tread the holy City the sealed number under foot are tyrannical and bestial But such National Churches do so tread as is further asserted And the holy city shall they tread under foot The truth of this hath shewed it self not onely in the cruelty of Rome but also by the like tyranny of the Bishops in England and the rigour of the Presbytery in Scotland and that the same aspiring spirit is in many amongst you if the sword of the Magistrate would second and impower you the declarations of some both in their writings and in their open Pulpits which men look upon as the oracles of Truth have sufficiently manifested to the world we hope they will be more wise and tender of the consciences of others for the future These National Churches considered in one universal body are the great city Babylon Chap. 17.15 18. Chap. 11.8 9 10. Now if the visibility of Church-constitution was onely National for many generations as is cleared by all the evidences of former times and these National Churches Babylonish then must there be a fail and cessation of the truth of the same visibility Compare this Scripture with the event and you may finde that as here the whole outward court was given to the Nations and then cast out by the Spirit so the event is parallel to the prophecie which tells us that the total Order of Ecclesiastical regiment became National and was for many hundred yeers Romish in the full possession of the Pope where by the common grant of all Protestants it is held to be Babylon and when the visible Church became a stranger and bottomless the key of outward Government in Confirmation Ordination Excommunication c. must be of the same nature with the Church as is declared in the former Paragraph The truth of this is likewise confirmed by the state of the true Church in the times of this apostacie who was onely a sealed elect number which by an invisible union made up a mystical temple a Sion a women c. whose visible abode was in the wilderness of Babylon as you may read in the Cessation I shall here demonstrate it by another Scripture which was there omitted The text is Micah 4.10 where the prophet speaking of the daughter of Sion saith that she shall go forth out of the city her genuine and celestial Order and shall dwell in the field answerable to the wilderness into which the woman fled Rev. 12.6 and shall go even to Babylon to such a field where is meer confusion from whence the Lord will at last deliver her by separation and redeem her from the hands of her enemies And that this alludes to the condition of the Gospel-Church in spiritual Babylon is evinced by the gathering of the nations against her vers 11 which agrees whith these last combinations against the Saints Zeph. 3.8 Isai 54.15 Revel 16.14 16. by her horns of iron and hoofs of brass to thresh and beat in pieces many people also after her complete victory by her consecrating their gain to the Lord which never was fulfilled in the majesty here delivered but must be proper to the time of the vials wherein the people coming out of Babylon reward her and her assistants with the like degree of punishment Rev. 18.6 Dan. 7.22 The event doth likewise comply with this Scripture as face answers to face in a glass For the primitive Church who was glorious in her visible constitution setled and beautified with Apostolical power did after decline from thence into the vast barren field of the Babylonish nations where she was scattered here and there a godly person outwardly mixed with the rude multitude from whom she was not distinguished either in Membership or Office and where she was held in chains of thraldom by Popes Bishops and the like beastly Hierarchies who in this strange country monopolized the key of Government into their sole tuition and in this desolate estate she must needs be an exile in a forraign land From this bondage also the Lord begins at last to call her out and deliver her from her enemies From hence we may necessarily conclude that if this external station wherein the daughter of Sion visiby stood was a field a wilderness a Babylon or forraign country of strange confusion then must all the beauty of her former outward Order be dissolved and turned into a rude Chaos that if her key of visible Rule was taken solely into the usurpation of Antichrist the Beast those alien lords Then must the Ordinances thereof lie void as did the Temple-vessels in the house of Nebuchadnezzar's idol-gods We will now with God's assistance proceed to answer your Objections made against this Object You alleadge that to say the visible Church did fail is as much as to affirm that the pillars of the earth were broken down the Church standing as firm by Gods ordinance power and faithfulness Answ It is true that the pillars of the earth are born up by the Word of God albeit the earthly governments thereof have the times of their shake and dissolution Psal 75.3 Isai 2.19 21. Hag. 2.21 And withal it is as true that the Church in the being of election inward grace outward profession and the more intrinsecal rule of grace is a kingdom that cannot be shaken Heb. 12.28 it being promised to be perpetual Matth. 16.18 But the visibility of Church-government was not so pillared in the Word for its successive abiding this is rather fore-prophesied that it should be corrupted by Antichrist and become Babylon To lay the ground-work of your after-discourse you here distinguish a visible Church M. Elmest First say you by a visible Church may be meant a company of Christians joyned together in one place set in true order of Worship and exercise of all Gods Ordinances that such a Church hath been in any one place or many successively you think cannot castly be proved Answ By such a Church if we understand you aright you mean a Church set in a right order of Discipline and furnished with true Officers And if such a Church cannot be proved to have been successively through the apostacie then must you yeeld that the primitive chain of Order was broken and so justifie its cessation for such an one it is that you have maintained to abide and we have proved to discontinue This grant of yours duely pondered doth at one breath unmount the whole fabrick of this your Babel and might soon put a period to the major part of this Controversie M. Elmest Secondly by a visible Church may be meant a company of persons professing true religion abstaining from all false worship and worshipping God in a pure way though for the most part in sundry places and meeting in small companies such a Church hath been perpetual Answ 1. Such companies may thus assemble for Ministery Prayer as did the one hundred twenty before they received powerfrom on high and we do now and yet not be a visible Church
The KEY OF Scripture-Prophecies OR A Glass of some New Discoveries Being An ANSWER to a Book Published by Mr JOHN ELMESTONE Wherein is resolved 1. Whether a true constituted Church with true Office and visible Membership together with the Ordinances proper to such a Gospel-stating continued true by a line of Succession from the Primitive time downward to our times or whether it were not interrupted by the Apostacie 2. If they did there intermit when they return again to their first glory whether now or hereafter and what is the dispensation now approved by the Spirit BY SIMON HENDEN LONDON Printed by Ja. Cottrel for Giles Calvert at the Black Spread-Eagle at the West-end of Pauls 1652. The EPISTLE To the Reader CHristian friends and Brethren in the Lord Jesus who are purchased from the rest of mankind by the precious blood of the Lamb of God and begotten by the incorruptbile seed of the Word to a life above nature it is you I owne by the nearest relation under what title soever stiled and to your wisdoms principally I direct this Epistle with the ensuing treatise The true occasion of this contending controversie you shall find in the front of the book to be a combate with a Presbyterian Minister by whom I was provoked to enter into the list The man though clouded by ancient principles I have esteemed to be one of the sealed number redeemed from the earth The Manuscript sent by him in opposition to me I received as the common mouth speaking the mind of many who are as much nay more interessed in the cause pleaded for then himself and thus much I may as I suppose say of it that if it were his alone it containes in effect the chiefest strength a whole party can produce in their defence We had rather receive the next return in the name of all then to meet with the forces of all under the title of one The subsequent Answer was a first by me written to be more private and not in the least intended to come forth into publique view it being a retired contest in it self and not clothed with the ordinary dress of elegancie sutable to the gust of this curious age nor so exactly polished as might be required for the Press But since my Antagonist appearing in Print in open oftentation with the common applause of the Presbyters who vote his book to be unanswerable and many of my godly friends urging my be the most ingaging tyes of entire affection backed with this covincing argument that the Lord gave me not a talent to hide in a napkin I am willing to satisfie them and mine owne conscience and rejoyce to meet him in the hight of his and his parties confidence as not fearing but the integrity of my cause will bear me out against all opposition For truth seeks not to be concealed in obscure corners but delights to come forth into open light and present her naked beauty to the publique view of Nations I am not ignorant that the subject with some searching reproofs though drawn from Scripture-record will be unpleasing unto many at the first appearance chiefly to such who are tyed up or much indeared to their respective constitutions Many are veiled by antiquity the judgements and interpretations of learned men in former or latter times whom they almost look upon as Oracles sounding out nothing but undoubted truths and adjudge its high presumption in themselves or other to swim against so full a stream These do not duely ponder in what a dark night our progenitors lived nor how the truths of God brake forth by several steps and degrees out of that deep apostacie My advice to such is to beware that under the derisive scorn of new lights they blaspheme not the discoveries of the Spirit streaming out to a perfective alteration Let them first examine before they censure Others seem to look with more eagle-eyes over many generations into the purest primitive times and erect new models of Churches parallel as they suppose to their first and most accomplished pattern and this I am perswaded the most do out of the sincerity of their hearts But they not observing the Cessation and departure of the glory of God from the ptimitive Government nor how Antichrist had full power in that outward Court not rightly discerning the next immediate fountaine whence a Gospel-marriage flowes nor marking the variety of Gods dispensations in several seasons imbrace shadows for real substances and set up bestiall Idols instead of true Gospel-Churches I shall desire them to consider that this manifest kingdome of God grounds not it self on visible faith nor comes with observations and buildings up visible forms and then bringing Christ unto them so as to say Lohere or there is Christ but comes with power from above