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
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
about many words of impugnation against the thing that is right Thus by this rashness they render themselves more unrighteous then meer Heathens and kindle the indignation of God to their swift destruction against themselves Secondly The indignation of God was kindled against Eliphaz and his two friends And why against them Not only because they made not the thing that was right though for that in the first place complex but because they made it not triplex or wrought not a conformity formity of the Will and Affections to the thing that was right which they could never practise without making it first complex For Ignoti nulla cupido No man can attain the love of the truth or make a conformity of his Will and affections to the thing that is right if he first make it not complex or through covetous or careless inadvertency care not to come to the knowledge of it And this is condemnation That light is come into the word and men love darkness Love darkness That is Love slothful inadvertency For men-inadversive are men of dark minds not differing much if any thing from beasts Therefore That so great the greatest Remora to all Righteousness and true practice might be removed we briefly hinted before the order of the working of those three Fundamental Operative Graces that work due animadvertency and are wrought by some but more remiss degree of it These three Operative Graces Faith Hope and Love are all three as we shewed in each and each without all three is nothing All three wrought by animadvertency work it and by it reciprocally with greater power Therefore it must be radically a part in and the Operative Power of all three For Faith works by Love That is by Animadvertency For men mind what they love and love what they chiefly mind Love and Animadvertency in this sense seem Synonymous and it to be the Operative Vertue in Love or Charity Faith works by Love or Animadvertency first Humility For God giveth Grace a greater degree of it to the humble But Locusts and Hypocrites are too proud to practise right conform to Gospel-Rule cannot like Cain submit to be their Brothers Keepers nor admit of animadvertency but censure before they consider and condemn before they examine the Incomplex grounds of their so doing Secondly Faith is mindful to work a care to consider that right that is due to God and man Not like that of Pilate who asking what Truth was went forth without due pursuite of that necessary Disquisition But true Faith works should at least work a full and perfect enquiry after that which is right to every man until it amount to a true conformity of the understanding to that right Thirdly True Faith works a real Conformity of the Will to Right known not like Agrippa's half willingness but to do it without delayes or defalking But Secondly David deserved great praise and good recompense but found neither from Nabal And why did not Nabal both say and do the thing that was right Because Nabal did not care to make that incomplex-right complex or to come to the knowledge of it at least not to conform his Will and Affections thereunto Therefore was Nabals practice and comport most wicked and foolish And so must their practices needs be that are profanely careless like Nabal to take pains to make that which is right complex and complex-right triplex and triplex truth Quadruplex or to conform their Wills and Actions as well as their understandings to that which is right Ratio est una eademque There 's the same necessity and series to be observed in doing right to the industrious to the well-deserving and in all practice of true Righteousness Therefore The Locusts practises wanting this care are confusion and every evil work They are too proud or worldly to take pains to know what true Christian practise meaneth Too busie about serious impertinences to go about it Too slothful and careless to make themselves capable of knowing or doing of it We come now to shew What the true Christians Quoties is Or how oft good works wrought in some measure in a right frame of a Quadruplex conformity for otherwise they can never be good must be done to the same man man of Merit or in Misery and to every man To which I answer How oft shall my Brother sin against me said Peter to our blessed Saviour till seven times Jesus said unto him I say not until seven times but untill seventy seven times Mat. 18.21 Every true Christian must forgive his offending brother seventy seven times That is As oft as he humbleth himself So oft he must forgive and give if need require as oft as he forgiveth He must exert relief to the poor rewards to men of deserts succour to strangers Caesar's due and suum cuique and that conform to that Quadruplicity aforesaid The Quoties of these duties is seventy seven times or as oft as due or need