pointed by him, and all matters be ordered therein by common consent as in the former assemblies. This synod might be held every third year, and if the parliament do then sit, according to the act of a triennial parliament, both the archbishops and provincial synods of the land might join together, and make up a national council: wherein all appeals from inferior synods might be received, all their acts examined and all ecclesiastical constitutions which concern the state of the church of the whole nation established. WE are of the judgment that the form of government here proposed is not in any point repugnant to the Scripture; and that the suffragans mentioned in the second proposition, may lawfully use the power both of jurisdiction and ordination, according to the word of God, and the practice of the ancient Church. JA. ARMACHANUS. RICH. HOLDSWORTH. THE JUDGMENT OF THE LATE ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH, AND PRIMATE OF IRELAND, WHAT IS UNDERSTOOD BY BABYLON, IN APOC. CAP. XVII. AND XVIII. WHAT IS UNDERSTOOD BY BABYLON, &c. APOC. CHAP. XVIII. VER. 4. "Go out from her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and receive not of her plagues." IN these words we are straightly enjoined, upon our peril, to make a separation from Babylon, for the understanding of which charge, these three positions following are to be considered. THE FIRST POSITION. That it is plainly foretold in the Word of God, that after the planting of the faith by the apostles, the kings and inhabitants of the earth should be seduced and drawn into damnable errors; and that the mother of all these abominations of the earth, should be a certain great city called Babylon, in a mystery. PROOF. This we find directly laid down in the Revelation, that a "great" city" called" in a mystery Babylon should become the mother of the spiritual "whoredom and abominations of the earth," so that the " Kings of the earth should commit fornication with her," and the inhabitants of the earth should" be made drunk with the wine of her fornication." THE SECOND POSITION. That by this great city Babylon (the mother of all the abominations of the earth) is understood Rome. PROOF. 1. By the clear testimony of Scripture, in the seventeenth chapter of the Revelation; where this city is described unto us, first by the situation, that it is seated upon "seven hills";" and then by the largeness of the dominion thereof, that it is that "great" city that ruleth over the kings of the earth." Now that by these two marks Rome was most notoriously known in the apostles' days, may appear even by the Roman poets, who describe Rome just after the same manner, as Ovid'; Sed quæ de septem totum circumspicit orbem "Rome, the place of the empire, and of the Gods, which from seven hills doth take a view of the whole world." And more shortly Propertius : Septem urbs alta jugis toti quæ præsidet orbi. "The city mounted on seven hills which ruleth the whole a Apoc. chap. 17. ver. 18. and chap. 18. ver. 2. and chap. 21. Apoc. chap. 17. ver. 5. c Apoc. chap. 17. ver. 2. and chap. 18. ver. 3. d Rev. chap. 17. ver. 9. 18. e Ibid. ver. 18. f Horat. in Car. seculari: "Dii quibus septem placuere colles." Trist. lib. 1. eleg. 4, lib. 3. eleg. 10. |