Die Mercurij, 28. Augusti, 1644.  
ORdered by the Commons Assembled in Parliament, that Master earl do from this House give thanks to Master Reyner, for the great pains he took in the Sermon he preached at the entreaty of this House at Saint Margaret's Westminster (it being the day of public Humiliation) and to desire him to print his Sermon; and it is Ordered, that none shall presume to print his Sermon without licence under his hand-writing.  
Hen. Elsing. Cler. Parl. D. Com.   

I appoint Samuel Enderby to print my Sermon.  
William Reyner.   

BABYLON'S Ruining-Earthquake AND THE RESTAURATION OF ZION.  
Delivered in a SERMON before the honourable house of COMMONS at Margaret's Westminster, at their public Fast, August 28. 1644.  
By William Reyner Pastor of the Church of Christ, at Egham in Surrey, and a Member of the Assembly of Divines.  Dan. 7.26, 27. 
But the judgement shall fit, and they shall take away his Dominion to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the Kingdom and Dominion, and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the Saints of the most high; whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.  
LONDON: Printed by T. B. for Samuel Enderby, and are to be sold at the sign of the Star in Popes-head-Alley. 1644.   

To the Honourable, the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses Assembled in Parliament, and now sitting at Westminster.  
Honourable Senators:  
HAving had for a long time strong apprehensions out of the word of God, of an approaching storm upon the Nations of Europe, for the ruining especially of Antichrst's Kingdom; I thought it not unmeet for the times & Auditors (having your honourable call to the Work) to treat in your presence upon such a subject. The Kingdoms & states of Europe are grown old, & a man would think, were come even to their years, & full ripeness in all kind of sinfulness & profaneness, but chief in idolatry & persecution in the Ecclesiastical, & in tyranny and oppression in the Civil state, and that under and against a great deal of light and means that either they had or might have had. And there is a marvelous concurrence and agreement, both in the general Comminations of the word against sins so aggravated (besides the examples) and in the particular Prophecies and Predictions of the last times, all of them pitching upon this, as that period of time wherein the Lord will visit. The Lord is certainly driving on a great Work both of mercy and justice; of mercy towards his own (though by a way of severe correction) in their Humiliation, Purgation, Probation, Reformation, Redemption from bondage, and at last, in the Restauration and great enlargement of the Church: Of justice, against his incurable enemies of all sorts and sizes, in their perdition. We must not be moved that the Work is so long in finishing among us, being haply not much more then begun. There is assuredly a great deal for a public calamity, still to do (alas too much) in every Country, City, Town, Parish, Family, Person; many both persons and things are yet (as it is to be feared) among the Litigants on both sides, that are to be removed and subdued. Besides, the Lord useth to deal with men as men, the great power of the wicked cannot by humane means (which God is pleased to use) be suddenly and easily breken.  
Neither can the godly, 
●●sa. 48.10.  whom the Lord will not refine as silver, purging out all their dross at once, be suddenly hammered unto a sufficient humiliation, reformation, etc. But this divine agent chooseth to work upon them according to their receptivity. Neither let any be scandalised at some interruptions and rebates, as I may say, in the Lords proceed, and at some successes now and then granted to his Church's adversaries; you shall find the like in all the great acts of God that be of the same nature: But all things are carried on by the steady hand of the Almighty, though through many oppositions, repulses, contingencies, etc. among men, to their designed end and appointed period. Not to speak of this, that had not the enemies some encouragements, as the Lords work would hardly, by them, be perfected and finished upon his own people, so neither would they be hardened to their own destruction: If Pharaoh had never been released of the first plagues, he would scarce have perished in the Sea at last: I hope it will neither be unprofitable nor unacceptable, as a Watchman, to put your honours, and by you, others in mind of these things. I do not deny, but in the course of humane affairs, there will be treaties among men, for the composing of those differences that God casts in, to be the occasion and means of executing his decrees: Yea, there must (and for some reasons peradventure there ought to) be such: But I know I speak to men too wise to believe that God's quarrels can be taken up by humane treaties; but they will without fail attain the issue by God himself before prefixed, and by his Word threatened and promised.  
Neither do I doubt but that the Church shall obtain her desired peace and rest in the end, when God's Work is finished, though no such means were used at all, and give law to all her enemies; till which time I look for no solid and durable quiet to be by the people of God enjoyed; yea, I am confident upon the faithful word of God, that the Saints shall then enjoy things, which would be but by a few even of themselves now desired, and by the adverse party never yielded. The Temple of Solomon was built in a peaceable, the latter Temple in a troublesome time; but now though there be great noises of Axes, Hammers and tools of Iron, partly about the preparation for the new building, but chiefly about the pulling down of the old, (which is the great work in hand) yet when the appointed time of building is come, the Church may promise unto herself from God, and undoubtedly expest, an absolute cessation from all these disturbances in Church and Commonwealth, and a time, (fare above all that ever were) of admirable freedom, serenity and tranquillity.  
There are some few things: concerning the happy estate of the Church, in her promised future reformation, which time would not then suffer me to bring in; I have here made bold briefly to add them, without which the former would have been imperfect. I have purposely pretermitted some things subject to doubt and exception; I humbly present all to your judicious view, whom God hath thought worthy to make his Instruments to begin so great a Reformation in these Nations, which will (I fear not) have a good influence by divine blessing, upon others also abroad; hoping steadfastly, that the same God will through his infinite mercy in Christ, by your hands in due time, finish the same. Which is the daily desire and prayer of him that is  
Humbly devoted to your service in the Lord, WILLIAM REYNER.   

BABYLON'S ruining Earthquake and the restauration of ZION.  Haggai 2.6, 7. 
For thus saith the Lord of Hosts, yet once, it is a little while and I will shake the Heavens, and the Earth, and the Sea, and the dry Land: And I will shake all Nations, and the desire of all Nations shall come, and I will fill this House with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts.  
THE Prophet Haggai lived and flourished after the return from the Captivity of Babylon: His prophecy is spent, partly in reproving the people of the Jews, for their negligence in not building the Temple of the Lord appointed for his worship; partly in declaring God's hand against them for the same, in their Corn, Cattell, and otherwise, because they came to build, and even to siele their own house, and let God's House lie waste; partly in exhorting and encouraging them unto the building.  
This last he doth diversely: First, he tells them the Lord was with them, chap. 1. ver. 13. & chap. 2. ver. 4. And that therefore they need not fear the oppositions of their enemies; who formerly, so often as ever they began to build, did by their complaints to the Kings of Persia still stop the work, and that his spirit did remain among them; now this was to be done, not by might, not by power, but by the spirit of the Lord, as Zec. his contemporary Prophet tells them, Zech. 4.6. even against might and against power; and this according to the Covenant he made with them, when they came out of Egypt, chap. 2. ver. 5.  
Next he assures them, that the disire of all Nations should come to this house, and that he would fill it with glory.  
And whereas this house might seem to be a despicable and contemptible thing, compared with the sumptuous Temple of Solomon that was before it, which made the old men weep when they saw the foundations of it first laid, Ezra 1.12. he comforts them against that, and tells them, that the silver and gold are his; so that if true glory had consisted in them, he could have given them in abundance, for the adorning of this second Temple, but he had a greater glory to bestow upon it, namely Christ, and in this place he would give peace (viz. by Christ the Prince of peace) unto his people.  
The words may be divided into two parts: First, a Commination against the Nations as an antecedent, or a thing that in act and execution should go before. Secondly, a consolation unto the Church, as a consequent, or a thing that in accomplishment should follow after the Commination.  
The Commination is in these words, I will shake the Heavens and the Earth, etc. I will shake all Nations; the Consolation in the words following, and that consists of a double promise: First, The desire of all Nations shall come: Secondly, God will fill this house with glory. Both these are set out by two circumstances. First, of the person that saith these things; secondly, of the time. First, the person; Who is it that saith this? Answ. He that is able to make good what he saith, thus saith the Lord of Hosts; and this to make all more sure, is put both before and after the Commination and Consolation. Secondly, we have the circumstance of time, and that is double. First, Quoties, how often shall this be before Christ come? Answ. Once. Secondly, Quando, or quam diù, when or how long is it before it be? Answ. ere it be long, yet a little while.  

The sense of the Words.  
The Prophets living in the Eastern regions did frequently use the phrase and stile of the Eastern Nations; they did not always in a plain, downright manner, declare things as they be, as we for the most part do; but did use many high phrases, tropical speeches, and other figurative exornations, many continued metaphors or allegorie's, aenigmas and dark riddles, hyperbolees, and excessive speeches many emblematical and hieroglyphical expressions; these puzzle us when we read them, but were familiar to the people of those times and places.  
Heavens were used not only for the celestial bodies above, but sometimes to set forth a State of dignity and prosperity: Earth a state of mediocrity hell of adversity. Again, sometimes heavens were used to set forth things appertaining to the Church, or ecclesiastic State; earth, things appertaining to the Commonweal, or civil State, as we shall hear afterwards: Seas and dry Land making up the whole Orb of the universe, are put comprehensively and extensively to signify the extent of this shaking, so as it should be of all the world round about, as it is interpreted even in the next Words, I will shake all Nations, see further, verse 22.  
By shaking we are to understand, the raising of great stirs in those Nations among all estates; whereby great alterations should follow, and desolations.  
That such a sense is not insolent in the Scriptures, we may see in an instance or two, Isa. 14.12, 13, 14, 15. How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning, etc. Thou saidst I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the Stars of God, etc. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, etc. Who was this Lucifer? Answ. None other but the King of Assyria, as appears by the context.  
What were the Heavens and Stars he exalted himself above? Answ. The great estates and Princes of the world compared thereto. What Heaven was he fallen from? Answ. from his high Sovereign Dignity and Majesty, To what hell was he brought down? Answ. To utter confusion and ruin; for not long after this, an hundred eighty five thousand of his Army were slain by the Angel of God in one night, himself shortly after killed by his own sons in his Idols Temple, and a little while after this, his whole Kingdom brought to destruction, and the Sovereignty transferred to another Family, viz. that of Nabuchadnezzar King of Babylon, and that Kingdom at length also ruined.  
Look upon another instance, Jer. 4.23, 24. I beheld the earth and be hold it was without form, and void, and the Heavens, and they had no light; I beheld the Mountains, and lo they trembled, and all the Hills moved lightly, etc. Did the Prophet Jeremy indeed see any such thing? was the earth like an old confused Chaos without all form and void, so as no Grass nor Tree did grow upon it? had the Heavens so lost their light, as that neither Sun, Moon, or Starts did shine? Did Jeremy see the Hills to skip and leap? No such matter surely, but this was all the meaning, that there was a great confusion in the Land among all estates both in Church and Commonweal as appears in the verses following, which tell us that the fruitful places were even become a Wilderness, the Cities broken down and the whole Land desolate.  
Let us go on in the interpretation: And the desire of all Nations shall come. Some understand this of Believers, the desirable people of all Nations; others of other things; but no doubt it is meant concerning Christ by anticipation who was to be afterwards the desire of the Nations.  
The words are to be read thus, Object. The desire of all Nations they shall come (a Noun of the singular number joined to a Verb of the plural) and therefore they cannot be meant of Christ. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉   
The learned in the Hebrew affirm such a Synrax, Answ. not to be unusual among the Hebrews, and namely when they set forth the dignity and excellency of a person; so that we may take it thus, Christ clothed with all his Excellencies, Attributes, Offices and Merits, shall come. Neither do I see why this should be more absurd than the joining of a Noun of the plural number to a Verb of the singular, as we find, Gen. 1.1. In the beginning Godcrea●ed, word for word, Gods he created, denoting out the Trinity of the persons in the Godhead, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  and the unity of their Essence and Act in creating the World.  
And I will fill this House with glory: Not with an external glory of silver and gold, nor with a ceremonial glory, such as the Ark, which was called the glory of Israel, 1 Sam. 4.21, 22. Psal. 78.61. which was now quite taken away, Jer. 3.16. (for God would now teach them to take their hearts quite off from ceremonies, and to look directly for the Messiah) but he would fill it with the glorious presence of Christ, who had the glory of the only begotten Son of God, John 1.14. who is the Lord of Glory, James 2.1. who is the true Glory of Israel, Luke 2.32. who shows his people the way, and is himself the undoubted means of glory.  
Now from the words thus understood, we may observe these two general Doctrines; one from the commination, the other from the consolation.  
First, that great concussions, Doctrine 1 shake and alterations of States and Nations great wars, and sometimes desolations both oft civil and ecclesiastical State, do in the course of God's administration often times go before great and notable restaurations and Reformations of the Church.  
Secondly, Doctrine 2 great and excellent Reformations of the Church, do often times follow and ensue upon great combustions and concussions of States and Nations.  
We will begin with the former of these, and in opening of it observe this method. First, we will set down some proofs and examples of it in the Scriptures. Secondly, give some grounds and reasons of the Lords proceed in this manner, such as the Scripture leads unto. Thirdly, we will declare some signs and indices of such an approaching storm and earthquake, and then apply it.  
First therefore; we shall find such earthquakes foretold and threatened before the Reformation of the Church, wherein the Lord intends not to ruin the Church as we are apt to imagine) but to restore and reform it. See for this, Amos 9.8 9, 10, 11. Behold the eyes of the Lord are upon the sinful Kingdoms, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth, saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob saith the Lord, for lo I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all Nations, like as Corn is sifted in a sieve, etc. All the sinners of my people ●all die by the sword, which say, the evil shall not overtake nor prevent us: In that day will I raise up the Tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof, and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old, etc. Lo here, the Lord will first destroy the sinful Kingdom (though not the whole Nation, for those are two things.)  
He will sift the whole Nation, so that no grain shall escape tossing, and cut off the enormous transgressors among his people; and then when this is done, he will restore his Church, set forth under the Type of the Tabernable of David, as we see it expounded by the Apostle James, Act. 15.14, 15, 16, 17. other predictions we have of this kind, Isa. 4.1, 2, 3, 4. Zech. 13.8, 9  
We shall also find instances in the Scriptures of such mighty earthquakes in the course of God's providence going before notable Reformations of the Church, and we will begin with this mentioned in the Text.  
There have been four famous Monarchies in the world the Babylonian, the Persian, the Grecian and the Roman Monarchies. The Babylonian was lately fallen it was now about the midst of the Persian Kingdom, which continued for some 228. years, and then was utterly overthrown by Alexander the Macedonian called Alexander the Great. He brought in the Grecian Kingdom which continued divided amongst his successors (but with infinite troubles) 200. and odd years, and then was subdued by the Romans. All these great changes (besides very great ones among the Romans themselves) happened between the time that the Prophet Haggai flourished, and the coming of Christ. The people of God, the people of the Jews were under all these Monarchies, 
Neh. 9.36, 37.  and held their Kingdom in vassalage of them, and as tributaries to them, and therefore must needs partake of their commotions, as indeed they did, for there were great alterations in the Jewish State, both in Commonweal and Church.  
