Matth. 16.19 And as the natural windes bring a sweet influence of fertility to the earth and of purification both to sea and air by their breathing in this lower Region the restraint whereof causeth things to putrifie so this spiritual winde blowing here below on the Israelites earth sea and trees caused the spices thereof to flow out and purified all Cant. 4.16 but after it was withheld then ensued a common infection Chap. 8. Chap. 9. Chap. 13. Chap. 11. Chap. 17. which poysoned all except the sealed ones who properly had some secret inhalations from the Angel of the East These Angels we conceive to be evil spirits working by their principal ministers the four capital Patriarchs of the Christian world to wit the Bishop of Alexandria for the South of Antioch for the East of Constantinople for the North and Rome for the West who usurping and in a manner ingrossing all Ecclesiastical Government into their hands and tugging amongst themselves for Primacie did by contention pride avarice and heresie gradually detain the four windes from breathing in the external Regiment till at the last the Headship fell into Rome where it became another And this restraint was not properly in them as if any creature had power over the holy Ghost but by accident in the same sence that the infection of Nature is said to resist and quench the Spirit Acts 7 51. and 1 Thess 5.19 Now because the Israelites here spoken of are thought by some to be the natural seed of Abraham I shall for their satisfaction evidence by some arguments that they must be the Christian nations or Gentile Israelites proved by these following Reasons 1. This Book of the Revelations was not sent to the Jews but to the Gentiles as principally belonging unto them and in various types pourtrays the several changes that should befall them from the days of John to the final consummation 2. The main body of this Vision was after the days of John as you may gather by Chap. 4.1 and for time begins when the open breathing of the Spirit was withheld when the trumpets that brought in the apostacie were sounded when the outward court was cast out even when the Jews were almost utterly fallen away from any profession of Christ from whom onely comes salvation and could not then have one hundred and fourty four thousand sealed ones amongst their tribes 3. The four Angels stand upon all quarters of the earth and the with-holding is universal The four windes and the hurt thereby to all the unsealed Israelites which cannot agree with any one Nation 4. This hurt was chiefly introduced by the locust Chap. 9.4 and by the Beast which can in no sence be applied to the Jews but to the Christian nations who were thus undermined by Antichrist 5. By comparing this text with Chap. 11.2 we may clearly perceive that the nations possessed the court without the temple which was the stand of the common Israelites The common Israelites stand in the court without the nations stand in the court without the nations then must be these common Israelites especially considering that all the visions of this book are not proper but allegorical 6. The number sealed from amongst them was the same not hurt by the Locusts Chap. 9.4 nor utterly deceived by the Beast Chap. 13.8 Matth. 24.24 the same standing on mount Sion Chap. 14.1 which duely pondered with all the circumstances can be reduced to no time or condition but that of the Elect in Babylon If the Romish and Antichristian defection be not deciphered by these figures and but the Jews onely then is it altogether omitted in this Book then must all from thence to the end of the Revelation be peculiar to the Jews neither of which can any man of wisdom assent to embrace The Spirit hath so interlaced this Chapter from vers 1. to vers 9 with all the after-types expressing the state of the time of the tribulation and from vers 9. to the end with the next revolution and condition of the harpers as may sufficiently remove such trifling conjectures from the mindes of all who will observe the order of this Prophecie Thus we shall leave the second Section and proceed to the third Section 3. Our third ground why the visibility of Church-constitution and the keys thereof comprising the later sort of Ordinances did sail was Because the Lord deserting them when made void of their primitive truth and purity the dragon had full power therein and gave to the fallen star another key even the key of the bottomless pit Rev. 9.1 2 3 4 c. Chap. 13. Object Against this you alleadge that the Pope got into his hands all the other Ordinances as well as these as Prayer Ministery Baptism and yet for substance they remained true why then may not the later as Ordination c. Answ Because you here require us we will give our Reasons together though most have been elsewhere written why the former continued and not the later Our Grounds why the former abode shall be first in general then in particular The Reasons in general are these two 1. The former being promised in the Word to remain the Lord so sustained them by his Word as no creature could abolish them 2. Because as Christ fore-declared that there should be a sealed number to make up a mystical Church in Babylon so he upheld the former as being more necessary to maintain the being of grace some means of salvation and the badge of the Covenant Now a few words for the former Ordinances with faith and profession