requireth For otherwise he lyeth to-God denies to be his Brothers keeper forgives not his Brother nor is in charity with him We come now to the Locusts Quoties Locusts have no Quoties That is Their good works have none For As its impossible for that which was never spoken to be repeated So it is not possible for Hypocrites that never in deed did one good work to have any Quoties in the doing of them They are otherwise busie to make themselves like men in face in hair like women That is To be Non veraci effigie as Augustine saith sed fallaci imagine Christiani Christians in Form and Profession in Practice nothing Not Christians most contrary to Christianity But they bring forth many seeming-good fruits but seldome twice to the same man They relieve the poor but strengthen not their hands by relieving of them Reward those that do well but not adaequate to their deserts Recompence the industrious but not according to their works They do good perhaps to all but not conform to Gospel-rule or without conformity And these Dilatory or defalked fragments of seeming good works they seldom exert twice to the same man But if any mans need or equity requires their doing good the second or third times and he desire it at their hands they either answer him as Baal did his servants or stand ready armed against that man with aspersions and without mercy or remorse sting him with all manner of slaunders lying imputations murmurings and morosities that so they may have some seeming-just grounds to decline their further pursuit of every good work There is an Herb called Herba Paris or One-berry and it bears but one Berry but one in a year And these Locusts love to hold some parity with Herba Paris to bear but one fraction of a good or seeming good work to the same man They seldom exceed once in doing of it Or if they exceed once yet their Quoties never comes to compare with the true Christian 's Quoties who
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-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
universal mistake To judge the meekest and most innocent to be self-exalters and vain-boasters only because they are faithful to bear witness to the Truth This was the grand mistake of that Learned and devout Council by whom our Lord was crucisied He as he must inevitably do spake the truth And the Truth cannot but dignifie the doers and sayers of it with the title and due praise of being the Oracles of God But that blind but knowing pust up Senate of Pharisees and Hypocrites misconceived That the Truth which he spake was boasting vain-glory and blasphemy And therefore they all unanimously and with one consent cryed out Crucifie him crucifie him The Witnesses were to be killed and the holy City the Church of God persecuted and trodden under foot in the Antitype-place where our Lord was crucified To wit by such censorious blind professors as the Pharisees were Rev. 11.2 8. And this slanderous imputation and mis-supposition that they are boasters blasphemers and men that take too much upon them is the chief or almost only and universal cause or instrument of their being so killed persecuted and trodden under foot Nor are true Saints as we shewed before free from this frenzy of heady and censorious rashness Elisha discovered the King of Syria's Counsel and design several times to the King of Israel whereby the King of Israel saved himself not once nor twice King 6.10 Such discoveries were signal advantages and deliverances to the King and people of Israel Nor could I but in love to my Country and in fidelity to the Church make this discovery of the chief cause of the killing of her Witnesses That so Ministers and Magistrates as the Church of Ephesus tryed those that said they were Apostles and were not may try those Truth-misapplving Blasphemers that charge her Witnesses falsly with boasting And finding them to be the seditious Synagogue of Satan may rebuke them sharply So may they save themselves and the Church not once or twice from such distress as fell upon the Jews for the very same sin To wit because their Rulers did not duly reprove and rebuke those Christ-crucifying blasphemers that charged him with blasphemy So may the rain of Righteousness after 1260 years restraint fall in plentious showers upon all Nations So peace and prosperity may spring up to all Princes and people So may Ministers and Magistrates they being faithful in the discharge of this duty save the Witnesses of the Truth and perhaps themselves from the bloody irruptions of merciless cruelties in the mouthes of depravers and Hypocrites that falsly accuse them as the first Dragon did Primitive Saints day and night as boasters as blasphemers or as persons unworthy and the worst of evil doers whereby the defences of States and Churches and the healers of their breaches are broken down by the basest of men These derogating Hypocrites and those