For the civil State, sometimes they were under a Prince of their own Nation, sometimes under a foreign Governor; as Pilate the Roman Deputy was over Jerusalem, and the principal part of that Country in the time of our Saviour: Sometimes they were under Princes of the house of David, as Zerubbabel and others: Sometimes their Princes were of another Tribe, as the Macchabees, who are said to be of Lev: by the Father's side, and of the Tribe of Judah by the Mother, till at length Herod the Idumaean tyrant, by the favour of the Roman Emperors usurped the Kingdom, slew Hircanus the King his Father-in law, together with his own Wife and Sons, being all of the Blood-royal and line of David, many of the Nobles of judah the whole Sanhedrim, or Council of Elders.  
And so that prophecy of jacob was fully accomplished, Gen. 4●. 10. The Sceptre shall not departed from Judah, nor a Lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come, meaning Christ. Sometimes their Governor had the title of a Prince, sometimes of a King; they were now under a King, then under a Queen, as Alexandra: Sometimes their Governor was both King and Priest, as was Hircanus a little before our Saviour came in the flesh; These changes were usually made, with many mighty stirs and dismal battles.  
There were semblably great changes in the ecclesiastical Sat, it seems they had sundry High-priests together sometimes, as Luke 3.2. Annas and Caiaphas; sometimes the Highpriest was but annual or but for a year in his office whereas by the law there was to be but one Highpriest, and he for term of life: There were divers different Sects of Religion risen up among them and some of them strange ones, as Sadduces that denied the Resurrection, Angels. etc. Pharisees, Essenes' (what they were may be doubted.) They had put many false glosses upon the law moral, as we may see, Mat. 5.21. etc. They stood stiffly for the ceremonial law as a thing that was to be perpetual, as appears by our Saviour's telling them, that He came not to destroy it, but to fulfil it, Mat. 5.17. by their stoning of Stephen upon that false accusation, Act. 6.13, 14 15. Yea, the converted Jews were very tenacious of it, Act. 21.20. The false Apostles urged some part of it as circumcision, etc. upon the Churches of the Gentiles, Act. 15.1. Insomuch as the Lord at length shakes down Temple, Priest's service, ceremonial government and all and almost the whole Nation, and then was Christ made the desire of the Nations, etc. unto this shaking of the Church, and the antiquating the old administration and form of worship; doth the Apostle apply this Text of Haggai in part. Heb. 12.26, 27. He hath promised, saying, yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven: And this word, yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made (that is of the ceremaniall Ordinances and Law) that those things that cannot be shaken may remain, that is the Ordinances of Christ, as the Word and seals of the Word under the Gospel.  
A second instance we have in the planting the people of Israel in the land of Canaan: In Egypt they were under great oppression, and it seems had no public service of God, for when they desire leave of Pharaoh to go out of the land, they told him they must serve the Lord, as he should command them, Ex. 8.27. and they knew not how that must be, till they came thither where he appointed them, Exod. 10.26.  
The Lord therefore would have them out of Egypt into Canaan, but before that he was forced first to shake Egypt terribly with many sore plagues, and at last when it would not otherwise be, he tumbled Pharaoh and all his Army into the midst of the Sea, he destroyed six hundred thousand Israelites in forty years' space in the Wilderness, and after that twenty or thirty Kingdoms of the Canaanites, and then plants in his people, and sets up his Tabernacle and Glory in the midst of them.  
A third instance we have in the people of the Jews after the captivity of Babylon; before, Religion was come to a low ebb, the land was full of profaneness, idolatry, and contempt of God and his Word, 2 Chron. 36.14, 15, 16. Ezek. 22. Jer. 6.10. The Lord therefore doth as a man useth to do with an old house that is too bad to patch and repair, he pulls it down that he may build it fairer from the ground: Thus did the Lord, he pulls down all the Ecclesiastik & civil State too, destroys the Temple, Priests Sacrifices the Princes and Nobles of the Land, carries the King's one after another into Babylon, suffers Nabuchadnezzar to put out the eyes of Zedekiah, having first slain his Children before his face, that that might be the last sight that ever he might see, (2 Kin. 24. & 25. 2 Chron. 36. Jer. 39) captivates the people also, and beslaves them to the Chaldeans for the space of seventy years; when those were over, wholly overthrows the Babylonian Kingdom, and then brings back their captivity, settles them again in the land of Judah, restores his glory to them, makes them take rooting downward, and bring forth fruit upward.  
Let us look into the Christian Church under the new Testament, and there we shall find predictions of such earthquakes; one is already past, another is to come.  
The Church (you know) was after our Saviour's time almost 300. years, continually molested with dreadful persecutions under the heathen Empire; at length the Lord upon the humble supplications of his people, and the cries of their blood (Rev. 6.10.) was pleased to grant peace and liberty to his servants; but before this could be done, there must be a great earthquake, which makes a mighty confusion in all estates, as if heaven and earth were mingled together; the Sun is darkened, the Moon is turned into blood, the Stars fall, etc. which is interpreted afterwards; the Kings of the Earth, the chief Captains, the great men, etc. do call to rocks and mountains to fall upon them, and hid them from the face of the Lamb (who now is like a Lion,) Rev. 6.12, 13. etc. the meaning is, the heathen Emperors, when God stirred up Constantine the great, who was the Churches first masculine child, to undertake the quarrel of Christ and of his Church against them, and being overcome in many dismal battles, were so amazed and confounded, together with their great Captains and Commanders, as that divers of them confessed Christ had overcome them, as Galerius, Maximinus, Licinius; happy was he that could first make an end of himself.  
Maxentius a cruel enemy of Christ, after he had been overcome in fight was drowned, or did drown himself in Tiber; Dioclesian is said to have poisoned himself, Maximinianus to have hanged himself, or to have been strangled by Constantine's command, as was afterward Licinius. Maximinus having in a rage slain many of his Idol-priests that stirred him up to war against the Christians and revoked his decrees, being suddenly stricken with God's hand, was eaten away piecemeal, and so his eyes leaping out of his head, he breathed out his cruel Ghost: Galerius was eaten up with vermin, and rotten above ground: All of them extremely frighted with Christ's victories over them, in fear and tormert (together with multitudes of their Soldiers) ended their days. What was this but rocks and mountains fall upon us, and hid us from the presence of the Lamb? After followed peace and liberty to the people of God.  
These and many more are already past and gone; there is one earthquake to come, that is the greatest that ever was in the world and shall be followed with the most notable Reformation of the Church that ever was; I call it the greatest that ever was, because the Text calls it so, Rev. 16.18. and it is very probable Daniel means the same, Dan. 12.1. where he speaks of a time of trouble that should be, such as never was since there was a Nation, even to that same time.  
We read of it first, Rev. 11.13. the Beast hath long persecuted the Prophets, at last (besides many former) he got an unexpected victory over them, triumphed over them for three days and an half; but now in the midst of his jollity and his whores also, spoken of, Rev. 18.7, 8. an earthquake comes upon them both, (Rev. 11.13.) and utterly ruins them (for this falls out at the end of the Prophets prophesying in sack cloth (ver. 7.) and consequently, 
〈◊〉 Mead  at the end of the B●asts reign) and the tenth part of the City falls; by which we may understand the City of Rome that now is, being but the tenth part of that which it was, when it was in its glory; and in the earthquake (not in the fall of the City, for the earthquake is to shake down the whole Kingdom of the Beast throughout the world) in the earthquake (I say) were slain of men seven thousand, that is, thousands upon thousands, and so the second woe, made up of Popish idolatry and Turkish cruelty, passeth away, ver. 14.  
Now immediately upon this the seventh Angel sounds a Jubilee, and then there be great proclamations and acclamations in Heaven, that the Kingdoms of the World (indefinitely set down, that is all the Kingdoms) are become Christ's, Kingdoms: And whereas before the Devil, Dragon, Beast & his horns have reigned, now Christ takes to himself his great power and reigns; for which the whole Church (under the type of 24. Elders) praise him, though the Nations be angry, as they ever are when Christ puts forth his just power, ver. 15, 16, 17, 18. He now gives rewards unto his servants the Prophets, etc. and destroys them that destroyed the earth; that is, he ruins the wicked and idolatrous generations of Antichrist, who wasted his Church before, ver. 18. His Tabernacle is now opened in Heaven, and the Ark of his Testament seen, ver. 19 that is, Christ (represented by the Ark) is clearly manifested; before, that wicked generation had forbidden men to read the Scriptures, had kept them in unknown tongues, had involved the mysteries of Christ in Masses, and rude heaps of other superstitions and ceremonies; but now he and all his excellencies shall be fully manifested to the Nations.  
The other place is, Rev. 16.17. etc. where Antichrist having by his emissaries (that is, the unclean spirits like Frogs) drawn the Kings of the earth into 
(a) A militiae, or confoederation, subject to the divine Anathema.  Hormageddon, i. e. into a cursed and crafty war (for herein I assent to Graserus) suddenly the Angel finding them in that state powers out the seventh Vial upon them, upon which follow thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake, such as was not since men were upon earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great; it is called the greatest earthquake that ever was, haply in regard of the suddenness and violence of it, or either else, in regard of the extent of it, as being to shake all the world.  
1. The effects are, the great City is divided into three parts, by which understand probably, that the Kingdom of the Beast shall be rend in pieces by fractions, and devisions, ver. 19  
2. The Cities of the Nations (or Gentiles) fall; by which no doubt we are to understand, the false Christians that filled the visible Church all Antichrists reign, that is, Papists and false professors; for it is said, that these Gentiles (or Nations, for the word is the same) should tread down the holy City that is, the visible Church, Rev. 11.2. Peradventer these two effects of the earthquake are now in fulfilling, ver. 19  
3. Unto great Babylon the cup of God's wrath is given, etc. now she shall be remembered and destroyed.  
4. Yea, all parts of Antichrists monarchy shall fall. Object. Some Kingdoms are strong and invincible like mighty mountains, they will stand; others are remote like the Islands; they cannot be come at, they will continue: No saith the Text, every Island fled away, and the mountains were not found, ver. 20. nothing so remote as the Island, nothing so mighty as the mountains could stand.  
And because this ruin of the Beasts Kingdom is one of the greatest things that ever did, or ever shall fall out in the world, and shall have the strangest consequents; therefore the holy-Ghost is pleased after a description of the Beast and the Whore, chap. 17. that we may know who they are, the Beast to be the Pope, and the Whore Rome; The holy-Ghost is pleased (I say) to set down these things particularly, and at large: First, the destruction of the Whore, chap. 18. then the destruction of the Beast himself, and all the Kings his partakers, chap. 19 after which follows the binding up of Satan with its consequents, chap. 20. and then the glorious restauration of the Church, both of Jews and Gentiles, under the type of the new Jerusalem, in the two last chapters.  
In the next place, let us consider such grounds and reasons as the Scriptures lead us unto, why the Lord in the course of his administration and providence, doth cause such great shake of Nations before he doth reform and refine his Church, and we shall find these three in special.  
First, Reason 1 that he may plague and punish the persecutors and oppressors of his Church, and so deliver his people from persecution and oppression. I join these two together, and we shall find them to be things the Lord hath always aimed at in his concussions of States and Nations, if there were a Church there: Why did the Lord so terribly shake Egypt, but that he might plague the oppressing Egyptians, and enlarge his persecuted people of Israel? And why Babylon, but that he might destroy the Babylonian tyrants and deliver captivated Judah? These things the Lord Intended when he ruined the Dragon's Kingdom, the persecrting heathen Empire; and which he now intends, being about to destroy the Kingdom of Antichrist: take one place for all, Jer. 50.33, 34. The Children of Israel and the Children of Judah were oppressed together, and all that took them captives held them fast, they refused to let them go; their Redeemer is strong, the Lord of Hosts is his name; He will thoroughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the Land, and disquiet the Inhabitants of Babylon. Mark here, God's people were oppressed, their enemies held them hard, as never minding to let them go and deliver them, (no more did the enemies of God's Church now) well, who can help it? 
B. L. in his Epist. Ded. before his ans. to F●she●.  they have no such strong assistance to back them (for so one hath written:) Yes (saith the Phophet) they have a strong Redeemer; what may his name be? the Lord of Hosts is his name; what will he do for them? He will thoroughly plead their cause and give rest unto them; how will he do that? by disquieting the Inhabitants of Babylon; it is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he will disquiet, that is, he will destroy them: Observe it, wherefore would the Lord bring such a devastation upon Babylon, but that he might redeem his people by oppressing their oppressors?  
That he may take away the impediments of his Church's restauration, and namely these three. Reason 2  
That he may take away the scandal of great sins: Imped. 1 The visible Church is like a draw-net, that takes in Fishes good and bad, it so falls out often times, that this Church is filled with gross sins committed and permitted, with blasphemy, swearing cursing, lying stealing, 
Hosea 4.2, 3.  profanation of God's Ordinances and Sabbaths persecutions of the godly, and all kinds of licentiousness, open sins against the very letter of the Law; and these lived in against the express doctrine which the committers of them know and profess: Now for these sins the name of the Lord lies under much pollution and dishonour; Heathers and Turks can pull Christians by the sleeve and accuse them for them and wonder why they do things so contrary to their profession: A man would certainly think that wicked men had a dispensation for these sins, or that God himself did not much dislike them, and would never punish them: Well, the Lord will not always suffer this reproach though he forbear a long time; not (nor never did always in any Nation) he will make blasphemers know at length that he will not hold them guiltless that take his name in vain, and so for the rest. The Land shall mourn for these things at last, Hos. 4.3. He will have it appear that he allows not his to commit such sins; the Lord will have the scandal of sin taken away.  
Now the scandal of great sins is to be removed one of these two ways, either by the Delinquents penitent confession and reformation; or secondly, by a special vindication.  
1. Sometimes it is taken away by the offender himself, when he humbly confesseth his sin and reforms, (if he confess and not forsake, he doth not remove, but increase the scandal) for then he takes the blame from off the profession and lays it upon himself.  
