and to use their own Phrase worme out godly Ministers and good people and make havock of all holinesse as is noted before and commit all manner of out-rage and crueltie upon the Servants of God And this their extream out-rage and crueltie hath continued now very neer three yeers and a halfe or fortie and two moneths I say the extremitie of it k Heb. 12.4 as when they fall to shed bloud c. though they have been playing their pranks and laying their plots a long time but more covertly and insensibly till of later days the flame of their Antichristian outrage hath broke out ready to set all in a combustion But I trust to see the expiration of these two and forty moneths to run out very shortly And were there not such a time here limited yet such hath beene the fury of these men like a hideous storme or impetuous torrent that it cannot be conceived it should last any long time but quickly run it selfe dry or out of breath And God being so desperatly and Giantlike provoked it cannot stand with his patience nor with his honour to suffer long such affronts And he hath promised to l Luke 18.8 avenge the cause of his Elect quickly And therefore certainly it will not bee long before he m Esay 59 1◠repay fury to his adversaries and the rather at this time when the Lord sees things so desperate that there is no man to stand in the gap no intercessor but that truth faileth and he that departeth from evill maketh himselfe a prey and there is no judgement as the Prophet there speaks therefore his own arme shall bring salvation when hee shall put on righteousnesse as a brest-plate and an helmet of salvation upon his head and the garments of vengeance for clothing and Zeale as a Cloake Thus n Heb. 10.37 38. he that shall come will come and will not tarry Now the just shall live by faith It followeth Verse 3. Verse 3. And I will give power unto my two witnesses and they shall prophesie a thousand two hundred and threescore dayes clothed in sackcloth Here it is to be noted that during all the hardship of Gods people under this sixt Trumpet wherein the holy Citie Christs true Church is trodden under foot by the Spirituall Babylon or by the Beast out of the bottomlesse pit yet God will not want his witnesses to prophesie and testifie his truth even against the most cruell and bloudy persecutors therof And hee will have at the least two witnesses by whose testimony n Math. 18.16 every word shall be established Nor can it be expected that in such a terrible time o Amos 5.13 an evill time wherein the prudent do keep silence there should be many witnesses to be found But that there should be some at the least two God will raise them up Christ will give them power I will give saith he power to my two witnesses To doe what To prophecie that is to preach the truth to witnesse it against all opposition to denounce judgements against the Adversaries and to comfort Gods people with his promises As the Prophet Micah saith p Mic. 3.8 9. c. Truly I am ful of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgement and of might to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sinne Heare this I pray you yee Heads of the house of Jacob and Princes of the house of Israel that abhorre judgement and pervert all equitie They build up Sion with bloud and Jerusalem with iniquitie The Heads thereof judge for reward and the Priests thereof teach for hire and the Prophets therof divine for mony yet wil they lean upon the Lord and say Is not the Lord among us None evil can come upon us Therefore shal Sion for your sake be ploughed as a field and Jerusalem shal become heaps and the Mountaine of the house as the high places of the forest Thus the Prophet Now who is hee that would stand up for a witnesse against wicked Prelates Priests and Prophets against wicked Princes and Rulers against wicked Heads and Judges in a forlorne time as here the Prophet did except the Lord had first filled him with power judgement and might by the Spirit of God Therefore saith the Lord to Jeremie when he complained saying q Ier. 15 10. Woe is mee my mother that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth c. r Verse 18. Why is my paine perpetuall and my wound incurable c ſ Verse 19.20 Therefore saith the Lord If thou take forth the precious from the vile thou shalt be as my mouth Let them returne unto thee but returne thou not unto them And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brazen wal and they shall fight against thee but they shal not prevaile against thee for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee saith the Lord. And I wil deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked and I wil redeeme thee out of the hand of the terrible And Esay saith The Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people nor to make a confederacie with them Thus there And thus here the Lord gives power to his two witnesses to prophesie and beare testimony against the wicked and terrible enemies of his Church here under the Sixt Trumpet In the next place is set down the time how long these two witnesses shall prophesie and that is a thousand two hundred and threescore days And this answeres to the forty and two moneths of Antichrists oppressing of gods people which is three yeeres