imply'd Some observe That Jerusalem at the destruction of it was divided into three parts The learned Hammond observes That Rome Imperial was at its destruction divided into three parts Hoathens Hereticks and Orthodox much Apostate in manners And the text saith expresly That his City the Decapolity of Papal Rome should be about the time of the dissolution of it divided into three parts And why into three parts at its dissolution but because it was at first constituted of three parts and subsisted of the same three parts after the constituting of it to wit of a sensual secular and spiritual matter called Spiritually Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified because serving the lusts of the flesh the lusts of the eyes and pride of life and misled by a threefold wisdom of worldly folly The wisdom of this World saith the text is Sensual Earthly and Devilish This threefold City subsisted as the three parts of it of this threefold matter aforesaid not distinguished by distance of place though not wholly without that nor by an unmixt juncture of the matter gross and entire because commixed at least in a great measure by a promiscuous confusion For Example The Composition of Pilulae Ruffi is made up of a threefold matter Myrrh Aloes and Saffron not of each unmixed but this threefold matter incorporated makes one Mass wherein each part hath notwithstanding its peculiar propriety and operation So these three sorts of Professors the Profane Proud and Worldly made up as one Mass this great City the Decapolity of Papal Rome by a promiscuous complication of all three Therefore the threefold division of it is or may be much after the similitude of that threefold division of Rome Imperial observed as aforesaid by the Learned Hammond We shall examine and compare the threefold sub-antitype in our Saviours time with its Prototypes and their and its Antitypes And First There was then in Judea and Jerusalem a sensual subantitype-part whom the proud Pharisees called Sinners and our Saviour Publicans and Harlots These were for sensuality of life and dissolute loosness indeed Sodomites in Judea and Jerusalem and agreed well with Sodom as their Prototype and with their Antitype Spiritual Sodom which is only such loose dissolute professors in all Sects of the Papal Decapolity as under some careless trivial form and profession of Christianity or perhaps even without that follow after Sensuality as the Sodomites did The wisdom of this world saith the text is first Sensual Secondly A second sub-antitype-part in our Saviour's time was the Secular part of Judea and of its Metropolis minding like literal Egypt Earthly things Pharaoh and his Servants to secure that Kingdom by contrary means slew the new-born males of Israel such Cockatrice-egs are hatcht by covetousness So Herod also to secure a Kingdom an Earthly Kingdom also slew the new-born males of Israel at the birth of our Saviour Pilate and others exprest the same wisdom covetous self-destroying wisdom at the death of our Saviour And what was this second part but Egypt plainly sprung up as a Sub-antitype in Judea Here 's the very identity of the same wisdom the reality of the same works betwixt both the Secular parts of these two Kingdoms And this Sub-antitype part as it exactly agrees with its Prototype literal Egypt agrees exactly with its Antitype Spiritual Egypt whose wisdom of earthly avarice hath the same superscription with that of the Sub-antitype in our Saviour's time and with its Prototype This second part seeks like Nabal worldly gain by that wisdom and wicked frugality that produceth indeed with the losse of their lives and souls the losse of it This second part these Professors of Woolf-like wisdom and greedy avarice are ever very busie in buying and selling yet will not buy but sell the Truth or if they do will pay no price conform and adequate to the worth of it nor recompence the Witnesses thereof according to their just deserts Come sayes Pharaoh when he went about a work of this wisdom let us work wisely And these Egypts Antitype will needs seem more religious and sober than Spiritual Sodomites are and in buying the Truth can go a wiser and cheaper way to work till through the folly of this earthly wisdom time truth and their life are all lost together The wisdom of this world is secondly earthly Thirdly The third part in the Sub-antitype was the Pharisaical part most blind proud and bloody We find the Prototype by our Saviour himself thus exprest O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent c. Mat. 23.37 That is The Hierusalamites Apostate Predecessors their Prototypes in pride and cruel Persecutions killed the Prophets and stoned those that were sent unto them And their succeeding Sub-antitype the Pharisees in our Saviour's time followed or rather far exceeded their examples for factious pride and blinde and bloody ignorance They by heady prejudices rash censures and wicked surmises persecuted the Apostles killed the Saints and crucified Christ the King of Righteousness The same wisdom of spiritual pride works in their Antitype the same wickedness serves to kindle Seditions to create Cavils to multiply contradictions against the Truth and its Witnesses and to raise much strife of words to wicked purposes as their Type the Pharisees did against our Saviour Of whom he expresly said which is rather more true in their Antitype You are of your father the Devil c. The wisdom of this world is Thirdly Devilish This third part in the Prototypes and the Sub-antitypes was most infamous for cruelty And this third Antitype-part in all Seâ—s of the Papal Decarchy is the most direful impugner of Gospel-Truth and persecutor of the Witesses of it But I have spent time too much about this trivial Cavill This City therefore we clearly see subsisted at its first building of three parts as it was to be before or about its final dissolution divided into three parts And Secondly It 's called spiritually Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified as an aggregate of all three in the first building of it But called Babylon in its dissolution because divided as Babel into speeches into a confusion of many modern Sects and Sub-divisions but chiefly into three parts That this City subsisted of three parts is proved sufficiently But what that City so subsisting is remains to be further proved which I shall shew in part here but more fully when I come to handle the Epocha's of the six Vials and six Trumpets synchronizing therewith in 1260 years For the most judicious Writers so far as I find are apt more or lesse to mistake this City The most or almost all Orthodox Writers misconceive that City in Apoc. 17 18 chapters to be Papal Rome and the same City in the 11th 16th chapters because that City in the 17th and 18th chapters is called Babylon the great and that City in the 11th chapter is in the 16th
six Angels should sound their Trumpets that is the Gospel-witnesses should prophesie six times seven moneths of days annual which make 1260 years So long they should prophesie in sackcloth That is they should lift up their voices like trumpets as the Priests of the Lord did at the siege of Jericho six times but with somewhat feeble blasts and in much frailty and without any great visible effect or event of their sounding to convince Sects or convert Hereticks But they should sound their six Trumpets prophesie in sackcloth no longer For there should be no longer time saith the text No longer time of the six trumpets sounding of the Witnesses sackcloth prophesie nor any longer time of the transactions and durations of all these twelve Epochaes But then or very soon after when the 7th Angel should begin to sound when the witnesses shall begin to prophesse with more power in practice then the Mystery of God should be finished as he hath declared c. that is His Church should then begin to be adorned as a Bride and the Mystery of Iniquity in all Sects Papal Mahumetan and modern to be made manifest They shall proceed no further saith the text for their folly shall be made manifest to all men This Epoche of the six trumpets though sufficiently clear at present is fully proved in the precedent Epochaes and ensuing parts of this Treatise The Eleventh Epoche THe Eleventh Epoche the same time and thing with the former for the most part is of the pouring out of the six Vials They were Golden vials but full of the Plagues and wrath of God therefore they synchronize with the six trumpets sounding and with the witnesses sackcloth-prophesie For the witnesses were to smite the Earth with all Plagues as often as they would in the days of their prophesie which we find were 1260 days and prophetically import as is or rather will be made apparent so many years It s apparent therefore that the witnesses prophecying for six times seven moneths of days annual or 1260 years in sackloth were the six Angles that sounded their six trumpets and the six Angles that poured forth their golden vials And that their successive prophesies in sackcloth for six time seven moneths of days annual were those six golden vials For God gave them power to prophesie so long in sackcloth And their prophesie by the power of God is no doubt a golden vial and six golden vials in that sixfold space of time But six golden vials full of the Plagues and wrath of God contingently or occasionally upon the impenitent Anti-chrictian world because of their profane contempt of their reproofs For Corruptis optimi pessima The best things by abuse bring the worst effects So the Gospel-witnesses prophesies and reproofs by the power of God are that 's undeniable golden vials full of the greatest mercies to men by them admonished but by abuse they are though golden vials filled with all the Plagues of the wrath of God And how do the Gospel-witnesses and the Anti-christian world fill those golden vials of the witnesses reproofs with the wrath of God either against themselves or oothers I answer the Gospel-witnesses fill which falls out too oft their own vials with temporal Plagues against themselves So the Prophet sent to Bethel was some what remiss but in some circumstance only a man would think in this duty of prophesie Therefore he filled that golden vial the word of the Lord in his own mouth with a self-destroying Plague temporal For a Lion forthwith met him and slew him So the Gospel-witnesses oft fill their golden vials their gifts of prophesie with self-destroying Plagues when they do that duty with a cold careless remisness when they prophesie in words and not in works or practice themselves what they reprove in others when they oppose the truth they should promote whiles they labour not that their lips may preserve knowledge and they prophesie by power from God whiles they do not that duty or do it without sedulity Thus the Gospel-witnesses fill their golden vials the word of prophesie in their own mouths with self destroying Plagues of the wrath of God Lastly I will givepower to my two witnesses Religious Ministers and Magistrates and they shall prophesie And what is prophesie The Spirit or gift of prophesie is saith the text the testimony of Jesus or a faithful witness of sincere truth both in words and works without delayes diminishing or defalking so much as in circumstance any part of it which this Prophet sent to Bethel found by sad experience This appertains as their duty to Ministers to do it in words and in works also And to Magistrates to do it in works or practise and in words also though not in words altogether in such manner as it belongs to Ministers Prophesia est testimonium tum verbis tum fact is verum afferre non impugnationem convitlum vel cavillationem inferre For they that prefer truth-opposing-contradiction or prefer not the truth conform to Gods command prophesie not or at least fill that golden Vial their power and gifts to prophesie with the Plagues and wrath of God against themselves Secondly others also perhaps true Saints fill the golden Vials of the Gospel-witnesses with self-destroying temporal Plagues So a certain Prophet said to a man in the name of the Lord Smite me I pray thee The man perhaps in favour to him as a Prophet refused to smite him and so filled that golden Vial the word of the Lord in the mouth of that Prophet with a self-destroying Plague For a Lion also forthwith met him and slew him 1 Kings 20.35 36. Saints sometimes too oft fill the golden Vials of the witnesses with the sharpest temporal Plagues against themselves Oft with grievous spiritual plagues and desertions which themselves sustain Oft with most deadly plagues upon all men Babylon the great Rome-Pagan or rather Rome Christian and Papal newly apostate in manners fell That is the Saints that stood in her and that only could fall indeed fell from their first love and works and some fled out of her therefore Her plagues her Witnesses having finish'd their Primitive testimony against her defections came in one day Death Mourning Famine Fire chap. 18.2 8. A few sincere Saints in that City stood and that City supported by their standing stood firm A few sincere Saints fell and Babylon the great fell by their fall Fell temporally by their Spiritual fall in part their fall though but in part filled the Vials of her faithful Witnesses their reproofes and Prophesies with the Plagues and wrath of God which they poured forth upon that falling City True Saints thus fill the Golden Vials of the Witnesses with Plagues against themselves against the Church of God against all men If whiles they sound their trumpets they shut their ears or are hearers of the word only not doers of it or do it carelesly or inconform to Gods command If they forget judgment mercy faith