I did indeed so and so transgress, I did blaspheme, commit adultery, etc. but it was my corruption made me to do it and not my Religion, it is utterly contrary to the doctrine I have received and do profess, which utterly forbids such sins, and threatens eternal damnation to the sinner; I am hearty sorry for my sin, do earnestly beg pardon for it of God the Father through Christ, and by divine grace in him do fully purpose and will endeavour a thorough Reformation: this now dischargeth the profession of all blame and lays it upon the person.  
But because this is seldom done & only by penetents thoroughly, therefore there is another way of taking away scandal from God's Name for the gross sins of professors and that is by visiting, or vindicating the sin upon the sinner.  
Now this vindication is either humane or divine.  
The first is humane. For God requires that those that are under him and over others, should execute judgement for him upon their Subjects, for all open sinfulness according to the nature and degrees of it; this he expects from the Parent, Master, Magistrate respectively, and they greatly sin, and shall be punished if they do it not.  
Now because this humane vindication for the most part fails, therefore the Lord himself doth at length take the matter into his own hand; when he sees judgement is turned backward, and justice stands a fare off, truth lies in the street, equity cannot enter, and he that refrains from evil makes himself a prey, that it is lawful to be any thing but good (as we have seen in our times) when he looks about him and sees that there is no man, and wonders that there is no intercessor; that is, he wonders there is no body will appear to execute judgement for him; then at length himself puts on righteousness as a brest-plat, he puts on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and is clad with zeal as with a cloak; according to their deeds, accordingly will he repay fury to his adversaries (fare and near) even to the Islands he will repay recompense, Isa. 59.14, 15, 16, 17. and so he will take away the scandal sin and sinners, permitters and committers altogether.  
See an instance: The people of Israel had divers times murmured and tempted God; they do it afresh when the spies came home, and brought ill news of the Land of Canaan, the Lord thereupon threatens to destroy them all; Moses intercedes for them and prevails for the present; but withal the Lord says, and binds it with an oath, that surely and as truly as He lived, He would fill all the earth with his glory, and not one of those murmurers should see the promised Land, Numb. 14.21, 22, 23. And so it came to pass, for they were all rooted out in the Wilderness, they had made all the earth ring of his dishonour in their murmuring, and he would make it resound his honour again in his punishing of them.  
Because Elye's sons transcendently sinned and he being their Parent and Judge did not punish them as he ought, therefore the Lord threatens to bring such a punishment upon him and his house, that whosoever should he are of it both his ears should ●ingle 1 Sam. 3.11. and so he did, chap. 4. Both his sons were slain in one day, himself perished miserably, afterwards Saul flew (though unjustly) 85. of his Posterity at one time, and Abiather was afterwards for taking part with Adonijah, cast out of the priesthood by Solomon, and so his whole posterity brought to beggary; hereby was the word of the Lord fulfilled, 1 Kin. 2.27.  
As dear as David was to God, yet when by his murder and adultery he had opened the mouths of God's enemies to blaspheme his Name though upon his repentance the Lord did pardon him, yet he would not remit the temporal punishment, but the child borne in adultery should die, the sword should never departed from his house, he would raise up evil against him out of his own bowels, as he did in the rebellion of Absolom, 2 Sam. 12.10, 11, 14. And this I take to be one special reason, why the Lord at last hath destroyed all the States and Kingdoms of the world that ever yet have been, because that whereas they should have executed judgement for him, they have executed judgement against him; whereas they should have been a terror to evil works, and for the praise of them that do well, they have generally been a terror to good works, and for the praise of them that do evil.  
The second impidement of Reformation is great and enormous sinners; Imped. 2 these the Lord useth to sweep away by the earthquake; they are of divers sorts, as  
1. The scoffers at Religion, Sort 1 the bold affronters of Heaven that fit in the chair of the scorner, these fear neither God nor devil, they make a tush at the threaten of God; they say, the Prophet's words shall become wind, Jer. 5.13.  
They threaten the Prophets that threaten them; the Prophets tell them, they shall die by sword and famine, they say thus shall it be done unto them, ibid. We will make them die by sword and famine; our Saviour calls these dogs that bark at, & by't them that cast pearls to them. Such were those, Isa. 22.12.13. who when the Lord called to weeping & mourning, & behold there was joy and gladness with them, killing of Oxen and slaying of Sheep; let us eat and drink (say they, speaking most impiously and securely) for to morrow we shall die. The same Prophet tells us of a company that know not how to be sinful enough, & denounceth a w●e against them from the Lord, Isa. 5.18, 19 though they be an idle generation, yet they will work like Cart-horses to commit sin; they will draw iniquity to them with cords of vanity, and sin as with Cart-ropes: How might one know them might some man say? why by this; they say, let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it, let the council of the holy one of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it; as much as if they had said, we would see what he will do, we would see his threats executed, we will believe them when we see them; I, so did the men of the old world (just of this temper and sped accordingly) The most desperate Giant of them all, when he saw the waters to cover the tops of the highest mountains, no doubt believed the flood; but than it was too late to believe it: Blessed are they that believe, though they never saw. If Noah had been of that mind also, he had perished with them. The like we have in the place cited before, Amos 9.10. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword (note they are called sinners 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, in a high degree) who? Why those that say the evil shall not overtake nor prevent us: They scorn the Prophet's comminations then, ver. 11. In that day, when they are taken off, God will raise up the Tabernacle of David that is fallen, meaning the Church; but he will first knock them down: Multitudes of such were removed in the captivity of Babylon, before the Lord restored his Church in Judah.  
The second sort are the obstinate resisters of God's spirit, Sort 2 striving with them in the use of his Ordinances and means of grace. (For his spirit shall not always so strive with men in vain, as we, see Gen. 6.3.) When the Lord is forced to say of a people unto whom he hath afforded all his Ordinances for a long time, as he doth of his Vineyard, which he had choicely planted and dressed, etc. Isa. 5.4. What could I have done more to this people, then that I have done; meaning in an ordinary way of means settled by himself (and God useth not to save Nations (though persons sometimes) by a prerogative) why then it must be expected he will deal with that people as he did with his fruitless Vineyard break down the hedge about them with his own hand; let the wild beasts rush and run in and depopulate all. This was one cause of the captivity of Babylon. The Lord risen up early and sent his Prophets long before plagues came, but they mocked his Messengers, despised his words, and misused his Prophets, until the wrath of God risen against his people, until there was no remedy; whilst men are without means, there is hope they might be reform; if they had means, but when as they have for a long time profaned all means, their case grows hopeless, therefore now the Lord brought upon them the King of the Chaldees who destroyed all, 2 Chron. 36.15, 16, 17. So, because our Saviour would have gathered to him the Jews by his word, as the Hen her Chickens under her wings, and they would not, therefore their habitation should be left unto them desolate, Mat. 23.37, 38.  
Sor. 3 A third sort, are the cruel persecutors of his people; persecution ever goes along with profanation and contempt of the means of grace, spoken of before: When the Husbandmen reviled beat and stoned the servants whom the Lord had sent to demand rend and fruits of the Vineyard; he at last in fury sends out his men of war, and kills those Husbandmen, and then let's out his Vineyard to better Husbandmen, that will yield him his fruits in their season, Mat. 23 33, 34, etc.  
A fourth sort of enormous transgressors, Sort 4 whom the Lord takes off in a public calamity as the great impediments of Reformation are, the proud, strong, and otherwise invincible supporters of false worship, errors, heresy. Idolatry, profaneness as the Popish & hierarchical generation, both of the ecclesiastical and civil estate. Thus the Lord destroyed the High-priests, and other supporters of Idolatry in the captivity of Babylon, 2 Kin. 25.19, 20, 21. 2 Chron. 36. And so the Scribes and Pharisees, and the whole Jewish state in the last destruction of Jerusalem; and this is to be one main effect of the earthquake before the Churches future reformation; in a word, the Lord will take away whatsoever in Church or Commonweal is unreconcilable unto his Son's Sceptre, even Kingdoms and all; see Dan. 2.34.35.44.45. In the days of these Kings (speaking of the last times, and of the Kingdoms that issue out of the feet of the Image, or the iron. Empire of the Romans, viz. the Kingdoms of Europe) shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and the Kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces all these Kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever, ver. 44. this interpretation is sure, ver. 45. see for this also Rev. 19.17, 18 etc.  
Quest. Shall all of all these sorts be taken off in a public calamity?  
Answ. As many as necessity enforceth for freeing God's way in the work of Reformation: God usually takes off the tops principals, and ringleaders of all these kinds, he fells the great Cedars for clearing the ground where the City is to be built and stand, whose name is, the Lord is there.  
Quest. Why are these kinds removed?  
Answ. 1 First, because they have highly and in so extraordinary a manner provoked God that we parallelling them with such in other Scriptures, may justy suspect God hath sworn against them in his wrath, and then he will never reverse his threats; then their sin cannot he purged away with sacrifice and offering for ever, as it said of Ely's house, 1 Sam. 3.14. Then though Noah, Daniel and Job should pray for them, they should not prevail; for a man may sinne himself past and beyond mercy, so that though he should repent yet the external plague should not be removed.  
Secondly, because they are not counted worthy to see the good that God will do for his people, as the Text speaks of the false Prophet Shemajah the Nehelamite, Jer. 29.32. that made the Lord take off the old generation in the Wilderness.  
Thirdly, they are unframable for God's building, they would never lie even nor keep a due proportion with the foundation and the rest of the building; God hath tried them sufficiently before.  
Fourthly, they would spoil all God's work; If all the six hundred thousand murmurers had come into the Land of Promise, how would they have hindered the advancement of God's Kingdom and worship, they being so enured to Idolatry, murmuring, etc. and so hardened therein? such would be like the enemies of the Jews, Ezra 4.2. they would needs assist the Jews in building the Temple, but they would have marred all the work; they would have made a wise building, and as strange a worship would they have set up.  
Quest. Whom doth God use to preserve in these great calamities?  
Answ. Some of divers sorts: as,  
First, a convenient number of Saints already called; not all, but a sufficient number: There is (I take it) such a distinction intimated. Dan. 12.1. At that time thy people shall be delivered, not all in general, but every one that shall be found written in the book; implying that some of daniel's people the Saints, are written in the book of life; that is of natural life for escape, but not all; see also Isa. 4.3. God must have a number of these called one's; first, to be the constant objects of his love and grace; secondly, to praise and serve him; and thirdly, to be the pillar and ground of truth to support it before the world; and then fourthly, (if I may use so lo a comparison) as those that writ of Bees, report the Bees still send out some of their old ones with the new swarms to manage their work; so God will have a competent number of called one's preserved to carry on his work of Reformation.  
Secondly, all the Elect that are not yet called at , till they be effectually converted, else their election would be frustrated, which is impossible. Thus 2 Pet. 3.9. The Lord is long-suffering towards the world, so that he destroys it not, because he is not willing that any should perish; (i. e.) not any of his own chosen should perish but that all, meaning all they, should come to repentance.  
Thirdly, the progenitors of the Elect to come; for otherwise the Elect that are to come of them would be prevented: And this I take to be our Saviour's meaning, Mat. 24 2● where speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem) he saith that except those days should be shortened, no flesh should be saved, but all the Jews should have been destroyed: Why were they not? (might some man say) they that escaped were as bad as those that perished; why? saith our Saviour, for the Elects sake those days shall be shortened, i. e. for the Elects sake that are to come of them (it may be) seventeen hundred, or two thousand years after: And to the same sense are those words, Isa, 65.8. As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith destroy it not, for a blessing is in at; that is, let it grow till the vintage and there will be a blessing, viz. good wine in it; so will I do for my servants sake, that I may not destroy them all; that is. I would destroy all this sinful generation, were there not a blessing in them; namely, were it not for mine elect servants sakes that are to proceed from them.  
Fourthly, haply some may be saved out of a general deluge, in some relation or respect to others of God's people to whom they belong, as bad children for the godly Parent's sakes. And bacl again, wicked Parents that they may nurse up children that are elect; these deliverances are blessings, not so much to the wicked themselves, as to the godly to whom they relate. They in the ship were saved for Paul's sake, Acts 27.24.44. that they might be of some use to his person, and their deliverance some honour to his office. Reprobates thus saved shall be as the Gibeonites, hewers of wood, and drawers of water to the people of God; they shall do some base drudgeries for them, study Arts and Sciences for them, as the heathen Philosophers did; God taking from him that hath not & giving unto him that hath, bestowing the use & benefit of wicked men's gifts, not upon themselves but upon the godly.  
The third Impediment of the Church's restauration taken away by these great earthquakes, Imped. is error, heresy, false worship, idolatry, etc. You cannot preach, nor pray them down directly and immediately (though all other means depend upon these (and the Saints must own the thing) God is terrible out of his holy places, Psa. 68.35.) Well, that which the Word cannot do, the sword shall; that which the water cannot wash out, the fire will burn out. Unto this particular the Apostle applies this very text in part, namely concerning the shaking of the Heavens, Heb, 12.26, 27. Yet once more I shake not earth only, but also heaven, etc. An earthquake (as we have heard) was appointed to shake down the ceremonial Ordinances; now if this were necessary for the abolition of that divine worship, which had sometimes been by Gods own holy institution, how much more shall that which hath been of humane invention (yea, the very fumes and fogs of the bottomless pit) to God's infinite displeasure and dishonour, be tumbled down with violence and vengeance to hell, from whence it came? And therefore as the heathenish idolatry fell with such a terrible earthquake as shook down both it and all its supporters both Emperors and Empire; even so shall antichristian idolatry and heresy with Babylon their Mother, the Beast their Father, and all their intoxicated and dementated defenders, be thrown like a Millstone into the bottom of the sea, Rev. 18.21.  
The third general Reason of these great Earthquakes before the Church's restauration, is: that the Saints may be prepared and qualified for the right use of such a state and condition of happiness and prosperity, and so made capable thereof. Reas. 3 The qualifications required, and whereof the earthquake is a means, by the operation of God's Spirit in the Saints are these:  
First, they are thereby made humble: for so the Lord humbles his etc. that he may do them good in the latter end Deut. 8.16. The people of the Jew's before the captivity were exceeding proud despised Gods Word spoken by his Prophets etc. 2 Chron. 26, 16. yea in the time of the captivity when all was broken in pieces. Yet so proud and stubborn were they, that they would not bear the yoke of the King of Babylon, though the Lord would have had them, promising them in so doing safety and blessing; many of them would needs into Egypt, and when they came there would worship the Queen of heaven, the Sun. Moon and Stars, though the Lord by Jeremi●h under great penalties expressly forbade both the one and the other, jer. 42, & 43. & 44. But after the Lord ●ad hammered them thoroughly by 70. year's captivity and hard bondage, how humble were they, and tame as Lambs? now you may do any thing with them; now they come weeping to seek the Lord, and exhorting one another to enter into a covenant with their God, never to be forgotten, jer. 50.4.5. and so they did, as we may see at large. Nehem. 9, & 10. where they undertake some things that it is probable they never did before as to live in Booths in the feast of Tabernacles; and though they were very poor, yet they charged themselves deeply for the maintenance of the public worship of God.  
