Heresie and to condemn their horrid Impiety and Blasphemy who pass their wicked Sentence of Irrevocable Damnation on whom they please so opposite to the End of Gods Severest Threatnings against the greatest Enemies of his Church throughout the Scripture making the Silly and Ignorant think They only are Heavens Secretaries of State and the Registers of Gods Vnalterable Decrees These Considerations I hope through Gods Blessing may Strengthen Comfort and Establish many poor Self-condemning Christians who under Hellish Suggestions and Temptations do entertain very unworthy apprehensions of the Eternal Infinite Goodness Mercy Justice Wisdom Truth and Love for God is Love 1 John 4. 8. And that we may rightly understand how his Irrevocable Decree for the Damnation of some can consist with Vnlimited Goodness and Love we are to consider that it is Grounded upon his Eternal Fore-knowledge of the wilful and final unbelief of all those from whom the most Just and Righteous Judge of all the Earth as Gen. 19. is pleased for most wise reasons never to be understood by us in this World to deny and withold Special Sanctifying Grace whose Sovereign Will and Pleasure herein is not the Real or Physical Cause of their final Impenitency or Damnation but only the Antecedent to that Infallible Consequent as the withdrawment of the Sun is the Antecedent of Darkness Jer. 2. 17. Hast thou not procured this unto thy self v. 19. Thy own Iniquity shall Correct thee Hos 13. 9. O Israel thy Destruction is of thy self but in me is thy help Yet lest we mistake on the other hand we are to know that Gods most Absolute and Sovereign Will to deny Sanctifying Grace to some which he gives to others is the Causa sine qua non for without this Will they had not perished but not the Physical or Natural Cause of their own Damnation because it doth not Actually Compel or Influence no not that Debile part of Man's Free-will that yet remains since the Fall unto any Sin And this is that VVill of God to save some and pass by others whom he pleaseth of which the Apostle speaks in Rom. 9. 19 c. which no Man ever did or ever can resist CONSIDERATION II. They to whom God was pleased to reveal most of his Secret Council throughout the Scripture have been Men of extraordinary Holiness and Exemplary Piety such who were to do or suffer beyond all or most others for the Testimony of the Word or for the Name and Glory of God THIS is so clear that it needs no words to confirm that wherein all Men are agreed And perhaps our Two Witnesses might consider that the Vnbelieving Age we live in would Question their Eminency for Sanctity coming only from their own Testimony of themselves and therefore may have endeavoured to persuade the World that they have set themselves apart for Martyrs speaking positively of their readiness to Sacrifice their Lives in the maintenance of this Article of their Christian Faith CONSIDERATION III. As to the way and manner of Gods Discovery of Judgments or Mercies we find it various in Scripture viz. by Apparitions Voices Angels Dreams Visions c. But it is the Vnanimous Opinion of Divines and other Solid and Vnderstanding Christians that every of those ways are long since Ceased 1. WHatever the Holy Prophets and Penmen of the Word speak in a way of Prediction as it had immediate relation unto Judgments yet what they foretold was always most Congruous unto the Tenour of Gods Covenant And here we might enlarge But to be brief we find throughout Sacred Writ that the Conditions of the Covenant are these 1st Severe Chastisement in case of a long continuance and growth in Sin and Obstinate Rebellion 2d Gods greater readiness to return to be Gracious even in the greatest height and aggravations of their Sins and under the seeming most Forlorn Circumstances than we can be to Repent and turn to him that so we all may be assur'd no State on this side Hell with respect unto Gods severe Indignation threatned is remediless and wholly desperate Now if our Two new Prophets are to be tryed by this Touchstone we may easily perceive what Spirit moves them unto such Presumption as to assure the World that our Nation though God knows a most wicked â—nd Rebellious People are past all Recovery or that it is Impossible God can or will give Repentance to us for so we are to conclude 〈◊〉 Judgment is Immediately and Irresistibly to overtake us By what â—pirit these Men are Acted let all Judge 2. The great End why God discovered himself by these Ways in his â—acred Predictions is now Ceased and therefore all such ways of â—iscovery since that time are Ceased with respect to any matter of â—ublick Prophecy relating to a City or Kingdom Now the great â—nd of Sacred Visions in the days of Old were 1st To beget a Holy â—we and Reverence in the Church towards those Persons whom God Selected out from many in and by whom to make an immediâ—te discovery of his Mind and Will not thereby to lift them up who were more humble and more afflicted and less in their own and others Eyes than most good Men beside 2. That the Sacred Oracles of his VVord might be Sealed up thereby both to that present Age and to â—ll future even to the End of the World But we are not to expect â—â—nce the Evangelists and Apostles any other Writings of the Immediâ—te Inditement of the Holy