stark staring mad you will never follow these mens counsels nor venture over this Moor to that Castle for you will be swallowed up horse and man into a fathomlesse Lake of ill-sented mire for all the nice nostrills of Aplanedo You was in a more hopefull way before though something rough but it is so streight before you come at the Castle that you could never have got through unlesse you had left Aplanedo behind you He 's an old cholerick Dotard said those other fellows be but sure to keep the Saddle and we dare warrant your Worship our lives for yours that Aplanedo will carry you safe through all dangers Wherefore upon the renewall of the high conceit the Knight had before of his Steed and those confident Animations of his mercenary Counsellers he set on in a direct line toward the Castle over this Moor the Shepherd looking after him to see the event But the Knight had not rid two or three bow-shots from the place but the Shepherd saw them suddenly sink horse and man into the ground so that they were both buried alive in the mire 14. Whereupon fetching a deep sigh after so Tragicall a spectacle he returned with a sad heart and slow pace towards his Sheep on the top of the Hill drailing his Sheephook behinde him as they do their Spears at the Funeral of a Souldier whom his Dog followed with a like soft pace hanging down his head and letting his tail flag as if he had a minde to conform to both the sorrows and postures of his Master But those other false Companions had somewhat before this got to a lone Alehouse not far off to spend the Knight's Largesse merrily with a bonny young Hostesse and in plenty of good Ale and Cakes to celebrate his Funerall 15. Now Reader I dare appeal to thy judgement which of these parties the old free-spoken Shepherd or those mercenary Flatterers had the greater share of Charity and to determine with thy self in what a sad condition those of the Church of Rome are who having the opportunity of being better instructed as the Knight had are yet led away captive by such cunning Deceivers Which is the main State of the Controversie If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin but now they have no excuse for their sin saith our blessed Saviour in the Gospel The rest of the Riddle Reader I leave to thine own unravelling and bid thee Farewell AN ANTIDOTE AGAINST IDOLATRY CHAP. I. What is Idolatry according to Divine Declaration 1. THere are two ways in general of discovering what is or ought to be held to be Idolatry amongst Christians the one Divine Declaration the other clear perspicuous Reason Which though they may haply reach the one no farther then the other that is to say that whatsoever may be concluded to be Idolatry by Divine Declaration the same may also by unprejudiced Reason and vice vers'd yet their joint concurrence of Testimony is a greater assurance to us of the truth and two cords twisted together are stronger then either single Wherefore we will make use of both and begin with Divine Declaration first 2. The first Conclusion therefore shall be That as in civil Governments it is the Right of the Supreme power to define and declare what shall be or be held to be Treason and punishable as such so it is most manifestly the Right of God Almighty who is also infinitely good and wise to define and declare to his people what shall be or be held to be Idolatry which is a kind of Treason against God or crimen laesae majestatis Divinae And what is thus declared Idolatry by God is to be held by us to be such though the Ludicrousnesse and Fugitivenesse of our wanton Reason might otherwise find out many starting-holes and fine pretences to excuse this thing or that action from so foul an Imputation But as in civil affairs the declaring such and such things to be Treason does in a Politicall sense make them so ipso facto so God's declaring such and such things to be Idolatry they do to us ipso facto become Idolatry thereby though to an ordinary apprehension perhaps neither this would have seemed Treason nor that Idolatry without these antecedent Declarations But where the Law-giver is infallible there is all the reason in the world we should submit not onely to his Power but to his Judgement in the Definitions of things and rest sure that that is Idolatry which he has thought fit to declare so to be 3. The second Conclusion That what is declared Idolatry by God to the Jews ought to be acknowledged Idolatry by us Christians The ground of this Conclusion is fixed in the nature of the Christian Religion For Christianity being a far more spiritual Religion then that of Judaism and therefore abhorring from all Superstition there cannot be the least Relaxation to the most rancid of all Superstitions Idolatry it self Wherefore whatsoever was accounted Idolatry amongst the Jews and so defined by a Divine Law must be reckoned much more such under Christianity there being not the least pretence for any Relaxation Besides there was nothing under the Jews or can by any people be rightly deemed Idolatry but it is carefully enough cautioned against and plainly forbid in the first and second Commandments of the Decalogue But the whole Decalogue is Moral and so declared by God in that it is said to be writ by his own finger on the Tables of stone which are Symbols of
undeniable Principles of common Sense and Reason and of all the Arts and Sciences God has illuminated the Mind of man withall Consider the twelfth Conclusion of the above-named Treatise together with the other ten before cited Wherefore any one that is not a mere Bigott may be as assured that Transubstantiation is a mere Figment or enormous Falsehood as of any thing else in the whole world 8. From whence it will unavoidably follow and themselves cannot deny it that they are most grosse and palpable Idolaters and consequently most barbarous Murtherers in killing the innocent Servants of God for not submitting to the same Idolatries with themselves Costerus the Jesuite speaks expresly to this Point and consonantly I think to the Suppositions of the Council viz. That if their Church be mistaken in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation they ipso facto stand guilty of such a piece of Idolatry as never was before seen