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
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
Magistrate by how much more kinde and loving to one another and by how much more seriously affected for the advancing the publick good and the endeavouring the common welfare of all mankind which will introduce the Philadelphian Intervall by so much more near they may reckon the approach of the downfall of Antichrist and the glorious Reign of Christ in his Saints at the happy Millennium But what other Indications there be besides these in the Visions of the Prophets whereby we may compute the nearnesse of those Times I must ingenuously confesse I know not But this was a sudden Excursion We will return again into the way 14. But thirdly In that it is said Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest that Woman Jezebel which calleth her self a Prophetesse to teach and seduce my servants to commit Fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto Idols c. this is a perfect clearing of the Protestant Reformers from that hainous Crime of Schism that the Church of Rome so magisterially lays to their charge it plainly implying that their Separation from the Church of Rome was not onely no Fault but a Vertue and an indispensable point of Obedience to the command of Christ and that it had been Disobedience and Rebellion against Christ not to have separated and therefore was impossible to be any Schism Which is a thing worthy of our notice and consideration As is also this contrary to the opinion of some otherwise learned That to depart from the Church of Rome upon the very account of Idolatry is not Schism before God but onely in the sight of men and those it is to be feared of none of the purest minds but rather such as have a greater sense of the carnal Interest of the Church then of the Glory of God and the purity of his Worship For Christ who is God blessed for ever does here blame the Church in Thyatira that she suffers the Woman Jezebel any longer and does not cast her off as the Eunuchs cast her out of the window in the Type and that for this very cause because she is a Teacher of Idolatry and an Abettour and Countenancer of spiritual Fornication as is manifest in the Text. So that before God or in the sight of God both the Church of Rome stands guilty of Idolatry and also the Protestants leaving her Communion upon that account are acquitted from any the least taint or suspicion of Schism And that the Spirit of God does but witnesse with our spirits in the truth of this matter if thou hast not lost the free use of thy Reason that brief Treatise of Idolatry added to this present Exposition will I hope abundantly satisfie thee which therefore I have adjoined as a sutable Appendage thereunto 15. Fourthly In that Reformed Christendom especially after their Remissnesse in Life and Manners and Contentionsnesse about Trifles is represented under the Type of the Church in Sardis to be in such an imperfect Condition though emerged out of the grossnesse of the Popish Idolatry for there is no farther complaint of either the Doctrine of Balaam or of Jezebel here this should teach us to be humble and not over-fierce and confident in our Opinions and Doctrines but meekly to bear one with another and be ready to be instructed by one another for the clearing up the Truth But in the mean time things being no better then they are sith they are no worse then they were predicted we are hence to learn that it is our Duty never to suffer our mindes to relapse towards the Flesh-pots of AEgypt or think we had as good goe back again to Rome as to be no better then we are For this Sardian state is like the wandring in the Wildernesse betwixt AEgypt and the promised Land which is the Philadelphian state into which there is no entrance till after the seven Vials that is till the last of them be poured out or at least a-pouring As it is said in the fifteenth of the Apocalypse And the Temple was filled with smoak from the glory of God and from his power and no man was able to enter into the Temple till the seven plagues of the seven Angels were fulfilled Where no man according to the Apocalyptick style signifies that that company of men that were to enter into and make up that state of the Church which is here styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the living Temple of God would not appear in that eminent condition till after the Vials the last either current or complete Which agrees admirably with that passage in the Epistle to Philadelphia Him that overcometh will I make a Pillar in the Temple of my God So that these Philadelphians shall not onely enter into the Temple after the smoak of the Vials but never goe out of it again according to the sense we have explained it in Wherefore because we are in a kinde of Wildernesse-condition we ought with Faith and Meeknesse and Patience to abide till God shall bring us into that good Land and not to murmur against him and reproach his Providence who hath thought fit to carry on things with such leisurely steps nor peevishly and falsly to say that we had as good return to Rome again and that it is a question whether the Reformation has done more good or hurt For such thoughts or speeches are false injudicious and ingratefull Reproaches against the sacred Providence of God whose ways these bitter shallow and unsanctify'd spirits understand not because the spirit of the world has blinded their eyes And forasmuch as there is no complaint of Idolatry in the Epistle to this Sardian Church nor the least hint to make any Separation as before all the Churches of Reformed Christendom and all the particular Sects and Members thereof ought to have a tender regard how they divide from one another or break Communion for difference of Ceremony or Opinion but holding all the indispensable Foundation and bearing joint Testimony against the grosse Idolatries and wilde Enormities of the Church of Rome to study Peace and mutuall Compliance that the Body of Reformed Christendome may be more strong and compact to stand against the common Enemie But above all we are with might and main to endeavour to perfect Holinesse in the fear of God and to purge our selves from all pollution of flesh and spirit that we may prevent the extremity of that Judgement which is threatned as suddenly and unexpectedly to come upon the Church of Sardis And these I think are main Usefulnesses discoverable in the Interpretation of the Epistle to the Sardian Church 16. And fifthly As for the Exposition of the Church of Philadelphia it is of main Importance for the making of the world good For it is the ordinary excuse for the reigning of Impiety and Immorality in the world that men will be men as long as the world lasts and that things are more likely ever to grow worse and worse then
better and therefore very few there are that will either attempt the amending of their own Lives or the encouraging others so to doe When notwithstanding it is plain according to the Propheticall sense of the Epistle to the Church of Philadelphia that there will be a time when Righteousnesse and true Holinesse will have a most glorious reign upon earth But those that are averse from this belief are usually averse also from believing any certitude in the Expositions of Prophecies They will not forsooth be so presumptuous as to pretend they can understand them especially such as either chastise the abominable Wickednesses of the Roman Church or such as promise Times transcendently better Which is a piece of Hypocrisie much like that of Ahaz when the Prophet bid him ask a Sign of the Lord his God but he good modest Hypocrite would not ask a Sign neither would he tempt the Lord. The meaning whereof was that he would not amuze nor distract his thoughts nor render himself more obnoxious by taking notice of a supernatural Evidence against the natural Sentiments and persuasions of his own carnal minde under whose Government he was resolved to be and not be dissettled by the Inlets of any higher Light The application is very easie and obvious 17. And lastly Admitting the Propheticall meaning of the Epistle to the Church of Laodicea it is of great use for the establishing