being like lightning descending downe from heaven as shall be proved in the following treatise The greatest number being principled and guided by others of more eminencie are so strongly affected to what they have embraced and walked in that they account it no less then fighting against the waies of Christ to disclose their practice or acquaint them with their misleadings For affection is blind and can hardly be perswaded to espie real deformities in that object on which it reposeth its delights The Lord onely can and in short time will alter this eccentrick motion of his people and turn the wheel of the heart to move concentrick to himself But this is common to them all that to what way soever they are addicted the whole face of Scripture seems to cast a direct and favourable aspect onely towards them and to look upon others either more obliquely or not at all That as to one who hath the yellow Jaundise the aire it self with every object he beholds seems yellowish sutable to the distempered species in the eye or to him who looks through red or green glass or any coloured medium the same things shew red or green or answerable to the colour of the medium which presents them to his sight so those Scriptures that are in themselves uniform beating their genuine signification being veiwed through false glosses or the deceiveable light of delusive principles seem to men of differing judgements to carry several repugnant senses corresponding their misguided apprehensions The intuitive action is then lurest when the medium is diaphanous receiving that light of truth in its own purity which irradiates and manifesteth every colour in its proper kind and when the understanding the eye of the soul is like the crystalline humour and the visible species will complectioned in the bodily eye to wit clear perspicuous and capable of all colours but infected with the tincture of none Therefore the sea Rev. 4. by which the spiritual glory was discerned in the primitive times was of glass like to Crystal pure uncoloured and shining through which the several or contrariant colours were seen in their own peculiar dyes Also in the new Ierusalem her light the
as having no such promise annexed to them and why should this be but to shew that these keys in the Churches hand should receive a sink and loss of their efficacie for a time For certainly the Lord knowing the apostated times if they had continued through the Babylonish defection would have added some word of remaining to them as well as to the profession To these we shall annex that Zech. 4.2 12. in which we may behold that related as evidently as the face is seen in the glass The Angel vers 2. sets before the eyes of Zechariah the image of the primitive Apostolical Church the like was also seen of John Rev. 1.12 20. onely here was the difference the Prophet sees the type of one Candlestick as representing the Church in her unity John beholds seven he writing to the seven Churches and here in vers 12. is pictured out a platform of the dispensation of the sealed elect number during the times of Antichristianism That the Candlestick vers 2. did embleme the primitive Churches we render these reasons 1. From the Angels answer vers 6. that this was not built by might or by power as outward Zerubbabel's temple was but by the Spirit as without hands by Christ the true Zerubbabel 2. From the head-stone of this spiritual building vers 7. which was the Lord Jesus 1 Pet. 2.6 Psal 118.22 Isai 28.16 Matth. 2◠42 Act. 4.11 3. From the shout and cry which was not Works works but Grace grace the manifest difference betwixt the Law and the Gospel 4. From the despising of small things the Jewish Ceremonies and the sight of the Plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel Christ vers 10. which teacheth the coming off from Mosaical rudiments to that of Christianity 5. From the seven eyes opened to be the Lambs eyes and for time in the primitive Rev. 5.6 and the seven Lamps vers 2. agreeable to Rev. 4.5 That the two Olive-branches and the two golden pipes vers 12. pertain to the next following Antichristian times is apparent by the decrease of the former fulness and the answer of the Angel vers 14. which can aptly be applied to no other time then that of the elect in Babylon From hence we shall evince this argument That there was a fulness of Ordinances in the primitive Age there were seven pipes to the seven Lamps vers 2. the number seven notes out a perfection the Pipes signifie Ordinances Luke 7.32 these being the organ by which the light and oil of Ministery is displayed whereas in the Antichristian season there are seen but two pipes that had golden oil the least of numbers and yet sufficient to testifie the truth of inward grace Now why should there be seven at the first and but two at the last but to set forth the cessation of the former five in their efficacie and power as being dead empty and without golden oil viz. Ordination Confirmation with the other stative Ordinances and that Ministery Prayer c. being predicted of God for abiding must as the two golden pipes remain and the two anointed ones by these empty themselves as the two Olive-branches In Rev. 7.1 the four open windes which are causa procreans conservans the begetting and preserving cause of these visible keys Ezek. 1.4 5. Act. 2. were by reason of the falling away wholly with-held from their apparent blast and the cause failing the effect must also cease this Spirit of life being restrained they must needs be meerly formal That as in the Scriptures before cited they were not promised to abide so the Spirit doth here desert and leave them empty of its lively influences In Chap. 9.1 2 3. the Angel who had usurped all Church-power into his custody totally apostated from heaven to earth becomes a meer earthly Angel by which that Church-policie that before was a kingdom of heaven is become a bottomless pit or a false Church without any bottom of Truth in her order and in stead of the keys of the celestial kingdom was another contrary key of the same bottomless pit the key being the same with the Church in the room of that sweet recreating winde or lightsome smoak descending from Gods glory to beget the truth of Office was the dark and delusive smoke or dispensation ascending from this bottomless furnace which ingenders none but locusts a degenerate brood of false Officers Here we may take notice of the effects that ensue upon the former with-holding of the windes God having forsaken and left it void Satan hath full power gives another key with other smoke whereby of Christ all is become Antichrist and bottomless of Truth In Chap. 11.2 where though the Temple was measured of which we shall speak anon yet the onward court was excluded and forbidden to be measured for so saith the Spirit The court without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies cast out That this outward court must belong to the visibility of Church-government may be cleared by these Arguments 1. Because this as opposed to the Temple within must be the exteriour outward part and who knows not that the Order of Ecclesiastical Government is the outside or visibility of the Church 2. Because this here excluded was given to the Nations the inward rooms of true grace with Worship flowing from those internal springs was never in the power of man to intermeddle with but the outward court of Church-Regiment was in the hands of Nations for many generations and nowhere else 3. Because the Nations by enjoying this outward court did tread the holy City under foot Now woful experience hath taught the Saints that that by which Antichrist hath trampled upon the godly was by sitting in the externality of Ecclesiastical Discipline in Spiritual Courts and Classes The four windes above restrained must be from this rejected Court the bottomless key pit and smoke in this unmeasured to Truth In Chap. 12.6 14. the same externality given to the Nations and mixed with worldly things becomes a worldly wilderness into which the woman fled That this wilderness is the National Babylonish Church is proved at large by Scripture and the analogie in Sect. 5. of the first Paragraph In Chap. 13. the Principality or chief of the power ruling here is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wilderness-beast compared with Mark 1.13 answerable to those false christs and false prophets which our Saviour foretold should be in the wilderness Matth. 24.24 The second Beast is here called a false prophet inferring the first to be a false christ or Antichrist as is shewed in our answer to him on Matth. 24. In Chap. 17. the Church born up by this Beast is called Mystery Babylon as being another and distinct from Sion in her very foundation who also was seen of John in this wilderness To sum up all if we consider the Gospel-times aright as they are pourtrayed in the Prophecies we shall finde that in the primitive there was the smoke of Gods glory preceding Isai
for this later coming of the Bridegroom by the pouring glory of his Spirit shall go in with him to the Marriage and not all they but properly the wise virgins shall be thus immediately invested from heaven * See Parag 4. Matth. 25.10 what may be afterwards by the sons of the Church we leave to the times to manifest If you will bring all our new-stated Churches to this touch-stone you may finde them to be of a different metal from the true and however so neer the primitive they seem to be in the outward shell yet in reality to be grounded upon another foundation to wit upon believers not possessed with such a power visibly sent down from heaven Now that faith or the profession thereof without such a divine call and spiriting cannot be a ground-work for stating Churches I shall further prove by these following Arguments 1. Faith must foot on a call as done in obedience to the heavenly voice but now there is no call for visible Church-marriage as is declared in our first Rule and no call no faith nay it wanting that must bottom upon our own call name and time which is presumptuous disobedience 2. God having promised to spirit this again faith must rely upon the same promise till fulfilled and not upon its own power the hundred and twenty were believers and yet begun not any constitution by vertue of that but waited till the keys were given 3. Profession alone can no more give life unto Ordinances from which the glory of God is departed then it can infuse a living soul into a dead carcase It is God's sole prerogative to create their breath of life which he will do in his own season according to what he hath promised Faith and profession are but effects and to attribute such a causal vertue to them is to confound and turn the causes upside down and to set the creature in the place of his Creator 4. This pretended saith void of the call and promise of God and the vital influence of its prime original cause is but a meer work a bare creature-foundation by far too weak to lay a Gospel-fabrick upon and being but humane must in divine things be bottomless and whether the smoke or dispensation arising thence be not then that of the bottomless pit we leave it to wise men seriously to consider We are sure that this is the proper distinguishing character to difference the true from the false The true begins with the smoke or winde Gods glory inspiring the follow the keys opening