Secondly, they are thereby made hungry after Christ, Isa. 4.1.2. when the Lord hath wasted them in the public calamity so that there was but one man left for seven women, in that day (saith the text) the branch of the Lord, that is Christ, shall be beautiful and glorious; and the fruit of the earth, that is, Christ again shall be excellent and comely to all that are escaped in Israel, that is, that have escaped perishing in the public storm and earthquake. Before, who cared for Christ? who believed the Prophet's reports concerning him? there was neither form nor beauty in him wherefore men should desire him; oh! but now there is beauty and glory in him; formerly who regarded this Manna? men slighted him before, and said as they of the Manna, what i● this? or if they reverenced him in their words, yet he did dwell powerfully but in a few hearts. Oh! but now Christ is excellent meat to those that have escaped. This and the former make a man or a people capable of blessings, james 4.6. Luke 1.52, 53.  
Thirdly, they are thereby made holy, Isa. 4.3, 4. He that is left is Zion, and he that remains in Jerusalem shall be called holy, that is shall be holy, (for God calls things as they be) even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem; that is, every one that is left alive after the public calamity. How shall this be done? When the Lord shall have washed away (saith the text) the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem (that is, their sins that defile like blood; or rather, when he shall have purged their sheddings of innocent blood) out of the midst thereof by the spirit of judgement and the spirit of burning.  
The plain meaning is, that the public calamity should by the working of God's spirit there promised, be a means of purging away their sinfulness, and making of them holy, and to fit them for the deliverances and mercies in the verses following. Thus, Zeph. 3.8, 9, 10, 11. When the Lord hath poured out his indignation upon the rebellious Nations, he turns the remnant to him as a people of a pure language, that they may all call upon his Name, and serve him with one consent: Yea, he makes them bring to him acceptable Offerings delivers them from their shameful Idolatries and proud hypocrisies. In like sort, Zec. 13.8, 9 God would cut off two third parts in all the Land, the other third should be left alive, and he would bring that third part through the fire, and would refine them as silver is refined, and try them as gold is tried. Now when this is done, than (saith the Lord) they shall call upon my name, and I will hear them; I will say it is my people; and they shall say; the Lord is my God. Thus we see that the Lord by these great Earthquakes makes his people humble, hungry and holy, and so fit for restauration: God may now trust them, it is certain now they will be thankful and obedient, of which there could be no assurance before. And these are the fruits God expects from his Church in a state of restauration and reformation.  
It remaineth now that I should give some Signs and Indices whereby the approaching of a public Earthquake may be discerned.  
When a Nation or People do revive their Fore, Sign 1 fathers old and (as I may call them) obsolete sins; which had (as it were) in some sort been laid aside, especially their old idolatries and persecutions. This evidence of a judgement to come is made the stronger, when all sorts commit all other kinds of sins with an high hand, against light, means, lesser plagues, so as in than distress, they trespassed more against the Lord, as branded Ahaz. did, 2 Chron. 28 22. and as such Nations as fall to idolatry and persecution ever use to do, Revel. 16.9, 11. This reviving of those great sins useth to be the very nick and period of time, when it hath continued a space, that the Lord takes to bring an evil upon a people. For now the number of the Saints that are to be kiled, grows to be fulfilled, Rev. 6.11. now the grapes of the earth grow to be fully ripe, and therefore shall now be cast in whole clusters into the winepress of God's wrath, Rev. 14.18, 19 Now wicked ones fill up the measure of their fathers, Mat. 23.32.  
The people of the Jews had been exceeding idolatrous and cruel in the time of Manasseh, 2 Chron. 33. these sins had been intermitted and broken off in the reign of Josiah. who had wrought a wonderful reformation; but were renewed again by his Sons, and under their reigns Jer. 22.17. 2 Chro. 36. which made the time of jerusalem to come, i.e. to come suddenly; so that now she had made her days to draw near, and was come even unto her years; that is, to her years of punishment, for so speaks Ezekiel that lived at that very same time, Ezek 22.3, 4. which immediately came upon them as we see 2 Chro. 26.17, 18. etc.  
The Jews before our Saviour's time had given over their cruel persecutions; we read of no Prophets or holy men slain of them for divers ages before; but in our Saviour's days they revived all the cruelty of their forefathers; they pretended otherwise, that had they lived in their Father days, they would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets; and therefore they built the Prophet's costly Tombs (as their successors our popish Hierarchists do make Images to the old Saints and Martyr's) but for themseives, they would kill no Prophets that they would not; no, take heed of them: Oh ye Serpents (saith our Saviour) ye generation of Vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell! you tell me you will kill no Prophets? Behold, I send unto you Prophets and Wisemen, and Scribes, and some of them ye shall kill & crucify and some of them ye shall scourge in your Synagogues and persecute them from City to City; for all that they would kill no Prophets yet they could make a shift among them to kill John the Baptist, Stephen. James, beside our Saviour Christ himself the Lord of all the Prophets: Therefore (saith our Saviour) All the righteous blood shed upon the earth from Abel to Zachary shall be required of the men of this generation, Mat. 23. from ver. 29. to the end. And so it came to pass, for some 36. or 37. years after our Saviour's Ascension, the State of the jews was utterly dissolved in a most terrible calamity, and so remains to this day.  
The great persecutions of the Christians, after they had surceased for a time, were most voilently renewed above all that had been before in the reign of Dioclesian, Maximinian, etc. a little before the fall and ruin of the heathen Empire.  
Thus the Antichristian hierarchical brood have in our time revived all their forefather's idolatries, and persecutions also, to as great an height of extremity as possibly they could reach, or durst proceed: For it was not want of malice (wherein they go beyond all their forefathers) that kept them from blood (which they did also shed in part, and we see what they do now.)  
But because they durst not; it is (I take it) agreeable to the word, it should be so; besides, there was a fatal concurrence of subordinate causes to hinder them therefore wonder not if you see an earthquake begin upon it.  
Sign 2 When the enemies of Religion make an attempt upon the whole Church together to ruin it: It is with the Church as with a great City; it is very molestious to have an Enemy-King lies loof off with a mighty Army to hinder all trade and traffic, and to catch up and kill now one Citizen, then another, but if he hath once begirt it with a strong siege, made many great breaches & threatens to kill man, woman and child, if the King, to whom that City belongs, intent to save it, he must now appear to their rescue: Even so the Lord can endure the enemies and persecutors of his people for a long time to destroy row one, than another of his Saints, (though they shall at last hear of him for it) but when once they determine and endeavour to cut them off from being a Nation, that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance, now the Lord must of necessity, and will eft-soon's appear, for if he should suffer all his Church and people to be destroyed, what should he do to his great Name? Josh. 7.9. he must needs have a people to bear up his Name before the world.  
Doth Pharaoh to all his other cruel persecutions add this, that he will destroy all the male-childrens of Israel? (for that strikes at the root of the Church) why, now have at Pharaoh, you shall hear of some mischief upon Egypt ere it be long: Doth Hamon get a cruel decree against the Jews, to destroy them altogether upon one day, and so to cut off the neck of the whole Church, as it were, at one blow, and that upon a pretence, that their laws differ from all other Nations, and that they keep not the King's laws, and that it was not for the King's profit to suffer them; (an ordinary accusation against the Saints) Hester 3.8 9 Well, now beware Hamon; if we read forward we shall find him hanged anon upon his own gallow's made for another, Hest. 7.10.  
When Gog will needs come against the Land of Israel, then shall God's fury come up in his face, Ezek. 38. from the 18. ver. to the end: Surely in that day the Lord will make a great shaking in the Land so that all Creatures shall shake at his presence, the mountains shall be thrown down, and every wall shall fall to the ground, he will call for a sword against him, throughout all his mountain; every man's sword shall be against his brother, & he will plead against him in pestilence, blood hailstones fire and brimstone etc. When Gog and his Armies do compass about the Camp of the Saints and the beloved City, intending to ruin all (for that I take to be the Emphasis of this word compass about (and this by the way) is the last enemy that ever the Church of Christ shall conflict withal here upon earth) then suddenly fire comes down from God out of heaven and devours them, Rev. 20.9.  
The adversaries of Religion have now of late made desperate attempts upon the whole Church, plotted the ruin of it every where, and had as they imagined a complete victory, both here and elsewhere; they road in triumph: The great Whore began to sing and to say she was now a Queen again, was no widow and should see no sorrow, etc. but whilst the meat was yet in their mouths, the heavy wrath of God fell upon them. Lo, even in the midst of their triumph an hand-writing upon the wall, that tells them, God hath numbered their Kingdom and finished it: An earth quake takes them, and hath already shaken thousands of them down into the pit themselves had digged for others; and the earth at this present doth terribly tremble under their whole Kingdom.  
When the Lord ariseth to the succour of his people upon their sufferings and supplications: Sign 3 For the oppression of the poor and the sighing of the needy, I will now arise saith the Lord. I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him, Psal. 12.5. and these words are as pure and true as refined silver, ver. 6. When the blood of the Saints cried, Rev. 6.10. and their prayers also, Rev. 8.3, 4, 5, 6. instantly the Cens●r that brought up their prayers is filled with fire, ●ed that cast down upon the earth, and immediately follow thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake faure Angels with Trumpets sound a desiance against the World, and upon that follow four plagues that utterly ruin the Roman Empire.  
Now God is risen upon the prayers and tears of his people, groaning under the intolerable oppressions of Hierarchy, Praelates, High-commission, etc. (who Lorded it over their faith and consciences and tyrannised over their bodies and estates) & crying unto him day and night for help. For I am confident there was scarce ever the like crying of that nature in the world, as of late years there hath been in England; why should it not still be continued? The Lord therefore being up will not sit down again till he have done his work, and hath made his enemies his own and his people's footstool. And whereas the enemies do consult with hell, digging deep and in the duke; (for God's people in these quarrels do not wrestle with flesh and blood only, but with principalities and powers, and spiritual wickednesses,) yea, and whereas they do with force and fury, with fire and sword go about to propugne their idolatries and persecutions, and to withstand the Lord coming with power for the vindication of his inheritance: they in so doing. do nothing else but accerse and draw down upon themselves, the more certain, utter, and irrecoverable destruction; even as the Canaanites of old were hardened in their hearts of the Lord to come against Israel in battle, that they might have no favour, but be destroyed utterly, Jos. 11. ●0. For the Lord will not be always bearded, and outbraved by man, but will even strike through Kings in the day of his wrath; he shall judge among the heathen; he shall fill the places w●th the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many Countries; he shall drink of the brook in the way (like a chafed Conqueror pursuing his flying enemy unto perdition) therefore shall he l●fe up his head Psal. 110.5, 6, 7. When God causeth judgement to be heard from heaven, he makes the earth fear and be still▪ when he ariseth to judgement to save all the meek of the earth sarely the wrath of man shall praise him; the remainder of wrath shall he restrain, Psa. 76.8, 9, 10. If the unjust Judge that neither feared God nor man, would avenge the Widow because of her troublesome importunity (and our Saviour bids hearken what the unjust Judge saith) how much more shall the Lord avenge his own elect upon their desperate enemies, and that speedily, his people giving him no rest, but crying day and night unto him, Luk 18.5 6 7, 8. Surely the Lord will at last procure rest to himself from his people's complaints, and unto his people from their enemy's tyrannies, in their enemy's destruction.  
The great Earthquake whereby the Kingdoms of the grand Antichrist. with his whore of Babylon, and all their supporters, Sign 4 shall be utterly subverted in all Nations draw's near, if it be not already entered. I may well put an If to it, it is so probable. It may possibly be with us, as it was with the people of the Jew's when our Saviour Christ came in the flesh, or with the Churches of the Gentiles when Antichrist came; our Saviour was both come and gone before the Jew's generally would know him for the Messiah; and Antichrist was grown to his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to his full age and stature, before the world took any notice of him till the Waldenses and Albigenses, near 500 years ago, began a little to discern him. I much suspect the last 26. years, ever since the troubles began in Bohemia, Anno 1618. I much more suspect the last seven or eight years, ever since the stirs began in Scotland; but most of all these last four years, ever since, that by the endeavours of this noble Parliament in England, the Prophets are begun to be raised, as it were from the dead, the enemies to be mightily opposed; their triumph over the Prophets here ended, their power also beginning to be broken and ruined. Besides, since that time the storm, like a mighty whirlwind, hath passed over into, and assailed, many other Nations, and the fire doth continue still there, and proceeds further and further, burning most fiercely and ragingly.  
That this grand earthquake is at hand, or else begun, appears; because the Beast, Antichrist, who is to fall by it, is so well stricken in years, and so near his end. The whole term of his life and reign, without the womb (for the mystery of iniquity was framing this Embryo, even from the Apostles times, 2 Thes. 2.7.) is two and forty months; Reve. 13.5. or one thousand two hundred and sixty days, that is one thousand two hundred and sixty years putting a day for a year, as we find it in other instances, Numb. 14.34. Ezek. 4.6. Dan. 9.24. Now, these years grow toward their full period and expiration; for it is well near so much time since they began. This will be made appear by these two indices.  
First it is almost so long time since the Papal state became the seventh head of the Roman Monarchy; and when it began to be that head, than it began to be the Beast, Rev. 17.11. That we may understand this, we are to look upon the text, Reve. 17.9, 10, 11. Here is the ●inde that hath wisdom, the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits; and there are seven Kings, five are fallen, and one is, the other is not yet come, and when he cometh he must continue a short space, and the beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seventh, and goeth into perdition.  
The seven heads of the Roman Monarchy signify two things: first, seven hills upon which the woman sits; that is, upon which the City was built (for the City is called a woman, ver. 18.) and seven Kings.  
The seven hills were famously celebrated by heathen writers, long before the Apostle writ his Revelation, Their names were these, the Palatine, the Capitoline, the Aventine, the Esquiline, the quirinal, the viminal, and the Janicular hills.  
The heads did also signify seven Kings; that is, seven several supreme forms of Government that have been in Rome: which makes Daniel when he describes the four Monarchies comparing them to four Beasts, say, that this was divers from all the rest, Dan. 7.8. The seven several regiments are these; first, Kings; secondly, Tribunes; thirdly, Decemvirs; fourthly, Dictator's; fifthly, Consuls; sixthly, Emperors; (all these are enumerated by Tacitus in the beginning of his History) seventhly, Popes.  