in particular Those of Ministery Prayer and Praisings arise from a grace in the soul faith in the heart and a gift dispensed from Christ alone even then when the outward government was rejected now his Spirit could never be radically touched as it works in the soul Thus the desires of grace in the minde aspiring and fuming up to the Father of spirits in the Ordinances of Prayer and Praisings could not be restrained much less razed by the great Antichrist Likewise the gift of the Witnesses prophecie wrought in the inward man with the administration thereof breathing out teaching is so given inspired and sustained by Jesus Christ as the Beast could never take it into his full possession it this had been possible he would not have suffered them to turn his waters into blood ministerially and smite his earth with plagues and that not so oft as the Beast but as they listed vers 6. The Bishops with us in England when they had full command and jurisdiction in Ecclesiastical regiment could by no means wholly withhold or corrupt the desires and prayers of the Saints nor so take this inward gift into their custody but that in despight of their malice it brake forth in one corner or other of the Land to testifie the truth in some measure and disclose nay cry down the corruptions of the times Also faith in the heart and the effects thereof shining forth
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
externality was after surprised by Antichrist that destroying king the better to establish his worldly kingdom and captivate the godly in fetters of Iron And surely this was not again restored by Satans craft nor the insinuation of some subtile Sinons as you most abusively turn it but by the hand of Divine providence directing our noble partriots to regain the priviledge of their birthright whom Christ made kings and priests to God and his Father The Lord hath crowned the undertakings of those who were the choicest instruments in procuring this freedome with such prosperous success in his and our publike interest as might teach you more modesty then so reproachfully to defame them and hath with a mighty arme layed low the pride of such who sought to bring us back into bondage both in England Scotland and Ireland he reproved kings and nations for his peoples sake all which might force you write upon our liberty This is the finger of God if your eyes were open to behold his wonders now appearing It seems it much grieves you to see the tenth part of the great City falling in our dominions and that our States refuse to assume a Popedom over the conscience the peculiar seat of divine majesty However you judge it will be the honour of our Worthies in future ages and all neighbor-Commonwealths are amazed at the glory resting upon our English nation But Sir Why should this toleration be more destructive to you then to others You have as great a portion therein as any you thereby injoy a freedome for your walk which was denyed in the Bishops reign and when so large a door is opened in rising times if your Church cannot stand unless under-propped by worldly power it evidently demonstrates your kingdome to be of this world Be pleased to remember that the primitive was not built by might nor power but by the Spirit Zech. 4.6 and by the same Spirit Christ went forth conquering and to conquer mulittudes Rev. 6.2 Also the stone dashing all opposers in these latter dayes is cut out of the mountaine without hands Dan. 2.34 the kingly Prophet tells us Gods people will be willing or voluntaries as the Hebrew text carries it in the day of his power Psal 110.3 and 47.9 The Gosâ—el-Saints are genuinely of a royal princely spirit and never act nobly but from a pure principle of love within constraining 2 Cor. 5.14 You argue That out of this womb hath issued forth numerous heresies errors sects and schisms Answ Some of these named indeed are dangerous some are neerer to the truth then your selves but to reply to yours we assert 1. That all those nominated in your Epistle the Ranters excepted who in their blasphemies and beastly lusts are excluded were brought forth many yeers before this toleration was granted and it is a strange Paradox never heard of in publike till divulged by you that that can be the womb to conceive and bring forth which with as was not in retum natura extant in the series of nature till so long time after their existence Formerly it was an approved Aphorisme Causa est prior effecto The cause precedes the effect in order of nature or time or both But you produce a contrary example which if true will put all Logicians to an absolute non-plus We conceive the rationalist rather then be silenced will tell you Contra principia negantem non est disputandum no disputation ought to be held with him that denyes the principles Surely it is heat of passion against the Sectaries as you term them hath disturbed your otherwise more solid intellectuals To proceed suppose errors may arise yet is it not carnal but spiritual weapons must beat down such spiritual wickedness 2 Cor. 10.3 4. The Lord permits and the Scripture presageth that errors and offences must come partly that those who are approved may be made manifest partly that the conquest of truth may appear the more glorious which will at last dispel those gloomy clouds and shine forth with more perspicuous brightness The mystery of godliness rayes out