not hid in that City nor the adjacent territories nor fled they from thence by a personal flight These two extremes will hardly come together 5. This call here specified pertains not to all times and persons For as Israel was to be in outward Babylon for the space of seventy yeers before the call for their departure so the woman was to remain in the mystical for a full season even 1260 yeers Rev. 12.6 as before the wheat and tares were to grow together till harvest which belongs to the vials chap. 14. and then this call for separation had its peculiar time prefixed the war and it being conjoyned together The primitive Saints failing in their first love sunk into the same earthly confused condition and were left asleep in that wilderness for a full season till the times of God came for their deliverance from bondage 6. This of Protestantisme cannot properly be termed a separation in respect of Church-constitution but rather a dividing of the kingdom Dan. 2.41 The true separation consists in a number out of Nations Rev. 7.9 who are off from the beast and his thorne over consciences as standing immediately before the highest throne and were not defiled with women chap. 14.2 3 4. But theirs was whole Nations good and bad together and they set up a beast originally derived from Rome and by consequence must in their Church-state be a strange woman as is proved in Paragraph 1. Sect. 3. Indeed Antichrist reigning long in his Catholique pontificalitie grew so foul at last that he was found out by the Protestants and being discovered was contented with them to sit down in Episcopacy but lording it there with too much tyranny was also disclosed to be the same beast trimmed in other habit and where he could not be admitted that attire in policy that he might the easier deceive masked himself under a more curious dress in Presbytery yet his ground-work arising by descent from the Pope is the same with the former and he also there usurps or chalengeth the like popedom over consciences The same beast remaines in all onely his Kingdome is divided To your fifth Objection we answer that by the word only we exclude stating not assembling for Ministery Prayer c. Section 3. Your next Objections are directed against our seventh Reason where we tell you that we are yet but in the way towards Sion Before we give a reply to yours we shall acquaint you what we conceive of this subject to prepare for that following We hold that there was a Sion 2 Temple a Woman a Kingdome of grace and a reigne of God therein through all Gospel-times yet withall that this did not constantly abide in the external order of Ecclesiastical government but was in its outward stand and dispensation various In the primitive day Sion was not onely inward in the work of grace and the hidden man saith c. but likewise visibly stated by Christ in the glory of her outward order In the dark night of Antichristianisme she was more retired subsisting simply in the grace of Election mystical union with some weak degree of profession and witness had the badge of the covenant but visibly in a false strange and Babylonish constitution as is cleared in the Cessation After the final subversion of Antichrist the like visible government shall againe descend from heaven as is shewed in the Cessation also Quaer 2. This is diversly stiled in the Prophets answerable to the sense it is opposed against or applyed to Sometimes to teach us that before the Saints were outwardly a scattered and bondaged people in a strange land or Babylon the visibilty of true gospel-Gospel-order and regiment is by a Synecdoche termed Sion Rev. 18.4 Isa 35. The ransomed of the Lord return from Babylon to Sion The redeemed ones were never absented from the mystical Sion but from the visible they were and to that are said to return Likewise to inform us that a mystical or more invisible Sion remained and to point out in particular what failed and what againe reverts the Prophets tell us that it is the visibility of regiment shall be added to the former as Mich. 4. after the vials wars are ended in a full peace ver 3.4 the Lord shal reigne agreeable to Rev. 19.6 and then thou O Tower of the flock the strong hold of the daughter of Sion unto thee shall it come even the first dominion the Kingdome shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem ver 8. then judgement shall be given to the most high Saints Dan. 7.22 Now to apply this to our case we affirme that in the former of these two acceptations we are in our way to Sion in the latter we are on Sion expecting the glory of her government to come from the Lord Jesus So that Sion in the Scriptures is sometimes taken only for the mystical or mount of true grace and thus it is in the times of the apostacy sometimes for the visible order of the Church-constitution or outward rule The not marking this hath caused many in the daies of this more intrinsecall administration to bring the promises belonging to Sion unto their stated formes and so to Babylon thereby deluding both themselves and the people thus did the Pope thus did the Bishops and the like do all the rest We shall now proceed to remove your obstacles Object 1. It is the state of all imbracing the Gospel to be come to mount Sion and the celestial Jerusalem Heb. 12.22 Answer This was spoken to the gospel-Gospel-Church of the primitive day who was Sion as in the being and profession of faith so also in her outward corporation and discipline and cannot in its latitude be extended to all Gospel-times Object 2. To prove the perpetual succession of a Gospel Sion stated in outward order through the Antichristian age you instance Rev. 14.1 Answ Sion here specified figures out the mount of true grace and the unmoveable foundation thereof For all the Elect sealed number and only they stood with the Lamb upon this mountaine See the Cessation If this be meant of a visible constituted Church then must if follow either that all the Elect in the world and only they through the whole season of tribulation must successively in every generation thereof be congregated apart by themselves and set in a true order distinguished from the Papacy Patriarkship c. or else that Rome and the Greek Church as corrupt as she carrying this continuance of visibility must be true and orderly constitutions made up of members elect and pretious and none but such If the former be asserted the Scripture and the event both manifest that the Saints were scattered and mixed amongst the nations if the latter more must attributed to Rome then she dares chalenge to her self Besides this daughter of Sion was visibly in Babylon where all the beauty of her exteriour order was turned into confusion as you may at large read in the same Cessation as also Parag.
2. Onely they and none else had their stand thereon all the rest of the common Israelites were hurt by the withholding of the windes Chap. 7. by the Locust Chap. 9.3 and were utterly supplanted by the Beast Chap 13.8 Matth. 24.24 Hence I deduced this consequence that the Elect alone must make up this Temple Sion and that all other Christians that had but the externality bring in a false visibility had not so much as outward measurement but were wholly the patrimony of the Beast and Whore 2. What was her condition here In Chap. 7 that she was some of every tribe distinguished from the rest onely by the seal of true election 2 Cor. 1.20 21 22. In Chap. 11.2 that all her outward court was taken from her and it being excommunicated became another even the possession of the Nations In Chap. 12.6 14 that she who vers 1. in the primitive day was in heaven there clothed with the sun had the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of twelve stars all seen in open type as being enriched beautified and completed with full power in her outward visibility afterward by this apostacie fled into the wilderness beneath her former visible orbs where all about her was dry barren and confused earth the Kingdom of God was during this time within Luke 17.21 Her place vers 6 14. must be the abovesaid Temple void of the externality of Order Also the call for separation inters as much as Cant. 6.13 Return return O Shulamite also Isai 35.10 The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Sion the word ransomed imports their being captive before and their return their absence from that Sion they come unto also Chap. 51.14 The captive exile hasteth to be delivered from the pit which implies their former being in again Rev. 18.4 come out of her my people intimates that they were a company in Babylon before the time of this departure even in that city which is called Sodom and Egypt Chap. 11.8 by which the Spirit would teach us that as Lot was in outward Sodom Israel in Egypt Judah in Babylon so the Lords people should be in such a visible constitution as spiritually was Sodom for beastly idolatry Egypt for bondage Babylon as being in a strange land from the native Canaan of a Gospel-Order where they were strangers under other lords And in which Country there was another earth sea rivers and fountains sun throne rive viz. Euplwates and air Chap. 16. They cannot properly be called out to reward her in these but they must be before within In Chap. 11.3 4 The Witnesses even those who were the chiefest administers of light to the Temple had their outward clothing not with the sun as before but with sackcloth their external investment into Membership and Office being Antichristian and their stand before the earthly god of humane Hierarchies even in the above-said wilderness or great city vers 8. where the Beast those strange earthly lords have power to do and trample them under foot with tyranny vers 2. Chap. 13.5 making their estate mournful And in this dark night of their desertion they were as those asleep as not altogether sensible of their outward state till God by his call awaken them out of this drowzie Coma Cant. 5.2 Matth. 25.5 6. By these Scriptures me may gather that this mystical Church or sealed number was stript of all the glory of his visible inheritance in church-Church-order and outwardly in a false Babylonish station as in a foraigne country under strange Lords where she was in a mixed estate partly hurt defiled and through blindness deluded partly untouched undefiled undeceived they were indamaged dimmed and seduced in the externality but in the radix of the internal grace could not be subverted it being sustatined by the immediate hand of heaven 3. The next remarkable thing is How the Church was fed in this desolation In Chap. 7.1 2. we may deduce that there was some secret vertue of the Covenant to secure and perpetuate the sealed company In Chap. 11.1 that as there were worshippers in the temple and an altar so their worship must flow immediately from those internal closets that were measured and not at all from the outward court of order which was excluded in vers 3. that Christ himself gave power to the witnesses by an immediate gift when there was none outward of office from man and by that they fed the woman in her place Chap. 12.14 In Zech. 4.12 that though there were not seven pipes a fulness of ordinances as was in the primitive day vers 2. yet there were two remaining to empty out their golden oile as before that these must be such ordinances as are promised in the word to continue which is declared in this cessation above Hence we may draw two observations First For the resolving of a grand paradox propounded by the Episcopalists and Presbyterians against the separation viz. How there can be conversion in a false Church Here we may take notice that there was a temple within a woman Sion and a feeding by the witnesses where all the order was Babylonish Secondly that this more intrinsecal dispensation is weak and sparing and the Saints under it in a low and almost famished condition Amos 8.11 12. Their strength and perfection is then when this more internal work dilates and spreads its vertue to the superficies therefore the way and journey of separation is not a retiring in but an outgoing both of Christ and his people Isa 52.12 Revel 14.4 Mat. 25.6 and is compared by the Lord Jesus to a spring Mal. 24.32 33. as diffusing its vital sap more outwardly and blossoming that magnificent kingdome of the marriage is likened to a summer Luk. 21.29 30 31. The not observing this nor marking what ordinances were left of God to be meerly formal and what remained with some degree of power hath occasioned many to run into another extream and draw the work of the Spirit so within its self as might stop all the expirations or out-breakings thereof and under the notion of highness bring men into a lower condition then that of the Antichristian stand that was a narrow and sparing breathing their 's a stifling and suffocating of the Spirit as obstructing all its passages by which it should reflow in its workings out 4. The last consideration is the time of this great desertion and loss when it began how long it abides and the computation thereof This time cannot begin with the first trumper as Master Brightman and others carry it but must receive its initiation with the fifth deciphered in Chap. 9. For 1. It cannot be with any clearness of sense begin till the woman had taken her full flight into the wilderness chap. 12.6 In the former trumpets two parts in three of the visibility remained true and the star in fifth was in heaven till he fell to the earth and by that apostacie all the externality of church-policy became
in profession were beyond the sphere of Satan For the inward created principle in the soul breaking forth in and by these means and Ordinances the Spirit in and by the Word sustaining its perpetuity and Christ supporting the same are all far above the reach of Antichrist had these been in the power of that destroyer he would have utterly marred all the springs yea the very fountain of grace In the same manner the communion taken on the ground work of the spiritual union of all the godly wherever scattered when the corporated was false and Christ therein fed upon by faith was not altogether subverted for the mystical relation betwixt Christ and the heart and the godly with the godly was beyond the compass of Popes Bishops or any humane authority whatsoever Also for Baptism though the Antichristian Church was in her constitution and order unmeasured to truth and therein Babylon yet she was not utterly shut out from the Covenant but had the call of Israelites had the Name of the Father Son and holy Ghost put on them with a common grace to believe the Covenant and an elect sealed number in and amongst their tribes none of which properties can be attributed to those wholly without Though Antichrist in some things infected the externality of this Ordinance yet could he not fundamentally raze the Covenant nor utterly abolish the name of Christ from amongst Christians nor make invalid the power of the Word perpetuating that name Isai 56.5 In like sort the ten apostated tribes were in their Church-order set up by Jeroboam radically false and yet were Israelites within the Covenant and had the signe of Circumcision Thus also men excommunicated are excluded from Church-fellowship but not from their Baptism and the Covenant Likewise Hereticks who fell from the Church were received again not by new Baptism but by laying on of hands Euseb l. 7 cap. 2 3. 