Ghost as all theirs were And therefore to â—â—tertain any Men as Prophets raised up by his Immediate Inspiration to â—ublish any Predictions unto a City or Nation of as Infallible Certainty as 〈◊〉 written VVord and how much more then when the Matter â—â—ey foretel is contrary to the Tenour of all Scripture Threatnings â—hich never excludes a Possibility of avoiding the Judgment by Repenâ—â—â—ce is to offer high Indignity to God himself and to his written â—ord and to all the Holy Prophets and Penmen thereof 3. This written VVord St. Peter makes to be a more sure and safe 〈◊〉 for the Church to walk by than that Voice of the Father which was â—â—â—rd by him and Two more of Christs Disciples and Favourites James 〈◊〉 John at our Saviours Transfiguration on the Mount although it 〈◊〉 from the most excellent Glory and confirmed the Truth which was Testified throughout the whole Scripture and is one of the most importaâ—â— Articles of our Faith viz. that Christ was the Father's beloved Son aâ—â—sent among us that we should Hear him preaching to us 2 Pet. 1. 1 〈◊〉 18 19. But we have a more sure VVord of Prophecy c. A famoâ— Text to assure us how eminently God hath honoured his written worâ—â—â— Which confutes the pretended Authority of Rome's Tradition and alâ— of any who would impose their Impulses and Impressions on the Worlâ— as if they were to be reverenced like the holy Scripture 4. All that before hath been said doth not gainsay but that
in the same twelfth Page he is resolved to die a Martyr for this Fundamental Point or Article of his Religion Now you see it is come to this Issue that I am to maintain this Faith even unto the Death But the best of all is in p. 14. This is to be seen only by an Eye of Faith A little before he spake of Armies of God's sending which we suppose he did not mean of Locusts except the French Locusts nor yet of swarms of Flies c. and though his natural Eye-sight could not look cross the Seas into France yet it is difficult to perswade us that he had not heard what great Preparations Lewis le Grande had made by Sea and Land for giving us a Visit to destroy the Northern Heresy so called cum multis aliis and then his Faith is but a moral Perswasion and no Divine Revelation Now if he hath never heard of these things we may safely conjecture he hath slept for some Years like Epimenides and might also fall into a Dream But if he hath heard thereof and believes the same then his Faith is no more Divine than that of every Philonides as to these things and if there is a Peculiarity in his Faith as he will needs have it to be we find no foundation for it it in all the Scripture viz. That England hath out-sinned her Day of Grace and that all our most hearty Endeavours to Repent and Turn to God will not prevent the Infallible Certainty of our immediate Destruction Or indeed that any Nation or People though never so wicked did ever lie under such a Doom And though Christ's Words unto Jerusalem O that thou hadst known in this thy Day the things that belonged to thy Peace but now they are hid from thy Eyes seems to come nearest hereunto yet we are to note 1. That Expression had not a direct tendency to the Salvation of their Souls as if thereby they had been laid under an utter Impossibility of Repenting for the Words are an Appendant to that Expression before How often would I have gathered you together as a Hen her Chickens under her Wing which some eminent Divines together with Mr. Baxter also understand of our Saviour's intentions of gathering them into a National Church under the Gospel Administration and under a most peculiar Protection as of old they had been in the Legal Administration 2. Christ exhorts them afterwards as a collective Body to Repent and turn to God Daughters of Jesus weep for your Sins c. 3. And he prays for them as a Nation considered who were guilty of his Death in the whole Body Politick viz. in the Chief Priests and Elders or ruling Sanedrim and in its Members also when all the People cryed out unanimously Crucify crucify him and yet he prays Father forgive them i. e. if they will afterwards repent by the preaching of the Gospel 4. Christ sent his Apostles and Ministers to preach Repentance to the whole Nation else why did they enter into the Jews Synagogues from time to time on their Sabbath Day Forty Years after his Death before their City was destroyed and about Sixty Years to the Remnant afterwards before they were totally destroyed from being a Nation But Mr. W. will needs have this Faith and Belief of his thus riveted into his Head by strong impulse to be the Standard or Touchstone not only of his own Faith and Christianity but for his Apprehensions of others Christianity also pag. 15. They seem all of them to have a Principle of Grace in them who have this Faith though they may not have great Parts And that their Faith should not prove a Choak-Pear to any of us they interlard their Divinity with a seeming regard unto the Scripture in the same 15th page And they all seem to have some Impression made upon their Heart from Scripture One great Argument for the Authority of the Word of God is That all Hereticks and Sectaries will allow thereof and fetch their Proofs even from Sacred Writ though it is evident that the Church of Rome and some of her Children