Eremite-Pilgrimage did and doth cover all people But In Antitype Sion the promised Jerusalem there shall be no more Sun-darkening smoake of refined deceits Nor shall any clouds of universal darkness cover any more all people nor any Vail of Ignorance overspread all Nations For In that Mountain will God destroy the face of the covering cast over all people and the Vail that is spread over all Nations Isa 25.7 He hath promis'd it and will certainly and speedily persorm it Nor shall any Cloud then guide the Church by day nor any Pillar of fire by night But the glory of God shall enlighten it and the Lamb shall be the light thereof Chap. 21.23 To be short Antitype Sion and the Gospel-Church built upon it shall be the persection of beauty and pure Gold as it were transparent Glass Psal 50.2 Rev. 15.12 Ch. 21.21 There the beauty and harmony of Truth both in Doctrine and Practice shall be plainly and powerfully illustrated to all ages And this is Sion whom no man seeketh after Jer. 30.17 We shall now further enquire Fifthly What those Harps of God are Ch. 15.2 I answer They are called The Harpes of God and therefore cannot be made by the Art of Man but must be Harps framed by Gods hand to found sorth to the good of all his praise and glory That is They shall be the hearts of Men and Saints turned backwards How long said Elijah halt ye between two Opinions If the Lord be God follow him but if Baal follow him and they answered not a word 1 King 18.21 And they answered him not a word why not Decause their hearts were no Harps of God nor then turned backward But hear me Lord said Eliah and let this people know that thou art the Lord God and that thou hast turned their heart back again Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt-Sacrifice and the Wood and the Stones c. Vers 37 38. And when all the people saw it they fell on their faces and they said The Lord he is the God the Lord he is the God vers 39. The Lord be is the God And whence was this great acknowledgment of the truth to Gods glory The hearts of the people were become the Harps of God and were turned backward That was done in a Type and being more in word than in works continued but for a time But these Harps of God shall be the Hearts of Men and Saints turned back and turning others back from blind Sacrifice to sincere obedience Not in word but in deed Nor for a time but to eternity Harps that by good works wrought in a four-fold conformity shall greatly sound forth Gods glory and procure the general good of after-ages For Secondly Eliah we read repaired an Altar of the Lord that was broken down ver 30. And took twelve stones according to the number of the Tribes of the Sons of Jacob c. rebuilt it and offered upon it This was not written for nothing that Eliah did thus But be repaired the Altar of the Lord God accepts no Sacrifices but what are offered upon his own Altars He took twelve stones according to the number of the twelve Tribes Twelve is a quadrate number and the Root or Basis of twelve times twelve thousand or 144000 that adumbrate the Gospel-Church Ch. 14.1 Ch. 21.16 which principally denotes a quadri-formity or a fourfold conformity in the practices of all truly reformed Saints or rightly repaired Altars of God who are far from those Formalists and Hypocrites of blind inanimadvertency that mind not in their practices of good manners to conform their intellects to that which is right in itself or to come to the knowledge of the truth in practice that they may be saved Nor care to conform their wills to their right-informed intellects nor their works to both These are the Baalitish Altars of blind obedience such Altars God abhors hates such Sacrifices But these Harps of God shall be the repaired Altars of the Lord prepared by his hand to practise right in a fourfold conformity Such Altars only God accepts with such Sacrifices only is be well-pleased For The only Original Altar transcendent and above all is Christ But the Harps of God the hearts of men and Saints purifi'd by Faith and made conform to Christ are derivative Altars which God accepts in him And with their works wrought in a fourfold conformity is he well-pleased For God affects not Fables nor Fig-leaves of deceits fragments or half-performances but substantial Righteousness wrought in a fourfold conformity which only is Christian and true Righteousness Lastly Elijah when the people halted between two Opinions brought them to be of one mind And turned back their hearts that with one mouth they gave glory to the God of Heaven So shall their Antitype do Rev. 14.7 We shall here further shew First From what the hearts of Men and Saints shall be turned back Secondly To what they shall be turned Thirdly What their exceeding great danger is if their hearts be not turned back Lastly What their inestimable benefits and safeties shall be by having their hearts turned back again And first From what the hearts of Men and Saints shall be turned back I answer They shall be turned back from the practise of those sins of which they have not yet repented And the rest of the men saith the Text which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship Devils and Idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and of wood which neither can see nor hear nor walk Neither repented they of their Murthers nor of their Sorceries nor of their Fornication nor of their Theft Rev. 9.20 21. Yet repented not This Particle of time yet is the period of the six Trumpets sounding and terminates the 1260 years of the Witnesses Sackcloth-Prophesie Noah preached 120 years to the Old World and not a man that we find more than of his own Family repented at the period of that time And the Witnesses Prophesied 1260 years and men yet repented not Many repented no doubt by a feeble secret and almost unperceivable true repentance whereby they were saved but not according to that repentance promised to the Gospel-Church whereby God might be effectually glorified And the rest of the men yet repented not saith the Text. The Caldeans praised Gods of Gold and of Silver of Brass of Iron of Wood and of Stone Dan. 5.4 The words in Type and Antitype are literally almost the same ver 23. Rev. 9.20 We shall examine what some of these sins are that so the Christian World for praevisi mali mollior ictus may foresee and shun the punishments that must fall for those sins The first sin in the Antitype is Idolatry They worshipped Devils and Idols of Gold and Silver and Brass and Stone and of Wood which neither can see c. In the Type they were literal Idols but these in
Right Honorius being Childless might expect to Succeed as partly by Conquest in Italy over all the Empire She by earnest entreaties perswaded him to spare the sad remains of that City and to depart out of Italy spoiled already This was not no doubt her single Design but her Design driven on and owned by the Senate and by a better Council at Ravenna He hereupon having received further supplyes of Monies for himself her and his Army marched with her into Spain to subject it to himself Hereupon his Souldiers slew him because he had left Italy and therein quitted a certain Fruition for a doubtful event which without much difficulty and no less danger they could not expect prosperous Thus he left near Conquered Italy and taln Rome drunk with the blood of Martyrs and drunk at that time with her own blood to the then new-born Beast Secular and Papal whose first Head was then wounded with the stroke of a Sword as it were unto death Revel 13.3 12 14. to wit By the Sword of this second Dragon prevailing at the same time under Pharamond in France and under Alaricus in Italy He prevailed not only against the Primitive Church Imperial Rome and the then falling and dying first Dragon all which letted and should let till then thus taken out of the way the rising up of Papal Rome and of the Sea-born Beast her secular Head but he prevailed also and might easily prevail against that Secular Beast and wounded as it were unto death in the day of his birth and when but beginning to rise out of the Sea his first and best Head For Rome Ruled over the Kings of the Earth And the Senate with an Emperour Ruled both her and them But the besieged Senate Ruled Rome with great grief and no great Power without Bishop or Emperour And in that feeble and afflicted Senate did this Sea-born Beast all wounded as it were unto death in the day of his birth by the Sword of this second Dragon rise up For the City saith the learned Hammond was divided into three parts so her Antitype was to be near the day of her Dissolution Chap. 16.19 One part was Pagan another Heretical and the third part Orthodox but grosly Apostate in manners Concerning the Heretical part I observe little But the Pagan or Heathen part was for Number and Power most prevalent all the time the City was besieged until it was taken For Attalus a profest Heathen was so high in Power and Favour with the People that he would be Caesar aut nullus and not be joynt Emperour with Honorius So was Symachus Lieutenant of Rome a Pagan And such was the Senate for the most part which appears in that they sent the said Symachus Legat to Honorius at Ravenna to Request that the Heathen Rites might be Restored Thus it appears plainly that the Heathen part was the greatest in that afflicted Senate of besieged Rome But that major part was no part of this Beasts wounded Head which was after healed but the last part of the first Dragons last and dying Head which was never healed but then went into lasting perdition Apocal. 