Apostles Such Sects nevertheless come nearest to true Churches that holding forth sound Doctrine are sound most fruitful in the practice of good Manners Sects are either more General or more Special Sects more Special are Societies of Professors fallen from sound Doctrine or good Manners and separated from Churches more sound then themselves The more General Sect are such Professors in all Sects and Churches as are fallen though not from sound Doctrine from the practice of good Manners Doctor Colet calls this Sect The Sect of evil Manners Many Saints at least men somewhat Moral and Ingenuous may be found in many Sects who are the supports of them and are usually least regarded and most persecuted in and by those Sects For Locusts are apt to creep into and corrupt through Inadvertency Pride Ignorance and avarice all Sects and even the truest and best Church-Societies Cause Dissentions in them oppose diligence and fidelity and endanger to destroy them Therefore it is not my design in this Treatise to fall foul as Weather-beaten Ships at Sea upon any Sects or Church-Societies but in love to reprove them plainly and to manifest to them their manifold gross and dangerous mistakes in Opinions and Manners of which their inconviction though they little mind it is their greatest misery they do or can sustain on Earth To that end I shall beginning at the Foundations of both endeavor to distinguish the true Church and Saints from false Professors in all Sects and Churches And first The Rock whereon the true Church is built is Christ alone Sunt caetera Arenae All other Formal fruitless Christ-pretending Professions are but Sands of deceit or Smoake whereon the Apostacy of Antichrist and all false Practices are built The first Superstructure upon the true Rock is Animadvertency For Faith comes by hearing and hearing by Animadvertency to hear He heareth to very little purpose that minds not much what or how he hears For Secondly the first Superstructure upon the sandy Foundation of the Apostacy of Antichrist is inanimadvertency or a careless unmindfulness To hear profitably or To do what they hear Animadvertency the first Superstructure upon the sure Rock is threefold a mindfulness to hear to expect and to practise what is heard and read and brings forth a threefold operative Grace Faith Hope and Charity though true Animadvertency and more accepted of God is a fruit of that threefold Grace Inanimadvertency the first Superstructure upon Sandy Foundations is threefold Non animadversive Semi-animadversive Mis-animadversive and brings a three-fold effect contrary to Faith Hope Charity To wit Perfidy false confidence and rash and censorious uncharitableness This threefold inadvertency opposite to true Repentance is the threefold Substructure of Antichrist Sensual Secular and Spiritual And first Non-animadvertency is the Substructure of Antichrist sensual or of such Professors as mind nothing orlittle else but loose Profaneness Such were the men of the Old World They knew nothing saith the Text till the Flood came c. And no marvel For how should thew know any thing that minded nothing Non-advertists are very Beasts both have hearts alike to mind nothing Therefore both perished alike in the Flood These slothful Citizens of Spiritual Sodom regard not to read the Scriptures that testifie of Christ or Books that unfold the meaning of them Or they read both but mind not through sensual levity and folly to understand what they read Such were the Men and Swine of Gadara They cared not to know Christ the living truth and these care as little to know what truth in practice is So far are they from that that they mind not so much as the proper objects of right-producing Animadvertency or the Principles of the practice of good manners which Principles because little minded by most Professors through almost a general inanimadvertency we shall insert in the sequel Such Non-advertists are the Owles of Ignorance unclean and hateful Birds that hate the light and would were it in their power utterly extinguish it and destroy the Witnesses of it For truth in Doctrine and Manners is directly contrary to the bruitish ignorance of Non-advertists Therefore they oppose both by a direct opposition Yet these seek shelter for their sins of bestial ignorance under some careless Formalities or in some corner of the Court that was cast out and given to the Gentiles and receive the Seed of Grace like the High-way-ground let it lye where it 's scattered till it 's lost but it takes no Root there as it did in the Thorny and Stony grounds Secondly Semi-advertency is the Substructure of secular Apostacy or of men minding Earthly things These Professors for such as the cause is such is the effect Worship God by halves do good Works by halves are half-Christians in shew in deed Heathens And though Spiritual Egypt owns them are much like those Samaritans that succeeded captive Israel in their vacant Habitations They worshipped the Lord and worshipped their Idols also And these Locusts are such Semi-advertists seem to serve God by halves but in deed covetousness which is Idolatry altogether They were Men and Women in appearance Lions in practice winged Horses in pursuit of their practices For Semi-advertists assume several shapes according to which their evil manners differ Under these men if I may so call them not only good men but good works suffer Martyrdom They spin many threds of good works and go on for a space But their Lions teeth of avarice before these good works be finished bite in pieces those threds and lay those good works a bleeding All their good works are Opera refuga works of Apostacy They begin many and perfect none For Thorns sprang up in the Thorny-ground and choaked the good Seed And these are that Thorney-ground wherein Cavils Slaunders Quarrels Missuppositions Pretences Excuses and Busie neglect of the best things springs up and through Pride and Covetousness choake every good Work before it be finished Pilate was guilty of this sin so was Saul Both did very much and then turn'd Apostates in not perfecting what they had begun True Saints are oft guilty of these sins and pay dear for their Semi-advertencies and half performances For Moses omitted to circumcise his son therefore God met him and would have kil'd him 'T is like he lay sick near unto death So the Prophet sent to Bethel had performed within a very little all the task that God sent him to do But a Lion met him and slew him because he left part a very little part of his work undone Little do many true Saints imagine that the cause of their losses languishing sicknesses and oft untimely deaths is their Semi-advertency causing careless half-performances and keeping them back from perfecting any good work Such Saints can scarce be discerned by theirs Works from Locusts and Hypocrites Semi-advertency is so much worse then Non-advertency as Apostacy is worse than Profaneness or as To know and profess the truth and oppose it is worse than
part which God loveth Thou lovest truth in the inward part Psal 51.9 because not only the intellect but the Will is therein conform to Gospel-Rule and Gods command But God worketh to will and to do Not only to will but to do And therefore Fourthly True Righteousness or truth in practice is Quadruplex And this is most comprehensive It comprehends Truth Incomplex Complex and Triplex And is itself above all these a Conformity Est conformitas non tantum intellect us voluntatis sed Acticnis cum rebus agendis It 's a conformity not of judgment and Will only but of Works with the Incomplex Principles of true practice or extrinsick subjects of true Righteousness The Extrinse Subject of true Practice or first considerations of due Animadvertency to do right are these A Quo Quid Cui Quantum Quoties To which we may add Quomodo Though that comprehending in some sort the five former is oft interserted in the handling of them And first A Quo That is Such as seek to be sincere must consider and how far it concerns themselves who are most fit to hold forth Judgement Merey Faith For all though all must endeavour it are not alike able to do it Secondly Quid what recompenses Poenam vel praemium are right to retribute Thirdly Cui To whom punishments and to whom therewards of well doing are due Fourhly Quantum How much punishment or reward For Peccata non sunt aequalia Offences are not alike nor good Works or desers equal Fifthly Quoties How oft Judgement Mercy and Faith must be held forth to the same Men Saints Sects or dissenting Bretheren David had respect to all the Commadements of God And all that respect his Commands to Practise right must have due respect at least to these five or six principia praecognoscenda Principles of Incomplex Truth Therefore true Righteousness in practice comprehends first Truth Incomplex for without that there can be no Truth Complex because there can be no conformity of the Intellect with those outward Principles of true practice if they are not known For Complex Truth Haec mensura rei est in mente vel Ore loquentis is the true measure of things in the mind or mouth of man But Incomplex-truth est mensura rei in se is the measure of every thing in itself wherefore where no such thing is or if in being is not known there can be no Complex-truth or know ledge so much as of any outward Object or Ground of true Righteousuess And therefore Secondly True Righteousness comprehends Complex-truth because it 's a conformity also of the Will And there can be no conformity of the Will with the Intellect without Complex-truth Because the mind of man can never will that rightly which it does not first truly understand Thirdly True Righteousness in practice comprehends also veritatem triplicem a threefold Truth because it 's a conformity of Action with a right informed-will and intellect For Actions can never be right in practice unless the Will that works them and the Intellect that guides the Will be conform to principia veritatis praecognoscenda those Incomplex principles of truth in practice that are the first outward matter of true Righteousness And therefore Fourthly Truth in practice is Quadruplex Or a conformity of Actions with a right-informed Will and Understanding That is A conformity of all three Will Understanding and Actions with the Incomplex Principles of Truth in Practice Thus we see that true Christian Practice must be of necessity unavoidable a Quadruplex conformity and therefore not be like Locusts Crowns Works of deceit and sloth but a System of Animadvertency versant in more Noble Actions of Berean sedulity and fidelity In which true practice though it be a work by the best Professors of arduous acquisition even the conformity of the Intellect with the Incomplex Principles of practick-Practick-truth is the gift of God to such as ask it as they ought For God is the giver of Wisdom to such as rightly seek it And every good and perfect gift cometh down from God But Truth Triplex and Quadruplex or the conformity of Will and Works with the said first Grounds of true Righteousness is more especially the work of God who worketh to will and to do This is that Gold or the more visible manifestation of it which God exhorteth the Church of Laodicea to buy of him to make her rich That Gold whereof the rich Crowns of all true Saints as they are visible to men are or rather shall be made And shall be that pure Gold that shall pave the Streets of the holy City Revel 21.18 But The Locusts have upon their heads as it were Crowns like Gold As it were like in Deceit and appearance and in deed most unlike unto true Righteousness For Their Righteousness of deceit is either dilatory or defalked or insolent or rashly censorious or otherwise inconform to the right Principles of Truth in Practice And therefore it is though it look like Gold light as Straw if lay'd in the Ballance This Straw-like levity of Love and Works which we find in the Locusts hath ever been the swift Subversion and perdition of all persons and places true Saints scarce excepted that have perished upon Earth Belshazzar was laid in the Ballance and found wanting How wanting His his Princes and Kingdoms Judgements and Works were found wanting in weight Therefore he lost his life And his Kingdom was translated that very night Eli a true but too careless servant of God was laid in the Ballance and found wanting And how did Elie's good Works want weight His sons ran into a slaunder and he stayed them not His reproof seemed fit from a Father for such Offenders but it wanted weight was too mild Such sins deserved more sharp rebuke and severer Discipline Therefore God cut him off and all his Off-spring not leaving one alive But true Saints themselves in these times think it no such great sin to be wanting in all good Works Either their Promises want performance or their Profession wants practice or their Practice is wanting in conformity to the Incomplex Principles of Truth in Practice Nor will they be reproved nor reprove others except perhaps as Eli did They like him stay very few by the reproving of them from running into slaunders They evidence not clearly what Truth is nor discover sin but earnestly declaim against it and are very much ignorant of it They convince not Dissenters convert not the Diffident reclaim not the Disobedient stay none or very few and they themselves will scarce be stay'd by just reproofs from running into Errours in Faith and Manners That is little their study or care Their Studies are versant about things of much higher concernment and they mind more serious matters Such levity of Love and Works and Inconformity in practice to Gospel-Rule is or next to it the smoake of the Locusts Babels penultimate Antitype Rome partly Heretical but chiefly as Orthodox
