14t AdvertifemenP. years been the Whore, andBabylon, meant in thefe Texts; nor that yet all 1'apins 9ía11 tie tormented, as worlhippii g the Beaftt or his Image, &c. I am Pure that the vihble Church will have Scandals and Ambitious Men ; and yet that its Deliverance in Canffantines time, and the following Ages; was a wondrous Mercy, which Heaven and Earth did rejoyce in, and praife God for : And it was a great part of Chrift's coming to reign by Chriftian Princes, and that the Kingdoms of me World were made the Kingdoms ofChrift. Therefore Ì dread the denying Chrift there King- doms, and reproaching even the heft Ages of his Church on Earth as Antichriftian, left I deny him to have any Church vifible at all, or tempt Men to Infidelity, by Paying that Chrift is fo little a King, and came to fo little aWork in the World, as to have no Church fave the perfecuted part, till .Anno 300, and the Reformers fine x seo, five a few latent persons. Menwill judge of the Workmanby his Work, and of Phyficians by theirCures. And though it be honourable to faveone Soul, they will tempt men to dishonour Chrift, that call almost all his Church Antichriftian. I would not flander one Man, but fhould I mistake, and Bander millions for thirteen hundred years together, how great were my Guilt ! VII. I dread the turning Religion into a humane, hurtful, love killing Faelion : if I abhor Millionsand Millions meetly on my uncertain Expofition of the Bete/aims, I cannot do it in Faith. Ifone ask me why I do it, and I fay, becaufe theyare of Babylon, or worship theBeaft, and you ask me, how I know it, I muff fay that I know it not ; but Inuit here believe it, becaufe Mr. ,A. Mr. B. Mr. C. &c. fay fò: And CO as Pápifts found their Faith, and their Hatred of us as Hereticks, on the Credit of their Teachers that fay fo, fo idall we ourson the Word of our Teachers. And here I dread the Effeas, viz. abhorring Men caufelefy, corrupting our Prayers, and Sermons, and Boots, and fathering all on God, condemning all as favouring Popery, who have not contraeled this hating Difeafe, crying down many good and many /murders things, meetly becaufe they come from the Beaft and Rabylen. Temples themfelves, good Prayers, excellent Mrnjiers and Churches, yea, Ba,orifm it felt, have been cried down and renounc'd, as Babylonife and ,Antichrifbian, and a ground of endlefs Divifons, and (tatting at every Shadow that Rome bath had to dowith, is thus late; yea, the Seekers greatly countenanc'd that fay, Scri- pture, Church and Minifry are loft in the Wildernefs, and the Church feign'd to be brought into the Wildernefs, juft when it was bròught out of it, ( which was the Pagan Perfecution) even the Proteftant Churches are condemn'd as being yet Antichriftian; and the Martyrs that fuffer'd by Papiffs, yea, and thole that Pufferd in the third, fourth and fifth Centuries by .Arrians and others, are all made by many to be the Children of Babylon, and a War prodainid between profeffed Chriftians, by which all the Raman: /is are tempted to hate and deftroy us, as thofe that would do fo by them. And all this by. the expounding the Revelations of that which no Man, that hath not more Know, (edge than I. can find that it faith or meddlerh with : And that necdlefly, while we have plain Texts enough that condemnPopery and all Sin, by which we may abhor bad. Men, ;without the danger of hating the Children of God. Chrift is in our Creed, but Antichriff is not. All the old Fatherswere not Papiffs that took not the Pope for Antichriff. But more probability of it may be gatherd from other Texts than from the Revelaticns. vin. To fay I know not what I would know and cannot, is ealler to me than the dread ofbeing guilty of the Sin threatned in the Conclufion ofthis Book, - that God will add the Plagues in it to them that add to it, and blot his Name out of the Book ofLife who ta_ keth from it. (I deny not other mensitnowledge,but my own: Ignoranceof mensIgno_ rance is themortal Difeafe ofthe World.) To add to the Senfe is to add to the Book. To fay, This is the Senfe, when I know it not, and where fiveof' the wifeft are of four minds (and common Chriftians take all on troti) this expofeth me to the dread of this heavy Curie. Ifthis Account excufe me not to the Reader, it excufeth me to my Confcience, whole Cenfure I muff more fear than Man's, left I prefermy Intereft in the good Opinion ofpar- tial milled cenforous Dividers, before thepleatingofGod and my Salvation, and that when Iam going from thisWorld to him : And ifall this feem too much to any the Difeafes and Danger ofthe Churches, the Extreme ofmany, and their fad elte&s thefe Fifty years, and the confutingof thole who falfly interpret myHillery offifhops and Connors, do make it Item ctherwife to me. I blame
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=