and a halfe For a thousand two hundred and threescore dayes make up within one weeke just three yeers and a halfe So as their prophecy continueth during the great affliction of Gods People under this Sixt Trumpet Whence we may note here God never leaves his people in affliction without comfort nor his truth without testimony nor his adversaries without conviction but he sends his witnesses to prophesie evē in most forlorn times Then follows here the estate and condition of these two witnesses expressed by their outward habit they are cloathed in sackcloth sutable to Elias and Iohn Baptist And sutable to their habit was their prophecying preaching repentance and remission of sins to the penitent and believers and denouncing judgments to the obstinate And as was their habit such were their affections men crucified to the World forsaking all and accounting all things to be losse and betaking themselves to their Sackcloth It was no time now as the Lord saith to Ieremie t Jer. 4.5.5 to seeke great things to themselves It followeth Verse 4. Verse 4. These are the two Olive-trees and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the Earth In these words is couched a great mystery and a great worke
with the same spirit namely such as prophesie against the Beast and his Throne and all those that by their constant profession of the Truth and refusing communion with the Beast doe become thereby the witnesses of Christ For the Beast wars with the Saints Chap. 13.7 But what be those weapons and what those forces wherewith this Beast warreth against Christs witnesses and Gods Saints Surely hee useth all manner of weapons whereby to execute his beastly cruelty And these may be reduced to two kindes The Spirituall Sword and the Temporall Sword His Spirituall Sword is the brute Thunderbolt of his execrable Excommunication direfull Curses and dreadfull Courts as his Court of Inquisition and of High Commission and other his Prelaticall and Hierarchicall Courts which are so many Dens wherin this hideous Beast once inclosing the Saints doth prey upon them he and his Cubs But if this his Sword prove not strong enough as meeting with some mettle too tough for it to â—â—â—rce then he can command with a wet finger the helpe of the Temporall Sword which is like Tamberlains black and bloudy Banner which being displayed by the Beasts power and inspired with his fiery-mettled spirit breathes nothing but either fire and faggot or Pillory with shedding of bloud perpetuall close imprisonment banishment and all other evils of this life more bitter and cruell by many degrees than death it selfe And this is his kinde of warre But how comes he to do these things by the help of the Temporall Power when commonly all his proceedings are without either law or colour of justice except according to the Beasts owne lawlesse Law For this hee wants not his devices for hee will so contrive the matter and lay his snares as either the innocent being brought into the Temporall Court where also he himself wil sit a Judge and where his spirit is wondrously predominant shall be forced to assent to the condemnation of his own cause before the hearing or else if hee refuse so to doe he shall be censured as guiltie of all those hainous crimes laid to his charge though never so false and maliciously devised yea hee can so handle the businesse as the censure shall be agreed upon and concluded before ever his day of hearing come and when it is come his Legall Defence shal never be heard This needs no application And this is the Beasts manner of warring right nor should it be properly the Beasts warre were it not altogether bestiall void of all Law or conscience or honesty or humanitie And ever his mayn forces and battery are bent against the two witnesses namely such as doe constantly testifie and maintain the Prerogative of Christs Kingly Government over his Church against the Beasts proud and tyrannicall usurpations and the truth of the Gospel and Word of Christ against all Antichrists lyes and the authoritie and sufficiencie of the Holy Scripture against the Beasts unwritten Traditions and Ecclesiasticall Canons the authoritie whereof hee preferreth above and opposeth against the Law of God As for all wicked prophane and impious persons his Holines hath no quarrell against them for either they are such as belong to the Beasts Den or at least though they be not of it yet they are not much against it Thus he warreth Secondly as the Beast warreth against the witnesses so hee shall overcome them How shall hee overcome them Their faith and testimony hee shall not overcome so as to force them to recant or desert their cause or betray their conscience For Chap. 12.11 those on Christs side overcame the Dragon by the bloud of the Lamb and by the word of their Testimonie and they loved not their lives unto the death Nor shal the Beast be able to overcome them by force of arguments and reasoning for he is a Beast yea the Beast of all Beasts his Arguments are fire and faggot Pillory and bloud-shed as before down-right club-law or a push with his ten q Revel 17.12 hornes or a by-back-blow with his paw So as thus hee comes to get the conquest over their bodies indeed he can shut them close up hee can pillory them hee can mangle and torture them and a thousand ways subdue r Matth. 