Church For He and his Brother Archadius with their Councils for they had both Orthodox and Heterodox Councils co-operating to some good were the two Wings of that Great Eagle Theodosius the Great which were given to the Gospel Church to flee into the Wilderness into the secret subterfuges of obscure latency for 1260 years as from those two texts unfolded will plainly appear Revel 12.6 14. The Orthodox uncorrupt in manners were in Innocent's time when the Grand Apostacy began very few The Heterodox Papal for I pass by all other Sects of those times were very many The false Doctrine of those Heterodox was not then manifold but very much dangerous to Princes to the Primitive Faith to all true Professors They held that the Church was built upon Peter and so upon the Pope as Peters Successor The Orthodox held that the Church was built upon Christ whom Peter confessed This Doctrine of the Heterodox was very dangerous to the true Church because a Doctrine contrary to the Foundation of the true Faith holding the Head Christ Col. 2.19 Secondly A Doctrine dangerous to Princes For if the Church was built upon Peter and so upon the Pope as his Successor Then all Kings and Councils must submit to him as the greatest because the Church cannot be built upon the greatest of them Thirdly This Doctrine was almost universal in the body of Apostacy and so violent in its course that the Pillars and chief Fathers of the Primitive Church seemed shaken therewith For Crediderunt Hieronymus Augustinus Ecclesiam super Petrum fundatam sed retractantes ambo dixerunt Super Petram Christum quem Petrus agnovit Both Jerom and Augustine were induced to believe that the Church was built upon Peter but both retracting said upon Christ the Rock whom Peter confessed This was the Doctrine of the pride of the Son of Perdition never delivered to the Church by Christ and his Apostles a Doctrine of blasphemy against God of deceit to men of rebellion against Princes A Doctrine perhaps inconsistent with any true Church or sincere Professors but generally held forth and earnestly contended for as the chief part of their Faith by Papal Rome in the very beginning of the grand Apostacy Secondly The Manners of these men and times these Texts shew Rev. 18.2 5. where they are fitly compared to a Cage of every unclean and hateful Bird to an habitation of Devils c. The Reader may also see the Learned Hammond quoting Salvian Also St. Jerom Augustine and others set down in the sequel Innocent's Successors added many Nations and Italy more absolutely to the Papal Decarchy of which in its due place Here the Reader may easily observe both a manifest and a manifold concurrence of Prophetick Scriptures with the performances of them As first with the final excision of the first Dragon the fall of Imperial Rome the profligation of the Primitive Church And all these were powerful and prevailing Impediments till then thus taken out of the way that letted the rising up of Papal Rome 2 Thes 2.6 7. Secondly With the rising up of the second Dragon by whom these impediments aforesaid were taken out of the way the Church driven into the Wilderness her Witnesses killed Chap. 12.14 Chap. 11.7 Thirdly With the rising up those Impediments thus removed of the Decadiademick Beast Secular and Papal Chap. 13.1 Fourthly With the wounding of his first and best Head by the Sword of the second Dragon vers 3.12 14. Fifthly With the healing of that Head by the second Dragon's Donation of Authority to him induced to it chiefly by the design and procurement of the false Prophet as will after appear vers 2 3 12 14. Sixthly With the Primitive Churches flight from the face of that second Dragon for 1260 years Chap. 12.6 14. Seventhly With the two Wings of that great Eagle which were given to the Gospel Church to flee into the Wilderness vers 14. For all Ages past and to come cannot possibly afford a time so inevitably necessary and appositly consistent wherein the two Eagles-wings could be given to the gospel-Gospel-Church as only this very juncture of time aforesaid These two young Princes or Emperours governed both by bad and good Governors had which signified the truth of this Series of things this Word or Motto Summa cadunt subitò intimating That the taking away or fall of him that letted to wit Rome Pagan and Imperial and the profligation of the Primitive Church fell out as in Scripture predicted in their time A threefold cord is not easily broken But this sevenfold concurrence of sacred Prophesies with the performances of them and those performances coinciding in the fame time may irrefellibly prove the certain commencement of the grand Apostacy Pagan Rome's final ruine Rome Papals Aera the exact time of the rise of the Sea-born Beast her Secular Head the fixt period when the first Dragon finally expired and second aspired As also how and when that second Dragon gave began to give his seat and power to that Sea-born Beast How he continued to give his power in Italy and other Nations for about 200 years I leave it as too long to relate here to its proper place Prophesies and their performances thus concurring are called saith Weames Parallels and give saith he the greatest light to the Scriptures that is to the readers of them To the Readers of them Not because they are fulfilled but known when and how they were fulfilled For all these Prophesies came to pass above twelve hundred years since yet have not given much greater light so far as I find to any by their being so long fulfilled because they were never perhaps in all that time known whether they were fulfilled or not or when or how they were fulfilled This may fully refel that common fond and wicked Conceit of Hypocrits and too much of true Saints Prophesies say they when they come to pass need no other Explication That 's the clearest fullest unfolding of them We shall therefore wait patiently upon God till they be performed and then we are sure to find their true and certain meaning Events best shew what those texts intend This is the common Plea not only of some true Saints perhaps but chiefly of Hypocrites as it was of their Type the Pharisees by whom our Lord was Crucified They expected still expect the Messiah in future to come who came before therefore Crucified him come whom they earnestly desired should come according to the Scriptures which with due sedulity to search they profanely neglected They had no doubt as Modern Hypocrites have their prejudices against Prophetick Scriptures and in them against the things that belonged to their peace might say in the proud folly of furious Jehu What peace do such Scriptures produce So their Antiype formal Professors have like prejudices of pride and ignorance against the same Scriptures and in them against those things that principally belong to the peace and
strong voyce saying Babylon the great is fallen is fallen not only Temporally by a final excision from ever being as formerly Pagan or Imperial but Spiritually fallen also and become the habitation of Devils c. That is not fallen much from sound Doctrine but sincere obedience not from Orthodox Faith but from Faith of veracity or fidelity not from a form of Godliness but from the power of it And so far fallen as to persecute and conspire against as it were by common consent the witnesses of solid Truth and practisers of it This Spiritual Apostacy or falling away is also fully confirmed by as the effect of that cause not only the Temporal fall of the Empire but the flight of the gospel-Gospel-Church at the same time For such Spiritual grand and general revolts in Types were usually acom-companyed as their effects with the flying of the Persecuted Saints the supports of those places and with the final excision translating or destruction of those places But we shall see what Expositors say and how they further shew the completion contrary to the tenents of many moderne Opinionists and some sober Writers of those Texts in that very juncture of time 'T is Salvians complaint saith Doctor Hammond every where throughout his Book De Providentia That the Impieties of the Christians were so great and particularly those abominable Commissions and Customary practices of all unnatural uncleannesses which have ever been constantly the destroying not only of the Canaanites but of the Jews and Christians that it was Gods will they should be thus punished by the Barbarians who being Christians though Arrians were much more tolerable then these who though not Arrians were many of them very abominable livers where note That not the Heathens nor the Hereticks in Rome but the Christians for the most part Orthodox but Apostate in manners were the chief cause of Salvians complaint Doctor Hammond divides that great City as it was indeed divided into three parts To wit into Heathens Hereticks and Orthodox which last had the Supream power and preheminence and having done this he labours hard as he that would wash a Black-amore white to free the third part the Orthodox from this Signal revolt sounded forth as by a Trumpet by the strong voyce of a mighty Angel And would make the other two parts the Heathens and Hereticks that were not or were less if at all capable of it the matter of this stupendious revolt causing such astonishment and destruction for he seeks to