THE church's GOING IN, AND COMING OUT OF THE wilderness, OPENED, By the unworthiest of the Gospel-Ministers, JOHN BRAYN.  Cant. 6. 10. Who is she looketh forth as the Morn, fair as the Moon, clear as the Sun, and terrible as an Army with banners? Zech. 4. 7. Zorobabel shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it. 1 Cor. 1. 20. Where is the wise? where is the Scribe? where is the Disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 
London, Printed for George Whittington, at the Blue-anchor in Cornhill, near the Royal-Exchange. 1649.   

TO my dear Uncle, Mr. Thomas Churchey, and his wife Mrs Mary Churchey my Aunt, of Wincaunton in Somerset.  
GOd having taken, in taking from you the daughter of your hopes, the only means of earth, to have perpetuated your Memorial, and to have kept your Name in life among the living, when you had lain asleep among the dead. In whose long and much deplored absence, I think it my duty, in what I may, to contribute that means that may help to make sweet your Memory among the Saints; as in another kind is was the duty of the younger, to raise up seed to the elder Brother: Which service I desire may be accepted of you both, as done of him, that (while he lives) shall gladly wait to do you any, or all the service else he can; and rest, praising and praying to GOD daily for you, That ye may be saved.  
Your obliged Kinsman, JOHN BRAYN.   

To the Reader.  
MY prayer to God for thee is, That there may be given thee an honest and humble heart to read, and understanding from the Lord to apprehend rightly what thou readest, that thou be not left to scorn the Matter, for the meanness of the dress it is set out in, or the unworthiness worthiness of the Author, whose aim herein is God's glory, and thy edification; who desires thee to pass by the many infirmities thou mayest easily find in the ensuing Treatise, and it will be thankfully acknowledged by the Author to be a favour  
To an unworthy Gospel-Minister, JOHN BRAYN.   

Of the hiding the Church.  
A Certain kind of strangeness may seem to seize on men that read the prescribed Form of Church-Discipline contained in the two former Treatises that I have written thereof out of the Word, as being new and unheard of, and by that means cause many to reject it, though indeed it be that which was first in the Church, and long since turned out of doors by the Policy and Tyranny of Antichrist. Now to the preventing of causeless conjectures of novelty, and the like, in the hearts of men, I have thought good to set forth the causes,  
1. Why it came to be hid.  
2. How it come to be hid.  
3. How long it was to be hid, as foretold of God in the Scriptures; which will serve much to take away those Objections which many make, 1. About the hiding of the Church: 2. About the strange and unheard of way this seems to be to the world; and is no other thing than was foretold of God to be done by the world, when it should be brought to light, Cant. 6. 10. Who is she that looketh forth as the morn, fair as the Moon, clear as the Sun, terrible as an Army with banners? These things set out the degrees the Church was to come out by;  
1. As the morning out of the dark night, having light and darkness mixed with it.  
2. It came out as the Moon, having many spots in it, subject to an increasing and decreasing light, or a night-light, or rather a changing light, not permanent.  
3. Is that of the Sun, Lord of the day, who by its light fully expels darkness, and by his heat revives the pleasant plants of God from their seeming deadness, their life lying hid in them.  
4. It's time of thus coming forth and way is terrible as an Army with banners indeed in a time of War.  
5. It's coming out is wondered at, and inquired after, with a Who is this? a great enquiry is in the world after it, as after an unknown, and an unusual unheard of birth; and so much the more wonderful, because as another Sun it will appear to all the world by a glorious heavenly light.  
The cause of this admiration, is the long hiding of this Gospel-mercy from the world, who as the Sun is carried from us as it were into another world, that it shined not to us; in the time of whose absence we are sat down in darkness, which continueth so long, that we know not the light when it comes forth, but is wondered at, and hated; hence it must have an Army, and be terrible to bring it forth.  
Rev. 12. 6. 1. It is driven into the wilderness  
2. It is hid, and so hid, as after from the face of the Dragon, v. 14. as that the Dragon could not find her, nor make discovery of her.  
3. Ye have the time, how long it is to be hid, expressed of God, v. 6. 1260 days; which days being set down prophetically, must be understood of so many years, which are 1260 years.  
