A34679:120
An exposition upon the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation by that reverend and eminent…
An exposition upon the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation by that reverend and eminent servant of the Lord, Mr. John Cotton ... ; taken from his mouth in short-writing, and some part of it corrected by himself soon after the preaching thereof ; and all of it since viewed over by a friend to him ... wherein some mistakes were amended, but nothing of the sense altered.
London: printed for Tim. Smart, 1656
Title page typeset from the transcription.
AN EXPOSITION Upon the thirteenth Chapter of the REVELATION. › Part
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. Neither can it be they, because of this wound upon this head, The Roman Christian Emperors they never challenged to themselves Head-ship over the Church of Rome. Constantine doth utterly abandon it; He professeth he ought to be judged by them, and not they by him. And Theodosius doth submit himself to Ambrose censure, and doth not exercise any Head-ship over the Church: It was not therefore the Emperors, for they were not heads of the Church.
2. Neither can it be they, because of this wound upon this head, The Roman Christian Emperours they never chalenged to themselves Head-ship over the Church of Rome. Constantine doth utterly abandon it; He professeth he ought to be judged by them, and not they by him. And Theodosius doth submit himselfe to Ambrose censure, and doth not exercise any Head-ship over the Church: It was not therefore the Emperours, for they were not heads of the Church.
3. It is said, the wound here given, was healed, to the admiration of the world: Now certain it is, the wound given by the Goths and Vandals, it was never healed to this day: but the Eastern part was swallowed up by the Turk. And for the Emperors of the West, Charles the great, and his Successors, though they healed a branch of it, yet it was far off from healing the wound of the Roman Empire, those wounds have decayed, and fall short of that which was the admiration of the Nations: Nor was it the healing of this wound from the first time it was given, that was the admiration of the world. Therefore it must be some head that was so wounded, as all the world wondered at it, and were captive to it; You heard it was not the Roman Christian Emperors, it must be him that claims to be head over all the Churches, and who is that but Pontifex maximus? It was that which Theodosius abhorred, he thought it an unworthy style for a Christian Emperor to be accounted the great high Priest of the Church; but what he laid down, they willingly took up, to be accounted the great Pastor of the Church, and therefore he is the head of the Church: For if it be neither Pagan nor Christian Emperors, it must be the government that succeeded them, they were the sixth, and he is the seventh: It is the seventh head that was thus wounded, and whose wound was afterward healed.