Of these, five were fallen when the Apostle received the Revelation, that is, Kings, Tribunes, Decemvirs Dictator's, Consuls. One is; that is, the Emperor a Soldier chosen for the most part by the Armies. And the other is not yet come. He doth not say the seventh, but the other; pointing no doubt at the Christian Emperor, who did not differ from the heathen Emperor as a distinct form of Government (for they were both Soldiers, and chosen by the Soldiers;) but in the quality of his person; the one hating & persecuting the other loving and protecting christian Religion. And when he comes he must continue a short space. For the Empire after it came into the hands of the Christians, stood but a short time in its strength a matter of seventy or eighty years, from about the middle of the reign of Constantine the great (for till than he was exercised with mighty wars against the heathen Emperors) unto the end of the reign of Theodosius the great, from about An. 316. or 320. until 395.  
It follows in the next verse, the beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven. The beast that was, viz, the Papal state was in respect of the bulk of the Empire, whereof he is a horn. And is not; that is, hath not any present existence in the Apostles time, as the seventh head for the time of that is not yet come. Even he is the eighth, and is of the seventh; that is, he is the eighth, if you make the Christian Emperor one; but is indeed the seventh; for there be but seven heads, and he is but the seventh distinct form of Government, as was observed before.  
Now here lies the argument. It is well towards the end of the 1260. years since the Pope became the head of the Roman Kingdom: ergo, the earthquake that must ruin him and his Kingdom draweth near. To make this appear, we are to know, there were (as some have observed) divers degrees of the fall of that vast body of the Roman Empire. One after the death of Julian the Apostate, about 365. for then the barbarous Nations invaded, and made huge havoc in the Provinces of the Empire. A second was about An. 410. when Rome itself was sacked by Alaricus the Goth, and the Empire dismembered. A third about An. 455. when ten Kings were risen up instead of the Empire.  
Let me take the boldness to interpose one notable one (sometimes suggested out of a learned manuscript) about An. 395. at the death of Theodosius the great: The barbarous Nations had made many attempts before, but were from time to time, especially by his valour, repelled; but upon his death they broke in like a huge inundation, bore down the Empire before them, shivered it into an hundred pieces, so as it never recovered any more.  
This great earth quake was at least sixty years in doing its work for so great a body, as the Empire could not by created humane means be ruined in a short time. And it is very remarkable, both because it made so great a change in the Kingdoms of Europe and Africa, planting them almost universally with new Nations and names; and in specially, because that storm brought our fore fathers into this land, settling here a new Nation and language. It is thirdly also observable, because in it the sixth head of the Roman Monarchy the Emperor, went off and the seventh the Pope came on; only the question is, about which of these times and degrees of the Empire destruction.  
Haply not so high as Julian's death, for the Empire stood in good strength after that for thirty years at least: Nor so low as 455. when it was quite broken, and not long after lost its very name; but somewhere between, viz. either about 410. when Rome itself, the head of the Empire was taken, or rather about An. ●96. when the Empire first began to be ruined, that is, plus minus about 400. years after Christ.  
Even as the seventy years of the Jews captivity, are not to be computed from the 11. of Zedekiah when the City and Temple were taken and burnt and the State dissolved; for from that time there be not sixty years in all, till their return under Cyrus; but they must be reckoned from the captivity of Jehojakim ten or eleven years before; even so, very probably it is here.  
Now if the Beasts reign began about 400. after Christ, then is there above 1240. gone of his 1260. years, so that the ruining earthquake must needs approach. And a man may wonder that so much work should be done in so short a time as seems to be remaining to it throughout Europe, yea, throughout the world, but that the Text tells us it is the greatest earth quake that ever was.  
Object. The sixth head of the Empire continued long after the death of Theodosius the great.  
Not in strength, Answ. 1 but was still more and more broken unto its dissolution.  
It is not absurd to imagine that the sixth head and the seventh might be in some degrees together: For first, it is but a comparison, not like the natural head, of which there can be but one at once, more makes a monster: and truly this Beast is a monster.  
Besides, the Imperial and Papal head did not so thwart and cross one another at first as afterwards they did, so that it might be with them, as Logicians say of contrary qualities, they may consist together in the same subject, gradibus remissis, non intensis, they might both of them have their power, and yet not entrench upon each other.  
Popes at first meddled in a manner only with matters of the Church, as being desirous to settle their ecclesiastical authority; and the Emperors on the other side, almost wholly busied themselves about the civil State to govern and defend the Empire.  
And yet further (which may lessen the absurdity) before that, you should have in the Roman government sometimes as it were, two heads at once; as Consuls, who were for their year; and a Dictator, chosen it may be for three months or six mouths upon some extraordinary exigences and necessities of the State, who was for the time supreme, and namely, in matters of war, as the Consuls were supreme for other civil affairs.  
The earthquake whereby Antichrists Kingdom is to be ruined approaches, or is already entered, as may appear by this second Indice or evidence: Because it is almost 1260. years since the ten Kings began and the Beast began with them, as may appear, Rev. 17.12. The ten horns which thou sawest, are ten Kings, which have received no Kingdom as yet, but received power as Kings one hour with the Beast.  
The ten Kings, are the many Kingdoms that sprang up out of the ruins of the Empire, as the Kingdom of England, the Kingdom of France, the Kingdom of Spain, etc.  
These are called horns aptly, because Antichrist did with them as the Beast doth with his horn (so the Dragon, i. e. the heathen Empire had done before with them whilst they were his horns, Rev. 12.3.) that is, propugne himself, and oppugn his adversaries: For this hath been Antichrists course all along, to push down and gore even to death, for the most part, all those that opposed his idolatries and heresies, in all Nations, by these horns; that is by the Kings and peoples of those Nations, who have given their power and strength to the Beast, Rev. 17.13. and who do generally continue it to the Beast with one mind and consent, making war for him against the Lamb almost all, and that most desperately, unto this day.  
Which have received no Kingdom as yet. For when the Apostle wrote, there were no su●h Kings, in rerum natura, or existent in the world, as the King of England. the King of France, etc. These Kingdoms than were horns of the Dragon, i. e. Provinces of the Empire, and therefore in the description of the Dragon Rev. 12.3. the Crowns are not said to be upon the horns, that is, upon the Kingdoms, who had then no Kings of their own, but upon the heads, that is, upon the imperial head at Rome; as for instance, this Land Britain, was in the Apostles time a Province or Kingdom, but it had no King of its own and so no Crown; that was upon the head of the Emperor at Rome, and he had supreme power over this Islrnd; but whenas these Kingdames became the horns of the Beast, they came also to have peculiar Kings of their own; England had and hath its King, France its King, etc. And therefore in the description of the Beast the Crowns are not said to be upon the heads, but upon the horns; upon his horns ten crowns, Revel. 13.1.  
But received power as Kings one hour with the Beast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is, the Kings and the Beast began their reign together. Now the Kings and Kingdoms began to arise about An. 400. after Christ, when the Empire began to be destroyed; haply some of them a little before; for they had begun to break the Empire four or five years before, and therefore might then begin to be called Kings (for God looks at (and so are we to look at) realities.) The Histories indeed do not speak much of them under the name and notion of Kings until after 400. or 410. but the Histories are very confused, and no wonder, for those were times of most strange confusion.  
The Beast is said to begin with them at one and the same hour, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or as the word may be interpreted the first hour; the word in the Greek text that signifies one (as all that have any smattering in that language know) signifies also, first; and so it may be interpreted, that the Beast began to rise the very first hour the Kings began to rise; rather than the first hour after they were risen, for therein is a difference of many years, it being almost sixty years from the first breaking of the Empire, before ten Kingdoms were set up in it. That the word that is here translated one, is used also to signify first, we may see in many instances, as in that for one, Luke 24.1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which is word for word one day of the Sabbaths or week; but is generally rendered (and so the meaning is) the first day of the week the women came to the Sepulchre. Now if the Kings and the Beast began their reign together so long since, as about An. 400. plus minus; then is the earth quake that is to ruin him, and them also if they persist in his service, (Dan. 2.44 45. Rev 19, 18, 19 etc.) near at hand.  
Qu. Quest. What reason have we to think that the Pope about that time began to be the great Antichrist.  
Ans. Answ. For answer: We are to know that there are two particular characters of the Beast, as some Divines have observed out of the text, the former the cause of the later, viz. 1. Blasphemy; for he is full of names of blasphemy, Rev. 17.3. by which understand heresy and Idolatry. 2. cruelty, for he is a skarlet-coloured hest, and makes war with the Saints, ibid. & ch. 13.7. But both these flow from an higher principle, which is (as I may say) proprium quarti modi, and a more convertible character of the beast, and that is his primacy or supremacy: This supremacy hath in it two things that make it up; one is a claiming of authority over the consciences of men, and so over their faith and worship; secondly the extending of this power to all Churches in all Nations.  
I will not say that these two are the same thing, nor that they issue both from one and the same root; but surely this I may say, they are near a kin & have their roots not fare asunder, because they are generally still found in one and the self same person.  
That both these meet in the grand Antichrist will appear.  
First, he arrogates authority over the soul; so much I take to be intimated in those words of Daniel speaking of him, Dan. 7.25 He shall speak great words against the most high, and think to change times and laws; that he shall arrogate power to himself to change God's laws, as in coining and altering Articles of Faith, apointing worship for God, etc. high words, great words against God; so the Apostle, 2 Thes. 2.4. He as God sits in the Temple of God, showing himself that he is God. How does he that? viz. by Lording it over the consciences of God's people as if he were God, and thereby he deprives Christ of one of the principal Flowers of his Crown, which is to have dominion over the Faith: see more for this. Rev. 13.5 6.15, 16.  
Secondly, the great Antichrist is to extend this power, at least, presumptively and intentionally where he cannot do it actually over all Kindred's, Tongues and Nations, Rev. 13.7.  
It is Antichristian to claim such authority, though but over one man, or one Church; It is more Antichristian to claim such authority over many Churches, as the hierarchical Bishop useth to do; it is yet more Antichristian to claim this authority over whole Provinces as the hierarchical Archbishop useth to do; it is yet still more Antichristian to claim it over many Provinces & Kingdoms, as the hierarchical Patriarch useth to do; but yet all these do not amount to the grand Antichrist, why? because there may be a greater; but now he that claims such sovereignty over all the Churches of the world is the grand Antichrist indeed, for there can be no greater.  
Now, this the Pope doth; yea, that he may be sure to challenge as large a Dominion as Christ hath, he doth not only arrogate authority over all the world, but also in heaven and hell where Christ hath power, yea, even in purgatory where Christ hath no power.  
He that shall but look upon the sentence condemnatory, of Pope Leo the tenth, in his his Bull against Luther, will find this true; wherein he doth not labour to convince Luther of error, by solid demonstrations out of the Word of God, but mainly because his doctrine was contrary to the decrees of Popes, etc. He doth also charge and command all Patriarches, Metropolitans, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and all other ecclesiastical orders downwards, even to the begging Friars, and then all Kings, Electors of the Empire, Princes, Dukes, and so on; and at last, all men throughout the Universal world (the very voice, proper, and native language of the grand Antichrist) upon pain of the great Excommunication, that they do not embrace Luther's doctrine, nor adhere to, or favour his person.  
Now the Popes have challenged this supremacy in some degrees, for above these 1240. years: Not to speak of their claiming the title of universal Bishop, nor yet their assuming the title of Pontifex Maximus, the name of the chief heathenish Priest among the Romans, which dignity many of the Emperors had annexed to their imperial greatness, (which Gratian the Emperor first renounced about An. 380. and the rest after him) they did about that time plainly arrogate and usurp a judiciary power over the Churches: To omit their authoritative excommunications, some whereof had been long before; they did then claim this Prerogative, that appeals aught to be made to the Bishop of Rome from all Churches, and he to give the last definitive sentence; yea, so zealous were they about this that An. 418. and 419. three Popes Zosimus, Boniface, Celestine, did in the sixth Council of Carthage, in which St. Augustine was present, in the Cause of one Appiarius, who had appealed out of Africa unto Rome (as many had done before) not only challenge the receiving of Appellations from all Churches, but also forge a decree of the great Council of Nice, which had been almost an hundred years before to support it. This was by the Fathers of the Synod indeed then rejected, and the pretended Canon found to be forged and spurious: Yet was this as a right, by the Popes then challenged. I never think upon these things, but methinks I see the grand Antichrist, as a great big Embryo, swelling in the womb, ready to come forth, or rather, as a child lately borne lying in his cradle; so that it is probable, if not more then probable, that between 390. and 420. Antichrist began.  
Daniel speaking of these horns, Object. intimates that the little horn Antichrist, that grew so great, should come up after the rest, Dan. 7.24.  
He speaks as it was in his perception and observation, Answ. the little horn r●se with the rest, but he did not nocdiscerne it, Answ. until he considered the horns as it were with a prying eye, ver. 8. and as it was in the Virion, so it was in the accomplishment indeed; he risen imperceptibly, because the world mistook what manner of creature he should be.  
No: we may rather suspect that Antichrist was up before the Kings, the Papacy having such strange appearances of ●im, before any of the Kings sprang up; and so some read those words, Rev. 17.12. they received power as Kings one hour (not with the Beast) but after the Beast, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
The two Witnesses spoken of, Object. Rev. 11. are not yet slain by the Beast, neither is his triumph over them for three days and a half past, and therefore the Beasts ruin cannot be so near.  
Before I give a direct answer, Answ. I must premise a few things.  
First, two were the least sufficient number in the law, that could convincingly bear witness unto any thing; and so by the two Witnesses here I understand not any two singular persons only, that either are or have been, for (I take it) that cannot consist with the Text; but in that number I include, all those whom God hath raised up, whether Ministers or others (though chief Ministers) to bear witness to his Truth, and to sustain his Cause against Antichrist and his gentiles.  
That the number of them should be the least sufficient number, as it were but two; no more than might merely suffice to hold out God's truth a little to the world: so few, that though haply you might hear in a Country of some few that rejected the common tenants as of Justification by Works, the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass etc. yet you should scarce learn how to find out one of them; if they appeared, the Beast and his agents presently shaped them up; therefore the woman and her children lived in the wilderness all Antichrists reign, Reve. 12.6.14. and the Prophets Prophesied in sackcloth, Rev. 11.3.  
Towards the end of Antichrists reign, the everlasting Gospel going forth should bring a great harvest to God, 
Rev. 14.6.15.  and mightily increase the number of the witnesses.  