17.11 For after two years siege and as I rather compute the time in 412 were those Pagan Senators and Imperial Rome numbered and finished Then came her and their Plagues in one day Death Mourning Famine Fire Chap. 18.8 which those Barbarians with barbarous hands had chiefly inflicted upon those Heathen Senators and Citizens that had invited revocated and consided most in them and that to their utter and final excision But the flying Senators and others that fled to the Sanctuaries of the more Orthodox but Apostate in manners found thereby a bare and hard exemption from imminent death And these thus scarce escaped Senators and perhaps some others in somewhat like condition were the visible original of the first Head of this Sea-born Beast weak and wounded to be a witness to the truth performed as was thrice foretold in three sacred Texts of Scripture in the same Chapter Apocal. 13.3.12.14 Here the Scissers of eternal death and final excision parted the last dying Head of Pagan and Imperial Rome from the first at first sick and deadly wounded Head of Papal Rome And I saw one of his Heads wounded c. and his deadly wound was healed vers 3. wounded by the Sword of this second Dragon Healed began to be healed when Atholphus remitting Rome and most of Italy into the feeble hands of that wounded Senate made them Temporal Lords over Rome Italy and other Nations over which that City for some time after claimed some Jurisdiction Then also their Bishop began to be partly by the said Donation partly by the Senates Assent partly by his own Usurpation prefer'd to the largest Superintendency Thus this Papal Superintendent Spiritual began to be suted with a fit Power Secular For these near slain but surviving Senators were Primitiae Papales Papal Romes first Fruits and though at first most feeble her first Powers Secular Because they and they first allow'd sufficiently their own Bishops Supremacy over all Bishops and Churches if not over all Kings and Councils For so soon as Athaulphus had remitted Rome and Italy to that wounded Beast his Bishop faln Romes Bishop Innocent the First returned but no Emperour with him to Rome and Ruled as by principal Authority both Spiritual and Temporal that reviving Beast and likewise Rome and Italy which that second Dragon in Athaulphus as one chief Head of him had given to that almost dying Senate And the Dragon gave began early to give his Seat Power and great Authority to the Beast He continued in giving his power in several Conquered Nations for about 200 years space but I may not digress from the matter in hand to insist upon so long a subject To shew when and how he began to give his Power the Supremacy therein to that Beast is sufficient at present Innocent immediately after his Return claimed and laboured much more hard than any had done before him to obtain Universal Supremacy over all Bishops Churches and Councils as plainly appears by his own practice witnessed and by his own Letters and those very many recorded by Augustine Osiander and others For the Emperours absence was Innocents advantage to augment and exercise a more uncontrouled Power And Honorius a good Prince and Orthodox but of no great Capacity to Govern came no more to Rome to Reside there to the day of his death For the Romans at least some of them are said to hate Honorius because he left Rome and went to Ravenna therefore he remained there And his Successors some having the Title of Emperours but scarce the power of Kings made Ravenna the place of their Residence Rome was never more Imperial but ever after Papal The Senate and Bishops of Rome in the absence of Honorius and as by his Authority acted many things to further their own Designs and in Defence of the
fit to discharge it Therefore whiles many pretend to remove mistakes they make many and remove none For all Professors few excepted are wilful by earnest contending to defend their errours in opinions and manners as the strong man that kept the house would not forsake his holds Therefore the world sits in darkness by means of mistakes because the written Word the derivative Fountains of Light are darkened by them so that men draw missuppositions for truth from them and rather multiply than remove their errours in opinions and manners The smoke saith the Text of the bottomless pit darkned the light of the Sun and the light of the Air possibly the light of Reason and the light of Religion and what was that smoke but mistakes instead of truth exalted that even the Scriptures are darkened thereby therefore the inevitable necessity of their removal is manifest But As this Christian duty is the chief duty of all of all Ministers and Magistrates especially so the difficulty to discharge it further appears from those oppositions that attend it If any man fit for it does endeavour it so far is he from finding due assistance that all envious competitors of pride and ignorance as Corah's Company against Moses cry out against him as one that boasts in vain seeks praise of men they tell him he 's too proud and takes too much upon him For it hath ever been the Infallible character and practice of proud Hypocrites to deprave in this manner those men Howbeit the ingenuous concession of very many convinced of their mistakes I must acknowledge But the chief strength of all difficulties in the discharge of this duty is from the censorious and rash detractions of many of the most Learned and seeming most Religious that mistake of all mistakes the most dangerous the rash Spirit of truth contradicting pride for the spirit of truth not knowing of what spirit themselves are For even they if any man be fit for this duty detract as if they were impatient to abstain from unbridled temerity from his works before they know them from his words before they hear them and from his writings before they read them So are they too ready to aspire unto that Pharisaical pride by which Christ was crucified and fall into the condemnation of the Devil whereas were they so noble as not to censure before they see hear or read they might possibly find no cause of cavil nor perhaps of dispute And this is all I humby request at their hands The Priests of the Lord bore the Ark upon their shoulders so should all Saints support the truth which the Ark figured in Theory and Practice But nititur hoc humer is hominum genus this sort of censorious men I say not men of any sound judgments set to their shoulders not as the Priests of the Lord to support the truth but to cast it down to the ground and tread upon it that so minding the praise of men and private gain they may establish their own brain sick conceits for substantial truths These are men for the most part of much confidence that consider little Men of much velocity in lavish loquacity whom the multitude admires Too quick to move a question to make objections most slow to see and remove mistakes Men prodigal in endless disputes of verbal impertinency From these men the most irrational and greatest oppositions arise to retard all hands held forth to discharge this needful Christian duty But he that minds this necessary and indispensible duty to God and man must not regard besides sordid neglects the worst insolencies of vile ingratitude nor many