covetous and his practices partial or but in part And such services to God joyned with covetousness Also all half performances and commixt worshippings of God and Baal Christ and Belial or of God and Mammon and all haltings betwixt two contrary Practices or Opinions are Spiritual Sorceries and are expresly compared to Witchcraft and Idolatry 1 Sam. 15.22 23. Because the best works of such Professors are mixt Heterogene or Lincy-Woolsy works of deceits and wicked exemptions from sincere practice and true obedience Fourthly Nor of their Fornications Literal Fornications in sensual Antichrist are many But the Fornications of the Mystery of Iniquity and these intended in the Text are the same are more Spiritual And what are they When few or many joyn in outward-worship or in any Church-Society to act Spiritual-filthiness That 's Spiritual fornication That is when such come together not for the better but for the worse Not to be more fruitful but more barren in good works when they meet together not to edifie but to increase strise and ignorance This and such like conjoynt-practices are Spiritual fornication It is an absurdity in the very name of a true Church That God should call any people out of the world to practise covetousness Or to become Vines bringing forth if any fruits for themselves for their Proselytes Co-associates nothing for others nor to further any thing that 's profitable or honest But the Conscript-Church shall not be defiled with Women for they are Virgins Ch. 14.4 That is Her sacred company shall abhor the pollutions of this Spiritual filthiness and be redeemed from the Earth and among men to God and the Lamb ver 3 4. But it 's contrary to the Nature of a true Church That she should be called or redeemed of God from the Earth to follow Earthly things Or that she should be redeemed from among men to mind nothing or to omit good manners and be ignorant of them Such co-adjoynings as produce these or such like ends are Spiritual fornications far from the ends of that conscript incontaminate Company But there is no Church till those first fruits appear can be free from gross pollutions of Spiritual fornication because they have not their hearts turned back they yet repented not saith the Text of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their fornications Nor Fifthly Of their Thefts And what are they To diminish or derogate from the due woâ—th or works of any man is Spiritual thievery Such are all half-performances like that of the unjust Steward's who set down but fifty measures of Oyl where an hunred were due And therefore All witnessing of the truth in words and works as Pilate did by halves seconded by recidivations or oppositions are Spiritual thievery and murderous thefts as that in Pilate was All careless or willful derogations from the true meaning of the Scriptures or from the truth in the Writings of those that rightly unfold them are spiritual thievery and such detractors have all plagues that can be possible denounced against them Revel 22.19 And therefore To affirm that no right collection can be made nor clear conclusion drawn from Prophetick-Scriptures is Sacrilegious and Blaspemous Theft as I shall further shew in the second pare in answer to that mistaken Assertion Scriptura symbolica non est argumentativa Blind Hypocrites will by no means believe that inanimadversive men that mind not hear not read not the incomplex Principles of right in itself and that 's the shame and folly of beastial Professors be they never so literate or seeming Religious must needs be wicked men But their practice is a continual derogation from the truth and their works at best but works of darkness and ignorance wrought without any Rule of Reason And therefore must be Spiritual theft of necessity For Thirdly Ut jugulent homines surgunt de nocte latrones Theft is the proper work of darkness And Spiritual Theft delights most therein It oft makes the Truth itself to be a mysterious means to practise Murder and promote Robberies So Doeg by speaking the truth when he should not and by not speaking the whole truth robbed David of his due repute with Saul and robbed the Priests of the Lord of their lives A theft like unto this but much worse is when Men and Saints as they commonly do raise slanders from shadows and say They hear such and such evil reports from the mouthes of other men That many affirm the same c. But never name who those speakers are conceal those slanderers or rather feign such to be whereas in deed there were never any such speakers nor such things spoken Or at least they make it not appear and De non apparentibus non existentibus eadem ratio Things that appear not to be are not in being in the Eye of Reason and Judgment of Equity This way of wounding men is a most wicked way of lying defamation Such fictitious slanders did Doeg never produce against David or the Priests of the Lord These Speluncarum mendacia Thefts least perceived whereby many are robbed of their Lives ruinated in their Estates come out of dark Dens But indeed those reporters themselves where the first pretended speakers are not produced are those Robbers and Thieves that slay others by the Sword of their slanderous tongues Ad fabulas credendas facilitas An easiness to believe lyes or a disposition apt to derogate rash censoriousness is a thievish disposition and denotes that such depravers are Spiritual Thieves Such surreptitious Professors where they prevail are the excision of Mercy and Equity and supplant all good Manners because they steal away the hearts of the Ministers of Justice as Absalom did the hearts of Israet and make them basely subservient to Sycophants and to receive and believe lyes It 's the most deplorable demonstration of base degenerosity in Men and chiefly in Magistrates to suffer themselves to be made miserable preys so they seem strict and religious to Depravers and Hypocrites Nor was there said Jerom so simple and mean a Scribe that conspired not c. But now we may rather say There is no such sordid Pickthank or ignorant depraver no such treacherous Ziba or slavish servant nor a Lad so silly or illiterate that is not sufficiently able to carry away an hundred Captives and to alienate through lying defamations their Judgments and Affections far from doing right or shewing mercy And therefore Thou shalt not run with a multitude to do evil For he that runneth with a multitude of evil men is a member of that multitude So Men and Ministers of Justice that suffer themselves to be in such sort basely stoln away by Spiritual Thieves make by that means themselves Thieves These now more than ever increasing worshippings of Idols and these Spiritual Murders and Sorceryes and Fornications and Thefts are the sins of which Men and Saints have not yet repented And from which their hearts and hands must be turned
Sects make up the whole body of the man of sin but they most that fell from Faith or manners in those ten Nations over whom the Representatives of the Primitive Church once presided because these Nations were chiefly Antichristian that sometimes held forth Primitive found Doctrine and Manners and have since revolted from one or both which appears in Thes 2.3 where the Apostle immediately before he describes the man of sin and foretells his coming infers a necessity of falling away first before he could come which evidently implyes That the body of Antichrist was to be an Apostate body made up at first for the most and chiefest part of Revolted Church-Members Many Expositors upon the place call that falling away That grand and general Revolt of the Gospel-Church from Faith and Obedience But what that falling away was and how and when the Church fell and fled into the Wilderness we shall further shew in part at present but more fully afterwards The certainty and duration of that defection which could not be total in the true Church fully appears in two several Texts of one and the same Chapter Rev. 12.6 14. And the Woman fled into the Wilderness vers 6. And to the Woman were given two Wings of a great Eagle that she might flee into the Wilderness c. vers 14. Into the Wilderness that is into the secret subterfuges of obscure Latency And the time of Her continuing there is exprest in both Texts Two Texts in one and the same Chapter are the sacred twofold Testimony of the God of Truth shewing the certainty and duration of her defection But she could not in such sort flee until she fell from Heaven wherein she stood before she fled vers 1. Heaven was her primitive station Her conversation contrary to that aforesaid triplicit Iniquity was in Heaven till near about 407. I shall not here stand to shew how she stood in and fell from Heaven in a twofold respect For her standing was both Temporal and Spiritual Her Temporal standing for the Text refers not without the other to that was from about 292 to the time aforesaid as the sequel will clearly shew Her Spiritual standing in Heaven her more Heavenly Conversation was all the time of Her primitive station that is She as she ever should held forth so long contrary to Sensuality Covetousness and Pride Sobriety Equity and Veracity Secondly Sound Doctrine Thirdly Right Church Discipline What Sobriety Equity and Veracity because little looked into and perhaps less discerned are we shall shew afterwards This threefold true Gospel Obedience opposite to Sensuality Avarice and spiritual Pride with right Discipline and sound Doctrine are the true Churches Cognizance the certain marks of the true Church which whilst in Heaven clothed more spiritually clothed with the Sun she held forth But about the year 407 her Members and their Successors fell some à tanto some à toto They that fell only in part fled into the Wilderness and were persecuted because they fell and fell but in part by those that fell wholly to the Apostacy of Antichrist And we find a third sort more free from that defection and less forward to fly whom the Text calls a Remnant And the Dragon saith the text was wroth with the Woman and went and made War with the Remnant of her Seed which kept the Commandments of God and have the Testimony of Jesus Rev. 12.17 Where they are not taxed either with falling away or flying but are witnessed to have kept the Commandments of God and the Testimony of Jesus And that even then after the revolting Church was fled into the Wilderness from the face of the Serpent to wit Of the second Dragon These Champions of Christian courage Sons of Fortitude that kept the Commands of God when the rest of the Primitive Church were some in part some wholly faln might seem for they were but few like Caleb and Joshua Meses and Aaron when all Israel besides was faln away in part or in whole from Faith in the Promises and Obedience conform to God's Commands Numb 14.10 Nor is it like that those Professors that stood best were free from falling in part or held out long against the force of the second Dragon but followed the flying Church into the Wilderness also For when the prototype Church Jacobs Family fled into the Wilderness and so into Egypt her place there prepared of God there was not one that we find that staid behind or fled not from the Famine Nor may we imagine That they that fell wholly to the Apostacy of Antichrist fell wholly from sound Doctrine for they fell little from that at first but from the fruits of it Obedience conform to Faith For the Devils believe and tremble but fell wholly from all Obedience and therefore though they fell not at all that we find from the Doctrine of Faith they fell totally So the Children of the total Apostacy in the beginning of the grand defection were too forward to do the works of their father the Devil and though they like him sell little at first from the Doctrine of Faith fell wholly from Obedience to oppose the Truth and persecute the Witnesses of it Therefore their Apostacy though they fell little or had not faln at all from the Doctrine of Faith was total as the figless fig-tree though perhaps the fullest of leaves was wholly fruitless For Waters oft ebb and stow with full currents in the same channels so sound Doctrine is the Channel in which some men may and do run the wayes of God's Commands And sound Doctrine is also the same Channel wherein many men as the Pharisees who said but did not did may and do run in full currents quite contrary Courses to impugne the practise of Gospel Truth and persecute the Witnesses of it This is the greatest Apostacy guilded with Hypocrisie For If the light of the eye saith our Saviour be darkness how great is that darkness So If sound Doctrine it self be by uncharitablness perverted to misapplications or made to oppose the Truth and persecute the Assertors of it that 's the greatest Apostacy both from Faith and Charity Therefore they that fell á toto totally fell from Faith of veracity or from seeking after sincere obedience to impugne it and persecute the doers of it by a constant current of opposition though many of them fell little at first from the Doctrine of Faith For gross Heresies or Doctrine greatly corrupt are more peculiar to sensual Antichrist such as the Arrians were and Mahumetans are than to Antichrist Secular and Spiritual that fell less from the Doctrine of Faith and perhaps more from manners to manners not so sensual but more injust and merciless which the sequel will clearly shew But at present we shall begin to compare both both the holy City and City of Apostacy together that thereby both may plainly appear And first They that fell least and they that when they fell most fell but in part