our Faith in that grand Point That this Terrestriall Scene will have an end and that at the close of all Christ will visibly come in Judgement to reward all men according to their works That he will judge both the quick and the dead according to the Orthodox sense of the Apostolick Doctrine To all which we may adde that as the Expositions of these Seven Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia are in a manner as convincing as any other Visions in the whole Apocalypse so they are far more easie and reach the main Design in a lesse compasse of words and have not that operosenesse of Synchronisms necessarily hanging on them as the other have for the clearing of the sense but are onely seven Intervalls manifestly succeeding one another whose Bounds so far as things are past are easily determinable And we know that the Intervall of Sardis ends where that of Philadelphia begins and Laodicea is the close of all Which Facility and Comprehensiblenesse must needs improve the Usefulnesse of these Expositions very considerably And there wanting nothing but the Significations of the Names to be added for the easie Applicability of the Events to each Intervall I will for the satisfaction of the Reader briefly furnish them that have no skill in the original Languages with the sense and meaning of the Names of all the Seven Churches aforehand 18. Ephesus therefore with an Allusion to the Greek word Ephesis signifies Desire the first moving Principle that drives on an Activity for the attaining the main Scope we aim at But with an Allusion to Aphesis it signisies Remissnesse for which this Church of Ephesus is blamed or else alluding again to Aphesis it signifies the starting or letting loose the Racers at the beginning of the Race Which agrees very fitly with this Ephesine Intervall which is the beginning of the Church and of the whole course of Providence concerning the same to the end of the world Smyrna signifies Myrrh intimating the bitter Affliction of the Primitive Church under the Ten Pagan Persecutions Pergamus signifies Sublimity or Exaltation intimating the raising of the Church out of her former dejected and afflicted condition under the aforesaid Persecutions into a glorious Triumph over Paganism as it fell out upon the Conquest of Constantine the great It signifies also or prefigures the enormous Haughtinesse of the Church of Rome in that Intervall Thyatira in Allusion to Thygatira a Daughter intimates the more-then-ordinary Womanishness of the Church of Rome in that Intervall But in Allusion to Thyateria Altars of Incense or sweet Odours it signifies the more-then-ordinary frequentness of burning the blessed Protestant Martyrs with fire and faggot in this Period Which Cruelty though it was abominable in respect of that bloudy and barbarous Church that committed it yet the suffering of those holy Martyrs in this manner out of Fidelity to Christ and his Truth was a Sacrifice of sweet Odours to him and very gratefully accepted of him Sardis in Allusion to Sarda or lapis Sardius the same that Carnalina signifies the imperfect and carnal Condition of that Intervall of the Reformed Church that is called Sardian Philadelphia which signifies Charity in general and particularly a more special love to them of the true Houshold of Faith intimates the Reign of the Spirit which is the Spirit of Love For God is Love and he that abideth in Love abideth in God and God in him This is that illustrious Reign of Christ in his Millenniall Empire of Love when the Christian life shall take place and Opinions and Persecutions shall be done away And lastly Laodicea signifies a popular Politicall or externally-Legal Righteousnesse the outward form of the former Philadelphian state but as in old age the spirit much decay'd though the outward figure of the body much-what the same It signifies also the arraigning and judgeing of the people that is the Nations of the world when Christ shall come to judge both the quick and the dead because this is to be performed at the close of this Laodicean Intervall 19. The significancy of the Names of these Seven Churches reckoned always in such an order as that seven Intervalls of the Church from the beginning to the end of all answer exactly in the Affairs of the Church both to these Names in this order they are reckoned and to the Conditions of the Seven Churches as they are orderly described in the Seven Epistles to them is a plain Demonstration to them that are not extremely refractory especially if you adde the Certainty that there must be a Propheticall meaning of these Epistles as is made good in the first and second Chapters of the ensuing Book I say it is a plain Demonstration that our Exposition is true as well as so easie and comprehensible and therefore of an universal Usefulnesse as well to the Illiterate as the Learned Which I hope Reader will be a sufficient Excuse for the Authour that he has either invited thee to the pains of reading or given himself the trouble of compiling this present Treatise Farewell A Propheticall EXPOSITION OF THE SEVEN EPISTLES Sent to THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA From Him THAT IS AND WAS AND IS TO COME SIRACIDES Ch. 59. He that giveth his minde to the Law of the most High and is occupied in the meditation thereof will seek out the wisedome of all the Ancient and be occupied in Prophecies A Propheticall EXPOSITION OF THE SEVEN EPISTLES Sent to THE SEVEN CHURCHES in Asia CHAP. I. A Preparation toward the Mysticall or Propheticall Interpretation of the Seven
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
Vineyard under pretence that men giving up their will and understanding to the supreme Power Government might be the more secure And all that wondred after the Beast gave up their Vineyards into the hand of the secular Power and professed no otherwise then according to the faith of the Empire and so had their Vineyards sown with divers seeds nay indeed with what was repugnant to the Apostolick Plantation Their minds were filled with gross lies foul-Idolatries of all sorts and murderous enmities against the true Children of God 12. But as for the Vineyard of Naboth that is the Vineyard of the true Prophets or Prophetesses as the word Naboth seems to intimate they were not given up that is those that were not Christians for fashion-sake and believed new invented lies and Apostolick truth alike but with a true and living faith acknowledged Jesus to be the Christ these would rather lose their lives then quit their Vineyards that yielded them that noble Wine that perpetual feast of a good Conscience and of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Whence it was that this Whore and Sorceresse Jezebel contrived their death or persecution and oppression as the two Prophets are said to both mourn in sackcloath and also to be slain The Vineyard therefore of Naboth is that sense and knowledge and conscience and life of the Spirit in the new birth whereby a man discerning plainly livingly betwixt the wayes of Christ and of Antichrist does as necessarily loath the one as adhere to the other 13. For the true and firm belief in Christ is from the new birth as S. John also witnesses Every one that believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God And therefore this Spirit of life must needs have an Antipathy against what is contrary to it self And is also the Spirit of Prophecy in the most concerning sense As John likewise intimates in his general Epistle where upon his mentioning many false Prophets gone out into the World he presently adds In this ye know the Spirit of God Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh is of God Which agrees exactly with that in the Apocalypse where the Angel says to John I am thy fellow-servant and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus that is to say of such as whose hearts do witnesse to them firmly and lively that Jesus is the Christ and accordingly professe it which none can do unlesse he be born of God and so have the Spirit of God Which is implyed in the following words For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of Prophecy that is to say the being able in