considering who is her head, where mostly to the eye beauty lies, that whoso sees but the utmost glimpse of her is easily ravished with her beauties. The church, the very name of the church of God is beautiful in the world; and as among women, she that has beauty has her head desired, if it might be, to stand upon another woman's shoulders; so this and that and every nation that beholds the beauty of the church, would fain be called by that

name.

The church, one would think, was but in a homely dress when she was coming out of captivity; and yet then the people of the countries desired to be one with her: Let us," said they to Zerubbabel and to the fathers of the church, "build with you, for we seek your God as you do."

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The very name of the church is striven for of the world; but that is the church which Christ has made so; her features also remain with herself. Hear the relation that the Holy Ghost gives of the intrinsic beauty of the church when she was to go to be in a persecuted state: "She was clothed with the sun, had the moon under her feet, and had upon her head a crown of twelve stars." And yet now the dragon stood by. But I say, here is a woman! Let any one who will attempt it show such another in the world if he can.

They therefore that have any regard to morality, civility, or to ceremonial comeliness, covet to be of the church of God, or to appropriate that glorious title to themselves.

And here indeed antichrist came in. She took this name to herself; and though she could not come at the sun, nor moon, nor stars, to adorn herself with them, yet she has found something that makes her comely in her followers' eyes. See how the Holy Ghost sets her forth she was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand. Hence she is called the well-favored harlot, the lady of kingdoms.

But because the chaste matron, the spouse of Christ, would not allow this harlot to run away with this name, therefore she gets upon the back of her beast, and by him pushes this woman into the dirt; but because her faith and love to her husband remain, she turns again and pleads by her titles, her features, and ornaments, that she and she only is she whose square answereth to the characters which her Lord had given of his own; and so the strife began. For so soon as this mistress became a dame in the world, and found that she had her stout abettors, she attempts to turn all things topsy-turvy, and to set them and to make of them what she lists.

CORRUPTION OF THE CHURCH BY ANTICHRIST.

Mischief must needs follow this ugly deed of the man of sin. If a house be on fire, though it is not burnt down, the smell of the flame may long remain there: also we count it no wonder to see some of the effects upon rafters, beams, and some of the principal posts thereof. The calf that was set up at Dan defiled that people until the captivity of the land.

For by antichristian darkness, though they might call it light, the true light was darkened, and so the eye made dim, even the eye of the truly godly. Also the Holy Ghost did much withdraw himself from the church; so the doctrines, traditions, and rudiments of the world took more hold there, and spread themselves more formidably over the face of that whole church.

And this being the effect of light against light at first, is the cause of what to this day we see in the church among the true brotherhood. For as a cause produceth an effect, so oftentimes an effect sets on foot another cause. Witness the jars, the oppositions, the contentions, emulations, strifes, debates, whisperings, tumults, and, condemnations, that like cannon-shot have so frequently on all sides been let fly against one another.

The godly all hold the Head; for there antichrist could never divide them. Their divisions therefore are only about smaller things.

I do not say that the antichristian darkness has done nothing in the church as to the hurting it in the great things of God. But I say, it has not been able to do that which could sever their Head from them. Otherwise, there appears even too much of its doings there. For even as to the offices of our Lord, some will have his authority more large, some more strait; some confine his rules to themselves and to their more outward signification, and some believe they are extended further; some will have his power in the church purely spiritual, others again would have it mixed; some count his word perfect and sufficient to guide in all religious matters, others again hold that an addition of something human is necessary.

This darkness could not sever the true church from her Head; yet it has eclipsed the glory of things. By two lights a man cannot see this or that thing so exactly as by one single light; no, they both make all confused, though they make not all invisible. As for instance, sunlight and moonlight together, firelight and sunlight together, candle, light and moonlight together, make things more obscure than to look on them by a single light. The word reflecting upon the understanding without the interposing of man's traditions, makes the mind of God to a man more clear than when attended with the other.

Things therefore will never be well in the church of God so long as there is thus light against light therein. When there is but one Lord among us, and his name one; and when divisions, by the consent of the whole, are banished—I mean, not persecuted, but abandoned in all by a joint consent, and when every man shall submit his own single opinion to those truths that by their being retained are for the health of all--then look for good days, and not till then.

CONFLICT BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND ANTI

CHRIST.

They that are the church do in God's light see light; but they that are not, do in their own way see. And let a man and a beast look out at the same window, the same door, the same casement, yet the one will see like a man, and the other but like a beast.

No marvel then if there is here a disagreement; the beast can but see as a beast, but the church is resolved not to be guided by the eye of a beast, though he pretends to have his light by that very window by which the church has hers. The beast is moon-eyed, and puts darkness for light, yea, and hates the light that is so indeed; but the saints will not hear him, for they know the voice of their Lord.

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On both sides they are resolved to stand by their way: the church is confident, the man of sin is confident; they both have the same windows-that is, "the word "—to see by, and so they manage their matters; yet not so simply by the windows as by the diverse judgment they make of that which shineth in at them. Each one therefore that hath the true or false profession will be confident of his own way he that was right, knew he was right; and he that was wrong, thought he was right; and so the battle began: There is a way that seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."

Nor is it in man to help it: there has been reasoning, there has been disputing, there has blood also been spilt on both sides, through the confidence that each had of the goodness of his own way but no reconciliation is made; the enmity is set here of God; iron and clay cannot mix ; God will have things go on thus in the world till his word shall be fulfilled; the deceived and the deceiver are his Things therefore must have their course in the church in the wilderness till the mystery of God shall be fulfilled. God will get to himself great glory by permitting the boar,

the man of sin and the dragon, to revel in the church of God; for they by setting up and contending for their darkness, and calling it the light, and by setting it against that light which is light in very deed, do not only prove the power of truth where it is, but illustrate it so much the more; for as black sets off white, and darkness light, so error sets off truth. He that calls a man a horse, doth but fix the belief of his humanity so much the more in the apprehension of all rational creatures.

It is not therefore to be wondered at that we hear both parties plead so much for their authority, crying out against each other as those that destroy religion. So doth the church, so doth the man of sin. The living child is mine, saith one. Nay, but the dead child is thine, and the living child is mine, says the other. And thus they spake before the king.

The church will not give place, for she knows she has the truth; the dragon and his angels, they will not give place, but as beaten back by the power of truth. Therefore there will, there must, there cannot but be a spiritual warfare here, and that until one of the two is destroyed, and its body given to the burning flame.

FALL OF ANTICHRIST.

Antichrist had a time to come into the world, and so must he have a time to go out again. For although he saith that he is a god, yet he must be subject to the will of God, and must go as well as come according to that will. Nor can all the fallen angels, with all the members and limbs of antichrist, cause this, that their brat should abide so much as one day longer than our God's prefixed time. The Lord Jesus shall consume him, and cause him to melt away; not all at once, but now this part and then that, now his soul and after that his body, even until soul and body are both destroyed.

And that you may be convinced of the truth of this