bare ignorance Balaam was much guilty of this sin of Semi-advertency half mindful of Gods command and half unmindful Therefore drawn by the strong Cords of Covetousness he came at last to act directly coutrary to Gods command But an Angel stood in his way to kill him and he was slain at last for the same sin But Modern Semi-advertists his and his followers Antitypes are apt to stand contrary to that Angel in the way against the truth to stop the progress of it and destroy such as do assert it For Covetousness adjoyned to Semi-advertency is soon filled with Canine anger against all truth and chiefly against the practisers of it and readily complyes with all such as seem Religious that are most ready to slaunder and asperse them and it So the Senate of Pharisees consented as one to the sentence of the High Priest against Christ Semi-advertists extend at first some trivial half performed help to the truth and the witnesses of it but after oppose it and desert or destroy them They hear read and pray by halves or so far as to get a Form of Religion but not the power of it begin many good works finish none do half leave half undone are half hot half cold which God abhors Judas when the seventy forsook Christ did not forsake him nor was found blame worthy by the Apostles for about 1260. dayes But then through Semi-advertency caused by Covetousness turn'd Traytor what Family or Church could be more pure than that whereof Christ was Head What Doctrine more perfect than that he taught Yet that Locust lurk't even there Semi-advertists sow pregnant Seeds of perfidious Prodition Schism and Apostacy even in the best Church-Societies and endanger to destroy them Thirdly Mis-animadvertency the fruit of Charity-wanting Pride and parent of the greatest ignorance is the principal ground of the Spiritual Apostacy whose Professors like the Pharisees take the greatest pains to least purpose pray hear and read not by halves but amiss and misapply through uncharitableness all their Devotions Doctrine Gifts and Parts to deprave the Truth and destroy the witnesses of it These search the Scriptures and such Books as unfold the meaning of them and find in both so blind and perverse is wicked uncharitableness that which was never written in either So the Pharisees searched the Scriptures with much uncharitable blinde truth-misapplying sedulity and found there that our blessed Saviour should dye as a blasphemer which was never written And those Readers aforesaid might read through cursory haste and uncharitable misapplication my Treatise and find therein that I made Luther Calvin and all Reformists to be the Locusts which was not written Misadvertists are readiest to cast their blind bolts of precipitate rashness against Truth in Doctrine and Practice and the assertors of both The Stony ground owns them and they receive the seed of Grace like it They aspire to the most specious pretences and seek tegment and shelter in the fairest corners of the Court that was cast out and given to the Gentiles Herin lyes the Spirit and life of the Apostacy of Antichrist That men mind not half mind or mind amiss those proper objects of due animadvertency that are Principia praecognoscenda the Principles and Grounds of all obedience to God and right to men Improbus non animadvertit ut intelligat A wicked man saith the Text minds not or regards not that he may understand Prov. 29.7 Therefore Nonadvertists must needs be desperately wicked because they know not nor mind to know what the Grounds of doing right or wrong are Therefore Semiadvertists must be more wicked because they mind but by halves and so to less and worse purpose then they that mind nothing For those ten Semiadvertist-Spies sent to search the land of promise gave in part a good report but otherwise an evil report of it and of the promise of God which brought swift destruction upon themselves and caused that all Israel four excepted were destroyed Whereas Nonadvertists that as bruit Beasts mind nothing cannot be so guilty of bringing evil reports upon that which is good or of causing such general calamity and destruction in States and Churches Lastly Misadvertists must be most wicked because they above all Professors are most fruitful in evil reports They search the Scriptures and such Books as unfold them and find in both as the Pharises did what was never written in either You saith our Saviour are of your Father the Devil and the works of your Father you will do Lying Derogation and worth and Truth-Detraction in careless and uncharitable Misadvertists especially in such as most desire to seem Religious is ex digito Daemonis opus a more peculiar work wrought by the very singer of the Devil in the hearts and mouthes of Hypocrites This threefold inanimadvertency or carelesness to know what Truth is in practice as well as in Doctrine is almost general and seems to overspread the Earth as Waters cover the Sea To know the truth of it and the dangers of it if it be true and how to prevent those dangers is a duty universal incumbent upon all and of the highest and most necessary concernment to all The Prototype Apostacy of the Old World was almost universal Noah Preached an hundred and twenty years and we read not of one man more then his own family that was brought thereby to due Animadtency the ground of true Repentance I am therefore very much afraid that the grand Apostacy is more general then men and Saints imagine it to be I need not name those Texts that denote the Antitype In that World as well as in this there wanted not no doubt many Learned men reputed Religious if not Famous both for Learning and Religion and yet the Text sayes so universal was the inanimadvertency of that Type-Apostacy they knew nothing till the Flood came c. This therefore to foresee and shun the dangers of such an epidemick sin and that sin it self of careless disregard that 's the cause of all ignorance and impenitence is Opus opere dignum a work worth all acceptation as the Apostle speaks in another case of absolute necessity to be set about with all diligence by all For it 's least safe to relye upon Smoak in the mouth of the bottomless pit or upon the Locusts Crowns of Deceit And the righteousness of true Saints too guilty of this sin of the grand inadvertency and Apostacy is like the Oyl in the wise Virgins Lamps but enough if That for themselves only The finding out of the Gunpowder-plot was a most happy discovery But this discovery to prevent the most Dreadful and Epidemick Dangers is of far greater concernment then to foresee and prevent the conflagration of the greatest City or the total destruction of any Nation and admits not a minute of delay by any that 's at all animadversive We shall a little further examine the generality of the grand Apostacy St. Jerom was a man of a serene
arose a Smoake and out of the Smoake came Locusts Chap. 9.2 3. And on their heads were as it were Crowns like Gold Ver. 7. And on theirheads c. Here 's deceptio coronata crowned deceit Deceit hath its Exaltation in these grand deceivers of themselves and others The right solution of this Question What is Truth may seem to be the summe of satisfaction to all Sects people and Professors And the diligent disquisition of it that all might know what Truth in Opinion and practice is is the summe of the design of this Treatise But here it seems not needful only but of necessity and our prime duty to endeavour to discover unto all what the truth of those Gold-like Crowns of the Locusts is or if there be no truth in them what their deceits are The deceits of the Locusts are in Form and profession And Secondly In Practice and Power Their deceits in Form and Profession are shadowed forth by their concomitant Smoake Their Deceits in Practice and Power are presignified by their Crowns as it were like Gold And first Their deceits in Form and Profession are shadowed forth by Smoake For All Profession all Zeal Prayer Prophesie without practice is but Smoake whose bottom is no where True practice is the bottom of true Profession and the substance whereof that is but the shadow To seem and not be Religious is but groundless appearance and deceit and all gifts be they never so great give no bottom to a fruitless Profession Though I speak with tongues of Men and Angels saith the Apostle and though I have the gift of Prophesie and understand all Mysteries and all Knowledge and though I have all Faith and have no Charity I am nothings 1 Cor. 13. If Paul having all these had been nothing without Charity Then all these and all strict Profession and gifts of Prayer and Prophesie without practice-producing Charity are at best but Smoake What that product is and what produceth it claimes our more serious care to enquire in this place Faith Hope and Charity the first fruits of attentive animadvertency are subordinate to Christ that threefold Tree of Life that bears the true fruits of all obedience to God and good manners towards men That Tree during the time of the grand Apostacy seems like that Tree in Daniel that was hewn down and had its branches cut off and its fruit scattered but it shall bear twelve manner of fruits saith the Text Dan. 4.14 Revel 22.2 We shall shew here the Series of it and so proceed Faith is the Root Hope the Stem Charity is the Branches that bear and extend the fruit of it Faith is Faith Hope and Charity impressive as the threefold life of the Tree is in the Root Hope is Faith Hope and Charity intensive as the threefold life of the Tree is in the Stem also Charity is Faith Hope and Charity expressive as the threefold life of the Tree is likewise in its Branches And first True Faith is Faith Hope and Charity impressive For Faith without Hope and Charity is but a false pretence Hope is Faith Hope and Charity intensive For Hope without Faith and Charity is but Smoak Charity is Faith Hope and Charity expressive For Charity without Faith and Hope is but like Locusts Crowns a Crown of deceit Faith works in Hope by Charity Hope works from Faith by Charity Charity works from Faith and Hope The fruit of this threefold Tree is true Christian practice We have shewn what the deceits of the Locusts are in Profession we shall now shew what their deceits are in Practice Secondly As the deceits of the Locusts in Profession are figured by Smoake So their deceits in Practice are shadowed forth by the false appearances of Crowns like Gold Crowns of Gold in Scripture are Hieroglyfick-intimations of Equity and Emblems of Righteousness But the Crowns of the Locusts are deceptious appearnces of truerighteousness and most contrary to it And what 's most like Gold and most contrary to it Nothing is more like it and less the same then Straw The Locustâ— liberality though it look like Gold is Chaff or Stâ—â—w for levity and withall so dilatory that it tends to destroy those that receive the deceitful benefit of their seeming good works Their Crowns are made of Gold-like Straw which many besides them mistake for pure Gold But because Contraria juxtase posita maxime clucescunt contraries appear clearest by being set together we shall here handle the Locusts deceits in practice and true Christian practice and that the difference betwixt both may better appear compare both together The Righteousness of Locusts as is the Righteousness of all Hypocrites is clipt dilatory or accompanied with censorious insolence or performed by halves or however inconform to Gospel-Rule But true Righteousness in practice is not dilatory defalked or performed by halves or inconform to Gospel-Rule For The Kingdom of God must be a Kingdom of Righteousness and the Streets of the holy City shall be not Gold-like-Straw but pure Gold Revel 21.18 That is All the wayes and works of her inhabitants shall be right in practice conform to Gospel Rule And wherein consists this conformity Truth in practice is a Quadruplex conformity and containing these gradual parts is Incomplex Complex Triplex Quadruplex Truth Incomplex Derivative is a Conformity Est conformitas rei cum principiis a quibus orta est vel est ipsius rei veritas A Conformity in itself with its own Principles Complex Truth is a Conformity Est Conformitas saith Swarez judicii cum rebus unde provenit ut res ita vere dicantur sicut judicatae It 's a conformity of the judgement with things whereby they are rightly called as they are judged to be Verit as triplex Truth triplicit is a threefold Conformity more comprehensive then the two former it comprehends Incomplex and Complex Truths Conformity of things in themselves and of the judgement with things and is itself a conformity also of the will with both And therefore in truth Triplicit is first Truth simplex which is the first Principle of true Practice and the Extrinse Subject of true Righteousness The mind of man is the intrinsick And Secondly Therein is Complex-Truth conformit as intellectus cum rebus a conformity of the judgement with things wherein practice-producing animadvertency must of necessity be first versant For De ignotis nulla agendi ratio There can be no right of Action where there is no right understanding of the Incomplex Principles of true Righteousness or of things to be done And Thirdly Truth Triplicit comprehends a third Conformity Est conformitas non solum rei in se cum re intellectus sed voluntatis etiam cum rebus agendis It 's a conformity of the Will as well as of the Understandng with causes or things to be understood willed and done whereby they are willed as they are rightly understood This is that Truth in the inward