2. Our Reasons why the later sort as Ordination Confirmation c. abode not are these following 1. They are not promised in the Word to continue Isai 56.5 2. They wanting that promise were forsaken by God when corrupted 3. All the external Order became Antichristian and so the Ordinances proper thereto must be bestial or else how could there have been a Babylon wherein the sealed number were captives 4. Our last taken from this text Rev. 9 is that these were wholly resolved into the Pope to whom was given another key with other smoke and Officers These being altogether external and Christ leaving them Antichrist might have and had absolute power therein to make them bottomless Object Against this you assert that though the Pope have another false key yet withal he hath the keys of Christs discipline in Ordination Excommunication Suspension c. Answ Though the Pope usurp the carcase of those Ordinances that were Christs before yet their true essential form which makes them to be Christs and true Office and Membership on which they depend he and his whorish Church have not For confirmation whereof these grounds do naturally arise from the text 1. The first Reason is drawn from the nature of the Pope and Antichristian Hierarchies vers 1. the Star or Angel fell from heaven the orb in which he was fixed before unto the earth or wilderness Chap. 12.6 a total apostacie from his former office and sphere and was not in the least degree heavenly but terrene earthly and meerly humane or a wilde beast Rev. 13.1 and is numbered not to God but to man vers 18. It is a true Rule Corruptio optimi est pessima The corruption of the best things is always worst and most contrary to its former goodness Satan who was the noblest is by his fall the basest of creatures and most unlike to an angel of light which he was before he fell So here that Angelical Office which shined as a fixed Star in the bright firmament of the primitive purity holding forth the liveliest glory of Christ for the perfecting of the Saints being once apostated from his former sphere became not onely an humane Hierarchie but a meer Antichrist as most opposite to Christ of any other 2 Thess 2.3 and the man of sin as that wherein the quintessence of evil and deceit is epitomized and grown to its perfect maturity and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one in office altogether without and besides the Law and likest to sin it self which is termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Joh. 3.4 nay he is the principal vicegerent of Satan on earth to whom he commits his chiefest power Rev. 13.2 throne and authority in the exercise whereof he is Abaddon or Apollyon Chap. 9.11 destruction it self in the abstract recorded in the two most famous Languages and is most emphatically stiled by Paul The son of perdition being one who hath caused the greatest ruine and desolation and is termed by John the King of the bottomless pit Thus we may see that the Office of the Pope and his Hierarchy is most corrupted of any thing else being that wherein the being of Antichrist doth subsist who is not a particular person but a corporation And this Official Hierarchy being stript naked of its primitive truth and becoming meerly Antichristian cannot in the least degree beget a lawful Office for Nâ—l dat quod non habet If the fountain be polluted how can the streams be pure None can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one Job 14.3 2. This Angel had another key different in nature from the former And it is impossible the keys of the kingdom of heaven can subsist with the key of the bottomless pit or the power of Jesus Christ be united with the power of Satan Contraries in their extremes cannot stand together but the one must destroy the other 3. The Church opened by this key is a bottomless pit bottomless she being void of the groundwork of Truth in her order a pit or prison being as a hell on earth in which men are captivated Prov. 7.27 Chap. 9.18 Isai 51.14 Chap. 49.9 Zech. 9.11 12. also a Church excommunicated of God and Babylon Rev. 11.2 Chap. 17.5 and so cannot in her constitution have the keys of the kingdom of heaven for the key must be of the same nature with the Church Besides if Confirmation Ordination Excommunication c. be true in Rome then must that Romish Church into which by these keys she enters and out of which she shuts be a kingdom of heaven and a Sion and not a bottomless pit and Babylon which we conceive you will be ashamed to affirm 4. The smoke or dispensation of this pit or false Church is hellish and diabolical eclipsing and darkning the whole Horizon vers 2. and how can the smoke or winde of Gods glory spiriting these Ordinances and making them lightsome dwell together with the darksome false and delusive smoke of the bottomless pit surely the Lord will not so much honour Antichrist his greatest adversary If the
shivers by the Stone the Saints in the time when this prophecie is fulfilled and that it was not in the age of Christ's Incarnation for then Augustus Caesar reigned under whom that Empire was in the highest degree of its glory and strength Florus reports of that time Hic est Romani Imperii juvenâ—…s quasi robusta maturitas This age was the youthly state and mature manhood of the Empire The destruction of this last kingdom is reserved for these last days to be accomplished by the Angel pourers Rev. 16. Chap. 18. 3. The Stone having broken down and driven away all the former image becomes a great mountain and fills the whole earth and so must reign alone answerable to that magnificent kingdom Rev. 19 6. Zeâ—h 14.9 When the highest Saints take and possess the kimgdom of the former Monarchies Dan. 7.18 22. This they did not in the first Gospel-day when all the power of the Civil Rule was in the jurisdiction of those Romanes to whom the Church at that time was by the Ordinance of God subservient 4. This illustrious kingdom thus filling the earth is said to be everlasting and ever to enjoy the same plenitude of regiment vers 44. Chap 7.27 But even the Ecclesiastical Government of the primitive was seized on by Antichrist and the Nations who had all the outward court given them and who trod the holy city under foot in which time the Church had a great sink and decrease Your next Scripture Psal 1 10.2 speaks of the times of the vials when the Iron rod of Christs strength shall be sent forth out of Sion to bruise his enemies and then Christ in his separated people rules as a conqueror over his adversaries who though never so numerous shall be brought in subjection and such as withstand shall be broken in pieces Hereupon the Spirit by the Kingly Prophet gives sweet and seasonable counsel Psal 2.10 11 12. Be wise now therefore O ye kings be learned ye judges of the earth kiss the Son lest he be angry c. That we may avoid needless tautologies we shall answer to the relation betwixt Christ and his Church as he is a Head a King a Husband and she a Bodie a Kingdom a Wife as also to your supposed inference of our bringing a notable alteration in Christ in the fourth Paragraph Sect. 6. But here you bring three Reasons why this relation must be visible Object 1. They are visible things by which this relation is typed out and so must point out a visible you mean a constituted Church Answ It is usual in Scripture to figure out matters mystical and hidden by things visible and apparently known to us that by objects natural and obvious to our senses our mindes may be raised to the contemplation and comprehension of things divine and supernatural Thus the relative dependence between Christ and a believer is too too subtil and sublimate to be beheld with bodily eyes also Christ ascended as the Head the King and Husband and the throne of grace before which we make address though typed out by visible subjects yet are all to us invisible but the dispensation dâ—maning hence is sometimes more conspicuous sometimes more internal according to the pleasure of Gods own working Object 2. The Church invisible as so is unknown and wholly unseen to men and Christs invisible rule cannot by men be discerned and what honour were this to Christ to reign onely invisibly c. Answ We deny not that there was some degree of the profession of faith always existing but not a Church stated and set in a true visible order Indeed your argument appears very plausible to flesh and blood and makes most for the Church of Rome who onely in all the Western world can chalenge a continued succession of such a visibility of which she most boasteth and layeth as the chiefest pillar to bear up her Babylonish fabrick If then the glory of Christ cannot be uphold unless it be carried on with such an open regiment this deformed Whore is either the onely beautiful Spouse or else could have no honour in the world This Maxime of yours smells strong of a carnal spirit and tends to bring Christ to Lo here or Lo there even in that time when neither the first nor the last open days of the Son of man were to be seen Luke 17.22 If your eyes were further enlightned you might discern that the strength of Christ is made perfect in weakness and magnifies it self as well in the lowest estate of his Church as in its highest exaltation though more eclipsed from his peoples apprehension And thus the Lord is magnified that though he suffered Antichrist to usurp all the external Order of Ecclesiastical Regiment and make it a desolate wilderness yet in this earthly lowe stand of the Saints captivity he reserved to himself a sealed elect number whom he upheld by his own immediate power and gift against whom the gates of hell could not prevail and will at last more abundantly manifest his power justice mercy and love in the destruction of this man of sin and returning to his people more outward magnificence then ever they enjoyed before it being the wisdom of God to make humility the way to honour the darkest night of misery to bring in the brightest day of peace and happiness Again when Antichrist as you confess had seized on all the outward court of Order it would have been no honour to the King of kings to dignifie this visibility in the possession of another with the lively breathings of his Spirit but rather very derogatory for him to give his glory to another and thereupon he cast it out Object 3. Where faith is there it will be visible Answ Your self holds that infants may have the being of faith yet the manifestation thereof appears not unto us Psal 22.9 10. Rom. 9.11 12 13. but true it is that when Christians are of yeers faith will shew it self in the fruits of visible profession in a godly and holy life and exercise of the duties of Piety 2. Visible believers in the first initiation of visible constitution cannot state themselves but must first be stated by Christ by the pouring out of his Spirit as is at large cleared in the second Querie of the Cessation Object But to prove a visible constituted Church through the Antichristian times you instance first the two Witnesses Rev. 11.3 Answ These Witnesses are not visible stated Churches but such men as held forth the light of Ministery for the feeding of the elect in the wilderness of Babylon For 1. They have a true relation onely to the hidden mystical temple without any reference to the outward court 2. Their clothing to wit their outward investment into membership and office was with sackcloth as is before spoken The Primitive clothing was with the Sun even when the Dragon raged against the woman in the height of cruel persecution 3. Their visible stand was in the
during the time of their administration and thus were the former fort of Ordinances as Ministery Prayer c. But for others that are so upheld though their being may remaine in the Scriptures yet their vital existence by some occasions and in some seasons may faile lie deserted and their dispensation resolve into its prime original cause from whence till it flow forth againe into these chanels they cannot be made use of without presumption as bottoming on the name and power of man Thus the vessels and ordinances proper to the legal temple even when that was destroyed and the vessels carried into Babylon had an institution and being in the Scriptures and minds of the godly yet lay void of their ministration and could not be officiated with either there or after in their journy of separation till they were come to Sion and there sanctified Thus also under the Gospel Ministry and Baptisme were foretold to be successive as we have shewed from this text of Matthew and from Isa 55.11 and Chap. 56.5 and in that last Scripture Chap. 56.5 which foretels the continual succession of Baptisme the place or hand is secluded from the same promise Nay when the externality of government was ruined by antichrist and made a desolation then the administration of Christ was withheld from it then did the key become another then was it cast out by God Rev. 7.1 Chap. 9.1 2. Chap. 11.2 and cannot be assumed but upon an humane bottomless key till the Lord return into them by the visible blast of the Spirit Isa 32.15 Hence the Lord Jesus himself Mat. 24.26 Mark 13. 23. warnes us to beware of these visible Lo's as delusive and shews that such as build them be antichrists during the antichristian time And this command of Christ is to be taught for as his dispensions are various so are his precepts and commands thereunto parallel when Christ and his Spirit were in them he chargeth his people to observe them when he had left and antichrist had surprised them he commands his servants to beware Object You tell us That herein the example of the Israelites will not help us because the use of those vessels was confined to a certaine place the Temple at Jerusalem but now God may be worshipped in any place Answ Many of those things which were literal and local to the Israelites under the Law are by way of an allegory and in a mystical sense fulfilled on the Israel of God under the Gospel For as then the temple vessels and the use of them were confined to a certaine place mount Sion so Gospel-constitutions with the ordinances proper thereto are limited to a more manifest dispensation which makes them a stated visible Sion and this is confined to the two daies of Christ the primitive and his last coming like lightning it cannot but upon an antichristian root be taken up when the kingdome is more retired and neither of these two dayes are to be seen Luk. 17.22 As Babylon then was an outward place without the precincts of the land of promise so is it now a confused Church-state without the limits of a Gospel-order then the king of Babel ruinated Jerusalem and the outward temple carried the vessels thereof into the house of his idol-gods where they were abused as quaffing bouls to the praise of graven and molten images now antichrist the destroying king hath made desolate the outward couâ—t troden the holy city under foot introduced a false and bottomless key into Church-government whereby the ordinances of Ordination Confirmation c. are changed into the image of the beast then the Jewish Church was carried from their native country Canaan into the wilderness of Babylon where she was a captive in a foraign Country in which she was to abide for the space of seventy yeers now the woman declined from her own heavenly order into the wilderness of Babylonish constitutions where she was an exile in a strange land and there trampled upon by other lords in which condition she was to remaine for 1260 yeers then the Lord provided a little sanctuary for them in the place of their captivity Ezek. 11.16 now he had a spiritual place or mystical abode for his scattered sealed ones then the date of those seventy yeers being expired they were called to come out from Chalaea now the 1260 yeers of the Saints thraldome being finished Christ calls Come out of her my people then they had a long and local journey to return to their own resting place in the way to which they passed over proper Euphrates and so at last to Sion now the Saints have a spiritual journey of separation by the vials or a way cast up for them in the which they shall go over the figurative Euphrates and thence forward till they come to the visible Sion of their own native order Revel 16.12 and that this passage answers to theirs towards outward Sion is further evidenced Isa 48.20 21. Chap. 43.14 19. Chap. 35.8 10 where the Saints go out of captivity to a Sion they were absent from before then they in their voyage did bear the Lords vessels up to Sion which were of no use in their travel till that was accomplished and they sanctified in their peculiar place now we carry the Ordinances of external Church-government as the Lords vessels in our minds but dare not officiate in them till God smoke them from his glory and power according to that precept given to the separation of our time Isa 52. 11 12. Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord by way of allusion to that of old Thus we may take notice how the wise distributer of the times doth so order his dispensations in suting season to season that what was more outward of old doth under shadows and vailes figure out what is now under the Gospel he so declares the end from the beginning that there is nothing altogether new under the Sun Isa 46.10 Eccles 1.9 Chap. 3.15 though there be something peculiar to this latter as every thing hath its appropriated difference and I do foresee wherein Master Elmestone doth think to evade but when he publisheth his oppositions I shall be willing if the Lord please to meet him and declare from Scripture the grounds of some dissimiltudes I shall now proceed to resolve some doubts made by you in the 9 and 10 Pages of your book about my study of the Revelations which I will here divide into a distinct Paragraph Paragraph II. I Acquainted you that the reason of my diligent search in the Revelation was because it being a prophecie of all Gospel-times contains the full testimony of Jesus wherein as in a cabinet Gods several dispensations proper to every period with Satans opposite works are included c. You wish me in searching the visions of the Apocalypse together with the prophets to do it with humility and self-denyal as not having any conceit that I have a more excellent spirit of revelation then