1. This agreeth with Antichrists time of Tyranny, as in Cap. 13. 5. Antichrists time is forty two months, which accounting thirty days for every month, as in some places they do, it makes just 1260 days, prophetically years; which clearly shows the time of the Churches hiding, its obscure condition, in which it should not be known to the world what her estate was, which agrees with the time of Antichrists Reign. It's hiding begins with the beginning of the time of Antichrists Reign, and ends with the dissolution of him.  
2. We may collect the time, we having set down in Scripture Antichrists end, Rev. 13. 18. which is to be in the year 666. when Popes and Papacy have their final, fatal and fearful end, for as in v. 5. it is to continue no longer than the forty two months.  
Obj. The number of the Beast 666, may be to be understood of the times of the beginning of Antichrist.  
R. 1. The 666 so could not be the number of the Beast, but of the time going before the Beast, the number of years unto the Beast, but not of the Beast, which is the number in the Text spoken of.  
2. This number of the Beast must contain the beginning and the end of the Beast, or that cannot be the number of him, which is to be limited only to his beginning and end.  
1. His number is much more than 666, being to be 1260 years, and so that could not be its number possibly.  
2. It could not be much of the first 666 years, because Antichrist could not be revealed in most of that time, there was that did hinder which would hinder until taken out of the way, 2 Thess. 2. 7.  
3. If the year 666 were to be understood of the time Antichrists beginning was to be, it were no such wisdom as the Text holds it out to be, to account the number, unless we say Antichrist is yet not come, but is to begin to be 1666; for 666 comes not to be accounted by any account of numeration again until the time, in the account of tim● from Christ to this day.  
4. As for Potters account drawn to prove the Antichrist of Rome from the square Root of the number 666, being 25, there may be something of God in it; and the number drawn from Names by others, from Irenaeus to this day, men adding several significations and significators, as their fancy lead them to; to which I leave them, and time to reveal the truth thereof.  
Now that this may be more plain to us, it is added by the holy Spirit in the Text, that the number is the number of a man, that is, Numerus numerans, than the time of the Beast is the numerus numeratus, now in the number numbering it is of man.  
1. To show, That the number is ordinarily to be numbered, as among men is used in their other ordinary accounts.  
2. To satisfy us, and to take us off from any unusual kind of casting up Antichrists accounts.  
In that he saith, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, and not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, he shows it was ordinary indeed with some, but not with all men.  
4. John being himself a Jew, borroweth this custom, proper to the people, to set out Antichrists number by, which is to set down in their numbering of years, the figures containing the lesser number, but leaving out the Millenary number, that so by this taking it from the custom of the Jews, it may be hid from the Gentiles; which kind of computation is called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the lesser computation among the Jews.  
Now if you deduct out of 1666, the number of 1260, than the time of Antichrists rise, and the Churches hiding, must be in the year 406.  
1. About which time the Goths invaded Italy, and upon which the ten Kings, signified by the ten Toes of Daniels Image, arose out of the Roman Empire, divided in the two Iron Thighs before of Constantinople and Rome, by the Sons of Constantine; after which Estate the Iron and Clay are mixed, the Popes and Kings of the earth Reigh together. Now the History and Mystery being compared together, meeting in one, agree as one in all things, as in the same oneness of truth, proves it sufficiently unto us to be of God.  
2. About this, or not long before, Hilary of Poictoyrs in France, who lived about 380, saith, The Church was not be found in his days in Houses, in Temples, and in Cities, but in Prisons, Mountains, Dens, Deserts and Caves of the earth. But in the 26 years after, there was a more exceeding increase of darkness then in far more time before.  
3. To these times▪ as to the Primitive and purest times, have the learned had recourse to, to Reform the Church by in our days, and not to the times since.  
4. The differences amongst us about Church-Government, in that they are in a manner undetermineable, abundantly prove the hiding of it in the Word to us, which should determine all, and decide all Controversies for us.  
5. About that time, or a little before, though many did retain the truth of Doctrine, yet had lost the truth of Discipline, and few after the first 250 years, wrote any thing of it in a manner: Now as the Doctrine stayed last, so it came by Luther first again; and after by degrees to reveal the Discipline: and it is my opinion, That until 1666 the full & perfect discovery of Church-discipline will not be so perfectly practised in the Church, as shall be; the time between this and that being to prepare for it: And at that time there will all things that concern the Church Government, be revealed and erected in the world amongst men; though I conceive, that according to Christ's promise, these now last and most cruel days of Antichrist, for the Elects sake, shall be shortened; and that God, before the end of this time, may give us by some means a general knowledge of the church's Form of Government, though not so plainly and perfectly as in the time appointed.  