Apostate in Manners was laid in the Ballance and found wanting wantinng in the weight of her former graces in the worth of her first works She fell from being most fruitful in well doing to be a Cage of every hateful Bird Therefore Her plagues came in one day Death Mourning Famine Fire c. I might produce many Presidents As the fall of Pharaoh's servants Sodom Jerusalem And indeed all places and persons that have perished have had this levity of Judgement and works the cause of their perdition Therefore It requires our speedy disquisition to find out what this dangerous levity that brings such swift destruction is that we may with all diligent care avoid it and find out that substantial Gold of sound Judgement and sincere Obedience which shall be subordinate to Christ the Rock of safety to Ages and support of all Princes and people Levity in love and Works is Sensual Earthly and Devilish And first Sensual Sensual Professors filthy Sodomites make substantial Truth sober Advice and sincere Obedience matters of extream Laughter So Lot seemed to his Sons in Law as one that mocked or made sport And this makes all their sins so far incorrigible These Professors though they scarce can be so called can condemn any man O horrendum bestiale before they hear him any Book before they read it and the Grounds of their such solid Judgements is their trivial Levity of lavish petulancy Sodom 't is not said she gave no Alms strengthened not by giving the hands of the poor And her Antitype Such Sodomites do the same give perhaps but by giving strengthen not the needy These men grow daily as they grow in years not in Grace but Wit And that Wit is only extream Folly These wild Beasts are but sensless Risibilists and their Judgements and Works so light that they are not worth the weighing of them But God will lay them and their works as he did revelling Belshazzar in his ballance Secondly The Judgements and works of Earthly-minded Professors seeming more solid are much lighter Their levity is less seen and longer before it be discerned So Pilate heard and examined seemed duly to examine our blessed Saviour found no fault in him and then through Earthly Interests condem'nd him to be put to death whereas filthy Sodomites professors sensual are not fit nor able to examine any man searce with any appearance of Sedulity Their volatile petulancy and levity of folly permits them not to be so serious or industrious Or if they have so much sobriety as to examine any man and find him faultless they are not usually so wicked with Pilate and secular Professors as to condemn him For it is not so much Sensual as Covetous and Earthly Interests that tend to condemn the Truth in deed and the witnesses thereof to Death Their Doom the Sentence of Men Earthly-minded falls far above the bolts of filthy Sodomites heavier upon the Truth and the Witnesses of it at last though they seem greatly to favour both at first For their levity of Love and Works being less seen is longer before it be discerned So Judas was Earthly-minded a thief saith the Text long before he was found out nor was he perceived by the Apostles for about 1260. dayes but then that Type-Son of Perdition and the Mystery of Iniquity in him was revealed His love to the Truth Loyalty to his Master Charity to men and care of the poor was laid in the Ballance and found wanting The Levity of the love of Earthly-minded Professors is discovered by the outward indices Angustum pectus parca manus Narrow hearts hands not enlarged Their rewards are ever inconform to the works of the well deserving or dilatory to destroy them Their grand pretence for their so doing is their great business both Secular Sacred So Ahab a Type of Antichrist was busie here and there saith the Prophet and by means of that business minded not the command of God lost his Kingdom thereby and destroyed himself and his family for ever So Secular Antichrist Ahabs Antitype is not ashamed no more then Ahab was to make the pretence of much business his plea against Obedience For Earthly minds full of worldly business exclude the testimony of the Truth at least in Works and all due regard to the witnesses of it Therefore Men Earthly-minded Secular Antichrist may be well known by their accumulating such business as arms them with sufficient excuses against the practice of good manners Their business is either Secular for Earthly Interests or seeming sacred for secular ends Therefore There 's no weight in all their good Works of which the best are strangled with a strait hand and being laid in the Ballance are found light like the Crowns of the Locusts But Thirdly The levity of Professors proud and Pharisaical being most light is more traductive and devilish Therefore they can censure not as Sodomites but as it were in sobriety before they see cause condemn before they know whom or for what They can readily say with Apostate Julian Legi Cognovi Damnavi Legi Here 's some labour lost labour the worst labour Cognovi Here 's some profit a man would think of their pains pains to no purpose pains without profit Damnavi Here 's the cursed truthcondemning fruit of proud Professors the fruit of all their pains in reading the result of all their acquisitions They only dream they know as some Prophets did and discern nothing Therefore as Balaam could not be stoptin his course to curse Israel these cannot be stay'd by any course from rash-censuring The Cataracts of rash condemnation fall not to be by any force repelled from the high praecipices of Pride and Ignorance and are the infallible Characters of Locusts and Hypocrites They are ever most busie and their business is about they think things sacred but serves only to deceive and be deceived In a word Their good works are so light that in substance they are but words of which none are good but in appearance and deceit The levity of the Righteousness of the Locusts and others consists in their Inadvertency or want of care to conceive and observe those Principles aforesaid of Incomplex-truth A Quo Quid Cui Quantum Quoties whose necessary considerations being but hinted before here fall under our further examination And First A Quo Or from whom what Truth in practise should chiefly proceed Silver and God said Peter have I none such as I have I give Rise up and walk Acts 3. From such as have no Silver nor Gold neither is due Nor must we expect that such as have no Spiritual use of any Limb themselves should afford the means to make others walk in right Obedience to God and good Works to men No man though many pretend it gives that to another which himself hath not to give But it 's a duty universal from all to do good to all which that they may do they must first have or seek to have the gift
of so doing from the hand of God But Locusts conceive not themselves greatly concern'd in the discharge of any such duty Quid hoc ad nos what 's this say they to us They are otherwise busie in serving God and their best service is but some blind careless fragment of Obedience void of conformity This Righteousness is no Fruit of the true Vine but the wild Grapes of desperate Deceits An Agrest Righteousness growing upon every Hedge Heathens or Hereticks For many Turks and Papists as well as Locusts think it sufficient to declaim in general against sin and out of a strict blind zeal to call for and excite unto Repentance but in particular shew not nor know what sin is nor what true Repentance meaneth But as it 's the property of all blind Hypocrites it 's their Practice to seem to impugne with violence in their Doctrine so they should do sensual Profaneness but never lift up their little finger against Secular and Spiritual wickedness which closly vailed under strict Forms they mistake for the power of godliness and count that to be the richest piece in their Crowns of Righteousness Wherefore having as it were Crowns like gold they think it least belongs to them of any to labour to get Crowns of Gold or to distinguish betwixt Truth and Deceit Truth therefore in practice is no part of their Quid nor do they make the practice thereof being ignorant of it any duty from them But Secondly Quid The Quid or what True Saints should ask of God and give to men is gold I counsel thee saith Christ to buy of me gold that thou mayest be rich and White Raiment that thou mayest be cloathed Rev. 3.18 To wit The gift or power to practise such works as are not found like the Crowns of Locusts wanting in weight that are not dilatory nor defalked nor done with unwilling minds but conform to the Incomplex Principles of Truth in Practice But the Locusts Quid is Gold like Straw of deceit good Works delay'd done by halves or with an unwilling mind or mixt with insolence or morosity or otherwise inconform to the Principles of Truth in practice I counsel thee to buy of me gold c. And must men buy the free gifts of God God is bountiful but men must buy every good and perfect gift of him Such gifts are seldom purchased without much pains and cost So the man that found a Treasure in a field sold all that he had and bought that field Matth. 13.44 But Locusts love money too well and are too lazy to purchase such gifts with much pains or charge But I could wish to counsel them unworthy that all true Saints and Sack-cloth witnesses would give due attention to the counsel of God and buy of him Gold that they may be rich and white Raiment to be better clothed for shame and not be like Laodiceans extream poor and naked And I could wish that Locusts and Hypocrites whough they are busie and mind matters of an hundred times higher concernment would do the same But their smoaky service to God is sufficient the chief good they think and count their Crowns of desperate deceit to be the most inestimable Treasure Such Treasure such Service is the Locusts Quid. Thirdly Their Cui They little care whom they hurt and mind not much to profit any They are oft kind to their kin which kindness seldom falls due till after death They have however gifts to gratifie the rich and rewards for some of their own Societies And they that dwell upon the Earth shall send Gifts one to another Apoc. 11.10 These gifts were no good Works nor this kindness Charity but a commutual corrupt gratifying of the most wicked members of the body of Apostacy One to another This is Philautia self-ended Charity and the kindness of Hypocrites To those of the same Stock Kin Sect The Pharisees did so But true Charity opens her hand wide to the poor in want to good and bad to strangers in distress to Professors of contrary Opinions but especially to the well-deserving Be not overcome with evil but overcome evil with good Rom. 12.21 And is doing good the way to vanquish or good Works weapons to overcome I answer Good Works are the best weapons to overcome Sects and dissenting brethren Overcome therefore their Errours in Doctrine by undeniable dilucidations of sacred Truth Overcome their Manners by manners contrary by kindness mercy and goodness send thy gifts even to Locusts and Hypocrites not as they that dwelt upon the Earth did to encourage one another in doing evil but to win them with good to unity of Faith and true Obedience Let thy kindness convince their uncharitableness Thy Mansuetude their merciless inhumanities Abandon Rigour banish cruelties Be not overcome with evil but overcome evil with good as the best way to win thy worst Enemies and the most effectual means to convince and convert Infidels Sects and dissenting Brethren The wise and ancient Councellours that stood before King Solomon gave some such Counsel to his son For This way of overooming evil with good the Errours and evil Manners of Enemies Sects and Dissenters is Sophia-Chirurgorum the Balsame of Wisdom to heal the bleeding wounds of the Gospel-Church and Christian-States whereas the contrary Counsel of the young rash heady Councellours procured the final Rent and Revolt of the ten Tribes And the like contrary Counsels cause and continue like sad Rents and Divisions in the Church of God I shall here but briefly solve two Questions and so proceed First Whether the superfluities of Nabals Feast were more due to his Sheep-shearers than to David That Feast in Nabals judgement and he was a Fool was due to his Sheep-shearers and no part of it to David that defended his Flocks and his servants that kept them So Locusts and Hypocrites judge nothing due to faithful Shepherds that feed Christs Flocks by sound Doctrine and chiefly by good example For Truth-practising Ministers are the best Preachers though their gift of Vocal Prophesie were very weak and mean But any Sycophant and pretender not true Proficients is the Locust's Cui to whom in their account the rewards of the well deserving are due The second Question is this Whether that Oyntment wherewith Mary anointed our Saviour's feet was due to him or to the poor Joh. 12.3 It was the judgement of Judas that it should have been sold and the price given to the poor So Locusts and Hypocrites are of the same judgement with Judas that no recompence is due to the best deserving but take as great care as he did of the poor The poor though that be usually far from them ought to be sufficiently provided for But the well-deserving have most right to just rewards The time saith the Text is come that thoushouldest give reward to thy servants the Prophets and to those that fear thy Name small and great Revel 11.18 These and what is profitable and honest to promote and