who hang on her Skirts though in Disguise to captivate silly Souls use the Holy Bible as the Philistines did the Ark who being perplext and sometimes smitten in their Consciences thereby hoise it up as decently as they can on their Wooden-Cart Tradition c. and drive it out of their Coasts sending it away from them to take its Lot with the detestable Offerings of their Golden Mice In the last-mentioned Page Mr. Th. Ward gives us a Copy of his Countenance which looks Janus-like with a double Face Modest◠on one side and presumptuously Arrogant on the other In the first he tells us that he and those of his Way are not Learned Doctors as to the Revelation Prophesies But on the other side his Countenance looks with such an Aspect as if he expected the World should take Him and his Brother Evans for those Two Witnesses Apoc. 2. and therefore prepares us all to behold them as shortly to be Slain and to Rise again in Three Days and to Ascend up into Heaven c. As by their own Words And though we cannot fathom those Depths in th◠Revelations as being indeed uncapable of them I mean as ordinary People yet such is the goodness of God to condescend to do it in a way we are most capable of and can best defend our selves so that we are now loudly called on to believe the Revelations are fulfilling in Them and have prepared us to entertain venerable Thoughts of themselves though they cannot tell us how we are to understand these Mysteries And lest we too closely intrude M. Ward defends himself as with ◠Quadrter-Staff and lays about him with big Words to maul dow◠all our Arguments and Objections which we have in his Postscript telling us that this Faith or Doctrine of his Christianity is Infallible and hath No If in it or can admit no possibility of Frustration so that hereby he seems in Capital Letters to tell the World that this sacred Creed of his touching England's Immediate and Irrevocable Destruction is built upon a more firm Foundation than that Great Oath of God which the Apostle comments on in Heb. 3. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. who sware that his Backsliding Church should not enter into his Rest or the promised Land yet not in that Simple or Absolute manner but that he reserved a Condition for its non-accomplishment namely If they Repented not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Another Fencing-Blow Mr. Ward gives us in the same Postscript as if he meant to affright us into his Belief He that opposeth it viz. the aforesaid Article of his Faith opposeth the Seal of God and since God hath sealed it it is done When he shall please to come forth next he would do well to explain his Meaning and whether he apprehends this Answer is the Sin against the Holy Ghost Valentine Evans
extraordinary Desolating Judgments unless we Repent by deep Humiliation and Amendment is that wherein all sober Persons are unanimously agreed and God Almighty grant us all a true Repentance We have also no reason to presume we shall escape better than other People and Nations whom God hath destroyed for less provocations than are found among us unless we throughly amend our ways But yet How long God is resolved to lengthen out his Patience and Long-suffering to a very provoking People concerning whom God hath positively and expresly declared the Limited Periods of his Mercy in his Holy Word and especially when we read in Scriptures how prevalent the Cries and Prayers of one or other of his peculiar Favourites have been in turning away his Wrath from a City or Nation is a Secret amongst his Arcana Imperii into which no Person no not the Holy Prophets and Apostles to whom God did so immediately Reveal himself ought to prieâ—â— Nor will any truly humble and conscientious Person dare presume to affirm and least of all to Determine as our Two Prophets undertake to do with such Confidence and Infallibility as if they had sate in Council with the Almighty and that the Secret of VVisdom and Vnderstanding had been locked up within their Breast And yet if they were Divinely assured that God had revealed a prefixed Period for his Judgment nay though he had confirmed it with a Sacred Oath and that it seemed never so Positive or Irrevocable yet the whole Tenor of Scripture as by and by we shall observe in several great Instances in all its Prophetick parts agrees herein viz. That God reserves a Secret or tacit Condition and either Implicitly or Explicitly resolving notwithstanding to shew Mercy and not to destroy in case of Repentance let their Doom be never so great and the Period never so plainly express'd and this also even when Destruction is Threatned immediately to attend even as at the Door Is any Angel much less any Man Infallibly assur'd but that God may have said of England as he did of Old unto sinful Judah and Jerusalem for whom the Prophet wrestled although they were at that time a greater provocation than all others Jer. 14. 7 8 9. O Lord though our Iniquity testifie against us do thou it for thy Names sake although our Back-bitings are many and we have sinned against thee O the hope of Israel and the Saviour in the time of trouble VVhy shouldst thou be as a Stranger in the Land As a Man that cannot save Yet thou O Lord art in the midst of us and we are called by thy Name leave us not The Prophet better understood Gods Will and had a nearer access to his Heart and was more acquainted with his Secret than T. VV. and V. E. our two late Prophets can pretend to be A Blessed Prophet whereof we have in that famous Text Isa 48. 