such sort to witnesse that Jesus is the Christ is from the spirit and life of God in us which inspireth all holy truth From whence the Angel argues a kind of Parity betwixt John and himself and indeed all such as have the testimony of Jesus according to the sense declared and therefore would not be worshipped by them 14. But this is something a Digression saving that it may illustrate that passage in the Apocalypse where the two Witnesses are also called the two Prophets not so much from predicting things to come as from witnessing to the Truth from the spirit of life in the new birth and being so firm in this faith as to suffer for it even to the death and may also facilitate the belief of this Mystical sense of the story of Naboths Vineyard or this Vineyard of Prophecy it not implying any miraculous predictions but the being inspired with a right Sentiment of things from the Spirit of Life and having the confidence to speak the truth as it is in Jesus This is all that need to be understood thereby 15. To teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto Idols This Woman of Thyatira whether the wife of the Bishop of Thyatira or some other Person of quality for Interpreters of the letter vary in that according to the Literal sense is described from her acts as onely guilty of pretending her self to be a Prophetesse and that thereby she seduced the servants of Christ to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed to Idols which is a chief point of that which was called Gnosticisme And the truth of the supposed History here we do in no wise deny But we also adde that it is hugely improbable that the spirit of Prophecy would take notice so particularly of any one Woman in so majestick a Writing which Alcazar also very seriously and vehemently urges if there were not some greater matter aimed at Wherefore I say the Spirit of God taking the advantage of the significancy of the miscarriages of this Woman in Thyatira which would set out part of the enormities of the Church of Rome here perstringed added there to the name of Jezebel that the Prophetick Prefiguration might be the more complete the Church of Rome in this Intervall being lively adumbrated by this Allusion to Jezebel joyned to what is reported of this woman in Thyatira viz. That she pretends to be a Prophetess as the Church of Rome to be infallible that she drew the servants of Christ to Idolatry and uncleannesse as the Church of Rome does by engaging them in the Masse and other superficial modes of serving God that leave the minde sensual and besides necessarily intangle them in Idolatrous practices Thus much from the practice of this Woman 16. Now in that she has this name given her of Jezebel assuredly the spirit of God points us to her story to make up this Parallel betwixt this woman Rome viz. as she is also a murderer of the Prophets and servants of God and a contriver of false Accusations against them as if by the keeping of the Inheritance of their Fathers a pure conscience according to the ancient and Apostolick faith and innate notions of Truth that God has implanted in the minds of all men they were blasphemers of God and the King and obnoxious to both the Civil and Spiritual Magistrate And lastly which is to be taken special notice of the Church of Rome in this Intervall of the Succession of the Church of Christ is called Jezebel because for all her paintings and fine meretricious pranking her self up she was to be thrown out at the window and her flesh to be devoured by dogs which the just wrath of God and the zeal of Jehu the noble Reformers stirred up by the Spirit of God brought to passe at the end of this Intervall of the Church as it is threatned also in the following parts of this Epistle 17. And I gave her space to repent her of her fornication and she repented not She had a fair time to consider of her grosse Apostasies from the purity of my worship since the witnesse of the Waldenses and Albigenses against her and yet she remains still obdurate and impenitent and continues her old
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
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
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
purify'd Gold And white rayment that thou mayst be cloathed and that the shame of thy nakednesse do not appear Groan then earnestly in this O thou spiritlesse Laodicea desiring to be cloathed upon with that spiritual house which is from Heaven that being so cloathed thou mayst not be found naked For while thou art in this earthly Tabernacle thou oughtest to account it a burthen and not to set up thy staff in the enjoyments of this life because all things are peacefull and prosperous with thee Not that I would advise thee to shorten thy days here but that being thus cloathed by this spiritual Vestment Mortality might be swallowed up of life And it is the Spirit of life and the Divine Love that worketh in thee this one great thing that thou so greatly wantest and yet art insensible thereof And anoint thine eyes with eye-salve that thou mayst see That is Cleanse thy self with such a due measure of Mortification and Purification of the inward man from all filthinesse of flesh and spirit that thou mayst attain to the Divinely-moral Prudence which will enable thee to have a right judgement and discerning in all things This therefore is the Collyrion which I would advise thee to anoint thine eye-sight with even the purgation of thy self from all the Animal Corruptions that thou mayst perfect the inward Righteousnesse in my fear For the outward alone carries none to Heaven The Ointment I prescribe will indeed smart but without it thou wilt still continue blind and never finde the way to everlasting Salvation 9. As many as I love I rebuke I deal plainly truly and faithfully with thee and not out of any ill will is it that I thus rebuke thee But it is ex amore benevolentiae though not ex amore complacentiae For as thou art thou art but a nauseous and irksome spectacle to me And therefore I thus rebuke thee and instruct thee that thou mayst amend And chasten 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which signifies to chastise and scourge as well as to instruct Which therefore may seem to be the commination of some external Calamity and Affliction that Christ would bring upon the Laodiceans if they did not repent them of their remissness and in such a way as themselves may haply be the causes of through their Remissnesse and Luke-warmnesse For that former Philadelphian Zeal and Activity ceasing which that Church exercised in the behalf of the Interest of the Kingdome of God their enemies may more then ordinarily encrease upon them especially the Devil being let loose and being very active to deceive the Nations whom they should counter-plot by being as active to convert them to the Truth And this may be the time wherein the Prediction of Gog and Magog is to be fulfilled who are said to be gathered together to battel and to encompasse the Camp of the Saints and the beloved City which in this state is termed the Church of Laodicea but in that Vision the Camp of the Saints because there were not onely many Saints amongst them of the old Philadelphian strain but that they were still in their externall frame an holy people and an holy City not prophaned by the Gentiles that is to say not polluted by Heathenish Superstition and Idolatry and Imposture and Cruelty nor brought under their power and dominion that were Which yet was once the condition of the Holy City for a time and times and half a time or forty two months Apoc 11. 2. 