Harpers that have the Harps of God are most contrary by whose contrariety predicted those first fruits of true obedience to God and good works to men will more easily appear These Harpers saith the Text sung as it were a new song which no man could learn but those 144000 first-fruits vers 2 3 4. Ch. 15.2 Therefore these Harpers must be as those Texts plainly import the same 144000 that had the Name of God written in their foreheads or at least the Teachers of them But We must here distinguish betwixt these 144000 having the Name of God written in their foreheads and those 144000 in the seventh Chapter that were sealed with the seal of God in their foreheads and betwixt both and those that have not the seal of God in their foreheads Chap. 9.4 And first We shall distinguish betwixt these 144000 having the Name of God written in their foreheads and those 144000 in the seventh Chapter that were sealed with the seal of God in their foreheads These sealed 144000 were sealed under the sixth Seal Chap. 6.12 Chap. 7.4 But these 144000 Chap. 14. having the Name of God written in their foreheads were to stand with the Lamb upon mount Sion under the seventh Trumpet Chap. 10.7 Chap. 11.19 Chap. 13.18 Chap. 14.1 Therefore these 144000 conscript in the fourteenth Chapter are not the same Gospel-Church in the same respects to times and things though otherw se the same with-those 144000 sealed servants of God in the seventh Chapter For the seven Seales as most Writers and I with them agree had respect to the Transactions of literal and Imperial Rome and shewed the state of the Church under that power But the seven Trumpets and Vials have respect to Papal Rome and running parallel in the same Synchronism shew the state of the Church under that power The opening of the sixth Seal shews the fall of the sixth head of the ten-fold body of Heathen Rome and the fall of the Pagan Power under that head which is more fully exprest in Chap. 12 to the 14. vers The final excision of Imperial and apostate Rome is held forth under the seventh Seal Chap. 8.5 And this Prophesie is more amply unfolded in the eighteenth Chapter But The fall of Papal Rome or of the grand Apostacy is predicted to be under the seventh Trumpet and seventh Vial Chapter 10.7 Ch. 11.11 15. Ch. 16.17 Then the couscript-Church it seems should be manifest as the Texts shew Also the Texts in the seventh Chapter from the ninth verse to the end and the manifold Prophetick-Promises in those Texts refer to the conscript-Church Chap. 14. Chap. 21. Chap. 22. rather than to the sealed-Church or not to her until after many Centuries of years her Off-spring should have the name of God written in their foreheads Thus their disparities further appear Those 144000 in the seventh Chapter sealed with the Seal of God And these 144000 having the Name of God written in their foreheads are both the Church of God but in different respects and times For those 144000 in the seventh Chapter were the Gospel-Church sealed and numbred in the same Chapter measured in the eleventh Chapter Fed and defended in the Wilderness for 1260 years from the rage of the second Dragon Chap. 12.6 14. contemporal with her Antithesis those Saint-persecuting Truth-pretending Professors that had not the Seal of God in their foreheads Chap. 9.4 And brought from wallowing in blood under the bloody feet of the Roman red Dragon Chap. 12.10 Chap. 18.20 For these 144000 in the seventh Chapter were sealed and numbred immediately after the fall of the first Dragon Chapter 7.3 But these 144000 having the Name of God written in their foreheads Chap. 14. were to stand upon lasting foundations of true Faith and good Manners Mount Zion not immediately after the fall of the power of Rome Imperial but immediately after the fall of Papal Rome Rev. 11.13 15. Chap. 15.2 Chap. 10.7 Chap. 13.18 Chap. 14.1 But because these Texts contain the Myrrhe of Ages to heal all Nations and the best Writers fall short in unfolding of them I shall
were sealed I answer Their Title teacheth us the causes of their being so called They are called The first-fruits it seems because they are to be the first after the grand Apostacy that shall bring forth fruits of more visible and conspicuous Obedience to God and good Works to Men And the 144000 in the 7th Chapter to the 9th vers the Church sealed were for different or contrary causes not called The first-fruits To wit Because they during the time of the grand Apostacy ' did not bring forth fruits of such visible obedience to God nor good works so apparent to Men For such as the Tree is such is the Fruit but that Numerus sigillatus was the sealed Church And such must her fruits be sealed works of necessity For a Book or Letter sealed is scarce at all legible And such is the love and works of that sealed Church There 's little exemplariness in her practice for others to follow Her works so weak