difficulties I shall therefore humbly endeavour in this Treatise to remove those mistakes in Opinions and Manners that chiefly hinder the true Prosperity and Unity of all Church-Societies Sects and Nations CHAP. V. Which of those three Heads of the aforesaid threefold City was the chief Builder of it or when and by whom it was built THe Founder of it was the false Prophet For the times and the Laws saith Daniel were given into his hands Chap. 7.25 That is dominion over all Powers Spiritual and over the Potentates of the Earth was given him therefore he was the fittest and most able to be the Master builder of this threefold Mystery of Iniquity He began to build about the year 407 and had brought his Fabrick to a good forwardness had almost finish'd it in 607. The threefold matter of which he made it what it was we shewed before and likewise its threefold form Of that threefold matter sensual worldly and proud Professors he made Antichrist sensual secular and spiritual in the once Decapolite pale of Pagan Rome and brought all those three into one great City called saith the Text Spiritually Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was Crucified He also bound the three Heads of it the Dragon the Beast and himself in a seeming firm bond of deceitful amity Connubio aajanxit stobilitria Numina mundi He bound Antichrist sensual secular and spiritual and those three Heads of their triplicit body as it were in a bond of Wedlock The tenure of that Obligation was the false Prophets supposed Catholick Religion confirmed by many dreadful false miracles Doctrine for the most part fundamentally sound but shallow carelesly contentedly shallow and by his peremptory claim of priority from his pretended right of Apostolick Succession The Premisses are plain First from Scripture Rev. 13.12 And he causeth the Earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast For that beast next himself the Head corner-stone was the strongest support of his City of Apostacy therefore it follows and he deceiveth them that dwell upon the Earth by means of those Miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast ver 14. That beast was the seven headed Hydra of Rome-Papals Power Secular that bod ten horns and all though not at first crowned Rev. 13.102 He causeth saith the Text the Earth to worship the first beast to wit that beast that is he â—new by deceit them that dwell upon the Earth â—as supposed living but indeed dead stones into the building of this threefold City and made that ten crowned beast though he intended himself Supream Secular head of it For what was this Unity or Grand Faction of Iniquity thus wrought by the false Prophets deceit upon those that dwelt upon the Earth but the tenfold body on Apostacy which the false Prophet built by rallying the Nations through his lying miracles which he wrought in the sight of the first beast Thus and by this means chiefly did the false Prophet build this threefold City as it appears plainly from Scripture and will no less appear in its due place from Church-History He also by that beasts joynt help built this City therefore the Text saith And he deceiveth them that dwell upon the Earth by means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast And why
assign unto the first Dragon as peculiar to him eight Heads in all But their glosses plainly contradict those texts and allow him but six making his seventh Head to be the secular beast Papal They might be a man would think deter'd sufficiently from adding to or detracting from the words of the Book of this prophesie by the plagues therein threatned to all such But many of them do it no doubt not willingly but for want of due animadvertency Thirdly That seventh Head of the first Dragon which those Writers affirm to be the Sea-born beast should continue saith the text but a short space But that beast secular was to continue 1260 years chap. 13.5 which are 100 years longer than the durations of all Pagan Romes eight Heads ab Urbe conditâ Lastly The texts expresly distinguish that red Dragon and this beast by their disparities in their seven Heads in the one all Crowned in the other all uncrowned and by their ten horns in the one all crowned in the other all uncrowned and by their far different Epochaes But these Writers that notwithstanding confound all the texts and either make both those beasts to be one and the same or make the beast Papal to be the seventh Head of that Pagan Dragon who can imagine that men of any Reason or Learning could assert such matchless absurdities Their chief mistakes are these The Dragon saith the text gave power to the beast But they say contrary to the text that his sixth Head gave power to his seventh Secondly That seventh Head say they contrary to the Scriptures was the secular beast Papal Thirdly They mistake the first Dragon who gave none for the second who gave his power and Authority the Supremacy therein to that beast Fourthly They mistake that Scarlet-coloured beast or red Dragon in ch 12.3 ch 17.3 for the secular beast Papal chap. 13.1 And therefore Fifthly They mistake the literal City of Pagan and Imperial Rome that ruled over the Kings of the Earth and was called Babylon the Great in the 17th and 18th Chapters for the more spiritual City of Papal Rome called also Babylon the Great and over whom the second Dragon with the Sea-born beast and false Prophet Papal ruled or presided in the 11th and 16th Chapters For these two Cities are signally distinct by this apparent disparity The first Heathen and Imperial Rome ruled over the Kings of the Earth And the Kings of the Earth ruled in and over Rome Papal So that the System of the glosses of these Writers upon these and many other texts is like a large Vial filled with mistakes which they pour forth in their Teachings and Writing's upon many mindless Professors that care not how or what they hear or read Because of Oaths 't is said the Land mourns But the whole world may we even weeping say mourns through mistakes in Opinions and Manners Therefore her Inhabitants sit in the shadows of death surrounded with distresses But what dammage redounds by these and like mistakes The disadvantages and they great and many that thereby come upon the Christian world and upon all Church-Societies and Sects may appear as followeth If there was but one Dragon according to the general supposition then none gave power for the first gave none to the wounded beast Papal Then none raised Papal Rome nor her secular Head that beast according to the Scriptures Then the Opinions of the Learned Hammond and others must stand good against all the world To wit that there was no further compute of the Apocalyps after 410 except in the Mahumetans And then the Papists and other Sects and perhaps Mahumetans unless those Authors better prove the contrary have no part in the grand Apostacy predicted by Prophets For then as some in the Apostles times concerning the truth erred saying The Resurrection is past already so all men may much better say That both the rise and the fall of the Anti-christ never doubt it dispute not about it is past already long since even in four hundred and ten or twelve Then all discourses concerning any such subject whether in word or writing are meer stories or at best as they have been for the most part but fruitless controversal pickeerings and that perpetually to no purpose For no Reformist nor the best informed can make good any Charge or Argument against the Papists or any other Sects Mahumetans or others as confining upon the Apostacy of Anti-christ if that was past for ever in four hundred and ten or twelve Thus even Protestants by means of these mistakes give the staff in their hands against themselves into the hands of Papists strengthen Heresies and weaken the hands of the witnesses of the truth For if these errours in Opinions must stand for truths then must all Reformists give prime honour to the Papists as chief of Churches And as they of the Synagogue of Satan that said they were Jews and were not were made to come and worship at the feet of Philadelphia so If there was but one Dragron ending as aforesaid with all compute of Prophetick Scriptures about 410 then all Reformists and Sects pretending to be reformed must come and worship at the feet of the Papists as the only Mother Catholick and true Church and only assume Schism Apostacy and shame to themselves