6. That the Church now hid shall then come forth, is manifestly employed, in that God sets down the express number of the days it is to remain hid, which God would not have limited it to, if it had been his mind to have it hid for ever from the sons of men.  
7. The mighty opposition of the Spirits of godly men against all or any Government yet exercised, carrieth much evidence with it, That the Governments known are not of Divine Institution; The Spirits of God's people will be subject to God's Government, as the Apostle in another case, 1 Cor. 14. 32.  
8. When ever the whole Gospel platform of the church's Discipline shall be set up, man will not be necessitated to borrow pieces of Prudentials to patch it up, God's wisdom will sufficiently be revealed in the Word for the Government of his Church.  
1. Conclusion is not to cry down all those things which at present have with them the appearance of Novelty.  
2. Not to admire nor dote upon those things at present seem old, a thing whereunto we see the world wonderfully carried after, when indeed were things fully and plainly discovered to us, new things would be old, old things would be new; which vanity John strikes at in his 1 Epist. Cap. 2. v. 7, 8. by which means men can scarce be permitted to try things, whether they are truth or no, but cast them away as new, though they were from the beginning: And we ourselves now, and our fathers in King Edward's days heretofore, have seen how hard old Heresies, Superstitions, Traditions and Popish Vanities are to be cast down, and how hardly the Truth comes to be set up among a people; and proves a people are not easily taken off from their old ways in Religion, but as the Philistines would set up Dagon again and again after its fall. The old (as we account old) is pleasing more to Nature than the new; that of Popery was more Natural and corrupt then that of Episcopacy; Episcopacy much more than that of Presbytery; and that of Presbytery more than that of Independency, which the world cannot bear, how then the way of the Lord Jesus, which will find more opposition with the world, than ever any Government yet found in all the world, or its divine, holy, pure nature and power would not be made appear.  
3. The old will be a new Government, when ever brought forth to light, and the new old.  
4. Let us not be overstrict in suppressing all those Doctrines that suit not with our judgement or practice in Church-Discipline, whereby we should keep the way of God which is hid, to be hid for ever unto us, Matth. 11. 25. God hides things from the wise and prudent, and reveals them to babes; he as a most free Agent makes known himself and mysteries to whom he please, and commonly to the most unlikely means, that none may glory in man, nor man in himself, but all in God, 1 Cor. 1. 20.  
5. In the spirit of humility I beseech all public persons to consider, how sad a thing it would be, if the time of the church's Revelation being at hand, any thing of Power or Authority should be made use of to keep it from us, and from the world, did not the Spirit of God stir up the Spirit of man within him for the love of Christ and the Gospel, to undergo any thing, what means may this be to bolt out the Kingdom of heaven from us, and to shut it up from us for ever.  
6. Conclusion hence is, that until the Kingdom estate be brought forth to the world, the world will not see peace. It is good for Magistrates and Ministers to help it forth, but not to hinder it; a woman in travel, though her throws for a time cease, yet they leave her not, but come upon her, until she be delivered of her child: the woman now travels in pain again to be delivered, as heretofore Rev. 12. 2. Isa. 56. 8. Shall a Nation be born at once?  
It is well observed of learned Broughton, That while Solomon's Temple lay waste, all the world was in war, and in flames of fire, as it were; but when it was restored, God blessed all the world with a sweet peace; which change of our estate, observe it well▪ will be in some kind agreeable hereunto, as all shall see who live to behold it, Psal. 118. 22, 25. when the stone shall become the head stone, laid for the building, God will send prosperity, and not before.  
A third general ground to prove the Churches not being yet come forth, may be from Rev. 12. 7. There was war in heaven, &c.  
1. The holy Spirit having ended with the church's time in the wilderness, comes to show what should succeed it in her coming thence.  
2. In her beginning visibility there is a war between those are of her visible Members; in this war many Ministers are cast down, or Angels, v. 8. Their place was found no more in heaven.  