are they so over-grown with Weeds of evil Manners are scarce at all manifest But the fruits of these first-fruits cannot but be manifest must of necessity be signally manifest because they shall have the Name of God written in their foreheads And their works wrought in a quadruplex conformity after the Pattern of the good Samaritan their grand Exemplar shall be that Name of God written in their foreheads exemplary and legible to all Ages and Nations I do not absolutely state the Epoche of the sealed Church at the Commencement of the 1000 years about the beginning of the reign of Constantius the first For they are said to come out of great tribulations which is more truly intended of their Conscript Antitype vers 14. Howbeit They did then begin to come out of those tribulations when the first Dragon began to fall Therefore Their Epoche of being sealed might seem to begin then But if they begun to be sealed as 't is likely they might at the beginning of the fall of the first Dragon Then they were at first that Woman in Heaven clothed with the Sun c. Ch. 12.1 And the same Church that triumphed over that false-accusing first Dragon in these words Now is come salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ For the accuser of our brethren is scast down vers 10. From that time her Graces decayed till after 400 when she fell from Heaven and fled into the wilderness vers 1 6 14. After that time she retained a great part though ftill decaying of her Primitive integrity for above 800 years Then her Graces grew still weaker till they were almost wasted and near quite spent For Abraham put Bread and a bottle of Water upon Hagars shoulder and sent her away with her son She wandered in the Wilderness till the water was spent and the Child ready to perish for whom she lifted up her voice and wept But God opened her eyes to see a Well of Water and she gave the Lad drink and he revived So the Righteousness and Graces of the sealed Church are like Hagars bottle of Water She also hath wandered in the Wilderness above 1200 years till her bottle is almost spent Well may her Children and she both ready to perish sit down and weep But the Name of God written in her and their foreheads shall be a Fountain of living Waters to revive both her and them For it is not an empty crackling of Thorns in a formal profession nor the vain blaze of foolish Virgins half-performances nor litigious contradiction nor bold confidence in blind obedience nor the stony-grounds shallow superficies of found Doctrine and practice like it nor Lo here nor Lo there nor the Witnesses weak and that also now expiting Sackcloth-Prophesie that can support the Gospel-Church whiles she herself is shivered into Schisms and Subdivisions brought to the brink of the Grave and her Righteousness that should sustain her almost spent Wherefore A necessity a necessity urgent and indispensible even comples the Gospel-Church and all Ministers and Magistrates to ask of God to open their eyes that they may see the life-redeeming River of apparent Righteousness and do as Hagar and her son did Drink and not dye That is That they may find what that sacred Name of God in the foreheads of his servants shall be and seek to have it fairly transcribed in their own that so they may be a part of those first-fruits redeemed from the Earth vers 3 4. We must therefore give all diligence to make this sacred Name of God sure to our selves to know what that life-redeeming Righteousness is and how to work it But how shall we know how to work it without a pattern A pattern a perfect Patern is and hath been long wanting upon Earth where then shall we find it We must seek the Patern in the Mount And I looked and lo a Lamb stood upon Mount Sion and with him an hundred forty and four thousand having his Fathers Name written in their fore-heads Chap. 14.1 There 's the pattern in the Mount and he that holds it forth The Name of God written and the Writer of it That Lamb was a light to the sealed-Church at least for about a thousand years Ch. 20.4 But to the Conscript-Church he shall be a Temple in her a Pattern to her not for a thousand years but unto all ensuing Ages Not by any corporal presence but by the abundance of the Graces of his Spirit When he was Corporally present on Earth he was called in scorn by the Pharisees a Samaritan and was indeed that good Samaritan that left the best Pattern upon Scripture Record of perfect Righteousness to all posterity And first Jesus said A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among Theeves which stripped him of his Raiment and wounded him and departed leaving him half dead And by chance there came down a certain Priest that way and when he saw him he passed by And likewise a Levite when he was at the place came and looked on him and passed by on the other side But a certain Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was