10.28 their bodies but can doe no more Luke 12.4 Not only so but in the third place hee shall kill them Famous is the Beast for his infinite bloudy victories over Christs Witnesses in this kinde by putting them to death But now there is a twofold kind of death which he puts them to The first is by a violent separation of their soule from their bodie as in the flames of Martyrdome This hath bin the Beasts practice of old But this subtile Dragon finding by experience that his kingdome rather suffered damage this way then wonne any ground and that it proved rather an advantage to his Adversaries and brought much hatred to his barbarous cruelty in so putting them to death hee hath found out another kinde of death and that though not in show yet indeed farre more cruell than the other and that is by a violent and perpetuall separation of a living man from all the delights comforts and contentments in the World from his wife and children from his meanes and livelihood friends and acquaintance from the Communion of Saints yea from all societie of men and in a word from all the means of comfort in this life Spirituall or Temporall So as a man in this case may be said to be killed or deprived of life when he is deprived of all those things without which life cannot well be called a life but a death rather or such a life as that in hell where not one drop of comfort is allowed to those tormented souls And as dead men neither see nor heare nor speake nor write nor have any commerce with the living So these may neither see their living friends nor heare from them by letters nor speake nor write unto them nor have any commerce with them Thus far dead they be And in this sense we have seen some eminent Witnesses of Christ yet living in their close Prisons in remote Lands thus to bee killed in these our dayes Which being so may it not bee one evident signe that we are now in the sixt Trumpet wherein wee have seene so many things to be come to passe and fulfilled so particularly set forth in this Prophecie It followeth Verse 8. Verse 8. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great Citie which spiritually is called Sodome and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and Nations shall see their dead bodies three dayes and a halfe and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoyce over them and make merry and shall send gifts one to another because these two Prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth Now these dead bodies as we said before may
mettle is to be set up in the worship of God But the Romanists with all their Prelats and Priests doe set up in their Temples not only one but infinite numbers of Altars according to that which the Prophet saith of revolted Israell i Hos 8.11 Because Israell hath made many Altars to sin Altars shall be unto him to sin And According to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the Altars And if they object and say Israell built Altars to other Gods I answere so they did to the true God too as they pretēded as at Bethel and Dan. But all these their Altars were alike abominable to God and for which he utterly cast them out And indeed all false Altars with their service what ever men pretend to the contrary are set up and done to the k 2 Chron. 11.15 Devill who in Ierobohams calves and on those Altars was worshiped And such Altars such service as men have devised are not done to God he utterly abhors them Such are all Popish Altars and Altar-Service Secondly as these Altar-worshipers transgresse in the multitude of their Altars so also in the measure of them they doe not observe that due proportion prescribed in Gods Law but some are bigger some lesser some longer some shorter some higher some lower as pleaseth mans fancie And therefore these their Altars are in no respect conformable to Gods law but they are meere heathenish Damascen Altars either of mans or of the Devills devising chuse which they will Now such Altars with all their pompous service being in these our dayes so outragiously cryed up in all prelaticall Churches not only in dishonour but desperate defiance of Christ the only true Altar of all true Christians and whereas under this Sixt Trumpet Christ gives such a charge to his servant John and so to all his faithfull Ministers of the Gospell to take the Reed that is in his hand his holy word and therewith to take a just measure as of the Temple his Church that all may know and distinguish it from Antichrists false Church so of the Altar which is himselfe that all may know wee Christians have no other Altar whereon to offer our Spirituall Sacrifices acceptable to God but only Christ all other altars being false and counterfeit heathenish and Idolatrous and a service done to the Devill and not to God as being altogether and directly contrary to his Word and a flat deniall of Christ the true and only Altar hence we may safely conclude that this is the very time of the sixt Trumpet wherein wee now live How ought the true Ministers of Christ then in these our dayes to bestir themselves and fall a measuring the true Temple and Altar and that with no other Reed but that in Christs hand and with no other Rule but his