3. Ver. 10. A voice cried, saying, in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ.  
1. Here is a clear difference made betwixt heaven before the war, and the kingdom after the war.  
2. This diststinction is apparently clear in the Word (now) if now, than not before, being the most certain note and distinction of time.  
3. When this comes, comes Salvation, strength, and the power of his Christ, and not before; showing, there would in this war be much weakness until then, and then God would bless it with strength and power, by which the Church should prove victorious in the world. But of these things I forbear to speak more of, but refer it unto the Exposition I have intended to write, much more particularly and at large, if the Lord give leave, as these things come to be discussed of.  
Obj. These are dubious Scriptures, and therefore the proof cannot be sufficient; and again, many are the contrary Expositions made by the learned against this of yours, which are rather to be assented unto, &c.  
1. Friend, the hiding and time of the hiding of Church must be hence, or now here.  
2. The Scripture is dubious indeed before, but plain in the fulfilling.  
3. The Scripture was given against doubts, not to occasion them; and to reveal beforehand the purposes of God to his Church, near before the accomplishment whereof God usually reveals them by the Word and Spirit to some of the Church, as in Huss. Prediction of Luther, Brightman of the fall of Episcopacy.  
Now for the contrary Expositions made of some of the most eminent that I have read, I shall in brief insert.  
1. Junius makes the 1260 days to be from the beginning of the rebellion, to the end of the destruction and Temple, which was done before John wrote his book of the Revelation, who saith of the things in the book, they are things shortly to come to pass; so that I think it is clear, he alludes to nothing past in this book.  
2. Others make this time agree with the wise men's coming to Christ, and end with Herod's death, which is sufficiently answered in that made to the former.  
3. Opinion is, That the 1260 days, and the time, times and half a time, are one and the same, being three years and a half.  
Resp. 1. These are not the same, they differ in manner of revelation, as in the words themselves appear.  
2. They differ in time, the one before the Churches coming forth, the other after; many things came to be done between, as the War, and fall of the Dragon, the fall of the Angels, the coming of Kingdom.  
The one I think concerns the Jewish Church, who is the woman brought forth the Male child; the other the Gentiles: The Jews shall have their place appointed them of God for safety, their time, times and half, as the Gentiles their 1260 days, whom infinite floods of persecution most certainly are to attend; from all which God will most graciously save that people, and join them to himself.  
1. This War is at the end of the 1260 days.  
2. At the end of the two Witnesses prophesy, when God will have the Church ministered unto in another way then before, and all other ways of ministry before extant, will cease and be put an end unto.  
3. The same hour is an earthquake, a strange change of things In Church and state, ver. 12.  
1. If it be to come, we are warned of it as of the saddest time the Saints yet saw, which we shall instantly know.  
2. This sorrowful sad time ends in a heavenly happiness, the time of suffering being to endure but three years and half.  
3. It occasions the greatest change of things that ever was occasioned on earth.  
4. Herein the deliverance will be so wonderful, that the enemies will be affrighted at it, and see God so in it, as to glorify God, when that of Isa. 11. will be fulfilled, God making the lion to lie down with the Lamb, the Calf and the Bear together, and shall not hurt nor destroy; so that the Church will after this sad dying time, see God honouring her again, more than ever she was honoured in this present world.  
1. Again, to return to the former purpose, this being one Vision, the two numbers cannot be of the same time.  
2. It is not to be thought, that this Book being so short, and containing in it so much of History and prophecy, as concerns the Church to the end; and Antichrist rise and fall, withal, that in that there is a repetition of one and the same thing, in one and the same Vision.  
Object. You make the 42 months, Rev. 13. 5. and the 1260 days the same, Rev. 12. 7. though these are set out by differing terms, as the other of a time, times, and half a time, differs in terms from the 1260 days.  
Resp. 1. This of the 42 months and 1260 days, are spoken of in two Visions.  
2. These are of the same thing meant, it is plain, which is, the one of Antichrist, and her time of Tyranny; the other, of the Church, and her time of suffering under this same Tyranny of Antichrist.  
3. This sweetly sets out the wisdom of God, setting out one by the moon's Government, the Governess of the night and sea on which she sits and rules; and the other by the Sun, the Governor of the day, and Church, in which he reigns.  
Illust. That as the Israelites in the time of their persecution had light in their dwellings, when their persecutors were under darkness.  