1 2 c. Hear ye this O House of Jacob which art called by the Name of Israel who swear by the Name of the Lord and mention the God of Israel but not in Truth and Righteousness For they call themselves of the Holy City and Stay themselves on the God of Israel I knew that thou art obstinate and thy Neck an Iron Sinew and thy Brow Brass c. yet thou heardest not yea thou knowest not yea from that time that thy Ear was not opened for I know thou wouldest deal very treacherously and wast called a Transgressor from the VVomb Yet for my Names sake will I defer my anger and for my Praise will I refrain that I cut thee not off for my own even for my own sake will I do it for how should my Name be polluted and I will not give my Glory to another Which is an excellent Coment on that Famous Text in Deut. 32. 26. Where we may see by what wonderful Argument God is pleased to persuade himself from a total Rejection of this his Sinful and Rebellious People who had been a continual provocation to him from the day they came out of Egypt all along in the VVilderness for Forty Years I said I would scatter them into Corners I would make their remembrance to cease from among Men v. 27. Were it not that I feared the wrath of the Enemy lest their Adversaries should behave themselves strangely and lest they should say Our Hand is high and the Lord hath not done All This. v. 28. Though they are a Nation void of Council neither is there any understanding in them And Moses in his Intercession useth the same Argument with God Exod. 32. 12. compared with Numb 14. 13 14 15. Who can tell but God may have spoken thus to England also But T. W. hath published to the World as a Person of extraordinary Call by God and by and by we may discover he takes himself and his Brother V. E. to be those Two Witnesses in the Revelations c. 11. sent to denounce unto us That there is a dreadful Judgment immediately coming on the Land and that the honour of God and of his Justice and of his Goodness to them and their Posterity obligeth him some would do well to perswade him thus plainly to express himself if he knows his own meaning to begin and make an end of them at once pag. 8 And in the same Page he pretends to tell us what kind of Judgment this will be which he would perswade us he is most infallibly certain as of any one Article in his Creed will immediately overtake us his Mercy engageth him to send forth his Army and destroy them And he often repeats it that we may not mistake him in such a matter of importance viz. That this Belief of his That God's Decree is irrevocably gone out to destroy us immediately without any limited Conditions of our Repentance is the Great Point or Article of his Faith as pag. 11. though my Faith in a Judgment immediately coming upon us be the principal thing I am enlightned in c. And pag. 11. I am in the Faith of it still And again in the sane Page If I should grant this a Delusion O how would it break my Faith all in Pieces And therefore there is a necessity laid upon me to maintain that it is from God because I should overthrow my Religion if I did not I wish he knew what his Religion is if he can tell us Again in his Postscript And therefore I dare not so much as admit of an If As much as if he had said God hath determined that all our Repentance shall not prevent his Infallible Decree that is gone out And in pag. 12. he proceeds I cannot tell how any can make out that this Faith is a Delusion but he must reflect upon That Speaking in the Words before of David ' s Testimony of the Spirit touching his own Salvation thus equalling his Impression or Impulse with the Sacred Seal or Witness of the Spirit And if we track him a little further
being cut off v. 29 31. Here by the way observe that most serious Fasting and Prayer and Heart-Affliction and Contrition is God's Ordinance by which to turn away even the severest Threatnings of his Wrath most suitable to that Oath of God's in Ezek. 33. 11. As I live saith the Lord I delight not in the Death of any Sinner but that they turn and live Turn ye turn ye for why will ye die O House of Israel 2. Or by that Seal or VVitness of the Holy Ghost in Believers which testifies to all more or less that they are Justified by Faith Adopted and Sanctified called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or full perswasion of Faith But Mr. VVard like a good Christian shall we say hath Prostituted his Faith and Hope in God and all the Assurance of the Spirit 's witness in him and laid all at stake to maintain his strong Impression or Impulse and tempts uncharitable Persons to think he hath no other Article of his Religion or at least none that is more Sacred or Venerable in his Eye CONSIDERATION V. The consequent Effects which the immediate Manifestation of God unto the Holy Prophets or Penmen of Scripture or eminent Worthies of the Church had upon themselves were far differing from the effects which seem to appear in our two late pretended Prophets MOre Generally we find in the Holy Men of Old 1st Humble and low thoughts of themselves thus it was with Abraham that great Prophet Gen 17. 