transferre Jeroms record against those real though for the most part Orthodox revolters against and upon those Heathens and Hereticks who properly could not be said to fall then because they either fell or rather never stood before And while he seeks to do this he himself quotes Salvian whose record seems quite contrary For he expresly justifies those Barbarian-Arrians the worst Hereticks as much more tolerable than those Christians in Rome who though not Arians but more Orthodox were abominable Livers Having thus far seen Salvians witness and Doctor Hammonds also partly against himself we shall now further examine Saint Jeroms express testimonies of those times When I lived saith he in Babylon an Inhabitant of that Purple whore I would have written something of the Holy Ghost and have dedicated the Treatise to the Bishop of that City Of what City Of Rome Christian sure even then when most generally Orthodox but Apostate in manners and whom St. Jerom and the sacred Text calls and therefore calls fallen Babylon and the purple whore For Rome was never before so generally Orthodox as then nor the Orthodox therein ever before so depraved in manners as at that time As at that time when Imperial Rome fell for ever as the Prophetick Evangelist predicted and the Primitive Fathers the fittest unfolders of those Texts partly saw and bare faithful Record And at that time immediately before or at the ingress when Rome Papal commenced of the grand Apostacy And who was then Bishop of Rome Innocent the first was then Bishop not of the Heathens or gross Hereticks therein but of the reputed most Orthodox but Apostate in manners For he must needs be then Bishop thereof by consent of all Writers of Annals about the years four hundred and five or six when Jerom would have dedicated his Treatise to him For Secondly The Pot saith Jerom that was seen in the North spoken of by the Prophet Jeremy beginneth already to boyl But such a boyling Pot of affliction was never seen by Pagan or Imperial Rome or by the Primitive Church till about the years four hundred and seven ten or twelve when the Apostacy of Imperial Rome then full caused her fall and when the Papal Apostacy began And then Innocent at that very time began to rule the revolting Church which neither in all the ten Pagan or the eleventh Pagano-Arrian persecutions was forc'd to betake her self to flight before this Pot of the grand Apostacy began to boyl in afflictions from the flaming Sword of the second Dragon That Pot of tribulation was to continue boyling from that time aforesaid but in the first eight Centuries more mildly for 1260 years Ch. 12.7.14 Thirdly The Pot saith he that was seen in the North spoken of by the Prophet Jeremy beginneth already to boyl This not only imports the final excision of Rome Pagan the translating of the Roman Empire and profligation of the Primitive Church but also an ingress of the Gospel Church into another servitude for 1260 years for so the boyling Pot in the Patern shadowed forth the Jewish Captivity in Type Babylon as a Figure of this under Papal Rome And so Saint Jerom here appositely applies it as to her proper Antitype expresly called also both by him and by the sacred Text Babylon Jeremiah 1.14.15 Apocal. 16.19 The duration also of this boyling Pot and the further description of it is exprest in Ch. 11.2.3 Ch. 12.6.14 and in sundry other Texts all holding forth 〈◊〉 time aforesaid Fourthly And the Senate of Pharisees saith Jerom cryed out c. Jam nova Progenies Here 's a new Progeny the off-spring of the Pharisees their Antitype Synagone of proud factious censorious Christ-crucifieing professors newly sprung up in the place of the late meek sober charitable professors of the Primitive Church Fifthly Wherefore saith Jerom I am now as it were out of Captivity returned to Jerusalem This denotes That the Pharisees of falling Rome were the first fruits or praecursive part of the Son of Perdition that then came to lead the Gospel Church and Saints into the last greatest and most grievous Captivity under the Antichrist predicted by Prophets and Apostles Sixthly And I saw another Angel saith the Text And he cryed mightily with a strong voice saying Babylon the great is fallen is fallen Fallen temporally from all at least all grounded hopes to be the Imperial City or holy City or head City of the Gospel Church And fallen spiritually to be a Senate of
imply'd Some observe That Jerusalem at the destruction of it was divided into three parts The learned Hammond observes That Rome Imperial was at its destruction divided into three parts Hoathens Hereticks and Orthodox much Apostate in manners And the text saith expresly That his City the Decapolity of Papal Rome should be about the time of the dissolution of it divided into three parts And why into three parts at its dissolution but because it was at first constituted of three parts and subsisted of the same three parts after the constituting of it to wit of a sensual secular and spiritual matter called Spiritually Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified because serving the lusts of the flesh the lusts of the eyes and pride of life and misled by a threefold wisdom of worldly folly The wisdom of this World saith the text is Sensual Earthly and Devilish This threefold City subsisted as the three parts of it of this threefold matter aforesaid not distinguished by distance of place though not wholly without that nor by an unmixt juncture of the matter gross and entire because commixed at least in a great measure by a promiscuous confusion For Example The Composition of Pilulae Ruffi is made up of a threefold matter Myrrh Aloes and Saffron not of each unmixed but this threefold matter incorporated makes one Mass wherein each part hath notwithstanding its peculiar propriety and operation So these three sorts of Professors the Profane Proud and Worldly made up as one Mass this great City the Decapolity of Papal Rome by a promiscuous complication of all three Therefore the threefold division of it is or may be much after the similitude of that threefold division of Rome Imperial observed as aforesaid by the Learned Hammond We shall examine and compare the threefold sub-antitype in our Saviours time with its Prototypes and their and its Antitypes And First There was then in Judea and Jerusalem a sensual subantitype-part whom the proud Pharisees called Sinners and our Saviour Publicans and Harlots These were for sensuality of life and dissolute loosness indeed Sodomites in Judea and Jerusalem and agreed well with Sodom as their Prototype and with their Antitype Spiritual Sodom which is only such loose dissolute professors in all Sects of the Papal Decapolity as under some careless trivial form and profession of Christianity or perhaps even without that follow after Sensuality as the Sodomites did The wisdom of this world saith the text is first Sensual Secondly A second sub-antitype-part in our Saviour's time was the Secular part of Judea and of its Metropolis minding like literal Egypt Earthly things Pharaoh and his Servants to secure that Kingdom by contrary means slew the new-born males of Israel such Cockatrice-egs are hatcht by covetousness So Herod also to secure a Kingdom an Earthly Kingdom also slew the new-born males of Israel at the birth of our Saviour Pilate and others exprest the same wisdom covetous self-destroying wisdom at the death of our Saviour And what was this second part but Egypt plainly sprung up as a Sub-antitype in Judea Here 's the very identity of the same wisdom the reality of the same works betwixt both the Secular parts of these two Kingdoms And this Sub-antitype part as it exactly agrees with its Prototype literal Egypt agrees exactly with its Antitype Spiritual Egypt whose wisdom of earthly avarice hath the same superscription with that of the Sub-antitype in our Saviour's time and with its Prototype This second part seeks like Nabal worldly gain by that wisdom and wicked frugality that produceth indeed with the losse of their lives and souls the losse of it This second part these Professors of Woolf-like wisdom and greedy avarice are ever very busie in buying and selling yet will not buy but sell the Truth or if they do will pay no price conform and adequate to the worth of it nor recompence the Witnesses thereof according to their just deserts Come sayes Pharaoh when he went about a work of this wisdom let us work wisely And these Egypts Antitype will needs seem more religious and sober than Spiritual Sodomites are and in buying the Truth can go a wiser and cheaper way to work till through the folly of this earthly wisdom time truth and their life are all lost together The wisdom of this world is secondly earthly Thirdly The third part in the Sub-antitype was the Pharisaical part most blind proud and bloody We find the Prototype by our Saviour himself thus exprest O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent c. Mat. 23.37 That is The Hierusalamites Apostate Predecessors their Prototypes in pride and cruel Persecutions killed the Prophets and stoned those that were sent unto them And their succeeding Sub-antitype the Pharisees in our Saviour's time followed or rather far exceeded their examples for factious pride and blinde and bloody ignorance They by