and entering and by that it becomes a spiritual building the false begins with the key the smoke ensueth and thence is it a building made with hands grounded on tradition Rev. 9.1 2. The true is as smoak descending from heaven the false as smoke ascending from an humane bottom I shall now speak a little to you of the Separation who are modeled into the form of stated Churches I know there are many precious Saints amongst you in whom the character of Jesus Christ is printed and confess that some of you have been instruments to bring to light some solid Truths and prepared way for greater You hold a Separation from all National Hierarchies according to the Scriptures have in part cleared that the Beast reacheth further then the Papal Chair of Rome have renounced prelacies and precedencies have vindicated the consciences of the godly from the Laws and Canons of Courts and Classes maintain the Gospel to come in the liberty and power of the Spirit have rightly pleaded that members of true Gospel-Churches must at least have a visible Saintship have to this day been real and cordial in that noble Cause beginning in our ends of the earth For these good things found amongst you I protest in the presence of the great Tribunal I am obliged by the bond of entire affection and desire your spiritual welfare as my own salvation Yet I must not dare not flatter or dissemble in matters divine but because I love I am compelled to deal plainly and faithfully resting confident that those who are truely pious will desire to see their combustible works burn by the fiery trial of the Vials What I shall expostulate with you I have already convinced in my self Consider seriously whether consultations be not weak grounds to bottom Gospel-Churches or whether the primitive the patern you labour to model by was ever laid upon such sandy foundations or whether these your actings do not contradict many of your own tenents before named Did the Kingdom of God in that first day come by observations or by the descending majesty of the Spirit Or will Christ think you be less glorious in this later Reformation then in the former View I beseech you the Scriptures treating of the dignity of this later marriage Or if you cannot search primarily into the cause look into the effects that follow these your undertakings For knowledge in the ordinary way comes to us secundum posterius so that by those signes or symptomes which break out in manifestation we are directed to look into the fountains whence they issue forth Why was there so great efficacy in the outward order of the primitive Government but because it proceeded originally from the manifest blast of the Spirit Why is there so little in your externalities if not because arising from weak humane principles You that are most discerning do you not see too much of formality too little of power Nay why was that one and the same in every particular drawing the flock of Christ into a general unity unless because it footed in the Spirit which by its illuminating glory virtual operation and perswasive attraction congregated the whole body of Sions sons unto it Why are yours manifold disagreeing and occasions of dividing the Saints but because basing on obscure carnal apprehensions Experience informs us that your various constitutions have rent the Lords people in pieces and are as so many walls to keep them asunder and that which divides is carnal Tell us To which of you shall we joyn to come to the general Assembly Yea to what form shall we come and not in the very act of sitting down sequester our selves from the major part of the godly By a narrow search you may finde your union to ground in division your gathering in scattering View Ezek. 34.5 6 and compare them to your divisions Peter James and John chosen vessels were like in their minority to fall into the same relapse Matth. 17.4 Master if thou wilt let us build tabernacles but alas they knew not what they said understood not that Gospel-tabernacles were not to be made with hands but by the powerful dispensation of the Spirit Much like to this do you Let us build temples let us erect Gospel-Churches Well if you must needs be doing the proper work of your Master observe what censure he gives of such designes Matth. 24.23 24 26. Iuke 17.20 21 22 23. Mark rightly the secret chambers
symboles accompanying his Ministery and the peculiar effects thereof wrought in the manner of the Corinthians conversion sealed his Apostleship and not their bare conversion as is apparent by comparing this text with 2 Cor. 12.12 The signes of an Apostle were seen amongst you in all patience in signes and wonders and mighty deeds 2. Bare conversion without such singular gifts and fruits argues not any particular no nor any Office at all For men in every one of those five degrees nay such as had no Office were instruments in this honourable designe and a common effect proves not a particular cause Paul's argument had been weak and groundless to demonstrate himself to be an Apostle by such a signe as was common to all other Officers nay to private Christians 3. The Witnesses in mystical Babylon whether in Rome or elsewhere received a gift from Christ tending to convert and edifie Now the conversion wrought by those godly men did not confirm the warrantableness of membership and orders in the false Churches they lived in for their outward clothing was black deformed sackcloth it onely evidenced the truth of that inward grace and power given by Jesus Christ I hope you will not affirm that those good fruits issuing from the Ministery of Sylvester Savanarola Wickliff Huss Luther with others of the Romish Clergie as also Latimer Ridley Hooper with sundry other Bishops ratified the Office of Friers Monks Priests and Diocesan Bishops as that of Paul did his Apostleship we say It sealed onely their gifts We shall here sift another argument of yours against this gifted Ministery instanced in page 23 of your Book Object If such a gifted Ministery be currant and sufficiently authorized for administring Word and Sacraments then there was no need of an Official Ministery and Christ it seems ordained therein a superfluous Ordinance for Frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora It is a vain thing and not beseeming a wise man to use many ways to do that which may be done by sewer Answ This your Philosophical Maxime is not generally true in Divinity but must admit of many limitations For God is a free agent and may work by more or fewer nay without mediums and in some seasons administers a greater variety and fulness for satiety and delight Prov. 9 1 2 3. Cant. 5.1 Matth. 22. Revel 19.9 in other times he useth a more sparing dispensation onely to maintain some being and life of grace When the Temple was destroyed and the vessels thereof lay void and were of no use for Gods service in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar yet the Lord then was to them a little Sanctuary in the truth of Grace Ministery Prayer c. You cannot from hence conclude that the same Temple and vessels as were made consecrated and used in Jerusalem were superfluous Ordinances neither is it safe to charge Wisdom it self with vanity and indiscretion for effecting that by more which he might have and did accomplish by fewer means So when the outward court of Church-government was given to the Nations and in the possession of Antichrist Christ did and might in point of honour and justice leave it and distribute his grace by a more retired and inward way as is at large declared in the Cessation Therefore this your assertion is both untrue and dangerous it intrenching upon the absolute and unlimited Royalty of the great King Object Lastly if the holding of the four windes be understood of the holding of the Spirit from breathing in Ordinances for others carry it fairly in another sence then 1. there is nothing said how long the restraint should last much less that it lasteth during the apostacie Answ 1. That the winde metaphorically signifies the breathing of the Spirit is apparent by these Scriptures Joh. 3.8 Ezek. 1.4 Acts 2.2 Ezek. 37.9 14. and it cannot here be fairly applied to any other sence it belonging to Israelites and the restraint being hurtful to their earth sea and trees that winde must needs be favourable and reviving whose detaining is hurtful 2. The text implicitely concludes the restraint to last during the time of the hurt which is the whole Antichristian age and after that the four windes shall again be loosed to animate what lay before spiritless as is shewed on the second Querie in the Cessation Object 2. Then it must be meant of a more sparing breathing in comparison of the primitive times not of an utter restraint 3. If it be an utter restraint then take notice that the restraint is general and cannot by any circumstance of the text be confined onely to Official preachers and preaching but as fully reacheth to the gifted men as to them and so doth conclude an utter ceasing of the Spirit now or then from breathing in or by any Ordinances Answ To begin with the last of yours 1. This withholding and the hurt thereby may be gathered by a circumstance of the text not to be so general as utterly to debar the Elect from some more secret and inward inspirations for vers 2 3 the four Angels are forbidden to hurt by this restriction till the Angel of the East had sealed the servants of God in their foreheads which infers a care and some provision for the spiritual subsistence and breathings in upon and by the elect hereupon it reacheth not to the gifted men for they had a power given immediately from Christ which breathed forth in Ministery Rev. 11.3 and as there was an inward Temple and Altar so there was approved Worship therein flowing from the truth of grace vers 1. 2. The restraint was total in respect of outward Order and Church-constitution For first Therein succeeded another key also that was cast out and became Babylon as shall be shewed in the two next Sections and the Spirit cannot breathe in that which is wholly corrupted and becomes another especially in what it excommunicates Secondly The winde here expressed was utterly detained from blowing on the earth sea or any tree which must imply it to be in some sence general Thirdly All save the Elect were hurt thereby and subverted vers 2. which dis-interesses other common Israelites from those outward priviledges they enjoyed while the visibility was true From hence we gather that the open windes deciphered Acts 2.2 which gave being to the external keys of Church-government were altogether bound up from their manifest blast but yet a still and secret influence coming more immediately from Jesus Christ which never was wanting from Adam's time remained and this was more sparing and narrow in comparison of the primitive both in its measure and degree and the number of the Ordinances which it occupied The windes here kept back are said to be four in regard of the generality thereof reaching to the four quarters also the windes of the earth it being an administration more visible here on earth thus the power of binding and loosing by these more external keys is said to be on earth