owne word that so his people being truly and thorowly informed which is the true Church of Christ and which the false and Antichristian Church which the Prelats place in their Hierarchie and which is the true and only Altar whereon to offer all their Sacrifices that they may be sanctified and accepted of God namely Jesus Christ and that therefore all other Altars and Altar-Service devised by man are abominable in Gods sight may have no more communion with such Altars and such Altar-Service then with Antichrist whose Altars and Service they be Otherwise such as communicate with them cannot be called the people of God but are indeed the members of Antichrist For as the Apostle saith l 2 Cor 6 14 15 16. What fellowship hath righteousnesse with unrighteousnesse And what communion hath light with darknesse And what concord hath Christ with Belial Or what part hath hee that believeth with an infidell And what agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols For yee are the Temple of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people And so we come to the third thing here to be measured and that is Them that worship therein that is those that are true members of Christs true Church that are m 1 Pet. 2.5 Ephes 2.21 22. living stones of that living Temple that are the n Ioh. 4.23 24. true worshipers which worship God in Spirit and Truth that worship at no other Altar but Jesus Christ praying and praising God in his name These be they here whom with the Temple and the Altar John and the Ministers of Christ and more especially under this Sixt Trumpet are to measure with the same Reede So as the true people of God may be known and distinguished from those that be false and counterfeit professors false and counterfeit Christians For under this Trumpet how many thousands I speak not of those in the profest Popish Churches but even in the Church of England where the Gospel hath been a long time imbraced preached and professed do o Though now since this Treatise was written we see blessed be God by a late Order from the honourable House of Commons the Altars to be dismounted communicate with Altars and with the Superstitious and Idolatrous worship and service thereunto appertaining according to humane Ordinances and Inventions and yet would passe in the ranke of good Christians and Protestants who if they knew what it were to worship at Altars they would abhorre all such Service How ought Ministers therefore in these times to take the just measure of those that be true Christians by teaching the people out of Gods Word what a true Christian is and wherein hee must differ from all such false Christians as communicate with Antichrist in altar-Service and Worship which is so rife and ruffleth so pompously in this our time whereby it appeareth plainly that now the sixt Trumpet is a sounding But perhaps Ministers will plead for themselves that if they shall so doe they must necessarily undergoe great persecutions and suffer at least the losse of their Livings and perhaps of their liberty too and of their bloud and members of their bodie and of all they have as some others have lately done If this they stand upon and so for feare forbeare to doe their dutie they may then sit them downe confessing they are no faithfull Ministers of Christ as Iohn here was for obeying the command of Jesus Christ Much lesse will such ever prove such witnesses as by and by are mentioned in this Chapter who forbearing testimony to the truth are willing to lay downe their precious lives But of this in its proper place Verse 2. It followeth But the Court which is without the Temple leave out and measure it not for it is given unto the Gentiles and the holy Citie shall they tread under foot forty and two moneths This Court without the Temple alludes to that utmost large court which was without the Temple in Jerusalem where all the common Jews assembled as also those of other Nations And this
are observable 1 The time when it begins 2 The parties or warriers and 3 the issue of the battaile First for the time it is when the two witnesses have finished their testimony Then and not before Till then the Beast hath no power to set upon them Thus it was with the Captain of our salvation John 7.8 My time saith he is not yet come And Verse 30. when his enemies sought to take him no man laid hands on him because his houre was not yet come But when his houre was come that hee must lay down his life as John 13.1 and 17.1 and when hereupon his enemies came to take him Christ saith unto them k Luke 22.53 This is your houre and power of darknesse Till now they had no power till his houre was come And when upon the Crosse hee came to say It is finished then and not before hee gave up the ghost Thus he finished his Testimony before his death It is said of David that l Acts 13 36. after hee had served his owne Generation by the will of GOD hee fell asleep And Paul saith of himself m 2 Tim. 4.6 7 I am now ready to bee offered and the time of my departure is at hand And the reason is added in the next Verse I have fought a good fight J have finished my course Thus when these two witnesses have finished their testimony the Beast sets upon them and kils them And here let me give you a most remarkable instance