No weapon of war formed by the best Reformist's can prosper in their hands against her she 's Civit as circummurata a City walled round her walls are Brass which times cannot break nor force scale Thus we see the sacred Scriptures by means of these mistakes until they be removed are both by strict and loose Professors prostituted to the vilest disuse are made Muri abaenei walls of Brass by Protestants against themselves for the defence of Papists Heathens and Hereticks to fortifie and confirm their blind and wicked confidence in all ignorance and evil Manners For If there was but one Dragon ending with the whole computation of the Apocalyps the Mahumetans excepted in four hundred and ten as Dr. Hammond and others Learnedly labour but in vain to end it nor do the Mahumetans as they except them signifie any thing to this purpose Then the Church of Rome may say she sits as Queen Rules alone nor was she raised by power of any first or second Dragon For as nothing can exist without some cause of its being So it was impossible for Papal Rome faln in her Infancy to be raised to power if there was none to raise her up But God by his providence did ordain or permit this second Dragon for the first fell before for ever to raise up Papal Rome the place prepared of God to preserve his Church for a space by giving his power the Supremacy therein to her secular Head which the Scripture expresly asserts where it saith And the Dragon gave c. They therefore that take in hand to explain these Scriptures or to prove Rome Papal complex of many Sects and Nations to be the
proud Pharisees a Synagogue of Censorious Hypocrites seat of the Mystery of iniquity Mother of the Son of perdition and the Spiritual Metropolis of the body of Antichrist But here we might enquire who possibly this Angel might be that cryed thus mightily with a strong voyce I answer The seven Stars were seven Angels or overseers of the seven Churches of Asia Ch. 1.20 Therefore This Angel might be for he could be no imaginary or Chimaera-Angel that cryed mightily and was never heard and filled the Earth with his Glory and yet was never seen some overseer of at least some part of the Gospel Church And if so why not Saint Jerom For never any Angel or Overseer of the Primitive Church after the Apostles times cryed so mightily with a strong voice saying Babylon the great is fallen c. But both Papists and Protestants and both unawares plainly import in the delineation of his person that Saint Jerome was indeed this Angel For as both draw Gregories Picture with a Dove at his Ear both make Jeronies Effigies with a Lion at his Foot which is a plain-speaking Hieroglyphick that truly expounds the Text For it evidently imports That as the Lion is King of the beasts so Jerom was the Prince or chief of all the Primitive Fathers For. Secondly The Text saith An Angel having great power cryed mightily with a strong voyce Ch. 18 1 2. And this device Saint Jeroms Picture or Emblem thus drawn as aforesaid by Papists and Protestants imports That the voyce of Saint Jeroms Pen was a strong voyce like the roaring of a Lion Thirdly That which that mighty Angel cryed with a strong voyce was this Babylon the great is fallen c. And that which Saint Jerom cryed with a strong voyce which denotes him undeniably to be the same Angel was the very same thing in the same words To wit Babylon the great is fallen c. No man ever cryed so mightily with a strong voyce as Jerom did against the grand Apostacy at the very beginning of it Therefore Saint Jerom is most likely to be this Angel that cryed thus mightily with a strong voyce Babylon to wit Rome Imperial Babylons penultimate Antitype is fallen c. And therefore the Authority of Jerom alone much more joyned with the witness of sacred Writt and of many Writers is more then sufficient to confirm the Truth of the time when Primitive Apostate Rome fell and when the Papal Apostacy commenced The same is also superabundant to prove that the City called Babylon in the seventeenth and eighteenth Chapters was Rome Imperial Apostate in manners And thereby to refell their opinions that seeming to make it their study how to adde to or diminish from the words of the book of sacred vision assert the contrary It may serve also to undeceive many sober Writers that hold the same errors and so to be a Key to open those Arcana Theologiae mysterious sacred Truths that contain the richest treasures of the greatest mercies to present and after ages For as one Ring wanting or misplaced in a Watch makes the whole Watch be of no use so one much more many Texts misunderstood may make the whole Prophetick Scripture or at least part of it to be of disuse as a book fast sealed and must needs confound the true meaning of many Texts But If Saint Jerom was as both Papists and Protestants though implicit to them thus import that Angel of great power Then that Angel or however Saint Jerom cryed mightily with a strong voyce saying not only that Babylon the great was fallen but that Rome Primitive then commencing Papal and Apostate was that falling City that then fell from faith and manners He had the Record of the fittest Primitive Fathers as well as reason and sacred Scriptures co-asserting what he so cryed with a strong voyce And this irrefellibly refells those confident Opinions of very many fond Opinionists and of some sober Professors who affirm that the great City called Babylon and said to fall in the 17 and 18 Chapters was at her final dissolution Papal Rome only whose five first heads the Scripture sayes it fell before John wrote above four hundred years before Papal Rome was in being but I leave such shameful inconsequences to the sober Reader But that falling City in the 17. and 18. Chapters which those Opinionists imagine to be Papal Rome was the literal City of Rome of Imperial Pagan egressive Papal ingressive She as egressive was Pagan and Imperial from which she then fell for ever She as ingressive was but the Spiritual Metropolis of Papal and Apostate Rome to which she then fell For Papal Rome only went on though at first with more mildness and less violence in the same Apostacy for which Primitive Rome fell Pagan and Imperial Rome that Apostacy of the more Orthodox was the cause of it then fell for ever And Papal Decapolite Rome then rose up by that sall of her said forerunner in that Apostacy Seventhly I would have written saith Jerom something of the Holy Ghost and have dedicated the Treatise to the Bishop of that City Jerom it seems did not disdain either the Title or Office of a Bishop but the abuse of that Office in any person He would have dedicated his Book to the Bishop of that City but found no acceptance from him or his associates For Eighthly And the Senate of Pharisees saith he cryed out at me all at once c. This shews the excessive insolence in the very ingress of it of the grand Apostacy who most pretending to advance Learning and Religion were so far from both that Saint Jeroms book found no acceptance from any of them what book could be better pen'd by man at that time then Saint Jeroms was or be more necessary then that of his upon the Holy Ghost against Arrianisme that then threatened to swallow up the Church of Christ the Christian Empire and indeed all true Learning and Religion But so far was he or it from finding due acceptance that he found perhaps not one man amongst them that would take the pains to read it or that through cursory reading of it could understand it Such might answer him in scorn That his book was too high for their low capacitys to comprehend They were no doubt too wise to read it too learned to understand it Such Learned Non-intelligists now are many Or they had they might imagine better books of their own making or made by orhers to better uses besides much business of highest concernment wherein they busied themselves no doubt to as good purposes as they that take in hand to tresure up thewind Suppose a man I but suppose it in these last times of that Apostacy should write a Treatise effectual to refell errors to reform manners to compose those divisions in and against the Church that threaten like leakes in a weather beaten ship to sink her and to take peace from the Earth I doubt not but the