set up a false Christ in regiment This was not so palpable in outward shew but came in Christ his name under very specious pretences of Order Unity repressing heresies holiness advancing Christ and his Kingdom and therefore did the more universally deceive If the natures persons and offices our Lord Jesus had been directly originally and fundamentally razed in the Romish Church then Gods people could never have remained for so many ages in such a visible stand Object 3. The Popes extravagant exercise of discipline in excommunicating suspending not onely simple persons but whole Nations and disposing of all Ecclesiastical dignities was founded on this false doctrine that the Pope is universall Bishop Christs Vicar c. Answ 1 The same barely considered as a Notion or thing taught was not the ground-work of the beast but as usurped and layed in discipline a stone in the quarrie is not the foundation of a house till it be hewen out thence and disposed in the bottom of the building 2 This false Tenent of universality and visible headship is not a doctrinal if doctrine be minded as opposed to discipline but a disciplinall principle as any rational man may apprehend Object 4 None can comply with the Beast in the foundation of his estate without the loss of his salvation as who doth rely on another besides Christ and acknowledgeth him to be supream head under him vicar of Christ and submit to his new Articles of faith but many godly Christian have complyed with him in discipline as Ridly Latimer c. Answer 1 The beast it is true layed another foundation which primarily and radically was in discipline and secondarily struck against doctrine as is shewed before his visible headship and vicarship are principles of discipline and thence flow his articles of faith Besides he was fundamentally both in matter and forme a Beast for 1260 yeares and some time after and so long the Church is Babylon as before is cleared and all that time the world worshipped him but his Articles of faith are not of so long standing most whereof were framed in the Council of Trent And then that cannot be his groundwork which in order of nature and time followed his being the Cause must be before the Effect 2 This was damnable as to all so only to those Christians not truely grounded upon the Rock Jusus Christ Rev. 13.8 who having a meer outside shallow and sandie bottome might be radically supplanted by such a totall and delusive externality but the Elect having a deeper root then that of the Beast could not in the inward work of grace be by him subverted though they were outwardly clothed with his Livery Thus Gregory and other Popes of Rome before him might be in the Election yet their Office was essentially a Beast they living within the aforenamed time of the tribulation the like may be said of Ridly Hooper with the rest by you nominated If this beast had been originally false in the essentials of doctrine it had been damnable to them as well as to the rest of the world for if the foundations be utterly destroyed how can the righteous stand Psal 11.3 We desire the Reader rightly to observe the difference betwixt Mr. Elmestone and us in this particular subject He pleads that the Church of Rome is fundamentally false in doctrine which you may finde by his Arguments above and yet that in her order or Church-constitution she is in her ground-work true for he avers that the Pope hath the true key of Christs discipline in Ordination Excommunication c. and that Friars Monks Priests Bishops c. were radically right in their membership and orders which they had in and from that Church as you may read in the 29 and 30 pages of his book The former he is driven to maintaine or else he must contradict in writing what he and his party have published for many years in open Pulpits before the Nation that Rome is a false Church and that woman Babylon described in Revel 17. that the Pope is Antichrist and the beast delineated chap. 13. the latter he is inforced to manage or else he must yeild their office to be false which lineally descended from the Romish Church But how the body of discipline can retaine life in its binding and loosing where the soul of doctrine is departed or how she can be a bottomless pit and a stranger to Sion who is bottomly true in her order and hath the keyes of the Kingdome of heaven to let into and shut out of such a visible Kingdome we conceive cannot be proved by Scripture nor agree with any reason On the contrary we affirme that Church to be in visible Order false in her membership Babylonish in her office bestial but yet as the Prophecies foretold and the event hath manifested that there should be a godly people in that false visibility so for their sakes the Lord reserved the root of the Covenant of doctrine faith profession issuing thence in prayer praises c. as also a gifted ministery coming not from the bottomless key of that Church but from the immediate gift of Jesus Christ which you may see evinced in the Cessation the former must be fundamentally false or else Rome could not be Babylon the latter must be radically true or else there had been no subsistence for the Saints And thus we shall end with this third Paragraph Paragraph IV. OUrs in brief was this that the call of God in our times is only for separation without stating or without constituting and modelling visible Churches and sitting down therein Rev. 18.4 You may finde it declared in the Cessation that there are two bright and manifest dayes of Jesus Christ in the clear administration of his glory 1. That of the primitive apostolical day which continued till the key of the bottomless pit was given and thereby the Sun and aire darkned which shut up that brightness with darkness of a succeeding night 2. The day of his coming like lightning when the marriage of the Lamb doth againe return after the final subversion of Antichrist Betwixt these two periods is the time of the Babylonish age wherein neither of those two dayes are to be seen in such an open dispensation of his power the kingdome then being inward This latter season containes two distinct special and very observable revolutions 1. The time of the Saints tribulation lasting 1260 yeers in which term the true Church is only a sealed number disrobed of the beauty of her exterior order and visibly seated in the desart of nations where her choicest witnesses were outwardly invested with defiled and mournful garments and prophesied in that earth before the God of the earth where the beast had power to prevaile and tread them under foot making their estate mournful This begun about the yeer three hundred and ninty when the Bishop of Rome obtained the primacy of seat and is expired in the yeer 1650 as is shewed in the Cessation and
1. Sect. 4. Object But say you This Sion must be visible because seen of John Answ This we also assent unto for her inward grace was not so concealed but that it did in some measure manifest it self in visible profession and an holy godly life And thus was one godly man to be seen of another though mixed amongst the common multitude thus also the world espied them and with us of late branded them by the name of Puritans Your insuing words tend to the confounding of two types parted by the Spirit to wit that of the one hundred fourty four thousand vers 1. and that of the harpers vers 2 c. 1. That of the one hundred fourty four thousand is a symbol of the elect remaining amongst the common national Israelites during the one thousand two hundred and sixty yeers of Antichrist his prevailing and some space after Chap. 7 to verse the 9. 2. That of the harpers is a new addition of a number who are in their stand distinguished and redeemed from amongst men which figures out the separated people as is declared in the beginning of this Paragraph whose song was so intricate that none amongst the false Churches were capable of the mystery but the one hundred fourty four thousand redeemed from the earth who by degrees will learn it and come out of their intanglements Answ We grant that those truly pious amongst you may be and are of that catalogue and stand upon the same Sion but that all your national members most of whom are prophane are of this number or that your reformers that were sanctified may be saved though their works burn Why you are not of these harpers we shall inform you in the Postscript Object 3. Admit we be but in our way to Sion yet what lets but that we may set up all Gods ordinances as well as some in this our journey The Israelites in their way to Canaan had all Gods ordinances set up amongst them Answ Such ordinances as are spirited for abiding may be and are exercised such whose administration lies void as Ordination c. proper to Church-constitution cannot till the Lord inspires them as is cleared in the first Paragraph The example of the Israelites serves not for your purpose For they were wholly separated from Egypt we are not so as yet from the great City they first took their full journey to the place appointed which was not mount Sion but mount Sinai the answered to the legal Jerusalem Gal. 4.24 25. we are yet but in our journey of separation are not passed from Euphrates into the mystical Canaan of a pure Gospel-walk nor to the Sion of visible order the peculiar centre of a Gospel-marriage they did not erect their legal constitution by themselves it was the Lord that framed it by his servant Moses and clouded it with his glory much less can any now build up Gospel-Churches till our Lord Christ creates them by the descending influences of his Spirit Section 4. The fourth is touching the temple which was not opened for visible entrance till after the vials pouring evidenced from Rev. 15.8 chap. 11.19 Isa 4.5 6. Because you complain that we have not explicated our sense we shall here briefly declare what we apprehend of the temple To pass by the temple of Christ manhood wherein the essence of the Deity dwels bodily Iohn 2.19 20. Cor. 2.9 we shall speak of it as it relates to the Saints and Gospel-Church And thus we understand the temple to be the house wherein the Lord inhabits by the presence of his grace Jesus Christ being the chief corner-stone And this may be either a single person 1 Cor. 6.19 or the compection and conjunction of the Saints which is the intendment of the Spirit in the above-cited places The same temple may be more hidden Rev. 11.1 The first is spiritual and mystical union of the Elect and all the work of the graces wherein the Lord dwels as in a more secret habitation The second is when together with the former the Saints are knit together by the powerfull administration of the Spirit into an external corporation stated with Officers and having in their jurisdiction all the Ordinances belonging to visible Church-power and Government this is usually called a stated or constituted Church The inward rooms of true grace with the invisible relation are the temple within the outward Order is represented by the court without vers 2. and is by a Synecdoche the whole taken for the part stiled the temple 2 Thess 2.4 You may see by its ruines what and how it was before its casting out We shall lay down a few distinctions betwixt the mystical and the visible constituted temple The former being combined by the invisible bond of the Spirit comprehends onely the elect sealed number the later being an outward corporation hypocrites may creep into the one was always true during the time of the apostacie the other was false and rejected in that season and when true doth presuppose the former the first when alone hath a more sparing breathing of the Spirit with a hiding of his power Revel 7.1 Chap. 11.1 3. the later hath a manifest apparent-blast as is said The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and his power Chap. 15.8 Isai 4.4 5 6. the like was in the Primitive Acts 2.2 Isai 6.4 into the former there is no visible entry mentioned it being internal undiscerned and shut up from the outward court the other hath an evident opening and entering This word open argues a shutting before and withal presupposeth smoking or keys given by the visible dispensation of the Spirit to open with and also doors to be opened and entered by which maketh it to be a stated Church and will not be till after the * Vers 1â— subversion of Antichristian enemies But to prove a stated Church to be before and during the vials you produce Rev. 11.1 Chap. 14.15 c. Chap. 15. Answ The temple in Chap. 11.1 is a mystical temple made up onely of the one hundred and fourty four thousand sealed ones as is shewed in Parag. 1. Sect. 4. Also the Angel or Minister Chap. 14.15 came out of the same mystical temple from his former retiredness into a more open view to invoke the fitter on the cloud to thrust in his sickle c. I shall be a little larger in delivering my judgement on Chap. 15. The Spirit in the five first verses briefly sets down general figures first Of the Angel-pourers vers 1. Secondly Of the harpers or separated people vers 2 3 4 by their stand at the glassie sea which was in all the season of separation by their victory over the Beast that was gradual by each vial but completed by the last and by their song and praising of God for their several trophies which goes hand in hand with every vial and expires in the noble exulting Hallelujahs specified Chap. 19. Thirdly then after these things to wit