in profession were beyond the sphere of Satan For the inward created principle in the soul breaking forth in and by these means and Ordinances the Spirit in and by the Word sustaining its perpetuity and Christ supporting the same are all far above the reach of Antichrist had these been in the power of that destroyer he would have utterly marred all the springs yea the very fountain of grace In the same manner the communion taken on the ground work of the spiritual union of all the godly wherever scattered when the corporated was false and Christ therein fed upon by faith was not altogether subverted for the mystical relation betwixt Christ and the heart and the godly with the godly was beyond the compass of Popes Bishops or any humane authority whatsoever Also for Baptism though the Antichristian Church was in her constitution and order unmeasured to truth and therein Babylon yet she was not utterly shut out from the Covenant but had the call of Israelites had the Name of the Father Son and holy Ghost put on them with a common grace to believe the Covenant and an elect sealed number in and amongst their tribes none of which properties can be attributed to those wholly without Though Antichrist in some things infected the externality of this Ordinance yet could he not fundamentally raze the Covenant nor utterly abolish the name of Christ from amongst Christians nor make invalid the power of the Word perpetuating that name Isai 56.5 In like sort the ten apostated tribes were in their Church-order set up by Jeroboam radically false and yet were Israelites within the Covenant and had the signe of Circumcision Thus also men excommunicated are excluded from Church-fellowship but not from their Baptism and the Covenant Likewise Hereticks who fell from the Church were received again not by new Baptism but by laying on of hands Euseb l. 7 cap. 2 3. 2. Our Reasons why the later sort as Ordination Confirmation c. abode not are these following 1. They are not promised in the Word to continue Isai 56.5 2. They wanting that promise were forsaken by God when corrupted 3. All the external Order became Antichristian and so the Ordinances proper thereto must be bestial or else how could there have been a Babylon wherein the sealed number were captives 4. Our last taken from this text Rev. 9 is that these were wholly resolved into the Pope to whom was given another key with other smoke and Officers These being altogether external and Christ leaving them Antichrist might have and had absolute power therein to make them bottomless Object Against this you assert that though the Pope have another false key yet withal he hath the keys of Christs discipline in Ordination Excommunication Suspension c. Answ Though the Pope usurp the carcase of those Ordinances that were Christs before yet their true essential form which makes them to be Christs and true Office and Membership on which they depend he and his whorish Church have not For confirmation whereof these grounds do naturally arise from the text 1. The first Reason is drawn from the nature of the Pope and Antichristian Hierarchies vers 1. the Star or Angel fell from heaven the orb in which he was fixed before unto the earth or wilderness Chap. 12.6 a total apostacie from his former office and sphere and was not in the least degree heavenly but terrene earthly and meerly humane or a wilde beast Rev. 13.1 and is numbered not to God but to man vers 18. It is a true Rule Corruptio optimi est pessima The corruption of the best things is always worst and most contrary to its former goodness Satan who was the noblest is by his fall the basest of creatures and most unlike to an angel of light which he was before he fell So here that Angelical Office which shined as a fixed Star in the bright firmament of the primitive purity holding forth the liveliest glory of Christ for the perfecting of the Saints being once apostated from his former sphere became not onely an humane Hierarchie but a meer Antichrist as most opposite to Christ of any other 2 Thess 2.3 and the man of sin as that wherein the quintessence of evil and deceit is epitomized and grown to its perfect maturity and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one in office altogether without and besides the Law and likest to sin it self which is termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Joh. 3.4 nay he is the principal vicegerent of Satan on earth to whom he commits his chiefest power Rev. 13.2 throne and authority in the exercise whereof he is Abaddon or Apollyon Chap. 9.11 destruction it self in the abstract recorded in the two most famous Languages and is most emphatically stiled by Paul The son of perdition being one who hath caused the greatest ruine and desolation and is termed by John the King of the bottomless pit Thus we may see that the Office of the Pope and his Hierarchy is most corrupted of any thing else being that wherein the being of Antichrist doth subsist who is not a particular person but a corporation And this Official Hierarchy being stript naked of its primitive truth and becoming meerly Antichristian cannot in the least degree beget a lawful Office for Nâ—l dat quod non habet If the fountain be polluted how can the streams be pure None can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one Job 14.3 2. This Angel had another key different in nature from the former And it is impossible the keys of the kingdom of heaven can subsist with the key of the bottomless pit or the power of Jesus Christ be united with the power of Satan Contraries in their extremes cannot stand together but the one must destroy the other 3. The Church opened by this key is a bottomless pit bottomless she being void of the groundwork of Truth in her order a pit or prison being as a hell on earth in which men are captivated Prov. 7.27 Chap. 9.18 Isai 51.14 Chap. 49.9 Zech. 9.11 12. also a Church excommunicated of God and Babylon Rev. 11.2 Chap. 17.5 and so cannot in her constitution have the keys of the kingdom of heaven for the key must be of the same nature with the Church Besides if Confirmation Ordination Excommunication c. be true in Rome then must that Romish Church into which by these keys she enters and out of which she shuts be a kingdom of heaven and a Sion and not a bottomless pit and Babylon which we conceive you will be ashamed to affirm 4. The smoke or dispensation of this pit or false Church is hellish and diabolical eclipsing and darkning the whole Horizon vers 2. and how can the smoke or winde of Gods glory spiriting these Ordinances and making them lightsome dwell together with the darksome false and delusive smoke of the bottomless pit surely the Lord will not so much honour Antichrist his greatest adversary If the
Pope have the true smoke or winde of the primitive Church then what he bindes or looses on earth is bound or loosed in heaven Matth. 16.19 as is further cleared in the second Section 5. The Officers coming from hence are locusts of a divers kinde from the true they proceeding from another key king pit and smoke If Office had been true in Rome then Membership must be the like for he can be no true Officer that is not withal a Member and if Office and Membership be both right in that Catholike Synagogue then must she be a true Church being radically right both in Ministers and people Sir have you exclaimed against Rome as Babylon for so many yeers and do you now by this argument prove her to be Sion However we may from this text observe that as the pit is bottomless so is the key the smoke and the locusts arising from it and that fundamentally so that your Ordination Excommunication Suspension coming from hence cannot have any parcel of the keys of the kingdom of heaven but must pertain to this bottomless key Object But say you these Ordinances may remain the Ordinances of Christ though in wrong hands and abused as the Great seal of the kingdom is still in the right and true seal though in the hand of an usurping Lord Keeper c. Answ If you should prove these constitutive Ordinances to be Seals yet in the Broad Seal there be two things requirable 1. The Power and Authority from whence the Seal proceeds 2. The confirming of an act coming from that power by the Seal When the writing sealed is derived from a lawful authority then the Seal carries the name and majestie of that true and rightful power which makes it a legal ratification but if it issue forth from an usurped Primacy though the matter and print may be the same with the other yet the act sealed bears the substance of that usurpation which puts another form upon it and makes it illegitimate nay treasonable So these Ordinances pertaining to Church-order in the primitive times arising from Christ and his Spirit working in the Apostles c. were accompanied with the name and power of Christ which made them true as representing the lively image of himself but these coming from other usurping lords as Popes Bishops or the like receive the character of the same usurpation which changeth their essence makes them unlawful and to carry the image of the Beast And your Office flowing from this bestial and exorbitant key must be false in its foundation The Key the Church the Smoke is another and thereof not Christ but Antichrist the king of the bottomless pit We informed you how the truth of this was verified by the event that there was no other Office but that of the Locusts kinde even in Luther's time who himself was a Monk In opposition to this you reckon up some Bishops Monks Friers Priests or of some such Popish Order that for 1260 yeers stood up to witness the Truth who were not locusts Answ These men whom you reckon up with any other of the like sort of godly men officiated by Antichrist had no other Office but that of the locust-kinde You your self acknowledge the Officers called Monks Friers Priests Abbots Cardinals and the Popish Clergie to be of the series of the locust a little before in the same page of your book And whatsoever excellencie and honour these men gained beyond others arose simply from the gift of Jesus Christ not at all from their Popish function that being but the defiled rags with which the same Witnesses were clothed No man not Popishly minded can imagine that their Frierhood Monkery Priesthood or the like could confer any dignity to their piety or that these men thus gifted by the Lord Jesus did attribute any esteem to their Popish Orders It is observable that God should rear up such men who had no Office but what was meerly invented to be such noble instruments to testifie in some degree the Truth which may teach you us and all others not to give any worth to such difiled Offices but onely to their qualifications which unless sanctified from heaven they had been locusts as well as the rest of their Orders and to conclude that this their grace and the right to dispense the same came not from their officiating but onely from the gift and grant of the Lord of life So that herein we must distinguish their inward gift with its administration from their outward investment the one distilling from Christ was radically true and holy the other coming from Antichrist was utterly false and polluted Object You assert further that Ockam John of Gaunt Dante 's John Wickliff Jerome of Prague Luther were men that amongst others made up the series of the three Angels Rev. 14. and yet lived in the Church of Rome had their external calling from that Church were of some of the Popish Orders c. Answ Bare saying is no proving and ipse dixit he said so will hardly pass for currant amongst men of judgement We shall deny that the men you name were of the rank of the three Angels specified Rev. 14.6 8 9. much less that they were called Angels by vertue of their Popish Office which you would insinuate For they lived within the circuit of the one thousand two hundred and sixty yeers of tribulation wherein they were mourners and being as you confess men that lived in the Church of Rome that had their external calling from that Church and of some of the Popish Orders must be those Witnesses clothed in sackcloth Rev. 11.3 Whereas these three Angels were of the rejoycing Harpers who arose not till after the expiration of that sorrowful time were clothed in white Robes of joy and greater purity and had gotten the victory over the Beast his image mark name and the number of his name Chap. 7.9 Chap. 15.2 Again neither the Ministery nor Writings of those you mention were so pure and full as might be termed an everlasting Gospel which the first Angels ministery was vers 6 neither did they with the second vers 8 unmask the root of Mysterie Babylon great part whereof was sealed up from their understandings neither did they discover the Beast his image and mark in its whole latitude with the third who with a thundering voice crieth against all such defiled Offices with which they were outwardly arayed vers 9. 