heady prejudices rash censures and wicked surmises persecuted the Apostles killed the Saints and crucified Christ the King of Righteousness The same wisdom of spiritual pride works in their Antitype the same wickedness serves to kindle Seditions to create Cavils to multiply contradictions against the Truth and its Witnesses and to raise much strife of words to wicked purposes as their Type the Pharisees did against our Saviour Of whom he expresly said which is rather more true in their Antitype You are of your father the Devil c. The wisdom of this world is Thirdly Devilish This third part in the Prototypes and the Sub-antitypes was most infamous for cruelty And this third Antitype-part in all Seâ—s of the Papal Decarchy is the most direful impugner of gospel-Gospel-Truth and persecutor of the Witesses of it But I have spent time too much about this trivial Cavill This City therefore we clearly see subsisted at its first building of three parts as it was to be before or about its final dissolution divided into three parts And Secondly It 's called spiritually Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified as an aggregate of all three in the first building of it But called Babylon in its dissolution because divided as Babel into speeches into a confusion of many modern Sects and Sub-divisions but chiefly into three parts That this City subsisted of three parts is proved sufficiently But what that City so subsisting is remains to be further proved which I shall shew in part here but more fully when I come to handle the Epocha's of the six Vials and six Trumpets synchronizing therewith in 1260 years For the most judicious Writers so far as I find are apt more or lesse to mistake this City The most or almost all Orthodox Writers misconceive that City in Apoc. 17 18 chapters to be Papal Rome and the same City in the 11th 16th chapters because that City in the 17th and 18th chapters is called Babylon the great and that City in the 11th chapter is in the 16th
devil and therefore called the Devil got by Rebellion so much power for a short space against the Inhabitants of the Earth and the Sea Egypt and the East Empire as to persecute many precious Saints in those infimous out-places that less regarded the truth of the Gospel in Doctrine and manners But he prevailed not or very little against the Western Churches who were much more sound in faâ—â—â— and manners and therefore called Heaven Rejoyc◠〈◊〉 and ye that dwell in them wo unto the Inhabitants of the Earth and the Sea c. But Of this I have written at large in my Tract against Chiliasm This first Dragon thus prevailed under his eighth and last head and chiefly under the form of an Arrian against the Inhabitants of the Earth and the Sea Egypt and the Eastern Empire from the death of Constans to the death of Valens about 18 years Then was he bound as we have shown before sufficiently by Theodosius and his two Sons with a new recruit of chains so strait that he could scarce breath or rather must breath his last Then seeking aid of the second Dragon that Dragon came but did not succour him sad poor dying distressed but destroy'd for ever about 412 the feeble relicts of him Therefore this first Dragon had not then nor long before any free power seat or authority But the Dragon gave his seat c. Therefore that was the second Dragon The first Dragon was Draco devictus a Dragon subdu'd by a woman She overcame him by the blond of the Lamb and the word of her testimony ch 12.11 But this second Dragon overcame that woman drave her into the wilderness killed her witnesses To wit about four hundred and seven ten or twelve when their testimony by which they overcame the first Dragon grew at least in works weak or in the words of the text when they had finished that testimony ch 11.7 ch 12.14 15 17. The first Dragon was an Indigena in the Roman Empire the second an Alienigena from the North Rome Pagan was the last clearest fullest type of the Antichrist predicted by Prophets and Apostles Rome Papal was the antitype or substance shaddowed forth by many types but last and above all by Pagan Rome whose head the first Dragon was as the second was the first head in Scripture order because the raiser up of Papal Rome But before I proceed I must first resell sundry opinions of many Learned writers For some affirm that all Prophesies under the Law were fulfilled at the death of our blessed Saviour or at the destruction of Jerusalem So they cut off the Prophets from giving testimony to the Apostles and the Apocalyps Secondly some affirm that all the Prophesies in the Apocalyps except the Dragons binding for 1000 years whom they also except in vain were fulfilled about 412 at the excision of Rome Imperial Then there can be no second Dragon beast or false Prophet commencing then And then this if not the whole design of the Apocalyps may seem a dream I must therefore take away of necessity these cardinal obstacles in the way of my progress to explicate those intricate Scriptures that are most needful to be unfolded and to make the Plain thereby the more perspicuous And first we shall prove though we have done that perhaps before sufficiently that the Prophets bare clear record to the Predictions prophetick promises and comminations in the Apostles and the Apocalyps and reached even Papal Rome That there were two Dragons needs no dispute Further proof of it might seem superfluous Howbeit even that also will hereby necessarily and irrefellibly appear The world so far as I find never took notice that there were two nor do the Learned Grotius Hammond and others that I see observe it because they stating the period of the Apocalyps and all prophetick Scriptures about the year four hundred and ten when Rome Imperial was translated so exclude both the second Dragon beast and false Prophet with Papal Rome and all modern Sects and so doing must exclude though they would except them the Mahumetans also from being any part of the Churches predicted Antithesis The more literal fulfilling of the Apocalyps in many things they with Mead and many others have learnedly observed which literal fulfilling in many things they find and I confess ended much about the years four hundred and ten or twelve But of many things that relate not to Pagan but to Papal Rome they take little or no notice nor are they misguided but by a general mis-supposition which may necessitate even the most Learned to the same mistakes For their not observing that there were two Dragons which also never any that I find observed necessitates them if not all expositors to the same aberrations Doctor Hammond or as well any other Learned or rational did or might had his suppositions been right very rationally thus argue The Dragon for neither he or any other perhaps supposed more than one ended with the computation of the Apocalyps for ever in four hundred and ten or twelve But the Dragon beast and false Prophet had all one and the same synchronick Epoche ending as aforesaid Therefore after four hundred and ten or twelve there could be never any Dragon beast or false Prophet much less any of them after that time as they could not be before apply'd to Papal Rome Papal Rome whom the Apocalyps it self thus absolveth must therefore remain free for ever from any such imputation as being any part of the body of Apostacy or of the Antichrist predicted by Prophets and Apostles His and their arguments were those suppositions right are very rational and indeed the very truth Nor did the Learned Grotius Hammond and others as it seems to me much observe That as some Rocks re-eccho the first sounds given three or four times as Trogus Pompeius witnesseth and I have oft observed so some prophesies sound forth several successive transactions in four or five reverberations For example The prophesie in Daniel of the abomination of desolation struck first Prophetically upon the cruel practises of Epiphanes and sounded forth the Jews sad calamities by his merciless persecutions but did not terminate there but sounded forth also the Jews desolations at the destruction of Jerusalem And when you shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel saith our Saviour c. Daniels dimidium hebdemadis of the same duration and denomination and makes Daniels prophesie of the desolation at the destruction of Jerusalem to be in the third Reverberation The conformity of that half week of years in its duration and denomination to its type under Epiphanes and its anti type under the Apostacy appears from these Texts Dan. 9.26 27. Rev. 11.2 3. The duration of that half week of years under Epiphanes and the Pharisees as in types was 1260 days literal but in their anti types 1260 years The desolations in those types were more literal but in their