with most perfect beauty by the clear discovery of the deepest mystery of iniquity Besides why may not truth in a free passage come in as well as heresie Without doubt Christ who hath all power committed to his charge is as potent to prevaile in light as the Prince of darkness in delusions Nay why may not truth be shut out by the contrary restraint The compulsion you plead for hath hither to proved a direct enemy to the pure Gospel of the Lord Jesus It may further be demanded to what way you so eagerly labor to ingage the sword of the Magistrate whether to your own or to some other Not to any other for when the Bishops held it in their custody you did with the formost exclaim against it as Antichristian bestial tyrannical c. and here you censure all others to be errors Sects Schisms and what not If you chalenge it to your selves we shall ask whether you among all the several bodies extant sit in the chaire of infallibility For none but an unerring law can warrantably claim a power over the conscience 2. Suppose you were infallible and could not err which you dare not affirme then whether you can create a belief the heart of those who are contrary minded The Apostles in Church-affaires were directed by an undeceivable spirit an yet neither used nor layed claim to such a power but invited and won men to the faith simply by the cords of love All that humane weapons can do is only to force the outward man which is a violent and preternatural motion and when the constraint is over soon turns again to its own centre Whereas the Gospel naturally begins within and grounds its principles in the intimate chests of reason It first breaks as a light into the Vnderstanding the noblest faculty and there imprints the image of its integrity thence it goes to the Will the great wheel of the soul and turns it to a willing obedience to all its precepts and commands thence it passeth to the inferiour affections and compels them to imbrace the beauties of holiness and from these inward springs proceed all the outward duties and services performed by the body The sum of the new Convenant is to write the laws in the heart and in the mind Heb. 8.10 This was exactly the method which the Apostles followed 2 Cor. 3.2.3 But you indeavor a preposterous course and contrary to the order of the Gospel to wit to constrain the body to what the heart opposeth If so and whatever be not of faith be sin then assuredly this your course is confusion and destructive to the souls of people We read of none in all the New Testament but only the beast who commanded all both smal and great to worship Revel 13. 3. It is conceived that you in this are a part of the greatest and most deceivable Schisme that ever came into the world and
if Episcopacy be to be plucked up root and branch which you pleaded then no reliques of your Classical government will be left remaining much less will it be granted that you sit in the seat of judicature to adjudge all besides your selves to be Heresies Sects c. or that you have any authority given from heaven by humane force to captivate them to your wills and canons The Independents are in many respects in their way neerer to the Kingdome of Heaven then the Classical men and if you would not willingly subjectly your consciences to the separation which power they defie to own why should there be such high indeavors to imbondage them In this you are declared to be far beneath a legall spirit which teacheth to doe to others as you would be dealt withall by them Are not their consciences as tender as yours Are they not as pious and dear to GOD as upright to their neighbour as serviceable and faithful to the State as cordial and real to our publike Cause And why should they not with others partake in that common priviledge purchased by the expence of many of their deare lives It was not long since your selves were under the Bishops rod and then such a liberty would have been sweet and gratefully accepted but now nothing will satisfie unless you may in their steads lord it over your fellow-brethren The precept is ordinary yet profitable Foelix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum Let the ruines of other tyrants teach you more wisdome and moderation In the next place you come unto me and our walk in particular in which to pass by other phopperies opprobrious dealings and false suppositions as not worth spending inke paper and time upon we shall only take notice of two passages The first is your calling it a Sect and in the title of your Book a Schisme Answ A Sect is a renting a Schism a cutting off or dividing from the truth now whether we or you be renters we leave to the tryal of the Word It hath been the usual policy of Satan to brand the new springings forth of truths by such opprobrious titles Thus dealt the Jews of old with the Gospel Acts 28.22 Chap. 24.5 14. and separation being now that which God calls his people to walk in we believe this charge of yours will be found to be as untrue and calumnious as was theirs and to come from the same spirit We should have expected no other language from the mouth of a Pope or Bishop but wonder to hear it from one who would rank himself amongst the godly However we regard not the censure of your papal chaire as being neither discovered to be what you stile us nor discouraged by such disgraceful Characters for we are not ashamed to bear the rebukes