2. To show; That the worst of Saints estate was more comfortable than the best of the enemies, Heb. 11. 25.  
God would ever keep, and teach us to keep a difference between the godly and ungodly, in this, as in the other divisions made of God betwixt them, set down in the Scriptures; as Israel had the bright side, the Egyptians the dark side of the Cloud toward them.  
Mr. Fox, Constat enim sub Nerone, Domitiano, Trajano, Severo Commodo, Decio Dioclesiano, Imperium draconis longe supra triennium constitisse.  
Wherefore he takes the second greater number from the Baptist to Constantine, Quae persecutionum tempora si certè ex Historiis supputentur us unictum Satanam sub Constantino, effluxerunt menses 42, Anni 294.  
But the way of making up this account, I suppose is very unwarrantable, Vt Daniel enumerat suas Hebdomadas, itidem & nos singulos menses in Septenarium annorum numerum deducamus: à primo enim persecutionis initio hoc est decollationis Johannis Baptistae, ad pacem ecclesiae sub Constantino restitutam Anni 294.  
1. These things square not, they must with this Exposition bring in the times of Persecution, before the beginning of the prophecy.  
2. Nor was this the beginning of Persecution: The beginning of the Persecution I suppose rather to have been in Herod's murdering the thousands of Infants of Bethlehem, and the driving of Christ into Egypt, which was many years before.  
3. There is an express direction for that way of account to Daniels prophecy, but none to this.  
4. I suppose there is no way justly to account these months by, but these two:  
1. By the years they make, which is three years and an half.  
2. By reducing them to days, which are 1260.  
Now Mr. Fox saith, That the church's persecution must be more than three years and an half; and therefore not to be accounted by the years they make.  
2. The Reason why God accounts Antichrists time, the persecutor, by months, and the Saints time, the presecuted, by days, I have spoken of before.  
Cooper Bishop of Galloway on the words saith, The words are used of God as a Riddle, in which he signifies a time unknown to us, but certainly known to him: For shall we think the Church will be forced to flee into the wilderness but three years and an half, from Christ's Resurrection to the end of the world?  
Mr. Mead Apost. of last times, saith, The days of this hiding of the Church, begun at the healing of the deadly wound the Beast received, which was in the destruction of Rome by the Goths about 410.  
And if we consider, That the Church was set up in the Heathen world after Christ's death, we have no cause to draw the beginning of the hiding of it from the beginning, or any other part of time of his life; but rather thus, The Church is visible in the ten persecution, the red or bloody Dragon, the Emperors of Rome, persecute it, which were Antichrists Predecessors, belonging all to the sixth Head of that seven headed beastly Monster, who could not by all their open killing courses destroy the Christian Profession, though many thousands were ofttimes slain in a day; but when that the seventh Antichristian Head came up, who was worse than all: She hath the Spots of the Leopard, the Feet of the Bear, the Mouth of the lion, the Power and Authority of the Dragon, and that all written in the Vision, Cap. 13. from ver. 1. to the 10. appears, because in this Vision the Horns have their Crowns on them, which was only permitted under the Reign of the seventh Head, and not under the Reign of the sixth, Revelations 12. 3. The Crowns are on his heads, he permitted not Kingly power to any to Reign with him, as the Pope, unless to two or three only extraordinarily, as in Herod and Lucius: When the severnth Head Reigns, she by force.  
1. Persecuting the sincere truth as bloodily as the Heathen Dragon before her, or worse, and pulling down the building of Truth.  
2. Setting up a counterfeit way of her own, carrying a false light with it, by which she bewitched the Nations with her cup of abominations, deceiving silly souls with the outward shows of Religion and Piety, by which she overthrew more than by her cruelty, and did more against the Church, then by open rage of fire and faggot.  
3. By corrupting History, by false Expositions of Scriptures, by subtle distinctions, by corrupt and false Traditions, by abominable Blasphemy, speaking against God, his Tabernacle, his Saints, rendering them odious to the world, a way too common in these days, which came from Rome. I wish some men in time to consider who is meant by the Accuser of the Brethren, who are to be cast down; without question it is not the Devil only, he was cast down a long time since, they accuse them before God night and day; their day, who ever they are, is near, yea next, and he or they must be cast down, upon which followeth much joy in heaven among them that dwell therein for their fall: See, God gives them the devil's name, that do the devil's work.  