as having no such promise annexed to them and why should this be but to shew that these keys in the Churches hand should receive a sink and loss of their efficacie for a time For certainly the Lord knowing the apostated times if they had continued through the Babylonish defection would have added some word of remaining to them as well as to the profession To these we shall annex that Zech. 4.2 12. in which we may behold that related as evidently as the face is seen in the glass The Angel vers 2. sets before the eyes of Zechariah the image of the primitive Apostolical Church the like was also seen of John Rev. 1.12 20. onely here was the difference the Prophet sees the type of one Candlestick as representing the Church in her unity John beholds seven he writing to the seven Churches and here in vers 12. is pictured out a platform of the dispensation of the sealed elect number during the times of Antichristianism That the Candlestick vers 2. did embleme the primitive Churches we render these reasons 1. From the Angels answer vers 6. that this was not built by might or by power as outward Zerubbabel's temple was but by the Spirit as without hands by Christ the true Zerubbabel 2. From the head-stone of this spiritual building vers 7. which was the Lord Jesus 1 Pet. 2.6 Psal 118.22 Isai 28.16 Matth. 2◠42 Act. 4.11 3. From the shout and cry which was not Works works but Grace grace the manifest difference betwixt the Law and the Gospel 4. From the despising of small things the Jewish Ceremonies and the sight of the Plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel Christ vers 10. which teacheth the coming off from Mosaical rudiments to that of Christianity 5. From the seven eyes opened to be the Lambs eyes and for time in the primitive Rev. 5.6 and the seven Lamps vers 2. agreeable to Rev. 4.5 That the two Olive-branches and the two golden pipes vers 12. pertain to the next following Antichristian times is apparent by the decrease of the former fulness and the answer of the Angel vers 14. which can aptly be applied to no other time then that of the elect in Babylon From hence we shall evince this argument That there was a fulness of Ordinances in the primitive Age there were seven pipes to the seven Lamps vers 2. the number seven notes out a perfection the Pipes signifie Ordinances Luke 7.32 these being the organ by which the light and oil of Ministery is displayed whereas in the Antichristian season there are seen but two pipes that had golden oil the least of numbers and yet sufficient to testifie the truth of inward grace Now why should there be seven at the first and but two at the last but to set forth the cessation of the former five in their efficacie and power as being dead empty and without golden oil viz. Ordination Confirmation with the other stative Ordinances and that Ministery Prayer c. being predicted of God for abiding must as the two golden pipes remain and the two anointed ones by these empty themselves as the two Olive-branches In Rev. 7.1 the four open windes which are causa procreans conservans the begetting and preserving cause of these visible keys Ezek. 1.4 5. Act. 2. were by reason of the falling away wholly with-held from their apparent blast and the cause failing the effect must also cease this Spirit of life being restrained they must needs be meerly formal That as in the Scriptures before cited they were not promised to abide so the Spirit doth here desert and leave them empty of its lively influences In Chap. 9.1 2 3. the Angel who had usurped all Church-power into his custody totally apostated from heaven to earth becomes a meer earthly Angel by which that Church-policie that before was a kingdom of heaven is become a bottomless pit or a false Church without any bottom of Truth in her order and in stead of the keys of the celestial kingdom was another contrary key of the same bottomless pit the key being the same with the Church in the room of that sweet recreating winde or lightsome smoak descending from Gods glory to beget the truth of Office was the dark and delusive smoke or dispensation ascending from this bottomless furnace which ingenders none but locusts a degenerate brood of false Officers Here we may take notice of the effects that ensue upon the former with-holding of the windes God having forsaken and left it void Satan hath full power gives another key with other smoke whereby of Christ all is become Antichrist and bottomless of Truth In Chap. 11.2 where though the Temple was measured of which we shall speak anon yet the onward court was excluded and forbidden to be measured for so saith the Spirit The court without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies cast out That this outward court must belong to the visibility of Church-government may be cleared by these Arguments 1. Because this as opposed to the Temple within must be the exteriour outward part and who knows not that the Order of Ecclesiastical Government is the outside or visibility of the Church 2. Because this here excluded was given to the Nations the inward rooms of true grace with Worship flowing from those internal springs was never in the power of man to intermeddle with but the outward court of Church-Regiment was in the hands of Nations for many generations and nowhere else 3. Because the Nations by enjoying this outward court did tread the holy City under foot Now woful experience hath taught the Saints that that by which Antichrist hath trampled upon the godly was by sitting in the externality of Ecclesiastical Discipline in Spiritual Courts and Classes The four windes above restrained must be from this rejected Court the bottomless key pit and smoke in this unmeasured to Truth In Chap. 12.6 14. the same externality given to the Nations and mixed with worldly things becomes a worldly wilderness into which the woman fled That this wilderness is the National Babylonish Church is proved at large by Scripture and the analogie in Sect. 5. of the first Paragraph In Chap. 13. the Principality or chief of the power ruling here is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wilderness-beast compared with Mark 1.13 answerable to those false christs and false prophets which our Saviour foretold should be in the wilderness Matth. 24.24 The second Beast is here called a false prophet inferring the first to be a false christ or Antichrist as is shewed in our answer to him on Matth. 24. In Chap. 17. the Church born up by this Beast is called Mystery Babylon as being another and distinct from Sion in her very foundation who also was seen of John in this wilderness To sum up all if we consider the Gospel-times aright as they are pourtrayed in the Prophecies we shall finde that in the primitive there was the smoke of Gods glory preceding Isai
6.4 9. compared with John 12.40 Acts 2.2 by which the visible keys of Church-power were given and sanctified but after when the Angel fell Rev. 9.1 2 3. another earthen hellish key with other smoke arising from the pit darkning and banishing the lightsome glory of the former as above and at last a new smoaking of the Temple from Gods glory Rev. 15.8 a new opening and entering implying key and doors all shewing that there was no opening nor entering but a cessation and shutting of the true visible betwixt these two days Besides there is a new open breathing of the four windes of the Spirit Ezek. 37.9 after the long restraint of the primitive blast Rev. 7.1 Act. 2.2 Ezek. 1.4 a new pouring of his Spirit Isai 32.15 after the former hiding of his power a new Marriage and Marriage-call Rev. 19.7 9. besides the Marriage at the first Matth. 22. a new lightning Matth. 24.27 besides the lightning at the primitive Ezck. 1.4 13 14. all teaching a non-continuance of this glory Again there was an invisible day between the bright shining day at the first Luk. 17.22 and the like glorious day again at the last vers 24. an invisible kingdom as that within vers 21. passing between the open kingdom of the primitive and the manifest kingdom of God at the last Chap. 21.31 Rev. 19.6 Chap. 11.17 all clearing up this cessation The visibilities Lo here and there were false and delusive The event hath made all this as perspicuous as the sun shines in the open firmament to those who will not obstinately and of set purpose shut their eyes against it to wit That there was an apparent and general Apostacie darkning and swallowing up all the bright Order of the primitive For that Church after Constantine had sully subdued the heathen Emperors and setled all in outward tranquillity about the yeer of our Lord 327 as the margin on Socrates hath it lib. 1. cap. 3. beginning to conform to and mix her self with National and worldly things degenerated and daily declined by the four first trumpets Rev. 8. till at last by the fifth the star totally apostated from heaven to earth about 390 and then the key of external Rule became purely National and was onely in the jurisdiction of Popes Patriarchs Bishops and earthly Hierarchies who alone usurped all Church-power into their hands In all our Western Globe there was no Church-Government visible but what was Romish for many ages and our Antagonist M. Elmestone confesseth that their Office of the Ministery the principal pillar of the Church came directly from Rome no longer ago then Luther's time Hereupon that of Protestantism is not termed a Separation but a Reformation their Office and Membership coming radically from the Romish Synagogue which seems to be hinted by the Prophet Jeremiah Chap. 51.9 We would have healed Babylon and she was not healed Object It hath been objected by others What shall we think of the Greek Church who never had to do with Rome nor owned her power Answ To whom we reply 1. That the Church of Grecia may be no plea to such who live in the Levant under the Turk but concerns not in the least our Protestant Churches who derived not their power from the Greek but from the Romish Pontificality 2. It is not true that the Greek Church never had to do with Rome For about the yeer 390 after Christ all the Eastern Bishops yeelded the Primacie of seat the proper place of Christ to the Romane Pope And afterward if the Bishop of Rome obtained by Phocas the Emperour the title of Vniversal then assuredly the Bishop and Patriarch of Grecia must be subject unto him and together with the Church be within the limits of his territories Again the Greek Empire was possessed by the Latines for sixty yeers together even from the yeer 1200 to the yeer 1260 and then Michael Paleologus recovered their Empire who about the yeer 1273 agreed with Pope Gregory the tenth at Iyons in France and promised that both himself and all his people hereafter should yeeld all Sovereignty to the Latine Pope and Church 3. The Greek Church was as well National and had a terrene Hierarchy even the very same with Rome and is so apostated that she denies the holy Ghost to proceed from the Father and the Son prays for the dead believes that the Saints departed enjoy not the presence of God till the Resurrection admits children of seven yeers old to the Sacrament because then as they conceit they begin to sin receives none into Orders but such as are married and forbids marriage to those who are actually in Orders rejects carved Images but admits the painted with many the like Fopperies and in many fandamentals is as gross or grosser then Rome To conclude Chap. 7 all the four windes of all quarters were restrained Chap. 11.2 the whole outward court of Discipline as well East as West was cast out as above and the great City Babylon was not onely at Rome but at Judea where our Lord was slain Chap. 11.8 and then certainly Grecia lying in the midst between must needs be comprehended within the circumference thereof It hath by some as the Dippers been questioned whether these National Churches be within the Covenant To whom I answer that though in their church-Church-order they were Babylon or confusion yet are they not wholly excluded from the Covenant as Heathens but are termed by the Spirit Israelites who had a sealed number amongst their tribes Rev. 7. Here we may see how though the place or hand failed the name was everlasting And it is not safe to detract from the words of this Prophecie especially seeing the sequele hath cleared that there was some profession of Christianity and a godly people amongst them through every age of this hiding of Gods power You may find this further cleared in the following Paragraph The next thing considerable under this first Querie is touching the true Church in this confusion 1. What she was 2. What was her condition 3. How she was fed 4. The just time of this her captivity 1. What she was In Chap. 7 I finde that there were one hundred and fourty four thousand sealed ones preserved secured and provided for In Chap. 9 that this number onely was undestroyed by the Locusts In Chap. 11 that the Temple measured must be this sealed company built up a spiritual house by the mystical bond of the Spirit it having no dimensions specified and all the externality being excluded as shall be proved in Paragraph 1. Sect. 4. In Chap. 14.1 that the mount Sion there expressed must be onely the mount of true grace footed on the counsel of God which is called a sure and sealed foundation 2 Tim. 2.19 For 1. All the sealed elect people even the whole one hundred and fourty four thousand stand on this mountain and that through all the apostated season which they did not do in any true visible being mixed amongst the Nations
Pope have the true smoke or winde of the primitive Church then what he bindes or looses on earth is bound or loosed in heaven Matth. 16.19 as is further cleared in the second Section 5. The Officers coming from hence are locusts of a divers kinde from the true they proceeding from another key king pit and smoke If Office had been true in Rome then Membership must be the like for he can be no true Officer that is not withal a Member and if Office and Membership be both right in that Catholike Synagogue then must she be a true Church being radically right both in Ministers and people Sir have you exclaimed against Rome as Babylon for so many yeers and do you now by this argument prove her to be Sion However we may from this text observe that as the pit is bottomless so is the key the smoke and the locusts arising from it and that fundamentally so that your Ordination Excommunication Suspension coming from hence cannot have any parcel of the keys of the kingdom of heaven but must pertain to this bottomless key Object But say you these Ordinances may remain the Ordinances of Christ though in wrong hands and abused as the Great seal of the kingdom is still in the right and true seal though in the hand of an usurping Lord Keeper c. Answ If you should prove these constitutive Ordinances to be Seals yet in the Broad Seal there be two things requirable 1. The Power and Authority from whence the Seal proceeds 2. The confirming of an act coming from that power by the Seal When the writing sealed is derived from a lawful authority then the Seal carries the name and majestie of that true and rightful power which makes it a legal ratification but if it issue forth from an usurped Primacy though the matter and print may be the same with the other yet the act sealed bears the substance of that usurpation which puts another form upon it and makes it illegitimate nay treasonable So these Ordinances pertaining to Church-order in the primitive times arising from Christ and his Spirit working in the Apostles c. were accompanied with the name and power of Christ which made them true as representing the lively image of himself but these coming from other usurping lords as Popes Bishops or the like receive the character of the same usurpation which changeth their essence makes them unlawful and to carry the image of the Beast And your Office flowing from this bestial and exorbitant key must be false in its foundation The Key the Church the Smoke is another and thereof not Christ but Antichrist the king of the bottomless pit We informed you how the truth of this was verified by the event that there was no other Office but that of the Locusts kinde even in Luther's time who himself was a Monk In opposition to this you reckon up some Bishops Monks Friers Priests or of some such Popish Order that for 1260 yeers stood up to witness the Truth who were not locusts Answ These men whom you reckon up with any other of the like sort of godly men officiated by Antichrist had no other Office but that of the locust-kinde You your self acknowledge the Officers called Monks Friers Priests Abbots Cardinals and the Popish Clergie to be of the series of the locust a little before in the same page of your book And whatsoever excellencie and honour these men gained beyond others arose simply from the gift of Jesus Christ not at all from their Popish function that being but the defiled rags with which the same Witnesses were clothed No man not Popishly minded can imagine that their Frierhood Monkery Priesthood or the like could confer any dignity to their piety or that these men thus gifted by the Lord Jesus did attribute any esteem to their Popish Orders It is observable that God should rear up such men who had no Office but what was meerly invented to be such noble instruments to testifie in some degree the Truth which may teach you us and all others not to give any worth to such difiled Offices but onely to their qualifications which unless sanctified from heaven they had been locusts as well as the rest of their Orders and to conclude that this their grace and the right to dispense the same came not from their officiating but onely from the gift and grant of the Lord of life So that herein we must distinguish their inward gift with its administration from their outward investment the one distilling from Christ was radically true and holy the other coming from Antichrist was utterly false and polluted Object You assert further that Ockam John of Gaunt Dante 's John Wickliff Jerome of Prague Luther were men that amongst others made up the series of the three Angels Rev. 14. and yet lived in the Church of Rome had their external calling from that Church were of some of the Popish Orders c. Answ Bare saying is no proving and ipse dixit he said so will hardly pass for currant amongst men of judgement We shall deny that the men you name were of the rank of the three Angels specified Rev. 14.6 8 9. much less that they were called Angels by vertue of their Popish Office which you would insinuate For they lived within the circuit of the one thousand two hundred and sixty yeers of tribulation wherein they were mourners and being as you confess men that lived in the Church of Rome that had their external calling from that Church and of some of the Popish Orders must be those Witnesses clothed in sackcloth Rev. 11.3 Whereas these three Angels were of the rejoycing Harpers who arose not till after the expiration of that sorrowful time were clothed in white Robes of joy and greater purity and had gotten the victory over the Beast his image mark name and the number of his name Chap. 7.9 Chap. 15.2 Again neither the Ministery nor Writings of those you mention were so pure and full as might be termed an everlasting Gospel which the first Angels ministery was vers 6 neither did they with the second vers 8 unmask the root of Mysterie Babylon great part whereof was sealed up from their understandings neither did they discover the Beast his image and mark in its whole latitude with the third who with a thundering voice crieth against all such defiled Offices with which they were outwardly arayed vers 9. 2. These ministers or instruments of this threefold discovery are not intitled Angels by vertue of any outward call to an Office by the Pope Bishops or any other authority on earth but onely by the priviledge of a gift dispensed immediately by the Angel of the Covenant Rev. 10.8 9 10 11. Here their commission or sending forth Go comes simply from God their furnishing for this ministration or their taking and eating the book from the Angel and being thus divinely impowered they must prophesie though all the earth oppose it their