And when he saw him he bad compassion on him and went to him and bound up his wounds pouring in Oyl and Wine and set him on his own Beast brought him to an Inn and took care of him and said to the Host Take care of him c. Luke 10.30 to 38. Saw him Not only the man but that which was right in it self and due to be done For the Priest and Levite passing by saw him but would not see to do what was right Their seeing him signified nothing So the Children of the Son of perdition see their neighbour So the sealed and true Saints commonly see their Brother Their seeing signifies little Inanimadvertency next to Avarice if not before it is the root of all evil in the body of the Apostacy of Antichrist But the wounded Man wanted speedy help There
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
made up that Mystical Body of the holy City the persecuted scattered and afflicted true Church that was given into the hands of the Gentiles to be troden under foot for forty two months And those Church-Members that fell wholly to the Apostacy of Antichrist were the most proper body of that City of Apostacy and the principal part of those Gentiles that trod under foot the holy City the revolted true Church for forty two months which we shall find are 1260 years Rev. 11.2 3. Wherefore the Gospel Church whilest in Heaven clothed with the Sun whilst Her conversation was contrary to that triplicit Iniquity of the man of sin was conspicuous because in Heaven so clothed And the Reader may observe That when she even her Witnesses changed her shining Raiment for sable Sack-cloth fell and fled She falling but in part was even then though much less distinguishable from Apostates à toto that about four hundred and seven ten or twelve began to constitute as the major or chief part of his Mystical Body the Antichrist predicted by Prophets and Apostles Wherefore the Lord D◠Plessis saith That the Man of Sin is an Estate whereof the Apostacy is the Body That is Not a single person but for the most part a Political body Apostatical Antichrist saith Aquinas is a Body or Corporation not a Man That is Not a single person either individual or successive but a body politick Augustine keeping also the conformity of a City calls him properly though not so comprehensively under the notion of the Beast and his Image the wicked City and People unfaithful contrary to the faithful People and City of God who as it were profess the Faith and live as they that believe not that feign themselves to be what they are not and are called not according to true but false appearance Christians Thus we see this Learned Father makes the man of sin to be exactly the very same that I have done and gives for substance the same description of him to wit That this Corporation or City contrary to the People of God are a People Apostate not or not so much from the Doctrine of Faith but from Manners Not Infidels but professing the Faith Livers like those that believe not and are onely in a verbal profession and false appearance Christians These Christians of false appearance repugnant to the City of God cannot be but by a Synecdoche partis as Augustine calls them the Beast and his Image but are in all Sects and Nations chiefly within the tenfold Pale of Papal Rome both the threefold Body and three Heads of this triplicit City of Apostacy called spiritually Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was Crucifud What City or Corporation of Apostacy this is this Text further shews and saith It is a great City Rev. 11.8 None of its Type Cities or Countries though all great could equal it in its dimensions that is neither Sodom nor Egypt nor Babylon nor Jerusalem nor Rome Pagan could ever equal Her greatness They were but single Cities or Countries but this was constituted of ten parts or Nations And the tenth part saith the text of the City fell Revel 11.13 Chap. 13.1 Secondly This City is here further distinguished from all her Types they were but literal Cities or Countries but this is a Spiritual City Spiritually called saith the text Sodom c. that is A Mystical Corporation according to those Writers Record of wicked ones who least or at least little seem to themselves or sensual eyes to be what they are and therefore Spiritual Thirdly This Spiritual City is further distinguished in the text to be threefold Spiritually called saith the text Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was Crucified that is Tenfold in her dimension but threefold in matter and form A monstrous Chaos of many Sects of evil manners A Miscellaneum of a manifold confusion but all refer'd and confined in the text to three more general Classes or Orders of Professors These three sorts of Professors conform to the filthy manners of Sodom and Egypt and of cruel and hypocritical Jerusalem Constituted as the whole matter of it the tenfold body of Antichrist Nor is there nor