Baxter - Houston-Packer Collection BS2096.A1 1701 .P3

,Än Advertifenterit. i blarehot modeft Coije&ures, ifMen will but confefs their Vncertainty when they are uncertain, and not make an uncertain Opinion an Article of Faith, and facrihce to it certain Fundamental Truth or Duty, the ChurchesPeace or Chriftian Low, nor ufeit to kindle a partial, hating, dividing Zeal Good Mr. Brightman did with a pious Mind determine many things very confidently, which time hath already confiaed : Hebath con chided that the BleffedRerurre tiou, andtime of Chriti's Thoufand Years Reign its the New Yerufalem, [hall be t6pfi eleven Years hence. Thomas Rogers, and many others; have been Marred by resting times, which being part, have confuted then. This bath frightned fore others from that boldnefs, who yet in other Uncertainties have been fo confident, as that they have drawn many good People thereby to meafure their Faith and Charity. I am far from thinking that deeper Students are as ignorant herein as I : But I would not have all that are as ignorantlook'd upon as Aliens. And I confers, that I am left able to expound Prophecies than Daniel, who yet thus concludeth, Chap. 12. 8, 9: .And I heard, but I underfived not : Then£aid I, 0 my Lord, what Pall be the end of there things ? .Andhe Paid, Go tly tray Daniel, for the Words areelefed upandPealed, till the time Ofthe end. Yet I fey as Calvin; II make na doubt but theRevelation is God's Acrd,. rho' I anderfiand it not] and that it is not ureters : Yea, fo much as I do under&and, is of exceeding cote. fortable are : tho' I know not whether the New ferufalemwill come down Fiona Heaved before or at the common Refurreetion, it rejoyceth me that it will come : And God ha- Bing condelcended to defcribe it as Glorious, by córporealSimilitudes, to us that have no. full Ideás of things ípiritual, it is a meet means of our Comfort, by fach Similitudes to conceive ofthat Glory, and even to imprint them on our Minds, to further our DeSres of that bleffed Rate, and make us love and long for Chrift's appearing, and cry daily, Come Yard yefus. While I was writing this, there came to any hands.lfaac Va Jvu's Var. Obfervat. inwhich he fheweth theMagnitude ofRome when it was in its Grandeur, (it. being about Sixty miles about) andHow it decreafed, and that Conftanti»a deftroy'd Rome far more, andbe. fore the Goths, bybuildingConflantinople; fo that within eighty years it was not the fifth pare Co big as if; n..4urelian s time t And that whenRufus and Vihtor wrote, thereremain'd not the twentieth part ofthe old City a and that now, under the Pope, it is fo far from cat. taming the fever Hills, that it is alsnoft all contain' in theCampus Bfartiva, and containeth not now (carte the two hundredth part ofthe old City. And that it was fitly call'd i abys !on the Great, we read that old Babylon was near as great as Rome at the greateft, and by Herodotus, and fume others madegreater. It is anlwer'd to this, that it ea the fame City Hill, known by the fame Name. But it bath not either the fame Situation, Magnitude, Power, Domhiion and Idolatrous Fornication,by which Yohn was to know it, nor would that Defcription agree to it now By many fuch ReaCous I fufpea that theQueftions, (iftio is theBeal!? Which as Babylon ! and Who it the .Antichrill ?) are not the fame in the Scripture-Fmk, nor muff have the fame Solution. If any that are Friends to Papal Ufurpation and Church -Correlation, (hall think that my tonfeffed Ignorance of there Prophecies, is any advantage to their ill Caere, I will fur- ther tell them, that it is far more dreadful to the Popeand all his Flatterers and Followed; to be plainlycondemnd by the known Laws ofChriR, which all Chriftians receive aspaft all doubt, than tobe under, the dread bf a dark and controverted Prophecy. To theft+ that feyy, thePope is the firft and fecond Beaft, the Whore ofBabylon, the Man of Sin, the fake drift or Anschrift, you have the Shift of a Contempt of his Words, as of a contro- verted -uncertain thing ; but who knowethnot, that the plain LawofGod concludeth,that the Proud, the Worldly, the Malignant, the Idolatrous, Murderers, Perfecuters, Liars, the Enemies of Chrill's Gofpeland rerious Godlinefs, are Satan's Slaves, and Stall not enter into theKingdom of God ? Can any man, that readeth but what Baroniva, Binniuc, qe- nebrard, and the molt flattering ofyour Hiftorians, fay of the Popes from Ann. qoo, till 14-00, think that trod own'dand guided fo wicked a fort of Men ? I again tell thole, that are angry at my History of Bifhops'and Councils, that I doubt not but God had in all Ages, a vtfible Church ofpious Chriftians, kept up bythe lower fort ofBifhops and l'allors, and Come ofshe higher ( Patriarchs and Metropolitans) but it was by there majo- rities and Ambitious Men that Corruption, Cruelty .and Dilïention chiefly entcr'd ; and they being uppers-aloft, a few ofthem, by noires oítentation, and domineering,.pait for thewhole Church with undifcerning Meta. Ana

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