must have due regard to every incomplex-right A Quo Quid Cui Quantum Quoties And Lastly Quomodo or how true practice must be performed This Principle comprehends the five former But we shall here add something more peculiar to it to clear the former more fully because there 's the most need of it imaginable For as the Augean Stables were said to be so full of dirt that it seemed impossible to cleanse them without letting the River Alpheus into them so the System of the Practice even of Saints is so silled with filth of evil Manners that it seems a Hercules-labour to cleanse and wash it forth The work is difficult but must be done we shall therefore set about it by Gods assistance And first Insulting Pride destroyes true Practice because it destroyes animadvertency the ground of it Let therefore every true Christian be sincerely affable and friendly to all Not insolent to the Poor whom he relieves not void of due regard to the Rich. Moses from Mount Pisgah saw a large part of the Land of Promise But Pride is the Mount of Ignorance and evil Manners whence Formal Professors and Saints too overlook good works and therefore tread them under foot For their punishment bears the express Signature of their sins They were given into the hands of proud Heathens to be troden under foot for 1260. dayes Annual because they not with unlike Pride trod under foot profainly contemned all that time the Practice of good manners and made them the least matters of their due care All men must study with greatest care chiefly in these times to be peaceable as the Apostle gave charge But then they must not be reciprocally proud for only through Pride come contentions Prov. 13.10 And the many Animosities Schisms and Divisions in Churches and States seem to be the Branches of that cursed Bryer whence the fire of strife to devour each other issueth forth Men therefore that hope to find peace with God and Man must be very careful to cast this Quomodo of Pride far from their Christian practice Hear now ye Rebels said Moses must we fetch you water out of this Rock Numb 20.10 What a Storm is here of unbridled passion in the mouth of Moses the meekest man on earth The sin no doubt was greatest in those that gave the provocation too great in Moses and might doubtless humble him much and be an exemplary means to humble true Saints in all future Ages by shewing them that they may sometimes have like passions as Moses and Eliah had But this insolent comport procured not to Moses peace with God or Man But the anger of the Lord was kindled against him and he by shortning his life cut him off from entering into the Land of Promise Contumacious Pride is the Floodgate of froward manners makes a man much worse then an unbridled beast Nebuchadnezzar was turn'd as it were into a beast the very same hour wherein he made himself a beast by swelling Pride Pride is no part of the Quomodo of true Christian practice Secondly Avarice also destroyes Animadvertency from whence truth in practice proceeds For Due Adnimadvertency informs the Intellect and a well-informed Intellect reforms the Will But where these are wanting there can be no Will to do right conform to Gospel-Rule and consequently no true Christian practice The practice therefore of worldly Professors wanting conformity of the Will is done if at all either by halves or grudgingly and with an unwilling mind Therefore They readily receive lies and Lyars that pretend to be religious gladly that they may help them as Balaam helpt Balack what he could to curse Israel to asperse the pious and traduce the well-deserving That so they may seem to have just cause to decline their furthering of them and to shun all occasions to perform or perfect any good work Covetousness is Calcar acutum a most sharp Spur to cursed-speaking in the hearts of Locusts and Hypocrites Where the Will for want of complex-Complex-truth is not well informed and is kept back by covetousness from that care there the practice is repining and grudging unwillingness reflecting opprobrious obloquy and lying imputations The Herd of Swine Christ permitting the Devils to possess them perish't in the Sea And why did our blessed Saviour inflict a punishment of such evil upon Swine whom he himself had created good Many Creatures were made for slaughter and Swine serve for no other use But Christ made the best use of the most useleless Creature and that their life being altogether unprofitable in their death For that signal destruction of those Swine stands like Lot's Wife a lasting Monument and Memorandum to be a necessary caveat and admonition to all Men Saints and Sects in after Ages that they make by no means Swinish repining greedy murmuring and grudging unwillingness the Quomodo of their Christian practice This is the Locusts Quomodo and practice of Swine Thirdly Let all true Saints and sincere Professors use no Leaven of Lies and Deceit in their Quomodo or manner of their practice The Prophet that liv'd in Bethel reliev'd his brother a true Prophet with a meal and destroy'd him with a lye Lyars though true Saints are too oft guilty of this sin slay their brother but are in most danger to destroy themselves The Pharisees sometimes entertain'd our Saviour and through lyes at last put him to death Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees saying and not doing Slaunders and detractions joyned with trivial helps that it be no part of thy Quomodo in thy Christian practice Nor was that the least evil in the Leaven of the Pharisees when they charged our Saviour that he wrought the works he did by Belzebub which false charge was near unto that unpardonable sin Nor is that sin now or what seems something like it a stranger in Israel though the objects of it are infinitely more unworthy Howbeit Christ imputes it though done to another as done unto himself I may and must as a duty to God and Man best affirm it that have found it by experience Very many impute to me that I am not the Authour of this Book but it must be done say they by some other more able This Leaven is a deadly mixture to destroy both me and mine and those most that raise this false charge I must not let so great a sin a dangerous Lye of vile ingratitude lye upon my brother but reprove him or them plainly that he or they in sincere obedience to God may better bridle their tongues least their Religion be in vain I wonder much that some saints if such be Saints are not more careful to keep themselves far from a false matter For I never found from any though they seemed somewhat scarce so much as the least contribution to the matter of it And the truth is I scarce ever found any so well furnished to be so bountiful Nor can any claim but my self only under God the doing of it My
took care of him saith the Text and said to the Host Take care of him Care is to all good works the Girdle of Truth without which they are neither true nor good Had not the good Samaritan though he had done all he did besides taken care of him he had wholly omitted his Christian duty For as Faith without Charity is dead so Charity without care is dead A true christian care to do good is the edge of Charity and the life of it It 's the grand misery and mistake of Men and Saints to do perhaps many good works carelesly whereby they become not good works but deceits Such works though commonly practised by sealed or Wilderness-Saints are far from that practice which they should perform but are the proper works of the members of of Antichrist and the Characters of them By those Characters therefore we shall discover who are or appear to be careless Professors and who are careful in the practice of Christianity And first They that are careless to collect and consider the incomplex-principles of right in it self are careless in their conversations and cannot come to the knowledge of the Truth in Practice These Incomplex-principles rightly collected are the Basis and Grounds of all Mercy and Equity to Men And that which the Scriptures and we commonly call The cause of any man Plantiff or Defendent stated Neither doth the cause of the Widow saith the Text come unto them Isa 1.23 That is They do not collect nor consider the Incomplex-principles aforesaid of Mercy and Equity Such Professors Judges or Magistrates it matters not what their Church-Society Sect or their repute for Learning Strictness or Religion is are corrupt and unjust Professors and at least in appearance Members of Antichrist But we shall illustrate the Premises for the Reader 's better understanding by one or two Examples And first A Prophet's poor Widow made her address to Elisha and stating her own cause her self thus laid down the principles of Right in it self necessary and due to be satisfied unto her Thy servant my Husband said she is dead 2 King 4.1 There 's the Cui a desolate Widow to whom mercy and equity was due to be done A second Incomplex-right in it self was A quo or from whom which is implyed in the same words of the poor Widow To wit Prophet who was principally concern'd and bound both by the Levitical Law and by the royal Law of Love to make her Incomplex-condition Complex or to take notice of it and duly consider it Levit. 25.35 to the end Deut. 15.8 11. A third Incomplex-right is exprest in these words Thou knowest that thy servant that Widow's late Husband did fear the Lord That was a further tye though he must do right and shew mercy to all men to the Prophet to make her condition Complex or to have full knowledge of it A fourth Principium praecognoscendum or truth in it self which the Prophet was bound to know is exprest in these words And the Creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen These Principia praecognoscenda or Truths in themselves thus lay'd down were the Cause of the poor Widow stated before the Prophet And they that are not truly careful and diligent to know and rightly apprehend the causes of Plantiffs or Defendents stated by word or writing are unjust Judges corrupt Magistrates careless Christians make themselves at least appear to be the Members of Antichrist The cause of the Poor of the Widow of the Fatherless and of strangers in distress comes not before those careless Christians nor can they discharge any duty of Mercy or Equity to men But the Prophet did not tell the poor Widow she was a trouble to him or that he was busie about matters of much higher concernment nor did he bid her come two moneths hence and talk with him Nor tell her to encourage her he would move it to friends at his best leisure as many Professors commonly do and at last perhaps revolt from all he had promis'd to little purpose and she expected But he immediatly bid her borrow many Vessels and pour Oyl out of a Vial she had into those Vessels and filling them with Oyl sell so much as would pay her Creditors and live her self upon the rest Thus the Prophet took effectual care to make the poor Widows Incomplex cause Complex or to take full cognizance of it Secondly He took care to make her Complex or by him known cause Triplex by conforming his will that he might relieve her to his right informed intellect Thirdly He took care to conform his works to his right-informed will and intellect wherein he had due respect to another incomplex-right To wit Quantum The fruit of his charitable care was not a fragment or piece of a good work nor an half-performance but a plenary supply of full relief to all her wants with due respect to all Principles of Right in it self Such works only are Christian and shall be the practice of that incontaminate company of conscript Harpers that shall be found without fault in Gods sight We shall shew a contrary Patern in Pilat's careless practice Pilate was careful to do right by halves or but half careful Christ's Cause came under his disquisition The first incomplex Truth in his Cause was that he was blameless or without fault Pilate made that Truth in it self half-complex or took half cognizance of it For he having examined him said thrice I fina in him no failt John 18.38 Ch. 19.4 Luke 23.4 He was willing to release him but not effectually careful to do it For overpowered by his adversaries importunities he gave sentence to put him to death So all Laodicean half hot half cold half careless half careful Spurious Professors though never so strict devout or zealous will but talk trisle cavil delay promise not perform practise by halves falsifie forget or before they begin be weary of well doing and thereby wear out the Saints of the most high and destroy his faithfullest Witnesses as Pilate by like practices caused Christ to be put to death For All Professors Judges and Magistrates half-careful only to collect and consider the Systems of Incomplex-causes cannot expect to exceed Pilat's unjust practice by whom our Lord was crucified Had Pilate been faithfully careful to do right he had not regarded the Jews favour nor been by any business or other means drawn or deterr'd from doing of it A second Incomplex-Truth in Christs Cause was That the Scribes and Elders as Judas had betray'd him to them through covetousness had delivered him into Pilates hands out of envy who was but half-careful to make this Truth it self Complex or to know it He knew saith the Text that for envy they had delivered him Mat. 27.18 But his care to know the cause of Christ was but by halves For To this end said our blessed Saviour was I born and for this cause came I into the world that I should