engagement to prophesie ariseth from their taking and eating the book Besides the word Angel signifieth a Messenger or one sent with a prevailing administration which may be either by the medium of a visible power here belowe or else simply from above without any such mediums from man All this we shall be ready to evidence in our next Return Before we pass from hence give us leave a little to go back and reflect upon the ground-work of your stand and dealings in this particular Truly Sir we conceive you are hardly driven when being sounded to the bottom you cannot justifie your own Office but withal you are inforced to plead for that of Friers Monks Priests Bishops and the whole rabble of the Popish Orders nay to maintain them to be the Angels of truth by reason of their outward investments from Rome neither can you vindicate your interest in your key of Church-government in Ordaining Excommunicating c. but you must therewith manage the Popes Surely it is inevitable necessity drives you to this extreme shift that either you must hold the foundation of Church-order to remain in Rome and so make that mother of harlots to be radically the true spouse or else you must yeeld and renounce your own We cannot but * Isai 29.9 stay our selves and wonder that you who have been counted men of knowledge and godliness should so straitly tie up all the Ordinances of Jesus Christ to such a corrupt and Antichristian function as if you onely were thereby called and inrighted with a power to dispense the same when as your Office in the root thereof comes from the Pope the angel of the bottomless pit and his false way If your eyes were opened to see the nature and extent of that key you would quickly finde that your glorying herein were your greatest shame and so it will appear ere long For though you should outwardly clothe this your Office and the Church built thereon with the fairest Robes of the primitive patern and could extract the quintessence of wit policie learning art argument to present it as impregnable and had the tongues of men and angels to paint it out with more then humane eloquence to make it seem like * Ezek. 27.3 Tyrus to be of perfect beauty yet being in its principle earthly and bottomless your Office with the power of its government will unavoidably be disclosed to be a false Christ a false prophet or Beast the Church sustained thereby to be a daughter of that great mother Rev. 17. and her attire and seeming beauty to be no other then the glittering ornaments and paintings of the woman Babylon the mystery of whose deceit will be anatomized and made naked by the light of the Spirit This lay concealed in times of ignorance and God did more connive but now his call enlightens and discovers these principles of delusion and invites to a separation Let us therefore advise you in the bowels of charity to obey this voice of the Spirit in coming off your selves and to hasten your members the captive exuls that they die not in the pit that you may be of the number of the rejoycing harpers Rev. 15. and not of those mourners Chap. 18. Section 4. Our next ground was that the visible Church it self the foundation of these later Ordinances failed and so the Ordinances proper to a constituted Church must needs receive a loss of their efficacie Object You except That the visible Church is not the foundation but the institution of Christ Answ The institution of Christ is a foundation but yet that which affords present being or existence both to the constitution of visible Government it self and the Ordinances arising thence is the Spirit of life sent from Jesus Christ as is elsewhere shewed And whether such a Church first married by God whereby to have the keys of this visible kingdom given them from above and the Spirit of Christ united to and operating in them enjoy not by vertue of that union a principle of power to use the same and contribute a right Membership and Office unto others we leave it to you to consider The iron conjoyned to the fire hath the same essence of heat and operation with the fire and I suppose you will grant that a true Presbytery coferring an Office unto another by Ordination hath the being and foundation of that Office This word foundation taken simpliciter simply and originally is proper onely to Christ but secundum quid after some sort may be attributed to the Church whether visibly corporated or mystical You assent that if it be made good that the visibility of church-Church-order failed and became Babylon it is enough to carry the cause Answ This is proved in the Cessation from Rev. 11.2 that when this outward court was given to the Nations it was then cast out by the Spirit The words properly translated run thus But the court which is without the temple cast out and measure it not for it is given to the Nations and the holy city shall they tread under foot fourty and two months When the Nations ingrossed the externalitie and outside of Ecclesiastical Government into their hands and joyned in with National worldly Regiment they made up national Churches Here we may behold as in a spiritual Map of what nature they are and how they are false and Antichristian in the original of their constitution whether considered as Papal Episcopal or Presbyterial which these Reasons syllogistically drawn from the native sence of the text do demonstrate 1. Those Churches which are altogether outward and have nothing of the temple and altar and the vertue and life thereof in their constitutions are meerly humane and spiritless But National Churches whether Papal Episcopal or Presbyterial are so Therefore c. The Major you cannot deny the Minor is cleared by the words of the text for no more was given them but the outward court See Sect. 2. 2. Those Church-Constitutions that are cast out of God are disapproved and forsaken of him But such National Church-constitutions are cast out of God Ergo c. The Major is undeniable the Minor is confirmed by this Scripture The court without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies cast out and not leave out as it is translated hereupon ensued another key Sect. 3. 3. Those Churches that have no measurement by the line of Truth are false and Antichristian But such National Churches have no measurement by the line of Truth Ergo c. The minor is evinced by the text Measure it not and so are bottomless 4. Those Churches who are distinct and another from the holy City are in their ground-work of their Order strange and Babylonish But such National Churches are distinct and another from the holy city Ergo c. The Major is indubitable The Minor is also evinced from the text where they the Christian nations and the holy city are set in distinct and opposite terms 5. Those Churches who
tread the holy City the sealed number under foot are tyrannical and bestial But such National Churches do so tread as is further asserted And the holy city shall they tread under foot The truth of this hath shewed it self not onely in the cruelty of Rome but also by the like tyranny of the Bishops in England and the rigour of the Presbytery in Scotland and that the same aspiring spirit is in many amongst you if the sword of the Magistrate would second and impower you the declarations of some both in their writings and in their open Pulpits which men look upon as the oracles of Truth have sufficiently manifested to the world we hope they will be more wise and tender of the consciences of others for the future These National Churches considered in one universal body are the great city Babylon Chap. 17.15 18. Chap. 11.8 9 10. Now if the visibility of Church-constitution was onely National for many generations as is cleared by all the evidences of former times and these National Churches Babylonish then must there be a fail and cessation of the truth of the same visibility Compare this Scripture with the event and you may finde that as here the whole outward court was given to the Nations and then cast out by the Spirit so the event is parallel to the prophecie which tells us that the total Order of Ecclesiastical regiment became National and was for many hundred yeers Romish in the full possession of the Pope where by the common grant of all Protestants it is held to be Babylon and when the visible Church became a stranger and bottomless the key of outward Government in Confirmation Ordination Excommunication c. must be of the same nature with the Church as is declared in the former Paragraph The truth of this is likewise confirmed by the state of the true Church in the times of this apostacie who was onely a sealed elect number which by an invisible union made up a mystical temple a Sion a women c. whose visible abode was in the wilderness of Babylon as you may read in the Cessation I shall here demonstrate it by another Scripture which was there omitted The text is Micah 4.10 where the prophet speaking of the daughter of Sion saith that she shall go forth out of the city her genuine and celestial Order and shall dwell in the field answerable to the wilderness into which the woman fled Rev. 12.6 and shall go even to Babylon to such a field where is meer confusion from whence the Lord will at last deliver her by separation and redeem her from the hands of her enemies And that this alludes to the condition of the Gospel-Church in spiritual Babylon is evinced by the gathering of the nations against her vers 11 which agrees whith these last combinations against the Saints Zeph. 3.8 Isai 54.15 Revel 16.14 16. by her horns of iron and hoofs of brass to thresh and beat in pieces many people also after her complete victory by her consecrating their gain to the Lord which never was fulfilled in the majesty here delivered but must be proper to the time of the vials wherein the people coming out of Babylon reward her and her assistants with the like degree of punishment Rev. 18.6 Dan. 7.22 The event doth likewise comply with this Scripture as face answers to face in a glass For the primitive Church who was glorious in her visible constitution setled and beautified with Apostolical power did after decline from thence into the vast barren field of the Babylonish nations where she was scattered here and there a godly person outwardly mixed with the rude multitude from whom she was not distinguished either in Membership or Office and where she was held in chains of thraldom by Popes Bishops and the like beastly Hierarchies who in this strange country monopolized the key of Government into their sole tuition and in this desolate estate she must needs be an exile in a forraign land From this bondage also the Lord begins at last to call her out and deliver her from her enemies From hence we may necessarily conclude that if this external station wherein the daughter of Sion visiby stood was a field a wilderness a Babylon or forraign country of strange confusion then must all the beauty of her former outward Order be dissolved and turned into a rude Chaos that if her key of visible Rule was taken solely into the usurpation of Antichrist the Beast those alien lords Then must the Ordinances thereof lie void as did the Temple-vessels in the house of Nebuchadnezzar's idol-gods We will now with God's assistance proceed to answer your Objections made against this Object You alleadge that to say the visible Church did fail is as much as to affirm that the pillars of the earth were broken down the Church standing as firm by Gods ordinance power and faithfulness Answ It is true that the pillars of the earth are born up by the Word of God albeit the earthly governments thereof have the times of their shake and dissolution Psal 75.3 Isai 2.19 21. Hag. 2.21 And withal it is as true that the Church in the being of election inward grace outward profession and the more intrinsecal rule of grace is a kingdom that cannot be shaken Heb. 12.28 it being promised to be perpetual Matth. 16.18 But the visibility of Church-government was not so pillared in the Word for its successive abiding this is rather fore-prophesied that it should be corrupted by Antichrist and become Babylon To lay the ground-work of your after-discourse you here distinguish a visible Church M. Elmest First say you by a visible Church may be meant a company of Christians joyned together in one place set in true order of Worship and exercise of all Gods Ordinances that such a Church hath been in any one place or many successively you think cannot castly be proved Answ By such a Church if we understand you aright you mean a Church set in a right order of Discipline and furnished with true Officers And if such a Church cannot be proved to have been successively through the apostacie then must you yeeld that the primitive chain of Order was broken and so justifie its cessation for such an one it is that you have maintained to abide and we have proved to discontinue This grant of yours duely pondered doth at one breath unmount the whole fabrick of this your Babel and might soon put a period to the major part of this Controversie M. Elmest Secondly by a visible Church may be meant a company of persons professing true religion abstaining from all false worship and worshipping God in a pure way though for the most part in sundry places and meeting in small companies such a Church hath been perpetual Answ 1. Such companies may thus assemble for Ministery Prayer as did the one hundred twenty before they received powerfrom on high and we do now and yet not be a visible Church