of Christ Your indeavors this way will prove but bare Essays whose births may be vanity and shame at conclusion Secondly You come to our company whom you call unstable souls and defame their assemblings by base scurrilous verses out of Ovid the very language of hell and unfit to be written by a chaste pen much more unmeet to be applyed to a godly or hopeful people For my own particular as I have freely received so I freely dispense the word and deny none to hear who are freely drawn as being sensible of the power of God who may chuse the mean and base things in the worlds esteem to confound the noble Notwithstanding were the same people with you many would be counted pretious Saints others very faire commers on though now from a root of bitterness they are so greatly vilified Such virulent invectives tend but to the fulfilling of the Prophecies which foretell that the meetings of these returners shall bear a reproach and burden Ezek. 34.16 Mica 4.76 7. Zeph. 3.18 albeit in short time they shall have a praise and a fame in every land where they have been put to shame their gathering or congregating being by the Lord Jesus ver 19. I cannot in charity think that these came simply from your self but from the instigation of some others whose spirits are compounded of gall and vinegar and have dipt your pen with the cruel venome of Asps We are sure such ribaudry becomes not the gravity of gray hairs much less of one esteemed an ancient professor It seems their throne being touched their kingdom waxing dark and people leaving them they begin to accomplish what is spoken Revel 16.10 11. The Lord open the eyes of their understandings that they many no longer be found fighters against God Before we pass from hence we shall mind you of a seasonable observation In the Primitive time there was an outward Jerusalem figured by Hagar the bond-woman whose zealous children under high pretences of holiness were the most desperate enemies to such who by their free Gospel-walk declared themselves to be the off-spring of Jerusalem from above So now there is an outward rejected court Rev. 11.2 and thereupon another inslaving motherhood and those who are over-rigid in those externalities and stand most upon them are like to prove the greatest enemies to such who by their practise of separation manifest themselves to be children of liberty and aim most at spirituality But leaving this we shall speak something of our first Letter after the receit whereof as you affirme it was noised that I had thereby blown up c. Answ If there were any such report the sound of it was not loud enough to come to my ears till I read it in your Epistle This I am sure of it was a private Letter never intended by the writer to come publikely abroad in the world and comprised but a light and hasty draught of my apprehensions touching the subject you requested whose principal scope was to proffer you a fuller discourse by word of mouth upon the particulars therein barely hinted But since you being pleased to divulge it in your book without my knowledge or approbation I shall only remark two passages The first is a mistake in printing in the second page and seventeenth line It is printed We are in our journey to Sion visibly separated whereas it ought io be To Sion visibly stated and so it was written in my Letter also Revel 8.34 for Revel 8.5 in the third page The second is as you assert that I quoted Isa 66.5 for Isa 56.5 which error you not finding out said nothing on that place Answ There were some such errors in yours insuing which when the words were written I rectified and replyed accordingly and it is possible that amongst many Scriptures I might faile in the quotation of one yet the words of the text being named your Concordance might soon have directed you to finde out the place ar else within the compass of eight or nine moneths for so long space it was ere your returned me answer you might have inquired of me we living so neer one to another You neither have nor I suppose ever can in your
union of the Spirit which is their breath of life and represents them unto us as the lively appearance of Jesus Christ And this may be called ours it being part of our inheritance when the same Spirit is severed and departed from them they remain as empty rudiments Object But many partake of the Ordinances that have not nor ever shall have union with Christ. Answ Those who do truely partake of the Ordinances must in the participation thereof have union with the Spirit of grace because the same Spirit that is in the Ordinances is in the Saints But to such as have in no kinde the workings of that Spirit the Ordinances are both dead and empty or rather a savour of death not that they are so in themselves but by accident because of their spiritual blindness and unbelief There may be a clear and bright light in the air yet for want of light in the eye a blinde man cannot see nor enjoy the comfort thereof Thus the ministery of Christs Gospel was a light shining in darkness but the darkness comprehended it not Joh. 1.5 the Gospel was not void of light nor the Ordinances being as pipes to the Lamps in the dispensation of their lustre but the men wanted spiritual eyes to behold and embrace its beauty Object But the foundation of Ordinances is the institution of Christ. Answ We deny not the institution of Christ to be the foundation of Ordinances