4. As I suppose the truth appears plain, That the first ten verses do appertain to the Reign of the last and seventh Head of beastly Antichrist; and than it is more plain, That the 42 months is the time of that Heads continuance, and that the Churches hiding began in her time, and ends with her ending.  
5. The persecution was grievous, without question, and tedious, before the Church could be brought to such obscurity, as appears in the Heathen Dragon, who was made red with her blood; and as ver. 4. With his tail he had cast down the third part of Stars to the earth.  
6. It was not given to the sixth Head, but this seventh Head, to overcome the Saints; the other Head made War, but could not overcome them, this doth; which it could not have done, had it not been given him to do, Rev. 13. 7.  
7. If we make the hiding of the Church to be the time before Constantine, than there was never a time in which it was visible: Now if it were never visible, how could it be said to be hid at all.  
8. It hath been the practice of the godly and learned, to judge her visibility to be before Constantine, and not since, approving the practice of the first and nearer times to the Apostles, as most pure, and the after times more corrupt: Had not these first times the most famous Churches, godly faithful Ministers, precious Christians, most sound and sincere Doctrine, and the only Gospel-Discipline? which ever since hath been persecuted, reviled, corrupted, blasphemed by that sinful Man of Sin.  
Pareus saith, It began to be hid 606, and then its hid estate ends, and the Church comes forth in the year 1866.  
Moulin begins it Anno 755, than it ends 2035.  
Brightman begins it 426, than it ends 1686. who comes nearest to Antichrists end determined of God, and the just computation of the time of the church's obscurity, which ends 1666.  
Now in that it was said, Then to be hid, there remains some thing to be done, more remarkably eminent to the brining forth of the Church, then as yet hath been manifested to the world, is a thing I think not by any to be gainsaid.  
But for the Elects sake these days, Christ foretelling the cruelty of Antichrists time, who is indeed the Abomination of desolation spoken of by the Holy Ghost; which prophecy of Daniel, computed and compared with this, clears most excellently the truth: But this I leave to be spoken of in expounding the Revelations.  
It is not amiss to write a word more to manifest and make more plain the mind of God, by the hiding of the Church.  
1. Manifestation or Demonstration is to be taken from the Metaphorical expressions used, and the History alluded to, by which Gods it out to us; so sets that whiles the Wilderness hides the Church, yet it is ordained to show the way how it came so to be hid.  
2. The History alluded to is, either that of Israel's coming out of Egypt, or Elijah's flying unto the Wilderness, or both; but especially Elijah's estate sets it out abundantly more clear, 1 Kings 17. and 18. and 19  
1. In his flight and hiding Rev. 12. 6.  
2. In his feeding miraculously by the Ravens, Rev. 12. 6.  
3. After many days he comes to Ahab again.  
4. The godly are not hid only from the wicked, but godly Elijah thinks himself above, 1. King's 19 14, 18. when God had seven thousand had not bowed the knee to Baal.  
5. In this time Baal's Prophets are slain, 1 Kings, 18. 40. Rev. 12. 8.  
6. Cap. 9 2. Jezabel. threatens him with death, he flieth again, and where, but into the Wilderness, which is after his appearing to Ahab, and first flight, Rev. 12. 14.  
7. This flying into the Wilderness is after the rain, signifying the ministry after the long drought of the means of grace.  
8. This wilderness estate is very fearful to him, and will be to the Saints, cap. 19 ver. 4. Rev. 12. 15.  
9 In this time the Lord's Altars are cast down, and Groves to Baal set up, and Altars, 1 Kings 19 ver. 26.  
10. The Prophets are slain, 1 Kings 19, ver. 10. Rev. 11. 7.  
11. Shows the strange effects this persecution brings on the world by an earthquake, which is a change and removing of things that were, and setting up things that cannot be shaken; Rocks and Mountains are rent before the Lord, and a refining fire comes purging up the dross, than came the still voice in which God was said to be.  