The term and duration of their witness-bearing to the truth must be of as long continuance, as Antichrists opposing it, viz. 1260. days or years; and therefore these witnesses cannot be understood o● any two individual persons.  
I assent to them that understand the slaughter of the witnesses civilly, that is they are to be slain as Prophets, viz. put out of their direct way of witnessing, as suppose by Preaching, Printing, etc. but not always as men, that is to be put to death, at least in a judiciary way of proceeding; (for they are to be killed, but not buried.) Rev. 11.9. The enemies have given over that way of persecuting the Prophets generally, for a good space a matter of sixty or seventy years, you shall not (I believe) find many examples within that space of God's servants called before tribunals accused for their doctrine and worship, formally Sentenced unto death, and the sentence executed, which was the adversaries general way of proceeding in former times; haply some few examples may be found, like a few drops of rain falling after a great shower. They have forborn this course, not our of any love or compassion unto the people of God, but meetly because they durst not, as hath been said before; and also because they found by proof, that this course praejudiced their cause, sanguis Martyrum semen Ecclesiae: the blood of the Martyrs, being the seed of the Church. Not to speak of this, that the Prophets hereby in the enemies, intention, were more exposed to contempt, their bodies lying dead in the street, Rev. 11.8. like despised broken idols in whom there was no pleasure.  
These things being praemised I come to answer the Objection.  
It is probable at least, that this last slaughter of the Prophets, Answ. and the Beast with his Gentiles triumphing over them for three days and a half, by which (according to the former exposition) we may understand three ●●ares and a half is already past and gone though but lately. Because that of late years, there hath been such a slaughter of the Prophets, throughout almost all the Nations of Europe, and such a term of Antichrists triumph.  
In the year 1618. began the devastation of the Churches in Bohemia, the same fire presently takes hold upon the Provinces thereof, Moravia, Silesia, Lusatia; proceeds to Austria and Hungaria, flies over also to the Palatinate, and so by degrees wastes all the Provinces of broad and wide Germany, killing the Witnesses generally in them all.  
An. 1621. the storm assails the Churches of France, and though by certain intervals and spaces between, overcomes them and the Witnesses in them. And though by the Providence of God they have some, yet (I take it) but a very precariall liberty, unto this very day.  
Very lately the Witnesses have been overcome and slain in Polonia, so that a very few years ago, the Gospel was preached publicly but only in two places in all those vast Dominions.  
Last of all, came in the slaughter of the Witnesses in our Churches of England, Scotland and Ireland, and (as it is probable) was brought to its period and perfection, when the three precious witnesses of Christ were so outrageously sentenced, had their ears cut off, and were afterwards most unjustly and strangely exiled. The enemies then accounted themselves to have obtained a complete victory, and so began their Song of triumph. For I doubt not, but this fact of theirs was in the enemy's sense, an universal signal to all the Popish world that the day was theirs, and a perfect victory gotten; every place was filled with their rejoicings.  
Now, after that three days and an half; that is, just three years and an half, in a manner from the slaughter of those three witnesses, were past; by the means of this happy Parliament, as by a voice from heaven, the Prophets begin to arise again as from the dead, and among them those three servants of God, and an earthquake gins to shake the enemies in all these three Kingdoms; and no doubt will proceed further.  
Neither let any man despise this, for the Beasts triumph for three days and a half: whensoever it comes, is necessarily to be computed and aestimated, not from the end of the slaughter in all the Churches, but from the slaughter that shall be in that Church, wherein the Prophets shall be last slain, which very probably was our Church. Neither can we imagine it to be otherwise, unless we should surmise the slaughter of the Prophets to end in all the Churches at once; which considering the work is to be done in so many several States and Nations, is hardly possible. Besides, the Beast hath insulted longer than three years and an half over the Witnesses that were first slain in other Churches; but the Text speaks of his general triumph, which could not be, until he had overcome his adversaries in all the Churches generally: and the Prophet's resurrection is but yet, as it were in its very beginning; for they still lie slain in most of the Churches.  
The witnesses of some Churches have escaped; as of Holland, Object. Switzerland Geneva, etc.  
They have been slain all over the greatest, Answ. 1 largest and most famous Churches, as hath been declared.  
It is unknown to me how the Prophets have been used in those Churches, at least, in a great part: though I know they have been used badly enough. But it will not follow, we know it not, therefore it hath not been.  
To which answer I will stick, the Beast was to kill the Witnesses indefinitely set down, Rom. 11.7. that is, generally, but not universally. It is no where said he shall kill all and singular that bear witness to the truth; the text tells us, Exod. 9.6. that all the cattles of Egypt died of the Murrain, but yet if we read on to the 20. verse, when the plague of the Hail was threatened, we shall find the Egyptians that feared the word of the Lord, driving their cattles into their houses; by which it appears that all and singular of the cattles d●ed not of the Murrain, but the cattles generally, or the cattles of all kinds. The Pharisees said, the world was gone after our Saviour, joh. 12.19. when as yet the hundred thousand part of the world did not believe on him then; but the meaning is the people of the Countries round about flocked after him: so here the Prophets were slain generally, on for the most part, not universally.  
The Prophets do yet Prophesy in sackcloth; ergo, Object. this slaughter and triumph is not past.  
Whether this slaughter be past or to come, Answ. certain it is by the Text, that the Prophets shall prophesy in sackcloth, after it be both come and gone, even until the Beasts dying day, for he and they are contemporanyes, as hath been mentioned before; their prophesying in sackcloth and his reign, as they began together, so they must end together: So long as he lives he will push with the horn and spurn with the heel, and woe to them that stand near him: By the mercy of God and the means of this Parliament, the Prophets here are a little staggered up upon their feet, but one of the Beasts fillips would throw them down again. Can but he reach them either with one of his armed horns or hierarchical heels, which he mainly endeavours, they were gone.  
A mistake concerning the two Witnesses, may peradventure make us look for the earthquake that shall ruin the Beast's Kingdom as a thing a fare off, when yet ourselves may be in the midst of it.  
The fifth Vial is not poured, Object. for that is to be upon the seat of the Beast, that is Rome, whereby his Kingdom becomes full of darkness, that is, Rome is destroyed, Rev. 16.10. therefore it is in vain to think upon the earthquake that is to ruin the Beast's Kingdom, which comes not till the seventh Vial be poured out.  
For answer, Answ. 1 I acknowledge Rome to be the seat of the Beast, and that darkness is often put for affliction and misery; but I deny the darkening of the Beasts Kingdom there spoken of to be the destruction of Rome; there be degrees of darkness and misery inferior to destruction: Is not Rome darkened in her reputation, and so the Beasts Kingdom? How many thousands, yea millions be there that deny her to be the mistress of the Faith and the mother of all Churches? that account her the mother of harlots? that contemn her decrees, & c? Is not she darkened in her revenues, when as so many Nations have withdrawn their supplies from her, which were formerly swallowed up in her as in a deep gulf?  
If Rome be destroyed under the fifth Vial, this difficulty or absurdity will follow; then have ye Babylon the great to destroy under the seventh Vial, Rev. 16.19. whereas Babylon the great in all other places of the book of the Revelations, is constantly put for Rome.  
The fixed Vial is not poured upon the river Euphrates, Object. which must be before the earthquake come under the seventh, Kev. 16.12. etc. Answ. 1  
I must here deprecate the offence of many worthy & earned men, if lassent not to their expositions of that Vial. It shall suffice in a few words, to give that which is to me more than probable the sense thereof. The river Euphrates running through the midst of the world between the farthest west and uttermost east, hath b●en for many ages a kind of Landmark, to separate the western Nations from the eastern so that they have had little communion one with another. Now this impedimentall River hath been dried up ever since these Navigations & Voyages have been found out into the Indies and other oriental parts. Whereupon the Beast finding himself mortally wounded here in the west hath as it follows in the text by the unclean spirits his emissaries by which I understand not only Jesuits and others that are Papists by profession, but all Antichrists Agents though cloaked under the name of Protestants with infinite, strange, and uncouth wiles, and wonders laboured to involve not only the Kings and Kingdoms of these parts of the world, but even of the east also into Hormageddon that is a cursed war, as hath been said before. This feat the Frogs have most efficaciously wrought for him in these parts of the world as every observing eye may abundantly see; and although the Papists do frequently lie in their reports of the east, yet certain it is that they have made many Countries and States there, one way or other more or less obnoxious to the Pope, as either to submit and acknowledge him, as those of Japan etc. are said to do: or to oppugn his enemies as the Persian to assail the Turk, whilst they are accomplishing their designs here in the west; or at least by way of Merchandise and traffic to be subservient to their supply; so that notwithstanding any thing in these two Vials the earthquake may be at hand. And let us beware, that mistakes about them, do not make us put the earthquake further off then indeed it is to our own detriment and prejudice.  
The Uses are of two sorts; some directing us what to do in respect of the public, others concern our own particulars.  
For the public, every one should assist the Lord in his place, in shaking down the Kingdom of Antichrist and all his supporters.  
Object. The Church will be shaken too.  
True, Answ. but it will not be shaken down by the earthquake, but better rooted and settled.  
Now that we may assist the Lord in this work, three things are to be done.  
We must shake the Kingdom of the Beast by the Word, Use 2 this is to be done by all the Saints, especially by the Ministers of the Churches, and by them authoritatively: Every true Christian hath the Word of truth dwelling in his heart; as for instance, the doctrine of God's free grace in Christ for a man's justification and salvation, the foundation upon which the Church is built; that God is to be purely worshipped in spirit and truth according to his own prescriptions, and such like; by these truths he can detect and discover many blasphemies of the Beast and foedities of the Whore, as justification by works, the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass, etc. Yea, not only discover them, but in an holy zeal deno●unce grievous judgements against the authors and fomenter of them, according to the Word.  
These doctrines and denunciations thus breathed out, will prove even a sword of the Spirit (for so they are being put into man's spirit by the Holy-Ghost) to cut and kill, slash and slay the Antichristian generation, see Revel. 2.16. & 19.21. Yea, not only a sword to kill the enemy that stands near, but an arrow also to kill the enemy that stands a fare off, Psal. 149.6, 7, 8, 9 an axe to hue down, Hosea 6.5. Mat. 3.10. a wine cup of fury which they shall be forced to drink, and then grow mad, spew and fall, and rise no more, Jer. 25.15, 16.27, 28. Lastly, this Word shall be a fire to burn them up, and they shall be as wood to it, and it shall devour them, Jer. 5.14. For God will execute upon them the judgements threatened: It shall be an hot even to the wicked and proud, and they shall be as stubble, easily and utterly burnt, so it shall leave them neither root nor branch, Mal. 4.1. This fiery weapon of the Word, is one of those wherewith the poor sackcloath-Prophets have defended themselves against Antichrist and his gentiles, all his long reign, and wherewith they have offended them, Rev. 11.5. and therefore still proper to be used against him the great wild Beast; for fire they say is the best weapon, and of most excellent use against wild Beasts: Breathe out therefore this fire of the Word into their faces; run with these flaming torches, and thrust them into the dry thatch of Antichrists house that will set all on a light fire; it hath done it in a great measure already, the enemies feel the heat thereof to their great pain, Rev. 16.2.9, 10, 11. They cast on all the cold water that hell can afford them to quench it, as cruelties treacheries, but every thing proves oil to increase the flame; this Word at last will prove unto them unquenchable fire utterly to consume them.  
Shake the Beasts Kingdom by prayer; Use 2 David shook Saul and all his enemies down by this means, see Psal. 18.6.7, 8. compared with the title of the Psalm, which David composed when the Lord had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul; In my distress (saith he) I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God, he heard my voice out of his holy temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears. Then the earth shaken and trembled, the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. God upon david's cry laid about him, and overthrew all his adversaries; for the more the Saints pray, the more they accelerate plagues upon their wicked enemies, which is often the means of the Saints deliverance.  
By this the two Witnesses did shut the heavens against the Antichristian brood, Rev. 11.6. And therefore our fight being with their army's, we are to be instant in prayer against them, that is a weapon they have no skill at; they can blaspheme and curse, etc. but not pray. Moses and Eliah (to whom that text alludes) by this weopon and the Word, overcame whole Nations alone. Moses did but speak to God, spreading out his hands, and then as a God could tell Pharaoh, that a plague would come, to morrow shall be such a plague or to morrow shall such a plague be removed. Eliah could but pray to the Lord, that it might not rain and then confidently tell Ahab, that there should be no rain but according to his word. 1 King. 17.1.  
Open therefore (O you servants of the Lord) the heavens by this Key; open Gods Armoury, and get from thence the best days for the Church, the help of God the Father, the Mediation of the Son, the Spirit of strength, the assistance of Angels, Seas, rivers, winds, etc. get from thence wisdom, courage, stratagems, success; shut the heavens against the enemies that they may not get one good look from thence; not so much as one arrow, but if they have any plot in hand, get the heavens open for wisdom to discover it; if any enterprise, get from thence power to defeat it; make it appear to the enemies that God's people have power with God.  
Execute judgement for God, Use 3 every one as fare as his power will stretch. First, do judgement upon thine own self for thy sins, in all ways of godly revenge, as by Fasting etc. Sing mercy and judgement to thy Family, as David Psa. 101. Do thy best that judgement that hath been turned into Wormwood and Hemlock, may run down like a mighty stream, in public; and where thy hand cannot reach a blow, or cast a stone at an idolater, blasphemer, persecutor, etc. let thy heart at least do it. For if a man's consenting to, or approving of an act of injustice may inguilt h●m, as I may say, in it; as it was with the Jews, whose state was ruined for kill Christ and the Prophets, though most part of them had never seen any of them, Mat. 23.37. why may not a man's executing judgement, with his heart, when he can proceed no further, be accepted, in respect of him, for an act of justice, by him that is pleased both in good and evil actions, to accept the will for the deed?  
This duty is principally incumbent upon the Magistrate, who is to execute the judgement of the Lord, not arbitrarily as himself pleaseth; but according to the rule of the Word, both for matter and manner.  