or known of in the world For the errours of those saith he were more tolerable who worship some golden or silver Statue or some Image of any other Materials for their God as the Heathen worshipped their Gods or a red Cloth hung upon the top of a Spear as is reported of the Laplanders or some live Animal as of old the AEgyptians did then of these that worship a bit of Bread as hitherto the Christians have done all over the world for so many hundred years if the Doctrine of Transubstantiation be not true What can be a more full and expresse acknowledgement of the gross Idolatry of the Church of Rome then this if Transubstantiation prove an Errour Then which notwithstanding there is nothing in the world more certain to all the Faculties of a man as is manifest out of what has been here said And therefore the Romanists must be grosse Idolaters from the second third fourth seventh and ninth Conclusions of the first Chapter and from the fourth fifth eighth ninth twenty-first twenty-second and twenty-fifth of the second Chapter All these Conclusions will give evidence against them that they are very notorious Idolaters 9. And therefore this being so high and so palpable a strain of Idolatry in them touching the Eucharist or the eating the Body and drinking the Bloud of Christ wherein Christ is offered by the Priest as an Oblation and the People feed upon him as in a Feast upon a Sacrifice which is not done without Divine Adoration done to the Host according to the precept of their Church This does hugely confirm our sense of the eating of things offered unto Idols in the Epistles to the Churches in Pergamus and in Thyatira this worshipping of the Host being so expresly acknowledged by the Pope and his Clergy and in that high sense of Cultus Latriae which is due to God alone And therefore it is very choicely and judiciously perstringed by the Spirit of Prophecy above any other Modes of their Idolatry it being such a grosse and confessed Specimen thereof and such as there is no Evasion for or Excuse Hoc teneas vultus mutantem Protea â—odo CHAP. IV. The grosse Idolatry of the Romanists in the Invocation of the Saints even according to the allowance of the Council of Trent and the authorized practice of that Church 1. BUT we will fall also upon those Modes of Idolatry wherein the Church of Rome may seem less bold though indeed this one that is so grosse is so often and so universally repeated every-where in the Roman Church that by this alone though we should take notice of nothing farther Idolatry may seem quite to have overspred her like a noisome Leprosy But how-ever we shall proceed and first to their Invocation of Saints Touching which the Council of Trent declares this Doctrine expresly Sanctos utique unà cum Christo regnantes Orationes suas pro hominibus offerre bonúmque atque utile esse suppliciter eos invocare ob beneficia impetranda à Deo per Filium ejus Jesum Christum ad eorum orationes operam auxiliúmque confugere Where Invocation of Saints is plainly allow'd and recommended and besides their praying for us or offering up our Prayers to God it is plainly imply'd that there are other Aids and Succours they can afford if they be supplicated that is invoked with most humble and prostrate Devotion And the pretending that this is all but the way of procuring those good things we want from God the first Fountain and that through his Son Christ that makes the Saints the more exactly like the Pagans Dii medioxumi and the Daemons that negotiated the affairs of men with the highest Deity 2. I say then that though they went no farther then thus even this is down-right Idolatry which the Council of Trent thus openly owns and consequently the whole Church of Rome as appears from the third fourth fifth sixth and eighth Conclusions of the first Chapter as also by the fifth seventh eighth tenth eleventh twelfth thirteenth fourteenth fifteenth and twenty-fourth of the second But if we examine those Prayers that are put up to the Saints their Invocation is still the more unexcusable 3. Wherefore looking to the publick Practice of the Church of Rome authorized by the Popes themselves the Invocation of a Saint does not consist in a mere Ora pro nobis as people are too forward to phansy that the state of the Question though the mere invoking of them to pray for us would be Idolatry as is already proved but which is insinuated in the Council it self there are other more particular Aids and Succours that they implore of them and some such as it is proper for none but God or Christ to give Such as Protection from the Devil Divine Graces and the Joys of Paradise But as the things they ask of the Saints are too big for them to be the Disposers of so the Compellations of the Virgin Mary especially are above the nature of any Creature Whence this Invocation of Saints will appear a most grosse and palpable Mode of Idolatry in that Church As I shall make manifest out of the following Examples taken out of such pieces of Devotion as are not mutter'd in the corners of their Closets but are publickly read or sung with Stentorian Voices in their very Churches I will onely give the Reader a tast of this kinde of their Idolatry for it were infinite to produce all we might 4. And first to begin with the smaller Saints as indeed they are all to be reckoned in comparison of the blessed Virgin to whom therefore they give that Worship which they call Hyperdulia as they give Dulia to the rest of the Saints and Latria to God alone and to Christ as being God That Prayer to S. Cosmas and S. Damian is plainly a Petition to them to keep us from all Diseases as well of Soul as of Body that we may attain to the life of the Spirit and live in Grace here and be made partakers of Heaven hereafter O Medici