invested with a full power to make Members and Officers This stating of your case if we misapprehend you not is a digression from all your former and after writing which tends to manage the continuance of a Church in membership office and the keys thereof 2. Such a Church as you here nominate to wit the Saints assembled in distinct companies who were externally pure from all the corruptions of the times cannot be shewn to the extant through the whole season of the apostacie for both the Scripture and the event hath manifested the contrary that the true was here and there a godly man outwardly mixed with the common Israelites Object You alleadge Such a church there was in Israel among the ten apostated tribes Answ 1. How that of the Israelites was through all the time of that defection is uncertain this we are sure of that there was then a true Church in Judah and Benjamin and the Temple at Jerusalem was the common centre of Worship for all the Israelites and it is more then probable that the godly of Israel have had some relation to the Church of Judea and went at times appointed to Jerusalem But without all doubt none of the Order of Jeroboam's Priests were true Officers nor any succession derived from them the like may be said of the Pope and of your investment coming from him 2. It is untrue that there were always such Assemblies for in the days of Ahab Elijah the chiefest Prophet knew of no such congregatings but testifies that he onely was left 1 King 19.18 So then the seven thousand reserved must be a hidden number known onely to the all-seeing eyes of Eternity and not obvious in open Assemblies Besides this pertains not to the Antichristian deluge and doth not at all prove your point Neither doth that of the Jews captivity for they being amongst Heathens and those wholly without did not involve themselves into their Paganism but were entire within themselves in the service of their God exercised in their own Synagogues were distinct in their Genealogies from the Babylonians their Priestly Office came not in the least from the Idol-priests of Bell but descended without any such interception from the Order of Aaron on the other side the Saints in the mystical were amongst such who though in their Order Babylon yet were not without the Covenant but were Israelites amongst whom they were visibly incorporated and not severed either in Membership or Office which your self confesseth to be the condition of your first and choicest men in the thirtieth page of your book That of the Israelites and this of outward Babylon though in many regards it symbolizeth the Antichristian stand yet not in all there being something more and proper to this later which none of the former could chalenge Object But say you such Assemblies there were through the Antichristian defection Answ This we utterly deny and have manifested the contrary Object But to confirm the constant succession of visible Churches you propound these Scriptures Isai 9.7 Dan. 2.44 Psal 110.2 Answ We have assented to and proved that there was faith and some degree of its profession visible in the lowest ebbe of Antichristianism but it yet remains for you to evince that the true visible constituted Church had its perpetual abiding Your text Isai 9.7 makes it good that Christ ruleth in the kingdom of grace but not a syllable of his constant reigning in visible church-Church-order is there specified We conclude thus far with you that Christ sits on this throne to order and establish it with judgement yet his ordering is in its dispensations various it was more open and full in the primitive glory more retired and sparing in the Babylonish desertion it will again be more manifest when the glory of the first returns The first word of the verse is divers in the reading in the Hebrew copie it being one thing in the line and another in the margine The line is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Bibles take the margine The margin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The line if beginning with the primitive times is most concordant with the other prophecies and the event the margine if applied to the Jews last return and the kingdom then rising doth best agree with the other Scriptures speaking of the same time Object But say you what is this throne and kingdom of David but Christ's visible Church in which Christ is to sit and reign visibly as David did in his kingdom Answ You here confound the effect with its cause in making this throne to be the visible Church David's throne in a Gospel-sence is the spiritual throne of grace which is the centre of Divine Majestie the common fountain from whence all the influences of grace do flow and that before which the Saints approach and Christ sits upon this throne of majesty in the heavens where neither he nor his throne are to be seen with bodily eyes as David and his throne were but are onely belieft by the piercing eyes of faith Also the kingdom is but an effect arising from that incomprehensible cause not the cause it self and this may be more open or more hidden according to the various administration of him that sits upon the throne Again the throne of David was not visible in the Babylonish captivity Your next text Dan. 2.44 belongs to the victorious kingdom of Christ in these last days prevailing over Antichrist and the whole Romane Monarchy For 1. This Image comprehends all the beauty and strength of earthly Monarchs from Daniel's days downward the last whereof was the Romanes 2. The last of Iron is distinct from the three foregoing of gold silver and brass Now as the three former metals pictured out three several kingdoms different both in their rise language and regiment from each other to wit the Babylonians Persians and the Grecians so this last of Iron being of a distinct metal from the other must type out another Monarchy even the next set apart from the former three preceding hereupon the Spirit vers 40 calls it a fourth kingdom now the fourth from the Babylonians and the next following the Grecians was the Romanes who were differing from the rest in their original people and government The Romane Monarchy Dan. 7.23 is intitled the fourth kingdom Furthermore the strength of the Iron exceeding breaking in pieces treading down subduing all the rest and devouring the whole earth can agree with no other but the Romanes The Seleucians it cannot be for that was but part of the Grecians and is described to be one wing one head one horn of the third divided unto the four windes and inferiour to the first rise thereof Chap. 7.6 Chap. 8.8 Chap. 11.4 Again the stone interpreted to be the kingdom not the king alone breaks in pieces this of the Iron and it was not the Saints of the most High but the Heathen Romanes that subdued the Seleucians Now this fourth kingdom of the Romanes is dashed into
wilderness Chap. 12.6 14 and in the streets of the great city where their bodies lay when slain and on which earth they stood for some space after the Spirit of life re-entered vers 8 11 and in this terrene station they prophesied before or in the presence of earthly Hierarchies who sate in the temple or rather the court without as God The most of these Witnesses were in the Romish Church who cried against the known corruptions and administred spiritual food to the elect scattered in that confusion Object It hath been frequently objected by others that these are Candlesticks which never denote visible Churches Answ Candlesticks are not always in Scripture figures of Churches but sometimes do signifie the vessels holding forth the light of Ministery in this sence is it understood Matth. 5.15 Mark 4.21 Luke 8.16 Chap. 11.33 where the light is the Ministery the Candlestick the organ or man containing that gift the house with those truely entering therein the Church And that it is so taken here will plainly appear by an exquisite view of the text For 1. The Church is in this place delineated by another figure viz. the Temple vers 1 and not by the Candlesticks and that house is also an invisible temple shut up from the outward court vers 2. 2. When Candlesticks do resemble Churches they are â—ver set first in figure Zech. 4.2 Rev. 1.12 but here they are placed last 3. They must here belong to Ministery because the Prophets themselves who prophesie are said to be Candlesticks whereas when the Candlesticks denote Churches the Ministers are pictured by another distinct figure to wit by stars Chap. 1.16 20. 4. These are placed after the olive-trees as drawing the oil therefrom and the first relates to their qualifications the last to their dispensation The Prophets are called olive-trees and Candlesticks as they are the instruments that bear hold and dispense the grace and gift of prophecie Object There were say you Saints so manifesting themselves so discovered by the Beast and whore by their opposition which they made to their wayes against whom the beast made war overcame them and were drunken in their bloods Answ The Saints for many hundred yeers in the West even since the Apostacie were not at all visibly distinguished from the Romish Church but lived there without any open persecution Indeed within these later Centuries God raised up more valiant champions who upon some discovery more manfully testified against the great Beast of Rome then before who was then onely extant known to be so and disclosed further the corrupt doctrine of that grand-mother-whore against whom that beast at last raged and prevailed by open persecution But the most of these also were here and there a man living and dying visibly in that Church witness the Martyrs here in England which you may read in M. Fox his book of Martyrs If some were at last distinguished from that great Whore tell us what distinction of Office they had descending from the primitive Order or upon what ground they were stated in Church-discipline Surely they living within the compass of the 1260 yeers must be clothed with sackcloth and stand outwardly in that earthly confusion or wilderness and some of late in the secret chambers The saving and incorrupt truths by them professed were chiefly in point of doctrine They unmasked onely the Beast and Whore of Rome but were blinded in daughter-harlots arising then and after and the Lord in times of ignorance over-looks the weakness of his sincere servants If the Lord had designed a continued chain of true visible stated Churches as you insinuate through every age of this defection severed and apart from Rome then without doubt he would have reserved a succession of office pure amongst the said Churches nay if there had been true official Ministers all along in those Churches then no question but such a lineal descent is extant whence the outward function of the Ministery should be deduced without being beholding to the key of Rome But we know not of any investment coming from Christ and his Apostles with us but what is derived from the Popish Clergy and you in effect confess as much in the 30 Page of your book that Luther and your choicest men had their external calling thence and so much must you grant of your own unless you renounce your genealogy Now if the key pit and smoke in Rome became bottomless as it did Rev. 9. then no off-spring issuing from her can be grounded in the truth of order Therefore were there the like beasts in the Churches you plead for who persecuted the godly by sword banishment imprisonment blood when they were anatomized as the Pope their forefather did before We now come further to expostulate about the temple and the outward court Rev. 11.1 2. Master Elmestone holds the temple to be a true visible stated Church and the Court without to symbolize such a false Church state which never was bottomed in the truth On the other side we maintaine the temple to decipher the mystical union of the one hundred and fourty four thousand sealed or elect ones whereby they are built up a spiritual house and the Court without to be the externality of Ecclesiastical order which was established by Christ in the primitive times and true but after being corrupted by Antichrist was rejected by the Spirit and false Object You alledge That the temple is the visible because measured Answ This measurement was not in the visibility of Church-order but only in the inward work of true grace and worship thence arising as will appear by these reasons 1. Because when the visible Church is measured it hath alwayes degrees of outward demensions and distances specified in the measuring as of the new Jerusalem the city was found by the golden rod to be ten thousand furlongs the wals one hundred fourty four cubits Revel 21.15 16 17. also Ezekiels temple and City from Chap. 40. to the end of the book whereas this hath no such demensions specified in the meting 2. Because the outward court which we have proved in the Cessation to be the externality of Church-order was excluded and forbidden by the spirit to be measured which must infer that nothing was here comprehended but the inward roomes of the hidden man with worship c. flowing from those intimate springs of grace 3. Because only the sealed elect number remained Rev. 7.3 c. Chap. 9.4 Chap. 14.1 Chap. 13.8 Mat. 24.24 Object Those sealed ones were as you truly say elect saved ones but in all ages many more have made profession then the elect and so during the Apostacy many beside the sealed ones did help to make up a visible Church Answ In a true stated Church hypocrites may be circumscribed within the compass of a true external stand and so may have an outward measurement but when the exteriour order is excluded and the measurement only internal to the elect who are visible in false stands
as here they are in Babylon then such who have only an outward station must be wholly shut out they standing solely in the outward court of false constitutions And therefore here all the world of Israelites worshiped the beast except those whose names were written in the book of life of the Lamb slaine from the foundation of the world Chap. 13.8 and Chap. 17.8 none are excepted but those who were written in this book from the foundation of the world So that here all save the elect are excluded and that for one thousand two hundred and sixty yeers Chap. 14.1 which razeth your next argument from its sandy foundation Their sealing notes their confirmation of the truth of grace and that being in their foreheads argues some measure of visible profession We shall in the last place deliver Master Elmestons assertion touching the outward court which he affirmed in a verbal dispute which was after this manner That it typed out the state of a false Church and that it never had any measurement at all To which was then answered That it did prefigure the outward order or visibility of Church-constitution and three reasons were produced to prove it drawn from the text which you may finde written in the Cessation also that this was true till here rejected by the Lord Jesus and could not denote that which never had any approved measurement as was then likewise cleared by these following arguments 1. By way of allusion to the temple of old That as there was not only a Temple within whereinto the Priests and none but they might enter but also a Court without erected by Divine institution and sanctified by the Spirit into which the Priests and people had access in common both which made a full and compleat temple so in the primitive times there was the internality of true grace wherein properly the elect who only were a royal Priest-hood had interest and likewise an outward order built up and breathed into by divine inspiration into which Christians visibly professing some true and some seeming came and both these together concurred to make a full visible Church 2. From the words of the text the court without cast out which the original phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Nothing in propriety of speech can be said to be cast out that was not before within Ishmael was a member in the family of Abraham before he was excluded none can be excommunicated unless he be first a brother so this being now cast out argues it to be till then approved 3. From the reason rendered by the Spirit why it was excluded for it is given to the nations which implies that it had measurement till it was thus given and corrupted by Antichrist Some trifling objections were made by Master Elmestone against these which partly for brevity sake partly because I conceive them not to be materiall I shall now omit If he think them to be otherwise and be pleased to publish them I shall be ready with Gods assistance to give a reply Thus much of the fourth Section we shall now pass on to the fifth Section 5. The fifth and last Section is taken from Mat. 24. where the visible models Loe here and Loe there or as Luke hath it Chap. 17.23 See here or see there being thus rejected by Christ are false and deceivable the powers that bear and teach them up are false Christs or Antichrists and false Prophets the spheres wherein they rule are the wilderness and secret Chambers For the clearer apprehending of this Scripture it may be requisite first to explaine something on the Chapter and after to declare your mistakes thereon To begin with the unfolding of the Chapter we are to consider there were three questions demanded by Christs Disciples vers 3. The first When these things shall be to wit the destruction of Jerusalem and dissolution of the temple spoken of in vers 2. The second What shall be the signes of his coming that is of his bright ministerial coming and dispensing his spirit-like lightning The third The signes of the end of the world to wit of the great and last day of judgement and the general resurrection To which the Lord methodically and in order one after another answereth with the signes thereof from vers the 15. to vers the 32. To the first from vers 15. to vers 23. To the second from vers 23. to vers 30. To the third vers 30 31. To omit the first as that impertinent to this subject we shall begin with the second of his coming like lightning The signes of the second are double 1. The long foregoing delusion of Antichristianisme abiding till his bright coming from vers 23 to vers 27. 