Proto type prediction in Dan. 12.7 In both which texts the truth of the transactions and times exprest is confirmed by a divine Oath in the name of the living God which makes them much more signally correlative as to type and anti-type and that in the fifth Eccho therefore it s sufficiently if not abundantly manifest that some prophesies in Daniel reiterated as we plainly see in the Apocalyps reach Rome Papal some directly as in ch 7.25 and some in a fifth re-ecchoed performance as in the texts of Dan. 8.9 10. c. and ch 12.7 and ratisie those 1260 years of all these twelve Epochaes For all days propheticalare ever though literal in their Subanti-types at least years in their ultimate anti-types which is evident from Numb 14.34 Dan. 9.24 Ezech. 4.5 6. And as will more irrefellibly appear when we come to treat upon those texts As he hath declared to his servants the Prophets saith the text ch 10.7 where it is plain that many things which the Apocalyps predicted were in fore-times declared to the Prophets the servants of God which they also as appears plainly from the said text declared in their prophesies wherefore many or the most of the Prophets and not Daniel only whiles they foretold things more immediately to be fulfilled presignified also thereby those things which the Apocalyps predicted But to shew the comparities of Prophetick prefigurations with texts in the Apocalyps wherein they seem to concenter in the anti-type would require a large Volume We shall now take a short view of the secular head of Papal Rome with his comparities and disparities to his types His mouth saith the text was as the mouth of a Lion so shadowed forth by the King of Babylon Rev. 13.2 Dan. 7.4 But he was not that Supream power as his disparities plainly shew For Secondly his feet were as the feet of a Bear and so figured by the King of Persia Dan. 7.5 Rev. 13.2 But he was not that power secular as his disparities shew For Thirdly he was like a Leopard So was the Greek Monarch Dan. 7.5 Rev. 13.2 And here we plainly see a threefold and shall a fourfold consonancy betwixt those prophesies in Daniel and this in the Apocalyps and that in the fifth reverberation or performance if we take our account from those texts of the eighth Chapter in Daniel that point out Epiphanes Or if we count by the successions of those four beasts in the seventh Chapter But the Sea-born beast Papal was not that representative of the Greek Empire because of many disparities in both texts Nor was he the Dragon or fourth beast in the fourth reverberation from Daniel who Prophetically adumbrates by four beasts of different figures four Kingdoms the Chaldaean Persian Greck and Roman and by those four beasts he shaddowed forth their anti-type the representative of Papal Rome in the fifth reverberation For Pagan Rome was the fourth Kingdom and her head the first Dragon the fourth Monarch But Papal Rome was the fifth Monarchy and her head secular this Sea-born beast the fifth Monarch prophetically shaddowed forth in the fifth reverberation by those four beasts in Daniel but chiefly by the fourth beast of Pagan Rome the first Dragon who was the last clearest and sullest type of this seven-headed Hydra of Papal Rome succeeding those four beasts but chiefly the fourth in his seat power and great Authority and that in the fifth reverberation from Daniel This may some rash inconsiderate Readers say makes it signally clear that this whom you call the first Dragon nor was there ever any more then one nor ever any second gave his seat power and great authority to the beast his successor we shall therefore further but briefly re-enquire how and when the Dragon and which of the two gave his seat and power to the beast and to which beast What opinions most hold I minde not much because many writers little mind how or what they write But all reformist Expositors so far as I find affirm that this beast Papal was the seventh or I know not what head of the Dragon which should continue saith the text but a short space and that sufficiently contradicts this Tenent Rev. 17.10 ch 12.12 But I answer The Dragon saith the text gave him this beast Papal who is sufficiently described before and will be further afterwards his power seat and great authority to distinguish him from the first Dragon whose power was taken from him And to distinguish him from the second that gave him his power and great authority which he took from the first and chiefly from the representatives of the Primitive Church Rev. 13.2 4. Therefore that second Dragon raised Rome Papal in the fifth reverberation from Daniel chiefly by raising her secular head with his power the Supremacy therein given unto him For Secondly the first Dragon was no free doner or disposer of his own power but had it taken away before could give it and was taken away himself before that beast was in being that should receive it And so the text we see faith expresly 2 Thes 2.6 7. So say the best modern Expositors upon that place though they sometimes contradict themselves and confound the true Series of things as we have before briefly hinted So say the chief Primitive Fathers That this Dragon Rome Pagans representative was not to give his power himself but to be himself with all his power taken out of the way And it might seem most wicked and foolish for any Expositors to kick against the express Tenure of the sacred text to contradict the best modern Writers witnessing at least by consequence what those texts import and to oppose the Opinions of the best Primitive Fathers who no doubt might best understand the right meaning of those Scriptures For the Apostle himself asserts expresly that they did know the meaning of them You know saith he what withholdeth He that now letteth will lett until he be taken out of the way 2 Thes 2.7 And this Relative He in the Text could not possibly refer to any other person political but only to the first Dragon or Representative of Pagan and Imperial Rome who in Johns time chiefly letted and did after let or hinder Papal Rome and her head ut intus existens prohibeâ— alienum from rising up until he was finally taken away with all his force by the second Dragon the last sublator of his feeble power and dying person in four hundred and ten or twelve For Thirdly Michael and his Angels Constantine and his Armies Michael's substitutes took to the final excision of his seventh head that first Dragons power without asking him any leave into his own hands held possest it so as that Dragon could never regain absolute Supremacy therein That is His place saith the text was found no more in Heaven Theodosius with his two Sons and the two Valentinians partly took away partly brake in pieces the power of his sick and scarce perfect eight and
porters of evil reports dyed immediately by the Plague and all Israel whom they had infected with the Pestilence of that Apostacy all to a man from twenty years upwards two excepted dyed in the wilderness ver 29. And all that sad Prophetick story is told as it were mutato nomine of their Anti-type the body of Apostacy who by their generality pretend to be the Church Catholick who cast away look not after the Promises in the Prophetick Scriptures nor after substantial truth and obedience but basely espouse a trivial superficial shallow though somewhat literally sound knowledge with obedience conform which is the productor of evil reports blasphemies persecutions and the path-way that the son of perdition came when he came with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness about the year 412 as will instantly appear For this way is deceiveableness it self most deceitful and that sin chiesly that shuts Heaven whiles they and their complices conceive it to be the only Key to open it This was the way of his coming about the year four hundred seven ten or twelve let us turn therefore our eyes to about that time to see more clearly both the time way and manner of his coming St. Hierom's Record and he 's the fittest testator here best occurreth his commencement at such a time and in such a manner as the Apostle predicted and I here have briefly described Of him Erasmus as Clarkes Church-History witnesseth thus writeth Quis doces aptiùs quis delectas urbanùs St. Jerom was in Erasmus esteem as it might appear the best Teacher and most delightful writer of all the Fathers He also lived and was at Rome in that very juncture of time when the Christian world was turning upon the hinge of Apostacy and commencing that grand revolt which â—he Apostle speaks of Therefore his Authority the best of any may here stand good But he about the year 406 as we shall shew call'd Rome-Christian the Meiropolis of the then revolting world a receptacle of Devils and faln Babylon And St. Jerom sure a most vigilant Father of the Church and a sober Writer would not have called Rome-Christian then-reviloing faln if he had not seen good reason or rather real truth for it that she was then faln or in falling But he gave sufficient reasons and those reasons we shall afterwards abundantly shew to be real truths For it follows * When I livea saith he in Babylon an inhatitant of the purple whore after the Roman Laws I would have written something of the holy Ghost and have dedicated the Treatise to the Bishop of that City And behold that seething pot which was seen in the Prophet Jeremy looking out of the North beginneth already to buil and the Senate of Pharisees cryed out at me all at once Neither was there so simple a Scribe in all that ignorant Rabble which conspired not against me wherefore I am now as it were out of Captivity neturned to Jerusalem c. Tempora mutanfur A sudden change into a strange Antithesis Rome of late the City of Righteousness revolted as in a moment to be the Head of the Mystery of Iniquity and her Professors once fruitful