An exposition upon the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation by that reverend and eminent…

For the use of the point.

First,¹ it may be to refute the Papists that give this as a true note of the Church, namely, amplitude of dominion, as the Catholic Church had: They give this for an infallible note of the Church; now that note you see is here evidently ascribed to the people that worship the great Beast, of whom the Lord saith here (ver. 8.) their names are not written in the book of the Lamb. So that this is a note, not of an Apostolical Church, but it may be a note of an Apostatical Church that is fallen away from the Apostles Doctrine: It is a true ⟨p. 121⟩description of that State of the Church. You see here Power was given over to the Beast over all Kindreds, Tongues, and Nations: And therefore amplitude of dominion is not an inseparable character of the Spouse of Christ; for it may be given to those that are not the Church of Christ, even to those that are but a Beast in the sight of God, not his Spouse. I may rather say the contrary, that amplitude of Dominion was never a note of a Church of Christ since the world began: For in the old Testament the State of the Church was National, and they had power over one Nation, and sometimes conquered others, as in David, and Solomons time, they conquered the Philistines, & Ammonites, and Moabites, and Edomites, but it was never over all the whole world, and that dominion which they had, they did not challenge it by Church power, but left them still to their own Religion, for the Common-wealth propagated their power by arms, having first occasion of war given them by their arrogance to them. In the days of the new Testament, the Church that Christ instituted reacheth no further then to their own members, and their own members reach no further then to one Congregation, that all might hear, and all might be edified, 1 Cor. 14. 23. So that if Church power extends no further then the bounds of one Congregation; then that Church that swelleth and stretcheth forth her power all the world over, Kindreds, and Tongues, and Nations; what an out-ragious swelling Beast is that, that reacheth such vast dominion beyond the proportion that the Lord gave to his Church? If you should see a body swell to such a vast bigness, that his arms shall reach from one end of the world to another, would it not be counted a monster? So in this case, the Lord hath limited the power of the Church within it self;