Apostate in Manners was laid in the Ballance and found wanting wantinng in the weight of her former graces in the worth of her first works She fell from being most fruitful in well doing to be a Cage of every hateful Bird Therefore Her plagues came in one day Death Mourning Famine Fire c. I might produce many Presidents As the fall of Pharaoh's servants Sodom Jerusalem And indeed all places and persons that have perished have had this levity of Judgement and works the cause of their perdition Therefore It requires our speedy disquisition to find out what this dangerous levity that brings such swift destruction is that we may with all diligent care avoid it and find out that substantial Gold of sound Judgement and sincere Obedience which shall be subordinate to Christ the Rock of safety to Ages and support of all Princes and people Levity in love and Works is Sensual Earthly and Devilish And first Sensual Sensual Professors filthy Sodomites make substantial Truth sober Advice and sincere Obedience matters of extream Laughter So Lot seemed to his Sons in Law as one that mocked or made sport And this makes all their sins so far incorrigible These Professors though they scarce can be so called can condemn any man O horrendum bestiale before they hear him any Book before they read it and the Grounds of their such solid Judgements is their trivial Levity of lavish petulancy Sodom 't is not said she gave no Alms strengthened not by giving the hands of the poor And her Antitype Such Sodomites do the same give perhaps but by giving strengthen not the needy These men grow daily as they grow in years not in Grace but Wit And that Wit is only extream Folly These wild Beasts are but sensless Risibilists and their Judgements and Works so light that they are not worth the weighing of them But God will lay them and their works as he did revelling Belshazzar in his ballance Secondly The Judgements and works of Earthly-minded Professors seeming more solid are much lighter Their levity is less seen and longer before it be discerned So Pilate heard and examined seemed duly to examine our blessed Saviour found no fault in him and then through Earthly Interests condem'nd him to be put to death whereas filthy Sodomites professors sensual are not fit nor able to examine any man searce with any appearance of Sedulity Their volatile petulancy and levity of folly permits them not to be so serious or industrious Or if they have so much sobriety as to examine any man and find him faultless they are not usually so wicked with Pilate and secular Professors as to condemn him For it is not so much Sensual as Covetous and Earthly Interests that tend to condemn the Truth in deed and the witnesses thereof to Death Their Doom the Sentence of Men Earthly-minded falls far above the bolts of filthy Sodomites heavier upon the Truth and the Witnesses of it at last though they seem greatly to favour both at first For their levity of Love and Works being less seen is longer before it be discerned So Judas was Earthly-minded a thief saith the Text long before he was found out nor was he perceived by the Apostles for about 1260. dayes but then that Type-Son of Perdition and the Mystery of Iniquity in him was revealed His love to the Truth Loyalty to his Master Charity to men and care of the poor was laid in the Ballance and found wanting The Levity of the love of Earthly-minded Professors is discovered by the outward indices Angustum pectus parca manus Narrow hearts hands not enlarged Their rewards are ever inconform to the works of the well deserving or dilatory to destroy them Their grand pretence for their so doing is their great business both Secular Sacred So Ahab a Type of Antichrist was busie here and there saith the Prophet and by means of that business minded not the command of God lost his Kingdom thereby and destroyed himself and his family for ever So Secular Antichrist Ahabs Antitype is not ashamed no more then Ahab was to make the pretence of much business his plea against Obedience For Earthly minds full of worldly business exclude the testimony of the Truth at least in Works and all due regard to the witnesses of it Therefore Men Earthly-minded Secular Antichrist may be well known by their accumulating such business as arms them with sufficient excuses against the practice of good manners Their business is either Secular for Earthly Interests or seeming sacred for secular ends Therefore There 's no weight in all their good Works of which the best are strangled with a strait hand and being laid in the Ballance are found light like the Crowns of the Locusts But Thirdly The levity of Professors proud and Pharisaical being most light is more traductive and devilish Therefore they can censure not as Sodomites but as it were in sobriety before they see cause condemn before they know whom or for what They can readily say with Apostate Julian Legi Cognovi Damnavi Legi Here 's some labour lost labour the worst labour Cognovi Here 's some profit a man would think of their pains pains to no purpose pains without profit Damnavi Here 's the cursed truthcondemning fruit of proud Professors the fruit of all their pains in reading the result of all their acquisitions They only dream they know as some Prophets did and discern nothing Therefore as Balaam could not be stoptin his course to curse Israel these cannot be stay'd by any course from rash-censuring The Cataracts of rash condemnation fall not to be by any force repelled from the high praecipices of Pride and Ignorance and are the infallible Characters of Locusts and Hypocrites They are ever most busie and their business is about they think things sacred but serves only to deceive and be deceived In a word Their good works are so light that in substance they are but words of which none are good but in appearance and deceit The levity of the Righteousness of the Locusts and others consists in their Inadvertency or want of care to conceive and observe those Principles aforesaid of Incomplex-truth A Quo Quid Cui Quantum Quoties whose necessary considerations being but hinted before here fall under our further examination And First A Quo Or from whom what Truth in practise should chiefly proceed Silver and God said Peter have I none such as I have I give Rise up and walk Acts 3. From such as have no Silver nor Gold neither is due Nor must we expect that such as have no Spiritual use of any Limb themselves should afford the means to make others walk in right Obedience to God and good Works to men No man though many pretend it gives that to another which himself hath not to give But it 's a duty universal from all to do good to all which that they may do they must first have or seek to have the gift
of so doing from the hand of God But Locusts conceive not themselves greatly concern'd in the discharge of any such duty Quid hoc ad nos what 's this say they to us They are otherwise busie in serving God and their best service is but some blind careless fragment of Obedience void of conformity This Righteousness is no Fruit of the true Vine but the wild Grapes of desperate Deceits An Agrest Righteousness growing upon every Hedge Heathens or Hereticks For many Turks and Papists as well as Locusts think it sufficient to declaim in general against sin and out of a strict blind zeal to call for and excite unto Repentance but in particular shew not nor know what sin is nor what true Repentance meaneth But as it 's the property of all blind Hypocrites it 's their Practice to seem to impugne with violence in their Doctrine so they should do sensual Profaneness but never lift up their little finger against Secular and Spiritual wickedness which closly vailed under strict Forms they mistake for the power of godliness and count that to be the richest piece in their Crowns of Righteousness Wherefore having as it were Crowns like gold they think it least belongs to them of any to labour to get Crowns of Gold or to distinguish betwixt Truth and Deceit Truth therefore in practice is no part of their Quid nor do they make the practice thereof being ignorant of it any duty from them But Secondly Quid The Quid or what True Saints should ask of God and give to men is gold I counsel thee saith Christ to buy of me gold that thou mayest be rich and White Raiment that thou mayest be cloathed Rev. 3.18 To wit The gift or power to practise such works as are not found like the Crowns of Locusts wanting in weight that are not dilatory nor defalked nor done with unwilling minds but conform to the Incomplex Principles of Truth in Practice But the Locusts Quid is Gold like Straw of deceit good Works delay'd done by halves or with an unwilling mind or mixt with insolence or morosity or otherwise inconform to the Principles of Truth in practice I counsel thee to buy of me gold c. And must men buy the free gifts of God God is bountiful but men must buy every good and perfect gift of him Such gifts are seldom purchased without much pains and cost So the man that found a Treasure in a field sold all that he had and bought that field Matth. 