in all good works were turned Pharisces And the Senate saith he of Pharisces cryed out at me all at once neither was there so simple a Scribe in all that ignorant Rabble that conspired not against me Against whom Against St. Jerom whom the Papists themselves acknowledge to be a Reverend Father of the Church Ah persidious people of the City of Apostacy How soon is the Metropolis her self of the Primitive Church become unstable as waters and the once firm sear of her faithful Witnesses revolted from Faith and manners For the manners of that upstart proud Catholick-Church pretending Apostacy were mores Iniquissimi most inhumane above Heathens insolencies even to St. Jerom one of the ablest and most worthy Fathers of the Church who apparently had more serious and real worth and solid depth of good ground in him then all the petty pibble Quarry of that proud Senate of Pharisees had And this anti-type Church-Catholick pretending Apostacy when she but began to put forth her rebellious head and first opened her blasphemous mouth against the faithful Witnesses of the truth had as much as all her Types had deceitful grounds sufficient to pretend to a Church-Catholick and might and probably did thus plead Why Jerom do you coms by your Dedications to dictate to us as if we needed your instructions in the tenents of the Homousian Faith Had we needed your help we had sent for you And what need do you think can the Supream Representatives of the Catholick-Church here have of your help a single and obscure person And will you insult alone over the Catholick-Church tax ber with covetousnesse rash censures want of Charity Oppression Apostacy and we know not what Is this your Christian meckness and submission Cannot the City live in peace for you nor the Church in quiet We all all here as one man disdain your daring boldness and detest your pride And the Senate of Pharisees said Jerom cryed out at me all at once c. The Apostacy the truth-opposing Apostacy was or then seemed Catholick and the true Catholick-Church fled or was then flying away into the Wilderness That wicked apostacy even in her Infancy had aspired to the false title of the true Catholick-Church whom she most persecuted and conspired against her most faithful Witnesses And that if the Records of many besides Jeroms may be believed in the Metropolis of the true Primitive but then revolting Church This Apostacy therefore as her Types were seemed general or Catholick and did deeply deceive her self and those that dwelt upon the Earth with the falsly arrogated or stoln title of the true Catholick and Apostolick Church St. Jerom was no base Porter of evil reports no morose â—ash tâ—â—ie accuser but the most faithful of all the Fathers at least then living to reprove exhort correct rebuke instruct Et quis docet aptiùs None taught with more sincere and true Christian candor But relapsing Rome thus reproved plainly by him pay'd dear for her Apostacy and obstinate impenitence For about the very next year and that fully confirms the truth of his reprooss and the equity of his just complaints was Rome besieged made tributary and the body of her Christian Empire began to be translated And about five years after the City the second time besieged was taken plundred burnt and almost totally depopulated by the Plague Sword Famine Fire Then might that miserable City call on Jerom and cry Solon Solon Then was the first and best head of the Sea born beast secular and Papal wounded as it were unto death upon the day of his Birth or so soon as he was brought forth And then Rome Papal or the tenfold body of Apostacy persisting still obstinate and impenitent was with her revolting head or Metropolis the Ruines of Rome literal given up
proud Pharisees a Synagogue of Censorious Hypocrites seat of the Mystery of iniquity Mother of the Son of perdition and the Spiritual Metropolis of the body of Antichrist But here we might enquire who possibly this Angel might be that cryed thus mightily with a strong voyce I answer The seven Stars were seven Angels or overseers of the seven Churches of Asia Ch. 1.20 Therefore This Angel might be for he could be no imaginary or Chimaera-Angel that cryed mightily and was never heard and filled the Earth with his Glory and yet was never seen some overseer of at least some part of the Gospel Church And if so why not Saint Jerom For never any Angel or Overseer of the Primitive Church after the Apostles times cryed so mightily with a strong voice saying Babylon the great is fallen c. But both Papists and Protestants and both unawares plainly import in the delineation of his person that Saint Jerome was indeed this Angel For as both draw Gregories Picture with a Dove at his Ear both make Jeronies Effigies with a Lion at his Foot which is a plain-speaking Hieroglyphick that truly expounds the Text For it evidently imports That as the Lion is King of the beasts so Jerom was the Prince or chief of all the Primitive Fathers For. Secondly The Text saith An Angel having great power cryed mightily with a strong voyce Ch. 18 1 2. And this device Saint Jeroms Picture or Emblem thus drawn as aforesaid by Papists and Protestants imports That the voyce of Saint Jeroms Pen was a strong voyce like the roaring of a Lion Thirdly That which that mighty Angel cryed with a strong voyce was this Babylon the great is fallen c. And that which Saint Jerom cryed with a strong voyce which denotes him undeniably to be the same Angel was the very same thing in the same words To wit Babylon the great is fallen c. No man ever cryed so mightily with a strong voyce as Jerom did against the grand Apostacy at the very beginning of it Therefore Saint Jerom is most likely to be this Angel that cryed thus mightily with a strong voyce Babylon to wit Rome Imperial Babylons penultimate Antitype is fallen c. And therefore the Authority of Jerom alone much more joyned with the witness of sacred Writt and of many Writers is more then sufficient to confirm the Truth of the time when Primitive Apostate Rome fell and when the Papal Apostacy commenced The same is also superabundant to prove that the City called Babylon in the seventeenth and eighteenth Chapters was Rome Imperial Apostate in manners And thereby to refell their opinions that seeming to make it their study how to adde to or diminish from the words of the book of sacred vision assert the contrary It may serve also to undeceive many sober Writers that hold the same errors and so to be a Key to open those Arcana Theologiae mysterious sacred Truths that contain the richest treasures of the greatest mercies to present and after ages For as one Ring wanting or misplaced in a Watch makes the whole Watch be of no use so one much more many Texts misunderstood may make the whole Prophetick Scripture or at least part of it to be of disuse as a book fast sealed and must needs confound the true meaning of many Texts But If Saint Jerom was as both Papists and Protestants though implicit to them thus import that Angel of great power Then that Angel or however Saint Jerom cryed mightily with a strong voyce saying not only that Babylon the great was fallen but that Rome Primitive then commencing Papal and Apostate was that falling City that then fell from faith and manners He had the Record of the fittest Primitive Fathers as well as reason and sacred Scriptures co-asserting what he so cryed with a strong voyce And this irrefellibly refells those confident Opinions of very many fond Opinionists and of some sober Professors who affirm that the great City called Babylon and said to fall in the 17 and 18 Chapters was at her final dissolution Papal Rome only whose five first heads the Scripture sayes it fell before John wrote above four hundred years before Papal Rome was in being but I leave such shameful inconsequences to the sober Reader But that falling City in the 17. and 18. Chapters which those Opinionists imagine to be Papal Rome was the literal City of Rome of Imperial Pagan egressive Papal ingressive She as egressive was Pagan and Imperial from which she then fell for ever She as ingressive was but the Spiritual Metropolis of Papal and Apostate Rome to which she then fell For Papal Rome only went on though at first with more mildness and less violence in the same Apostacy for which Primitive Rome fell Pagan and Imperial Rome that Apostacy of the more Orthodox was the cause of it then fell for ever And Papal Decapolite Rome then rose up by that sall of her said forerunner in that Apostacy Seventhly I would have written saith Jerom something of the Holy Ghost and have dedicated the Treatise to the Bishop of that City Jerom it seems did not disdain either the Title or Office of a Bishop but the abuse of that Office in any person He would have dedicated his Book to the Bishop of that City but found no acceptance from him or his associates For Eighthly And the Senate of Pharisees saith he cryed out at me all at once c. This shews the excessive insolence in the very ingress of it of the grand Apostacy who most pretending to advance Learning and Religion were so far from both that Saint Jeroms book found no acceptance from any of them what book could be better pen'd by man at that time then Saint Jeroms was or be more necessary then that of his upon the Holy Ghost against Arrianisme that then threatened to swallow up the Church of Christ the Christian Empire and indeed all true Learning and Religion But so far was he or it from finding due acceptance that he found perhaps not one man amongst them that would take the pains to read it or that through cursory reading of it could understand it Such might answer him in scorn That his book was too high for their low capacitys to comprehend They were no doubt too wise to read it too learned to understand it Such Learned Non-intelligists now are many Or they had they might imagine better books of their own making or made by orhers to better uses besides much business of highest concernment wherein they busied themselves no doubt to as good purposes as they that take in hand to tresure up thewind Suppose a man I but suppose it in these last times of that Apostacy should write a Treatise effectual to refell errors to reform manners to compose those divisions in and against the Church that threaten like leakes in a weather beaten ship to sink her and to take peace from the Earth I doubt not but the