For the Matter man hath no warrant either to leave gross and horrid sins unpunished in the committers of them; such as are the ringleaders in idolatry and persecution; nor yet to commute or change the nature of the punishment. As (by the way) I question, whether a pecuniary mulct, especially if it be alone, be a proper punishment for a sweater, or blasphemer; but it rather ought to be personal. And here I cannot choose but with grief take notice of a miserable failing in our first Reformation, that the Maise priests were suffered still to continue in their places; for he that had said or sung Mass the last Lord's day (and if he were a Preacher had Preached for Popery) if he would but take the new Oath of Supremacy and read the Service-Booke this Lordsday, was accounted a sufficient reformist a●d admitted to the Ministry. So that of twenty thousand Prelates and Priest's at least in England and Ireland, very few were cast out of their places, and searce any of them (unless it were Boner) for any thing they had done. Oh woeful! (I confess I think the State did then want due information in that point. But this hath been one thing that hath undone the Church, viz. those that have all along and do still infest the Church I mean the wicked and superstitious Clergy being their natural, genuine and proper posterity. Let not such a sin therefore lie any longer upon the State; out (therefore worthy Senators) with all the generation of erroneous Teachers, Altar-worshippers &c, and profane ones, that have made so many abhor the Offerings of the Lord. If any Object, that the Church will then be destitute of Pastors. I answer: I know no warrant at all that there is to put or keep such Wolves among God's flock. Secondly, that a thousand or two of goldly and able men well distributed, if the other were out, might by God's blessing do more good by far, then now do all the Ministers in England.  
Nay, I take it to be an absolute duty of them that have power to eject them, (besides, what may be said otherwise) even by the equity and analogy of that Text, Ezek. 44.10, 12, 13. The Levites that are gone away fare from me, which went astray from me after their idols, they shall even bear their iniquity; because they ministered unto them before their idols, and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity, therefore have I lifted up my hand against them, saith the Lord God (i. e. I have sworn against them as most high transgressors, and so will not reverse it) and they shall bear their iniquity. And they shall not come near unto me, to do the office of a Priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my holy things in the most holy place: but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed.  
Besides punishments should be aggravated according to the aggravation of the sin or sins. The most capital offender can but be put to death; but when the guilt is transcendently heinous, it ought to be with such circumstances and expressions, as may make it appear that the Judge or Magistrate hath a do sense of that heinousness, and would reach it in the punishment, if it were possible. All Israel were to stone Achan, and to raise over him a great heap of stones, Jos. 7.25, 26. Now if this be so, I wonder what punishment will be found out suitable to the crimes of some malefactors now in question, who have wickedly endeavoured to seduce many whole Kingdoms quite to suppress and extinguish true Religion in them (if not throughout the world) who have proudly trampled upon all laws and estates, being undoubtedly, if all things were laid together, of the greatest if not absolutely the greatest transgressors that ever were since men were upon the earth.  
For the Manner, the Word requires that judgement be executed with the spirit of justice or judgement; of which the Text speaks Isa. 28.6. In hatred of sin, love of God, Zeal for his glory, as Phenehas did; orherwise, if you punish a Malefactor with death, who hath deserved it instead of taking away an old murder, you add a new and shall be punished accordingly, judgement ought to return to justice, Psal. 94.15.  
We have two remarkable examples in the Scriptures worthy to be taken notice of by all that are in authority, of two Kings that were both rewarded and punished for the very same thing.  
Baasha destroyed Nadab and the house of Jeroboam, Jehu destroyed Jehoram, Jezabel and the whole house of Ahab; both of them had the Kingdom of Israel for their pains; and yet for these very acts, both their Families and Posterities were destroyed. Baasha because he killed him, viz. Nadab, 1 Kin. 16.7. and so I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, saith the Lord, Hos. 1.4. And so it came to pass, as may be seen in both their Histories; What was the cause, was there equity in this? Yes: the thing done was just, to punish these idolatrous Families; but the manner of doing it utterly displeased God, because it was not done in the love of justice, etc. and so in respect of God; but out of spleen and ambition to get the Kingdom: That it was not done by either of them as an act of justice appeared, in that they both continued in the sins of Jeroboam, which they seemed to punish, 1 Kin. 15.34. 2 Kin. 10.29. For that Magistrate or man that lives openly in the sin he punisheth in another, cannot do it as an act of justice, and so doth not please God; not to speak of this, that he that punisheth one sin, as suppose theft, because God would have it punished, and so doth it as an act of justice, will also for the very same reason punish another sin as much or more odious to God, as blasphemy, swearing, idolatry, if his arm be strong enough and long enough to reach the Offenders, which very thing may put (I fear) some suspicion sometimes upon our public justice, in matter of theft. etc. and makes it questionable, whether it be done out of right principles, as because it is sin against God, and punishable by his Word, or only because man is trespassed, or no; which if it be so the very laws herein ought to be reform.  
I will not insist upon this that judgement ought to be executed roundly and speedily (though protracting of it often takes off a great part of the edge of justice:) but I urge the doing of it in the manner before spoken.  
Give me leave for a conclusion of this point, to add these two Motives, for ensorcing the duty.  
This execution of judgement is one of the best means in the world to expiate if I may so say, the old sins of a Nation; as namely, the old idolatries and persecutions, in which kinds our Land is infinitely guilty. For besides universal strange and long continued idolatries, there is scarce any Nation under the Sun, if any at all, that can equal ours in the slaughter of so many. Saints in a formal, judiciary way. Now if so be you would take the guilt of these away from the Nation, as there ought to be a Nationall confession and reformation of them, and strong application of Christ's blood, by prayer of faith for atonement, represented by the elders killing of the Heifer for the expiation of an unknown murder, Deut. 21.4. so there must be execution of judgement upon the slaughteters of the Saints. For if the blood of one man, and he a wicked man, unjustly shed, will bring sin upon an whole Nation, till it be done away by the blood of him that shed it, as we may see Numb. 35.33. How much more will the blood of so many holy Martyrs cruelly slain for Christ's sake. ●nguilt our Nation; no, assuredly God will cleanse the blood that he hath not cleansed. Now (right Honourable) because you cannot reach the old persecutors, do justice upon their successors that have revived all their sins.  
This is of special moment to stay a plague; Phinehas executed judgement and the plague was stayed, Numb. 25. Psal. 106.50. Search (saith the Lord) and see if you can find a man in Jerusalem that executes judgement and I will spare it, Jer. 5 10. Josh. 7.25, 26. Hate the evil, love the good, and execute ●udgement in the ga●e; it may be the Lord will be good to the remnant of Joseph, Am●s 5.15. This doth (as it were) make the gap up against God's wrath: Let judgement therefore run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream, Amos 5.24. If you would not have God execute judgement upon us all (for when men fail to do it, God at last will do it) then do you execute judgement for the Lord.  
There be other Uses to be made of this doctrine, that concern nor selves, that we may be fitted and prepared for such a storm and earth quake and find mercy in it: as,  
God having revealed and threatened it we trust believe it; 
〈…〉  I say believe it▪ I say again cordially believe it. This I count a point of highest importance; the true and diligent use of all other means depending thereupon. This faith will breed fear (for as faith in a promise will breed confidence, so faith in a threatening will breed fear) and fear will put a man upon the strong use of all means of prevention of a plague, or of provision against it. The true reason why wicked men do not fear divine comminations, and so why they forsake not sin, embrace not Christ, nor use other means of escaping, is because they believe them not: For were they cordially persuaded of the certainty of the threats of the Word they durst not continue in sin, and affront Heaven as they do: And the reason why they believe not the threats of the Word, is the Atheism of their hearts, making them deny God's holiness, justice, etc. to make a slight matter of sin and of the Word forbidding and threatening sin; they will believe its threaten when they see them, Isa. 5.19. as we heard before.  
I had once thought to have passed by this point, because that whereas the Prudent man hath long ago foreseen the plague in sin deserving in the Word denouncing it, and otherwise; the Tool now gins to see it. But I revoked myself, and now put it in the ●●ont of these duties, considering that the fools faith coming by sight and sense, if there be no more added to it, ne●er doth any good. N●ab believed upon hearing and feared things of which there was ●o sight to be had as yet, and so using means escaped, Heb. 11.7. whereas the unbelieving world perished, Gen. ●. t●e like we may see in Lot his sons in law and the Sodomites, Gen. 19 ●e●shazzer was so fare from believing the threats of the God of Israel against Babylon and his promises for delivering his people by Cyrus our of the Babylomans' hands; which promises he knew had encouraged Cyrus, as that he did of purpose make an impious feast when his City was besieged, in contempt of God profaned the Vessels brought from Jerusalem, praised the Gods of silver and gold, wood and stone, above the true God of Israel (as Daniel accuseth him,) as one who could not save his own Temple and Vessels out of his Grandfather Nebuchadnezzar's hands; but whilst he was in the midst of his profane jollity, suddenly appears the hand-writing upon the wall against him, that put him into a desperate fear, that night was he slain, his City taken, his Empire destroyed and ended.  
Behold here the terrible effects of this Atheistical unbelief and contempt of the denunciations of the Word. Believe we therefore the threats of the Word: To speak the truth, this act of faith in believing threats goes before, and that not only in nature, but in time also, the act of believing promises. He that slights sin, will slight Christ; he that apprehends not the severity of God against sin, set down in the prohibitions and commnations of the law, will hardly ever, or not at all hearty embrace Christ set forth in the promises of the Gospel.  
Be upright in thy generation, and walk with God, thus did Noah and so escaped the flood, Gen. 6.9. & 7.1. Thou shalt enter into the Ark (saith God) for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. When great storms were coming upon the world, and all the four winds were ready to break out for the ruin of all; the Lord gives special charge to the Angels that had the command of the winds, that they do not let one puff or breath go out to do the least hurt, till the servants of God were sealed in their foreheads, Rev. 7.1, 2, 3. etc. God remembers them when he makes up his Jewels, and will spare them as a man spareth his son that serveth him, Malipiero 3.16, 17. Though the tribulation be never so great, yet thy people shall be delivered, saith the Lord to Daniel, even every one that is found written in the Book, Dan. 12.1. for God will ever preserve a holy Seed of Saints unto himself, Isa. 6.13.  
A man must be a mourner in Ston, one that laments first his own sins and truly endeavours to forsake them, hen the sins of others; the horrible profaneness, licentiousness, blasphemies, idolatries, heresies of the the times; Such an one was Lot, who vexed his righteous soul in seeing and hearing of the sins of the Sodomites, 2 Pet. 2.8. and when they perished he was delivered. Thus the Lord causeth one with a writer's Inkhorn by his side, to set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations that are done in the midst of Jerusalem when he was about to destroy it, Ezek 9.4. Because Josiahs' heart melted when he heard of the severe denunciat●ons of God's anger against the Land for the sins thereof; therefore had he a special promise made him of being gathered to his fathers in peace, before those judgements should be executed 2 Chron. 34.27 28.  
Contest and contend for God, for his pure Word, doctrine of Faith, pure worship and ways: against the world. He that is for God in a time of public defection. God will be for him in a time of public destruction.  
Caleb f●llowed the Lord fully as it was in his heart, and stood against the ten false Spies that brought up an ill report upon the land ●f promise, and against all the people that took part with them; and therefore when six hundred thousand of these Murmurers fell in the wilderness he only with Joshuah escaped that storm and entered into the Lord's inheritance, Numb. 14.24. Josh. 14.6, 7, 8 etc.  
Memorable examples hereof we have in Eliah and jeremy. In Eliahs' days the people of Israel forsook God's Covenant, threw down his Altar's, stoned his Pro●h●s by heaps and hundreds: now, did this make him comply with them and fall into the stream? No: he was therefore the more zealous for God, all full or fury and zeal for God, 1 King. 19.10. Well, what became o● this Eliah if we do but read 2 K●n. 2. we shall find, that when Ahab was slain, and his Army destroyed he was sent for up by a fiery hartot into heaven.  
jeremy was a man that stood for God in his time against all men, against the Kings, Princes, Priests Prophets and people of judah, they mightily opposed, and maliciously persecuted him; he was even weary of his life; they reviled slatidered him, whipped stocked, imprisoned him, laid him in fetters and almost starved him; he was brought to that extremity, that sometimes he wished he had in the Wilderness, a Cottage for way-fa●ring men, that he might never come among them, that his head were a fountain of tears, that he might weep abundantly for their pride, etc. Sometimes, that he had never been borne; he cries out that he was deceived, and that God had deceived him; for when he was sent to them armed with God's commission, he thought every one would have stooped to his Message, but he found all contrary; (God often makes use of his Servants and Ministers to such purposes as they think not of) but yet he constantly held it out for God to the end, as his History showeth. What was the issue? At last, when the City was taken, all the great Princes and Priests shine, and the Nation captivated, the King of Babylon's chief Captain takes him out of prison, knocks off his fetters that the Jews had put upon him, sets him at liberty, offers him his choice whether he would go to Babylon, with promise of all kind usage there or stay in the Land of Judah, tells him the whole I and was before him, gives him a reward and so dismisseth him. Now who but Jeremy? how glad would Zedekiah the King have been, if but half this kindness had been offered to him? Well, let us remember to practise this duty.  
May not a godly man be taken away in a public calamity? Quest.  
The main thing the Lord aims at, Answ. 1 is the preservation of the body of the Church, an holy seed, Isa. 6.13. and he writes them that shall escape down in his book, Dan. 12.1. For however the Church consists of individuals, yet this, or that, or many singular persons may be taken away, and yet the Church be preserved.  
Every Christian shall be preserved until he hath finished the work the Lord hath given him to do; but when that is done, God may take him off from his station in such a way as he may best glorify God; yet so as generally there is some mark of mercy upon him, as he is either taken away before, or in the beginning of a storm, as Josiah was, and they, Isa. 57.1. Or Secondly, he sometimes survives it, as Daniel did, who outlived the whole time of the captivity, and long after, and that in mu●h honour. Or thirdly, he is taken away in an ordinary manner, as no doubt, many godly ones were during the seventy years of the captivity of Babylon, Or fourthly, he is taken away in a way of testimony, as Jeremy; who, as it is reported, was stoned by the Jews in Egypt. And so the Disciples and Apostles of our Saviour, who although they had power over Scorpions, Lions, poison, du●ing the term of their Testimony; yet at length were taken away, and did glorify God by violent deaths for their Testimonies sakes. Unto this may be referred the sufferings and deaths of the Saints, now under the merciless cruelties of the Cavalleeres for Religion's sake. Or fifthly, in propugning the Cause of God, in a general combustion, which when it is undertaken out of love to the Truth, it is an high honour to a C●ristian to lose his life in the quarrel. Usually in such times, God puts glory upon his Saints, and makes their deaths which are precious in his sight to be honourable: But most of all, if they have been great mourners in Zion, and contesters for him. And if he have further use of them, he doth continue them, yea, and sometimes strengthens their faith with confidence that it shall be so, Psal. 91. However, the godly are but taken out of this vale of tears, and brought to eternal bliss in his Kingdom of glory.  