10. And it is still called the beloved City also for the same reason but not the new Jerusalem descended from Heaven because so generally that new and Heavenly nature was lost amongst them But this Church of Laodicea is still beloved of Christ partly for her own sake and partly for her deceased Sister's sake the lovely Philadelphia whom she so much resembles in all her externall features that dearest Spouse of Christ. And therefore the Title of the beloved City agrees very well with this passage in the present Text Whom I love I rebuke yea and scourge too For these streights that the Laodiceans are to be cast into by the Siege of Gog and Magog seems the most probable way to rowze them out of their Lukewarmnesse and lazy Formality But that things may not run the hazard of growing worse and worse nor there be an infinite repetition of the vicissitude of Scenes on the Stage of this Earth Providence will knock off at such a time as that the wicked and prophane Rabble of the world shall not again get the dominion over his true Church but he will put a period to the Contest by a deluge of Fire from Heaven as it is intimated in that Vision But this is more then falls to the share of this present verse Be zealous therefore and repent That is Amend thy dead Formality and Lukewarmnesse by attaining to the Spirit of life through Mortification and Regeneration that so thou mayst recover the old Philadelphian Zeal and Love For this is the onely thing thou wantest 11. Behold I stand at the door and knock Do not pretend Difficulties I am ready not onely to assist thee but do also importune thee I suggest good Motions to thee do thou but pursue them and improve them If any man hear my voioe and open the door that is If any man obey those dictates of Conscience and overtures of Light and Grace that Christ ever and anon offers him and so becomes sincere in all things and not willingly offends him in any thing great or small which will not fail to be done where the desire is sincere and this sincere desire is the Door that lets in Christ for he passes into us through an unfeigned hunger and thirst after Righteousness then says he I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me That is I will communicate my Nature and Spirit unto him and he shall eat my flesh which is meat indeed and drink my bloud which is drink indeed that is to say He shall partake of my body bloud not in Symbols onely which ye doe well to keep up till I come but in a true and living way whereby that shall be accomplished I in my Father and ye in me and I in you If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our aboad with him Wherefore being thus replenished with the God of life and the Father of lights thou canst not fail of being full of the Spirit and of all alacrity and readinesse to every good work Thy Luke-warmnesse and Dulnesse will goe away 12. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my Throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne And that thou mayst be the more effectually rowzed up out of this Tepidity and Lethargicalnesse thou shalt not onely enjoy me and my Father on this Earthly
stage but if thou strivest so as to get the victory in the way I have instructed thee I will translate thee to that Heavenly Kingdome most naturally and properly so called where thou shalt sit down and drink of the fruit of the Vine in the Kingdome of my Father As I after I had overcome ascended up to Heaven into those glorious mansions and there sate down at the right hand of God so him that overcometh the Temptations and Incumbrances the Pleasures and Enticements of this lower world will I cause to sit down with me in the Heavenly places at the last Day Which Monition is the more seasonable by how much more near the approach of that great Day is For I shall come visibly to Judgement in the very next Thunder to the Siege of Gog and Magog when I will transform your vile bodies into the similitude of my glorious body that ye may be fit companions for me in Heaven for ever Behold I shew you a mystery Ye shall not all sleep yet ye shall all be changed that mortality may be swallowed up of life This is a great and stupendious Promise but thou art to consider that it is spoken by him that is the Amen the true and faithfull witnesse and the beginning of the Creation of God and therefore both will and can carry on all his design to the very end Amen 13. He that hath an ear to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches From the Epiphonema coming here last as in all these four last Epistles one may haply raise this Objection as if this sense of the Promise immediately preceding it were not Politicall or Propheticall enough but merely Theologicall the Promise being to be performed in the other world and therefore not the proper object of Prophecy which concerns the affairs of the stage of this Earth And that this therefore is against our professed Rule But I answer that though the Promise of obtaining Heaven after this life upon the death of the body be merely a Theogicall Promise and of a thing more spiritual and invisible and not to be seen upon the face of this Earth yet this promise of obtaining Heaven at the Resurrection and general Day of Judgement it being the day of that great and visible Assizes wherein the Souls of the Saints shall appear in glorify'd bodies may well be ranged in the same order with the rest of the Promises immediately preceding the Epiphonemata of each Epistle and to be accomplished visibly in this life For the sense of the Promise in brief is this That as Christ after his Sufferings his Death and Passion ascended visibly into Heaven for Heaven is said to be the throne of God in the Scripture and so Heaven became also Christ's throne so those of Laodicea who upon the Mortification of their Lusts should attain to the state of life in the New birth should ascend visibly into Christ's throne that is into Heaven in the open view of them that should be left here on the Earth and in the inferiour Regions of the Air sentenced to that everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels This is a plain and obvious sense of this Promise and such as the placing of the Epiphonema requires and is in my judgement no mean Ratification of the true and Literal sense of that Article of our Faith touching the visible Resurrection and Glorification of our bodies and their ascension into the Heavenly Regions against such as would whiffle away all these Truths by resolving them into a mere moral Allegorie Thus consonant every way are the Interpretations of these Epistles both to themselves and to the Apostolick Truth CHAP. X. A Recapitulation of the main Evidences of the truth of this Mysticall or Propheticall Exposition of the Seven Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia by way of Solution of Difficulties touching the said Epistles and their Circumstances otherwise hardly or not at all to be solved 1. AS in natural Hypotheses those are accounted truest that solve the Phaenomena of Nature the most naturally and easily and especially if such as are no otherwise solvible then upon the proposed Hypothesis so that meaning of Scripture I mean especially of any considerable portion thereof ought to be esteemed truest that can solve the most Difficulties that may be raised concerning the same or the Contexts precedent or subsequent thereto and if all still the more certain and if unsolvible otherwise there is still the more assurance of undeniable Demonstration Now how near this Mysticall or Propheticall Exposition of these Epistles approches to the clearnesse of this case I will leave to the Reader to judge after he has considered the Solutions of the Questions easily raised out of the Epistles themselves or the precedent Chapter and not easily answered nor at all satisfactorily at least most of them but upon the Hypothesis we have gone 2. As first If a man enquire why the Spirit of Prophecy after he has so expresly given notice that this Book of the Apocalypse is to shew unto his servants things that are to come and called it plainly a Book of Prophecies should start so unexpectedly from the Title and intended subject as to write no lesse then seven Epistles to certain Churches that have nothing considerable of Prophecy in them before he deliver any Prophecies properly so called but onely Promises and Comminations and that he should doe this with as great Pomp and as high a Preamble as he does when he begins so famous Prophecies as those of the seven Seals and the opened Book But according to our Hypothesis the Answer is easie viz. That though these seven Epistles to the seven Churches of Asia have a Literal sense yet they are also a Parable or Prophecy and of as high concern for both matter and extent of time they reaching from the beginning of the Church to the end of the world as the Prophecy of the Seals and opened Book and that they are ushered in with this great Pomp on purpose to give us notice thereof Secondly A man would be prone to enquire why the Spirit dictates Letters unto the Churches in Asia and not rather to the Churches in Europe Asia and Africk For certainly the Church had disspred it self into all these Quarters of the world by that time As if the Spirit of Truth were a respecter of persons For these are not the Letters of John but of the Holy Ghost But our Answer is ready at hand That for the significancy of the word Asia to comport also with the significancy of the names of the Seven Churches Asia alone was pitched upon But according to the Propheticall sense the true Catholick Church is writ unto under such distinct Conditions as she was to vary into unto the end of the world So that there is no Partiality nor Acception of Persons in this Thirdly If a man demand touching the order or precedency of these Seven