can there be any other substance or matter in that body but these three sorts of Professors only For all that is in the world saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 2.16 is the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and pride of life And these are the threefold form of that matter which makes that matter be what it is But may some say there is more in the body of Antichrist than these three lusts For the Mahumetans are filled with Infidelity Modern Sects with Deceits The Jewes are fast bound in Chains of blindness though they cannot be accounted so properly any part of the Apostacy the present Papists surpass their Predecessors in unsound Doctrine and Idolatry And gross ignorance and barrenness in good works overspreads almost all Professors I Answer That though all these Iniquities superabound in the body of Antichrist yet they make and perfect no more nor any other than these three lusts because all sins in all Sects spring from this threefold Fountain and are the very same lusts exerted or the fruits and effects of them Lust Covetousness is the root of all evil therefore this threefold lust must be the root of all evil in the World and that most prevalent in its proper subject this threefold body For Spiritual Sodom and her Head the Dragon is the proper subject of the lusts of the Flesh whose works are manifest Gal. 5.19 Spiritual Egypt and her Head the Beast is the more proper subject of the lust of the Eyes worldly avarice whose works are more wicked and less manifest The Antitype where or in whose type our Lord was crucified censorious proud blind pharisaical Professors and her Head the false Prophet is the proper subject of Spiritual Pride self-love self-elation whose works are most wicked and least manifest 2 Thes 2.4 9 10. Such as the Soul is in the body such is this threefold Lust in the body of Antichrist Haec tria pro trino Numine mundus habet These three Lusts are the Trinity the threefold supream object of the Antichristian World For sensual satisfaction of the lusts of the flesh under loose forms or the free pursuit of sinful pleasures in some formal way of Worship is the supream object which Spiritual Sodom seeks after And if Spiritual Egypt may obtain wealth and worldly preferment to satisfie the greedy lust of her eyes and may but deeply deceive indeed her self by some outward way of Worship This is the supream object after which she seeks So If the Antitype where or in whose type our Lord was crucified Professors proud and Pharisaical can but have wealth without hand or heart to use it and may but obtain what Diotrephes drove at Preheminence in Churches though it be by depraving men of parts or piety or
and mind more the tything of mint and cummin If they deny the witnesses their due honor or due maintenance or tread them or their testimony under their feet by a careless dis-regard or dilatory neglect of it or them Thirdly the Anti-christian world fills the golden Vials of the Witnesses with Plagues and wrath against themselves when they design or seek to attempt any thing against them Eliah prophesied the death of Ahaziah Then the Captains of fifties filled that Vial by attempting against him full of Gods wrath against themselves For fire came down from Heaven and devoured them and their fifties 2 Kings 1. So if any man will hurt his Antitype the Gospel witnesses fire proceedeth out of their mouths and devoureth their enemies That is they fill their golden Vials the word of prophesie in their mouths with devouring fire from Heaven to destroy themselves Rev. 11.5 Pharaoh and his servants filled the golden Vials the word of the Lord in the mouth of Moses with many self-destroying Plagues And the very same also doe's the Anti-christian world with the Vials of the Witnesses And first Moses turn'd waters into bloud The Egyptians by their disobedience made them so Exod. 7.19 20. So the Gospel-witnesses Moses and Aaron's Antitypes turned waters into bloud The bloud-thirsty brought this Plague upon themselves Rev. 11.6 ch 16.3 5 6. Secondly Egypt was Plagued with Frogs and her Antitype with Frogs also Exod. 8.2 Rev. 16.13 Thirdly both were Plagued with Boyles and Sores Exod. 9.10 Rev. 16.7 Fourthly Egypt was Plagued with the Plague of Hail So was her Anti-type Exod. 9.23 4. Rev. 8.7 Fifthly Egypt was Plagued with Locusts So was her Anti-type Exod. 10.1415 Rev. 9.3 Sixthly Both type Egypt and her Anti type were Plagued with darkness Exod. 10.21 Rev. 9.2 These and sundry others were those Plagues of the six golden Vials the word of the Lord in the mouths of his Witnesses rebelled against Golden Vials Such the Propesies and reproofs of the witnesses are filled with Plagues Such impenitent men make them to be And how do men the Member of Anti-christ fill those golden Vials with Plagues against themselves I answer they despise reproof persecute their reprovers they