2. These ministers or instruments of this threefold discovery are not intitled Angels by vertue of any outward call to an Office by the Pope Bishops or any other authority on earth but onely by the priviledge of a gift dispensed immediately by the Angel of the Covenant Rev. 10.8 9 10 11. Here their commission or sending forth Go comes simply from God their furnishing for this ministration or their taking and eating the book from the Angel and being thus divinely impowered they must prophesie though all the earth oppose it their
engagement to prophesie ariseth from their taking and eating the book Besides the word Angel signifieth a Messenger or one sent with a prevailing administration which may be either by the medium of a visible power here belowe or else simply from above without any such mediums from man All this we shall be ready to evidence in our next Return Before we pass from hence give us leave a little to go back and reflect upon the ground-work of your stand and dealings in this particular Truly Sir we conceive you are hardly driven when being sounded to the bottom you cannot justifie your own Office but withal you are inforced to plead for that of Friers Monks Priests Bishops and the whole rabble of the Popish Orders nay to maintain them to be the Angels of truth by reason of their outward investments from Rome neither can you vindicate your interest in your key of Church-government in Ordaining Excommunicating c. but you must therewith manage the Popes Surely it is inevitable necessity drives you to this extreme shift that either you must hold the foundation of Church-order to remain in Rome and so make that mother of harlots to be radically the true spouse or else you must yeeld and renounce your own We cannot but * Isai 29.9 stay our selves and wonder that you who have been counted men of knowledge and godliness should so straitly tie up all the Ordinances of Jesus Christ to such a corrupt and Antichristian function as if you onely were thereby called and inrighted with a power to dispense the same when as your Office in the root thereof comes from the Pope the angel of the bottomless pit and his false way If your eyes were opened to see the nature and extent of that key you would quickly finde that your glorying herein were your greatest shame and so it will appear ere long For though you should outwardly clothe this your Office and the Church built thereon with the fairest Robes of the primitive patern and could extract the quintessence of wit policie learning art argument to present it as impregnable and had the tongues of men and angels to paint it out with more then humane eloquence to make it seem like * Ezek. 27.3 Tyrus to be of perfect beauty yet being in its principle earthly and bottomless your Office with the power of its government will unavoidably be disclosed to be a false Christ a false prophet or Beast the Church sustained thereby to be a daughter of that great mother Rev. 17. and her attire and seeming beauty to be no other then the glittering ornaments and paintings of the woman Babylon the mystery of whose deceit will be anatomized and made naked by the light of the Spirit This lay concealed in times of ignorance and God did more connive but now his call enlightens and discovers these principles of delusion and invites to a separation Let us therefore advise you in the bowels of charity to obey this voice of the Spirit in coming off your selves and to hasten your members the captive exuls that they die not in the pit that you may be of the number of the rejoycing harpers Rev. 15. and not of those mourners Chap. 18. Section 4. Our next ground was that the visible Church it self the foundation of these later Ordinances failed and so the Ordinances proper to a constituted Church must needs receive a loss of their efficacie Object You except That the visible Church is not the foundation but the institution of Christ Answ The institution of Christ is a foundation but yet that which affords present being or existence both to the constitution of visible Government it self and the Ordinances arising thence is the Spirit of life sent from Jesus Christ as is elsewhere shewed And whether such a Church first married by God whereby to have the keys of this visible kingdom given them from above and the Spirit of Christ united to and operating in them enjoy not by vertue of that union a principle of power to use the same and contribute a right Membership and Office unto others we leave it to you to consider The iron conjoyned to the fire hath the same essence of heat and operation with the fire and I suppose you will grant that a true Presbytery coferring an Office unto another by Ordination hath the being and foundation of that Office This word foundation taken simpliciter simply and originally is proper onely to Christ but secundum quid after some sort may be attributed to the Church whether visibly corporated or mystical You assent that if it be made good that the visibility of Church-order failed and became Babylon it is enough to carry the cause Answ This is proved in the Cessation from Rev. 11.2 that when this outward court was given to the Nations it was then cast out by the Spirit The words properly translated run thus But the court which is without the temple cast out and measure it not for it is given to the Nations and the holy city shall they tread under foot fourty and two months When the Nations ingrossed the externalitie and outside of Ecclesiastical Government into their hands and joyned in with National worldly Regiment they made up national Churches Here we may behold as in a spiritual Map of what nature they are and how they are false and Antichristian in the original of their constitution whether considered as Papal Episcopal or Presbyterial which these Reasons syllogistically drawn from the native sence of the text do demonstrate 1. Those Churches which are altogether outward and have nothing of the temple and altar and the vertue and life thereof in their constitutions are meerly humane and spiritless But National Churches whether Papal Episcopal or Presbyterial are so Therefore c. The Major you cannot deny the Minor is cleared by the words of the text for no more was given them but the outward court See Sect. 2. 2. Those Church-Constitutions that are cast out of God are disapproved and forsaken of him But such National Church-constitutions are cast out of God Ergo c. The Major is undeniable the Minor is confirmed by this Scripture The court without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies cast out and not leave out as it is translated hereupon ensued another key Sect. 3. 3. Those Churches that have no measurement by the line of Truth are false and Antichristian But such National Churches have no measurement by the line of Truth Ergo c. The minor is evinced by the text Measure it not and so are bottomless 4. Those Churches who are distinct and another from the holy City are in their ground-work of their Order strange and Babylonish But such National Churches are distinct and another from the holy city Ergo c. The Major is indubitable The Minor is also evinced from the text where they the Christian nations and the holy city are set in distinct and opposite terms 5. Those Churches who
wilderness Chap. 12.6 14 and in the streets of the great city where their bodies lay when slain and on which earth they stood for some space after the Spirit of life re-entered vers 8 11 and in this terrene station they prophesied before or in the presence of earthly Hierarchies who sate in the temple or rather the court without as God The most of these Witnesses were in the Romish Church who cried against the known corruptions and administred spiritual food to the elect scattered in that confusion Object It hath been frequently objected by others that these are Candlesticks which never denote visible Churches Answ Candlesticks are not always in Scripture figures of Churches but sometimes do signifie the vessels holding forth the light of Ministery in this sence is it understood Matth. 5.15 Mark 4.21 Luke 8.16 Chap. 11.33 where the light is the Ministery the Candlestick the organ or man containing that gift the house with those truely entering therein the Church And that it is so taken here will plainly appear by an exquisite view of the text For 1. The Church is in this place delineated by another figure viz. the Temple vers 1 and not by the Candlesticks and that house is also an invisible temple shut up from the outward court vers 2. 2. When Candlesticks do resemble Churches they are â—ver set first in figure Zech. 4.2 Rev. 1.12 but here they are placed last 3. They must here belong to Ministery because the Prophets themselves who prophesie are said to be Candlesticks whereas when the Candlesticks denote Churches the Ministers are pictured by another distinct figure to wit by stars Chap. 1.16 20. 