bear witness unto the truth John 18.37 38. This is the final cause and supreme end for which Christ was Incarnate Man created Saints regenerated That they should bear witness to the Truth in Words and Works Not in words only as the leaves of a fruitless Tree but in works also as the Fruits All hearing reading preaching praying are but subordinate duties to this supreme end That they should let their works wrought in a foursold conformity so shine before men that they seeing them may glorisie God must be every mans chief christian care But Pilate though much more careful than many strict and Orthodox Professors are was scarce so much as half-careful to make Christs Cause and this Truth in it self Complex or known to himself What is Truth said Pilate and when he had so said he staid not for an answer but went out again to the Jews and said unto them I find in him no fault at all John 18.38 What is Truth A cursory careless Question of regardless Pilate Si licet exemplis in parvo grandibus uti If we may by the Patern of one man manifest the practice of many If we may by the example of one Heathen express the Manners almost of all Modern Christians Then this is their manner of advancing Virtue and the way of their seeking the Truth Sic virtutis Alumni sumus sic Veritatem quaerimus Men and many Saints are now as Pilate was more cursory swister than Asahel in running Doth the cause of the Widow of the Fatherless of the stranger come before them They can run by it or glide over it and take no notice of it Is any thing spoken to them They can run over it by a rash answer before they hear it Is any work in writing requisite to refel errours to reform manners offered to them They can run by it or run over it by a cursory reading and never understand it Is any man faln amongst Thieves and wounded like the Wayfaring man They can run by him and never mind him Is any thing that is right in it self laid before them They can run by it and take no notice of it What may I say of such men of such Saints but this Their feet are swift too swift to shed blood These are not the works of the good Samaritan This is the practice of Pilate Pilate examined Christ once with some seeming meekness and sobriety Thrice did he justifie him as a man in whom he had found no fault Once he washed his hands in water before the multitude to signifie his guiltlessness of his innocent blood Five times did he refist the rash violence of that blind zealous Councel What Professor now or perhaps what Saint would take that care and pains that Pilate took for Christ for the most innocent man manifestly injured Pilate took care for the Pharisees did not not to credit Christ's false-accusers and found them Lyars but Professors now and I am affraid I may say many sealed Saints take little or no care how they credit false accusers according to Scripture-Rule Deut. 19.16 17 18 19. But they by believing their lyes they seeming to them devout and zealous justifie the wicked and condemn the most innocent wherefore eveu Pilate by whose wicked Sentence Christ was condemned and crucified shall rise up in judgment and condemn many careless Modern Professors and Saints But the good Samaritan was faithfully careful to do all good works in a fourfold-conformity He took care for him saith the Text and said to the Host Take care of him Go and do likewise said Christ to all Saints and Professors in all Ages and Nations Lastly Had the good Samaritan poured Wine Oyl into the wounds of the Way-fairing man had he bound up his Wounds had he also given him Money for his relief with a liberal hand and had so left him He had no doubt perished in the place and had been re-exposed to Robbers to kill him outright for that money for all times aftord many Theeves sew Samaritans Such careless care and helpless half-help had not exceeded the Righteousness and Mercy of Locusts Hypocrites And such pains and expences had but been the price the blackest Simony of exemption from performing good Works For Simon the Sorcerer sought to purchase the gifts of the Holy Ghost with money But double-minded men deceive themselves and deceive others with far more depraved Simony in seeking to purchase by careless half-performances not the gifts of the Holy Ghost but their exemption from them or from bringing forth the fruits of them The Man of Sin is a man of mistakes and deceits His coming and continuance was with all deceivableness But this is the Master-piece of deceit Saints scarce excepted in that son of perdition That his Members mistake the purchase of their exemption from good Manner by half-performances for true Christian-practice False sincerity the Parent of half-performances is the Fountain of Deceits in the Apostacy of Antichrist and is it self a deficiency in the knowledg of that Incomplex-truth of degree or quantity and in conforming the Will to the knowledg of it Lovest thou me said Christ to Peter more than these That is Than these Earthly or Wordly things Covetous Professors deceive themselves but can never be sincere nor their practice more than half-performances Peter lovest thou me said Christ Peter reply'd Lord thou knowest that I love thee Feed my sheep said Christ And so he said thrice Covetous professors can never be sincere nor fit to feed Christ's sheep For Covetousness is quite contrary to sincerity which is the Superlative degree in the quantity of love pains and expences to promote the Truth in Doctrine and Practice Had Peter loved the things of this life as much as the living God or as much as his Kingdom and the righteousness thereof he had not been sincere but an Hypocrite in his heart and his Religious actions had been but Hypocritical half-performances Half-performances or a constant falling short of the quantity of love care pains or expences to practice good works are the fruits and infallible Characters of Hypocrites and do denote in incult barren Wilderness-Saints that commonly perform such works great want of sincerity Sincerity is a sufficient care pains and expence to perform good works in a fourfold conformity and such practice is the express command of God Deut. 15.7 8. Thou shalt open thine hand wide to thy poor brother and shalt surely lend him sufficiēnt for his need Thou shalt surely give him and thine heart shall not be grieved vers 10. Shalt surely lend him sufficient Sufficient care pains and charge is the substance of sincerity and the due measure of Right and Mercy as we shewed in the foresaid examples of Elisha and the good Samaritan But Quantum deficit deficient care pains and charge is the false measure of Impostors in the Apostacy of Antichrist And the fruit of it the deceitful price of exemption from the practice of good Manners
with the Lamb upon Mount Sion Ch. 11.2 Ch. 12 6.14 Ch. 13.5 That Type-Wilderness was the place of provocation wherein those in a figure sealed servants of God erring in their hearts and not knowing the wayes of God provoked him to anger and they all perished in that place for their provocations That Type-Desert was a literal local barren part of the World But this Antitype-wilderness is less literal more spiritual no less barren in good works and is in the Aggregate of it the whole World For the Prototype Apostate-Church was driven out of Paradise into the barren World that brought forth as a curse laid upon it Bryars and Thorns And the Antitype revolted Woman the Gospel-Church fled from Heaven her Primitive stations and was driven thence into the Wilderness this wicked World where evil Beasts Heathens Hereticks and proud and blind Hypocrites in habit and which is an inextricable Labyrinth of investigable intanglements and wayes all overgrown with Briers and Thorns of the Cares and Pride of this life A place where the sealed servants of God habituate themselves to err in their hearts and to be ignorant of his ways with all confidence and continually provoke him to anger But The Gospel Church was not to continue scatrered over all this Spiritual Wilderness but to be more strictly confined for 1260 years to her more pecular place there prepared of God The pâ—â—ce prepared in the literal Wilderness was Egypt as we shall in the sequel fully shew Another Prophetick-place prepared of God and that more Mystical was the Apostate body of Israel or they in their journeys and places of their pitcâ—â—ng their Tents For all Israel above twenty years old about four excepted fell away when the faithless Spies brought evil reports upon the Land of Promise from Faith and Obedience That Apostate body was a place prepared of God to preserve his truly sealed servants So the Papal-Apostacy and her subdivisions such at least as held the Homousian Faith were the Antitype-place prepared of God to preserve his truly sealed servants for 1260 years But these 144000 upon Mount Sion shall not need any place prepared in the Wilderness to preserve them because they themselves shall not be there Nor shall they need a body of Death the body of the Apostacy of Antichrist to preserve as the Fish did Jonah their lives from death But they shall have the Name of God written in their foreheads And that name true practice in a fourfold conformity shall be a strong Tower to desend them from all distresses Nor shall that Name of God the vivid practice of the power of Godliness be an Anchor in a storm but an impreguable Rock above all Seas which storms can never reach Paul's Ship wherein he sailed was long driven to and fro dash't with impetuous storms at last split in pieces The passengers got its brokenboards to bring them to shore And the Profuga Gospel-Church that fled from the Serpent for 1260 years hath been long driven too much like Pauls ship to and fro broken with violent storms and is now ready by dashing billows of dissenting brethren to split inpieces But these 144000 upon Mount Sion shall not need to fear Sea-storms of tribulations or persecutions because there shall be no more Sea saith the Text Chapter 21.1 No more Sea That is No more coaltern persecutions betwixt Professors of different perswasions nor tempestuous dashings of civil Divisions nor any more distresses as formerly for faithless disobedience So the whole World in time of the flood was a stormy-Sea wherein the Ark the Prototype-Church was driven But when it rested on Ararat there was no more Sea of dashing billows against that weather-beaten Type And so the sealed Wilderness-Church hath been driven to and fro though her first 800 years were more favourable for about 1260 years as in a troubled Sea But when she shall arrive upon Mount Sion there shall be no more Sea Righteousness delivereth from death But her righteousness of a four-fold conformity which only is the fruit of true Faith shall deliver her from all future Sea-storms and Shipwracks But this righteousness is much more difficult to be done than the righteousness of formal Professors and far different from the promiscuous clypt and defalked righteousness of such true Saints whose Harps are ever out of tune For Formalists and Hypocrites nor are true Saints free from this fault really imagine that the way to work true Gospel-righteousness is obvious to any Every man they think may do it without much direction for any difficulty therein The ground of this almost general misconceit is this They mistake the deceiveableness of unrighteousness for the Righteousness of Saints and the Gold-like Crowns of Locusts for the Name of the living God written in the foreheads of his servants And this righteousness mistaken for true is most easie to be done by the most indocible It s most easie for men to pretend Religion and practise none To profess to witness the Truth and testifie lies in words and works or to witness it in both with those delayes and such slackness or partiality that it profits none To take much care to come to the knowledge of the Truth in the Doctrine of Faith and Manners and be deceived but not to come to the knowledge of the Truth in practice that they may be saved This is Doctrina dedocenda Doctrine to be learn't at least to better ends To pass heady censures and practise actions of precipitate rashness which even Heathens abhor is as bestial abhorred of God Our Law said an Heathen condemns no man unheard But corrupt careless true Christians can and commonly do condemn Indictâ causâ inaudito viro any man or thing unseen and unheard But no Law Literature nor Religion nor strict Profession nor sound Doctrine No Gifts nor Parts can bind or debar unsealed evil-Beasts from this barbarous frenzy which the Laws even of wicked Heathens allow not and which makes men more bruitish than the worst Heathens This desperate wickedness of barbarous folly so easie it is to be learn't is little less frequent nor less esteemed for true Righteousness than it was by the Pharisees who by this temerity of blind Hypocrisie condemned and crucified the King of Righteousness But the Righteousness of this Chorus Virgineus contrary to the Crowns of Locusts deceits of Hypocrites and the dangerous diversious of corrupt careless true Christians shall be as the Text infers every way conform to that which is right Therefore it must be for difficilia quae pulcra far more difficult to be attained and practised These were not defiled with women saith the Text for they are Virgins That is They shall not pollute themselves with the false Doctrines and foolish Opinions of Erroneous Professors nor espouse their works Their works shall not be like the fruits of Formalists withered for want of Rain nor blasted with the Wind but be good and perfect fruits of a foursold conformity well-pleasing to God