2. The short noted immediate signals as the darkning of the Sun Moon and Stars and the shaking of the powers of heaven vers 29. If you desire to understand what these figurative speeches mean you may know by these places Isa 34.4 Joel 3.15 Hag. 2.21 22. and by the subversion of outward Babylon set forth by the like metaphors Isa 13. 10. Also by the overthrow of the Jewish Church Joel 2.30 31. And that of the Roman Heathen Emperors Rev. 6.12 13 14. The signes preceding the third to wit the end of the world are also twofold 1. The appearing of the Son of man in heaven that is his bright coming like lightning 2. The mourning of all the tribes of the earth upon the sight of the same glorious dispensation Psal 97.4 Zech. 12.10 11 12 13 14. of the Jews for their long blindness in Judaisme of the false stated Churches amongst Christians for their defilements in Antichristiansme of Turks and Heathens for their Mahometisme and gross Idolatry Againe we are to mind that the long Babylonish delusion of the signe of the second contains two distinct seasons 1 The time of the tribulation of the godly by the overswaying power of the false Antichristian Churches which by comparing this with the Revelations continued 1260 years chap. 11.2 3. chap. 12.6 14. chap. 13.5 a remarkable time it being ingraven in five places of that prophecie for our more espiciall remembrance 2 The time of the Sun and Moons darkning the Stars falling c. to wit the season of the vials wrath wherein the Saints are passing from their former bondage and retaliate the reward upon their Enemies vers 29 where it is said Immediately after the tribulation to wit that wrought by the Beasts prevailing for 1260 years the word after notes our another distinct time of the Sun and Moons darkning c. and the Saints lifting up their heads who at this time are said to come out of great tribulation Rev. 7.14 and to get victorie over the Beast cha 15.2 and that this delusion continues the same season also is clear from Mark 13.24 where it is said In those daies to wit of the Antichristian deceit after the tribulation This orderly method of the text concurring with the Disciples three questions
the agreement of the Apocalypse therewith and the succession of the times so directly answering may lead us to conclude that this notable deceit belongs to that of the great Babylonish apostacie yet for the further clearing up this truth we shall evidence it by these ensuing reasons 1 Because Christ markes this out to be the next after Jerusalems destruction and the next grand deceiveable evill alteration succeeding to the Church was that of Antichristianism 2 This ominous falsity is evidenced by the Spirit in Luke 17.22 23 to be after the primitive when he saith The daies will come and withall that the time when they shall say See here and see there is the time of an invisible day as is further asserted They shall desire to see one of the daies of the Son of man to wit either that of the primitive or the latter of his bright coming and shall not see it which most aptly agrees with that dark gloomie night of Antichristianism when the Sun and Air were darkened the day of Christs power disappeared and the Beast had power to prevail Rev. 9.1 chap. 7.1 chap. 13.5 3 From the continuance of the same delusion which was from the end of the primitive day till this latter day of his bright coming which none ever did but that of the great Antichrist 4 From the bewitching subtilty of their signes and wonders which fitly complies with the first and second beast who did the like deceitful miracles Rev. 13.13 14 the second beast is there called a false Prophet implying the first to be a false Christ or Antichrist onely there it is typed out by one false Christ and false Prophet there being but one in the root which is man ver 18 here by many in respect of their particular statings their divers forms and the different time of their several rises 5 From the effectual working of this deceit They shall seduce if it were possible the very Elect nothing that is possible to deceive but is subverted only the Election based on Christ is excepted which complies with none but that of the beast who deceived all universally except the sealed ones them too so far as was possible only the work of the election with that flowed purely from it was untouched as is proved in the Cessation 6 Christ gives a principal and general forewarning the danger being so great which must relate to a notable and epidemical deceit as was that of the beast this admonition took its effect by the ministery of the third Angel Rev. 14.9 c. who rouzed the godly out of their former sleep Furthermore it cannot be imagined that our Saviour briefly deciphering all the principal occurrences from the primitive Gospel-day to the end of all things should let slip a matter of such weighty consequence and so long continuance without giving any notice thereof We shall in the next come more nearly to the exposition of the text in which our Messias lively emblemes the state of false Churches wherein the substance of this deceit doth lye and there we may at once take a survey 1 Of their marks 2 Of their grounds 3 Of their formes or rather their Spheres in which they inhabit 1 The marks of these fals Churches are four 1 Their visibilitie in their stative order Lo or sea in that time when the true Kingdom was within not to be seen in such an open dispensation Luk. 17.21 22. 2 The phrase Here and there notes out a manifest place of rest or sitting down fitly representing Church-constitutions it is the character of the woman Babylon in this season to sit as a Queen 3 Their variety here and there which must scatter whereas the true is uniforme and universally gathers the Eagles unto it 4 The visible Loe or modell is first and then Christ is brought to it Lor here is Christ as if the Spirit of life and divine primitive power were in it when it is but their owne spirit even that of Antichrist ascending from an humane bottom hereupon Luk. 17.20 implicitely tells us that it ariseth from humane observation of such and such a forme drawne from their imaginarie platformes and forcing Christ unto it whereas in the true Christ the dead carcase is there first who inspires it by the flashing lightning glorie of his Spirit 2 The grounds are twofold 1 A false Christ Antichrist or a Beast are persons usurping that power which is proper and essential to Christ onely and this they assume and use in constituting visible Churches hereupon they are said to come in Christs name viz. with his power and authority in pretence vers 5 when in realitie it is but their owne name Joh. 5.43 saying I am Christ that is taking up such a power as peculiarly belongs to him whose sole prerogative it is to begin visible constitutions Psal 102.16 Zech. 4.6 10. Hos 2.19 20. 2 A false Prophet is the teaching and managing of the same false power as exercising in Ministery all the power of the first Beast or false Christ before him Rev. 13.21 Both these concur to the making and compleating of false Churches the most sublime mystery and quintessence of whose deceit lieth in their signes and wonders ver 24. which in Revel 13.13 is to make fire to come downe from Heaven in the sight of men to wit their pretending of the fierie operation of the Spirit to be in their stative ordinances with such a shew of working like unto God his working as if it were Christs true fire coming down from Heaven when indeed it is but ignis culinaris or rather ignis fatuus a strange feigned fire of their owne kindling and vers 15. he had power to give life to the Image of the Beast by his spiriting these stative ordinances which when true are the image of Christ when false the image of a Beast all which they so set in the face of men as if it were celestiall and the lively breathings of the Spirit and this kinde of spirituall magick may be fitly termed signes and wonders that do the more universally seduce because they seem to be heavenly and to be derived from Apostolicall power 3 The formes or spheres of these false Churches are pictured out by a double figure the Wilderness and the secret chambers 1 The Wilderness This is not a proper but a metaphorical Wilderness as the Sun Moon Stars and the powers of heaven are and so are the lightning the dead carcase and Eagles and pictures out a visible station resembling a desart which most congruously complies with that of National Churches whether Romish Episcopal or Presbyterial Hence the woman when once she declined into a National stand is said to flie from Heaven into the Wilderness Revel 12 6. Hence is she said to go out of the City to dwell in the field of this Babylon Mica 4.10 Likewise the great strumpet was seen of John in the Wilderness Rev. 17.3 thereby shewing that her place and residence should be
tribulation out of which the godly at last do come nor doth the figure of the wilderness and secret Chambers fitly allude to those who took on them to be Christ in Person but all these properties with the rest above specified most exactly concur with the great Antichrist whether Romish Episcopal or elsewhere and none but in him As for Bencocab he was a Jew and seduced none but Mosaical Jews who soon found him as you confess to be an impostor and therefore called him Bencosban the son of a lye his deceit was to the Jews only of short continuance and did not at all indanger Christians much less the elect amongst them As for Hacket he was an obscure man and did not involve England much less the Christian world in his private error which was not known of most or if it had was too too gross to delude so universally The special warning of Christ to beware infers a greater and more mystical subtilty then were Bencocabs or Hackets Object But say you this false one in the wilderness cannot be applyed much less appropriated to the Roman Antichrist who hath not acted his part in a desart but hath set as God in the Temple of God 2 Thess 2.4 and ruled with pompe over nations Answ 1. We did not appropriate him to the Pope but granted the Bishops and national Presbyters also to have an interest in him who mingled all together compleat this false Christ in the wilderness 2. This wilderness is not a proper as you carnally apprehend but metaphorical speech and alludes to such a way as resembles a desart which is cleared above Now though such worldly pompe may appear very majestical to flesh and blood yet in the Spirits judgement and in a mystical sence it is a desolation being barren and voide of spiritual fruitfulness Thus outward Babylon was the glory of kingdoms the golden city anc very magnificent in the eyes of natural reason yet together with her nations is called a wilderness as before So Rome the head and mother of this mystical Babel is as you assert to a carnal judgement a great and stately City and ruled over multitudes of people yet together with her nations compared with the primitive heavenly glory of Christianity is a meer desart as saith the Prophet Isa 65.10 Sion is become a wilderness That Church which in the first Gospel-day was Sion in the beauty of apostolical order afterwards having such a desolation and confusion of her first Gospel-order so great a famine of the word of God so many thornes and briars in her and usurping a terrene national hierarchy with multitude of ravenous devouring beasts together with a pompous shew of humane Ceremonies Canons c. might most fitly be stiled an earthly wilderness she being worldly in her foundation and whole artifice The place in 2 Thes 2.4 in which Antichrist sits is called the temple by a Synecdoche the whole for the part to wit for the outward Court for no more was given to the Nations over whom he rules as God then the outward Court Rev. 11.2 but the temple vers 1. within to wit the inward roomes of the hidden man that beast never reigned over it being sustained by Christ and this you must assent to unless you make Rome to be a true Church and to have true measurement this text of the Apocalypse interprets that of Paul and the same outward Court was by the Antichristian impietie made a wilderness You grant That the Brownist Dippers c. invite into secret chambers Answ If so then surely it is very improbable that Christ should pass over in utter silence the great beast of Rome the head of all the rest which for many ages did so universally deceive the world and hint only upon the last and least It is not safe to tax Wisdome it self with such an oversight not to close up your eyes against the light of so clear a prophesie You further inquire Whether the calling of men into houses parlors and Chambers do not reflect c. Answ These Chambers are not proper but figurative Chambers as before is shewed and preaching and praying in houses are not as barely considered these false narrow roomes for the Apostles went about from house to house and Christ hath promised his Spirit to those who truly worship him in any place whatsoever You tell me That mutato nomine de me fabula narratur the fable may be told of me Answ If any can tax me with false doctrine or touch us in out call for or walke in separation let him come forth we do not bring Christ to any particular stating so to say Lo nor bottom our union on a narrow corporation but separating from all these restraints we bear up our spiritual relation with all the godly wherever scattered and indeavour to bring them off from these bestial formalities which bondage the Saints and divide Christ to Lo here Lo there that renouncing these they may joyn together with one consent in the way of separation wherein Christ is gone forth that so they may get full victory over the beast and this is not to bring into but pull men off from their inthralings either in the wilderness or secret Chambers I will not say Fabula de te narratur as making the oracle of Truth to be an old wives fable which your inversion against me is but whether for you to take up a new power to state Churches and to make members and officers upon your own call name time spiriting and to shew such signes and wonders in inspiring you stative Ordinances some whereof are meer inventions for you I say to begin such a narrow limited obscure and unwarrantable work upon your own observation as a false Christ and teach it up as a false prophet be not numbered amongst these secret Chambers we leave it for wise and impartial men to determine You indeed plead for national Churches and are officiated from their hierarchies being in your confession in the wilderness but in your walk as those in the narrow roomes Conclusion For conclusion and close of this subject we acquainted you that these latter Ordinances of Ordination Confirmation c. have a being in the Scriptures and the mind and desires of the faithful and that we carry them along with us in our journey of separation as the Israelites of old did the vessels of the temple out of outward Chaldea but dare not officiate in them within the territories of Babylon in which we are till we have passed by the sixth vail over the river Euphrates Object If they have a being in the Scriptures then are they the institution of Christ and ought alwayes to be taken up in practice proved from Mat. 28.20 Answ Those Ordinances which have their constant existence perpetuated in the word by institution and promise are ever accompanied by the same Word and the Spirit thereof for their continued use in all convenient times and places as you affirme