Nineteenthly The Curious may be prone to enquire why the Church of Laodicea in those times should account her self so hugely and extraordinarily rich increased in goods and to have no want of any thing And truly why this should be her estate rather then any of the Churches specify'd from the Literal ground we can fetch no reason But admitting the Propheticall sense and that this is the last Intervall of the Church of Christ it will naturally so come to passe For this Laodicea will be left Heir to all the Riches of her Sister Philadelphia to Peace Prosperity Purity in Worship abundance of natural Knowledge universal skill in the Interpretations of the Prophecies and what-ever good thing there is belonging to the Church saving the Life and Spirit which Philadelphia carried along with her into the other world How easily then and naturally or rather necessarily does this Description of the Church of Laodicea fall upon the last Intervall And lastly It is a Question extremely obvious to demand Why that phrase He that hath an ear to hear let him hear which our Saviour so often is found to adde at the end of his Parables to the people should be used here so repeatedly in every Epistle they being no Parables but Epistles sent to each of those Seven Churches in Asia respectively And then why this Epiphonema is sometimes the last close of the Epistle sometimes not To which Probleme there is no tolerable Solution in the Literal sense of these Epistles But supposing a Mysticall or Propheticall sense there was a necessity of affixing this Epiphonema to shew there was a farther sense intended then that of the Letter and also that sometimes this Epiphonema should come last of all as in the four last Epistles that the Promise to the Conquerour to him that overcomes might be more certainly understood to be of a proper Propheticall or Politicall sense not merely Theologicall Moral or Spiritual as has been abundantly declared in the Exposition 9. We might have drawn many more Questions and Solutions from the consideration of the Letter and of this Hypothesis we go upon to shew its solidity and fitnesse but that we hold it needlesse having produced so many already which jointly considered with the perpetuall easinesse and naturalnesse of the whole Exposition of all the Epistles and the exact Correspondency of the Names of the Churches to the Events of the successive Intervalls of the true Catholick Church which they represent one would think they should not fail fully to satisfie any unprejudiced Peruser of our Exposition of these Epistles touching the truth thereof But I am abundantly taught by Experience that both the finding out and receiving of Divine Truths found out by others is a special gift of God And therefore to him alone be the Glory for ever and ever Amen THE END AN ANTIDOTE AGAINST IDOLATRY OR A brief Discourse containing sundry Considerations or Conclusions tending to the Discovery of what is or ought to be held to be IDOLATRY amongst Christians With Application to the Doctrine of the Council of TRENT and for the putting a stop to the Romish Infection MATTH 4. 10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve To the Reader Reader 1. I Suppose thou wilt expect something should be said of this ensuing Discourse also though it needs not be much The occasion of writing it and the fitnesse of joyning it to the foregoing Exposition of the Seven Churches will discover themselves to thee in the perusing of the Treatise it self I must confess I have treated of this Argument elsewhere namely in my Mysterie of Iniquity But it is a Subject of that great Importance that it deserves an entire Treatise apart by it self and that girt up in the most close and convictive method that may be that those that are sanable or preservable from this dreadfull sin of Idolatry may finde the efficacy of our Antidote and those whose minds it cannot alter may however be found without excuse And there is this considerable here above what I have done already on this Subject that here is such an expresse Application made of the Theorie to the grosse Errours in this point and foul Mispractices of the Church of Rome 2. Those of ours that speak the most favourably of that Church cannot but declare them guilty of Material Idolatry as they call it And questionlesse there must be something among them very like that great Sin if there be any truth or sense in the Visions of that Divine Volume of the Apocalypse For the order of things and demonstration of the Synchronisms do necessarily cast those Visions that represent the concerned as Idolatrous Chap. 13. and 17. upon the Church of Rome as also Ch. 2. v. 14 20 and they can belong to none else in the Propheticall scope of the Visions Time and Place and the Order of things having so unavoidably fixed them upon her Wherefore even according to Divine suffrage they are guilty of Idolatry in one sense or other or come so nigh it that the Spirit of God in a jealousie to exaggerate their Wantonness speaks to them as such to deterre them from those suspected ways and dangerous approches to so horrible a Crime And grant it were but thus yet both in the Vision of the Seven Churches and in that of the Whore of Babylon the people of God are expresly called unto and encouraged and commissioned to forsake the Church of Rome's Communion So that the Protestants have not the least guilt of Schism upon them for leaving her no not upon this more favourable Supposition 3. But alas alas this smooth Hypothesis is but a pleasing Dream arising from the softnesse and sleepinesse of the carnal minde and the love of those things that must passe away as a Dream or Phantasm of the night Let God be true and every man a liar as the Apostle speaks And truly the Spirit of God would scarce speak true if what is spoken of Idolatry so broadly and so expresly in those Visions insomuch that they have been understood of the Heathen Idolatry even for this very reason by learned and able Interpreters should now we are necessitated to understand them of Rome Christian in her apostatized condition not amount to the Charge of any proper and formal Idolatry at all 4. But the desperatenesse of their case is that if they were not represented by these Visions as Idolatrous that is to say if these Visions had never been writ or now they are writ though they were to be understood of some others and not of the Church of Rome yet appealing to the nature of the thing to the true Notion of Idolatry properly and formally so called and to the acknowledged Doctrine of their Church expressed in the Council of Trent and their universal Practices abetted by publick Authority this alone is sufficient to demonstrate them to be Idolaters properly so called Which is the scope of this present