Conclusion generally is this; hence in the hiding of the Church under Antichrist, it is to be as that under Ahab (who as Antichrist made Israel to sin, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the Word is of an active and passive signification) in which the Prophets are to be slain, the Altars, that is, all public form of true worship pulled down, Baalitical Altars set up, not a man left visible, that is known to serve God, or that must not be forced to kiss Baal, and how to Baal, in which time great inquiry and search is made after any man that shall worship the true God in truth, to destroy him, 1 Kings 18. 10. and yet to meek it more evidently plain in this persecution, not only Ahab the King, but Jezabel the Queen hath hand in it, which show, that Antichrist hence was, to have the name one while of a Woman, Whore, another while of the Man, Dragon, which makes the Agreement, between the Type and Antitype remarkable; and then lastly, his first hiding was for many days, one reason why God accounts the hiding of the Church by days, Rev. 12.  
Apply these to the Church estate, and it may be abundantly proved, yet that of Elijah was but the type only, as the model to the building, his many days being nothing to these, &c. in the Text.  
2. The Churches hiding now, exceeds theirs abundantly, that was under the Mosaical ministry.  
1. As it was hid in the word as well as in the practice, so that I know not the Man this 1260 years past, can say he hath found it.  
2. Hid in the writings of those practised it: God in judgement to the world, permitting them to be adulterated, as that way by which he would accomplish his own ends in the world, they but fulfilling his council therein.  
Mr. Fulk on Rev. 12. ver. 6. Hic locus apertè demonstrate non semper fore ecclesiam mundo conspicuam, quod maxime urgent Papistae, nam si semper omnium visui exposita erit quomodo in desertum fugere dicatur?  
Mr. Barnard on Rev. 12. 6. understands by the 1260 days, 1260 years, and on the 14 Verse, saith, Her flying into the wilderness, showeth she was hid in the wilderness, and by her flight, lost her visibility before her enemies.  
Mr. Cooper Bishop of Galloway sets forth the hiding of the Church in his Comment on Rev. 12. 6. by the hid estate of the Popish Synagogue in England, Who are (saith he) without public state of Regiment, or open free exercise of holy Function.  
Then this I think could be nothing chosen more fitly or fully, to clear the thing intended for Antichrists rising; he riseth by taking down the Gospel frame of Gospel Government, makes that to be hid, that he may appear only; when Christ sets up the Government of the true Church he shall pull down the frame of the false again; Christ and Belial cannot agree.  
Dr. Taylor in his Tract called, Christ's victory over the Dragon, being an Exposition on Rev. 12. ver. 14 he speaks excellently and to purpose; saith he, The flight was not in respect of motion, but of state and condition; not a change of place, but of condition and ornaments.  
And after Antichrist sits still in the Temple of God, neither is the woman yet got out of the Wilderness, page 789. indeed in this the man hath said, in a manner all; Who can say more to us alive than he, though dead, now speaketh?  
Conclusion is this, That all the 1260 days of the Churches hiding, or near to the 1666 year of Christ, the Church frame will be hid, and the exercise of Gospel ministry and Government concealed, which God in mercy to the Elect, will some few years, because of the bloody wars and destructive times shall about the end of these times come on the world, by reason of Satan's rage (who knoweth well, far better than we, his time is short of reigning on the earth, and that Christ reign will immediately begin, in which Antichrist, Satan's first born son, must down, and he himself be bound a 1000 years) so that few men would be preserved alive: Did not the Lord shorten them, as few as they seem in number to be, being in all but 18 years: If 18 years of war should continue in this Kingdom more, what would become of us? we thought we should not endure seven years' war, but the famine would destroy us: Oh, if this be done in Heaven, let the earth and sea take heed to it; as short as the time seems to be, great will the destruction be on Antichristian Kings and Kingdoms, not leaving a King, nor scarce a Kingdom among them, Dan. 7. 11, 12.  
1. Pet. 4. 7. The time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God If it first begin at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the Gospel of God?  
Note here, it is plain judgement must begin at us, at the house of God.  
2. The time prophesied of, it should begin at us, is come.  
3. The end is unutterable, unconceivable, God will make in Popish and Heathen Kingdoms, the persecuted, the Church, they have the dregs of this next cup, wrung out for them to drink, which in this 18 years succeeding, the whole world cannot keep them from it, nor it from them; but as fuel for this fearful fire, must be devoured, of which, who shall be happy, will be warned, as Noah to the saving himself and family, Heb. 11. 7.  
FINIS.