We see wickedness shall not thrive always. It shall not always be night, but the sun shall arise at the last. Impostures shall not always abuse the world. Their madness shall be made manifest at length, as Paul saith, 2 Tim. iv. 18. This is our comfort, that there is an ' until,' a time prefixed of God to discover and to lay open all impostures ; and now the time is come that most of this should be fulfilled. Some of these words of God are fulfilled. The beast is hated ; and now the beast is known to be the beast, to be cruel. Witness the blood of saints, the murder of kings, those horrible acts that are allowed from Rome. The beast, I say, is now discovered and hated.
The afiections that are due to the beast is hatred. If ever we hated any- thing, we may hate the state of Rome. It is a beast, and the object of hatred, and ever was ; and if ever, I say, we hated anything that was de- servable of our hatred, it is that. Why? Do we not hate a harlot? Do we not hate an old strumpet, an old painted strumpet? Do we not hate her that is a bawd? There was never bawd, there was never whore, that did the thousandth part of that harm that this bawd, this beast, this whore of Rome hath done, drawing so many thousand souls to hell.
Of all the judgments that ever were since the beginning of the Christian world that God hath visited the pride and wickedness of men with, there was none so grievous as to sufler this man of sin to rule in the church. The spiritual judgment of the papacy it is the greatest judgment of God that was ever inflicted upon any.
We hate them that misuse us under the pretence of love, that cheat and cozen us, and we delight in their punishment. There was never cheater, never cozener like this. And surely so God hath fulfilled his word, that
♦ That is, ' exaggerate.' We have here an excellent example, awanting in Richardson, sub voce, of the use of this word in this (now obsolete) sense. — G.
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she is hated even in our children, that know but the grounds of religion, to whom Christ hath shined by the evidences of his truth, that have the Spirit of God in them. They hate those impostures, those abuses of Christian rehgion, with which this beast hath deluded the Christian world, which shews that they have a contrary spirit to the Spirit of God. And indeed so they have ; for, besides their own base government, they main- tain the corruptions of men, feeding the pride and vanity of men's natures with outward, formal, empty things ; so that the very weak ones, even children, now they hate the whore, hate her impostures, hate her cruelty, hate her lying, and all.
I see the time is past : I can go no further, but will draw to an end, only a little to stir us up. Shall God then reveal and discover this painted strumpet, this bawd, and shall we labour to conceal her ill ? shall we daub, shall we make her better than she is ? Shall we hinder God's purpose ? God's word is, that she shall be revealed ; the princes shall hate her, and consume her with fire. Let every one of our purposes help God's purpose, and providence, and decree in this point. That this shall be, it is God's purpose ; and whosoever stops it, certainly they bring the judgment of God upon them. Those that would rear up Jericho again, we know what befell them ; and they that rear up Rome, that begins now to be discovered, they bring the judgment of God upon them. God will perform this as well as he performed the other. As he put it into the hearts of these kings to betray their kingdoms to the beast, so he will put it into their hearts to hate the whore.
Now that we may hate her, let every one labour in his place : ministers in their place to lay open their impostures, their cozenings, and all their filthiness, whereby they deceive the people ; magistrates in their place to countenance the ministers, to see the laws executed as they may. These that through ignorance are seduced, that are not Jesuited, for there is no hope of them ; but others, their persons many times in the policy of state may have favour, but not their religion.
Let us all take heed that we grow in knowledge : let us labour to make more of the gospel of Christ. The more Christ appears in glory, the more antichrist will appear in shame. Let us labour by prayer, and not give God over by prayer, to plant the love of the truth in our hearts, to enter- tain the truth with love, to value it according to the respect it deserves at our hands, and let us labour to be moulded into that truth, to obey it ; else, though we have it, yet if we do not love it, if we be not transformed into it, though our wits and parts be never so great, we may be seduced to error. God gave over these kings, men of great place and of great parts, — because they did not love the truth, — to believe lies.