4. These are placed after the olive-trees as drawing the oil therefrom and the first relates to their qualifications the last to their dispensation The Prophets are called olive-trees and Candlesticks as they are the instruments that bear hold and dispense the grace and gift of prophecie Object There were say you Saints so manifesting themselves so discovered by the Beast and whore by their opposition which they made to their wayes against whom the beast made war overcame them and were drunken in their bloods Answ The Saints for many hundred yeers in the West even since the Apostacie were not at all visibly distinguished from the Romish Church but lived there without any open persecution Indeed within these later Centuries God raised up more valiant champions who upon some discovery more manfully testified against the great Beast of Rome then before who was then onely extant known to be so and disclosed further the corrupt doctrine of that grand-mother-whore against whom that beast at last raged and prevailed by open persecution But the most of these also were here and there a man living and dying visibly in that Church witness the Martyrs here in England which you may read in M. Fox his book of Martyrs If some were at last distinguished from that great Whore tell us what distinction of Office they had descending from the primitive Order or upon what ground they were stated in Church-discipline Surely they living within the compass of the 1260 yeers must be clothed with sackcloth and stand outwardly in that earthly confusion or wilderness and some of late in the secret chambers The saving and incorrupt truths by them professed were chiefly in point of doctrine They unmasked onely the Beast and Whore of Rome but were blinded in daughter-harlots arising then and after and the Lord in times of ignorance over-looks the weakness of his sincere servants If the Lord had designed a continued chain of true visible stated Churches as you insinuate through every age of this defection severed and apart from Rome then without doubt he would have reserved a succession of office pure amongst the said Churches nay if there had been true official Ministers all along in those Churches then no question but such a lineal descent is extant whence the outward function of the Ministery should be deduced without being beholding to the key of Rome But we know not of any investment coming from Christ and his Apostles with us but what is derived from the Popish Clergy and you in effect confess as much in the 30 Page of your book that Luther and your choicest men had their external calling thence and so much must you grant of your own unless you renounce your genealogy Now if the key pit and smoke in Rome became bottomless as it did Rev. 9. then no off-spring issuing from her can be grounded in the truth of order Therefore were there the like beasts in the Churches you plead for who persecuted the godly by sword banishment imprisonment blood when they were anatomized as the Pope their forefather did before We now come further to expostulate about the temple and the outward court Rev. 11.1 2. Master Elmestone holds the temple to be a true visible stated Church and the Court without to symbolize such a false Church state which never was bottomed in the truth On the other side we maintaine the temple to decipher the mystical union of the one hundred and fourty four thousand sealed or elect ones whereby they are built up a spiritual house and the Court without to be the externality of Ecclesiastical order which was established by Christ in the primitive times and true but after being corrupted by Antichrist was rejected by the Spirit and false Object You alledge That the temple is the visible because measured Answ This measurement was not in the visibility of Church-order but only in the inward work of true grace and worship thence arising as will appear by these reasons 1. Because when the visible Church is measured it hath alwayes degrees of outward demensions and distances specified in the measuring as of the new Jerusalem the city was found by the golden rod to be ten thousand furlongs the wals one hundred fourty four cubits Revel 21.15 16 17. also Ezekiels temple and City from Chap. 40. to the end of the book whereas this hath no such demensions specified in the meting 2. Because the outward court which we have proved in the Cessation to be the externality of Church-order was excluded and forbidden by the spirit to be measured which must infer that nothing was here comprehended but the inward roomes of the hidden man with worship c. flowing from those intimate springs of grace 3. Because only the sealed elect number remained Rev. 7.3 c. Chap. 9.4 Chap. 14.1 Chap. 13.8 Mat. 24.24 Object Those sealed ones were as you truly say elect saved ones but in all ages many more have made profession then the elect and so during the Apostacy many beside the sealed ones did help to make up a visible Church Answ In a true stated Church hypocrites may be circumscribed within the compass of a true external stand and so may have an outward measurement but when the exteriour order is excluded and the measurement only internal to the elect who are visible in false stands
as here they are in Babylon then such who have only an outward station must be wholly shut out they standing solely in the outward court of false constitutions And therefore here all the world of Israelites worshiped the beast except those whose names were written in the book of life of the Lamb slaine from the foundation of the world Chap. 13.8 and Chap. 17.8 none are excepted but those who were written in this book from the foundation of the world So that here all save the elect are excluded and that for one thousand two hundred and sixty yeers Chap. 14.1 which razeth your next argument from its sandy foundation Their sealing notes their confirmation of the truth of grace and that being in their foreheads argues some measure of visible profession We shall in the last place deliver Master Elmestons assertion touching the outward court which he affirmed in a verbal dispute which was after this manner That it typed out the state of a false Church and that it never had any measurement at all To which was then answered That it did prefigure the outward order or visibility of Church-constitution and three reasons were produced to prove it drawn from the text which you may finde written in the Cessation also that this was true till here rejected by the Lord Jesus and could not denote that which never had any approved measurement as was then likewise cleared by these following arguments 1. By way of allusion to the temple of old That as there was not only a Temple within whereinto the Priests and none but they might enter but also a Court without erected by Divine institution and sanctified by the Spirit into which the Priests and people had access in common both which made a full and compleat temple so in the primitive times there was the internality of true grace wherein properly the elect who only were a royal Priest-hood had interest and likewise an outward order built up and breathed into by divine inspiration into which Christians visibly professing some true and some seeming came and both these together concurred to make a full visible Church 2. From the words of the text the court without cast out which the original phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Nothing in propriety of speech can be said to be cast out that was not before within Ishmael was a member in the family of Abraham before he was excluded none can be excommunicated unless he be first a brother so this being now cast out argues it to be till then approved 3. From the reason rendered by the Spirit why it was excluded for it is given to the nations which implies that it had measurement till it was thus given and corrupted by Antichrist Some trifling objections were made by Master Elmestone against these which partly for brevity sake partly because I conceive them not to be materiall I shall now omit If he think them to be otherwise and be pleased to publish them I shall be ready with Gods assistance to give a reply Thus much of the fourth Section we shall now pass on to the fifth Section 5. The fifth and last Section is taken from Mat. 24. where the visible models Loe here and Loe there or as Luke hath it Chap. 17.23 See here or see there being thus rejected by Christ are false and deceivable the powers that bear and teach them up are false Christs or Antichrists and false Prophets the spheres wherein they rule are the wilderness and secret Chambers For the clearer apprehending of this Scripture it may be requisite first to explaine something on the Chapter and after to declare your mistakes thereon To begin with the unfolding of the Chapter we are to consider there were three questions demanded by Christs Disciples vers 3. The first When these things shall be to wit the destruction of Jerusalem and dissolution of the temple spoken of in vers 2. The second What shall be the signes of his coming that is of his bright ministerial coming and dispensing his spirit-like lightning The third The signes of the end of the world to wit of the great and last day of judgement and the general resurrection To which the Lord methodically and in order one after another answereth with the signes thereof from vers the 15. to vers the 32. To the first from vers 15. to vers 23. To the second from vers 23. to vers 30. To the third vers 30 31. To omit the first as that impertinent to this subject we shall begin with the second of his coming like lightning The signes of the second are double 1. The long foregoing delusion of Antichristianisme abiding till his bright coming from vers 23 to vers 27. 2. The short noted immediate signals as the darkning of the Sun Moon and Stars and the shaking of the powers of heaven vers 29. If you desire to understand what these figurative speeches mean you may know by these places Isa 34.4 Joel 3.15 Hag. 2.21 22. and by the subversion of outward Babylon set forth by the like metaphors Isa 13. 10. Also by the overthrow of the Jewish Church Joel 2.30 31. And that of the Roman Heathen Emperors Rev. 6.12 13 14. The signes preceding the third to wit the end of the world are also twofold 1. The appearing of the Son of man in heaven that is his bright coming like lightning 2. The mourning of all the tribes of the earth upon the sight of the same glorious dispensation Psal 97.4 Zech. 12.10 11 12 13 14. of the Jews for their long blindness in Judaisme of the false stated Churches amongst Christians for their defilements in Antichristiansme of Turks and Heathens for their Mahometisme and gross Idolatry Againe we are to mind that the long Babylonish delusion of the signe of the second contains two distinct seasons 1 The time of the tribulation of the godly by the overswaying power of the false Antichristian Churches which by comparing this with the Revelations continued 1260 years chap. 11.2 3. chap. 12.6 14. chap. 13.5 a remarkable time it being ingraven in five places of that prophecie for our more espiciall remembrance 2 The time of the Sun and Moons darkning the Stars falling c. to wit the season of the vials wrath wherein the Saints are passing from their former bondage and retaliate the reward upon their Enemies vers 29 where it is said Immediately after the tribulation to wit that wrought by the Beasts prevailing for 1260 years the word after notes our another distinct time of the Sun and Moons darkning c. and the Saints lifting up their heads who at this time are said to come out of great tribulation Rev. 7.14 and to get victorie over the Beast cha 15.2 and that this delusion continues the same season also is clear from Mark 13.24 where it is said In those daies to wit of the Antichristian deceit after the tribulation This orderly method of the text concurring with the Disciples three questions