13.44 But Locusts love money too well and are too lazy to purchase such gifts with much pains or charge But I could wish to counsel them unworthy that all true Saints and Sack-cloth witnesses would give due attention to the counsel of God and buy of him Gold that they may be rich and white Raiment to be better clothed for shame and not be like Laodiceans extream poor and naked And I could wish that Locusts and Hypocrites whough they are busie and mind matters of an hundred times higher concernment would do the same But their smoaky service to God is sufficient the chief good they think and count their Crowns of desperate deceit to be the most inestimable Treasure Such Treasure such Service is the Locusts Quid. Thirdly Their Cui They little care whom they hurt and mind not much to profit any They are oft kind to their kin which kindness seldom falls due till after death They have however gifts to gratifie the rich and rewards for some of their own Societies And they that dwell upon the Earth shall send Gifts one to another Apoc. 11.10 These gifts were no good Works nor this kindness Charity but a commutual corrupt gratifying of the most wicked members of the body of Apostacy One to another This is Philautia self-ended Charity and the kindness of Hypocrites To those of the same Stock Kin Sect The Pharisees did so But true Charity opens her hand wide to the poor in want to good and bad to strangers in distress to Professors of contrary Opinions but especially to the well-deserving Be not overcome with evil but overcome evil with good Rom. 12.21 And is doing good the way to vanquish or good Works weapons to overcome I answer Good Works are the best weapons to overcome Sects and dissenting brethren Overcome therefore their Errours in Doctrine by undeniable dilucidations of sacred Truth Overcome their Manners by manners contrary by kindness mercy and goodness send thy gifts even to Locusts and Hypocrites not as they that dwelt upon the Earth did to encourage one another in doing evil but to win them with good to unity of Faith and true Obedience Let thy kindness convince their uncharitableness Thy Mansuetude their merciless inhumanities Abandon Rigour banish cruelties Be not overcome with evil but overcome evil with good as the best way to win thy worst Enemies and the most effectual means to convince and convert Infidels Sects and dissenting Brethren The wise and ancient Councellours that stood before King Solomon gave some such Counsel to his son For This way of overooming evil with good the Errours and evil Manners of Enemies Sects and Dissenters is Sophia-Chirurgorum the Balsame of Wisdom to heal the bleeding wounds of the Gospel-Church and Christian-States whereas the contrary Counsel of the young rash heady Councellours procured the final Rent and Revolt of the ten Tribes And the like contrary Counsels cause and continue like sad Rents and Divisions in the Church of God I shall here but briefly solve two Questions and so proceed First Whether the superfluities of Nabals Feast were more due to his Sheep-shearers than to David That Feast in Nabals judgement and he was a Fool was due to his Sheep-shearers and no part of it to David that defended his Flocks and his servants that kept them So Locusts and Hypocrites judge nothing due to faithful Shepherds that feed Christs Flocks by sound Doctrine and chiefly by good example For Truth-practising Ministers are the best Preachers though their gift of Vocal Prophesie were very weak and mean But any Sycophant and pretender not true Proficients is the Locust's Cui to whom in their account the rewards of the well deserving are due The second Question is this Whether that Oyntment wherewith Mary anointed our Saviour's feet was due to him or to the poor Joh. 12.3 It was the judgement of Judas that it should have been sold and the price given to the poor So Locusts and Hypocrites are of the same judgement with Judas that no recompence is due to the best deserving but take as great care as he did of the poor The poor though that be usually far from them ought to be sufficiently provided for But the well-deserving have most right to just rewards The time saith the Text is come that thoushouldest give reward to thy servants the Prophets and to those that fear thy Name small and great Revel 11.18 These and what is profitable and honest to promote and
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-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
was Veritas incomplexa or res recta in se that which was right in it self and due to be done The good Samaritan so soon as he saw him made that incomplextruth complex saw and considered what he had need of They that see and consider not see without Eyes Their Eye is evil They see nothing and can never do that which is right For how can they do what they approve not or approve what they know not This seems to be through shameful inadvertency the common bestial custom well nigh of all men and the practise almost so universal is the grand Apostacy of all Professors Men see hear and read and mind nothing to make it nor scarce that more than Complex But Secondly The good Samaritan did not only make that Incomplex-truth or right in it self Complex by taking care to know it but made it Triplex had his Harp ready tuued to a conformity of will to do that right which he knew due to be done He that takes care to know what is right to be done to other men that is every mans first duty in Christian practice but takes no care to conform his will to do it as it should be done doubles his iniquity and his own just punishment For he that knows his Masters will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes Nor can such be said to be doers of the will of God as do it without diligence but by halves or with unwilling minds or without conformity of works to his will Such works though commonly practised by sealed Saints are no part of their practice which they should persorm And such Professors seem so far from being those first-fruits that they appear not to be any part of the sealed servants of God But Thirdly The good Samaritan did not only make that Incomplex-truth complex by a conformity of the Intellect to that which was right in it self Nor did he only make that Complex-truth triplex by a conformity of will to that known right but he made it Quadruplex by a conformity of works to a right informed Will and Intellect He readily set about without delayes the discharge of that duty to God Man Nor did he alledg the difficulty of the mans recovery to retard his duty The passers-by might pretend that And that 's ost pretended by Hypocrites to pass by the works of Mercy and Equity Want of care towards others in their extremities is the cause that many are cast away undone in their Estates destroy'd in their sicknesses Such Professors be they never so strict stand not with the Lamb upon Mount Sion nor seem indeed to be his Disciples For The good Samaritan pretended no impossibility of the mans recovery to decline his duty much less did he wound that wounded man afresh with false aspersions did not tell him his covetousness in travelling to get ill-got gain was the cause of his calamity Nor retort to him in scorn That had he kept honest mens company he had not faln into the hands of Theeves Nor did he say such Sad distresses were evident signs he was a wicked man To deride men in distress is high profaneness but to rail upon those to whom they should do right is most unchristian and inhumane But most pretenders in these times and many I hope I may call them so sealed servants of God make it no great matter that so they may decline their duty of doing right or shewing mercy to rail upon such so desperately depraved are their Manners And they dare invade other mens rights so far as to become Judges of their persons and actions whom they know not and which they do