foreheads Not these Not the servants of God not the true Church That is Her and their hurt which they should receive from those Locusts should be over-ballanced by greater benefits and defences But they were commanded to torment those that had not the seal of God for five moneths ver 5. That is to torment those Saint-persecuting Papists that had tormented the servants of God The patern in the prototype the Locusts which God sent upon the Land of Aegypt plainly shews the manner of their coming and the end of their message which was to torment those persecutors and somewhat to defend persecuted Saints From hence riseth a perplex knot of deceit to those Locusts and others They think that because they torment and oppose Papists or seek perhaps to very little purpose by their teachings and writings to evert or refel their tenents therefore they are Saints their works sincere doctrine sound They have no affinity they think with the son of perdition his deeds of darkness lie far from their doors Whereas this was the grand deceit of their predecessors the Papists when they first erected the Apostacy They because they refelled converted and partly compelled the Arrians and other Sects to the unity of the deceit of that City gave their own deceitful slandering shallow doctrine and obedience the titles of true antient Catholick and Apostolick and reputed them selves and were undoubtedly reputed the true Church Herein those Papists were and these Locusts are much deceived For the Orthodox Papists of the rising Apostacy no less sound in doctrine then moderne Locusts were against the Arrians and other gross Hereticks and many of them might not be sensual professors yet Salvian saith That because of their evil lives even the Arrians were more tolerable And Saint Jerom and sacred writ it self applyes to them all those attributes in the 17 and 18 Chapters that are chiefly due to the son of perdition not because their doctrine was false but their manners corrupt nor because their manners were sensual though such were the fruits of some but because their Apostacy in manners consisted in secular and spiritual wickedness whiles they served but to resist the truth and to exclaim and conspire against the faithfullest witnesses of it or at least to neglect both them and it This is the reformation of Pharisees and Hypocrites which they cry up but they never seek sincere obedience conform to Gospel rule Such formalists or hypocrites be their doctrine never so sound or their professions strict are the head of the body of Apostacy and the highest Pinnacles upon the Towers in that Tripolity of deceit And therefore From hence springs a second deceit not much unlike the former of the Locusts They cast usually the grievous imputation of Antichrist solely upon that Antient Sect of the Papists or upon the literal City of Rome alone and will not no not be taught it so much as touch that burden though they have no less reason to bear it with their little finger but lay it solely upon that Sect or City or the superintendent of it whereas the Apostacy of Antichrist is common to all revolted professors that follow the lusts of the flesh the lusts of the eyes and pride of life For the Apostle did not tax the defection of Demas with turning aside to any one Sect or Heresie but with secular covetousness He hath saith he forsaken us and embraced not this or that Sect or Heresie but this present evil world Sensual secular and spiritual wickedness is the chief visible form of the Apostacy which gives being to it But the different false opinions and deceitful professions therein are but forma figurae the Protean colours and outward cloathings upon the several members of the same Apostacy which makes the many different divisions thereof the more distinguishable For if we fill an hundred glasses of so many different colours with the same liquor or matter each glass renders the same liquor of a different colour whereas indeed there is no difference in the matter but in the colour of those Glasses that contain it so all formal professors in the body of the Apostacy of Antichrist differ not so much in deed as in colour There 's the same sensual secular and spiritual wickedness in all except that in many some one of those three lusts may be most predominant And their outward different formes or professions make no more real reformation or alteration of that threefold matter of iniquity then the different colours of those Glasses alter the matter conteined in them Therefore these Locusts or formal professors that would seem much reformed from Papists in doctrine discipline and obedience having attained faces like the faces of men hair like the hair of women and Crowns like Gold remain Papists in manners or out strip them for pride and covetousness And such have no plea or priviledge but abundant disadvantage thereby because their hearts are thereby much more deceived blinded and hardened against true faith discipline and manners and are made more adverse to truth and averse from peace But we shall come nearer home to the matter Try all things saith the Text and we at this time shall try the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of errour of Christ and Antichrist and shew what the works and practices of Primitive Saints were what they have been since and wherein they differ or rather shall differ from deceiveableness of unrighteousness or the Locusts Gold like Crowns of deceits That so Saints and Sects may not ever swell with intermutual strife wander in wildernesses of obscure aberrations and grabble in darkness to the continual dishonour of God the extream hazard of the true Church and ineffable infelicity of all Nations That we may more assuredly know who these Locusts were and what their Crowns of deceit are we shall enquire when they rose up And the fifth Angel sounded vers 1. And we find them rising up in the time of the fifth Trumpets sounding which was the penultimate dispensation of the Apostacy of Antichrist For that time was to be the last interval save one of the Son of perditions duration because when the seventh Angel shall begin to sound the mystery of God should be finished ch 10.7 The time therefore of these Locusts coming was to be near the end of the Epoche of the Apostacy of Antichrist For the Locusts and plague of Darkness came in Type together and were the last plagues but one when they came Exod. 10. And so these Antitype-Locusts and Darkness came together and were to be so exact are Prophetick Types with their Antitypes the last Plagues but one in the Epoche of the grand Apostacy Ch. 9.1 2. ch 16.10 Therefore these Locusts coming near the end of the Apostacy could not be the Saracens that came near the beginning of it nor be as many Expositors would have them Monkes Fryars or Jesuites who were far from being as these were to be some refuge to the Church Nor do I