Treatise 5. Which therefore doth confirm and corroborate and place beyond all exception the Orthodox Protestant Interpretations of those Visions that concern the Church of Rome which in this last Age have been made so clear and every way so natural and congruous that this one thing granted of their Idolatry there cannot be the least scruple of the truth and congruity of the rest of the Applications 6. And I cannot but adore the faithfulnesse of Divine Providence that has furnished his Church with these Oracles to be the Guide of the Faithfull in these latter Ages which are as it were the dregs of those times which the Spirit of Prophecy has set no good character upon wherein there is such an Inundation of Wickednesse and Prophanenesse that there is scarce any Faith to be found upon earth But that Church which has deluded the world with so many Fictions could never forge those Prophecies that are so punctually true and so cuttingly set out all her grosse Miscarriages and as expresly foretell her Ruine unlesse she will humble her self and pluck in her horns lay aside her bold boasts of Infallibility and be content to be taught to cast away her Idols and be cured of her Dropsie and unnatural thirst after the bloud of the Saints and the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus 7. Nor can I on the other side sufficiently admire the stupidity of some of our own and their grosse ingratitude to Divine Providence that have so slight a regard to a Book of that mighty weight and moment as the Apocalypse is and think it such a subject as that any good Wit must needs mis-place his time if he meddle with it which is more then a Pagan irreverence to so holy and so important Oracles The Romans of old had another esteem for the Verses of the Sibylls Nihil enim ità custodiebant neque sanctum neque sacrum quemadmodum Sibyllina Oracula as Dionysius Halicarnasseus testifies And it was an high honour to be the Keepers much more the right Expounders of them But that which God of his mercy offers to all such is either the idlenesse frivolousness or profaneness of the spirits of men that it is scarce accepted of any 8. The truth is most men are loath to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be messengers of ill news to the greatest that is to say to the corruptest part of Christendome but rather affect the glory and security of being accounted of so humane of so sweet and ingratiating a temper as that they can surmize well of all mens Religions and so think to conciliate to themselves the fame of either civil and good Natures or of highly-raised and released Wits though it be indeed but a spice of the old abhorred Gnosticism that can comply with any Religion and make a fair tolerable sense of all 9. But these are such high strains of pretense to Wit or Knowledge and Gentility as I must confess I could never yet arrive to nor I hope ever shall though I am not in the mean time so stupid in my way as to think I can write thus freely without offence And yet on the contrary I can deem my self no more uncivil then I do him that wrings his friend by the nose to fetch him out of a Swound 10. I am not insensible how harsh this charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome will sound in some ears especially it being seconded with that other of Murther and that the most cruel and barbarous imaginable and finally so severely rewarded with an impossibility of Salvation to any now so long as they continue in Communion with that Church But I believed therefore I spake and have no reason to recall my words or to have concealed the truth that their fishing may become lesse successfull in these parts and that it may be with my Countrey-men according to that in Salomon Surely in vain the net is spred in the sight of any bird And therefore this is to open their eyes that they may see what snares of destruction are laid for them and how those that promise others liberty are themselves the servants of corruption and how they that take upon them to be the onely Absolvers from sin are themselves held fast in the snares of eternall death and do as necessarily illaqueate all others therein whom they proselyte to their Religion so far are they from giving them any effectual Absolution 11. I doubt not but many will be prone to cry out This is a very rude piece of Uncharitablenesse to all Romanists But I say it were a most perfidious kinde of Civility even to them themselves to say nothing of the Injury to our Church and Countrey to declare otherwise But if this be the main Odium that sticks upon so true and usefull a Conclusion that it is so far estranged from the spirit of Charity hear but this brief Parable Reader and then I will leave it to thy self to judge and conclude There was a certain Knight bravely mounted as it might seem and in goodly equippage in bright armour a rich scarf about his shoulders and a large plume of feathers in his Helmet who was bound for the Castle of Health seated on an high Hill not unlike to the Domicilium Salutis in Cebes his Table which therefore he easily kept in his eye But the way he was in being something stony and rough and leading not so directly as he thought to the desired Castle he diverted out of the way and descended into a green Plain but not knowing whether it was all passable to the Castle called to some Loyterers there in the field to enquire of them who came right willingly to the Knight scraping many legs to him and desiring him to tell his demands 12. There was an old Shepherd likewise not far off who by that time this idle people had got to the Knight had come down to him also Friends said he to those men he called Is the way passable and safe through this green Plain to yonder Castle pointing to the Castle of Health with his Warder Very safe may it please your Worship said they and shrugging their shoulders and scraping many legs asked a Largesse of the Knight pretending they had been at common work not far off Whereupon the Knight put his hand into his pocket and gave them liberally But are there no Bogs said he nor Lakes betwixt this and the Castle Some small inconsiderable Sloughs it may be said they but you will meet with the Holy Society of the Wipers every-where who will be ready to wipe you as clean as a Clock before you come at the Castle And being so excellently well mounted as we see you are namely upon that famous Steed renowned over all the world the infallible-footed Aplanedo so good an Horse as that he never stumbles your Worship need fear no disaster at all Besides the Beast God blesse him has a Nose like any Hound and by a
the fit and easie congruity of the names of the Seven Churches and of the Events of the seven Intervalls denoted by them to the Prefigurations in the Visions there can be no doubt but that by Balaam mentioned in the Epistle to the Church in Pergamus wherein Antipas that is the Opposers of the Pope are murthered the Papal Hierarchy is understood as it is also by the Prophetesse Jezebel in the Epistle to the Church in Thyatira who was also a Murtheresse of the Prophets of God and both of them expresly Patrons of Idolatry as is manifest in the very Text. Nor is it at all wonderfull that Balaam and Jezebel the one a man the other a woman should signifie the same thing For the false Prophet and the Whore of Babylon in the following Visions of the Apocalypse signifie both one and the same thing viz. The Hierarchy of Rome from the Pope to the rest of their Ecclesiastick Body 4. And what I have said of the Vision of those Seven Churches the same I say of all those Expositions of the thirteenth and seventeenth Chapters of the Apocalypse and that of the little Horn in Daniel namely The words of the Prophecies being so naturally applicable to the Affairs of that Church besides the demonstration of Synchronism that the weight of those two foregoing Conclusions being added thereto there cannot be the least doubt or scruple left but that those Interpretations are true and that the Church of Rome is that Body of Antichrist that Mother of Fornications and Abominations of the Earth that is of multifarious Modes of grosse Idolatries or that scarlet Whore on the seven Hills that is also drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus 5. And that therefore in the fourth place in the Church of Rome the Poison exceeding the Antidote there can be no reason that Salvation should be hoped for there It is a sad and lamentable Truth but being a Truth and of such huge moment it is by no means to be concealed What God may doe in his more hidden ways of Providence he alone knows