but withal affirm that the next immediate principle is the Spirit of grace proceeding from Jesus Christ which by its union gives them their life and soul There may be an institution before the Ordinance hath its proper existence sometimes the command as made known to us by Scripture-record may be a ratification of that which was in being and practise before as we can instance in both However if the institution be perpetuated in the Word then it continues and the Spirit joyns constantly with it when existing if not then may the Spirit leave it sometimes always sometimes for a certain time determined Object The later are grounded on the Covenant of grace and so are the former if by founded you mean they are effects c. Answ 1. If they be effects they must depend upon their cause as their base and principle Every cause is a principle for Omnis causa est principium 2. We deny not that the later are branches of this Covenant but the former have a more neer relation and connexion therewith then the later for the former were used while Christ was on the earth before the keys of the later were given also the elect in mystical Babylon were Israelites as those within the Covenant Rev. 7.3 4. and having their election sealed up had some breathing and nourishment by the former of these Ordinances but the visible Order in which they stood is by the Spirit termed a wilderness and Babylon and the later Ordinances coming from the false key of that Church were bottomless and bestial In the like manner Israel in Egypt had ministery the Passeover c. before the Legal Marriage was contracted likewise the ten apostated Tribes had Circumcision where the visible stated Church was idolatrous Thus the former being before and without the later have a more immediate compliance with the Covenant and the later with visible orderly Church-constitution joyned thereto the one declares a Covenant member the other together with it a visible Church-constituted member To your sixth Objection from Rev. 7.1 I shall hereafter answer in its proper place in Sect. 2. Now we come to examine and remove your Objections brought against the Cessation which we will divide into five Sections Section 1. Our first was that Ministery Prayer the Sacraments Faith with Profession had the promise of the Word to uphold their successive abiding But the later as Ordination Confirmation Church-censures c. wanted the said promise and so lie void and desolate for a time as is proved in the Cessation I shall return to your two first Objections in the third Section next following Object 3. In the third to prove the later sort to endure successively as well as the former you bring Eph. 4.11 12 13. and 1 Tim. 6.13 14. Answ 1. To that of Eph. 4 we assent that all the Officers there exhibited were gifts sent down from Christ after his ascension to his Father vers 8.11 as also that they were differentially distinguished each from other both in the Office its administration and operation vers 7. and that all these together exceedingly furthered the work of the Ministery and tended wonderfully to the edifying of the body of Christ and the completing of the growth and stature of the Saints But yet we maintain that this dispensation of Office continued not to the end of the world as you would insinuate for it reached no further then the Primitive Apostolical times For proof whereof we shall render these Arguments 1. Because all the Apostles were dead at the end of the first or beginning of the second Century and in little time after Evangelists and Prophets You may from this place as well argue the constant abiding of Apostles Prophets and Evangelists as of Pastors and Teachers seeing the Spirit here speaks of a complete and full dispensation of Official Ministery consisting of all these together to bring this noble work to its perfection 2. The whole primitive key of Office was lost in the Romish defection and returns not again till Babylon is destroyed See the Cessation 3. If Office had lineally descended from the primitive then must Rome's Officers and her officiating be good and true and so she a true visible Church in the deepest of her Apostacie whom the Scripture declares to be Babylon and cast out from true measurement Rev. 11.2 Chap. 17. 4. If your sence be right then apostated Rome must be a continued increasing growing Church higher then it was when Paul wrote this Epistle or the highest degree of the Apostolical Church For the word until notes a continued act and all the tenour of the verses declares an increasing growing state whereas Rome was not a rising but a falling away 2 Thest 23.4 5. Because Christ in the time of this backsliding promiseth a new gift that implies the failing of the former Rev. 11.3 6. The union of faith here specified as the period of this time cannot be applied to the resurrection for then we walk by sense not by faith and enjoy the thing now onely beleft Therefore Sir to give you the true sence of this Text in respect of time we conceive that this word until extends no further then the end of the first or beginning of the second Century For then when the book of the Revelations was given the whole Scriptures were completed and so the work of the Ministery made perfect then was the highest rise fulness and unity of faith then was the scruple of Circumcision in greatest part if not wholly removed the Temple being destroyed