Apostate in Manners was laid in the Ballance and found wanting wantinng in the weight of her former graces in the worth of her first works She fell from being most fruitful in well doing to be a Cage of every hateful Bird Therefore Her plagues came in one day Death Mourning Famine Fire c. I might produce many Presidents As the fall of Pharaoh's servants Sodom Jerusalem And indeed all places and persons that have perished have had this levity of Judgement and works the cause of their perdition Therefore It requires our speedy disquisition to find out what this dangerous levity that brings such swift destruction is that we may with all diligent care avoid it and find out that substantial Gold of sound Judgement and sincere Obedience which shall be subordinate to Christ the Rock of safety to Ages and support of all Princes and people Levity in love and Works is Sensual Earthly and Devilish And first Sensual Sensual Professors filthy Sodomites make substantial Truth sober Advice and sincere Obedience matters of extream Laughter So Lot seemed to his Sons in Law as one that mocked or made sport And this makes all their sins so far incorrigible These Professors though they scarce can be so called can condemn any man O horrendum bestiale before they hear him any Book before they read it and the Grounds of their such solid Judgements is their trivial Levity of lavish petulancy Sodom 't is not said she gave no Alms strengthened not by giving the hands of the poor And her Antitype Such Sodomites do the same give perhaps but by giving strengthen not the needy These men grow daily as they grow in years not in Grace but Wit And that Wit is only extream Folly These wild Beasts are but sensless Risibilists and their Judgements and Works so light that they are not worth the weighing of them But God will lay them and their works as he did revelling Belshazzar in his ballance Secondly The Judgements and works of Earthly-minded Professors seeming more solid are much lighter Their levity is less seen and longer before it be discerned So Pilate heard and examined seemed duly to examine our blessed Saviour found no fault in him and then through Earthly Interests condem'nd him to be put to death whereas filthy Sodomites professors sensual are not fit nor able to examine any man searce with any appearance of Sedulity Their volatile petulancy and levity of folly permits them not to be so serious or industrious Or if they have so much sobriety as to examine any man and find him faultless they are not usually so wicked with Pilate and secular Professors as to condemn him For it is not so much Sensual as Covetous and Earthly Interests that tend to condemn the Truth in deed and the witnesses thereof to Death Their Doom the Sentence of Men Earthly-minded falls far above the bolts of filthy Sodomites heavier upon the Truth and the Witnesses of it at last though they seem greatly to favour both at first For their levity of Love and Works being less seen is longer before it be discerned So Judas was Earthly-minded a thief saith the Text long before he was found out nor was he perceived by the Apostles for about 1260. dayes but then that Type-Son of Perdition and the Mystery of Iniquity in him was revealed His love to the Truth Loyalty to his Master Charity to men and care of the poor was laid in the Ballance and found wanting The Levity of the love of Earthly-minded Professors is discovered by the outward indices Angustum pectus parca manus Narrow hearts hands not enlarged Their rewards are ever inconform to the works of the well deserving or dilatory to destroy them Their grand pretence for their so doing is their great business both Secular Sacred So Ahab a Type of Antichrist was busie here and there saith the Prophet and by means of that business minded not the command of God lost his Kingdom thereby and destroyed himself and his family for ever So Secular Antichrist Ahabs Antitype is not ashamed no more then Ahab was to make the pretence of much business his plea against Obedience For Earthly minds full of worldly business exclude the testimony of the Truth at least in Works and all due regard to the witnesses of it Therefore Men Earthly-minded Secular Antichrist may be well known by their accumulating such business as arms them with sufficient excuses against the practice of good manners Their business is either Secular for Earthly Interests or seeming sacred for secular ends Therefore There 's no weight in all their good Works of which the best are strangled with a strait hand and being laid in the Ballance are found light like the Crowns of the Locusts But Thirdly The levity of Professors proud and Pharisaical being most light is more traductive and devilish Therefore they can censure not as Sodomites but as it were in sobriety before they see cause condemn before they know whom or for what They can readily say with Apostate Julian Legi Cognovi Damnavi Legi Here 's some labour lost labour the worst labour Cognovi Here 's some profit a man would think of their pains pains to no purpose pains without profit Damnavi Here 's the cursed truthcondemning fruit of proud Professors the fruit of all their pains in reading the result of all their acquisitions They only dream they know as some Prophets did and discern nothing Therefore as Balaam could not be stoptin his course to curse Israel these cannot be stay'd by any course from rash-censuring The Cataracts of rash condemnation fall not to be by any force repelled from the high praecipices of Pride and Ignorance and are the infallible Characters of Locusts and Hypocrites They are ever most busie and their business is about they think things sacred but serves only to deceive and be deceived In a word Their good works are so light that in substance they are but words of which none are good but in appearance and deceit The levity of the Righteousness of the Locusts and others consists in their Inadvertency or want of care to conceive and observe those Principles aforesaid of Incomplex-truth A Quo Quid Cui Quantum Quoties whose necessary considerations being but hinted before here fall under our further examination And First A Quo Or from whom what Truth in practise should chiefly proceed Silver and God said Peter have I none such as I have I give Rise up and walk Acts 3. From such as have no Silver nor Gold neither is due Nor must we expect that such as have no Spiritual use of any Limb themselves should afford the means to make others walk in right Obedience to God and good Works to men No man though many pretend it gives that to another which himself hath not to give But it 's a duty universal from all to do good to all which that they may do they must first have or seek to have the gift
profess ingenuously I could never yet observe the deserts of this David What 's his merit or worth if well examined I am not now to learn what he can teach Nor are his supposed sacred Notions of necessary use at least not new to me Once I read but five lines of his learned work and was so weary it was so ill composed and to little purpose I could read no more He observes no Method and is too tedious in all he writes I could have contracted his matter to better purpose in the tenth part of his words But why sends David upon such a a day as this which he knows to be a busie day He should have first sat down and cast up the cost of keeping so many men so all wise men do and not send to me to maintain them I was ever bountiful ti 's well known to the well-deserving But who is David who 's this Son of Jesse Sic bacchantur Moriones Thus proud Professors folly's Off-spring swell with brutish insolence against the knowledge of the Truth in Practice and those by whose examples they might come to the knowledg of it Virtutis hoec merces meriti hoc praemium Thus proud Professors cast down Peace and Truth by their folly as the foolish woman pull'd down her house with her hands This is not that Peace-producing harmony of those Harps that are the Harps of God But Because two contrary Paterus set together must needs make each other more elucid and apparent I shall in such sort set two by comparing the good Samaritans perfect pattern with those evil-examples of that Priest and Levite that passing by came not to the knowledg of the Truth in practice A certain Priest saith the Text saw the man wounded and passed by A Levite likewise looked on him and passed by on the other side Luke 10.30 The Text chargeth neither as nescient or not knowing the Scriptures Both might come to a large measure of the knowledge of the Truth in the Doctrine of Faith and Manners but took no notice of considered not that which is right in it self and due to be done to the wounded man They passed by Truth in practice What profit to what purpose is it for formal Professors to attain a large measure of the knowledge of the Truth in the Doctrine of Faith and Manners to attain all Faith all Knowledge if they pass by obedience to God mercy and equity to Men For it was the Trade not of that Priest and Levite alone but of the whole Tribe of Pharisees and Apostate Jews by whom our Lord was crucified to say and not do to assert the Truth in Doctrine and pass by the practice of it And so their Antitype Locusts and Hypocrites by whom our Lord is more spiritually crucified in his Mystical Body make it their chief business to come perhaps to the knowledge of the Truth in Doctrine that they may the better by that means pass by the practice of it For the Pharisees searched the Scriptures that testified of Christ that they might find testimony in them against him to put him to death Death they found due to Blasphemers This Doctrine was true And this misapplyed to Christ was enough they needed no more to put him to death Omnia sunt hominu tenui pendentia filo Surely the lives of Men and Saints and the lives of Princes depend upon a very slender thred if one Text of Scripture misapplyed by blind Hypocrites be sufficient to make them to pass by all Equity to Men and Loyalty to Princes Certainly such Professors be their Doctrine never so sound their Professions most strict most deserve effectual refutation and rebuke For misapply'd sound Doctrine is the Doctrine of Devils that very Doctrine which the Devil delivered when he tempted our blessed Saviour and the very same Doctine which the blaspheming Pharisees practised when they put him to death And this way of blasphemy by which the son of perdition slayes the witnesses of the Truth draws so near though in these times of the grand Misadvertency almost Universal to that sin unpardonable that it is a desperate misaffection of