people to keep in and the conclusion is sealed with a dreadful curse against adders to or detracters from it This being the last so nobly given and peculiarly stiled by the name of Jesus Christ his Revelation so argues it to be full of majesty to be the compleature and perfection of the whole Scripture and shews the matter to be very precious and the comprehension thereof to be of weighty consequence for the welfare of the Saints And therefore it will prove our wisdome being here invited as at the one side to count the number of the beast and distinguish Gods things from mans Chap. 13.18 so on the other side to keep close to the administration therein deciphered for the times in which we live neither can any wander therefrom but he must needs run into multitude of errors and absurdities Sir we stand amazed that you should inveavor to deter us from searching into this prophecie and eclipse the light thereof from shining into our hearts that thereby if it were possible you might disrobe us of our blessing take heed lest you bring upon your self the curse However we shall rather obey the counsel of the Spirit in counting the number of the beast by those rules whereby he is described and to seek Christ in the path of separation in this book where the call and way are lively set before us I shall have occasion to speak more upon this subject in the fourth Paragraph Paragraph III. WE informed you that the foundation of the beast consisteth in an usurped power of Church-discipline footed on mans will without the call of God Object Against this is alledged That the foundation of the beast lieth not in false discipline but doctrine Answ Doctrine may be considered either in a more general sense for whatever may be taught and thus discipline may be comprehended under that notion it being teachable or else it is used in a narrower and more limited acceptation as it is opposed to and set apart from discipline and worship and so doctrine respects the free grace of God and justification by Jesus Christ and discipline is that part of divinity whether conceived spoken written or exercised which concerns external Church government Now that the beast described Revel 13. grounded himself primarily originally and radically in this latter part of discipline or government and not in Doctrine we render these insuing reasons 1. Because the Scripture declares that his residence should be in the court without which must pertaine to the outside in discipline and not to the inside in doctrine 2. Where Antichrist first grounded himself there he brought a whole corruption for the foundation of the beast and that of truth are extream contraries and cannot in the same thing subsist together Now Doctrine Christ believed and professed were not originally razed in Rome being all born up by the power of Christ but Discipline as confined to that government peculiar to a stated-stated-Church was wholly defaced by that destroyer hereupon in office he was a meer beast the Angel of the bottomless pit and the Church became bottomless of truth and Babylon 3. This total defection lasted 1260 yeers and some space after till the seventh vial during all the former season he was a beast utterly false in his office and that prevailing all that while the court was excluded and the nations had power to trample Revel 13.5 Chap. 11.2 And you cannot for shame affirme that the Church of Rome hath for so long a time been radically false in doctrine 4. If the beast had primarily eradicated the principle of doctrine there could not have been any breathing for an elect number in such an outward station where neither the grace of God nor Christ nor justificaby him was to be found But the Scripture doth tell us that there was a sealed company a temple a woman and feeding for her in Mystical Babylon and the event hath cleared that there were a godly people a ministery of Christ to nourish them in the Romish Church during the abovesaid season or else it was nowhere for many ages 5 It is assented to by all the Protestant party that the Pope and his hierarchie make up this beast Now the foundation of the Pope is his Popedom whose rise was as Mr. Brightman well observes from the Authority of Peters Chaire the ground of his hierarchie is their respective orders and prelacies all which chiefly belong to discipline 6. The Beast carries the woman Babylon chap. 17.37 and who knowes not that the Pope with his creatures bear up the Romish Church by their ecclesiastical government 7 Upon a serious view you may finde that most if not all the corrupt Tenents of Rome meet radically in some false maximes of discipline which argues that to be the corrupt root from whence they sprouted forth 8. The Dragon gave him power Rev. 13.2 which is the soul and spirit of Antichrist The original of doctrine never was in the Devils hands to give it being upheld by Christ but the externallitie of rule being forsaken and cast out by God was left in Satans power who inspired the beast therewith hereupon ensued a Throne and great Authority all which appertain to discipline Your Arguments on the other side to prove the beast to ground in doctrine Object 1. The foundation of Christian religion lieth in Doctrine therefore also doth doth the Antichristian Answ This your consequence carries no convincing force but rather cusus contrarium verum est The contrarie sequel may challenge the truer sense for as the naturalists say Ars incipit ubi natura desinit Art begins where nature ends because natural existences being the workmanship of God begin first with the intrâ—nsecal and more essential parts and thence pass outward to the external whereas Artificers begin with the exteriour or outward part So Christian religion being created of God founds first in the inside of grace and faith and from thence operateth to the outside of discipline whereas the Antichristion being an artificial structure or man in its base Rev. 13.18 initiates in the superficies of discipline and thence goeth gradually into corruptions of Doctrine Object 2 Your next is taken from John 4.2 3 He that denies Christ to be come in the flesh is not of God this is the spirit of Antichrist false doctrine then about Christs nature Persons and Officers is the foundation of Antichristian religion Answ This great Antichrist doth not directly deny Christ his natures persons and offices as some petty ones in the primitive time might but secondarily and by consequence The first Popes and Bishops at the entrance of the 1260 years were so far from denying these that they published and zealously preached them up before the world as you also do onely they layed another foundation of discipline by taking the government from Christ his shoulders and laying it on their own and so in their outward order or rather disorder they denied Christ in his natures persons and offices and
which lie voide of his administration till his glory return from heaven to sanctifie them againe for use thereby avoiding the idols that must necessarily insue upon taking them up can be no breach but a fulfilling of the second and fourth Commandments both in the affirmative and negative part and this being grounded on the call and warrant of our Lord Jesus must be done in his name advance his kingdom fall into the compass of his divine will and pleasure agreeable to the three first petitions The Virgins going forth to meet the bridegroom was a preparatory to that illustrious marriage wherein Christ in the open prospect of his dispensation will appear a husband and they that are wise a married wife when entred into the wedding-chamber of the Lamb. I say this high way in the wilderness being the medium and passage to that spiritual magnificence tends to exalt the glory throne scepter and kingdome of Jesus Christ And this walk can no way hinder the salvation of our selves or others but bends to the furtherance thereof as the consciences of many can testifie who have found the ministery to be as waters springing out of the desart Isa 48.21 chap. 41.17 18. even when they could obtaine no such new rising springs of refreshments with you But Sir Seeing you have so furiously charged against us we shall intreat you to reflect upon your own way for nosce teipsum know your selves is the first point of wisdome and you may with eyes anointed with spiritual eye-salve discerne that you usurpe a power onely proper to the King of Saints to set up visible Churches to make members and officers upon your owne call power and spiriting and that by omission of some of the primitive ordinances and placing other inventions in their stead Thus to erect a bestial Idol with subjection thereto must be directly opposite to the second Commandment and having built up such a golden Calf can do no less then blemish and defile all your services in your assemblings on the Lords day contrary to the fourth command and withall you bottoming the same upon your owne consultations without a celestial investment first as power from above must honour your owne names derogating from the name of Christ set up and magnifie your owne kingdomes eclipsing and darkning his do your owne wills in opposition to the will of God and by this undermin'e the three first petitions Which machination of yours striking so against the radix of Divinity can no way forward the salvation of soules but is prejudicial and a drawing people to disobedience not a bearing up of the stative ordinances wherein his soveraign power and goodness will be set forth but a laying them upon a humane Antichristian base and thereby so changing them that they carry the majestical name spirit and wisdome of man the very Image of a beast not an establishing of doctrine therein and a right officiated ministery but a broaching of errors a constituting and bearing up of a delusive Ministery as a false Christ and false Prophet the foundation of such untimely and misleading visibilities for though sometimes you preach up God and Christ onely as coming in his Name in pretence yet you establish teach up another in discipline therein coming in your own name not a preventing of scandals and restraining licentious living by true discipline but a causing scandals and offences by a false not onely in particular persons but in your whole unseasonable stated Churches and therefore it brings a general wo Matth. 