not understand Fourthly Had the good Samaritan delay'd the man half-dead he had dy'd no doubt outright and he himself had past by as that Priest and Levite did his duty of doing right or shewing mercy Right long delay'd is usually lost thereby or comes like the repentance of Judas when its too late Let none therefore be hearers of the Word or knowers of the will of God only deceiving themselves but doers of it without delayes or defalcation The good Samaritan to that end had his Harp well tuned His heart was not surfeited or overcharged with the cares and business of Antichrist that continually resist true obedience to God and right to men But unsealed Locusts and Hypocrites have their hearts and hands ever over-charged with abundance of business that they can never mind good works worth the Name of good They therefore are ever ready to say with Ahab who was an express Figure of Antichrist Thy servants were busie very busie here and there that we forgot obedience could not remember to shew mercy or mind to do right in a forefold conformity These are not Harpers haviing the Harps of God but loaded Camels that can never pass through the Eyes of Needles Are always fitted and prepared like that Priest and Levite to pass by all obedience to God right and mercy to Men. And the sealed servants of God may very well make in a great measure the same excuse and say Thy servants are ever so busie minding Earthly things or having our hearts devoutly set upon serious Formalities that we have not leisure to look after the life of Religion and power of Godliness practised in a fourfold conformity Nor did we ever imagine that any such practice though now we perceive it had been in being Mercy and Right we mind not or we mind such duties but as Moral Works not worth the minding These though the sealed servants of God take not or very little the example of their Practice from the Patern of the Lamb upon Mount Sion but so prevalent is the Power of the grand Apostacy even in Saints from the customes and manners of men But this Chorus incontaminatus or conscript-number must make the works of the Lamb not the manners of men the Patern of their Christian practice which above all things calls for our further consideration Fifthly We find not that the good Samaritan did summon near neighbours to make a Rate to relieve the wounded man and so let him whiles they through covetousness could not agree be lost but defray'd the whole charge himself but the sealed servants of God differ far from his practice and either omit good Works or must have perhaps an hundred to co-adjoyn in Copartnership to perform half a good work at three half-pence charge And unless many do joyn will not have no by no means any hand in it Such as thus learn Christ shew not themselves by their practice to be the sealed servants of God much less to have his Name written in their foreheads But the good Samaritan manifestly condemned such multipartite practice of shriveled and sordid tenacity by his own example He not seeking assistance from others where it needed not expended the whole charge himself in doing that good work to the wounded man compleated a perfect Patern in a quadruplex-conformity Sixthly He
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
Almost all Professors and many Saints much deceive themselves by being of this or that Sect or Church-Society and by being therein vainly consident whereas a Sect signifies nothing But sincerity is the substance of true obedience Saul so desperately deceitful are half-performances paid a large price of exemption from obedience to God and doing good to himself his Country and Family He went saw and overcame Amaleck as God commanded brought away their best Catcle c. Who could nor could he himself imagine that more to please God could be done that service Nor scarce could Samuel beat him out of the strong confidence of that misbelief But Samuel told him that all that large price of exemption for it seemed to exceed an half-performance from true obedience was as Witchcraft and Rebellion Why as Witchcraft Because half-performances deceive unsealed Hypocrites more than Witchcraft and would deceive were it possible the very Elect But the practice of the good Samaritan is a perfect Patern in a fourfold conformity for all Men and Nations to follow having due respect to all the Principles of right in it self A Quo Quid Cui Quantum Quoties c. And such Works and they only are the sacred Harmony of the Harps of God And I looked and lo a Lamb stood upon Mount Sion c. We shall and so conclude the first Part of this Treatise further enquire First Who that Lamb is Secondly What is here meant by Mount Sion Thirdly Who those Harpers shall be Fourthly Why they are called the first-fruits Fifthly What is meant by those Harps of God And first That the Lamb on Mount Sion shall be Christ is not doubted I suppose nor deny'd by any Not that Christ shall then stand corporally in his Hypostatical person there or any where else upon Earth either for 1000 years or more or less time when these 144000 shall attend him But by the Lamb in this Text is meant Christ's Substitutes his revived Witnesses Religious Ministers and Magistrates raised from the sleep of Spiritual Death to the Life of Animadvertency and to mind to do right and shew mercy after the Patern of the good Samaritan in a fourfold Conformity which only is Christian true practice For As Michael and his Angels are said to fight with the first Dragon And to bind him c. Ch. 12.7 Ch. 20.2 It was Michael's Delegates and Substitutes Constantin with his Armies and Officers that fought and not Michael personally and literally on Earth So the Lamb in the Text upon Mount Sion shall be his Witnesses and Representatives Religious Kings and Ministers standing firm as upon Mount Sion upon lasting Principles of sound Faith and good Manners Nor was it God and Christ literally but the said Substitutes with their Successors that reigned on Earth when the 1000 years began Ch. 12.10 Nor shall God and the Lamb literally but their Representatives be the Temple in the conscript-City of God Ch. 21.22 Secondly We shall further enquire who this conscript-number that shall accompany the Lamb shall be and see wherein they differ from Locusts and Hypocrites And first They clearly appear to be the Gospel-Church after lier Wilderness-Pilgrimage brought to and built upon immoveable Foundatious of Truth and Peace For two Texts in one and the same Chapter expresly tell us That the Woman fled into the Wilderness and was to remain there at least 1260 dayes dayes annual which are 1260 years Ch. 12.6 14. And the duration of that Desert-condition by her finished we find her immediately or very soon after firmly seated upon Mount Sion And it is well known to all that know any thing that Mount Sion was never in the Wilderness Ch. 11.11 13 15. Ch. 13.18 Ch. 14.1 That Mount was the Type-Seat of true Worship This the Antitype That for a time This till time be no more That was literal This shall be Spiritual To wit Lasting and inviolable Principles of true Faith and good Manners whereon the Gospel-Church firmly built shall perform true obedience to God and good Works to Men in a fourfold conformity Therefore Locusts and Hypocrites can be none of this couscript-company their Harps of pride strife and ignorance if such Instruments can be called Harps sound forth rash and foolish questions cavils and impugnations against that which is right Their works and true Saints too off practice the same are torn Sacrifices clypt fragments half-performances good beginnings never finished works of negligence and careless forgetfulness or wicked exemptions from good works They scatter some fragments the worst Simony to be rid of doing good whiles they relieve the poor reward the well-deserving but strengthen not their hands as Sodom did not by relieving or rewarding of them Their works not performed in a fourfold couformity are contrary to the Patern in the Mount and the practice of the good Samaritan Therefore being laid in the ballance they are ever found wanting This company having the Name of God in their foreheads may be called Coetus Virgineus vel Chorus incontaminatus the Virgin or undefiled company These were not defiled with women saith the Text for they were Virgins vers 4. They seem to differ from the Profuga or sealed Church only as Christ transfigured in the