wherein God is the more glorified Which at that very time when it was done was observed by some neighbour Ministers in London Only this I deprecate that none doe imputâ— unto me any vain humour of glorying as if I made my selfe one of those witnesses here spoken of such an honour I assume not to my selfe Only I say I crave leave to relate a truth It is this I having been n See a notable parallel hereof in Ezech. Chap 3.24 25 26. shut up in my owne house by the Prelates Pursuivants daily and hourely watching for mee at my gates the space of almost two moneths in which time notwithstanding their continuall rapping and ringing at my gates I was a compiling my Book of two Sermons which I had preached in my Church the fifth of November then last past fitting it for the Press that so it might be a testimony to all the World of that truth which I had therein delivered and for which I was then questioned and troubled by the Prelates the which testimony as also my Apologie for my Appeale being now finished and fully printed and some Books for the King and Councell bound up and brought unto me the same day at night and not before came from the Lord of London then Lord Treasurer a Serjant at Arms with a number of Pursuivants and Officers with swords and staves in the evening and with great violence assaulted my doors and brake them open though very strong and so came and seized on my body sitting with my family in my gowne and making no resistance at all This I thought here not unfit to be noted as not altogether impertinent to this Prophecie to which this example may seem to have some correspondence And so much of the time when this warre begins even when these two witnesses have finished their testimony and not before The Beast for all his roaring yet hath not the power to set his paw upon Christs witnesses untill they have finished their testimony And is it not lawfull for me to adde one truth more that God may be glorified and the hearts of his people raised up and filled with rejoycing in him This it is Not all the Beasts hundred eyes not all his quick-sented bloud-hounds the Pursuivants for all their vigilant and eagre hunting could find out or discover where this testimony to wit For God and the King was printed though they left never a Printing house about London unsearched over and over day by day the Lord in his providence preserving not only my person but my testimony also that it should not be prevented but come forth into the open light It followeth When they had finished their testimony The Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomlesse pit begins to make warre against them as I have told you before Here then wee are to consider the second circumstance of this warre the two adverse parties the one the Beast c. the other the two witnesses the Beast is the Assailant and the two Wittnesses are the Defendants For the Beast hee is here described from the place whence he comes the bottomlesse pit and secondly by the manner of his issuing thence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hee ascendeth out of the bottomlesse pit His rise is groundlesse bottomlesse out of the bottomlesse deep and his motion is Ascendant yea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ascending being a participle of the present tense still aspiring with o Esay 4. Lucifer to place his throne above the stars yea above God himselfe Hee is ever ascending but still out of the bottomlesse pit as if hee could never get out of it This bottomlesse pit is hell the Den where this Beast is bred and whence he is nourished And who this Beast is yee may easily know by his Picture lively pourtrayed Chap. 13. and 17. compared together He hath his seven heads and ten horns Monstrum horrendum ingens the like Beast again is not in all the World And the Dragon the Devil gives him power Chap. 13.2 and Verse 5. Power is given him to make warre with the Saints and to overcome them The very same Beast here which maketh warre with Christs witnesses and overcomes them This is that Beast of Rome plainly described Chap. 17. And as this seven-headed and ten-horned Beast hath his ascent rise and originall out of the bottomlesse pit so also his brood and off-spring as those Locusts Chap. 9.3 who are this Beasts Warriers Thus wee see who this Beast is from whence whither he ascendeth Now let us see what he doth 1 he makes warre against the two witnesses 2 He overcomes them 3 he killeth them First hee makes warre against them Alas poore witnesses for such a great and monstrous Beast with his numerous brood to make warre against them Such a power to make warre against two â—ut by this time Christs witnesses may be increased and multiplied to a greater number and that by the example of the two here spoken of whose more eminent and mighty testimonies cannot so goe alone but they will draw many others after them to testifie the same truth Though it pleased the Holy Ghost to point out but two witnesses only and in such wise to set them forth as thereby we might come to know the full intent and meaning of this Prophecie as hath been shewed Now the Beast having mustered his forces together makes warre against the two witnesses not only against Them but against all other whom hee finds endued