18.7 Rev. 18 6. and this miserable Scotland hath experienced in whom your greatest boast glory and hope of and for your Presbyterian Government resided You may plainly see how God worketh against such designes It is true that in the Primitive day when Church-Government came from Christ and manifest smoke winde fire and lightning of his Spirit which breathed in and operated by the stative Ordinances of Ordination Confirmation Church-censures c. there was the life light and glory of the same Spirit which presented the soveraign power beauty and wisdom of Jesus Christ the husband and made them effectual means for the perfecting and completing of the Church his spouse But since this externality was forsaken and rejected by the Spirit and the key thereof being grounded barely upon an humane Antichristian base became bottomless the same Ordinances have been found to be lifeless and empty of their primitive excellencie not to have the least vertue to convey any spiritual nutriment to the Saints but rather to increase formality and decrease the power of godliness Nay they springing from a bestial root have brought forth such bitter fruit as hath been most opposite to the workings of the Spirit of grace This key of Regiment through the West remained solely in the hands of Rome for many ages where it clouded and by degrees darkned the whole Hemisphere with the poysonous sumes and exhalations arising from that bottomless furnace and though at first it came in more mildly in a lamb-like visage yet at last when discovered it brake out into such open rage against the godly as hath filled the Chronicles with most sad and tragical stories Of later yeers in England it was taken thence and transplanted into the Bishops who by the enjoyment thereof so trampled upon the Saints that we are all sensible of that Antichristian spirit therein raigning and triumphing And those places where the Presbyterian Discipline hath had the full swinge and was backed by the sword of the Magistrate are known to abound with more formality worldly mindedness nay open prophaness then is usually to be found with us in England where also some precious men who could not lay their consciences passive to their yoke of tyranny have felt the stripes of their cruelty so deep in their persons and estates as hath forced some to flee from their native Country witness Scotland The same spirit in our lesser Corporations acts its chiefest strength in disuniting of the Lords people where also the above-named Ordinances are lifeless and ineffectual and this many the choicest amongst them begin to be sensible of It is onely the mystical Church or foundation of true grace that is the pillar and ground of truth while the outward court is cast out and becomes the base of falshood In the close your Book you excuse your being long before you sent us your Answer Answ We suppose you took the larger time to recollect and muster up your chiefest forces into one entire body It appears to us that many lines meet in that your centre and as the Poet saith in another case Virtus coit omnis in unum Many results in one seem to combine to stablish what will fall by strength divine POSTSCRIPT WE shall in the last place pass to your Postscript where you demand from Rev. 15 who the harpers are that stand at the glassie sea c. Answ Those harpers are a separated not a stated people which we have evidenced
compel doth testifie still retaining their old mustie store and sowre wilde grapes of Antichrist your Ministery is foully corrupted with guile and false principles about discipline accompanied with bitter and odious invectives against these harpers Lastly let us examine your National Churches above-named by Chap. 15. They stand not simply upon a sea of glass the word only purely sensed but upon the more gross interpretations of the Fathers and other learned men in darker times from whom they esteem it presumption to differ though to the native Truth as your sharp and frequent reproofs of me for differing from them doth demonstrate they have not obtained a conquest over the Beast but have erected a Beast in Episcopacie Presbytery c. his Image in their Canons and other Ordinances changed into his likeness his Mark by a subjection thereto nor are their members in distinct congregatings as being off from the number of his name but are all numbered to him And those who now adhere to these National Hierarchies are so far from harping out this triumphant song of victory by separation and war and singing True and righteous are thy ways herein thou King of Saints as they are secret mourners having a wound in their spirits at these his just proceedings and his judgements now made manifest witness of late the dolour for the overthrow of the Scots who fought in the Presbyterian cause your publike reproaches against the Separation with inward torments for their freedom together with many other passages which shew how this great work of God now beginning is closed and fast locked up from your understandings We desire from our souls that the Lord Jesus who hath the key of David would open the door of your hearts whereby his admired designes changes and works to be done might enter In the mean time you may behold your folly in bringing those texts to convince us and prove your practice every circumstance whereof agrees with the way of separation and riseth up as so many witnesses against yours You ask us Whether the Ordination of Ministers in such National Churches be a mark of the Beast Answ Seeing the Churches themselves are not these harpers but such as stand under a bestial power the Ministers must be of the same nature with the Churches And your Ordination whether by Bishops or preaching Presbyters coming from the corrupt key of Rome though done by fasting and prayer must carry with it the mark or brand of the same Beast or if the man be truely pious his outward livery And thus to judge is neither ignorance nor malice as you charge it but the discovery of Christ in his Revelation who through our sides you are pleased to defame with black terms of obloquie To your next we say that you are not clothed with the white garments of the harpers but with the black habit of sack-cloth You tax us with omitting singing of Psalms Answ For mine own particular I question not the Ordinance of vocal singing of Psalms though some do scruple the manner thereof as conceiving it to be much abused Albeit this harmonizing here is not tyed to metre but is the inward joy wrought in the hearts of Gods separated Saints for their noble redemption from the Beast and the new mercies bestowed on them which breathes forth either in secret ejaculations or acts more openly in Ministery Prayer Thanksgiving c. Object You quaere How we can be in our return from Babylon and yet within Babylons territories Answ A man may be returning from London and yet within the line of Communication so in this gradual separation we cannot go clear off at once but by degrees See Parag. 4. Reas 7. Before we conclude give us leave to propound a few Quaeries very material to be considered of 1. In general for all 2. In particular to you The general shall be a brief contracting of the whole body of this Controversie and are as followeth 1. Whether the being of yours or any other Office with us passing by succession from the Primitive came by a Lineal descent from Rome or not If some say Not then whether any can prove their Genealogie distinct and apart from her If from Rome as you confess then whether the essence and foundation of Office be true there or not If true then whether she must not radically be a true Church and a Sion If she be in her constitution false bottomless and Babylon whether there were not a dissolution of your line and chain 2. Whether a true congregated Church set in a right and compleat order of discipline in our Western Horizon can be proved from the Apostolical times to be distinct from the Romish Synagogue If not as the Scripture and the event doth clearly manifest then must there be a cessation and departure of Gods glory from this visibility proved from these Scriptures Rev. 7.1 Chap. 9.1 2 3 c. Chap. 11.2 3. Whether the primitive order sinking there must not be a new call and spiriting from God for the first restoring and beginning of this work whereby his glory may return to make it a true spiritual and heavenly building 4. Whether such a visible administration that gives being to a true pure genuine and single Gospel-marriage be to be seen in the first initiation of any of our new-built Church-formes or can be evidenced by Scripture to be existing at this present or whether this same be not prophesied not to return till after the downfall of Babylon by these Scriptures Rev. 19.2 3 6 7 8 9. chap. 11. 19. Hos 2.19 20. Isa 62.4 5. chap. 14.15 Mic. 4.3 8. Mat. 25.10 5. Whether if so all our visible constitutions must not be man in their ground-work and so numbered to that beast Rev. 13.18 6. Whether then the way prepared cast up approved of and called unto for his Servants now to walk in be not a separation with distinct Congregations without sitting down as Queens in visible constitutions I shall desire the Godly seriously and impartially to examine these Quaeries by the word of God We were all in a spiritual sense asleep and it is no shame but a honour to yeild to the conquest of truth and suffer it freely to triumph over our former misleadings and wanderings The Quaeries in particular to you are these 1. Whether as above your Office of the Ministery the corner-stone of your outward building being derived from the national hierarchy which successively came from the Pope be not one of Babylons stones and whether it be not against this text Jer. 51.26 They shall not take of thee a stone for foundations but thou shalt be desolate for ever saith the Lord. 2. Whether your gathering of Gospel-Churches out of true Gospel-Churches which you acknowledge the national to be be warranted by the Scriptures if so we desire your proofs for it 3. Whether your making of Elders without laying on of hands be agreeable to the primitive practice 4. Whether the receiving in of members made by your selves be taken from the primitive pattern that is whether such a Covenant and subscription thereto was the Ordinance by which men entred into Church-fellowship in that Gospel-day or whether members were not then received in by laying on of hands if by such a Covenant we desire your Scriptures to warrant it 5. Whether all this be not to omit or transgress the lawes and change the ordinances Isa 24.6 Yet one thing more You have taken a great deal of pains through your whole Book to prove a true visible stated Gospel-Church thorowout the Gospel-times but all this while you have not shewed us which of all the several forms is that true stated Church Rome arrogates it the Lutherans usurp it the English Episcopacie plead it the Presbyters and you chalenge it the Dippers appropriate it those called Brownists claim it as their sole interest the Independents assume it And truely the wisest man in Europe taking a thorow view of every one of these Church-models will be at a stand certainly to determine which of them is the true and right and which had its lineal descent in the rectitude of Order from the Primitive The more accurately he examines the greater occasion he may finde to question all Sir I beseech you not to take in prejudice what I have here presented in benevolence For though many things may appear something strange at first yet I hope upon second thoughts you will finde them no other then the real truths of God delivered by the Prophets Apostles and the Lord himself I presume you will not adjudge him who hath been and is your cordial friend to become your enemy because he tells you the truth and that in the same language the Spirit in Scripture speaks Indeed I may seem to some to be over-sharp but the discoveries by the vials are so imparted by the Spirit as at the one side to increase the torments of the marked souldiers of Antichrist so on the other side thorowly to searse and eat out the mystery of that deceit too deeply riveted in the mindes of many vessels of honour For though the Spouse was not totally deceived so as to be struck at the heart or killed yet was she so much deluded as to receive a wound Cant. 5.7 which cannot recover a perfect cure but by a searching salve And for my self I dare not daub in the things of God nor call evil good nor darkness light nor soothe up with flattering titles left my Maker should destroy me When I see my brother straying I am commanded to rebuke with plainness and not in any wise to suffer sin to rest upon him to omit which duty were a symptome of hatred Lev. 19.17 And I will assure you they are no other then the faithful wounds of a friend which in receiving may carry the vertue of an excellent oil that will not break your head but onely remove such putrefaction as might otherwise procure your loss at the day of Jesus Christ FINIS