at Jerusalem was a true stated Church of God and kept up in purity by some but yours was never rightly constituted and so the high places abroad in the country could not fundamentally corrupt the same The sin of Polygamy was then accounted no sin because no law no sin imputed and though partly connived at of old yet being more inconsistent with a Gospel walk was together with divorcement prohibited by our Saviour Luk. 19.3 4 5 6. Matth. 5.31 32. The sinful infirmities of the regenerate if visible were admonishable and if obstinately stood in excommunicable The primitive Church was very pure in her constitution and was not to suffer leaven lest it should leaven the whole lump 1 Cor. 5.6 7. And it being the Lords wisdome in this last return to bring his people first off by a full separation before he grant their visible wedding-garments who can controule or argue against him Object 1 The Angels are clothed with white pure linen Rev. 16.6 Answ The Angels are of the separated people who are clothed with the like white robes Chap. 7.9 These are said to be white 1. As they are garments of rejoycing and praise for their victory Chap. 15.2 3. which in Scripture-language are called white Eccles 9.8 Isa 61.3 also the Spirit by Zechariah presenting the state of the four Monarchs sets forth the Persian who brought joy and deliverance to the Jews in the form of a white horse Chap. 6.3 6. 2. In purity as by way of comparison they are brighter then before being off from the beast in Ecclesiasticks likewise in their Ministery aimes and desires they are clear from Euphratean filth and in that way of separation which leads them over the river Euphrates Albeit for the present being on this side that river they cannot in their practice be altogether free from some worldly uncleanness the Spirit as yet evincing the highest righteousness therein attainable as is declared in our said reason And for that the Ministery and minde is thus off from self and their way ascending to a higher purity the Spirit figures out the separation and the Angels in the first general embleme with the same whiteness and cleanness of array which will be attained to in the upshot of the journey Christ in this Revelation doth frequently pourtray things that go on gradually to such a hight first in a brief common type in the beginning as they are in their extent and after sets down in particular the several steps by which they work up to the same utmost degree as we shall evidence in our next Answer by undeniable instances if excepted against Howbeit these garments in their perfection are but the garments of Virginity Chap. 14.4 the visible wedding-aray is not granted till the marriage comes Chap. 19.7 8. In the mean time virgins have a space for preparing and trimming their Lamps before they be ready Matth. 25.7 Section 6. In the last place which is answerable to our second Reason we informed you that the visible marriage of the Lamb in point of Church-order will not come till all enemies as Antichristian be subdued and God onely reigns Revel 19.2 3 6 7 9. Your first Objection against this is that of Hag. 1.2 The third is the example of the Protestant Churches to both which we have given Reply in this Paragraph Sect. 1. We shall here add that to do any thing in Church-matters without a call or divine warrant is in Scripture-language a sin of the highest nature it being rebellion and presumption is idolatry and like the sin of Witchcraft 1 Sam. 15.23 it was the sin of Corah Dathan and Abiram as also of Nadab and Abthu together with Vzza Much more is it hainous to erect Gospel-tabernacles and Churches without a call and spiriting from heaven This we conceive to be the fundamental cause and reason why the Spirit gives to that of Antichristianism terms of such detestation and terror It bears the image of Luciferian pride and boasting 2 Thes 2.4 Jam. 4.16 Rev. 18.7 John 5.43 44. Hence it is chiefly that the Beast is full of the names of blasphemy as if in all his ways he acted in that sea Rev. 17.3 principally for this the woman is said to be the abomination of the earth vers 5. and to be the habitation of devils Chap. 18.2 hence are so great * Isa 24. Rev. 18. Chap. 14.9 10. wrath and judgements against those that partake thereof I say the radical ground of all this is because they do it in their own names without a call and impowering from above And thus it will in short time be discovered as light increaseth And would you have us to rush into such manner of sins against our own light to the hazarding of our own souls and others through your corrupting that place of Haggai Cease Master Elmstone from such preposterous courses and destructive ways As for that of Protestant Churches we desire you in your next book to shew us out of the prophecies their call for their several stated Churches and their several forms both for matter and time or otherwise to leave off such impertinent arguments and remember what you asserted against Rome and the Bishops Object 2. This is to make Christ to be a Bridegroom without a known Bride a King without a Kingdom a Head without a Body for more then a thousand yeers and so as you elsewhere say must bring a notable alteration in Christ Answ Christ is the same in himself yesterday to day and for ever yet in his administration to his Church is various sometimes he is more secret and hidden and in some respect absent and gone sometimes seen with an open prospect of his glorious dispensation all which though it cause an alterable condition in the Church yet makes it no absolute change in the Lord Jesus It is your own carnal apprehension that phancies such a Soloecisme in Divinity 2. To reply to the relation the union betwixt Christ and his Church may be termed a marriage This union is more mystical and concealed or more visible and manifest 1. The mystical or more secret is that where by the elect however different in respect of time place or condition are related to Christ the head and one to another This alwayes continued and thus Christ was ever a head king and husband 2. The more visible Gospel-marriage is when the Saints outwardly congregated are by an open emission of the Spirit first invested from above with new membership and office whereby to become a married wife and they receiving this power from on high do by vertue thereof marry others into the same married body which is further declared in the Cessation Quaere 2. And in this last regard she was not alwayes married For we are to mind that herein there are several seasons times of love and maturity for marriage Ezek. 16.8 and thus it was in the primitive and will be againe at the last when the Church in her external order
compel doth testifie still retaining their old mustie store and sowre wilde grapes of Antichrist your Ministery is foully corrupted with guile and false principles about discipline accompanied with bitter and odious invectives against these harpers Lastly let us examine your National Churches above-named by Chap. 15. They stand not simply upon a sea of glass the word only purely sensed but upon the more gross interpretations of the Fathers and other learned men in darker times from whom they esteem it presumption to differ though to the native Truth as your sharp and frequent reproofs of me for differing from them doth demonstrate they have not obtained a conquest over the Beast but have erected a Beast in Episcopacie Presbytery c. his Image in their Canons and other Ordinances changed into his likeness his Mark by a subjection thereto nor are their members in distinct congregatings as being off from the number of his name but are all numbered to him And those who now adhere to these National Hierarchies are so far from harping out this triumphant song of victory by separation and war and singing True and righteous are thy ways herein thou King of Saints as they are secret mourners having a wound in their spirits at these his just proceedings and his judgements now made manifest witness of late the dolour for the overthrow of the Scots who fought in the Presbyterian cause your publike reproaches against the Separation with inward torments for their freedom together with many other passages which shew how this great work of God now beginning is closed and fast locked up from your understandings We desire from our souls that the Lord Jesus who hath the key of David would open the door of your hearts whereby his admired designes changes and works to be done might enter In the mean time you may behold your folly in bringing those texts to convince us and prove your practice every circumstance whereof agrees with the way of separation and riseth up as so many witnesses against yours You ask us Whether the Ordination of Ministers in such National Churches be a mark of the Beast Answ Seeing the Churches themselves are not these harpers but such as stand under a bestial power the Ministers must be of the same nature with the Churches And your Ordination whether by Bishops or preaching Presbyters coming from the corrupt key of Rome though done by fasting and prayer must carry with it the mark or brand of the same Beast or if the man be truely pious his outward livery And thus to judge is neither ignorance nor malice as you charge it but the discovery of Christ in his Revelation who through our sides you are pleased to defame with black terms of obloquie To your next we say that you are not clothed with the white garments of the harpers but with the black habit of sack-cloth You tax us with omitting singing of Psalms Answ For mine own particular I question not the Ordinance of vocal singing of Psalms though some do scruple the manner thereof as conceiving it to be much abused Albeit this harmonizing here is not tyed to metre but is the inward joy wrought in the hearts of Gods separated Saints for their noble redemption from the Beast and the new mercies bestowed on them which breathes forth either in secret ejaculations or acts more openly in Ministery Prayer Thanksgiving c. Object You quaere How we can be in our return from Babylon and yet within Babylons territories Answ A man may be returning from London and yet within the line of Communication so in this gradual separation we cannot go clear off at once but by degrees See Parag. 4. Reas 7. Before we conclude give us leave to propound a few Quaeries very material to be considered of 1. In general for all 2. In particular to you The general shall be a brief contracting of the whole body of this Controversie and are as followeth 1. Whether the being of yours or any other Office with us passing by succession from the Primitive came by a Lineal descent from Rome or not If some say Not then whether any can prove their Genealogie distinct and apart from her If from Rome as you confess then whether the essence and foundation of Office be true there or not If true then whether she must not radically be a true Church and a Sion If she be in her constitution false bottomless and Babylon whether there were not a dissolution of your line and chain 2. Whether a true congregated Church set in a right and compleat order of discipline in our Western Horizon can be proved from the Apostolical times to be distinct from the Romish Synagogue If not as the Scripture and the event doth clearly manifest then must there be a cessation and departure of Gods glory from this visibility proved from these Scriptures Rev. 7.1 Chap. 9.1 2 3 c. Chap. 11.2 3. Whether the primitive order sinking there must not be a new call and spiriting from God for the first restoring and beginning of this work whereby his glory may return to make it a true spiritual and heavenly building 4. Whether such a visible administration that gives being to a true pure genuine and single Gospel-marriage be to be seen in the first initiation of any of our new-built Church-formes or can be evidenced by Scripture to be existing at this present or whether this same be not prophesied not to return till after the downfall of Babylon by these Scriptures Rev. 19.2 3 6 7 8 9. chap. 11. 19. Hos 2.19 20. Isa 62.4 5. chap. 14.15 Mic. 4.3 8. Mat. 25.10 5. Whether if so all our visible constitutions must not be man in their ground-work and so numbered to that beast Rev. 13.18 6. Whether then the way prepared cast up approved of and called unto for his Servants now to walk in be not a separation with distinct Congregations without sitting down as Queens in visible constitutions I shall desire the Godly seriously and impartially to examine these Quaeries by the word of God We were all in a spiritual sense asleep and it is no shame but a honour to yeild to the conquest of truth and suffer it freely to triumph over our former misleadings and wanderings The Quaeries in particular to you are these 1. Whether as above your Office of the Ministery the corner-stone of your outward building being derived from the national hierarchy which successively came from the Pope be not one of Babylons stones and whether it be not against this text Jer. 51.26 They shall not take of thee a stone for foundations but thou shalt be desolate for ever saith the Lord. 2. Whether your gathering of Gospel-Churches out of true Gospel-Churches which you acknowledge the national to be be warranted by the Scriptures if so we desire your proofs for it 3. Whether your making of Elders without laying on of hands be agreeable to the primitive practice 4. Whether the receiving in of members made by your selves be taken from the primitive pattern that is whether such a Covenant and subscription thereto was the Ordinance by which men entred into Church-fellowship in that Gospel-day or whether members were not then received in by laying on of hands if by such a Covenant we desire your Scriptures to warrant it 5. Whether all this be not to omit or transgress the lawes and change the ordinances Isa 24.6 Yet one thing more You have taken a great deal of pains through your whole Book to prove a true visible stated Gospel-Church thorowout the Gospel-times but all this while you have not shewed us which of all the several forms is that true stated Church Rome arrogates it the Lutherans usurp it the English Episcopacie plead it the Presbyters and you chalenge it the Dippers appropriate it those called Brownists claim it as their sole interest the Independents assume it And truely the wisest man in Europe taking a thorow view of every one of these Church-models will be at a stand certainly to determine which of them is the true and right and which had its lineal descent in the rectitude of Order from the Primitive The more accurately he examines the greater occasion he may finde to question all Sir I beseech you not to take in prejudice what I have here presented in benevolence For though many things may appear something strange at first yet I hope upon second thoughts you will finde them no other then the real truths of God delivered by the Prophets Apostles and the Lord himself I presume you will not adjudge him who hath been and is your cordial friend to become your enemy because he tells you the truth and that in the same language the Spirit in Scripture speaks Indeed I may seem to some to be over-sharp but the discoveries by the vials are so imparted by the Spirit as at the one side to increase the torments of the marked souldiers of Antichrist so on the other side thorowly to searse and eat out the mystery of that deceit too deeply riveted in the mindes of many vessels of honour For though the Spouse was not totally deceived so as to be struck at the heart or killed yet was she so much deluded as to receive a wound Cant. 5.7 which cannot recover a perfect cure but by a searching salve And for my self I dare not daub in the things of God nor call evil good nor darkness light nor soothe up with flattering titles left my Maker should destroy me When I see my brother straying I am commanded to rebuke with plainness and not in any wise to suffer sin to rest upon him to omit which duty were a symptome of hatred Lev. 19.17 And I will assure you they are no other then the faithful wounds of a friend which in receiving may carry the vertue of an excellent oil that will not break your head but onely remove such putrefaction as might otherwise procure your loss at the day of Jesus Christ FINIS