rd to another, whilst he would violate his mind,
or persecute his body, for matters of faith or worship towards his God.

Thus the false church sprang up, and mounted the chair; but, though she
lost her nature, she would needs keep her good name of the Lamb's bride,
the true church, and mother of the faithful: constraining all to receive
her mark, either in their forehead, or right-hand; that is, publicly, or
privately. But, in deed and in truth, she was mystery Babylon, the
mother of harlots, mother of those that, with all their show and outside
of religion, were adulterated and gone from the spirit, nature, and life
of Christ, and grown vain, worldly, ambitious, covetous, cruel, &c. which
are the fruits of the flesh, and not of the spirit.

Now it was, that the true church fled into the wilderness, that is, from
superstition and violence, to a retired, solitary, and lonely state:
hidden, and as it were, out of sight of men, though not out of the world.
Which shows, that her wonted visibility was not essential to the being of
a true church in the judgment of the Holy Ghost; she being as true a
church in the wilderness, though not as visible and lustrous, as when she
was in her former splendor of profession. In this state many attempts
she made to return, but the waters were yet too high, and her way blocked
up; and many of her excellent children, in several nations and centuries,
fell by the cruelty of superstition, because they would not fall from
their faithfulness to the truth.

The last age did set some steps towards it, both as to doctrine, worship,
and practice. But practice quickly failed: for wickedness flowed, in a
little time, as well among the professors of the reformation, as those
they reformed from; so that by the fruits of conversation they were not
to be distinguished. And the children of the reformers, if not the
reformers themselves, betook themselves, very early, to earthly policy
and power, to uphold and carry on their reformation that had been begun
with spiritual weapons; which I have often thought has been one of the
greatest reasons the reformation made no better progress, as to the life
and soul of religion. For whilst the reformers were lowly and
spiritually minded, and trusted in God, and looked to him, and lived in
his fear, and consulted not with flesh and blood, nor sought deliverance
in their own way, there were daily added to the church such as, one might
reasonably say, should be