And therefore we cannot say that every Idolatrous Heathen must perish eternally But to speak no farther then we have commission and according to the easy tenour of the Holy Scriptures we must pronounce though with great sadnesse of heart that we have no warrant therefrom to think or declare any of the Popish Religion so long as they continue so to be in the state of Salvation and especially since that voice of the Angel which sounded in the Intervall of Thyatira saying expresly Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins and receive not of her plagues and the Apostle in his first Epistle to the Corinthians Be not deceived neither Fornicatours nor Idolaters nor Adulterers c. shall inherit the Kingdome of God And those of the Church of Rome are bound to continue Idolaters as long as they live or else to renounce their Church and therefore they are bound to be damned by adhering to the Roman Church unless they could live in it for ever For he that dies in such a capital sin as Idolatry without Repentance nay in a blinde obstinate perseverance in it how can he escape eternal Damnation 6. But though we had kept our selves to the Apocalypse the thing is clear in that Book alone ch 22. ver 14 15. where all Idolaters are expresly excluded from the Tree of Life Blessed are they that doe his Commandments and one of them though expunged by Rome is Thou shalt not worship any graven Image that they may have right to the tree of life c. For without are dogs and Sorcerers and Whoremongers and Murtherers and Idolaters and whoso loveth and maketh a Lie All these are excluded the Heavenly Jerusalem and from eating the Tree of Life Of which who eateth not is most assuredly detain'd in eternall death As it is written in the foregoing Chapter that Murtherers and Whoremongers and Sorcerers and Idolaters and all Liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second Death What sentence can be more expresse then this 7. But besides this Divine sentence against them they are also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are self-condemned or at least give sentence against themselves while they so freely pronounce that no Idolaters are to be saved which they frequently doe to save their own Church from the reproach of Idolatry For because some Protestants have declared for the Possibility of Salvation in the Romish Church they farther improve the favour to the quitting themselves of the guilt from others hopefull presages that by an hearty implicit Repentance of all their sins even of those that are the proper Crimes of that Church they may through God's mercy in Christ be delivered from the punishment This piece of Charity in some of our Party they turn to the fencing off all imputation of Idolatry from themselves arguing thus That no Idolaters can be saved But those in the Romish Church may be saved according to those Protestants opinion Therefore those in the Romish Church are no Idolaters But most assuredly while they thus abuse the Charity of some even by their own Proposition they must bring the sentence of Condemnation from all the rest upon their own heads as they have herein given it against themselves in saying that all Idolaters are damned or that no Idolater can be saved For it is demonstrated as clear as the Noon-light in this present Discourse that the Church of Rome are Idolaters 8. And in that of those of our Church that say they may be saved upon a sincere and hearty implicit Repentance of all their sins wherein they include the Idolatries and all other Miscarriages which they know not themselves guilty of by reason of the blinde Mis-instructions of their Church no more is given them by this then thus viz. That they are saved by disowning of and dismembring themselves from the Roman Church as much as it is in their power so to doe and by bitterly repenting them that they were ever of that Church as such and by being so minded that if they did know what a corrupt Church it is they would forthwith separate from it So that in effect those of the Roman Church that some of ours conceit may be saved are no otherwise saved if at all then by an implicit renouncing Communion with it which in Foro Divino must goe for an actual and formal Separation from it In which Position if there were any Truth it will reach the honest-minded Pagans as well but it can shelter neither unless in such Circumstances that they had not the opportunity to learn the Truth which since the Reformation and especially this last Age by the mercy of God is abundantly revealed to the world So that all men especially those that live in Protestant Nations or Kingdoms are without all
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
do thou humble her the more by shewing her her ugly hue in the glasse of the Holy Scriptures If she boast that she is that holy Jerusalem a City at Unity within it self whenas the rest of the World are so full of Sects and Factions tell her that she is that carnal Jerusalem wherein Christ in his true Members hath been so barbarously persecuted and murthered and that the Stones of her buildings are no living stones but held together by a mere iron violence and the Cement of her walls tempered with the large effusion of innocent bloud forasmuch as she is that two-horned Beast that gave life to the Image of the Beast and caused him to decree that as many as would not obey his Idolatrous Edicts should be slain This is the power of your Unity which is not from the Spirit of God but from the spirit of the Devil who was a Murtherer from the beginning But the Division of us Protestants is both a sign of our sincere search after the Truth and a more strong Testimony against you of Rome in that we being so divided amongst our selves yet we so unanimously give sentence against you your Miscarriages and Crimes being so exceeding grosse that no free eye but must needs discern them 21. If she vaunts of her Antiquity give her enough of it and tell her she derives her pedigree from that great Dragon the old Serpent that is called the Devil and Satan that Murtherer of mankinde Ye are of your father the Devil saith our Saviour and the works of your father will ye doe We grant that the Visage and Lineage of your Church reaches even beyond the times of the Apostles the two-horned Beast reviving the Image of the Pagan Beast the great red Dragon by bringing up again his old bloudy Persecutions and Idolatries It suffices us that our Church began with the Apostles If she glories in her Universality and in her large Territories tell her she is that GREAT City which spiritually is called Sodom and AEgypt where our Lord was crucified And that she is Babylon the GREAT the mother of Fornications and the Abominations of the Earth If she boast of the power of the Keys and of Sacerdotal Absolution tell her that he that is holy he that is true he that has the Key of David he that openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth that is to say our Lord Jesus Christ will never part with these Keys to his inveterate Enemy that notorious Man of Sin or Antichrist If she spread before thee her goodly wares of mercenary Masses of Pardons and Indulgences of the mutuatitious Good works of their pretended Holy men and women or the Wealth and externall Glories of their Church and varieties of rich Preferments and Dignities say unto her that she is that City of Trade of whom it is written that no man buieth her merchandise any more and again Alas alas that great City that was cloathed in fine linnen and purple and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls For in one hour so great riches are come to nought For her Merchants were the great men of the Earth and by her Sorceries were all Nations deceived And in her was found the bloud of Prophets and of Saints and of all that were slain upon the Earth 22. If she would amaze thee with the stories of the wonderfull Miracles done by her tell her that she is that two-horned Beast that doth great wonders and that deceiveth them that dwell on the Earth by means of those Miracles which he had power to doe in the sight of the ten-horn'd Beast or that false Prophet working Miracles and deceiving them that receive