the Will more than a mistake of the Intellect I know said Christ the blasphemy of them who say they are Jews and are not but are the Synagogue of Satan Revel 2.9 where we clearly see that to boast of a lye is blasphemy And such blasphemers are most contrary to those Harpers that have the Harps of God We shall therefore handle both briefly together that both may more clearly appear And first Such blasphemers are so far boasters as to become rash Judges of other meus persons and actions of which and whom they are least able to judge But Secondly Such blasphemers misapply by sacrilegious and most wicked uncharitableness the same Text that the Pharisees did against our blessed Saviour and sundry others against the witnesses of the Truth whereby they ruinate their Estates and destroy their lives Such rewards must the best deserving find almost from all hands Unhappy Saints of the living God! unhappy witnesses of his Truth In this unhappy That any envious ignorant and unworthy Hypocrite needs but falsly charge them for their faithful Testimony with boasting or blasphemy and the business is done to their utter undoing What need we any more said the Pharisees But we shall here labour to remove the common mistake that 's the principal cause of that boasting and blasphemy that brings the greatest mischief to mankind and especially to the witnesses of the Truth And first Though I would desire saith the Apostle to glory I shall not be a fool for I will say the truth 2 Cor. 12.6 Whence it 's undeniably manifest That he that speaks or writes the Truth but then most when it makes for Gods glory or a general good is no fool nor a boaster though he seem to fools and Hypocrites so to be but a faithful witness of the Truth and do's therein but discharge charge his inevitable and indispensible duty to God and Man But it 's the common Opinion of Depravers and Hypocrites that to speak or write any thing true or false if it but reflect to the praise of him that speaks or writes it is boasting or vain-glory Then all the Prophets Apostles Saints and Martyrs must needs be boasters and blasphemers This was the mistake of Korah and his 250 conspiring Princes that told Moses and Aaron They took too much upon them were proud but were themselves signally proved to be sinners against their own souls Rebels in Gods sight Exod. 16.38 Ch. 17.10 This was the mistake of Aaron and Miriam when they said Hath the Lord indeed spoken by Moses Hath he not spoken also by us Numb 12.2 They imputed pride self-exalting to Moses the meekest man upon the face of the earth Thus we see that the most faithful Prophets and Martyrs such is the envious pride even in many Saints have been and may be grosly misled by this almost
Eremite-Pilgrimage did and doth cover all people But In Antitype Sion the promised Jerusalem there shall be no more Sun-darkening smoake of refined deceits Nor shall any clouds of universal darkness cover any more all people nor any Vail of Ignorance overspread all Nations For In that Mountain will God destroy the face of the covering cast over all people and the Vail that is spread over all Nations Isa 25.7 He hath promis'd it and will certainly and speedily persorm it Nor shall any Cloud then guide the Church by day nor any Pillar of fire by night But the glory of God shall enlighten it and the Lamb shall be the light thereof Chap. 21.23 To be short Antitype Sion and the Gospel-Church built upon it shall be the persection of beauty and pure Gold as it were transparent Glass Psal 50.2 Rev. 15.12 Ch. 21.21 There the beauty and harmony of Truth both in Doctrine and Practice shall be plainly and powerfully illustrated to all ages And this is Sion whom no man seeketh after Jer. 30.17 We shall now further enquire Fifthly What those Harps of God are Ch. 15.2 I answer They are called The Harpes of God and therefore cannot be made by the Art of Man but must be Harps framed by Gods hand to found sorth to the good of all his praise and glory That is They shall be the hearts of Men and Saints turned backwards How long said Elijah halt ye between two Opinions If the Lord be God follow him but if Baal follow him and they answered not a word 1 King 18.21 And they answered him not a word why not Decause their hearts were no Harps of God nor then turned backward But hear me Lord said Eliah and let this people know that thou art the Lord God and that thou hast turned their heart back again Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt-Sacrifice and the Wood and the Stones c. Vers 37 38. And when all the people saw it they fell on their faces and they said The Lord he is the God the Lord he is the God vers 39. The Lord be is the God And whence was this great acknowledgment of the truth to Gods glory The hearts of the people were become the Harps of God and were turned backward That was done in a Type and being more in word than in works continued but for a time But these Harps of God shall be the Hearts of Men and Saints turned back and turning others back from blind Sacrifice to sincere obedience Not in word but in deed Nor for a time but to eternity Harps that by good works wrought in a four-fold conformity shall greatly sound forth Gods glory and procure the general good of after-ages For Secondly Eliah we read repaired an Altar of the Lord that was broken down ver 30. And took twelve stones according to the number of the Tribes of the Sons of Jacob c. rebuilt it and offered upon it This was not written for nothing that Eliah did thus But be repaired the Altar of the Lord God accepts no Sacrifices but what are offered upon his own Altars He took twelve stones according to the number of the twelve Tribes Twelve is a quadrate number and the Root or Basis of twelve times twelve thousand or 144000 that adumbrate the Gospel-Church Ch. 14.1 Ch. 21.16 which principally denotes a quadri-formity or a fourfold conformity in the practices of all truly reformed Saints or rightly repaired Altars of God who are far from those Formalists and Hypocrites of blind inanimadvertency that mind not in their practices of good manners to conform their intellects to that which is right in itself or to come to the knowledge of the truth in practice that they may be saved Nor care to conform their wills to their right-informed intellects nor their works to both These are the Baalitish Altars of blind obedience such Altars God abhors hates such Sacrifices But these Harps of God shall be the repaired Altars of the Lord prepared by his hand to practise right in a fourfold conformity Such Altars only God accepts with such Sacrifices only is be well-pleased For The only Original Altar transcendent and above all is Christ But the Harps of God the hearts of men and Saints purifi'd by Faith and made conform to Christ are derivative Altars which God accepts in him And with their works wrought in a fourfold conformity is he well-pleased For God affects not Fables nor Fig-leaves of deceits fragments or half-performances but substantial Righteousness wrought in a fourfold conformity which only is Christian and true Righteousness Lastly Elijah when the people halted between two Opinions brought them to be of one mind And turned back their hearts that with one mouth they gave glory to the God of Heaven So shall their Antitype do Rev. 14.7 We shall here further shew First From what the hearts of Men and Saints shall be turned back Secondly To what they shall be turned Thirdly What their exceeding great danger is if their hearts be not turned back Lastly What their inestimable benefits and safeties shall be by having their hearts turned back again And first From what the hearts of Men and Saints shall be turned back I answer They shall be turned back from the practise of those sins of which they have not yet repented And the rest of the men saith the Text which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship Devils and Idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and of wood which neither can see nor hear nor walk Neither repented they of their Murthers nor of their Sorceries nor of their Fornication nor of their Theft Rev. 9.20 21. Yet repented not This Particle of time yet is the period of the six Trumpets sounding and terminates the 1260 years of the Witnesses Sackcloth-Prophesie Noah preached 120 years to the Old World and not a man that we find more than of his own Family repented at the period of that time And the Witnesses Prophesied 1260 years and men yet repented not Many repented no doubt by a feeble secret and almost unperceivable true repentance whereby they were saved but not according to that repentance promised to the Gospel-Church whereby God might be effectually glorified And the rest of the men yet repented not saith the Text. The Caldeans praised Gods of Gold and of Silver of Brass of Iron of Wood and of Stone Dan. 5.4 The words in Type and Antitype are literally almost the same ver 23. Rev. 9.20 We shall examine what some of these sins are that so the Christian World for praevisi mali mollior ictus may foresee and shun the punishments that must fall for those sins The first sin in the Antitype is Idolatry They worshipped Devils and Idols of Gold and Silver and Brass and Stone and of Wood which neither can see c. In the Type they were literal Idols but these in