Therefore was God angry forty years with the Type Wilderness-Church and swore in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest So the Antitype-Wilderness is the place or dispensation of Gods heavy anger and sore displeasure even against his own Church and People because saith he of the Figure of these they do always err in their hearts and have not known my ways Heb. 3.10 Do always err c. Their Antitype also err always because they are ever inanimadversive and mind not or mind not much what they say or do One said of the troubled Sea Nibil bio nisi Pontus Aether So may we say of the dead faith of this Spiritual dreadful Wilderness There is nothing there but errors in mens imaginations and little else in the hearts and hands of Saints For the fruits of a dying or desert-faith are through brutish inadvertency erring imaginations ignorant animosities Schisms deceits in Opinions and mistakes in Manners A dead faith the foundation of the Apostacy of Antichrist is threefold or subsists of three parts First Inanimadvertency Secondly Ignorance or erroneous knowledge which the Apostle calls Science falsly so called 1 Tim. 6.20 From these two proceeds the love of a Lye And these three constitute a fruitless dead faith And Secondly Antitype Sion or a fruitful living Faith the Derivative Foundation of the Church of God is also threefold or subsists of three parts First Animadvertency Secondly true Knowledge and from these two proceeds Love the life of a fruitful living Faith For Knowledge comes by animadvertency and from both springs Love the life of Faith And I looked and lo c. Animadvertency is the Root of Faith Knowledge the Eye of it Love is the Life thereof But a dead faith Acts and looks not Censures and sees not Reads and minds not or with an evil Eye minds amiss mistakes pieces and fragments of good Works for perfect Obedience and deceits for Truth no better fruits must they expect that make a dead faith the foundation of their-Works and the substructure of the Church of God Break off thy sins said Daniel by righteousness and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor if it may be a lenthening of thy tranquillity Nebuchadnezzar no doubt did as Daniel directed But it 's not a careless clypt Righteousness of a dead faith nor half-performed mercy to the poor that can secure Professors Salnts States or Churches from dreadful Calamities He was driven as a man without Rule or Reason from amongst men and his dwelling was as in a Wilderness with the Beasts of the field till twice 1260 days past over him His Faith was a Wilderness dead Faith bringing fruits forth by halves The dreadful evils of the barren Desert Literal and Spiritual and the contrary benefits and blessings of Sion in Type and Antitype may briefly appear from the fastings of Moses Eliah and Christ forty days in the wilderness The time was above fourty days and perhaps about 42 days conform to 42 moneths Propbetical which was the time that the Gospel-Church should fulfil in her place in the Spiritual Wilderness Chap. 12.6 14. Ch. 13.5 For Christ had finished 40 days fasting before the Devil began to assail him with his fiercest temptations Matth. 4.2 So Eliah took one days journey into the Wilderness and was miraculously fed there before he fasted 40 days 1 King 19.4 And Moses fasted 40 days and 40 nights before God gave him the Tables of the Covenant Deut. 9.11 Forty days and forty nights rotunditatis gratiâ or as a round number are exprest but the whole time of the fastings of all the three appears to be longer That time was an abbreviated adumbration of the Gospel-Churches continuance in the Antitype-wilderness and what they did or suffered in that time there prefigured Prophetically the state of the Profuga-Church And first Moses fasted two several times 40 days and when he had finished his first 40 days in Horeb he found Israel more degenerate in Manners and Opinions than they had been before worshiping a Calf Deut. 9.12 So the Gospel-Church and Professors having now near finished their Wilderness-Pilgrimage are so far from being nearer to Mount Sion that they are much more erring in their hearts and ignorant of the ways of God More abundant in mistaking evil Manners for good Works and more blindly Superstitious in Worshiping as Israel did a Calf the works of their own hands The works of their hands Revel 9.20 And what are those works I Answer All careless deficient long-delayed or half-performed works of mercy and equity are though wrought by Saints the works of mens hands which God abhors Such much more are the works of all Saints and Professors that mistake their Cui persons or things whom they misintend to right or promote We are debtors saith the Apostle not to the flesh to live thereafter Rom. 8.12 But this is the misery of Modern times that all men and Saints for the most part mistake their Creditors and mind not to whom they themselves are Debtors For the miserable Wilderness-Christians are all Debtors and owe almost all they have to themselves little or nothing to their neighbours to whom what is part of their due they pay as the Pharisees did to their own Proselytes Kin Friends or Members of their own Societies But to things profitable and honest and to the pursuers of such things they find nothing or the least part due and accordingly repay them These are Debtors be they never so Spiritual to the flesh and these their fruits the works of their own wicked hands are worshiped almost by all as Israel when Moses had finished his 40 days fasting were found worshipping a Calf No less wicked are the Works of the hands of Hypocrites that make the Witnesses the Cui of their condemnation and false accusers forgers of lyes through their indulgent or not diligent examining of them their Cui of Credit and Reputation For this cause multitudes of blind zealous careless Professors readily give credit to and capitulate with the greatest Impostors against the injured most innocent This practice is the power of the Prince of darkness in the Mystery of iniquity whereby he crucifies Christ Mystical and kills his Witnesses in the Spiritual wilderness Secondly Eliah wandered and fasted forty days in the dreadful Wilderness and when he had finished that sore travel he was so sar from Mount Sion that he was got to Horeb quite contrary to it So the Gospel-wandring Saints and Professors having almost finished their much more sore travel in a far more troublesome Wilderness are so far from drawing near to Mount Sion that they are come to Horeh So horrible are the mistakes and deceits of these men and times But how and when did Eliah begin his Eremitetiavel I Answer He fled for his life from Jezabel as his Antitype the Gospel-Church fled from the second Dragon but indeed at first from both combined Ch. 12.6 14. He came to Beersheba where he left his
was Veritas incomplexa or res recta in se that which was right in it self and due to be done The good Samaritan so soon as he saw him made that incomplextruth complex saw and considered what he had need of They that see and consider not see without Eyes Their Eye is evil They see nothing and can never do that which is right For how can they do what they approve not or approve what they know not This seems to be through shameful inadvertency the common bestial custom well nigh of all men and the practise almost so universal is the grand Apostacy of all Professors Men see hear and read and mind nothing to make it nor scarce that more than Complex But Secondly The good Samaritan did not only make that Incomplex-truth or right in it self Complex by taking care to know it but made it Triplex had his Harp ready tuued to a conformity of will to do that right which he knew due to be done He that takes care to know what is right to be done to other men that is every mans first duty in Christian practice but takes no care to conform his will to do it as it should be done doubles his iniquity and his own just punishment For he that knows his Masters will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes Nor can such be said to be doers of the will of God as do it without diligence but by halves or with unwilling minds or without conformity of works to his will Such works though commonly practised by sealed Saints are no part of their practice which they should persorm And such Professors seem so far from being those first-fruits that they appear not to be any part of the sealed servants of God But Thirdly The good Samaritan did not only make that Incomplex-truth complex by a conformity of the Intellect to that which was right in it self Nor did he only make that Complex-truth triplex by a conformity of will to that known right but he made it Quadruplex by a conformity of works to a right informed Will and Intellect He readily set about without delayes the discharge of that duty to God Man Nor did he alledg the difficulty of the mans recovery to retard his duty The passers-by might pretend that And that 's ost pretended by Hypocrites to pass by the works of Mercy and Equity Want of care towards others in their extremities is the cause that many are cast away undone in their Estates destroy'd in their sicknesses Such Professors be they never so strict stand not with the Lamb upon Mount Sion nor seem indeed to be his Disciples For The good Samaritan pretended no impossibility of the mans recovery to decline his duty much less did he wound that wounded man afresh with false aspersions did not tell him his covetousness in travelling to get ill-got gain was the cause of his calamity Nor retort to him in scorn That had he kept honest mens company he had not faln into the hands of Theeves Nor did he say such Sad distresses were evident signs he was a wicked man To deride men in distress is high profaneness but to rail upon those to whom they should do right is most unchristian and inhumane But most pretenders in these times and many I hope I may call them so sealed servants of God make it no great matter that so they may decline their duty of doing right or shewing mercy to rail upon such so desperately depraved are their Manners And they dare invade other mens rights so far as to become Judges of their persons and actions whom they know not and which they do not understand Fourthly Had the good Samaritan delay'd the man half-dead he had dy'd no doubt outright and he himself had past by as that Priest and Levite did his duty of doing right or shewing mercy Right long delay'd is usually lost thereby or comes like the repentance of Judas when its too late Let none therefore be hearers of the Word or knowers of the will of God only deceiving themselves but doers of it without delayes or defalcation The good Samaritan to that end had his Harp well tuned His heart was not surfeited or overcharged with the cares and business of Antichrist that continually resist true obedience to God and right to men But unsealed Locusts and Hypocrites have their hearts and hands ever over-charged with abundance of business that they can never mind good works worth the Name of good They therefore are ever ready to say with Ahab who was an express Figure of Antichrist Thy servants were busie very busie here and there that we forgot obedience could not remember to shew mercy or mind to do right in a forefold conformity These are not Harpers haviing the Harps of God but loaded Camels that can never pass through the Eyes of Needles Are always fitted and prepared like that Priest and Levite to pass by all obedience to God right and mercy to Men. And the sealed servants of God may very well make in a great measure the same excuse and say Thy servants are ever so busie minding Earthly things or having our hearts devoutly set upon serious Formalities that we have not leisure to look after the life of Religion and power of Godliness practised in a fourfold conformity Nor did we ever imagine that any such practice though now we perceive it had been in being Mercy and Right we mind not or we mind such duties but as Moral Works not worth the minding These though the sealed servants of God take not or very little the example of their Practice from the Patern of the Lamb upon Mount Sion but so prevalent is the Power of the grand Apostacy even in Saints from the customes and manners of men But this Chorus incontaminatus or conscript-number must make the works of the Lamb not the manners of men the Patern of their Christian practice which above all things calls for our further consideration Fifthly We find not that the good Samaritan did summon near neighbours to make a Rate to relieve the wounded man and so let him whiles they through covetousness could not agree be lost but defray'd the whole charge himself but the sealed servants of God differ far from his practice and either omit good Works or must have perhaps an hundred to co-adjoyn in Copartnership to perform half a good work at three half-pence charge And unless many do joyn will not have no by no means any hand in it Such as thus learn Christ shew not themselves by their practice to be the sealed servants of God much less to have his Name written in their foreheads But the good Samaritan manifestly condemned such multipartite practice of shriveled and sordid tenacity by his own example He not seeking assistance from others where it needed not expended the whole charge himself in doing that good work to the wounded man compleated a perfect Patern in a quadruplex-conformity Sixthly He