Mount differed from what he was before Christ in the Mount was not another man but a Man the same Christ of another manner So these 144000 conscript in the Mount shall be the same Gospel-Church that was sealed before that fled into the Wilderness and was fed there for 1260 years Not for matter another Church but a Church of other manners transfigured as it were in the Mount of God and not floating as the Ark in the flood upon unstable waters not driven to and fro with every wind of false Doctrine and different Opinion not broken by proad Billows of swelling Schisms and Subdivisions but shall be immovably fixt like the Ark at last upon a sure Rock which can never be shaken Many rich Prophetick-promises to the Gospel-Church are held forth in the 7th Chapter from the ninth verse to the end But those manifold promises of the richest mercies seem to be made chiefly to the conscript-Church and were not so fully fulfilled to the sealed servants of God in that Chapter For after the sealing of them the Text saith After this I beheld and loe a great multitude c. vers 9. For as God did not begin to smite Egypt with the Plagues of Excision till his people were first sealed in the Fronts or Door-posts of their habitations with the blood of the Lamb Exod 12. So these their penultimate Antitype were first sealed in their foreheads before God smote Imperial and Apostate Rome about the beginning of the fifth Century But as his Prototype sealed servants the people of Israel finished forty two journeys in the literal Wilderness So these sealed servants of God in the 7th Chapter were to fulfill forty two moneths Prophetical 1260 years in the Spiritual Wilderness before they should stand
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
back But Secondly To what must they be turned I answer The Conscript first-fruits shall as Elijah and John did in Types Turn the hearts of the Fathers to their Children the hearts of Children to their Fathers and the disobedient to the wisdom of the Just that is to do right and shew mercy in a four-fold conformity lest God come and smite the Earth with a curse Malach 4.6 Luke 1.16 17. And Thirdly What is that curse or what are the dangers if the hearts of Men and Saints are not turned back from those now more than ever swelling sins I answer The Old World hearkened not to Noahs Sackcloth-Prophesie but remained inanimadversive minded nothing and knew nothing till the Flood came saith the Text Therefore God smote the Earth with a curse destroyed the World Apostate Israel hearkened not to Elijah's and the Prophets Sackcloth-Prophesie for 1260 days and the restraint of Rain continued so long Had it continued longer it had cut off Man and Beast So the Antitype-Apostasie hearkened not to the Witnesses Prophesying in Sackcloth for 1260 years They yet repented not saith the Text Therefore The neglected and not regarded Witnesses smote the Earth with all plagues and with the plague of all plagues the restraint of the Rain of Spiritual Graces in the days of the 1260 years of their Sackcloth-Prophesie Wherefore Should not their hearts be turned back at last nothing could be expected but that the curse threatened should devour the Earth Therefore hath the curse devoured the Earth saith the Text Isa 24.6 The Earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it It shall fall and not rise again vers 9. Lastly Babylon the great came in remembrance before God to give unto her the Cup of the Wine of the fierceness of his wrath Ch. 16.19 The Old Apostate World was drowned with water But the Antitype-Apostasie shall be drunk with the Wine of the fierceness of the wrath of God Jerem. 25.15 27 c. The Wine of the fierceness of bis wrath This is an expression that a man would think could scarcely be exprest and the plague thereby threatned is the plague of all plagues From all the plagues wherewith the Sackcloth-Wituesses smote the Earth and principally from this Plague may all Men and Saints have great cause to say good Lord deliver us Thus we see the dangers are most dreadful and superabundant if the hearts of Men and Saints are not turned back from the sins aforesaid But they may say we see the dangers sufficiently and that the Plagues are like the curse laid upon Cain greater than we can possibly bear But where 's our safety wherein consists our remedy I answer Fourthly The safeties of Men and Saints consist in having their hearts turned back from those sins aforesaid in getting like those Harpers the Harps of God in learning their Song not in deceit but in deed and in flying from Sinai to Mount Sion as Lot to Zoar For those Harpers shall be the first-fruits redeemed from the Earth and from among men Ch. 14.3 4. to wit from those sius aforesaid and from those dreadful Plagues they produce For they shall not be defiled with Women vers 4. and therefore shall not worship Idols nor act Spiritual Fornications Their worship shall be according to the sincerity of the simplicity in Christ and the practice of it wrought in a fore-fold conformity of Truth contrary to the prevaricatory multiplicity of Antichrist in deceitful pretences delays and half-performances Such shall be the fruits of those first-fruits in Antitype Ston where safeties shall clothe the conscript-Church as dangers compassed her about before in the Spiritual-Wilderness There shall in no wise enter any thing that defileth neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lye Ch. 21.27 There shall be no faithless dealers nor false accusers Therefore there shall be no more curse Ch. 22.3 There a River of Water of Life shall refresh the City of God and the Tree of Life shall afford food for her Inhabitants And the leaves of that Tree shall be to heal the Nations That is To turn their hearts back that so they may be safe Ch. 22.1 2. Turn us again O God and we shall be saved Psal 80.3 Turn us again O God of Hosts and we shall be saved vers 7. Turn us again O Lord God of Hosts and we shall be saved vers 19. This petition we see is three times exprest in the same Psalm And this assertion we shall be saved is thrice annexed to that Prayer This Prayer is the Prayer of these times I wish with all my heart That all Ministers and Magistrates Men and Saints would make this seasonable Formula the Patern of their Prayers in this juncture of time and praying continually say Turn us again O God from halting betwixt halves in our Opinions and Practices and we shall be saved Turn us again O God from our disloyal revoltings from Faith and good Manners and from affecting a confident fruitless dead or dying Faith Turn us again O God from the constant Errors of our hearts and our contented ignorance of thy ways and we shall be saved Turn us again O God of Hosts from worshipping the works of our own hands Literal and Spiritual Idols of Gold c. and from our Spiritual and Literal Murders and Sorceries and Fornications and Thefts And we shall be saved For As there is no Name but the Name of Jesus under Heaven by which we can be saved So there is no other way or means on Earth by which Men Saints Sects and all Nations can be safe but by turning from Sinai to Sion from those sins to serve the living God and stand with the Lamb He is and shall be the Rock of safeties to all Ages and to follow his perfect Patern of true Christian practice in a four-fold conformity is as the Fruit only keeps the Tree from being cursed the only outward means thereunto But here I must partly by constraint conclude this first Part because many that promised to futher me are slack in persormance and not a few faln off like Demas through covetousness whereby I am betray'd into the hands of deceitful men drawn into some debt and thereby have suffered long imprisonment Haecreferunt tantos Secula Fabricios Paul was a day and a night in the deep But my dangers are most from the multiplicious dasnings of shallow waters Shallow Professors men of busie ignorance some literate some illiterate have most resisted me retarded this Treatise Such men that cannot read it or not understand what they read have done me as the Copper-Smith did to the Apostle the most harm by their ignorant defaming of Me and It Wherefore I humbly request the truly Learned and Judicious if they find we deserve it to suffer Me and It to Anchor in the safe Harbour of their Candid Favour and Protection Lastly A third cause compelling me is the confident opposition of