Seek meekness, quietly and humbly to submit to the common calamity when it cometh, Zeph. 2.3. To which purpose it will be available to admit into our thought these considerations.  
That God is the Author of the calamity; whatsoever evil is done God doth it: That stopped David's mouth, Psal. 39.9. He hath absolute sovereignty over men, he is greater than man; why should we contend with him, for he gives no account of his doing, Job 33.12, 13. Would it not be a brave sight to see man sitting upon the Bench as a Judge, and God summoned to stand at the Bar as a Delinquent holding up his hand, and man to pass censure and sentence upon his actions, out of his own shallow conceptions, and irregular affections?  
That God's will is the rule of justice; it is therefore just because he wils it, and does it.  
He that hath many reasons in the bottomless Abyss of his Counsels that we see not, we are not able to sound to the bottom of it, nor to fathom his do; and sometimes they are such as are not fit for us to know.  
That sin deserveth worse than any plague or earthquake God sends upon the world, Ezra 9.13.  
That sin itself is the worst of all plagues, and so to be esteemed.  
If the heart be thoroughly humbled for sin, it will accept of any outward punishment; see Levit. 26.41. and David's example, who meekly submitted to the cursing of Shimei, 2 Sam. 16.10 11, 12. he being then in the very act of repentance for his great sins of murder and adultery, which God was even then also actually visiting upon him in the unnatural rebellion of Abselom, according as he had threatened, 2 Sam. 12.11. The man that is thoroughly grieved for the idolatry, heresy, profaneness, and lukewarmness of our times, will think any outward evil easier than those sins, and will be contented to submit to sword, or any other plague, even to the burying of a great part of the Nation under the earth, provided that they may be removed.  
That all outward evils shall turn to the Churches and Saints good in the end, Rom. 8.28. A thing that we now come to show in the next point.  
Great and notable restaurations of the Church use often to follow after great ruins and desolations of States and Nations, Doctrine 2 Amos 9.10 11. After the Lord had made a great destruction in the Nation among the sinners, as we see in the verse before; In that day, that is, after that, saith the Lord, I will raise up the tabernacle of David, which is fallen, etc. see also Zeph. 3.8, 9, 10, 11 12. Zeph. 13.8 9  
It was so in the land of Canaan, after the storms of Egypt and the Wilderness; and in Judah, after the captivity of Babylon, the Lord made his people take rooting downwards, and bring forth fruit upwards; it will be so and that more than ever, when the earthquake shall have shaken down Antichrists Kingdom.  
Quest. Wherein shall this great restauration and reformation of the Church consist?  
In the fruition and enjoyment of certain privileges, Answ. such as the Church hath not at other times, at least not in the like degree.  
The Privileges are of two sorts; Privative and Positive.  
The Church shall be freed from the inundation of profaneness, with which it hath been miserably annoyed, leavened and infected before. Such shall be the piety and strictness of the government Ecclesiastical and Civil, that there shall not enter into the Church in any wise, any thing that defileth, Rev. 21.27.  
She shall be purged from errors, superstition, idolatry, false and formal worship. It is sufficient to prove it, that we find no such thing mentioned in the Scriptures that speak of the state of the Church in the last times, besides what hath been said already, and shall be by and by. During Antichrists reign, men have been, and still are so zealous and tenacious of their old mumpsimuses, they can in no wise endure to hear of parting with them; like Micah of mount Ephraim, Judg. 18.23.24. that followed after the Danites, crying and complaining; they turned about, and asked him what he ailed. Ye have taken away my gods (saith he) which I made, and my priest (which he himself had consecrated for a priest) who should have blessed me, and do you ask me what I ail? What have I more? I protest I had as live you had taken away all that I have. So it is with the men of our generation: from these things shall the Church then be freed.  
She shall have exemption from oppression and persecution both Civil and Ecclesiastical; God shall w●pe away all tears from the Saints eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, etc. Rev. 21.4. That must needs be meant of the Church in this world, as appears by the cortext, Then shall the Lion and the Lamb lie down and feed together, and the Tiger become tame the Child shall play with the Asp and Cockatrice. Isa. 11.6.7. & 65.25. Rev. 7.16.  
There be two reasons of these privative privileges.  
The earthquake going before, shall shake down these evils and all their supporters, as we have heard; the Beast his Hierarchy; his horns, the Kings of the earth that shall defend him to the last. And as the Lord did destroy not only the heathen Empire guilty of so much blood cruelty, and idolatry but would not let so much as that very form of government to stand; so it is probable, if not more, that all the●e dignities that have so desperately opposed the Sceptre of Christ, shall be taken away, Dan. 2.34, 5.44. Rev. 19 from ver. 17. to the end. God will purge out rebels. Ezek. 20.38. that at last none shall dare so much as to speak for false worship, formal worship, etc. Then (and I doubt) not till then, will all these Sects and Divisions have an end.  
Satan shall then be bound and chained up, that he shall not seduce the Nations to idolatry and persecution, as he hath always before done, Rev. 20.2. He hath been cast down before, as Rev. 12.9. but never bound, nor shall be till Antichrist's fall. And so this prevents that which might be objected: though the wicked be taken away with the Earthquake, yet sin will revive again. Answ. No: Satan shall be tied up from seducing that he cannot play such reaks in the world as before, man's corruption wanting those bellows to blow it up which did forme●y inflame it.  
The positive privileges of that reformed State are divers.  
The first consists in the purity and plenty of the Ordinances of God and means of grace, which that Church shall enjoy. Thus R●●. 11.19. After the 〈…〉 the Beast's Kingdom the Taberra●● or Temple of 〈…〉 in Heaven in the Church, and the Ark of his 〈…〉. Chr●●● represented by the Ark was before kept hid, and the Temple shut, true preaching forbidden, men were not acquainted with the natures and effects of Christ set forth by the Ark, as now they shall be; the wood of the Ark a ●●pe of Christ's humane nature, the gold overlaying it wholly, a type of the divine to which the humane was hypostatically united, the Tables of the law in the Ark setting forth the fulfilling of the law in Christ, and in the Saints by union with him and power from him; the Mercy-seat or cover of the Ark representing Christ's righteousness covering the sin of man, and the Tables of testimony wherein the curse was contained, so as no curse could be seen. This purity of the means is intended in those expressions, Rev. 21. that God's Tabernacle is with men, ver. 3. new Jerusalem hath the glory of God, ver. 10 11. no Temple therein ver. 22. There is no need of any such fixed place as the old Temple was but every where his people should have communion with him in his Ordinances, Joh. 4.21.23. they shall have no need of the Sun nor Moon, etc. ver. 23. meaning, the spiritual light and glory shall fare exceed all external; and chap. 22.1, 2. they shall enjoy a pure River of water of life, clear as crystal proceeding out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb, the tree of life also with his twelve manner of ●●●its, etc.  
The second privilege consists in the multitudes of converts; in Antichrists time but a few Witnesses, two; but an hundred forty four thousand sealed ones; a man should not need any great art of Arithmetic to count them; but now a great multitude that no man could number, Rev. 7.9. then shall those promises in their height be fulfilled, the Church shall wonder at her own fruitfulness, and ask who begat her those Children, seeing she had lost so many, being life alone, that is, a Widow, without any earthly protector, Isa. 49.18, 19, 20 21, etc. Yea, her children shall ask her more room to dwell in, ibid. She is bidden to lengthen and enlarge the place of her tent, etc. and promised that she, though a Widow, shall break out on the right hand and on the left, and abound in Children, for her maker is her husband, etc. Isa. 54.1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The Children proceeding from the womb of the Church, shall be like the dew of the morning lying thick upon the ground, Psal. 110.3. Christ's flock shall not then be a little flock compared with the times which were before the Devil was bound.  
In the excellency of the converts. Where the Sun shines most clearly, it heats most fervently: The City of the new Jerusalem hath a light like unto a stone most precious, even like a Jasper-stone, clear as Crystal, it is of pure gold, Rev. 21.18. God is in it, dwells with his people, he and the Lamb are the light of is, Rev. 21.3.22. in this and other respects it is named, the Lord is there, Ez●k. 48.35. the people of it shall be all righteous, Isa. 60.21. What an admirable Reformation was that which followed the storm in the Wilderness, when all Israel, both the ten Tribes, and the two of Gad and Reuben, and the half Tribe of Manasseh abhorred the thoughts of idolatry, Iosh. 22. the Lord God of Gods, the Lord God of Gods, he knows, and Israel he shall know (say the two Tribes and an half to the ten, being accused of an intention to revolt from God) if it be in rebellion, or if in transgression against the Lord (save us not this day) that we have built us an Altar to turn from following the Lord, etc. let the Lord himself require it, Iosh. 22.22, 23. Much more shall the Reformation be excellent in the last ages, wherein it is promised that there shall be new heavens and new earth (new Church and new Commonwealth) wherein righteousness shall dwell, 2 Pet. 3.13.  
In the amplitude and extent of the Church, before it was sometimes contained within the narrow bounds of Jury, afterwards the Nations of the Gentiles had it successively; first, the eastern Nations, than the western, etc. But now the Church shall be generally, if not universally spread over all the world. The Kingdoms of the world (that is, all the Kingdoms of the world) shall become the Kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, Revel. 11.15. And so when the judgement hath sat, and the Beasts Kingdom is consumed to the end; then, and not before then, the Kingdom, Dominion, and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole heaven, (it seems to be spoken without all hyperbole) shall be given to the people of the Saints of the most high, Dan. 7.26.27. When the stone; that is, the Kingdom of Christ, hath smitten the Image upon the feet, and broken them to pieces, itself shall become a great Mountain and fill the whole earth, Dan. 2.35. Then shall all Nations rejoice in Christ, Psal. 67.2, 3, 4. then a great multitude (not of a few but) of all Nations, and Kindred's, and Peoples, and Tongues, shall stand before the Throne, and before the Lamb, praising God, Rau. 7.9. Nations shall be borne in a day, Isa. 66.8. All Nations shall serve him. Dan. 7. ult.  
In the excellency of the government, Christ shall then take to himself his great power and reign, Rev. 11.17. and the Saints under him: The Saints of the most high shall take the Kingdom and possess it for ever, even for ever and ever, age after age for many ages, Dan. 7.18.27. they shall reign on the earth, Rev. 5. to & 20.4.6. a thousand years. They shall then indeed be the head, and the wicked the tail. Many tough and tedious disputes about government, which exercise the Church now, may haply be of small use in that Reformation.  
It is to consist in the affluence and confluence, both of spiritual and external prosperity; for the Lord having humbled and broken his by the earthquake, may now trust them: The Church hath been before like an homely huswife, or like a poor woman living in a cave, having scarce a rag to cover her nakedness, and bringing up her Children very hardly; whereas Antichrists Strumpet in the mean while hath been gorgeously attired in Purple, with gold and precious-stones, and pearls; but now the Church shall be like a bride adorned for her husband, Rev. 21.2. Now her peace shall be as the Rivers, the Kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honour to her, Rev. 21.24.26.  
Wait for it and hasten it by faith and prayer, Use. unbelief doth a world of mischief: Our Saviour could not do many mighty works in his own Country because of their unbelief, Mat. 13.58. see also. chap. 17.16, 17, 20. How it hindered the healing of the Lunatic! the old Israelites for unbelief were debarred from entering into the Land of Promise, Heb. 3.19. It hindered the building of the second Temple, for it is remarkable, that whilst the Jews gave over the work upon the complaints of their adversaries, and the inhibitions of the Persian Kings, unto whom they were then subject, it never prospered; but when they harkened to the Prophets Haggai and Zechary, and believed the promises which they brought from God, they went on thoroughly, and perfected the work; the Persian King Darius Nothus (though the adversaries afresh complained) consenting, who also forbade their adversaries to hinder them, upon their greatest poenalties; yea, commanded them with all possible diligence to further the Jews in the work. God who hath the hearts of Kings in his hand, so framing that King's heart that he entreated the jews to pray for his life, and the life of his Sons. He had lost one or two before, and now feared he should lose the rest, Ezra 6. and this was almost six score years after they had laid the first foundation; for in divers Kings reigns they were absolutely hindered, Ezra 4. and were at times, six and forty years (as it seems) in building it, john 2.20.  
I shall never see this Reformation. Quest.  
Thou canst not certainly tell; Answ. 1 the eye sees the Sun (I doubt not) that shall see the beginning thereof.  
Seeing thou wilt buy houses and lands, yea, reversions which thou never lookest to enjoy thyself, for thine heirs; forward this for their sakes to come, that the little ones may go in and see that good land, etc.  
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, it breeds such an apprehension of things promised and to come, as giveth comfort and confidence concerning them, as we may behold in Abraham, who rejoiced to see the day of Christ so many hundred years before it came, john 8.56. and in the old Saints, Hebr. 11.13.40. who believing in him to come were saved. Thou mayst by the tastes of these clusters of Grapes, set before thee in the former Privileges, discern what a good Land it is. Thou mayest by them as from off the top of Mount Pisgah, behold it with thine eyes, and view the Land round about: The believing praeapprehension of these things will give a sweet fruition of them in measure before hand unto the godly.  
Lastly, believe and wait, and though thou miss thy part in the new jerusalem here on earth, yet shalt thou certainly be a Sharer in that jerusalem which is eternal in the Heavens.  
FINIS.    

A passage or two pretermitted.  
1 The western Roman Empire was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or that which did let the appearing of Antichrist, which when it was taken away then was the man of sin revealed, 2 Thes. 2.6, 7, 8. This belongs to the first Indice, spoken of in the fourth Sign.  
2. The two Witnesses include all those that did sustain the Cause of Christ against Antichrist and his Gentiles; for the Text divides all within the visible Church during Antichrist's reign, into two ranks and no more, viz. two Witnesses or Prophets (the same are called worshippers) and Gentiles, Rev. 11.1, 2, 3.  
3. The 1260. days of the Witnesses, and the 42. months of the Beast, begin and end together: For else Christ should have none to be for him during some part of Antichrist's reign. (For none are for him but the Witnesses) Besides, the Church was to be all that time in the Wilderness, for which provision is made, Rev. 12.6.14.   

Errata.  
Page 1. line 9 read ran. l. 10. r. houses, p. 2. l. 12. r. Ezra 3. p. 3. l. 7. r. hieroglyphical. p. 6. l. 9 r. Tabernacle. p. 13. l. 9 r. penitent. p. 36. l. 19 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 41. l. 6. r. learned. Courteous Reader; if there be any more verbal or literal mistakes (as I doubt there are many) pardon the Printers oversight, and correct them with thy Pen.