3 17 18. Ch. 18. 3 27. thus with Jacob Chap. 28. 27. Chap. 33. 10. Moses Exod. 3. 15. Gideon Judg. 6. 15. Isaiah Ch. 6. 5. 2. Sweet Courteous Affable demeanour and Condescention to others The Scriptures are full of this particularly one Text for all 2 Tim. 2. 24 25. The Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all Men apt to teach patient or forbearing In Meekness inctructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them Repentance to the acknowledging of the Truth so opposite to Persecution or the Muggletonian way of Damning c. compared with Tit. 3. 2. Speak evil of no Man be not brawlers but gentle shewing all meekness unto all Men. And how unsuitable to this Doctrin is the Spirit of these Two Men so presumptuously asserting that Satan had Transform'd himself into an Angel of Light in Mr. Baxter who then detected by what Spirit these pretended Prophets were moved This Meekness which we are in the consideration of so opposite to proud railing brawling and unchristian demeanour is one of the excellent Fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. 23. a Temper so amiable that the British Saxons resolved this should be their Touchstone to try that Doctrin which Austin the Monk came over with from Pope Gregory called the Great even then when they could not Argue the Point with him More Particularly The most severe and positive Threatnings to the greatest Sinners have always tended to stir up the Holy Prophets and VVorthies of Old unto an extraordinary Wrestling Mourning and Prayer for them And this 1. Whether we consider them as denounced against Gods backsliden Church we see it most conspicuous viz. in Moses when they had made and Worshipped their Golden Calf Exod. 32. 10. Let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them and Censure them and Deut. 9. 14. adds that I may blot out their Name from under Heaven and yet at that time when Immediate and Irrevocable Destruction seemed to attend that whole Nation how Sweetly and Excellently doth Moses Intercede for them And Gods Wrath was pacified So at other times also Deut. 9. from verse 22. to the end compared with Numb 11. 10 11. Another Instance we have in Phineas Numb 25. 11. and in Samuel 1 Sam. 12. 23. and in Jeremy chap 4. 19. chap. 9. â— 10. Chap. 13 17. and in Isaiah chap. 22. 4. and in Ezek. chap. 21. 6. and in Micah chap. 1. 8. And God himself puts his backsliden Children even them when lying under his severest and most positive Threatnings into the right way of preventing the desolation threatned Jer. 4. 8. chap. 6. 26. chap. 7. 29. 2. Or whether considered as against the Grand Enemies of his Church and here N. B. First God puts them also into the right way of preventing their ruine Threatned Isa 13. 6. VVe would have healed Babylon what Babylon that cursed Nation Sentenced to utter desolation Yes this Babylon but she would not Compare with Jer. 51. 9. Thus God stirs up Ninive to Repentance Exhorting them to turn from their Violence c. Jonah 3. 2 8. and Pharaoh also even after that God had expresly told him he had raised him up to shew his wondrous Power or Justice on him and his Kingdom Exod. 9. 16. Compared with chap. 10. 3. A Text greatly to be Noted Secondly God himself expresseth very enlarged Bowels towards these his Enemies even then when lying under his Severest Comminatins One great Instance take for all Moab is threatned by Gods Oath to be made a Perpetual Desolation Zeph. 2. 9. yet his wonderful Bowels of Compassion yerned towards that great Enemy of his Church Isaiah 15. 5. ch 16. 9. Jer. 48. 31 32 36. Texts worthy to be Engraven in Letters of Gold and fixed in us Thirdly God draws out the Prophets Heart to Mourn over them at the same time when lying under his Severest Doom that they may be taught how to mourn for their own Sins and Repent and escape the Desolation threatned thus for Tyre Ezek. 27. 1 31. for Egypt Ezek. â—2 2 18. and thus for Moab Jer. 48. 20. to Instance no more NOW from the whole it is not difficult for any considering Person to Conjecture by what Spirit Ward and Evans do Act in these respects for they are far from stirring up themselves or others to Pray and Fast and Wrestle for our poor sinful Land which they have thus unmercifully Sentenced to unavoidable Destruction that they seem resolved to Pawn all the hopes and expectations they have of Salvation or all the Religion they have as a certain Pledg that God will not give Repentance to England though they should seek it never so fervently nay more that his most Sacred Oath is gone forth without an If that they may thereby Infallibly be assured God hath made an Irrevocable Decree for our Immediate Destruction Now let any judge Doth not these Mens Faith teach us all to cast our selves into a Hellish Plunge of Desperation and thereby to become Seven-fold more the Children of the Devil than now we are Doth not it teach flat Rebellion against God and the whole Tenor of his VVord who Commands us all to Trust in him at all Times and to Pour out our Souls before him in the worst condition we can be in Psal 68. 8. And always to Pray and not faint Luke 18. 1. compar'd with Job 35. 14. Judgment is before him therefore trust thou in him which Text is excellently explained Jer.