value not the words of the witnesses read not regard not their Writings But being reproved their business is to study Cavils and contradictions or find both without study or care to understand what they cavil ar or whom or for what they contradict Thus spiritual Egypt resolving like Pharaoh and his servants to work wisely do very soolishly in filling the golden Vials of the witnesses with the Plagues and wrath of God against themselves by persevering in sordid avarice and truth-opposing Saint-persecuting cruelties Secondly Filthy Sodomites the froth of fluid wit and folly fill those Vials of the witnesses with the Plagues and wrath of God as their type did against themselves by persisting sensual against admonitions to sobriety slothful against their exhortations to sedulity by entertaining their rebukes with loose laughter and making a mock of their reproofs Solutes hi captant hominum risus Lavish laughter of folly and ignorance is their food whereby they fill their minds with windy levity their lives with evil manners those golden Vials with the wrath of God and so bring down fire from Heaven upon their own heads So type Sodim mocking her reprovers perished So perished her Princes and Rulers for not reproving of her Thirdly Anti-type apostate Jerusalem Professors of blind zealous devout ignorance in all Sects fill the golden Vials of the VVitnesses with most deadly Plagues by resisting them and by bringing evil reports upon their just reproofs So Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses They hardened the hearts of Pharaoh's servants by exalting themselves the basest men above Moses and by preferring their own illusions above his real worth works So their Anti-types prefer their own formalities before the real works of the true Witnesses Hic apprimè hoc optimè This mans work these mens Writings are like Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver But the witnesses golden Vials are Brass Their words false their works Counterfeits Thus they fill by odious comparisons and preferring their own deceits those Vials of real Gold with the greatest and most deadly Plagues against themselves So the ten Spies filled the golden Vials of the Promises of God with fierce Plagues against themselves and the people by bringing evil reports upon the Land of Promise and worse upon the word of God that promis'd that Land to the people of Israel therefore they all perished instantly by the Plague and all Israel from twenty years old upward about four excepted perished in the Wilderness So the Antichristian world and chiefly Pharisaical hypocrites fill the Vials of the witnesses with the fierce wrath of God against themselves by bringing evil reports upon the Prophetick Promises and word of Prophesie in sacred Scriptures through a profane careless ignorance of them And Ignorance is the Mother of evil reports and fills not only their hearts with malice but their mouths with blind misconstructions blasphemies and at best with wicked excuses cavils slanders against the Gospel-witnesses and their record Thus they fill their golden Vials with the most deadly plagues against themselves For they affect a fruitless delibation of divine truth without depth in Doctrine or due obedience which though a small measure of Knowledge is sufficient to save the humble serves but to harden their hearts to seek or find cavils against solid truth sincere obedience For the three evil grounds had not or afforded not a fruitful depth to growing seeds But the good ground only both had and afforded depth of Earth to the feed of Grace And this depth of Earth in mens judgments and obedience at least in their desires and affections makes those golden vials of the witnesses the more the vessels of honour and fills them with all mercies But that threefold want of fruitful depth in Anti-christ sensual secular and spiritual at least in their affections fills those Vials with all Plagues of the wrath of God These have power to smite the Earth with all Plagues as oft as they will That is to pour forth the six Vials filled therewith to wit For 1260 years in the dayes of their Prophesie Rev. 11.6 That 's the Epoche of these six Vials of the witnesses Sackcloth Prophesie of the six trumpets sounding and of all these twelve Epochaes For There shall be time no longer But in the dayes of the voice of the seventh Angel when he shall begin to sound the Mystery of God shall be finished chap. 10.6 7. And when the seventh Angel shall pour out his Vial it shall be done ch 16.17 The Mystery of God shall be finished or done that is the true Church as a City set upon an hill shall begin to be seen and embraced by all Sects and Nations And the Mystery of Iniquity in all Sects Papal Mahumetan and modern shall begin effectually to be made
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
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