the mark of the Beast and worship his Image who together with the Beast is to be taken and cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone or lastly that Man of Sin and Son of perdition whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders If she would inveagle thee with her pretenses of Infallibility tell her that she is that Woman Jezebel that calleth her self a Prophetesse or the Prophet Balaam that insnared the Israelites in Idolatry and that very false Prophet that together with the Beast is to be cast alive into the lake of burning brimstone 23. And lastly if she would gull thee with that specious and much-affected Title of Holy Church tell her that the Spirit of Truth in the Divine Oracles let her commend her self as much as she pleases gives no such Character of her but quite contrary declaring the See of Rome to be the Seat of Satan and their Church his Synagogue the Pope and his Clergy to be Balaam the son of Bozor who loved the wages of unrighteousnesse and who was the Murtherer of Christ's faithfull Martyr Antipas to be that Woman Jezebel who calls her self a Prophetesse but was indeed a Sorceresse and a murtherer of the true Prophets of the Lord to be also that false Prophet that is to be taken alive and cast into the lake of fire and brimstone to be that great City that spiritually is called Sodom and AEgypt where our Lord was crucified to be the Beast that has the horns of a Lamb but the voice of the Dragon decreeing Idolatries and cruel Persecutions against God's people to be that Babylon the great the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth the Woman on the seven Hills that is drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus and lastly to be that Man of Sin that notorious Antichrist that opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or is worshipped whose coming is with all deceivableness of unrighteousnesse in them that perish because they receive not the love of the truth that they may be saved For which cause God sends them strong delusion that they believe a lie That they all might be damned that believe not the truth but have pleasure in unrighteousnesse As well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well all they that love the Romish Lies and Impostures as all they that invent them are here plainly declared in the state of Damnation With this Nosegay of Rue and Wormwood antidote thy self against the Idolatrous infection of that strange Woman 's breath whose lips yet drop as an hony-comb and her mouth is more smooth then oyl And be assured that that cannot be the true Holy Church wherein Salvation is to be expected which the Spirit of God has marked with such unholy and hellish Characters let her boast of her own Holiness as much as she will 24. And if she return this Answer to thee That this is not to argue but to rail in phrases of Scripture do thou make this short Reply That whiles she accuses thee of railing against sinfull
and obnoxious men she must take heed that she be not found guilty of blaspheming the holy Spirit of God I confesse these Propheticall Passages apply'd to such persons as to whom they do not belong were an high and rude strain of Railing indeed and quite out of the road of Christianity and common Humanity But to call them Railings when they are apply'd to that very Party to whom they are really meant by that Spirit that dictated them is indeed to pretend to a sense of Civility towards men but in the mean time to become a down-right Blasphemer against the Holy Ghost that dictated these Oracles And that they are not mis-apply'd any impartial man of but an ordinary patience and comprehension of wit may have all assurance desirable from that demonstration of the truth compriz'd in the eight last Chapters of the first Book of Synopsis Prophetica to say nothing of the present Exposition of the Seven Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia 25. Wherefore O serious Soul whoever thou art be not complemented out of the Truth and an earnest pursuance of thine own Salvation from a vain sense of the Applauses or Reproaches of men or from any consideration what they may think of thee for attesting or standing to such Verities as are so unwelcome to many ears but of such huge importance to all to hear For no lesse a Game is at stake in our choice of what Church we adhere to that of Rome or the Reformed then the Possession of Heaven and eternall Life Wherefore stand stoutly upon thy guard and whensoever thou art accosted by the fair words and sugar'd speeches of that cunning Woman who will make semblance of great solicitude for thy future Happinesse most passionately inviting thee to return into the bosome of Holy Church be sure to remember what an Holy Church she is according to Divine description and that if thou assentest to her smooth Persuasions and crafty Importunities thou dost ipso facto pardon the vehemence of expression adventure thy self into the jaws of Hell and cast thy self into the arms of the Devil God of his mercy give us all Grace to consider what has been spoken that we may evermore escape these Snares of Death Amen THE END * Apoc. 1. 20. John 13 35. Apoc. 2. 14 20. Chap. 5. 25. 1 Cor. 5. 7. See Dr. Cudworth's Discourse of the Lord's Supper De rerum Invent. lib. 17. cap. 4. Apâ—c 2. 18. Gregâ—r â—ranc â—xic â—anct tâ—t 07. 2 Kings 9. 37. Apoc. 2. 19. Apoc. 11. 11 12. Apoc. 2. 26. * Synops. Prophet Book 2. C. 22. sect 12. Apoc. 2. 20. Apoc. 3. 12. Apoc. 3. 3. Isa. 7. 12. Apoc. 2. 4. 1 John 4. 16. * Apoc. 6. â—â— * See Divine Dialogues Dialogue 5. sect 38. Apoc. 1. 1. Verse 3. Verse 4. Verse 7. Verse 8. Verse 10. Verse 11. Pet. Ram. lib. 1. c. 9. Eccles. 6. 22. Verse 16. Verse 20. Chap. 1. v. 20. Apoc. 2. 1. Matth. 28. 19 20. Apoc. 6. Verse 2 3. Verse 4. Verse 5. Verse 6. Verse 7. Luke 23. 42 43. Apoc. ch 2. v. 8. Verse 9. Matt. 16. 23. Verse 10. Verse 11. Apoc. ch 2. v. 12. Dan. 12. 12. Verse 13. Verse 14. Verse 15. Verse 16. Verse 17. Apoc. 2. 18. * See if there was not a Marie's Psalter before Antidote against Idolat chap. 6. sect 8. * This was the Institute of Pope John 22. and within the fore-part of the Intervall of Thyatira See Polydore Virgil. de Rerum invent lib. 6. c. 12. Downham de Antichrist lib. 6. cap. 5. Verse 19. Verse 20. Apoc. 19. 20. Apoc. 18. 4. Apoc. 17. 1 Kings 18. 4. 1 King 21. 25. Apoc. 13. 1 Kings 21. 8. Prov. 20. 27. 1 Kings 21. 10. Apoc. 13. Apoc. 11. 1 John 5. 1. 1 John 4. 12. Apoc. 19. 10. Apoc. 11. 3 10. 1 Kings 18. 4. 1 Kings 21. 10. Verse 21. Verse 22. Verse 23. Verse 24. Verse 25. Verse 26. Verse 27. Psalm 2. Verse 28. Apoc. 22. 10. Verse 29. Apoc. 3. 1. John 6. 55. John 6. 63. Verse 2. Verse 3. Verse 4. Verse 5. Verse 6. Apoc 3. ver 7. Cant. 2. 4. Cant. 6. 10. Verse 8. Apoc. 16. and 19. Apoc. 16. Apoc. 16. 18 19. Verse 9. Joh. 8. 44. Apoc. 19. 20. Verse 10. 1 Pet. 3. v. 13. Verse 11. Verse 12. Verse 13. Apoc. 3. 14. Isa. 9. 6. Verse 15. Verse 16. Gen. 6. 6. Verse 17. Verse 18. 9. Verse 20. John 14. 20. ver 23. Verse 21. Matt. 26. 29. 1 Cor. 15 51 54. Verse 22. Apoc. 1. 1 3. Apoc. 2. 10 11. Apoc. 20. 6. Apoc. 2. 12. Apoc. 2. 18. * Part 1. Book 1. Ch. 5. to the 17. Chap. * Apoc. 2. 20. * Apoc. 18. 4. Rom. 3. 4. 2 Cor. 4. 13. Prov. 1. 17. 2 Pet. 2. 19. John 15. 22. Exod. 31. 18. Mark 10. 18 19. Joh. 1. 14. Concil Trident. Sess. 3. cap. 5. Caâ— 6. Concil Trident. Sess. 3. cap. 4. cap. 3. can 3. * See Paul Fag upon Deut. 8. 10. John 15. 5. Gen. 41. 27. Joh. 6. 63. Francise Coster Enchirid. Controvers cap. 12. Concil Trident. Sess. 9. Apoc. 1. 18. John 7. 37 38. Matth. 11. 28. Apoc. 2. 18. Apoc. 1. 13. Concil Trid. Sess. 9. * Part 1. Book 1. chap. 14. Exod. 32. 4 5. Mat. 5. 15. * See Ch. 1. Conclus 10. Chap. 6. 9. Apoc. 21. 8. 1 John 5. 18. Prov. 7. 16 17. Isa. 23. 16. Prov. 1. 14. * Synops. Prophet lib. 2. c. 5. 2 Thess. 2. 9. Apoc. 13. 13. Apoc. 2. 20. Apoc. 16. 13. John 3. 3. Psal. 122. 3. Apoc. 13. Apoc. 12. 9. John 8. 44 Apoc. 11. Apoc. 3. Aâ—â—c 18. Apoc. 13. 13 14. Apoc. 19. 20. 2 Thess. 2. 9. Apoc. â— 20. Apoc. 2. 14. Apoc. 19. 20. * Apoc. 2. 13. a Apoc. 3. 9. b Apoc. 2. 13 14. c Apoc. 2. 20. d Apoc. 19. 20. e Apoc. 11. 8. f Apoc. 13. 11. g Apoc. 17. h 2 Thess. 2. Prov. 5. 3. Matth. 23. 15.