the Devil according as is foretold concerning the coming of Antichrist that Man of Sin which the Pope and his Clergy most assuredly is namely that his coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders So that they glory in their own shame and boast themselves in the known Character of Antichrist and would prove themselves to be Holy Church by pretending to the Privileges of that Man of Sin and by appealing to the palpable signs of the Assistence of the Devil For from thence are all Miracles that are produced in favour of Practices that are plainly repugnant to the Doctrines of the Holy Scriptures 16. But now as for their Sanctity what an holy Church they are any one may judge upon the reading of the Lives of their Popes and History of their Cardinals and other Religious Orders of that Church of Rome how rankly all things smell of Fraud and Imposture of Pride and Covetousnesse of Ostentation and Hypocrisy what monstrous examples of Sensuality their Holinesses themselves have ordinarily been of Fornication and Adultery of Incest and Sodomie to say nothing of Simonie and that infernall sin of Necromancy But for Murther and Idolatry those horrid Crimes are not onely made familiar to them but have passed into a Law with them and are interwoven into the very Essence of their Religion Judge then how holy that Church must be whose Religion is the establishment of Idolatry and Murther Of the latter of which Crimes the holy Inquisition is an Instance with a witness And yet that Den of Murtherers whose Office it is to kill men for not committing Idolatry with the Church of Rome must needs bear the title of Holy 17. And for their pretense of Infallibility it is expresly predicted in the Apocalypse of S. John as well as their laying claim to Miracles For as the two-horned Beast is said to doe great Wonders and to bring fire from Heaven which two-horned Beast is the Pope and his Clergy so Jezebel which is the same Hierarchy is called the Woman that gives to her self the title of a Prophetesse whose Oracles you know must be infallible For she does not mean that she is a false Prophetesse though indeed and in truth she is so And the Pope with his Clergy is judged to be so by the Spirit of God in that he is called the false Prophet as well as the two-horned Beast in those Visions of S. John And while he pretends himself to be a Prophet even without Divine Revelation one may plainly demonstrate that he is a false one from this one notorious Instance of Transubstantiation which is a Doctrine repugnant to common Sense and Reason and all the Faculties of the Mind of man and bears a contradiction to the most plain and indubitable Principles of all Arts and Sciences as I have proved above So that we may be more sure that this is false then that we feel our own bodies or can tell our toes and fingers on our hands and feet Judge then therefore whether is more likely that the Church of Rome should be infallible or Transubstantiation a mere Figment especially it being so serviceable for their worldly Advantages and they being taken tardy in so many Impostures and Deceits So that Infallibility is a mere Boast 18. And now for their Sacerdotal Absolution that they can so safely dismisse men to Heaven or secure them from Hell thereby this power of their Priest is such another vain Boast as that of Transubstantiation Except a man be born again he cannot enter into the kingdome of God And the form of words upon one's Death-bed can no more regenerate any one then their Quinqueverbiall Charm can transubstantiate the Bread and Wine into the Body and Bloud of Christ. Where the form of Absolution has any effect it must be on such persons as are already really regenerate and unfeignedly and sincerely penitent which I have shewn to be incompetible to any one so long and so far forth as he adheres to the Roman Church So that in this case one AEthiopian does but wash another which is labour spent in vain There must be a change of Nature or no externall Ceremonie nor words can doe any thing For the form of Absolution is not a Charm as I said to change the nature of things but onely a Ticket to passe Guards and Scouts and to procure safe Conduct to the Heavenly Regions But if by Regeneration and due Repentance one has not contracted an alliance and affinity with the Saints and Angels but is really still involved in the impure and Hellish nature the grim Officers of that dark Kingdome will most certainly challenge their own and they will be sure to carry that Soul captive into a sutable place let the flattering Priest have dismissed her hence with the fairest and most hopefull circumstances he could This is the most hideous the most dangerous and the most perfidious Cheat of that Church of Rome that ever she could light on for the damning of poor credulous Souls that thus superstitiously depend on the vain breath of their Priest for the security of their Salvation 19. And yet they are not content with this Device alone to lull men secure in wickednesse but besides their pretense of singing them out of Purgatory by mercenary Masses and pecuniarie Redemptions by Pardons and Indulgences and I know not what Trumperies they allure men to come into their Church as having that great Store and Treasury of the Merits of Holy men and women their works of Supererogation which they pretend to have the keeping and disposing of So that a poor Soul that is bankrupt of her self and has no stock of Good works of her own may sufficiently be furnished for love or money by the Merchants of this Store-house Which besides that it is a blasphemous Derogation to the Merits of Christ is the grossest Falshood that ever was uttered For these Holy men as they are called and Virgins were God wot themselves most miserable Sinners and died in most horrid Idolatries as dying in the Practices of that Church and he that comes to that Church does necessarily become a grosse Idolater himself besides that he sets to his seal and makes himself accessory to all that innocent bloud the bloud of those many hundred thousands of Martyrs for the Protestant Truth which that Woman of bloud that sits on the Seven Hills has with the most execrable Circumstances imaginable so frequently murthered So that a Soul otherwise passable of her self would be necessarily drown'd in this one foul Deluge of Guilt so far is she from having any relief or advantage by reconciling her self to the Church of Rome 20. Wherefore who-ever thou art that hast any sense or solicitude for thy future state and Salvation believe not this Woman of subtil lips and a deceitfull heart and give no credit to her Fictions and high Pretensions but the more she goes about to magnifie her self